"M-MONSTER!"

"It-it's her...! Gyaarghhh!!!"

"Those eyes... those... th-those are eyes of a demon!!!"

"A... v....vampire..." "Arrghhh!" "Surround he-uuaaarghhh!!!"

"She's moving too fast, we c-" "Beh-behind you-!"

"Eh-?"

SLICE. SLICE. SLICE. SLICE. SLICE. SLICE. SLICE.

As if attempting to sate her thirst for blood, Soma cut. And cut. Until there was no one left to cut.

Her blinding speed from Lightspeed Thrust had cleared off the lingering resistance of the elves dispatched to stop her while the rest made their way to the shelter underground.

It had costed her 400 mana points to do so, and now, she had reduced her reserves again.

Mana 5,749 (+5,748/41,655)

But of course, she cared little about that. Her mind was fixated on the moving images created by Mind Projection LV1, which was in turn learnt temporarily through her Singular Skill Manipulation. She was looking at the images sent through White's mind, which gave her information about his whereabouts since he was using his Origin: Field of Memories.

Her eyes were open, yet she was hardly affected by the blood around her. She didn't shrivel in fear, nor back away from killing waves of elves who were beginning to falter from her merciless sweeping of bodies. Wherever she headed, there would be bodies sliced apart, falling down around her. In the elves' eyes, the current Soma... was like a Grim Reaper who disregarded any semblance of life.

Of course, her haemophobia, a fear of blood had not been cured. It had only been sated with the Eyes of Fear, or what it's called now: Kuro's Aspect of a Ruler. Even so, it was not as if she had climbed to the top of the Adventurer's Guild: Rank S without proving her combat skills and the will to kill.

What she had developed after a year of performing a repetitive training routine daily with the Elder of Bulwark Village; Her mentor as a Sword Mage had unknowingly inflicted a debuff on her.

Maybe he knew. Maybe he knew, but he still wanted Soma to get stronger quickly. Because what she lost, was her senses.

Numbed Body Sense LV-4. A negative Passive Skill, which saps her bodily senses from her. Her body signals were numbed very severely, causing a huge deficiency in sensing pain, pressure and many other senses that warned her of danger. Numbing pain might have sounded like a positive, but it had even affected her on a daily basis; When doing simple stuff like defecating, she would need to keep herself in check, because she wouldn't feel the pressure to expel her wastes from her system too.

Thus... earning her the title by the System: "Desensitized Human", as if mocking her for her efforts.

As a result, her hands... her nose... her eyes... they were all unconscious of the blood spilling around her, although she made a conscious effort to cut her enemies apart in a way that wouldn't spill their blood on her. On that bloody ground piled with female elf bodies, only Soma remained as clean as she'd been since she step foot in the village square to perform a complete massacre. The blood on the Sword of Bloodwell just continued to suck the elves dry of blood with its passive, keeping the surface of its blade clean as well.

But how could she see and feel her enemies without her senses all this time...? It was from her abilities, which she had relied heavily on as a Sword Mage.

Presence Awareness LV7 and Spatial Awareness LV8. These two Passive Skills made up for her deficient body signals. Although it took her extreme practice and use to get them to such high levels, Soma became more accustomed to fighting with her newfound senses as time passed. It had now become a part of her.

And even though she had been appraised incorrectly during her Rite of Occupation, which had seemingly been sabotaged by Har'Lus, she had still received the title of Sword Saint, along with a seemingly related skill: Clear Eyes of a Saint. It was clearly labelled as an Active Skill, but she had never known about the prerequisite to triggering it as it appeared blacked out (cannot be used) most of the time, until she had decided to use it when in life-threatening situations. Like that one time she battled a Black Dragon. Even the duration was not determined, sometimes it would end within a few seconds and other times it would last for hours until a battle ended.

It was a very powerful skill that didn't cost mana points or any other resources unlike her sword skills, and it could grant her full access to things like the vitals of every single living being within her sight, their health and mana bars, rate of breathing... everything. It felt like she would gain an omniscient perception of everything whenever she got access to this skill. And now, it had been activated, allowing her to cull the elf numbers quickly and precisely.

