Sweets
Two children who looked like brother and sister tore through the forest. They crashed blindly through the dense brush blocking their path, branches raking scratches across their skin, but they had no time to care. Their legs never stopped.
"Aaagh!"
The boy, constantly glancing back with terror-stricken eyes, caught his foot on a tree root and went sprawling. The girl spun around at once to check on him.
"Dayon! Are you okay?!"
Mercifully unhurt, Dayon grabbed his sister's hand and scrambled back to his feet.
"I'm sorry, Sis. Let's run. Hurry."
"So this is where you were."
A voice that seemed to lick along their skin — so repulsive it raised every hair — made the siblings gasp and clutch each other. A man who looked every inch a bandit grinned, and they shuffled backward on trembling legs.
The spear he threw punched into the tree behind them with a heavy thunk.
"Eek!"
Dayon nearly jumped out of his skin. His terrified eyes looked ready to spill over with tears, but the girl bravely gathered her brother into her arms, shielding him, and stared the bandit down.
"Heh heh heh. What a pretty little thing. But you've been very naughty, running off the moment our backs were turned. You'll have to be punished, won't you?"
As the spear-thrower swung down from his horse, several more men who looked to be his companions arrived.
"Hah— fuck, that was exhausting."
"Maybe you should've exercised once in a while."
"Says the guy who rode here. Ah, fuck. All this hassle over a couple of brats."
The man who'd arrived last, still panting hard, strode up to the siblings and swung his hand in a brutal slap.
"Hey, don't hit her in the face. You'll ruin it."
"Hah— fuck, so anywhere but the face is fine?"
"You crazy bastard. Don't touch her, fuck. You've gotta treat the girl carefully."
"Bullshit. Like you're thinking about anything but raping her."
Listening to the bandits talk among themselves, the girl hugged Dayon tighter, trying to hide her fear. She knew they had to escape somehow, but after that slap her legs had gone to water. She couldn't move.
"P-please... spare us..."
"Hmm? Of course I'll spare you. I'll take real good care of you — until those little tits sag."
The man's filthy words conjured something she could barely even imagine, and her whole body began to shake. The look of a helpless child drowning in fear seemed to please them. Each bandit wore an ugly smile as they closed in — until someone called out.
"Hey."
At the voice from behind them, the bandits all drew their weapons and spun around.
A girl with red hair and red eyes. She was older than the child they'd been chasing, and far more beautiful. The bandits forgot they were even holding weapons and stared, dumbstruck.
With an indifferent gaze, Abigail looked from the siblings to the bandits, then pointed at the horse.
"This yours?"
"..."
"Got a dick stuffed in your mouths? Answer me, you fuckers."
The contrast between her looks and that filthy mouth made the bandits glance at one another — then they broke into greasy smiles.
"Fuck, she's gorgeous."
"Way she talks, sounds like she wants a cock in that mouth."
"Just answer the damn question. Is this horse yours or not?"
Abigail scowled in irritation, but even that expression seemed to delight them. Watching the bandits snicker at each other, she let out a small sigh, slung her bag onto the horse, and spoke.
"No owner, then. I'm taking it."
"The owner's me, you fucking bitch. You want a ride, you ask permission."
"Forget the horse — I think I'll ride you instead. Heh heh."
While the bandits cackled, Abigail ignored them and tied her bag to the saddle.
"What, you bite down on a cock? Cat got your tongue?"
A bandit who'd crept up behind her pressed a dagger to her side as he spoke.
Something moved — a whisper of sound — and the hand holding the dagger dropped to the ground.
It happened without the slightest warning. The bandits behind him — and even the man whose hand had been severed — stared blankly at the hand lying in the dirt.
That was the last thing the one-handed bandit ever saw.
Abigail drove her sword through his throat, kicked him in the gut to shove him off, and swept the blade sideways in the same motion. Blood fountained from a neck sliced halfway through, and the remaining bandits scrambled to raise their weapons.
"Fuck, Jensen!"
"What the hell just happened?! I didn't even see it!"
Abigail had no interest in listening to them shout. She kicked the still-spurting head of the man she'd just cut. The head, barely clinging to the body, tore free and smashed into another bandit's skull — and in that same instant her sword moved, cutting down two more.
"Gyaaaaah..."
"Ghk..."
They died without even managing a proper scream. The bandit who'd been struck by the flying head stared at Abigail, drenched in blood. He sank to the ground, his pants soaking through as urine puddled beneath him.
Abigail flicked her blade through the air to shake off the blood, sneering at the sight, but the bandit couldn't even think of fighting back. He scrambled away on his ass, crawling backward. His unprotected back was wide open, but she had no interest in chasing him. She wiped her sword on a corpse and sheathed it.
