A Young Girl's Journey Toward a Color (Saga of Tanya the Evil / Project Moon)

001

The City is garbage. Or to be more precise, it's a dumpster meant to hold garbage. Do garbage human beings gather here because it's a dumpster, or did it become a dumpster because only garbage human beings gather here? I don't know, and frankly, does it even matter?



Oh, of course, that isn't to say every single human in the City is nothing more than terrible, highly flammable organic matter. It's just that, compared to my previous two lives, the ratio of good to evil residents in the City is extremely skewed.



Yes, despite it all, good people do exist in the City.



I knew this very well. I knew this because I was currently surrounded by them. Should I consider this good luck? Of course not. This entire situation is undoubtedly a setup engineered by Being X to satisfy his bizarre fetish. It seems that as long as my hair remains blonde, I am permanently barred from escaping the orphanage demographic.



My second life had concluded rather peacefully, at least compared to its harsh beginnings. After the war, the Empire was split into the capitalist and communist blocs. As a core operative of 'Operation Defending the Reich', I defected to the United States. Following that, I graduated at the top of my class from the US Air Force Academy, established a Private Military Company, and spent my days thoroughly harassing the Federation. Slapping commies across the face while backed by the financial might of the world's strongest capitalist nation was a truly rewarding and delightful way to spend my time.



Naturally, the most satisfying perk of the job was that I no longer had to step onto the battlefield myself. On paper, 'ZAS' was an aviation service provider. As the CEO of ZAS, my role was simply to deploy my employees wherever they were needed. The combat proficiency of the staff who had followed me from the Empire had reached a point where there was simply no room left for improvement. Irregular forces and ragtag militias posed absolutely no threat to them.



I meticulously assessed the risk factors of every upcoming operation. I secured logistical support and supplies far beyond what was strictly necessary. Our armaments were strictly maintained at state-of-the-art levels. Thanks to this diligent risk management, I fortunately never lost a single subordinate.



Fortunately, the very first casualty of the 'Barbarossa Ghost Battalion' was me.



Yes. 'Fortunately.'



I harbored such sentiments precisely because I was the first among my comrades to die.



The hospital room where I spent my final days was never quiet for a single moment. My subordinates and their families visited daily, completely obliterating any chance of peace and quiet. If even one of the subordinates under my responsibility had died in action before I did, I certainly wouldn't have been able to maintain that level of corporate loyalty.



Compared to the miserable, grisly end of my first life, the curtain call of Tanya von Degurechaff—and Tasha Tigretius—was entirely satisfactory.



I closed my eyes in perfect contentment.



It would have been a truly excellent retirement, if only I hadn't opened them again...



"Tanya! Hurry up and help hang the decorations! I can't reach!"



"Isn't that the sort of request you usually make to someone taller than you?"



I replied while keeping a strict supervisory gaze on the turkey roasting perfectly inside the oven. The orphanage staff had placed their trust in me, confident that I wouldn't secretly pull meat out while it was cooking. I was honorable enough not to betray that trust, though I was certainly opportunistic enough to nibble on a few Brussels sprouts.



"Don't be mean! You can jump as high as a rabbit. That idiot Garnet nailed it right up near the ceiling and then walked off with the ladder, so we can't reach it at all!"



"Alright, alright. Topaz! Take over turkey surveillance for me. Do not open the oven carelessly unless the turkey suddenly comes back to life."



I let out a heavy sigh and stood up from my seat. I had delegated my vacant post to the child with the most self-control out of those nearby. Topaz was greedy enough to want to eat the turkey, but also possessed the common sense to fear a hot oven.



When I walked into the living room, I was greeted by a disaster zone that rivaled my most chaotic nightmares. An array of multi-colored decorations, clearly hung with absolutely zero regard for color theory, were scattered everywhere. It was a spectacle that could have put up a good fight against the baffling modern art I had once seen at a museum in my first life.



"Aqua, did a bomb go off in here?"



I muttered before I could stop myself, causing the girl who had called me over to roll her eyes.



"Stop exaggerating, Tanya. It's not that much of a mess, is it? Mister always praises our Christmas interior design."



Aqua retorted.



"He can only say that because he's never the one who has to help clean up the aftermath. Seriously, do you smell something weird? Where did you scavenge the materials from this time?"



When I snapped at her, Aqua just shrugged.



"Don't worry, it was from a place where no corpses had been found for a whole week."



