Reborn
The Corrupted

"It is not justice that can oppose evil. It is an absolute evil that overpowers evil itself."
~ Tendou Kisari ~
~ Black Bullet ~

Key
'Let's' - Thoughts
"Continue" - Speech
"The" - Electronics/Voices
Fight! - Breaks/A/N's

~ Hajime! ~

With her taunt, the real Kaida engaged in combat with the three goblins while Silver stood back, waiting for whatever signal he was supposed to know. And, as her frail stature may impose, the real Kaida wasn't much stronger than the average commoner due to her very little training. But that wasn't going to stop her from making sure Ashura and herself survived.

"Umbra, lure one of the goblins." She ordered as Umbra started to create a fireball inside of his mouth. While he did that, Kaida focused on her mana reserves, which were quite large due to her heritage.

Following the orders he was given, Umbra shot the fireball he had created at the closest goblin in his range. As the fireball raced toward the targeted goblin, the goblin raised an arm surrounded completely in black energy and used that arm to slam the fireball into the ground, leaving the arm barely scorched from the fiery orb.

Then, all three of the goblins charged forward as Umbra stretched his wings and flew up into the sky, narrowly dodging the goblins' charge. Providing a distraction, Umbra flew through the street as the goblins chased him, but with that clear shot, Kaida pooled a portion of her mana into her hand, creating a ball of mana.

"Mana Blast." She whispered as the ball of mana shot forward and started to glow wildly as it raced toward the goblins. 

When it was about to hit the goblins, the orb's diameter was as long as Kaida was tall, but the goblins had barely turned around when it was just a meter away from hitting them. Once the attack had collided with the goblins, a cloud of dust and dispersed energy emerged around them, and seeing this, Umbra landed back down on the ground.

"Umbra, blow away the dust," Kaida ordered as Umbra flapped his wings a few times, blowing the cloud of dust away. With the cloud cleared away, Kaida could see the goblins on the ground with their bodies twitching occasionally. "Nexus, health."

Goblin(x3) Level 16
(Left) Health 6%
(Middle) Health 3%
(Right) Health 6%

Thinking lowly of the goblins, Kaida walked toward the creatures and used a small amount of her mana pool to enhance her entire body. Once she was close, she grabbed the goblin with the least amount of health and punched it directly below the belt. With the first one dead, she kicked the other two in the same place, killing both of them.

Before she was going to leave, Kaida grabbed the bodies of the goblins and threw them into the alley that they had come from. Then, a few screens appeared in front of her.

Kaida Level Up x3
Kaida Mytheria Level 14
Beast Tamer Level 14

Umbra Level Up
Umbra Level 26
Guardian Level 26

Skills Learned
Mana Bolt Level 1/10
Mana Enhancement Level 1/10

Skill Level Up
Unarmed Combat Level 2/10

"Interesting, Ashura will have to deal with that later then." The real Kaida said as she dismissed all of the screens. Getting through all of the screens, Kaida closed her eyes before she lost consciousness and started to fall to the ground.

Luckily, Silver recognized this as his signal and dove to catch her before she had hit the ground. With Kaida on his back, Silver looked at Umbra and barked, telling the jet black dragon to pick up their tamer's belongings. Doing exactly that, Umbra grabbed Kaida's set of clothes for tomorrow and her key to her room at the tavern before flying after Silver, who had already started walking toward the tavern.

Arriving at the tavern in a matter of minutes, Silver and Umbra walked through the drunken crowd with little difficulty, seeing as the Evergreen village didn't have too many people. But they walked up to Kaida's room and Umbra opened the door before putting Kaida's belongings on the bedside table before both of the beasts helped Kaida into her bed.

Nodding at each other, both of the beasts jumped onto the other bed that Kadia had reserved for them, allowing them to sleep comfortably until the morning.

~ Time Skip ~
~ BTYB Silver and Umbra sleeping ~

In the morning, Silver and Umbra had awoken way before their tamer, so Umbra opened the window and took a small flight around the village while he left Silver to watch Kaida. It wasn't the best of options for the grey wolf, but Kaida did spare his life, so it was the least he could do.

When the sun was well over the horizon, Kaida finally opened her eyes, revealing the same dimly glowing, golden eyes that Kaida had whenever Ashura was in control. Sitting up, Kaida looked around to see Silver sitting on the ground right next to her bed, happily wagging his tail once he saw her awake.

"Hey, boy." She said as she slid to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Ashura, get dressed and get your friends to help you investigate the bodies of the goblins that attacked you."

"Huh? Kaida, is that you?"

"Yes. But I can't talk too much at once. Please, do as I say before you complete your quest."

"O-Okay." She said before looking for her set of clothes, eventually finding it on the bedside table. "Silver, can you find Umbra for me?" She asked as the grey wolf barked before jumping on Kaida's bed and howling out the window.

Despite the surprised neighbors, Kaida undressed and found another pair of undergarments before slipping on a fairly loose white dress with a long skirt built into it, allowing it to flow all the way down to her mid-calves. Once she was dressed, Umbra had flown back into the room. With both of her beasts accompanying her, Kaida grabbed her key before leaving the room and heading down to the tavern where the bartender was drinking while a few people were eating.

