“This must be the place…”

A young man with auburn colored hair muttered as he dashed through the thick trees until a crude barricade made of woods and timbers encircling numerous small shacks entered his vision. The young man was none other than Lennon, the Royal Court Mage in disguise.

Quickly, he erased his presence and hid behind one of the thick bushes, only revealing a pair of cyan eyes typical to his bloodline, De Grimm Family. His family was known to be the most loyal dog of the Kingdom, proven by the fact that they had been under the Kings’ direct order for several centuries up to this day. And that young man, Lennon, was seemingly also loyal to the only Queen candidate, the Golden Princess, Rosetta.

“Hmm… Now that I saw it for myself… How in the world could this huge village of goblins not be detected by the scouts until yesterday?”

He turned his head around in search of something, but it seemed he couldn’t find anything.

“No magic barrier, no illusion, nothing. That’s weird…”

Being the Royal Court Mage at the age of only 19 years old, Lennon possessed abilities far greater than any mages around his age. Even the veteran mages would stand no chance in front of his devastating dark magic. His achievement also raised his value greatly in front of the Golden Princess, making him qualified enough to found his special intelligence gathering and cleaning force, the Hashshashin, or what he casually called the ‘scouts’.

Knowing almost every information line across the whole Kingdom, Lennon was confident that nothing could hide from his eyes and the fact that there was a huge goblin settlement near Agate Port City blew all his so-called pride. Just the same as Diana, Lennon began to think that there was someone deliberately causing all the sudden problems to come out almost at the same time all over the Kingdom.

“Judging from the size of the village… Around 200? No… It’ll be safe to say around 300 goblins are here…”

His judgment was almost on point and he clearly knew that. But then, a beastly roar entered his ears and it made him flinch.

“GRRRRAAAAAAAKK!!!!”

After hearing that, Lennon immediately rushed to the gate and spotted a gigantic, muscular figure roaring and swinging a huge club-like weapon vertically over and over again, making loud thumping sounds every time the club hit its target. Even the wind pressure was so tremendous to the point almost all the small goblins blew away mid-air as a result.

“... What… the hell…”

The scenery that entered his vision was too unreal, even for him who could cast a devastating dark magic to wipe out an entire company of 100 footmen tracelessly. There, a single young girl wearing a short white shirt and brown short pants that were now smeared black in mud and dirt could be seen deflecting every single swing of the gigantic figure with no sweat. Instead, the young girl grinned sinisterly, showing a truly horrifying expression in contrast to her outworldly beautiful face.

“AHAHAHAHAHA!! MORE! MORE! GIVE ME MORE!!!!”

The young girl continued deflecting the barrage of swings easily, as the gigantic figure began to probably feel tired and lessened the intensity of its deadly swings quite drastically. Lennon, on the other hand, hid himself behind the gate and observed the situation closely.

“That girl is…”

Lennon squinted his eyes to get a clearer vision of the mad girl and he quickly came to a realization that the girl was the one Diana mentioned in her report.

“Long black hair, light brown skin, golden colored pupils, slender figure… Everything matched up the description…”

Lennon continued to observe as the said girl, Morgan, finally began her assault on the gigantic figure.

“She’s definitely the slave girl, Morgan… I know Diana said that she’s somewhat intriguing but not to this extent…”

Lennon paused briefly and heaved a sigh at the girl who was covered in dark purple aura, rampaging wildly not too far from him. In his eyes, there was a reflection of the girl who didn’t actually try to defeat her enemy, but instead, she was trying to stall the time as much as she could while seemingly enjoying and savoring the taste of the battle she was drowning herself in.

“Diana, what kind of monstrous abomination did you actually find this time?”

Lennon couldn’t help but let out his thoughts come out loosely through his mouth as he watched Morgan kick and indirectly snap the Goblin Champion’s right elbow finely, rendering it stagger and let go of its club.

♦ ♦ ♦

Ah, this is so arousing…

Morgan licked her lips as she continued her barehanded attacks on the Goblin Champion that only had one usable arm now. Her blushing red face and watery mouth were from time to time covered by the purple smoky haze coming out from every nook and cranny of her body, enveloping her limbs in an eerie aura that would easily be mistaken for a CG effect if it was a movie. She even had to sip the saliva back to her mouth occasionally.

[Morgan, you really need to finish it up quickly. With your current body, having me inject my power directly like this will only last for 2 minutes at best… Any longer than that, you’ll just pop out like a balloon and I don’t want that.]

Holy… Is that real? Guess playtime is over then.

