Demon Sword Maiden

Lily lowered her head and her body seemed to sway slightly with her cascaded hair rendering her expression invisible.

“So, is this how you deal with problems? Through violence?1” Lily inquired softly.

Daisuke Emon grinned vulgarly, “Yeah! Initially, I wanted you all to scram, but I regret that decision now.”

Daisuke Emon sniffed the hand with which he had punched Lily and exclaimed, “It’s so fragrant! Girls from the city are pretty good. Although there’s a lot of women in this seaport, they are nothing compared to you all. None of the women shall leave this house today!”

Lily didn’t respond while Kotoka and Nanako also remained silent. The men of the Saionji family, however, turned utterly restless.

Daisuke Emon approached Lily and tilted his head with the intention of seeing Lily’s expression behind her long hair, “Oi, what you are called again? Lyn-hime? Why are you so mum? Lift your head now. Are you scared? Or has my heavy blow knocked the senses out of you? Now that I think about it, my slaps have turned a few deaf in the past. However, it can’t be that you are actually pretty good at fighting when you look so delicate? How come you didn’t collapse after receiving a heavy blow from me? Oioioi. What’s up with you? Did you really lose your consciousness while standing because of my punch?”

The ugly hunchbacked thug approached Lily from the side and cursed out, “B̲i̲t̲c̲h̲! Boss is telling you to lift your head! Are you deaf or what?!”

Saying so, he raised his foot with the intention of kicking Lily’s back.

This scum’s kick wouldn’t harm Lily, but there was no way she would allow it to happen again in the first place. She had an objective in mind by not retaliating against the first hit.

Her eyes hidden behind her hair flashed with frigidity suddenly. Following the hunchbacked man’s actions, Lily’s body leaned aside, after which she raised her foot and kicked outwards with a much faster speed.

Her fair and slender leg stretched out to a perfectly straight line!

“Bam!” the hunchbacked thug flew out momentarily and crashed through the wall, falling on the ground 100 m away near the market.

The hunchbacked thug only possessed the strength of a middle-stage samurai, so it was impossible for him endure such a kick from Lily. Thus, he welcomed an instant death.

Lily also panicked after executing the kick. She flipped her hair to the back and gazed at the thug lying on the ground in the distance through the hole in the wooden wall before soliloquizing softly, “Oh dear, I used too much strength.”

The premises turned silent.

The thugs who were used to fighting had witnessed this kick and even though they had killed a lot of people, even they had never seen such a powerful kick!

Sweat seeped out of Daisuke Emon’s forehead as well. The fact that she remained standing even after taking a heavy punch from him had already risen doubts within him, but his lust and wrath had muddled his senses and caused him to disregard this matter. However, it was impossible for him to disregard the kick he had witnessed just now. He was certain that the woman in front of him was pretty strong!

However, he was the leader of these thugs, their boss! If he shirked back here, he would have no life among the thugs in the future!

He believed that no matter how strong Lyn-hime was, she wouldn’t be able to match his blade and concluded that he had to slay her with his blade as he might lose against her in a normal battle of strengths!

Daisuke Emon’s eyes shone with malice as he unsheathed his tachi wordlessly before screaming out, “Slay her!”

He activated his crude sword master-grade spirit power and slashed towards Lily’s delicate shoulder.

“Ting!” However, that heavy strike had been intercepted easily with a ringing noise.

Lily caught the blade of Daisuke Emon’s tachi in between two of her slender fingers and stopped his sword strike that carried a force of thousands of kan.

“What?!” Daisuke Emon truly felt his blood turn cold at this moment.

It was one thing for Lily to be stronger than him but catching his all-out strike with just two fingers was something else entirely.

This isn’t just a slight gap in strength! This woman’s much stronger than me!

I fear only teacher can match her in battle!

Although the other thugs were hillbillies, they carried unadulterated and deep-rooted brutality within them. They took advantage of the moment when Lily acted to catch Daisuke Emon’s blade between her fingers and surrounded her in vain with unsheathed swords to slay Lily amidst the chaos.

However, Lily couldn’t even bother to act personally to deal with these thugs, most of whose strength might have not even reached that of an early-stage samurai. Thus, she mobilized the spirit power within her body to manifest a vortex of crimson sakura around her.

This vortex expanded outwards with her at the center rapidly and soared upwards!

“Boom!”

About half-a-dozen thugs were blown up into the skies by this vortex and were blown in random directions, falling in and out the premises. Two of them ended up dead while the rest got wounded severely.

“Oh, no, it looks like I used too much strength again…” Lily muttered in a seemingly astounded voice.

She then lifted her head to look at Daisuke Emon with a warm and bewitching gaze, but he had no leeway to feel excited about this tantalizing gaze from her and only felt an unprecedented chill from the depths of his soul.

Lily then strengthened the grip of her fingers, following which Daisuke Emon’s nodachi broke into pieces with a bang2, reflecting the fragmented reflection of the frightened thug boss as the pieces of the blade dropped near Lily’s feet.

Daisuke Emon felt utter despair upon realizing that his end was imminent and cursed his terrible luck for running into an apex expert after years of bullying others!

Although his katana was something that he had plundered by slaying a wounded samurai who had lost in battle, it was still a grade 3 tachi. It wasn’t so brittle that a woman would shatter it with her slender fingers.

This was a totally different grade of strength.

The clueless thugs outside rushed inside one after the other at this moment.