I instinctively covered my face with my hand. I hated to admit it, but by the standards of this City, that practically qualified as a highly sanitary facility.



"Stop complaining and just hang this up! If we skip a decoration, the little brats will whine about it for the rest of the year!"



Aqua shoved a questionable object, made of colorful paper chains strung together, into my hands.



"It looks exactly like intestines."



"Tanya!"



I waved my hand dismissively.



"Alright, alright. I just hook it up there and connect it over there, right?"



Aqua nodded.



"Yeah, I didn't expect you to have any artistic sense anyway. Just make sure the shape holds."



The nails meant to secure the decorations were driven into the wall at an absurdly high elevation. I appreciated Garnet's upward-aspiring attitude, but expressing it in this literal manner was simply wrong.



Speaking of which, Garnet was currently out grocery shopping with Lapis. Officially, it was to procure side dishes to accompany the main course—the roast turkey—but I strongly suspected he had an ulterior motive of enjoying a Christmas date with Lapis on company time.



They were a year older than me and planning to leave the orphanage this year. I sincerely hoped that when they finally checked out of this establishment, they wouldn't be leaving as a party of three. The City was not exactly known for its family-friendly infrastructure.



Shaking my head, I bent my knees. My height barely cleared the 140-centimeter mark. The nails were driven in at more than twice my height. Merely jumping with enthusiasm wouldn't be enough to reach them. I needed the assistance of the physical enhancement magic formula, which I could now use as naturally as breathing.



Yes, magic had followed me into this life. More importantly, I could cast it without a computation orb. That was entirely thanks to the United States. Oh, it wasn't as if they kindly funded my R&D for orb-less magic. They simply provided the necessary motivation.



The US had been generous enough to grant 'White Silver' admission to their Air Force Academy, but they weren't stupid enough to hand the 'Devil of the Rhine' a computation orb. And I hadn't found that particularly displeasing. Not possessing an orb effectively meant my job description no longer included frontline deployment as a mage.



Nevertheless, giving up the experience of flying under my own power was a shame. Furthermore, lacking the strength to defend myself made me anxious. I had always been surrounded by an excessive number of guards, but being unable to protect myself with my own two hands didn't help my peace of mind.



My current age was less than half of what it was when I initially mastered orb-less magic in my past life, but having the prior experience meant I could completely bypass the research and development phase.



I leapt up, easily reaching the required elevation. In fact, if I didn't regulate my output, there was a genuine risk of my head breaching the ceiling. It was highly fortunate that my initial field test of the physical enhancement formula in this life had been conducted outdoors. With the nail right in front of me, I activated a low-power flight formula to decelerate my descent. Regrettably, true flight was the one application I couldn't fully replicate without an orb. The best I could manage was a meaningful reduction in terminal velocity. Full three-dimensional aerial maneuvering simply required far too much processing power.



I hitched one end of the decoration to the nail and kicked off the wall before gravity could reassert its claim. I sailed across the orphanage lobby, reaching the opposite wall, and hooked the other end onto the nail waiting there. Based on a quick visual estimation, the two nails were absolutely not installed at the same height.



It couldn't be helped. Garnet had only eyeballed the measurements. Glancing to the side, I spotted yet another nail hammered into the drywall, signaling that I would have to repeat this manual labor several more times to hang the remaining inventory.



Once it was all done, the orphanage lobby had turned into a slightly more organized space of chaos. It was still chaos, but if you squinted, it wasn't entirely without artistic merit.



Though it would look most beautiful if you closed your eyes completely.



"Good job, Tanya. You looked just like a monkey!"



Aqua said, patting my head.



"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"



I swatted my hand above my head to chase Aqua away.



"Of course! Monkeys are smart enough to peel bananas before eating them. That's something our little brats could never do.."



Aqua dodged my hand and persistently fiddled with my hair.



"That's just because our kids are starving enough to want to eat the peels too. That's a really sad story."



"What's sad about it? Kids are born to be hungry."



I furrowed my brow at Aqua's remark. Honestly, she wasn't wrong, but it wasn't something a child should say. Most of all, I didn't like her lack of will to improve the situation. But it wasn't fair to snap at Aqua for that. She was only fifteen, and even though this City was a convergence of all kinds of sins, it was incredibly stingy about giving jobs to minors. The only thing she could do was wander the restaurant streets looking for food that hadn't been claimed by flies yet.



"By the way, why is Garnet so late?" I said. "Don't tell me he forgot about us while playing with Lapis."



