Minerva had just finished hunting for dinner. Normally she and her pet, Fang would have gone out together but she told him to stay in the cave and guard it. Why did she do that? Today would mark their one month celebration of meeting so she wanted to get something nice for him.
So she found a bull deer and was dragging it back, but on her way there she could smell something burning and smoke was rising to the sky. It came in the direction of her cave, so she dropped her bull deer meat and ran as fast as she could towards the cave. When she got there, she saw 3 humans standing there and Fang was dead in front of her cave which had been set on fire.
She walked towards Fang's corpse, tears in her eyes. The humans hadn't noticed her presence even after she had squatted down next to Fang. The poisonous fumes had no effect on her due to her natural resistance to poisons she had acquired from eating several of them in attempts at surviving by herself.
She then shifted her gaze to the foolish humans that were bickering among themselves after killing her best friend.
"WHAT DID YOU DO!!?"
She shrieked. A shriek so horrid all the creatures in the west heard her. All creatures began to evacuate the premises and prayed for the fools that had gone near the Witch of the West.
She produced intense blood lust as she looked at the three fools. She was wondering which one of them to kill first.
"E-erh, little gir-"
Before Aden could finish his sentence she had already punched off his head. All that remained was his body, and blood gushed out of his neck like a fountain. His body then collapsed to the ground.
They were all in shock at the sight and could not even react to her then punching Ross with enough force to create a hole through his stomach. She then grabbed his stuffy beard and brought him down to her eye level.
They looked eye to eye and Ross felt like screaming for help but he couldn't. He could feel the eyes sucking something out of him and it was painful. Too painful for him to even react in anyway. It didn't take long for his body to turn soulless, and fall to the ground, dead.
She then fixed her gaze on Charlotte who had been frozen stiff. As soon as she threw a punch, an arm caught hers. It was a slender arm that belonged to a very beautiful woman.
Both Minerva and Charlotte looked at the owner with confused expressions.
"L-Lucia?"
"...No. Sorry, but I lied to you. It was a pleasure meeting you. Bye now."
Larm then snapped the fingers on her free hand and Charlotte disappeared.
Minerva growled at the stranger. She could instinctively tell that this person was in a whole other league. Still, in her rage she couldn't think properly. She didn't care about strength. All that mattered was that her friend had been killed. Anyone who protected those who killed her friends must be killed. That was her thought process at that moment, so she used her skill [Lazy Eyes]
It was a skill that put anyone to sleep. Depending on how it was used, this skill could put a person in a state of eternal rest. In a sense, the targets of this were already dead.
"Ara ara~ So scary~"
That response made Minerva shudder. Her instincts were screaming for her to run away
Minerva tried to throw a punch with her free hand, but it was instantly caught by plants that had grown from the ground and wrapped themselves around it. Then more plants begun wrapping themselves around Minerva, trapping her. The woman then let go of Minerva's arm and took a step back.
She looked at Minerva who was struggling to break free then snapped her fingers again, and flowers bloomed on the plants. These plants contained a scent that could calm a person.
At the same time, a throne made out of plants was being created behind her. As soon as it was done, she sat down on it. She waited for Minerva to calm down, then spoke.
"Hello there. My name is Larm, King of the Forest and I'm here to make you a Tyrant. How about it? Will you become my child?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
The king of Keimen, Roland Boulderdane had been scrolling through a lot of requests and official documents. This life of his, he saw it as a very boring and tasking one. He just wanted to escape the troubles kingship sometimes brought and just have a good adventure like in the old days.
So when a knight came rushing to his room, saying that two women who claim to have just faced off against the rumored Mad Witch of the West and had managed to survive had appeared in his throne room out of nowhere, he was excited. He immediately threw away all the tiresome papers and quickly walked towards the throne room, against his soldiers wishes.
When he got there, he saw two women. One looked haggard, and was asleep, whereas the other looked calm and collected. A true beauty that radiated elegance. He wanted to make her one of his concubines, however he suddenly thought about all the soldiers that had surrounded the two women and were pointing spears at them.
They were being questioned at that moment by the captain of the royal guards, but the woman noticed the king's presence
"Oh, it seems that the king has arrived."
She said and all the guards directed their gazes at the king. The captain of the royal guard then approached the king.
"Your majesty, you shouldn't be here."
"Never mind about that. What's going on here? Why are you surrounding these women?"
The captain looked at the women one more time then said,
"Your majesty, they claim to have used teleportation magic to appear here after fighting the Mad Witch of the West."
"Oh?"
The Mad Witch of the West. That was a name the king had been hearing frequently and it had piqued his interest. He raised his hand signaling for the soldiers to lift their spears and stand down.
"The Mad Witch of the West, you say? And what would a delicate woman such as yourself be doing fighting the Mad Witch of the West?"
"I went into the forest to scout the strength of the witch."
"Why would you do that?"
"I am a scout mage of the Dhijan Nation. I was sent by my king to test the power of the Mad Witch of the West because of all the talk about it, to see if we would have to dispatch a force to handle it."
"The Dhijan Nation!?"
Everyone in the room was on high alert. The Dhijan Nation was a very powerful nation and also one of their ally nations. The fact that they pointed spears at a member from that Nation could have affected their friendship. The king glared at the soldiers and they gulped.
"Oh I'm sorry about the way my soldiers treated you. Might I interest you in-?"
"As rude as it maybe for a simple civilian like myself to cut off the king of a nation while speaking, I cannot allow you to speak. For what I am about to relay to you could crucially affect this nation's state of affairs."
The king gulped.
"W-what is it?"
"The Mad Witch of the West, although not a Tyrant yet, she shows power close to that level. If you do not eliminate her quickly, you shall lose the ability to extract resources from that forest. She has been an obstacle in that aspect for a while now, no?"
"Hiikkk!!! Y-yes, but how do you know that?"
"I have been living as an adventurer in this town for quite a while now. Most of the adventurers who go on missions to extract resources never come back. So I went with this girl's party which was B rank. I saw the beast's power myself. She took down the entire party in five seconds. I managed to escape with this girl using spatial magic."
"Huh!?"
"F-five seconds?"
"A B-rank party? No way."
Such things could be heard among the soldiers. It was very understandable, because B-rank parties were actually very strong and rare among humans and there especially weren't that many of them available in the Keimen kingdom.
"If you don't believe me, this girl is the Arcane Ember, Charlotte."
She took out the girl's Adventurer License which was a mithril plate. The girl's face was inscribed on the plate, alongside her name, rank and class. All the men shook at the sight. Sensing the fear, the woman took action.
"Fret not, if we act now we can kill her."
"H-how?"
One of the guards screamed, and the woman looked at the king with a gaze that gave him chills. He then grinned.
'Oh, I really like this woman', he thought.
"I believe your majesty already knows?"
"Of course. Summon 50 B- ranks and set them loose on the Mad Witch of the West! Tell them it's an emergency order!"
"B-But your majesty! Such a thing? What if the guild refuses?"
"Tell them that if they do it, we shall reward them 1,000 gold coins, and tell the guild leader I'll make him a noble if he succeeds. That crook is very shrewd and wouldn't miss out on the opportunity to become a noble. Tell them to move out as soon as possible. The longer we wait, the deadlier the situation."
The captain of guard nodded and gave orders to his subordinates. After an hour, adventurers had gathered in front of the guild hall.. For all the adventurers to gather so soon showed just how dire the situation they were in was, so they set off into the forest quickly.
