An Ominous Aura

“Tch, not being able to use flight magic is such a hassle!”

A small figure glowing with a faint white light darted through the forest, weaving past obstacles as she pushed forward.

Lulu ran while keeping a sharp awareness of her surroundings, heading toward the location she had previously sensed.

The trees in the forest were far too dense, preventing her from using flight magic.

So instead, she relied on enhancement magic to boost her speed.

But compared to her mastery of elemental magic, her enhancement magic was… lacking.

As a result, she was only just slightly faster than an ordinary person.

“Ugh… I really shouldn’t have stayed cooped up reading all day… this feels awful…”

Lulu was completely out of breath, her cheeks flushed red.

Her glasses had slipped to one side, her hat was long gone, and her flat chest rose and fell rapidly with each labored breath.

Because she hadn’t exercised in so long, she was already exhausted after running just a short distance.

She had to stop and rest repeatedly, making almost no real progress.

At this rate, by the time she arrived—

Ye Yousheng might already be torn apart and devoured by monsters.

The thought made her both anxious and frustrated.

For a brief moment, she even considered simply flattening the entire area with magic.

But if she did that, Ye Yousheng would likely be caught in the blast as well.

So she forcibly suppressed the urge to use large-scale destructive magic.

“Ugh… so annoying, so annoying, so annoying!”

While complaining, Lulu unconsciously increased the strength of the enhancement magic surrounding her.

The white glow around her body grew denser.

She didn’t even realize that her speed was steadily increasing.

Thanks to this continuous acceleration—

She finally reached the place where Ye Yousheng was.

“Cough—cough—ugh… finally… made it…”

She didn’t even have time to rest.

Suppressing the urge to vomit, she staggered into the clearing in the forest.

Her sharp ears soon picked up someone muttering to themselves.

“Uh… what do I do now, the axe won’t go back together…”

“Should I just use this goblin’s stone axe as a replacement…? That feels kinda wrong though…”

From the sound of it, he seemed perfectly fine.

Lulu quietly let out a sigh of relief, her tense heart finally easing.

She didn’t sense any other life nearby.

It seemed Ye Yousheng had successfully escaped from those monsters.

She wasn’t afraid of those creatures.

The monsters in this forest were at most Tier One or Two.

As for her—

She had already been a Tier Five Archmage over two hundred years ago.

Forget a handful of monsters—

Even if every creature in the forest attacked at once, she was confident she could wipe them all out.

But Ye Yousheng was different.

As a newly arrived Traveler, dealing with those monsters would be far more difficult for him.

If it were other Travelers, she wouldn’t have worried this much.

Most Travelers possessed strong magic power and divine abilities granted by the goddess.

Even if they couldn’t fight, survival wasn’t a problem.

But Ye Yousheng…

That guy didn’t have even a trace of magic!

And he actually ran out with nothing but a woodcutting axe!

Facing monsters with nothing but a human body—

Wasn’t that basically throwing his life away?!

She had warned him so many times, yet he still ran off anyway.

Lulu felt like her authority had been completely ignored.

Back when she was a teacher at the magic academy, none of her students had ever disregarded her warnings like this.

And yet this Traveler she had saved turned out to be such a problem child…

Lulu secretly resolved that this time, she would definitely teach him a proper lesson and make him give up such reckless behavior.

Out of habit, she reached up to adjust her hat—

Only to realize it was long gone.

She wrinkled her cute nose, rubbed her cheeks, and put on a stern expression before walking forward.

“Hey! You—… mm!”

Just as she was about to scold him, the scene before her left her completely speechless.

Before arriving, she had prepared herself for many possibilities.

Maybe he had already been eaten by monsters.

Maybe he had fled in tears, throwing away all dignity.

Maybe he had lost a limb in an attack and was waiting in despair for death.

But never—

Not even once—

Had Lulu considered the possibility that he had slaughtered all the monsters by himself.

So the moment she saw it—

Her expression twisted in shock.

Green blood and blue blood covered the ground.

The surrounding trees had been smashed and knocked over in all directions.

Several goblin corpses lay scattered across the ground—

Along with three massive wolf spider carcasses.

Every single corpse was mangled beyond recognition.

Some had their skulls shattered with brains spilling out.

Others had been cleanly severed in half at the waist.

But the strangest thing wasn’t the gruesome scene—

It was how naturally Ye Yousheng fit into it.

He sat atop the abdomen of a giant wolf spider, fiddling with a wooden club stained so heavily with blood it had completely changed color, along with the metal head of an axe.

It seemed he was trying to reattach it.

A stream of blue blood trickled down from his forehead, about to drip into his eyes.

Ye Yousheng casually wiped it away with his sleeve.

Then he glanced at his clothes, now dyed blue, and frowned in mild annoyance.

He had just finished a life-and-death battle.

He had killed every single monster.

And yet—

There wasn’t a trace of killing intent left in him.

It was as if he had simply completed a task.

Yes—

Like someone who had just finished chopping firewood, now wiping sweat while fixing broken tools.

Everything about him felt… natural.

Only the scattered corpses and shattered weapons proved that a brutal fight had taken place here.

“Lulu, you came to find me? Sorry for the trouble.”

Ye Yousheng noticed her and stood up, walking toward her.

“Oh, right… I accidentally broke the axe. Sorry about that.”

He looked slightly regretful, as if he shouldn’t have dismantled it earlier.

Watching him approach—

Lulu suddenly shrank back and shouted,

“D-Don’t come any closer!”

There was no killing intent on him.

And yet—

Instinctively, she felt an ominous aura emanating from him.

Her self-preservation instincts kicked in, rejecting his approach.

“…”

Ye Yousheng stopped in his tracks, silently looking at her.

That aura—

It was just like that person.

That person who treated killing as casually as breathing.

A calamity who slaughtered wherever they went.

The only difference—

That person’s strength was already approaching that of a god.

Snapping back to her senses, Lulu realized her tone had been too harsh.

She hurriedly covered it up.

“Look at you! You’re covered in that disgusting, stinking blood! Filthy!”

“There’s a river over there, go wash yourself right now!”

“Uh… is it really that bad…”

“Go. Wash!”

Watching Ye Yousheng walk off obediently, still looking a bit dazed—

Lulu couldn’t help but wonder what kind of person she had brought back.

No magic—

Yet he had single-handedly slaughtered a large group of monsters.

Weak—

And yet his entire being radiated the same ominous presence as that blood-soaked killer.

After sorting through her complicated emotions, she used fire magic to burn all the corpses on the ground.

Then she followed behind Ye Yousheng.

Looking at his broad back—

A thought surfaced in her mind.

She just hoped he wouldn’t become someone like that person.