"Did you get her?"
"No."
Crow approached Rei with a dagger in hand, but Rei shook his head in response.
He could say that with certainty because the sensation of sweeping the Twilight Spear horizontally and blasting the woman away had felt like striking an opponent wearing Metal Armor.
"That woman—I don't know if it's some strange Skill, a Magic Item, or something else entirely, but she is not normal."
"Is that so?"
"Oh, what a shame. If you'd let your guard down, I could have taken you by surprise."
As if to interrupt their exchange, the woman— who should have been slammed into the wall and collapsed on the floor from the impact—stood up.
She seemed to have taken some damage, but only to a moderate degree at best.
Rei studied her, first checking the spot where his initial thrust and slash with the Twilight Spear had landed, then her torso—more precisely, her flank. Satisfied with his understanding of her exceptional defensive power, he spoke.
"So it's the blood. I figured you were just drenched in it for fun, but it seems that's not the case."
Drenched in blood for fun? What would that even mean? he couldn't help but think. But then again, she was an assassin—and given her behavior just now, it wouldn't be surprising if she did have such grotesque tastes.
"Correct."
Perhaps sensing the certainty in Rei's eyes, the woman admitted it without bothering to hide anything further.
"Blood, huh? ...Damn it."
Crow, who had been listening to their exchange, spat in displeasure.
It was easy to imagine that the vast amount of blood covering the woman belonged to the Fusetsu assassins she had just fought.
For Crow, who cared deeply about his comrades, feeling revolted by a woman drenched in his companions' blood was only natural.
"I don't know the logic behind it, but she raises her defensive power in areas soaked with blood... or hardens it, or turns it to metal, maybe. It might be an instant-kill tactic against an unfamiliar opponent, but ultimately it's a one-trick pony. Now that I know what she's doing, there are plenty of ways to deal with her."
If the areas covered in blood had higher defensive power, he simply needed to aim for the spots without it.
As long as her Skill was mediated through blood, attacking the uncovered areas wasn't a difficult proposition.
It would require a certain level of skill, but for Rei, that was no problem at all.
"Hehe, in that case... how about this?"
Saying so, the woman slashed her own arm with the dagger.
As expected of an assassin's weapon, the blade was sharp.
She sliced cleanly through the surface of the skin, then smeared the blood that welled up over the parts of her body that were still bare.
"I see. So it works with your own blood, not just someone else's."
"Correct. Now then, it's about time I avenged my sister. I'm sure she'll be pleased."
She said this, running her hand over the tattered Maid outfit.
Seeing the gesture, Rei had a sudden thought.
That Maid outfit... is it the one the woman who infiltrated the Star River Inn to kill me was wearing?
"That's right. My sister's memento."
She said it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
There was a lot he wanted to say—how she had gotten her hands on the outfit, or whether the assassin had only disguised herself as a maid for the infiltration and normally wore different clothes, and so on. There was truly a lot he wanted to ask, but he didn't expect a sensible answer from a woman consumed entirely by revenge.
Given that, he judged that anything he said here would be meaningless. Without asking anything further, he readied the Twilight Spear.
"I see. Then at least die wearing the same outfit as your sister. That's the least mercy I can offer."
"Not at all. If you truly want to save me... then die right here!"
With those words, the woman surged forward.
"Don't ignore me!"
The one who leapt into her path as she tried to close the distance with Rei was Crow.
Having his existence ignored during their first encounter had been galling enough, but what was truly unforgivable was the fact that most of the blood covering the woman belonged to Fusetsu assassins—Crow's comrades.
For Crow, allowing a woman like that to move freely was absolutely unacceptable.
If the woman was targeting Rei to avenge her sister, then Crow was targeting her to avenge his comrades.
Driven by fury, Crow closed in on her, refusing to let her have her way.
Since she had been focused on closing the distance with Rei, it was easy for Crow to close the distance with her.
"Don't get in my way!"
Furious at Crow for blocking her path and obstructing her attack on Rei, the woman shouted with a voice tinged with near-madness and swung her dagger.
The strike had nothing to do with her technique as an assassin—it was a wild blow meant purely to eliminate the obstacle in front of her.
Even so, the blood covering her body apparently boosted her offense as well as her defense, and there was no mistaking the sharpness of the strike.
But Crow was no amateur.
Whether it was a Skill, a Magic Item, or something else entirely, he understood that she was manipulating blood.
Given that, he simply needed to recognize her as such an opponent and attack accordingly.
Crow evaded the strike without difficulty and unleashed a counterattack.
The woman had just used her own blood to cover more of her body and raise her defensive power.
Given that, even if his dagger struck the blood, it would likely be deflected or parried.
Even Rei's strike with the Twilight Spear had only managed to slash through the blood and the skin beneath, failing to reach flesh or bone.
That was proof of just how exceptionally high the defensive power of the blood coating her body was.
However, Crow was a skilled assassin, not a warrior.
He didn't charge at her head-on like a fool. Instead, he used his dagger to pinpoint the parts of her body not covered in blood.
The sharpness of that strike spoke to his considerable skill.
The woman, even watching Crow's approach, showed no particular agitation. She moved calmly.
She shifted a blood-covered part of her body—an area where she could expect high defensive power—into the path of Crow's incoming dagger.
In essence, it was like using armor or a shield to block an enemy's attack, and it wasn't a particularly difficult maneuver for her.
"But you see—!"
Crow hesitated for only a moment at her response before immediately changing the trajectory of his dagger.
