Power

I could feel that creature's breath hitting my neck, trying to bite me, claw me down, dig into my flesh. I pushed myself to run even faster to the front door. While I don't know how fast this thing is, I'm pretty confident in my speed.

"Duck!" The woman shouted.

I did exactly as she said the moment I hear that word echo into my brain. I dove down low and then-

*SLASH!*

I could hear some sort of weapon connect against some fleshy material. I did a 180 after I hit the ground and saw that the woman drew a sword out and slashed at the creature. It barely even broke it's skin.

"Stand back." The woman told me.

"You sure you can handle it on your own?" I asked her, still a little dazed.

"I'm specialized against these things. Besides, I kind've owe you one."

I recognized her face when she turned to look at me. She was the woman who was running away from those knights.

"Hmm, a Corrupted eh," she glared at the creature. "I could slash at you for a few hours, or I could just make this easier."

She suddenly planted her sword straight into the rocky road. The sword suddenly had a golden aura surrounding it, as if acting like some kind of beacon.

"Alright, let's do this." The woman smirked, her hands bowled into fists.

She's gonna fight that thing with her bare hands?

The Corrupted snarled and roared at the woman, snapping its bones with every move it made. It charged straight at her on all fours, baring it's fangs and drooling saliva that had an ugly shade of purple.

*POW!*

The woman suddenly broke the sound barrier, moving at an insane speed that I couldn't keep up with. She was suddenly a good ten meters away from the creature, who roared in frustration. Noticing the sword on the ground collecting some kind of aura, it grabbed it by its deformed hands and attempted to pull. However…

*SHHHHHHHHHH!*

"RRRAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!"

The creature shrieked, grabbing at its hands and writhing in pain. The sword burned its hands really badly, to the point where I could see the badly broken bones.

"Hurts huh," the woman mocked the creature. "A sword, connected to my blood. You can't pull it out, no matter how hard-"

The creature launched itself straight at the woman, trying to catch her off guard. However, the woman was way too fast and focused to even give it a chance to catch her.

"-you try," she finished. "The harder you try, the worse it'll hurt. But by all means, continue making yourself look like a fool. Saves me some time."

Suddenly, the woman pulled something out of nowhere, as of appearing from and empty space. It was a dagger, about ten centimeters long, completely engulfed in golden light. She helped the knife like a hunter in a horizontal position, waiting for the creature to make its move.

While the creature did show signs of having some intelligence, it was way to much of a monster to outsmart the woman. It was too impatient, too ignorant, and way too sloppy.

The creature launched once again, but was met with blade slicing through three of it's fleshy claws. It howled in pain, staring painfully at it's missing claws. The woman didn't give it any time to react, and pulled what looked like a revolver out of the void. She fired two shots into its shoulder, causing its right arm to fly off.

Too stunned to even scream in pain, the creature tried to retreat away after finally realizing that it's opponent was way too strong.

"Should be ready now." she muttered.

With one deep breath, she charged straight at the creature with lightning speed, right past her sword that was gleaming brightly with the golden light. She dashed right past the creature and stopped it in it's tracks. Then, she reached out and pinched her index and thumb together, as if she were holding a pin to something. And with a fast pull, her sword went flying upwards, charged with extremely explosive power that I could feel all the way from where I was standing.

She extended the sword with one hand, while feeling it with her fingertips all the way to the tip of the blade. Once again, the creature tried dashing away. In fact, it was actually trying to dash at me, desperate to secure a kill. I could outrun it again, but for some strange reason I felt completely safe. Why did I trust this woman so much?

*POW!*

She broke the sound barrier again, slicing through the air and appearing once again right in front of the creature. A huge burst of golden energy exploded into the creature, causing all of its limbs and insides to fly all over the place, as if a massive shockwave just exploded its body. Satisfied, the woman took one small breath and sheathed her sword back. That golden light continued to linger, but was slowly dimming.

"You're quite brave," the woman said to me. "Or were you just too scared to move?"

"I…just trusted you." I said.

That was the honest truth. I was scared, but my trust was greater than my fear.

"You barely even know me, yet you put so much trust in me? Heh, I don't know if I should be flattered or a little creeped out."

"I'm not trying to sound like a creep."

"Then I'll take it as a compliment."

The fighting was finally over, so I was finally able to get a good look at her. She was quite beautiful, light brown eyes that reminded me of the color of chestnuts with a strand of golden hair peaking out from her hood. Her skin was a nice peachy color with rosy cheeks and small polished lips that formed a reassuring smile. Her eyelashes were long and pretty. She was about ten centimeters taller than me and was probably a few years older than me as well.

She also wore a silver breastplate over her hood that had a unique engraving on it. In fact, it was the same engraving that Xylvia used to describe Mythium.

"Are…are you a knight?" I hesitated to ask at first, but I put the question out to her.

"Yes, I'm a knight under Goddess Gleam's army. The Army of Light. A lazy name, but probably sounded fitting enough to them thousands of years ago. Anyways, I'm glad that I ran into you. Was able to repay a debt from before."

She began to walk off, but I still had some questions.

"Do you know where a graveyard is?" I asked her.

"Why do you ask that?" She stopped.

"There's a woman in the ba- …the 'cleansing room.' She was killed by that thing, so I want to take her somewhere and give her a burial. I'd rather not leave her in there.

The woman formed a frustrating look on her face. I could tell why she was upset.

"Hey, it's not your fault if that's what you're thinking." I told her.

"It's my responsibility," she said. "Or rather, our responsibility as knights to make sure everyone's safe."

She began walking back towards the hotel front door.

"I'll take her."

She carried the corpse out, having wrapped the woman's dead body in a towel. I could see a pained look in her eyes as she walked past me.

"Hey, what's your name?" I asked her.

"I said 'I owe you one,'" she smirked at me. "Besides, you don't want to be apart of anything that involves me."

She began walking off again. She was about twenty meters away before I spoke to her again.

"My name's Hiro," I called to her. "Hiro Satomi. I'm a Summon. And…I hope we can get along together."

She didn't stop walking. However, I swore that I could see a faint smile from the corner of her lips.

"Fool."

Even though she was a long way away from me, I could still make out, almost hear, the word she said before she took off, disappearing into the night.

I went back inside the hotel and walked through the mirror back into my room. Xylvia was already sound asleep.

"That was not what I needed to happen." I said to myself after letting out a long yawn.

That whole string of events left me extremely exhausted, but I quickly slapped my face a few times to wake myself up.

"That power…"

I had no clue on how to even process what I just saw. That woman…the way she fought was so…surreal. Was it her sword that was able to provide her with all those weapons that she pulled out of the void? And the way she called to her sword, made it look like she pulled on a string.

"I wonder if I could ever be able to learn magic."

I didn't see any reason as to why I couldn't. Maybe there's something within me that I don't know about yet? Or maybe I was given some sort of power when I got here?

There's only really one way for me to find out and that's by exploring this world and learning how everything works. But for now, I have to make sure that man doesn't kill me.