"And here I am," a familiar boy's voice said. "Do I really have that little trust from you, Tanya?"



Garnet appeared, carrying bags of food in both hands. He had the quintessential face of an ordinary boy, which was a concerning trait given that he was almost an adult. If anyone knew how a young appearance could negatively affect how others judged you, it was me.



Lapis followed behind Garnet at a leisurely pace. As always, she had a bitter-tasting candy in her mouth. Both of her hands were shoved into her overall pockets; the idea of helping with the bags seemed to have been dropped somewhere along the way.



Honestly, Garnet had brought this upon himself. He had stepped up to play the role of Lapis's servant. Well, strictly speaking, the servant for all the kids in the orphanage. It was a responsibility Garnet had placed on himself simply because he was the oldest.



Hm... I guess he's just a good person.



I said, "Lapis, could you watch the roast turkey for Topaz?" I pointed my thumb toward the kitchen. "At this rate, Topaz is going to become friends with the turkey."

"Roger, Very Little Boss."



Lapis gave the sloppiest salute in the world before heading to the kitchen. I rolled my eyes at the ridiculous nickname attached to me. Whether old or young, it was a law of nature that a leader would emerge when a certain number of humans gathered. It just so happened that none of the other children in this orphanage coveted the spot.



"Wow, it looks like the decorations get an upgrade every year. Did Tanya install all of this?" Garnet said, looking around the lobby.



"That's because you mindlessly hammered the nails way up high and walked off with the ladder!" Aqua shot back, looking ready to smack the back of Garnet's head. "You were probably too busy flirting with Lapis up in a tree to remember. It's a miracle you even came back for us."



"Hey, you get a wider field of view from up in a tree. I was just acting as a lookout to see if Mister was on his way," Garnet replied, raising his hands defensively. "It's about time for him to arrive, but I haven't spotted him yet."



"Right. I'm sure you were." I gathered the remnants of the decorations scattered across the lobby and tossed them into the trash can.



"Well, at least Mister will like it," Garnet said with a smile. "The decorations getting fancier every year is proof that our situation is gradually improving."



He wasn't wrong. Ever since Garnet and Lapis started taking on odd jobs, we had, at the very least, stopped skipping meals.



However, the first real step toward this orphanage becoming a habitable environment was the arrival of our sponsor, Vergilius. He showed up shortly after Lapis was admitted, and he...



...Wait, what was that just now?



I halted my reminiscence and straightened my posture. Just now, a massive surge of power had erupted from somewhere in the City. I had never actually experienced it firsthand, but it felt exactly like what I imagined a nuclear detonation in the immediate vicinity would feel like. Assuming, of course, that one hadn't been instantly vaporized into dust.



A few seconds later, my senses underwent another violent upheaval. This time, it didn't just feel like a bomb had gone off nearby. It felt like I was standing directly at ground zero.



My magical detection formulas were blaring danger signals in my head like a broken siren showing no signs of stopping, while my biological instincts were busy wondering why I wasn't dead yet.



"Kyaaaaah!"



Then, I heard the screams. Fortunately, they weren't coming from inside the orphanage. Outside, from all directions—from across the entire City—screams burst forth like a collapsing dam.



"What's going on?!"



"Did a Finger get involved? Even so, this is too much..."



Aqua cried out, her face pale with terror. Garnet muttered in a calmer, but visibly tense voice. The other children in the orphanage also peeked their heads out one by one. Sensing an inexplicable dread, they began to cluster around Garnet, the eldest, and myself, the de facto disciplinarian.



Wisely, not a single child stuck their head out the window. Firearms were surprisingly rare in the City, but grotesque spectacles were absurdly common.

The adults checked on us in the lobby before approaching the front door to assess the situation outside.



"Stop grabbing my skirt, kid. You're wrinkling it."



"But I'm scared."



I wanted to pry off Spinel's fingers, which were currently ruining the fabric of my skirt. However, there is a time and place for strictness. If I were seen shaking off a terrified child clinging to me in front of this many people, it could negatively impact my future ability to maintain control.



In truth, I didn't actually care whether the skirt got wrinkled or not. I had lived as a woman for twice as long as I had lived as a man, so a mere skirt wasn't enough to disturb my composure, but my preference for pants purely from a functional standpoint remained unchanged.



"What is that noise, Tanya?" Onyx asked, pressing closely against my side. "This neighborhood was never this loud."



