The Saintess's Punch
Structures whipped past in a blur.
"Waaaaah!!!"
"You may bite your tongue. Please be quiet."
"W-we passed it! We've come way too far!!!"
A dead stop. Impact. The shock of that sudden deceleration tore down the road in a wave.
"How far have we come?"
"J-just a second... time..."
The moment he slipped free of Eila's arms, the man heaved up everything in his stomach with miserable thoroughness. Not even a roller coaster at an amusement park was this bad. They had only gone in a straight line, and already he was ruined—what if there had been a bend, or a steep drop? Cold sweat poured down him at the thought that his insides might have been mashed to pulp.
"Hah... huff. It's not that far. We just have to go down there."
"Down?"
He was pointing at a staircase. Stairs that led beneath the ground. She had heard of such a thing: a train that ran under the earth. The name was definitely...
"A sub... way?"
"Come on. Let's get in, quick."
The man started down. Eila followed. The stairs were short, and at the bottom a passage opened with shops packed along both sides. There was no train in sight.
"Where is the train?"
"Why are you looking for a train in an underground shopping arcade?"
An underground shopping arcade? What was that?
"Just follow me. We have to keep going straight that way."
"Please wait. I still have not heard an explanation. What happened?"
"I already explained. And you—you're the hunter who came in on the support request, aren't you?"
"A hunter is... what, exactly?"
Automatic translation magic was not all-powerful. Proper nouns, for instance, passed through untranslated, exactly as they were. By that measure, Eila's confusion was entirely reasonable.
"What?"
To the man, of course, it must have sounded like something else entirely. Confusion took hold of him. Slowly, he looked the girl in front of him over.
A frame that seemed barely old enough to have just come of age. White hair—but these days hair color was useless for telling people apart, so he let that pass. Clothes like a nun's habit, and a sword belted at her hip. Calling her an ordinary civilian didn't sit right either, not after the human rocket she had turned into back on the road, and not with that blade at her waist. Nor could he write it off as a foreigner failing to understand him. Their conversation was going far too smoothly for that...
"A hunter is, uh... you know. A hunter? Somebody who hunts?"
A word-for-word rendering was the best he could do. He had never once stopped to consider the dictionary definition of hunter. A job where you beat down the monsters that came out of dungeons? It was an awkward thing to explain. Wasn't the profession's very name rooted in a word from a novel to begin with?
Eila, however, answered as if that were quite enough.
"I am not a hunter. I am a saintess. Please address me properly."
Had she lost her mind? A saintess? For a moment he thought it might be a joke, but her manner was perfectly earnest. The man sighed. Well, her ability seemed solid enough. If she could help in a situation like this, he didn't care if she was insane.
"Fine, so just hurry up and get moving—"
"Kyaaaaaak!!!!!"
"Damn it. Are we too late?!"
The man drew his gun. If he had known that woman could move so fast, he would have brought proper armament. How much good an emergency backup weapon like this was going to do...
Krrrrk...
A sound that scraped along the nerves. It was coming from ahead. Something was approaching.
"Shit. Did the containment line break? Don't tell me they've already gotten out of this underground mall...?"
He backed away as he loaded the gun, keeping his distance from whatever it was. Then that something came into view.
"Fuck. It's a Hellbiter."
The curse tore out of him. A Hellbiter—a C-Rank monster. An enormous mouth on four legs, quick enough that a gun was a poor way to put one down. Even if a shot landed, a pistol didn't have the power to punch through those massive teeth. If there was any chance at all, it lay with a sword.
"Why... here."
"H-hey?"
"Ah... ahaha... ahahaha!!"
What the hell was this? Why was she suddenly laughing like a lunatic—and that loud? Didn't she know those things were sensitive to vibration?
"Fuck."
Had she completely lost it? The woman had clasped her hands and was offering a prayer toward the sky. There was no sky to see, underground, but that hardly mattered. None of this was normal.
He was going to snap. Looking at her like that, any hope that she would help was gone. If anything, she would only get in the way. He pulled the trigger.
Bang—!
And then—
Clang!
"Grrrr..."
"Fuck. You piece of—"
The bullet hit, and of all places it struck a tooth. Metal rang, and the round ricocheted and buried itself in the floor.
"Krrrr—!!"
"Hey, move!"
They were charging. Four of them. Two people would have a hard time with that many—and all the more so if one of those two was in the middle of a prayer.
"You fucking bitch! I said move!"
He shouted. In the same instant, a monster lunged at Eila.
"...And yet."
BOOM—!!!
"W-what?!"
