Chapter 4 | Reincarnated as the Hero’s Childhood Friend, Then Saving the World

Margarita led Joshua and the demon in circles around the mill clearing for several laps until the sound of Joshua’s mother struggling to crawl up finally came from the forge behind them. Joshua glanced back to see his mother stumbling into the cellar’s low doorway, and only then did he breathe a sigh of relief.

“Over there!” Margarita pointed toward the broken elm tree on the left side of the clearing. “There’s a rope under the roots!”

Joshua slashed sideways as he retreated, the blade forcing the demon back several steps. Seizing the momentum, he bent over and yanked a thick hemp rope from the weeds by the roots. He rolled across the ground and pulled hard; a muffled sound of turning gears came from beneath the earth, and immediately following that, an entire section of the mill’s outer mud wall toppled outward, crashing down onto the demon. Rubble and dust exploded as the low-tier demon was buried up to its torso, howling as it struggled.

Joshua stood where he was, gasping for breath, his iron sword propped against the ground as his shoulders rose and fell violently.

Margarita ran over and grabbed his arm. “We can’t stop yet. Head toward the village center.”

The two of them rushed through the collapsing alleys. Along the way, they saw villagers in small groups fleeing their homes—some clutching children, others dragging bundles—all their faces masks of pure terror. Screams and cries rose and fell in succession, and the dark purple rift in the sky was tearing wider and wider like an open wound.

Then, she heard a familiar loud shout.

“Everyone! Retreat to the Eastern Woods! Take the elderly and children who can run, leave your belongings behind!”

Renard charged out from the smoke at the end of the village road, his hunting bow already drawn. An arrow whistled through the air, piercing the eye socket of a demon that was about to pounce on a fleeing villager. Behind him followed four or five young men from the hunter team, some holding hunting spears and others brandishing wood-cleaving hatchets, every one of them covered in dust and bloodstains.

“Captain!” Joshua shouted.

Renard looked back and saw the two of them, his gaze quickly scanning them both.

“You’re just in time!” The old hunter strode over and patted Joshua’s shoulder. “I’ve already had three men from the team lead the elderly, women, and children toward the east. Margarita, your mother is with them. Joshua, your father is holding the line at the village entrance. The rest of us must evacuate immediately to meet up with them.”

Joshua gripped his sword hilt, his lips pressed into a thin line. He didn’t speak, but he nodded firmly.

Margarita stood to the side, her mind racing.

The Eastern Woods. She had previously taken Joshua to survey that area; the terrain there was open without many hiding spots. It was a reasonable choice for a temporary evacuation point. At least it was better than staying in the village to wait for death.

And her mother was safe. That was a relief.

She scanned the layout of the village.

The church.

It was the most prominent building, the highest point, and Margarita was all too familiar with the dry wells and piles of discarded stone surrounding it. Most of the traps she had spent over six months setting around the village had been built with the help of the hunter team; her excuse had always been “wanting to help build some fences to keep out magical beasts.” Renard and the young hunters were simple-minded; they hadn’t thought twice about it and had simply followed her around with their tools.

It wasn’t exactly a lie, either. These low-tier demons were very much like magical beasts.

A single person couldn’t have done that much. But she had coaxed the entire hunter team into digging pits and driving stakes for three months; they were all waiting in the ground now.

“You take the people and go,” she said to Renard. “I’ll lure away the remaining demons and drag them toward the church.”

Renard frowned at her. “You’re just a young girl…”

“The traps around the church were set by us,” Margarita interrupted him, then her eyes curved into a gentle smile. “Captain, just please take care of Joshua for me. I’ll come over as soon as I’ve lured them away.”

That smile was too perfect. It was as perfect as if it had been practiced countless times, and so gentle that it was impossible to refuse. Renard hesitated, sensing something was off, but the roar of more houses collapsing sounded in the distance. He gritted his teeth. “Joshua, you stay with—”

“No.” Margarita’s voice carried a sharp edge for the first time, but she softened immediately, reaching out to straighten Joshua’s torn collar. Her fingertips lightly brushed the blue stone pendant around his neck. “Joshua needs to go with you, Captain. You know better than I do that he is currently the only young man in the village who can face a demon head-on with a sword.”

Renard looked at her. A complex expression crossed the old hunter’s weathered face, but he didn’t say more. He turned and roared to the hunters behind him, “Everyone! Retreat to the Eastern Woods! Joshua, we’ll clear the path ahead—don’t let any demons get near the crowd!”

Joshua was yanked along by Renard, stumbling a step. He looked back at Margarita, his blue eyes filled with unease and confusion.

“Margarita? You…”

“I’ll be back soon.” She waved to him, her smile as gentle as the one she gave him every time she handed him water after their training sessions. “Go help the captain. Joshua, you’re the one who is supposed to protect everyone.”

She turned aside and, without waiting for him to speak again, ran off toward the church in the center of the village. Her long white hair cut an arc through the smoke and dust, quickly disappearing among the crumbling houses.

Joshua gripped his sword hilt tight, the words “don’t go” never leaving his throat.

