8. Curse Plague (27)
8. Curse Plague (27)
The two demons lunged at each other once more.
The Reaper folded its fluttering wings tightly around its body. Wonderstein shed his heavy coat and hat, stripping down for speed.
The battle resumed.
A grinding, shrieking cacophony of collisions filled the air.
The fight still tilted in the Reaper's favor.
Wonderstein scrambled just to stay ahead of its attacks.
Ella could read it. Few had a sharper eye for physical combat than she did. She could see the desperation woven through his every movement.
The words he had spoken only a moment ago.
It was the first time he had ever let his true feelings slip through.
All those kind smiles he wore around the troupe. All that consideration.
Had that been genuine, rather than a facade?
It left her with one more thing she needed to ask him.
But at this rate, he was going to die before she got the chance.
The Reaper's Scythe commanded a wide reach, yet each swing left a brief opening. Cunningly, it always positioned its body so that the vulnerable gap fell within the arc of its next strike.
That was what kept Wonderstein from exploiting it every time.
He would balk at the blade, and the moment would slip away.
She couldn't fathom him.
You... are you an idiot?
This is life or death.
What conceivable value do a handful of memories hold in a fight like this...?
If he were simply playing for time until sunrise, she would have understood. Instead, he kept lunging for an opening like a man racing the clock.
Watching the struggle, she realized why he was so hell-bent on ending it fast.
His regeneration had slowed, the difference noticeable from one instant to the next. The bottomless well of his power had a time limit after all.
She should have caught on sooner, from the fact that he wasn't using his signature Human Modification. He was clearly pouring every last resource into augmenting his current physical abilities.
Shnk.
The Reaper's Scythe whipped across his shoulder in a glancing blow.
[Tissue Hardness: 6.0 → 5.0]
More experience points stripped away.
Wonderstein faltered for a fraction of a second before snapping back into a defensive stance.
Ella let out a long sigh, heavy with frustration.
What had he just lost?
The memory of them arguing over the script together? The time they ganged up to teach that Ghost a lesson? Or perhaps a moment from one of their shared performances on stage?
Wait... why do I keep thinking "together"?
Ella's face flushed.
Unconsciously, she had been prioritizing the memories he had shared with her. As if their time together would be the first on the list to be erased.
Common sense said a man's happiest memories would involve his lover. And wasn't Viscountess Bergson his lover? So the moments he'd spent making love to her...
She was still caught in that absurd train of thought when Wonderstein plunged back inside the scythe's radius, hunting for an opening to strike.
Ella watched him with mounting irritation.
His offensive and defensive technique was flawless. Textbook-perfect, even.
Yet split-second indecision, a fleeting hesitation, always cost him the chance at the last possible moment.
This time was no different.
He had had several opportunities now, and he had squandered every one.
That absolute fool.
She couldn't stand it any longer. She shot to her feet and shouted.
"What are you doing! From that position, you move right!"
Her voice came out as little more than a rasp. Her frozen throat hadn't fully thawed. She tried to force more volume, but only a dry, cracking sound emerged.
She was steeling herself to push until she tasted blood when his voice reached her.
- Miss Ella?
He sounded as though he were standing right beside her. She glanced around, bewildered, before spotting him still locked in combat far across the clearing.
- What is this? How are you doing that?
- Another one of my abilities. I can cast my voice so it sounds as if I'm right next to you.
- What?
- Fortunately, that horned rabbit bastard can't hear it. If you have something to say, say it.
The power he was using had unlocked as a reward when the troupe's Fame surpassed 150, back after the Rose Windmill Cabaret competition.
A new Member Management function, following the Costume Room.
The Sound Room.
Like the Costume Room, it was intended as a performance tool. The Member Management Window now allowed him to individually adjust the amplification and blocking of each troupe member's voice for any target audience.
He could project sound toward distant spectators, cancel out disruptive noise during a show, or relay stage directions from the wings to specific actors only.
Right now, by blocking Ella's voice from reaching anyone else and tuning his own equalizer to "Conversation," he could establish a one-on-one voice channel with her, as clear as telepathy.
- A handy trick. But how did you know I was trying to talk to you?
