Chapter 42: Vol6 C9 Jaldabaoth (1/2)

Chapter 9: Jaldabaoth

Part 1

Lower Fire Month (9th Month) 4th Day 21:10

Feeling thirsty, the woman stirred lazily from her slumber.

She squirmed slowly on her king-sized double bed and reached out for the pitcher of water by the bed, but the fingers only found air.

It was then that she remembered that she had not set out a jug of water, and she clicked her tongue.

“Huwaaaah..”

She could not stifle her yawn. She slept like an old person, early to bed and early to rise, but she had only gone to bed just over an hour ago. She had not yet slept her fill.

The woman swallowed and placed a hand on her throat. There was a dry, sticky sensation there, and she got off the bed to get a drink of water. She threw on a long, thick robe to cover her nude body, slid her feet into a pair of slippers, and exited the room.

This was her— Hilma, head of the Drug Trafficking Division’s— home base in the Royal Capital. Logically speaking, there should have been dozens of lackeys bustling about, but the interior was now dead silent, like it was empty.

Surprised, Hima walked to the corridor. This mansion was always quiet when there were no nobles around, but this was too quiet.

She invited nobles to this place in order to build connections and relationships.

Among nobles, even legitimate heirs would need to wait a long time before they could succeed the family estate. It was quite common for them to only do so after the age of 30.

During this period, they could only ask the head of the house — that was to say, their father — for spending money. The same applied even if they were mature adults who were married with children. This was why Hilma invited these people to parties at this mansion.

Hilma provided drink, women and drugs, all the while whispering sweet nothings into their ears designed to play on their pride. She allowed them to meet others in the same situations as themselves to build a sense of closeness. Hilma would entertain them and build friendly relations with them.

Once these nobles inherited the estate, it was time for her to reap the harvest. If they dared sever ties with her, she would make sure they suffered for it. If they helped her out, she would reward them. In this way, she made further inroads into noble society.

She walked along the quiet hallway, looking for water to drink.

Silence was not a bad thing. She preferred the quiet to the noise of people. Though she did not show it on her face, she was actually very annoyed when she had to drink and hobnob with the nobles. However, the present circumstances were far too abnormal. This dead silence made her hair stand on end, and it even made her feel that she was the only person in this mansion.

“…What’s going on?”

It was impossible that even the guards had left their post without telling Hilma. She wanted to shout for someone, but if something abnormal had happened, it would be a very bad idea to let the enemy know where she was. She also considered just going back to her room and burrowing under her covers, but she might simply be awaiting her execution.

People who don’t move when they have to become food for others. This was a belief she subscribed to, and by adhering to that principle, she had risen from a high-class hooker to where she was now.

She checked both sides of the empty corridor several times and only moved ahead after verifying that there really was nobody there.

Trusting in her sixth sense, she headed towards a secret room which only she and a few others knew. There were several magic items and gems there, as well as an escape tunnel. This might have been her home base in the Royal Capital, but she had several other safehouses in the city itself. Perhaps she ought to flee there.

As she tiptoed along the hallway, Hilma realised something was off.

“What… is this?”

The whisper escaped her mouth unbidden. Hilma had discovered the oddity outside the window.

The window, made of sheets of thin glass, were covered in several layers of vines. As a result, almost no light could get in. She tried to open the window but it would not budge.

She hurriedly studied the other windows along the hallways. Each of them was choked with vines.

“What happened? Who could have…”

The windows were most definitely not like this before she had gone to bed. This could not have happened naturally in the space of an hour. That being the case, it was probably the work of magic.

Who could have done this, and what was their aim?

She had no idea about those points. Even so, she understood that her situation was very dire.

“Dammit!”

She cursed, and then she jogged ahead. She no longer cared about how her robe swayed here and there. All she wanted was to get into her secret room.

She reached the staircase and looked down. It was still silent.

Navigating by what little light managed to filter through the vines, she carefully descended the stairs. At the same time, she was grateful to the thick carpeting for masking her footsteps.

“—!”

When she reached the first floor, she was so shocked that she suddenly sucked in a lungful of cold air.

There was a person in the hallway staring at her. That person seemed to blend into the shadows as it stood there, but it was not because they had shadow-melding abilities like thieves or other related jobs. Rather it felt that way because of their dark-skin, which gave the wrong impression. That was a Dark Elf, and their mismatched eyes seemed to sparkle against the black cloth wrapping them.

