Yong-Bagi
"Yong-bagi."
"Bella. I'm hungry."
"...I'll get some food out right away."
Bella scurries over to our bags and pulls out something to eat.
"Bella. Water."
"...Here you are."
She hands me the water she had drawn for herself.
"Bella. Bathroom."
"My lady, I am not a bathroom."
What kind of nonsense is that?
Still, I have to admit her patience is impressive. I've been deliberately ordering her around, even asking for things I don't need, all to peel that perfect mask off her face.
"It's not coming off easily..."
"Not coming off? I don't know about other people, but you, my lady, could strip me of my clothes whenever you wish with ease."
She still slips in her usual absurd comments from time to time. The difference is that she maintains that elegant, refined facade on the surface while whispering the real filth directly into my ear.
"I don't need that from you, you know?"
"Kyaaang~"
When I shove away the maid who had been clinging to me and whispering, she dramatically stumbles back as if she were some fragile maiden.
Not a single ounce of guilt stirred in me. This fake, scheming maid.
I'm weak to ears, damn it.
The moment a whisper or someone's breath brushes against them, a shiver races down my spine and an unbearable ticklish feeling spreads through me.
It's not that I hate it... but I hate it.
The problem is that lately Bella has been pressing herself against me more and more often, whispering into my ear or blowing warm air against it on purpose.
She must have figured out that my ears are my weakness. What a sharp-witted maid.
That aside, he's been staring nonstop.
It's already been two days since we started walking without any real plan. I lost count of how many times I felt his gaze, turned to meet it, and caught him looking.
What a pervert, that Rian.
Does he want to squeeze himself between me and Bella while we're flirting? Sorry, but inserting a man into a yuri scene is a capital offense.
Though I guess we're not exactly yuri.
Bella is... how should I put it? She doesn't really register as either a woman or a man. She's just Bella.
That was when Rian cautiously approached and spoke up.
"Um, Miss Regina."
"What?"
"I heard from the bishop. You faced the Mad Dragon for a short time and survived."
You...!
So he wasn't a pervert after all. He was interested in my magnificent tale of heroism!
He must have been too shy to ask until now!
My favorability toward Rian skyrocketed!
"Ahem... I suppose that's true?"
I deliberately struck a cool pose and shrugged my shoulders.
Well, to be honest, it wasn't just surviving a brief standoff. I completely crushed that lizard. But saying it out loud myself would damage my swagger, wouldn't it?
"Do you want to hear it...? The story of that time...?"
"...!!! You'd really tell me?!"
"Hmmm! If you want to hear it, I suppose I could spare a few words..."
From that point on, I was in a trance.
The verbal skills I had honed through my sparring debates with Namgung Sim were more than enough to unfold the grand and beautiful epic I had experienced.
I told him about the bitter grudge between me and my stubborn master that had followed me all the way from the North!
"Ooooh...! I see!"
Rian reacts!
Then I told him how I absorbed the Thunder Emperor's lightning and counterattacked, followed by the clash between the Mad Dragon's breath and my Cheonroe Jewang Simgyeol!
"Uwooooh...!"
Rian cheers...!
This guy has the fundamentals of a perfect audience member down pat. His reactions are spot on.
I'm starting to like him more and more.
By the time I had finally poured out my entire heroic saga and was catching my breath, Rian spoke again, carefully.
"Miss Regina. By any chance..."
"Hm? What is it, Rorian?"
"My name is Rian."
"Ah, was your name Sorry? My bad, Rian..."
"You're doing it on purpose, aren't you?"
Rian swallowed hard, then spoke with a solemn expression.
"I've... heard rumors about the Mad Dragon."
"About the Mad Dragon?"
"Yes. They say it's an incredibly beautiful female. Pure white like snow, enough to enchant anyone who sees it..."
Well... it was white. And it did sparkle a lot. But who cares if the Mad Dragon is male or female?
"...So?"
"Could you perhaps tell me what it looked like...?"
"...Why?"
"Haha... so that if I ever encounter it, I'll know right away that's the Mad Dragon and run away!"
Just run the moment you see a dragon, idiot.
Besides, his words were laced with lies.
Ever since my martial arts had reached a certain level, I could tell whether someone was telling the truth or lying. So I was certain.
This guy... everything he just said at the end was complete bullshit.
Now I finally understand why he approached me talking about the Mad Dragon.
Rian hadn't wanted to hear my heroic tale at all. He just... wanted to know about the Mad Dragon.
"Rian, you..."
"Yes?"
"...Never mind."
So you're a Yong-bagi.
I couldn't bring myself to say those words out loud. I didn't want to utter such filthy language myself.
That was when Leona, who had been walking ahead, stopped in her tracks.
Even Leona thinks a Yong-bagi is too much?
"It would be good to rest here. If we follow this path for another two hours, we'll reach the last village before the Heavenly Star Furnace."
"Oh."
We've already come that far?
