Double Play
Caution: The following may contain somewhat graphic descriptions.
“...So she wasn’t an ordinary fairy after all.”
The Hunter cast a sidelong glance at Fortuna as she slipped into combat mode, forcing himself to deliver the observation with carefully cultivated calm. In truth he was thoroughly shocked, yet prior intelligence that the notoriously sharp-eyed head receptionist was paying extraordinary attention to a mere summon had allowed him to cling to his composure with difficulty.
That composure lasted only a moment.
“W-What?!”
For some reason the monsters had come to a halt, and the sight of her radiating dazzlingly brilliant holy power shattered his calm in an instant.
“Hyaaaaah!!!”
Thud!
“Guhk!”
“...”
When she let out a thunderous battle cry and swung her hammer, sending a minotaur several times her size flying in an utterly undignified heap, pure astonishment seized him.
...How in the world?
He could somehow accept that she had blasted the minotaur away. It would be extremely difficult, but combining strength-related abilities with holy arts—buffs—made it not entirely impossible. Extremely difficult, yes!
But using holy arts, using holy power itself, was something that should never have been possible, something that must not be possible.
Is it broken?
The Hunter lowered his gaze to the grotesque mark etched into the back of his left hand—the Demon King’s Token. The mark glowed with a soft crimson light, as if to assure him nothing was wrong. It was functioning normally.
Confusion only deepened. When the Token was properly active, holy power could not be used in its vicinity. The Token declared dominion over the area and blocked God Bright’s intervention. The effect was possible only inside a labyrinth or the Demon King’s castle where the Demon King’s power ran thick, yet even that alone was an outrageous function—more unbelievable than gaining power through sacrifice.
For the past five days he had conducted experiments while gorging himself, and those experiments had thoroughly confirmed the fact.
So how is that fairy using it?!
The Hunter did not know. Fortuna was no ordinary priest who absorbed mana through a core and offered it to a god in exchange for holy power. She was an angel who could generate holy power herself.
In any case, the fact that Fortuna could wield holy power was extremely bad news for the Hunter and the rest of Jun’s enemies. Anyone who mattered already knew that Jun’s Stigma carried possession-type holy arts. Naturally those who had sharpened their blades to bring him down knew it as well.
Possession-type holy arts could only be used by high-ranking clergy such as saints or holy women, and the cost was enormous—yet their performance was correspondingly overwhelming. The reason they had still attacked him with fewer than ten people was that they had trusted the Token’s function.
If we can just seal the possession arts, we can take him down. He’s walked straight into the tiger’s den.
That was what they had believed. Now it looked as though they themselves had dragged a tiger into a den with no escape.
Is he really that precious to you?
The Hunter found himself resenting God Bright anew. If only the god had spared even a fraction of the attention lavished on that man—just a tiny bit—things would never have fallen apart this badly.
A single gunshot shattered his brooding.
Bang!
“Kgh!”
“Betty!”
“Careless! Complacency is death!”
“I disliked you from the first moment I laid eyes on you. The disgraceful spectacle of you, who do not know your place, daring to try and claim my husband.”
The noble young lady reflexively raised her shield and blocked the bullet. As she groaned from the impact, the elf archer and the female mage shielded her with their own bodies. Looking down on them with icy contempt stood a spirit that had, at some point, taken on human size like a fairy. Even filled with scorn, her beauty was breathtaking, and despite her small frame an inexplicable vastness radiated from her. The Hunter despaired once more. Even the spirit was no ordinary creature.
“Darling...”
“Boss, what do we do?”
The dancer and the barbarian warrior approached, faces pale. Hovering precariously at the Green rank, they seemed no longer able to endure the debuff magic the man had cast.
How utterly absurd.
“...Change of plans. Take down the spirit and the dark elf first.”
The Hunter lamented inwardly even as he issued the order with outward coldness. He was a hunter, not frightened prey. He would rather die than submit quietly to being hunted.
“Dancer, warrior—target the spirit. Hey! How long are you going to stay down?! You think that monster will spare even a scrap of attention for your woman if you keep lying there?!”
“Kgh! Shut your mouth! How dare a commoner mock me!”
A light prod to her pride was enough. Betty gritted her teeth, rose, and charged straight at Dohwa with her shield raised. The dancer and the warrior followed hard on her heels.
“Mage, prepare something big! Elf! You and I are going to wreck that black bitch!”
“Heeheehee! I’ll burn them all to ash!”
“Just what I wanted.”