The Dark Elf let the black cloth wrapping them fall to the ground. Below it was girls’ clothing. She held a black-colored magic staff, and she looked up to Hilma.

The secret room was behind this mysterious girl.

As she recalled the inner layout of the mansion, Hilma steeled herself and nervously approached her.

If only she were a playmate brought along by some noble.

However, Hilma immediately discarded her naive conjecture.

When she heard that Cocco Doll had been captured, she had prepared to flee to a safe place to hide since she did not know how the higher-ups would react. Under these circumstances, there was no way her people would bring in outsiders, or fail to report such a thing to her.

“Say, little girl…”

After calling out, Hilma wrinkled her brows in suspicion.

She had seen all sorts of people in her past profession as a high-class prostitute. Her experience told her that this was not a girl, but a boy.

Her clothes were exquisite and not the sort which ordinary people could afford. For all Hilma knew, even she might not have something of that quality.

The Dark Elves had once lived in the Great Forest of Tob, and they were practically nonexistent in the Kingdom. Yet here was one now, wearing expensive clothes intended for another gender.

If not for the sinister atmosphere, Hilma would have concluded that this child was a slave to satisfy some noble’s degenerate lust.

“…Hey boy, what’re you doing here?”

She approached slowly and carefully, trying not to arouse his suspicion.

“A-auntie, are you the most important person in this place?”

She was not displeased to be called an auntie. To a young Dark Elf like him, women of her age were probably all aunties.

“No—”

She stopped halfway. She had a bad feeling about this.

To date, she had relied on her instincts more than anything else. She had always believed that her instincts were superior than common sense. Where common sense might have betrayed her, only her intuition had never failed her.

“Yes! That’s right! I’m the most important person in this mansion.”

“Is, is that so, that’s good then.”

The boy smiled. His smile was so pure that even under the present circumstances, it almost managed to ignite the desire to defile his purity within Hilma’s heart.

“Ah, well, er, I asked those people, and they told me that too.”

As if in response to the boy, a nearby door opened. A girl slowly stepped out from within. She looked like a girl wearing some kind of bizarre maid uniform, but what surrounded her was not the scent of perfume but the stink of blood and gore.

Hilma covered her mouth and swallowed a scream.

The maid’s lovely little hand clutched a man’s arm. It looked like she had ripped it from his shoulder socket, given the torn fibers of muscle.

“What, what’s she…”

“Er, um, ah, it seems someone wanted to attack this mansion, so we decided to finish up some things before those people came. Therefore, er, I asked her to come along.”

“Please pay me no heed. It has been so long since I ate my fill, and I am very satisfied.”

She was able to address Hilma without moving her mouth. That was quite strange, but there were more pressing questions than that. What made Hilma shudder was the question of what exactly she had eaten to fill herself up. She could guess, but she did not want to believe. With those thoughts in her heart, she asked them.

“Then, then what, what about me? Are, are you going to eat me too?”

“Eh? Ah, er, no. You have other uses, auntie.”

She could not relax. That was because her intuition told her that a more horrific fate awaited her.

“—Then, then how about this, my boy. Want to have some fun with me?”

She let the clothes draped over her body slide from her shoulder.

This was her body, her pride and joy. When she had still been a courtesan, it would have cost a fortune just to spend the night with her. After that, she had kept any excess fat off her frame and maintained her sensuous figure. She was confident that she could fill anyone with all-consuming lust for her, even if her target was a child.

However, there did not seem to be any unusual emotions in the boy’s eyes.

She could admit that her charms were inferior to that maid over there. Even so, she had been a pro, despite the fact that she was retired. Even if he did not swing that way, she could still arouse him—

She elegantly worked her body in a serpentine fashion and slowly drew close, careful not to alarm him.

She could not sense anything like desire from the boy,

Therefore, she chose another course of action. She slowly extended a hand and put it around the boy’s neck — and activated a magic item.

It was the Viper Tattoo.

The tattooed snakes on both her hands came to life, raised their heads, and sprang out to bite the boy’s body. Anyone bitten by the serpents and their powerful neurotoxic venom would die in spastic twitches. This was the ace in the hole for Hilma, one did not otherwise have a way to fight.

However, the boy nimbly extended a hand and seized the whip-like snake as it struck, then proceeded to crush the life out of it without hesitation.

