Clarissa Beheads The Villainess

[7] Crescent Moon

     
       
    Astaroth's eyes shot open, coughing out water and frantically catching breath. Clarissa sat before him looking like her usual self and tired.

"Great, you're still alive." Her expression made it sound sarcastic. "I had to ditch my stuff and my clothes or else I wouldn't have been able to save you in time."

Astaroth realized what she meant. She was sitting on the grass in just her undergarments, and the bags where she put her stuff in also weren't with her.

"I'll... Make it up to you. I'll get you new clothes and stuff. Though I can't replace the weapons."

"No need." Her eyes travelled to a stone with the name Peanut engraved. A wilted rose at its side. "This is where the princess drowned my cat."

She's opening up? Astaroth thought. The conversation they had before he fell into the river caught up to him, and he had much to ask.

"I intended to live peacefully in this world. A peaceful, boring life was a dream for me. I'm glad to have lived that dream, I'm glad I have learned to care for a life. Which is why I must avenge my Peanut." She showed no emotion, but he felt the same fury from her as he felt when he saw her smile. If he could even call it one.

"We will avenge your cat. I can assure you."

"I do not need your help, or sympathy." She gets up, looking to the distance.

The forest fire was still growing. Smoke was impregnating their skin, and voices could be heard in the distance.

"We need to go before we are found."

"But your clothes."

"Then I shall ask you for a favor."

"We get to a safe place, you wait there and I'll go steal something you can put on. Is that ok?"

Clarissa nods her head. She really didn't like the idea of having the man do her another favor but this isn't the kind of world where you're safe to waltz around in undergarments.

They move around the outskirts, further away from the fire and where there was no people to see them. Astaroth couldn't help but to think too much as they walked. Clarissa being someone from another world was too hard to believe yet it made sense. Her work as a blacksmith, that she knows things about Astaroth he's never talked about.

"I can wait here. No one ever comes to this part of the kingdom. There should be an apparel and bakery not too far from here. Do you intend to steal?"

"No, I took money from Orias."

"Good." She watches him leave, and sits down with her back against a tree. For a moment, she watches a trail of ants, the wind traces against her bare skin. Clarissa shuts her eyelids to take a nap.

"Clarissa."  Files are handed to her. Files of multiple people. Their faces, names, occupations, personal info, notable behaviors.

"These are your targets for today."

All of them for today...? She steps back and begins to run.

Endless running.

The faces of the people she's taken lives from hovering over her.

"Clarissa, here's your target for today."

But that's just a child...

Maybe I should've let them take my life, before they used mine to take away hundreds, maybe thousands of others.

"Clarissa you're our top assassin. You can do it right?"

"Of course."

She clutches her blades which she loves dearly.

She stops running, takes a look at her phone. Never any messages, never any notifications, but updates to a webnovel she enjoyed reading.

Until that too stopped.
 
   

---
 
  

"Clarissa." Astaroth gently shakes her.

Slowly opening her eyes, she sees him with a new set of clothes, and a lot of things in hand. She brushes aside her still damp hair to take a better look at everything around her.

He got himself the same white polo and dark brown pants. The only new on him is a lighter brown coat.

"Here." He takes out a black dress from one bag he held. This time, she couldn't even hide that she was appalled and almost yelled.

"A black...dress..."

"Like the old one you had but it looks better, do you not like it?"

Unlike the one she discarded before jumping into the river, this one had a slit by her leg, puffy sleeves and a v-cut chest area.

"I only wore that black dress because it was all I had." She took the dress and had Astaroth turn around as she put it on. It was less stiffling since the dress wasn't the same small size the previous one was, which fit to Katherine's smaller figure

"I can go and get you something else."

"No, this will suffice."

From a smaller bag the man pulls out a red box, opens it, and takes out a silver necklace with a crescent moon.

Clarissa's mouth gapes open a bit. In the webnovel, Astaroth gets a necklace for Katherine as a gift to show his love for her. But it was a sun.

"For Katherine, right?"

"I got it for you."

"Why?"

"The crescent moon looks like a letter C. And I think, if I were to compare you to anything, you're most like the crescent moon."

She doesn't stop him from putting the necklace around her neck.

His words tickled her.

For the first time, someone's words tickled her.

"That sounds ridiculous."