SSS-Knight in a Hero World

"Howdy there!" she said her greetings to Ferris and pointed one of her guns at the top of his head.

However, the moment Evening even planned on pointing her gun, Ferris's blade was already on its way.

Relying purely on instincts and prediction was the strategy Ferris used to stay ahead of Miss Evening's actions.

The exact moment she aimed her gun was the exact moment Ferris's blade made contact with the silver barrel.

It was a clean cut, the sheer speed was enough to leave the shaved barrel smoking from the generated friction.

"Wow! Aren't you a quick shot," she praised the knight while looking at her now short-barrel revolver.

But that slash wasn't the only one coming for her.

Ferris shifted from his sitting position beside the fountain's rim to kneeling in front of Miss Evening's knees.

During the shift, he already had his sword prepared to cut horizontally across her legs.

Unfortunately, Ferris was an inch too short and a second too late as Miss Evening easily dodged his cut by simply jumping away and landing on top of the fountain's tip.

She gracefully landed like a ballet dancer, keeping balance using only the tips of her leather boots.

Pick a genre already... Ferris was beginning to feel annoyed that Evening was acting like a crazy woman and a graceful one at the same time.

To make it worse, she didn't even try counterattacking.

Evening discarded her sliced revolver and placed her open hand on her waistline. Then, with her gun-equipped hand, she rested that on top of her hips.

From Ferris's point of view, it looked as if she was posing for a photoshoot.

She wanted to kill us a few minutes ago, and now she doesn't? Ferris stood up and readied his sword.

Judas also stood up, but instead of focusing on Miss Evening, he was much more worried about the horde of villains that were about to come any second.

"...Ferris," Judas tapped the knight's shoulder."Focus on Miss Evening, I'll handle these guys."

Ferris twitched, "You're serious? Are you insane?" he refused.

He wanted to rant a bit more, but Evening suddenly called out to him with a loud and clear voice.

"You're really bad at this, aren't you?" She smirked as she spun her revolver playfully.

The knight was confused.

Seeing his expression, Evening continued speaking. "You're terrible when it comes to reading people. Don't you remember what happened back at the mall?" Evening smiled. She then pointed behind Ferris using her perked lips as a pointing finger.

He felt a missing presence... Did he actually?

Ferris looked behind him. He saw Judas running towards the horde by himself, leaving the bag he carried.

Damnit. Ferris concentrated his essence onto his legs so that he could close the distance between him and Judas.

But when he took one step, a small portion of the ground floor in front of him erupted into a tiny explosion, instantly followed by a loud bang.

Turning around, he saw that Miss Evening was pointing her gun at him before blowing the gun smoke away.

"He'll be fine, see?" She pointed her gun at Judas, but it wasn't meant for killing, only for pointing.

Ferris turned around again, and what he saw surprised him.

At the first engagement, Judas swiftly dodged the first attack thrown at him. But instead of stopping and counterattacking, Judas slapped the villain's face.

Almost instantly, Judas's real body collapsed, and the villain he slapped became his new vessel.

Judas grabbed his own body, but he did not carry himself. It seemed as if his body was in a state of half-awake and half-asleep, so Judas would occasionally nudge himself to prevent his body from falling.

All the while, he was trying to defend his original body using the weapons or blessings of the body he stole.

Ferris observed that Judas's fighting style was extremely reckless, taking in fatal damage and allowing certain attacks to connect, just so he could connect his own attack.

But that was a vessel. Judas wasn't concerned for his vessel's safety.

After the vessel was used up, he regained consciousness in his original body, and the cycle repeated.

Don't they need to be placed in a fear state? Ferris questioned.

There was something strange going on.

Each time Judas invaded someone's body, his original body would collapse. But now, his original body seemed to be awake. Sometimes the original body had a confused or fearful expression, and other times his eyes were just extremely wide open and not blinking.

And also, Judas began to transfer bodies on the get-go, without needing to return to his original body.

It was a confusing mess that even Ferris had difficulty following what was going on.

Judas, each time he transferred consciousness, seemed to become better and better at fighting.

It was becoming apparent to Ferris that it was hard to tell if the villain fighting the other villains was truly even Judas.

"Don't overthink it, your friend seems to be the type to love family." Evening sighed a breath of joy as she touched her chest. "He's considerate enough to even think how you'd react if he died," she added.

Ferris breathed out of his nose when she said those words.

"You should tell me what you're really after!" Ferris ordered.

"I only wanted to give you an honorable death." Miss Evening stared at Judas in the distance. "Having your friend fight with you wouldn't have made our fight a duel, now would it?"

She then returned her emerald gaze toward Ferris. "You've seen what your friend did to me for a bit. Do you really think he's all that he seems to be?"

. . .

Yes, I do.

Ferris stood silent for a bit, focusing on his mental clarity and breathing cycle.

The essence inside of him condensed into the form of a sword, gradually shaping it to his liking, then overlaid it on his sword.

"Let's see who's the better judge of character." Ferris pointed his sword essence at Evening, signaling her that he was ready to have the duel.

The woman smiled. She took out a small dagger from the opening of her cleavage and gripped it with its blade pointing backward.

A recognizable trait of assassins from elven descent. Ferris observed that fact extremely well.

"I wonder which knight house you came from? Not that it matters in this world," she said as her last question.

"You don't deserve to know anything about me," Ferris answered.

For some reason, Miss Evening found that line so hilarious that she even came up in front of Ferris to show her wide smile.

Now that it was a proper duel without interference, the two decided not to go all out yet.

They felt each other's strength and weaknesses, slowly understanding each other much like how some couples do so at night.

Despite Evening's shorter dagger, she made up for it with better essence control.

She knows sword essence... Ferris noticed.

But does she know swordsmanship? He decided on giving her a masterfully crafted feint, which she fell for.

After that, Ferris managed to sneak in a punch to the stomach, which Evening took on rather well—with a smile too.

"You're a hard man!" Evening shouted. Then she used her own essence to outspeed Ferris, managing to land an even harder punch on him.

Ferris was knocked a few feet away, but he was fine.

Though he was kicked far away enough for the other villains that slipped past Judas to change their target to himself.

But compared to Miss Evening, most of the villains—no matter how unique their blessings were—were simply too slow.

Slice.

Ferris sliced off one of the villain's heads, then proceeded to kick it towards Miss Evening like a football. However

Bang!

There was a huge sound that crackled across the area as the head exploded into a mist of fine red dust.

The real fight begins now. Ferris announced to himself. He saw that Miss Evening was finally using her gun again.