“Young miss, how are you fe—”

“Get out.”

“But—”

“I said, get out.”

“...As you wish.”

With a regretful expression, Ria retreated.

Now left alone in a fairly spacious tent, I examined myself again.

Three days had passed since then. As I’d come to expect, my cure didn’t work on me. The black spot had already grown to cover half of my arm. 

I felt…lethargic. My body felt heavier than before. And worst of all?

[AUR has decreased by 1]  

My Aura was fast depleting every day.

Right after I discovered the black spot, I used Aura to repel the disease right away. Unfortunately, it was already too late, so all I could do was temporarily halt its progress at the cost of my permanent Aura reserve.

It also meant that as soon as my Aura ran out, the repressed diseases would flare up, and I would die in a matter of hours.

Me? Die? Hah, how…terrifying.

I didn’t register it before when I almost died blocking the [Fireball] for kid Ihwa, but now, the sense of dread was inescapable. The disease slowly ate away at me every day, and the fact that my Aura was being permanently consumed was also too terrifying to soothe.

I-I couldn’t put my current fear into words. Involuntarily, I sobbed; hard. Streams of tears ran down my cheeks as I hugged my knees.

I could hear the entrance of my tent being pushed open, but I didn’t care. That was, until I felt a familiar warmth embracing me.

“Young miss…”

I barely lifted my head up to meet her gaze.

“Ria…get out. I don’t want you to get infected.”

“No.” She shook her head resolutely. “It’s not good to deal with this alone, young miss. I know that you’re strong, but you can’t just bottle up everything.”

“...”

“I’m always here for you.”

As soon as I heard this, something inside me broke. Like a broken dam, tears gushed down out of eyes as I hugged Ria tight; sad whimpers and wails coming out of my throat.

{H-Hey, why are you crying?} Avaron suddenly asked.

Sniffling and trying to calm my trembling voice down, I stammered in a half-whisper. “W-What if I die? I don’t want to die…”

{...Are you fucking serious?}

“Young miss! What are you saying? You won’t die!”

Two completely different reactions. Not to mention, I didn’t expect Avaron to say that at all. Since I’d already known what Ria was going to say next, my attention was entirely on Avaron.

‘W-What do you mean?’

{You really think—! Urgh! Don’t call me for a few days. I need to think.}

‘W-Where are you going?’

{None of your business. And…} she sighed. {...you’re going to make it if you don’t give up. Remember that.}

Then, the sword went silent.

I was then pampered by Ria for serval more hours. When it was almost midnight, she regretfully bid me goodbye. Now left alone in the tent with no guards, no Hannah, no Ria, and even no Avaron, I began to question everything.

‘Why am I even here?

‘Why did I think that this is a good idea?’

Eventually, those thoughts melted into more relevant questions.

‘Why didn’t the cure work?

‘Why was I infected? I had the same artifact as Ria, and she seems to be okay.’

Such questions plagued my mind, and I began to think. Hard.

However, even after an hour, I couldn’t think of anything.

Feeling overwhelmed by all of this, I decided to sneak out for some fresh air.

Thankfully, it wasn’t too hard since literally no one was guarding my tent. As I caught a whiff of the cool night air, I began observing my surroundings.

Dilapidated and half-crumbling buildings on one side, and sturdy concrete ones on the other. This was the border between the slums and the normal part of the town.

I requested my tent to be specifically there since it was too noisy in the town center; and noisiness and I obviously didn’t get along.

I strolled through the abandoned buildings, whistling to calm my mind down; until incidentally, I came across a weird patch of empty land.

I wasn’t going to question it. Picking up a nearby sword on the ground, I began practicing my Swordsmanship out of habit.

Why was there a sword lying around ownerless? Well, with soldiers also dying of the disease, no one wanted to pick up the dead men’s weapons. I mean, really, it was a waste of resources, but I guessed that no amount of logic could convince the fear-stricken soldiers otherwise.

I gripped the sword hard and slashed at a tree, cutting half-way into it. 

‘A bit weak but…not bad.’