The Viper Tattoo whooshed back onto Hilma’s arms. Since the summoned snake had been killed, the tattoo could not be reactivated for a full day until it recovered.

Hilma was now in the worst-case scenario of having initiated hostilities and having nothing to show for it, and so she stumbled back unsteadily. However, what most frightened her was the fact that the boy’s expression had not changed at all during this string of events. He was not worried at being attacked, and neither did he show any hostility.

“Th-then, so, er, let’s go.”

Go where? Just as Hilma began to wonder about his words, intense pain shot through her kneecap at that very same moment. The unbearable pain left her unable to stand and she collapsed to the ground.

“Abbbbaahhhhh!”

She wailed in anguish, breaking out in a cold sweat because of the pain, and then she looked down at her knee. She then regretted doing so.

“My, my, my leeeeeeeg!”

The kneecap of her left leg was twisted in the other direction, and bone protruded from her blood-red — from her flesh.

Hilma wept and made to squeeze her leg, which was in unbelievable agony. However, she hesitated. She did not dare touch it.

The boy grabbed Hilma by the hair and then walked out.

Hilma was dragged away by an arm-strength that she could never have guessed at from the way he looked. Dozens of hairstrands were wrenched out with a quiet snapping sound, but the boy did not seem to care.

“It hurts! It hurts so much! Don’t do this!”

In response to Hilma’s wailing, the boy merely glanced at her, but did not halt his pace.

“I, I have to hurry up and get there!”

Part 2

Lower Fire Month (9th Month) 4th Day 22:20

Having completed the attack on the mansion, Entoma Vasilisa Zeta headed outside.

She peeled a paper strip off her leg, wadded it up and threw it into the depths of the building.

The original plan was to wipe out all the humans within the mansion, recover all important documents and valuables, and then retreat. If possible, they should try to avoid leaving any traces behind, but they did not have the time to sort the gathered information, so they ended up taking whatever they saw, and it looked like they had finished robbing an empty house.

However, that itself was not a problem. That was because Demiurge — who had sent Entoma and Mare here — had indicated that a development like this was a possibility. The problem was more that they had exceeded the allotted time by too much.

Mare and the demons who had accompanied her were no longer here. Mare had taken the most important person in this mansion to the rendezvous point. The vassal demons had departed this place with the reason they had exceeded their time — piles of goods.

Indeed. The reason why their timing was completely off was because they had discovered a basement while they were retreating. And that basement was piled high with contraband items and forbidden drugs.

The task of recovery had proceeded slowly.

To begin with, there were several underground rooms heaped high with miscellaneous items, and the high-value items were salted and concealed among the dross. As the saying went, the best place to hide a tree was in a forest. Even Entoma and the demons could not have brought all the goods away with them, and so they had to sift through said forest for the trees in question.

Perhaps it might have been resolved faster if the human which Mare had taken away was still around. However, it was too late to say that now.

Entoma and the demons decided to inspect each and every item, and they threw everything they judged as worthless into a room. This was a tedious task for the gathering party, whose strength far exceeded those of human beings. However, their hard work had paid off, and they had recovered everything valuable from the basement.

As the person in charge, Entoma had stayed behind until the end. With the attitude only found on those who had completed a great labor, she looked up at the night sky and made to wipe the sweat off her brow. In truth, she had not sweated at all; she only felt like she had.

“All right~ Then, hurry up and move it all, everyone.”

In accordance with Entoma’s orders, the insects which were bigger than a man took wing into the night sky, carrying a large quantity of cargo. These Giant Beetles had been summoned by Entoma’s entomancer abilities.

The insects flew straight toward the prearranged meeting point, their wings making a deep bass sound as they flapped.

Entoma watched the insects move the cargo, and she remembered that she was still holding something.

“Ah, I haven’t eaten it yet. How silly of me, how silly.”

She playfully knuckled her own head, and then brought the severed man’s arm under her jaw. There was a shakashaka noise as the flesh of the man’s arm was torn away. Entoma’s throat moved in time with the sound. Then, with a cute urp, the stench of blood spread through the air.

“While the fat of women’s meat makes it tender and children’s meat tastes good despite having less fat, eating the meat of a muscular man is best when trying to lose weight.”

She deftly avoided the bones, and once she was done, she chucked the rest of the arm into the mansion.

“Thank you for having me.”

