Awakening from deep slumber, the young ten year-old boy who had been put to bed by his older sister was confused when he saw her standing over his bedside with an oil lantern held in her hand. "'Mmphhh… Vivi…? W… What are you- H-Hey…?!" The young man stuttered out with a tired and confused voice, as he was suddenly pulled out of bed by the light-brown haired teenager. "Vivi, w-why did you-"
"-We need to leave, Ren; please, come," Vivi interrupted while sounding calm like usual, despite clearly having a panicked undertone that carried a sense of urgency behind her words. Pulling her younger brother by the hand without waiting for him to even get his bearings, Vivi took only her small satchel that contained the bear necessities: a folded map, a compass, one hunting knife and a small roll of wire with a basic fishing hook packed neatly beside it.
And as he was pulled out through the back entrance of their small kitchen, it was then that the young boy finally recognized the distinct sound of blood-curdling shrieking, which only became more audible as they finally left their cottage. With his muscles tensing up as the color from his already pale face faded in fear, the young boy was jolted back to his senses the moment his left foot lost its balance; causing him to tumble forward, and forcing his sixteen year-old sister to turn around to help him up.
Past the oil-fed flame within her lantern's glass chamber, it was then that Vivi noticed from the corner of her vision a ghastly sight that made her eyes widen in terror. The three Qin sisters— who she had grown up with and all of which were beautiful and ran their farm independently after their parents' demise— were being dragged out of their burning cottage by their hair; bare naked, with cuts and scratches all over their defiled bodies.
Muttering a quiet apology for not being able to rescue them from the nightmarish fate that was certainly awaiting them, any sense of being stealthy came to an immediate halt the moment Vivi suddenly noticed that the goblins within the group pillaging had taken notice of her and her younger brother. "G-Get up, NOW!" Vivi shouted with her heart racing and her knees buckling, tightening her grasp on her younger brother's hand, as she dragged him behind her as she made a mad dash toward the double doors of their small run-down barn.
Stricken with horror, the young boy watched as the horde of green monsters came sprinting towards them with their bloodied weapons drawn, and vile-deprived smiles across all of their green faces. Feeling the blades of grass and patches of dirt beneath the backsides of his legs, the young boy didn't even register that his sister had thrown him into the barn until he heard her shutting the barn doors close behind them.
'How… How did this even happen…? Weren't the guards supposed to make sure that this sort of stuff would never happen to us? Why did this have to happen to us? Why?' The young boy thought to himself in his panicked state of mind, as he stared up at the triangular ceiling high above him, as he laid on a thick patch of scattered hay. Hearing his sister whimpering loudly, the boy finally snapped out of his near-catatonic state before sitting up to gaze upon her.
The shoddy lock that she had been neglecting to replace due to a lack of coin had broken off almost immediately upon trying to secure the double doors, and with a small group of deprived goblins trying to crack open the double doors to their barn like a greedy safecracker trying to get into a bank's compromised vault, Vivi did the only did she could think to do. Pressing her back up against the doors while digging her heels into the loose floorboards, Vivi— regardless of the soul-crushing dread she felt washing over her very being— put on the bravest smile she could muster up on her teary-eyed face, as she locked eyes with her terrified brother.
"R-Ren… L-Listen to me- ngh…!" Vivi articulated clearly, before grunting as she pressed more of her weight against both doors that were being pried open with the weapons the goblins were carrying; their daunting laughter carried a perverse tone in their shrill voices, as some were even as bold as to squeeze their fingers between the gaps. "Agh…! G-Go under the false floorboard; w-where I keep our savings…! D-Don't come outside, okay?!" Vivi instructed with fears beginning to take over her calm demeanor, as she felt multiple dirty-fingernails claws tauntingly into her clothes and exposed skin, causing her to bleed, as the goblins showed just how eager they were to get a hold of her.
