Lillian, who was squinting her eyes at Marionette, managed to make out a thin and shallow red line on the woman's cheek.
She pumped her fist into the air, proud of herself for being able to reach the woman and injure her finally.
Maybe the secret to doing it was just to speed up her attacks.
She then frowned.
"But that's quite difficult to do..."
She scratched the back of her head.
The effort of manipulating an element ultimately comes down to both mana and mental capacity to calculate.
'Sure... I don't have to do anything as complicated as calculating math and physics in my head... Actually scratch that, there might be some physics involved, but I do have to account for a lot of things.'
She needed to factor in the speed, direction, and movement of the objects she sent out. Those were some of the examples.
If she ever wanted to make her attack reach a higher speed, her mind would need to be able to either react to it or think at the same speed as it.
This was also the reason why someone such as Reph, ironically, wasn't able to send out attacks at the speed of light. Of course, in the future, he would be able to, but not now.
She pulled her attention back towards Marionette, finding something odd happening to her.
Coming from her body was a shadowy aura that encased her entire body. Following that, she seemed to grow shorter and shorter, as though she was sinking into the ground.
And eventually...
Her entire figure disappeared.
She had indeed sunk into the ground.
"Eh? Where did she go?" Lillian muttered, startled.
She then widened her eyes.
"Wait! Is she using her element now?!"
She squinted her eyes, trying to find traces of a particular black puddle.
But there was nothing.
Had Marionette already made her way into the forest?!
As she was thinking this, a dark, ethereal arm made its way around her neck, slowly transitioning to a lighter colour.
Lillian froze, feeling something up against her neck and tightened on it. She tightly clutched the forearm out of instinct, trying to prevent being choked out by it.
She then felt something press against the side of her head.
BANG!
Marionette, having just pressed her gun against Lillian's head and blown her brains out, watched as the edges of the girl's figure lit up with a blue particle.
Before the girl could disappear and respawn, she lowered her gun and then wrapped her arms around the girl's body, hugging her tightly.
While this was a bit strange for her to do, considering she was practically embracing Lillian's corpse, she did it because she had not been able to for the entire day.
Due to Lillian's mother being around them at all times now, she hadn't managed to find a chance to embrace the girl like this until now.
Although she could have done it much earlier, she'd rather look mature and well-mannered in front of the girl's mother just to continue being on her good side.
Eventually, Lillian's body disappeared and respawned back in the centre of where they were sparing previously.
Lillian, having come back, stared at the sky with a deadpan expression.
She then rubbed the side of her head, specifically the area where Marionette had blown her head open.
She glanced up, noticing the Assassin's intentional sounds of footsteps.
Marionette crouched, craning her head as she looked down on Lillian.
"Are you okay?" She asked plainly.
Lillian nodded, still rubbing the side of her head with a confused expression.
"Could I ask you something, Mari?"
"Sure. Do filter it to where I can actually speak about it."
"..."
Lillian silently stared at her before speaking with a firm expression:
"What colour are your panties?"
"Black."
Lillian narrowed her eyes, glancing down away from the Assassin's face and trying to peek under the woman's skirt, only to fail as darkness prevented her from seeing.
It was something that the Assassin did unconsciously to prevent anyone from looking under her skirt.
'It's definitely effective...' Lillian thought, squinting.
"Can't even let me take a peek?"
Marionette tilted her head, "You want a peek at my underwear?"
Her hair fell to one side, causing the smile that had appeared on the woman's face to become more mischievous than it actually was.
"Quite bold and perverse of you. Are you sure you want to do it here?"
Marionette rested the side of her face into her palm, her smile growing, "If you want, I could change the scenery to a beach one. I'm sure that'll be fitting—"
Lillian's face twitched as a wry smile spread across her face.
"You call me perverse when you're the one insinuating that I want to do it."
She then paused before pointing at the black-haired woman.
"That beach idea sounds good. Pin that, honey."
Marionette nodded, even chuckling a bit. She watched as Lillian lowered her hand to the side of her, still wondering about something.
This piqued the Assassin's curiosity.
"Is there something wrong, Lillian?"
"Uhm... Have you been doing anything to the pain inhibitor?"
Lillian wasn't sure why, but she felt as though the pain every time she died increased ever so slightly. She wasn't sure whether she was just feeling sensitive or just losing her mind.
Fortunately for her sanity, she got her answer.
Marionette nodded.
"Mhm. I've been lowering the inhibitor ever so slightly. Just so you could become more tolerant of pain in the future."
Lillian narrowed her eyes on her.
She then raised her hand to the air, summoning a system screen that was linked to the virtual reality and looked through the pain scroller and checked its current percentage.
What had used to be at a quarter of a hundred had now become three-quarters!
The woman really had been increasing the pain she was receiving!
"Here I thought I was going insane!"
"For me?"
Marionette tilted her head, continuing to tease Lillian, who stared back with a deadpan expression, which she dropped almost instantly into a chuckle.
"Pfft! Yeah... Always."