Chapter 11
Trickle, trickle—
From the neatly severed cross-section of the neck, bubbles boiled up, and in an instant a lump of flesh surged skyward and assembled itself into a form.
Soon, the perfectly regenerated head swayed back and forth and sneered, “You nasty little bastards. You’re going to open with a cheap shot?”
The head that had rolled across the floor melted into blood and mixed with the villain’s blood that had just been splashed across the ground.
-999
When I looked ahead again, the playful mood among the villains had turned vicious in an instant.
The magical pressure rolling off them made the air tremble. Each of them poured sword aura and the like into their weapons with relentless intensity, and about forty percent of them slowly rose into the sky, scattering multicolored magic circles like a festival’s fireworks display.
“Oh, now that’s the spirit.”
I was admiring the sight when something suddenly stung in my chest.
Looking down, I saw a single scimitar wrapped in blue sword aura piercing straight through my heart.
“Die.”
“Sure, you first.”
With a cracking sound, my right arm bent at a grotesque angle, and I caught the head of the assassin who had ambushed me from behind.
Smack!
The assassin villain didn’t even have time to scream before he melted into blood.
“I was actually looking forward to seeing how you’d attack, since your stealth was decent. But that’s it? One stab and done? You little premature bastard. You really should just die.”
With a small pang of disappointment, I pulled the scimitar out of my chest and tossed it behind me.
-998
“That still won’t kill her?”
“What a monster of a woman.”
“I don’t know what she is, but we can’t let that touch us.”
“Keep your distance! Attack from range!”
“Shut up! Don’t give me orders!”
“What did you say, you little punk?”
No matter how many of them there were, no matter how strong they were, a villain was still a villain in the end.
They were already starting to fall apart among themselves.
No, what the hell were they doing with me standing right here in front of them?
“Blood Flow Acceleration.”
The blood inside my body began to circulate at high speed, driving my heart rate absurdly high.
I controlled my metabolism and massively boosted my physical ability. And in proportion to that, my collapsing body kept recovering endlessly through Super Regeneration.
My skin flushed bright red, and white steam rose from all over my body.
In that state, I lunged forward.
I charged straight into the villains without hesitation.
“Hey! Don’t start groping each other and acting like idiots! I’m lonely, you motherfuckers!”
Bang!
Pa-pa-pa-pa-bang—
With a roar as loud as a massive shell striking the ground, a cloud of dust billowed up.
Then, from every direction, balloon-popping sounds rang out nonstop, and blood sprayed everywhere.
-956
“Aaagh!”
“What the hell is that speed!”
“Spread out, you idiots!”
Maybe this was how a predator felt after crashing into a pack of jackals.
It felt a little shitty, like I was being ostracized.
I moved again and reached out my hand.
The moment my finger touched a burly villain nearby, his blood came under my control.
I expanded it as it was and blew him apart with a pop.
The blood that splattered onto my cheek soaked into my skin.
“Die!”
“You monster!”
As if villains would ever make things easy, they refused to listen.
Even after being told to keep their distance, they gripped their blades and charged at me with all the stubbornness they could muster.
“Stubborn bastards. I’ll praise you for that. I like it.”
I smiled brightly and met them head-on.
A spear pierced through my abdomen.
I grabbed the shaft and shoved forward, then gently took the spear villain’s hand.
Smack!
When I pulled out the spear that had lost its owner, a sword was embedded in the back of my head instead.
I caught the blade that had come through my forehead and put some strength into my hand. Crack, and it shattered.
With a grinding twist, I turned my neck and met the eyes of the sword villain, who was left holding only the hilt.
“Too bad. That didn’t kill me. Right?”
“Huh?”
“But hey, you just stepped in my blood, didn’t you?”
I winked at the sword villain, who was staring blankly back at me.
Smack!
After dealing with him and just barely returning to my original state, a fierce blade aura flashed right in front of my eyes.
Stab. Stab-stab.
Slash.
Shhraaak.
A blade stabbed into both my eyes.
My limbs were cut away in an instant.
A spear punched through my belly and held my body in place.
Pow!
The instant I thought, Oh, something massive exploded.
My body shattered into fragments and scattered everywhere as bloody debris.
Clap, clap, clap.
“Wow. Nice work, you lot. You must be the strongest among the grunts here, huh?”
I clapped as I rose from a pool of blood that had gathered nearby.
Even with Super Senses, my reaction had been a beat late.
They were properly sharpened killing tools, after all.
“...A clone?”
“What the hell. She still isn’t dead?”
