Copy Skills with Affinity! - Chapter 25

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Natty

◈ Copy Skills with Affinity! ◈

Chapter 25: Ambush (2)

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Katia Heinkel Craven's notoriety was widespread even within the Military Headquarters.

A lone wolf. Utterly convinced she stood above everyone else. Terrifying initiative and recklessness.

If she wanted something, she shut everyone around her out until she got it. Anyone who got in her way would not be forgiven.

Above all, if it involved anything related to Lionheart's husband, she would stick her nose into every last detail.

It was not that she disliked people. She simply did not care about them. That was the sort of person she was, and she made that sentiment painfully clear.

So.

Those who saw her now could be said to be experiencing cosmic horror.

Katia hurried brightly down the corridor, smiling and beaming. The sight was strange enough to deserve that description.

"Ah, good morning!"

One servant who received such a greeting from her had apparently even taken a step back without realizing it.

Normally, she would interrogate anyone she made eye contact with for information about Aiden, demanding, "Shouldn't this be done this way? Shouldn't that be done that way?" Anyone would react similarly if she suddenly started acting like this.

"Hee hee."

And if she went around making such silly noises too, the fear was bound to double.

Instead of the unsettling smile she always wore, she looked like someone who was so genuinely happy that she did not know what to do with herself.

Clutched tightly to Katia's chest as she spread confusion through the Military Headquarters was the hip flask Aiden had given her recently.

'Friend!'

There was nothing Katia could do about it.

What was she supposed to do when merely thinking of that word made her react like this without meaning to?

"Hee hee hee."

Letting out another sound that inflicted metaphysical terror on someone nearby, Katia headed outside.

Even she did not really know what she was moving for. She was simply so full of energy that she could not stay still for even a moment.

Probably.

That was why she reacted a little more slowly than usual to the something that suddenly flew toward her.

"!"

An act violent enough to be called terrorism tore through the peaceful scene in an instant.

Even so, she managed to avoid it by jerking her head back, though she could not prevent the collateral damage.

Screams erupted from every direction as enormous lengths of rebar shattered the windows of the Imperial Capital offices.

There were four in total. Long steel rebars, covered all over with talismans.

One after another, they tore through the building and embedded themselves in a rectangle around Katia.

'A barrier?'

Suppression Pillars.

They were made in the Far East. Spiritual artifacts into which shamans had poured all their power to control savage Mountain Gods.

They had been created to fight beasts said to overturn a mountainside with a single roar. Few options were as efficient at suppressing a target as these.

'They're using something like this on me?'

It was never easy to see such precious items in the Empire, even though they came from a place whose border could only be reached by crossing an entire continent.

Anyone who could obtain them likely possessed tremendous, tremendous, tremendous power or resourcefulness.

And it was strange to use them to target Katia alone.

Who had sent them, and why?

Before Katia could sort through those questions.

Hum!

Hummmmm!

The four Suppression Pillars embedded around her resonated with one another. Then the talismans wrapped around the rebar flew toward her, sticking to her body as though covering her from head to toe.

Her Divine Power was being drained away. As expected of tools optimized to exhaust an opponent's strength, she could feel her ability weakening in real time.

Then the talismans and pillars resonated, tearing away the surrounding space itself.

The scenery changed in an instant. They had clearly sent Katia, who was inside the barrier, somewhere else.

When she closed and opened her eyes, the new landscape gradually came into focus.

A wide clearing. She did not know how far she had been sent from the Imperial Capital offices, but they had clearly chosen a secluded place with no one around.

They did not want anyone to see what would happen here.

Sure enough, several armed men stood around her, waiting.

"Who are you people?"

Katia tilted her head as she spoke.

"You kidnap someone out of nowhere in broad daylight. Are you planning to gang up and beat me?"

"............"

"Can you handle the consequences?"

Instead of answering, multicolored Ki flared from the bodies of everyone surrounding her.

Katia's eyes twisted slightly.

'Knights?'

The colors their Ki split into numbered only three or four at most. They handled Ki at a density ordinary people could never imagine.

Anyone who had cultivated their techniques to that level had to be knights. And they were likely quite skilled among them.

There was an obvious gap between them and Noel, who produced Pure White Ki in a single color. But with this many gathered together, they were still an enormous threat.

Soon, that many knights attacked her at once.

But even so.

'Do they know who they're picking a fight with?'

Katia tilted her head and laced her fingers together.

A hand seal symbolizing Seer, the God of Purification. A tremendous amount of Divine Power flowed from her body.

Even under the effects of the Suppression Pillars, with suppression talismans plastered all over her body, she still had plenty of ability left to wield.

Was picking a fight with someone like her not recklessly foolish?

A flame so abundant by birth that she had difficulty even shedding it erupted with destructive force.

More precisely.

It was just about to.

"......"

Katia, who had been about to wield her Divine Power, hesitated and withdrew her hand.

As though she had only just remembered something.

In that time, a sword strike flying toward her cut across her body.

