This nightmare trial was… Weird. I had to ‘fight’ ten prey in total, but frankly… It had been completely to their disadvantage. None of them could even begin the trial in my good graces since none of them was actually my type. I wanted a real man, someone stronger than me by a noticeable margin.

  Even in my human form within the trial, none of them came even remotely close to being as strong as me. I know that I was a bit of a natural talent when it came to that, having always been much stronger than my peers, but still. I am a girl. I have needs and desires.

  None of these bastards could provide that, so of course, the ‘dates’ would end poorly for them. Why would I be willing to let even the smallest mistake go when I held no interest whatsoever in any of them? To seduce me under such adverse conditions, you needed to never make a single false step.

  I had been told that I was overly exigent or picky a few times. Yes, yes, I was. I wasn’t going to just let anyone curse me with mini devils–Well, I guess such a concern is no longer up to date… Still, this batch of supposed dates? Utter rubbish.

  Men I couldn’t care less about, and women. I don’t know in what world whatever makes these nightmares live in, but it put several women into the trial. Hadn’t it said that these prey were supposed to be ‘compatible’? Compatible in what sense? They certainly weren’t compatible with me.

  When I popped back into the real world, chaos was already erupting inside the orphanage… Being the good and righteous knightess that I most definitely was, I went running into the building to see what was going on–It was quite the glorious sight.

  I hadn’t gotten to see for myself what the result of someone being slain in the nightmare world was in the real world, and indeed, the injuries were a perfect one-to-one match. The first prey to fall had been stabbed and bled out in the exact same manner as I had seen it before. The only difference was that the position of his body was not the same at all.

  He had been sitting and lying against a table when I was done with him, but here, he was flat on the ground with his empty gaze pointed directly up at the ceiling. From the looks of it, he had fallen asleep at a table in the cafeteria, and leapt up at one point when I began stabbing him in the neck with a fork.

  Mmh… So his body reacted in some way even when he was stuck in a nightmare? It seemed like the two worlds weren’t completely separated and that some amount of ‘communication’ could occur between the person in the nightmare and their real body.

  Of course, this didn’t apply to me as I disappeared completely when entering the nightmare world.

  Oh… The result is not as good as I would have liked. The gardener was indeed much colder than he should be, and some traces of freezing could be made out, but it wasn’t as obvious as I would have liked it to be.

  Nonetheless, this was a good sign. I could get down to some funny business thanks to the nightmare world. With the actual ‘Nightmare Form’ at my disposal, I would probably be able to seamlessly cause someone to seemingly spontaneously combust in their sleep–Would the flame created in this manner be able to spread and burn down an entire house? It was making me feel curious…

  In any case, the rest of my victims were to be found all over the place. The second date had been sleeping in bed and died without anyone noticing it until only later–Of course, with the first, bloody death that had occurred, such an innocuous killing method had gone past everyone’s attention.

  As for the first girl, her head had suddenly been bashed in a crowded area, causing quite the stir…

  That was without mentioning the seventh prey, whom I had thrown out of a balcony. Somehow, they had been perfectly lined up with a window, resulting in several people seeing a person floating up as though an invisible monster had grabbed him, before he was flung through a window.

  In the nightmare, he had fallen a long way and crashed upon a stone ground. In reality, though, he had fallen from the second floor and onto grass. Yet, his body was mangled so badly that it was hard to tell at a glance that this had been a person…

  From the outside perspective, this young man had been absolutely torn apart by a fall that should in no way have been lethal.

  The disorder was enjoyable, but the local guard soon got involved. There might have been just as much vomit as there was blood in the orphanage when they showed up. I made my exit swiftly enough.

  The panic and terror were most delicious, and I knew that it was the last of it. My curses were still in place–Well, one of them was gone since the bearer was now dead, but there was still plenty enough to make life inside of here absolutely miserable beyond belief.

  There wasn’t much that the caretakers or the director of this place could do. They couldn’t just leave the ones they were supposed to watch over, and they also didn’t have anywhere else to go. They needed to get in touch with another orphanage, but that would take time as they were fairly isolated…

  So, from the looks of it, they would have to stay inside this house of horrors–Except they did not. The local guard had a few structures available intended to serve as a refuge in the rare case that the city was in danger. They offered to let everyone stay there until the place was investigated and subsequently ‘cleaned up’.

  I did not really care. The new place would provide comfort away from the scenes of massacre, but it would also create a bit of anxiety. Most of the wards had not moved away from this place in a long time… Anyway, the curses would follow along, so nothing would change.

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  This ‘Remember Me?’ truly is an incredible boon… Do you think I could get more nice curses like this one, Na–Wait a minute.

