Ep.5 - The Twins on the Tower (4)
Ep.5 - The Twins on the Tower (4)
As I shook the barely visible status window and pressed buttons at random, a fragment flew off and struck my finger.
But that fragment, unlike the harmless fragments I'd seen in games or movies, was enough to blow my finger clean off.
"Aaaaack! Aaack!"
As I thrashed, a strange pain throbbed from the spot where my finger had been. It felt as if it were rotting away.
"I told you to stay still, dumbass...!"
Riko twisted in midair, dodging two blades that swung at her from above and below simultaneously, then immediately grabbed my hand and bit the stump of my severed finger.
"Gaaaah!"
She suddenly shoved my hand into her mouth and bit down savagely. At first I thought she'd gone mad, but I soon understood why.
What had severed my finger wasn't a simple fragment—it was a black, disgusting, maggot-like creature that had burst out of the monster's writhing sword.
"Ugh, urgh..."
Tears of pain blurred my vision. Through my bleary eyes, I took in the scene unfolding around me.
Dark things clung to Riko's body, eating into her flesh as they burrowed in.
But she paid no mind and kept running. Her bloodshot, crimson eyes screamed of her pain, yet she continued to run as if it were nothing.
I looked back the way Riko had come: blood smeared the floor like a red carpet.
What state her back must be in right now... I couldn't even bring myself to imagine.
Now I realized why she had deliberately spun to dodge. Now I understood why the monster's fragments hadn't burrowed into me.
"Urgh... kuh..."
Riko's pace slowed. Her body, long past its limits, collapsed all at once.
"Keok, keok... keo-heuk..."
A purple liquid spurted from her mouth along with blood. Our eyes met. I felt like I knew what she wanted.
"J-just wait. Wait a moment..."
I caught what came out of her mouth with my hand. I'd seen her heal her own wounds many times, so I could help too.
But when I smeared the purple liquid across her back, the texture under my hand... wasn't something I could even call skin.
"Ah, ah-heuk... Q-quick! Spit more, hurry!"
Thoughts like "gross" or "dirty" didn't even cross my mind.
I pressed my blood-smeared hand back under her mouth. Riko, grimacing fiercely, spat out more of her own healing agent... but now more blood than purple liquid came out.
Even her tough body couldn't endure such brutal bleeding.
Still, I desperately caught what she spat out and smeared it over her back.
"Agh! Aaagh!"
Those black things also clung to my hand. Those hateful things latched on stubbornly, eating into flesh until they consumed the victim whole.
Riko, her focus fading, grabbed my hand one last time.
"Kkeuheuuuuuup...!!!"
She bit the black thing clinging to my palm clean off and spat it to the ground.
An uncontrollable groan of pain burst out. A pain that couldn't even be described as "endurable" surged up from my hand.
A shadow loomed over us.
"I-it's okay... If we come back, we'll definitely win..."
Riko looked at me. I could tell what her gaze meant.
And so, with those last words, I prepared to start over from the beginning with Load...
"Y-yeah... Still, everyone fought well..."
But Riko, in that painful situation, might have sensed something. She suddenly clamped her hand over my mouth.
"..."
Something so chilling approached from an incredible distance.
Something that made even the monster standing right before us stop.
"Wh-wha-what is that. What."
It spoke through its gaping mouth. Then the hideous thing turned its gaze away from us and began charging ferociously somewhere.
"Heuk, heu-euk..."
Sobbing in pain, I watched the monster's retreating figure as it crawled away with its countless arms. At the same time, Riko's hand, which had been covering my mouth, fell limply...
"N-noona. It went... Something must've drawn its attention from the other side."
She was face-down, already hovering on the brink of death.
But she didn't lose consciousness. She didn't die.
Even though dying would have been easier, she didn't die.
She endured.
Just holding my hand with a trembling hand, she endured a few more minutes like that...
------------------------------------------
"Good heavens."
Helen, who had flown in while the monster was headed elsewhere, looked at Riko with genuine awe.
"Incredible, isn't she? How on earth did she endure...?"
Helen examined Riko's condition with wonder, placing a hand on her back. Then she noticed Riko's hand gripping mine tightly and made a peculiar expression.
"...Oh my."
A multitude of emotions flickered briefly across her smile.
"Impressive. You're Delin, right?"
"Y-yeah... Instead of chatting, please heal her quickly..."
"I'm already doing it. Don't worry. She probably won't die."
"Phew, what a relief..."
Knowing how much pain Riko had endured, I let out a deeply relieved sigh.
She'd been trying to avoid a Load. I thought she didn't need to avoid it this desperately...
"Such a touching love."
"More importantly, what about the others? What happened to them!?"
"I've already finished treating Miss Neva and Miss Kaede. Now I just need to help this one and Miss Chichi."
"Then they're safe, right...?"
"Ah, wait...!"
