Volume 2 Chapter 8 (1/2)

An exceptional Archenemy working for the Bright Cross.

Valkyrie Karen.

”…! Maxwell!!”

”Too. Late.”

The blue bunny girl slowly pulled something from the cleavage of her ample chest. It looked like a pair of sporty gla.s.ses with blue frames. When I realized they were smart gla.s.ses that placed their screen over the actual scenery, I felt a tremendous chill run down my spine.

The Valkyrie had linked with Laplace, the frightening simulator that far surpa.s.sed Maxwell. That extraordinary monster had now acquired a crystallization of humankind's knowledge.

”Ah.”

I knew prediction was hopeless.

I understood that resistance was futile.

Time slowed to a crawl. It was like stepping out onto the road in front of my home and finding a giant dump truck's b.u.mper filling my vision. As my life flashed before my eyes, I gained an oddly calm certainty: this blue bunny girl monster was as certain a death as that.

While time moved strangely slowly, Valkyrie Karen used exceedingly accurate movements to raise her golden feathered cross-spear while her long skirt fluttered behind her.

The relative density of pure gold was more than twice that of iron. That spear was as tall as she was, so if she threw it like a baseball, well, my life was over. I wouldn't just be bisected when it hit me; my flesh and blood would pop like a water balloon.

This was a threat on the same level as a dump truck b.u.mper filling my vision.

Rolling to the right or left was only a theoretical solution. I didn't have the extraordinary strength of an Archenemy, so my body would not keep up with the thoughts in my head.

So this was the end.

All I could do was watch the ma.s.s of pure gold approaching my chest.

But I was not torn to pieces as if from a head-on collision with a dump truck.

The reason why was simple.

While I stood stock still, a witch and dark elf saved me from behind.

My slowed sense of time returned to normal.

So my senses were no longer enough to understand or grasp what had happened between them.

But escaping the desperate slowing of time did provide some relief.

Yes.

It meant I had escaped that threat to my life.

A moment later, a deafening clash of metal sounded. Muramatsu Yukie the Dark Elf had grabbed my shoulders, but that was not going to let me escape in time. The witch in a black dress, Itou Helen, rushed forward with odd, crab-like armor covering her, but when she was. .h.i.t by Valkyrie Karen's fierce attack, which caused her long skirt to beat at the air behind her, Itou Helen was knocked back toward me like an artillery sh.e.l.l and I just barely managed to catch her.

I spread my arms to catch her, but she felt nothing like a soft girl.

It was more like a basketball had been dropped on my stomach while lying on Jupiter where the gravity was 11 times that of Earth. An unbearable impact shook not just my stomach but my entire spine. I was the one being protected here, but my breath was knocked from my lungs and I felt like my heart nearly stopped.

All three of us were sent flying.

Even so, the difference in power was so great that I could only feel we were fortunate none us had died.

”Max…well.”

”Sure.”

”What is a Valkyrie!? And how is this even possible!?”

It was true that vampires and zombies were extraordinary. If the great Darwin had seen them, they might have seemed so ridiculous that he would have thrown in the towel and never left his home again.

But Valkyries took a step beyond that. They weren't just monsters. They were divine messengers. That put them on the same level as Gabriel or Michael. If something like that showed up in a monster champions.h.i.+p full of orcs and skeletons, no one would be able to stop her from mopping the floor with the others. You would probably call it unfair!

”Now, now. This isn't all that unusual.”

Instead of Maxwell, I received a response from Blue Bunny Girl Karen who easily rested the ultra-heavy gold cross-spear on her shoulder.

”While seeing a Valkyrie herself might be unusual, seeing derivations and their fallen forms is a different story. For example, banshees or the Wild Hunt. There are even plenty of theories saying European fairies have their roots in Valkyries.”

Did that mean this was acceptable?

Could this really be acceptable?

Could I really just accept that the Bright Cross had the help of an Archenemy that easily wielded a power on the ridiculous scale of ”the G.o.ds”!?

”Sen…pai.”

From my arms…or rather, after having her witch hat head shoved into my gut after we were sent flying, Itou Helen gasped for breath but forced out some words.

”I will…deal with the monster. So you…give me instructions…just like-…”

”It's no use.”

She was cut off by a whisper from the blue bunny girl wielding her gold spear and s.h.i.+eld. Almost like she had predicted that statement.

And that may have been possible.

While she wiggled the round tail on her b.u.t.t, she viewed us through those smart gla.s.ses…and those sporty, blue-framed gla.s.ses were a cutting-edge mobile device connected to the largescale personnel-selection simulator known as Laplace.

