Ch.94Two Heroes (3)

*

The conversation between the two women who had stopped fighting was concise.

Without any unnecessary rhetoric or unpleasant exaggerations, they simply listed the facts they both knew.

Alice realized that Maria’s death wasn’t in vain and that Silvia hadn’t abandoned her duty as a hero by her own will.

Silvia learned that she hadn’t actually killed that evil demon lord.

Though the words from each other’s mouths were incredibly shocking, neither woman stupidly asked for clarification.

“…Damn it,”

“Fuck,”

They just bowed their heads, bit their lips while cursing, and a heavy silence hung between them for a long while.

Alice was the first to speak.

“So, what are you going to do now? Hero Silvia.”

“…”

“The world is being destroyed in real time because of the task you failed.”

“…”

“It makes my mouth feel dirty to call you a hero after you sacrificed Maria only to fail, but it seems your monstrous power is still intact.”

Alice slowly walked past Silvia, who was sitting on the ground, and picked up her fallen sword.

The sword handle was crushed into the shape of a grip.

It was because Silvia had gripped it tightly when pulling the sword out of her abdomen.

“…Tch,”

Alice clicked her tongue with a grimace.

Frustratingly, Silvia’s strength and power were indeed worthy of being called a hero.

Though she hated to admit it, in their fight just now, Silvia had clearly been the more dominant one.

The power of Alice, an artificially created hero through terrible experiments that crossed forbidden boundaries and religious sorcery, ultimately couldn’t match hers.

And Silvia wasn’t even holding a sword.

Alice took a deep breath through her nose to calm her angry mind.

Then, while adjusting her waist to sheathe her sword, she continued speaking.

“Follow me, and this time, fulfill your role properly.”

“…”

“Silvia.”

Silvia didn’t answer.

Not only did she not answer, but she remained frozen in her sitting position without the slightest movement.

Was she dwelling on Maria’s sacrifice?

If so, she shouldn’t be sitting there like an idiot.

If she caused my precious friend’s death, shouldn’t she stand up with determination for her honor, for her revenge?

Alice, filled with rage, pulled out the sword she was about to sheathe and pointed it at the back of Silvia’s head.

“Why are you sitting there like an idiot, you stupid bitch? Don’t tell me you’re going to make Maria’s sacrifice meaningless…”

As Silvia slowly turned her head to look at Alice, she immediately stopped speaking.

Her expression was terrifyingly blank.

That unnatural gaze and expression, impossible to read any emotion from, seemed almost grotesque at a glance.

Once again, holy power erupted from Alice’s eye sockets.

She knew it was automatically protecting her body, but her eyeballs burned so intensely that she could barely resist squeezing her eyes shut.

“Ugh,”

Was it because of this pain that felt like her eyeballs were boiling from the scorching heat that threatened to burn them completely?

Or was it because of those ominous dark red eyes and expression that contained nothing?

Beads of cold sweat ran down Alice’s forehead and gathered at the tip of her chin.

At that moment, Silvia’s distorted voice brushed past Alice’s ear.

“No.”

*

Alice pressed one eye shut with her hand while staring at Silvia with the other eye wide open.

Silvia’s absurd answer made her feel like she was losing her mind.

It was such an unexpected response that she wondered if she had misheard.

Alice asked again in a growling voice.

“What?”

“I won’t do it.”

“What… idiotic nonsense is that, you fucking—”

Silvia’s fist instantly drove into Alice’s face.

Alice’s body seemed to stretch backward for a moment before tearing apart from the waist.

Her separated upper and lower body rejoined instantly before her entrails could spill out, and she flew backward.

Silvia shook her head repeatedly as she slowly walked toward Alice.

Her distorted voice, like someone violently scratching the thin strings of a violin, spread eerily through the tree branches.

“No… be a hero yourself… I… want to live here with Ash.”

“You… bitch…”

Ignoring Alice’s contemptuous curses as she struggled to get up, Silvia muttered like a madwoman.

“No, hero… I never wanted to be that, not even once. You do it. You fight. I don’t want to anymore, no, no, no, stop, no, I won’t do it. No, I refuse, I can’t.”

She had lived her entire life in struggle.

No, she had been trapped in struggle.

Since she came of age… no, much earlier than that.

Even in her oldest memories, she had always been fighting, always competing, always killing.

That was also why she had accepted the name of hero.

Since she had been swinging a sword her whole life, living a life of cutting down others, she made the complacent judgment that it would be better to help humanity.

Of course, it was also true that being revered as a hero was embarrassing yet secretly uplifting.

Indeed, without even that small sweetness, she wouldn’t have sacrificed herself.

She wouldn’t have thought of imprisoning herself in the forest, embracing that painful solitude of meeting no one until death.

She hadn’t chosen a life of struggle, the fate of a hero.

She simply never had the opportunity to notice other beautiful moments in life.

But now, she had tasted another world beyond struggle.

A wonderful sweetness she had never experienced before, something she hadn’t even realized she wanted.

