Nemea (2)
"...What the hell did I just see?"
The ruined earth and the sealed girl vanished from before my eyes, and I snapped back to reality.
I looked ahead.
[ ..... ]
The girl remained curled in on herself, still bound by a translucent barrier and chains.
Didn't she just open her eyes?
I was certain she had. But now they were shut again. I might have written it off as a trick of the light — except the vision I'd just witnessed had been far too vivid for that.
"Is something the matter, Master? Has something gone wrong?"
Bunny had caught my muttering and asked carefully. I turned, looked at her, and reached out.
Squish.
"...Master?"
"Huh. Soft."
The yielding give of Bunny's cheek under my fingers was all the proof I needed that this was reality. I gave her bewildered face one last pat and turned back to the girl.
I stepped closer and studied her properly.
Hair like spun gold. A frame even smaller than Oralisa, the tiniest of my Fairies. A face no bigger than a fist, every feature arranged with almost unfair delicacy. Skin as white as fresh snow.
There was no question. This was the same girl from the vision.
She must have been the one who showed it to me.
Right now, the only people down here were me, Bunny, the other Beastman Fairies, and this sealed girl. She'd appeared in the vision herself. Circumstantially, she was the only one who could have sent it.
So why are her eyes still closed?
If she'd gone to the trouble of showing me that, she wanted something. And yet she just sat there with her eyes shut, acting as if she hadn't done a thing.
Whatever that vision actually was, it means she's the secret to cultivating the Beastman class, right?
The ability to mass-produce a single class was no small thing. And if that class was Beastman — the undisputed bully of the early-to-mid game — it was even bigger.
Beastmen had a fatal weakness to crowd-control skills, sure. But their raw combat power was impossible to deny. Assuming no CC was in play, a well-raised Beastman Fairy could take on two Fairies of the same rank and win.
There's no way I'm leaving a treasure like this sitting here. She's mine. Period.
This girl — this Beastman incubator — was my loot. I had killed the Beast King and claimed the spoils. Therefore, she belonged to me. I had no intention of handing her over to some random bastard.
Haaah... I want her.
Greed swelled in my chest, thick and hungry, reaching for the girl like a living thing.
Alright. Let's try waking her up.
I reached toward her — more precisely, toward the chains that bound her.
A vicious crackle erupted the instant my fingertip made contact, a jolt like grabbing a live wire ripping up my arm.
"Ah—! Fuck, that burns!"
I yanked my hand back and scowled at the chains.
"Are you all right, Master?"
"Master!"
"I'm fine. Quit making a scene."
The Fairies waiting behind me came rushing over the second I started swearing. I waved them off, then looked back at the girl.
How am I supposed to take her with me if I can't even— wait.
[ ..... ]
"Uh... hey?"
[ ..... ]
She must have opened her eyes while I was looking away, because she was staring straight at me.
Okay. What's her problem?
At first those eyes were empty — a hollow, affectless void. Then, the way water rises in a well, a single emotion began to fill them.
"Grrrr..."
Hostility.
The fuck? What did I even do to piss her off? Was it because I touched the chains? Wait — what if she wasn't sealed against her will? What if she'd locked herself in on purpose? Did that make her a masochist?
"Bunny. Why is she— Bunny? Rodica? Girls?"
I turned around, thrown by the inexplicable hostility — and froze.
"..."
"..."
Every last Fairy who had been standing there perfectly fine a moment ago was sprawled unconscious on the ground.
"...The fuck is going on right now?"
Things were changing faster than I could process. My head was pounding like it wanted to split open, and the irritation was starting to boil over.
I looked back at the girl, who was still radiating naked hostility.
"Hey. Did you do this to my girls? You got a death wish? Who the hell gave you permission to touch my Fairies?"
I was 5-Star on paper, but I had long since blown past that ceiling. Stats alone put me at 8-Star. I'd doped myself to the gills with Molt. And she was sealed. I had zero reason to play nice.
I scowled right back at her, matching hostility for hostility. That got a reaction. Her pink lips parted.
"What? The hell is this Beastman factory bitch even saying? Why would I kneel, and how am I supposed to confess a sin I didn't commit? Are you out of your mind? Are you crazy? You son of a bitch."
"As befits a servant of the Fallen One, thou possessest a vile nature."
"You wanna keep running your mouth? You looking to get hit? Huh? You looking to get hit?"
A completely pointless staring contest stretched between us.
"Do not come out from there. Should you emerge, I will truly tear you apart. From there, watch your Father — our Father — die."
"Nemea."
And for some reason, the words spoken by the giant of a man who had fought this girl in the vision came floating back to me.
Nemea. The giant had called her Nemea. I was sure of it.
"Nemea."
"...!"
The girl's — Nemea's — eyes went wide the instant I spoke her name.
A violent crackle tore through the air. Then another, louder, a sustained electrical scream.
"Wh-what the hell?!"
The barrier and chains wrapped around Nemea erupted with a fierce repulsive force — and I hadn't even touched them this time.
Nemea roared, hostility and murder blazing off her in waves.
"Do not speak the noble name bestowed by Father with that filthy mouth of the Fallen One!"
"..."
Something I'd noticed since reincarnating: I was born contrary. A natural-born rebel. If I weren't, I wouldn't keep entertaining thoughts about putting Ouroboros and Montblanc — my supposed superiors — in the ground.
The reason I brought this up was simple. Nemea kept throwing hostility and killing intent at me for no good reason, and it was starting to really piss me off.
Ahhh... my friend!