Sobbing violently while struggling to fill his lungs with enough air to speak, the boy's limbs felt heavy under his control as he clumsily scrambled up to his feet; his body feeling foreign to him, as he heard the wooden doors crack and splinter behind his sister. "V-Vivi…!" The boy stammered out, as he took a step toward his sister with one tiny hand reaching out for her. 'What do I do, what do I do, WHAT DO I DO?!' The young boy thought to himself, as he took another step toward his sister. 'The doors are breaking… They're already grabbing her… I can't stop them… I can't…'
More concerned with the preservation of her younger brother's life than hers, which she already saw as doomed, Vivi let out a horrified gasp as she watched through her brown eyes as the boy inches closer toward her. "R-Ren?! W-What are you doing?! H-Hide already; I-I can't hold them off for much longer! P-Please; d-do it for me!" Vivi begged out desperately, before yelping as she saw from the corner of her peripheral vision as the head of a copper axe split into the door, just a few inches to the left from where the back of her head was at.
Tightening his fist into balls, the young boy's light brown bangs covered his eyes as he lowered his head toward the hay-covered floor below him. "N-No… No, I… I-I c-can't, Vivi! I-I can't!" The boy protested in a scared voice, while feeling too overwhelmed to notice the glowing rune that was beginning to form around him on the floor; it's dim and barely noticeable cyan light becoming more noticeable to his sister with each passing second, as his juvenile mind began finding a way to accept the fate before him. 'Help… Someone help… Please… Anyone… Help us… I… I don't want us to die.'
With seconds left before the goblins would come flooding into the barn, the emotional barriers that Vivi mind had placed on itself in an attempt to remain calm before her younger brother came crumbling down; leaving behind a heartbroken and damned girl, who began violently sobbing out a prayer to whatever god was merciful enough to come to their rescue. Shutting her eyes as their expected doom came closing in, all Vivi could think to herself was about how she should have just hid her younger brother inside their house while she still had time, instead of trying to hopelessly escape in the middle of a goblin raid.
In that moment as the splintered double doors finally broke apart, time seemed to come to a stand still for the young boy as he raised his face up from the barn's floor, and away from the nearby blinding light that was radiating from the circular sigil underneath his feet. The world around him became obscured in darkness, making it that much harder for the boy to see the still image of the goblins trampling over his sister. Standing before him and the frozen moment captured in time was a petite girl with long snow-white.
Most of her face was obscured by a pastel-blue mask that looked to be made of the same metal that was used in her sleek-bulky armor that covered only her upper-half; leaving her petite legs covered in only thigh-high white stockings and minimal armor that only covered the sides of her legs, and the high-heeled boots that she had. The glowing cyan-markings that she had etched over the laminated layer of her mask and armor were all similar in design to that of the rune beneath him.
Although the boy couldn't see through her mystical face-mask, there still was a small part within his terrified and confused mind that knew that she was staring at him with sympathy within her eyes. "... The memories of my past summons elude my immediate recollection, as such thoughts only remain dormant within my subconscious… But even so, I'm confident to say that I have never been summoned by a mere child before; especially one who's in such a dire situation, such as yourself," the stranger spoke in a youthful sounding voice, despite seeming mentally mature when she spoke.
The boy— awestruck by the breath-taking elegance and powerful presence that the young-looking woman before him carried with her— wanted nothing more than to speak to her; to ask her one of the many questions that were swarming around in his panicked mind. However, given the fact that the goblins had already broken into their barn and were certainly going to ravage him and his sister if time were to resume as normal, the boy felt more compelled to ask the white-haired girl for help; to beg her for salvation. However, all that the fear-stricken boy could do in that moment was tremble silently, as his body refused to cooperate with what his mind wanted it to do.
Despite having fears that the elegant and knightly girl would abandon him for his lack of words, the boy felt hope beginning to resonate within him as he watched as two highly advanced and sleek weapons appeared over her armored forearms. Duel-wielding a set of arm-swords that had large decorative-silver blades that extended past her small wrists, the young woman turned her back toward the boy so she could instead face toward the onslaught of goblins that were beginning to slowly unfreeze as time began to resume once again.
