Chapter 470: Tamer (1/2)
The soldiers were stealthily grasping for their swords, and as they were about to take them out of their scabbards and point them at Gloria…
“Ah~ A lot of humans came around~”
A new voice echoed through the mountain pass.
That had undoubtedly been the voice of a little girl. No matter how fairly had the years treated her, it was far from any voice that could have belonged to an adult woman.
A small figure appeared giggling from behind a large rock. She was about 120 centimeters tall and definitely looked like a girl not older than 7 or 8 years old.
Her jet-black hair stretched all the way to her lower back and her eyes were dark red. Her skin was morbidly white, and her arms and legs, which were peeking through the black sleeveless dress, looked thin and delicate.
The soldiers who were just about to attack Gloria stared at the girl, completely taken aback.
“I’m so lucky! I didn’t even have to wait an hour, and a lot of humans already appeared here~”
The inside of the cackling girl’s mouth was as red as blood.
“You… Who are you?”
Gloria glared at the girl while reaching for the short sword on her waist.
“Me~? I’m Alciel. Alciel the Puppeteer.”
The girl that called herself Alciel approached Gloria step by step. The grin on her face, far from appearing to be a friendly smile, was more of a smirk.
“Stop right there!”
Gloria shouted as a result of the indescribable chill she felt. A cold sweat was running down her spine.
“Whaat? Are you afraid of me? Look, I don’t have any weapons or anything like that~!”
Alciel halted on the spot, opened her arms wide, and started fluttering them like wings.
“I’ve heard your name before, Alciel. What are you doing here?”
“Hmm~? I was waiting for humans to show up.”
“And why were you waiting for humans here?”
“I want to make an experiment~”
“An experiment?”
“Yeah. Ah, look! These are my pets!”
Alciel raised her right hand and pointed it straight at the sky. Then, huge, long and narrow things came down from the top of the rock.
They looked a lot like earwigs, but they were well over 2 meters long. There were 4 of these in total.
“W-Waaaahh!”
“M-Monsters!”
The soldiers behind Gloria screamed and started to run away the moment they saw them.
“Idiots! Hold your ground!”
Six of them stopped immediately at Gloria’s command. The other three stopped and turned around, but once started to run away.
“Ahaha~ These cowardly humans! But do you think you can escape~?”
Alciel let out a high-pitched whistle. Then, the four giant earwigs appeared in front of the three soldiers that were trying to run away.
“Gyaaaah!”
The one runaway soldier that was ahead of the others was bounced off by a tail swing from one of the giant earwigs. The remaining two just barely managed to keep a safe distance from the monsters’ tails.
“Come back! Form a circle!”
Gloria shouts out another command. The remaining 8 soldiers obeyed, and stood in a circle.
The nine of them had formed a circle in the middle of the mountain pass. They wouldn’t be attacked from behind as long as they kept this formation.
“Draw your swords, everyone! Get ready!”
In response to Gloria’s command, all of the soldiers pulled out their short swords and pointed them ahead.
“Ahaha, do you really think that’s going to help you~? How silly. You can’t damage my boys’ hides with those puny little swords of yours~”
“We won’t know unless we try!”
Gloria repelled an oncoming tail swing with her blade. The giant scissors that were on its tip fell to the ground.”
“Huh?”
In her astonishment, Alciel’s eyes had opened wide.
“No way. You actually cut through it? What is that sword?”
The sword in Gloria’s hand was the one that Jin had reinforced with Adamantite. Its composition was a 0.1 millimeters thick, 25 millimeters wide and 60 centimeters long sheet of Adamantite sandwiched between the sword’s steel edge.