She bowed to the building, and finally made to go to the point her superiors had ordered her to travel to. However, she had only taken a few steps when someone called out to her and stopped her in her tracks.

“Yo, this is a pretty nice night.”

“…Is it? I don’t think it’s nice for you at all, is it?”

Entoma had trouble telling whether the human who was slowly emerging was male or female. It seemed female, but judging by its muscular frame, it also seemed male.

“What’re you doing in a place like this?”

“Taking a walk.”

“…What were you eating so happily just now?”

“Meat.”

“…Human meat?”

“Yup. Human meat.”

The manwoman’s tone was icy cold, but it did not bother Entoma at all. She did not care at all how humans felt. If they got in the way, she would trample them. If they stayed out of the way, she would ignore them. If she was hungry, she would capture and eat them. It would be strange if she was actually concerned about such beings.

“I see. So the monster makes an appearance. I didn’t expect Eight Fingers to rear such monsters. But by the looks of things, they didn’t train you up properly.”

The manwoman slowly raised its spiked warhammer. As Entoma saw this, exasperation crept into her tone for the first time.

“I say. Could we just pretend we didn’t see each other?”

A strange expression appeared on the manwoman’s face. It probably had not expected the person opposite it to say something like that.

“You see, I came here to work too, and dealing with you would be very annoying. The most important thing is that right now, my tummy’s stuffed fit to burst.”

“…Sorry, but I’m one of the top adventurers in the Kingdom. I can’t let a man-eating monster go just like that. Besides, leaving something like you in the world would cause me a lot of problems.”

“What a pain. Still, you say you’re strong, huh? In that case, I’ll use you as emergency rations, then.”

Entoma looked directly at the manwoman for the first time.

It appeared to be a pure warrior.

Mm — it ought to be pretty strong.

Entoma was not a pure warrior, and so she could not estimate her opponent’s strength. However, she did not feel that her adversary was stronger than her.

“Yeeart!”

The manwoman ran at Entoma. Then it raised its spiked warhammer high and smashed down at her.

Entoma gracefully evaded that blow. However, her opponent refused to let up and suddenly changed the direction of its swing, bringing the warhammer at her in a murderous blow. That was not a graceful movement utilizing centrifugal force, but using brute muscle power to forcefully change the direction of the strike.

Entoma evaded once more, and then activated a skill.

“Ah? Is running all you can do?!”

The manwoman swung its warhammer at Entoma, and the gale in the wake of its blow whipped past her head, stirring the strands of her fake hair.

“Mm — you really like swinging wildly, don’t you?”

Her mockery was met by the clicking of a tongue. Entoma used her skill once more, and at the same time she easily avoided the plunging smash of the spiked warhammer. Having missed its target, the hammer crashed into the ground with all the force which had been meant for her.

Entoma sneered at her opponent’s simple, repetitive attacks. Her face did not change at all. However, her opponent could keenly sense the mockery coming from her as they fought.

However, Entoma then realised in the next moment that her opponent was waiting for this — for the hubris that only the overwhelmingly powerful possessed.

“Break!”

The earth shattered where the spiked warhammer had struck it. No, the stone floor had shattered. It was like a localized earthquake. For the first time, Entoma lost her footing. In contrast, her opponent had used some kind of magic item to remain as stately as a mountain.

Entoma watched as her opponent raised its warhammer once more, its head stained with dirt and debris.

I underestimated my opponent.

Entoma scolded herself.

Evading that move was easy enough. Indeed, if she had been human, she would have lost her balance when her footing was destroyed, and the shockwave of the ground fragmenting under her feet would have reached her legs and acted as another set of shackles to bind her in place, making escape very difficult. However, Entoma was one of the Pleiades Battle Maids, and the magic items she wore were all of superior quality. Such conditions did not bother her in the slightest.

There was only one problem.

She would have to jump in order to evade, but that would dirty the maid uniform she wore.

Would such a thing be permitted? This was a rare and precious treasure handed down to Entoma from the Supreme Beings.

That was enough — no more playing around.

For the first time, there was genuine hostility on Entoma’s face under the mask.

No more playing around.

—I’ll kill it.

Entoma turned to face the falling spiked warhammer and raised her left arm. She no longer felt like a human flicking away a bug, but the actual desire to kill. Perhaps it would be different if she were a Floor Guardian, but for someone of Entoma’s level, it would be very difficult to survive unscathed if she were to block that attack with her defenseless left arm.