- Ah... just a feeling.
Wonderstein gave a vague reply, his eyes flicking to the notification floating before him.
[Member Quest — "Can You Hear My Voice?" — completed.]
The Member Quest system functioned by picking up a troupe member's unspoken wish and relaying it to him as an objective. Ella knew nothing of this, so she could only interpret it as him continuing to worry about her even in the thick of a fight.
She colored slightly and muttered in a sulky tone.
- No wonder you keep getting pummeled. Your attention's somewhere else.
- Pummeled? I landed a few hits of my own.
- Shut up. Don't flatter yourself. You still haven't landed a single decisive blow. Do you actually want to win this, or not?
- Of course I want to win.
- Hmph. You promised to answer my questions after this. Don't tell me you plan on claiming amnesia because the scythe nicked a few memories?
- I wouldn't do that.
- Good. Now move the way I tell you. You're running out of time for that power boost, aren't you?
- ...How did you know?
- Hmph. The way you're rushing makes it obvious. I'd be an idiot not to notice. Your opponent probably has, too. So let's wrap this up, fast!
- Heh, very well. Let's see what you've got. Give your orders.
- Leave it to me!
The Reaper feinted with a shallow thrust, trying to shepherd Wonderstein to the left. The man obliged, moving exactly where it wanted, far too readily. All flashy technique and zero tactical reading, just as it had thought.
The Reaper pushed the scythe's shaft forward with its other hand, pivoting the blade to sweep along the path its opponent had just taken.
Then something shifted.
The man's breathing changed.
Wonderstein dodged left with a fluid sequence of movements he hadn't shown before, instantly stepping in toward the scythe's shaft as though he had read the move in advance. The sweeping blade was smothered at the grip before it could gather momentum.
"Keek! Wh-what is...!"
- Now! One-two!
Following Ella's command, Wonderstein launched a quick left-right combination. The Reaper, fully aware of the man's monstrous strength, arched its back away.
The sudden offensive had rattled it, but it still held a countermeasure. Its tongue—
Ella hadn't forgotten how that thing had hooked her own foot.
- Don't chase the head! Drive a knee into its stomach!
Wonderstein followed her direction without a moment's hesitation.
Wham.
The Reaper's midsection folded.
Its tongue shot out—and the impact slammed its own teeth shut on it.
"Skreeee!"
The Reaper spat out a mangled length of tongue and tumbled away in a backward roll. It fixed Wonderstein with a look of deep, unsettled suspicion.
"What's this? It's as though you turned into a completely different person."
"I got bored playing with you. I think I'll end this now."
The taunt made the Reaper's eyes bulge and its teeth grind. Yet its response remained coldly deliberate, divorced from its anger.
It already knew that whatever fueled Wonderstein's strength had a time limit. Charging in headlong out of fury would only cost it. So it reverted to its original strategy, deflecting and stalling, bleeding time off the clock.
Ella was not about to let that happen.
With a tactical acumen and snap judgment she had never before displayed in combat, she relentlessly herded the Reaper.
Thanks to her, the duel tightened to a razor's edge. Blow traded for blow, neither side conceding an inch.
- What now? My taunts aren't baiting it in. At this rate, my stamina will give out first.
- I know, I know. Damn it. We just don't have enough time to wear it down through attrition.
At that moment, Wonderstein spotted Valentina, stirring back to consciousness. She was struggling to her feet, helping up a man who appeared to be one of her companions.
The two of them stared at Wonderstein fighting the Reaper to a standstill with expressions of naked disbelief.
"Sister Valentina!"
"Sister Valentina! You called, sir?"
Snapping to attention at the sound of her name, she straightened. Wonderstein allowed himself a short, dry laugh.
"Do you know of another way to defeat the Reaper?"
She blinked at the question, momentarily stunned, then shouted back.
"The curtain! You have to force it back through the Veil of the Abyss! But it would be simpler just to stall it until—"
"We don't have time for that! Thank you!"
Wonderstein hadn't missed the Reaper's flinch at her words. What she'd said was clearly the truth.
- Did you hear that, Miss Ella?
- Tell me honestly. How much time do you have left with that power?
- Hmm, about ten minutes?
