They never noticed.
Silvia and Savana slept first, Aranea told them she'd stay up as first watch.
Placing her hands in front of the flickering campfire flames, her shadow grew long; her hair even longer.
In the game, there were two routes you could end up on depending on which character you chose to control.
If you choose Savana then you would receive this route, if you chose Moglit, Charles, or Aria then you'd be in the other route.
Aranea played as Savana during two of her runs so she was quite familiar with it.
If she remembered correctly then it would occur on the night of the 10th, 2 hours after they fell asleep.
So she closed her eyes and rested.
She had another hour to go.
---
28 footsteps could be heard approaching from afar.
Using
The sources of their existence didn't feel very Human.
It felt murky-
Dirty.
Corrupted.
Corrupted was a general term for beings influenced by or coming from the Abyss.
Ranks existed among Corrupteds just like how they existed among Humans.
The Monster and Beast Corrupteds they faced during their tests were mostly Lowest and Low. Nothing special.
These Corrupted Humans, on the other hand, were Upper-Low and Lower-Middle. They were more dangerous than those Monsters and Beasts that were Corrupted.
But still, none of them were True Corrupted; Corrupted that came directly from the Abyss.
True Corrupted were a thousand times more dangerous even at the same Rank.
Crunch-
One of the 14 misstepped, clearly a rookie.
Alarm bells rang in their minds; any competent soldier would notice their approach from that noise alone.
It was a loud, unnatural noise.
Not noticing it would only mean you were too incompetent to survive in this wilderness.
They were completely right.
Aranea noticed the oddity instantly.
But she didn't act upon it.
She merely looked at Silvia and Savana who were peacefully sleeping with both ears shut off from the world around them. Something you should never do in this place.
Even with someone on watch, you had to remain semi-conscious; ready to fight at all times.
They were too comfortable, treating it less like a dangerous journey and more so as a simple outing with friends.
The group outside held their weapons defensively for a good minute, they were prepared for an enemy attack.
Alas...
A minute passed.
Then five.
And still, no movement came from within the cave.
Grinning amongst each other, they licked their lips and gradually approached. Whoever was inside was fresh prey.
Simple lamb for them to consume.
Ashy snow drifted down and fell onto the path.
Stray rays of moonlight broke through the dreary clouds, lighting up ancient, frozen bones that littered the road.
And in front of the Corrupted Humans was a black carp.
And behind the black carp was the food.
Their sustenance.
Aranea waited.
Their feet were 10 metres away.
And waited.
5 metres away.
And-
The instant she felt their Corrupted energy flare up-
"Enemy attack!"
Her usual, clear and soothing voice churned into a grim one as it bellowed, echoing and bouncing off the cave walls with the aid of her Mana.
Silvia's crimson eyes, Savana's wine-red eyes; both shot open, their hands clasping onto the handles of their weapons.
Flames exploded beneath Savana's body, sending her twirling into the air; she gripped a small rock on the ceiling, dangling her body in the flickering shadows of the cave.
Her body seemingly melted into the environment.
Silvia's scarlet Aura drew all the attention from those outside, it frothed from the depths of her Aura Swirl.
Standing ready, she looked to Aranea.
Aranea nodded at her.
That was enough to convey the severity of the situation; not dangerous.
Rip-!
The tarp covering the entrance tore open, revealing the 14 Corrupted Humans behind it.
Each one had a dreary, grey energy wafting from their body; Abyssal Power.
Their Abyssal Power was faint; undeniably weak, they wouldn't be Upper-Low and Lower-Middle Corrupteds otherwise.
Seeing the cunning cruelty in their eyes, Silvia knew that this group retained their rationality.
Aranea waited for Silvia to take action.
This was Silvia's ordeal.
The girl has never killed a Human before, this was a good first step to killing one. You couldn't treat Corrupted Humans as Humans, it was inherently wrong.
These were bastards who had abandoned their Humanity for power; for greed.
Click.
The sound of Aranea snapping her fingers fired the starting gun.
The rough ground beneath the feet of the Corrupted Humans abruptly softened, turning into mushy mush. It pulled their legs down.
