Chapter 98: 98

“You…” Ferdinand Ostrich was enraged when he saw Michelle in front of him. He wanted to curse and kill, but he was smart enough to know that he wasn’t in the position to do so. “What do you want…?” he asked.

Michelle didn’t say anything and nodded at Kieran. He walked over to Ferdinand and knocked him out. Then, Michelle came to Anastasia and took the knife from her hand. When fighting, Anastasia might have been able to keep her sanity, but that was still her first time seeing blood after her memories were wiped, so Michelle was worried about her mental state. “Do you think it’s cruel?” Michelle asked as she put the knife away into her spatial ring.

To her surprise, Anastasia shook her head as she spoke her mind: “He was dangerous. Even if it was cruel, it was needed.”

Hearing that, Kieran and Ivona were surprised, and Michelle smiled. They were expecting that she would be shocked by the blood, and maybe even traumatized by the fact that she had to stab someone; that was why Kieran didn’t like the plan, but her calmness showed that even though she didn’t remember it, she had gone through something similar at least once or twice, which made it so that she was somehow numb to killing. And that made everyone wonder what an Emperor’s concubine had to go through to be subconsciously used to killing? Or was it from even before she entered the Imperial Palace?

Michelle had a guess about the intrigues in high aristocratic society and in the Imperial Harem, but she didn’t guess it was so dire that a girl barely over twenty would be so cold-blooded. Or was Anastasia just special? She was clearly a scheming and cruel person, but that was considered the norm in the harem, so were all the old Emperor’s concubines like that, or was she just the most dangerous one of them all?

That would explain why she was able to sleep around with the Crown Prince, without anyone catching her. Maybe some people knew about it, but with her reputation and maybe threats, she silenced them, so it didn’t get to the old Emperor.

Suddenly, Michelle felt like giving Anastasia her memories back, to see how she would react. She was curious about the full extent of her scheming and cruelty, and that could only be seen if Anastasia had all her memories. But the memories could also block her in a way. And, if Anastasia got her memories back, she would most probably hate Michelle, but Michelle didn’t want to lose a friend like her. Well… friend. She did manipulate Anastaisa into becoming her friend, but that was only the first day. After that, she was sincere.

Knowing Michelle for quite a while already, Ivona perfectly knew what she was thinking and sighed. Giving Anastasia back her memories had to wait. At least until Anastasia experienced more things with them, and the one incident in the Imperial Palace could be considered a small thing. In the end, Michelle never really targeted Anastasia directly, even though Anastasia ended up as a death row prisoner because of it. The only time when Michelle directly harmed Anastasia was when she was testing memory manipulation skill on her.

“Let’s take this bastard with us!” Kieran lifted Ferdinand over his shoulder and prepared to walk out of the door.

“Won’t his servants try to stop us?” Ivona lifted an eyebrow.

“Of course, they will…” Kieran shrugged. “Michelle, Anastasia, do you want to fight, too?” he glanced back at Michelle.

Michelle smiled a bit and nodded. “I would never reject a good fight,” she said as she stretched her hands.

Anastaise pondered it for a moment before nodding. “I know I don’t really stand a chance against cultivators, but I want to try!” she said, her eyes turning cold.

Hearing that, Michelle smiled. “Stay close to me, so if something happens, you aren’t left for dead,” she said as she gave the knife back to Anastasia. “Or do you want a different weapon?” she asked.

“I don’t really know,” Anastasia was a bit uncertain. As she didn’t have her memories, she couldn’t remember what weapon she was good with.

“Then…” Michelle formed an ice sword and a sheath with her spirit energy and handed it to Anastasia. “Keep this in case. If even a sword isn’t your weapon, we can try something else, but not today.”

So soon, the Ostrich mansion was covered in blood by four young people, the youngest being fifteen years old and the oldest being something over twenty years old. In the fight, Anastasia realized that neither knife nor sword was a good weapon for her, so when they got back to the Archduchy, while Kieran and Ivona went to interrogate Ferdinand about the artifacts and involvement of other people, Michelle took Anastaisa to the training grounds and showed her the whole arsenal of weapons the Archduchy had.

“Anastasia, you’ll try to land a hit on me with every kind of weapon we have here, starting from the long-ranged ones to the short-ranged ones.” Michelle picked a few weapons, ranging from bows and crossbows, through spears, whips, and axes, to swords, daggers, and knives.

Finally, her eyes landed on a set of finger claws going with a pair of gloves, each having a blade on the back.

At the moment, the weapon couldn’t really be used, as it took too long to put on, but if the user had a contract with the weapon, he would just be able to summon it when needed; but weapons like that couldn’t be made in the Land of Exile, and Anastasia didn’t have spirit energy, so she couldn’t make a contract with a weapon.

