Vallitics's Usefulness
I first cloaked myself in stealth, vanishing from sight. Then I casually undid any locks that might have been there. A brief wait.
"Just smash the door down and go in? If we sit around and head back empty-handed, the boss'll wring our necks."
"Hey...!"
"Fuck! If you're gonna stop me, at least come up with an alternative. All you do is stand there muttering."
"That's not it, you idiot. Look over there. Doesn't the door look open?"
"Huh.... You're right."
After a long stretch of whispering among themselves, the bandit bastards yanked the door open. The fact that they were still doing this even after I'd told them to turn back made it clear they were no ordinary people.
Should I kill them right now? It wouldn't take even a second. Judging by their gear and raw power, they weren't particularly strong.
In other words, if it came to a fight, I would win. It wouldn't be difficult at all. With a mere flick of my fingers I could snatch all three of their necks as easily as tucking something into a pocket.
But I held back for the moment, because I was curious about what purpose these women had for barging in.
"What the hell? Nobody's inside. Did they go out the window?"
"That's why you were whispering so loud...! You dense bitch."
"No, the window isn't open. What the hell. There's nowhere to hide in a room this small."
Hmmmm. So that's how it is. At least they hadn't come in with pure intentions. The axes and clubs they were carrying made that almost certain.
In that case, killing them was fine. I walked boldly out in front of them. And then—shunk. I drove the blade straight into the eye socket of the one holding the axe.
"Ghk?! Uh..."
Time slowed. Not because of any magic that physically slowed the world—my senses simply exploded, making everything around me crawl.
I slashed the throat of the woman with the blade buried in her eyeball with my dagger, then drew another and drove it into her lung so she couldn't dare make a sound. Until that moment the woman beside her hadn't even managed to change her expression. So I did the exact same thing to her.
"Huh?"
The instant the two of them dropped dead, the remaining woman looked like she couldn't believe what she was seeing. The dizzying, murderous urge unique to my race surged to its absolute peak.
Is this the feeling Sloan gets when she swings her power around? It felt incredibly good.
"Shhh."
"Uh..."
"Don't say a word. About what just happened to you. Or about what you just witnessed."
"P-people..."
She wasn't listening. I decided I was willing to cultivate a little patience.
The moment I drew the dagger I flung it forward. The light scrap of metal flew true and tore the ear clean off the woman who had been about to scream.
"Ghk! Ghhhh..."
"I don't know about patience, but your grasp of the situation is pretty quick, isn't it? Excellent. You won't die no matter where you go."
Just as I hoped, the bitch didn't scream. She just clutched her ripped-off ear and wailed in silence.
"Then I don't even need to tell you what I'm going to ask next, do I?"
"Ghhhh.... Ghhhhh...! Y-yes. Yes."
"Speak."
Honestly, I was a little surprised. At a glance they looked like a pure bandit pack, yet she wasn't acting stupid? Most people would start by screaming.
I wanted to applaud her endurance, but the questions came first.
"First, to tell you who we are—we're the Dark Shield Band. You've heard of us at least once, haven't you? A group of chivalrous outlaws who value justice and righteousness..."
"Tsk. Doesn't sound right. What kind of righteous outlaws barge into someone else's room carrying axes and clubs? And into a house with a man alone, no less. Keep lying and I'll cut the other ear off too."
"I-I understand! We're a pack of thieves! Normally we wander around, and when we spot an abandoned village like this we stay for a bit pretending to be residents... then we head out to the frontier to plunder."
I'd heard a few times that bandits were overflowing in times like these.
Most got wiped out by the army, but a few survivors kept their experience and gear intact and became even bigger headaches.
So they slipped inward to dodge the subjugation forces. Smart call.
It was like running from a tiger only to crawl straight into a lion's jaws.
Of course the subjugation army wouldn't dare enter a Demon King's territory either. With a little luck, there was no better hideout than this.
"Isn't it more dangerous to stay here? Man-eating monsters must be swarming."
