Ch.85Kanpf’s Raid #2

“Chief, are you alright?”

On the night they decided to kidnap Zion Krauser.

Albert, who had come to hear the news, asked with concerned eyes.

After a lengthy meeting that spanned several days, a decision had been reached, but Eileen, who had advocated for it, looked rather grim.

“…Yes. I’m fine.”

“That’s good to hear, but… you look very tired.”

“Do I? Come to think of it, my body does feel a bit sluggish.”

Whew. As Eileen sighed and composed herself, a question arose in Albert’s expression.

While Eileen’s words had their own merit, she was displaying attitudes that seemed difficult to reconcile with her normally calm temperament.

“Um, may I ask you one thing?”

“Yes. Go ahead.”

“I understand that the one with the relic happens to be a dark elf, and that this filthy creature is dangerous because it’s infatuated with humans. But… your demeanor when discussing him was different from usual. Did something else happen?”

Albert couldn’t understand the reason, so he hoped that Eileen, who might have the answer, would explain.

Eileen quietly listened to Albert’s voice, then narrowed her eyes slightly and slowly parted her lips.

There was no hesitation in her words, as there was nothing worth hiding, nor any reason to do so.

“I had a dream. A dream so vivid.”

“A dream… you say?”

“Yes. It was like the ones that the saints of the Monastery Alliance are said to have. I could feel so clearly that I was dreaming, and because of that, I felt I needed to observe the dream carefully.”

Normally, upon realizing one is dreaming, one should be able to control it, but she couldn’t.

Eileen said that even when she reached out, she couldn’t touch anything, and she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the sensation of watching someone else’s life unfold.

“At first, I thought it might be a fantasy created by my worries. But I realized it wasn’t. And at the same time, I knew it was something likely to happen someday.”

“I see. So that’s why you…”

“Yes. The dream depicted a calamity. A calamity that would be caused by Duke Krauser, the dark elf who obtained the relic.”

The dream Eileen had was none other than the sight of Helena and Ellen, consumed by madness, sweeping across the world.

It was a future that would certainly have occurred had a certain man not intervened.

It was also a time when the flames of war were growing larger and larger.

Why Eileen saw such a vision.

Zion might hold the answer to that, but it was something these people couldn’t know.

Why she dreamed at this particular time, why she came to believe it so firmly.

“Still, I wasn’t sure if my opinion was sound, or if it would gain the support of our other kin, so I called for a grand council… Fortunately or unfortunately, the other village chiefs shared my view.”

So she was able to shake off the doubt and anxiety lurking in a corner of her heart and make a decision.

Albert simply nodded silently as he listened.

◎◎◎

“Whew…”

Two women stood at a distance, staring at each other as if they could devour one another.

One was Helena in light armor, holding a sword, and the other was Ellen, a dark elf also in light armor, similar to Helena.

Lightning seemed to spark between their gazes across the empty space, and the training ground and surrounding area trembled with their fighting spirit.

It was fortunate that it wasn’t killing intent, but it was no less threatening. Almost indistinguishable from killing intent, in fact.

“Today I’ll be using this special stamina enhancer.”

Snap. Helena pointed her finger at me as I leaned against a tree some distance from the training ground.

More precisely, she was pointing at the glass bottle I was holding with an incredulous expression.

The glass bottle was about the thickness and length of a 1.5-liter plastic bottle, filled with a liquid that closely resembled blood-red in color.

Someone who didn’t know better might mistake it for a bottle filled with actual blood, it was that red.

But this liquid wasn’t blood; it was a stamina enhancer.

It was one of the items Luke Killinear had handed over as a reward and a gesture of goodwill, something Helena had been eagerly anticipating using.

“That’s right.”

“I hear that just one sip of this enhances your stamina several times over. Which means the concentration becomes that much more intense.”

Gulp…! Ellen’s swallowing sound was so loud that her Adam’s apple surged like a tsunami.

It was clear enough for me to see even from a distance.

While it seemed absurd to be having such a serious conversation about this, I decided to accept it since it was important to the two women.

Honestly, from my perspective, I was just a spectator enjoying the show.

I wondered if I’d become too accustomed to living with two women, but I thought that, gratitude aside, I needed to get even more used to it.

Because the days ahead that would be like this were far longer than the time we’d spent this way so far.

At least, as long as I didn’t suddenly die.

“So today we’ll duel for the first turn. The winner… you know, right?”

“Yes. I understand perfectly. I should rightfully yield to you first, Duke, but since you’ve set up this opportunity, I can’t back down. Besides, I’m tempted.”

Despite the clear hierarchy between the two women, they would settle this fairly through a duel.

Whether it was due to her inherent sense of fairness, or because she wanted to create a justification to personally defeat Ellen, was unclear.

“Well then, let’s begin. You come first.”

“If you insist… I won’t hold back.”

Without any signal, Ellen drew up her mana and quickly created distance between them.

Even as an excellent mercenary who could use elemental magic of a different caliber, she couldn’t face Helena head-on.

I could understand why her judgment wasn’t wrong, but even so, I thought she might have crossed the line a bit too much.

She rode the wind up into the air, positioning herself where Helena’s sword couldn’t reach.

“Ellen…!”

Helena gritted her teeth and shouted, as if incredulous or frustrated.

I suspected she hadn’t expected such an effective tactic to be employed in a duel to determine the winner.

While it might seem foolish in a battlefield to expose one’s position like that, it was enough to simply fly high enough to be out of range.

Moreover, Ellen wasn’t just a woman who could fly.

Depending on her mood, she could cause natural disasters capable of wiping out armies—she was essentially a bomber.

