Ch.64XX Tina (9)

# XX Tina (9)

Tina hung her head.

“Me, a pervert……”

Whether her attempts to seduce Lug had been words spoken instinctively, the shock seemed quite significant for her.

“This is terrible…… If Tina becomes a pervert like Lug, I absolutely won’t be able to handle it.”

“That would certainly be troublesome.”

“……I don’t want to associate with such people besides Lug.”

“What?! What exactly happened?! Why has my reputation plummeted so drastically?!”

Fear.

In the brief time she was absent, there had been a dramatic shift in perception within the hero’s party.

It was inevitable that he would feel alienated because of it.

“Eirene, what should we do?”

“For now, let’s try the method I’ve thought of.”

“What kind of…?”

“It’s simple. We extract the dragon’s blood from her body.”

“So you were trying to do that to me!”

Esmeralda was impressed.

Her plan was becoming clearer with each passing day.

“Lug? Why Lug?”

“There’s a reason, Tina.”

While Tina’s face turned pale and Esmeralda was shocked,

Millia timidly raised her hand and spoke.

“I, I know that kind of magic. How to make only blood leave the body.”

“Why do you know that……. No, never mind. For some reason, I don’t want to hear it.”

She’s similar to Eirene. No, she’s even worse considering there are visible, horrifying results.

“If the problem is contact with Lug, why don’t we separate them and observe what happens? We can extract blood later if necessary.”

“Oh my……”

Seeing Tina’s pale face, Esmeralda’s heart softened and she offered a reasonable compromise, causing Eirene to show obvious disappointment.

From her perspective, a clinical test subject had appeared before she could experiment on Lug, so she couldn’t help but feel disappointed.

However, Eirene’s ability to quickly erase even that disappointment through facial control was truly natural.

“Let’s separate Lug from Tina and… leave this place? We’ve already wasted a lot of time. If we stay any longer, reinforcements might arrive, making it difficult to escape.”

The original purpose was to rest briefly and then leave the ruins.

But during that rest period, Tina was negatively influenced by Lug, went berserk, and after verbal and physical fights, they reached the current situation.

Far from resting, the situation had become more difficult. Moreover, Tina, who couldn’t even control her own body, had been added to Lug’s burden.

Who knew she would be influenced by Lug to this extent.

“Well then.”

As Esmeralda began walking toward the path Tina had previously opened…

“Wait. This is…?!”

Unlike when Tina first broke through, the wall was now covered in cracks.

Esmeralda felt a chill and stepped back at the sight, which looked as if it had slowly crumbled over a long period of time.

And the moment she distanced herself, the heavily cracked wall finally collapsed.

There was no explosive sound, nor was there any loud noise of debris hitting walls and floors.

The wall simply crumbled like sand and spread across the floor like a wave.

And the being beyond that wall was staring at them with its hand outstretched.

“…Tina, do you know this one?”

“Complete stranger! First time seeing him! Doesn’t seem to be one of ours!”

“I suppose so….. I wonder if this is good luck or bad.”

Esmeralda raised her sword with a calm face, as if facing something that had happened many times before.

“Everyone get ready. It’s business as usual.”

[Name: Haona]

[Race: Demon] [Title: Former Legion Commander, Lieutenant General]

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[Comprehensive Estimate: Lv. 789]

Esmeralda thought.

These legion commanders never seem to move with their armies.

Why even hold the title of legion commander…

‘Or is that why? Is that why he was fired?’

Being a former legion commander meant he was no longer one.

Esmeralda was guessing he might have been the 12th Legion Commander based on his comprehensive estimate being lower than Eleven’s. She thought perhaps he had lost his position to another demon who rose from below.

But considering how individualistic these legion commanders act, getting fired actually seems reasonable.

“It was so hard to find you. You hid like rats.”

“We weren’t exactly hiding. If you had told us you were coming, we would have been in an easier place to find.”

Esmeralda now understands the importance of appointments. Wasn’t this the result of entering the ruins to surprise them?

Making appointments in advance. Isn’t that a virtue that modern society should have?

“Let’s see how strong you weaklings are.”

“Jumping straight into battle without explanation is truly demon-like.”

