Chapter 60: Stray Hunt - Part I
The wind shifted over the estate as twilight surrendered to full night. Stars blinked into view above the treeline, and torches flickered along the estate walls, their flames steady in the stillness.
Then the wards pulsed.
A faint shimmer across the estate's boundary—a ripple of violet light—followed by the quiet chime of an alert spell. Volundr paused mid-scroll in his study, eyes narrowing. He didn't rise. Instead, he listened.
But someone else was already moving.
Kuroka.
She dropped from the rooftop like a whisper of shadow, ears twitching, tail flicking with precise tension.
Her gold eyes scanned the tree line. She felt them before she saw them—stray devils, their warped auras wild and angry, like animals forced into human skin.
"Tch. Uninvited guests," she muttered.
Three of them breached the outer perimeter, slipping through a gap in the far eastern barrier.
Kuroka didn't wait. She blurred forward, shadows wrapping her limbs as she used Senjutsu to mask her presence.
The first stray was hulking, its jaw unhinged too wide, fangs dripping venom.
Kuroka appeared behind it, striking its spine with a pressure point technique. Its limbs buckled. Before it could roar, her claws slashed across its neck—silent, swift, fatal.
The second noticed too late.
Kuroka used a flash-step, ducking under its wild swipe, then lured it toward a stored barrier trap she'd hidden during training last week. She activated the glyph with a flick of aura, ensnaring the devil in a glowing cube of force. It screeched.
"Noisy," she hissed, leaping in to finish it off with a double-strike to the core.
Above them, atop the observation platform of the eastern wing, Volundr stood motionless. Cloaked in concealment magic, he observed, arms folded, expression unreadable.
She doesn't hesitate. She adapts fast.
The third devil—a wiry creature with too many fingers and a snakelike tongue—circled from the rear.
Kuroka sensed it. She closed her eyes for a second, then opened them with a smirk. She stomped the ground once, triggering a minor earth pulse to shift the terrain.
The creature lost footing. That was all she needed.
Kuroka flipped over its back, tail curling mid-air, and jabbed her fingers into the pressure point below its neck.
It screamed, paralyzed, as she wreathed her claws in spirit energy and drove them through its skull.
Breathing steadily, she looked around.
All clear.
She wiped her hands on her torn sleeve and turned toward the treeline.
"Next time, try knocking."
Volundr finally stepped down from his post, slow and deliberate. His boots made no sound as he crossed the dirt.
"You acted quickly."
She arched an eyebrow, wiping a smear of blood from her cheek.
"Didn't see the point in waiting for permission."
He looked over the remains,
then back at her.
"You activated traps, rerouted terrain flow, and isolated targets on the fly."
She flashed a fang. "I learn from the best."
He smirked faintly. "That you do."
As she turned to return to the estate, he watched her for another moment.
She doesn't fight like a servant. She fights like someone defending her own.
He made a note in his mind for later: test her leadership under group pressure.
But for tonight, he let her walk away.
The estate returned to calm, but the wards shimmered once more—stronger now.
Because she had defended them first.