"Are you sure she will come back..?"
"I'm sure of it. We don't know how she resurrected, but there is a good chance she resurrected by herself."
"But, she's in the guard's station, right? There's no way she can escape if she somehow resurrects again..."
"I know, but there is still a chance that she finds her way to escape."
"Zoralia... I think you are overthinking it..."
The night after Ahko's execution, Lydia and the imperial guard who used [Bind] on Ahko before her execution sat across from each other in the living room of Lydia's house. Zoralia doesn't have a clear knowledge of how Ahko resurrected the first time. Still, she sure knew that once Ahko resurrected the second time by someone or something, she would definitely get her revenge on Lydia.
Even though Zoralia never knew about Ahko, she has a gut feeling that Ahko is an impatient person and will find her way to get her revenge in a short time. Lydia insists that Ahko is truly gone and that she should leave the city and go back to the capital, but Zoralia will never follow someone too blindly.
"You should go back to the capital, Zoralia... They need you more than me..."
"They will be fine, I am just one of the imperial guards, they have plenty of them."
"Yeah, but you are very valuable, and instead, you are protecting me from Ahko, who is already dead?"
"Don't worry, I've sent my letter to the king. If he decides I must go back to the capital, then it'll be over, otherwise, I'll stay here for a month."
"I see... Well, are you gonna live here?"
"Not in your house, but an inn."
"Oh. So are you gonna be with me every day?"
"This isn't about you, I'm only here to check if Ahko is actually dead. If her body goes missing, I'll check up on you."
"Oh... Are you gonna check her body every day?"
"I will."
"Okay... But I want to ask something..."
"What is it..?"
"Can you make sure that none of the guards, or whoever in the station, don't use Ahko's body..?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know... Uhm..."
"I'm sorry, but if you are talking about sexual things, there is nothing I could do to fully stop it."
"I was her only friend, and I want to make sure that her body is kept in a safe place and not getting defiled by those men again."
"Sounds like she had gone through something."
"She did... It was horrible."
"Why don't you tell me about her past?"
"Well, I think you already know that she is the only recorded person to ever have a G rank."
"Oh yes, I did hear about that."
"How much did the news reach?"
"I have no information for that, but if I have to guess, probably all over the world except the Eastern Continent."
"W-Wow..."
"What happened to her after that?"
"Well... She's treated less than a slave..."
"Oh... and how did she become... a succubus..?"
"And how did she... become a succubus..?"
"I-... I have no idea. She suddenly vanished without saying anything, I-I thought she died or started a new life..."
"And when exactly did that happen..?"
"It was in the month of Orvane, 4200. The exact date I don't know, we only met each other 4 times per week, I'd say around 22nd to 24th."
"Almost a year ago?"
"Mhm... And she came back on 14th Halveth."
"When she came back... She has already become one..?"
"Well, she wasn't a succubus back then, she's a lesser demon."
"I see... So around that time, she made a deal with someone or something.."
"Even though I didn't want her to become like this, it is nice that she's not treated less than an object anymore..."
"What happened after that?"
"She went to the goblin dungeon and destroyed it by herself. There was a party that went with the same quest when she didn't come back for more than a month, then I thought she was for sure dead."
"But she didn't."
"She came back after that with 2 slaves with her and a healer from the party that was supposed to clear the dungeon."
"Did she.."
"Yes, she did. She spared the healer for some reason, I think it's because she has a resurrection spell."
"Oh..?"
"Then... She burned the Gaia Forest, because of the killer hornet quest."
"Then the Yotein Village."
"And lastly, killed 13 adventurers..."
"All in a span of less than 2 months?"
"Yeah..."
"Huh. Okay, I think staying in this city is the best idea."
"Why's that?"
"You said she brought a healer with a resurrection spell, right?"
"Mhm?"
"I believe she learned resurrection from her."
"Why do you say that?"
