Ep.4 - Back to the Kingdom of Albator! (2)
Ep.4 - Back to the Kingdom of Albator! (2)
While the thief and the knight were causing an unexpected uproar,
the story of the three hurrying toward the Albator Kingdom's capital began to take a rather peculiar turn as well.
"Keheung... hrm, kheum! Hrm..."
Although there were still about two days left until the full moon, Kaede's body had already begun to itch. Her tail, openly displaying that strange sensation, wasn't just thrashing wildly — it was rubbing against Delin's back as he rode piggyback on her, moving in ways unlike its usual behavior.
'Why is it acting like this...! The heat cycle hasn't even properly started yet...!'
Kaede's heat cycle lasted roughly four days starting from the night the full moon rose. It could be seen as a phenomenon similar to the menstruation that women in the real world experienced. The difference was that instead of a stabbing pain inside her belly, an explosive surge of sexual desire made her drool, begging to be poked instead. In other words, during the heat cycle, one must avoid beastwomen. There were quite a few beastwomen who could withstand their heat properly, but if a man happened to pass in front of a beastwoman fully in heat, he would likely become a pussy-poker for the duration of her cycle to satisfy her.
But the current situation was quite peculiar. Kaede was actually a woman who had always managed to endure her own heat cycle quite well!
"Uh, Kaede-ssi. I'll just ride the broom now. Your tail has been a bit too... uup!"
"N, no, you mustn't! Please just stay like this! I'll try my utmost to restrain my tail..."
Even as she spoke of restraining her tail, that very tail swept over Delin quite lewdly, pressing down firmly on Delin from behind as he kept trying to escape, silencing him. Kaede's unconscious desires were moving her tail.
"M, my apologies."
"Oop... egeuk..."
Kaede controlled herself, forcibly dropping her tail back down. She finally realized that the approaching heat cycle would be tremendously stronger than the ones before.
'Has there ever been a case like this before...! Why, of all times, at such a crucial moment...!'
If Delin-gun were to witness the sight of her in heat, he would surely lose all affection for her.
Kaede, her face flushed red as a carrot, imagined Delin seeing her in heat. No, she even imagined the events that would follow.
Her mind, with the heat cycle approaching, simply continued imagining only lewd and lascivious things. Though she had not a single experience, her instincts caused all manner of indecent sensations and images to surface in her mind.
In response, her tail swayed once more. That obscenely moving tail wrapped around the piggybacked Delin as if embracing him, with relentless persistence...
"Wait! What the hell are you doing right now!"
Chichi, having finally caught sight of it, jumped in alarm and strode over, pulling Delin off Kaede's back.
The tail tried to coil around Delin to the very end as if it couldn't bear to let him go, but Chichi's blue mana smacked that tail away with a thwack-thwack and rescued Delin.
"Wh-what in the world did you do to Delin!"
There stood a wolf and a man, their faces flushed bright red and drenched in sweat as if they had just been embroiled in some grand affair. Chichi poked the wolf with her broom and snapped at her.
"I knew this would happen! You said you could endure the heat cycle!"
Kaede, flustered by the fierce fury, waved her hands and backed away!
"A m, misunderstanding! It wasn't intentional...!"
"Misunderstanding my ass! It's my fault for trusting a beastman, heek...!"
Chichi immediately climbed onto her broom and scooped Delin up. Delin, thoroughly drenched in Kaede's scent and utterly limp from the fierce assault of her tail, was difficult to even keep on the broom, but Chichi stretched her mana into a long rope, bound Delin and herself tightly with that mana rope, and began to fly.
"If you can't deal with the heat cycle issue, just go get it sorted out at a gigolo village or something! Honestly, this is why beastmen are..."
Kaede retreated with a kkaeng- sound. She too felt somewhat wronged. No, originally she hadn't been like this...
Could this particular heat cycle be uniquely arduous?
"Kkiing..."
With her tail drooping limply, Kaede was left to walk forlornly. How sad! What a world!
"Delin and I will head to Albator first, so just run there on your own. Tch..."
"Aah! Telling me to come all the way there alone is too harsh! Even running, it'll take half a day!"
"Exactly...! So come in half a day! It's better than dawdling here and getting caught by those people!"
"But still, we agreed to move slowly and carefully, didn't w..."
"Enough. I'll even cast Haste on you, so just run."
Chichi, who had been moving very cautiously on foot in case it might be some scheme of Philmark and Neva's, ultimately altered her plan and swiftly cleaved the sky with her broom.
Watching that figure receding further and further away, Kaede stood dazed, her ears twitching, then,
"Wh, what a nasty-tempered person! And with nothing but a washboard to her name! Keheng!"
She briefly hurled curses at that retreating figure and then immediately began to run.
Thus, it took about two hours to reach the Albator Kingdom! Only, it wasn't three people... but two people and a wolf!
"How could she fly off so brusquely without even looking back once! No matter what, we are comrades heading toward the same goal!"
Kaede's tail, standing stiffly upright, showed her resentment and sense of betrayal with absolute clarity.
Inside the city of Albator, the squabble unfolding between them drew considerable attention from passersby.
"I said enough, so stop making a racket and just quietly follow me."
"No! I must speak my piece here! I can roughly guess why you are doing this, but in such an urgent situation, does it make any sense to abandon a comrade just to satisfy your own selfish greed?"
"The one satisfying their selfish greed was you! It was obvious what kind of things you'd do if I let you keep carrying him like that!"
"Um... since we've arrived, could you please untie this rope or whatever it is... Riding the broom sitting backwards is making me want to throw up... urrp..."