“She’s worse than a monster. How are we supposed to kill that, damn it!”
The two sword villains and the spear villain who had torn me apart glared at me with disgusted faces.
Even if you look at me like that, it won’t change anything.
Sorry, but at this point I wouldn’t even die from this. It just itched.
“Huh?”
Suddenly, I felt a massive surge of magical power above me, and the air around me plunged colder and colder.
A deep shadow spread, darkening everything.
When I looked up to see what it was, a chunk of glacier the size of a small hill came crashing down in front of me.
Kwaaaang!!
The ground shook with a deafening boom.
Before the shock had even faded, fireballs blazing with red trails rained down in a barrage, followed by a string of thunder bolts that cracked and crashed from above.
An indiscriminate magical bombardment poured down for nearly a minute.
A moment later, the flashes that had nearly blinded me and the thunderous noise that had been tearing the air apart finally stopped, and the thick dust began to settle.
Around the half-melted, half-shattered glacier, the ground was blackened and deeply gouged, revealing something ugly beneath it.
The training field was, quite literally, devastated.
A brief silence fell.
“Did we get her?”
Someone said it first.
Then, at that moment.
“Crimson Blood.”
A soft, childlike voice spread clearly through the air.
From beneath the glacier, a red line appeared and in an instant split it in half, brushing past the dozens of magic villains flying above it.
Before long, the chunks of what had once been human flesh were sliced into several pieces and fell away.
Unable to react at all, the villains swallowed in horror.
-897
When I shoved the split glacier aside, it collapsed with a heavy crash.
I walked out, kicking through the puddles of melted water mixed with villain blood.
I frowned and shoved back my hair, which had stuck to my face.
“These sneaky bastards are begging to die.”
For all their talk of being high-ranked mages, they’d teamed up and spammed eighth-circle magic at me.
What’s more, judging from the fact that I only noticed it late, it looked like there was a villain among the mages who used illusion magic.
About as damn annoying as Kim Su-hyun’s space magic.
At least he seemed to be mediocre enough that all he could manage was hiding his magical flow.
You gave me a bad time.
Therefore, death sentence. Bang bang bang.
“Crimson Blood.”
Ten fingers spread wide. At the tips of my blackened nails, drops of red blood gathered.
Sensing the scent of magical power that stirred up dirty memories, I swept both arms through the air toward the sky.
-768
A downpour of blood and chunks of flesh fell like rain.
“Waaah.”
I spread both arms wide and spun around in place like a child.
Yes. This was it.
Blood and flesh. Combat. Killing intent. Exhilaration.
There was an enemy trying to kill me, and I was allowed to kill that enemy.
At the overwhelming satisfaction I felt for the first time in a very long while since the end of the war, a grin spread across my face before I could stop it.
Dopamine surged through me like my brain was melting, and my whole body trembled.
Ah, damn. I might be a little turned on.
Apparently, I’d been carrying around a good deal of frustration for the last few years.
“Let’s see. There are still more than seven hundred left?”
I looked around and smiled nastily.
I might as well get every last bit out of this.
I should save them and play with them properly.
“Huh? What are you all doing right now?”
Just as I was about to move again in high spirits, the villains suddenly started acting strangely.
The ones surrounding me scattered in every direction and started smashing through the training field’s outer walls and ceiling.
“Save me!”
“How the hell are we supposed to kill something like that!”
“Open the door, you fuckers!”
“Let us out of here!”
“I’d rather go back to prison!”
The villains clearly seemed to have lost their will to fight. They gave up on killing me and tried to escape instead.
I frowned hard in disbelief and shouted, “Hey! What kind of losers give up after only a few of you die? Weren’t you all supposed to be vicious motherfuckers? Where’s your pride? Show some guts! Guts! And you call yourselves villains, huh?”
I laid into them with every bit of provocation I had.
But it didn’t work.
“I’m still not satisfied.”
Just a little.
“Let’s play a little longer.”
I tilted my head back.
With a wet gag, a long crimson tongue hung loose from my mouth.
Then I kept opening my jaw until it hit its limit, and the mouth tore wider still, stretching to the size of a fist.
I shoved my hand inside and groped around.
Something long and narrow was caught below my throat.
Grrrreeh—
As I slowly pulled it out, what emerged was a longsword.
The dark purple blade I drew out with a retch glistened with spit and blood.
“W-what the hell.”
“A sword came out of her mouth?”
Several of the ones watching me had a fit.
“Come on, guys. Let’s have some fun.”
