44. War (6) A bit gross...?
44. War (6) A bit gross...?
"Huff... huff... Does that thing just not die...!!!"
The Padix Kingdom Knights and the Medherun City Knights are currently in a standoff with Heriis.
They need to hurry up, deal with Heriis, and take care of the remaining Spider Monsters to keep the city safe, but they have no breathing room.
A Spider Monster isn't a pushover you can just hunt alone, to begin with.
Maybe if there was just one Spider Monster, it would be possible. But when you encounter Spider Monsters, they start at a minimum of 10.
You need at least a 3-person squad, and one of them must be a Healer.
But Medherun City doesn't have enough knights, adventurers, or guards to handle thousands of Spider Monsters.
That's why as many combat troops as possible must move widely to prevent the Spider Monsters from spreading.
But there was one existence making that impossible.
It was Heriis.
An overwhelming size compared to other Spider Monsters.
It's hard to deal with just because of its matching insane physical abilities, but Heriis's intelligence was too smart.
Usually, monsters attack the person in front of them. If they have some intelligence, they might run away or target other humans if their attacks don't work on the person in front of them.
But Heriis had human-like intelligence from the moment they first encountered it.
No, it actually showed the appearance of a highly skilled adventurer that surpassed the intelligence of an ordinary person.
The trickiest part is that it uses people.
It's a tough fight even without that, but Heriis grabbed people nearby and fought as if they were shields.
On top of that, it ignored the knights standing in front with shields, jumped over them despite its large and heavy body, and targeted the Healers healing from the back.
When Heriis showed that, the Padix Kingdom Knights, who hadn't expected it, immediately lost one Healer.
The Kingdom Knights weren't fools, so they reacted quickly, but Heriis just mocked them, ignored them, and ate the citizens who hadn't managed to run away yet.
Once Heriis tasted human, no one could stop it.
Even when attacked by the Knights, Heriis healed its wounds too easily by eating humans.
Heriis ignored the Knights, ate humans, and if they got annoying, it just targeted the Healers—it was basically at the level of a disaster.
In a situation that seemed hopeless, the only way to kill Heriis is to hit the head that looks like a human face.
The reason they knew that was because the only time Heriis gets attacked, it protects its head with its spider-leg-like feet.
However, its massive 3m height and small, human-like head made it very tricky to target.
To aim for the head, you eventually have to jump and deal with the head in mid-air, but the problem is that being in the air makes you Heriis's prey.
But Gwen, thinking that there would be even more serious damage if things continued like this, boldly jumped toward Heriis.
==
'Oh crap...'
As soon as the emotional time of a non-male ended and I regained my cool, I slumped into my seat.
'I messed up.'
In front of me, there is a corpse that is still intermittently gushing blood—urk, urk.
I made a huge mess in a situation where I have to act like a Saint.
Of course, I don't regret it, but there was just a better way.
Blood is already spreading on the floor, and there's no way to clean this up.
If a knight comes in like this, I'll inevitably be framed as the culprit, no matter what. Even if I've acted well as a Saint so far, it'll be hard for them to believe me if I say I didn't kill them when I'm the undeniable culprit.
I could hide the body or call the children to clean it up, but this blood is already impossible to deal with.
It's not like the slums where blood is natural; in a place that looks like it doesn't even have a speck of dust, let alone blood, this much blood will obviously be suspicious.
'Should I take care of the knight outside too?'
But if the knight guarding my door disappears, they'll realize something happened.
'Ha... Should I pretend to be kidnapped?'
Just as I was thinking about whether to escape through the window I see there...
Bang! Bang!
The door started shaking.
"Saint-nim! Saint-nim! Are you okay!?"
What!? How do they know—
Ah... The blood flowing from the trash's neck was spreading and flowing out of the door.
It's understandable that the knight is reacting like that since blood is flowing out from under the door.
Bang! Bang!
"Damn it, why won't the door open!? Saint-nim! Cleric-nim!"
It's being blocked by a Creature, so I don't know when or how the door will break. It feels like they're going to break the door down right now.
I have no choice.
There's only one way.
It's a method I don't want to use with a man's mind, but it's the method that works best on men.
==
Mason was quite anxious.
