Heres’s face had gone past red with rage and was darkening toward a deep, ugly crimson.
“You filthy bitch. Don’t think this ends with that tongue of yours.”
Heres finally closed his hand around the hilt at his hip.
The scrape of steel leaving its scabbard rang out sharp and clear through the twilight silence.
Just before he could draw the blade completely, one of the larger mercenaries beside him grabbed Heres by the arm.
“V-Vice Commander! Please, hold yourself! We’re still inside the village…!”
“Shut up!”
Heres wrenched his subordinate’s arm away.
His eyes had already lost all reason, locked onto Sirin.
But the other mercenaries were muttering uneasily among themselves.
Yes, Sirin’s provocation had crossed every line — but murder was a different matter entirely.
And the village had plenty of witnesses.
One of the mercenaries turned and bellowed at the bystanders.
“What are you all staring at?! Get lost! You want to see blood that badly?!”
The villagers stumbled back in fright, but couldn’t quite bring themselves to leave.
Fear held them — but so did something else, some nameless feeling they couldn’t name, watching this insane beggar woman brazenly stand her ground against a violent mercenary.
Sirin watched them and let out a quiet, amused snort.
“Heres, Heres, you dense fool. You planning to spill blood in front of the gods on a holy day? What, you don’t have a god you answer to? Then again, if a god handed you something that pitiful between your legs, I suppose you’d stop believing in anything too.”
“That goddamn crazy bitch—!”
Heres’s hand moved toward his sword again.
“You brainless idiot.”
Sirin pressed on.
“You want your lackeys struck down by divine punishment too? Stop being stupid and come outside. Out there, maybe the blind gods will look the other way while you do whatever pathetic thing you’re planning.”
She glanced pointedly at his lower half and added:
“Though I do wonder if that… that… that thimble-sized courage of yours is even up to it.”
*’Oh, you think you’re so tough?
Take it outside’* — a provocation that worked just as well in ancient times as it did in the modern era.
Sirin had simply added a little seasoning.
When she finished speaking, she lifted the crude bread-sack mask she’d been wearing — just for a moment, just a flash — and let it drop back down.
A careful, deliberate gesture meant for Heres’s eyes only.
“…!”
Heres’s breath caught.
It was only an instant, but he saw it.
Even in the dimming twilight, Sirin’s face seemed to emit its own light.
Pale skin with a faint luminous glow, a soft blush barely visible on her cheeks, eyes deep and sharp as a lake at night, a nose as clean as carved marble, lips the color of red.
An unreal, inhuman beauty.
The power of 180 Charm struck Heres’s reason in that brief moment like a hammer blow.
The murderous fury burning in his eyes began to give way to a different kind of hunger.
Not the simple desire to kill — but the desire to break that beauty, to possess it.
“…Fine.”
Heres growled low in his throat.
He shoved his sword back into its scabbard and jerked his chin.
“We go outside the village.”
He turned and shouted at the villagers with open menace.
“Anyone who dares follow us — don’t expect to see tomorrow morning!”
“Ha!”
At Heres’s words, Sirin was already moving.
“S-she’s running!”
Heres and the mercenaries gave chase immediately.
Sirin glanced back at the men following her.
Not all of them.
A few were watching from where they stood, then quietly turning their feet in a different direction — toward their own camp.
Sirin was baffled.
*Where the hell are those ones going?
Running to get their daddy?
Just to catch one beggar woman?*
“Stop right there!”
Her thoughts were cut short.
She’d been luring the idiots along, yes — but she’d also gotten a little drunk on the rush of her stat level-ups.
The 500% EXP boost was applying weight even to something as simple as running, inflating Sirin’s Agility stat in real time over those short seconds.
In the twilight, Sirin’s pale nape and black hair swayed as she ran.
Heres and the mercenaries followed as if spellbound.
“Hehe.”
She ran for a while like that, then slowed to a stop with a snicker.
An open clearing past the village boundary, where no one came.
The sun had nearly vanished beyond the horizon, and the first star of the night was beginning to flicker faintly in the sky.
Sirin crossed her arms, caught her breath, and turned a mocking smile on Heres and his men as they closed the distance.
“My, my. Was that too far a run? Heres, it seems your legs are short too.”
“Shut your mouth!”
A low snarl scraped out of Heres’s throat.
There was still some distance between them, but Sirin’s sharpened senses could feel his killing intent as vividly as a physical thing.
“Good heavens.”
Sirin sighed with theatrical dismay.
“Short between the legs, and short in the legs. What is one to do? You would’ve arrived faster crawling.”
“You goddamn—”
“Don’t tell me your arms are short too? Truly a complete and total wreck of a body. Yes, that would explain why Merye was unsatisfied — if even your fingers are short… wait. Hold on.”
Sirin trailed off mid-sentence, tilting her head as though she’d just noticed something was off.
