The Sword Saint’s Second Life As a Fox Girl

2-28 Velkan

The dark and desolate alley, ridden with the bodies of the guards, eventually led Erin to a warehouse. The building in front of her was relatively big but no bigger than the derelict buildings around that hid the warehouse from plain view and scrying glances. Still, the warehouse spanned the size of four average houses in Quinteburgh.

Aside from the warehouse itself, its perimeter held nothing of interest. There wasn’t even a single sign of a guard. Erin presumed the guards were all placed in the alley and inside the warehouse. She didn’t need to worry about the guards from the alley as every single last one of them had been dealt with, permanently. Blood of the wicked painted her countenance and poise. Her saber was soaked in so much red that it was beginning to leave a stain.

Before the huge entrance of the warehouse, Erin took in a deep breath, seizing this transient moment to recover her mental fortitude and the Mana she had spent. She also wiped the blood of her blade with her own tunic. No amount of washing could make her garbs spick and span with all the blood that had soaked through. Even though she tried her best to avoid getting blood on her hair and tails, her efforts ended in futility.

She took in the sounds and smell emanated from the warehouse. Things were quiet but the heavy breathing from the slavers cowering within told Erin of an ambush lying in wait. And from the abundance of citrus scent within, it was evident this was where they kept the abducted children. Erin wanted nothing but to rush into the warehouse and save those children right at this moment but exhaustion was taking over and her Magic Vigour was well below a quarter of its threshold. Rushing in now would be an appointment with death.

Erin could only afford this respite as she caught only four presences in the warehouse, plus the children. The remaining four held their grounds, awaiting the right time for an ambush. Erin had expected them to make a run for it but they didn’t, not that they have anywhere to run to. Erin had expected them to use some of the children as hostage but those children were their products. Hurting their children meant plummeting their profits. Therefore, Erin surmised the children would be save unless the slavers understood the depth of their desperation.

Once Erin had recovered half of her total Magic Vigour, she made her entrance. She bothered not with any courtesy and simply cut the large doors down. An arrow flew at her from within but she slanted her head and dodged the trap. The arrow came from a wired contraption and it was only good for a single use. Erin smashed it to bits as she walked past the contraption. As she made her way deeper into the warehouse, she experienced similar traps but had managed to come out unharmed due to her heightened sense of hearing and her Sixth Sense.

The surface of the warehouse had nothing unusual to show for but following the flow of the air and the heavy breathing of the slavers, Erin found a way to the underground of the warehouse. She almost found it a bit disappointing as the entrance to the underground wasn’t too hard to find even if she didn’t use her heightened sense of hearing. The surface was just too plain to hide any secret entrance. But then again, the warehouse itself was already in a place that couldn’t be found easily. The entrance to the underground probably wasn’t meant to be secretive, Erin gathered.

A flight of spiral stairs greeted her upon opening the latch of the “secret room”, which she took down to the bottom most floor. From there, a narrow corridor stretched out for a hundred meters before coming to a stop on a plain wooden door. No traps were set nor any spells were cast on the door or the corridor.

Gently pushing the door aside, Erin entered into a vast room filled with cages that were draped under huge cloths. From the whimpering and sobbing she could hear underneath those cloths, it was without a doubt the cages were housing the kidnapped children. At the center of the room, stood four people, three of them were dressed in shabby garments and armor that wouldn’t even be able to protect them from a blunt knife. One of them was bald and was wielding a large saber; he boasted the highest level among the three. As for the fourth person standing in trepidation, he was a young man with short dark brown hair. Unlike the three, he was the only one that didn’t fit the bill of a thug.

Upon appraisal on the four, Erin was relieved regarding their abilities but the young man posed quite a concern. He was level twenty-two, the highest among the four. He had quite an array of skills, namely a level six Sword Art, a level five Iron Skin, and a Magic Art called Abyss Magic, at level two. This was Erin’s first time seeing Abyss Magic and from the concise description appraisal gave, worries were brimming.

[Abyss Magic - Spells that are cast by drawing power from the Abyssal realm.]

“Succinct and ominous, great...” Erin mumbled cynically to her heart. “And his name… Velkan Corvas…. Is he one of the Corvas twins? Please tell me he isn’t.”

“Well, what are you all waiting for?! Kill her!” shouted the bald man as he brandished his large saber at Erin.