"... You're not only a human, but a naïve child at that… And though you are blinded by your youth, you'll do well to heed my orders, as it's an absolute that the weak must obey the strong," the girl said in a serious and stoic voice that was low in pitch, as she bent her knees to lower herself closer to the barn's hay-covered floor. "Your "Mana" reservoir… It is abysmally small… I won't be able to maintain his corporal form effectively… I'll have a two-meter radius to manifest myself around you, and even then I'll only be able to remain physical for extremely brief moments of time…"
"... That human over there? She's just out of my reach… Right now, your perception of time is returning to the rate that it once was," the white-haired knight explained, before turning her head toward her large-armored shoulder; so as to stare back through her glowing mask, to where the terrified youth was staring back at her with a widened gaze. "My first order to you is for you to run as fast as your legs can carry you. Go forth, and bring me to those wretched creatures, so that I may lay waste to them."
Flexing his fingers involuntarily through breaths of air that were growing more rapid and shallow with each time he exhaled, the boy's eyes focused on the twenty goblins that were slowly beginning to quicken in their movements; one half of them crowding over the broken double doors that were the only thing separating them from reaching Vivi's body, while the other half of the goblins were storming toward him with cruel lust in their vile eyes. 'Scared… I feel scared… And yet… And yet, this feeling that I have… What is it? Why do I feel like… Empowered?'
Looking away from her shoulder, the girl with white-hair returned her focus toward the incoming group of ravenous goblins that were tunnel-visioned on getting their hands on the boy. "Make no mistake, you might hold the title of "Master", but you are but a child; a child that has no experience to command me in this battle, or any battle for that matter. Do as I say, boy… That's an order," the white-haired woman said in a cold-calculating voice, as she mustered as much "Mana" from the young boy as she could; her senses christened, as she mentally mapped out her plan of attack.
'... "Master"? Where did that even… No. No, it doesn't matter right now. I… I gotta do what she says; she might be our only chance to get out of here alive, and I can't ruin that! Not for Vivi's sake, I can't,' the young boy thought to himself, as he finally felt the composure he needed to gain control of his body. 'I'm still scared out of my mind, but… Doing nothing is a whole lot scarier than doing something about it, so… Here goes nothing, I guess,' the boy thought almost sarcastically to himself, as he let out a trembling breath as he lowered himself toward the floor; just like how the mysterious woman was doing before him.
With his head lowered slightly, the boy's light-brown bangs obscured his eyes, but allowed him just enough vision to see where he needed to run toward. And as the sigil beneath his feet flickered away with its dying light fading out of existence, the boy could feel his heart racing inside of his chest as tightening his trembling fingers into defiant fists. "... That's fine," the boy muttered under his breath, before clenching his jaw as he forced his legs to sprint toward Vivi as fast as they could carry his small body.
The four goblins who saw a mere child charging toward them like a cornered animal brought a twisted smile to their crooked-mouths; sadistic amusement filling their detached heads, as none of them saw the flickering afterimage of an armored girl appearing before them. The armed goblins who had been bringing up the rear soon found themselves sharing the sudden decapitation and dismemberment that their comrades in the front had gone through. Left as nothing but dying heads that watched in their final moments as their bodies dropped toward the ground one-by-one, the group of twelve goblins had been dealt with before the young boy's foot even touched the floor.
Despite the goblins being unable to keep up with how fast the mysterious girl was able to appear in-and-out of their dimension, the feeling growing within the boy that gave him the strength to move had allowed him to catch glimpses of the white-haired knight's merciless grace. 'She's fast… Really fast… How did I even see her do half of that stuff?' The young boy thought suddenly to himself, as he watched her begin brutally slaughtering the goblins that were crowding on top of his sister with her two magical arm-swords.
Even though she possessed an almost child-like innocence on the outside, the white-haired knight's brutal demeanor in battle betrayed her appearance. Tightening her pink lips to bare her teeth at her enemies, the girl was hacking and slashing the goblins while letting out angered grunts each time her blade cleaved through their green flesh and bones. 'This won't stand! Nothing about this makes any sense! This child… He CLEARLY lacks the capacity to summon a servant… So how? How did I get here with him, in this… W-Whatever this world is supposed to be?!' The white-haired girl thought frustratingly to herself, until she had dispatched all twenty-eight goblins that had attempted to assault the boy's sister.