"She resurrected. There are only 2 people, herself or that dryad. I can confirm that the dryad isn't capable of resurrecting her, which leads to only one person."
"You sure it's her? There is no such thing as self resurrection..."
"We will investigate the Lopia forest, but I am not sure of it."
After the conversation, Zoralia leaves the place and go to the guard's station, she made an annoucement that they must not dispose Ahko's body until she said so, and that they must not use Ahko's body for their own needs, but knowing that they will disobey her behind her back, she announced if they do commit such thing, make sure they pull out or else there might be consenquences.
All according to plan, for days, the investigation of the Lopia forest leads to the Dagger of Mischief, which Ahko had used but looks abandoned for some reason. Haru's party also commented that Ahko didn't use her dagger, but that's about it. There is nothing else to search for after that. Then, 5 days after the execution, Ken Menry requested Ahko's body and head to be returned to his mansion, which the guards agreed to instantly, because Ken is one of the biggest benefactors of the city, he's almost as influential as the governor of the city. It's why almost everyone respects him, though it's a little reckless for the guards to just hand him over Ahko and not asking Zoralia for permission first.
Zoralia went to the station after Ken left with Ahko, asking where Ahko went, to which the guards said Ken had taken her. It makes Zoralia disappointed by the guards' recklessness, but she decided to leave them be, Ken must have known something if he really wanted Ahko even after she's dead. Then she heard that Ken had brought many male slaves from the rumors along the streets. It came from one servant of the mansion talking to her friend outside the mansion, and was overheard by somebody. Maybe Ken has a taste in men? Maybe he's doing it for labor even though they aren't suited for that, but whatever he's after, it's very strange.
Then it clicked on Zoralia's mind, right after he took Ahko from the station? Men plus succubus never go well. It's like he's trying to resurrect Ahko. She knows very well he is forcing them to do that thing to Ahko's body and not pulling it out, all of those slaves are destined to die to a dead succubus, very humiliating, and that made Zoralia chuckle a bit.
She was never in such a place as Ahko, she was, in fact, born into a minor civil law family in Caldwen, located at the most western point of the Southern Continent and the third largest city of the Leafwing Kingdom. Her family often enforced the city's minor order, from her family's job, she has lived a relatively good wealth from her childhood until she is now. She inherited the temperament of her calm father.
From childhood, she had an unusual tough body. When she was still just a baby, a servant accidentally dropped her onto the hard floor, but instead of her getting hurt, the hard wooden floor cracked, and she was perfectly fine, not even crying from the pain.
When she's around 5, a servant was holding a lot of plates on her hands and didn't see the cute little Zoralia coming around the corner, her knee ended up hitting Zoralia's head, the force fractures the front of her knee and she falls screaming in pain, while Zoralia is standing still, not knowing what just happened and there is no bruises on her head or any pain she felt.
She entered the guard world as a low-ranked recruit guard in Caldwen at 16 and rose entirely by herself, though with some lineage advantage. Her tough body makes her a special case, and she has an almost cold indifference to anything that wasn't a task, performing such tasks with incredible speed and precision, she rose to the higher rankings faster than her colleagues.
She had become the Watch Captain, just one step below the highest ranking of the station, the Station Commander, at the age of 25. She's managing one of the station's shift either it's dawn, dusk, or midnight. She's like the supervisor to all the guards below her, assigning patrol routes, and looking into major arrests like corrupt officials.
And she did a very, very good job doing her role, which caught the attention of one of the imperial guards at the time who was stationed in the city by the king's order. He ask her if they could spar for a bit to test her strength and were amazed by how tough her body is, even a simple as hitting her neck with a wooden sword instantly makes the sword crumbled, they spar for around 20 minutes and with 20 wooden swords broken by her toughness, he then give an invitation for Zoralia to go to the capital and meet the king himself.