I grinned, baring my torn mouth, and gripped the sword in reverse.
Thrust.
“Wh-what the hell is that crazy bitch doing?”
“She’s stabbing herself in the chest all of a sudden?”
The blade pierced the center of my swollen chest.
Thump—
My heart lurched violently.
As the thick thirst inside me swelled higher and higher, I licked my lips.
“Domain Release.”
Crreeeak—
I dragged the blade I had driven through myself straight down to below my navel.
“Blood Realm Battlefield: Extreme Eightfold Abyss Record.”
Fwoooooosh!!
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“·····.”
“·····.”
Kim Su-hyun and Shin Hyun-ah were speechless.
The scene projected in the hologram was simply too red, too horrific.
-Aaagh!!
-Ghk, krrrk!
-P-please, s-save me...!
One villain was clinging to the hidden camera in the training field’s ceiling, begging for his life.
The 1st Class Ability User who had shredded Cynthia’s clone at the start was now bawling his eyes out in a thoroughly undignified state.
Clack.
Then a red hand suddenly appeared, seized his face twisted by terror, and after that countless red hands grabbed his entire body and dragged him down.
Before long, beyond the screen splashed with blood, the shape of hell had been laid bare.
A sea of red blood filled the vast training ground up to waist height, and strange forms rising here and there were catching the fleeing villains and killing them.
Amid all that, Cynthia stood there.
She didn’t look normal, either.
In place of her once perfectly ordinary left arm, a huge swelling mass of red flesh had taken shape into something.
To Kim Su-hyun, it looked like nothing so much as a dragon’s head.
-Heeheeheehee. Front line, launch a spirited battle cry!
-Kwaaaah!!
The dragon’s head, jutting out at a crooked angle, opened wide and spewed out its breath.
Dozens of villains fleeing through the air were struck by the scorching heat and vanished without leaving even a pinch of ash behind.
All of it was happening inside that virtual training ground.
Strange, unpleasant, horrific.
An unmistakably abnormal sight.
Even Kim Su-hyun, who had lived a fairly long life in his own right, was seeing this brand of madness for the first time.
“That isn’t human.”
Shin Hyun-ah’s voice was flat as ever.
Kim Su-hyun agreed with her.
It was hard to believe that the beautiful woman in the red cloak belonged to the same category as they did.
“Did you learn anything?”
“...No.”
Shin Hyun-ah answered a beat late.
Even with her Analysis, she couldn’t clearly define what exactly the ability Cynthia was displaying was.
“I did figure out that there’s some kind of ritual formula, and that it activates through blood as a medium. But beyond that, I can’t tell you anything. The principles, the process, the result. Nothing about it is easy to understand.”
“So even your Guardian Chief Protector trait can’t uncover it. This thing called ‘jusu.’”
Shin Hyun-ah silently nodded.
Every power followed rules.
Analysis was the ability to see and read those rules.
But Cynthia’s jusu could be read, not understood.
It felt like looking at a foreign language written in Hangul pronunciation.
“Understood. We’ll forget my previous proposal. We’ll need to think again about keeping someone on watch.”
“...Yes.”
Shin Hyun-ah, who had been staring at the screen without even blinking, finally closed her eyes.
As a former hero, it was devastating to be forced to stand by and watch an evil that had to be executed at once.
After observing the test, Shin Hyun-ah judged that there was no chance of victory.
Her Hero and Victor traits were nearly invincible against “evil” and “human beings,” but she simply could not picture a scene in which she would defeat that woman, Cynthia.
For now, they needed more information.
Kim Su-hyun adjusted his glasses and stood up.
“Hoo. Then we should end the test now.”
“Oh? Can we go back already?”
“Yes. Continuing any longer would be meaningless...”
Kim Su-hyun’s words gradually trailed off.
He sucked in a sharp breath and spun around.
“...!?”
The instant his eyes, visible behind his lenses, widened in shock.
Slash—
A streak of light cleaved the air.
A white head dropped to the carpet and rolled away.
“Guardian Chief Protector!”
“Oh-ho! Maid, you’ve got some sword skills, don’t you? You might give our Bra a good match.”
The head on the carpet let out an admiring remark.
Then Shin Hyun-ah, who had already drawn her sword and settled into a stance, sprang back.
“Shin... Cynthia.”
“Mm?”
The body that had approached so casually picked up the severed head and put it back in place.
Cynthia, restored to a perfectly normal state despite having been sliced clean through, turned to look at them with a puzzled expression.
“How? But you were still over there...”
“Ah, that?”