- That's tight. Let's finish this!
The Reaper knew exactly what they were aiming for now, but it kept backing toward the Veil regardless.
Ella kept presenting it with the same brutal calculus: take significant damage, or retreat toward the mouth of its own rabbit hole.
It chose retreat.
It had no compelling reason to kill this man. This whole excursion had been a mere diversion, a taste of the outside world. Slipping away now cost it nothing but pride. Choosing the first option and risking a fatal wound, on the other hand, was a far graver problem.
'Still, backing off without a parting gift stings the ego a bit. Let's take one more.'
It shifted the black cloth protecting its body back into a wing configuration. A technique was readied in secret.
The target and timing were already chosen.
- Now! Push it!
- Understood!
The rippling black curtain of the Veil now hung directly at Nua-Zakanuba's back. Wonderstein pressed home a storm of blows, bulldozing it backward.
The Reaper had been waiting for precisely this instant. It unfurled the long coil of black fabric on its back and lashed it out like a bolt of lightning.
Straight at Valentina, who was supporting Vayer!
- Ah!
Even Ella hadn't seen that one coming. She hadn't known the fluttering cloth on the Reaper's back could stretch and reshape itself that far.
"Aagh! Sir! Commander!"
"Valentina!"
In an instant, the black fabric coiled around her and dragged her toward Nua-Zakanuba. Vayer lunged for her, but his hand closed on empty air, and he collapsed, coughing blood.
Wonderstein launched forward to grab her, but the Reaper stretched out an arm to block him.
"Keekeekeekee! One more step and I hop into the Veil."
"Nngh... I-I apologize. I've been c-captured."
A reckless move would put Valentina in danger. Wonderstein could only watch from a distance.
The Reaper dragged her to a spot where one casual kick would send her through the Veil.
Then it unwound the black cloth and wrapped it around its weapon.
Ella recognized the posture. The same long-range slashing attack it had used to threaten them earlier.
The Reaper poured the remaining energies of its black wings into the scythe. It leveled the blade at Wonderstein and readied the release.
"Stand right there and take it nicely. Keekeekee. If you dodge, I stuff this woman into the Veil."
Its intent was transparent. If the blow killed or crippled him, it would press the attack and finish him off. If he blocked it cleanly, it would simply bolt into the Abyss and be done with it.
- What happens if you get hit? Can you block it?
- I can't say...
Wonderstein had watched his Tissue Hardness drop from 6.0 to 5.0. His boosted Tissue Hardness had correspondingly fallen from 12.0 to 10.0.
When this fight had started, perhaps. But could his current defenses weather that?
The Reaper bared its teeth in a smile.
A long-range cut lacked the absolute severing power of a direct strike, but one charged with the entirety of its remaining strength would be close enough. It wouldn't kill him, but it would certainly inflict a crippling wound.
It launched the prepared crescent of force straight at Wonderstein. The black crescent sliced silently through the air.
"Kyahaha! Have a taste! If you dodge, this woman dies— keek?"
The Reaper glanced down at its feet and froze.
The woman was gone.
Someone had snatched her and was carrying her away at a sprint. The figure had been hiding nearby and had burst out to grab her.
"Now!"
It was Knight Ivanenko who had scooped Valentina onto his back.
After settling Maya onto a bed and administering a sedative, he had returned to join the fight. The clash he found was so far beyond his league that he had held back, lying in wait for an opening.
When he saw Valentina in danger, he circled silently behind the Reaper and chose his moment.
"Keek! You little—!"
Pushed to its absolute limit, the Reaper hadn't detected him. It reflexively twisted to give chase.
It couldn't.
The instant Ivanenko created his opening, Wonderstein had evaded the crescent slash and charged straight in.
"Well done, Sir Ivanenko!"
His fist was already filling the Reaper's vision.
For the first time in its existence, Nua-Zakanuba shrieked in pure terror.
"Skreeeeek!"
Wonderstein smiled at it.
"Goodbye, Reaper."
His fist punched straight through the Reaper's brow.
Crack. Splurch.
The skull buckled, the back of its head burst outward, and blood, flesh, and cerebral matter exploded into the air like macabre fireworks.