Chapter 75: Sword Empress
A few minutes ago, in the storage room of the gang’s base...
A lot of women were huddled together for warmth in the dirty room. It was called a storage room, but essentially it was a pen for women.
Each night, sometimes more than once, men from the gang would enter the room and pick a woman to play with. Most of the women who were picked never returned the same.
The redheaded woman, lying limply in one corner, was the proof of their atrocities. The others didn’t know what happened to her, but she never talked, never fought whenever the men chose her.
Since she had stopped reacting, perhaps she had stopped being fun for the gang members. Hence, they stopped picking her.
If the gang leader’s brother hadn’t taken a liking to her, she would have already been used as bait to catch monsters.
"Shush... don’t look at her," one of the girls warned the new girl. "They took that girl’s friend in the morning, and she didn’t return. You know what that means—"
As if hearing the elderly woman’s voice, the redhead’s eyes snapped open. She got up slowly, scanning her surroundings as if it were the first time she had been there.
"Where... am I?" she muttered, not noticing the horrified gazes of the women around her.
Before anyone could reply, the metal door was violently kicked open, slamming against the adjacent wall with a bang.
The women immediately cowered back to the walls. They didn’t dare look at the five men who had entered the room. Only the redhead remained in her place, staring from the women to the men with butcher knives.
"Would you look at that?" Eddie, the group’s brutish leader, whistled, looking at the redhead. "Someone finally got to her feet?"
Saying so, he nodded to the man on his left. The guy smirked and reached out to grab her. However, before he could touch her, the redhead caught his wrist and twisted his arm without hesitation.
The sickening sound of cracking bones filled the room. The women were terrified, and the men... they were just dumbfounded.
How come someone who hadn’t eaten in days could be so strong?
There was only one explanation.
"She’s evolved!"
The words had barely left Eddie’s mouth when the redhead grabbed the first guy’s hair and yanked his head down, slamming it on the concrete floor.
She lifted him, then slammed his head again and again until the guy’s skull cracked open like an egg. Only when the guy’s body stopped twitching did she look up.
[Congratulations on your first kill!]
[As a reward, please select a weapon of your choice.]
A holographic screen appeared before the woman. A hint of a smile appeared on her face when she noticed a familiar weapon.
The next second, a golden light appeared in her hand, slowly condensing into a red blade.
"Fuck this!" Eddie yelled, running outside. "Hold the crazy bitch back. I’ll get my brother—!"
Eddie’s words got cut off when something warm and sticky hit the back of his head. The metallic scent of blood was unmistakable. He turned around, only to see the mangled corpses of his friends.
He didn’t see it, but the women did. When Eddie told them to attack, the men drew their butcher knives and attacked the redhead.
However, the redhead was right in their face before they could even attack her. Just like that, one man lost his head.
She struck the next guy without breaking the swing. The guy tried to block the strike with his knife, but the woman’s sword cut through his knife and his arm in one motion.
The third guy saw it and turned to run. He had barely gotten two steps in when she drove the blade straight through his back and out of his chest. The guy spat out a mouthful of blood that hit Eddie’s head.
She then turned to the second guy, who was screaming while cradling his severed arm.
"You BITCH!" he screamed, staring at her, but the redhead showed no emotion.
She just grabbed him by the collar and chopped his head off before turning to Eddie.
"Are you the king?" she asked, her voice hoarse from not speaking for too long.
Eddie was too stunned to speak. His eyes kept darting between the exit and his lost comrades.
Meanwhile, the woman walked up to him. Eddie looked at him, but the next moment his vision tilted, and he was staring at his own feet before everything went black.
The woman flicked the blood off her blade as if it were her usual work. There was blood on her face too, but she didn’t care about it as much as she cared about her sword.
"You are safe now," she said, without turning to the women. "They will not touch you again."
"Touch us? T-They’ll kill us!" one woman screamed, grabbing her head.
The redhead raised an eyebrow, looking at the women.
And here I thought the women of the Otherworld were cowards...
"T-That was the leader’s younger brother," another woman stammered. "And y-you just killed him. There are so many more men outside. T-They’ll come for us!"
The redhead rolled her eyes, immediately discarding any thoughts she had about training the women. If a captive didn’t rejoice at the captor’s death and instead grew fearful, the person was already beyond saving.
Even if they were given a blade and all the training in the world, they were bound to succumb to their fears. Hence, there was no point in wasting time on them.
The redhead looked down, pointing at Eddie’s severed head with her blade.
"Him?"
The woman nodded.
The redhead walked over and grabbed the head by its bloody hair like it was a toy to play with.
"You said his brother was the king?" she asked the woman.
They nodded, not caring about the woman’s strange obsession with kings or why she was asking things that she already knew about.
The redhead could guess what they were thinking, but she wasn’t in the mood to tell them about her transmigration. Besides, she was already pissed.
I was promised a peaceful world for reincarnation. Not this dross!
With that thought, she walked outside the room, holding the severed head in one hand and the red-bladed sword in the other.
"Let’s find this king."