She swung up onto the horse, ready to leave — and then the trembling siblings caught her eye.
For a moment she looked at the girl, who was clutching her little brother and staring up at her. Then Abigail turned the horse away.
She hadn't gone more than a few steps before her brow furrowed. A little girl about Maji's age kept snagging at the edge of her vision. She reined in, clicked her tongue, and turned back.
"Where's your house?"
"..."
But the girl had just watched her kill people right in front of her. She was too terrified of Abigail to get a word out. It hadn't even been a clean kill — this was the same person who'd torn a man's head off and kicked it. For a child, it was too much to bear.
"Talk. You wanna die too?"
"G-Green Inlet Village!"
The moment Abigail snapped at her, the girl's mouth finally worked.
"Where the hell is that. Is it close? And why were you with these bastards?"
"Ah, th-that's... winter... we were getting winter supplies..."
The girl stammered out the whole story. Green Inlet Village was a day's walk away. She'd been traveling with the village adults to buy supplies for winter when the bandits caught them. She'd fled with her brother, and this was how it had ended. Her brother's name was Dayon. Terrified out of her mind, she spilled everything — even things Abigail hadn't asked.
"They catch the adults?"
"... That's..."
The girl looked down at the ground, her eyes uncertain. They'd slipped away in the chaos of the attack. She didn't know anything.
Abigail pieced together enough. Telling them to wait a moment, she spurred the horse into the brush where the last bandit had fled, and vanished.
Left alone, the siblings were still trying to decide what to do when a scream rang out in the distance. They didn't need to check. It was unmistakably the voice of the bandit who'd run.
"Sis, let's run."
Dayon said it while staring at the surrounding corpses with frightened eyes. The girl almost nodded — then squeezed her eyes shut. The way the red-haired girl had fought had been cruel and terrifying, but it had also looked like she was trying to help. Maybe she would save not just them, but the village adults the bandits had captured.
"Sis, you saw her. The red-haired lady is really scary. She might eat us."
"I don't eat people."
"Eek—!!"
At Abigail's voice from behind him, Dayon yelped and buried his face in his sister's arms. The blood on her face made it easy to guess what she'd just been doing. And yet, looking at that terrifying face, the girl felt strangely, deeply safe.
Abigail, who'd been locking eyes with her, jerked her chin toward the horse.
"Get on."
Dayon didn't want to — he clung hard to his sister's arm — but she soothed him and half-dragged him over to the horse. Abigail reached down and hauled them up one at a time. Dayon had been terrified when she grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, but once he was in the saddle and the view opened up, his trembling eased a little.
"You know this spot?"
Abigail showed her a map with a point marked in blood. The girl hadn't seen many maps, but she knew the local geography well enough. She nodded.
"We're stopping by the place these bastards ambushed you, then heading this way. Lead."
They'd fled blindly, so she wandered a little, but the girl managed to guide her safely to the site of the attack. There were only traces that a fight had happened — nothing else. The girl and Dayon were crushed, but Abigail, utterly unmoved, simply told her to keep guiding.
As they cut across the forest and the girl began to settle, she asked Abigail a question.
"Are you a knight, miss?"
"No."
"Then... are you a holy knight?"
The girl asked again, having spotted the religious token hanging at Abigail's throat. It was the necklace Maji had given her. Maji had put it on her herself, telling her to think of Lutera when she prayed. Figuring it was too easy a mark for guessing her identity, Abigail tucked it inside her clothes and shook her head.
"I don't believe in gods."
"But... the gods do exist."
The innocent girl got that far, then glanced at Abigail's face and dropped her voice. Afraid that if she upset her, Abigail would stop helping them, she trembled with anxiety and hugged Dayon close.
Abigail noticed how she felt. She didn't wrap her in any kindness. She just stared ahead in silence.
She didn't believe in gods.
Not that they didn't exist. She didn't trust them. When she'd needed them most — when she'd searched for them in desperation — they hadn't so much as glanced her way. And now they had the gall to play at charity. The hypocrisy was unbearably disgusting. Receiving Divine Power had startled her, it had come so suddenly — but the more of that power she gained, the deeper her distrust of the gods grew.
Careful not to provoke Abigail's already foul mood, the girl kept guiding.
Spotting a shoddy-looking palisade in the distance, Abigail dismounted and lifted the children down.
"Wait here. I'll kill them all and come back."
"W-wait, you can't kill the village adults too!"
The girl's flustered face brought Maji to mind, and Abigail let out a short laugh. It was the first time the girl had seen her smile, and it was so beautiful she stared, dazed — until Abigail gave her a couple of pats on the head and started walking toward the palisade.
