Ep.4 - An Irreversible Battle (2)
Ep.4 - An Irreversible Battle (2)
***
The upheaval caused by four women and one man had shaken the Albator Kingdom to an unprecedented degree. Beneath the glow of the blue full moon, everything had become a complete mess.
Thanks to the knight and the thief, who had fought through every guard to reach the inn, the streets of Albator were already littered with collapsed buildings,
and on the walls of those still standing, the guards the knight had impaled with monstrous strength writhed, letting out God-groans.
"What in the world has happened?"
"Peona next door said... well, that the wanted Lady Neva and that wench Philmark have joined hands and are rampaging together!"
"Good heavens, good heavens! Can such a thing even be possible? It's the end times, I tell you..."
Countless citizens, unable to sleep, fretted over the great disturbance. Their anxiety spread naturally from mouth to mouth, and the rumors overflowing from those lips were filled with the names of [Neva and Philmark].
Already, unbelievable stories about those two had spread all across the Albator Kingdom. I mean, a knight esteemed by all and a thief condemned by all fleeing side by side? Wasn't this the kind of monumental issue you could chew over with a drink all day long!
In any case, with yet another huge issue unfolding in real time, the people trembled in fear even as their hearts thrilled with excitement, and they prayed—
for a colossal disturbance that would make their dull daily lives entertaining!
——————————————————
Unfortunately, contrary to the citizens' hopes, Delin—the very person at the center of it all—did not seem particularly entertained.
"Gyaaak! Gyak! Gyaaaaak!"
At that moment, he was screaming, held fast by Neva's hand and Chichi's blue mana rope.
He had good reason: one side held his leg and the other held his hand, as if they were playing tug-of-war with his body...
"It hurts! It hurts! Aagh! Hurts!"
Our very small Delin, on the verge of tears, spat out the word "hurts" like his life depended on it. A memory from his childhood flashed through his mind—back when he had been so short that he begged his dad and mom to pull and stretch him out just like this. He had to pray that these memories were not his life flashing before his eyes.
"Let go! Right now!"
"You let go! I'll never give him up...! Never!"
Chichi and Neva ignored him and continued to pull. Only the ordinary Delin, caught between two superhumans, was dying a miserable death, but in any case, the two women were struggling desperately not to lose their lover to the other.
"Kyaak!"
Into their taut tug-of-war, Kaede—having momentarily shaken off Philmark—cut in. Baring her claws with a schk, she charged at Neva to assist Chichi.
"Where do you think...!"
But Philmark chased after Kaede and obstructed her. The quick thief pounced on the charging wolf from behind, then immediately wrapped her arms around the beast's neck in a chokehold.
"Kkreuk! Kkyuk!"
Thus the wolf and the thief were once again pulled out of the main tug-of-war line. The fight over Delin ultimately fell back to the witch and the knight.
"Aaaagh! Both of you, stop! Stooop! I'm dying, I'm seriously dying!!"
The one who faltered at his deathly-sounding scream was the witch. Out of concern that Delin might get hurt, she let her guard down.
"Hngh!"
On the opposing knight's side, since she already knew about Delin's Save&Load, she could pull with all her might without hesitation. And of course, if his limbs were torn off from this tugging, that too would be a favorable outcome in its own way.
And so, Delin was eventually dragged toward Neva. Having finally snatched Delin through her coarse gauntlets, Neva immediately tucked him under her arm and shouted.
"Philmark!"
Philmark's eyes snapped toward Neva. The sight of her having secured Delin carried a clear message. [I've got him, now we run!]
"Kkreuyuk!"
But even after seeing that message, Philmark could not flee with Neva. Kaede's sturdy God-body simply refused to pass out, no matter how tightly Philmark squeezed her neck and cut off her breathing.
"Kreueuyuk!"
Finally, Kaede—with Philmark still latched onto the back of her God-self and choking her throat—flung her to the floor as if executing a shoulder throw.
Kwadeudeuk-
Just like the first time they had met, a woman's head was driven cleanly into the floor and embedded there. Only this time, the woman embedded was the one-eyed thief.
"Oh no...!"
Seeing Philmark brought down, Neva was momentarily flustered and even considered abandoning her to escape quickly.