Knowing that her master lacked any ability or knowledge to properly control her, the white-haired girl faded back into the boy's body, so as to replenish what limited mana she had to work with, as he finally reached the splintered doors. "Vivi…! Vivi, y-you're okay…! You're okay, heh…!" The boy muttered with tears beginning to leak out from the corners of his surprised eyes, as an anxious smile softly found its way across his quivering lips.
Almost as stunned as her younger brother was, Vivi needed a moment to get a hold of her bearings before finally regaining control of her violently-shaking limbs. "W… W-What h-happened, Ren…? How did you even…?!" The older sister stuttered out, as pushed herself up from beneath the two broken doors, as her younger brother helped her by pushing each splintered door off of her scratched-up body. 'What even happened? One moment I was preparing myself for the worst, and then the next…?! Dear gods above!' Vivi thought to herself, as she suddenly let out a shocked gasp the moment she finally noticed all of the carnage that coated the floor and walls of their rustic barn.
Staring down at her quietly sobbing brother with fear and confusion in her beautiful brown eyes, Vivi had a bewildered expression on her sweat-covered face as she slowly raised her trembling finger up to point at all the spilt blood and mutilated bodies that laid around them. "R-Ren…?! W-Was this… Was this YOU?! If so, t-then… Then h-how did you actually manage to k-kill these things all by yourself…?!" Vivi asked with a cathartic feeling washing over her. 'I'm thankful to be alive, but… I just don't understand how he could have done something like this. He's just a kid, and isn't even carrying a weapon! I just- W-WHAT THE…?!' The teenager's thoughts suddenly shifted, as she let out a surprised yelp the moment she saw the white-haired knight appear in front of her brother, within a flash of cyan-light.
"In the name of the Round Table, I order you to step aside at once…!" The girl commanded with an authoritative voice that sounded stoic, as she gestured for Vivi to do as she was told by raising her right blade up to shoo her away.
"Ehh?! W-Wait, I-I don't know what's going on here…!" Vivi uttered out in a fearful and confused tone. Immediately backing away from the sharpened tip of the cyan-glowing blade that was being waved in front of her face, Vivi raised her hands up to her chest as a way to signal that she was of no threat. "W-Who are you, a-and where did you come-"
"-I have neither the time nor desire to answer your questions, human! Scurry to safety while you can!" The white-haired knight interrupted with the best noble voice she could muster, before immediately turning her back to the utterly perplexed teenager to stare back at her master's timid and stressed face. "You and I are going to have a long discussion after this… But for now, you'll do as I say, when I say… Do you understand me, child?" The girl asked, as though she were talking to a subordinate that was obligated to follow her commands.
'I can tell she doesn't respect me, and I don't even think she likes me very much; seems like she's only tolerating me for the time being… But even so, she's everything that we need to rescue as many people as we can, so…' The boy's thoughts trailed off, before he snapped back to the reality of the situation before him. "... Yes, Dame Knight; I-I understand," the boy replied while trying to sound as brave as he could; earning himself a mildly surprised yet pleased smirk from the white-haired girl.
"Hmph… I see you were raised with proper manners, child. Now christine your resolve, for I'll need you to deliver me to those who are in need of rescue," the white-haired woman said with a nod, before her body was dispersed into several large cyan-glowing orbs that were immediately absorbed into the boy's body. "Now let us make haste; for every second we waste idling, another life is taken by those vermin," the girl spoke directly to the boy's conscience, as he once again felt invigorated with strength that he had never experienced before in his short life.
"Of course, just… H-Hold on real quick… P-Please," the boy muttered in an apologetic tone to the white-haired girl taking refuge in his very soul, before stepping forward quickly to where his sister was staring back at him with her jaw agape. "Vivi, a-are you-"
"-W-What in the world was that girl, Ren…?! Is she some sort of spirit?! W-Why is she here, a-and why is she-"
"-Vivi, I-I don't know! I-I really don't know what's going on… But… B-But what I do know is that she's strong, and fast… And that she's the only hope that everyone here's got," the boy said, while trying to return the favor to his older sister by trying to be the calm one in the situation. Lowering his head to the floor, the boy narrowed his eyelids as he tightened his hands once again to ball fists by his sides. "... I… I need you to stay hidden in that crawl space… The one you tried to get me to climb into," the boy said, as he gestured over with his head toward the aforementioned hiding spot.