No corpses at the ambush site. That meant most of the villagers were probably being held here. This close to the Bel Federation, they were planning to sell them as slaves.
Abigail walked up to the bandits guarding the palisade.
"What the... she's alone?"
A bandit, startled by the girl approaching from a distance, scanned the far brush as he asked — and Abigail answered with her sword.
She took the bandit's head, then drew up her mana and brought the blade down hard. The palisade shattered with a violent crash, splinters flying in every direction.
"What the fuck?!"
"Ambush! Draw your weapons!"
The bandits inside snatched up their weapons and glared at the wrecked palisade — but the only thing that emerged from the cloud of dirt was Abigail, alone. Under their startled stares, she looked them over and asked:
"Twenty-one. Where are the other three?"
She'd already tortured the fleeing bandit for everything he knew. Watching two more come late out of a building, she slowly raised her sword.
"One short. He'll turn up while I'm cutting."
The moment Abigail moved, the slaughter began.
The rough, burly bandits became a flock of sheep, scrambling only to get out of her way — and the wolf that had walked in among them tore out their throats one by one. Every swing of her sword sent blood spraying and a bandit's head dropping to the dirt.
One bandit, catching on that she was obsessively going for the neck, raised a shield to guard it. Abigail rammed her sword through his heart instead, stepped on his thigh, and ripped the blade upward. Split from heart to skull, the man collapsed in a slow fountain of blood, and the men around him lost all will to fight.
It couldn't be called a battle anymore.
One by one she went hunting — until a bandit appeared before her with a dagger to the throat of a woman who looked like a villager. He wore a smile of triumph, but his voice shook with fear of Abigail.
"Y-you. Drop the sword! Or else—"
Before he could finish, Abigail hurled her sword and put it through his head. The hostage woman dropped to the ground in shock as the blade grazed past her ear.
"Move."
Even at that cold command the woman couldn't move, shaking too hard. Abigail ignored her, walked past, stepped on the corpse, and pulled her sword free. Seeing that she didn't care about the hostage at all, the remaining bandits panicked and fled.
As they tried to escape through the gap Abigail had smashed in the palisade, a red magic circle bloomed beneath their feet.
An explosion, a pillar of flame — and the bandits' shredded corpses, flung high into the sky, came pattering down in pieces. Abigail cut down the remaining men one after another as they stood stunned among the body parts, then flicked the blood from her blade.
"Twenty-four."
Having counted her kills with precision, Abigail ignored the woman still huddled trembling on the ground and walked into the building. She checked the filthy rooms one by one, confirming the villagers and others who'd been held there longer, then cut through the wooden prison doors.
"Thank you, thank you."
"I knew someone would come to save us. Thanks be to the gods."
She had no desire to be thanked. If you're going to thank anyone, thank me — not some god. Abigail thought it, said nothing, and walked back outside.
The people following her out were shaken by the carnage, but Abigail was all they had to trust. They trailed after the back walking ahead of them. She blew the small whistle she'd told the children about, and the siblings emerged from the brush and ran to the villagers.
Abigail watched them for a moment — hugging, weeping, smiling with joy — then silently mounted her horse.
"W-wait, please!"
As she was about to leave, the girl came running.
"Thank you so much for saving us. Uncle Padma says he wants to host you in the village..."
"Don't need it."
Abigail cut her off. Startled by the cold refusal, the girl ran after her as she started to move the horse. She blocked its path as if to stop it, then pulled something from her clothes with her tiny hands and held it out.
"This... at least take this... I was saving it to eat with Dayon."
Through the cheap, carefully folded paper, multi-colored candies showed. Hard to come by in a poor village on the border, they'd been rationed carefully. The folded paper was smudged with fingerprints, and the candies visible through the gaps had melted and re-hardened so many times they'd stuck together.
The girl stared at her with a look that said she wouldn't step aside unless Abigail took at least this. Tired of it, Abigail accepted the candies and tucked them into her clothes. The moment she took them, the girl broke into a bright, cloudless smile.
"Miss, what's your name? I can't not know the name of the person who saved us."
"... Abigail."
"Abigail... that's a pretty name. Ah, I'm Seria."
The girl's name was Seria. The same name as Girl Seria's Day.
Abigail gazed for a moment at that unstained, innocent smile, then started the horse forward again.
"Abigail! If you come to Green Inlet Village, I'll repay your kindness! Please come!"
Leaving Seria waving until she was too far to see, Abigail rode away.
It wasn't far now.
Time to bring the iron of vengeance down on the ones living fat and easy.