So it couldn’t help but look underhanded.

“Duke, I’m serious. I’m more desperate than in any war I’ve ever experienced.”

“Even so, there should be limits!”

“You’re the one who said there are no limits in the path of love!”

I don’t know when they had such a conversation, but seeing Helena fall silent, it seemed to be true.

It was pitiful to see her biting her lips tightly in frustration and stamping her feet.

Still, a duel was a duel. While it was quite sneaky, it was purely her own strength, so there was nothing to complain about.

Ellen hovered as high as the mansion, slightly raising the corner of her mouth.

As if preparing to launch a full-scale offensive, wind began to wrap around each of her fingers, and the vibration was small but strong enough to be clearly felt.

The wind gathering on her fingers began to spin fiercely like mixer blades.

It was such an intense force that one could almost hallucinate hearing the grinding friction of blades colliding.

And that wind leapt from her fingers toward Helena.

“Tsk…!”

It coiled through the sky like a snake, its trajectory changing moment by moment.

It was irregular, too irregular, and I could only tell that it was flying toward some part of her body as if to strangle it.

That’s how it appeared to my eyes.

Helena clicked her tongue, drew her sword, and immediately raised an Aura Blade.

It was a black line thicker and heavier than before. The core of the sword remained the same, but the condensed power had grown a bit larger.

Having sparred with Helena daily, I could say this with confidence.

The sword embedded with the Aura Blade fluttered chaotically.

It was as elaborate and complex as if trying to paint butterfly wings in the sky.

And it was fast and sharp enough to easily sever a person’s neck.

Moreover, with the addition of her incredibly efficient movements, she easily cut the five winds Ellen had sent.

One cut for each wind, exactly five in total.

Though invisible to the eye, the fact that the ominous wind could no longer be felt confirmed that she had cut them properly.

If it could have been seen, it would probably have looked like a complex tangle of threads being cut and gently unraveling.

“Well then…”

Ellen’s eyes narrowed as she cut through the wind.

Judging by her lack of surprise, she seemed to have expected this wouldn’t work.

The hint of disappointment in her expression suggested she was slightly let down.

The disappointment was brief. Ellen raised several streams of wind in the air and began firing them indiscriminately.

Unlike the earlier feeling of penetration, these felt more like they were tearing or cutting as they approached.

Simply put, they closely resembled cutting winds.

Countless cutting winds, much thinner than the Aura Blade but comparable in sharpness, flew in.

The sharp sound of air being torn and the disturbance it caused gave an indication of how dangerous the current situation was.

It was dangerous enough to be considered an attempted assassination of the Duke.

“Hoo—”

Helena calmly observed the cutting winds pouring down like rain, took a deep breath, and then immediately kicked off the ground and dashed.

As if to prove that pride is of no help in actual combat, she even rolled on the ground without hesitation.

As a result, the directionless cutting winds embedded themselves in the training ground floor, surrounding trees, and the dirt ground, causing quite a commotion.

Sometimes only the ground was cut without a sound, making observers shudder.

Just as I was beginning to wonder if this was really a duel,

I could see that both women’s gazes had sunk into something ominous.

It was the bottomless pit-like gaze they only showed when openly displaying their obsession.

Of course, the intensity was much less than before, but the fact that a similar atmosphere had emerged in their eyes indicated that the situation was flowing quite seriously.

Ellen, floating in the air, raising winds and firing cannonball-like water droplets, turning the surroundings into a wasteland.

Helena, cutting or avoiding all of it while calmly watching for an opportunity—it was truly chilling.

Normally, servants would rush over in alarm at such a commotion, but knowing I was standing by, there was no sign of anyone approaching.

I felt good about being trusted to that extent, and on the other hand, I thought it was fortunate.

Even if those who witnessed this scene of madness were startled and tried to stop them, these women wouldn’t listen, and their lives might even be in danger.

Given how they were almost going berserk, that possibility was high.

And if they knew the reason for all this, which would seem utterly trivial from a normal perspective… it would be quite a sigh-inducing situation.

“Just fall already! Lord Zion is waiting for me to approach him!”

As Helena remained unscathed amid the barrage of wind and water that was destroying everything around, Ellen shouted with an irritated voice.

“Look who’s talking! I gritted my teeth and gave you the concubine position, and this is how you backstab me?!”

“It’s not backstabbing, it’s a fair fight! Or do you think you lack enough charm to deserve consideration?! That’s deception from my perspective!”

“Deception?! Do you really want to be cut in half by my Aura Blade?!”

“If you can reach me up here, go ahead and try!”

Even as the attacks and defenses accelerated and heated up, the two women’s mouths never stopped.

Seeing the thrilling glances and exchanges as if they were venting long-held emotions, it was truly a magnificent sight to behold.

The training ground was already unrecognizable, with holes of varying heights and widths pockmarking the floor.

It was a desolate scene, as if an army had swept through.

Helena remained calm amid the chaos, and finally, as if finding a breakthrough, her eyes flashed as she dashed into the forest.

Naturally, Ellen’s wind and water blades followed, but it seemed difficult to catch up to Helena’s lead.

“Let’s end this!”

Ah, that’s it!

I clapped my hands instinctively as I watched Helena kick off a tree and climb up.

From an observer’s perspective, I had thought of using trees for momentum much earlier, but Helena, busy adapting to the chaos, seemed to have approached the trees a bit late.

She climbed a tall tree, gathered all her strength in her legs, and sprang up like a coiled spring.

Thus, Helena tore through the wind and kicked off into the sky, reaching right in front of the very surprised Ellen.