Are We Trapped?

"Rested enough? ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Let's start again."

Pele tucked her smartphone into the deep cleft of her breasts.

"......We're not about to become her punching bags, are we?"

"Quiet. Keep your mouth shut."

Struck by the unpleasant certainty that they were about to be thrashed for no good reason, Dan Miryong gave voice to his worry. Alexei, speaking from a married man's hard-won experience, offered his advice.

"If that fool isn't an idiot, he's already sprinting here like a madman. Until then, we only have to hold out. More or less."

"More or less......? Against that?"

Dan Miryong indicated Pele with a look. She was warming up, driving a spear of fire into empty air, and every thrust sent flame shooting in a straight line from its tip, boring a highway clean through the jungle.

"Can't quite get a handle on my strength, huh?"

Pele scratched her head. The gesture was as awkward as if she had killed someone by accident.

"We're going to be well-done the moment this starts."

"Can't be helped. I hate it more than I can say, but we've got no choice but to leave our lives in that bastard's hands."

Had it been anything else, he would have meddled somehow, or at least offered a sharp word. Of all things, it had to be love. Alexei was a married man with a daughter besides, and the only reason that marriage had ever succeeded was his wife's initiative.

A Russian mercenary had never learned how to court anyone. He was confident enough in his technique in bed.

"Damn it. We don't even know when he'll show."

"Who knows. About everything else, I'm less sure."

Kukukung!!!

"That he's on his way, though—that much is certain."

"If he's late, I'll kill him first!"

Dan Miryong and Alexei dropped into fighting stances.

At once Dan Miryong awakened the malice sleeping inside him through Dragon Transformation, while Alexei filled the space around them with Slash and Strike.

This was not power anyone could mistake for training. The fighting spirit of warriors with life and death before their eyes swallowed the jungle whole.

Their opponent, however, was the chief goddess of an entire myth. Human strength fell infinitely short of reaching her.

Pele came toward them with the corners of her eyes curved like crescent moons, spear tucked at her hip, and she tasted their fighting spirit as if it were something adorable.

"I can see what you're thinking. I'm not that petty a god. I haven't lived so carelessly that my feelings would wreck the work."

For the record, Pele had once been turned down after a confession, because in her prime her personality was such complete garbage that men found her terrifying. I'll spare you the details of what became of that man afterward.

"Well, colliding for real just once ought to be fine. Live combat beats training."

Pele settled into a spearman's stance. The spear of fire, its shape still indistinct, grew sharp and clear until it was a long crimson lance.

She crooked a finger. Twice.

"Come on in. I'll go just hard enough that you don't die."

"Kraaaap!"

Alexei took the vanguard and hurled a Slash. The colorless cut flew on, carving a long scar through the earth, and aimed for the goddess's throat.

Dan Miryong spat a breath from his mouth, and the transparent Slash hid itself inside it.

"You've already used that one, haven't you? No imagination."

Pele swept her spear through a wave of flame that towered five stories high and split it clean. Top and bottom divided into exact halves, and through the gap two silhouettes could be glimpsed scattering apart.

In an instant Alexei and Dan Miryong had seized the left and the right. Pele floated her spear in the air and spun it round and round. Beams of fire, planed into straight lines, shot from the spearhead and the butt and drove forward.

"Kh!"

"Ugh!"

The beams closed in, casually outrunning the speed of sound. Alexei blocked with his sword. Dan Miryong barely answered by twisting his body.

Teeth clenched, Alexei managed to hold along the line of his retreat as he was driven back. The scales on the shoulder Dan Miryong had only barely grazed were torn away entirely.

Dan Miryong frowned at the pain of blood running down his shoulder and complained.

"You're putting an awful lot of feeling into this, aren't you?"

"If you can't handle that much, you're no use to me."

Dan Miryong ducked until his upper body touched the ground. A horizontal cut followed over his head.

Jungle trees that had stood ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a good several dozen meters tall snapped off in a rush, like blocks of sliced tofu. They fell the way a greater shadow falls across a lesser one.

"Kraaaaa!!!"

Dan Miryong spread his wings and charged like a shaft of light. Rather than dodge the falling trees, he meant to take Pele as his shield and go under with her.

Puk!

Dan Miryong's head snapped back. His jaw took the blow, and shattered teeth stitched themselves across the air.

The spear that had rapped his chin drew back, then drove in as if sucked toward the dragon's chest, left utterly defenseless.

Kwang!

"Kehek!"

Dan Miryong flew back faster than he had come. A great hole punched through the heap of trees he had been trying to avoid.

Kugugung!

The pile of ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠trees settled onto the ground. Dirt exploded sky-high, and for a moment vision was cut short.

