It has been weeks ever since Persephone and her subordinates unknowingly stayed in Kingdom Fersion without any suspicion that this was the Kingdom that enslaved Ãlsuais. Persephone wasn't able to leave much due to Ray's overprotective behavior and the incident that happened where Ray's rage almost killed the entire kingdom. The only times where she was able to leave is when she either had Ray's company or when Ray was on political duties to solve issues with other Kingdoms. Those weeks accumulated in Persephone getting massive attention not for her beauty nor power but for protection when Ray gets infuriated causing immense harm or for the benefits of having a comrade that happens to know the strongest in their Kingdom. Although it was very noticeable as Persephone only got popularity ever since the last incident, Persephone still finds genuine and humble people despite the majority being so little. On the other hand besides Persephone's travels and experiences, It was not only her that gained fame during those weeks. Hayls's selflessness in helping the towns-people for instance, he would constantly help others from heavy objects they were carrying and overall, his good deeds gave him a serene reputation. Meanwhile, the twins were known for their comedic personality in making people laugh and even if their public view were mostly influenced by women— ( Keep in mind that both Ralse and Relsa are Charismatic and gentle especially to females ) they still were in good terms with men. Though an even more surprising fact is that since the town has many children, they look up to Ralse, Relsa and Hayls. Some townsfolk proposed that they would be amazing teachers of magic and shockingly, they accepted but not in a way where they would be required to go to school but from the outside of the School's boundaries, there they would teach children. The school where Persephone's subordinates are currently teaching has increased the popularity of children going to it because the school had temporary employees currently working there.
There the school was filled with children wanting to learn from them and at first Persephone found it hard to believe that the Twins were going to be teaching, she found out that they were amazing with kids and at teaching. They signed for two months there temporarily and were loved by students and teachers. Persephone would regularly visit them on hours they weren't teaching and every time she was there, they would discuss about topics on what to teach the children and Persephone would always recommend a skill/spell in those conversations. Once, Persephone accidentally went outside to meet up with Ralse but wasn't expecting kids to show up, she soon realized that the kids would grow up to be strong people as their strength now was impressive for a child to do. In addition to the Trio surprisingly accepting the job, their fanbase grew even larger with each day passing.
Whenever Persephone didn't leave the castle grounds, she would try to explore every single part of the castle and moreover learn more about it. With her trying to see every room of the castle, she was very stunned when a large room from the Castle was know just seen by her, the room was only filled with knights and she assumed it was a practice room for knights to raise their strength and defense. She watches silently but was caught when a knight spotted her.
"Ah, Madam Persephone, what brings you here? are you lost?" He interrupted the two men currently clashing their swords together. Everyone looks at Persephone and were wondering how long she had been staring at them.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm not lost, I was just studying my way of this castle for the future to not get lost immediately." She hurriedly spoke up seeing as she couldn't run.
The knight nodded as he signals the other knights to do what they were doing before. "Do you want to take a look at here Madam Persephone? we have very impressive guards here."
She was intrigued by the offer and accepts the invitation. "Sure! I would love to see once in a while where people don't use magic or skills in combat."
"We have the best of the Kingdom Madam, they don't use magic like you said although the only exception is when we really need to use it. We haven't used our magic for years because the enemies were just to weak! but ever since those outsiders came, they have interrupted our Kingdom's policy and we were forced to use our magic. They are a troublesome group because not only are they stealing our resources, they are also not entirely slow nor weak making it harder for us to capture them." He spoke with anger in his voice.
"Outsiders?" Persephone asks, curious as she never heard Ray speaking of this matter to her.
"They are Monsters who squeeze their noses into other people's properties, we tried searching for the forest but we could never sense anything or find them. All we can do is wait for them to appear" He spoke with negativity.
"But it's fine Miss, if those monsters ever appear again, they have yet to witness the true power of Master Ray!" He tries to lighten up the mood by speaking of Ray which led to Persephone thinking how long have they dealt this situation without ever resolving it.
"Have a seat Madam Persephone" He leads Persephone to a chair and sits beside her. She thanks him and sits down.
Loud swinging of swords are repeatedly collided to eachother as both the individuals don't stop. The fight takes a while when one finally gets ahead of the other as the the person with a disadvantage lose their footing and falls onto the ground. The victorious quickly points his sword at the defeated and the winner then helps him out. They both congratulate eachother and Persephone smiles at their respect towards eachother.
"Have you ever tried fighting with a sword Madam Persephone?" He looks at Persephone with question in his eyes.
"No, I have never tried it before. Do you think I can do it? will you allow me to Sir?" She says willing to learn a new combat style.
"Go ahead, we never underestimate women especially....that Kara." He speaks the last words with fear and he gulps.
Persephone gets up and randomly takes a sword and swings it around. She could manipulate her talent in speed but it wasn't enough even with her ability to glitch anything she desires. She wasn't experienced in fencing and that's her disadvantage.