Although she refused at first, after some discussion with her family, she decided to go to the capital with him. She tried her best to be as polite as possible when meeting the king, but her almost cold indifference is pretty obvious. When she is in the testing grounds to test her strength and all that. The combat examiner concludes that she is at least an A rank, though most of it comes from her body's toughness and endurance.
Placing her in the role of Gate Knight, elite guards who hold the main palace gates and the courtyard. Even though roles like that can only be selected from the best graduates of the capital's combat academy, someone like Zoralia is an exception because she got hand-picked by the imperial guard himself. Over the next 11 years, she worked herself tirelessly up to the imperial guard ranking.
It's a little unfortunate if she will die or not from a mere succubus that evolved from G rank to possible B or A rank now. She can't take her lightly, the succubus had killed 2 imperial guards very easily using only her charm and her body, the highest guard ranking one can achieve. When she found out what Ken Menry was up to, every night she stayed in Lydia's house until dawn, where she then left and went on with her day, because Lydia will be at work during the day and Ahko can't risk exposing herself.
It is a little uncomfortable for Lydia when an S rank super strong guard just stands in the corner of her room, not saying anything unless she starts the conversation. Though if it means protection from Ahko's wrath, then she's fine with it. Zoralia never said anything about her knowing that maybe Ken Menry is trying to resurrect Ahko, just to not make Lydia get paranoid. For 2 weeks, nothing happened, and she had received the letter from the king telling her to come back to the capital the next day, but the night before the day she must go back to the capital, Ahko came to Lydia. A stroke of luck for Zoralia.
Now, she's face to face with the succubus outside of Lydia's house.
"50 seconds."
Ahko clicked her tongue out of frustration and wiped out some dust from her cloak. She thought that Zoralia must be at least somewhat have some scratches, but there were none. Zoralia looks as calm as ever. There is no fighting stance. Her sword is in its sheath, like she's a statue. She realized that the battle will be in her favor whatsoever. She must wait for 110 seconds for the [Iron Proclamation] to fade, and she can escape without having the penalties.
"Yue, keep track of the timer for every 10 seconds, will you?"
"Alright."
"Sounds like I need to work harder for my abilities."
"Seems like it. You abandoned the dagger, why's that?"
"I don't know, I probably forgot it when I evolved."
"I see... Wh-"
"[Darkness Engulf]"
Before Zoralia can finish her sentence, Ahko uses [Darkness Engulf], and dark mist surrounds Zoralia. Unfortunately for Zoralia, [Darkness Engulf] doesn't have a level or rank, it only depends if the target is fast enough to keep distancing herself away until Ahko's Mp depleted.
"40 seconds."
"[Judgement Step]"
[Judgement Step], a rare skill where the user uses controlled burst speed to the opponent in a straight line. It is used to close the gap and catch the target off guard by the sheer speed.
She caught Ahko off guard and unsheathed her sword when she was in the midst of [Judgement Step] and sliced Ahko's arm that was holding [Void Crescent].
"[Edict Chains]"
[Edict Chains], an unique spell where it summons chains of condensed mana, similar to [Bind] but much stronger and almost unbreakable and dependent on her DEF. If the opponent's STR is higher than her DEF, the chains will break almost instantly, but the cast is too slow and has a high mana cost.
Taking advantage of Ahko's caught off guardness, she used [Edict Chains] in hopes that Ahko is distracted enough from the [Judgement Step] and her arm getting sliced off that the chains are fully cast and bind Ahko, but fortunately for Ahko, she managed to snap back and kick off the ground and landed just on the border of the [Iron Proclamation].
"Hp: 2423/3740"
Ahko's right arm has faded to ash, and her [Void Crescent] also faded, leaving only [Darkness Engulf] , which is depleting her Mp, and she quickly ended it and jumped to the back of the roof of Lydia's house, just enough that Zoralia can only see her head. She then placed [Doppelganger] beside her to create the illusion that she could create a clone of herself and work like her. She then falls to the ground and drags the doppelganger with her to make it seem like they both are ready for an attack, even though her doppelganger can't do anything.