This fragrance of a new life she discovered thanks to Ash was so sweet that it had completely scrambled her brain.

“Why, how long must I fight? Why should I? Can’t someone else do it? Are others just playing around? Why only me? Why must only I do it!”

Silvia shouted like a child throwing a tantrum.

But the answer to her tantrum came not in words, but with a sword.

Alice’s swinging sword dug into Silvia’s side.

“Because you got Maria killed, you fucking bitch!”

Alice shouted as she roughly pulled the sword out of Silvia’s side.

Hot blood spurted up, splattering on Alice’s face, but she didn’t wipe it away and swung her sword again.

“You irresponsible bitch. Did you think I’d let you? That you’d find peace beside Ash after letting Maria die? You truly have no conscience!”

Alice’s voice cracked roughly as she shouted in rage.

Her sword flew toward Silvia, emitting hot energy that resembled her anger.

However, Silvia leaped into the attack, crossing her arms and raising them upward.

Silvia’s arms blocked not the sword, but Alice’s arms, stopping her movement.

“Eek!”

Alice tried to quickly withdraw her sword, but the twisted handle made her hesitate momentarily.

In that time, Silvia’s strong grip tightly twisted Alice’s wrist.

Alice clenched her free hand into a fist and struck Silvia’s cheek.

Despite staggering from the blow delivered with holy power through the solid gauntlet, Silvia held Alice’s wrist firmly and spoke.

“That damn Maria.”

Alice took a deep breath.

This crazy bitch,

Is she trying to insult Maria?

Maria was an irreplaceable friend to Alice, but surely she was the same to Silvia.

Alice’s veins and tendons bulged and writhed throughout her body, threatening to burst through her skin.

“Choose your words carefully, or I’ll kill you.”

“Maria, Maria, Maria,”

“You bitch…”

Alice threw a punch to shut Silvia’s vile mouth.

But Silvia took the punch with her forehead while crushing Alice’s captured wrist.

With a sound like dry firewood splitting, the wrist bent at an impossible angle, but Alice bit down hard and suppressed her scream.

She couldn’t let this damned woman hear her weak cries.

However, Silvia paid no attention to Alice and kept muttering her words.

“After Maria died, I’ve been tormented all my life, in nightmares, all my life… well, maybe not that long, but it felt like it.”

“What are you… ugh… what are you saying, you… blaargh,”

“It’s too hard, too painful, I want to stop now,”

Silvia twisted Alice’s already broken wrist once more.

Red blood trickled down between Alice’s tightly clenched teeth.

She had suppressed her scream, but she couldn’t endure the loss of strength from her broken wrist.

As the sword fell from her weakened grip, Silvia snatched it.

Alice took a deep breath in that moment.

Silvia pointed the tip of the sword at Alice’s stomach, like holding a gun, and said:

“I’m only going to think about Ash now. You be the hero.”

“…Ha, you’re quite obsessed with someone else’s fiancé, you slut.”

“Honestly, I deserve to rest now. I’ve done enough. Right? You do it.”

“Ash is my fiancé. My family, you crazy bitch!”

Alice headbutted Silvia’s face with all her might.

Silvia’s nose bled as she grimaced from the pain like being hit by a hot mace.

“Right, that’s true, I almost forgot,”

Silvia grabbed Alice’s wrist and thrust the sword into her stomach.

From the moment the sharp blade pierced through the skin, stirred her insides, and emerged through Alice’s back, Silvia’s wrist moved fluidly, stirring the sword tip as if to grind Alice’s insides completely.

It was a technique that had become second nature through years of training to kill enemies effectively.

Alice vomited a mouthful of blood all at once.

Silvia turned her head toward Alice, who had dropped her head lifelessly onto Silvia’s shoulder, and whispered slowly into her ear.

“That’s right, you were Ash’s fiancée.”

Alice was trembling, whether she could hear Silvia’s words or not.

Though she was recovering with holy power, Silvia was using her strength and talent in a demonic way.

Whenever the wrist she held seemed to become a bit firmer, she would apply force to break it again, and whenever she felt resistance to the blade stirring inside, she would stir the stomach anew.

Alice could only continue to convulse, repeatedly spilling blood onto Silvia’s shoulder.

“…You know what?”

“…”

“I already had sex with Ash.”

“…eek,”

“Ash told me he loves me.”

“Keek, ugh”

“That it felt so good inside me. And I felt really good too? You don’t know how good Ash is at sex, do you?”

“Krueek, shit,”

Silvia laughed softly.

It wasn’t meant to mock Alice.

She couldn’t suppress the happy smile that naturally appeared just from thinking about Ash.

“Ash is mine.”

Silvia whispered in an excited voice.

If she could just get through today,

“When dawn breaks, I’ll have sex with Ash again. Every day.”

If she could somehow deal with Alice, a bed with Ash awaited her.

Ash would never refuse her.

“Sil…viaaa!”

“I’ll kill you as many times as it takes until you understand. Gladly.”