Otome Game no Heroine de Saikyou Survival [WN] - Chapter 40
Escape
There was a man named Grave in the dark side of Cleydale Kingdom.
He was not originally from the Cleydale Kingdom; he was born a baronet of Fandria, a religious state north of Cleydale, and was raised as a man of piety, but one day his father was disgraced by his political enemies and not only was he removed from his position as chief priest, he was later imprisoned and never returned after that.
Grave’s mother then left the country with the young Grave, and after a hard journey, they somehow had drifted to the Kingdom of Cleydale.
But the arduous journey left Grave’s mother disabled and she, too, was forced to follow in his father’s fate. Grave was left to live alone in a strange land, living in a slum and doing whatever it takes to survive, resenting the world and the aristocrats who had doomed him and his family to this fate.
But it was also a nobleman who saved Grave.
The man was a Cruz named Hoss, and it seemed that he and Grave’s father were acquaintances. Hoss apologized to the young Grave for not being able to save his father and mother, and took him in as a member of his family, even though he had been living in the slums as if he were a criminal.
But Grave refused to be adopted by Hoss, a nobleman, and chose to work under Hoss, as a dark knight.
Despite being in a religious nation, the upper echelons of the Fandria legal state were corrupt.
Even in this Cleydale Kingdom, there would be corrupt nobles. But knowing that Hoss and other decent nobles remained untainted, he came to believe that the difference was the power of the upper echelons of the country…the royal family.
If the royal family had the right power, the nation would not be disturbed, and Grave started to discipline himself strictly, training in both martial arts and magic, sometimes even going so far as to violate orders to destroy the evil that might disturb the nation.
In a sense, his passion could be described as madness.
Although he was quiet on the surface, his passion burned fiercely in his heart, and Grave, who was strict with himself, naturally began to demand it from others around him.
When Grave heard Sera would be using children, he assigned Castro, who disliked the slums and people related to slums, to be their caretaker.
For Grave, anything that disrupts the stability of the country was evil, even if its royalty.
The Crown Prince was still too young to consider purge, but if Elena, who was raised by a distorted second queen were to become a source of conflict in the succession to the throne, and caused trouble, Grave would not hesitate to eliminate her, even if it meant his own execution.
There was one apprentice maid who had become Elena’s favorite.
Although she was only a child, she possessed magical powers that could match those of the nobility and could defeat even hobgoblins single-handedly, so Grave became wary of her.
To test the maid’s apprenticeship, he even overlooked Elena’s kidnapping deliberately to see how she would react, but the maid had single-handedly defeated even a Rank 3 Thief.
Such a child was impossible. He would not risk letting such a suspicious child into the royal palace just because she was Elena’s favorite.
He would not overlook anyone who disturbed the peace of the nation, even if it was still just a small sprout.
He was thinking of assigning that child a job, sending her away to the countryside, and disposing of her when the time was right.
The reason for the mission was not disclosed, as it was classified.
The fact that they were checking belongings without being allowed to hurt them means the child may be the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman whose identity must not be revealed.
(Dangerous…)
The existence of the child was so peculiar that it could shake the whole country, even involving the royal family.
If she really had ornaments and was really an illegitimate daughter of a noble family, whatever her origin, Grave had decided that she was a danger that must be eliminated.
***
“…What are you doing?”
A city on a moonless night…on its rooftops. Grave, the senior butler who was also my employer, suddenly appeared and killed my enemy, was now pointing his magic sword at me.
“Answer my question.”
“You know who I am, don’t you?”
I didn’t know what kind of muscles he had, but there was not the slightest blur on the tip of his one-handed sword, and his natural-looking body had a swarthy air that would cut me down in a heartbeat if I did anything funny.
“Aria……the unidentifiable child Viro brought with him, the creepy kid who single-handedly killed the hobgoblins and even the higher-ranked Thief without mercy.”
“…”
“What kind of kid is that? How did you get that power? How could you kill someone at your age without hesitation? Did you kill that Thief to keep her quiet? What are you hiding? Why would the nobility be interested in you? I will ask you again…”
Grave’s piercing gaze shot at me.
