🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter: 22
Those blue eyes made her chest ache in a strange, vivid way.
As if she had met them somewhere before…
Met them, my ass. Where would I have ever run into this little mutt?
Karina turned around and walked away without a trace of hesitation.
I’ve let it go, so it’ll run off somewhere and live fine. Whether it gets eaten by wild beasts or dies on the road isn’t my problem.
Thinking that, she left the prison—but an odd sensation made her turn her head back.
Grrrr—
The little mutt that had been trailing after her suddenly bristled its fur and growled the moment she looked back.
Karina frowned in disbelief.
“If you’re going to growl like that, why are you following me?”
Thinking it might be coincidence, she changed direction.
The mutt followed again.
Why is this damn puppy sticking to me?
Annoyed, Karina knit her brows—then without warning, she launched herself into qinggong.
In a single bound, she leapt onto the mansion wall and dashed across the treetops.
It shouldn’t be possible, but just in case, she glanced back.
As expected, the mutt was nowhere to be seen.
There was no way a palm-sized puppy could follow qinggong infused with internal energy.
Satisfied, Karina headed toward the duke’s residence, where her teammates would be waiting.
* * *
“Karina! Why are you so late?”
“Whoa, you’re back! Karina!”
As she entered near the dormitory inside the duke’s estate, Ariel and Albin—who had been waiting at the entrance—ran toward her.
“Everyone else was back already. We were worried since you hadn’t returned.”
What a pointless thing to worry about.
With an indifferent expression, Karina glanced past Ariel’s shoulder.
“What about Team One?”
Albin answered.
“They were badly injured, so they’re in the treatment room. Looks like Isaac and Denian were hurt pretty badly.”
Denian’s twisted flow of qi flashed through Karina’s mind.
How does someone who can’t even use internal energy end up with distorted qi?
As she was thinking that, Ariel suddenly asked, puzzled,
“By the way… did you bring that thing with you, Karina?”
“Huh?”
Following Ariel’s gaze, Karina looked behind her.
In front of the bushes, a gray puppy sat at a distance.
That blue-eyed little mutt.
…Seriously. I thought I’d shaken it off. How did it follow me?
And the moment Karina turned her head, the puppy bristled its fur again and growled.
This is ridiculous.
If you’re going to be that wary, why follow me at all?
With a sigh, Karina deliberately looked away, pretending she hadn’t seen it.
“I don’t know that mutt.”
“Huh?”
“Probably some starving wild dog that wandered in.”
Albin tilted his head.
“Then why is it staring at you like that?”
“……”
At that moment, a familiar figure appeared at the end of the corridor.
It was Eric, the instructor in charge—of the Red Hawk Mercenary Corps.
Trailing behind him was Adolf, his shoulders hunched tightly.
“Alright, everyone. Gather inside the dormitory.”
At Eric’s signal, the exhausted children slowly gathered.
Among them was Felix, one of the few from Team One who was relatively unhurt.
The moment Felix spotted Adolf entering with the instructor, his eyes blazed.
“You—! You bastard! You call yourself a teammate and then run away and abandon us? Because of you, Isaac and Denian got hurt even worse!”
Adolf couldn’t lift his head and avoided his gaze.
Eric stepped between Felix and Adolf before Felix could explode.
“Calm down. I’ll announce the results of the test.”
Felix clenched his mouth shut and returned to his place.
As everyone waited tensely, Eric spoke slowly.
“As you’ve probably guessed, the winning team of this test is Team Two.”
“Kyaaah!”
Isabella, who had been holding her breath, screamed in joy.
Ariel and Albin clasped hands and hopped in excitement.
Only Karina stood there as if this result were obvious.
Eric glanced at her before continuing.
“Team Two—Karina, Isabella, Ariel, and Albin—have passed the test. As for Team One…”
He paused briefly, then spoke with finality.
“Everyone except Isaac and Denian is disqualified.”
“W-What…?”
Felix, momentarily stunned, protested.
“I get Adolf, but why am I disqualified too? And the operation fell apart mainly because of Isaac!”
Eric looked at him as if to say, Go on, keep talking.
Felix clenched his fists and continued angrily.
“And if Denian hadn’t been discovered during the first infiltration, the count’s estate wouldn’t have tightened security in the first place! Adolf ran away the moment things turned against us! Three people messed up—so why am I the one being dropped?!”
“I—I wasn’t running away, I was trying to find a chance to get you out—”
“Enough.”
Eric, who had been silent, spoke coldly.
“What was your role in Team One?”
“…What?”
“When Denian attempted the first infiltration alone, and Isaac confronted the count from the front—what role were you assigned?”
“Well, that was—”
“There’s a reason this test was conducted as a team battle. When acting as an organization, each member’s role matters.”
Albin handled operational support and artifact creation and dismantling.
Isabella disrupted the target using scent and smoothed the team’s infiltration.
Ariel built trust within enemy territory and gathered information from the maids.
And Karina—the only combatant in Team Two—served as the core of the entire operation.
They hadn’t planned it deliberately, but Team Two’s individual roles and contributions were clear.
Team One, however…
Understanding Eric’s point, Felix protested bitterly.
“I—I managed Team One’s operations and intelligence using my experience from the Dark Guild! If it weren’t for me, we wouldn’t have even known what that seal was!”
Eric scoffed.
“You really think you were the one who obtained that information?”
Karina looked at Eric in mild surprise.
It seemed he knew she had deliberately leaked the seal’s information through Adolf.
From the sound of it, Eric appeared to know everything that had happened—whether through hidden spies or artifacts monitoring them.
Meaning he had been watching the children’s every move.
“The instructor judged based on individual performance,” Eric said calmly.
“And the two of you showed no noteworthy contribution in this test.”
At his decisive words, Felix could no longer argue and bowed his head.
Thus, the fifth test concluded with two eliminations and six survivors.
* * *
Karina sat in the garden in front of the dormitory, gazing up at the darkened night sky.
Only two tests remained.
If she passed those two safely, she would be officially adopted into the House of Batius.
But she would still only be an adoptee—not the heir.
To become the official successor, she would have to face that monster named Xavier again.
It reminded her of her childhood in the Demonic Cult.
Surviving within the Black Dao Hall, surrounded by twelve direct heirs of the Cult Leader and hundreds of their followers.
In that brutal, suffocating life, she crushed the direct heirs who had looked down on her—and seized the position of Cult Leader herself.
She endured that hell for one reason alone.
To become the strongest.
To defeat Namgung Hwi.
The fragmented powerhouses of the Demonic Cult had never been her true goal.
Namgung Hwi—the martial world’s unrivaled master, hailed as the strongest under heaven even before she became Cult Leader—was her sole objective and obsession.
Ironically, that feeling wasn’t one-sided.
In his own way, he had chosen her as his target.
The Black Heaven Swift Shadow, who unified the splintering Demonic Cult and rekindled the dying flames of the demonic path.
For the man known as the greatest sword of the Orthodox Sect, erasing her existence must have been both his obsession and his duty.
Thinking about it, it truly was a twisted fate.
Letting out a soft, bitter chuckle, Karina slowly stood up.
Well, I survived the Black Dao Hall and became Cult Leader.
There’s no way I can’t make it here.
At that moment, she felt someone’s gaze.
Turning her head, she saw the palm-sized mutt staring straight at her.
Its lake-blue eyes gleamed sharply in the dark.
“Why does that damn dog keep hanging around?”
Arrrr—
As if it understood her words, the mutt bared its teeth with surprising ferocity.
