Uninvited Guests (8)
That night would remain a nightmare for the mercenaries.
A single man stood before more than twenty of them, armed with nothing but a one-handed sword.
Had he completely lost his mind?
He was tall, with broad shoulders that made his physique look impressive enough—but even so, the idea of taking on over twenty mercenaries alone was pure insanity.
That thought lasted all of thirty seconds.
Yes. Thirty seconds.
In a mere half-minute, the man casually carved through ten of them.
The image of him standing in the middle of a pool of blood with a bored expression was still vivid in their minds.
That cold, indifferent demeanor was not human.
He was a monster.
A monster wearing human skin.
And that monster was now staring straight at them with frigid eyes.
A chill crawled across their skin.
Their cheeks trembled.
Goosebumps prickled up all over.
A terror buried deep like trauma seized their lungs.
It was not a lack of oxygen, yet their breath came thick and labored, every inhale a struggle.
“Still, you lot are truly lucky.”
A soft, gentle voice jolted the mercenaries out of their stone-like paralysis.
“If I had been even a little later and the Saintess had suffered so much as a single scratch, you would have endured something far worse than death.”
The sincerity in his words was unmistakable.
To suffer something worse than death at the hands of a monster who snuffed out human lives as easily as crushing ants—just imagining it sent a chill racing from the crown of their heads. They could not picture the exact torment, but they could clearly see a future in which they would be begging to die.
Even so, the blond man felt a flicker of relief. After all, he had been on the verge of laying hands on the Saintess.
“Th-that’s right…! We haven’t done anything yet…!”
The moment he tried to protest his innocence, claiming they had done nothing to the Saintess, a fierce gust of wind rose and Lowen’s fist stopped a hair’s breadth from the blond man’s nose.
“You haven’t done anything—but that ‘yet’ is the problem.”
Before entering the hideout, Lowen had heard every filthy remark the mercenaries had made about Ariel.
How they would pound her until her cunt was loose and sloppy.
How they would shove a hand up her ass and ruin her insides.
Even how, if the priest from the Holy See refused to listen, they would sever her limbs and ship them as a gift.
“First of all, she is the Saintess I serve.”
His voice was as gentle as warm sunlight, yet frost laced every word.
“There is no way I could forgive the insults aimed at her.”
What followed was a one-sided thrashing.
Lowen smoothly dodged the swords the mercenaries swung and drove his fists only into their vital points.
Even those clad in thick armor crumbled under a single punch.
The truly astonishing part was that Lowen was handling all of them with nothing but his right hand.
Like reeds toppling in the wind, the mercenaries fell one after another.
They became bloody messes.
One whose teeth had all shattered, left with nothing but bare gums.
One coughing blood as broken ribs pierced his lungs.
One whose arm hung in tatters, flopping on the ground like a fish.
Just as Lowen had declared at the start, a line of men destined to live out their lives as vegetables began to form.
“Y-you—!!”
Realizing that either way his end would be wretched, the blond man decided to take the unconscious Saintess with him as company and charged at her, bringing his sword down.
“Uh… uhh…”
The blade trembled violently.
It never pierced Ariel; it stopped dead right in front of her chest.
Instead, a few drops of red blood fell and stained her pure white habit like flowers.
“A final struggle, is it?”
Lowen was gripping the blade.
Could he not feel pain?
The blue-tinged edge was clamped between his finger joints, yet he looked down at the blond man with blank eyes.
The blond man yanked his arm, trying to free the sword, but like the legendary blade stuck in stone, it refused to budge no matter how hard he pulled.
“Go to hell first.”
Lowen reached out with his left hand and seized the blond man by the throat.
“Ghk…! Gahk…!”
Lifted into the air by the neck, the blond man thrashed and kicked, desperate for air.
Then came a sickening crack as his cervical vertebrae shattered. His violent struggles stiffened like a fish with a destroyed spine, then went limp and jelly-soft.
—Thud!
Lowen tossed the blond man’s corpse to the ground.
“Damn…”
He had ended up killing him.
He had planned to cripple them and force them to turn themselves in to the guards.
Still, considering the vile things the man had said about Ariel, he felt the response had been justified.
Ariel, of course, would have insisted that killing was unforgivable no matter the reason.
Rationalizing it to himself, Lowen shook the blood from his palm.
He picked up a cigarette that had fallen from the blond man’s pocket.
“Just one. I’ll quit again starting tomorrow.”
Smoking after committing murder had become something of a ritual for Lowen.
He needed the thick smoke to scramble his mind if he wanted to cling to even a scrap of humanity.
More than anything, it helped scrub away the unpleasant sensation that came when a life’s flame was snuffed out.
Lowen lit the cigarette on a nearby torch.
“Sssss… haah…”
The long-missed cigarette tasted truly sweet.
