Sloan's Turn (2)
This is completely insane. That crazy gorilla bitch.
The thought hit me out of nowhere. Where the hell did that brute strength even come from? She couldn't use a sword properly to save her life, so every swing looked more like a blunt instrument of murder, and her fists might as well have been some kind of destruction magic.
What would happen if that woman actually learned swordsmanship?
That would be a nightmare…. Better kill her before it comes to that.
"You ignorant brute! A mere commoner dares put a fist in my face?!"
"Oh! You can talk? Hahaha! What a sturdy little toy!"
"Toy? Whooooooo do you think you aaaaare?! How dare you! How dare you treat this body of mine—! Unforgivable! Tear that woman to shreds!"
So Animation worked not only on inanimate objects, but on living things as well. Remarkable.
The flesh of the villagers who'd been caught in the blast and killed began to writhe, then pulled itself together into a single mass. They looked a bit like zombies or ghouls — undead of that sort — but they weren't quite the same. Those things had been born without souls to begin with.
Their "ancestors" had probably offered up their own souls and those of every descendant after them, all in the name of safety. And so for hundreds of years, Arkes had harvested the soul of every living creature born in this village and fattened his own rank with them.
Humans really are fools. Trading away their future and their children's futures for a scrap of happiness in the present — condemning them to eternal suffering.
A stupid arrangement, any way you looked at it. Every soul harvested that way would belong to him forever.
If you had to put a name to it, you'd call it a soul farm. Judging by the modest scale, though, he'd set the whole thing up purely for his own little playtime.
The things some people do. Truly a filthy method.
"P-please, save us, Hero…. We only—"
"Oh! These ones are still alive?"
"Indeed! Their souls sit full in my belly. Until I permit it, those wretches will know no rest. Forever! They will neither die nor be free of pain."
"Is thaaat so?"
Ah…. She really shouldn't have said that. Sloan's body shuddered, and she started swinging her arms and legs.
It was like watching someone snap twigs. Every time she swung, five or six of the undying villagers went flying. Before long she was destroying them faster than he could put them back together.
"Bwahahaha! Their souls are still perfectly intact! Hero, the more you thrash about, the more I can feel those souls writhing in agony inside me!"
"Awesome."
Unfortunately, Sloan lacked the capacity other heroes had for empathizing with other people's pain.
Whether it was a congenital defect in her brain or something she'd acquired later, I couldn't say — but from everything I'd seen standing next to her, she almost never showed any real empathy for anyone else's feelings.
And that, I suspected, was exactly what let her handle her power so well.
No hesitation meant every punch hit harder. Not understanding cruelty meant she could torment an opponent with ruthless efficiency.
Right now she was completely possessed by her addiction to killing, striding forward with one goal only: somehow put Arkes down. Whether her opponent was screaming spiritual death-rattles or not made no difference to her.
"Stay back!"
Only then did Arkes finally grasp the situation. He shrieked and threw everything he had into the fight.
BOOM! A house the size of three family homes put together came flying at Sloan. It had to weigh dozens of tons — but instead of falling back, she kept coming.
Bursting through the wreckage, Sloan looked like some mythic hero clawing her way out of a monster's belly. Then she swept the holy sword in her right hand and shattered every late-arriving attack. Against overwhelming raw power, even hurling massive objects seemed to be useless.
"What kind of woman is this…. I didn't want to use this, but you've shattered my knightly spirit! You absolute freak of a woman!"
Maybe he was furious that his little game had been ruined. Arkes hurled a wave of despairing mental force.
That rage hit reality a moment later. Sloan, who'd been advancing just fine, crumpled forward onto the ground.
"What the hell? Poison?! Lylie!"
"No…. That isn't poison. He raised the carbon dioxide concentration and forced her to breathe it in."
The deadliest toxin of all. Colorless, odorless, tasteless. A worst-case attack usable only through Arkes's innate ability.
Even Sloan wouldn't be getting up anytime soon. In that case, I could try fighting from stealth—
"My head hurts!"
Oh, for fuck's sake — that was possible? Unbelievable! My whole body started trembling. A physical reaction born of pure fear.
"What…?"
"Wooow…. You're stronger than I thought. Ah! Nosebleed…. Been a while since I had one of those. Nice! I'll give you this much. Out of every toy I've met so far, you were, uh…. the third most fun!"
