Chapter Ninety-Five: Vienne (II)

A vicious wind struck her face.

Catherine had never imagined that Vayne would suddenly attack her for no reason at all. Just moments ago, she had been thinking about how, as fellow disciples under the same master, she ought to get along with Vayne. She had not been prepared in the slightest. The giant lollipop slammed squarely into her face with a metallic clang.

In an instant, she was a complete mess. Her nose was knocked half sideways and blood poured out in torrents, as though an oil shop had been opened and salt, sourness, heat, and numbness all burst forth at once. Then her vision went dark, tears and mucus streaming down her face as though a dye shop had been opened and red, black, purple, and white all blossomed at once. Finally, her forehead rang with a crash as loud as a great bell, as though an entire collection of Phoenix Legend’s greatest hits had been stuffed into her skull. In the next second, Catherine knew nothing at all.

Her consciousness seemed to drift far away, or perhaps leave her body altogether, hovering in and out around her flesh. All her senses blurred into a terrible haze of vertigo. How long it lasted, she could not tell, but when she finally recovered a sliver of clarity, she dimly felt someone groping around her waist, and something being slowly pulled free.

Catherine was shocked. Summoning every ounce of willpower she had, she barely forced herself awake, opened her eyes, and saw a bizarre little cartoon alchemical puppet, barely thirty centimeters tall, carrying the dagger her master had given her on its shoulder and trotting toward Vayne with all the effort it could muster.

She hurriedly reached out and, at the last possible instant, seized the dagger’s hilt, wrenching it back from the puppet’s hands. The puppet froze, stared at its empty palms, and its oversized cartoon eyes immediately welled with tears. With a wail, it burst into loud sobs.

If Catherine had seen such a puppet in a shop, she would have been melted by its cuteness. But the memory of that crushing blow she had just suffered sent raging fury blazing through her chest. She slapped a hand over her nose and, with a sharp crack, straightened the crooked bridge. Ignoring the tears, mucus, and blood still all over her face, she wiped roughly at it once and then stalked toward Vayne, who was lying on the ground, with a vicious smile.

At that moment, all thoughts of idols, all respect for some honored Magic Saint, were cast straight into the heavens. The thing before her was nothing but a giant spoiled brat, and it needed a proper lesson.

Seeing Catherine snatch the dagger from the puppet, Vayne could not hide the shock in her eyes no matter how hard she tried. She stammered, "T-that’s impossible! Why did you wake up so quickly after being hit by my Super Lollipop?"

Catherine gave no answer. She quickened her pace, the dagger clenched so tightly in her hand that it seemed about to bleed oil. Her eyes kept sizing up Vayne from head to toe, as though deciding where best to cut first. Seeing her ferocious expression, Vayne panicked and tried to scramble backward as far as she could, shouting, "Y-you, you stay back! You can’t kill me! If you kill me, or even hit me too hard, my sister Vys will come out. She’s a Magic Saint! Instant revival plus a second transformation. Go on, let’s see if you’re scared!"

At that, Catherine truly hesitated. Living in a world steeped in magic, and being an advanced mage herself, her fear of Magic Saints had long since sunk deep into her bones. The instant doubt rose in her heart, a sharp gleam flashed in Vayne’s eyes. Beneath her, there was another flash of light, and the very same Super Lollipop appeared once more, tracing the same arc as before and slamming toward the exact same spot on Catherine’s head.

Same recipe, same flavor. But Catherine had already been burned once, and this time her reaction was much faster. Anger boiling in her chest, she did not dodge. Her right fist gathered power at her waist, then shot forward and punched straight into the candy sphere of the oversized lollipop.

Crack.

When fist and candy sphere collided, Catherine’s body turned out to be the harder of the two. Cracks instantly spidered across the Super Lollipop. The two sides held for half a second, and then the lollipop shattered into pieces, falling to the ground as a heap of debris. Catherine shook her fist, looked at the look of utter horror on Vayne’s face, and sneered. "Unrepentant to the end. You think the same trick will work twice?"

Vayne cried out in despair, "What on earth are you? My Super Lollipop couldn’t even be smashed by bare hands by a rank-four magical beast! Are you even human?! I was wrong, sister, dear sister, please spare me!"

"Then go to hell and repent!" Catherine meant to frighten her, and deliberately made her words sound cruel. She flourished the dagger in a few bright, flashing arcs and grinned wickedly. "I’ll carve you up piece by piece..."

Clang!

That familiar metallic crash rang out again. Catherine touched the back of her head in disbelief and turned around, only to see the alchemical puppet she had forgotten about. It was floating in midair, clutching a half-meter-long oversized lollipop in its arms, and had struck a grand home-run pose behind her head. When it saw her turn, the puppet seemed startled. It looked left and right in alarm, then sheepishly hid the lollipop behind its back, turned its head, and started whistling as though this had nothing to do with it.

"You, y-you actually dare do that again!!" Catherine was livid. She kicked the puppet flying, stopped caring about anything else, and in a single stride rushed over, scooped Vayne into her arms, flipped her upside down with her rear in the air, yanked up the long mage’s robe she wore, exposed the blue-and-white striped underpants beneath, and began to spank her hard.

"Waaahhh—!!"

Vayne cried out in pain. At first she could bear it for a few seconds, but as Catherine grew stronger with each blow, she finally abandoned all pretense and burst into tears. Between sobs, she explained in broken gasps, "Th-that puppet wasn’t controlled by me! Y-you were just too fierce, that’s all. You triggered its automatic defense mechanism!"

Catherine ignored her and kept on spanking until faint traces of blood began to seep through Vayne’s bottom, then she hurled her onto the ground and snapped, "Do you know why I’m beating you?"

The other girl pitifully said, "I-I shouldn’t have ambushed my sister..."

"We’ve only just met. We have no grudge against each other. Why would you strike so mercilessly?" Although she had already beaten her once, Catherine’s anger still had not cooled. "That lollipop hit with such force. If I weren’t a fighter, if I were just an ordinary person, my head would have been smashed into a pulp by now, with my brains splattered all over the floor!"

"That’s it?! You’re beating me for that?!" To Catherine’s surprise, Vayne was even angrier than she was. Her pitiful expression vanished in an instant, and she snapped, "The Super Lollipop I created only causes dizziness and nosebleeds, no matter who it hits! It doesn’t leave a single aftereffect! Do you think I’m some kind of perverted serial killer? I detected that you were carrying a particularly sharp weapon, so I wanted to knock you out and take it out so I could cut the ropes on my body, that’s all! Ahhh! My butt! It hurts! I got beaten for no reason at all!"

Catherine paused, suspicious. "A weapon can do that? You’re not lying to me again, are you?"

The other girl gave her a disdainful look and snorted through her nose. "I, Vayne, a dignified scholar of the arcane arts and alchemist, would make an error in a formula I wrote or a substance I created?"

As she spoke, Vayne’s face lit with unrestrained arrogance, and in a voice as solemn as a missionary’s, she intoned, "The mysteries of the arcane arts, how could a mortal like you ever understand?"

"The arcane arts are the one true truth that will save the continent!"

"Alchemy is the future!"