"W-well... that's true. But the boss has a map... The monsters deeper in have territories of their own. As long as we just avoid those, it's fine. Plus there's a really strong monster around here called the Serpent King."
Monsters grow explosively in power and intelligence the more living things they kill.
Of course it varies by the size of each individual's soul vessel and other capacities.
I'd heard some of the monsters deeper in had broken free of our control and built their own independent forces.
But this "Serpent King" was a new one to me. Hmmmm...
"What's this Serpent King? First I've heard of it."
"It's a giant basilisk individual that's been expanding its territory recently. Rumor has it it repelled the army of the 43rd-ranked Demon King."
"It repelled an army?"
"Yes. They say it has power on par with a Demon King."
A mere monster had grown as strong as us? Impossible. Monsters were things created by our power. What was a lowly creation thinking...
I wasn't particularly scared. There were any number of ways to deal with it. But Sloan probably shouldn't find out. Our goal was hunting Demon Kings; if we veered off the path it would just get annoying.
"U-um... I think I've told you everything I know now. M-maybe..."
"Oh, is that so?"
"Y-yes..."
"No, you haven't. You left out one important thing.... What were you planning to do with me?"
The moment I said that, the light of hope that had been seeping into the bandit woman's eyes snuffed out completely.
"We were going to offer you to the boss..."
"Offer me? Ah.... So that was it."
"P-please spare..."
No reason to spare her. She had dared try to lay hands on me, a Demon King?
Unforgivable. No one was allowed to touch me. This was a serious crime. I drove the blade clean through her throat. Still, she'd been useful, so I sent her off without pain.
Time to go to Sloan. The rest of them still needed killing.
Humans, you see, are beings who live amid the unreasonable.
Yet the fact that they illuminate their own lives by overcoming that unreasonable fate in small ways is what makes life great.
I respect humans. Not empty words—truly. Even if only as much as a wriggling worm struggling to survive in the forest.
"These ones are more numerous than I expected."
But these people apparently had no need for my respect.
The moment they witnessed the unreasonableness that was Sloan, they turned tail and tried to run.
Tsk tsk.... They should take a page from my book. Wasn't I thrashing about trying to overcome this unreasonable moment myself?
"Anyway, a map...! It feels like a treasure hunt. I'm getting excited!"
"Ah, is that so?"
"Yeah! There are strong monsters around here, right? But Elisa, why didn't you tell us? You already figured out the Demon King way out there."
"Because the bet was only about Demon Kings."
"Really? From now on let's count monster kills too!"
"...Plus I didn't want to go off on side paths like this, so I kept quiet."
I'd thought the same and kept my mouth shut.
There was a limit to how far you could veer off course. If we beat every single one to death we'd never reach the goal before we died of old age.
"Hup!"
Sloan stacked the severed heads into a tower and kept wiping the blood off her gauntlets. Did she really need to do that?
The sheer horror of the massacre left me speechless.
"All right, time to tally up."
"Tally? Ah, you mean check how many bandits we each took down?"
"Yeah. Out of thirty-four, twelve got away, so we're calculating from twenty-two. I think I got six. Ugh.... Less than I expected."
"I took ten!"
They were clearly planning to use some weird rule to take me back and use me again.
I'd known this was coming, so I'd moved diligently and cut the bandits' throats for them.
"I burned about five, and Elisa got the last one."
"My results are the highest..."
"Hmm. Then it's Sloan's turn this time?"
"Guess it can't be helped. Tsk."
"...What? How does that even follow?"
"Isn't it obvious? You're the product. Your record doesn't count."
Product?! Why were they treating me like that!
I was so dumbfounded my mouth hung open, and Sloan slipped behind me, locked her arms around my waist, and hoisted me up.
"This feel is more addictive than I thought.... Sorry, but we're sleeping together tonight?"
"No! This is unreasonable!"
"Life's always unreasonable. Overcoming that is what human life is about, right?"
You can only overcome it if it's something you can overcome, damn it!
This was a disaster!!!
Suddenly the little joke I'd tried to play felt unbearably embarrassing.