“Answer me, who really are you?”
“…I don’t know.”
How much did he know? No one could have known that I had noble blood in me.
Was he simply questioning my fighting ability? But to explain that, it would be unnatural to omit anything about my origins. If they knew about the ring in the amulet bag left by my mother, who had determined that the woman was me, I would be caught up in the gears of fate once again.
I tried to assess the situation calmly, but I was still in a bit of a hurry… I unconsciously touched the bag of amulets around my neck on my clothes, and Grave jumped at the chance.
“I knew you were hiding something. Hand it over. If you are related to the nobility…”
“–[Shadow Pain]–!”
I immediately released [Shadow Pain], which caused Grave to freeze for a moment, and in the gap, I kicked the roof and tried to escape.
Even if I fought Grave, whose combat power was over ten times greater than mine, the odds were slim. With my current state, it would be difficult for me to escape, let alone win, but even without a pool of magic power, I could create an opening, even if only for a moment, if he got affected by my deepest move, [Shadow Pain].
“Wha!”
I jumped to avoid what was coming towards me with a bad premonition, rather than a killing intent, and the knife split my shoulder shallowly and pierced the roof, and when I rolled to avoid it with the momentum from the wind slashing sound, I heard at that moment, Grave’s kick that was coming at me kicked through the roof.
“So you’re related to the nobility, after all. Whoever you are, we can’t let a dangerous existence like you anywhere near the royal family. You will be eliminated here.”
“…Why are you trying to kill me?”
Grave endured the intense pain of [Shadow Pain] and immediately gave chase. I had thought that some advanced warrior types would be able to withstand it, but he recovered too quickly.
When I said some unimportant words to plan my next move, Grave replied with a steady and justified response.
“I could see you as nothing but a nuisance. I will destroy any possibility of disturbing the peace of the country in the future as a precaution. The same goes for the princess you have come to know so well.”
“…”
Elena… that’s why her security seemed so weak…
“You shall die.”
I pulled out a knife with my right hand and threw it away at the same time and threw a pendulum with my left.
Grave didn’t panic, but took a step back from the pendulum’s blade, ducked, and flicked the knife away with the sword in his hand.
“Nuh?”
The second knife, which I had thrown to shadow the first knife, grazed Grave.
Meanwhile, I threw a small bag from my pocket and the powder splattered all around me.
“Poison!”
Grave instantly recognized it and lunged at me while holding his mouth to prevent himself from inhaling the poison. I knew this guy had [Pain Resistance] too. Still, when I threw another sachet, Grave’s legs finally stopped.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
The first powder was a poisonous herb, which could be withstood if you had Pain Resistance. The second, however, was not poison, but an irritant made from powdered red pepper seeds found in the forest.
Grave threw a knife at me while trying to dodge the second powder. I repelled it with a black knife and jumped off the three-story roof, starting an incantation.
“I won’t let you get away!”
Right after, Grave also jumped down and chased after me.
I released the [Heavy] spell I was chanting as I fell to shift the direction of my fall, and before I fell, I tangled my pendulum around the windowsill and ran up the wall, passing Grave, who was chasing after me, and returning to the roof where I had been.
I was uncertain if I could pull off such a stunt again, but I was still going to make the most of the time I’d earned.
I sprinkled the last of the red pepper powder on the place where I thought Grave would climb up to buy a little more time. A knife flew from behind me and scratched my shoulder as I ran on the roof without looking behind me, causing blood to spurt out.
I had already climbed up. But at such a distance, a throwing knife shouldn’t do much damage, even if it stung me. Of course, there was a chance that it could stab me in a vital spot, but I would have to rely on luck.
Using all the weapons I had to scatter, I ran across the dark rooftops, keeping Grave at a standstill.
The poison in my hand was already exhausted, and my last throwing knife was also lost. The thread of the pendulum was cut, and the blade flew away somewhere in the distance. When I was left with only a black knife, I was cornered on a large pier on the river that runs through the city.
*
“You’ve been running around a lot, haven’t you?”
I finally cornered the suspicious kid named Aria to the edge of the river.
