Ch.1149First Impression Is Not So Great

After a long wait and miraculous luck, the soul from another world finally awakened.

The six celestial gods looked down upon this being’s journey with expressions mixing expectation and concern.

– Send me to my family.

Though they couldn’t help but sigh at how she caused trouble immediately upon awakening.

“What is this from the start… Did we properly inject language knowledge?”

“…I thought she would learn naturally as she grew. Who could have known she would awaken in the body of a teenage girl?”

Menes had injected a vast amount of information into the otherworld soul, but coincidentally, knowledge of this world’s language was missing.

He thought language would be naturally acquired as Demian was born and grew, so there was no need to inject it into the soul beforehand.

However, due to Alfodhr’s interference, the otherworld soul was born into Haschal’s body instead of Demian’s, so there was no time to learn language.

Thanks to the real Haschal’s soul pushed to the back of her consciousness, she could speak the eastern language at a native level… though not perfectly.

Because of a small verbal mistake, all the Dane prisoners that the real Haschal had captured were slaughtered on the spot.

“Sigh… this is truly absurd. Is ‘that’ really our last hope? Can we trust it?”

“…We must understand. From her perspective, she suddenly woke up in an unexpected place, and in a female body at that. She must be extremely bewildered.”

“Shouldn’t she immediately know what kind of world this is and whose body she’s inhabiting? That information should be in what we injected.”

“Knowing something and accepting it are completely different matters. She may know it intellectually, but it will take time to truly accept it.”

“I understand, but… sigh, I’m worried about what lies ahead…”

From the gods’ perspective, the number of sacrificed people wasn’t that many, but with things going wrong from the very beginning, how could they not sigh?

If there was any consolation, it was that she probably wouldn’t be killed absurdly before adapting to the terribly harsh environment around her.

“As expected, she can’t handle the power of murder Karma… but her physical abilities from the wolf’s blood remain intact.”

“…At least she won’t suddenly die for the time being. I was worried since the calculated information we injected went wrong from the start.”

Though the body housing the otherworld soul wasn’t the hero’s vessel they had prepared, in terms of pure physical ability, it was actually superior.

The body of the Heavenly Killing Star with awakened wolf’s blood was comparable to master-level knights who had strengthened themselves through accumulated Karma, even without additional Karma power.

…Of course, this was only in terms of senses and physical abilities; in all other aspects she was somewhat inferior, so victory against a master couldn’t be guaranteed.

– The tenth sword of Landenburg, Nigel. —I’m coming.

“…Wait, she’s fighting there? Why?”

The duel with Nigel, the youngest master of the West, was a fight where those shortcomings became particularly evident.

“Her swordsmanship is absolutely terrible. I’m sure we injected relevant knowledge…”

“She probably couldn’t internalize it through indirect injection. It’s like learning swordsmanship by reading a book.”

Thanks to her innate physical abilities, the fight was somewhat viable, but due to the difference in skill, especially swordsmanship, she was overwhelmed and barely managed a counterattack at the end, resulting in a draw.

For a first fight against a master, it was a relatively good showing… but the ascended gods couldn’t be satisfied with merely “relatively good.”

Of course not. The greater their expectations, the greater their disappointment.

She—or rather, he—was meant to fight against Alfodhr when he descended, or prevent his descent altogether.

The gods, knowing full well how treacherous and distant the path ahead was, couldn’t be impressed by a mere draw with a master.

While she didn’t need to overwhelm all masters of the current era, she should at least be able to easily defeat younger, weaker masters.

…Isn’t that asking too much of someone who just opened her eyes?

While that reasoning makes sense… the ascended gods had no choice in the matter.

The otherworld soul… “Haschal” had indeed opened her eyes recently, but the gods had sent the otherworld soul to earth a full fifteen years ago.

If things had gone according to plan, the otherworld soul would have achieved remarkable growth during those fifteen years based on Carlos-level talent and injected future information.

However, due to Alfodhr’s interference, she spent those fifteen years meaninglessly trapped within the Heavenly Killing Star.

Moreover, she didn’t properly understand or internalize the injected swordsmanship knowledge, considering it just game motions, making her virtually a complete novice in swordsmanship.

When she awakened the ferocious nature inherent in the Heavenly Killing Star’s body, she could instinctively use swordsmanship, but this had clear limitations.

Instinct-driven swordsmanship was excessively violent—each strike powerful but wasteful—and the trajectories were overly simple, making them easy to read.

“…Fortunately, she seems to have the will to learn swordsmanship. She’s chosen a decent enough master.”

“Fortunately, her talent seems excellent. She perfectly masters sword forms just by seeing them once.”

Thankfully, Haschal seemed to realize her limitations after losing to Nigel and began diligently training in swordsmanship.

