The Spearmaster and the Black Cat

Chapter 376 Interlude Viine 2

The string of the Golden Titan extended. A golden thread budding in the air.

That was the Unique Item the adventurer party Innocent Arms, led by her master Shuuya Kagari, had obtained from a treasure chest in the labyrinth.

It was Unique, but if you poured mana into it, the golden threads would turn into protective gloves. Whenever she hunted in the Whirlpool Forest of Demonic Fog, shed use it as a means for attacking and defending without turning it into a hair ornament or gloves. Every once in a while she also amused herself by using it for the string game her elder sister had taught her.

The reason for having increased her usage of the item might be an effect of her having struggled in the battle against the silver-haired, odd-eyed Magic Cloth User in the mansion of Earl Surgebald. The name of that man, who held the alias Odd Eye, was Bounty Hunter Pearson. He was a master at manipulating the Magic Cloth of Ryaguno.

As obvious from the way he handled her, whose strength had been boosted as {Head Servant Leader}, Pearson was no ordinary bounty hunter by any means. It could be even said that Pearson wouldnt have been caught even if Shuuya had participated in the battle against him.

Because of that, the outcome was nothing unusual, buthaving let him go weighed on the dark elfs mind.

Even now, while she recalled the events of that time, she locked the movements of a tree ogre monster by coiling the golden threads around the thighs of its two legs, using Pearsons way of handling the magic cloth as reference.

With a sharp glare, she fiercely dashed towards the ogre, pointing the crimson-scaled scabbard at its belly just as it was about to fall over to the front thanks to its immobilized legs. Drawing a trajectory as if swinging a bat, she slammed the dead center of her scabbard against the ogres thick torso. The ogres torso folded in the middle.

Holding its belly thanks to the intense pain, the ogre was blown away while sounds of its belly cracking could be heard.

The dark elf quickly pulled back the scabbard. On the other hand, the ogre crashed with its back against a thick tree trunk in the back, causing a dull, low, thundering rumble, after flying through several other monsters and various foliage. In the next moment, droves of bird monsters, birds, and small insects flew away in panic.

The spine of the ogre had been crushed and broken from the impact against the trunk. Moreover, a long, pointed branch growing out of the trunk had penetrated its belly, giving it the final blow.

The elf didnt watch the last moments of the ogre. She was surrounded by rock-shaped sorcery golems. In order to cope with them, she applied the walking style of the swordsmanship and assassination style passed down in the Azmail household.

After swinging the scabbard from the left to the right as if to clear away her own silver hair, she stabbed it into the flank of a golem approaching from the right side, making it bend back. Next, while pulling back the scabbard, she advances towards the bent golem. Just like that, she swung down the Ancient Evil Dragon Sword Gadorices in her right hand at the golems head with a speed boosted by the wind cladding the blade.

The glittering of the naked blade resembled the {Servant Leader} Kaldos sword skill {Grease Cicada}. Gadorices directly landed on the top of the golems head, bisecting it all the way down to the neck. Blood teeming with violet mana furiously gushed out of the two cut sections as the golems head parted to the left and right.

Waves of violet blood spurts relentlessly dyed the bluish-white skin forming her pretty face and her glossy, silver hair, which was a symbol of pride for her as a dark elf. Of course, her beloved silver mask wasnt spared from the onslaught of blood either.

At that moment, she focused on {Blood Path Open First Gate}, a part of her as a vampire.

The blood instantly vanished, permeating into her skin and hair.

On the other hand, the now headless golem fell apart like a puzzle that disintegrated in the air, its fragments falling to the ground.

Not yet! Its not enough! A lot more mana and blood dwells in this body!

With a sharp glint in her eyes, a firm resolution existed within her unadorned emotions. Her name was Viine Dao Azmail.

Earlier she had replenished her feelings of love through the dense and long conversation with Shuuya Kagari, the suzerain of the Light Demon Lucival.

While remembering the other {Head Servant Leader} and {Servant Leader} Kaldo, who was currently trying to build a dark guild from scratch, she strongly wished to grow powerful once more. And right now she was killing two birds with one stone by training to obtain new blood mana skills, gathering the materials requested by Mysty, or rather three birds with one stone, if you also added her exploring the forest.

She had just slaughtered all the sorcery golems, monsters which were equal to B-Rank adventurers. And then she had looted the orbs consisting of three stacked marbles existing within the jaws of the golems.

Pheew, the jaws were cracked, but the materials were luckily safe.

Having finished looting the essential materials, Viine activated {Pheremones Touch} as a signal. While confirming the smell of Mystys {Pheremones Touch} at the same time, Viine proceeded deeper into the valley, where the fog became even thicker, while clearing away the foliage at her feet.

I must be careful once Im outside the range of Pheremones Touch. Well, since Im continuing to leave behind my smell, its impossible for me to get lost, though

At that moment, my foot got entangled by grass. Dealing with those memento herb-like leaves and the tolborn leaves, which are constantly trying to stop you by coiling around your feet, is quite a pain. On top of that, the droves of monsters which keep attacking me all the time.

The monsters around here swoop down on me as soon as they see my feet stuck by the leaves, seemingly judging me to be an easy target.

The pretty fox with the silver fur I cut down a moment ago was one of them as well. Its always a hard fight against those silver foxes. Their fur can extend in all directions from their entire body. They use fur to entwine it around anything that can be called a branch, just to repeatedly move around by leaping while using their fur as new footholds. While exhibiting such nimble movements, they continuously shoot countless fangs from their muzzles which open up all in all directions.

