Chapter 17 - Bloody Pulp

*Cough* *Cough*

Natalia coughed out a mouthful of saliva. If this was her original body, she would have easily taken care of her. But it wasn't, so she drew out her sword.

The witch gave her a few moments to recover, not because she wanted a good battle, but because there was something else going through her mind. Her thoughts weren't that of killing Natalia, but far from it.

She looked at Jack to see him leisurely leaning against a tree and smiling. Judging from his immense amount of vitality, she knew that he was far stronger than she was. Her charm techniques didn't work, so the only option that remained was to detect an opening and flee.

But she didn't show such intentions on her face. She will have to act like an overconfident witch, "Hehehe! You are strong, but not strong enough to defeat this elder sister!"

The witch again started jumping like a ninja and appeared before Natalia like a bolt. Natalia raised her sword to cut her down.

*Clang*

But just before her sword could make contact with the witch, the witch drew out her sword at lightning speed and blocked the attack.

And just as Natalia was going to get pushed backward with the witch's momentum, a large amount of wind concentrated in front of her in the form of a hemisphere and parried the witch's attack.

*Bam*

This time, it was the witch's turn to collide on the tree. Natalia didn't give her time and sent another wind cannon.

*Woosh*

The witch managed to evade and again disappeared in the sea of trees.

Natalia furrowed her brows in annoyance, "Let's get this over with already." A tremendous amount of wind started revolving around her in a three-meter radius creating something like a whirlwind. Dirt, leaves, and twigs started whirling around, reducing the eyesight.

She would execute her innate skill named Wind Blade Barrage just as the witch would appear in her striking range. A large number of wind blades would appear and make mincemeat out of anything within its range.

But the witch didn't appear even after a few moments. Natalia looked where Jack was and found him absent. She looked around as the wind currents died down and she sighed.

...

The opportunity had come for the witch to escape when she saw the chaotic wind movements, so she started running away while taking trees as a cover. She made sure to evade Jack's eyesight.

"Look, this is how it's done!" came a hoarse voice from her behind and a chill crept up through her spine giving her goosebumps. She recognized the voice as cold sweat ran down her back.

She looked behind to see Jack following her animalistic movements with his own wild ones. Unlike her, who used the wind element to support her ninja-like movements, Jack used his four limbs like the claws of a squirrel to jump and hold the next tree. His movements were extremely agile and seemed natural akin to an animal that required him little to no effort. He flawlessly mimicked those wind monkeys whom he calls ninja monkeys.

The witch finally understood that she is doomed. For the first time in her life, she felt an immense dread and fear of losing her life. With a last-ditch effort, she started altering her movement direction to confuse Jack while taking the thick trees as cover in an attempt to shake him off.

"Where are you going?" The witch's pupils constricted seeing Jack right before her, changing her expression to a horrified one.

Jack raised his fist and,

*Bam!*

Her upper body exploded into blood and gore. The remaining fell onto the ground.

...

"Little hero, what have you done?" Natalia approached Jack and asked with a slight expression of disgust seeing the gore scene. She had arrived here when she heard the 'bam!'

Jack scratched his head and laughed awkwardly, "Haha! I thought I threw a light punch..."

Natalia shuddered to see his expression. A normal person wouldn't joke after killing someone. But it might be normal for him after what he had gone through.

She had such thoughts, but it didn't help her reduce her future worries. What if he just casually swung his hand around if he discovered her real body? Or he might throw a serious punch without batting an eye, just like today, turning her body into a bloody pulp. She shuddered again. She will have to think of a solution.

While Jack's thoughts were simple. After seeing the state of those bodies, he assumed the witch to be no different than the monsters. So his punch was only relatively light when his subconscious thought was that of confronting a monster.

For a demon, she wasn't much different from humans except for the familiar sinister energy she exuded. The same energy he had sensed from that boy named Ricky yesterday.

Since demons have the power to change humans into their kin... maybe that boy was coaxed or something in the name of strength to transform into a demon... Or was he a demon from the very start? He will have to keep an eye on him.

...

"Our suspicions were right! A witch was indeed involved in this incident," Natalia told the village chief making him raise his eyebrows in surprise. They were sitting in the chief's house sipping tea.

The chief waited for her to continue. "No need to worry anymore as our little hero had already taken care of the problem!" She cheerfully said while pointing at Jack.

The chief was already surprised enough when these adventures had returned in mere a few hours. He couldn't help but have a few doubts.

Seeing his doubtful expression, Natalia said with a smile, "We don't have proof of killing the witch as our little hero went a little overboard... until nothing remained of her," and gave a wry smile as she looked towards Jack.

Jack only scratched his head and laughed awkwardly. His punch was so powerful that everything on the witch's upper body either exploded into pieces or scattered in the area. They wouldn't waste their time searching for a needle in a haystack. So they had just returned to the emaciated corpses and retrieved their belongings.

"We retrieved these things from the corpses we found there..." Natalia took out a ring and a pendant belonging to the corpses of those hunters.

The chief creased his eyebrows and took the things from her. Soon after Jack and Natalia had left the village in the morning, the chief had gotten news regarding the two hunters of the village going missing.

Now he got their belongings. He will have to answer their families. He sighed. It wasn't his responsibility as he had done his job properly, so it wasn't a big deal. Still, it would be annoying as people tend to lose rationality due to sorrow.

He went to confirm and nearly took half an hour to return while Natalia and Jack waited for him. He thanked them wholeheartedly when he returned.

He then wrote a letter confirming the completion of the mission and handed it to Natalia. They will have to show this letter to the guild to receive the reward.

He escorted them until the entrance of the village just to be surprised once again to notice that they didn't bring a horse. Then how did these adventurers arrive so early in the morning? Wait, wouldn't it take about six hours to come here from the Dulia town? How did they even come here?

The chief couldn't contain his curiosity so he indirectly asked, "Umm, you didn't need to keep your horses out of the village..."

"Haha! We didn't bring any horse in the first place," Jack answered with an awkward laugh while Natalia just looked away to avoid the chief's gaze.

"Then how did you travel here?" The chief asked the next obvious question curiously. He couldn't think of any other conjecture for their early arrival other than them traveling overnight on foot. Or they might be traveling from yesterday. But he wasn't ready to believe that such powerful adventurers would travel on foot unless they wanted to train along the way.

But Jack's next words shattered his entire common sense. "Uhh... we ran here..." he said in a low voice while avoiding his gaze.

The chief only stared at the duo blankly as it took him quite a while to process what Jack said. Maybe he heard it wrong? Just as he was going to ask again,

"Come on big sis, get on your horse," Jack smiled mischievously at Natalia and jested. He will show a miracle to this chief.

Natalia was beet red and she didn't even glance at the village chief before climbing on Jack as fierce wind currents started enveloping the duo.

Jack nodded at the chief and,

*woosh*

They disappeared with a strong gust of wind.

The chief stared in stupor at the ball of wind that disappeared into the trees in just a second as his tiny brain tried to comprehend what had just happened.

He shook his head. Maybe this was just a dream...

A dream of a monkey ride...