“……Kaa-sama?

Krische said as she felt the warmth around her as she woke.

Krische always slept hugging Grace.

That was why she mistook the warmth for Grace and took a while to realise it was Galla.

There were traces of tears around Galla’s eyes. She looked exhausted and was deep asleep.

Looking around, Krische realised this was not her house.

Finding herself in Galla’s house, Krische looked around for her mother.

――Oh yeah.

And finally remembered what had happened yesterday

Screams and crazed laughter echoed through the village.

The women and children were gathered next to the large well in the middle of the village square.

They were surrounded by armed men with hideous smiles.

The bandits were probably former soldiers, the gauntlets and breastplates many of them wore were from the army.

Corpses were scattered around the square.

Some had their guts spilling out, some had their skulls shattered, some had their arms dismembered.

The husbands, fathers, sons――of the trembling people in the middle.

Someone called a name towards one of those on the ground, then vomited at the smell of the spilled guts.

A woman was unable to accept the truth, laughing madly even as her body was fondled through her clothes.

Surrounded by violence, they no longer had the strength to resist.

Those that tried to escape, even children, were killed mercilessly.

The village’s men watched from the rooftops and resignedly climbed down, throwing down their bows and swords, kneeling to beg for mercy.

The people they fought to protect were taken hostage, they could no longer do anything.

A common tragedy――assaulted by bandits and getting everything stolen from them.

Karka village was located deep in the forest, far from the main road, far from any aid.

The rape and plundering that was about to begin would steal away their regular lives, their dignity, everything.

If they were lucky, maybe the village itself would be left intact.

But to many of them, this is the end of any happiness.

“Oooh, there’s she is. Jou-chan, come ‘ere.”

In the middle of that, the man that looked to be the bandit leader called out to a girl.

The girl was dressed in a shabby dress――she looked around twelve or thirteen.

Her long silver hair glittered in the moonlight as her large purple eyes looked around impassively.

She was surrounded by despair, but there was no fear or panic in her expression.

She detachedly counted the number of corpses, the number of bandits, then looked towards the man that had called to her.

――quite a lot have been killed.

While considering what to do, the girl――Krische did as she was told, taking a step towards the man.

She had not expected things to get this bad.

I let them take the initiative too much, that short reflection was the only regret she felt.

Even as she looked at the bandits and familiar corpses, the girl showed no expression.

The small girl started walking as she was told.

And was stopped by a sturdily-built woman――Galla.

“You can’t go, I, I’ll think of something……”

Galla kept shaking her head as she embraced the girl, trembling.

Krische looked at her, troubled.

“But, if I do not go then you will be killed.”

Krische spoke, perfectly calm.

She had no sword. In this situation, there was no choice but to obey for now.

Krische pushed Galla aside, smiling to comfort her.

If Galla struggled and died, Krische would not be able to use the oven anymore.

Krische’s words came from that purely selfish thought, but Galla clenched her fists and bit her lip hard enough to draw blood.

“Quite a brave Ojou-san”

As the man laughed, another woman stepped forward to shield Krishce.

“I, I……I’ll, do anything……so please, let this child go.”

She was about thirty and her long black hair was bundled up at the back.

While she was freckled, she still looked beautiful.

It was Grace.

Catcalls came from the men around.

Hearing them, her face grew pale and her voice shook, but she still stepped forward.

The girl looked at her mother in surprise.

She saw that her mother was scared and thought about the meaning behind her mother’s words.

“……Kaa-sama. Krische is fine.”

Her mother simply shook her head. Still shielding the girl――Krische.

Grace was not strong willed, nor was she physically strong.

In fact she was clumsy and timid, a scatterbrain.

――but she still said.

“I beg you……please, just let this child go.”

The man smiled unpleasantly as his gaze crawled over her feminine body.

“That’s nice, very arousing……it’s always the best to stick it in in front of the daughter. All the more so with beautiful women.”

“……!”

Her mother trembled, but still told the man to do as he liked.

Please. I beg you――she repeated it like a broken record, clinging to the mercy of the evil man.

The girl stared at her mother.

It was impossible to believe that the man would keep a promise.

Grace likely understood that, but she still said that.

Praying that he would be even a little merciful to Krische.

Krische pressed down on her chest, tilting her head.

There was a light floating, but also trembling sensation――a weird kind of feeling.

She stared at her mother give up everything to protect her.

It was completely incomprehensible thinking in terms of gains and losses.

Her mother’s actions could not balance the gains and losses, it looked meaningless.

But Grace was willing to give up her life for Krische.

She was willing to give up what Krische thought was most important, for Krische.

――in this case, what should I give in return?

Krische thought, savoring the warm sensation in her heart.

“Anyway, the fun is for later. It’s okay, I won’t do anything to the Jou-chan, both of you come over here.”

“……mm, okay.”