More straightforward than Lug, who struggles with his barely functioning brain.

There was an implicit sense of looking down in his gaze, but this level is just right for demons.

Whoosh!

A light like the dawn spreads from behind Esmeralda. A single beam of light extending from the dark ruins.

It took only an instant for that light to thicken, expand its range, and begin to shine brilliantly.

And that light gently envelops Esmeralda’s body.

The holy magic of Eirene Saintess.

The power enhanced by it.

‘This is doable.’

She had already encountered two legion commanders before.

She suffered a crushing defeat against Eleven, whom she met first, and succeeded in driving away Five, whom she met second.

Of course, neither had revealed their true abilities.

Since then, Esmeralda had grown stronger and honed her skills. She still wasn’t confident she could win a 1:1 fight against Eleven.

But…

‘I’m not alone this time.’

Even though she was somewhat tired, she was receiving various forms of support.

It would be different from before.

Moreover, if the opponent was the 12th Legion Commander, weaker than Eleven, and had even lost that position, their chances of winning were sufficient.

“Haaaaaaah!”

Esmeralda’s holy sword absorbs brilliant light. The dark interior of the ruins brightens due to Eirene’s holy magic and Esmeralda’s holy sword, making the opponent frown.

“Kuk! My eyes?!”

Esmeralda nodded as she saw Lieutenant General Haona covering his eyes from the light and charged forward.

‘Vampires are weak to light!’

Judging by his pale skin and red eyes, the opponent was clearly a high-ranking demon, a vampire, who hides in darkness and uses blood-based attacks.

Vampires have clear weaknesses despite their great power.

Eirene, who recognized this in advance, deployed her holy magic in a somewhat exaggerated manner, and Esmeralda followed by spreading the light of her holy sword.

Even an ordinary demon would feel pain, so it would be fatal to a vampire living in darkness!

“Don’t make me laugh……”

But Lieutenant General Haona gritted his teeth and swung his hand.

What was unleashed was not a vampire’s characteristic blood-colored mana or darkness, but a wave of rough sand.

“Using light attacks on a middle-aged man who’s been working overtime for a month—truly cowardly and vicious!”

“Sand…?”

Esmeralda retreated significantly at the unexpected counterattack while reassessing her opponent.

His appearance was unmistakably vampire-like. And he had strength to match.

But he wasn’t a vampire but a victim of harsh working conditions, which made Esmeralda shudder.

‘As expected of a legion commander….. Going to such lengths to deceive me.’

Working for a month without sleep just to hide his abilities—truly terrifying creatures.

***

At the point when Lieutenant General Haona confronted the hero’s party directly to capture Lilith’s negation, Lilith realized something after taking over the former 12th Legion Commander’s duties.

“This is……”

Honestly, she hadn’t given much thought to what it meant to be the weakest among the legion commanders.

Demons are fundamentally simple-minded and crude. However, to command a legion, one must use at least some brainpower.

Legion commanders had to spend as much time at their desks as they did on the training grounds.

But would naturally simple-minded individuals who follow the rule of strength diligently perform such tedious tasks?

Most senior officers, except Lilith, found such work annoying.

In such a situation, what would the position of the weakest legion commander be like?

“He was handling this much work alone…!”

He had been dumped on by all the higher-ranking legion commanders.

Military corruption was happening even among senior officers.

Of course, he probably passed work down to his subordinates too, but there are limits. There would have been documents that only senior officers could access.

In that sense, former Legion Commander Twelve, current Lieutenant General Haona, could be considered superhuman.

He was several times more capable than Lilith and could be said to have been responsible for the core of the Demon Lord’s army.

When Haona, who had been giving her trouble, was disciplined, Lilith had secretly thought it served him right, but now that she had taken over all his work, she reconsidered what that meant.

“This won’t do……”

She couldn’t handle this much work.

“He must be reinstated as legion commander!”

Lieutenant General Haona was the most indispensable person in the Demon Lord’s army.

That was to a degree similar to the Demon Lord…

‘Compared to the Demon Lord who doesn’t work, we’d be better off without the Demon Lord!’

No, he was even more important than that.