That blue demon smiled as if tearing open her own mouth.

”My Valkyrie power beats you as an Archenemy and Laplace's simulator knowledge beats you as a human. Thus, there is no one at all who can defeat Karen-chan☆”

There was no room for reb.u.t.tal.

The blue bunny girl sensually licked her lips and then she exploded. No, that was just what it looked like. It did not matter that she wore stilettos. Her gold spear and s.h.i.+eld turned to flowing lines of light as she approached and that divine messenger was right in front of us in no time.

Oh…no.

I'm going to…die!?

A moment later, two weapons crossed paths. One was the Valkyrie's pure gold spear made ultra-heavy due to the relative density. The other was the group of translucent tails that were actually deadly jellyfish tentacles erupting from the back of the caped witch's hips.

The result was plain as day.

”Ah…kweah!?”

The blonde girl screamed like a strangled bird and a single light touch severed all of the deadly jellyfish tentacles. It did not matter that it was 1-against-9. The difference in power was overwhelming. The gold-glittering spear actually sliced through the air after the tentacles were already moving. Her power was so much greater. In the time it took Itou Helen to move once while holding her gla.s.s wand, the blue bunny girl let her long skirt beat at the air behind her while she freely made 10 or even 20 fatal strikes from whatever angles she liked!

That deadly spear spun around in the blue bunny girl's neatly-manicured fingers. The deadly weapon danced about as casually as a cheerleader's baton.

The tip aimed for the center of my chest. In other words, my heart. That profaner of miracles even licked her lips as she directly targeted my life!?

”Kh!”

With a short breath, my body sank down. But it was not my own doing. In her sleeveless blouse and tight skirt, Muramatsu Yukie had swept my feet out from under me. I fell backwards and the golden spear just barely swept by above me. Having missed me, the great ma.s.s struck the dark elf with the intensity of a meteor strike.

”M-Muramatsu-saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!”

The brown-skinned girl was launched backwards and all I could do was scream her name. I could not even tell if she was alive or dead.

Meanwhile, the blue bunny girl continued moving while wiggling her decorative long ears and wing decorations.

This time, Itou Helen responded. Several colorful liquids pa.s.sed through her gla.s.s wand; underwent heating, cooling, distillation, filtration, separation, and several other chemical changes within the swollen flask portions; and created potions with effects unexplainable by the laws of physics.

Even so.

Even so, it was useless against the blue Valkyrie.

She simply moved her head to the side to dodge the round-bottomed flasks thrown at her like grenades or Molotov c.o.c.ktails, and a golden light flew as a counterattack. Instead of the spear, it was the round, one-handed s.h.i.+eld engraved with a wing emblem. She had mercilessly thrown it to use the edge as a weapon.

Given the relative density of pure gold, its weight had to be greater than iron knuckles, a gla.s.s ashtray, or even a brick.

”Ahhhhhhhh!?”

Itou Helen screamed as she was torn from me and sent flying backwards.

I had lost the protection of the dark elf and the witch.

I was now nothing more than a high school boy, and she produced a sharp clack from her stilettos as she stepped forward with enough force to kick at my jaw from below if she wanted. She then accurately pressed the tip of her gold cross-spear against my throat.

That beautiful but wicked divine messenger spoke with mockery in her voice.

”Checkmate.”

”…Why?”

I could not escape the sense of approaching death and the blade gently stroked my Adam's apple, but it was a question that left my lips, not a plea for my life.

Yes.

”The fact that you're a divine messenger doesn't matter here. But you're an Archenemy, aren't you? So why did you side with the cruel and horrific Bright Cross!?”

”Hee hee. Everyone has their reasons. That's all.”

…No good, huh?

She would not turn this into a debate. She did not think I was worthy of a direct clash of opinions. This meant I couldn't negotiate, threaten her…or even make bluffs. She would simply use her greater power to kill me.

Or so I thought.

But that was not what happened.

I heard multiple m.u.f.fled explosive sounds.

You didn't often hear live gunshots in j.a.pan. Ones from a silenced weapon were even rarer.

There was only one possibility I could think of.

…Could it be Itou Tamago? But why!?

”Oh, dear.”

The blue bunny girl was not even bothered. She wiggled the round tail on her b.u.t.t back and forth and the tip of the golden spear pressed against my throat only s.h.i.+fted slightly. Her slender arm with a cuff adorning the wrist…vanished.