But she knew, this had something to do with the Miracle of a Goddess title in her Status Window. From her knowledge and the other adventurers she had came in contact with, titles were only given when a large number of people recognizes a certain individual by a specific name. The System would register that as a new title, but it had its ways of preventing abuse of this system. It almost seemed as if someone of higher status than them was watching over the world, like a Goddess.

Yes, a Goddess. Soma still knew very little about the origins of this new world she had reincarnated into. Even though she understood the inner workings of the society in this world which was called Parvula, she still didn't understand why everything was quantified like a game in Status Windows. She was grateful to have gained power, enough to fend for herself and look for Rien at that time. But she didn't understand why this System felt frighteningly similar to those of a typical light novel off the shelves of her local bookstore back in Japan.

On another note, Soma also had Tracking LV3, but Tracking was mainly a Passive Ability used to find traces and the general direction of where someone or something is, sometimes providing the user with a discoverable and distinct scent. It was more effective for hunting and reconnaissance, but if one had levelled Tracking high enough, it was possible to a certain extent... to use it to locate enemies spatially as well.

From the mana within the elves, she had recovered some back as well.

Mana 5,962 (+5,961/41,655)

"...Seems like there isn't anymore left. So annoying... keeping me away from Master... I will not forgive this."

Soma's eyes became extremely dangerous. Her bloodlust was surging like a tidal wave, as if preparing to envelop the world into its dark and sinister emotions. A form of rage.

Kahahahaha, so much bloood~ What a feast!

The two-handed sword shone a bright red light, accumulating all of the blood around Soma with its passive: Bloodwell. The demon was having its fill while Soma swung it around violently.

When the village had finally turned dead silent, there was finally no more obstructions. No more wall tactics. No more stalling.

Soma paced herself and quickly arrived at a hidden trapdoor she had seen White enter with Mind Projection. She slid down the flight of stairs in a haste and arrived at the bottom. The lightstones illuminating the stairs were no longer around as she ventured in deeper.

It still took Soma quite a bit of time navigating around the Stalite Caves. On the way, she quickly disposed of stray Goblins and Grey Tuskhorns that came even remotely close to her. Even though the Tuskhorns were mutated wolf monsters that came in numbers which would normally threaten the safety of an average party of adventurers, they were nothing more than fodder in the face of Bloodwell's raw strength.

Soma had accumulated 12,571 attack points before committing to the massacre of the entire village of elves, and now it had reached 12,622 after. And adding on to the monsters that literally suicided against her, the Demonic Blade had now peaked at 12,681, an excessive number enough to devastate the weak ranks of the Goblins and Grey Tuskhorns which had no more than a few hundred health points to their miniscule statuses. Monsters were sentient, but it was hard to find intelligent ones that could access and maneuver the Status Window. This was why monsters like Dragons were far more powerful than the common Slime or Goblin.

In this case, she would not use any of her Sword Skills to preserve her mana and get them from the mana drain of the passive: Bloodwell. But it had still wasted her time, and she was getting increasingly impatient and desperate.

Through the hunt, she had not bothered to waste space in her Item Pouch, which had only 3 unique spaces left. The maximum stack of something was 100 for her Item Pouch, but she had heard that there were superior versions of this storage item circulating around the nobles in the Empire. Nevertheless, even as an S-grade adventurer, it wasn't very easy to get her hands on a luxury utility item like this. She wouldn't waste them on drops of this calibre, much less waste even more time picking them up.

Thus Soma left the corpses of the Goblins and the Grey Tuskhorns alone once she had sucked them dry of their mana. And the beings known as Monsters would disintegrate naturally with the lack of mana and health points. That was one of the game-like rules of this world, one that Soma had already grown accustomed to.

As Soma started to continue heading towards her Master's direction again, the voice inside of her spoke again.

Hmm hmm... what a waste no? And you used to be so frugal with money and materials too...

"..."

Soma just kept silent and ignored the voice, as Bloodwell continued talking to her like this. She slowly ventured deeper into the caves...

