บท 30: For Anemus - Dark Night 1/2
"Are you crazy? You haven't done anything yet!" Jimo complained and Athena pointed her finger down the man's legs.
"I already killed one of you. Your turn."
Jimo looked down as Athena spoke and the pool of blood under his feet came from somewhere behind him.
Whoever was after Jimo was his brother, Dimo. It was for him that Jimo got his scar. Jimo didn't look back, not because he didn't want to, he couldn't, he was afraid to confirm his younger brother's death.
"Dimo..." Jimo called in a shaky voice. "H-hey! Dimo, talk to me, man!"
"He can't. He's headless." Athena said disinterestedly. "But if you insisted on talking to him... [Army of the Dead]"
Athena used her new skill and half of her mana left her body and traveled to her decapitated body. The body and head were engulfed by a mass of colorless energy, and in Dimo's place, a skeleton appeared.
"W-what is this?"
"Jimo, Dimo h-is...!"
Jimo's two companions shivered at the sight of what Dimo had become.
Dimo had become a skeleton of dark bones and wore a torn priest's robe, a cleric's scepter and gave off a dark aura from his body, that was miama.
In the crowd there were several reactions, disgust, surprise, anger and others, but the most important was Athena's reaction.
Athena wore an expression of disgust toward the undead she created. She had an idea it would be something like that, but she still hated it.
"I... I'll wait over there... Kill it and then I'll be back..." Athena said as she sheathed her sword.
"You...You...Bastard!" Jimo said and ran to Athena.
Athena wore her new armor, but she didn't wear her helmet, so Jimo aimed to hit her in the head with his sword.
When the sword passed her face level, Athena ducked, causing her hair to whip in the air and be cut in place.
"Didn't I say kill that before it came to me?" Athena grumbled as she looked at the ends of her hair.
"You killed my brother and turned him into a zombie!"
"Huh? No, that's a lich at best!"
"You will pay for this!" Jimo said and brought the blade down hard on Athena.
Athena in turn stopped the blade with her forearm and punched Jimo in the jaw. Or that's what should have happened.
Athena's fist went right in front of Jimo's face as the man fell lifeless to the ground.
The lich-Dimo attacked his brother's back with a miasma ball and this quickly intoxicated Jimo, killing him in the process.
The lich gritted its teeth as if commemorating its first victim, at least that was the impression Athena got when she looked at that skull with no eyes or lines of expression.
'Hitkill? This thing is too p.' Athena thought as she gaped at the lich.
"Ah! Aaaaah!" Jimo's two companions who were still alive ran through the crowd and disappeared somewhere.
In the end that was it, Athena couldn't actually test her full strength, but had gotten some important information about one of her skills.
She could only create a maximum of one dead soldier with her current mana when using [Army of the Dead]. This skill spent half her mana to summon an undead, that is, for Athena this was a useless skill.
Athena looked at the skeleton still kicking Jimo's body and felt revulsion. After what she'd faced with the pirates, she didn't want to deal with the undead again.
"I won." Athena said to the crowd.
People were still stunned by what happened. They wondered if Athena was a necromantic, but then came her skill with the sword, she couldn't be a necromantic being a skilled swordsman.
"I won!" Athena yelled, drawing the crowd's attention and then a cheering shout from Yrio and Hein.
"Yrio, we are rich!" Hein said hugging the man's neck.
"Let's go to every auction house we find the stone of spiritual fire!" Yrio said and rolled with Hein.
On that day many people went bankrupt and others became slaves to pay their debts and they all started to hate Athena.
***
The next day, after saying goodbye to the innkeeper and getting scolded by the city elders, and having to pay a stupidly high fine for letting an undead run loose around the city, Athena and Lunnia were ready to continue their journey.
"Anyway let's go…" Athena said.
Lunnia held onto Achilles' saddle and her expression was that of someone who was suffering from extreme pain.
"What was it?"
"Hangover..." Lunnia replied in a low voice.
Athena laughed and helped her mount Kima and joined her on the lion.
"Let's go this way. You can sleep some more." Athena hugged Lunnia from behind and held onto Kima's saddle support. "Achilles, follow us closely!"
Achilles snorted and whinnied with envy at Kima and the lion looked down on the horse. They were the headache of the poor boy who ran the 'Old Fox' stables.
In an alley nearby, a group of people watched Athena take off.
"What do you think?" A man asked.
"I still don't know what she is. No, I really can't tell." A woman replied.
"Like this?" A boy asked.
"Her mana has no shape. It's like just a colorless mass of energy, it's similar to that of the marshal and emperor, but different." The woman replied.