In the very next moment, what rang out was not the sound of steel pulping flesh, but two hard objects colliding.

At this moment, a shield clung to Entoma’s left arm. “Clung” was not a metaphorical term — an insect with over eight legs gripped Entoma’s arm tightly and refused to let go.

“What, what’s that?”

“You see, I’m an entomancer. So I can call out bugs like this and command them as I like.”

She waved her right hand and out of the night flew a long insect shaped like a broadsword, which attached itself to the back of her right hand.

“These is a Sword Bug and this is a Shield Bug. I’ve decided that I’m going to kill you. I hadn’t intended to take your life at first, but now you cannot be spared.”

Entoma advanced on her opponent and slashed at it.

She ripped through the manwoman’s breastplate and fresh blood fountained out. However, it was not a fatal blow by any means. Her opponent had not been able to avoid a serious attack from Entoma, but she had only been lightly wounded.

It would seem calling itself one of the top adventurers in the Kingdom was not pride or exaggeration. However, if that was all she had, she was not worthy to be Entoma’s opponent.

She was not a pure fighter like Yuri Alpha, but Entoma Vasilisa Zeta was still a member of the Pleiades, and she possessed power entirely incomparable to that of mankind.

She swung again, and blood spurted once more, splashing her face.

Thanks to the injury she had taken just now, this wound was deeper than the last, and it could no longer be considered light.

“You actually changed your movements on me! Did you get serious?!”

The spiked warhammer fell on Entoma with a furious cry, and Entoma deflected it with her Shield Bug. She felt a tremendous impact race through her, but she stood firm, determined not to budge so much as a step. In truth, nothing would have happened if she did move, but this was an expression of her pride, and her determination to not move for a mere human being.

The manwoman rode on the flow of battle, continuing her fluid combination of attacks. Her fast and furious assault was most likely augmented by the “Martial Arts” which were unique to this world. However, Entoma skilfully used her Shield Bug and her Sword Bug to block the series of fifteen continuous attacks without so much as a scratch

Entoma did not know that this was the trump card of Blue Rose’s Gagaran, her super combo made by simultaneously activating many martial arts. Each hit of that crashing wave of attacks was made with all the strength her steely arms could produce, and they could even break through the [Fortress] martial art. Only the defensive technique known as [Invulnerable Fortress] — which only a few geniuses could master — could hope to fully defend against it. However, Entoma’s innate muscle power had blocked every single strike.

This was the disparity in their levels, the overwhelming difference in the physical abilities of their respective species.

The beginning of despair began to appear in her opponent’s eyes, but Entoma felt nothing for it. All she wanted was to kill her adversary.

“—Puhah!”

She heard what sounded like a swimmer gasping for air as their head crested the water’s surface. The combination attack had also stopped. Entoma cocked her right hand — the one with the Sword Bug — back like she was drawing a bow, and then stabbed forward like loosing an arrow. She was aiming for the chest of the manwoman.

Her foe raised its warhammer, but it was too slow. Entoma’s strike was faster than it, and it pierced it chest —

—Or at least, that should have been the case.

The thrust missed. The insect blade struck nothing but the night air.

Entoma’s head swivelled. She wanted to see who had interfered with her attack.

There was a black-clad woman several meters away. Behind her was the panting manwoman.

“Sorry about that, Tia. I thought I was a goner.”

“So your blood is red too, Gagaran.”

“What are you acting all surprised for? It’s not like this is the first time you’ve seen me get hurt.”

“I thought you’d start to bleed blue by now. Like a power up.”

“That’s not a power-up, that’s becoming another race entirely!”

“A class change, then.”

As she heard the two of them bantering, Entoma grew angry. She was the strong one here. Only she was allowed to act so casual. They needed to know where they stood.

“—Are you quite done yet? Have you said your farewells to each other?”

Entoma grew cautious for the first time. The manwoman — Gagaran — was nothing to fear. The problem was the newcomer — Tia. If her clothes were not just for looks, then she ought to be a ninja. That was a job class which required a minimum character level of 60 to take.

If that were the case, then the teleportation technique which had allowed Gagaran to escape Entoma’s attack was ninjutsu.

If she were a real ninja, then even Entoma would not be able to win easily. She had thought to conserve her strength and eliminate her opponent, but things being as they were, she could no longer afford to hold back.

