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Emilia’s words seemed to have completely made the elders of the Nightingale clan lose their sanity, and their attacks became even more fierce and full of fury as they squared off with Noelle.
Naturally, this also meant that there were now far more openings in their defense and flaws in their movement as they’d already lost their cool.
Of course, Noelle was in no mood to compliment Emilia for a ‘job well done’, as she’d barely been keeping up with her assailants as it was, but the situation really turned for the worse when the two who hadn’t attacked her before joined in.
“Stand still, you!”
The only elder not attacking her was the one she had knocked aside when he’d tried to attack Emilia. But he also didn’t miss the opportunity to mock her while covering his bruised face.
“Hah, for all that boasting, all she can do is barely defend!” He sneered. “Looks like the Empress of Blue Dawn is all bark, and so are her dogs.”
While Noelle was usually calm and liked to take care of things rationally, there was a limit to even her tolerance. And after everything that happened before, the elder’s mockery of her girlfriend just made her snap.
‘Hey, looks like all that love juice isn’t going to waste, after all. There’s that strength she’s been hiding!’ Emilia clapped happily as she watched Noelle suddenly burst out with exponentially superior strength and speed than what she had been showing before, ruthlessly pummeling one old man after another into the marbled floor till it cracked over and over again.
Cynthia could only roll her eyes in exasperation. “What a waste of chaos energy. Powering up mortals to be a little less weak than before…”
The crimson-haired girl chuckled. ‘Now now, Cynthia, although you’re adorable while being petulant, you can’t mock my girls like that. They’re not useless at all!’
Her partner snorted. “Oh really?”
Emilia nodded. ‘Right. Look, would I be able to move around so freely if not for Crystal and everyone else taking care of Blue Dawn, while Noelle and big sister took care of everything I couldn’t in Carmen?’
Thinking that most of her moves recently were for the sake of these people anyway, Cynthia almost wanted to roll her eyes again, but in the end, she decided to compromise. “Fine, fine. As long as you’re making progress to finish the missions, just do whatever makes you happy.”
Emilia giggled. ‘Oh, cute little softie, you!’
𝒩𝑜𝗏𝐥xt.𝗰𝓞𝕞
Perhaps knowing that her partner was about to explode in shame and anger, the crimson-haired girl didn’t give her the chance to respond, however.
‘Don’t worry about the mission, by the way. You know I have Dixie watching over Amos, right?’ Emilia smiled. ‘Well, let’s just say that he’s getting some well needed enlightenment ever since he’s woken up, and it won’t be long before he realizes how futile everything he’s doing has been.’
Cynthia blinked in surprise, but before she could question her partner further, the crimson-haired girl’s attention had already shifted to the ‘battlefield’, where Noelle was now panting heavily after pummeling half the elders into a coma, while the rest groaned in agony on the floor.
The gray-haired girl shivered when she felt a silky fabric brush her sweat-soaked brow with affection, and her breath hitched when her eyes gazed into the affectionate blue pupils of her girlfriend.
How was that it every time she saw her little boss, the girl seemed to get prettier and prettier?!
Emilia grinned. “I’m sorry about the bony and low-quality punching bags today, darling. I’ll make sure to treat you better in the future, so please don’t mind, alright?”
After almost choking on her own saliva in surprise, Noelle could only shake her head with a wry smile. ‘This girl… she won’t ever change, will she?’
Going by how confident she had been before, Emilia seemed to have long since known her true capabilities even better than Noelle herself, and the gray-haired girl couldn’t help but sigh at that thought.
Maybe it was her greatest fortune in this life to have met someone like Emilia.
In the end, Noelle could only sigh. “How were you so sure I could beat them all by myself?”
With her chin up and a proud smile on her face, the crimson-haired girl gave a careless kick to one of the unconscious elders. “Can my Noelle have much trouble dealing with a bunch of weaklings? I don’t think so.”
The only elder who was still conscious almost coughed out a mouthful of old blood in anger.
Even if they were no longer in their prime, they were still some of the strongest fighters that the Nightingale clan had to offer!
After all, since their clan operated mostly based on merit, only the best could qualify to become elders. And of those, only those who retained a sufficient amount of their strength could stay in that position.
But considering fact that they’d all been defeated by a single girl even when they attacked her all at once, the old man obviously couldn’t find any words to refute them, no matter how furious he was.
This was the first time his pride was being trampled like this. And it wasn’t just him, but the name of their entire Nightingale clan that had been tarnished because of their lack of strength.
Just thinking about it caused the old man to almost faint from shame, but the responsibilities he shouldered didn’t allow him to black out so easily.
The thought he had of the conspiracy they might have stepped into when he first saw Emilia was still fresh in his mind. That was why he had tried to stop his fellow elders from attacking at first, and only joined in when he realized it was too late, after all.
“J-Just… w-what do you want… from us?”
“Wow, it spoke!” Emilia jumped back in surprise, as if shocked by the ‘talking corpse’, and Noelle almost rolled her eyes, knowing that her little boss was only acting to piss the old man off further.
‘She’s so childish, really…’ The gray-haired girl thought. ‘How… adorable.’
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