Still, Michelle added it to the table of weapons that Anastasia should try.

“You’ll have three rounds, each different in the speed at which I’ll dodge. Then, after each round, you’ll write down five weapons you liked the most. After the third round, you’ll probably already have a weapon you like the most, and if not, you will try to block me with each of the few weapons that will get the same amount of points. Sounds good?” Michelle asked with a tilt of her head.

“Sounds good…” Anastasia nodded and picked up a bow. At the same time, Michelle activated her Shadow Spirit Steps, but without using any spirit energy, and she also slowed her movements deliberately, and started running around Anastasia.

After the first few shots, Anastasia realized that a bow wasn’t her weapon. She couldn’t predict Michelle’s movements, so she didn’t land a single hit out of the fifteen arrows she shot.

But she wasn’t discouraged. She just put down the bow and took the crossbow, expecting the same result. And, of course, the result was the same.

So came the next weapon, a whip. With all the strikes, she was only able to graze Michelle a bit, and that was only after she used all her brain cells to cook up a plan. So, she moved on to a spear.

That was already better, but still quite miserable. She grazed Michelle with each swing or stab, but she never landed a real hit. But still, Anastasia already saw improvement and smiled, moving on to the next weapon.

After about half an hour, she grabbed a knife with a blade the size of the distance between the tips of her thumb and little finger when she spread her fingers apart, about fifteen centimeters. With that, she felt quite confident and free, and she was even able to hit Michelle with the hilt, not only cut her with the blade.

Finally, the last weapon came. Anastasia put on the gloves and stared at the blade on each of her hands. Then on every finger, she put the claw, or whatever it was, and secured it. She glanced at Michelle, who was still running around.

Taking a deep breath to calm down, Anastasia fixed her fingers before rushing at Michelle. Soon, the two ended up in hand-to-hand combat, with Michelle just blocking and dodging, while Anatasia rained punches and scratches at her. And the best about the weapon was that even when Michelle got behind her, Anastasia could throw her hands back and slice Michelle with the blades on the back of her hands. Like that, she managed to cut Michelle on her forearm when she was careless.

After the first round was over, Michelle took a Revitalization Pill she had made before, to quickly heal the wounds, while Anastasia put aside the five weapons she liked most. The first two were the claws with gloves, and then the short knife. After that was a small, really small, dagger, with the blade barely five centimeters long, a rapier, and an ordinary sword. Just from that, it was clear that Anastasia was a clear short-ranger.

But even though it was obvious, Michelle still made her use all the weapons in the second and third rounds. The second round was the same as the first round, but Michelle used her full speed, and in the third round she even added spirit energy to it.

After the second round, Anastasia put away the sword she had chosen before and replaced it with a whip, which was surprising. But when Michelle was moving faster, she was able to land more hits on her than with the sword.

And after the third round, Anastasia put away the smallest dagger and replaced it with one a bit longer. She explained that when a weapon was that short, but she had to hold it, she was starting to lose her concentration on slashes, and couldn’t even use the hilt to punch her opponent, so she didn’t like it.

In the end, after the three rounds, she had three weapons she would use to defend herself against Michelle. First were the claws, then the small knife with a fifteen-centimeter blade, and then the rapier; its blade was about twenty centimeters.

“Are you prepared?” Michelle asked as she watched Anastasia pick the rapier first. Whne Anastasia nodded and took on a defensive stance, Michelle lunged forward to land a punch on Anastasia’s face. But when Anastasia was about to dodge it, Michelle twisted her body and got down, delivering a punch to her gut. Naturally, Michelle made sure to hold her strength, so she wouldn’t harm Anastasia. Next, was a kick up, towards her chin, but Anastasia blocked it with the rapier’s hilt.

Last, Michelle disappeared and appeared behind Anastasia with an ice spear in each hand. She threw them simultaneously at Anastasia, but she could only block the one that went for her face, and the other hit her shoulder. But she didn’t get hurt, as Michelle used ice that melted on contact with anything, so Anastasia’s shoulder just got wet with water.

“Next weapon?” Michelle asked as she stopped attacking.

“Yes!” Anastasia nodded and took up the knife.

With it, she was already better, and blocked three of four strikes, but the second spear was still fatal to her. Since she wasn’t allowed to dodge it, it hit her. Last were the claws, and with them, she could block all of Michelle’s attacks flawlessly.

After choosing her weapon, and already liking it, Anastasia went to spar with the knights after helping Michelle put away the weapons, and Michelle went to the doungon to check on Kieran and Ivona. And she got positive news. They already got something out of Ferdinand.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep