“Guh-heck!”
One of the thugs went airborne with a grotesque sound.
The crisp smack of flesh being struck came as a bonus.
Klaus turned his stiff neck with great effort—and there she was.
The woman who had just left, now returned.
The Witch of the Tongue.
Sirin.
A pale moon happened to hang directly behind her head, tracing the outline of her dark silhouette like a halo.
Her face was hidden behind a mask.
But he could tell that her two red eyes were curved into a smile.
Klaus felt his heart drop.
The two eyes in the shadow spoke.
“Mr. Stalker.”
A soft, measured tone—utterly unlike what she’d been a moment ago, impossible to believe it came from the same person.
Klaus realized, belatedly, that Sirin’s voice was an exquisite thing.
“Looks dangerous. Want some help?”
“…!”
Did he need help?
Clearly, yes.
Did his pride permit it?
Absolutely not.
Klaus couldn’t say either.
His tongue and vocal cords were still locked like stone beneath a divine power.
He couldn’t produce a single sound.
“…”
Sirin studied him for a moment as if gauging something, then gave a small nod.
“Request received.”
What?
“In response to the customer’s desperate appeal, Sirin Financial Lending hereby approves our Emergency Relief Package. Product name: ‘Saintess’s Emergency Rescue.’ Annual interest rate: 10,000%, compounded. No collateral, no guarantor. In lieu thereof, a signed waiver of bodily autonomy is required. Loan application—approved.”
Sirin smiled with her eyes as though this were the most delightful thing in the world, and added one final line.
“We look forward to serving you, valued customer.”
Klaus wasn’t the only one left momentarily dumbstruck by that insane declaration.
One of the thugs—who had frozen in shock after watching his companion get launched into the air—stared at this bizarre scene and said:
“What in the hell is this woman on about?”
Another one chimed in.
“She come to find herself a boyfriend? That flashy uniform fellow must be something special, huh? Special enough to forgive cheating?”
“Boyfriend? With that?”
Sirin felt a flicker of irritation at that.
She’d been feeling a mild comedown after verbally pummeling Klaus earlier—but this thug had just helpfully rekindled her motivation.
‘I was only going to rough them up a little and leave, but I suppose I should take this more seriously.’
With that thought, Sirin said:
“I’m a man, actually.”
‘….’
Sirin’s dual-core brain occasionally output strange things like this entirely of its own accord.
“….”
The thugs blinked at her words, then snickered.
“Must’ve lost her mind after getting dumped by that fancy gentleman.”
The one who appeared to be the ringleader stepped forward with a smirk, resting a club on his shoulder with an air of considerable arrogance.
“Not bad-looking for a dumped woman, though. Become my girl and I might be able to fix that broken head of yours. What do you say?”
“…”
Sirin didn’t answer.
She stared into the air for a moment as if thinking something through, then nodded as though she’d reached a conclusion.
“The hell are you talking about?”
“I’m saying I’ll double your bone count. Free investment in yourselves. I’m just overflowing with humanitarian spirit like this.”
“……”
Brutal words.
The grins faded from the thugs’ faces.
But Sirin paid no mind and continued in her soft, measured tone.
“End result: you’ll be reborn as a new species—the human-octopus hybrid. See, I’m so free of prejudice. People can become anything, you know? From human to cephalopod. Quite the revolutionary evolution.”
“…”
Over the past year, Sirin’s style of verbal abuse had undergone considerable evolution of its own.
In the early days after leaving the village, she’d simply hurled whatever insults came to mind.
Like she’d done with Heres and Gordo—mostly a simple, primal method of latching onto the other person’s physical features or sexual proclivities.
But using the same repertoire over and over gets boring.
So at some point, Sirin had developed a habit of twisting her insults and provocations into something more elaborate.
Things the other party couldn’t parse—or would have to chew over multiple times to understand.
Sophistry.
Convoluted barbs.
This produced an unintended effect.
She began to feel a kind of intellectual superiority when watching the other person fail to comprehend her twisted insults and sophistry.
It was a deeply damp, furtive pleasure—thoroughly modern in character.
If you were to give Sirin’s mental state a physical form, it wouldn’t be Sirin the Chilling—it would be Sirin the Dank.
Her delivery had shifted accordingly, becoming quite soft and measured.
A quiet, composed voice made accusations land harder.
Sirin was a beauty with 180 Charisma.
Even her insults had to have class.
Of course, when she was genuinely angry, she’d still unleash like a rabid Chihuahua—as she had on Klaus—but Sirin carried a constant passive ability of self-distortion that wiped such episodes cleanly from her memory the moment she turned away.
