Kant Kepri (3)
"Ghk!"
Kant collapsed, coughing up blood from the sneak attack that had come from behind. Because it had come from Rina — someone he had believed was an ally — the blow landed all the harder.
"R-Rina... why...?"
He turned his head with agonizing effort and stared at her with eyes that refused to believe what they were seeing.
"How dare you..."
There was not a shred of guilt in the gaze of the woman who had just betrayed him. If anything, she was glaring down at his fallen form with naked fury.
Watching Kant reel from the shock, I allowed myself a bitter smile. Then I spoke to Rina, who was still staring at him with that same furious expression.
"You didn't have to jump in."
"I apologize for intervening without permission. But I simply could not stand by while he tried to harm you, Master."
When Rina's gaze shifted from Kant to me, her eyes and her entire expression flipped one hundred and eighty degrees.
Looking at Kant, she had seemed ready to unleash merciless violence the instant an order dropped. Looking at me, she was as warm as flowers blooming on earth where the snow had just melted.
"...Master?"
Kant, for his part, wore a look of complete incomprehension at Rina's words. A reasonable reaction. Rina's master was already dead, and here she was suddenly calling me Master.
That just wiped out the last reason I had to keep Kant alive.
I smiled bitterly again at his reaction. I had been planning to kill him anyway. But there had been maybe a one-percent chance I would let him live.
I had been weighing the gains against the losses of sparing him, and if the gains had outweighed the losses, I would have been willing to let him walk. But the moment Kant heard what Rina just said, even that one percent vanished completely.
He now knew one of my secrets. For the sake of keeping that secret, I had no choice but to kill him.
Even if Montblanc suddenly had a change of heart and ordered me to spare Kant, I would kill him anyway and pass it off as an accident.
The ability to steal another Master's Fairy. That was a secret even Carnicia — the woman I had promised to spend my life with — did not know.
"I could have beaten him just fine without you stepping in."
"...I'm sorry, Master."
"Nah, it's fine. I'm the idiot who got himself hurt."
I shrugged at Rina's apology.
Kant might have more experience, and his grade and level might be higher than mine, but my stats were far superior. On top of that, he was already wounded — he needed to end this in a short fight, while drawn-out combat was my specialty.
Unless Kant was overwhelmingly stronger than me, the winner of this fight had been decided from the start. And yet there was one reason I had not thrown myself into the fight more aggressively.
"I guess I'm still too soft."
A sliver of conscience that did not want to kill Kant.
How many people had already died by my hand? I had killed people who had nothing whatsoever to do with me — solely for the gains I would reap by killing them. Of course, a psychopathic streak that wanted human blood on my hands, not just monster blood, had played a part as well. But the biggest reason I had killed other people was always the profit.
Strange. We've only spent a few days together, and I'm already feeling this way about him.
I am well aware that this world's version of me is broken in a lot of ways compared to who I was in my previous life. The prime example is murder.
Killing a person is never easy. The sensation of driving a blade into a human body. The faint, fading breath of someone dying. The light slowly going out of their eyes. It is easy enough to describe in words. But actually seeing it, actually experiencing it — is that really so simple?
In my previous life, I was an ordinary guy who had gotten into maybe five fights in his entire existence. I was so timid that just deciding to fight would make my heart hammer so hard I could not even speak properly.
And then I came to another world, got another body, and flipped one hundred and eighty degrees. I kill people without any particular guilt and grin over the gains I get from it. And every now and then, looking at some passerby, I get the chilling urge to cut their throat or drive a blade through their heart.
If this is not broken, then what is?
And yet that same me, after living with Kant for a few days, found himself not wanting to kill the man.
Am I still sane? Or am I broken? Well, no point agonizing over it now.
I smirked inwardly and turned back to Kant.
Shhk—!
"Ghhhkk—!"
I swung my sword and severed the arm holding his mace. Then I drove my blade into both of his thighs so he could not run.
"Guh... kahk!"
Kant writhed as if he were about to die any second. But I knew better. Injuries like these would not kill him.
The irony of high stats: they grant you power to match, but they also make you so tenacious you start wondering how a human body can even survive this much.
"Kant. Looks like I won our bet. You agree, I assume?"
"Why... why would Rina..."
He still had not recovered from the shock. Feeling like I was giving a dying man one last gift, I told him the truth.
"Why did Rina betray you? Because I became her Master."
"What...? That's... that's impossible..."
Even after hearing the truth, Kant could not believe it. Fair enough. A Fairy taking someone else as their Master was something that completely defied common sense.
"Whether you believe it or not, that's the truth. Well... I suppose a little mercy as a parting gift wouldn't hurt. Rina? Take your clothes off."
"Yes, Master."
"....!"
At my command, Rina stripped off every piece of clothing right then and there. The complete lack of hesitation made Kant's eyes fly wide, pain forgotten.
"Come here, Rina."
"Yes~"
When I beckoned, Rina came to me with a face that said she could not be happier.
Right in front of Kant, I pulled her into my arms and kissed her. I poured saliva into her mouth and freely groped her lush breasts and firm ass.
"Haaahn~"
Even as I pawed and toyed with her body, Rina did not resist in the slightest. If anything, she let out lewd little moans as if begging me to touch her more.
"Th-this can't be..."