The two men looked at each other. Their feet were trembling and their hands were shaking. They understood they were no match for the crimson-dyed Fae in front of them.

“Are you deaf?! Kill that bitch, now! Or do you want to run away and risk the boss’ wrath?!”

“The boss, huh? Could it be that noble of house… what’s-the-name?”

At the bald man’s behest and threat, the two finally moved. They drew their rusty iron swords and rushed at Erin while crying with tears and saliva hanging by their eyes and mouth. They cried not of rage and spirit but of despair and fear. Erin gave them her silent condolences before swiftly cutting them down without breakin a sweat.

[Experience gained +20% - Level Progression: 55%]

The bald man shrieked and recoiled from how easy two of his best men were dispatched. He looked over to Velkan and barked the same order at him. “Oi! What are you standing around for?! This isn’t what you’re being paid so much for! Earn your keep, maggot!”

The man named Velkan sighed and drew his sword. He entered into a stance that drew a look of recognition from Erin.

“Solid stance. Still hands. Firm gaze. He’s not bad of a swordsman,” Erin mused. A grin crept to her lips. “He might indeed be one of the Corvas twins I’m looking for. That’s just great.”

“Sorry about this,” Velkan said and lunged with a strike.

Erin parried it but was surprised with an immediate counter. She parried that too but Velkan came at her again with another strike.

“Damn, you’re good,” Erin praised. Of everyone she had fought today, Velkan was better than them by miles. She could tell he didn’t have any proper training but his talent did well in carrying him in this battle.

There was a mild shock on Velkan’s face. “Didn’t expect compliments to come from a Fox-kin’s mouth.”

Erin chuckled. “Here’s an advice, don’t lump me in with the average Fae you heard in stories,” she replied and pressed on with her attacks. Just as she managed to break past his parries, her strike bounced off his skin.

“Don’t expect the same from me too, Fae. I’m not like the others you have so easily slain,” the Corvas twin threw back a retort and a counter.

Erin evaded the counter by twisting her body out of the way.

“Ha! What a fool of Fae! Kill her, Velkan!”

Erin scoffed and used her tail to scoop the iron sword of one of the fallen slavers into her hand. She then threw it at the bald man after infusing the sword with some Mana.

The bald man simply swatted the sword to the ground without any effort. “Are you an idiot bitch too? You underestimate us humans too much, Fae!”

“Well, he’s a dead man,” Velkan remarked dryly just as he received a blow to his temple but just like before, the blade bounced off.

Before the bald man could tell what Velkan meant by his remark, the iron sword at his feet exploded into hundreds of shards. Most of the shards found their way into the bald man’s flesh. The bald man uttered a scream that shook the children inside the cages. He tumbled to the ground and flailed around as he cursed and cried out his agony.

“Such brutal ways,” Velkan remarked. “You more of a Beast-kin than a Fae, I say.”

“For all the children he has ruined, this is the least of what he deserves,” Erin retorted.

“Understandable,” Velkan replied and unleashed a flurry of attacks on Erin, in which the Fox-kin quickly returned the favor.

For the most parts, Velkan deflected blows after blows from Erin and for every blow he missed, his Iron Skin helped in preventing the Fox-kin’s blade from seeping into his flesh. He had thought they were equals in swordsmanship but as the fight went on, he realized he was gravely mistaken. They weren’t even close to being equal. He understood the Fae was at a level lower than he was but her skills with the sword  and her experience with battles more than make up for the level differences.

The two continued their exchange of blows. It was a stalemate in hindsight but for the more seasoned eyes, Erin was the clear winner in all the exchanges. She had Arcane Edge and Lightning Magic in her arsenal. If she so wished, the duel would have ended minutes ago. Velkan had also come to realize this fact. He was being allowed to live, which begged the question “why?”.

At another clash of their blades, Erin finally used Arcane Edge and easily sliced through his iron sword. Her saber stopped just right in front of his neck.

“Where did you learn the sword?” Velkan asked. He had stopped moving and threw up his arms in resignation.

The bald man was still whimpering in the background.

“I taught myself everything. Got advice from a few other masters,” Erin answered.

“Then you’re must one hell of a genius to be that refined with a sword. If your level was tripled or more, I would have taken you for the Sword Saint.”

“Thank you,” Erin found herself uttering such words.

“Why am I still alive?”

