Chapter 4 : Tag (4)
Chapter 4 : Tag (4)
Kaltara picked up Agnes.
Then, Agnes said in a sharp tone.
"What are you doing?"
"What does it look like? Carrying you. It's hard to protect you in a mansion where everything is blocked off like this."
"Put me down. I'm going to wait until Deltain comes."
"He's not coming."
"He will."
Kaltara squeezed Agnes's butt hard.
"Hngh...!"
Agnes's body stiffened.
Kaltara laughed heartily and said.
"Firm. It's fun to touch."
"Don't touch me carelessly. I'm Deltain's."
"Oh my, then does that make me and the Boss hole-brothers?"
"What..."
"Say that again, and it won't end this easily."
Agnes's mouth clamped shut.
She glared at Kaltara with a look of spite, which was unlike her.
Kaltara was pleased with every reaction.
After all, it was only natural to be pleased, thinking that the current appearance of Agnes was the true feelings she had been hiding all along.
"Whining about having no attachment to life, yet trying to take everything you can. There's no brat like this brat."
Kaltara exited the mansion.
There, the Levadein knights had already come out armed.
"Sir Kaltara. The Young Lady is..."
"I'm taking her! The Boss ordered me!"
As soon as people gathered nearby, Kaltara started acting like a fool.
Then, she pushed through them in a truly barbarian-like manner.
Yet, the fact that she positioned herself to keep Agnes comfortable in her arms showed just how delicate a knight she was.
They reached the street.
As soon as people disappeared from the surroundings, Agnes opened her mouth.
"Where are we going?"
"We're going to the Hebron Duchy. We need more Hounds."
"I want to see Deltain."
"I hope the demon is caught soon. I'm looking forward to seeing the Young Lady trembling in shame and wailing."
"I'm going to sleep with Deltain. He said he'd sleep with me if I knelt and begged."
"Good luck with that."
Kaltara let out an exclamation inwardly.
'Incredible.'
It wasn't about her true feelings, but about her resistance to temptation.
Agnes Levadein's resistance to temptation was disastrous.
At least among the humans Kaltara knew, there was no one as vulnerable to temptation as her.
To put it in one word, it was like that.
'Not just her body, but her mind is made of glass.'
Perhaps if this weren't the Imperial Capital, and if Deltain's 'Saint Hall' hadn't been there until now, Agnes would have been the first to be bewitched by the demon and die.
While such thoughts continued.
[Kaltara.]
A voice was heard through a crackling sound.
It was above her head.
Kaltara and Agnes lifted their heads at the same time.
"It's Deltain."
Agnes murmured with a bright smile.
But what was there was not Deltain, but an Auto-drone.
His magic tool.
[...Why is she like that again?]
"She's soaked in temptation! Her resistance is at a bug-level!"
A voice that sounded like a sigh flowed out of the Auto-drone.
[...Right, that's enough. The demon that appeared on the surface. Did you catch it?]
"Aye! I threw a pen and caught it!"
[Good, keep catching them. Release all the other Hounds.]
"What will the Boss do?"
[I'm going to stop the Saint Hall. Demons will swarm, so move as busily as you can. Imperial troops will come out too.]
"What about the Young Lady?"
[Dump her at my mansion. It'll be safe there.]
"Understood! Good luck!"
The Auto-drone didn't answer and rose into the sky.
Agnes watched the departing drone with a face full of lingering attachment, then said.
"Deltain left."
"He was never here. Now stop it and let's go."
Agnes's shoulders trembled slightly.
It was a state where emotions now dominated even her body.
From Kaltara's perspective, it looked like she had regressed to a toddler.
*
Hebron Duchy.
Kaltara, who entered Deltain's bedroom, laid Agnes on the bed with the most careful movements she could manage.
"As for preparing for the demons, this place is safer than the Emperor's chambers. Stay quiet."
Agnes didn't listen to Kaltara's words.
From the moment she heard that this was where Deltain slept, she started giggling, then burrowed into the blankets and sniffed the scent of the bed.
Kaltara smacked her lips, scratched the back of her head, and exited the room.
The bedroom door locked with a click.
'Hmm... the Boss will handle the rest.'
There was no anxiety that Agnes, left alone, might commit suicide.
To Kaltara's sensitive ears as she left, the moans coming from the bedroom were clearly audible.
*
<4th-tier magic: Phase Shift activated.>
<Remaining players: 4>
The space flipped.
Deltain, who had been closing his eyes deep in the underground waterway, opened them again above the Imperial Capital, Tardan.
What escaped his mouth was a sigh.
It was a breath that came out because of Agnes's state, which he had seen through the drone just before.
'The state is more serious than I thought.'
If things went on like this, he had to consider the aftereffects of the temptation.
It wasn't just the shame that would come when her reason returned.
Once emotional fluctuations swung wildly, there were cases where it affected her ability to think for a while afterward.
Deltain clicked his tongue, 'Tsk,' and released his mana.
'It was me who was the problem in the first place. No, the Saint Hall was the problem.'
Now he could be sure.
Why the demon named Gaias hadn't been caught until now, and why demons were springing up to the surface, piercing through the Saint Hall.
'There were clues from the start. In the signs, and in the quests.'
Those tempted by Gaias hear Gaias's name in their dreams.
And they feel pain in their hearts.
That wasn't all.
Deltain looked at the list of DLC materials, not the tag game.
Written there was the sentence, '2. Gaias's Heart (Incomplete).'
'Heart. The heart itself is Gaias's authority.'
Deltain recalled the organ called the 'heart' that he knew.
'Center, control, management. And the beginning and the end.'
The heart pumps blood throughout the body.