Slightly unhappy that her thoughts were interrupted, Krische approached him.

Slowly, with her usual strides――at this distance, he was slightly too far.

Grace quickly moved forward to shield Krische and took her hand.

Krische narrowed her eyes slightly, enjoying the sensation with a small smile.

Watching her, the man grinned in anticipation.

“……but still, the longer I look, the more beautiful she seems. I can’t imagine how high a price she’ll fetch……”

“Pl, please……”

“Ah, I know I know. It’ll be fine.”

“……!”

The man reached towards Grace’s chest with no restraint.

But Grace just shut her eyes and did not resist.

“It’s not like I’ll sell her somewhere bad, it’ll probably be some merchant or noble that buys her. She’ll get to live a much better life and eat nicer food that she ever could living in this remote village.”

The man grinned as he enjoyed the feeling of Grace’s breasts.

Grace’s mouth tightened in discomfort and humiliation, but she did not resist, letting him do as he liked.

“You’ll be the one satisfying me anyway. There are some bastards that enjoy kids like this, but relax. I won’t let any of them touch your daughter.”

“Thank, you……”

Grace could only nod at his patronizing words.

Seeing tears streak down Grace’s face as she looked down in shame, Krische frowned slightly.

That was the trigger.

At this point there’s no need to care about the village rules.

There is a chance this could cause problems in the future, but the situation has gotten quite bad and it’s too late――since there’s no other method, I’ve got no choice.

Krische’s hand felt warm in her mother’s.

At worst, her mother would ensure Krische could go about her normal life.

No matter what, her mother would stay by Krische’s side.

That was reassuring, and that was enough.

Krische only wished for the same daily life as before.

Krische let go of Grace’s hand and approached the bandit leader.

“Mm?”

She then smoothly drew the curved sword at his waist.

The sword was curved like a naginata, the weight at the tip of the blade.

Easy to handle, the girl thought absentmindedly.

She swung her arm like a whip――

“!……?”

――and sliced through his undefended neck with the tip of the blade.

In the darkness of the night, lit only by flames burning the village――a fountain of fresh blood spurted from the bandit leader’s neck, staining the girl.

Krische ignored that, spinning the curved sword around in her hand.

The sword fit well in her hand.

Showing no interest in the collapsed man, Krische swung the sword two, three times, checking its weight, then nodded with a smile.

Silence.

Everyone was frozen, staring at the girl bathing in a rain of blood.

They could all see what had happened.

But the rebellion of the beautiful girl was too sudden.

Her movements were so natural their minds could not catch up.

In this unexpected situation, nobody could say a word.

Krische looked around at her quiet surroundings with her usual lack of expression.

Twenty two bandits.

This was not a problematic number for her.

She looked at their faces, calculating the best order to kill them in.

It was like time had stopped, and only she could move.

“……now then, next.”

Her young voice was light, sounding somewhat naive.

As she spoke, Krische stepped in front of a nearby bandit.

Closing the distance in one bound, she twisted her whole body, swinging the curved sword.

Without even feeling the cut in his neck, the man collapsed to the ground.

Next was the man beside.

――That’s three.

She enveloped her slender arms and legs with imaginary muscles created by mana and manipulated them at will.

No strain, no fear, her body is simply a tool to achieve her objective.

Mana granted her supernatural strength.

Sharp, fast, efficient.

The sword sliced through yet another man’s neck.

Without even looking at the falling corpse, she moved on to her next prey with the agility of a wild animal.

Krische did not hesitate.

Her movements were natural, as if she was reaping wheat. She took down another before the bandits could move.

“! What’re you guys doing! Stop the kid!”

The next instant, the bandits’ screams and shouts rang through the night.

They started moving, no longer paralyzed in time.

But arrows suddenly pierced into three of them.

“――There are more of us! Go!”

Gallen’s hoarse――but powerful voice erased the bandits’ voices.

Prepared to endure sacrifices among the villagers, he had been waiting in the shadows for a chance.

With that shout, the strong-willed among the women acted, with Galla at their lead.

They grabbed the bandits by the arm, pulling them off balance and fell onto them, pinning them down.

The men that had been tied up also acted in concert, tackling the bandits.

Despair turned to chaos.

The tables turned on the bandits and they were bound, or killed, before they could recover from their confusion.

Even in that situation, the silver hair dancing in the wind stood out.

She approached bandits and reaped their necks.

The flesh tore with a small popping sound, a good sound. A nice feeling.

She was not fighting, she was just doing routine work.

Her steps were light, dancing through fountains of blood.

Sometimes close to the ground like a snake, sneaking up like a cat at other times.

She always closed the distance without them noticing her.

Her body was flexible like a whip.

The flashes of her sword avoided bone, accurately reaping soft flesh. Flesh fell, sliced off.

She twisted at the hip, spinning, performing a sword dance.