We had been walking faster than planned. But everyone here had already surpassed the limits of ordinary humans in terms of stamina.
I plopped down on a rock by the roadside. Leona, sitting across from me, was acting strangely hesitant, sneaking glances in my direction.
"What's wrong?"
"...There's something I've wanted to ask for a while."
"What is it?"
"Your appearance seems subtly different from when I saw you last time... Were you disguised?"
Ah. Right. When we met in the slums, I had been using Morph.
Though all I did was change my hair and eye color to brown and slightly increase my height and chest size.
"Yeah. Succubi have an ability called Morph that lets us change our appearance."
"You were a succubus?"
"...Huh?"
Had he really not known until now?
Even after seeing this heart-shaped tail and my abnormally beautiful Regina face?
At that moment, Rian, who had been quietly listening, suddenly jumped in. Now that he was on casual speaking terms with me, all his nervousness seemed to have vanished.
"Leona's always been bad at distinguishing demons. She said that if they have horns, their faces look blurry to her."
Stay out of this, Yong-bagi.
Still, faces looking blurry? Is it some kind of face blindness?
"...I see."
"If it's not too much trouble, could you show us once?"
"My Morph?"
"Yes."
"Hmm..."
She said horned demons look blurry? Then if I hide my horns, maybe my face will look normal to her?
Missing out on seeing my beautiful face would be losing more than half of life's joy.
I closed my eyes and activated Morph. I left everything else alone and only concealed my horns, wings, and tail.
"How about now? Can you see my face properly?"
When I opened my eyes again, Leona was staring with a shocked expression.
Her eyes, which had looked emotionless throughout our journey, were now wide open.
"...Yes. You're incredibly beautiful. I had no idea."
"Mhmhm~"
Even if you suddenly start flirting like that, there's nothing I can do for you?
All I can offer is my beautiful smile!!!
"That aside, it's pretty unique. Not being able to distinguish demons."
"It's not that I can't distinguish all demons. Just the ones with horns."
"Ah, I see."
"That's why I've always avoided taking on missions that required dealing with horned beings. It was the same even if they were allies instead of enemies."
...Wait, wait? Her tone sounds a bit strange.
"Whenever I was assigned a mission that required facing horned creatures, it was always difficult. In those cases, I usually relied on Rian's help."
"......"
I slowly looked back and forth between Leona and Rian.
One was a crazy Yong-bagi. The other was a racist.
Is the Holy Church really okay like this? These are supposed to be the future of the Church?
The future looks pretty damn dark.
For a moment, my vision seemed to grow pitch black.
...Wait. No. The sky was actually getting darker.
The Goddess must be furious....
To think the people who serve her are in this state.
More importantly, I had been sensing a presence gradually approaching from afar for a while now.
I thought it was just a traveler and ignored it.
At some point, the number of presences had increased. What started as one had become four.
The sudden darkening of the sky was probably their doing.
By then, both Leona and Rian seemed to have noticed the strange atmosphere. They gripped their swords and sharpened their focus.
"...I smell heresy."
Rian frowned and growled in a low voice.
You can tell by the smell? As expected from a Yong-bagi....
Soon, several figures wearing robes with hoods pulled low entered our view.
Every one of them carried an ominous aura.
Leona, who had been observing them with her usual expressionless face, stood up.
"They're definitely heretics. I'll go handle this."
"Hm? I could take care of it."
"I understand your body hasn't fully recovered yet. I'll do it."
Oh. She's got good eyes.
It was true that the aftereffects of my Disguise Shedding still lingered. It was a technique that placed more strain on the body than I had expected.
Right now it's just some lingering muscle pain.
Still, this was a good chance to see how much Leona had grown since the slums. I was curious.
Yong-bagi, who had been sitting beside me, stood up with his sword in hand and followed after Leona.
"I'll, I'll come too."
Yeah, yeah. You two go do what you need to do. I'll do what I need to do.
After confirming that the two of them were confronting the hooded figures, I immediately got up from my seat.
"My lady? Where are you going?"
"Ah, Bella. Bathroom break."
"Really, my lady... I told you I'm not a bathroom?"
There she goes again.
"Stop messing around and guard the luggage properly."
I flicked her forehead and immediately walked off in the opposite direction from Leona and Yong-bagi.
The hooded ones over there were definitely giving off suspicious vibes, but...
"Hello?"
"Oh my. It seems you've noticed us."
The old man who had been watching us from behind the bushes this whole time was radiating a much more interesting atmosphere.
He wore a robe of a slightly darker, gloomier shade than the ones on Leona's side.
"I've been smelling something rotten from over here for a while. Do you people even wash?"
Otherwise that stench wouldn't make sense.
So it was these guys after all.
I knew these people well.
Fanatics who worshipped not the Goddess but the deities of other worlds, begging those entities to grant them power.
At the same time, they were the failures who had never been chosen by the Outer Gods.
In other words, a cultist terrorist organization.