Margarita was running. She dashed through smashed fences and leaped over fallen wooden beams. The pale pink pendant on her chest swayed violently with her steps, the stardust inside churning as if it were boiling, its heat transferring through her clothes to her collarbone.

As she ran out of an alley, she came face-to-face with several low-tier demons tearing at a corpse. They looked up, their murky yellow eyes turning toward her.

Margarita paused for a split second.

Then she looked down at the glowing, pale pink pendant on her chest. The light was growing brighter, seeping through the gap in her collar and staining her chest pink. The demons’ gazes fell unhesitatingly on that cluster of light. Low, greedy growls emerged from their throats; they abandoned the corpse and began crawling toward her on all fours.

They were attracted to the Star-Spun Stone.

Margarita turned and ran.

The gazes of more demons converged from every direction. Some poked their heads out from under collapsed eaves, while others crawled from the shadows of the alleys, gathering slowly like ants drawn to sugar. As Margarita ran, the sound of crawling and low growling grew increasingly dense behind her.

The gray-white stone walls of the church appeared in her field of vision. The century-old building sat like a silent beast in the center of the village amidst the twilight, the spire of its tower piercing toward the sky filled with dark purple rifts.

Margarita burst into the clearing in front of the church and kicked away the topsoil covering the first hidden mechanism.

A hemp rope as thick as a finger snapped out from a gap in the stone. She bent down and yanked it; the mouth of the dry well on the left side of the church collapsed inward, revealing a ring of sharpened wooden stakes planted at the bottom. The two closest demons couldn’t stop their momentum and fell straight in, their shrieks echoing against the well walls.

She didn’t stop. She dashed diagonally up the steps around the church’s exterior and kicked over a loose stone slab. A thick iron chain beneath the slab had been tied to a stake buried underground; when the chain pulled taut, it activated three nearby chain-reaction traps. A pile of stones by a dry well rolled down to block one path, a bear trap hidden under a flying buttress snapped shut on a demon’s hind leg, and a tripwire hidden under vines tripped the two following closely behind, sending them tumbling into each other with muffled roars.

“…I can still hold on.” Margarita panted, turning to run toward the other side of the church.

The second dry well. She kicked aside the broken tiles covering the rope, but today the mechanism for this well was stuck. The sound of gears engaging rasped twice and then went silent; nothing happened. Margarita fired a shot from her gun to shatter the debris wedged between the gears. Only then did the iron chain pull tight with a clatter, activating the pitfall on the other side and swallowing two more.

She retreated to the main entrance of the church, her back pressing against the cold stone wall as her heart throbbed painfully in her chest.

The number of demons surrounding her was… still many.

The rift had stopped spitting them out. Their assault on Percy Village should be ending here; after all, this was just a small village.

If her calculations were correct, there was only one trap left. The trigger rope was in her hand—a dry well with several tripwires laid in front of it and sharpened stakes placed by the hunters at the bottom.

But what if there were even more later?

She pulled the rope for the final trap. The dry well collapsed, the tripwires snapped up, and several demons were sent flying into the bottom of the well. Short, gurgling screams and the muffled thud of stakes piercing flesh rose from within.

The traps were gone.

Margarita stood where she was, her back against the low wall of the well, her chest heaving. She had counted; all five trap zones around the church were spent.

Gray smoke swirled from all directions. Surviving demons and late arrivals crawled out from the dust, their yellow eyes lighting up one by one. They closed in on her position, getting closer and closer until she could smell the mixture of rust and rotting meat emanating from them.

Margarita looked up at the church tower. The gray-white stone walls were covered in old vines, and layers of stone shingles spread down from the spire. The iron cross atop the peak gleamed dimly in the twilight.

There was no other way.

She turned, dug her fingers into the stone crevices, and began to climb. Moss made her palms slip and the edges of the stone slabs scraped her fingertips. As she climbed, she looked down at the demons below.

They were gathering, their sharp claws scratching at the stone walls as they tried to climb, but they weren't suited for it. Their bulky bodies slid down the walls in vain.

She could buy a little more time.

She looked at her pendant; the Star-Spun Stone swayed against her chest, its light growing more and more intense.

If you want it, you’ll have to come and get it yourselves.

She climbed onto the narrow ledge of a flying buttress and then used the protruding stone edges to climb higher up the tower. Her skirt got caught and a long tear opened up; the sole of her boot slipped on the wet moss covering the stone, and the pain of her knee slamming against a stone edge made her eyes sting.

But she kept going up.

The higher she climbed the tower, the stronger the wind became. She wedged her fingers into the gaps between the stone slabs at the very top and hauled herself up one last time. When her boots hit the flat stone top of the tower, she sprawled across the surface, gasping for air as her long white hair scattered around her, whipped by the wind.

Looking down from this height, all of Percy Village was laid bare: the half-collapsed forge, the mill with its roof torn off, and the dark mass of people moving toward the woods to the east. She saw Renard’s silhouette swinging his hunting bow and saw Joshua at the edge of the crowd, swinging his sword to force back a nearby demon as he retreated step-by-step toward the woods.

They were almost out.