But Chichi would never let that knight steal away the meaning of her God-self's life. A magic circle that had quietly settled beneath Neva's feet shot up a high-ranking spell with a blue glow.
"[Moon Sphere]!"
Borrowing the moon's mana, that spell—the most lethal among all piercing magic—summoned a sharp spear that could punch straight through even an opponent's armor.
"Kkeuk!"
Pushuk-
Unable to properly respond to the spell, Neva had her foot pierced through. Under normal circumstances, that spear would have pierced straight through the center of her body and split her in two, so getting away with merely sacrificing a foot was quite a display of prowess.
"You won't be able to move now. Your time is up."
However, a spear made of lunar mana completely immobilized the person it stabbed. It was a rather terrifying spell, one that fixed the target in place while draining their mana.
"Ugh... please, just stop... I'm going to throw up..."
Fixed in place with even her own mana sealed, Neva ultimately ended up surrendering Delin to Chichi. She simply lacked the strength to keep holding him.
Wooooo-
The sound of the knight order's horns, now even closer, rang in everyone's ears.
'At this rate, it'll all be over.'
In that fleeting moment, Neva thought.
'How can I get Delin back from these women?'
Directly in front of her,
a woman dripping blood was gripping her staff solely with her God-will and preparing an attack spell...
and on her left flank,
Kaede, having slammed Philmark down, was charging again.
Philmark was squirming to wrench her head back out, but it would likely take quite a long time before she could rejoin the fight.
They had now seized the advantageous high ground and were aiming to deliver a finishing blow.
With her leg crushed and even her strength failing her, she could not so much as move. So she could not properly dodge their attack, and if she was to swing her sword, she would have to fight with pure brute strength and swordsmanship alone, since her mana was sealed.
Yet even if she stretched out her arm to cut down the two of them standing at the edge of her reach, it was uncertain whether she could take them both down.
She could dodge, she could counter...
"..."
But even so, she could not back down. She would no longer permit Delin to go to other women. She would settle this right here.
So...
she temporarily set aside the swordsmanship that ordinarily employed mana...
"..."
Even though she might accidentally cut Delin by mistake,
there was no helping it, so...
she seized the sword at her left hip with all her strength...
and concentrated...
concentrated...
...
Seogeok-
Her sword cut through everything at a speed the eye could not follow.
It was an unusual swordsmanship she had once encountered; yet because it lacked practicality compared to techniques fused with mana, no one ever employed it. A spurned swordsmanship.
The woman who had honed that art must have devoted her entire life to the peculiar pursuit of drawing her sword to strike.
But Neva fished out a hazy image from those old, passing memories and, right here and now, wholly made it her own.
"Keheok!"
"Hneuk...!"
From left to right—
she cut all of Kaede's claws and her clavicle,
cut Chichi's staff, her wrist, and her abdomen,
and the sword's edge gently brushed the flank of Delin, who hung in the air restrained by the blue mana...
"..."
That woman had called this technique the sword-drawing technique, and Neva paid her respects to the founder of this art—this technique that struck an enemy at an unexpected moment.
"I used it well."
Thus did Albator Kingdom's strongest sword subdue two women in a single stroke.
Kaede lay sprawled on the ground, choking and spitting; Chichi, on her knees with her hands trembling and grinding her teeth fiercely...
"Eva. Climb on. Now we have to flee."
Neva, assured of victory,
"Finally pulled one off, haven't you."
and Philmark, who had extracted her blood-dripping head from the floor and grinned slyly...
"Hurry and take Delin first. Kkeut..."
Neva entrusted Delin to Philmark, who was drenched in blood. Chichi's terrifying spell had firmly bound her own foot and showed no sign of dissipating, so for now, she had to leave Delin with the thief.
"What, you can't move?"
"Yeah. Can't move, so... take Delin first..."
"...Then this is as far as you go. Thanks for all your hard work~."
"..What?"
"First, this beast bitch..."
"W-wait! No way...! Betrayal!"
For the first time in a long while, Philmark gathered venom in her mouth and spat it right near Kaede's nose—puh-tok. Though her mana had hit rock bottom so she could not produce venom that was particularly lethal, it was enough to give a beastman's sensitive nose a very stinging jolt.