With sounds of sc.r.a.ping metal, a gold wind whipped up and orange sparks burst in the air.

…You're kidding…right?

She could see the bullets slicing through the air and knock them down? Even my vampire older sister and zombie little sister had been hit when caught by a surprise attack from a machinegun in the simulator. They had been hit, but they hadn't died. That was all.

I had no idea if Erika or Ayumi could perfectly intercept a bullet. And this Valkyrie was doing it almost as an afterthought while she peered into my eyes with a look of amus.e.m.e.nt!?

”Simply knocking them from the air would be cra.s.s. Oh, I know☆ How about this?”

There was no time to resist.

The bunny girl grabbed my collar with one hand and then spun around with her long skirt drawing a wide circle behind her.

She held me out toward the source of the gunfire, like a human s.h.i.+eld.

The sound of something piercing my right thigh seemed oddly distant.

But then I felt an unbearable scorching pain like someone had poured molten metal inside my body.

”Gwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

The option to bear with it did not even reach my mind.

”Ah hah hah! How does it feel, how does it feel? Your pathetic attempt at justice by betraying the organization has only trampled on the small life you were trying to protect! This bloodshed, this suffering, this tragedy! Your trigger finger produced it all! Ah, ahhh! Brrr!!”

The bunny girl continued yelling as her back trembled in ecstasy, the tail on her b.u.t.t wiggled back and forth, and she did not even attempt to hide the flush of her cheeks and heated breaths leaving her mouth.

The perfectly accurate gunfire had been briefly held back by something invisible.

And the ruler of war that was a Valkyrie did not overlook that opening.

”Take this. Better luck next time☆”

With that carefree comment, something sliced through the air and produced a gust of wind. Her disk-shaped one-handed s.h.i.+eld flew with the weight and sharpness of a guillotine.

It hit and stabbed in more sharply than a bullet and more intensely than a shooting star.

It really was like a great explosion.

A portion of the scenery was covered by a ma.s.sive shockwave and a c.u.mulonimbus-like mountain of dust.

Even if he had taken a variety of detours first, that man had finally decided to take on the world for his little sister, but now his possibilities had been far too easily snuffed out.

Something really did burst in my head.

”Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

I didn't do anything special.

I hadn't pulled a legendary sword from a stone. I hadn't summoned a giant pitch-black dragon from a magic circle by reciting an incantation.

I was simply desperate.

While dangling from her arm, I used both hands to grab at the hand holding my collar. More accurately, I grabbed the blue bunny girl's thumb. Then I tried to twist it like a microwave's timer.

Normally, that would have shattered the thumb bone.

But even with all 10 of my fingers working hard enough to nearly tear the muscles in my arms, the Valkyrie did not even bat an eye.

And she whispered to me.

”This is the clear difference between a human and a divine messenger.”

A moment later, I heard the low boom as if from a drum taller than me.

By the time I realized her one arm had slammed my back into one of the nearby gravestones, the intense pain nearly tore my personality asunder.

”Ghah!! Agragbfhbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”

I could not win.

I could not even get in a single attack.

Soft-looking girl's skin was right in front of my eyes, but I could not even scratch it with my nails. Even if dozens of Archenemies or an army of hundreds gathered here, this divine messenger would barely glance in their direction!!

”Why…?”

I knew it was useless.

Buying time would not bring about a means of winning. And the blue bunny girl had no intention of answering as she wiggled her tail. But it was still a question and not anger or hatred that spilled from my mouth.

”With this much power…if the ridiculous category of a divine messenger really exists…you could single-handedly destroy the arrogant Bright Cross the humans made… So why would you swear allegiance to a group dedicated to your suffering, Valkyrie!?”

”Hmm.”

While pressing me to the black wall with one arm, the blue bunny girl wiggled the ribbon around her neck and gave me an interested but mocking smile.

And while smiling, she held her gold cross-spear close to the tip and gently pressed it against me.

She pressed it against my right leg. Against the dark-red fingertip-sized gunshot wound in my thigh.

”Aghahh! Gyaaaaaaahhhhh!?”

”Mr. Second, you seem to have made a fundamental misunderstanding here.”

It was like an afterthought.

A slight detour.

But the malice evident there erased all thought from my mind.

”The Bright Cross was not created by humans.”

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Ah?

”Well, it is true it's 99% composed of humans and most of those have no idea they've sworn allegiance to an organization founded by Archenemies.”

I had no idea what she meant.

No, the kind portion of my mind was doing everything it could to reject the correct answer.

I mean…

That conclusion was just too much!