"Footsteps coming from right." Penelope whispered.

Tw.a.n.g

PUCHI

"Ergh…" A hulking ma.s.s fell to the ground.

"Tanya, go grab his sword, it's a longsword, like the ones you prefer to use." Penelope hurriedly whispered, tapping on Tanya's shoulder.

"Thank the heavens that this idiot was only wearing soft armour. The noise of his plate hitting the floor would have given our position away." Tanya remarked as she looted a fine longsword from the corpse.

"And I'll be taking this back." Tanya did not forget to retrieve the crossbow bolt.

"Tanya, this is dangerous… Are you sure we can do this? We should wait for the army to arrive, this isn't something students can just deal with… I am only a [Warrior 3] anyways." Erina mumbled, clearly frightened about the idea of killing their way through elite knights.

Tanya glanced back at Erina with a disappointed scowl. "You have two second ascension fighters with you, grow up before you end up like Charles." She said as she finished reloading the crossbow.

"..." Erina was not too rea.s.sured, but she had nowhere else to go.

"You have a sword on you, use it if you want to live."

The three proceeded through the cold and eerily quiet hallways. Corpses of students and teachers littered the hallways with the occasional enemy corpse lying nearby. The thick smell of iron filled the cold halls, inducing the natural gag reflex of Erina. The scene before her was no less than a ma.s.sacre.

"Tanya, we have already pa.s.sed your dormitory. We have not seen any bodies that are of your playmates, so relax a little." Penelope sighed.

"That means they are in danger. Only the deity up there knows what I will do if even a hair on their head gets harmed." Tanya gritted her teeth.

"Movement up ahead, two knights in plate. We need to take them out quietly up close then catch them, otherwise their corpses will make too much noise on the way down." Tanya whispered, drawing her sword in preparation.

"Hide near the dorm doors and wait for them to approach."

The knights slowly walked towards the group's position. Tanya, Penelope, and Erina were hiding amongst the doors, just about obscured by the walls. The knights continued walking and did not notice due to their visors obscuring their sight.

"Take them." Tanya whispered, slowly walking up behind one with her sword in hand.

"You heard her, Erina." Penelope directed to Erina.

'Oh right, I have a sword.' Erina nervously followed Tanya, who was trailing quietly behind the knights.

Tanya silently gestured her hand to the right as she proceeded to the left knight. Erina managed to pick up the meaning and braces herself for her first ever act of taking a human life.

'Do not think of this as murder… this is simply self-defence. They will kill you if you don't kill them! They killed Charles and they will definitely kill you. This is war, this is the duty of a swordsman: to kill.' Erina inhaled.

'Go ahead, kill that man with a slit to his throat. Feel his blood trickled down your wrist as you blade cuts his life short. This is for the sake of all that you love. Erina, believe in yourself.' Erina exhaled, stealthily readying her shaky blade toward the back of the knight's neck.

'Do it, do it! Just get it over with and kill him! THIS IS WHAT YOU TRAINED FOR! KILL THIS ENEMY AND BECOME A KILLER! You will have to do this eventually.'

s.h.i.+CK

"Ergh…"

Erina's sword sliced right into the left side of the knight's neck, sliding through the plates and coming out the other side. Erina has killed the knight.

'Catch him.' Erina caught the man and sighed.

"Good job, Erina." Tanya smiled, also having killed her target.

SMOOCH

Tanya gave a kiss on the forehead to Erina and winked. "I knew you had it in you~"

"!!!" Erina's blus.h.i.+ng face seemed just like the blood on her hands.

"Now put them amongst the rest of the corpses I suppose, it will be less suspicious that way." And that, they did.

"I just killed a man, Tanya… but why don't I feel sad?" Erina felt no guilt whatsoever, looking at the corpse with indifferent eyes.

"It is as if his life meant nothing, like an ant… I felt nothing." Erina became nervous, stuttering in her speech as her lips quivered and her pupils became shrunk.

"It is alright, this is the nature of war. One must not be light-handed towards their enemies. This is how people grow and become powerful." Tanya held Erina close and comforted her.

"Now remember, we do not have time to lament about killing right now. We have friends to save. Come with me if you want to grow up. Perhaps if you perform well enough today I will make you an adult myself." Tanya licked her lips, walking off into the distant halls.

These words echoed and echoed within Erina's mind.

'Grow up'

The phrase had been said enough for Erina to drill it within herself.

But how?

'Tanya, how can I become like you? How many people do I have to kill? How many hours must I spend with the sword? How many lives must I witness come to an end? Will this really be my life? I am still a student! I don't want to grow up!' Erina's view of Tanya darkened, seeing the latter beginning to disappear into the dark.

'I want to be like you, I want to be confident. I want to be superior in every way. I want to be reliable in times like this.' She began walking. Slowly, light came from darkness with Tanya at it's centre.

'You're everything I aspire to be.'

Radiance.