"Well, it's not exactly ground zero for safety, either. The fact that bad adults haven't caused a massive scene around here until now was purely a matter of luck," I said, unconsciously patting Onyx's head. "So, I suppose days like this are bound to happen."



In a corner of my mind, a burning urge was welling up to rush outside—not because of the trivial screams, but to identify the source of the 'something' that had shaken my very core. Unfortunately, there were simply too many children clinging to me.



The children's names were all derived from gemstones. I was absolutely certain this reflected the personal, unfulfilled desires of an orphanage director who had rarely possessed actual precious metals in her life.



If the basket I was left in hadn't contained a note with the word 'Tanya' written on it, my name would undoubtedly be a mineral as well. The director often told me I should be grateful to have a name given by my parents, but that was an entirely unreasonable demand.



"Can't you just make them all quiet?" Dia said. It was the name that baffled me the most. "Getting noisy kids to shut their mouths is your specialty, isn't it?"



"I appreciate the vote of confidence, kid," I said. "But there is only one of me, and there is distinctly more than one scream out there."



I wasn't the only one pacifying the children. Garnet was also soothing the kids around him, and Lapis, with her characteristic composure, was unwittingly projecting a sense of stability to those near her.



Garnet was trying to persuade the children with the logic that Vergilius, being an outstanding Fixer, would easily resolve this problem when he arrived. Internally, I disagreed.



Oh, of course, I was grateful for his dedication to the orphanage, and I was aware that he ran a fairly well-established Fixer office.



However, Garnet's constant hymn of praise for Vergilius was difficult to endure.



Granted, considering Garnet and Lapis were the ones who conversed with him the most, viewing him in a highly favorable light was understandable.



I had also shared many conversations with Vergilius, but I was far more interested in the underlying mechanics of the City than his personal affairs.



Even if I didn't revere him quite like Garnet did, I still respected Vergilius. He seemed like a professional who knew exactly how to survive in the City.



Decking oneself out with an array of expensive gear naturally invited challenges, and even if one could win, constantly fending off waves of scavengers was detrimental to one's mental health.



In contrast, the only armament Vergilius carried was a single gladius. Yes, the exact same style of gladius that was popular in the Roman Empire a thousand years ago. Obviously, the weapon likely had some cool, unique name that Vergilius had given it, but I couldn't bring myself to call it anything else.



Good grief, it wasn't even a bastard sword.



That substandard weaponry was proof that he wasn't an overwhelmingly powerful Fixer, but as I noted, it was also a clever trick to avoid interference from bothersome looters. That being said, I still thought carrying a thousand-year-old antique into battle was taking it a bit too far.



Well, over-preparation is always better than under-preparation.



Still, I had no intention of pointing out these facts and shattering the illusions the children had about Vergilius. Especially since doing so now would only amplify their anxiety regarding the ongoing commotion outside.



And at that precise moment, I realized the screams from outside had ceased. The murmuring, anxious voices of the children stopped as well. However, this did not mean the anxiety had dissipated. Spinel gripped my skirt even tighter. Onyx clung fiercely to my arm. Dia looked up at me, clearly expecting me to have a viable solution.



I had absolutely no margin left to comfort them.



The staff member who had stepped out to check the situation had not returned.



The endless commotion and screaming had stopped in an instant, as if on cue. And above all else...



Something had arrived right outside the orphanage.



I knew it instinctively.



Another adult headed toward the door to step outside.



I dashed toward him almost reflexively. I was acting on the impulse to abort a reconnaissance mission that would be of zero tactical value and from which he would certainly never return. I reached the staff member just as he was about to open the door, grabbed him by the collar, and violently yanked him backward.



A split second later, the door blew apart.



If I hadn't pulled him away, the staff member would have been caught squarely in the blast. I heard the sound of shrapnel ricocheting off my defensive shell. Swept up by the shockwave, I was sent flying backward. Just before colliding with the wall, I activated a flight formula to correct my posture. And then, my eyes locked onto it.



It was... WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!




A/N: More Tanya fanfics. MORE TANYA FANFICS!!

002



I thought it had merely smashed through the door. But for that to be the case, the flying debris was far too thick and the dust cloud far too massive. No, the thing had made its entrance by completely obliterating an entire wall of the orphanage. The overly enthusiastic demolition worker didn't even flinch as it took a direct hit from the collapsing rubble.