Erin eyed his expression. Once she was sure Velkan had truly resigned himself to her discretion, she withdrew her blade from his neck. "Because it's still not too late for you to repent. Unlike your peers, you have yet to dirty your hands with the blood of the innocents."

"How would you know?"

"Experience. Decades of them. Especially in your strikes and swings, resolve to hurt but not resolve to kill."

"For someone who had just slaughtered her way through without discrimination, I find it hard to buy that reason of yours."

 "Well, that's not all the sole reason I let you live," she admitted. “Actually, I was looking for you.”

“Me?”

“To be precise, the Corvas twins. I was looking for you and your twin.”

“Ah, I see… So you’re the one who was asking around. I heard that some highborn was looking for me but to think it was you… what a coincidence.”

“Thought you were just some smuggler but a slave smuggler, I’m greatly disappointed.”

Velkan laughed. “You and my sister shared the same sentiment then.”

Erin raised an eyebrow. “You’re not together?”

“Not anymore. We used to take every job together but recently, times have become more trying than ever. The yield of monster cores were dwindling. Maven’s Creek and its neighbouring towns depended heavily on monster cores but with the recent anomalies happening, everything is going to shit. Smuggling the usual goods is no longer raking in as much gold as before. My sister and I argued for a long time and eventually, we couldn’t come to an agreement. So we parted ways.”

“Human trafficking… that’s your idea?”

“It’s easy to talk about moral grounds with a filled stomach. Do you think we all want to be part of something so risky just for a few gold?”

“You know… a wise man once told me, a person only shows their true self on two occasions, when they have everything and when they have nothing. You’re willing to resort to others' misery to save yourself from your own, that says enough.”

“And you know this so well?” Velkan scoffed. “Give it a rest, Fae. You’re just naive, like the rest of your kind.”

“We can go at this for the whole day but… I’m not here to talk philosophy with you. I’m—” Erin paused. Sounds of dozens of footsteps were approaching the warehouse, Erin picked it up. “Metal greaves… the steps are rhythmic… Paladins.”

[Experience gained +15% - Level Progression: 70%]

Noticing that gain, Erin glanced over to the bald man, who had succumbed to his injuries.

A cloud of despair washed over Velkan’s expression. “Soldiers… they’re here...”

“Paladins, to be exact,” Erin corrected.

“The Ruvans… You led them here?”

“In a way, yes.”

“You had connections with the Ruvans… Just who are you…?”

“I don’t have connections with the Ruvans. You and your friends abducted some of the orphans from the Ruvan church. You can’t expect them to stay quiet.”

Velkan laughed at himself. “Those damn idiots… They were told to leave those orphans alone...”

“Well, it is whatever now. Your time’s up.” Erin sheathed her saber. “I guess I should let the Paladins take over now.”

“Just out of curiosity, why are you looking for me and my sister?”

“Have a job for you. Well, had a job but considering what you have done… I don’t think you’ll be getting the job.”

“Then, my sister… give it to her. Please. If it’s a job from a Fae, it must have a great pay. She deserves it… unlike me...”

“That was my intention. Your sister, she’s still here? In Quinteburgh, I mean.”

“I think so. When we went our ways, she said something about seeking employment as a merchant’s guard. It’s barely half the pay we get as smugglers but to her, it was something.”

“A merchant? Which merchant?”

“One of those merchants from the caravans. I heard he has got quite the colossal hold of fortune among his peers.”

“Do you at least have a name?”

“Harry…? Hagan… Something like that.”

Erin widened her eyes. “Hegan?”

“Ah yes, Hegan. That’s the one.”

“Well… the world is a small place.”

Erinthea - Faerie-kin: Three-Tailed Fox-kin

Level: 17 | Status: Moderate Exhaustion

Might: 20 | Arcane: 25 | Finesse: 22

Magic Arts
Spirit Magic Lv. 8 | Arcane Edge Lv. 6 | Arcane Armor Lv. 6 | Lightning Magic Lv. 4

Combat Arts
Sword Art Lv. 7 | Fleet Foot Lv. 5 | Brawler Lv. 5

Innate Skills
Appraisal Lv. Ex | Night Vision Lv. Ex | Sixth Sense Lv. Ex | Toxin Resistance Lv. 1 | Lust Deviant Lv. Ex

Unique Talent
Mystic Blade Lv. Ex | Revenant Lv. Ex

Level Progression: 70%

Remaining Skill Points: 8

Remaining Ability Points: 2