The passersby walking past the three squabbling individuals glanced at them, but since the three resembled a fairly common adventurer party, they didn't draw much suspicion. Just some slightly noisy adventurers, that's all.
"Ah, sorry! He, here, lean on noona. Here."
"No! Put him down now! This humble one's back is more comfortable than most high-class carriages, so how can you place him upon such an uncomfortable broom!"
Urrrp...
Perhaps it was because they had flown at quite a high speed. The motion sickness was incredibly severe.
"E, enough, so both of you just stay still for a bit..."
"Put away that pathetic back of yours right this instant and hand Delin-gun over to this humble one! Quickly!"
"You reek, so get away! D, don't shake the broom!"
The tense war of nerves between the two women, which could hardly be stopped, continued right on and on! Endlessly, all the way toward the inn.
Fortunately, Delin managed not to throw up during that strenuous squabble, but the war of nerves between the two, which he'd thought would end once they arrived at the inn, continued even more fiercely inside...
"Absolutely not! Why must Delin-gun stay in the same room as you!"
"Because you being in heat makes you dangerous, that's why! Enough, prepare two rooms, please!"
Growling, Kaede fixed her tail straight up and glared at Chichi, launching her defense in a low, growling voice.
"Not only does this humble one possess a hwandan that delays the heat cycle, but I also have a constitution that has always endured such urges well...!"
"You came on that strong just a while ago, and what do you mean you endure well?"
"It was simply a bit more intense this time, and if I just take the hwandan, I can pass the days no differently than usual!"
Amidst the two women's endless quarreling, Delin simply sighed heavily. A few times, he considered stepping in to mediate their dispute, but perhaps it wasn't the culture for a man to interfere in fights between women, for both Kaede and Chichi wouldn't even heed his words, simply saying "It's fine." or "Don't worry yourself.", ignoring him and only keeping each other in check.
If they're at each other's throats like this, will they really be able to fight properly... was his worried thought. Delin, fretting over a future brimming only with ominous premonitions, was thus led by the two women toward the inn room.
It was a high-class inn with excellent facilities, quite luxurious for ordinary adventurers to stay in, built for those with plenty of money.
———————————————
Meanwhile,
during that time when the three were securing two inn rooms and entering,
in Raftel...
"Uheok... P, please spare me. Please spare... keuheuk..."
A witch, struck by a blow that seemed to pierce her belly, writhed on the floor, gasping. Around her, countless other witches were already collapsed like fallen leaves, groaning.
"Tch... finish this up quick! More will come at this rate!"
A sharp thief's voice. At the merciless message within that voice, the witch frantically scrambled and crawled, clinging to the feet of the woman standing tall before her.
"P-please... spa... spare me... keuheuk..."
But unfortunately, the knight, in a state of even greater fury than the thief, showed no mercy even to the woman clinging to her leg.
Peok, peo-eok—
Each and every one of her punches was literally like cast iron. The witch couldn't hold out for long and collapsed right there on the floor, losing consciousness.
On that single day, Raftel lost a significant number of its witches at the hands of just two intruders.
In the plaza located within Raftel, only countless unconscious witches, a single thief standing atop them, and one knight holding a white, short-haired witch in her arms remained.
"..."
There wasn't even a shred of guilt on the knight's cold, bloodless face. Toward those witches who had humiliated her husband and had been keeping her lost little sister, regrettably, there wasn't a single mote of mercy left to spare.
"But is that brat... really your little sister? She was screaming and shrieking like she'd never seen you before in her life."
"It's unmistakably her."
Even so, the little witch had screamed as if facing a stranger she'd met for the first time, but that wasn't particularly important to Neva.
"...And, I'm sorry. I had no choice."
"Enough, so get ready to bolt, you dumbass. I'll collect this debt myself, so just know that."
Tying her hair back behind her, Philmark shook off the lingering echoes of battle. But there was no time to relax. Trouble would soon be erupting within Raftel itself, so they had to flee before the truly annoying bitches started popping out in earnest.
"Yeah. Let's do that."
"No, I meant wake that brat up, fast. Why are you loosening up? If we jump down from here, we'll both die instantly."
"...Right. Eva, please open your eyes. Eva?"
"Uuut..."
The apprentice witch held captive by Neva slowly regained consciousness. She was a truly youthful witch, with short white hair that suited her very well. However, what was quite sad was that the very first thing she did upon regaining consciousness was...
"Eh, eht? No! Let me go...! Lily...! Daphne!"
Thrashing in Neva's arms and desperately calling out for her friends.
"Help me! Pr, professors! Sisters! Please!"
Well, one couldn't say the witch's position was incomprehensible. A crazy knight had suddenly burst up through the ground and massacred all her other comrades — how terrifying it must be!
"Sisters...? Sisters, you say? Your sister is me, Eva."
The witch, desperately calling for those who might save her as her feet pattered frantically, stopped short upon feeling the bizarre killing intent palpable right beside her. A murderous sensation that made it impossible for her to even turn her head sideways to look...
"Your sister is me alone. Eva."
Trembling violently, reduced to the state of a mouse before a cat, she involuntarily wet herself and began to whimper.
"Hiik..! Keup... keuheup..."
The witch, so terrified that the crazy knight might harm her that she even stifled the sound of her crying,
"Eva, prepare your broom. Carry me and that woman over there and bring us down below. And, from now on, you'll travel with us. Hah... I've finally found you... Do you have any idea how worried your sister was, where on earth have you been and what have you been doing all this time?"
Putting aside her now-damp panties and clothes for the moment, she desperately nodded her head and chose the path of survival.