He exhaled the bitter crack in his vow along with the smoke.
It was something he had done countless times before; doing it once more changed nothing.
Like painting black over black.
“Kid.”
Lowen approached Van, who had watched the entire scene, and sat down in front of him.
“Can you pretend you didn’t see anything that happened today?”
Lowen smiled faintly.
Blood was spattered across his glasses, and more dripped from the right hand holding the cigarette.
Looking at that figure, Van felt admiration for the strong well up inside him.
He had wiped out those mercenaries with a single fist.
He had killed the vermin’s leader just by squeezing his throat.
Above all, the way he acted so casually afterward looked cool as hell to Van.
“Y-yes, sir…!”
Satisfied with Van’s answer, Lowen nodded and snuffed out the cigarette.
“Uuu… ung…?”
When Ariel came to, she was floating through the air, soaring over the dark forest.
“You’re awake?”
She was neither floating nor flying on her own.
Lifting her head toward the gentle voice, she found Lowen looking down at her.
Her small body was cradled in his arms like a baby.
“Bishop Lowen, what happened?”
She had fainted the moment she saw him, so she had no idea how things had turned out.
“It seems the God of Light lent us His aid.”
“Pardon?”
“A wandering knight who just happened to be passing through the forest defeated them for us.”
She had no chance to question whether it was a lie. Seeing Lowen’s bashful smile, Ariel simply breathed a sigh of pure relief.
“Then where is that wandering knight now?”
Ariel turned her head this way and that, scanning the surroundings.
“He said he would hand them over to the guards and left at once, dragging them along.”
“Is that so… I didn’t even get to thank him…”
“I already thanked him more than a hundred times, so please just offer a prayer for his journey, Saintess.”
“Yes… I will!”
Ariel tightly clutched her rosary and closed her eyes.
She was praying with all her heart for a wandering knight whose face she did not even know.
Lowen felt a twinge of guilt for the lie, yet at the same time he was grateful for the pure innocence that accepted such an absurd excuse.
“Bishop Lowen.”
Finished with her prayer, Ariel looked up at him with bright, clear eyes.
Moonlight and starlight reflected in her soft violet irises, making them shine beautifully.
It was as if another night sky existed inside her eyes.
“Thank you.”
Ariel rested her head against Lowen’s chest.
“If it hadn’t been for you, Bishop Lowen… I… would have gone through something terrible…”
Her shoulders trembled ever so slightly.
Books were books, fantasies were fantasies, and reality was reality.
Just remembering being surrounded by those wolves still made her skin crawl.
She might enjoy lewd things, but when actually faced with such a situation, all she felt was fear.
“Thank you so much.”
Ariel pressed her lips to Lowen’s rosary.
Kissing another person’s rosary was the highest expression of gratitude a Saintess could offer.
“Saintess.”
The lazy smile Lowen had been wearing vanished, replaced by a cold gaze as he looked down at her.
“B-Bishop Lowen…?”
Even without reading his emotions, Ariel could sense what was in his expression.
Lips pressed into a hard, straight line.
Eyes tight with tension.
It was the face of someone on the verge of anger.
“Please remember that you are a Saintess. What were you thinking, going into the forest alone at night without a word? What would you have done if I had slept until morning? And what if I had failed to find you?”
Ariel bit her lip and hung her head.
“Uuuu… I’m sorry…”
Lowen’s scolding continued until her ears ached.
“You may not know this because you only stay inside the Great Cathedral, but the outside world is not as beautiful as you imagine. Dangers swarm everywhere, and the dark side spreads far wider than the bright.”
Ariel kept her head down, enduring the relentless lecture.
It was more persistent and scraped at her patience far worse than any scolding from the Cardinals.
She had said “I’m sorry” until her throat was raw, yet the lecture showed no sign of stopping.
It meant he had been that worried, but she really wished he would stop now.
“Waaah! I get it! I said I get it!”
Ariel squirmed, insisting she would walk on her own now and demanding to be put down.
“Uwaah…!”
As she thrashed and tried to wriggle free of his arms, Lowen reached to catch her—only for his foot to catch on a tree root, sending them both tumbling.
Because they had fallen on a slight slope, they rolled several times across the ground.
The result was a mortifying position, as if the gods themselves had played a mischievous prank.
“Ow ow…”
A plump rear end was moaning right in front of his eyes.
Her skirt had flipped up, leaving everything completely exposed.
From the clear pink folds of her anus nestled between her cheeks, to the pink inner flesh peeking between her plump pussy lips—everything was on full display. Moreover, it was heavily soaked with love juices, releasing a thick, lewd scent.
“Saintess, why aren’t you wearing any underwear?”
At Lowen’s words, Ariel finally realized she had forgotten to put her panties back on after masturbating.
“Hwaaah…!”