What had just happened? Dust. A roar. An explosion. And the smell of blood. The dust thinned, and shapes began to emerge.
"And yet. Why. Why can you never be satisfied?"
Eila stood unharmed in the dust.
"The Hellbiter is..."
With a wet, squelching sound, Eila walked toward the monsters. Blood. The give of meat underfoot. Beneath her feet lay a Hellbiter's... corpse? She had killed it? In a single blow? The sword was still sheathed at her hip, exactly as it had been.
"Our world was not enough for you, and now you lay hands even on the Hero's homeland."
Slowly, she went forward.
"Be not proud. The Lord is greater than anything in this world, and beneath the Lord all creation is without distinction."
Black blood dripped steadily from her clenched fist.
"Covet not too much. Before the Lord you go empty-handed, and empty-handed you shall return. Think first not of what you may gain, but of what you may give."
With every word, the air sank heavier.
"Kyaaaak!!!"
"Graaak!"
"Krrrrrk—!!"
"D-danger—!"
Whether they had sensed the threat by instinct or not, the remaining three hurled themselves at Eila. Taking on three Hellbiters at once was a hard fight even for a B-Rank hunter. Bitten once by those hard teeth, and that part of you was simply gone. Wherever they caught you, it was over. But a Hellbiter had its teeth for a shield.
With a dull crunch, two of them sank their jaws into her. One on the left leg. The other on the right arm. The last, fortunately, was only circling. No—not fortunately. Once those two pieces tore free, it would be waiting to rip out her throat.
He couldn't waste this opening. The man reloaded in a hurry and leveled his gun at a Hellbiter. The moment they finished tearing and turned—that would be his chance. He waited.
...Wait?
Hold on. Why were they still clamped onto her arm and leg?
That was when it happened.
"It has been a long time, Eriticsona. So long that I had forgotten how one fights you."
Sensing something wrong, the creatures opened their mouths to flee. That was a poor choice.
BOOM!!!
Another blast. More dust. And blood spraying in every direction.
"Ha... haha. Insane..."
A hollow laugh escaped him. He hadn't seen it the first time. This time, he did. A single instant—the moment they unclamped their teeth. The one on her left leg was crushed under her left foot where it stood, and the one on her right arm was seized in both hands and torn in half.
"What kind of body reinforcement is that..."
"Lord, I see. So this is why I was brought here? Yes. Yes, of course... The Hero came to save us, and so I am meant to save the Hero's world!"
"Kieeeek—!!"
CRUNCH!!
The last Hellbiter, charging in to avenge its kin, became nothing more than a slab of meat plastered to the floor. Ordinarily this would have been the moment to sigh in relief. Not now. As he had already noted, Hellbiters were sensitive to vibration. Fight creatures like that by stomping the ground, and what do you suppose happens?
Tak!
Tak!
Tak! Tak!
Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak!
"We're fucked. Looks like she's called in every last Hellbiter in the area."
The threat-sound of those signature great teeth slamming together. It echoed back, countless times over. Their numbers, roughly speaking... no. Impossible. Counting them wouldn't mean a thing. Darkness flooded in from every side, and flashes of white appeared and vanished. The clacking rang through the whole passage.
But it didn't matter. No—this was what she had intended from the start. Why did this world have monsters as well? That was not important. What mattered was the chance at atonement that had been given to her now.
She clenched her fist and slowly gathered the power flowing through her body. From the heart, into the legs. From the legs, into the head. From the head, into the abdomen. From the abdomen, into the fist. She drew the strength together.
It had been a hard road. Against monsters, blessing and healing from the rear had not been enough. So she had learned. She had been forced to learn anything, without picking and choosing. She had no talent for swordsmanship or archery, but fortunately she could manage the basics of magic and unarmed combat.
Detection
With a prickling sensation, the world unfolded beneath her in a bird's-eye view. Straight ahead, along the line of the passage, there was not a single living person. Eriticsona—the Biters. Here, they called them Hellbiters. It didn't matter. Their weaknesses and their nature were the same. She looked at the things packing the passage full.
Heat gathered in her fist. A memory rose—one that had already become nothing but recollection, of a time that could never return.
"So—fists straight! Feet planted firm!"
The short, stout dwarf who was forever shouting, strutting about while calling himself the Great Warrior. Even so, she had not disliked him.
Fists straight. Feet planted firm. She drove the gathered power out together with her fist.
"W-wait! What are you—!"
The man's voice never finished leaving his throat. The instant Eila threw the punch, a blast and a flash swept through the underground mall. When everything settled, what met his eyes was—
"......Insane."
The corpses. The buildings. Nothing remained. Only an empty passage.