A Villainess Should Be Strong

Although, she was still fragile. She would not be able to withstand a large blast of attack.

"Fine! Come on, I will fight you as long as you want," Estelle was confident in her stamina and magic abilities.

She just had to not get hit. Or else, something terrible could happen.

Estelle took in a deep, long breath before leaping over her enemies and launching several attacks. The men, although they acted slightly sluggish after their awakening, all managed to dodge.

Instead of their abilities being decreased, Estelle felt like they were powered up instead. By the unknown perpetrator, or anything that could explain this bizarre phenomena.

Since they were all covered in black, Estelle was unable to see their actual conditions. After being harmed by Estelle's magic, they should all have severe injuries, but Estelle found no blood dripping from their bodies. This was strange.

The men did not utter any words. They just had one goal, and that was to attack. It seemed like their minds were already gone, as they moved very strangely. Even having the ability to move was surprising since Estelle was sure that she had decimated her enemies although not that brutally.

Estelle attacked, and most of it were dodged. However, ones that hit also did not affect them severely. They kept getting up and fighting back without rest.

"Do I have to turn you all into ashes before you stop fighting back?" Estelle bit her lips, careful with her magic as she might just worsen the damages to nature if she was not considerate enough. "Then, so be it,"

She cast restraining magic over the enemies, but they were like rabid dogs. They fought back and wanted to break free. Luckily, Estelle's magic was more than enough to overpower them, and they could no longer attack this time after being tied up.

"Now.." Estelle gulped as she created a spear with the latest version of her Creation Magic and imbued it with flames in order to burn her enemies without causing too much collateral damage.

Estelle brought her flaming spears up to the air by raising her hand up, aimed them perfectly at the men's torsos, and launched the attacks without thinking much.

She left one man alone, one that she was prepared to investigate. However, she was also not too bothered with this investigation. She did not have a clear clue on what this whole farce was, and whether it was directly connected to her purposes or not.

Therefore, she was able to separate her mind from being too desperate. It was not her top priority to salvage and interrogate her enemies, but instead, it was to defeat them and getting back on the track to safely completing her indefinite mission.

The men burned, but they uttered no sound. Previously, they still elicited groans when they were harmed, but none of that was present this time.

Estelle frowned, confirming that something had truly been done mid battle after she had taken them down.

What could be the cause?

Her curiosity spiked up as she turned her head around, her eyes landing on a restrained figure.

Estelle approached the sole person she left alive with careful movements. Slowly, she used the tip of her spears- one that was not in flames and sliced the person's clothing apart.

The sight that greeted her was shocking. Estelle immediately backed away.

The person had no skin that was left without marks. Every inch of his skin was blackened, with stitches and weird patches of discolored skin being strewn all over his body. Injuries that did not heal properly turned necrotic, some were oozing with pus, and the stench it emitted was very similar to the one Estelle smelled once she reached the forest- rotten corpses.

The smell of death.

"...This is disgusting," Estelle held back the urge to look away as she once again got closer after making sure that she was well protected.

She wanted to see more. To see just what kind of atrocity was done on this specimen.

Her movements slowly trailed around the person's body, opening the entire outfit up.

The rotting, disfigured body was tightly hidden behind the black gauzes that seemed to also contain magic. It was hard to believe that up until being taken down by Estelle the first time, they were real people who had a clear stream of consciousness and could still fight superbly.

The black gauzes must have acted as a container that somehow could hide this monstrous creature behind its wrappings. Estelle carefully tore and stored the outfit away in her space after quarantining it, wanting to keep it for future studies.

His face was worse. His mouth was already sewn together, his nose had traces of surgeries on it, his eyelids were closed and rotting- meaning that he had been fighting without his eyesight the entire time. His facial skin was by no means better than the rest of his body. It was just as bad, if not worse.

How could this person still be alive? The art of necromancy?

There was something wrong with that theory. Before Estelle 'killed' them, she was sure that they still had their own personal mindset, no matter what had been done to alter those minds. At the very least, it was their genuine minds and not whatever came after it.

Once they were 'killed', they began to rise up, and that was when they started acting weird. As if they were undeads. Zombies. What better words were there to describe them? They became undying warriors who knew nothing but to fight for this unknown purpose.

To hunt Estelle? But why? Because she was the Duke's Daughter? Because she was secretly Alfheim's princess? Because she was Estelle Clareste, and someone knew how special she was?

Although she hated to admit it, whoever was behind this strategy was definitely talented in their field. It was not an honorable act, but being successful in this proved that they possessed great power that was unfortunately put into this research.

Estelle huffed before setting her last spear on flames, stabbing it onto the now naked body. His comrades had already been turned into ashes at this point, and he was the only one left behind.

Estelle clasped her hands together and offered up a prayer for whoever he was, for he had to withstand such a terrible fate and ending to his life.

"Even so.. there are actually many powerful people whose names I came to learn only after meeting them directly,"

An example would be Frey Agatha. If not for their meeting, she would have never known that the Void Witch was still very much alive, and was actually not named what they thought was her name all this time.

Aleksei was also a hidden contender. Every nation held their own secrets, and their own powerhouses. It became apparent to her that these things could only be found out once she had interacted with them and confirmed their prowess by herself.

Right now, she was very curious about who on Earth managed to concoct these men's inner mechanism.

She picked up her pace and started flying back towards her group, anxious to let them know what was up.

To her surprise, Frey was already mid way through seeking her out. Estelle met the Witch on her journey back to reuniting with the group.

She did guess that the group would hear her fight, but she did not think that they would actually pursue since the screams they would hear was of her opponents and not Estelle. Since the group knew her prowess, she had came to the conclusion that they would leave it to her.

"...What happened? We heard several screams, but they were all scattered sporadically.. Did you take care of them?" she asked.

"I did, but there is something much more significant that we need to talk about," With a serious gaze, Estelle stared at Frey.

Frey understood the severity of the situation. Although she was very curious about what Estelle found out, she held herself back and regrouped with Aleksei and the mysterious person.

The two members were actually still near their resting space, as Frey was the only one tasked to actually chase Estelle's position down.

Estelle spared no time as she began explaining what had happened.

"Take a look at this," Estelle took out the cloth that she picked up from the men.

"These are remnants of the men I fought. They were not normal soldiers, nor are these cloth normal," Estelle explained. "The bodies they hid behind these cloths are decorated by endless marks and injuries, not a single spot of them was devoid of filth. Even while bearing those, and after having received my attacks, they were 'revived'. They fell unconscious, but within seconds, they got back up and started attacking again. I ended up burning all of them before everything could end,"

Aleksei handled the strange cloth with scrutinizing eyes. "It feels ominous,"

"Wait until you see the actual condition of the men.. It is a sight that you would want to erase out of your memories," Estelle snorted.

"Give that to me," The mysterious person spoke up, extending their hand forward.