Our orphanage wasn't structurally robust enough to maintain its shape after losing a load-bearing wall, and exactly as I predicted, cracks began spiderwebbing across the remaining walls, threatening an imminent collapse.



The screams that had been echoing from outside just moments ago had now infected the interior. The children panicked, severely overworking their vocal cords, while the adults were proving entirely unsuccessful at providing them with any sense of security.



I had to do something. If I didn't, we were about to mass-produce human corpses buried under the rubble of a collapsed building. The feeling of having the weight of numerous lives thrust upon my shoulders was nostalgic, but it certainly wasn't welcome.



Damn it, I don't have Visha or Weiss with me.



If I wanted to assign similar roles to Lapis and Garnet, I'd have to drill them for at least ten years. And frankly, those two seemed far more interested in working under each other than working under me.



"I have to go to the town. Where is this?"



Ah, I must admit it. All those scattered thoughts were just a brief mental escape to avert my eyes from reality. The object in front of me was simply too much to process with a sane mind.



"Did you bring me here? Where am I?"



It looked like a clay sculpture crafted by the world's most malicious little boy. If anyone could look at the appendages attached to that creature and call them 'arms and legs,' they were the kind of person who could look at a starfish standing upright and claim it resembled a human.



It was nothing more than four grotesque pillars of flesh attached to a horrifying lump of meat.



If it had one distinguishing feature compared to an ordinary lump of meat, it was its ability to physically turn other living creatures into lumps of meat.



Oh, and one more thing. It could speak.



"I have to protect the Town of Love. Please send me back."



The monster spoke while looking at me. Two faces were embedded in its chest. However, the mouths on those faces weren't moving. What was moving was a vertical fissure located on its upper body. Inside that vertically torn rift were sharp teeth, and an unidentified transparent liquid oozed endlessly from within



Well, this thing's master certainly seems to have quite a talent for handiwork.



As the monster took a step, a crack appeared on the floor, and I could feel the vibration through my own body. I scanned my surroundings desperately. Forget driving the monster away I couldn't find a single environmental factor that might even help slow it down.



"Please send me back."



If anything, the surroundings were littered with obstacles that would only drag me down. The only person capable of outrunning that monster was me. The other children had about as much of a chance as a piece of chewed gum stuck to the asphalt has of stopping a car tire.



"If you can't do that, then you are a bad person."



As always, the burden of making the final decision fell to me.



"Garnet! Take the kids and run!!"

"Tanya!"



Ignoring the call pulling at the back of my head, I charged at the monster.



I had hoped the creature would be as sluggish as its massive bulk suggested. Of course, I knew that heavily muscled creatures weren't necessarily slow, but that rule of thumb only applied to organisms with well-sculpted musculature.



At best, that monster looked like the sum total of random clumps of mud thrown against a wall. That meant it lacked any physical characteristics that could be interpreted as agile.



"Be punished!"



Unfortunately, the monster wasn't slow in the slightest. The forearm it swung at me was as violent and threatening as a log caught in a typhoon. The defensive shell I deployed would be lucky to delay the arm's speed by half a second, and taking it head-on with my bare body would quite literally cause me to burst.



Fortunately, that didn't mean it was faster than me.



"Hmph!"



I flattened myself against the floor, looking as though I were trying to fuse with the ground itself, and the monster's arm cleaved through the empty air, merely grazing my hair. I immediately pushed myself up, combining a light flight formula with a physical enhancement formula to launch myself forward like a missile.



Across my three lifetimes, I had fought 'monstrous people,' but I had never fought a 'literal monster.'



Furthermore, that creature possessed an anatomical structure that made me question how it was even capable of movement, which meant it was incredibly difficult to figure out where its weak points were.



However, the monster had eyes. You don't need a doctorate to know that slicing someone's eyes out makes it rather difficult for them to see.



The problem was that it was hard to tell which ones were the 'real eyes.' The monster had two human faces attached to its torso, and I had spotted several other holes in its flesh that looked suspiciously like pupils.



Therefore, I simply had to slice them all.



The Mage Blade that manifested at my fingertips was a mere toy in length compared to the shortsword I could conjure in my previous life, but it did not lack in sharpness.



I dove into the monster's guard. It possessed abnormally long arms, a physical structure that did not seem well-suited for dealing with an enemy that had closed the distance.



It took me less than a second to swing the Mage Blades in both hands and carve through every eye attached to the monster's torso. Then, I spent another 0.5 seconds taking the exact same preventative measures against holes that didn't look like eyes but were open nonetheless.