The option of simply not insulting people didn’t exist anywhere in her cognitive architecture.
That was the kind of person Sirin was.
“…Must be a full moon, the way the lunatics are out wandering.”
One of the thugs muttered.
Sirin ignored it lightly and, as though she truly had lost her mind, began walking toward the thugs—one step at a time.
The thugs tensed and closed in around her.
“…!”
To Klaus’s eyes, what Sirin was doing was the worst possible choice.
Sirin had no weapon.
The location was a narrow alley.
Visibility and movement were restricted.
The opposition: five men in low stances.
What they carried: rusted daggers and heavy clubs.
They had Sirin completely surrounded.
Klaus swallowed involuntarily.
The first principle of Imperial military tactical doctrine was: do not allow yourself to be encircled.
No—it wasn’t even a matter of doctrine.
The very first thing soldiers learned to survive on the battlefield was to maintain formation so that an enemy’s spear tip couldn’t find their flank.
The way frontier mercenaries hunted monsters was to drive the target into a blind spot—never to match strength head-on.
Even these mold-like thugs in front of him instinctively cut off the escape route first.
Encirclement didn’t simply mean the enemy outnumbered you.
It meant your retreat was cut off.
It meant attacks were coming from all sides simultaneously.
It meant that the moment you blocked one strike, three others would pierce your back and flanks.
No escape.
No suppression. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
No survival.
And yet Sirin was—
“Hmm. So—swordless Plum Blossom Sword Art, Plum Blossom Footwork, Plum Blossom Step, Flower Step…”
—muttering to herself with perfect serenity in the middle of certain death.
“Handmaiden of Flowers… no, that’s not right. Dance of Flowers. Yes, that works. Let’s go with that. Tonight I will absolutely nail this.”
That wasn’t bravado.
Klaus realized it.
That woman didn’t even register this situation as a crisis.
“What the hell are you babbling about!”
The ringleader bellowed.
“Save the flowers for a proposal, you crazy bitch!”
“Wow.”
Sirin’s eyes went wide.
“A thug who knows his way around a proposal—that’s actually kind of romantic? So, do you have someone to propose to?”
“You little—…”
His voice shook with fury, but Sirin only scoffed.
“Surely you’re not all theory and no practice?”
The ringleader finally snapped and screamed.
“Someone shut that mouth of hers first!”
The first to move was the club-wielder standing directly in front of Sirin.
At the same moment, two dagger-men on her left and right drove in toward her flanks.
To Klaus, it was the kind of coordinated dirty trick you only saw in real combat—not in any manual—and yet it was an efficient three-sided simultaneous attack.
Klaus’s eyes went wide.
He could see it clearly in his mind: Sirin tumbling to the ground with a blade in her side.
But he could not close his eyes.
Even having foreseen that terrible future, Imperial military training had made it impossible for Klaus to look away.
There was nowhere to retreat.
Not for Klaus, and not for Sirin.
“!”
But Sirin didn’t retreat.
Sirin stepped forward—directly into the descending club.
Her body slipped into the attack’s blind spot, and like a leaf caught in the wind, she flowed past the attacker’s body and out behind him.
“Huh—?”
The club-wielder stumbled, thrown off balance by his own swing cutting through empty air.
In that instant, Sirin lightly kicked him in the back.
He pitched forward against his will.
His falling body happened to catch the legs of one of the dagger-men who had been lunging for Sirin’s flank, tripping him.
The remaining dagger-man flinched in surprise—and in that moment, Sirin’s knife-hand was already striking the back of his neck.
He crumpled with a choked sound.
Three neutralized in an instant.
The entire sequence was as natural and unbroken as a choreographed dance.
Klaus found himself holding his breath without realizing it.
The two remaining thugs were rattled watching their companions go down so quickly—but rage overtook them and they charged at Sirin.
Sirin didn’t run toward them.
Sirin threw herself at the nearest wall.
Her feet hit the wall vertically, and using the rebound she twisted her body and launched herself at the opposite wall.
Zigzagging between the walls of the narrow alley, Sirin’s airborne form was less like a human and more like… yes.
A bee.
Or a butterfly.
“Get down here, you crazy bitch!”
One thug swung his club at the air—but before it could reach her, Sirin had already planted a foot on his shoulder and dropped behind him.
Before the man could even turn around, Sirin’s elbow drove into his torso.
Klaus watched it all, utterly transfixed.