And it purifies the blood mixed with waste products again.
If one applied this to the demon, it was like that.
'Gaias is a Monarch-type demon. A form that uses other demons as subordinates to increase its power.'
Deltain looked down at the Imperial Capital.
There was a city that shone brightly even in the dark night like this.
'My infection must have affected the Saint Hall as well. The Saint Hall itself became Gaias's blood vessels.'
The origin of the players who popped out from who knows where was also clear now.
'They popped out of the Saint Hall.'
Gaias must have encroached on the Saint Hall and changed the nature of the magic.
Only after confirming that the Saint Hall's formula had changed did Deltain burst into a hollow laugh.
'The anti-demon formula is collapsed.'
The formula had been cleverly twisted into a spell that hides demonic energy.
Deltain's gold eyes shone darkly.
'Very....'
He had been properly backstabbed.
Deltain felt a huge scar on his pride and raised his hand.
Four players remained.
Considering that Kaltara had taken care of one and the drone had taken care of one, the number was exactly right.
Perhaps once he cleared all those demons, Gaias would pop out.
Deltain willingly sent praise for Gaias's cunning.
"You used your head quite well for your station."
Murmuring that, he released his mana.
It was mana with a clear sign of anger.
A deep blue mist that stretched out endlessly filled the sky over the Imperial Capital.
The heads of the knights who were fighting battles under the ground turned toward the sky.
The sky had become bright.
Kugugung.
A roar rang out from the sky.
Deltain waved his hand and commanded the mana.
'If the Saint Hall is the problem.'
Then he just had to turn it off.
<4th-tier magic: Saint Hall stopped.>
The city lights disappeared.
Four demons popped out from the center of the Imperial Capital, the part that was the center in the design of the Saint Hall.
At the same time, screams were heard from outside the city walls.
*
Kaltara laughed loudly as she saw the demons that had appeared suddenly.
"A welcome sight!"
What was in front of her was a Demon of Struggle.
Six arms full of muscles and a long waist.
And the 16 pairs of sleek legs extending from the pelvis, which continued long like a tail, were a quite welcome shape to Kaltara.
After all, that was because it was a demon that wielded physical strength, which was rare among demons.
"A high-ranking demon!"
The demon looked down at Kaltara with a face reminiscent of a noble lady.
[Ugh...]
The surrounding knights stepped back, feet shuffling.
It was because of the bizarre shape and the demonic energy emitting from the demon.
Even so, Kaltara faced the demon with an excited face.
No other words were exchanged.
Kaltara clenched both fists and shot toward the demon.
Bang!
Kaltara, who had flown up, struck the demon's cheek with her fist.
Then, the demon hugged Kaltara with its six arms.
Immediately after, thorns sprouted from the demon's arms.
'Prujik'—a sound of flesh being crushed rang out.
"Sir!"
One knight let out a shrill scream.
The scene in front of them was so horrific.
Kaltara had been hit.
Five in the head, two in the neck, eight each in the chest, arms, and waist, and finally, her legs were pierced at the knees and ankles.
While a deep fear floated on the knight's face at that.
"It's fine."
Her senior knight said.
"She's doing that on purpose."
The knight was looking at Kaltara with a gaze as if looking at a monster.
He knew.
In what way Kaltara fought.
Pudeudeuk.
Kaltara, whose whole body was pierced by skewers, rolled her eyes.
Despite being in a state where she should have already been dead, she was just smiling brightly as if nothing were wrong.
"It hurts!"
Her brain was pierced.
Her respiratory system was pierced, her heart was pierced, and her digestive system was pierced.
Even so, Kaltara did not die.
The knight who had been surprised and screamed at first made a dumbfounded face.
It was because it was a causality that could not be understood by his common sense.
Meanwhile, the senior knight said.
"Leave this place to her and go. The Saint Hall has been turned off. We need to go support the city gate side."
"But..."
"Do you know why that woman is called a masochist?"
The knight's mouth shut.
It was because he thought it didn't seem like the right thing to say in this situation.
The senior knight continued in a tone full of eeriness.
"Because she becomes stronger in pain. And because she never dies unless her whole body is shredded."
At the same time as those words, Kaltara's muscles tightened.
The thorns that were piercing her body broke with a 'Ppakak' sound.
As the knight said, Kaltara was feeling strength that had become stronger than before.
She was letting out a laugh as if pleased by it.
"Hmm, good."
This much was enough.
Kaltara, having judged so, released her mana.
Red fighting spirit soared from her whole body.
The demon, feeling that, tried to move away from Kaltara, but the distance was too close.
Kaltara reached out and grabbed the demon's neck.
And clenched her other fist.
"Die!"
Bang!
The fist was driven into the demon's face.
The face that had looked like a noble lady was sunken and hollowed out.
Kaltara did not stop.
She extended the fist she had retracted again.
And retracted and extended it again.
In the continuous barrage of attacks accompanied by roars, the demon could not manage any resistance and was busy just taking them.
The surroundings were silently quiet.
Because it was a fight where she just swung her fists with her bare body without any formality or anything, everyone except the senior knight who knew about her was at a loss for words.
"That is..."
"A Lord-class knight. And the head of the Hounds."
Masochist Kaltara.
One of the only three Lord-class knights in this empire and the captain of the 'Hounds of Hebron'.
There was only one reason why she could receive such recognition despite being a barbarian.
Because she was that strong.
A mercenary who was classified as S-rank even within the game.
A weapon that Deltain had carefully managed and raised from the early days.
And the strongest among them.
Need more words than this?
She was, in name and reality, the masterpiece of Deltain Hebron.
Bang!
With the sound, the demon fell.