Another Cynthia was still running wild beyond the hologram.
As Kim Su-hyun trembled, his face full of confusion, the Cynthia in the room raised one hand.
Snap.
The moment she flicked her fingers, something changed in the training field on the screen.
The overflowing blood instantly rushed toward Cynthia, was absorbed into her, and then even her own shape melted away until nothing remained at all.
The training field was empty now, like a dream on a midsummer night.
Only the wreckage scattered everywhere remained as proof that what had happened was real.
“...That was a clone?”
All of that, all this time?
“This is insane. Maybe I didn’t know, but the Guardian Chief Protector was right there! When did she—”
“·····.”
Kim Su-hyun turned in shock toward Shin Hyun-ah.
But she did not spare him even a glance.
She only kept her eyes on Cynthia and gripped her sword.
“Since when?”
Cynthia chuckled and reached toward Shin Hyun-ah.
“Hk?!”
Then blood surged out of every hole in her body.
The moment her stance faltered from the shock, it all gathered together and formed a massive gumline lined with red teeth.
“Guardian Chief Protector!?”
Crunch!!
Along with Kim Su-hyun’s scream, the red mouth swallowed Shin Hyun-ah whole.
With a wet splat against the floor, the collapsing blood mass let out a loud belch.
“Let me ask you the opposite.”
Cynthia walked toward Kim Su-hyun.
Her smiling eyes flickered with a chilling light.
“Just when did you all start thinking I wasn’t right here?”
“·····.”
“If I could help it, I was planning to keep things quiet and not make a fuss. But while I was just sitting there watching, I figured if I let you be, you’d keep getting on my nerves. How arrogant.”
Swallowing hard, Kim Su-hyun swallowed down a dry gulp of spit as his nerves spiked to the limit.
The room they were in had been specially designed to prevent anyone except specific individuals from using mana.
And yet Cynthia was using her abilities as if nothing in the world were wrong.
The impossible kept piling on top of itself, and cold sweat slid down his spine.
“No, well. I do understand you lot somewhat. If some wild monster suddenly walks into your front yard and says it’s going to live there, I get why you’d want to put a leash on it.”
Swish.
Cynthia brought her face close to Kim Su-hyun’s.
Close enough for her breath to touch him.
A long tongue flicked out between her slightly parted pale pink lips.
“But why is a monster a monster in the first place? Because it can’t be leashed. That’s why it’s a monster.”
Thrust.
Her long tongue shot out like a bullet and stabbed into Kim Su-hyun’s left eye.
“Ghk!”
His eyeball was ripped out.
“You’re holding up pretty well. Ah, you don’t need to touch it. It’ll heal soon enough. My saliva’s better for external injuries than most potions.”
Cynthia swallowed Kim Su-hyun’s left eye and smiled wickedly.
“Honestly, you lot and the monsters running around outside are about the same to me. As long as you don’t bother me, I really couldn’t care less.”
So.
“This is a warning. Make sure you pass it on properly to the maid’s true body, too. I mean that you should stop bothering me, whether through your connections or anything else. Got it?”
“...G-got it.”
With his face gone deathly pale, Kim Su-hyun pressed a hand to the area around his left eye and answered with difficulty.
Seeming satisfied, Cynthia nodded and turned away.
“Then I’ll come again tomorrow, so get those qualifications ready.”
“...I’ll do that.”
The instant Kim Su-hyun answered,
trickle, trickle—
Cynthia’s form melted into blood and vanished.
Kim Su-hyun’s tension finally gave way, and he slumped to the floor.
That too was a clone?
He let out a hollow laugh instead of anything else.
“This is mad.”
What on earth had we been trying to poke at?
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Ah. I had a good time for the first time in a while.
It got the stress out, too, which was nice.
Sniff, sniff.
“Um, unni.”
“Mm?”
I lifted my head from the cute nape of the neck I’d been burying my nose in.
Lee Seo-ah, still in her school uniform and hugging me tightly from behind, tilted her head a little to the side and met my eyes.
“Could you let go of me now?”
“Ehh, can’t we stay like this a little longer?”
“Lunch break is going to end soon. And, honestly, it’s a little uncomfortable...”
“W-what!”
Startled, I let go at once, and Lee Seo-ah promptly stood up.
“Um, Seo-ah? Sorry. I just kind of lost my mind for a second.”
“That’s not actually true.”
“Huh?”
“Well then, I’ll be going.”
She bowed politely, then opened the door to the empty utility room and stepped out.
I sat there blankly and muttered, “Did I just get played?”
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