When Aurelia returned to the back alley carrying the somewhat heavy coarse linen sack, the afternoon sun had already begun to slant westward.
She didn’t immediately go back to the garret.
Instead, she placed the sack by the wall and began searching the area for things she could use.
The back alley was piled with a lot of discarded junk from the tavern: broken empty barrels, scattered old wooden planks, and a few solid wooden crates that had swollen from being soaked by rain.
To others, these were trash.
But in Aurelia’s eyes, they were ready-made training equipment.
Gritting her teeth against the stinging pain in her right wrist, she dragged a relatively intact wooden crate over to the wall.
She found a few thick planks and leaned them against the crate, barely forming a stable inclined surface.
Next, she dug out a few discarded old newspapers, used a half-empty can of almost dried-up paste she found, and smeared it on, pasting the papers layer by layer onto the inclined wooden planks.
The paper target was crude, but it was enough to mark the impact points.
A simple target was thus set up, about seven or eight paces away from her.
This distance was still suitable for a beginner to practice throwing and test a weapon’s basic performance.
‘Huff… Training shouldn’t be too hard, right?’
Thinking this, she walked to the corner and took out that leather leg holster.
The leather felt tough in her hand, with slight wear on the edges, but it was well-preserved overall.
It had six slots, just the right size for holding “Black Light.”
She lifted her skirt, tied the leg holster to the outside of her right thigh, and adjusted the tightness until it was secure but didn’t hinder her movement.
Then, she took out those five obsidian mixed-forging throwing knives—completely matte dark gray with fine ice-crack patterns—and inserted them one by one into the holster’s slots.
The knives made a soft click as they sheathed, fitting perfectly.
They were clearly a specially matched set.
Compared to the inferior leg holster she bought at the general store for hiding ordinary daggers, the quality of this one was obviously much higher.
Tied to her leg, it didn’t feel overly constricting or give much of a foreign object sensation.
After securing the holster and drawing “Black Light,” Aurelia hefted the light, sharp weapon in her hand and walked to a spot about five paces from the target, coming to a stop.
She took a deep breath, trying hard to ignore the dry itch in her throat and the faint, throbbing pain in her wrist.
Her gaze locked onto the crooked circle drawn with charcoal at the center of the target.
‘Let’s start with the simplest to get familiar. How hard can throwing things at a fixed target be?’
She adjusted her grip on the knife, imitating the throwing postures she remembered seeing.
Holding the knife in her right hand, she felt for its balance point.
Then, with force from her wrist, she swung her arm forward powerfully.
The throwing knife left her hand and embedded itself in the wooden plank over a meter away from the bullseye.
The penetration was shallow, and the knife’s tail was still trembling.
Aurelia blinked, walked over, and with some effort pulled the knife out.
It required more strength than she had imagined.
Moreover, the instant she released it, the stinging pain in her wrist caused her to unconsciously relax her force, greatly reducing both accuracy and power.
‘…It must be because this wrist got twisted. Yeah, that’s definitely it.’
But this small setback was clearly not enough to make her back down.
On the contrary, it ignited her stubborn, competitive spirit.
She refused to believe she couldn’t even handle a fixed target.
The second time, the third time, the fourth time…
She stopped rushing for results.
Instead, with each throw, she strived to complete the motion fully, carefully feeling the angle and force as the knife left her hand.
Every time she retrieved a knife, the stinging pain in her right wrist intensified.
But she also gradually began to grasp a vague sense of it.
How to use the twisting force of her body, how to control the snap of her wrist at the moment of release, and how to adapt to the unique weight and balance of “Black Light.”
However, just as she was engrossed in her training, the voice of the Disaster Source abruptly rang out in her mind once again.
‘Do you know what that ring you’re wearing is?’
‘Tch, why aren’t you dead yet?’
Aurelia impatiently curled her lip, raised her hand to look at the ring.
The dark red patterns on it had stopped flickering and had turned into ordinary crack-like patterns.
‘Looking at your foolish appearance, you really don’t know anything.’ T
he Disaster Source’s voice sounded again.
‘This piece of junk can indeed temporarily block my power. But, that’s all it does.’
‘Can’t you just get lost! I hate you, don’t you know that?’
As she spoke, she made a move as if to pick up a throwing knife and jab her own finger to draw blood.
‘Aren’t you curious why this thing can block the power possessed by me, the one and only deity of this world?’
‘What’s it to me? As long as it stops your blabbering in my head, it’s a good thing. “One and only deity”? Then what does the Church believe in? Do you think I’m an idiot?’
The Disaster Source let out a sound in her mind, somewhere between a cold snort and a derisive laugh.
‘Aren’t you an idiot?’
‘You old bastard, who are you calling an idiot?!’
‘Shut up and listen.’
The Disaster Source cut off Aurelia, who was poised to explode in anger.
‘What those zealots worship is nothing but a laughable inferior imitation. I am this world’s primordial deity, the echo of all living things’ end, an immortal existence. How can that low-grade trash be compared to me?’
Aurelia rolled her eyes, shook her sore right wrist, and spun the knife she had just pulled out in an unskilled circle on her fingertip.
She lifted her skirt and slid the knife back into the leg holster.