Then, I tried it with a boulder. And, as I’d expected, the best I could do was put scratches on it. I could probably smash it apart with Aura, but I didn’t want to waste it.

With a tired sigh, I stabbed the sword into the ground and plopped down. As soon as I did so, however—

“W-What’s this?”

—I felt something…strange.

The strangeness didn’t stop with the feeling, however.

“T-The blackspot? They’re growing?”

And not just that.

[AUR has decreased by 1.2]

‘T-The drain rate rose? N-No! It hasn’t even been a day since the last drain!’

With a trembling body, I got up immediately and turned to leave. However, there was a sudden…pull, to put it bluntly.

I was drawn to this patch of land; no doubt. Particularly, the area that the sword was stabbed in. 

Staring at it for a while, I grumbled.

“Let’s just get it over with.”

[Iron tail]

As my fluffy tail (unfortunately) turned steel-hard, I smashed it into the ground. Dust rose, and a loud noise rang out throughout the silent night, but I didn’t care. No one would come here, anyway.

After a few dozen hits, I could feel my tail hitting something…metallic, not the stones or soft dirt. Curious, I returned my tail to its former glorious fluffiness and scrapped the few fistfuls of dirt aside to grab the metal object. Well, I didn’t need to grab it, as the object floated on my palm by itself.

Bringing it closer to my face, I inspected it.

It was an orb with two rotating rings around it. Giving off a dark aura, it definitely seemed like something ominous. In fact, I knew for sure that it was something really, really bad.

“Isn’t this the P—”

“Hey there.”

A sudden husky voice made me stumble back in shock. I almost released the object by instinct, but I managed to hold onto it. I knew how bad it would be for me if it broke, after all.

After that, I calmed myself down and picked up the sword. Turning around, I tried to give the owner of the voice the sweetest smile. Emphasis on tried.

“Hi.”

“What’s a little girl like you doing here?”

I snickered inwardly as I saw the man, who was supporting himself with a cane, and was probably in his 80s. Due to the fact that it was night, he couldn’t see my face really clearly despite the object in my hands giving off a fairly dim light.

In contrast, I could see him extremely well; most likely due to my new constitution as a Fox-girl. 

“Oh, I’m just playing around for a bit.”

“Is that so?” The man nodded; though, his eyes remained glued to the object. “Well, I heard some loud noises, and I came over to check.”

“Ah, as you can see, everything’s fine.”

“Hmmm, is that so? But the object you’re holding…”

“What about it?”

“You see, that’s my possession. I buried it here for safe-keeping, but it seems that you’ve dug it up by accident. Do you mind returning it to me, little girl?”

I eyed the old man carefully since he was extremely suspicious. The slums were emptied, so he had no reason to be here. Not to mention, he was healthy; awfully so. With ripped muscles and steady heartbeats, one wouldn’t assume that he was from a village stricken by disease such as this. In fact, I could tell that he was stronger than even the best soldiers here.

And, the fact that he claimed ownership of such a vile item could only mean one thing.

As such, I slowly opened my mouth—

“Okay.”

—and slowly approached him.

The man smiled and nodded as I got closer to him. However, his face contorted into a frown as he noticed that I was holding a sword.

“Uhh, little girl, you shouldn’t be playing with blades.”

I gripped the sword even more firmly.

The man frowned as he realized that something was amiss. Bringing his cane closer to his chest, he slid a portion of the cane off, revealing a bladed tip.

‘Tch, he found out, huh?’

I threw the object to the ground, dashed toward him and swung my sword. Unfortunately, he managed to block my attack in time; and rather easily, too.

“I don’t know how you found out, but—” he knocked my back alongside my sword using only strength. “—you would’ve been better off feigning ignorance, little girl.”

Picking up my sword again, I pointed it at him.

“So, you’re the one spreading the disease?”

“I wouldn’t dare claim to be ‘the one.’” He laughed.

‘So, there are multiple of them…’

If that was the case, I should take him alive.

