Ch.94The Ascetic of Kapila (7)

The Ascetic of Capilla (7)

The battle that began on the street reached an absurdly quick conclusion.

“I surrender.”

“…What?”

“No way, this bastard just…!”

It was Lug’s declaration of surrender.

Naturally, the remaining two who were about to engage in a serious confrontation lost their motivation.

If Lug had just held out against the two of them, they might have found some way forward, but with his immediate surrender, there was no point continuing.

No matter how much they struggled now, they couldn’t achieve anything.

Since Lug, the core of their party, had surrendered, whatever the other two might accomplish would be meaningless.

“Good. You made the right choice, Mr. Lug. But since you’ve done something wrong, shouldn’t you receive some punishment?”

Eirene said with a bright smile. To an observer, it might have seemed like she was just going to give a simple scolding, but the morning star in her hand assured Lug that wasn’t the case.

“…One ankle?”

Millia remained expressionless.

Though her face was hard to read, that single phrase contained so much information that Lug couldn’t help but take a step back.

“Hiyah!”

Whooooosh!

Eirene attacked first.

Despite her cute battle cry, the morning star swung with terrifying force, which Lug dodged by tilting his head.

“…”

Then Millia pointed the tip of her staff toward Lug.

Tentacles writhed like well-trained dogs, surrounding him from all directions to prevent escape.

Their coordination flowed like water.

Being in the same hero party, the two women knew each other well despite their mutual dislike.

After all, knowing your opponent makes it easier to bury them later.

Whoosh!

Even Lug had to properly defend against Millia’s sincere attack.

How could he just watch as sharp-edged tentacles flew directly toward his ankle?

So Lug stopped hiding himself. Blue flames blocked the approaching tentacles and burned them away.

“…Did you just burn mana?”

The slimy liquid tentacles didn’t evaporate—they burned.

He hadn’t countered the magical phenomenon but burned the magic itself.

“Enough. If you continue, this won’t end simply for either of us.”

Cold, sky-blue eyes, different from usual, swept over Eirene and Millia.

Just that was enough to make both women flinch as if electricity ran through their bodies.

It was understandable, really.

How surprising would it be if someone who usually acted like a fool suddenly showed a cool side?

And now, unlike before, Lug wasn’t hiding himself.

Yes, he was acting as his true self, standing between the seven emotions and the sage’s eyes.

“Obviously, I’d prefer someone who embraces me rather than punishes me. If I were to make a lifelong commitment, such a person would…”

Thus, Lug added wisdom to his self-awareness that naturally accepted his popularity.

In other words, Lug now had both the upper body of a sage and the lower body of a pervert.

Since both women liked him, speaking this way would surely prevent them from attacking him.

That was the meaning behind Lug’s words.

“I was just joking, Mr. Lug.”

“Welcome. We’ve been waiting for you.”

And it worked.

Eirene and Millia immediately changed their attitudes, greeting Lug with bright smiles.

“Whaaaaat?!! Didn’t Lug just use magic? What’s going on?! Why is everyone acting like it’s normal? Was I the only one who didn’t know Lug was a mage?!”

And there was one lonely person who couldn’t grasp the situation, expressing shock.

“Tina, I’ll explain later, so for now…”

And there was another person trying to somehow resolve this chaotic situation as the party leader.

And there was someone who took advantage of this very chaos.

Squish.

It was Millia, who moved her tentacles while maintaining her expressionless face.

Surprisingly, her target wasn’t Lug but Eirene.

A sudden attack. A perfect ambush.

However…

Splash! Sizzzzzzle!

A pure white barrier gently enveloping Eirene completely burned away Millia’s magic, and then an automatic counter-type holy magic incinerated the entire area where Millia had been standing.

“That’s too much! Suddenly attacking a fellow comrade! What’s going on, Lady Millia?”

Eirene pouted her lips as if upset and her eyes welled with tears.

But Millia snorted at the sight.

“For someone saying that, your defenses were excessively thorough, Eirene.”

Millia, who should have been hit directly by Eirene’s holy magic, had already wrapped her body with tentacles as if she knew the counterattack was coming. These two knew each other too well.

And there was a man watching them who understood nothing.

“What on earth is…?”

It was Lug, who thought he had persuaded the two women.