"Toy? I am a toy….? Am I still not even a match for you?!"
"Yep! Now die!"
In the end, even he never got recognized as a real opponent. She hoisted the holy sword high overhead and just chucked it.
When even a thrown rock from her was a lethal attack, hurling a holy sword that heavy left Arkes with no chance of escape. Death was inevitable.
"Ghk!"
For a Demon King's last words, it was a pitifully undignified little grunt. The flying holy sword hit him and his entire body scattered into chunks of meat.
You weren't supposed to expose your true body like that in the first place. A foolish move.
Anyway, after expressing his death in that single pathetic syllable, he scattered every scrap of power he possessed in every direction.
"Ahh, that felt good."
Having finished her first satisfying kill in a while, Sloan stretched her arms high over her head and muttered to herself.
Facing Arkes this time had brought a lot of changes.
First, my power had grown by leaps and bounds. The demonic energy my stealth ability consumed was now almost zero — used carefully, I could probably keep it running permanently.
"Camilla. Your help in that fight was pretty significant, sure. But you didn't finish him off, did you? Your Vallitics privileges are revoked."
"That's ridiculous! I still had three days left!"
"I told you, didn't I? If you're a female, you protect your male. You failed. So of course you're disqualified!"
Impeccable logic. Sounded like something a slave trader would say, but there wasn't a single hole in it.
Of course, I was probably the only one who thought so! Mwahahaha! Keep going, keep going! You dared mess with me? This is justice. Absolutely.
"Tsk…. This is a stretch! I formally protest."
"Protest to who? I'm the party leader!"
"Grrrr!"
"…Well, Sloan's the one who makes the rules anyway. We just have to follow them. If you don't like it, you can always go back to the Magic Tower."
As expected, only one person was actually unhappy with the decision. Elisa, true to her elven nature, just smirked and accepted the dictator's ruling.
"So… does that mean I'm free now?"
"If someone overheard that, they'd think we'd been working you like a slave. You've been free from the start!"
"Uh…. I don't think that's quite right."
"Yeah? Well, I guess you could see it that way. Wouldn't it look better if we called it a noble sacrifice instead?"
But Camilla clearly wasn't ready to give me up that easily. She fixed Sloan with that signature venomous glare of hers.
"Hold on! Why is Vallitics free?!"
"Huh? I told you. He's not a slave…."
"No! No way! It's your turn right now."
…I knew exactly what she was doing.
That woman was banking on Sloan getting steamrolled by the argument and just giving up!
Wow…. That was impressively petty. I was so floored I just kept my mouth shut, and she took that as a sign she had the upper hand, curling her lip into a vicious little smile.
"Surely you know the saying — if you're not going to eat it, don't harvest it? Sloan. You're the Goddess's foremost servant. Defying the words of the prophet She sent…."
"What are you even talking about! Vallitics isn't food…. Ah!"
"Exactly. You protected Vallitics as a 'female.' So right now, he's yours."
"For the record, I don't belong to anyone…."
Why was she even hesitating over this nonsense? If it were me, I'd have just barked Shut up! and shut the whole thing down.
"Vally's not mine! I never made any bet like that!"
"Oh? Then he's mine again. You just renounced ownership."
"Wh-what? Don't twist this. I clearly limited that bet to just the two of you."
"Lylie! Tell her. What happens to someone who harvests fruit they won't even eat? It's right there in the scripture!"
The Saintess put on a vacant look the moment her name got dragged in. I wouldn't have wanted to get pulled into that fight either.
"Lumio, Chapter Fourteen, Verse Eight. The rich man Gophut harvested every date palm he had no intention of eating right away, and his son died for want of the dates that would have been his medicine. The prophet taught that such acts must be guarded against."
"See?! Even the scripture says so! Sloan, you're supposed to uphold the scripture better than anyone, right? Fine. Choose!"
"I never made a bet in the first place…."
"Then you shouldn't have touched what someone else was already eating!"
She ground her teeth hard enough to crack them.
"I had him in my mouth and was just about to start chewing — and you pried my jaws open and stole him! So pick!"
"Uh…."
"Great! Then Vallitics is mine again!"
"F-fine! I'll just eat him, okayyyyyy!!!! Just stop talking already!!!"
Wait a second.
I did not see that coming.