He shifted his center of gravity, controlled the joints of his shoulder, elbow, and wrist, and redirected the blade from the blood-covered area to bare flesh.
"Guh!"
"Nah—!?"
The instant the tip of his dagger pierced an uncovered part of the woman—her left shoulder, exposed by the badly damaged Maid outfit—a groan of pain escaped her lips. Crow flashed a grin of triumph, but his expression immediately shifted from satisfaction to surprise.
That was because, while his strike had torn through her skin, it had failed to reach flesh or bone.
When the skin broke and blood emerged, the blood caught the blade of the dagger and stopped it cold. It would have been unreasonable not to be surprised by that.
The woman glanced at Crow.
Until now, she had regarded him as little more than a stone by the roadside, her attention fixed on Rei—her sister's killer. But their brief exchange had apparently led her to judge him as a genuine threat.
A gaze filled with killing intent locked onto him. The hand not holding the dagger—the left shoulder Crow had wounded—moved without any issue as she unleashed a claw strike.
It went without saying that a claw strike from an assassin in this situation was no ordinary scratch.
Crow, sensing the danger, moved to evade—somewhat forcibly, but he moved.
"Guh!"
However, the strike reached further than he had anticipated, and her claws slashed across his face.
What implications that carried, even Crow didn't know.
He didn't know, but he half-reflexively created distance from her.
And in the instant the woman turned her gaze toward her true target—Rei—having dispatched the nuisance, her face twisted in astonishment.
That was because Rei's Twilight Spear had pierced her torso.
The thrust, charged with magic power, did not slide off the blood covering her body as it had before. It pierced through the blood, then the skin beneath, defying her expectation that she could manipulate the blood that seeped from the wound. It pierced through that blood as well, cleaved through flesh, damaged her internal organs, tore through flesh again, broke through skin, and passed completely through her torso.
"Geh..."
For the woman, the power behind that strike was entirely unexpected.
The shock of having her torso pierced made her spit blood as her body went rigid.
Impaled on the Twilight Spear, frozen in place— the sight was fitting of a shrike's prey.
"Wh... why..."
A voice of utter incomprehension and disbelief leaked from her lips.
She must have held absolute confidence in her blood-based defense.
But for Rei, even without pouring sufficient magic power into his weapon, he had been able to break through it.
Given that, a Twilight Spear strike with more magic power than his initial attack would have no difficulty shattering what amounted to the woman's armor of blood.
Moreover, the woman had been distracted by Crow. Whereas before she had reacted to every one of Rei's movements, her vigilance had slipped.
Under those circumstances, it was naturally impossible for her to defeat an opponent who was a cut above her to begin with.
For Crow, while he hadn't been able to avenge his comrades himself, the fact that he had obstructed the woman's actions and caused her to fail in avenging her sister held significant meaning.
"Die."
With that single word, Rei lifted the Twilight Spear—still impaling the woman—with one hand and swung it broadly.
It was possible precisely because his body had been created using the full technological prowess of the Zephyle Clan.
...In reality, Rei knew a fair number of people who could pull off a similar feat.
Regardless, an adult woman—an assassin trained for combat, impaled on the spear—was swung about with no sense of weight at all. The woman, her torso still pierced, was sent flying and crashed into the wall.
A wet, crushing sound echoed through the corridor, and a cry of anguish escaped her lips.
"Gya..."
If she had simply crashed into a wall, it would have been a repeat of the earlier scene.
But what was decisively different this time was that her torso had already been pierced.
With her torso impaled, she was blasted into the wall by Rei's inhuman strength.
The impact was on an entirely different level from when she had been knocked aside by the Twilight Spear earlier. And yet...
"She's still alive?"
Her bones throughout her body had been shattered by the force of the impact, but she was still breathing.
Whether fortunately or unfortunately, she had lost consciousness and showed no signs of moving again.
"What are you going to do? Kill her?"
Crow glared at the unconscious woman and asked Rei.
Rei was about to answer, but before he could, he recalled the series of events that had just occurred.
"Come to think of it, you got scratched by her claws earlier, didn't you? Any effects? The likely possibility is poison."
"Huh? Oh, that sort of thing... doesn't seem to be an issue. I'm still running on adrenaline from the fight, so I might just not feel it yet. I'll take something just in case."
Saying so, Crow pulled a pill from the pouch at his waist and swallowed it.
A poison antidote, or perhaps a healing remedy—Rei didn't know the specifics, but Crow must have judged it sufficient.
Of course, as long as the true nature of the woman's claws was unknown, it was impossible to say with absolute certainty that he'd be fine.
With that settled for the moment, Crow turned back to Rei.
"So? What about this woman? You going to kill her?"
His words framed it as a question, but in practice, it was tantamount to telling him to finish her off.
Rei could understand Crow's feelings—he had likely lost comrades—but he was conflicted about what to do with her.
"Do you think we can extract any information from her?"
"Impossible."
Crow didn't even need to think before replying.
"You saw how crazed she is. I don't think anyone's pulling information out of someone in that state."
"Fusetsu has interrogation specialists, right? Even they can't manage it?"
"Probably not. This woman is maddened by revenge. She might calm down a little if she kills you, but... what's your call?"
"Rejected. Can't be helped, then. I'll kill her."
Since she was targeting him, letting her go was not an option.
Moreover, this woman was skilled enough to fight Crow to a standstill. Leaving her alive was far too dangerous.
And with her torso pierced, she would eventually die even if left alone, but...
"At the very least, I'll make it quick."
Saying that, Rei drove the tip of the Twilight Spear through the woman's skull.