Seeing her friends, Kaida walked over as they were barely starting to eat her meal. "Hey, Kaida!" Zeke greeted her, but his mouth was full and he only swallowed everything after he had spoken. "We got you some breakfast!" He said, pointing to two plates of food, but one of the plates consisted of only meat.

"Thanks." She replied as she sat down and took the plate with more variety between the foods on it. With the other plate, Kaida placed it on the ground for both Umbra and Silver, both of them enjoying it.

When all of them were done with their food, they stacked their plates and left the stack on the table for a waiter or waitress. In the meantime, Zach had decided to plan out their quest to kill the goblins and destroy their camp.

"So, we'll have Umbra and Silver scout out the forest. Once they find the camp, we'll try to take out the scouts around the camp before aiming at the rest of the camp." The brunette brother planned out as Zeke tried to pay attention but was getting bored.

Zach was going to continue, but Kaida had decided to speak up now. "Um... guys," she said as the two turned to her and gave her their full attention. "I was attacked by goblins last night-"

"Are you okay?"

"Did you get hurt?"

"I killed them!" She shouted suddenly, trying to drown out the questions they had said to her, but she had gotten the attention of a few other tavern patrons from her sudden outburst. "I... We need to investigate the bodies. " She said quietly this time.

"Any particular reason why?" Zach asked, trying not to doubt Kaida too much, but she was reincarnated and could easily have gone insane.

Taking a moment, Kaida heard the real Kaida's voice in her head again.

"They were corrupted. A high-class demon has discovered your existence as a hero."

Repeating that information to the brothers, Zach tried to think about it logically while Zeke jumped to conclusions based on his first thoughts. "Demons are targeting you!" He whispered, trying not to make the same mistake she had made earlier. "Let's go check it out!"

Immediately Zeke rushed out of the tavern, seeing this, Zach and Kaida looked at each other, realizing the same thing: he didn't know where to go. Following after him, they had eventually caught up and had Umbra lead them to the scene of the attack.

Once there, Umbra and Silver remained outside of the alley, keeping watch and not letting civilians nearby. While they did that, the three adventurers each took a body and looked over it, trying to spot any irregularities or something of that would warrant caution. Eventually, neither Zach or Zeke found anything irregular from the goblins except for an odd mark carved into their foreheads.

On each of the goblins, there was a perfect circle carved into their foreheads, each with a dim purple glow. As one would expect, none of them knew what the symbol was exactly for, but Zach and Zeke took some of the more valuable items from the goblins before tossing their bodies into a trashcan.

"Alright, team, let's train for the rest of the day. Umbra and Silver can probably scout out some of the closer areas of the forest today, but we shouldn't be too hasty. We have to be ready for another attack if it happens." Ordered, Zach, who got nods from each member of the team in response.

So, Silver and Umbra immediately set off to look for the goblin camp that Kaida's three attackers had come from. While they did so, Zach and Zeke started to spar with their real weapons since they didn't have any others. Ignoring them, Kaida focused on her two new skills: Mana Blast and Mana Enhancement.

Mana Blast Level 1/10
Focuses mana into an orb before releasing it. The orb absorbs mana and grows wildly when released until it makes contact with a valid target.

Mana Enhancement Level 1/10
Uses a constant stream of mana to enhance the body's physical strength and endurance.

Closing the windows that she had opened up, Kaida had quickly gotten used to the new settings of the Nexus that had been set for her, but getting used to using mana was a different story. Her mana pool was quite large so it was easy to find it, but it was unusual. It felt like she was trying to pull out a part of her body and without it, she would die.

Of course, she found another way to use her skills. She just would have to manually go through her active skills list, but that took a bit too much time and was quite weak. So, she ended up trying to pry her mana out, but was too afraid and let it go back into her body.

"I'm too scared." She mumbled to herself as she started to pant. "I wasn't born to be a hero, I was just dragged into this mess." She started to complain now, garnering the attention of the real Kaida.

"Just don't let your fear control you."

"Easier said than done."

"Take ahold of your mana again, but this time, imagine cutting off part of it instead of taking the whole thing."

"Okay, but... why are you helping me?"

"Because we're one and the same, literally. And if you go down, I go down too."

"That makes sense," she said before taking the advice presented to her.

This time, she took ahold of her mana again and concentrated on taking a small portion away from the entire pool. So, she pictured herself stretching her mana before slicing off whatever she didn't need. With that pictured, she took the smaller portion and focused on bringing it out into her hand before molding it into an orb.

A few seconds later, Kaida opened her eyes to see an orb as big as her head in her hand. Surprised by the size of the orb, she looked for a target and found a tree close by. And without shouting out the name of the attack, she imagined the ball shooting toward the tree and watched as it did just that, but the results weren't what she had expected. Now, the tree was only a stump.

"I did it!" She cheered before jumping up and down like a little kid. But now, she felt slightly more tired than before, although it was one of the few expected results. "Now... it's time to train!"

~ Cue Training Montage! ~

A/N: Fair warning, the next chapter will be fairly short, but hopefully, you'll still enjoy it. Also, I have a new discord that I'm basically sharing with someone else, but I still own it so it doesn't really matter. There, we can talk about the story or anything you want, so see you soon lovelies~!

https://discord.gg/2D4A4x2