In that brief moment where they were forced to pull their legs out, Savana's body dissipated from the ceiling; her hazy figure pieced itself together behind the cohort, her flaming daggers sizzling away at the flesh of the Corrupted Human at the back.
Silvia's scarlet Aura flashed through the air, brimming with ferocity it instantly cut off the tendons of two of the Corrupted Humans at the front.
Like Aranea said, it wasn't dangerous.
This wasn't an ordeal of danger.
The Corrupted Human in the lead witnessed the sight of his two followers losing their tendons; his initial bout of fear transformed into cunningness instantly.
Reaching out for his two falling men, he gripped their napes and burst forward with his Abyssal Power.
The trail of grey, murky energy etched a path through the ground, the two men in his hand began decaying at a slow but constant pace.
He didn't care in the slightest.
Dashing the duo at the silver-haired slut, the Lower-Middle Ranked leader pulled out the sword on his waist.
Schwing-!
Silvia kicked one of the men aside and stabbed her sword through the newly created opening.
But.
Squelch!
The sound of flesh tearing and bones rupturing exploded from the incapacitated man on the left.
A sword has pierced through his back aimed straight at her heart.
Gritting her teeth, Silvia twisted her body just in time to avoid a lethal hit. It scratched the side of her left arm slightly.
Twisting his sword, the leader of the group ripped his sword out, leaving the bisected corpse of his subordinate to splatter across the ground.
Momentarily glancing at the spilt innards and rapidly pouring, Corrupted blood from the corpse, Silvia shook her eyes away from the sight; she had to focus on their leader.
Savana was quickly shuttling between the Corrupted Humans, her daggers reaping away at their tendons, and muscles and sometimes even half ripping out their limbs.
But even as her body was drenched in weak decaying blood.
Even as her flames brought forth their agonising screams.
She couldn't finish them off.
Savana had yet to kill a Human too, but she was still better off than Silvia though because of her harsh upbringing.
That girl could get over this hurdle with less of a struggle than Silvia.
Now that the leader of the group was out in the open, it was easy for Silvia to subdue him; it didn't take much to stop the man from being able to ever move again.
Aranea merely acted as the support.
She threw out icicles where Savana needed them and blocked off any sneak attacks on the girls' backs.
This fight was for them, not her.
The aftermath, on the other hand, would be her lesson to them.
While the leader lay on the ground with maddening hatred in his eyes, the Abyssal Power within him never stopped circulating.
It was regenerating his cut tendons and muscles.
Splatter-!
Silvia's Aura rushed through the air, reapplying the wounds to the man before he could do anything stupid.
---
It took them 7 minutes to completely subdue the lot.
Aranea washed away the scents, burnt the blood that had elements of decay, and covered the entrance.
Tied in makeshift ropes and with their mouths stuffed with cloth, Aranea was tasked with freezing their wounds so that recovery was impossible.
The girls looked at each other; Silvia and Savana were unsure of what to do with them.
They knew what had to be done.
But they couldn't do it.
"What do you think, Savana?" Silvia cleaned the blood on her sword with a cloth.
Savana cleansed her daggers with flames, "I... Sigh-" She glanced sideways at Aranea.
Those eyes redirect the question at her.
"Isn't it obvious?" Aranea's tone was stern.
Silvia nodded, one of the few rare times she agreed with Aranea.
She wryly caressed her blade; the fact that this precious weapon had yet to taste blood was a mockery of its worth.
Still...
Reluctantly, Silvia bit her lips, "We should kill-"
"No."
But Aranea's voice shut her down.
Thud.
Her footsteps echoed in the cave as she took a step toward the leader.
Casually glancing back at Silvia, she brought up a simple question, "What if they have more?"
"What then? Should we endure getting attacked over and over again while having to constantly look over our backs?"
Savana gulped, "So... You are suggesting?"
Aranea took another step at the leader. A film of Mana coated her fingers, she wasn't capable of completing her next set of actions with her non-existent strength.
"Let's interrogate them."
