Silence permeates among the members of the group for each of them simply stands quietly in awe by the form of a remarkably alluring young girl standing still in front of them.

 

Unlike the appearance of the captured young girl, the recently appeared young girl bears an extremely rare trait of having been born with silver hair instead of a commonly seen black hair, bearing a lascivious pair of red-color irises rather than an average brown one. Even if injuries are taken out of context, the men would still vouch for the silvery hair girl's looks.

 

Though the silvery hair girl looks a little older, the bandits think that it is only a minor factor.

 

As the group keeps staring at the mystifying silvery hair girl, the cold-look man that walked behind the group starts to move slowly from his position towards the silvery hair girl's small frame, staring euphorically at her smallish female area.

 

“...get her.”

 

The leader lets out an order to his group after seeing the captivated man passing him at his side and rebounded to reality.

 

Though their leader has ordered them, the rest besides the cold-look man takes a while to process their leader’s order before executing his order. The cold-look who has been exhibiting entranced facial expression instantaneously ran towards the silvery hair girl instead after their leader's words waft into the air.

 

“What a fucking lucky day!”

 

“Get her!!!”

 

“Hehehehe!”

 

In unison, with the exception of the entranced man, the bandits laugh abnormally with an exhilarated expression fully shown on their face. They are fiercely absorbed into their own thoughts to the point that they did not even unsheathe their sword before running like a cheetah towards its prey.

 

Naturally, Desgon stands firm in his position to restrain the captured young girl on his shoulder. But he is of the same with the rest in facial expression.

 

“Huh?”

 

However, the moment the entranced man reaches a certain distance, his vigorous body suddenly stops moving before collapsing to the ground the next moment, unveiling the scenery of a segmented body void of its head on the ground.

 

Having witnessed the sudden development before them, they immediately stop their track while they watch the head of a once-alive man rolling slowly to their site, decapitated into a fully fleshed out euphoric face looking at their eyes with its lustful dim eyes.

 

“H-Honn!!?”

 

“What t-the hell just happened!!??”

 

“G-Grab your sword, now!”

 

The leader hesitantly makes a stance and aims his pristine sword at the silvery hair girl’s neck. Seeing the death of a bandit by an unfamiliar small figure, the eyes of the captured young girl resonate a little.

 

Fear and adrenaline courses among the bandits' bloodstream.

 

Fighting against someone who has just decapitated one of them without a notice is something that has never been encountered by the bandits until this point. All of the opponents which have been mostly female and youngsters have all been neutralized effortlessly with close to no harm inflicted to them. Furthermore, their enemy is even alone and unarmed yet still able to accomplish such a terrorizing feat.

 

With such predicament on their side, they ought to work together to subdue the threat in front of them. Notwithstanding the success chance from doing so is abysmally low, composed from their fear and unorganized mind, the chance of subduing her would be better shall they unite their stance.

 

Thus, after having arrived at a conclusion, the leader orders his leftover men to make a stance and follow his lead. Since he has the most updated arsenal and holds the position of an almighty leader that he has been growing from the beginning of his group formation, he steels himself to charge at the silvery hair girl first.

 

“C-Comrades, follow my lead and we’ll be able to kill that girl! She is alone so working together will make it a short-work!”

 

Despite the leader shouting magnificently yet tinge with hesitants, silence is the only answer.

 

Sensing the oddity of the situation, he veers his head behind him and is left to stone.

 

In front of his eyes lies the sight of his men lying lifelessly on the ground. The same fate as the entranced man, all of them have been coldly decapitated but unbeknown to him.

 

Warm dark-red liquid is pooling out of their cooling corpse. Heads that display only fear from the bewildered eyes and gaping mouth sitting in close proximity to their own body. All of these have made the naturally unsullied grass beneath into a bloodbath.

 

With no one to hold the captured girl, she has already been dropped to the ground. She is moving frantically, letting out muffled screams from being bathed in warm blood and the sight of headless corpses around her, causing her to vigorously emit life from her terrified eyes.