Feeling dread coursing through her already shaken-up body, the brown-haired teenager's eyes grew wide as she slowly shook her head at her younger brother. "R-Ren, you… Y-You aren't making sense right now… D-Didn't that knight say that she was going to save the village, I-I think…?! S-So then, w-what are you trying to insinuate…?" Vivi asked with a nervous smile growing across her face, as she heard more women screaming in the near distance, just outside the walls of their damaged barn.
"She can't go past two meters from where I'm at, so… So I'm going to circle around the barn, so she can kill all of the goblins, or whatever else is destroying our village. I'll expand outward; make a safe perimeter around you, and then go from there…?" The boy said aloud with a slightly uncertain tone in his voice, as he was merely repeating the words that the white-haired girl was speaking to him, and him alone. "Y-Yeah? Yeah, yeah… That's what I'm gonna do… That's what I have to do, so… J-Just stay here, okay…? Please?" The boy asked in a stressed and desperate tone, as he smiled anxiously at his older sister while beginning to walk past her to get through the empty door-frame.
'He… He can't be serious. It's a bloody war zone outside, and he expects me to just LET him put himself at risk, while I'm here waiting and hoping that he doesn't die out there, or WORSE?!' Vivi thought to herself, while slowly shaking her head as she watched as her younger brother brushed past her arm. Spinning around to where his back was facing her, the panicked older sister felt her protective instincts kick in as she reached out desperately with one hand to grab her younger brother by the back of his shoulder.
Even though he couldn't see it for himself, the boy did what the white-haired girl inside of him commanded him to do. Avoiding Vivi's pleading hand without needing to see where she was reaching out to grab him. Turning around quickly while walking backwards, the boy gave his stunned sister an apologetic smile before uttering out the words "I'm sorry," before turning back forward and sprinting out of the barn faster than he had ever ran in his life; leaving his sister behind in the barn, as his lungs were filled with the wretched stench of copper in the air, and scorched flesh.
Remembering the goblins who had sexually assaulted the Qin sisters next door, the boy crossed through his property and was able to use his newfound stamina and agility to catch up to the group of goblins, who were in the midst of sharing their young captives with another small group of their raiding kin. Although he was disgusted and horrified to see the vile sight of seeing his sister's friends getting pinned down and taken advantage of near a burned-down house, the unbridled rage and bloodlust he felt from the sickened girl inside of him gave him the willpower needed to willingly run towards the group of forty goblins; some of which turned their attention toward him, while letting the others breed the unwilling sisters.
Clenching his jaw shut as he watched as several of the goblins began pulling back sharpened arrows from the drawstring of their wooden longbows, the boy was reassured by the enraged servant that he wouldn't have to worry about them. With no better choice but to trust her, the boy was relentless in his advance toward the large group of goblins, and felt his heart skip a beat as he watched as the arrows came soaring toward him at high speeds.
Making good on her word, the white-haired knight repeatedly blinked in-and-out of existence, parrying each arrow with the blades of her arm-swords with ease. Sensing that some of the goblin archers had seen an extremely brief afterimage of her, the servant smiled to herself as she saw the once-cocky creatures stare at her master with confused and even nervous expressions on their disgusting faces.
The relief that the boy felt from surviving the arrows was short-lived, as he noticed that the goblins who had been ignoring him were suddenly turning their attention away from the sisters, after the goblin archers had called out to them in their own twisted tongue. 'That's right… Focus on me, not them,' the boy thought to himself, as more-and-more of his servant's righteous anger began to rub onto him.
Compared to the fear and shock he felt upon witnessing his servant slaying the goblins within his barn earlier, what the boy felt during the short time it took for the white-haired knight to chop the large group of goblins up into bloody chunks could only be described as satisfaction mixed in with righteous sadism. And with how fast his servant was able to appear in intervals between slashes and parries, all the Qin sister had seen throughout witnessing their next-door neighbor rescuing them were flashes of disorienting cyan light.