“[Shikigumo Talismans]!”

Before her opponents could act, Entoma had already thrown out four talismans from her right hand.

The talismans landed on the ground, and instantly transformed into huge spiders.

These spiders were comparable to the monsters conjured by [Summon Monster 3rd], and they were hardly powerful creatures, but they ought to be enough to gauge her opponent’s strength. They would also buy her time to prepare herself.

Entoma was doing this because entomancers’ insect weapons were very powerful, but they had a few weaknesses. One of them was the fact that summoning the insects in question required some time.

“[Kage Bunshin no Jutsu].”

As Tia activated her ninjutsu, her shadow writhed and birthed another Tia.

Entoma paid no attention to it. The clones generated by the [Kage Bunshin no Jutsu] were only a quarter as strong as their creator. Their evasive ability varied in proportion to how much of their creator’s mana had been allocated to them, but that was all. Perhaps they might be considered formidable opponents for the Shikigumo, but they were hardly a challenge for Entoma.

Rather, the more important thing was how skilled the original was. Entoma called out her trump cards; her Bullet Bugs and another kind of insect. At the same time, she pasted talismans on herself to further strengthen her abilities.

A swarm of Bullet Bugs gathered out of nowhere and covered her left arm.

The three centimeter-long insects gleamed with a steely radiance, and the fronts of their V-shaped bodies were sharp, bearing a strong resemblance to rifle bullets. No, that resemblance was only to be expected, because these insects were used exactly like rifle bullets.

The shadow clone was running ragged just trying to evade the attacks of one Shikigumo, while the original was dealing with two of them. The fact that she had only killed one after so long suggested that her foes were most definitely not high-levelled. That being the case, victory ought to be easy even if one factored in Gagaran’s fighting power.

—As if, I’m not going to think that way.

She was not going to show them any mercy. She would quickly end the battle with overwhelming force.

The weight on her left arm pleased Entoma, and she extended the finger of her left hand at Tia.

The bugs had encrusted Entoma’s arm until they had practically doubled its diameter. As one, they crawled to the front of her arm and then took wing from her extended finger, one after the other. The incessant buzzing of wings called to mind the image of a Gatling gun. The path of the Bullet Bugs meant that they pierced through her own Shikigumo, but in total, 150 of them flew downstream at Tia.

These bugs could punch holes in steel, and even a large tree would be riddled full of holes and sawed in half if it was hit by 150 of them. However, in the face of the fatal projectiles, Tia used another ninjutsu technique.

“[Fudou Kongou Tate no Jutsu]!”

A scintillating rainbow-colored shield sprang into existence in front of Tia. The bugs slammed into the gigantic wall of light that cut through the darkness, which was shaped like a six pointed star. Within a few seconds, the shield shattered with the crisp sound of breaking glass. However, the fusillade of insects had stopped as the shield broke, revealing an unhurt Tia behind it.

Entoma had no tongue, but she clicked it anyway. However, the fact that she could force her foe to use one ace in the hole after another was like lighting the path to her victory. So far her foe could withstand Entoma’s attacks, but once Entoma’s offense surpassed her opponent’s defense, the flood which washed over their protections would surely consume them too.

Entoma deflected the the kunai flying from the front with the Sword Bug — then she blocked Gagaran’s plunging mid-air strike with her Shield bug. She must have jumped down from quite a high place, because the Shield Bug had to take a lot of pressure, and it squeaked like it was wailing in pain.

If the dazzling lights of the [Fudou Kongou Tate] had affected Entoma’s vision, she would not have been able to block Gagaran’s leaping attack from the darkness. However, Entoma’s vision was not affected by such petty trickery. In addition, her field of vision was much larger than that of a human, even when she wore “that”.

Perhaps she sensed that following up on the attack would be dangerous, but Gagaran skated away — her legs remained still, but the distance between them opened up. The fact that she was moving so nimbly despite her massive frame proved that her wounds were completely healed. She took her place beside Tia and crushed the Bullet Bugs’ corpses underfoot, making a clear pachipachi noise.

“This is terrible, I don’t feel like we can win at all. How did she do that, her timing was too good, don’t you think? She barely even saw me but she blocked me anyway.”

“Maybe she has a wide field of vision?”

“It should be something else. I think it’s more likely that it’s an entomancer ability, or some kind of magical sense… that said, everything’s in her favor, so why didn’t she attack while we were talking?”