Kneeling beside him, she ripped the cloth out of his mouth.
Ptew-
His phlegm dripped down her Mana Barrier.
"I won't tell you shit, you underaged slut."
A disgusting smile arose on his face, "Heh, maybe it's better that way, tight and painf-!"
Crack!
Clatter...
Dozens of teeth lined the floor of the cave as blood poured from his mouth.
"I dare you to speak again."
The man didn't respond, he clenched his mouth shut and held his groans in; he was waiting for his teeth to grow back with the help of his Abyssal Power.
Aranea let him do it, she still needed him to talk.
"H-hey, Aranea, don't you think-" Silvia's words squirmed out, her whole body felt uncomfortable; the way she ripped his teeth out was very clean.
But the cleanliness of that action was terrifying.
Aranea looked back at them while she waited for his teeth to regrow, "Have you guys never killed things before?"
They mildly nodded.
"And you've never interrogated things before?"
They nodded again.
"Do you guys understand that these things are lesser than things?"
Aranea's eerily soothing voice continued with a dismal explanation, "There's no problem with getting rid of things lesser than things."
"Don't worry, I'll teach you guys right now. Just watch closely."
Looking back at him, Aranea found that his teeth had mostly recovered.
"First, the fingers; the place with the most pain receptors is the fingers."
Lifting the man's hand with Mana, she pointed out his fingertips, "Want to try it first?"
"I'm good-"
"Same here."
The way they looked at Aranea changed slightly.
[Very dangerous.]
[More~]
The madness in Savana's eyes fervently watched Aranea's actions. Meanwhile, Aranea's classification in Silvia's mind went up a notch.
Aranea's actions were, in a way, allowing the girls' uniqueness to blossom.
"Fine with me."
Conjuring a tiny icicle, Aranea slowly embedded it beneath the nail of one of his index fingers. It dug into his flesh as she formed small circles within his flesh and poked his bone.
Droplets of blood squeezed out from underneath the loose nail; the veins on the Corrupted leader's neck squirmed out to the surface.
His face contorted with inescapable agony.
No matter how much he tried pulling away from her, a force of Mana kept him in place.
Aranea pulled the icicle out, "Tell me, do you have any more allies in the area? Is your base of operations nearby? How many of you are there in total around this region?"
Firing those shots at him, she waited for the man to speak through his sweaty, pained breaths.
"I'm- I'm not-"
Sighing, she waved her hands disappointed and looked back at Savana and Silvia, "When these things don't talk like this, you just have to put a bit more effort into it, okay?"
Absentmindedly nodding, the shocked girls watched with slight horror in their hearts.
No matter how unique they were, this was still their first time seeing someone getting tortured.
Not to mention, the torturer was someone their age who looked like a 13-year-old.
Seeing this, Silvia remembered the many rumours she had heard.
Originally, she gave this girl the benefit of the doubt. But the more she watched...
She didn't know if she could give her that benefit for much longer.
Splat.
Suddenly, 9 separate icicles shoved themselves underneath the rest of his fingers.
Then-
Splat.
10 more embedded themselves into his toenails.
Squelch!
Grinding and pushing around all of those nerve endings, the leader couldn't hold back his screams any longer.
His voice exploded in the cave; his tearful cries mixed with the blood pouring from his fingers and toes.
The Corrupted Human's face contorted to the extreme, this was pain beyond anything he had ever experienced.
Even when he lost a limb in the past it wasn't this bad.
Chills ran down Silvia and Savana's spines.
Forget wanting [More], forget the [Danger]-
Aranea's face was too relaxed. It hadn't changed once except for that one look of disappointment when he didn't give up the information.
It was repulsive.
Removing the icicles once more, she repeated her questions.
But again, he denied her of the answers she wanted. Tilting her head, Aranea's face looked slightly troubled; this was becoming boring...
"Oh!"
Aranea's face burst with joy, "I almost forgot, we have plenty lesser things here to ask questions from!"
Clapping her hand-
SPLAT!
The screams of 14 Corrupted Humans filled the cave.
"That's better."