"And what are we going to do, captain?" the boy asked.
"Let's follow her. We have to confirm what she is, and then try to recruit her or…" The man replied and misshapen wings spread out on his back and also took flight.
***
Athena and Lunnia traveled for half a day at an easy speed and they could already see the heavenly ranges of Alauri.
The place got its name from the constant golden light that illuminates the mountain tops and the angelic shadows that the harpies caused.
"Why don't we go upstairs at once?" Lunnia asked as she gathered dry branches to light a fire.
"I don't have my spells anymore, I don't know what can go wrong and I don't know my new skills. Going during the day is safer." Athena responded by taking off Achilles' saddle.
Athena wanted to find out what skills she did before flying to the mountain ranges and the forest at the foot of the mountains was the perfect place for that.
The place was infested with man-eating creatures and according to the owner of 'Old Fox', there was a real chance of finding a chimera in the place.
Athena was anxious.
Chimeras generally behaved like dragons, only with less intelligence, and guarded valuable treasures. This felt like a divine call to Athena.
About a hundred yards away, three people landed on the ground and hid in the early evening shadows.
These people had been following Athena for hours, ever since they saw her fight last afternoon.
"Horx, are you sure she won't notice us from this distance?" the woman asked in a worried tone.
"There's no way she has such a strong perception in the middle of a sea of trees like this." Horx replied.
"If she did, she would be a monster and not a person." The boy said.
"Den, we don't know what she is yet." Horx snapped as he sat in a tangle of roots.
"That's true, but what if she really isn't human?"
"What else could she be?"
"I dunno... A demon?"
"Do you really think the demons would let someone like her walk around alone?"
"The demon lords do this all the time and often alone..."
"Anyway, Vitia, have you managed to identify what her mana is?"
"Like…all I know is she has more mana than you Den." Vitia said, Horx and Den stared at her with concern.
Den was their leader and he was a wizard, if Athena had more mana than a wizard, people's suspicions at the time of the duel would prove true and Athena was a swordsman necromantic.
Later, when Lunnia was already in a deep soni, Athena rose from her bed, took one of the freshly placed branches, and entered the woods as stealthily as possible.
Before she even left the clearing, you could hear wolves, owls, bats, the rustle of leaves on the trees with their terrified little night rodents and the wind whistling in hollow trunks like flutes.
It was a dark and dark place that would make any child cry.
The moons shone in the sky, but they barely lit the place, and Athena plunged into that darkness with only a torch and a sword in her hand.
She walked for ten minutes and then she was alone somewhere in the woods. With each step, the noise of leaves and branches crunching under her feet grew louder until they and the gust of wind were the only things to be heard besides her heartbeat.
Athena closed her eyes, took a deep breath of the crisp, icy night air, and tried to hear what else was in that silence.
When Athena detected breathing and then footprints to her right, she opened her eyes and they were no longer green.
Her black pupils were of a darkness even denser than the darkness of the woods, and the dire wolf that intended to make Athena her hunt died without even taking any action.
Den and his companions watching the scene from afar were stunned in surprise and then Athena disappeared from their field of vision, leaving only the torch behind.
"Where did she go?" Horx asked.
"I, I don't know! She was there now!" Vitia said and then something jumped from one tree to another.
"She knows we are here." Horx said and pulled his sword from its scabbard.
Den prepared a force shield around them, covering them with a pale blue half-bubble, and Vitia drew her daggers.
And then like a shape, something hit the force shield, flashed the bubble where it had been hit, and Horx saw white armor.
"Why is she attacking us?"
Vitia tried to follow Athena with her eyes, ears, and Slayer awareness, but it was as if Aten was covered in a cloak that hid her in the night.
"Horx, light a torch!"
"Tsk! What the hell is going on?"
"I do not know." Den said and reinforced the shield. "But I know she sees us as enemies."
Horx lit the torch so they could see.
Athena jumped from tree to tree covered in an aura so black that her armor looked more gray than white and her hair looked like conscious blades, cutting through everything that crossed her path.
"But what? She's a demon!" Vitia screamed.
"Have you ever seen a demon like that?" Horx said through gritted teeth.
Den was about to say something when Athena attacked coming face to face with the woman and saw her face.
Athena had eyes black as the abyss, lifeless and smiling as if she were taking the greatest pleasure of her entire life.
In the instant that Den looked into Athena's eyes, he felt as if her life force was being expelled from her body, and then Athena jumped again and the boy caught his breath.
"S-she's not a demon. Demons don't have so much fun!" Den said with a bitter smile.
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