Knight Commander Gwen and Vice-Knight Commander Drake are fighting outside risking their lives, so is it okay for him to be like this here? Even while thinking that, he knows his current job is also very important.
Saint Lea.
It makes him think, is there anyone as beautiful and kind-hearted as that in this world?
He thinks protecting such a person is also very important.
'Is the treatment going well?'
He was slightly worried because the room was so quiet even after the cleric went in.
Even though he tried not to let his guard down, his legs throbbed as his tension relaxed for a moment because the inside of the castle was peaceful.
He didn't just run from the orphanage in the center of the slums to the castle in the center of the city; he ran while guarding all sides and dealing with Ners, so fatigue had accumulated without him knowing.
Mason moved one foot to shake off the fatigue accumulated in his legs, and the moment he put his leg back down.
Splosh.
He didn't feel the hard floor; he felt water first.
Mason lowered his head to look at the floor and his eyes widened.
He didn't see a smooth floor; he saw a bright red floor.
A red liquid he had seen countless times while working as a knight.
Not water, but a red liquid with a slight viscosity.
It's 'blood'.
Mason urgently turned his head to look under the door where Lea was.
Blood is flowing from under the door. And a lot of it, too.
This amount of blood isn't just blood flowing out. It's an amount that makes one think someone must have died.
Mason urgently grabbed the doorknob to open it, but the door wouldn't open.
Bang! Bang!
Mason shouted while pounding on the door with his hand.
"Saint-nim! Saint-nim! Are you okay!?"
When there was no reaction despite his shouting, Mason, who had knocked on the door a few times, drew his sword.
Kwang!!!
The first thing that caught Mason's eye after he cut the door with his sword was the cleric who had entered the room earlier.
The cleric whose head was gone.
If there had just been a dead cleric, Mason wouldn't have been this surprised.
On the cleric's body, a Spider Monster attacking this city was tearing apart the cleric's body.
"What is this...!"
Mason immediately shifted his gaze to the bed.
"Saint-nim!!!"
On the bed, her nun's habit was disheveled, looking as if she had almost been raped by someone, and small Ners were approaching such Lea.
"How dare you!!!"
Ignoring the dead cleric, Mason ran forward and took care of the Ners before they could get any closer to Lea.
Mason urgently checked the condition of Lea on the bed.
"Ugh—."
Mason immediately blushed at the state of Lea in front of his eyes.
Because someone had tried to forcibly take off her nun's habit, her underwear was exposed, and her breasts looked like they would spill out if touched even a little, so Mason hurriedly turned his head.
After shifting his gaze and covering Lea's body with a blanket, the sound-blocking magic tool caught his eye.
Only then did he smell a scent that was completely different from the smell of blood and acid felt in this room.
A knight practices countless situations to ensure they don't lose their composure against any monster. This is because there are countless types of monsters, and each type has a different way of attacking.
Poison, sleep, charm, mind control, etc., there are many things, and they experience all of them in advance to overcome them or learn how to deal with them.
Such a Mason noticed that the other scent in this room was a scent, no, a fragrance that induces sleep.
Lea's clothes that looked like someone had tried to forcibly take them off, the fragrance that induces sleep, the sound-blocking tool that prevents sound from going outside, the cleric with his pants down.
No matter who looked at it, it was certain that the cleric had tried to rape Lea and the situation ended up like this due to a sudden Ners attack.
Grind.
He knows that not all nobles or people with high positions are kind.
Of course, there are many corrupt people in this city too. But Mason, who harbored strong anger toward the cleric who tried to rape the Saint in such a dangerous situation for the city.
"Wait, this is not the time for this."
Although he almost lost his reason due to strong anger, Mason quickly pulled himself together.
The fact that a Spider Monster had entered here meant that the castle was also in danger.
"The children and the Lord are in danger...!"
Mason, carrying Lea on his back, hurriedly left the room to report this fact.
Lea, who was being carried on Mason's back, smiled broadly as she watched Mason running in a hurry while carrying her.
'As expected, men know men best. Ah, the Hive Mind leaked out for a second.'
Fortunately, since she was being carried, Lea, who hadn't been caught by Mason, pretended to faint again.