However, they saw Daisuke Emon kneel in front of Lily and plead for his life, “L-Lady Lyn-hime… Your Ladyship… please forgive this ignorant fool for insulting Your Ladyship’s prestige… I beg you! This fool shall kowtow to you!”

Saying so, Daisuke Emon kowtowed ostentatiously to Lily while yelling at the thugs behind him, “Why haven’t you kneeled down yet?! This is our newly appointed liege lord, Lady Lyn-hime! Kneel at once and kowtow to Her Ladyship!”

The thugs followed their boss’ orders and kowtowed desperately even though they were clueless about the situation.

“P-Please forgive this uncultured and ignorant fool, Lady Lyn-hime!” Daisuke Emon lifted his head to look at Lily obsequiously.

However, Lily just looked down with a cold gaze and said, “You wish to kowtow, right? Come do it a bit closer.”

“Ah?” Daisuke Emon shivered. In fact, he wasn’t that far from Lily, so he would reach the place with shattered blade pieces if he approached closer.

“What? You don’t want to?”

Daisuke Emon steeled his heart and crawled forward before kowtowing towards the shattered blade pieces vehemently, leaving him with a bloodied forehead.

The other thugs as well as the samurai of the Saionji family maintained absolute silence after seeing this.

“Enough,” Lily stated casually, “Have you understood what’s the law of Izu Port?”

“I have, Your Ladyship,” Daisuke Emon’s face was almost entirely dyed in blood from his forehead when he raised his head, “Lady Lyn-hime is the law of Izu Port! Lady Lyn-hime is the law!”

Lily didn’t respond to him and just passed by him while leaving behind a single word, “Scram.”

“Yes! Thank you for the forgiveness, Your Ladyship! You have my utmost gratitude!” Daisuke Emon turned towards Lily’s back and kowtowed a few more times before staggering out from the premises without even raising his head up again.

The thugs also rushed to collect their dead and injured companions and escaped from the place.

The only person remaining in the place was Oozake Yasushi now. He held back his tears and spoke to Lily in a moved tone, “Lyn-hime, no, Lady Lyn-hime! It’s great that you have arrived here! You are the savior of Izu! A real boon for us Izu residents! You have my heartfelt gratitude for saving my life, Lady Lyn-hime!”

Sugiyama squatted down beside Oozake and asked concernedly, “Uncle, are you okay?”

However, Lily lowered her and hid her face within the shadows of her beautiful hair as she commanded, “Throw him out.”

“Eh?!”

“What?!”

No matter whether it was the merchant, Oozake Yasushi, or the Taihara father-son duo and the rest, all of them looked at Lily dumbfoundedly.

“I don’t want to see a craven and cowardly person like him who betrays his business partner ever again,” Saying so, Lily flung her long sleeves and returned towards the steps.

Sugiyama, however, rushed past Lily and barred her path by kneeling in front of the steps.

“What is it?” Lily stopped with an icy gaze.

“Lady Lyn-hime! Y-Your socks have been ruined by the dirt on the ground. P-Please wipe them clean using my body before climbing up again.”

Saying so, Sugiyama groveled in front of Lily and showed his back to her.

Lily’s gaze turned warm when she saw Sugiyama’s sincerity, but it turned cold again instantly.

She didn’t respond and instead turned around to sit on the steps and lifted her foot, “Madam Kotoka.”

“Understood!” Reading Lily’s intentions, Kotoka arrived in front of Lily and kneeled down. Her gaze fell on Lily’s raised foot, but the sunset glow reflected in the lens of her spectacles concealed her expression. She then cupped Lily’s foot gently with both hands and took off Lily’s sock solemnly and placed Lily’s foot on her thighs before removing the other sock3.

Lily then got up and stepped onto the main hall with bare feet and turned around to speak to Kotoka, “I’ll have to trouble you to have them washed, Madam Kotoka.”

“Please feel relieved. I shall wash them clean personally with care and then put them on you with my own hands, Lyn-hime,” Kotoka expounded while hugging Lily’s socks to her bosom, an involuntary blush seemingly manifesting on Kotoka’s mature face at the same time4.

…

As the sun set down in the west, a trident-wielding fair-skinned man donned in extravagant robes similar to Noh costumes with red, fluffy hair sat in solitude on a rock at the shore where the tides rose and admired the setting sun with a weathered face.

“Only the pampas grass remains witness to thy forgotten name on this withered field as if to mock it—farewell!”

Although the man’s tone didn’t meet the mark, he still wagged his head and body as he sang the poem.

A group of battered and exhausted thugs came running from the distance at this moment.

“Teacher! Teacher!”

Daisuke Emon, who stood at the forefront, kneeled towards the weird red-haired man suddenly.

The weirdo turned around with a furious expression on his fair face that had red eyeshadow applied on the outer corner of his eyes, “Didn’t I tell you, Lord Emon, that I’m just 17-years-old. Don’t call me teacher! What is it?”

“Teacher… the newly appointed female liege lord called Lyn-hime killed Miki and a few others while injuring a lot of our brothers!” Daisuke Emon wailed while hugging the weirdo’s leg.

“What? To think that such has thing has happened! Intolerable! I must investigate at once to see who this woman is that she dares to act with such impudence in my, Taira no Hachiro’s, domain!”

Taira no Hachiro jumped up suddenly and stood on the rock on one foot while holding the trident and pointed towards the town’s direction with a blazing gaze before jumping down from it5.