 

“W-W-What the fuck just happened!!???”

 

The leader is overwhelmed at the event unfolding itself rapidly around him. 

 

“Y-You... DIEEE!!!”

 

With a crumbling resolve, he veers his head back to look at the silvery hair girl and instantaneously runs towards her with his sword raised high, suppressing everything in his mind with only the death of the young girl in front of him left intact.

 

As he swiftly lands a sharp strike with his pristine sword, his sword is only met with air as his opponent stands staring at his side.

 

He swipes the sword horizontally and only to be met with the same result of cleaving the air.

 

The motion of bisecting the air is repeatedly being performed by the man while his opponent merely alternates to his sides. He ceaselessly tries to cut her as she successively dodges his brandishing sword, not realizing his armor is gradually being chipped off from the silvery hair girl’s magic.

 

After a while of perpetual attempts, the armor eventually crumbles into fragments of metal.

 

Despite his primary means of physical protection having been compromised, the leader ignores it and keeps the onslaught of swiping his sword in all directions. But then the silvery hair girl abruptly comes close to the man's ear while time seems to run slower.

 

“Game over.”

 

Immediately after the silvery hair girl whispers those words into the man's ear, he who has been aimlessly cleaving with his sword quickly stops moving.

 

His hands in the same thread with his still pristine sword drops to the ground, producing a loud clang generated from the collision of the sword against the ground rocks. Then, his body slumps to the ground, spattering the untainted grass with dark-red liquid gushing from the armless man screaming in agony.

 

“GAAHHHH, M-M-MY ARMSSSSSS!!!!”

 

He tumbles around the tainted grass in an effort to numb the excruciating pain, screaming in an attempt to distract his mind from the loss of his limbs, slowly losing consciousness from the brisk of losing blood.

 

“H-H-HELP MEEEEEE!!!!!”

 

The leader of a disbanding group's movements gradually slows down for every cycle of a minute that completes. After a while, his dead eyes are the last emitted life from the drained body of his once regal self.

 

After seeing the last of the bandits lying dead on the ground, the silvery hair girl’s red eyes switch towards the intimidated girl who is immobile from the ropes restraining her before walking to her helpless body.

 

That said, the restrained girl can move if given the effort but she does not do so utterly from the apprehensive thoughts of rousing the clearly dangerous being nearing her to drive her to the same end as those bandits. And so, she simply froze herself to the ground while watching the silvery hair girl approach her.

 

After the silvery hair girl has arrived at the restrained girl’s body, she smiles endearingly at her frozen state while posing the demeanor of a servant.

 

“There’s no need to be afraid, child.”

 

In an instant, the rope binding the girl is torn apart, freeing her from the restraints.

 

But she is too stupefied to make even an ounce of movements despite having been freed from the bandits grasp, simply gazing at the silvery hair girl’s impeccable face.

 

In the girl’s eyes, a pretty girl is standing cutely before her as her glimmering silvery hair hair flutters charmingly through the gentle wind while her pair of rhombus-shape irises painted in the color of a clear sky is smiling gently at her.

 

She possesses an exceedingly beautiful face above having a faultless slender figure, a level of beauty she has never seen before. Moreover, the dreadful aura from the silvery hair girl is now overlaid with amicable and friendly auras.

 

The silvery hair girl has no blood tainting her even after massacring the bandits.

 

The brown-hair girl solely lays staring at the beautiful girl who looks the same age as her. It is after some time has passed that she regained herself.

 

“Hieekkk! P-P-Please, I don’t want to d-die!!!”

 

Even though she said that, she does not feel her life in peril despite the silvery hair girl caressing her bloody head. She only said that out of impulses formulated from her distraught mind. The feeling she is experiencing is like a weird mixture of fear and haven with the added ingredient of confusion.