Watching the man approach me with his blade-cane dragging behind him, I assessed my options. Using [Star step] or [Meteor sword] would definitely not be worth it considering the fact that Aura was the sole reason why I was still able to fight him right now. Pure strength wouldn’t work either, for obvious reasons.

So, there was only one reasonable thing left to attempt: Technique.

I summoned Avaron and got into a dual-wielding stance with her.

The man’s eyebrow cocked, but he probably just shrugged it off as one last desperate attempt. And, his next words proved my thought to be right.

“Any last words?”

‘Well, let’s take up on his offer.’

“Have you heard of the Swordsmaster who broke the Stars?”

“Swordsmaster Nova? Yes, I have. What a weird thing to say as you last w—”

“Then,” I rudely interrupted him. “Have you ever heard of the Swordsmaster who linked the Stars?”

“...No.”

“Lucky you.” I let out a dry chuckle. “You’re about to see her prowess first-hand.”

“What bullshit a—”

The first movement of [Star-linking Sword]:

“[Vulpeculae]”

I dashed toward him with immense speed. My feet felt light; and it wasn’t due to the effect of Aura-reinforcement. Instead, it was purely the result of the amazing footwork that came with my original Sword style. I only occasionally stopped to attack, before getting on the move again.

I struck his side and hit my target. He tried to counterattack, but I was already gone.

Sharp turns, light jabs, heavy slashes, predetermined yet unusual patterns; that was the essence of my Star-linking Sword.

Poor old man. He was turning around so much to barely block my attacks that I was sure his mind was a confused mess right now.

Crackling like a madwoman inside my mind, I finally reached the final part of [Vulpeculae].

With my swords crossed like a pair of scissors, I dashed head-first into the man. Seeing him raising his cane up to block, a smirk couldn’t help but form on my face.

As our weapons clashed—and I clearly losing the battle of strength—the man laughed.

“Got you now, annoying vixen.”

In response, I muttered,

“[Ansere]”

Like a Fox with a bleeding and whimpering Goose in its jaw, my sword cut his cane in half.

“Wha—”

But I didn’t even let him voice his surprise. Letting my swords naturally fall to the ground, I spunaround and—

[Iron tail]

—gave his solar plexus a nice, hard whack.

I quickly grabbed a sword and dived down on his body. Straddling his stomach, I thrust the sword through his arm, pinning him to the ground.

I gave him a quick jab to the chest to make him stop screaming in pain. Then, with a low voice, I asked, 

“Where are the other Plague stones?”

The Plague stone was the weird object that I’d picked up earlier. I’d seen them countless times in the areas that the Heavenly king of Plague had wreaked havoc in. It was also probably the reason why the artifact didn’t protect me from the disease; I most likely got too close to one without realizing.

And…to infect a village of this scale would require multiple Plague stones. 

Hearing my question, the old man spat blood from his mouth onto my cheek.

“Go to hell.”

‘His eyes…’

I knew what those crazed eyes meant. He wasn’t going to tell me anything important no matter what I did. Torturing him would just be a waste of time and energy.

“Little girl, do this dying old man a favor and tell me, how did you defeat me?”

I raised an eyebrow at his sudden question, but ultimately decided to humor him a bit.

“It’d be a disgrace to lose to someone like you. A Reincarnator’s Swordsmanship should be special, don’t you think?”

Not waiting for him to register the implications of my words, I pointed the tip of Avaron to his throat. Glaring at him, I asked my second and final question.

“Why are you doing this? Why make so many innocents suffer?” 

In response, he brought his thumb and index finger together with an annoying smirk plastered on his face.

“Money.”

This bastard didn’t deserve anyone witnessing his pathetic final moments. Closing my eyes, I muttered,

“...Go to hell.”

Avaron pierced his throat. Despite using a tool, I could feel every layer of his flesh and every fiber of his muscle giving way to the cold metal blade. 

Wiping the warm blood that was splashed on my face, I heaved a heavy sigh and stood up.

I stabbed Avaron into the ground and made my way back to the Plague stone. However, I soon found out that it was—

“FUCK! NO!”

—crushed to tiny little pieces.