Those are attacks I dont really want to receive head-on. Itd be a different matter if I had {Magic Hand guided by Thought} like Master, though.

Ive managed to defeat a pack of those foxes with their diverse attack patterns by myself, even though I took away injuries all across my body. Afterwards I absorbed all of the foxes bright red blood. Then I skinned them carefully so as to not damage their silver pelts, and after collecting their bones, intestines, and meat in another bag at the end, I started to proceed further through the forest.

This place is the best to refine my judgment since fog that dulls your mana perceptions billows up every once in a while. Even right now, I can hear loud beastly voices overlapping from the other side of the depressing fog.

I cant let down my guard.

My training is proceeding well in such a way, butIve forgotten something important. Yes, hunting by myself means that I must deal with things myself even when feeling down! Ive thought so moments ago, but I cant really get carelessin this Whirlpool Forest.

ButI want to pee

Ohh, right! I have this with me! The dark spirits Master calls small middle-aged men or urban legends.

I activate Rasheenas Bracelet, causing a great number of midgets and small arms to appear from within the bracelet while marching in ranks. Theyre darkness spirits which can change their appearance at will.

I silently pray, You guys, spread out around me, while focusing on the bracelet.

Thereupon they salute and then start moving away while hopping around. In the meantime, I push my way through the tolborn thicket, loosen my belt and the leather binding, and

An embarrassing gurgling drowns out the forests noise. But, I feel better now.

Suddenly the nearby leaves move, and something appears. Something black!

I end up tumbling over out of surprise

Fallen leaves and twigs end up sticking to my bare butt. Cold.

Its not that Ive been careless, but Ive got to quickly fix my Hmm? Looking closely, those are my spirits All of them are midgets with mouths and beards. Theyre jumping around while being happy over having found small mushrooms, bow towards me, salute, or throw nuts at me.

Pheew. I keep watching the small spirits while smiling at my own foolishness. Since theyre small, they might be cute, despite their beards.

But, all of them have taken out scissor-like weapons. I wonder what theyre up to

That place being exposed to the fresh air feels somewhat refreshing, so without minding it, I watch the actions of the spirits with keen interest.

Theyre cutting the surrounding leaves with the scissors. Then they point their scissors at my pussy Ugh, are they telling me that they want to shave my pubes!?

No! This place belongs to Master alone! Go on the other side, and watch the vicinity.

The spirits look at me with lewd expressions. After saluting, they turn around and leave by skipping.

Good griefhow embarrassing. Just as Master has been sayingtheyre really small, middle-aged men.

After getting myself fixed up in a hurry, I cancel the guards of Rasheenas Bracelet, and resume my forest exploration. As I advanced along the curly grains on the trees that seemed to serve as signs, I sensed a wind wave. That wind wave originated from a bird monster other than a harpy.

Its beaks are as big as that of a griffon. It has stabbed those beaks into the torso of an earthworm monster, gouged it out and cleaved open its intestines as it held the torso. The intestines disappear into the birds huge beak, just for it to swallow by making its throat tremble.

Its a medium-sized dragon, a drake species, but its bird shaped with an even longer neck.

While knocking down the surrounding trees with its two wings and four talons, its eating up the earthworm The feathers growing on the birds torso are majestic. Somehow it reminds me of Rollodeen-samas appearance.

When two dogs fight for a bone, the third runs away with it is nothing for meit fills my heart with loneliness. About now, Master and Rollo-sama are putting efforts into rebuilding Cydale and hunting in the Sea of Forest

Dropping my shoulders as I think of that, I head deeper into the forest.

While predicting what Master and Rollo-sama are doing, I recall the story about ghosts Ive recently heard from Master. And I remembered the ghost monster called shapshir mentioned by Tsuan whom I deeply trust.

Lets bring out my blood just in case. This is also part of my training.

While focusing on {Blood Path Open First Gate}, I release blood from both my feet

As the dark-red, leather-made Long Gladiator Sandals covering most of my legs dye crimson red, I deploy the blood with the image of creating a lake on the grounds surface. If its Lucival blood, the light element within should have some effect against ethereal bodies.

Mysty also uses her blood like this. The metallic lotuses floating on her blood lake are beautiful and lovely The blood gathering at Mystys stylish shoes is the best part of it.

Shes got a lot of work. And probably because shes so eager about learning more, she succeeded in developing a wonderful, unique skill.

If it comes to plain sword-drawing techniques, Ive learned them, but that fusion of blood and metal techniques is delicate and bold. Without dabbling in this and that, Ill also gather blood and strengthen my skills with the Jade Snake Bow and Gadorices.

Mysty is grumbling a lot, saying things like I wouldnt feel so edgy if I were blood message with Master! Shit, shit, shit!, butI greatly respect her high intelligence.

While indulging in such thoughts, I continue walking as I shed blood from my feet. My dense blood thats spreading in this area. This lake of Lucival bloodinstead of searching for enemiesno, I think its unsuited for that task. It might work as a method to draw monsters to me with the smell of my blood.

If I try things with my blood, I should be able to get another sensationI remember that Master has done an exercise called Radio Calisthenics. I just watched Spirit-sama and Rollo-sama trying to imitate him, butnow Im alone, so I wont feel ashamed.

Lets try doing those calisthenics on the blood-covered ground.

Remembering his words, Beauties are doing this training every day, I keep imitating Masters arm movements.

But, at that point, the magic sources of monsters draw closer. I guess they were immediately lured in by the blood smell. Since it cant be helped, I stop the calisthenics and blood emission halfway.

A galband tiger appears in-between the trees. Time for hunting