“A beast will size up its prey’s strength, and then strike at its vitals.”

“I see. In other words, she’s studying all our moves. That’s completely unlike our shorty, these careful types are really hard to deal with.”

“It wouldn’t be good to look down on you because you’re humans, no? Ah, although there was another reason… there we are, it’s here. Now then, I won’t need this any more.”

The insect clinging to Entoma’s right arm fell to the ground and vanished into the night with a scrabbling noise.

“And in its place… come here.”

Another insect crawled onto the now-vacant arm. It resembled a centipede. No, it practically was a centipede, if one disregarded the fact that it was ten meters long and the sharp fangs at what passed for its face in front.

This was the most powerful insect her entomancer abilities could summon, the Thousand Lash Bug.

Entoma began channelling her strength into her legs.

She had learned the attack speed, destructive power, defensive strength, evasive ability and movement abilities of the two humans before her. The only unknown variable was Tia’s adaptability, but there was no need to worry about that.

“Oops.”

Entoma touched her chin. Her fingers made contact with a clear, sticky fluid.

“I just ate my fill, but after a bit of exercise I’m hungry again.”

She had touched her saliva. It was the expression of her desire for humans as food.

Although her favorite food was humans, until now she had only been able to sate her cravings using green biscuits as a substitute. Of course, she did not resent the Supreme Beings because of that. In fact, Entoma felt that the Supreme Beings were quite generous for allowing her to eat the arms which had been severed during the experiments on the humans captured from a certain village,

Even so, she had still been repressing herself, and now that there were two excellent specimens of humanity — the highest-grade of cuisine — before her, she could not bear to dispose of them without taking a single bite.

The two of them shuddered, exposed as they were before Entoma’s hungry gaze. They were not afraid of the killing intent she emitted, but this was a trembling born of the revulsion any living being had when a carnivore set its sights on them.

“Kiiiiiyeeeeeart!”

This was the first time Entoma had gone on the offensive in the battle, and her attack was accompanied by a shrill cry that sounded like two pieces of foam rubbing against each other. Predators pounced their prey in a straight line, and at very high speeds.

By the time she had deflected the six consecutive kunai coming at her, she had covered the distance between both parties.

Seeing Gagaran the frontliner raise her weapon, Entoma decided on the first person she would incapacitate, and she swung the whip in her right hand.

The longer the whip, the slower its tip would move. The same applied even to Entoma, who possessed superhuman muscle power. However, that was only true if the whip in question was a normal one.

Entoma was now using the most powerful insect that she, as an entomancer, could summon —

The whip which should have followed the motion of Entoma’s arm in a lazy arc moved in a completely impossible fashion. It launched out like an extension of Entoma’s arm at Gagaran, its razor-sharp horns and teeth leading the way at lightning speed.

This movement was only possible from a creature that was a fusion of weapon and lifeform. Even a veteran of a thousand bizarre encounters like Gagaran had probably never seen or experienced this sort of thing before. It was only natural that she would be surprised by witnessing something like that for the first time.

The fact that she could avoid such a strange attack was why she was called an adamantite-ranked adventurer — the highest-ranked of all adventurers.

Gagaran evaded the attack by the narrowest of margins, and as the insect-whip flew past her face —

“Watch out!”

—Following Tia’s cry, Gagaran’s body was blown away. This was Tia’s ninjutsu — [Bakuenjin]. the suicidal explosion enveloped the two of them, the Thousand Lash Bug passed through the place where Gagaran’s head had been, having turned a full 180 degrees to attack from behind.

If not for that suicidal explosion, the Thousand Lash Bug would have pierced her skull. It had been well-dodged. However, Entoma’s attack did not stop there. The Thousand Lash Bug suddenly turned as though it was on strings, heading at Gagaran’s blackened body.

At the same time, Entoma cast a talisman at Tia.

—It was a Thunderbird Talisman.

The talisman transformed into several birds of bluish-white electricity in mid-air, and winged towards Tia.

If there were two opponents, then all she had to do was let her bug deal with one of them. One could say that was an advantage that entomancers possessed.

The lightning strike exploded, and actinic blue-white light burst out to cover the surroundings, illuminating Tia — who was trying to withstand the pain — and Gagaran — who was trying to fend off the Thousand Lash Bug.