My motivation is faltering. I had forgotten how physically straining dungeon-crawling is...

Aha~? You're giving up?

...And this... annoying... voice... is not helping... haahhh... ...I want to see Master already... why are you so far away... Master...

Or rather... isn't this strange... I haven't been gaining distance ever since I passed a certain point after killing those weaklings...

It feels like I've been going around in circles...

Exhausted, I stabbed the blade of my sword onto the ground forcefully and rested my arm on it.

I took a quick look around me.

...All rocks and stones... unmined minerals... nothing out of the ordinary...

But I still felt a little restless. I quickly found a sharp palm-sized rock nearby and carved a very distinctive mark on a wall. It was one of the adventurer's life skills I had picked up.

When I was done, I dropped the rock and resumed my journey.

"Tch...As I expected. We are going in circles."

I clicked my tongue at no one in particular. I had arrived near a wall with the mark that I had left previously again. But I was sure I had only been going straight...

As the use of Hallucinatory Magic crossed my mind, I quickly realized it wasn't very probable in such a desolate place filled with monsters. But I didn't leave it to chance. I immediately grabbed up the Sword of Bloodwell to slit open a small wound on my left arm in order to disprove this.

The pain was dulled, but I could still feel it. Of course, I didn't look at the bloodied wound and quickly rubbed it off. My level was high enough to negate internal bleeding and start recovering immediately with my passive health regeneration.

That was another game-like element to this world; everyone, including people who were at LV1, could recover health and mana passively. Only the rate of recovery and amount recovered would change depending on a person's effects in their Status Window. For example, people who had picked up the class Magician would gain a 20% increase in passive mana recovery. Or so I'd heard from the Guild Receptionist during my Class selection.

Neither could Bloodwell's passive be invoked, since I had already been registered as its owner, seemingly with the same mechanic as Blood Oath; It tied my soul to the accursed weapon. Undeniably, I had freaked out before the first time I'd cut myself with this sword... But I'd slowly learnt the rules that governed this Demonic Blade as I used it more frequently... that was probably when people started to call me... Vlad Red...

Seems like, the lightshow of blood being absorbed into Bloodwell was enough to call me something akin to a Vampire...

What now...

Soma...? ...Is that you, woman?

...Just as I had begun biting my thumb in annoyance, I heard a voice inside of my head. Someone whom I had wanted to hear from his being directly... But I wasn't complaining in particular. My body tingled in delight, as it felt as if I was talking to Master through cell service.

The voice, seperate from Bloodwell, caused the demon to feel a little intrigued.

Oh-ya? Is he the one~? Kuhuhuhu~

...Oi. Are you there? You're there aren't you? Respond. Oi.

"N-Nhyaahh?! Y-yes... I'm here... Master... Master... ...

...Maaasterrrrr...."

It took me a while to respond, and I had returned with an extremely slurred voice. Probably because my cheeks were becoming loose from feeling this happy listening to Master's voice... Even though I felt like I could reply to him in my mind, I just felt like talking with my voice like this. It was liberating.

My voice bounced around the cave, creating an echo whenever I spoke openly.

Ahhh... Master... Master...

After a short pause, Master continued again.

Hmm... I see how it is... looks like Mind Projection was still active... to think it can be used like this... ...That's a surprise...

"M-master...?"

Is Master... an-angry...?

But it seemed like even my thoughts were read through, as he replied with a higher tone.

Quite the contrary. You're actually here at a good time. Don't look for me now, if that is what you're doing. I'm bus-

"you... another... ...woman..."

A-ahhh... Uhhh... I have something I want you to do for m-

"...Master?"

My expression darkened.

"Who was that?"

Huh? No. Ah, wait! Argh, if you see an elf acting suspicious and running away, please capture h- aauughhh...!

...The voice connection ended. ... I heard a forced moan from Master.

... ... ...Another woman.

My lifeless eyes wavered, and finally lost its light. My possessive nature had kicked in, completely neglecting the request that Master had asked of me.

-Unforgivable.