"Kkihiing! Kkiiiiing! Kkiing, kkiit!"
With tears welling in her eyes and her drooping tail quivering pathetically, Kaede whined. It seemed Philmark's venom had spread incredibly fast.
"And... our witch-nim, who earlier stabbed me in the gut..."
"Hngh...! Hneueuugh! Aaagh! Aaaaaagh!"
Philmark did not forget a grudge. For Chichi, who had pierced her stomach, through the gaping wound in her abdomen...
"Uwek, uweeeek..."
she delivered a revenge so exceedingly savage that Delin, watching the scene, gagged.
The frail witch would feel a pain intense enough to make her God-mind flip out entirely.
"Well then. Farewell, everyone. Delin? You're coming with me."
"Philmark...! Y-you breaking through the pursuit alone is impossible! Without me...!"
"No need. By now, my little sisters should've all broken out of prison too. I'll meet up with them and we'll leg it together, I guess."
"You despicable...! Even so, we've gone through life and death together all this time—how can you betray us so easily...!"
"That's what it means to be a thief. Anyway... give my regards to that crazy psychopath queen-nim. Now you'll be the one getting your eye gouged in my place. Yeesh...! That one hurts, so be careful. A little pro-tip: if you just think of it like a bug wriggled inside your eye, it's easier to endure~. I gave you that pro-tip out of the camaraderie of all the time we've spent running around together. Now, good work."
Finishing her piece, Philmark trudged over to Delin and pulled him to his feet.
"Oh? Your ankles are still like this? Didn't I untie you?"
"Y-yes, yes... you didn't..."
"...No particular use for 'em, right? Let's just live like this."
"Huh...?"
"Alright. No time, so hurry and..."
...Just as she was about to say hurry and bolt, Delin's figure abruptly vanished without a trace.
"...?"
"Wh-what!"
Amid that sudden turn of events, the only one who was not startled was Chichi.
She,
even while coughing up blood, chanted her incantation...
"[I shall give my mana, so bring forth a calamity that drives all into terror right here...]"
and glared at Philmark and Neva.
"[Delke Treunna Mietepes]"
The moment that incantation ended,
the floor of the inn they had all been standing on shattered into pieces and soared into the air.
The only one exempt from that spell was Chichi herself,
and everything else around her was struck by a violent impact from below, reduced to rubble and scattered into the void.
With that near-perfect magic erupting from the earth itself, the engagement came to an end...
"Heok, hee-eok..."
Breathing raggedly, Chichi could not so much as cast proper healing magic because her own mana had grown woefully insufficient. Looking at the blood spurting from her abdomen and arm, she was in terrible danger if left untreated...
yet all she could do
was gaze upon the God-unconscious bodies of the knight, the thief, and the wolf as they thudded down one by one beneath the collapsing inn building.
"Hneut, hneuuup..."
Her body could withstand no further action. She herself probably knew that.
Nevertheless, Chichi struggled not to faint amid the footsteps of the many people gathering around her God-self,
and she staggered to her feet in order to go and retrieve Delin, whom she had blown away somewhere.
"Haa, haaa..."
Because she had used a teleportation spell considered utterly useless thanks to his constitution that repelled perfect magic,
no one knew where he had been blown off to. Not even Chichi, who had cast the spell, knew.
If she concentrated and cast a spatial translocation spell to send him to precise coordinates, he would simply repel it again, so she had twisted the magic and simply launched him to randomized coordinates as an emergency.
"I have to go... get him..."
She had subdued them all, so now she had to go bring him back...
Now, just the two of them...
Pulseok-
The witch who had shed too much blood ultimately lost consciousness just like the other women. Unable to take even a few proper steps.
The four women who had turned Albator and Raftel into a wasteland lay sprawled together like that as they were surrounded by others.
Witches, knights, and all manner of adventurers rushed at the four women and bound them. They bound them, trussed them up, hoisted them onto their backs, and argued loudly that each one's own God-achievement was responsible for the capture.
The influence struggle over those who had caused the commotion shook Albator once more.
They stayed awake through the entire night, and that squabbling stretched on and on even until the sun rose the next day.
A great many were injured,
but thankfully, there were said to be no fatalities.
Meanwhile, our Delin, who had been sent somewhere...