Chapter 8: Purging the Village

In the night.

Sniffing the stench of rot in the air, the two hid in the backyard of a stone house.

Alirise was hidden on the roof.

Kana, in the center of the courtyard, nodded to Alirise by the moonlight.

At this moment, he held the prince’s sword in one hand, and a thick wooden board was strapped to his left arm.

This wooden board was his makeshift shield.

He had successfully activated the effect of the [Thunder Guard Medal (Silver)].

His current Constitution attribute

[Constitution: 6] +1

Because his Constitution was indeed very weak, any slight increase was felt quite significantly.

A sensation of ringing in his ears arrived.

Kana moved immediately, then went still again.

This kind of non-continuous, sudden movement would transmit information, but the giant bat would be unable to judge it.

Whether it was a ghoul or a giant bat, their brains were not very good; one could even say they had no intelligence at all.

The scouting party that had just used sonic detection would definitely come to investigate.

Sure enough.

He could already hear the sound of the giant bat flapping its wings; it was flying at a low altitude, just a bit higher than the rooftops.

Two ghouls were sprinting over.

Pressed against the wall.

One ghoul happened to stand by the wall, exposing half its body, looking as if it were scouting.

A flash of a sword.

The head flew high into the air.

This sword was indeed sharp.

Kana, who had swung the blade, instantly lunged out, raising the broken wooden board to press directly against the other ghoul, which was just behind the side of the first one.

Caught off guard, it was pinned directly to the ground.

The giant bat in mid-air let out a screech and dove down from the sky.

Before its claws could touch Kana, it felt a weight land on its back.

Its body tilted instantly, and before it could adjust or see the situation clearly, a sword pierced directly through its skull.

Its body went limp, leaving only the instinctive twitching of muscles.

The corpse slammed into the ground.

Before it even hit the ground, Alirise had already jumped off the carcass. She landed next to Kana and pierced the head of the struggling ghoul with one strike.

This scouting party had been dealt with in less than 10 seconds.

"We need to move, quickly."

The commotion just now would surely have alerted others; after all, there was no heavy rain tonight.

Howls echoed one after another.

The two hurriedly changed positions.

As they passed through a house, Kana seemed to see something and picked up two forks and a table knife.

Just as they slipped out the other side, a giant bat had already discovered them and was in pursuit.

The giant bat was about to screech when Alirise, below, turned instantly and threw a stone she had picked up at some point, using a throwing motion.

The stone even made a whistling sound in the air as it smashed heavily into the giant bat's head.

It embedded itself directly into its skull.

Watching this scene, Kana stopped in his tracks.

"We aren't leaving."

Alirise was stronger than he had imagined once she regained her state.

These weren't monsters in a game; they wouldn't be digitized. A hit to the head was an instant kill, not just a critical hit that drained a health bar.

There were no health bars to grind down here; every hit to a weak point brought a massive advantage.

Two ghouls rushed out from both sides.

The one charging at Alirise had its head split open before it could even attack.

The one charging at Kana was kicked away by Alirise, who had retracted her sword and turned.

After landing, its head was pierced by a stone.

Kana stood in place the entire time.

"Your Highness, are you alright?"

"Uh... I'm fine."

What was the point of using underhanded tricks or tactics?

He should just steamroll them.

Level suppression in reality was far more absurd than in a game.

Kana made a comparison, his impression of the game beginning to shift slowly in his heart.

"Awoo!"

With a wolf howl, a black shadow jumped down from a roof more than 10 meters away.

Following behind it were two more ghouls and a giant bat.

"Leave that werewolf and the bat to me; I can handle the two ghouls."

After saying this, Kana shoved the table knife he had just picked up into Alirise's hand.

Before Alirise could ask, he said directly, "This table knife is silver; it can suppress that werewolf."

Having said that, he jumped back and away.

Alirise couldn't worry about that now.

She threw a stone to knock the giant bat down, though this time it didn't hit the head precisely.

But the damage caused was enough to bring the giant bat down.

She gripped her longsword and faced the black shadow directly.

So this was a werewolf?

Alirise had never seen a werewolf, nor had she even heard of one.

But the monster in front of her was clearly a werewolf; it had a wolf's head and stood upright like a wolf, though there were very obvious stitched scars on its body.

She hadn't encountered this type of monster while fleeing earlier, so Alirise didn't know how strong it was.

She swung her sword with force.

The werewolf seemed to sense the danger and immediately crossed its arms.

With the sound of metal clashing, the sword struck the werewolf's forearm guards.

"Great strength, but a bit weaker than mine." Alirise reached a conclusion.

Without hesitation, she pressed down with force.

She instantly forced the werewolf to take two steps back.

She quickly retracted her sword, bent her waist, and slammed directly into the werewolf's chest.

The werewolf was about two meters tall, much taller than Alirise.

As she collided with it, the hilt of her sword smashed upward into the werewolf's chin.

The entire process was fluid and extremely fast.

The blade sliced, leaving a wound on the werewolf's waist and abdomen. She rolled on the spot, dodging the werewolf's downward claw strike.

Rising again.

Alirise had made her judgment.

Its strength was not small, it was agile, and its fur and skin were tougher than she had imagined, but its combat technique was disorganized, relying entirely on instinct.

Thinking of other vampire-kin monsters, its regenerative ability must not be weak either.

It had to be an instant kill.

Taking advantage of this moment, Alirise didn't stay idle. She picked up a stone she had grabbed while rolling and threw it once more at the giant bat, which was trying to flap its wings and fly again.

This time, it precisely smashed through its head.

This action completely enraged the werewolf.

It was a complete provocation, a total disregard for him. It howled and lunged directly at her.

It seemed to be hot-tempered as well.

She took a step back to dodge the lunge, swung her blade to the side, and struck the werewolf's claws head-on.

The claws were very hard, sparking upon impact.

Alirise kicked the werewolf in the chest, sending it stumbling backward.

Stepping forward, she took advantage of the momentum to step in, her blade piercing straight and hard into the werewolf's chest.

Thinking of the potential regenerative power of these monsters, she pulled out the table knife from behind her waist.

She trusted Kana's words completely and, without hesitation, plunged the table knife into the werewolf's chest as well.

"Grahhh!"

With the insertion of the table knife, the werewolf let out a howl far louder than before.

Alirise took this opportunity to kick it, driving the table knife—blade and handle—into the wound. She pulled her sword back at the same time.

The werewolf clawed frantically at its own chest, roaring and wailing, completely unable to fight.

Is it this effective?

Alirise hadn't expected such a good result, so she didn't hesitate. She stepped forward, swung her blade in a semicircle, and directly decapitated the werewolf, which was now unable to resist.

She turned her head to look at the other side.

She happened to see Kana use his shield to knock the remaining ghoul to the ground, then swing his sword to cut off its head.

Kana looked at Alirise, seeing that she had also finished the fight without a single scratch on her.

He hadn't expected them to clear out the entire village in such a short time.

We really are amazing.

He stood up and walked over to the werewolf's corpse.

By the moonlight, he looked at its chest.

The table knife was stuck there, but there was a large area around it that looked as if it had been corroded by sulfuric acid.

He pulled out the table knife and handed it back to Alirise.

"Your Highness, how did you know its weakness?"

Alirise couldn't help but ask; without this silver table knife, the fight wouldn't have been so easy to resolve.

At the very least, it would have taken several more rounds to kill it with a single sword strike.

Kana, who was busy stripping the werewolf's arm guards, said casually

"These monsters are actually the work of the people in the palace; the source of the problem is actually a conspiracy by those in the royal family."

"What?" Alirise was shocked.