Additionally, her talent was beyond expectations—she could almost perfectly acquire swordsmanship techniques just by seeing and physically replicating them.

Whether this was due to unconsciously referencing the injected swordsmanship knowledge or talent the otherworld soul possessed from the beginning was unknown.

“What good is merely copying the form? One must understand the intent behind the sword.”

Of course, she was only replicating the sword forms, not accurately grasping and understanding their significance to use them freely.

The intention behind sword movements and body movements, the most efficient applications, situational adaptations and variations, structural weaknesses—these things.

It would take more time to realize these aspects.

“That’s just a matter of time. The sword intent of Imperial swordsmanship isn’t that complex, so with a good teacher and various experiences, she should grasp it without much difficulty.”

Nigel was a competent teacher in that regard, so by faithfully following her teachings and engaging in repeated combat, she might realize it surprisingly quickly.

Anyway, “Haschal’s” swordsmanship skills began to improve rapidly, but…

“She shows no signs of awakening to the power of Karma. It seems to flicker briefly when her emotions are heightened, but…”

In contrast to her growing skills, her awareness of the Karma power sleeping within her body was making little progress.

Because the original Heavenly Killing Star had accumulated so much murder Karma over the past fifteen years, the murder Karma power sleeping within that body was equivalent to a mid-level master.

If she could awaken that power, she wouldn’t need to worry about dying unexpectedly.

With the superhuman body from the wolf’s blood enhanced by murder Karma, she could overwhelm ordinary masters with enhanced physical abilities alone.

…However, this wasn’t something to welcome, even in words.

“It might be fortunate. The Karma dwelling in that vessel is Vanirgand’s murder Karma. Awakening it would only bring harm.”

As mentioned earlier, the power of murder Karma was bait spread by Vanirgand on earth.

The deeper the Karma grew, the more the soul itself would gradually be tainted with ferocity, only to be devoured by Vanirgand when harvest time came.

If faced with an unavoidable crisis, one might need to use even a poisoned chalice to survive, but it would be wiser to avoid such situations altogether.

“It would be ideal if she could reach enlightenment by accumulating stellar achievements without relying on murder Karma… but how long would that take?”

“Well… it might be surprisingly quick. If not, she’ll just go mad and die.”

Imela muttered cynically.

Though the murder Karma accumulated by the Heavenly Killing Star before the otherworld soul awakened was quietly dormant within, it hadn’t disappeared, so its negative influence remained.

Her body emitted killing intent so unrestrained that the weak would convulse in fear just by seeing it, and her mind suffered daily from impulsive rage and terrible nightmares.

Haschal considered these just nightmares caused by guilt and mental burden, but in reality, they were phenomena caused by the power of murder Karma.

The mind, tormented by rage and nightmares, would reach its limit as it deteriorated, completely losing reason and going mad.

Although Elpinel tried to suppress it through Durandal and Menes tried to reduce the frequency of nightmares by intervening in her dreams, these were ultimately just stopgap measures.

There were only two ways to endure the continuing nightmares and impulses:

Either she had to master the power of murder Karma and control it perfectly, or raise her soul’s caliber to a level where it wouldn’t be affected by accumulated murder Karma.

In other words, she needed to accumulate achievements and reach the realm of masters. If she couldn’t, she would go mad and die, as Imela said.

—-

“By the way… I find those gauntlets particularly disturbing.”

Frosting—a cursed artifact created by cutting up the corpse of a weakened, declining spirit beast, processing it, and embedding vengeful spirits and curses through ritualistic ceremonies.

While other ascended gods weren’t much different, Astraea especially abhorred this artifact.

Naturally so—how could the goddess of order and justice look favorably upon someone cherishing an object with such terrible curses?

“An artifact with a spirit beast’s vengeful spirit—such an ominous object should be destroyed on sight.”

This artifact harmed even its owner—no, it was created specifically to harm its owner.

Beyond the netherworld’s cold that stole the life force of those who touched it, it also carried a curse of madness that weakened reason and provoked violence.

For “Haschal,” who had to be particularly wary of her own madness after being embedded in the Heavenly Killing Star’s body, there could hardly be a more dangerous object.

Just by equipping it, the Heavenly Killing Star’s madness, which she had barely suppressed, would burst forth, causing her to lose reason and rampage like a mad dog until she died of exhaustion.

The vengeful spirit within Frosting, sensing this, was subtly inciting her, waiting for the moment its power would be unleashed.

That’s why Astraea regarded Frosting with great suspicion, frowning and sighing with concern whenever she saw it.

– Volbeeeerg—!

“Wh-what? She’s putting on the gauntlets!”

And not long after, those concerns became reality.