< "Analyzing, solution. Do you want me to manipulate your human talent in fencing?" >
"Human talents? why add human in there?"
She asks.
< "We add human to it to differentiate it between magic skills and skills humans can do without the need of magic. Example, fencing, farming, singing, dancing, Talent of being able to play an instrument and other more." >
"If I do that..that will just be cheating. Then again, I don't want to get myself laughed at so increase it only a little.. enough for me to fight an actual knight without getting defeated instantly.."
< "As you wish." >
Tasia sets her abilities in fencing as genius without her knowing and Persephone somewhat feels like she knows fencing more than she did before. Her hands take action like she had done this before and it surprised her that she too could glitch skills that were not easily obtained. She feels overpowered and sad that she will never be able to feel the satisfaction of learning because of the glitch. In which her powers would be useful, in all honesty, her powers are cheats one would use in a game except this isn't a game.
"Thanks Tasia." She speaks in her thoughts and stands in the center.
"Would anyone be interested in having a duel with me? I'm not that good so please go easy on me." She asks the knights.
After a while, one knight finally steps in the center with her and takes his position.
"Well princess, I'll duel with you. I'll make sure to go easy on you." He says sarcastically.
"Please don't call me that and do go easy on me.." She replies back.
After a few seconds of the fight happening, here they were. Persephone on top the previous knight who was bragging about his skill in fencing and now was left with no words. Her sword aims at the guy's neck and she realizes what Tasia had done.
"Tasia! I told you.. average...why was I able to defeat a knight being average? did you set it to something higher?" She sighs and helps the speechless knight.
< "Sorry Persephone, knights are known to be merciless in their fights. I couldn't risk it." >
"Tasia..." She drops the sword and walks back to her chair.
"Madam Persephone, have you tried sword fighting before?" He asks, bewildered by her victory.
Not wanting for anyone to know her glitch, she says yes. "Y-yeah, I have..in fact, I'm quite the genius at it..." She feels awful for having to lie and she cringes at herself for calling herself a "genius." The fact that her non-existent skills were acknowledged by a true knight with actual abilities instead of glitches made Persephone want to punch herself.
"Amazing Madam Persephone! it's getting late and I want you to come here tomorrow so please come by!" He says complimenting her skills.
She awkwardly nods in agreement and when the knights all left, going to there separate rooms, she sighs and scratches her head.
"What have I done! I shouldn't have challenged him!" She regrets her decision and tries to think of a solution.
< "Quite bold of you to say you are a genius, Persephone." >
"Ahhh!!! shut up, shut up Tasia! you did this when I only wanted to have a decent fight! I didn't want to win instantly!" She scolds Tasia while Tasia ignored her making Persephone angrier.
And ever since that day, Persephone now comes to the practice room regularly whenever she wasn't allowed to go outside, she had gotten attached to the place and the people as they weren't sexist nor rude about a woman being stronger than them. She would often get called "Mistress" by the knights as Persephone quote on quote resembled a professional but younger. She was embarrassed by that name but eventually got used to it since whenever she walked on hallways, there is always a knight who would call out to her and loudly say "Mistress Persephone!" infront of everyone else. Of course, she still got bothered by it but she wouldn't say anything it was uncomfortable.. infact, it was more flattering than anything else as getting called Mistress meant they recognized her power and strength. They often would challenge her to a duel and Persephone always felt bad seeing them with defeated and dejected faces so she stopped advancing her human skills and set it to somewhere higher than average but enough for it to be beatable in just a few months. Ray and the Trio were aware that Persephone went outside less but didn't pay no mind to it as seeing Persephone happy made them happy as well. The sword duels from time, transformed into magic-sword duels (Note: It's still sword fighting but with magic) but the knights were still perplexed with her strength as Persephone wasn't enhancing or using her skills on her sword. Some even believed that Persephone didn't have any magic.
***
"Is that all you got Kyle or should I lower my strength more?" She boldly said.
"M..Mistress Persephone, don't underestimate me!" He swung his sword but Persephone quickly dodges it and trips him using her feet.
He face-planted into the grounded while he gasps for air. Persephone looks at her surroundings and forgot that she technically did beat everyone and now there was a pile of bodies stacked everywhere on the room. (Note: they aren't dead, just unconscious.)
"We should rest, all of you have trained hard. You are improving." She says trying to give them confidence.
"Mistress..I don't feel like I'm improving at all. Your are just too strong." Kyle said.
Sadly, it was true. Persephone knew her glitch prevented her skills to have a limit and that realization gave her more responsibility as to not use her glitch carelessly. Possibly, she shouldn't use this because it would ruin her reputation and make people fear her. Besides, this was foul and dirty.