Realizing her time wasn’t that much, Morgan quickly dashed and launched another barrage of heavy punches on the already wounded Goblin Champion that was strangely showing no intention to give up either. Although it received Morgan’s punches directly on the abdomen and solar plexus, the Goblin Champion didn’t even budge and just continued to look for an opportunity to strike back by glancing its yellowish slit eyes over Morgan’s swift movements.

“You leave me with no choice… Philargyria.”

Seeing that her punches barely did any damage to the Goblin Champion due to how tough its muscle was, Morgan intended to switch her attack pattern to a more vicious one, using the tentacles but then stopped by a shrill shriek inside her head.

[Stop! Don’t use Philargyria! I’m still fixing it!]

… You… what!?

Morgan, who suddenly stopped her attack, made the Goblin Champion realize that it was its chance to strike and without thinking twice, launched its left arm with its palm open like a fly swatter.

“Ugh…!”

Unlike before when she had been prepared for the attack, Morgan didn’t try to block or deflect the swing. Instead, she evaded it by a hairbreadth and slid to the right, then quickly rolled her body and fixed her stature.

How long will it ta─

[Done! You can start using it again.]

After hearing the answer she was waiting for, Morgan quickly charged to the still confused Goblin Champion and readied her body to launch another heavy strike by jumping as high as she could and swung her left foot.

“Philargyria!”

Along with the trajectory of her flying kick, countless black tentacles quickly emerged from the air behind her, creating a pair of round engravings mid-air similar to magic circles with numerous purplish runic characters on the base.

“Eh…?”

The instant it happened, Morgan just let out a truly idiotic sound of her mouth. She didn’t expect any of that to happen, while in her mind she was trying to summon the tentacles from her shadow below. The tentacles were also bigger and chunkier than what Morgan knew of, with the suction parts wider and more visible.

[Goooooooooo!!!]

Just like a child cheering on a TV show, Cthylla shouted loudly in Morgan’s head as the tentacles burst through the air at tremendous speed and hit the Goblin Champion directly on its head. The sound the impact made was like an egg that shattered to the ground, crunchy and splattery at the same time. Right after crushing the Goblin Champion, the tentacles along with the magic circles vanished. Meanwhile, Morgan, who was still clueless, landed safely on the ground as she glanced at the lump of meat and bones that used to be the Goblin Champion.

What… the hell was that!?

With a really stupid look on her face, Morgan shouted internally, while at the same time asking Cthylla for explanation.

[Ah, you see… I’ve been wondering why the tentacles were so small and inefficient and just now, I found the answer.]

Cthylla paused for a brief moment.

[Someone, no, the one who dwelled inside your body before infused 3 unrelated skills into Philargyria, making it far much weaker and smaller compared to its original size. And that now was only around 10% of its original power.]

Why didn’t you tell me earlier?

[Honestly, I was a little skeptical that you’ll be able to fulfill our contract. And this is the ‘crack’ you’ve said before. Just before this, you could only muster around 0.001% of Philargyria’s original state. But now it’ll grow rapidly as you devour more things.]

“Seriously…? That was only 10%?”

Unconsciously, Morgan said it out loud. She was confused and dubious at the seemingly dreamy kind of power she might be able to exert. Morgan was lost in her deep thoughts until she heard someone clapping from the gate’s direction.

“Splendid! Truly a sight to behold, Morgan!”

There, a young man with auburn colored hair clapped his hands cheerfully, while showing a wide smile unethical enough compared to his rather calm and soft face. Almost instantly, Morgan readied herself for another brawl but then stopped by the young man’s words.

“No, no, no! I’m not your enemy! Instead, I wanna know you better, Morgan.”

“Who the hell are you? How do you know my name?”

Not letting her guard down even for a moment, Morgan questioned the young man in a cold manner.

“Ah, how rude of me.”

The young man bowed and made a salute like a nobleman would do. He then uttered.

“My name is Lennon de Grimm. Well, you can say I’m Diana’s acquaintance.”

After hearing the young man’s name, Morgan’s ears twitched as a certain memory flashed up in her mind.

Lennon? The name that Diana blurted out when she interrogated me? Why is he here?

As if knowing what Morgan was actually thinking, Lennon abruptly replied.

“Ah, I’m here because I’ve been dispatched by the Guild Master after she received the report that there’s a goblin settlement near Agate Port City and a sighting of a Goblin Champion.”

He then glanced at the lump in front of Morgan’s feet and grinned.

“Guess there’s no action left for me now. What a shame.”