The mace, gleaming with an intimidating chill, reflected the dappled sunlight. The one-eyed man’s aura was clearly beyond anything his ragtag group of desperadoes could match, yet Nona showed not a hint of fear.
“No need. We know the way.”
Her tone was far from polite. Her body was taut, ready for battle at any moment.
These desperadoes were ruthless, capable of anything to achieve their goals.
“This forest is fraught with dangers. You are just girls; without our protection, you might not reach Pad City safely.”
“As long as you don’t stand in our way, I believe we will certainly arrive safely.”
“And what if I do stand in your way?” The one-eyed man grinned.
“Then today marks your demise.”
“Quite the boast!”
The one-eyed man scrutinized Nona and her three companions. Then, as if a thought struck him, he chuckled at Nona.
“How about we duel? If I lose, we will not only leave obediently but also offer some treasures as an apology. But if I win, you must follow us without resistance. What do you say?”
This seemed a rather fair duel, with both sides paying a corresponding price for a loss. However, based on Nona’s understanding of desperadoes, this one-eyed man appeared almost too rational.
Given their numerical advantage, it was impossible for a desperado to propose such a fair duel. It was as if he was tempting her to accept.
‘Could he truly be that confident in his victory?’
Many thoughts drifted through her mind, but Nona merely snorted in response, neither declining nor accepting his challenge.
His subordinates behind him could not tolerate this silence. One by one, they started to jeer.
“Why waste words on her, boss? Let these little girls see your power!”
“Exactly! Two swings of the mace, and they’ll be begging for mercy!”
Seemingly taking their words to heart, the one-eyed man’s grin widened, and his figure vanished instantly. Nona’s expression subtly hardened at this, and she instinctively took a step back.
That single step allowed her to evade the mace’s sweeping strike.
Having missed his attack, the one-eyed man returned to his original position, a surprised look on his face. “Gold-tier? Is that your confidence?”
The Mercenary Guild categorized its members into four tiers: Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Hero. These classifications later became widely accepted as a general measure of strength.
Gold-tier mercenaries were a rarity even within the great empires. For a young girl to have reached this realm at such an age, the one-eyed man’s surprise was understandable.
Yet, that was all it was.
“I particularly enjoy teaching presumptuous little girls like you a lesson.”
This time, the one-eyed man did not retreat after his strike. Instead, he swung the mace in his hand directly at Nona, who met it with her sword.
Clang!
The mace and the iron sword clashed, emitting a deafening screech. The powerful impact numbed Nona’s hands, forcing her to notice the one-eyed man’s subtly upturned smirk.
A jolt went through her heart, and a sense of foreboding spread throughout her body. Before she could even guess what would happen next, she saw the blade of her iron sword begin to crack.
Crack—
The faint sound of shattering echoed in her mind like a demonic whisper. Finally, under her somewhat stunned gaze, the iron sword broke completely like a mirror, leaving only a bare hilt in her hand.
Laughter erupted from the surrounding desperadoes.
“She fell for it! She fell for it!”
“Daring to clash head-on with the boss’s weapon? How naive! Doesn’t she know the boss’s weapon is blessed by a god?”
“Without a weapon, let’s see how much fight that little girl has left!”
‘Blessed by a god?’
Her gaze fixed on the mace, Nona noticed that wherever it moved, strange cracks appeared in its vicinity. Her iron sword had shattered directly because it couldn’t withstand this divine power.
‘So, this is why the one-eyed man was so sure of his victory?’
“Nona!”
Hia, behind her, called out her name anxiously, seemingly wanting to rush to her aid, but Nona raised a hand to stop her.
Seeing her disarmed, the one-eyed man was no longer in a hurry to defeat her. He rested the mace on his shoulder and tried to persuade her to surrender.
“If you surrender obediently, you can avoid further pain.”
Ignoring him, Nona pondered for a moment before taking out the wooden sword Isis had given her.
It was the sword she had used for training as a child, but it would be enough to deal with the enemy before her.
Upon seeing her produce a wooden sword, the one-eyed man frowned, feeling profoundly insulted. His words were now devoid of any courtesy.