It was a display of close-quarters magic sword combat that would have earned lavish praise from Koenig had he seen it. The man was a battle maniac obsessed with melee combat, but he was also humble enough that he never stopped politely throwing matches against me until the day I was bedridden.



A smile crept onto my lips as I kicked off the monster's blood-spurting body to gain distance.



Or rather, I attempted to.



And I failed.



"It stings!"



What I had overlooked was the simple fact that one does not necessarily need to be able to see to swat a buzzing insect right in front of their face.



"Tanya!"



Someone shouted my name, but I had no time to answer. For a monster of this size, the simple act of leaning its upper torso forward was a sufficiently devastating attack. And since that statement is coming from the person who got hit by it, it's highly credible.



"Gah!"



The only saving grace was that the monster's headbutt shattered my defensive shell and shoved my body backward, allowing me to avoid a direct, lethal impact. It was a stroke of luck I wouldn't have enjoyed if it had been a bullet.



I rolled across the floor several times, returning to the position I had occupied 2.5 seconds ago at a speed far faster than I had traveled there myself. And the monster pursued me at roughly the same speed.



"Squash!"



I blindly rolled across the floor before I even had the chance to stand up, narrowly avoiding becoming a red stain. I was initially surprised at how the blinded monster knew my location to attack, but then I realized it had simply charged in a straight line.



And damn it all, the monster didn't stop.



"Fuck!"



The monster sprinted with all its might like a racehorse. And directly in its path were the children. I grabbed debris from around me and hurled it at the monster's back, but I couldn't halt its momentum.



"Kyaaaak!"

"Waaah!"

"To the side! Jump to the side!"



Fortunately, everyone in the orphanage had been watching my desperate struggle, so dodging the blind monster didn't seem too difficult for them. The fact that they still hadn't run away sparked my anger, but upon reflection, the only exit was located exactly beyond where the monster and I had been dancing.



The monster charged forward, mercilessly dismantling the Christmas decorations I had spent all day laboring over.



CRASH!!!



When the monster slammed into the opposite wall, the impact shook the entire building. The grace period before a total collapse was now evaporating by the second. With the monster thrashing about in close proximity, the children froze in place, and the ominous creaking sounds of the structure certainly weren't helping to grease their joints.



Because of that, the adults who still had the presence of mind to move, along with Garnet, Lapis, and Aqua, started hoisting the children onto their shoulders and running toward the entrance the monster had created.



I couldn't hide my surprise at the sight of Lapis carrying a child. However, saying 'I'm amazed you didn't just abandon the kid' wouldn't sound like the compliment I intended, so I kept my mouth shut. Plus, my body hurt too much to speak anyway.



But contrary to my expectations, Lapis set down the child she was carrying.



Don't tell me she was holding them to use as a meat shield?



"I gotcha, Tanya."



Lapis picked me up and started running. The child Lapis had put down was, rather annoyingly, already outpacing us in their retreat.



I was about to open my mouth to refuse being carried around like an infant, but I stopped when I caught sight of the floor. Droplets of red blood were marking our path like Hansel's breadcrumbs.



Wait, I'm bleeding? When did I get injured?



I had forgotten that the physical enhancement formula package included a pain-suppression subroutine. I thought I had mastered the trick of identifying injuries even when feeling no pain, but that was apparently only true during my prime.



"Lapis, do you even know where we should go?" I said. "And are you sure you can run while carrying me? Why don't you ask Garnet to hold me?" I desperately hoped Lapis wouldn't misunderstand that statement.



"Anywhere but here. A monster like that can't be a common occurrence," Lapis replied. "And it's fine, you're incredibly light. Way lighter than the brat I was carrying earlier." In truth, that was because I had activated a weak flight formula to drastically reduce my body weight.



Lapis's simple but logical deduction was proven wrong before we had even taken a few more steps. The monster was a common occurrence. Creatures that looked like miniaturized versions of the monster that had attacked our orphanage were roaming everywhere, and the human corpses scattered about served as undeniable proof of their dietary habits.



I finally understood the cause of the screams that had been echoing from outside just moments ago. It was a thoroughly unwelcome realization.



None of them were as massive as the one that had attacked the orphanage, but they clearly possessed enough brute strength and sharp teeth to snap human bones.



At this rate, there was no point in running. Realizing this, the children who had been running ahead stopped in their tracks. Yet, they couldn't turn back to the orphanage. That place was already thoroughly destroyed.