“Wait, wait. Merye is the one providing a service. She’s not the one being done to — she’s the one doing. So it wouldn’t matter how short your parts are… hold on. But then, if he still hit her despite that…”
Several emotions crossed Sirin’s face in quick succession.
Realization.
Then pity.
She looked at Heres with genuinely sorrowful eyes.
“Could it be… that… Merye couldn’t even… get a grip on it? Was it that… small?”
“AAAARGH!!!!”
No more words were needed.
Heres launched himself off the ground and hurled himself at Sirin.
In an instant, his figure blurred — leaving only a pair of deep boot-prints gouged into the earth.
This jumbled, patchwork world of a fantasy setting came with a suitably eclectic range of abilities.
Mages cast spells, naturally.
Certain knights and holy warriors wielded auras.
There were even real, living gods who occasionally handed out blessings when moved by devotion — or sometimes just on a whim.
What Heres had received was the blessing of the god of the winged staff and sandaled feet — Swift Step.
Whether Heres actually worshipped that god or had simply caught the eye of the patron deity of fleet-footed thieves, no one could say.
Either way, the blessing gave him footwork twice as fast as any ordinary man.
His specialty: a thrust driven by that accelerated stride.
It was that skill — and nothing else — that had earned him the rank of Vice Commander despite a personality that was, frankly, garbage.
Accelerated by his blessing, Heres’s sword shot toward Sirin at a speed that was nearly impossible to track with the naked eye, aimed to skewer a single point clean through.
*Filthy beggar bitch.*
Even in the compressed moment of acceleration, Heres’s mind was running.
*I was going to kill her, but I’ll be generous — I’ll just use that mouth of hers.
Shame to waste a face like that.*
The tip of his blade targeted Sirin’s body.
Heres had the luxury of deliberating exactly where to put it.
*The stomach?
No. Can’t hit anything vital.
The arm?
Somehow I don’t think a stab in the arm is going to shut that crazy bitch up.
Right.
The thigh, then.*
Stick her in the thigh.
Watch her bleed and crawl.
That would be satisfying enough.
Yes.
Let her taste real fear first, and then—
Heres’s eyes went wide.
His blade had been aimed at her thigh.
But somehow, without him understanding how, the tip was driving into her side instead.
Sirin had moved outside his prediction.
“Ngh—!”
With a sharp spike of pain, Heres’s sword bit into Sirin’s flank.
The ugly sensation of parting flesh and bone.
Pain that would have dropped any normal person screaming.
But instead of screaming, Sirin had a revelation.
— *Ding!*
There’s an old joke about shock and insight — that getting hit in the head brings enlightenment.
The ancient records of the literary world contain a relevant account.
There was once a serpent-kin who harbored forbidden desires for his sister.
He tripped and cracked the back of his skull on the ground — and in that moment, gained the ability to wield the sacred power of the water goddess.
A truly bizarre tale, by any measure.
But Sirin now understood that this ancient, absurd story was not a joke or a metaphor.
It was a perfectly straightforward statement of fact.
Like an old cathode-ray television that flickered back to life when you smacked it, the intense physical shock of being stabbed triggered something inside her body — the sensation of something *switching on*.
The system flashed, and a new message appeared.
[ ! Coward’s Rest Mode — For the Ultimate Cowards ! ]
[ EXP Gain +500% Applied! ]
[ Level Up! ]
[ Intense Attack Detected! Body Enlightenment System Activated! ]
[ Through pain and damage, you comprehend the principles of martial arts with your body! ]
[ Through Body Enlightenment, you grasp the foundations of a new technique! ]
“Ahaha. So that’s how it works.”
Sirin laughed.
Pain had broken her, and pain had enlightened her.
Heres could not understand why she was laughing, or what her words meant.
The laugh didn’t last long.
Still impaled on the blade, Sirin twisted her body in a strange, unnatural way.
Her left hand extended forward — as if to push him away.
No. It wasn’t a push.
It wasn’t a block.
It was an extension to measure something.
To aim.
Her arm held perfectly still, fingers pointing with precise intent at the target.
Her right arm, by contrast, was wrenched back behind her body to its absolute limit.
Elbow bent sharp, fist clenched tight, knuckles level with her cheek.
Like a spring coiled to the breaking point, storing energy until the moment of detonation — every muscle in her body twisted, channeling all force into that single point.
Heres felt a flash of déjà vu.
He recognized this stance from somewhere.
It was familiar.
He was certain of it.
But he couldn’t place it.
Not a fighting style — not exactly.
Not swordsmanship either, though it was something close.
It looked like a stance for *launching* something—
Before Heres could identify the source of that creeping dread, Sirin’s right arm exploded forward.
All that coiled force — released into a single point.
Like.
An arrow loosed from a bowstring.
[ Hou Yi Sun-Piercing Sword (后羿射日劍) ]
Hou Yi (后羿), the divine archer who shot down the suns (射日).
A martial art forged by those who served him (點蒼).
[ Pierce (尖) ]
Sirin’s fist became an arrow and drove straight into Heres’s jaw.