Crimson Eternal - Book 6 - Chapter 44 (Patreon)

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Table of Contents

Click the following link for the 1371 word chapter 44:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uj4gUaj7Ghzrs3AXid-dGK4-S7d0s4JH3ZrB4uOf19g/edit?usp=sharing

Or you can read the unformatted version below:

On the Battlefield

Rackol Jarl, the longtime leader of the Dark Miners organization, feels a mixture of fear, anger, frustration, and confusion as he continues to strike at the strange woman in front of him. Repeatedly slashing straight through her body and cutting her into pieces, only for her body to suddenly recover as if nothing had happened.

All while she occasionally gets hits in on him, dealing shallow wounds one after another.

And if it were just those shallow wounds, he wouldn’t have any issues. But it’s not just those wounds. He figured that out rather quickly when he tried to heal the wounds and found that they wouldn’t heal.

Even that doesn’t make him too worried. Because there are plenty of skills in the universe that halt or delay healing for a time, and others that make healing harder.

He just has to use more powerful healing to heal the wounds.

With that in mind, he lets the wounds build up a bit more while continuing to attack her. Only to find out his mistake when he pulls out a top grade healing potion and finds that it doesn’t work at all.

Not a single wound heals. Meanwhile the woman gets another large slash in with her blade, tearing a gash across his arm by taking advantage of his pause to drink the potion.

And his vice leader isn’t faring any better, as he has even more unhealed wounds on him than Rackol has.

“Just keep attacking her!” Rackol telepathically shouts at his vice leader through their telepathic ring. “She can’t keep regenerating forever!”

With that plan in mind, he and his vice leader continue to attack her while occasionally taking small injuries themselves. But when the woman just continues to heal, and even summons more of the undead around them to attack, Rackol’s confidence begins to crack.

Then his vice leader slips up and takes a severe injury where the woman’s sword pierces straight into one of his deepest injuries before digging through his lung. And thanks to that, his injuries grow too severe to continue fighting for long, leaving him to be torn apart by the undead around them after just a few more minutes of fighting.

After seeing that, Rackol gives up on the idea of killing her and focuses on figuring out how to escape.

“Trying to run?” the woman asks while yawning. “I don’t think so.”

Rackol’s eyes narrow at her before he focuses on the armies of undead around them. Then he looks at the cat that is just running around the battlefield looking like it’s having a good time.

If it were just a normal cat, he would’ve ignored it and decided it wasn’t important. But the woman even stopped at one point during the battle to pet the cat, and the cat has similar colored eyes to the woman as well.

So he rushes the cat before grabbing it by its neck fur and raises his sword to the cat while turning to her and shouting, “Let me go if you care about this cat!”

At this point he’s just grasping at straws as he doesn’t genuinely believe she will just let him go for the cat. But he believes she will at least hesitate for it.

Then the neck fur he was holding the cat by suddenly rips off of the cat and the cat drops to the ground before shaking its head, sending him a frown, and casually walking away. All without looking even the slightest bit frightened or worried.

After a single instant of confusion, Rackol reacts, rushing forwards to sweep his blade at the cat’s legs in an attempt to cripple it into being unable to escape. Only for the cat to suddenly stop, leaving his blade to pass straight through the center of the cat instead. Cutting it in two.

His eyes widen at the sight of his last hope of escape vanishing, but not even a second later he finds his confusion overriding his despair. Because the two split parts of the cat reform into one just like the woman.

Just what are these two?!

He focuses on the woman again to find her acting as if what he just witnessed was no big deal. Just perfectly normal.

His gaze turns back to the cat when the cat just stretches a little and continues walking over to eventually sniff his vice leader’s corpse. Following which said cat just scruffs its nose up and walks away after kicking some dirt on the body.

What sort of cat even is this…

After that, all the way until he finally decides to surrender instead of just letting her kill him, he feels dazed. Without any idea of what exactly is happening anymore.

Aria

“Wait, what?” that delegate from before mutters. “You’re already done? And you captured the leader alive? I thought you said half an hour…”

I glance at the time before looking at the terminal again and stating, “Isn’t it better if I finish a few minutes early?”

“A few minutes…” he mutters again, looking confused for some reason. “I was expecting the battle to take at least a few hours, and you call this… a few minutes early…”

“Why would something like this take a few hours?” I ask with a frown. “I don’t have that much time to waste.”

That time is better used reading or watching TV.

“Time to… waste?” the leader of the criminals who is currently bound in magical shackles near me mutters, looking rather broken. But I ignore him.

The delegate guy looks confused too, but also slightly resigned and almost like he came to understand something important as he blankly says, “Soldiers will be out soon to take the criminal off your hands. You just focus on the next target.”

“Sounds like he gave up,” I hear Shirogane whispering to Little Blue. “He seems like a fast learner.”

“Faster than you were,” I hear Little Blue whisper back to him.

I glance at the two for a moment, briefly wondering what they’re going on about. Then I focus on the screen again when the delegate asks, “What is your estimate time for the next target?”

“Probably within an hour at most,” I answer him with a shrug. “It’ll probably take at least half an hour to reach them, after all.”

He blinks on the other side of the screen before saying, “Right. Sure.” Then he slowly nods his head and adds, “I’ll make sure to inform the relevant parties for pickup and cleanup then. Please inform me when the next job is complete.”

I give him a nod, following which he ends the call.

These jobs should be pretty easy to deal with, so they likely won’t take long. After them, I should be able to quickly go to the Hunter’s Spot.

I glance at the criminal when I hear some commotion coming from him, only to find Asher standing on the man’s shoulder smacking him in the face over and over again with his little paw. Clearly not happy about what happened earlier, despite him walking away then.

Of course, Asher himself is weaker than I am. So he doesn’t exactly do much damage.

It’s mildly amusing to look at, but that’s really all. I don’t stop the little guy, though, because I felt more than a little irritated seeing Asher getting cut in two as well. Despite his inability to die just like me.

Thanks to that, Asher continues slapping the guy in the face even after he falls over thanks to Asher’s movements on his shoulder. All with a bewildered look on his face as if he’s wondering what’s happening or is questioning life itself.

Well, not that it matters to me.

I turn to look at Little Blue and Shirogane, who are still whispering to each other, before asking, “What are you two talking about?”

“Nothing.” “Nothing important.” Both of them answer at the same time, making me narrow my eyes a bit more.

After a few seconds of staring, though, I decide to ignore them as I look at the map to confirm the direction we’re heading next.

Time for the next target.