Those with nowhere to return to do not last a single day in the City. It was a tragically common truth here.



"Put me down, Lapis."

"Tanya?!"



The miniature monsters hadn't yet considered pouncing on the children. Considering how rare it was to spot one with a proper set of functioning legs, they wouldn't pose an immediate threat as long as we didn't get too close.



The target requiring my utmost attention was the massive monster that had ambushed the orphanage.



"Where are you going?! Little kid!"



I shook off Lapis's arms, which were trying to hug me even tighter, and jumped down. The monster had just burst out of the collapsing building. It held a heavy boulder in its hand. I surmised its potential as a blunt weapon was vastly inferior to the monster's bare fists.



Perhaps the monster shared my assessment, because it successfully converted the boulder's application from a primitive hand axe into an artillery shell.



As a civilized human being, I had to respond to that paradigm shift. Otherwise, I was going to die.



"Cover your eyes and get down, everyone!"



I had no time to verify if the children (and several adults) had followed my instructions. I had to shoot down a boulder flying at the speed of an artillery shell using an optical formula. Light with an intensity rivaling a halogen lamp gathered at my fingertips. A moment later, a beam of light seared through the air and shot down the boulder.



'Shooting down' might be an exaggeration. All I did was strike the bottom of the boulder with the beam to heavily deflect its trajectory over our heads. If I had a computation orb, rather than merely breaking the rock, I would have fired a pillar of light large enough to completely engulf the boulder and incinerate the monster along with it. But that was just wishful thinking right now.



The deflected boulder tore up the concrete floor as it rolled, sweeping up a few of the miniature monsters in the process. Completely lacking any awareness that it had just committed an act of casual fratricide, the monster picked up another boulder with an infantile whine.



Enduring a throbbing headache, I fired the optical formula one more time. This time, the beam struck the only remaining intact section of the orphanage's outer wall.



CRASH!



This time, the building collapsed entirely, and the monster was buried under tons of rubble before it could even utter a scream.



Panting heavily, I slumped to the floor. Lapis patted my back but couldn't tear her eyes away from the orphanage. I desperately hoped she would remember the fact that the building was already on the verge of collapsing due to the monster, rather than the fact that it was my final attack that brought down our cherished home.



At least the annex housing the warehouse and staff quarters remained intact. It would be a bit cramped, but sleeping in a tight space was a hundred times better than surfing on a Wave of Sweepers out in the open.



Having gained a slight breather, I looked around to fully assess the situation. Ominously, the smaller monsters seemed to have taken an interest in the children and were slowly encroaching on them. Garnet and the adults swung chunks of metal they had picked up from God knows where to threaten them, but honestly, if I were a monster, I would have ignored them too. They looked completely harmless.



And during my observation, one particular figure caught my eye.



The woman was significantly taller than an average adult male. She looked like she would have a massive starting advantage as a basketball player, but her attire was far from sporty. The hem of her dark purple coat, shimmering with a bizarre snakeskin pattern, fluttered around her. The relaxed smile playing on her lips was elegant, yet harbored a deep, unfathomable shadow.



Corpses of the monsters littered the ground around her. The smaller creatures, perhaps unwilling to waste the tuition fee their comrades had paid with their lives, were giving her a wide berth.



The woman's gaze flicked between the orphanage and me before locking onto me. Then, in the literal blink of an eye (and that is not an exaggeration), she arrived right in front of me and bent down to look at me.



Lapis fell backward in surprise. Seen up close, the woman's height was even more imposing. Wearing an enigmatic smile, the woman stared intently into my face. I needed to say something in response, but my mind was entirely focused on the smaller monsters that were on the verge of pouncing on the children.



I spoke out of habit. "Do you require assistance, ma'am?" Honestly, that was the line I wanted to hear from her.



The woman blinked, as if she had just heard something entirely unexpected. "What a kind thing to say, little one. Not an easy phrase for someone who clearly looks like they need help themselves. What will you do if I actually say I need help?" the woman said, her smile bordering on a smirk.



"I'd try to do better, miss. 'Try' being the operative word," I replied, leaving myself a backdoor. "But you approached me first. Do you have business with me?"



The woman tilted her head, lost in thought for a moment. The question she delivered a few seconds later caught me completely off guard.



"What are you, little one? This is my first time seeing you."



I took note of the way she phrased her question. She didn't ask who I was, but what I was.



