Trolling 4

Alice quite liked the Ruincrest layer.

For one, she was playing the role of a noble lady, something she never imagined she’d do. And in Ark, this ultra-dense underground megapolis, there was a garden where nobles enjoyed the arts under a realistic Artificial Sun.

The food was far better than in most layers, and they owned livestock and greenhouse farms, which were rare sights in other layers, ensuring fresh ingredients on the table year-round.

After meals, a warm and refreshing afternoon tea was always served.

Sipping it while casually crossing her legs felt like paradise on Earth.

For these reasons, Alice wanted to extend her long-term infiltration mission in Ruincrest as long as possible.

The Central Administration had determined that she should spend at least seven to eight years there, monitoring the core of the rebellion.

In other words, Alice would be playing the role of a noble lady, acting as a young lady of the Arbentaine Family for about eight years.

But now, it seemed that was about to end.

“Marlangaaaa!”

“Pour-and-Eat Punch!”

“Gah!”

A combat homunculus that looked exactly like Marlang playfully threw punches, causing one side of the alley to literally collapse.

People nearby were caught in the aftermath, flying away like scraps of paper in the wind.

They were probably seasoned hunters or mercenaries, and if they were hired by nobles, they must have proven their skills, but it was almost pitiful to see them flying away like pebbles kicked aside by Marlang’s feet.

‘Hmm, well, since this is the rebellion layer, it wouldn’t matter if everyone was annihilated…’

It would be a lie to say she didn’t feel sympathy watching them being swept away by the Marlang Legion, which was more like a swarm of locusts.

The battlefield was gradually pushed back.

The Marlangs, half-crazed, began to smash the Coffee Tree and Arbentaine’s private soldiers. If they were lucky, they would be knocked out in one hit and survive, but some unlucky ones resisted Marlang fiercely, only to have their limbs torn apart or their heads vanish in the face of Marlang’s unrestrained attacks.

As the situation deteriorated, both the Coffee Tree and Arbentaine’s private soldiers began to scatter.

With over 4,000 Marlangs simultaneously activating anti-mana barriers, they were the worst possible opponents for the Awakened. Not only could they not use mana, but the Marlang Legion’s physical abilities were monstrous.

They could smash building walls with their bare hands, shatter antique terraces with a single kick, and while others couldn’t use mana, they alone were surrounded by mana reinforcement and aura. And if you managed to inflict a wound, the immortal girl factor would activate, displaying transcendent regeneration.

The wounded Marlang homunculus would become even more enraged and slaughter adult men, turning what had seemed like a cityscape into something resembling a slaughterhouse, with blood flowing like a river.

But no matter how they ran, it was impossible for the private soldier corps here to completely shake off Marlang.

Marlang was an immortal girl born by copying Sohi’s abilities, mana cultivation method, and physical prowess.

And the combat homunculus was a being completed by inheriting Marlang’s factors and seeds.

Naturally, they possessed all of First-Class Overseer Sohi’s physical abilities and mana cultivation method. The skills of the nobles’ hired private soldiers were no match for 4,000 First-Class Overseers.

Escape?

As you can tell from Sohi’s physical abilities, all the homunculi were incredibly fast.

Even if they seemed to be toying with you, they could chase you down with a speed that even I couldn’t properly detect if you tried to escape in earnest.

If you didn’t run, they would just knock you unconscious after breaking a limb or two, but if you kept running, the enraged Marlang would play with the adults until they died.

Before they knew it, the battlefield for the nobles’ power struggles had become a deadly game of tag.

A game of tag where getting caught by Marlang meant death.

Of course, Alice was an exception.

No matter how much the homunculi hated the adult men who had hurt them and experimented on them mercilessly, their cognitive base was Marlang’s cells.

And Marlang was an immortal girl who really liked and relied on Teacher Alice. Fortunately, thanks to this, the homunculi clearly recognized Alice’s presence and carefully avoided hitting her with the aftermath of their attacks.

Of course, I wasn’t just standing still either.

As Arbentaine’s adopted daughter and heir, I pretended to fight hard while trying to save the people from the Coffee Tree… well, I couldn’t really tell them apart.

The reasons were a bit complicated, but since I couldn’t deny that I was the cause of this battle, it was better to save at least the people I could see.

Honestly, even if everyone here died, it would just be a riot in the rebellion layer, so it wouldn’t be my fault as an Overseer… but, come on, be reasonable.

Even though I didn’t intend it, if my minor actions snowballed and caused too much bloodshed, it would be hard to sleep.

