—CRACK!
Sirin’s fist connected squarely with the underside of Heres’s jaw.
She felt her own wrist shatter on impact—but at the same moment, she heard the vertebrae in Heres’s neck rotate.
Heres didn’t feel the blow.
The world simply switched off for a moment, like someone had cut the power.
“…”
When he opened his eyes, his first instinct was to look for the woman.
The one who’d been right in front of him just a second ago—that infuriatingly, damnably beautiful woman who’d gotten under his skin like a splinter.
But she wasn’t there.
Nowhere to be found.
*Where did she go…?*
Instead, all he saw were the faces of his men, drained white as chalk.
They stood frozen, as if they’d just seen a ghost.
What’s with those stupid expressions?
Why are they staring at me like that?
*These idiots…*
Heres felt a surge of irritation.
*Wake up, you morons.
The beggar bitch ran off!
Go find her!*
Strange.
He’d clearly opened his mouth.
But no sound came out.
How very odd.
A vague, nameless wrongness swirled through his thoughts, questions circling without answers—but everything was growing dim.
The faces of his men, the darkening sky, even his own thoughts.
Everything bled to black and receded.
“D-Deputy Commander…?”
One of the mercenaries called out to him, voice careful and small.
Heres’s face and the back of his head were visible at the same time.
And over his shoulder, they could see the masked face of that insane beggar woman.
Only then did the mercenaries understand what had happened.
One punch from that crazy bitch had spun Heres’s neck clean around.
They cried out in horror.
“Heres!”
“Deputy Commander!”
Sirin was speechless.
These idiots strutted around calling themselves mercenaries, but they didn’t have the most basic grasp of common sense.
“You brain-dead morons! Get it together!”
Sirin’s sharp voice cut through the air, and the mercenaries flinched as one.
The faces of men who’d spent their time bullying children and old people.
Sirin wanted to plant her fist in each and every one of those stupid faces.
She was running hot—the sight of blood had her blood up.
But…
“Hgh…!”
The terror on their faces filled her vision.
Sirin took a slow breath.
These mercenary scum were trash who’d kick an old market vendor, sure—but that wasn’t a capital offense.
They were nothing like Heres, who’d gone straight for a knife against a child.
Which meant they deserved to be handled differently.
Right.
Every person carries within them the potential for change.
In that case, wasn’t it the duty of a civilized person dropped into a barbaric world to enlighten and educate the savages?
Sirin resolved to exercise patience, as befitted a civilized human being, and explain things kindly.
“Allow me to share with you one fundamental principle of human anatomy.”
The mercenaries swallowed.
What was this crazy woman going to say now?
“That principle is…”
“…?”
“Remarkably—when a person’s neck snaps, they die!”
Sirin smacked the back of Heres’s head and announced it to the world.
“A broken neck doesn’t mean you can suddenly see the people standing behind you! When a person’s neck snaps, they die! No matter how many times you call a dead man’s name, he’s not going to answer! You thick-skulled idiots don’t even know that much!”
“…!”
Silence.
Dead silence.
“…W-Witch…!”
“A witch, it’s a witch!”
Then someone else screamed it in a voice that tore through the air.
Those words were like a spell that snapped the last thread of reason holding everyone together.
“A witch!”
“R-Run!”
Reason collapsed.
Only survival instinct remained.
The mercenaries screamed and bolted back the way they’d come, running like their lives depended on it.
Sirin watched their retreating backs for a moment, then clicked her tongue.
The enlightenment project had failed, it seemed.
Spreading the gifts of civilization to savages really was no easy task.
“Ugh…”
Only then did the pain in her side hit her in full force.
Sirin grimaced and shoved Heres’s body—which had been leaning against her—carelessly to the side.
It hit the ground with a dull thud.
“Hff…”
She grabbed the hilt of Heres’s sword, still buried in her body, and pulled.
The cold steel dragged through flesh with a deeply unpleasant sensation, and hot blood surged up in its wake.
The sharp, metallic smell of iron stabbed at her nose.
*Son of a—that hurts like hell…*
“Come on, babe… do your thing…”
Sirin really was like an old CRT television.
She even shared the trait of getting her channels scrambled when she took a hit.
She said it again, enunciating each syllable.
“Son. Of. A. Bitch. That. Hurts. Like. Hell.”
She hurled the sword away in irritation.
The blade was slicked with hot blood.
Her new clothes were soaked through and ruined.
Sirin scowled and examined the wound.
The Mode’s auto-recovery was already knitting it shut, but that didn’t make the pain disappear.
“Bastard. Could’ve stabbed a little gentler.”
She looked down at Heres’s body, still faintly warm.
He lay there with the back of his head facing forward instead of his face.
A grotesque sight.
“…”
Sirin found, to her mild surprise, that she rather liked it.
Seeing only the back of his head instead of that ugly mug was a definite improvement.
*Tsk, tsk.
Should’ve gone around like that from the start.
If he’d always led with the back of his head, maybe Merye would’ve had a little more patience serving him…*
She thought this while staring at the back of Heres’s skull.
