Awakening
The young woman with her short red hair and black face mask gripped her dagger firmly, climbing the tree trunk like a shadow that refused to be seen. She leaped from branch to branch, closing in on the troll with impossible speed.
Her movements were the same as those she had shown until now. But the fundamental purpose behind them was utterly different.
The troll, which had so far only found her annoying, swung its massive club with full force and slammed it into the ground. The attack lacked any trickery or skill. It was nothing but raw power. Yet that single blow caused the trees and the ground to shake violently, sending a storm of wind rippling outward.
The wind shook the branches she had been standing on, but it could not tie her feet. She maintained perfect balance and leapt from the tree. The spot she landed was not the ground itself. It was the troll’s club, held high in its massive fist.
She did not hesitate. She immediately began running across the arm she was gripping. There was no longer any point in scattering her attention. She had already decided that Ivan’s and Hillary’s attacks alone could never restrain the troll.
The only remaining method was to drive her dagger straight into its core herself. The odds were slim. The probability of success was even lower. But anything was better than the certainty of failure. She would take the risk.
“Growl!!”
The ground beneath her feet was not the usual earth. The once-solid dirt had become soft, green mud that thrashed violently. There was no stable foothold. The ground itself was so yielding that a simple tremor was enough to make her body sway.
She flashed a vicious smile. She knew exactly what that meant. It was mockery. The sound had pierced straight into her pride.
“You think I’m that weak?! Let’s see if you can do it!”
She drove the dagger deep into the green ground.
The troll did not care. At first the pain was intense, but it quickly realized that a human girl could not possibly have the strength to support her own weight there. It was even more certain that such a tiny dagger posed no threat to it.
Yet the girl’s body remained unharmed. The dagger slipped into her flesh with terrifying ease, and the violent shaking never overcame her.
What should have been impossible for her. The result of pouring every last drop of mana Hillary had accumulated before charging at the troll.
The buff lasted only five minutes. She could not waste a single second. She had to plant her feet on the troll’s ugly arm, which offered no real stability. She had to stand. Staying still to simply hold the dagger was far too luxurious.
She yanked the dagger free and planted both feet on the arm. The fear that she might be thrown off at any moment gripped her. But she had promised. She gritted her teeth and started running across the arm.
The moment the run began, the shaking grew even stronger. The troll, unwilling to let her escape, swung the other arm as well, trying to grab her.
She twisted to dodge the incoming hand and lost her balance again. The troll did not miss the opening. It seized the chance instantly.
At that moment, the sound of an arrow being released echoed from afar.
— Thwack!
The explosion came exactly on time. Ivan’s backup shot saved her from being snatched by the troll’s hand. But her feet were already in the air. If she fell from this height she would die instantly.
She moved calmly.
Using the aftermath of the explosion, she spun in mid-air and adjusted her trajectory. She landed back on the troll’s arm as if nothing had happened. The troll quickly regenerated its broken arm.
When the fist, which could crush her to death, came close, her judgment was swift.
She did not stop running. She leaped high into the air. While she was in the air, she drove her dagger into the green fist that was about to smash her. Using the fist as a pivot, she twisted her body. The recoil from the combined propulsion and spin allowed her to yank the dagger free and push forward again.
It was a brilliant, almost acrobatic display of movement.
The troll’s actions had, in a strange way, narrowed the distance instead of widening it. Still, Renya could not laugh.
*Dangerous.*
The troll’s violent resistance was slowing her heart. Not exactly, but the situation was clearly beyond five minutes.
“—!”
The troll’s attack had changed. It was no longer content to capture and toy with her. The fist that now pounded toward her carried only one purpose: to kill the annoying insect.
*Think.*
Avoiding attacks like this consumed stamina rapidly. With stamina lacking, speed would inevitably drop, and she would not last five minutes. She would end up exhausted for nothing. But she had already used every available means.
*If I’m going to do this, I have to grow right here.*
The word “Origin” that Aaron Patrick had spoken during training flashed through her mind. She had grumbled about it a lot back then, but she did not remember much of what he had said. What remained was the important part: the difference between hearing the story and truly understanding it.
At first she had dismissed his words as nonsense. She had never heard of such a concept. But now she knew it was not false.