The large amount of blood she bathed in soaked into her clothes and stained her hair――scattering scarlet droplets as she danced.

The situation that had been at the depths of despair had already turned, becoming a simple hunt.

Outnumbered.

The mental advantage the bandits had made was gone, creating a sudden chaos.

The bandits were now the ones at the depths of despair.

This allowed the girl reaping the bandits’ heads to relax.

While lopping off the tenth head and smashing the eleventh’s collarbones with the heel of her sandals, her thoughts were about her reward after this, about the pumpkin she has yet to eat.

I must have the pie. But then what should I do for soup?”

While feeling the sensation of severing flesh, pumpkins danced in her thoughts.

She did not have a shred of interest in the lives being lost.

She felt no pleasure, it was just work, she was business-like――she mass produced corpses indefinitely as long as was needed.

She was no longer a human, she was the reaper.

“Do, don’t move! Or I’ll kill her!”

That man’s shout stopped the girl.

He had his blade at a woman’s throat.

If it was anyone else, the girl would not have cared.

But the woman was the girl’s mother.

“――Kaa-sama.”

Seeing Grace, her fluid movements halted.

The girl coldly narrowed her eyes.

Even with Grace hostage, Gado’s expression was twisted in fear at the unknown.

He saw a girl, her long silver hair stained red with blood.

A beautiful fairy――but a monster that unhesitatingly and easily reaped their necks.

――A creepy brat.

Gado had noticed a long time ago that Krische was abnormal.

He had sparred with her in the past.

She looked human, but the girl was something more terrifying than any beast.

She was clearly not normal.

Looking at her now, there was no doubt she was abnormal.

She was undoubtably, a monster

He understood that he could never beat her with a sword.

At this rate, he would join the corpses around him.

That was clear to Gado and in his terror, he grabbed a nearby woman――Grace, putting his sword to her neck and shifted away from Krische.

“Don’t move, don’t move……!”

The person whose death would trouble Krische.

The person that she would live with just like before after all this.

Krische’s fluid movements stopped as she considered her next move.

“! Let, go……!”

――It was a lot of bad luck.

Krische had gotten too far to cut down Gado.

Grace did not want to get in the way of her beloved daughter

Gado was in a state of a complete panic.

The result was――

“Krische……!”

“Hiii, this bitch――”

――he wanted to escape from this terror.

Gado forgot that it was his hostage that kept him alive.

When Grace struggled and got in his way, he sliced her throat.

Blood danced, screams arose.

Grace’s eyes opened wide, a reflection of Krische in them.

Krische blanked out for an instant.

The next instant, Krische registered it, leapt forward and swung her sword.

Gado’s life ended immediately.

――It happened so quickly that later, some said they saw Krische kill her mother along with Gado.

She kicked Gado’s body away and caught her mother’s body.

Krische looked around, confirming that there was no immediate threat.

Then she quickly laid Grace down and examined the wound on her neck.

Large amounts of blood poured out――Krische applied pressure with her hands. Of course, the blood would not stop.

Even though she knew it was meaningless, Krische pressed on the wound with both hands.

Having grown up in a village without a doctor, Krische had no medical knowledge.

She only knew that blood flowed easily from the neck and living things died after losing too much blood.

“……the blood, won’t stop.”

“It’s o, kay……”

Grace struggled to lift her hand, cupping Krische’s cheek.

Krische just kept pressing, desperately trying to stop the overflowing blood.

“Kaa-sama, it is not okay. The blood, we need to stop the blood……”

It looked like Grace tried to shake her head.

But after a twitch, Grace gave up and smiled.

“K, sche……I, love, you……”

“……Kaa-sama.”

Grace’s body went limp.

Seeing Grace’s life lost right before her eyes, Krische was stunned.

――I failed.

I should have pushed Grace to the other women at the start.

I should have realised an instant earlier that I could just throw the sword.

Krische’s thoughts were full of regrets

An unpleasant feeling arose from her stomach.

Those that saw what happened were speechless, or frozen――among them, only Galla ran over.

“No, how……it, it can’t be……why……”

Tears welled up in Galla’s eyes and spilled over as she fell to her knees, slamming her fist into the ground hard enough to break skin.

Krische could only stare at Grace’s corpse in a daze.

――Krische stayed under the blankets, vaguely recalling the events of yesterday.

She felt nothing, she simply thought.

And stared at the result in a daze..

Gorka was gone. Dead.

Grace too, gone. Krische couldn’t save her.

The people that had been with her, gone.

It was an unavoidable failure.

Regrets swirled in her mind, but she could not have done anything about it.

A great disappoinmnent.

But, that’s all. There was nothing she could have done.

Even if Krische went home, she could not see their faces.

She could no longer hug Grace and sleep.

She could understand it, she could imagine it.

Disappointing. But, she could not do anything about what had already happened.

