Chapter 7 Part 2 - Second Coming

TL: Xean || ED: Chaos || PR: Riciel

We still had time until we reached our destination.

So, I looked outside, thinking back to the past.

I reminisced about when I first had met Instructor Miya.

I believe it was back when I was less than 10 years old.

There was talk of an up-and-coming, beautiful, musketeer girl who was as strong as an adult. There was a huge buzz about the instructor since she had both the ability and cuteness.

She was young back then. I remember her youth and her freshness, but her fighting style was still rough. I had seen her fight once in a sword fighting tournament, organized by the royal family when she had been just a newcomer, so the memory of her being messy was a strong one.

When her fighting style has been fully established and refined into her own original style, she was at such a level that she could establish her own school.

In terms of appearance, I honestly prefer the instructor from the present, compared to the past. She’s more beautiful now than she used to be, with an adult touch to her cuteness to boot.

The first time I had a conversation with the instructor was when I entered the training school to become a musketeer. The instructor was working to broaden her knowledge, and I was assigned to her class. I was 11 years old while the instructor was 20.

The instructor had a caring personality since that time. I guess she was born that way. She didn’t ignore the fact that I was a little out of the class circle because of my birth as an abomination, but rather, she actively got involved with me. She didn’t laugh at my dreams of destroying demons, which made me happy. It was a little awkward at first, but it was the first time a normal woman talked to me like that, and I began to admire and like her.

I’m not boasting, but as an abomination and combined with my efforts, I was much stronger than the others. That’s why I was considered a gem, and the instructor looked up to me, and I spent more time under her tutelage than any other trainee. I was sometimes ostracized because of this, but it didn’t bother me because it was a small payback for being able to spend so much time with the instructor.

Eventually, I completed the entire course of study in the first year of school, and at the age of 12, I obtained my 《Fifth Wing》 title. From then on, I worked as a freelance musketeer, traveling from place to place, occasionally going into the field.

At the same time, I continued to devote myself to hunting down demons, occasionally fighting with the instructor in the field. At the age of 14, I was the youngest person ever to reach the highest rank of musketeer, the 《Seventh Wing》 and I can still vividly remember the instructor’s tears of joy as if it were mine.

My life is only 17 years old, but the instructor has been involved with me for almost half of that time. She is strong, kind, caring, a little weak on alcohol, but even that is part of her charm, and she is someone I have admired for a long time.

And that’s why I can’t stand the fact that my benefactor is burdened with guilt.

No matter how many demons I shoot through with my sniper rifle, it will not bring my old self back. As long as I can’t get it back, the instructor’s guilt will never be cleared and will be dissatisfied with this current situation. There’s no point in becoming a good sniper. It’s meaningless if I can’t make a comeback as a swordsman.

Even though I know this in my head, my body still refuses to perform its full potential.

The only way to deal with the anger from such frustration would be to defeat the demons.

Eventually, the steam train arrived at the urban area of Minada. We disembarked in the city, where the Southern Branch of the Musketeer Association of the Empire was located, and met up with the personnel of the Southern Branch to coordinate. After that, we all rented some horses and rode to the Great Plains of Loginia.

We proceeded with caution. However, no attack came along the way, and we reached the Great Plains of Loginia in about an hour. This meant that the demons were concentrated deeper, and there was nothing on the urban plains. We mounted our horses and headed deeper into the plains.

It was a clear, sunny day on the Great Plains of Loginia for the first time since the battle against Agaliarept. Until now, the sky had been rainy since the day I had defended my instructor and had been weakened.

“Hopefully, I pray that nothing bad happens.”

The instructor said as she rode alongside me, our horse cutting through the wind.

It was true that nothing has been confirmed. In fact, there was no indication of any rituals being performed. There was the chance that the demon pack from yesterday was simply on its way back to the demon realm. And maybe Galesciano was already safely sheltered somewhere. I’m thinking of that possibility.

“I hope so, too.”

“I hope that’s the case, and I hope nothing happened to him too.”

But this situation… We have too many clues, even if it’s just circumstantial evidence. The signs are pointing to something bad that was about to happen.

And as if to confirm this, they appeared in our line of vision.

“Demons up ahead!”

The instructor shouted. We jumped off our horses and readied our weapons.

I immediately held up the sniper rifle I was carrying and fired a silver bullet which pierced one of the demons in the head. Erza and the other snipers from the South Branch also started shooting at the demons.

The instructor and Sharon were on the front lines acting as vanguards. The instructor, armed with a bayonet, joined the Southern Section’s vanguard in taking down the demons.

The demons that were attacking us now were of the even-numbered species, and all of them were of the lower class.

The strength of the even-numbered species can be seen in the number of feathers they have. The attackers had a minimum of two feathers and a maximum of 18. The intermediate level and above have even more. Right now, it was just a bonus stage full of lower levels.

The Great Plains of Logina wasn’t a good place to live in due to its close proximity to the demon realm, but that didn’t mean it was a land filled with demons.

Those demons we were currently fighting might be those guards. If we continue deep into the grasslands, will we find the actual ritual?

We moved forward, continuing to slay demons. It wasn’t surprising that turning back wasn’t an option.

As we moved forward, the demon side was getting stronger. The intermediate level demons were beginning to mix in with the lower level demons, and we could sense that the guards were in full alert.

As I thought, there must be something beyond this.

Whether it was a ritual or not remained to be seen, but there was something that needed to be protected.

We shot and killed demons, cut them to pieces, and kept moving forward.

With each shot, I loaded another silver bullet into the chamber and sniped another demon.

The instructor attacked as if dancing, taking the life of demons one after the other. Holding a revolver with a blade attached to it in one hand, she ran around the battlefield, keeping demons within striking range at close to medium distances.

She avoided the enemy’s attacks by twisting her body like in a dance, and when the enemy’s attacks stopped, she would shoot, slash, or use other methods depending on the distance to end the attacker’s life.

It was said that the instructor’s greatest strength was her inexhaustible stamina, which allowed her to maintain this fighting style of constant movement for a long time. This was also the cause for her given nickname “Red Hornet”.

She was undoubtedly one of the strongest musketeers of this generation. She was loved, not only for her strength but also for her caring nature, and was well-liked by people around her.

As always, I was moved by the fact that I was able to witness such a wonderful woman in action. So I loaded up my silver bullets and fired them at the demons, taking care not to harm my allies.

After we took out most of the guards, it finally appeared in front of us.

As we continued to move deeper into the Great Plains of Loginia.

“This is…”

The instructor stopped and blurted this out. I was also stunned as I looked at it.

PS: Full Volume 1 is available on Patreon in EPUB format.