"But I can still fight! Why do I have to sit out?", Millie protested.
Some distance away from the group, Millie and Cael had separated themselves, planning to wait out the fight between the rest of them and Verna.
"We're injured. And if I sit out, someone has to protect me."
"But..", Millie tried to find the words to argue, "Um...okay. So we just stay here? How do we know if they're done? Or if they failed?!"
"Don't worry. They won't."
"But Lilah can't possibly match up to Verna alone! Handon is a bum and Lully took his place as a nervous mess!"
Cael raised his eyebrow, still remaining calm, "Don't underestimate them. Have you seen Handon fight? Or Lully?"
"Ah, well..."
"At the very least, let's respect their determination. Did any of them seem afraid of fighting Verna?"
Millie went silent.
***
Clack, clack, clack- Verna's footsteps echoed in the hallway as she made herself known.
"Everyone."
She looked at everyone, whose expressions were dark and ambiguous.
"Rest assured. Esteine is not nearby."
She turned her head as she continued walking.
...Huh, where's Cael and Millie?
Then, just as she walked past everyone here, she felt something sharp burn her back.
Clang! Immediately, she pulled out a crude dagger and blocked Handon's strike.
She and Handon jumped back, her eyes widening, gripping the dagger tightly.
"W-what... Is this-"
"Sorry, my hand slipped.", Handon ran towards Verna while shouting, "Lilah, Lully, block her escape route!"
He raised his sword and cut down.
Shing!
***
Boom! Boom!
Far away, several explosions sounded, getting monsters' attentions and turning people's heads.
Krra! But before another monster could start running to the explosion's location, a long sword cut down and bisected it in half. The cut was clean, both halves collapsing and revealing Esteine behind it.
The two blonde twins came up to him, heads tilting.
"Lord Argyros, why are we helping them?"
"Isn't it better if the monsters end up killing them?"
"Fools.", he said coldly, "There's no reason to let these hooligans ruin that rat's plan. If it's going to benefit us, why should we interfere?"
"Plus, it'll be easier to clean up without these beasts in the way."
Turning around, Esteine was faced with a 3-way intersection. Behind him was where Verna and the others were, and in front, several monsters approached at once from each intersection, growling threateningly.
Yet the twins were anything but afraid.
Pointing his sword at the monsters, Esteine calmly ordered, "Kill them all."
***
Above Handon, Lully shot a fireball the size of a tiger, heating up the surroundings.
Handon jumped up, using mana to grab Lully's fireball in midair and hurled it to Verna.
Faced with a giant speeding fireball, Verna hurriedly dashed forward to dodge it and threw her dagger at Handon. He dodged it effortlessly.
Verna used mana to drag the dagger back to her hand, gritting her teeth, "Despicable. Killing me just because of a mere dislike?"
"No? We know what you've been doing, Verna.", Lilah smirked.
"Just surrender, and we might consider sparing you.", Handon said, but depite his merciful tone, he showed no signs of stopping, swinging his sword over and over again at Verna's vital points.
Nevertheless, just because Verna was fighting 3 people at once doesn't mean she's a sitting duck.
Verna's dagger and Handon's sword continuously clashed, with Verna needing to occasionally dodge Lully and Lilah's coordinated flames. But, at some point...
"..Huh?", Handon froze as his sword swung at empty air. He looked around. Nothing.
"Ahhh!"
Then, he turned around and found Verna having slashed at Lilah's back, blood splattering all over and her getting ready to strike again.
"Ugh, stealth?!", Handon dropped his sword and held his hands up to form a barrier between Verna and Lilah, just like he did before.
However, just when the barrier formed, Verna flipped her grip on the dagger, and threw it at Handon.
Whoosh! He was almost dumbfounded and couldn't disperse the barrier in time, staggering. If he dispersed the barrier and moved his hands arbitrarily, the backlash could weaken him enough to be a turning point in the battle.
It was when the dagger was already at his face, point blank, that it was knocked out of the air by a flying monster tooth.
Cling! The dagger was angled just enough to miss Handon's eye by a hair's breadth, slashing the side of his face instead.
A few meters away, Lully stood with his hand outstretched, having thrown the monster tooth he'd previously used to stab Cael in the stomach.
"Nice!", ignoring the pain, Handon praised Lully, catching the monster tooth as it fell.
But Verna wasn't done. Quickly, she grabbed Lilah's neck before she was able to cast anything and squeezed as hard as she could. Lilah panicked and desperately tried prying Verna's hands off of her neck.
At the same time, the still flying dagger suddenly froze in the air, and turned around, flinging itself towards Lully.
There was only seconds to save both of them, but Handon didn't move. His only thought:
Who should I save?
"You're...still...a little bitch...", managing to curse Handon one more time, Lilah snapped out of her panic for just a moment to conjure a ball of fire and shoot it towards the dagger, making it barely miss Lully, before her eyes rolled over and she lost consciousness.
Knowing she was too pressed to thoroughly kill Lilah, Verna let go, letting Lilah's body fall limp on the floor, and rushed toward Lully, her dagger flying to her hand.
Activating a low-level stealth ability, Verna disappeared from their untrained eyes once more.
But Handon regained his composure, "Such a trick won't work on me twice!"
He picked up his sword and threw it where the wind stirred most, and it froze, stuck into something in the air.