  I sensed a feast approach, but it did not delight me in the least. It was bizarre. It wasn’t a curse or spirit. It was the more usual kind of meal, only… It felt like high-quality steel and nourishing flesh, but not actually both together. It felt like they were one and the same. Like a single ‘thing’ emitted the same feel as my two main sources of snacks.

  Somehow, this bizarre feeling told me exactly what it was.

  Leton’s little murder-automaton… What is it made of? Some sort of living steel? And how did that thing get inside the city? Did the commotion I caused here lead to a shortage of guards somewhere? Such a backwater place would definitely cheap out on the number of guards…

  Now. Does it know that Maya is me?

  Now that it is inside the city, it should be a good opportunity for us to learn more about it. You are right that it seems like it is crafted out of a material that counts as both flesh and steel. I do not know what this is, but the fact that it entered the city implies that it has a reason to believe that you are, at the very least

  I would guess that it heard about the previous deaths and is here to investigate… But that would be a bit too optimistic. I needed to be a bit more careful. Leton had always been a smart kid, and he clearly knows his way around building machines… It isn’t impossible that this creation of his knows that I am inside the city somehow.

  I need to determine whether that is the case and whether or not it could follow my trail. If that thing can vaguely track me down, then moving would be my worst mistake, as that would give it a good reason to suspect The Silent Knightess. If this form can keep me off the hook, I should do my best to keep things this way.

  Gathering information–As Nara said–Is the top priority.

  Though this meant that I wasn’t going to see the colour of my sweet agony and new upgrades tonight. I couldn’t afford to transform back into my ‘Base Form’ with this filthy thing around.

  The rest of the day was spent idling around and pretending to help the people of the orphanage move out, while the guards did their best to collect evidence without ejecting their latest meal… Weren’t they the same ones who ruthlessly sent a group of idiot adventurers to their doom? How could their recruits be so soft?

  Did they never see corpses and violence before or something?

  People have really grown all soft and feeble during my little backroom nap.

  In any case, once that was done, I tucked myself into a dark alley near the orphanage and waited until night fell. All the while, I felt the automaton not move much at all, presumably hiding–And indeed, it only moved when the sun set and the streets cleared.

  It moved… Surprisingly slowly, but I wasn’t fooled. That thing had entered my range of food detection in an instant, and rational logic told me that my brother would never send something so slow after me.

  Which meant that it was just walking casually.

  Walking toward my approximate direction.

  That thing definitely had a way to sense my presence. It soon arrived near the orphanage. I could not see it yet, but I saw the red light that it had been described as producing. I frankly had no good way to describe the way this light moved and looked.

  It was as if a flat pane of wood was being rotated up and down by a hand.

  It is like a scan

  Doesn’t scan just mean to look carefully?

  Sorry, I am using jargon that isn’t in use in this world

  Huh… Knowing Leton, he probably called it: ‘Gaze Of The Machine’ or… What are synonyms for automaton, Nara?

  I believe robot and bot are in use

  Is that so…?

  I heard heavy steps. Or rather, I felt them. That thing was oddly quiet, but I could feel slight tremors on the ground as it moved. The automaton soon appeared within sight, illuminated by moonlight, but also easily spotted due to the rather large red light that I presumed to be its equivalent of an eye.

  “Analysing… Target presence detected… Energy residuals… Age… four hours, forty-six minutes, twenty-one seconds”

  I had indeed been around the spot it was looking at about four hours ago… But more importantly, I could hear its voice. It wasn’t normal, though. I wasn’t hearing it like one would with their ears. It was like a mental connection had hooked us together when he got close.

  …Some sort of machine-to-machine communication?

  “Target… Mara Nebulo…”

  It swung something at me, absolutely devastating the wall of the alley as I swiftly dodged by leaping against the wall and over the attack.

  “...Found”

  I guessed that even in this form, I could probably speak through that weird connection, but I chose to stay silent for now. Which was certainly a good choice as the automaton began speaking aloud normally, as though unaware of the little link that had formed between us.

  “Mara Maeve Maya Nebulo. My creator made me with only one purpose. To eradicate you”

  I tilted my head to the side, and like a cat, it–Or maybe he–Did the same.

  “Your physicality does not match the description. Explain”

  I signed him by refusal.

  “Performing an offensive gesture does not help anyone”

  He reeled his right arm back, several joints seemingly tightening as steel groaned, steam escaping through small vents. The automaton’s right arm was equipped with a sickle. Not the rounded kind, but the straight kind with only a slight curvature, the sort that actually looked like small scythes.

  That thing’s edge screamed danger. It had sliced through stone like butter, and that had seemingly been a rather light hit as the robot had not done whatever he was currently doing right now, which I could only assume was going to make the next swing even stronger and faster.

  “If no answer is provided. I shall move on to complete the objective. My creator demands your elimination to be swift and painless. Do not resist”

  For the second time, the sickle lashed out.

  The street was about to turn into a battlefield.