‘Yeah, yeah, you’re so amazing, Disaster Source, right? Then if you’re so amazing, why did you end up as this neither-human-nor-ghost dead thing in my head? All you do is yap, yap, yap.’
‘…Has it been too long since I controlled your body? Have you forgotten your situation?’
It suddenly let out a cold laugh and fell silent for a few seconds.
‘What? What are you going to do? No one passes by at this time; I have plenty of energy to waste with you. You can’t control my body for long either. Want to try? Let’s see if you can use my hand to stab someone to death first, or if I can suppress you back first.’
The Disaster Source was silent for a moment before its voice sounded again.
‘I have plenty of ways to make you submit. Don’t let me get an opportunity. Otherwise, with you being a weak female human who could be killed by a mere breath from me, the methods to torment you are countless.’
‘Fine.’
Aurelia patted the dust off her skirt, rubbed her nose, and after properly concealing the weapons on both leg holsters, she shot a cold smile back at the Disaster Source.
‘Then let’s see if you manage to torment me to death first, or if I pull you out first and cut you into a thousand pieces.’
Afterwards, Aurelia pressed the freshly made wound on her finger against the ring.
Blood seeped into the patterns, which once again glowed with a faint dark red light, blocking out the Disaster Source’s nonsense.
The world became quiet again.
But this peace seemed not to come without cost.
The moment the patterns activated, Aurelia felt a sharp pain deep in her mind, followed by a wave of weakness that made her stagger.
She leaned against the nearby wall, taking several deep breaths.
This feeling only lasted a few seconds before quickly dissipating, as if nothing had happened.
‘Probably something like draining life force…’
She thought to herself.
As long as it could block the old bastard’s nonsense in her head and buy her a moment of peace and clear thought, whether it was a real consumption or a potential risk, it seemed worth it for now.
She, a person with Dragon Clan bloodline, was afraid of this little thing draining a bit of life force?
Once her bloodline awakened and she directly turned into a great dragon, wouldn’t such a tiny amount of life force be like a mere tickle to her?
She took several deep breaths, steadied her still-weak legs, and straightened up again.
Looking up at the sky, the sun had dipped a bit lower, but there was still some time before the tavern opened.
She didn’t choose to rest.
Instead, she walked back towards that crude newspaper target once more.
Although the sluggishness from her cold, the pain in her right wrist, and the injury on her neck still lingered in her mind, none of these could shake her determination to continue training.
Even the confrontation with the Disaster Source just now acted like a shot of adrenaline, making that stubborn, competitive fire in her heart burn even brighter.
Since that old bastard wanted so badly to see her fall, she would stubbornly stand tall, and then one day in the future, she would stab it hard.
Drawing “Black Light” once more, the slightly warm hilt touched her palm.
She walked to the throwing position, her gaze locking onto the bullseye again.
This time, her eyes were even more focused.
Suppressing the pain in her right wrist, she threw the throwing knives, one after another.
The sound of knives cutting through the air echoed rhythmically in the quiet back alley.
At first, her accuracy and power even decreased due to her body’s weakness and deliberate control.
But she wasn’t impatient or anxious.
She simply repeated the motions of pulling out the knife, walking back, adjusting her breathing, and throwing again.
Only when the last bit of the setting sun’s afterglow was swallowed by the low eaves in the distance, plunging the alley into darkness, did she finally stop and sit down on the staircase steps.
After leaning against the wall, panting heavily for a while, she finally caught her breath, lifted her skirt, and slid those few knives back into the leg holster.
Returning to the small garret, she locked the door, washed her face and neck with cold water, changed out of the casual clothes soaked with sweat and covered in dust, and changed back into the maid outfit she used for tavern work.
As for the leg holster and knives, she decided she wouldn’t take them off except for bathing, not even when sleeping.
Perhaps this could give her some vague, illusory sense of security.
“Huff…”
After simply tidying up her appearance and tying her hair into a ponytail by the window, Aurelia nodded, clutched the tavern key from her inner pocket, hurried downstairs, and made her way quickly towards the tavern’s main entrance.
Just as she arrived at the tavern’s main door, she saw that gray-haired uncle leaning against the door panel, looking utterly bored as he took a deep drag from a cigarette.
Seeing Aurelia run out from the alley, Ragnar’s eyes lit up, and he immediately greeted her with a grin.
“Hey, you’re early again today.”
Aurelia gave him a slight smile and a nod.
Using the key to unlock the door, she began one of her most familiar tasks—cleaning.
But this time, Ragnar didn’t lean back against the door panel.
Instead, he leaned against the doorframe, propping the door open with half his body, silently watching Aurelia as she cleaned.
Only after Aurelia had finished cleaning everything did Ragnar speak up.
“Your name is… Aurelia, right?”
“Huh?”
Aurelia turned her head, then nodded lightly a few times.
“Yes, Mister. Is there… something?”
Ragnar ran his large hand through his parted hair.
His gaze lingered on Aurelia’s long skirt for a moment before he spoke in a slightly casual tone.
“You’re quite vigilant, aren’t you? You even know to hide weapons on your body secretly. Though you’re not hiding them very well.”