I wouldn’t go so far as to use the grand word “guilt,” but I didn’t want to feel uneasy and uncomfortable when I closed my eyes in bed.

“Ugh! It’s Arbentaine’s heir!”

“You’ve come too?!”

“Ugh…!”

I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing when I came to the battlefield.

Those who knew that Alice was cooperating with the Coffee Tree were the top nobles, so it was easy for the ordinary Awakened private soldiers to mistake Alice as simply participating in this battle as Arbentaine’s heir.

Thanks to stepping forward, she became a target, but Alice wanted to save them as much as possible.

Of course, the method might be a bit violent.

“She’s alone! The head of the family ran away, leaving only his adopted daughter!”

“If it’s just a kid, we can do something…!”

“Die!”

Luckily, they came close.

-Snap!

Alice snapped her fingers.

Actually, snapping her fingers wasn’t the trigger for Alice’s ability activation.

It was just a signal to Theresa, telling her, “Hey, you know what to do, right? Hurry up.” But anyway, as Alice snapped her fingers in a showy manner, the surrounding mana was instantly erased.

“…!”

The Awakened who were trying to attack Alice were shocked as the mana disappeared.

‘Mana…?!’

‘An anti-mana barrier? No, even the mana inside my body is disappearing!’

‘M-My balance…!’

In the case of the combat homunculus Marlang Legion, they eliminated the mana in the atmosphere and inhibited supernatural powers like magic and spells, but they didn’t completely extinguish the mana within humans.

So, the private soldier corps were reinforcing their bodies with mana to somehow withstand the Marlang Legion or secure an escape route, but suddenly, as they approached Alice, they felt the mana in their bodies and the atmosphere disappear without warning.

【Gluttony】

This was the effect of Alice’s original energy Drain evolving into 【Gluttony】 after fusing with Luichella Dunhill.

Originally, energy Drain required inserting mechanical tendrils or direct physical contact, but now, Alice could absorb any energy, whether it was life force, mana, or electricity, as long as it was within a 10-meter radius.

And breaking the fist of an Awakened who had lost their mana and life force was much easier than twisting a child’s wrist.

-Crack! Snap!

“Ugh!”

“C-Cough…!”

Several Awakened who had tried to defeat Alice and gain merit were instantly incapacitated and collapsed with their eyes rolled back.

They were lucky.

At least they wouldn’t suffer for long or have their limbs cut off, and they wouldn’t be caught by the enraged Marlang Legion and torn apart.

They just had their wrists broken and dove into the ruins or debris, so if they stayed still until the end of the battle, they wouldn’t die.

Okay, shall we do a little more?

I need to calm down those many Marlangs too.

“H-Huh… Mana…!”

“C-Cowardly b*tch…”

“L-Lady, why are you doing this! I’m from Arbentaine’s…!”

“Shh, shh. I didn’t ask you.”

Alice began to walk around in earnest, incapacitating the private soldier corps.

She put them to sleep, knocked them unconscious, and absorbed their energy, regardless of whether they were from the Coffee Tree or Arbentaine.

Actually, it was quite nice to suck up energy to her heart’s content after a long time.

She hadn’t had to worry about energy shortages since she had undergone fusion several times, so she had forgotten about it, but she was reminded that there was such a rich flavor in energy, including electricity.

“Hmm, this time it’s electric with a black tea flavor?”

【Human, I must remind you again that intangible energy, including electricity, does not have a flavor.】

“This time I can taste sweet and sour pork… Ah, I sucked up Marlang’s mana? But why is she okay even after being sucked up by Gluttony?”

【An immortal girl is not an immortal girl for nothing. She has infinite life force in her body, so a brief brush with Gluttony won’t be a problem.】

Is it because this is Ruincrest, the layer of the nobles?

The taste of the electricity… no, the energy I feel is so diverse.

Feeling the sweet and warm sensation of black tea from the electricity was quite fun.

So, anyone who came within 10 meters of Alice had their energy sucked up by 【power of Gluttony】.

In other words, she just had to temporarily exhaust their mana.

She just grabbed any Awakened she saw, whether they were from the Coffee Tree or Arbentaine’s combat secretarial unit, devoured their mana with 【Gluttony】, and threw them somewhere out of sight.

Since they were Awakened, they would lose their strength and become exhausted just by absorbing some of their mana, so if she just picked them up and stuffed them into the ruins or collapsed debris, they wouldn’t die, at least.

The Marlangs were also chasing down adult men with mana, so if they still died, they were just unlucky.

Alice ran around the battlefield like that.

If you don’t want to die, don’t resist and stay still.

