Merraid Oarburgh, who controlled insects, and Gilberda, a close-range assault type.
From a tactical perspective, there should be at least one more person hiding in the dark.
Noah's mind worked quickly.
Facing the incoming punch—an attack accelerated by raw strength alone until it broke the sound barrier—he had no intention of taking it head-on.
He manipulated the ground.
Several hands formed from earth element grabbed the blonde maid's ankles.
At the same time, he condensed the air and struck directly at her face, trying to knock her off balance.
'What?'
Noah carried out his plan calmly, thinking of multiple ways to deflect her attack in a single instant.
But the moment he put them into practice, the result was completely different from what he had expected.
The condensed air hammer he had formed struck her straight in the face, yet it failed to cause any real damage.
It had hit her hard enough that her forehead was practically smoking, but the blonde maid merely shook her head a little.
The restraints from the ground were the same.
Those hands, as hard as stone, failed to hold her back at all and shattered apart on the spot.
'That physical ability!'
'There was no way she was human!'
Noah steadied himself. Facing the fist that filled his entire field of vision, his pupils contracted slightly.
At the same time, he used air propulsion, reinforced himself with magic, and activated his body with electrical currents.
Boom!
He moved second but arrived first.
Noah's vertical uppercut slammed into the woman's fist.
The two fists collided, and a terrifying burst of air pressure exploded outward, shredding the desks, chairs, and every paper document in the laboratory to pieces.
Noah felt heat flash across his cheek.
In the next instant, his entire body turned into a black streak and flew backward, crashing straight through a wall.
Crack.
The blonde maid looked at her twisted wrist with surprise.
She had actually fractured a bone?
"Getting hurt in a fistfight... that's a first for me."
Gilberda muttered to herself, then shook her wrist.
Several sharp pops rang out.
She actually used the weaker muscle tissue around her wrist to force the bone back into place, and her expression did not change at all throughout the entire process.
Bang!
Noah pushed aside the rubble weighing down on him, just in time to see that scene.
He could not help making a comment.
"Are you a Terminator...?"
He lowered his head and brushed the dust from his clothes.
Gilberda's expression froze for a moment.
She asked curiously, "I sent you flying that far, and you're still fine?"
Noah almost laughed when he heard that.
He raised his face and pointed at the right half of it, which had been scraped into a bloody mess.
"You call this fine?"
The injury looked terrifying!
If a forensic doctor were asked to examine it, they would probably have a hard time.
They might not even know how to classify such a wound.
Even if someone told them it had only been caused by a fist grazing him, they would never believe it.
Gilberda frowned slightly.
Then she said, clearly displeased, "I was trying to knock your head clean off your neck, so could you not make extra work for me?"
The blonde maid took an attacking stance once more.
Seeing that, Noah patted the uninjured side of his head.
"I haven't slept in a while, so my head really was getting a little foggy. But I'm awake now."
Noah carved a healing formula onto his own head as Mysterious magical script glowed across his face.
Seeing such a strange sight, Gilberda did not rush in recklessly.
As Lady Merraid's beloved maid and assistant, she would never miss an opportunity to kill an enemy, but she also would not attack carelessly without confirming what her opponent was capable of.
And so, she witnessed the most disturbing scene she had ever seen in her life.
Noah's injured face began to recover.
That phenomenon... should she call it regeneration?
Like some legendary Danger Beasts.
The wound healed at a speed visible to the naked eye, and soon there was no trace of injury left at all.
There was a title Gilberda had carried since birth, but right now, she felt the target in front of her suited it far better than she did.
"Are you a monster... or what?"
Cold sweat ran down Gilberda's face.
Faced with an enemy this bizarre, she could not help considering the option of retreat.
Lady Merraid had taught her well.
When an assassin faced an opponent whose depths could not be measured, there was only one choice.
Run.
Even if the enemy tried to pin you down, do not fight.
That was the iron rule for survival!
Right.
Lady Merraid was always correct!
In that case...
"Well then, bye-bye!" The blonde maid waved with a frightened look, then turned and ran.
Her long legs were actually rather pleasing to watch when she sprinted.
Noah was not surprised to see his enemy flee.
If anything, he admired how professional she was.
But he had no intention of letting her go.
He was very interested in the true nature of her raw strength, as well as the ability of the person behind her who controlled insect-type Danger Beasts.
Noah added an acceleration formula to himself and lightly gave chase after the blonde maid.
He stayed behind her, observing.