Pele moved her spear as her divine sense led her. Chang! The feeling of something striking the spear's tip climbed all the way into her hand.

"A feint?"

That last one had been an illusion. The real attack was at her back.

The spear's inward drive had broken her stance, and the other side was faster than she could set herself to rights. There was time enough, though, for fire to bloom.

A beam of fire passed her back, screaming ‍‍‌‌⁠⁠‌‍‍‌⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠‌‌‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠destruction. The Slash, carrying his full power, was shredded to pieces as if it were paper.

The dust scattered outward with Pele at its center, as if a gale had struck, and vision brightened again.

Her arms and legs drew in with agile precision. One elbow and one knee pressed at once, from above and from below, and stopped the greatsword that had only just been about to touch her side.

Thud!

The greatsword halted without so much as a millimeter of give. The Slash wound around the upper part of the blade never reached the destination it wanted.

Jjijik.

"Oh."

A long line opened along Pele's flank. Droplets of blood welled up, bead by bead.

"One was an obvious feint. The other was a feint dressed up as the real thing. Your sense has gotten sharper, hasn't it? I'll have to dock you, though. That was no combo with Draggy."

"......"

Alexei gripped his sword hilt hard. Even with the blow he had pinned his hopes on stopped cold, his fire had not gone out.

Pele's divine sense rang an alarm.

"Not a double. A triple?"

"Would I have stood there doing nothing while someone bought me time?"

The very brief opening Dan Miryong had won him—Alexei had used it to scatter ultra-fine Slashes like dust. Each one was paltry on its own, a Slash the divine sense judged no threat at all, but if those Slashes linked together like thread......

The dust clinging to Pele connected. Hairline cracks spread over her whole body, as if she were bound in a spider's web.

"Impressive. You got me."

Pele was genuinely impressed—enough, even, to forget for a moment the damned husband cramming her thoughts full.

"I couldn't think of any way to slip your divine sense, so I changed my approach."

"An attack that, whether the divine sense ignores it or catches it, is already too late......"

It was an art impossible without exhaustive study of one's target, and without complete command of one's own ability.

"This... only a god could withstand it, couldn't they?"

Pele released the greatsword and stepped back. The hairline cracks etched into her like tattoos became Slashes.

Kwakwakwa!!!

A storm of blades raged. Hundreds, thousands of edges rose, confined to the prison of flesh.

Alexei hauled in a breath and set his sword upright. The goddess had not fallen yet. She was only bleeding like a waterfall and recovering, over and over. The instant the storm ended, she would be on them.

Is he not coming?

He had done all he could. He had even landed a blow on a goddess in a foul mood. Who could blame him?

Damn it all, the storm ended in no time. Pele, her spirits high, smiled like a mischievous brat.

"Well then, shall we keep going? Bring out everything you've got. Let's see if this training has any flavor."

Blyat.

Alexei muttered the curse under his breath and looked around, pouring his last hope into the glance.

"......Hoo."

Then he let out a sigh of relief and lowered his sword.

"Hm?"

Before Pele could shape the question, someone appeared and wrapped her in an embrace from behind.

"Pele, I've kept you waiting, haven't I?"

"......"

The smile that had brimmed with fighting spirit had, before anyone noticed, become a woman's.

"Why did you come? Wouldn't you rather be enjoying yourself somewhere better?"

"I don't play with women who have no heart for me."

"Hmph. Liar."

"Would I bandy lies about in front of a god? I'd be found out at once."

"Funny. So you're saying you do it to other people?"

"Then I suppose I'll be a truthful man to a god alone."

"......Mm."

The corners of Pele's mouth twitched.

"That tongue of yours runs awfully smooth. That's how you sweet-talk women, isn't it?"

"Pele."

The Phantom Thief lifted his mask just enough to bare his mouth. Soft lips whispered at the goddess's ear.

"Do you want me to mean it? Think you can handle that?"

"......!"

"Shall I? For real?"

Pele's eyes rolled back. The Phantom Thief undid the back hug by a hair's breadth and slipped free.

"......I'll forgive you, so come here."

"Please be satisfied with the back hug. I haven't even given Hong Yumin that much."

"Shut up and get over here!"

Kraaaaa!!!

The goddess's roar shook the space itself.

"If she catches me, confinement won't be the end of it!"

"Come here!!!"

The Phantom Thief erased his presence and fled. Pele chased after him like a monkey in heat.

"......Is it over?"

Dan Miryong appeared, rubbing at his chest.

"Yeah. For the moment."

"I'm sick to death of this. I want to get out and rest."

"Agreed."

Alexei and Dan Miryong hurried toward the door.

"......Where did the door go?"

"......"

The door they had come and gone by had vanished without a trace. The cause, the two of them could find close at hand.