Appear with the Wind, Vanish with the Wind!
Appear with the wind, vanish with the wind!
"GRRAAAAAH!"
Crackle-crunch! Rumble-rumble!
"GRRAAAAAH!"
BOOM! Splaaat! Cruuuunch!
"Get out of the way! Get out! EVERYONE MOVE!!"
Like a massive boulder tumbling down a cliffside. An unstoppable charge of something enormous pulverized everything in its path. Crushed, burst, shattered into pieces until nothing recognizable remained. Completely obliterated.
"GRRAAAAAHH!!"
"Shut up!" Splaaat! Thud!
"That all you got?! Huh?! NO MORE?! You filthy bastards!"
"Monster... What the hell is this monster..."
"Bring more chimeras!"
"Handle the rest with magic! Stop that thing no matter what!"
"[Chain Lightning]"
"[Ice Spear]"
A massive muscular woman leaning her upper body slightly forward, kicking off the ground and charging ahead. A hitman of the North Face Family, known as their strongest and most ferocious bio-weapon—her name was Rina.
Standing about 2.6 meters tall with an absurdly muscular build, she barreled forward as the mages deployed countless chimeras and countered with spells to block her.
Under orders from the boss of the North Face Family, Actor, Rina had raided this secret hideout to wipe out every last mage and black mage from Magus Civitas who were kidnapping people for human experiments.
With flesh tougher than rock, superhuman strength, and high magic resistance, Rina butchered the mages one by one. Anyone who stood in her way was crushed like overripe tomatoes.
No one could withstand the overwhelming power of the woman who had successfully fused with the essence of an ogre—the supreme being on land, king of monsters.
Magus Civitas had set up secret labs across the North Continent, kidnapping the powerless elderly, children, and even giants like the Buranana for human experiments. Furious at the thought of them repeating the hellish ordeal Actor and his friends had suffered ten years ago right here on this land, the North Face Family had decided to crush them personally.
"Ha! Monster? If we're monsters, then you're all demons!!" Rumble! Whoooosh!
"GYAAAAH!!" Cruuunch!
"Spare me!!" Crackle-snap!
The mages released chimeras made from kidnapped humans to fight back, but they were no match and died off one by one. Even their prized magic was halved by the ogre's resistance, and unlike instinct-driven ogres that moved without thought, Rina combined human intelligence with knight-like aura mastery, making her far more dangerous.
Her already sturdy body became even more flexible and resilient when channeling aura through it, and like knights who slashed magic with aura, Rina could wrap her hands in aura to deflect and parry spells outright. It drove the mages insane.
Splaaat! Shiiiing!
"Kahahahaha!! Is that really it?! You trash! I'll kill you all!!" Whoooosh!
"B-block it!"
"Ba... [Barrier]..." Shatter! Splaaat! AAAAAAHH!! Rumble!
And so, Magus Civitas's secret lab was completely annihilated by Rina's hands.
"Urgh! How is there such a monster?!"
"Branch chief! We need to retreat now! The monsters are coming!"
"You expect Magus Civitas to run from some northern barbarians?! Nonsense! Deploy the other chimeras..."
Shiiiing!
"Shut up and die!"
"You bastard..."
Slice! Slice! Slice! Spurt!
... Thud!
A woman appeared with the sound of cutting wind, her eyes covered by a bandage. The storm of sword dance from the long curved blade in her hand left the branch chief and his Magus Civitas mages unable to react, their bodies diced into cubes like steak in an instant.
A massacre in a single moment. More than ten mages turned into chunks of meat before their blood could even spray.
Click!
"Hmph! You ugly bastards! Using kids as test subjects?! Disgusting!"
"Mary sis! I rescued the people locked in the cages!
"But there aren't many... Some already got experimented on..."
"Those bastards... Same as back then. They don't even treat beggars or slaves like people?! Inflicting the pain we went through... on kids not even ten years old?! Crunch!"
How could she forget the agony of that day's experiments?
Born visually impaired, yet the cruel lich had ripped out her eyes anyway. The torment of having her living eyes torn out amid bloody tears, followed by the fusion pain of transplanting basilisk eyes—cursed eyes that were both a gift and a nightmare.
She could see now, but anyone who met her gaze turned to stone in horrific petrification. The others, fused with demons or half-demons via contracts—including the boss, Actor—could handle it, but most couldn't even look at her eyes.
She'd trained for ten years to control these cursed eyes, honing herself to suppress the curse, but she still couldn't walk around with them openly exposed.
Thud! Thud!
"Mary! Took out all the trash. How's your side?"
"All dead. Secured their research data too, and rescued some survivors."
"Good. Let's head back to the boss. Mira, Shera—get the people out."
"Yeess~♪"
"Mission accomplished safely—think the boss'll praise us if we tell him right?"
"Yay hoo~♪"
"Gonna get praise from boss bro~♪"
"Alright! This time for sure!"
