episode_0007

The fairy princess resembled the image Eliza had seen at the brink of terror.

From her snow-white skin akin to poisonous mushrooms, to her warm-looking ash-blonde hair and deep crimson irises darker than those of a vampire patient…

The only difference was that she wore nothing, revealing black nipples on her ample chest.

On this moonlit night, they could see each other across the stream.

“Who…?”

It was terrifying to see her directly in the shining reality of the moonlit night rather than in a horrifying illusion, but Eliza gathered her courage, stopped crying, and spoke.

The fairy princess, with an emotionless and cold expression, stared at Eliza and then suddenly lunged at her.

“You almost killed me! What are you doing!”

Eliza, forgetting her instinctual fear upon seeing the fairy princess, shouted like a girl.

“If my head hit a rock, I would have died instantly! What were you trying to do… gah!”

The fairy princess covered Eliza’s mouth with her right hand and brought her left index finger to Eliza’s lips.

Eliza noticed the sharpness of the red nails on her fingers, short but well-sharpened like a dagger.

‘If she uses those nails to pierce my throat and lift upwards, my neck would be torn out in an instant.’

With a face filled with fear, Eliza contemplated all the possible deaths she could face from those sharp nails.

Their faces were close, resembling lovers about to kiss.

Eliza’s face reddened gradually. Despite looking both human-like and alien, appearing frightening, her face was as beautiful as the Amehain courtesans she had encountered before.

‘To be this close to a girl… naked…’

Despite not feeling empathy, Eliza’s attitude towards the woman still seemed compassionate.

“She looks somewhat childlike in person. Still, she seems better than when she was a man.”

The fairy princess muttered in an unknown language Eliza couldn’t understand.

“Is this female really the key to saving our compatriots?”

Upon listening further, the language and pronunciation of the wandering traders from the southern region, specifically the “Virgin” Lei’s main activity stage, sounded similar.

Not understanding the southern dialect, Eliza was clueless about the meaning.

“Nevertheless… she looks quite decent.”

The fairy princess pressed closer. Their chests crushed against each other, nipples rubbing together, sending a tingling sensation through Eliza’s body.

“Stop now…!”

Eliza tried to push the fairy princess away with her arms, weakened compared to when she possessed a male body, failing to do so.

“….!”

The fairy princess raised her head, staring menacingly at Eliza.

Thinking it was due to her resistance, Eliza got scared, but the fairy princess swiftly unfolded transparent beetle wings hidden on her back and leaped forward.

Caught in the sharp wind, Eliza screamed and stood up.

Then came a dreadful scream.

“A bear?”

A huge black bear, lurking in the bushes to attack them, was being assaulted by the fairy princess.

In Merbia, like other regions, the bloodlines of mutant animals were increasing, and bears were unable to escape the new order of nature. However, this black bear, fortunately, retained its normal appearance from before the days of hardship and showed no internal mutations.

Thanks to the blessed physique passed down through generations, the black bear maintained its pure bloodline.

Having survived mercilessly in the forest for 15 years, he was a creature who honed strength and wisdom. He did not underestimate the weak or overly fear the strong.

They fought, won, and devoured everything.

In the thick bushes, Black Bear observed Eliza who had come to bathe in the stream. If it were an ordinary bear, upon realizing its prey was alone, it would have charged immediately. However, Black Bear obsessively clung to safety.

Humans were intelligent beings, and Black Bear considered Eliza, who was alone and unarmed, a trap.

But when a creature he had never seen before approached the prey that had already been marked, Black Bear was frightened. Seeing the creature captivate Eliza, Black Bear decided to attack.

Unaware and uninterested in important matters that Black Bear didn’t need to know about, they were oblivious to Black Bear’s approach. Black Bear let out a fierce roar, intending to charge at them and crush them mercilessly with his powerful front paws, but…

“Kwaaaaa!”

Attacking the fairy princess was the worst mistake of Black Bear’s 15-year life.

Had he ignored her and moved on, he could have continued his brutal life for another five years, but Black Bear chose the path of self-inflicted suffering leading to death.

*

The fairy princess dug her nails into Black Bear’s face, exerting force and tearing at him.

Black Bear let out a roar filled with agony. Attempting to retaliate with his front paws, which were as sharp as the fairy’s nails, he ended up hitting himself in the face because she had stopped tearing at him and retreated.

Fluttering her wings rapidly, the fairy princess flew into the air, driving her claws into Black Bear’s back and climbing up.

“Kwaaaaa!”

With his torn flesh and his left eye burst open, Black Bear screamed in agony.

Even amidst his cries, Black Bear’s fighting instincts remained sharp. Quickly rolling his body, approaching nearly 850kg in weight, he tried to crush the fairy princess.

“Dull.”

Dodging being pinned down with swift movements, the fairy princess took advantage of Black Bear exposing his belly, flying up and striking his stomach with her right fist from a height of 3 meters.

Screaming in pain, Black Bear vomited blood and bile from his mouth. Unfortunately, his muzzle was facing Eliza, who was drenched in the bear’s fluids.

“Aaaah!”

Covered in filth, Eliza screamed in disgust. Ironically, her scream upon realizing she had transformed into a female was similar to the one she let out after discovering herself covered in the bear’s fluids.