 

“Child, I’m only doing what is given to me and it is to protect you from hostile beings. In servitude to the goddess of kindness, Eleos, this custodian of yours will guard you from foreseeable perils and dangers for the remainder of your life.”

 

“Goddess…?”

 

The brown-hair girl is perplexed to hear the word 'goddess'.

 

She does feel a bit weird to have someone almost the same age as her calling her a child, but the word ‘goddess’ overwhelmed that thought.

 

“But, saving someone… like me…?”

 

Without her realization, a small volume of water suddenly accumulates in her eyes as her words begin to waver in articulation.

 

“B-but I n-never believe g-gods. I-I don’t, d-deserve this.”

 

Though she is wiping the tears flowing down from her eyes using her bloody hands, the constant creation of tears makes it difficult to stop it from reaching to her chin and drips droplets of water, all the while smearing her untainted part of face with mixed blood and water.

 

“...child, as I said, I’m subject to the goddess of kindness's rules so I can’t just reject her command. Also, I wholeheartedly believe that the time is nigh for you to start to believe in a god. Particularly mine.”

 

The silvery hair girl looks around for a moment before she stretches her arm and reveals a piece of engraved rock on it on her opened hand.

 

“Child, as long as you have this with you, I can appear at any moment should you be in harm’s path without the need to say my name.”

 

“A-A stone…?”

 

“It may look just that but it has mana imbued into it. Well, it's really just to summon me whenever you’re in danger. Other than that, yes, it’s just a stone.”

 

While smiling endearingly at the sniffling girl, the silvery hair girl places the mana stone on the sniffling girl’s bloody hand.

 

“Since this forest is a bit dangerous for you to travel through alone, I’ll accompany you in your journey.”

 

The silvery hair girl then helps her to get up and heals her injuries using magic before going to her side, waiting for her new master to recuperate her emotions and reorganize her mind.

 

After some sniffles, she looks at silvery hair girl with teary eyes.

 

“T-Then, help me find a herb to cure my brother.”

 

“...I’ll propose a better idea. But first, would you give me your name? It feels a little awkward to keep calling you, “you”.”

 

“Oh, it’s Reina.”

 

“Alright Reina, that’s a nice name.”

 

Saying that, Reina seems to be troubled by something.

 

Reina has already stopped secreting tears, revealing puffy eyes on her face.

 

“Umm… can I know your name too?”

 

“We custodian don’t have a name, but if you’d like to, you can give me one.”

 

“Errmmm, I can’t think of a name right now…”

 

“That’s alright. You can always do it in another time.”

 

“But I also don’t want to keep calling you “you” or “custodian”. You don’t have to worry because I’m great at naming things!”

 

“That’s… well, if you feel obligated by it, I’ll wait for you.”

 

After exchanging a few words with the silvery hair girl, Reina contemplates the name suitable for the silvery hair girl.

 

Seconds passed, then minutes began. The silvery hair girl keeps waiting for her master while regularly scanning the surroundings for any possible threat, at the same time a small hazy figure is frequently materializing from the trees' branches before fading into air within the span of a millisecond.

 

After approximately 10 whole minutes, Reina found a name for her custodian.

 

“White maiden!”

 

The silvery hair girl got dazed from that answer.

 

“...I’ll think of a name for myself later.”

 

Reina pouts at the silvery hair maiden… silvery hair girl’s remark.

 

“But it suits you!”

 

“No, really, let me handle it. Above that, shouldn’t we be saving your brother?”

 

The moment Reina’s brother is brought up, Reina's expression instantly turns distressed.

 

“Ah, I have to find herbs for my brother!”

 

Reina immediately goes anxious in a second, but it is quickly responded with a calm expression from the silvery hair girl.

 

“There’s no need for that. I’ll use magic bestowed to me by goddess Eleos to cure him. But…”

 

The silvery hair girl observes Reina from head to toe.

 

“You should wash yourself first.”

 

“Ah.”

 

Reina looks embarrassed at her own sight. She immediately agrees with the silvery hair girl as they both go on their journey.