Chapter 33- Daughter of Mournwalker

Lord Mournwalker leads me out to his garden, where there is a gazebo overlooking dead trees and bushes. Sitting there is a young girl with black waist long hair and the same pale skin as Lord Mournwalker wearing a black and red dress.

Although we were in front of her, she doesn't notice us and was preoccupied with petting a crow. He motions for me to approach her, and I take a deep breath before I walk forward.

As I come closer, her eyes lazily drift to me, and I meet her gaze and see she has red irises. She talks to me, her voice soft almost like a whisper.

"Did my father get me a pet elf for my birthday? Ah he shouldn't have, or rather, he should as I've been on my best behavior this year."

"Uh, no. I'm here to do bounties and you're supposed to come with me."

"So basically, he did get me an elf for my birthday as a pet, but you don't know it yet."

"O...k?" I was unsure of how to continue forward with the conversation. Although she sounded like she was engaged, her face looked as though she had better things to be doing.

"So? You hear about anyone interesting that will start Academy with us?"

She stifles a yawn, "Meh, nobody worth mentioning. Just some diverse races, but no one with overwhelming strength so far."

"Your father did mention that you could handle yourself in a fight. If you have his praise, I can just go ahead and assume that you're pretty strong." She stops petting the crow suddenly and narrows her eyes at me.

"Such flattery and you just met me. What's your endgame? You trying to be my friend or something? Or is it my hand in marriage?"

"What? No. I just thought we could probably get along since we're going on hunts together."

"Oh, you poor summer child. It's cute that you think that, but I'm not interested in the weak. We'll be going on the bounties, but it'll be me babysitting you to make sure you don't die. Can't have my new pet dying so soon after I just got it."

"I don't need babysitting; I can handle myself fine. If you doubt it, why don't you test me yourself."

She sighs, laying further back in her chair. "The Manual to Owning Pets for Stupid People did say that the best way to tame a new pet is to show it the difference in strength. Don't worry, I won't hurt you too much, just enough to prove a point."

She gets up and and I follow her to an open area, and I notice Lord Mournwalker have a seat at the gazebo to watch us, a smile on his face.

A guard is behind him with a face full of pity. I don't know how strong she really is but to be fair, I'll just work my way up to a level to fight evenly with her.

When we get far enough, she pulls a long thin sword, much like a needle, from her storage ring, while I summon my daggers. She turns slowly with a smile on her face and says, "Don't blink."

As her words leave her mouth, she disappears, I gasp in surprise as I suddenly feel pain in my left shoulder and turn to see her behind me with her blade sticking out of me. She pulls it out of me and licks my blood off her weapon causing her to tremble.

"Ok. I underestimated you. That's my fault. Allow me to try again but start at my best this time."

She smiles, "Won't matter but sure, I'll allow you another try. Come pet, show me your best."

I activate all my blessings, with Enhanced Movement as well as the perk, In the Zone as her speed was insane and the only chance, I had at contesting her.

She raises an eyebrow as I glow from the different blessings and says, "Oh you surprise me. You can silently cast as I can, and you have some interesting spells. But let's see how your blade mastery is."

She moves, and even with my Enhanced Movement and Blessing of the Hare, I can only do so much to keep up with her.

It seemed like what I saw was 3 seconds behind where she actually was. I could see her actually skipping carefree towards my right side and jabs her blade towards my shoulder and I manage to deflect with my right dagger.

Before I can counterattack, she disappears and my instincts scream for me to dodge to the left, which I don't hesitate to duck to the side. I hear a small shrill of metal past me and know I just dodged another attack from her.

I stumble away from her being behind me, putting some distance between us before I reposition myself in preparation for her next attack.

"You managed to dodge and block my attacks. Your better than I originally thought, but I hate losing so I'm going to step it up."

As she says this, her body glows an unnatural black, that surrounds her until she's nothing but a black humanoid shade.

On her face, white appears that forms two eyes and a wide smile. Feeling the ominous mana rolling off of her brings chills to my spine and I decide to activate Mana Heeding to get a sense of what just happened.

Race: Human

Class: Therianthropist LVL ???

Health: 1200

Mana: 3300/3500

Not only was her class a mystery, but it was a much higher level than both of mine combined.

I wasn't planning on losing easily either, so I cast Curse of the Snail on her to give me a further edge.

She vanishes and my eyes dart back and forth as I try to find her. Mana Heeding is still active so I feel her mana signatures rapidly approaching me head on.

Expecting an attack, I jump backwards but still feel a sharp pain in my right shoulder as she appears before me. She doesn't let up and rapidly stabs at me and I struggle to deflect her blade.

After 15 seconds, I'm riddled with tiny holes all over my chest and shoulders that immediately start healing with the effect of Sage or Healer?

Seeing that I was relatively fine, her smile quickly turns into a frown. She speaks, and her voice while in this state is chaotic like multiple versions of her were trying to talk at the same time.

"You can heal? Well, that's annoying. Ok then no matter, that just changes my plan. Sorry about this by the way, this will send you to the infirmary for a while Be glad though, you've impressed me, and I don't impress easily."

Her weapon glows the same black as she does, and I don't like the way the mana radiated from it. I desperately think about ways to beat her here, but I know the moment that weapon hits me, I'll seriously get injured and so far, I haven't done a good job reflecting her attacks.

While I struggle to make a plan, she disappears, and Mana Heeding reveals she's heading straight for me again.

I panic because I'm not prepared for her attack and Acute Mind is still working, and I lean forward in an attempt to deflect any attack. In a last-ditch effort to buy myself some time, I activate my boot's ability to dash.

Unfortunately, one of the flaws of the boots is that I dash in the current direction I lean. I was still leaning forward, so I dashed forward.

Her weapon sails past me and we collide with each other at high speeds, and I see stars as I fly back, my mind blanking from getting hit like that.

The Blessing of Iron Body protected me from a good portion of the physical damage but still felt the pain from it.

She on the other hand, was slender and had no physical protection spells that I could notice so she flies backwards, coming out of the form she's in.

I sit there for a moment as my vision returns and the ringing in my head slowly fades. Standing shakily to my feet, I look around for her and see her curled up in a ball a distance away. Walking towards her, I hear her silently crying.

"You, ok? I didn't mean to do that, I just acted and crashed into you."

She stands up, wiping a tear from her eye, and her red eyes flash for a second before she runs off into the mansion. Not sure of what to do, I walk to Lord Mournwalker.

"Sorry about your daughter sir. I didn't mean to do that."

"What are you apologizing for, you won that duel. Plus, it was a good learning experience for both of you. She underestimated you and paid for it, and you learned to not give your opponent's handicaps when in fights."

"Will she be ok?"

"Shes more than ok, it's only her pride that's hurt. The fact you told her you beat her by accident is what really hurt her."

The guard behind him hands him a folder that he passes to me. "Your first target. With this one, make sure he suffers before he's dead. If you don't want to do that type of things, she most certainly will. We have a lot of targets so don't take your time on this one."

Saying that he stands and nods to me, "I'll go talk to her. I'd advise you to prepare yourself while you wait."

I pull out armor from the storage ring and get dressed in a room, then decide to wait on the first step.

15 minutes later and I see her coming down the stairs, wearing the same black and red dress, black boots and a white blank mask save the eyeholes.

Her long black hair bounced on each step takes allowing me to momentarily glimpse, pointy ears like mine. She reaches the first floor then turn towards me, her red eyes looking at me from behind the mask. I reach out my hand,

"Eric Ferngrow, pleased to meet you." She walks up and stands on her tiptoes to pet my head.

"Adriana Mournwalker. Now come, let's kill something, preferably a beast-kin."