Chapter 84: Broken Swords

"A duel to the death...."

Avocado repeated after Cranberry.

"...pfft...! Ahahahahahahaha!"

The corners of his mouth shook, and he busted into laughter.

"Ha! No way! Is she for real?"

"Hey, young lady! Do you even know what 'to the death' means?"

Some of the audience that they've got to join him too.

"Your lives seem like the appropriate price for granting you my forgiveness."

Cranberry shrugged her shoulders, completely unfazed by the ridicule she faced.

"Could someone call for the guild master to make it more official?"

Cranberry glanced at the female guild staff member that brought the Brave Swords.

"Or is it just as hard as completing a simple request... for a useless piece of trash like you?"

She asked with an innocent smile but her eyes couldn't be more deadly.

"...!"

The woman gasped and got red in the face, but before she could respond, a large man came out of the guild building and shielded her from Cranberry's icy glare.

"Miss, I advise you to rethink your decision."

The newly arrived man said with a grim expression.

"Ah! Vice-master!"

"Sorry for troubling you, sir Loquat."

The woman gasped and Cherry bowed his head to the large man.

"Young lady Pride."

The only one who didn't seem to be bothered by the arrival was Cranberry.

"Excuse me?"

The vice-master frowned and asked.

"It's 'young lady Pride' for you, commoner, 'miss' is what you can call that incompetent pile of waste behind you."

Cranberry explained patiently with a soft smile.

Everyone went silent.

The vice-master of the adventurers guild took a deep breath and turned to the leader of the Brave Swords.

"Cherry, you've heard the young lady. She wants a duel, so I expect your party to show her a good time."

He said.

"But, sir Loquat, she's just a..."

"She proposed the duel so whatever happens to her is her own fault."

Cherry tried to talk some sense into the man but was met with a quick answer.

"And if you agree then everything that happens to your little group will be your own fault too~"

Cranberry showed a rare playfulness and mocked the adventurers' while leaning forward.

"So be it."

Cherry sighed with a heavy heart and nodded, consenting to the duel.

"Everyone, try not to harm her too..."

*WHAM!*

"...much...?"

An explosion and the shockwave that followed it, caused Cherry to take a step back.

"What the...?!"

"AVOCADO!"

Lemon and Lime shouted staring with horror at their tank.

Because as soon as Cherry nodded agreeing to the duel, Cranberry attacked.

Without using any skills, she simply straightened her arm holding the baseball bat, and slammed it into Avocado's unprotected head since the tank was stupid enough to not take any precaution beforehand.

The explosion was the sound of the wood meeting the skull - and winning.

The so-called sword of protection's knees buckled and he fell to Cranberry's feet with blood pouring from his nose, ears, and eyes.

When the twins screamed, Cranberry already took a step back to deliver the finishing blow, and this time she activated some of her skills...

*SLAM!*

...and turned Avocado's upper half into mincemeat while sending his legs straight up in a disgusting twist on a comedy trope.

"You...! Lemon, Lime, Lychee! Cover me!"

Cherry quickly shook off the shock and charged at the red-haired girl while shouting commands.

*CRUSH*

But as Cherry was halfway to his target, another horrible sound echoed between the buildings.

It made him realized that his opponent was no longer there.

With no idea where the red-haired girl went, the leader of the Brave Swords stopped his charge instead of redirecting it, preserving his mana, and ended up almost slipping on the crushed guts of his dead comrade in the process.

"Where did she...?! Lemon! Lychee! Watch out for surprise atta...!"

The leader of the Brave Swords shouted a warning, turning back towards the guild building.

And almost dropped his sword because of what he saw.

Headless corpses of Lemon and Lime were spewing blood from their necks while their decapitated heads, with faces frozen in shock, were slowly rolling in two different directions.

Similarly, Lychee, with her guts spewing out of her mouth as well as her crushed stomach, was stuck in the wall of the adventurers guild building, just below the second-floor window like a giant bug.

"...ah...! H... how...?!"

Cherry gasped, his eyes trembling, his voice stuck in his throat.

"What? Did you blink or something?"

Cranberry raised her brow and tilted her head while removing a piece of what looked like a raw liver from her jacket.

"Zombie, nice job with those two, but get down from there already, the sword of light is mine."

Cranberry looked towards the building and instructed, but wasn't talking to the corpse of the sword of darkness at all.

Instead, she said that to her servant, Zombie, who was currently hanging from the windowsill on the third floor, with the hills of his boots dripping with blood.

