Chapter 72: The Brain of the Mission

"Whoa there!" Haruna mocks as she spins her massive cleaver, cleaving several warriors in half. She and Cristina have moved on to a small mountain town after destroying numerous small monster villages.

’No! No! No! No!! What the fuck is this crazy bitch!!’ The town leader starts sweating nervously as he watches dozens of his soldiers fall, their bodies piling up in a miserable sight of carnage.

This small town nestled within a mountain is inhabited 100% by [Earth Demons], a species of rocky demons that caught Haruna’s attention because they might know something about Runes.

Naturally, she decided to come, and make this the twentieth place she would destroy in just one month of searching. The Earth Demons, as a proud and nearly arrogant race, obviously challenged her to protect their home.

But it quickly turned into a one-sided fight. Haruna destroys the demons with a single strike, then crushes their bodies repeatedly with more excessive blows.

"..." The leader watches from his home, biting his lips as Cristina keeps her eyes locked on him, not allowing him to flee, while the town is forced to watch its best warriors being massacred along with civilians who run trying to escape.

The kingdom’s security system, a system that relies exclusively on having a single entrance and a single exit, turned this place into a prison for them—unable to win, unable to flee, and unable to expel the two invaders.

"Come on! Come on!! You can do better, I haven’t even used magic yet!! Weren’t you supposed to be stronger?" She taunts, swinging her cleaver at innocent civilians, killing them brutally.

"Who else has the courage to face me!? I’m Haruna Haruta Harley, the Apostle of the 2nd Floor!!! Remember my name after death!" The blood-drenched girl runs through the streets, slicing up even the animals and livestock she finds.

"Shit!! I need to escape!" The leader searches through his belongings for something that might help him flee, but Cristina, who was extremely far away, is now at the door staring at him.

"A-Ahgh!!" He stumbles backward in fright as the shadows of the room make Cristina’s figure even more unsettling. Even though she appears physically human, the sensation she causes is cold, as if freezing people from the inside.

"My Young Lady is quite active today. Did you really need to present yourselves as proud warriors? What a foolish choice..." Cristina touches her finger to a dagger she holds in her hands, its gleam reflecting the terrified face of the town leader.

"W-What do you want, y-you monsters!" He rises as if to run, but when he turns to the window he sees the bodies of his guards hanging by chains, blocking the exit.

"A private moment with you sounds nice. We want to know about Runes, nothing more than that. Don’t worry, Haruna will stop when the number of lives drops to 5%. That should be... about 500 people? Maybe 700 if you’re lucky and she forgets what number she’s on," Cristina speaks in a cold tone.

"..." The leader throws a bomb at Cristina as he runs toward the wall, breaking through it to escape, but as if nothing had happened, he’s on the floor confused. He looks at the wall that was never broken, but the bomb he threw is placed on the table as if Cristina had caught it and set it there.

"...You’re not going to manage to escape from here. I suggest you be a good boy and tell me what you know about Runes. I’m trying to be kind here. Haruna will arrive soon, and she will undoubtedly want to pull your guts out to make you talk, and let’s be honest, you’re going to die."

"..." The leader starts crying, dragging himself to a corner as he gasps in fear, not being a warrior and showing no sign of knowing anything. Years of dedication to this town destroyed in seconds before two beings who should never have appeared in this place.

"Tsk..." Cristina, seeing what kind of man this place’s leader is, looks at him with contempt. To Cristina, a leader is powerful, the strongest—not necessarily the smartest, not the most capable, just the strongest.

A view shaped by watching Nio, who is lazy but holds absolute power and is the leader, and by living with Haruna, who is generally somewhat crazy and sometimes stupid and yet also leads various things.

"How frustrating..." Cristina looks outside, watching the streets fill with blood and crushed flesh. Haruna isn’t even trying to cut anymore, she’s just hitting hard as if the cleaver were a metal plate to tenderize meat.

"I don’t think we need you. I see your usefulness has disappeared." Cristina casually tears off the head of this town’s leader without even getting close, an extremely clean cut following the perfect chef theme defined in her Lore.

"..." The leader’s entire body is shredded into thin strips of meat by the magic in the dagger, extremely fine pieces that she will use for Haruna’s meal, as she takes the leader’s head and places it on the table beside the bomb he tried to use.

Beneath the bed, the leader’s daughter watches her father’s blood drip from the table onto the floor. She shrinks back with tears, making no sound, while Cristina knows she is there but deliberately ignores her.

"This isn’t working out. Haruna always starts a massacre, we lose everyone who’s useful and those left are cowards. This mission is proving to be a true fiasco..." Cristina uses magic to send a message to Nio.

"I need to inform Lady Nio that unfortunately Haruna will fail the request. She clearly doesn’t have what it takes to investigate when she kills more than half of those who know something, besides the fact that her massacres have obviously started to be noticed." Even if so far they’ve only been small villages and mainly monster villages.

Among the monsters themselves, rumors have started, soon they’ll reach the humans, and soon they’ll reach important people.

"I hope Lady Nio doesn’t get angry. The blame is entirely Lady Azalea’s. Haruna isn’t suited and never will be suited for investigation..." Despite her tone of voice being that of harsh criticism, Cristina only thinks of what’s best for Haruna.

"..." She pulls some papers from her inventory, beginning to write down everything she discovered. She writes in a way that makes it seem like Haruna wrote it, giving the credit for her arduous work to Haruna.

All Haruna discovered was "Runes are a new power"—nothing more. Everything else was Cristina discovering and telling Haruna, who didn’t connect the dots. So Cristina takes the blame and passes the credit to her mistress.

"That looks good. I think this information should at least adequately justify the current situation and avoid punishment. Haruna seems happy to be able to cut something... so I think everything’s fine." She finishes writing and sends the letter along with the message magic.

"Cristina, what are you doing?" Haruna bursts through the window, completely covered in blood.

"...Just trying to find out more. Unfortunately, I think this town won’t be very useful either. It would be good to find a village specialized in Runes instead of just searching randomly..." Cristina sees a map on the table and picks it up, seeing markings for various villages, small towns, and areas of other monsters and non-human races.

"Oh!! I discovered a map!!" Haruna says, stealing the map from Cristina’s hands and speaking with a confident smile.

"Incredible, Lady Haruna. How about we calmly choose one of the villages or small towns on the map?"

"Nahh!! I have a better idea! How about we choose one of the small towns on the map!! I bet there’s something useful in there."

"What a brilliant idea, Lady Haruna."

"I know!! It’s obvious, I’m an excellent strategist." Haruna doesn’t necessarily lie—her strategic tactics are excellent, but her overall leadership methodology leaves something to be desired.