The fairy princess slashed Black Bear’s belly with her nails, then inserted her hand into the gap, spreading it wide on both sides. Black Bear’s entrails spilled out, emitting a foul smell.

Despite feeling his entrails being ripped out, Black Bear attacked the fairy with all his might using his right front paw.

Delivering a blow fueled by all his strength, the fairy princess was hit head-on and thrown away.

Approaching the fallen fairy princess, who lay sprawled on the ground bleeding and groaning, Black Bear was not satisfied as she did not scream as much as he desired.

He intended to squeeze out his remaining life force to make the creature that had brought him to this state scream in agony.

Thinking of tearing apart the creature that had made him look like this, scattering its skin and entrails in the woods and bushes, Black Bear believed it to be a fitting end for the disgusting creature, even as he was dying due to blood loss.

Carefully ensuring his entrails did not spill completely, slowly walking towards the fairy princess, in that moment,

“Aaaaah!”

Along with Eliza’s scream, a gunshot rang out.

“Kwaaaa….”

Even a 10mm bullet was extremely fatal to Black Bear in his current state. The bullet kept piercing his hindquarters with a thunderous sound, and eventually, unable to withstand the pain, Black Bear slumped to the ground and crumpled.

The black bear regretted his choice. Thoughts swirled in the dying mind of the bear, thinking he should have ignored and passed by when he first felt fear, or let them quietly do what they were going to do together.

With the sound of Eliza’s footsteps running towards the fairy princess with a bandage in hand, the merciless predator of the forest, the black bear, took his last breath, ending a life stained with fifteen years of fatigue.

“Damn it… damn it….”

Eliza threw her gun to the ground and then ran towards the fairy with the bandage in hand.

“…Looks better than I expected?”

Despite blood pouring from the wound on her side where she had taken the bear’s attack head-on, the fairy princess seemed quite comfortable.

In Eliza’s eyes, the bear’s outburst was a powerful blow that would not be unusual for an ordinary person to be struggling with even if they were in dire straits.

“……….”

The fairy princess looked at Eliza with weary eyes.

Eliza felt fear looking into those eyes but continued without words, feeling around the bandage until she found a bottle labeled ‘Regeneration’ among the three iron bottles hanging from the bandage and opened it.

“I would have preferred to use healing ointment and bandages, but unfortunately, I don’t have them right now. It’s a pity.”

Eliza, speaking in a noble tone, poured a little dark red liquid from the bottle cap.

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”

Eliza fed the dark red liquid to the fairy princess.

“……! Aaargh!”

After swallowing the liquid, the fairy princess hesitated for a moment before screaming in pain from the sensation in her side.

Eliza stepped back urgently and said, “The pain will subside as the wound heals! I’m not trying to kill you!”

She could have mixed painkillers, but the dark red liquid, ‘Pulsating Life,’ was a drug used for rapid recovery of body parts during combat. Painkillers would have clouded her mind to the point where engaging in battle would have been difficult.

Although the fairy princess stared at Eliza with a fierce expression, she turned her head and replied to Eliza in the Northern dialect she was familiar with, “…I’ll endure.”

Eliza sat on the ground, alternating between looking at the fairy and the bear lying dead beside her.

‘I could have been the one lying there instead of that bear.’

Eliza found solace in the fact that she was alive, but she denied the joy of realizing it immediately.

Eliza glanced at the handgun carelessly left on the ground.

She felt sorry for the fairy princess who saved her life, but with her sense of self shattered, she no longer had the courage to continue living.

Exiting life seemed like the preferable option.

As Eliza stood up and began to walk towards the gun to end her life, the fairy princess grabbed Eliza’s ankle with warm, blood-soaked hands, pleading weakly, “Don’t… die….”

Eliza lightly pushed away the fairy princess and could have picked up the gun to end her own life, but she refrained.

“Why do I have to do this….”

Eliza muttered in a fragile voice.

“You… can’t die….”

“Why do I have to do this!”

Tears streamed down Eliza’s cheeks.

“I’ve lost everything! My noble pride, my beloved family, my remaining wealth, even my original gender! Where is the reason for me to live!”

Eliza shook her leg to free herself from the fairy princess’s grip.

“Because you are our hope.”

As the regeneration of her wounds completed and the pain disappeared, the fairy princess rose to her feet, speaking in a cold voice.

Eliza shivered at the moment.

“We hold the key to pull ourselves out from the depths of hell.”

The fairy princess, without a care for the filth that clung to her, embraced Eliza from behind. Their faces drew so close that Eliza could naturally catch a glimpse of the fairy princess’s expression.

Unlike the warmth of comforting words and hugs, the fairy princess’s cold face exuded a kindness as minuscule as an eyelash, akin to watching a cat rummaging through garbage, creating a mess around it.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of you so you won’t break.”

The fairy princess held Eliza even tighter. Eliza, suffocating, struggled to secure oxygen with all her might.

“At least until our fairies are liberated from the depths of hell.

If deemed unnecessary, feel free to die at will.”

Upon hearing the fairy princess’s whisper, Eliza realized that a new self would fill the void left by the old one. However, the owner of this new self would not be her but the fairy princess wielding a whip and a carrot.

A new life where death could not be chosen had found its way to Eliza.