I was met with an acrobatic taijutsu and a poison powder that caused abnormalities. A throwing knife, a strange weapon with a blade on the end of a string. And then there was the strange magic that made one feel the intense pain, and this child had learned a considerable number of strange techniques in such a short period of time.
The techniques, strange as they might seem at first glance, all were techniques designed to fight alone against superior opponents. Especially that magic, which even Grave, accustomed to pain from his rigorous training, was made to stop his movements for a moment. If Aria had a power of Rank 4 or higher and used it at the first sight, Grave might have been killed.
(After all, this kid is dangerous…I’ll kill you here before your fangs turn against the king…)
It took more effort than expected, but this was the end. Aria no longer had a weapon, and she was being hunted down to the edge of the pier, bitterly holding the last remaining black knife.
“Will you challenge me one last time, knowing it will be futile? Or will you take your own life with that knife?”
“…”
Aria gave no response. She was looking at Grave with sharp eyes, searching for a way to survive, even if the possibility was just a little.
I didn’t dislike those eyes; I think I understood a little why Sera and Viro cared so much and trained her.
“I… I’m not going to die by your hands.”
Aria’s foot kicked the edge of the pier and her tiny body swooped into the air.
He could have thrown a knife at that moment. But mesmerized by those strong eyes as she struggled to hold on to her life, Grave watched Aria disappear into the pitch-black, raging waters.
“So you chose your own death after all…”
It would have been nice to recover the object she was hiding and find out who she really was, but it was enough that I was able to take care of a future disaster.
The last time I saw her eyes, they still showed her attachment to life, but I didn’t think she would survive by jumping into the torrent of water with monsters in the middle of the night when she couldn’t see anything.
Night vision, which allowed one to see the reflections of monsters, was almost ineffective in this torrent. Aria, who was unable to use water breathing spells in water where she was unable to tell upward and downward directions, would have a lower chance of survival than if she had fought and escaped from Grave.
Grave wondered if that action was the last thing she did to harass him.
He had sent many people to their deaths in the past, and the wiser they were, the more likely they were to take such action at the last minute to get rid of evidence.
Perhaps it would be impossible to recover the body. With the current of this river, there was no telling how far it would flow, and even if it did flow downstream, the bodies would be disposed of by hungry monsters.
“…I guess it’s time to leave.”
Up to now, I had been working in a less suspicious manner, but now that I had killed the target, ignoring the orders that came from the dark side, I would not be able to return to the organization anymore.
If the subject had fallen into the river and died in an accident, he might have an excuse, but he had originally joined the Dark Division for information, and recently, he had begun to feel that Sera and others were becoming suspicious of him, so there was little point in staying in the Dark Side.
On the contrary, Grave had long begun to feel that it was more troublesome because he could not dispose of his targets as he wished because of his position in the Dark Side.
Grave disappeared, as if merging into the darkness of a moonless night.
*
The threat of the monster that had been attacking the Barony of Ceres had subsided, and with the disappearance of the last victim, a maid girl, the case was apparently over.
And then–
A water serpent, a Rank 1 demon that made its home in the area, noticed the presence of meat flowing through the water.
Normally, it fed on fish, but on the rare occasions that it did, the dead bodies of humans and animals were the perfect feast for the water serpent.
The serpent’s several-meter-long body was twisting and turning as it moved through the water, its jaws wide enough to swallow a goat whole as it waited, when suddenly a burst of magical power erupted from its supposed meat, and instantly the water serpent’s head was sliced off from its body.
If the water serpent had still been conscious, it would have noticed the headless corpses of several water serpents flowing in after it.
When the “being” grabbed the headless tail of the water serpent, a peach-blonde girl with a black blade in her teeth emerged from the water.
Aria, who floated in the slowing current to the shore then released [Harden] from her muddy maid uniform she was using as a floater, held the knife in her mouth with her cold fingertips and muttered in a faint voice.
“Grave… I will kill you for sure.”
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Also check out my other novels: Reincarnated into a Game as the Hero’s Friend, Kuma Kuma Kuma Bear, and A Girl Who Was Told “You Have No Talent” Turned Out To Be A Talented Monster