For the Perfect Woman (4)
Once an empire but now a Mediterranean kingdom, the Greenland Kingdom had its own myths and eccentric beings known as anthropomorphic gods.
As the influence of the Cheonil Religion grew, those gods were swept away, replaced by a single sun. Yet the troublesome legacies they left behind refused to vanish.
“Muuuuh!”
The Minotaur—one of the rarest half-human, half-beast monsters.
Born only through the act of bestiality between humans and Baphomet, they were considered half-extinct in the modern age.
They could never appear unless some lunatic deliberately created them.
Because they were born not from a cow’s body, but from a human woman coupling with a male bull.
Clack.
I retreated swiftly, reloading Horizon’s magazine.
Click.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The heavy footsteps gradually overlapped, merging into a single ominous beat.
My target was the largest of its three toes—the one that most resembled a human foot.
Bang!
Even a gun powerful enough to pierce and crumple plate armor would need more than one shot to shatter those thick toes.
Bang! Bang! Bang—Baaang!
Flames spat from Horizon’s muzzle in perfect time with the moving feet.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
The instant all five rounds struck home, the toes tore away. Drunk on surging adrenaline, the Minotaur felt no pain and kept charging.
“O almighty sun.”
I sprinted toward the staggering beast.
“I send forth one pitiful calf born of twisted desire.”
This creature had never been born by choice.
Crack.
The sewer floor split beneath my next step.
Light alone dwelled within my body, save for the fire.
“Muuu?”
“In your next life, be born an ordinary cow.”
I gathered every ounce of strength into one step, then poured it all into a single fist.
BOOM!
Crunch.
The thick skull held firm, but the neck bones could not.
With its head twisted at a grotesque angle, the Minotaur collapsed, scraping across the floor.
“Ugh. That hurts.”
Even with my body reinforced by holy power, the pain still flared.
I had done it to avoid dragging out the fight, but I never wanted to repeat the experience.
Clenching and unclenching my right hand, I examined the Minotaur’s corpse. Nothing special.
“I’ve seen plenty of Satyrs on the outskirts, but what the hell is something like this doing in the city sewers?”
Satyrs—those insane bastards born when men with nothing but lust and no women rammed themselves into goats.
I had never seen a Baphomet; cases of women lying with goats were practically nonexistent.
Since these things could only be created artificially, the answer had to lie inside city hall.
“Damn, it’s heavy.”
I could have simply pointed my gun at the mayor the moment I saw his face, but just in case, I dragged the calf-head’s corpse along.
The bull must have cleaned up the area while roaming; no other corpses or monsters appeared.
Squeak! Squeak!
Thanks to that, the witch’s familiars moved busily, guiding my path.
I reached city hall without getting lost or accidentally filming some absurd modern-day Greek myth labyrinth scene.
“Huh?”
What kind of sewer entrance was built wide enough for an army to march through?
It was a door designed to move not only Minotaurs but also a suitable number of combat personnel at speed.
Bang.
A light tap revealed the distinctive feel of reinforced metal.
Smashing it with a gun was out of the question, and I saw no other entrances.
Rumble.
I was debating whether to risk using a grenade when the door suddenly opened.
“That damn calf-head, why the hell is it throwing a tantrum in front again…”
Out stepped someone who clearly knew about the Minotaur.
His outfit looked more like a prison guard’s than a mayor’s.
Our eyes met. He froze for a second, then his gaze slid to the dead calf-head on the floor.
Click.
“Run and you’re dead, got it?”
Knowing about the monsters, neglecting them, and even using them meant an Exorcist Priest could carry out summary execution on the spot with zero issues.
“I-I’m just a guard!”
“What kind of guard?”
“Th-that is…”
“There’s also the option of going in and checking for myself. Want to seize this chance?”
“I… I manage the born mon-monsters.”
“Lead the way.”
When he hesitated again, I ripped off one of his ears.
I watched coldly as he rolled around in agony for a moment, then followed the staggering guard inside.
“Gyaaah!”
“Glug-glug!”
Satyrs. Murlocs born between mermaids and humans. And a massive prison that had clearly held Minotaurs.
“Since when has this been going on?”
“It’s definitely been over a y-year! I only took over from the previous shift, so…”
“Where are the fathers of these things?”
“Huh?”
“Can’t you see their eyes?”
Every Satyr and Murloc had brown pupils.
They couldn’t be called human eyes, of course, but the color was identical.
“It’s the m-mayor! The mayor is the one who did all this!”
He couldn’t endure the sight of my finger inching toward the trigger and finally screamed.
The bastard who had strutted around like a king among the caged monsters and the Minotaur had a pathetically tiny one.
“Ar-are you going to spare me?”
“I’ll spare you.”
I opened the cell door where the Satyrs huddled together and tossed him inside.
“You fucking bastard, you said you’d spare me!”
“If you’d been even a little kind to the monsters, you might have lived.”
Just as one would expect from creatures born when men couldn’t control their lust and swung their cocks at goats, their sexual desire for human women was monstrous.
Conversely, they would flee from men unless attacked first.
If the so-called guard hadn’t tormented them, the Satyrs would never have approached him.
“D-don’t come near me! Aaaaaagh!”
Of course, such a merciful outcome was never going to happen.