"Don't say that, you guys are improving. Do you remember that one time one of you cut my hair, it's a sign you are really getting stronger." She wasn't lying when she said that, one of them did really cut her hair in the middle of a match.
"Mistress, you probably lowered your guard down and that was when we used magic. You weren't using magic, so you had a disadvantage but it wasn't even a disadvantage in the first place.." He laid on the ground tiredly while Persephone sighs.
"How many times did I tell you? I didn't lower my guard down.." She saddens knowing they wouldn't pass her even after death.
He looks at Persephone tiredly with gratitude. "Haha..your..to humble..Mistress Persephone...."
Persephone looks at the sleeping knight and wondered how long did they fight for them to get exhausted. She wasn't sleepy but since it was so peaceful, she might as well rest her eyes for a second. She closes her eyes and once she did that, the door loudly banged causing everyone to wake up frightened. Persephone blinks her eyes in shock as she try to process the loud noise.
"Those bastards are here! they knew when Ray was going to get out of this town today and they planned it perfectly! They are attacking our Kingdom's town and stealing materials. They have brought more people than when I first saw them and their reinforcements are growing! we don't have much time to waste so get out of this room!"
Everyone got up and frightfully picked up their swords and rushed towards the town. Persephone was now seeing them in person and she couldn't wait to beat some sense into these monsters they would be fighting so she dashed through a door she remembered a faster way of leaving the castle grounds. She soon arrived and saw the Trio protecting the towns-people, some of the older kids her subordinates taught even dared to help them fight and surprisingly, they handled their own and kept up with the Twins and Hayls. The monsters were mixed with races such as, wolves, elves, winged-monsters, pixies and more. Even though they were different monsters, they somehow managed to co-exist and fight together which was unusual even if they were monsters known to be weak trying to get protection from stronger beings.
Persephone runs to a direction where it was filled with monsters and uses the skill —"Wild fire" (Combo attack)— to not only eliminate a single enemy and the fire would spread out up until the limit of 50 people/monsters. She made sure to protect the houses and the humans from her attack and sets a boundary for the fire to not touch human beings or houses. — "Poisonous Rainfall" — (Weather skill, Combo attack), — "Spiritual Motion" — (Telekinetic skill, Combo attack), — "Liquid dungeon" — (Water skill, Combo attack).
Persephone made sure to use combo attacks as it was more affective than single attacks and just in a matter of a few minutes, she managed to wipe of seventy-percent of the enemy's population. The knights grew more amazed at her power and watched in awe from her experience in skills and how much combo-attacks she knew. The people grew confident in winning and cheered for her crystal clear victory.
"Master! you are amazing! you wiped out almost all of them!" Hayls came to Persephone in excitement and wags his tails.
"Master Persephone! there you are! I knew you were going to kill these weaklings easily though we managed just fine!" The twins followed behind.
"Now, now. Now's not the time to be complimenting me, go protect the people while I deal with this okay?" She smiles and gives them a request.
"Yes Master!" They all said together.
"Now...where was I?" She said and glares at the monsters threateningly.
She takes a step ahead and decides to end this quickly so the people would resume back to their lives. She distanced her legs and put both of her hands up in the air as she creates a purple transparent box where the monsters where trapped in. From the inside, she uses her Combo-attacks then crushes her fist into a ball and the box shrinks instantly leaving monsters vanishing while their dust and disfigured positions that looked like crumbled paper were only blood. She removes her box and sees that monsters also drop loot that were unfamiliar with Persephone. She then forwards her attention and releases the barrier she settled on the knights and people, after she frees them, she goes closer at the loot and inspects it closely. The people yell and congratulate her victory and chants her name over and over again.
"Thank you, oh and Hayls, what are these things?" She holds up a circle-shaped crystal with pinkish-red color and many other artifacts.
"I.. don't.. I have never seen those Master Persephone. I'm sorry." He said apologetically.
"It's fine, but I want to identify these loot drops because these look very valuable." Persephone says picking up all the loot (with Telekinesis) and storing them into her hands which was possible if the person who stored them has the skill — "Unlimited storage" — (Telekinetic skill).
"Well, there is this person who could analyze these items Master, they're known for their knowledge on loot drops although it's from another town." Hayls said to Persephone which she thinks of asking Hayls the location.
"Mind if I ask where this town is?" Deciding to journey off somewhere for a couple of days or months, Persephone asks Hayls on where this person is located at.
Hayls looks around unsure and tells his thoughts to Persephone. "Master, I'm not a hundred percent sure but—"
"May I?" Kyle whom Persephone recently fought earlier, interrupts their conversation wanting a word in the topic they were discussing.
"Coincidentally, I happen to know where this person is. Mistress Persephone, I may have lived in the exact same town as the person and if you wish, I could take you there." he offers Persephone a request which she humbly accepts.
"Oh, That's great timing there Kyle and yes, please take me there."
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