I've Turned Into A Fox Girl?

Chapter 347: What are these things?

<Elanor POV>

There was an entourage of 20 maids sprinting towards me, which at first felt daunting, but then I remembered the hellish training Elaina put me through. Thinking about it gave me shivers, but it also gave me confidence that I could defeat all these maids.

Ever since my training began, I had levelled up my combat skills by a tonne. No longer was the system puppeteering my movements so that I didn't accidentally kill myself.

'Breath and let your mind think freely, do not let anything distract you.' A big weakness of mine was definitely the lack of experience, so I tended to worry about small things or overthink my actions. Now that has changed, my mind no longer burdened with trivialities… most of the time.

"Get her!" The first set of 5 maids approached, all carrying different kinds of weaponry. Swords, maces, daggers, spears and even a long stick.

It made no difference since I wasn't going to allow them to get close.

With a strong swing of my fan, I summoned a hurricane-like wind to forcefully knock the maids to the ground. Then, with my other fan, I waved it up, calling up on nature to break through the concrete and ensnare the maids with tree roots.

The roots slithered across their bodies, wrapping very tightly around each of their limbs, preventing any kind of movement.

It seemed like they couldn't use magic, so I planned to capture them all unless things got really tough and there was no other choice. Unfortunately, it seems I still used too much strength as the ensnaring roots gave out grinding noises as if they were rubbing against metal?

"What the hell?" It confused me, as flesh isn't meant to do that. Were these maids some kind of different species?

As much as I wanted to find out what was going on, the rest of the maids were taking advantage of my slight distraction.

'Damn it, right as I was boasting to myself that I wouldn't get distracted.' As troubling as it was, I couldn't get too hung up over it. Since the trapped maids are not screaming in pain I'll assume they are okay.

"Die!" A maid with a greatsword came in with a big swing, using as much momentum as she could. Another one snuck up behind me, aiming for my lower body with a dagger. It didn't leave me with much room to move, but their attacks were slow and predictable.

I raised one leg and as the maid with the dagger swung, stomping down on their wrist while bending backwards, avoiding the greatsword. The greatsword maid had completely missed and hit the ground, getting her blade stuck. However, that's when a maid with a spear dropped down from above.

While I was still leaning back, I snapped one of my fans out, sending a wind slash directly at the descending maid, who had no way to avoid it. She tried to block it with her spear, but it was useless as my wind slash cut right through it.

'Looks like there will be one casualty.' It was a shame, but I wasn't going to compromise myself to keep them all alive.

With no other immediate attackers, I flipped backwards and reoriented myself. However, as I got my bearings back I eyed the maids… only to notice that the one I killed didn't spill blood?

She was cut in half, yet she was still alive, crawling around with these weird tendrils coming out the bottom of her bisected upper half. It was quite freaky and the same could be said about the maid with the dagger. The wrist I crushed was completely broken, but once again, there were those weird coloured tendrils peeking out of them.

"Okay, they are not human." It was freaky to see, leaving me unsure if I should just kill them. Were they just another unknown race? But I had no knowledge of any race that doesn't have blood… Could they be some kind of sentient plants perhaps?

The maid with the greatsword finally pulled it out and got ready to charge at me again. This time I noticed more anomalies with the maids, their gazes lifeless, their expressions frozen. They initially showed emotion, but as time went on, they seem to have lost that part of them.

"Murder!" Even their speech was devolving to merely declaring their intentions!

The remaining 12 maids that hadn't found an optimal time to attack finally decided to charge me all at once.

'Fuck it, we are killing them all.' I didn't know what they were, but at this point I questioned if they were even living beings. We didn't really need to be merciful to begin with, so I would rather just kill these things first and sort out the truth later.

*BOOM* But right as I was about to unleash the full wrath of nature on these maids, a body came flying through, knocking some of them into the wall. One of them almost hit me as it flew past and crashed spectacularly.

"What the fuck is Clara doing?" My life flashed before my eyes for a moment. On the bright side, whatever just happened disrupted the maids' attack, so I needed to take advantage of it.

Opening up my fans, I waved them upward, causing the ground to rumble, followed by roots shooting out of the ground. Each of them bent to my will as I sent them to skewer each of the remaining maids.

The greatsword maid was quick to target me once again, but with a quick wave of my fan, one of the roots extended itself at great and stabbed the maid through the stomach. Lifting the maid up in the air, it was rendered imobile, its struggles fruitless.

The other maids quickly followed suit, hunted down by my iron-strong roots. Some were skewered while others were crushed by sheer weight.

The battle was finally coming to a close and it was a lot easier than I expected. Ultimately, I knew the maids were rather weak, but I thought there was going to be a bit more of a fight, especially with their numbers.

However, I overpowered them so much that it was a one sided massacre rather than what I thought would be just me buying time.

"Elanor, are you alright!?" With my battle finished, I found that Silver seems to have concluded his battle too. He came running out of the shadows, scanning my entire body with his eyes, hopefully for injuries and nothing else.

"Mhm, although, do you know what's the deal with these maids? They are not beings of flesh but rather some kind of metal?" I figured I'd ask Silver if he knew since he also fought some maids. Perhaps they have met such things on a prior adventure?

"Yes, they are robots… Wait, you won't understand that. Think of them like fake beings. Golems who only exist to obey commands, devoid of any emotion. So don't feel bad for killing them." It all began to make sense now and it definitely lifted a small weight off my heart.

"I see, well that's a first for me, seeing these ro-b-ots." I was curious about the inner workings of these robots, but looking at the remains of these maids, figuring it out would be a headache and way beyond anything I would know.

"It is and I'm surprised they even exist. This kind of thing only existed in Shaman's old world. I guess Freja is also from there, but to actually reproduce them is pretty insane." Silver gave a bit more context on these robots and how odd they actually are which gave me a little bit of perspective.

"Interesting, well we shouldn't be chatting, it looks like Clara could use a hand." As much as I liked talking with Silver, the battle was far from over. Taking a glance in Clara's direction only proved that things were just now heating up.

"Yes… Kiruya seems to have a second form. It could be really dangerous so please be careful, babe." A shiver ran through my body as Silver called me by a nickname. I liked that he was being protective, but now wasn't the time for flirting! A part of me wanted to smack him to get his head out of any gutter it may be in, but that also isn't appropriate to do right now.

"Of course. We should hurry over and see what Clara wants us to do. Best we don't get in her way, especially when fighting against something unknown." I knew Clara was the type to fight things on her own. She usually has a set plan in her head and any interference would only disrupt her strategy.

"Definitely, plus we should keep a lookout for any hidden threats… speaking of which, where are the other girls that were with Kiruya?" SIlver brought up a very good point and we began to look around the room.