He was garbage—but he had been a member of a mercenary company that hunted monsters on the frontier.
And whatever else he was, he’d given her the invaluable gift of Body Enlightenment.
Sirin decided to show him a modicum of respect.
She pressed her palms together in a clumsy approximation of a prayer and muttered over the corpse.
“Namu Amitabha… What was your name again, Heres or whatever? In your next life, I hope you’re born with something a little longer. Fix your personality while you’re at it, if you can manage. Don’t bother with paradise.”
Her halfhearted send-off complete, Sirin pulled up the system window.
The messages that had flashed during the fight were worth reviewing.
[ Through pain and damage, you comprehend the principles of martial arts with your body! ]
[ Through Body Enlightenment, you grasp the foundations of a new martial art! ]
[ Skill Acquired: Hou Yi Sun-Piercing Sword — Pierce! ]
[ Hou Yi Sun-Piercing Sword ]
[ A supreme technique of Jian Cang that channels the principle of piercing (射) the sun into the sword (劍). ]
“Pierce, huh…”
Sirin read the last message and slowly opened and closed her right hand.
The pain was still there, but the broken wrist had already recovered enough to move.
She closed her eyes and mentally retraced the movement from moments ago.
The skill gained through Body Enlightenment.
The sensation her body remembered.
Left hand gauging distance.
Right arm drawn back to its limit, compressing force.
Every muscle and joint in her body twisting, firing that force toward a single point.
Pierce—尖.
The result wasn’t something achievable through the raw destructive power of a simple punch.
Still—a sword that shoots the sun.
Quite the grandiose name.
More than anything, one line in the system message nagged at her.
[ Through Body Enlightenment, you grasp the foundations of a new martial art! ]
“Hmm…”
The system said foundations.
So this Sun-Piercing Sword wasn’t a fully acquired martial art yet?
Was Pierce just something like a basic technique—a building block?
Her thoughts didn’t have time to go further.
“You there—unidentified woman! Stand down!”
An urgent shout came from the direction of the village, and several torches came rushing toward her.
Sirin turned her head.
Marta was running toward her, face drained of color, alongside a group of men in uniform.
The Imperial Constabulary.
“Step back!”
Sirin recognized the face behind that shout.
Roderick.
Detachment Commander of the Imperial Constabulary.
*Finally dragged yourself out, did you.*
Public servants being slow to show up was apparently a universal constant, whether in the modern world or another one entirely.
Sirin stepped aside without a word.
One of the constables approached with a torch and looked down at Heres, drawing a sharp breath.
“He’s… dead…!”
Roderick’s jaw tightened.
A village beggar woman standing next to a bloodied sword.
The body of a mercenary company’s deputy commander with his neck twisted backward.
The bloody sword was clearly Heres’s.
And the bloodstain was spreading from the woman’s abdomen.
But the dead one was Heres.
The situation looked obvious—and at the same time, utterly absurd.
Had Heres stabbed her?
And then she’d killed him?
Alone?
How?
A dozen questions crowded Roderick’s mind, but securing the suspect came first.
“Don’t move. I’m placing you under arrest as a suspect in a homicide.”
“Ha.”
Sirin laughed as if she’d just heard a genuinely funny joke.
In the torchlight, her eyes were playful and cold at once.
“My, my, Commander. Aren’t you hasty. How can you already be throwing around words like ‘suspect’ when you didn’t even see me do it? I must say, the Imperial Constabulary’s eyes are sharp indeed. If only your feet were half as quick—ah, pardon me.”
“…”
Roderick absorbed two shocks in quick succession.
First: the raving beggar woman who’d only ever spat curses was speaking in coherent, measured sentences.
Second: what she was actually saying was anything but ordinary.
He caught her implication.
If the Constabulary had intervened sooner, no one’s neck would have been snapped.
And if the Constabulary had been doing its job properly in the first place, the villagers wouldn’t have been threatened by a rampaging mercenary company at all.
*She’s not just some crazy beggar.
She had a curse on her—and it’s been released?
What kind of heavyweight is hiding out in a backwater like this…*
Whether she knew what was going through his head or not, Sirin just kept smiling that slow, circular smile.
She pressed on.
“Of course, it’s a shame that this fine mercenary gentleman has met an unfortunate end—but isn’t it a bit much to pin it on this beggar woman right off the bat? Does it make any sense, rationally speaking, that a penniless, powerless beggar woman beat a strapping mercenary gentleman to death with her bare hands?”
She nudged Heres’s corpse with the toe of her foot.
“Who knows. Maybe this gentleman was walking along and suddenly came down with that rare disease where your neck snaps without warning. The possibilities are endless, aren’t they?”
“…”
Roderick stared at her.
It was complete nonsense.
But provoking someone who might have just snapped a deputy commander’s neck with her bare hands wasn’t exactly sound judgment either.
And if she was a heavyweight who’d been carrying a curse on top of that—even less so.
Roderick made a compromise.
“…I’ll be questioning you as a witness to the incident. Cooperate.”
Sirin smiled at that.