"...... She's not resisting?"

At the bewildered voice from nearby, Sir Levant's face tightened beneath the visor.

It certainly was bewildering.

Their opponent was who she was, so they had weakened her twice over. Even that had not seemed enough, so they had brought several additional countermeasures.

Yet their opponent barely seemed willing to resist.

'...... That bastard said it would never be easy.'

Remembering the Minister of Administration's irritating face, Sir Levant sighed inwardly.

"...... It works out for us."

But rather than speculate about the reason, Sir Levant reaffirmed their resolve by raising their sword again.

In any case.

"You already know the information, don't you?"

This was an opportunity to gain the Prince's protection by doing something a little dirty, and to stick it to the people around that damned Lionheart.

"She isn't someone who dies easily, so don't hold back. We brought her here with sorcery, so the pursuit party will be late."

Whatever state their target was in.

They would simply do their job.

▣

Naturally, the Military Headquarters was in unprecedented chaos.

An act practically equivalent to terrorism had occurred in broad daylight. How could it not be?

But more than that, the question of where Katia had been transported to was making the chaos worse.

No one could track someone transported through sorcery. Naturally, no one had ever handled such power before.

Except for one person.

The person who had immediately run out of the headquarters saying, "I'll find her somehow."

[Aiden, did you find her?]

"Somehow!"

[How did you manage that?!]

Lady Noel answered in a shocked voice.

It was only natural. He had casually done alone what even the countless elites gathered at the Imperial Capital offices had not dared attempt.

Aiden himself had not been certain it would work.

'Come to think of it!'

When Katia had first met him, had she not seemed to come looking for him because she knew he was there?

She had even seen through Aiden's disguise at the time.

Wondering whether she had an ability related to that, he had searched through her skill window.

He had hit the jackpot.

-System Message

▶ You copy "Divine Power Operation: Perception."

-Skill Info

◆ Divine Power Operation: Perception (Sacred Body)

Those with Divine Power abilities can keenly sense one another's presence. You can easily track the target's whereabouts!

It was fortunate that he had two of Katia's skill-copy tickets.

He did not regret using one at all when things were this urgent!

"I'll tell you the location, so send support immediately! I'm going on ahead!"

[Wait, Aiden! It's dangerous to go alone-]

Before she could finish, Aiden immediately ran toward the source of the Divine Power.

It did not take long to find what he was looking for.

Explosions. Air being torn apart. Trails of Ki filling the area.

Several knights were relentlessly raining attacks on the single person at the center.

"A pursuit party? This quickly-"

Aiden saw someone say that and point his sword at him. Ki condensed at its tip.

Then he saw someone urgently grab that person's wrist and stop him.

"That's Lionheart's husband. If we strike him directly, we won't be able to clean this up!"

"...... Tch!"

As everyone hesitated at those words, Aiden immediately pushed past them without a moment's pause and ran to Katia.

"......"

Even though they had withdrawn their attacks midway, this many knights were openly hostile.

But Aiden acted as though they did not exist.

"Katia, are you alrigh-"

Aiden's words abruptly stopped.

Katia was a complete wreck.

She was crouched as though hugging something between her knees. Her clothes were ruined. Horrific cuts covered her entire body. She was black and blue with bruises.

How long had she been standing here, taking their blows? Her regeneration was not even working properly, leaving those wounds plainly visible.

"Why?"

Aiden took off his coat and wrapped it around her as he clenched his teeth.

"Why did you just let them beat you until you ended up like this? You can protect yourself well enough."

"It's nothing. You know me. It doesn't even hurt."

Her answer came back in a quiet whisper, low against the ground.

"That's not the point-!"

"Because you told me not to fight."

...... Aiden froze.

Katia would never normally stand there blankly and take a beating until she ended up like this.

-Stop picking fights with other people for no reason. And if you can help it, don't do things that will hurt them.

If she had not remembered someone asking that of her recently, she would have fought back.

Aiden's thoughts continued.

'If they're knights.'

If they belonged to a knight order, they were all public faces of the Imperial Military, each with their own standing.

People treated as top-class personnel, politically and militarily.

If this many of them suffered something bad at her hands.

It could become a problem for Aiden.

That was why.

Even though she could easily have subdued them.

She had stood there and let them beat her until she looked like this.

"......"

Before he could find the words to say, his hand touched Katia as he wrapped the coat around her. She flinched as though an electric current had run through her.

Then she curled up even tighter, as though she absolutely did not want to reveal her torso.

"Are you hurt? Let me see."

"W-wait, this, this-"

Katia's voice held an uncharacteristic panic, but Aiden ignored her and opened her arms.

Then he saw what she had held tightly against herself even as they beat her.

The hip flask.

The item he had given her recently as a token of friendship.

Even though she had hidden it so carefully, apparently she had failed to protect it in the end. It was battered and split in two.

"......"

As Aiden lost his words, Katia spoke in a faintly trembling voice.

"We..."

It was around then that he looked properly at Katia's face for the first time.