The exact moment had come during her duel with Aaron Patrick. She had clearly reached the edge of the Origin then. She still could not sense exactly what it felt like, but she felt she could. No. She *had* to.
She pulled the sensation she had felt at the edge. The feeling of drowning in a black sea, of being torn apart beyond recognition by a fierce, violent hunger that devoured even light.
She had felt it once. She had understood it. So she did not need much. According to Aaron Patrick, she simply had to “pull” herself.
— Twitch.
**Tear it apart, Lang.**
The part of her that should not have moved began to move. The creature ignored the laws of nature and began to rampage. An opaque black form split into multiple claws and began to tear at the green arm.
The troll looked as if it were questioning its own eyes. Seeing a shadow move like a living creature was shocking enough for any monster. To add to that, it was tearing its own arm apart as if shredding tofu. Instincts screamed a warning.
“Growl!!”
She had to kill it now. If she could not, the one who would be slaughtered would be her. The troll realized that. Its green body began to turn red. It was not just a change of color. An entirely different aura radiated from it.
The troll’s red fist now moved at nearly twice the previous speed. Renya had called Lang and torn it apart, but the flesh was already being regenerated, chasing her until the end.
“—!”
Regeneration beyond imagination left no room to dodge. But a path still existed.
**Swallow.**
The shadow responded to her command and immediately swallowed her whole. The fist, losing its target, swung wildly through empty air. Renya burst out of the shadow and smiled when she saw that the troll’s heart was finally in front of her.
She layered the shadow over the dagger. The shadow became another blade. The violently moving black form sent chills down anyone who saw it.
Unnerved though she was, Renya paid it no mind. What mattered was that the current length and sharpness of the shadow were more than enough to reach the troll’s heart.
The prey knew it too and tried to stop her.
— Thwack!
The moment the shoulder joint moved, Ivan’s arrow exploded. While the troll roared, Renya gripped the dagger with both hands and slashed the flesh over the heart.
The shadow blade cut through the green flesh with ease. What was revealed beneath the cut flesh was a pulsing heart. If she stabbed it with her own blade there, it would be over. But the torn flesh began to regenerate the instant it was cut.
Renya’s crimson eyes sparkled with light.
“I didn’t come this far without any countermeasures!”
She sprinkled the only thing she had brought here specifically for this situation onto the flesh. The moment it touched the flesh, a radiant flower bloomed. Countless flowers spread out to cover the torn area, and the narrowed flesh began to widen even further.
Seeds scattered across the entire forest. The most common thing of all opened her path.
If that was the case, she would reach it. She could not possibly miss.
**One.**
She imitated the sword movements Haren had shown her dozens of times from the side. Because it was simple, copying the stance was not difficult. She simply filled the insufficient power and technique with her Origin.
A black one slashed diagonally across the heart. It was like a line announcing the beginning. Finally, the troll’s massive body collapsed.
“—”
Only after planting her feet on the ground could Renya let out a sigh of relief. Far away, she saw Ivan and Hillary approaching. Seeing them sprinting, she smiled and raised her thumb.
When she did, she realized they were pointing behind her. She could not hear what they shouted clearly because of the distance. Pointing behind meant they wanted her to look that way, right?
She turned.
The fallen troll was standing again. She had definitely cut the heart. Even for a troll, that was an injury from which it could not recover. It was nothing more than a desperate final struggle.
The problem was that no one was there to stop that final struggle. Trying to pull out the shadow, she felt a faint sense that using it would only bite her. The creature’s ferocity was not directed only at enemies.
*What? I almost caught it and then it comes back to life like this?*
She was still debating whether to kill it herself even if it died.
**Kano.**
The flame arrow pierced the heart. Unlike Ivan’s, it was completely silent. While it was a magnificent feat, the atmosphere remained calm. The only sound was the troll collapsing.
She looked in the direction the arrow had come from. It was at least a kilometer away. A man with gray hair was walking toward her from that direction.
For some reason, the neatly pressed black imperial uniform he wore every day had turned red. She wondered what had happened, but the emotion that struck her was far stronger than curiosity. No sign of exhaustion or difficulty showed on the man’s face, as if the troll were nothing at all.
Aaron Patrick gently ruffled Renya’s hair.
“Good work.”
Renya thought to herself that she had been right to wear the mask in front of Aaron Patrick, who was still unfairly handsome.