Unfortunately, Lug had made one mistake before his persuasion.

Lug was the prince of Capilla, loved by countless women in the past.

But even someone like him was experiencing something for the first time:

Love in the form of fanaticism and obsession.

Yes, the problem started when Lug said he would make a lifelong commitment with someone who would embrace him.

The two women had already taken those words not as a metaphor but as a confirmed fact, and they were trying to eliminate their competitor for that rosy future.

“You’re in the way, so would you mind dying?”

“Sigh… It seems Lady Millia has been tainted by evil. I have no choice but to purify you.”

Millia plainly stated her true feelings while Eirene added all sorts of excuses as if to justify her actions.

Is it an illusion that both honesty and dishonesty feel terrible? No, probably not.

‘No, what are these crazy women doing right now?’

Esmeralda knew it wasn’t a matter of truth or falsehood.

“Hey, both of you, calm down…”

“Stop, don’t move. Hero.”

“…That’s inside my tentacle’s range, Esmeralda.”

The entire party is problematic.

The atmosphere grew increasingly hostile. Esmeralda also subtly turned her holy sword in response to the two women’s gazes.

“No! I’m telling you, Lug just used magic!”

And at that moment when Tina shouted, still unable to grasp the situation,

The three-way battle began.

***

In the end, Esmeralda succeeded in defeating the two women.

The hero’s growth potential was beyond imagination. Of course, the problem was that she hadn’t reached a fundamental solution.

Esmeralda had an obligation to prevent the two from involving the Magic Tower and the Divine Church.

Otherwise, she would die. No matter how much she had defeated the Church’s saint and the Tower’s successor, she couldn’t defeat entire organizations.

“Huff… huff…”

Moreover, Esmeralda had suffered critical damage just subduing the two.

‘…This fight was much more desperate than when she fought me?’

No wonder Garnet, watching the three-way battle, thought that while clenching her sweaty hands.

Esmeralda had grown enough just to restrain her comrades that she was approaching the level of a general-grade officer.

“Grrrrrr…”

The problem was that she now looked half-removed from humanity.

Esmeralda bound the two women in an almost beast-like form.

That feral appearance had enough intensity to completely block even Tina’s wicked intention to steal Lug and run away.

However…

“Hey, shouldn’t we escape now? This looks like our chance.”

For the demon party at risk of being captured by such a hero, the story was different.

Extra whispered to Lug while checking the situation.

In his eyes, this moment seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Isn’t that right? When else could they escape if not now, when the hero was mentally and physically exhausted from dealing with the saint and the mage?

And what did they think would happen if they didn’t escape now?

“I agree. It seems better to get away from here first.”

Garnet, who had been indignant at Esmeralda’s arrogance in wanting to face him one-on-one, shared Extra’s opinion.

Meanwhile, Lug was seriously looking at Esmeralda’s profile. Though startled by the sudden situation, seeing Esmeralda thoroughly subduing her party members helped organize his thoughts.

‘The sky remains clear and there’s still no problem with the heavenly energy.’

Did he fail to read it? No, that’s different.

There was still no problem with the heavenly energy, and it was difficult to say Esmeralda had deviated from its movement.

Then the problem wasn’t with Esmeralda, but with himself.

“…No.”

Lug recalled the past.

The moment when he threw everything away and reached the other side of the sky.

Meeting his “brother” who existed there and becoming certain.

“I’ll quietly surrender instead.”

He could see the same vision as them, so he knew.

He knew what they had discarded and what they had become because of it.

That’s why he had picked up what he had discarded.

The three poisons and the five defilements and seven emotions.

The reason why he needed them.

“It seems heaven has destined this, so it’s better to watch for a while.”

Causation (因緣).

In this world, everything arises from the combination of result (因) and process (緣), and also disperses and disappears.

Even if it was so faint as to not need attention, it couldn’t be easily severed even if one tried.

“Then stay well by yourself. I’ll take that as a rejection of my previous offer.”

“It was fun, Lug. Let’s go our separate ways now.”

“Eh? Wait a moment.”

Of course, unlike the hero party, the members of the demon party, who could disband at any time, heard Lug’s words as if he was asking them to die together.

And since their bonds weren’t deep enough to die for each other, it couldn’t be helped.

Five and Extra started going their own ways without even listening to Lug’s explanation.