She was wearing affluent clothing and what appeared to be top-tier weaponry. Judging by her movement speed just now, she must have plastered her entire body with incredibly expensive enhancement procedures. She had visited this place without knowing where she was, and was scanning us as if fascinated by the mere fact that we were still alive.



"Is this your first time seeing an orphan? We are children whose biological parents have vacated their positions, forcing us to entrust our fates to guardians who possess a good heart but zero blood relation. And yes, I am one of them." My dictionary-definition explanation was so horribly out of place with the current situation that it almost made me chuckle.



"And you managed to stay alive after fighting a monster that most decent Fixers couldn't handle," the woman said. "I'm asking because I genuinely don't know, but is an orphanage typically a place that provides that kind of education? It truly is a sight I've never seen before."



Hearing that, I could deduce at least one thing.



She was unquestionably an upper-class Fixer who had never stepped foot in an orphanage in her life.



"Right. You don't strike me as someone interested in philanthropy."

"That's not what I meant, little one. The phrase 'first time seeing you' carries far more implications than you think."



Oh, I'm sure it does.



I shook my head internally. The variety of sins enjoyed by the City's upper echelon was truly uncountable. Even if one were to stay at the Ring's art galleries for a month, they wouldn't grasp even a fraction of the diversity in their tastes.



I knew she probably took pride in that fact, but showing off her experiences with avant-garde art was not going to help us right now.



"So, are you going to help us? You're a Fixer, aren't you? There are still bugs that need exterminating crawling all over the place." As I waved my arm to gesture at the surroundings, blood dripping from my shoulder soaked the floor. I heard Lapis gasp, but I couldn't think of any words to reassure her.



"I'm sorry, little one," the woman said, sounding not the least bit sorry. "No, I am not a Fixer who was dispatched after receiving a report. Nor did I arrive here with a specific purpose. I simply came to my senses and found myself here, and I haven't moved on because I enjoy watching you struggle. Honestly, I expected to see Tomerry playing around, but I've stumbled upon a far more entertaining spectacle."



"Ah, is that so."



I barely swallowed the profanity that was about to slip out of my mouth.



I should never have expected a hero to swoop in and help during a crisis in this godforsaken City. Of course she was just a spectator here to watch the weak flail about. The sight of children being ambushed by a flesh monster was probably just a form of entertainment to be enjoyed with popcorn.



If I had it my way, I would have picked up those monsters and thrown them at the woman, but I lacked the physical strength to do so. And if she happened to be a powerhouse capable of slicing those monsters in half with a single strike, I certainly lacked the capacity to deal with the fallout.



Seeing as she had strolled right into this chaotic warzone without a single bodyguard, the latter was highly probable, so I opted to face the monsters where I actually had a slim chance of winning.



I wanted to reconsider my win-rate calculations when the monster buried under the building shattered the rubble and hoisted its massive frame back up, but as its myriad eyes locked onto me, I lost the luxury to even do that.



Great. The monster looked no worse for wear than before it was buried under a building, and the eyes I had haphazardly slashed apart hadn't just regenerated—they had multiplied.



"I never thought I'd miss you, Mary Sue."



I muttered the name of my nemesis from my previous life. At least she had the decency to pretend it hurt when I hit her.



Damn it all, I wanted to run away right this second. If I pushed my physical enhancement formulas to their absolute limit, I could definitely make it. But if I did that, every child here would die. From an asset conservation perspective, that was an utterly unacceptable risk.



The children gathered here were as rare as truffles in this City. They were 'good people.'



Oh, sure, you might think being kind isn't inherently a valuable trait. But that only applies when the surrounding world operates normally according to common sense. In a world swirling with this much malice and unpredictable variables, an 'acquaintance who won't stab you in the back' holds an intrinsic value far greater than its surface-level worth.



Therefore, I couldn't run away. I had to protect them.



"I don't know if this will serve as a comfort to you, little one," the woman said. "But I won't interfere with you. So, show me just how far you can go."



I scoffed. That woman knew nothing of my past lives. If she thought that bit of encouragement was going to ignite a fire of passion in my heart, she was gravely mistaken. I had already achieved countless things and proven myself to countless people.



...Even if I had been forced to leave it all behind.




A/N: I stupidly goofed up my account creation, so I have to go by a different username here compared to SB. So embarrassing. well, I'm more of a lurker who prefers reading comments over replying anyway, so it shouldn't be a big problem.