Earlier, Appraisal had only caught a small amount of information before he was sent flying.
Now he wanted a clearer look.
[Gilberda]
Human / Female
19 years old
Exclusive maid of Merraid Oarburgh, leader of the assassin organization Oarburgh.
Due to an atavistic phenomenon, she has possessed an abnormal constitution since birth.
She has terrifying physical strength, a body tough enough to resist blades and bullets, the durability to withstand firearms and even artillery, and extremely powerful self-healing ability.
An atavistic constitution?
Did that mean her ancestors were Secret Arts users?
Or perhaps... a mixed bloodline between humans and Danger Beasts?
That would be pretty messed up.
It seemed he would need to raise the level of contact if he wanted more information.
"Hey, how many of you came?" Noah followed behind her without rushing to catch up.
He had already roughly judged that her movement ability came only from brute force.
Her leg muscles had limits in output and endurance.
For long-distance movement, she could probably maintain only around sixty kilometers per hour at most.
If he wanted to, he could catch up to her immediately.
"Huh?" Gilberda heard his voice so close behind her and hurriedly looked back.
The result scared her.
"Why are you so close?!"
Was this a joke? She was already running seriously, and this guy could still keep up?
And he was not even making any sound. Seriously, that was creepy as hell!
"Are you a ghost or something, bastard?! Stop following me!"
"..."
Noah was somewhat speechless.
She had broken into someone else's home, beaten him up, and then tried to run, yet she still did not want to be chased?
The way assassins thought really was hard to understand.
Seeing that she could not shake Noah off, Gilberda changed her strategy.
She began running in circles.
It was a strange move.
Because earlier, she had clearly been trying to escape the facility.
She was probably planning to regroup with her companions.
But now she was trying to stall for time?
For an assassin, stalling for time meant creating an opportunity.
Unless...
This would be more efficient?
Efficient at what?
Of course, efficient at killing the target.
Suddenly, Gilberda stopped, turned around, and revealed a triumphant smile, as if her plan had worked.
Then she leaped up and kicked the ceiling with her muscular, well-toned leg.
Because she raised her leg too high, Noah even saw the color beneath her skirt.
'Black.... nice,'
Boom!
A thunderous crash rang out, dust filled the air.
But even without seeing it, Noah sensed the direction the dust was flowing, along with the movement of air from outside.
This woman had kicked through the ventilation duct.
Whoosh, whoosh—!
The sound of air being torn apart.
Noah sensed two ring-shaped objects spinning at high speed as they curved behind him.
They were made of metal, extremely thin, and very sharp.
Such precise control while his vision was blocked most likely was not a technique the brute-force blonde maid could perform.
This was enemy reinforcement.
Noah shifted his foot, and two stone pillars immediately rose from the ground, passing perfectly through the center of the ring-shaped hidden weapons.
The spinning ring blades caught around the stone pillars, quickly lost their momentum, and hung there, neutralized.
Whoosh!
Whoosh!
Two more ring blades spun out, followed by a slender figure.
Noah raised two fingers and waved them forward.
Two more stone pillars extended from the wall, precisely passing through the centers of the rings and pinning them in place.
Clang—clang—clang!
A metallic scraping sound rang out.
Using the dust as cover, two sharp broad-bladed weapons slashed in from both sides.
Noah broke off a section of a stone pillar, casually tempered it, and thrust it straight at the attacker.
Compared to her curved attack, his straight thrust should have landed first.
However—
Clang!
That was not the sound of striking a human body.
The next second, the dust was torn apart.
The person who appeared was indeed not Gilberda, but a girl with short purple hair tied into twin-tails.
She, too, wore a maid outfit.
What stood out most was that she had four arms.
In addition to the two arms swinging broad blades in from both sides, another pair of arms held identical weapons in front of her, blocking the stone pillar's thrust.
That was how she had stopped the attack.
"I'll finish you."
The girl's voice was cold, and her face was expressionless.
Her personality was completely different from the opponent just now.
Her name was... Cassandra.
Like Gilberda, she also had an atavistic constitution.
'Good! Oarburgh really was impressive. Almost every one of them was an excellent sample.'
The broad blades on both sides were about to land.
But suddenly, a trace of surprise appeared on Cassandra's expressionless face.
The weapons in her hands had abruptly stopped obeying her.
It was as if they had been thrust into stone; for a moment, they could neither advance nor be pulled back.
There was clearly nothing there, and yet her weapons had been fixed in place, unable to move.
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