"30 seconds."
"A clone?" Zoralia was caught in a little surprise.
"[Zone of Jurisdiction]"
[Zone of Jurisdiction], another Zoralia's unique ability, similar to [Iron Proclamation], it creates a 20 meter radius around her. Inside it, it dispels any illusions and alerts Zoralia if someone used any illusion type ability, skill, or spell for 2 minutes.
The moment the ability was cast, Ahko's doppelganger dispelled, and her plan of trying to make Zoralia panicked under 2v1, failed.
"Holy shit, this woman has every counter to all my abilities?"
"Seems like it."
As Ahko tried to move to the right side of the house, Zoralia was already waiting for Ahko on the roof and merely missed stabbing her neck when Ahko suddenly sensed something was wrong and dodged at the right time. Zoralia quickly improvised and ended up slicing Ahko's upper back, not all of it, but more like 10% of it.
"[Stillwound]"
[Stillwound], an Extra skill, the wound the user created will be frozen in time and will not heal, no matter what, but the skill will fade on the wound after 5 minutes.
"Hp: 2297/3740"
"20 seconds."
Ahko ran back to the front of the house, looked up, and made eye contact with Zoralia.
"[Darkness Bind]"
"[Heat Ray]"
A pool of dark mist appeared under Zoralia's feet as she was distracted by the beam of light Ahko gave from her finger. Sensing something is wrong, she immediately jumped away from the light but the [Darkness Bind] finished casted and dark mist hands start chasing her from mid air, but before bind can catch her, she landed where Ahko stood and almost destroyed Ahko's left arm, but luckily Ahko saw it coming and dodge her landing, her beam of light still beamed from her finger.
The [Darkness Bind] almost got to her, but then she broke them with her sword, but then suddenly, she felt something rising, like heat coming from her intimate place.
"[Null Field]"
[Null Field], a rare spell, where it creates 10 meter radius around the user and disrupts any charm type abilities, spells, and skills for 1 minute.
Ahko's [Heat Ray] instantly dissipates, leaving her vulnerable. She can't use any illusion or her succubus abilities, she isn't strong enough to scratch her, and she isn't tough enough where she can withstand Zoralia's attack. She is already wounded in her heart, her right arm, and her back.
"10 seconds."
"Tsk, [Shadow Clone]!"
A shadow resembling Ahko's appearance, charges towards Zoralia.
"9 seconds."
Initially caught off guard, Zoralia quickly dispelled it by swinging her sword and sliced the shadow in half.
"8 seconds."
Zoralia didn't realize that Ahko was also charging at her from behind the shadow.
"7 seconds."
Ahko did a drop kick and actually pushed Zoralia a bit, making her stumble on her feet.
"6 seconds."
Zoralia is a bit surprised by that, no one has ever made her stumble except if her opponent is actually stronger than her, but this succubus is a lot weaker than her, yet was able to do so.
"5 seconds."
Quickly go back to her feet, Ahko tried to do it again, but then Zoralia grabbed her leg and almost sliced her entire body vertically in half.
"4 seconds."
Ahko fortunately kicked the sword away using her left leg, that is currently held by Zoralia, and sliced off her own leg in exchange that her body didn't get sliced in half.
"Hp: 1346/3740"
"3 seconds."
Surprised by Ahko's action, Zoralia tried to actually stab Ahko in the brain. Ahko quickly reacted by using [Demon Roar] and disrupting Zoralia's focus for a second.
"2 seconds."
Using the opportunity of Zoralia's distraction, Ahko stumbly stood up and used [Flying] and flew off the ground.
"1 second."
Zoralia, seeing this, jumped off the ground and tried to grab Ahko's feet, but Ahko managed to pull her feet away, and the [Iron Proclamation] faded. Ahko successfully escaped from S rank imperial guard, but not until Zoralia threw her swords towards Ahko and successfully chopped off her right leg.