“……I could not, repay them.”

Krische whispered. Feeling uneasy, she closed her eyes.

She hugged Galla and went back to sleep, avoiding further thought.

――When she woke again, Krische was back to normal.

The next evening, a mass funeral was conducted at the outskirts of the village.

A large hole was dug, where the bodies were cremated, then buried at various locations.

Death was treated as a return to nature, it was tradition to hold a small banquet and send them off with a smile.

But after such a tragedy, some drank but nobody smiled, everyone stared the flames mournfully.

Some cried and screamed madly.

Some despaired at losing their loved ones, becoming empty husks.

But Krische acted normal, not spilling a single tear, expressionlessly and indifferently going through the motions.

If she had shown her tears, cried like a child, it might have turned out differently.

But Krische’s behaviour was creepy to everyone that saw her.

She had lost her father and watched her mother die, but she was too calm.

Most of all, the sight of her impassionately decapitating the bandits left a strong impression in their minds.

They had watched her decapitate the bandits with no hesitation.

Although that had saved them, the fear they had felt mixed with the memory of Krische’s expressionless face. On top of that was the occasional rumours of her being a monster.

Some even said Krische had killed her mother along with Gado.

Even among the women, some believed that and Krische was ostracized more than ever.

The women that were particularly close to Grace and Krische defended her, saying she was just in shock, it had not sunk in yet, but rumours spread.

Part of it was their frustrations.

They needed someone to vent their anger and sadness on, and Krische became their outlet.

The delicate balance around her crumbled and rumours about her got out of hand.

Things might have been different if Grace had lived.

Grace grieving over her husband would have drawn eyes away from Krische. Their intimate interactions would have reminded the villagers of past days.

There might have been a future where Krische was hailed as the village’s small hero.

But with Grace gone, the situation around Krische only grew worse and worse.

Because of that, things could not stay the same and Krische was shunned.

Two weeks passed since the bandit raid, a peddler arrived.

People were sparse in the square and avoided Krische, whispering among themselves.

Krische ignored them, approaching the peddler. The elderly peddler looked at her pitifully.

He knew that there had been many losses in the raid.

That was why he had delayed the visit last week until today as a precaution and was selling his wares at slightly lower prices as an apology.

But although Krische was usually the first to show up, she had not. Expecting the worst, he had asked the villagers about her and as a result, understood Krische’s current situation.

Peddlers visited many villages――the man was familiar with this scene.

A village is a closed society where rumours spread fast and quickly became the truth.

Once established, there was no undoing it.

“……are you okay?”

This beautiful hardworking girl that had not been envied, but loved by the other women.

He was a kind man and knowing how she was being treated, he worried for her and could not help asking.

“……? Er, yes.”

Krische tilted her head slightly, then nodded.

Even if she cared about her reputation, she did not care about the looks others gave her.

No matter what was said about her, it was only uncomfortable and slightly troublesome, she no longer cared――and was not be hurt by them.

So she did not understand what the peddlar was concerned about.

The reason she was late was just that she had gone to Gallen to receive pocket money.

Unlike Grace who was always in the village, Gallen who was often out hunting and Krische had to wait for a while.

But the peddler assumed the reason she was late was because Krische could not act as she did before.

“Peddlar-san, can I have a pumpkin?”

The peddler looked sad, but Krische said that with a smile.

On the night of the raid, the pumpkin had been knocked off the shelf by a bandit going through the house, smashing onto the ground.

Krische had planned to eat it after the funeral, that was a major miscalculation.

On top of that, the peddler did not come the previous week, making her have to wait longer, raising Krische’s pumpkin fever even higher and today she could finally obtain her long-awaited pumpkin.

So Krische was in an extremely good mood today――but to the sympathetic man, it looked like she was forcing herself to smile normally.

“Aah……wait a moment.”

After some thought, the peddlar filled a basket with some potatoes, vegetables and fruits along with the pumpkin and handed it to Krische.

“……? I only asked for a pumpkin……”

“It’s fine. You’ve had a tough time. It’s service for Krische-chan for always buying something. No need to pay.”

“Er, but.”

“It’s fine.”

Forcing the basket into her hands, he placed a hand on her head.

“……it might be tough now, but a girl like you can definitely find happiness. I shouldn’t speak so lightly but……do you best.”

“Okay……?”

Tonight is the pumpkin soup and pie she had yearned for.

Krische had already found happiness and was confused by his words, but nodded for now.

The peddler smiled in response and lightly patted Krische’s heads a few times.

“I’ll come again. Krische-chan’s a good customer. I’m looking forward to your continued patronage.”

“Thank you very much.”

Krische deeply lowered her head before turning away.

She didn’t really understand, but she received a lot of things.

Krische was pragmatic and trotted home in high spirits.

Watching her leave, the peddler closed his eyes and prayed for her future.

-End-

TT^TT