If someone treats you like shit for no reason — give them a reason!
I had no idea who'd said that, but as of today, it was the family motto.
"Yep. Nemeeea~"
"The Fallen One dares—!"
"Ohhh~? Is our Nemea mad? Whatcha gonna do~? Our Nemea's super pissed, huh~? All angry, huh~? Wanna beat me up, huh~? But you're stuck in there so you caaan't, huh~? And I can say our Nemea's name all I want, huh~?"
"Y-y-you—! Silence! Silence that filthy mouth of yours this instant!"
"Not gonna shut up, nooope~? Gonna keep saying Nemea's name, yep~? Wanna hit me but it doesn't even matter, huh~? Can't lay a single finger on me, huh~? Nemea's a total scrub, huh~?"
"Nnghhh! Nngghhh! I'll kill you! I will kill you, servant of the Fallen One!"
"Nuh-uh~ You caaan't, though~?"
"Nngghhhhh!"
The barrier and chains discharged again and again, a furious, continuous crackle of rejected force. She was genuinely losing it. But the seal held fast. It didn't so much as crack.
Phew. Thank god.
I let out a quiet breath of relief. Honestly, I'd been a little worried the seal would just shatter on the spot.
"Ahem. Listen, Nemea."
"Nngghhh!"
"Playtime's over. How about we have an actual conversation. Who are you?"
"Silence! Thinkest thou I would stoop to converse with a filthy servant of the Fallen One?!"
For someone who refused to talk, she was doing an awful lot of talking.
"That vision earlier. You were the one who showed it to me, right?"
"Silence— what? A vision? What art thou talking about?"
Nemea, who had been winding up to shout again, stopped short at the word vision.
"That wasn't you?"
"What manner of vision didst thou see?"
"The one where you got the absolute shit beaten out of you."
"...Nnghhh! Thou filthy servant of the Fallen One! The moment this seal breaks, thou shalt be the first to die!"
The chains screamed again, a rapid-fire burst of electrical rejection.
Had I not explained enough? She was furious all over again. But come on — if you boiled that vision down to one sentence, that was exactly what it was.
"Calm down. You were getting wrecked by three guys in there, and then you ended up sealed just like this."
"I will kill— what? W-what didst thou just say? What didst thou see?"
Nemea, who had been spitting rage, went wide-eyed. Hmm. When she made that face, she was actually kind of cute.
"So basically..."
I recounted the entire vision to Nemea from beginning to end, not leaving out a single detail. When I finished, she made a low, uncomfortable sound in her throat.
"Nnh... that is a shameful chapter of my past... but how didst thou come to witness it?"
"That's what I asked you. You really weren't the one who showed it to me?"
"That is so. In this sealed state, all I am capable of is sharing my power... ahem. Nothing. I can do nothing at all."
Huh?
She'd started to say something and then swapped it out mid-sentence, hadn't she? Was I imagining that?
"So it wasn't you."
"It was not."
Judging by her face, she was telling the truth. She genuinely hadn't shown me that vision. Which raised an obvious question: who the hell had?
Montblanc, maybe?
The word vision made her name surface automatically. Montblanc was a 9-Star master of illusion magic. There was no one on this continent who could work illusions better than she could.
No... even Montblanc couldn't pull that off. How would she cast an illusion on me in the east when she's all the way in the south?
I shook my head. It didn't add up.
And if Montblanc really had arranged for anyone who entered this place to see that vision, would she have left a girl capable of producing Beastman-class Fairies sitting here unattended? She would have put her to use herself.
Tsk. Whatever. I don't know.
"Anyway. You made a deal with the Beast King, right? I don't know what you were getting out of it, but you turned his Fairies into Beastmen."
"And?"
"Let's remake that deal. With me. Whatever you were trying to accomplish through the Beast King, I'll make it happen instead. How about it?"
"Ha! Dost thou even know what price I named to the Beast King, to speak so freely?"
"Then tell me what it was."
"And why should I strike a bargain with the likes of thee? Thou art a servant of the Fallen One."
"You don't have a choice."
"What?"
"If you don't deal with me, you're going to be stuck in here for the rest of your life."
The seal made it impossible to just grab her and run. The repulsive force kicked in the second I so much as touched it.
But I wasn't about to walk away empty-handed either.
If I couldn't have Nemea, then nobody could.
"I have to leave this place soon. And if you refuse to deal with me, I'll collapse the path down here completely. No one will ever find you again."
"...What?"
"You're not going to want to hear this, but you're mine. I killed the Beast King, and the moment I decided to take you, that was it. No one else gets to have you. Because you belong to me."
"...So thou art a servant of that avaricious woman."
"You mean Ouroboros? Yeah. I'm that bitch's incarnation."
"..."
Nemea's face darkened. She'd realized that what I'd just said wasn't an empty threat.
Then a thin, cold smile spread across her lips.
"...Ha. Very well. Thou wishest to strike a bargain with me?"
"A servant of the Fallen One thou may be, but I see no reason I cannot deal with thee. If thou desirest my power so badly, then so be it. I shall name the price thou must pay."
Go forth and bring me thy master's head.
With thine own hands, slay that avaricious woman who seduced her brothers and sisters and betrayed Father.
Well? Canst thou do it?
"..."
I stared at her, thrown for a second.
"I was planning to anyway."
"...?"
"I'm too weak right now, so I'm clinging to that fucking dog— no, that snake bitch Ouroboros. But the second I get strong enough, the first thing I'm doing is caving her skull in."
"?????"
This time, Nemea was the one who looked stunned.