Margarita stood up, bracing her hands on her knees. The wind at the top of the tower rushed into her torn skirt, pressing coldly against her skin. The demons below, unable to climb, formed a circle around the church, shrieking with their heads tilted back. Their murky yellow eyes were fixed intently on the cluster of increasingly bright, pale pink light at her chest.

She yanked the pendant from her neck and gripped it in her palm. It was burning hot. It felt like holding a bowl of freshly cooked porridge, but she didn’t let go. Pale pink light leaked from between her fingers, staining the stone top of the tower in a soft glow.

She stared down at the huddle of shadows below, her lips pale.

I don’t want to die.

That was the first thought that surfaced in her mind. She had been reincarnated into this world, managed to survive this far, and spent nearly a year racking her brains to arrange, train, prepare, and hide, forcing herself to maintain a gentle smile through it all—everything she did was to stay alive.

She wanted to live. She wanted to sit on tree branches and swing her legs, she wanted to tease Joshua and watch him blush, she wanted to go back and eat the dinner her mother cooked, and she wanted to see if the pits and stakes she had worked so hard to bury elsewhere had actually been useful.

She hadn’t lived enough yet.

But there were far too many demons below the church. The dry wells had swallowed over a dozen, and the traps and pits had tripped up a few more, but the remaining number was still too great. If they scattered to chase the villagers retreating toward the woods, Renard and Joshua wouldn't be able to protect everyone. The villagers were slow, and the demons were fast; it wouldn't be long before people were torn apart at the edge of the forest.

She gripped the burning, pale pink pendant in her palm and lowered her head. Her white hair hung over her knees. She stared at her own pale fingers; they were trembling slightly.

“So hot,” she said.

Margarita Percy, you clearly only wanted to be an extra who survived.

But if things went this way, then the old nun at the church, the hunter captain, Joshua’s parents, her own mother—all these people of Percy Village wouldn't just be summarized by the simple words “village massacre,” would they?

She took a deep breath. She stuffed the pendant into the chamber of her gun and clicked it shut. She raised it and aimed it at her own temple.

Since you want it so badly, I’m just not going to let you have it.

The silver-white gun pressed against her temple. It felt somewhat cool. The temperature of the pale pink crystal in the cylinder quickly transferred through the metal, making her hand shake uncontrollably.

She looked toward the Eastern Woods.

The crowd had reached the edge of the forest and was retreating into its depths. Joshua stood at the very back, facing the village. He had stopped.

Across the twilight and the smoke, across half of the torn-apart village, he was looking at her. Perhaps it was because she was too prominent standing at the top of the church tower, her white hair flying like a flag in the wind. Perhaps that brief period of Sword Saint’s Intuition training had kicked in. Regardless, he didn’t retreat further; he stood his ground, iron sword hanging at his side, his entire body turned toward the church.

Margarita looked at him. From this distance, she couldn't see his expression clearly, but she knew those eyes—the same color as hers—must be locked onto her position right now. She curled the corners of her mouth into a smile. That smile was as gentle as ever; the curve of her lips and the corner of her eyes were no different from every time she had handed him a waterskin over the past year.

Don’t think about saving me, Joshua.

Her mouth opened. Her lips moved silently, forming the shapes of a few words.

“Don’t forget me.”

I’ll leave saving the world to you, Mr. Sword Saint.

Joshua froze. His body leaned forward slightly, as if he were about to run in her direction. His mouth opened as well, as if he were shouting something.

Margarita had already turned her head back. The demons below the church crowded together and surged toward the tower. The silver-white gun in her hand was pressed steadily against her temple, several strands of her wind-blown white hair resting across the weapon’s frame.

Her finger pulled the trigger.

“Bang.”

…

Pink light exploded from Margarita’s temple like a nebula blooming in mid-air, staining the entire church tower and its stone roof in pale pink.

The light poured from her shattered wound, flowing into her hair like molten starlight and washing over her cheeks, neck, and chest. Her body fell to the side, her long white hair spreading out in the air like a feather falling from the church tower.

Joshua saw it.

“MARGARITA!!!” His scream tore through the twilight. He charged forward two steps before Renard grabbed him. The boy’s knees slammed heavily into the ground; he hunched his back as if all his strength had been drained, broken and raspy sobs emerging from his throat. The blue stone pendant around his neck struck the stony ground, a fine crack appearing on its surface.

Beneath the church, Margarita’s body suddenly halted when it was less than a person’s height from the ground.

Pale pink starlight erupted, blooming around her like a translucent flower. The light condensed into fine threads that wrapped around her body, cradling her in mid-air. Within the wound at her temple where the bullet had passed through, fragments of starlight were seeping out from deep within the flesh, as if something were growing, stitching, and filling the gap from the inside.

She fell onto the stone tiles in front of the church, her body encased in that layer of pale pink light. The glow ebbed and flowed with her breathing, like a warm cocoon enveloping the girl curled on the stones.

Then her eyelashes fluttered, and those azure eyes opened a crack. Margarita lay on the cold stone, her white hair soaked in the spreading pink light. She looked at the patch of sky overhead that was gradually healing and blinked.

A warm current was flowing through her body. It was like blood, but lighter and brighter than blood. She tried to curl her fingers; a bit of pale pink starlight lit up at her fingertips.