"Graough! (Alright!) Graough! (A surprise attack was surprisingly easy and fun!)"

Zombie growled happily, jumped down, and grinned at his master.

"That's what they get for underestimating the two of us."

Cranberry smirked back at him and turned to the petrified Cherry.

"Ha! Hey, you know that I will forgive you if you just call the Dandelions for me, right?"

She laughed, looking at the young man trembling in his boots from witnessing his companions' fate.

Of course, she was only mocking him, the Brave Swords were doomed from the moment they agreed for the duel.

"You...! YOU MONSTER!"

Cherry roared and raised his sword in the air.

His body started shining with blinding light and pure white mana began condensing around his sword, elongating it more and more.

Without a doubt, it was a terrifyingly powerful skill.

Incredibly powerful charge-up type skill that had pierced the sky.

Overwhelmingly powerful...

Laughably slow to use skill...

Cranberry's body begun glowing with her own skills.

Within the next second, she was already by the charging up Cherry, and was winding up for a strike, as if mocking the pathetically impractical - in this situation - skill of the last of the Brave Swords.

"Ah...!"

*CRUSH*

After giving him enough time to realize his mistake and even gasp, Cranberry smashed him into a bloody mist, sending every piece of him into the air, just for it to return to earth like a gory rain staining the clothes of the horrified audience stunned into silence.

"Haa. That felt nice."

Cranberry breathed out with relief and stretched her back as if butchering the so-called future of the kingdom was a light, refreshing workout.

"Graough. (Master, you got blood on your face) Graough... (Let me just...)"

Zombie groaned and approached his master while pulling a clean handkerchief from his chest pocket

"Now... Will someone finally call the Dandelions for me? I expect that the letter I've sent them before must have gotten lost in transit because they failed to respond."

Cranberry waved condescendingly towards the guild building and the people standing there, while Zombie was gently cleaning her off.

"Lairs, quick, burn it!"

Shanks whispered feverishly while pushing an open letter with the official Pride's seal in the mage's hands.

"Wh-what the fuck?!"

Lairs flinched and started fighting back.

"You idiot! Can't you see what she's doing?! She doesn't leave us a choice! Get rid of the evidence!"

Shanks gritted his teeth and growled at her through clenched teeth.

"Ah! Right! Fireball!"

Lairs gasped and quickly whispered the incantation, incinerating the incriminating letter connecting the Dandelions to the doom of the Brave Swords.

"Do you think that the guild knows that we received it...?"

Rotte whispered looking over the backs of his friends.

"Shut up and better pray that they don't or else we are screwed!"

Shanks scoffed back at him and then grabbed Uresha's hand.

"Uresha, please, whatever happens, just don't talk. You are too kindhearted and might let slip something that shouldn't be said. Alright?"

He asked worriedly.

"I... I know... but... if only we hadn't ignored..."

The burly woman was tearing up.

"Fuck me...! Ure-ure, just stay with me here and let Shan-shan deal with it!"

Lairs patted Uresha on the back and nodded to Shanks.

"...we're going to get in so much shit for not showing up earlier..."

Shanks sighed, cursing himself for underestimating someone from one of the main families, even a family that had almost fallen out of grace.

"Wish me luck."

He gritted his teeth and pushed through the bystanders, forcing his way towards the scene of the massacre.

"Young lady Pride! I'm Shanks, the leader of the Dandelions! What is that letter you're talking about?"

When he finally managed to get to Cranberry, he started with a very deep bow and an introduction that hopefully fooled someone.

"Hah... just as I thought, the poor messenger must have gotten eaten by a monster together with my letter or something."

Cranberry followed Shanks's act and let out a sigh.

"Sorry, I see you're on your day off... if only the staff at the guild was competent enough to inform me about that, I would just return at a later date instead of... you know."

She smiled conspicuously looking at all the corpses.

"Of course! I'm terribly sorry on behalf of the guild, young lady. I reckon you have a mission for my party. Please, if it's not a bother, please come with me to discuss it."

Shanks gestured towards the guild.

"Ah! Vice-master!"

He spoke as if he just noticed the man, stiff from the bottled anger, and walked to him, careful to not step on any of the deceased Brave Swords while not acknowledging their existence.

"It seems that young lady Pride has some sort of mission for the Dandelions, but the staff has failed to inform any of us about her arrival..."

Shanks glared at the trembling female guild staff member cowering behind the vice-master.

"Could I borrow one of the guild's offices to listen to the young lady Pride's request?"

He asked innocently.