“You’re courting death.”
He swung his mace again and charged. He had expected to easily defeat Nona with her wooden sword, but to his surprise, she refused to engage him directly, instead simply dodging through the forest.
Even when he used magic to restrict Nona’s movements, he couldn’t catch her. The mace relentlessly destroyed the forest, yet the distance between them only grew.
At that moment, he even felt that Nona was the true forest-dwelling elf, her movements unbelievably agile.
The exhaustion from casting magic forced him to halt his assault. Gazing at the young girl’s figure standing on a distant tree branch, he lowered the mace in his hand, cursing under his breath with simmering rage.
“A rat. A damn rat…”
Just then, a dark flash struck with a speed he couldn’t react to. By the time he regained his senses, a gust of wind had swept past him, carrying away one of his ears.
Blood soaked his shoulder, and the leaves that had been slowly falling through the air now swirled wildly. The forest before him bore the marks of a sword’s slash.
‘He… he was almost killed?’
The moment this thought surfaced in his mind, he heard Nona’s voice from behind him.
“You lost.”
Nona, who had been half-crouching, rose to her feet with a flourish of her sword. Her strategy had been to wait for the one-eyed man to lower his guard before delivering a decisive blow. It seemed to have worked quite well.
However, before she could sheathe her wooden sword, she heard Hia’s anxious shout: “Nona, watch out!”
Feeling the killing intent from behind her, Nona instinctively raised her wooden sword and turned to block.
“Heh heh, you didn’t agree to this duel!”
Clang!
Another clash of weapons. The one-eyed man seemed to envision the wooden sword shattering beneath his mace, his grin becoming uncontrollably manic.
What he hadn’t anticipated was Nona calmly twisting her wrist. The wooden sword, which had been locked in a stalemate with the mace, slid past his neck, severing his head.
Blood gushed from his neck, staining Nona’s clothes. The one-eyed man’s head, rolling on the ground, was filled with disbelief.
‘Was he dreaming? That wooden sword actually wasn’t smashed by his mace?!’
His consciousness slowly plunged into darkness, and no one would ever answer his confusion. Upon witnessing his death, the desperadoes who had surrounded Nona’s group were seized with a tremor of fear.
“…Boss?”
“Dead? He just… died?”
“Run, run away!”
Having never imagined that the one-eyed man would be defeated so easily, the disorganized desperadoes scattered like frightened birds. After the chaos subsided, the forest fell silent once more.
“Nona! Are you alright?!”
Hia and the other two rushed over, meticulously examining her for injuries. Only after confirming she was unharmed did they breathe a sigh of relief.
They had been incredibly worried during Nona’s duel with the one-eyed man.
“I’m fine…”
She murmured casually. After reassuring everyone, Nona lowered her head to look at the wooden sword in her hand.
At the moment it clashed with the mace, she had expected it to shatter instantly. Yet, it had actually… withstood a mace blessed by a god?
Not a single mark had been left on its blade.
But this wooden sword was clearly just the training sword her mother had given her…
A myriad of thoughts swirled in her mind. She suddenly realized that her mother, in her memory, was now shrouded in a mysterious white mist, making her inscrutable and unclear.
She had never known her mother’s past, nor had she ever heard her speak of it. The mother she had always considered ordinary might never have been ordinary at all…
Her mother being taken by that silver-haired woman might not have been a coincidence.
For some reason, she felt caught in an extremely terrifying incident. To rescue her mother, her current strength might be far from enough…
“Let’s go. The leader is dead, so those desperadoes shouldn’t bother us again. Let’s hurry to Pad City before nightfall,” Olivia suggested at that moment.
“Mm.”
Sheathed her wooden sword, Nona walked forward two steps, somewhat dazed.
Dappled sunlight fell upon her face. She looked up, gazing at the azure sky through the gaps in the leaves, her eyes gradually lost in thought.
‘The wooden sword, the silver-haired woman, the golden leaf emblem…’
‘These things all seemed to speak of her mother’s mystery. If her mother, wherever she might be, could hear her thoughts, Nona truly wanted to ask one thing…’
‘Mom, who exactly are you?’