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Last Embryo Volume 4 Chapter 1 Part 4

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist

「Y-Yes master, that was indeed one of the very first lessons you have given me.」

Once again, Scathach’s words were right on the mark. The knowledge that he who will be able to fight on all of the ranges by using a versatile arsenal of weapons mastered to the absolute pinnacle of their abilities will always have advantage in battle, even if one would be vastly inferior to one’s opponents in terms of pure power.

However, as with all the things in this world, this is easier said than done.

On the battlefield, if you will not be able to judge and assert the situation around you properly, you might as well end up losing your life without actually fighting anyone. What you need is a calm and steady judgement to keep choosing the best possible solutions for any given situation, and the courage needed to face and overcome any opponent who might appear before you. If even one of those things is missing, you will not be able to utilize the martial arts taught by Scathach to their full potential.

「Back in those days, you had such an iron determination that you would cut down even gods or Buddhas if they were standing between you and your objective. If achieving your goal meant that you would have to crawl on the ground and slurp dirty, muddy water, you would have done that without a moment of hesitation. Your obsession with your goal and your conviction that you will definitely be able to achieve it were what allowed you to become The Queen’s Knight in the first place. But that was you from the past, an entirely different being? And now? Just look at you, not a damn ounce of courage to be seen in those scared, lifeless eyes of yours that are too afraid of me to even look at me while I am scolding you! As your master, I am ashamed to call someone as spineless as you my disciple!」

「Yes, you are right. I sincerely apologize for my incompetence.」

There were no other words Ayato could have used now, so she did the next best thing that she could. She apologized for being a disappointment to her master.

Now that Scathach has vented all of her anger on Ayato, she did not even want to look at her in such a pitiful state anymore, so she turned away from her and made her way to the door leading out from the training grounds, but stopped just as her hand was about to turn the doorknob, she glanced back at her disciple and proclaimed with a tone that was void of any emotions:

「I strongly advise you to take look at yourself in the mirror once more and think about why did you decided to fight. Because if you continue to be the way that you are now. . . then you will inevitably lose everything that you hold dear.」

And just like that, Scathach quickly left the training grounds without even looking back. Unable to respond to that emotionless voice of hers, Ayato could only stand there with her head held down and her teeth clenched so painfully hard that tears could well up in her eyes at any moment now.

Giant Spirit Train 『Sun Thousand』, inside of the 『Purple Smoke』 guest lounge.

The entire wagon, designed to look like a cozy bar lounge, was filled with the fumes of purple smoke meant to obstruct the field of vision of everyone who would come inside, preventing the patrons from discerning the identities of the other guests so as to avoid any trouble that could stem from any “accidental” meetings that could end in bloodshed the moment that things would get out of control. In addition to that, each and every seat in the lounge has been separated from one another with elegant curtains that were more like semi-permeable membranes, all of that for the sake of making sure that the guests sitting at the antique tables would not be allowed to spy on the conversations of those who were sitting at the tables next to theirs.

And in the middle of that sight-obscuring lounge, a young woman was now passing through with long, springy steps and her braided, wine-red hair swaying from one side to the other as she was heading straight towards her destination: the V.I.P room in the innermost part of the lounge. That woman was none other than Scathach.

In most of the civilized cultures around the world, it is said that the way a person walks can tell you all you need to know about them, including how they are feeling at any given moment, so if we were to take that rule and applied it to the current Scathach and her relentless way of walking that would make everyone move out of her way if they valued their lives, then we would come to quite an obvious conclusion, since it was not that difficult to guess what kind of emotion had her firmly in its grasp since a while ago.

Right now, at this very moment, Scathach was angry. Very, very angry.

She had many disciples across the entire span of her lifetime, and they were all unique individuals, but there was one thing that each and every one of them had in common with all the others: if asked to describe her whenever she got angry, they would all use one of the following words: Demon, Devil, Demon Lord, Nightmarish Woman, Walking Cataclysm and so on and so forth, but the truth was that during the times of peace, she was rather calm and collected, and she definitely was not someone who could be said to have a short temper, and she is most definitely not someone who would be easy to anger. . .

But now, there she was, dashing forward while pushing away the clouds of purple smoke in a clearly agitated state. And she probably would have continued to do so if it was not for Miss Uesugi, who appeared seemingly out of nowhere and caught up to her halfway through the lounge after apparently running all the way here from the training grounds on the terrace on the higher floors, as it was indicated by her somewhat ragged breath.

「Lady Scathach! Please wait a moment!」

「My oh my, if it is not Miss Uesugi? What seems to be the matter? Do you have some other business with me?」

「Yes, and I am glad that I managed to catch up to you so fast. Good thing that my guess that you are going to go to the same place that I wanted to go to turned out to be the correct one!」

「Indeed it was. So, what is this about?」

「Are you really fine with that? Leaving Miss Ayato like that, I mean.」

「And why would I not be fine with that? I said everything that I wanted to say to her, as master would to her disciple. Whatever she chooses to do with the words of advice that I have given her, it is going to be her problem, not mine.」

「Are you really sure about that? Because for someone who thinks they are in the right, you seemed to be quite angry back there. In fact, you still seem to be no less angry right now.」

Uesugi remarked matter-of-factly when they reached the V.I.P room reserved specifically for the personal use of Queen Halloween and her servants.

It was Uesugi herself who said that it was all right for humans to have their own series of ups and downs. When something that they do not like happens, humans have every right in the world to get angry about that, and the same rule applies to Scathach, who was originally also a child of man. It is exactly for that reason that Uesugi understood why she would want to blow off all of the anger she accumulated by getting herself white-girl-wasted in absolute solitude, but her hunch was telling her that she should not be allowed to do that, or at the very least not before Uesugi would get what she wanted out of her, which is the reason why she ran after her in the first place.

Sighing pretty heavily, Scathach leaned against the door of the V.I.P room with an expression of annoyance written all over her face.

「Whatever you might be thinking, do not get the wrong idea. I am not angry about Ayato’s loss during that mock battle earlier, since that could not be helped if she had you as her sparring partner.」

「Oh really? But no, like seriously. . . you are not? Because it sure did not look like that. By the time you were done, Ayato looked like she was about to cry. . . and to be completely honest with you, I do feel a little bit sorry for her.」