I left the prison and climbed up into city hall, but the dirty feeling refused to fade.
It was strange for a city hall that wasn’t a police station to even have a prison.
The damp stench of despair clawed at my nose, and the sobbing voices of lingering grudges hammered my ears.
This was the place where monsters pretending to be an ordinary building had been born.
I didn’t need to search to know what had happened to the women who gave birth to those monsters, or how they had been disposed of afterward.
“O sun.”
An Exorcist Priest exists to destroy evil.
I live wearing the skin of a priest, but I am not someone who deserves to be called one.
Still, just this once, I would imitate the role properly.
There are those here who have suffered terrible things.
It has been at least a year.
I can vaguely guess what horrors occurred before I arrived.
Please guide them with your brilliant light and embrace them with warm flames. I earnestly pray.
Under your light,
may they find rest.
The light spread first, showing the grudges their path.
Then the flames mixed within it burned away every last trace of malice that had bound them.
The remaining embers spread to the building itself. This time, I did not extinguish them.
Burning away an impure structure built alongside the prison was the correct choice.
“F-fire!”
“Why is that building burning?!”
People began pouring out of city hall in a panic thanks to the flames. It looked like I wouldn’t have to waste time chasing away uninvolved civilians.
“Who are you?”
“An Exorcist Priest.”
They must have hired proper mercenaries. Two sharp-eyed guards stepped forward to block my path.
“Do you know what that building is?”
“That is…”
“I can tell you’re professionals, but did you stake your lives on loyalty? Or money?”
If so, I would respect that spirit and send you out of this world.
“We have no intention of interfering with an Exorcist Priest’s duties.”
Police or city hall, the gatekeepers at least had good instincts for self-preservation.
I left the two men who had chosen to live and advanced deeper inside. Employees moving documents froze the moment they saw me.
So they really were just running out to watch the fire.
The heavy dark circles under their eyes explained how this shithole still barely functioned as a city.
“Why has an Exorcist Priest come here…?”
“I came to see the mayor.”
Not a single employee hesitated.
With one unified mind they all pointed out the location of the mayor’s office, so finding it was easy.
As I walked, I checked Horizon’s ammunition and inspected the shotgun.
Bang.
“Wh-who the hell are you!”
I kicked the mayor’s office door open and stepped inside.
“Hand it over.”
I snatched the whiskey he had been about to drink and downed it in one go.
“Another glass.”
“Wh-what the hell are you doing?!”
“Another glass.”
Click.
He always forces me to point a gun when I ask so politely.
If I didn’t drink the whiskey, I felt like I would lose the ability to even hold a conversation, so I had no choice.
“Hoo. The prison. The Minotaur. Got anything to say?”
“Th-that is…”
“Artificially creating monsters is punishable by immediate execution. That rule doesn’t change whether the one carrying it out is an Exorcist Priest, a judge, or an imperial executor. But personally, I’d like to hand you over to a judge.”
He was the kind of bastard I wouldn’t call even if I ended up half-crippled, but for the sake of dragging him down to hell, I could endure anything.
“L-Lilith!”
“Huh?”
A face completely warped with terror appeared.
This I hadn’t expected.
His soul was already fully in a demon’s grasp; he could become a medium for manifestation.
“Wh-why…?”
But Lilith did not answer his desperate call.
She couldn’t.
There weren’t many foolish demons willing to descend when someone capable of harming their main body stood right in front of them.
Still, I could clearly picture what would happen the moment I handed him to a judge.
“Let’s skip the judge part. Instead, I’ll send you off without pain. Where are the women you kidnapped?”
Only Minotaurs were born through human women.
The rest were byproducts of this bastard’s filthy lust—and his final insurance policy to release into the city if needed.
“Th-they were taken to the academy… That damn bastard only touched prostitutes before, but he suddenly started grabbing citizens, so even I was shocked!”
“Who?”
“The guy who came from the Clocktower! Because of that bastard…!”
Crack.
The bullet would have been wasted.
After snapping the mayor’s neck, I finished the remaining whiskey straight from the bottle.
“Haa. Will this damn world never get even a little bit better?”
The one who came from the Clocktower was only one person.
Protector, my ass.
Looking at this mess, it was obvious none of the so-called “protectees” were normal.
“Damn it!”
Alestar Drail returned to his secret laboratory, unable to contain his rage.
If not for Bella, he might have been able to take Luna. That missed opportunity only intensified his thirst.
“Why is that…?”
A light blinked in one corner of the lab.
The emergency signal device he had planted on the mayor had gone dark. A wave of unease washed over him.
He tried to calm himself, thinking no one would dare touch someone who was practically the next master of the Clocktower, yet the unease refused to disappear completely.
“It’ll be fine…”
Forcing the feeling down, he checked the surveillance orbs he had modified for monitoring.
The academy scenery showed nothing out of the ordinary.
Diligent students gathered to study or train, while professors used their free time for self-cultivation.
He even confirmed that the ordinary instructors were fulfilling their teaching duties without unnecessary interference. Only then did he let out a sigh of relief.
But it lasted only a moment.
Small shadows flickered across the screens.
They multiplied, then in an instant seemed to spread across the entire academy.
“Familiars…?”
Squeak. Squeak.