Patchouli Knowledge.
Zeroy knew this person. Just like Black Bullet and Highschool of the Dead, she also came from a work called Touhou Gensokyo.
However, Zeroy had only heard of this name and seen some of her fan art—nothing beyond that. She knew nothing about her personality, abilities, or character setting.
By the time she had learned about Touhou Gensokyo, the work was already past its peak, and only old fans would occasionally bring it up.
She had once tried to get into the series because of the beautiful fan art, but after being confronted with the heavily stylized, highly personal art of the official character portraits, she gave up immediately.
'Sorry, I'm a face-con.'
Fortunately, the Patchouli before her was not the one from the official artwork style, but the beautiful girl from those fan illustrations.
After making the abusers wail for a while, considering that there were still children to take care of, Zeroy decapitated them.
The abandoned warehouse returned to silence.
"Where is your home? I'll take you back."
Zeroy asked the children.
Of course, what she asked was not about some warm, cozy home. These children had no such thing.
What she meant was simply the place where they huddled together for shelter and warmth.
"Big sis, are you leaving?"
The children immediately showed reluctance, their big eyes pitifully looking up at Zeroy.
"No... don't worry. I won't really leave. I just have some things I need to do for now, so we'll have to part for a little while."
"Big sis, this is our home."
"Uh..."
Zeroy was troubled.
This abandoned warehouse was obviously unfit for living. Those people had died here; someone might come looking. And besides, the place was drenched in blood… it would scare the kids.
Even so, on this rainy night, where in the outer districts was she supposed to find a suitable place to live?
After thinking for a while, Zeroy turned to Patchouli.
"Can you help me out?"
This place wasn't entirely unlivable. It just needed the corpses and such cleaned away.
Patchouli agreed to help and easily cleared everything away with magic.
The remaining problem was that people might come searching.
That didn't matter.
She had no intention of sleeping tonight anyway—nor could she. If anyone came, she'd just kill them.
One comes, one dies. A group comes, kill them all. If an army came, she'd kill the army too!
When had she ever needed to fear these dogs?
Of course, she would avoid harming innocents.
"Thanks. You really helped a lot."
Looking at the children already asleep, Zeroy once again thanked Patchouli.
Not only had Patchouli cleared the site with magic, she had even modified the warehouse's environment.
Bright lighting, a dry and warm atmosphere, and soft bedding.
Magic was truly an amazing thing, overwhelmingly functional.
It was just a pity Patchouli couldn't create food with magic… otherwise the kids could have gone to bed full.
"Shall we talk outside?"
The two went outside the warehouse.
The rain still poured down. Patchouli used magic to ward off the rain, but Zeroy had no such ability, so she was quickly drenched.
"..."
Zeroy materialized her Striker Unit. Looking at Patchouli across from her, she paused.
"We can fight, but... this mission doesn't actually require us to fight to the death, does it?"
She really didn't want to fight Patchouli, much less to the death.
Because she hadn't felt any evil from Patchouli… or perhaps it was because Patchouli was too strong for her to sense it. Albeit after receiving so much help, Zeroy believed Patchouli wasn't a bad person. She was someone gentle, just like herself.
"Mm... I agree with you."
Patchouli thought for a moment, then nodded.
"In truth, I don't even want to conduct a battle at all. I'd much rather resolve things through simple communication. That said, given the limited resources... a death match is unnecessary. We just need to compare strength and determine who will take the lead."
"Alright."
Zeroy smiled.
As expected, she hadn't misjudged her.
"Let's move elsewhere first. You wouldn't want to involve the children, would you?"
"Sure~"
The two moved directly to the wilderness outside the monolith.
Here, no matter how much noise they made, no innocents would be harmed.
Then the battle began—
Patchouli rose into the sky. The thick tome before her flipped open on its own, pages fluttering under unseen force, ancient incantations shimmering in the air.
Brilliant, prismatic streams of magical light surged from her slender form, swirling around her like auroras, dreamlike and illusory.
Complex, resplendent magic circles unfolded one after another in the air, overlapping and interwoven.
Each circle radiated waves of different attributes—
Wood: life and awakening. Fire: change and activity. Earth: foundation and permanence. Metal: harvest and abundance. Water: silence and purification. Sun: initiative and attack. Moon: passivity and defense.
The tome's pages whispered in the surge of mana, while the radiance of the Seven Luminaries wove a visual feast in the air.
Zeroy even froze for a moment.
It was her first time seeing magic, and she was a little dazzled.
After all, her first opponent, wielding magic, turned out to be someone of this magnitude.
…Was this really okay?
Zeroy didn't know how deep Patchouli's magical mastery ran, but the oppressive threat radiating from that storm of magic was something she could feel.
Moreover, with such overwhelming magic, just the sight of it was enough to leave one stunned—the depth of her mastery spoke for itself.
And against this dazzling onslaught, Zeroy had only her Striker Unit and her armor.
The only thing she could do was try to break all spells with sheer force…
"Kagari, engage!"
Flames engulfed Zeroy. In an instant, clad in her armor, she burst forth from the fire, charging headlong into the sea of magic.
No matter what kind of spell it was, she just had to cut it down!
Zeroy smashed apart the spells blocking her path, closing the distance to Patchouli at incredible speed.
Although she was occasionally struck by magic, with her current physique and Kagari's boost, it didn't affect her much.
The sight made Patchouli twitch slightly at the corner of her eye.
This person was actually tanking magic head-on… what kind of Demon King was she? Her body was this strong?
Despite that, this was only the beginning.
More and stronger spells poured forth from Patchouli.
And she had noticed that Zeroy couldn't fly.
Zeroy could rely on jumps to stay airborne briefly, and when she was about to fall or needed to change direction, she would construct a crude, fleeting foothold in the air with a flash of magic.
Like a double jump.
By relying on this complicated, clumsy method, Zeroy barely managed to fight in the air against her.
...
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