If you lose your mana and your will to resist, you won’t be torn apart by a young and pretty girl like Marlang, at least.

Just pretend to be dead.

Then they’ll ignore you, like it’s hide-and-seek or tag.

Hey, I told you not to resist?

If you hide and run away and get caught, you’ll really get your limbs torn apart by the kids.

Come on, I’ll save you.

Oops, I sucked up too much?

Oh dear, your arm is necrotic?

It’s better than dying.

If you just stay still with your head buried in the debris, you won’t die.

Or go to Marlang and shout “Surrender”…

The immortal girl Marlang probably sees this battle itself as a hunting game, so if you raise both hands and surrender, you might survive…

Of course, I don’t think these adults will do that.

Alice absorbed the lives and mana of quite a few people, and in the process, she managed to save several lives by accident.

What? Why don’t I stop Marlang?

What are you talking about? All the humans in this layer are treated as the core of the rebellion or accomplices, so it doesn’t matter if they die.

Alice was just acting like this because she didn’t want to see people dying like flies in front of her. If you consider the importance, Marlang is obviously much more important.

“Ugh, ugh…”

“Lady, why…”

“If the head of the family finds out…”

Before she knew it, the number of people Alice had forcibly knocked unconscious had exceeded 4 digits.

Perhaps because they were Awakened, not many seemed to have died in the battle.

“But what happened to Perdain? He seemed to have abandoned his pride as the head of a meritorious family and ran away in the middle…”

★

★

★

“Hah, hah, hah, hah…!”

Perdain Arbentaine barely managed to escape from the battlefield.

He had used the talents and bloodline accumulated by his predecessors entirely for escape, so his potential for running away was truly astonishing. He even created a hole in the binding barrier that blocked the surrounding area with his escaping talent and ran away.

He broke through the complex and vast area of Ruincrest in an instant, so if this had been fully demonstrated as combat ability, he would have won long ago.

“I, I. I ran away…!”

Of course, Perdain, who had a strong sense of pride as a meritorious family noble, was not only pushed back by an Awakened from a lowly mercenary background, but also caused many private soldiers to die, and even desperately fled to save his own life.

For Perdain, who had ambitions to rule Ark and overthrow the Central Administration, what had happened today was a humiliating and terrible nightmare.

“What, what are those combat homunculi…!”

Perdain trembled as if he was still horrified after witnessing thousands of Marlangs.

They looked like innocent and pretty girls, but the way they attacked him and his private soldier corps was like a swarm of locusts.

They ate and gnawed at everything in sight, so if Perdain had been late in escaping, he would have died from Marlang’s overwhelming power and numbers.

“I have to, I have to do it again. I’ll just kill all those Coffee Tree guys, and the combat homunculi will die in 3 days anyway…!”

After all, the private soldier corps he had brought from the battle with the Coffee Tree was only a third of the total.

“It can’t be helped that the Awakened private soldier corps and the combat secretarial unit were annihilated. But I still have plenty of money to reinvest, and I need to inspect the war weapons…”

The archduke Arbentaine residence still had some private soldier corps left, and if he prepared for battle, he could hold out as long as he wanted.

Yes, he could repair the homunculus cultivation facility.

“It’s a good thing, in a way. I’ve roughly grasped the performance and abilities of the combat homunculi this time. If I can just repair the cultivation facility completely, it’s not a dream to kill those arrogant bastards from the Central Administration.”

Perdain arrived at the archduke Arbentaine residence in a miserable state.

As Perdain entered the central entrance hall of the archduke Arbentaine residence, someone greeted him.

“Oh, you’re here? Dear?”

“…Jestiel?”

Jestiel’s face looked quite relaxed, as if she had heard the news of Perdain’s crushing defeat.

No, Jestiel was greeting Perdain with a relaxed face?

It’s not that strange for a couple to greet each other.

However, it was widely known within the mansion that Perdain and his wife, Jestiel, had a worse relationship than strangers, so it felt strange to see Jestiel coming out to greet him like this.

“You look quite miserable?”

“That’s none of your business.”

“Is that so? Then, everyone.”

As Jestiel raised her hand, Perdain suddenly felt a number of presences above him.

Could it be…?

Perdain raised his head and looked at the ceiling of the central entrance hall of the archduke Arbentaine residence, and saw identical girls hanging from the ceiling like bats.

On closer inspection, there was also a girl clinging to Jestiel’s skirt like a daughter.

Who is the girl here?

Who else could it be?

It was the combat homunculus Marlang Legion.

“You son of a b*tch…”

At that sight, Perdain finally realized that the traitor was his wife, Jestiel.