"Hey, Mary! Boss is mine first! Got it?!"
"No fair! First come, first served!"
"What?!"
"Rina sis! No monopolizing boss bro!"
"Right! Actor oppa's ours too!"
On the way back, they bickered playfully over Actor. Having destroyed Magus Civitas's vile human experiment lab for new chimeras and rescued the near-death survivors, the four had completed their mission unscathed.
"...That's the situation. Some already underwent the same vivisections we did—parts of their bodies, or fully, transformed, boss."
"Yeah... Filthy bastards... Crunch! Good work, everyone. Sorry, but take the survivors to bathe with the others. Vanessa, can you prepare rooms for them?"
"Of course, boss. This mansion's yours anyway. Plenty of empty rooms—I'll assign them near where the others we've saved are staying."
"Mm~ Mira, Shera. Ask Malcolm for simple clothes for them, and Tucker for meals."
"Yeess~"
"Mary. So all the Magus Civitas outposts around the city are wiped out?"
"Yes! Prina's scouting the sewers and city just in case. No worries!"
"Boss. What was mosquito bitch doing all this time?"
"Big Daddy? Guy's still swamped. Organization's huge—tons to manage, plus covering our asses for the North Summit and all that."
I could still vividly recall Big Daddy clutching his neck, nearly collapsing when I told him about Magus Civitas.
With the war against Halpas already driving him nuts, now Magus Civitas invading the North for petty experiments? No wonder his blood pressure spiked.
"Vanessa. How will Halpas attack?"
"That war maniac's simple. Straight-up frontal assault. Don't worry about anything else."
"No strategy or tactics?"
"To that psycho bitch, even defeat's part of war's beauty. Die charging head-on? Fine. Bloody victory? Fine. She doesn't care about outcomes. She loves war itself."
...
"What the—no, there's a limit to madness! Win or lose doesn't matter?! She just loves starting wars?! How fucked is her head? That's completely ass-backwards!"
"Too much~♥ War for war's sake—purest, most beautiful destruction aesthetic. Where else?"
...
"!!!"
"Halphas?!"
"You... Trespassing my temple again!"
Flutter!
"Kyahahaha!~♥ Long time no see. Nice to meet again, Dantalian's contractor?"
Just as we prepared for the showdown with Halpas after smashing the Magus Civitas hideout, the maniac herself appeared perched on the windowsill like last time!
"Hehehe! Ba... Pfft! As that Vanessa lady says? I prefer frontal attacks. Two days from now, my contractors march on the south gate~"
"I know you're not lying, but why tell me?"
"Obvious, right? Mutual killing rage! Malice, hatred, madness tangled in pure battlefield slaughter! That's humanity's true essence, ultimate aesthetic!~♥"
...
'She's totally insane!'
'This war freak dares approach the godfather so casually?! Crunch!'
'This the demon Actor mentioned? What kind of psycho bitch is this?! And why so close?!'
'Another weirdo woman latching onto our boss?!'
'Actor oppa has some chicken-wing auntie now!'
'Mira! That auntie's scary...'
"Pfuhuhu! Insane? Duh? You gotta be crazy for war! Normal people wanting war's the real joke, right? Kyahahahaha!~♥"
As we each thought she was nuts, Halpas laughed it off like it was natural. She shoved her face right up to mine—foreheads nearly touching—staring with mad eyes.
Her blood-red pupils reflected my black smoky form. Grinning like a villainous city clown, madness dripping from her ears, she declared to me:
"Two days! We'll settle it there! If my contractor loses, I'll gracefully give up contracting you~♥"
"And if I win?"
"Hehehe... Obviously, you'll be my new contractor. Then we'll turn the whole world into a grander, more beautiful battlefield~♥"
"Fine! But don't touch anyone in this city! Got it?!"
"Hehe... Can't promise that? Such a splendid wall and city right here—leaving it be would tarnish my name as war incarnate."
...
'This psycho. Provoking me to lure me out?!'
My original plan: defend the walls with Big Daddy's crew, fall back on Vanessa if needed. But she hated that—threatening to wreck the city to drag me out for open battle.
Reading my mind, Halpas just grinned. Demons don't lie. She hadn't denied it, so if I wanted the city intact, I had to come out and fight.
"For real. I fucking hate your guts!"
"Oh? I like you more. Never seen a human mouth off to me like this. Hehe~♥ Hope our bond lasts longer?"
"Shut up! Halpas! Get out of my... ahem! Mansion already?!"
"Eek~ Scary~♥ Since grumpy Vanessa's mad, I'll go~♥ See you in two days—I'll make you kneel at my feet~♥"
Flutter! Whiiiish!
The madwoman with jet-black wings soared into the sky in an instant, vanishing with the wind after her declaration of frontal assault—just as she'd appeared.
"We absolutely can't lose! No choice—we crush that psycho head-on! Got it?!"
"Yes!"
"Victory is ours!!"
"ROOOOAR!!~~"