"Argh!", Verna appeared again, but this time with a sword pierced through her leg.
Taking the chance, Lully shot a fireball at Verna.
She attempted to dodge, but with the sword in her leg, she wasn't able to put enough strength in it and stumbled, the fireball hitting her point blank and launching her at the wall.
Thud! She hissed at the pain, her face now burned and bleeding. The sword fell to the ground.
"To target me, who hasn't done anything to you, have you finally decided whose side you're on now? Bruin.", she scowled, throwing her dagger at Lully to intercept his next spell.
Handon frowned, lunging and picking up the sword, exchanging another few blows with Verna again, "And was it your attention to ruin the lives of innocent people?"
"What..?", Verna became stiff, "Ruin? When did I- ugh!"
She raised her hand to block Handon's strike, being pushed back as blood gushed out from her arm.
"You know it yourself. Were you tasked to leave no witnesses too?"
Clang! Sparks flew between her dagger and his sword.
"What are you-"
Handon interrupted her again, "Did you underestimate Cael just because he was injured? Seems like you didn't even consider him as a variable."
"C-Cael..?", Verna recalled the red-haired man, "Was he the one that led everyone to do this then?"
Suddenly, out of their focus, Lully flinched, and averted his gaze. However, quickly realizing it, he fixed his expression, and conjured another fire ball.
Seeing Lully's growing ball of fire, Verna's expression darkened, and she lowered her head, muttering.
"So that's how it is, huh... I see."
She raised her head and brandished her dagger, nearly pushing Handon back from the overwhelming force.
"Keuk!"
Supporting him from behind, Lully shot small fireballs that limited Verna's movement and snuck a glance at Lilah. She was still breathing. He moved to her to attempt waking her up.
Verna's gaze was icy and intense, using all of her strength to get in closer to Handon and aim for his neck. However, when her dagger got a little too close to his neck, Handon dashed to the side, incidentally opening Verna's sight to throw her dagger at Lully.
Lully stumbled back, dodging the dagger whistling through the air, "Eek!"
Verna twirled her finger, manipulating the dagger to dance in her palm at the same time.
"Such a quick change of heart. But I guess it's to be expected.", Handon scoffed, cracking his neck.
Verna's eyebrows raised a tad bit, then fell back down, and she jumped and spun in the air, forcefully using mana to generate momentum.
"Looks like he has you in the palm of his hand.", she shot the dagger at him.
The dagger streaked through the air and Handon formed a mana barrier just in time, the dagger banging against it.
Krr! Like nails on a chalkboard, the dagger held its position and dug itself deeper into the barrier, until...
Crack! A large crack formed in it.
All of this had only happened in the span of a few seconds. And ultimately, the barrier couldn't withstand the force manipulating the dagger, and shattered-
Boom! Suddenly, a fireball exploded into Verna, sending her flying back. Bones shattered in more places than one, loud enough for everyone to hear. Krrk!
"Ugh!", she landed on the ground with a loud thud, blood pouring out from her stomach.
With her control disrupted, the dagger also lost its strength and fell unceremoniously. Cling!
Did she get tunnel vision? Her body trembled as she struggled to lift herself from the ground. Her vision became blurry when she tried focusing on Lilah a few meters away, who had woken up and combined her firepower with Lully. Both of them had their arms outstretched, breathing heavily.
Handon looked at the dagger for a second, heaving sigh of relief. He shook his head and walked towards Verna.
"And looks like this is the end of your rope.", he looked down on her, "I wonder how many people you've killed until now?"
Step, step, step- Hearing his slow footsteps almost seemed like mockery to Verna, she gritted her teeth and smiled.
"Ha! You still don't get it.", her breathing was ragged, "What's the point of killing me...when you've already become a puppet for him. But..you're right."
Handon's eyebrow raised, but he gripped his sword over Verna, ready to give the final blow, "Uhuh, and?"
Meanwhile, at the side, Lully slowly prepared a loud but small explosion, watching Handon's sword.
At the last moment, Verna raised her hand, and the dagger on the ground suddenly levitated and shot itself toward Handon's back one more time.
Clank! But Handon deflected it with his sword, the sneak attack failing pathetically.
"Hmph.", Verna let her hand fall beside her, watching Handon resolutely raise his sword above. Coughing, she spent her last breath saying her final words.
"I've really underestimated Lully's 'friend'."
The next second, Handon drove his sword into Verna's heart.
Schunk!
Simultaneously, like a firework, Lully released the explosion.
***
In the place where the Demon Academy's workers judged the applicants' profiles.
"Confirm applicant Verna Ruth's death.", a worker's colleague said.
The worker replied back swiftly, "Confirmed. Begin soul destruction."
The colleague then nodded, and summoned a small oval of swirling blue mana, communicating a few undiscernable words to the holder of the applicants' souls. Afterward, he closed the mana gate and confirmed back to the worker.
"Applicant Verna Ruth's soul has been terminated."
"Hm.", without sparing further words, the worker then crossed out a certain profile on the paper he'd taken out.
---
-Profile 1-
Name: Verna Ruth (DECEASED)
Defining Features: Brown hair, short hair, brown eyes...
Description: A slave kidnapped from birth, now working under the Rosamund family as an assassin. Originates from...
Current Evaluation: Fail upon death