A thought struck me. Now that the monster's attention was elsewhere, I needed to quickly manipulate the status window to help everyone.
"Status window!"
"Status window?"
"Ah... It's like a magic spell."
The status window appeared before my eyes.
I hurriedly pressed [Companions], and then...
"Huh...?"
I was about to press Kaede's name, but...
"Wh-what's this?"
The strange backdrop surrounding us began to crumble.
"...Oh my. Another amazing thing."
Like water draining from a bathtub, the eerily rippling backdrop receded.
I felt the vast space shrinking. No, it really was shrinking.
Chichi's body, sprawled on the floor unconscious, came closer to us.
"What's going on?"
"It's ending. Heh heh... Magnificent. How on earth..."
Then, as the space shrank, Neva arrived at our side.
"Neva! What's going on?"
"Uh... Delin. I'm not sure either..."
Peong-!
With everyone except Kaede and the monster gathered, a short, crisp sound rang out, and soon we returned to the top of the tower where we'd originally been.
Eva, Chichi, and Riko were unconscious, so only Helen, Neva, and I witnessed the battle's outcome with our own eyes...
"Kaede?"
I called her name without realizing.
She had grabbed the hair of the mouth-sewn girl and the eye-sewn girl tightly, her tail standing straight up, and she was snarling.
"Grrrr..."
"Ow! Owww! Let go! Not fun!"
"Mmmph!"
The twin sisters shed a few tears, flailing in the air.
"I'll tell! I said I'll tell! Ow! Eonni! Eonni!"
"Mmmmmph!"
Only then did I look again at the status window floating before me.
-----------------------------
[Kaede] +2
(Self) Ejaculations: 17
(Partner) Climaxes: 6
Remaining Enhancement Count: 10
-----------------------------
It was an extremely concise piece of information, but I immediately grasped the tremendous content hidden within.
"C-crazy..."
The content my trembling hand revealed hinted at so many things.
I couldn't take it and dismissed the screen, but then I saw one more thing that made my head burn.
----------------------------
[Companions]
Riko(!)
Neva
Eva(X)
Chichi
Kaede
Helen
----------------------------
***
A short time passed.
Riko and Chichi regained consciousness, and we surrounded the twin sisters, prying information out of them...
"Won't talk straight? Want me to poke you more? Huh? These sons of bitches really..."
"Ow! Owww! Eonni, eonni... hik... khuk..."
Riko took charge of the interrogation. She conducted the questioning as ruthlessly as the pain she had suffered.
"We said everything, we really did! We told everything!"
The information they gave us was roughly this:
Once every ten years,
for exactly three days,
a giant whale named Yop visits the elven lands at the southern tip of the continent.
If you ride on that whale's back, you can travel beneath the sea's surface, following the whale as it swims through the ocean. Exactly fifteen days after it departs from near the elven village, it arrives at the Demon Continent.
Aim for that and go to the Demon Continent...
A rather absurd story.
"So what the fuck? We hold our breath for fifteen days? Want us to test that now? Get stuck in that swamp and hold your breath for fifteen days?"
"Th-there's an air bubble on its back, so you can breathe...! It's true..."
"Even if that's true, it'll take at least three months to go from here to the southern tip of the continent. Moreover, we'll have to pass through Albator again on the way, and cross both the Dwarf Kingdom and the Elf Kingdom... Is that even possible?"
Neva voiced her worry. The other women also fell into serious thought.
Only Helen, however, shrugged.
"Well. We have no choice."
She immediately packed her things.
"There's no other decent option... Why don't we leave without wasting more time?"
Her attitude was utterly astonishing—dumbfounding, even.
But we, too, soon gathered our belongings and began preparing to set off...
"...Can't we kill those bastards and go? Leave them alive like this?"
"They're beings far from death. Let's not stay longer and leave."
We set off again.
Having completed an incredibly arduous first task and spent days learning many things, we departed just like that.
"Waait! Wait!"
The twins shouted after us one last time.
"You, you... We know. We know..."
Everyone's footsteps paused for a moment.
"You! I'm talking about you, you..."
Their fingers pointed at me.
"He, hehe... Yeah. Eonni... That one, that one is that one. Now I get it. That one is that one. He, hehe..."
"Those little shits still haven't come to their senses, huh. Fine. You're dead today. Actually, you won't die, so that's even better. Let's beat you until you beg to be killed."
Riko rolled up her sleeves and drew her dagger. But the twins wouldn't shut up.
"Oppa, oppa... Ahahahaha! P-pitiful. Pitiful! Do you know? Huh? Do you know?"
They shouted one last time.
"Forever! Forever, forever you'll live like that. Forever. Oppa, huh? You'll end up living here. Here. Those women, can you handle them? Kyahat, kyaha-ha-hat!"
They shouted words that only I could understand,
like that.
Ep.5 Prophecy
end.