The eldest of the three sisters helped her siblings up from the ground; wrapping her arms around their bruised and bloodied bodies, and embracing them with tears in her eyes, as they all sobbed violently. Not knowing if they were coherent enough to speak, or even hear what he had to say, the boy used what time he could allot to tell them about his barn, and about how they would be safe there while he made his way throughout the rest of the village. Although the boy wanted to make sure that they got there safely on their own, since he questioned whether or not they would make it there on their own, the servant ordered him to loot a dagger from one of the many dismembered goblin bodies before reminding him how urgent it was that they secure the perimeter around his barn.
Having never left the village before in his life, and after spending countless hours with his best friend playing make-believe with her since they were four years-old, the boy was able to mentally keep track of where the barn was, as he followed the direction of where the nearest goblin group was. Although he had the best intentions of saving as many people as he could, the cruel truth of the matter for the boy was that most of the slaughtering of the men had already been done by the goblin army; meaning that all the survivors he managed to rescue were all young women and even children, who had already been assaulted several times over.
The more innocents she had seen defiled and in agony, the harder it was for the servant to restrain herself. Although she wasn't a stranger to bloodshed by any means, the white-haired knight found what the goblins within the boy's world were capable of to be unforgivable, and worthy only of death. Luckily for her, she had the insight to predict that she would eventually burn through her master's minute source of mana. However, what the servant hadn't predicted was that she would run out of the magical energy she needed to manifest her physical form when two arrows were shot at him.
"Dodge to your left!" The white-haired knight ordered, and watched from within the boy as he tried to do as he was told. Unfortunately, fatigue was beginning to creep up on the ten-year old boy, as his depleted magical source left him unable to benefit from the stamina that the servant's presence was providing him. After having had a hand in slaying nearly three-hundred goblins without being harmed, the boy's eyes went wide as a hot-searing pain shot down his left.
"AAAAGHHHH, NGHHH!" The boy wailed out in pain, as he stumbled forward with the dagger still held tightly in his right hand. Even though he was in agony, the servant's authoritative voice was enough for him to push his pain aside, in order to regain his composure and balance. Using his momentum from where he was about to fall, the boy did as the servant instructed, and dug his heel into the ground before spinning around to where the arrows had come from.
With two arrows planted into the back of his left shoulder, the boy's mind was flooded with encouraging words that gave him the resolution to sprint toward the group of goblins that had managed to successfully fire their projectiles into his body. More alert and aware of his fatigue, the boy only suffered a few cuts from the arrows he had barely managed to dodge with the help of his servant's acute battle sense.
When he finally closed the distance with the two goblin archers, he found himself struggling to fight his stronger opponents; both of which were swinging their own short-swords at him, while all he had going for him was dwindling stamina, muscles aches, and the a white-haired girl barking orders to him. Having a few close calls, including getting the left side of his cheek nicked good with the edge of a dagger, eventually the boy successfully managed to slay his first two goblins with his own hand.
Slashing open the jugular of one goblin, the boy made sure to avoid getting kicked down by the other green-skinned archer before lunging forward. Plunging the dagger deep into the other goblin's stomach until the hilt of his weapon was pressing up against the screaming creature's abdomen, the boy let go of the bedded weapon to pick up the other goblin's dagger from the ground; using his second-acquired weapon to stab the screaming creature in the crotch, before pulling it out to repeatedly plunge it into its throat.
Covered in the blood of his enemies, with his own crimson-liquid trickling down from the back of his impaled shoulder, the boy felt woozy and began to lose his balance as he gasped for air. 'I'm so tired… How many of them are left?' He wondered, as his sweaty fingers made it that much harder for him to keep a grip on the bloodied weapon in his hand.
"Remain diligent and resilient, child; you have done exceptionally well so far. You have but one more group of degenerates to slay… A hobgoblin that's waiting outside the entrance of your village. He has a group of goblins with him, and they're all waiting to get their hands on whatever refuge would dare escape from their defiling claws. Make your way there, and put an end to them," the servant instructed with uncertainty in her voice, as even she was unsure whether or not her master had it in him to accomplish such a task. "Now pick up a bow, and fill the quiver with arrows… There's work to be done."