Chapter 58: Maid in Abyss

The newcomer’s petite body was covered by a plain black and white maid uniform, complete with a small headpiece and an apron tied around her small waist.

’A maid?’

Rune had never seen one in person before. There was a maid café his master enjoyed visiting every now and then. The old man had tried more than once to convince him to come along, but Rune always turned him down.

He was too busy working to waste an afternoon watching girls dress up and pretend to be servants while drawing hearts over his food.

Whenever the old man returned, he would spend the rest of the evening singing praises about the place.

According to him, the maids were cute, energetic and relentlessly cheerful. They greeted customers with ridiculous enthusiasm, laughed at terrible jokes, and created a welcoming environment that could heal a man’s exhausted soul.

The girl standing before Rune didn’t seem capable of healing anyone’s exhausted soul. Looking at her made him feel tired all of a sudden.

She was cute, yes, maybe to some extent. Rune supposed she qualified if someone ignored the dark circles beneath her dim pink eyes and the expression of someone who was dead inside.

The crows with magenta eyes did not help to make her aesthetic look... ’cute’.

But forgetting all of that nonsense, who was this person? Rune hadn’t sensed her approaching, no spike of spiritual energy and nothing his senses had recognized as another person entering the corridor.

He was still working on his spiritual senses, but they were good enough to not have someone casually walk up on him without his notice.

’Another weirdo’

How many weird people was he going to meet today?

Ripley was just as curious, but unlike him, she expressed it with considerably less patience.

"Hey, who the hell are you? Where did you come from?"

The maid said nothing to her question, continuing to stare at Red Hair’s pending corpse.

Ripley’s eyebrow twitched.

"Maid girl, I’m talking to you! I know you can hear me, so either answer the question or get fucking lost"

"The person you’re most fond of, huh?"

The maid finally spoke, although it didn’t seem to be an answer to the crazy woman’s question. She crouched beside Red Hair and just when she was about to put her pale hand at him....

Ripley’s face twisted instantly as blue light gathered around her left hand, forming into a small knife.

"Don’t touch him!"

The blade crossed the maid’s neck before Rune could even properly register the attack. It was too fast!

There was no resistance or any attempts to dodge. How could she against that speed?

The knife easily entered one side of her throat and exited the other. Her head separated from her body as blood erupted from the severed neck.

Rune tensely stared at the head that flew through the air.

"Monkey damn"

Just when he thought she was dead, the unexpected happened.

"What?"

From the severed head a black beak emerged from its mouth, then forced itself out. It was a crow and many more followed till the maid’s face split apart into black feathers.

Her torso collapsed inward before exploding into another flock of birds, the blood itself seemingly disappearing among countless black feathers.

Caw! Caw! Caw!

Ripley barely had time to react when the flock descended upon her.

"Ou-!, Ou-! Get the hell! Ahh! G-, get away!!"

She vanished beneath a writhing mass of black wings and feathers. Her arms swung wildly through the swarm like a madwoman, but there were too many of them.

Birds attacked from every direction, claws catching her hair, and wings repeatedly slapping against her face while their cries continue to echo.

Caw! Caw! Caw!

"Stop! Fuck! Get away! Get off!!!"

Rune watched her struggle from a safe distance.

He fought the crazy woman enough today to know she was very competent when fighting another person. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much sophisticated martial technique involved when dealing with dozens of angry birds screaming at your ear.

’That looks horribly disorienting’

He almost felt pity for her, but he didn’t really care. His attention was drawn again by the same person, in the same spot.

The maid was alive and completely unharmed, looking at Red Hair with the same emptiness.

Rune tilted his head.

He wasn’t shocked or anything like that. After spending six months around that ridiculous band of weirdos he was dragged into, his standards for what constituted an impossible ability had changed dramatically.

Still, turning into crows was pretty useful. In this case that is.

The maid crouched again. This time with nobody to stop her, she slipped one arm beneath him before pulling his body over her shoulder.

Blood soaked into the white sections of her uniform but she didn’t seem to mind. Red Hair hung limply over her shoulder, his ponytail dangling over his head.

She then turned toward the little and extended her hand.

The child pressed against the wall stared at the maid’s hand with those strange eyes of hers. Her expression was uncertain.

"Sha... nara?"

The maid said nothing, she simply nodded at her and that was apparently enough to gain her trust.

The little girl was hesitant but her small fingers eventually wrapped around the maid’s hand.

The moment they touched, the crows’ behavior changed and became more charged. The flock surged between him and the others.

"What the?!’

He raised both arms to protect his face. His vision had become completely obscured by darkness.

The beating of hundreds of wings and caw noises filled the corridor until even Ripley’s shouts became difficult to hear.

Poof!

Everything exploded into feathers, followed by silence.

It took a while before Rune felt secured enough to lower his arms. When he did he saw that all the crows were gone, leaving only feathers which were slowly dissolving.

He blinked several times but there was no denying that they were gone. The corridor was empty.

Save for Rune and of course Ripley.

Her hair had become a complete mess with black feathers tangled through them. Small scratches covered her face and her coat was dishevelled. She was also breathing heavily from having spent the last minute fighting an entire flock of birds.

Her pale eye stared at the empty place where Red Hair had been. He was not there. She looked around, settling on the young man with black hair.

When their eyes met, their expressions both conveyed exactly how tired they were at seeing each other. They continued to stare at each other.

After confirming there was no more hostile intent, Ripley raised her hand and extended a middle finger.

"...?!"

A smile carved from her scarred lips before she turned and disappeared into the darkness, leaving Rune alone in the empty corridor.

"Fuck you too"