Faced with something that only a Master and Fairy could ever do, Kant was left speechless, utterly devastated.
"Pwah~ Believe me now? That Rina's my Fairy?"
"....."
After that dense, lingering intimacy, I looked at Kant. Even as I did, my hand stayed on Rina's shoulder, kneading her breast like dough. Saliva — whose, I could not say — glistened on both our chins.
"H-how... how in the world did you make Rina your Fairy?"
"That's a trade secret. I can't tell you. Anyway, time to keep your promise, right? Spill everything you know..."
"Please!"
"Huh?"
Kant suddenly shouted.
"Please, tell me how you did it!"
"What?"
"You have no idea what an extraordinary blessing, what a gift that ability of yours is! You are a miracle itself — someone who can save Fairies who have lost their Masters and fallen into despair!"
"Uh...?"
A bizarre hunger burned in Kant's shouting eyes. Depending on how you looked at it, it almost seemed like madness.
"What's gotten into this guy?"
"You don't understand! How hard I tried for those despairing Fairies! But no matter what I did — no matter how hard I tried — so many of them took their own lives!"
I could not hide my bewilderment as Kant suddenly launched into this frantic monologue about himself.
"Heh... heheheh!"
"....?"
He even burst into a laugh laced with madness.
"If I became those Fairies' Master... they wouldn't have to be sad anymore. If I became their Master... heh, heheheheheh!"
"...Ah, fuck. Rina, put your clothes back on. That bastard's eye-raping you."
"Y-yes, Master!"
I sighed at Kant's deranged laughter. Rina, looking a little frightened herself, hurried off to get dressed.
In the eyes of the man staring at the naked Rina still clinging to me, there was a dank, unmistakable lust he could not hide. I knew exactly what kind of desire Kant was harboring.
Of course I did. I had that same desire myself.
"So that's what you were. A guy who gets off on stealing another man's woman."
I could not say for certain, but the Kant I had just seen was a man who felt sexual desire toward other Masters' Fairies. Whether he got off on stealing another Master's Fairy, or on making a Fairy who had lost her Master into his own — either way, he definitely was not right in the head.
"I was an idiot for thinking this guy was a good person."
I had thought Kant was a good man. I had thought he was planting hope for tomorrow in Fairies who had lost their Masters and fallen into despair.
In the end, that had been nothing but my own foolish delusion. The reason Kant had taken care of those Fairies was so he could slake his own filthy desires through them.
"Hey, Kant. You haven't forgotten our bet, have you? Keep your promise."
"Please! Please, just tell me the method! I'll do anything you ask! So please!"
"Hah... this is driving me insane."
The bare face beneath Kant's peeled-off mask was truly grotesque.
Hmm... what do I do with this guy...?
A man who had been walking the tightrope between two factions would definitely have a lot of information. I was part of Palos's Bird, but I did not actually know much about the organization. The information I had was, at best, what I had picked up playing Fairy Masters.
Which meant I needed whatever Kant was sitting on.
Not sure if this will work... but looking at the state he's in, it just might.
"You want to make other people's Fairies yours, Kant?"
"Yes! I-I mean, it's not that I want to make them mine, exactly — I just want to make them happy..."
"Too late to play innocent, you piece of shit. Unbelievable."
Watching him try to put the mask back on after ripping it off with his own hands, I was so disgusted I smacked him in the head. Then I sat down beside him.
"If you want my know-how, tell me everything you know."
"Then you'll tell me?"
"Yeah."
"Give me certainty. Certainty that if I tell you what I know, you'll let me live."
"...This bastard's trying to play games?"
How did he know? The guy's instincts were ridiculously sharp. Then again, that was probably how he had managed to play spy between Montblanc, known as Crow, and Eden, known as Eagle.
Still, Kant proposing a deal was perfectly rational. I would have said the same thing in his position. If someone extracted all your information and then killed you, that would be a dog's death, would it not?
Yeah, it was a reasonable move, but...
I don't like it.
The way he was trying to strike a bargain with me rubbed me the wrong way.
"Hmm... certainty, huh. Rina, go get Heni."
"Yes, Master."
I told Rina — who had gotten dressed and come back to my side — to bring Heni. Kant stared after Rina's retreating figure with burning eyes.
"Here she is."
"Ugh... M-Master! Are you all right? Ah, aaaah... y-your arm...!"
Heni must have come to while I was fighting Kant. She groaned, then saw that one of his arms had been severed and recoiled in horror. Tears welled in her eyes.
"Watch closely. This is the ability you want so badly."
"Master... kyaaaaah!"
"W-what are you doing?!"
I made Heni get down on all fours in front of Kant's face, then hiked up her long skirt and tore her panties off. An ass ripe as a peach and a plump pussy came into view.
Settling in behind Heni, who was down in a yoga cat pose, I pulled out my cock. Then I shoved it into a pussy so dry there was not a drop of moisture to be found.
Schlick—!
"Nnghh, kyaaaaah!"
"HENIIIIIII!!!!! You son of a bitch! Get off her! Get the hell off her right now!"
"...The fuck?"
As my cock forcibly split her inner walls and pushed inside, Heni screamed in pain. Kant, forced to watch his own Fairy get taken right in front of his eyes, exploded with rage.
And I...
"...Blood?"
I stared in shock at the blood flowing from Heni's pussy around my cock.