While the female mage cackled and began preparing her spell, the Hunter and the elf archer strained their eyes searching for Rebecca. No matter how thoroughly they looked, they could not find her.
“...Where did she go?”
“Be careful. Those black ones are as black inside as they are outside. There’s no telling what they’ll do.”
“Well, I won’t deny it this time.”
The moment the elf archer murmured her low warning, Rebecca’s voice sounded from behind them. Both spun and drew their secondary short swords, swinging toward their rear.
“Mmph! Mmph!”
Or rather, they tried to. The sight of Rebecca standing behind the female mage, one hand clamped over her mouth and a sharp dagger pressed to her throat, stopped them cold.
“Kgh! Cowardly. This is why black ones are—”
“...You’re more aggressive than I expected. Is that all right? Your husband will despise you for it.”
The elf archer glared at Rebecca as though she meant to kill her. The Hunter tried to talk his way out of the situation.
“That’s right. We dark elves spare no means to achieve our goals. Fortunately my husband finds that quality quite charming. Far better, he says, than pretending to be pure and losing what you aim for.”
Unfortunately for the two of them—and for the female mage as well—Rebecca paid them not the slightest heed. She even took the leisure to provoke the elf archer further.
“Someone like you... someone like you has no right to stand at his side!”
The provocation worked. The elf archer’s eyes flashed and she lunged at Rebecca, as if the female mage’s life meant nothing.
“Mmph!”
Gulp.
In her panic the female mage involuntarily swallowed the tiny object that had entered her mouth the instant Rebecca struck from behind. Rebecca’s keen hearing caught it at once. She shoved the mage toward the Hunter, who was watching for an opening, then used the dagger still at the woman’s throat to parry the elf archer’s short sword.
Sparks flew between the clashing blades—and at the same moment:
“S-Save me!”
Boom!
“!!!”
The tiny object that had gone into Rose’s stomach—a miniature bomb—detonated. Being small, the blast was not powerful enough to rupture her belly, yet that did not mean the inside of Rose’s abdomen remained intact.
“Uweeeek!!!”
Rose, who had been gaping in a silent scream, vomited a fountain of bright-red blood and fragments of stomach. The Hunter, who had instinctively caught her, was unfortunate enough to be drenched in all of it. Even a man who had seen every filthy sight imaginable felt his mind go blank for that instant.
Exactly the reaction Rebecca had wanted.
Tap.
While still trading blows with the elf archer, Rebecca drew another bomb from the shadow at her feet and, under the guise of shifting her stance, casually kicked it between the Hunter’s legs.
Boom!
“Gyaaaah!!!”
Another explosion, followed immediately by a scream. There was no need to check the result.
“H-How... how could you do something so cruel—not once, but twice!”
The elf archer, who had forced herself to look, turned deathly pale and shuddered. Rebecca paid her no mind this time either. Of course she did not forget to provoke.
“That’s exactly why you little hyangs are no good. In the ruthless world of true contests you still spit out trivial words like ‘cowardly’ or ‘cruel.’ Tsk tsk.”
“Hmph! It was precisely because we cared about such things that we elves became the representatives of the coalition—and precisely because you didn’t that you dark elves were driven out.”
“Well, I won’t deny it. Honestly, I’ve long thought that side of the dark elves was a bit excessive. I even considered correcting it.”
Far from denying it, Rebecca agreed with refreshing candor. Yet for some reason the elf archer found that reaction more frightening than any exchange of sharp words. The feeling proved accurate.
The moment Rebecca bashfully flushed and stroked her lower belly, the elf archer knew.
“But as I said earlier, my husband finds that side of the dark elves extremely pleasing. I had meant to correct it for fear of any bad influence on the child, yet...”
“S-Stop. No more!”
The elf archer clamped both hands over her ears and shook her head, unwilling to hear another word. Rebecca, of course, had no intention of granting the request. She stroked her lower belly—slightly rounded from what she had filled it with that very morning—with an even more suggestive caress and continued.
“My husband, my lord, desperately stopped me. Right here, in this nursery that is now his, he poured his seed into me until it was full.”
“No!!!”
The elf archer screamed and raised her short sword. In that instant a black thorn erupted from her own shadow and pierced her abdomen.
“Gahk! Kgh!”
“I told you, didn’t I? We spare no means.”
With those words Rebecca turned away without a shred of lingering attachment. The elf archer, hanging from the black thorn, stretched a hand toward her—as if trying to reclaim something that should originally have been hers. But her hand never touched anything.