Chapter 52 – I Love You

I Love You

“So that’s what happened to your pe… I mean, Cherny. Indeed, I noticed a lot of beast footprints on the way here.”
Mona, after hearing a brief explanation from me.

“Mona. Can you track them?”
“Of course. What do you take me for?”
As she said that, she fumbled in her pocket and took out something while speaking.

“Actually, there were reports of magical beast sightings in this area, so I came here at Marian’s request. I was feeling a bit stiff from not going out lately anyway.”
Whoosh. Mona scattered the powder from her pocket into the air.
The powder soon swirled around and settled on the ground.

And after some time passed,
“Footprints appeared…”
Countless footprints emerged due to the powder sticking to the grass and trees.

Seeing my surprise at this sight, Mona said,
“Mona’s special powder! …Just kidding, it’s a powder often used by hunters. This makes traces of anything that passed by more visible. It wouldn’t work if it’s been too long… but fortunately, that’s not the case.”

As expected of Mona. She’s different from me who was just thinking of burning down the forest out of desperation.
“And Ariel, do you have anything with Cherny’s scent strongly on it? Like clothes or something?”

“Clothes? Cherny usually wears clothes made from her own demonic energy, so… Ah.”
There was something. Right in my hand.
I immediately handed Cherny’s apron to Mona.

“Will this do?”
“It looks cute. Just a moment. Sniff… Haa…”
Mona took a deep breath, putting her nose to the apron I handed her.

“Hmm… I think I’ve got it. Let’s go, Ariel.”
Mona is a half-breed of the beast-folk, and while her outer appearance isn’t much different from others, she has extremely developed five senses.
Her level far transcends that of humans.
…It was the result of her tremendous effort added to her innate talent.

After that, Mona and I began to move swiftly, following the traces in the forest.

“…We can’t kill her. Just rough her up a bit. She’s the last remaining female, after all.”
When they came to find me. Honestly, deep down in my heart, I had this thought.
Ah. So they still recognize me as one of their own.

‘What kind of kin, I’m just a breeding sow.’
“Kukuku. Did you hear that, Cherny?”
Ras, emboldened by the chieftain’s words, began to speak to Cherny with a disgusting expression.

“L-Let me go…!”
“Sure. I’ll let you go.”
Thud. Ras knocked Cherny to the ground.
Then he restrained her with his brutish hands, making her unable to move.

“Ughh…!”
Thud. Thud. Cherny tried her best to kick him off, but he didn’t budge.
“Pfft. That tickles. Are you throwing a tantrum?”

Rather, as if he was getting more excited, the depth of desire in his eyes only grew deeper.
“Eek… No… Please…”

Should I bite my tongue? No, they wouldn’t let me die.
Should I poke his eyes? And then what? What should I do. What should I do. What should I do.
‘Ariel-nim….’

Under the looming shadow of despair, Cherny tightly closed her eyes.
“Aaaaarghhhh!!!!!”
And then came the sound of Ras’s scream.

Realizing that something strange had happened, Cherny’s eyes opened slightly.
What she saw was Ras writhing in pain, clutching his severed arm.
…And two familiar silhouettes.

“Phew. Looks like we’re not too late, Ariel… Ariel?”
“…”

While tracking Cherny’s traces with Mona, I thought that maybe Cherny had willingly gone with them.
There were no signs of resistance other than footprints, and the neatly folded apron left under the tree seemed to be saying goodbye to me.

Our first meeting couldn’t be called good even as a polite lie. Moreover, Cherny is ultimately a demon.
I thought we had been getting along well, but that might have been just my own thought – this idea wouldn’t leave my mind.

So I wanted to confirm. Directly from Cherny.
If she had left us of her own will, I was even prepared to let her go.
But it seems that wasn’t the case.

“A-Ariel-nim…! Waaah!”
Cherny hugged me tightly, seemingly overcome with emotion.
She must have been very scared, as I could feel her trembling through her arms.

“It’s okay, Cherny. …I’m sorry I’m late.”
“Sniff… It’s not your fault…”

Cherny was even showing tears. And I, looking at her like this – was surprisingly calm.
No, I was trying to maintain my calm.
Right now, calming Cherny down was the priority.

While I was stroking Cherny’s back to calm her down as she sobbed, Mona, who had been watching, said,
“Cherny. Is it okay if we kill your kin?”

“…It’s okay. I’ve never been treated as one of their own by those guys anyway.”
“I see.”
Mona, who had been twirling a dagger in the air, gripped it firmly.

“You… damn human… How dare you cut off my arm!!!!!!”
The fact that Ras didn’t recognize Mona and Ariel was proof that he had been busy cowering in the back.

Contrary to him, the other tribe members began to recognize Ariel and Mona one by one and started to stir.
“Damn, that cursed human. So this is what she meant by meeting a monster…”

…Even the chieftain, who had the experience of encountering those two up close, was in a state of extreme tension.
‘Damn that human… Did she modify her plan knowing this?’

He thought that crazy woman was just talking nonsense as usual.
Who would have thought that the monster meant those two who had been slaughtering demons?

The chieftain, realizing why the purple-haired human had suddenly mentioned monsters to him, began to gauge in his mind whether he could face them and evacuate his kin.
‘It’s impossible.’

He came to a conclusion in an instant. It’s absolutely impossible.
“I’ll kill you!!!!”

Not knowing the thoughts of his tribe members, as the saying goes ‘ignorance is bliss’, Ras was only thinking about killing the red-haired human in front of him.
‘I’ll chew you up alive…’

Ras’s thoughts stopped there.
Because there was no longer a head to think with.

Ras’s head, or rather skull, was immediately separated from his body and rolled onto the ground.
Then Mona, roughly wiping the blood off her dagger with a cloth, said,

“I like that my hair is red… Blood doesn’t show on it when it splatters.”
Seeing this, the chieftain made a decision.

“Everyone, run away! At least one must survive!”
At the chieftain’s words, the tribe members immediately scattered and tried to flee from Mona and Ariel.

Not everyone needs to live. If even one survives, the tribe can continue, even if the blood gets mixed.
But….

“Ha.. Haha… Ha…. Hahahaha!!!!”
The chieftain started laughing as if he had gone mad.
And for good reason, as the heads of the tribe members who had scattered and fled were almost simultaneously separated from their bodies and fell to the ground.

‘As expected… the ghost of the hero party…’
Cherny, held in Ariel’s arms, felt chills all over her body seeing this sight.
…She realized that the rumor of single-handedly infiltrating the Demon King’s army’s command center and beheading hundreds at once wasn’t an exaggeration.

“You’re supposed to deal with the fleeing ones first. It’s a shame to miss even one, right?”
The chieftain was feeling his approaching death with his entire body.

“…What is this?”
“Later, if a strange monster chases you, swallow it then. Got it? Kyahah.”
‘Come to think of it….’

Under the extreme fear that his next blink might be his last, the chieftain remembered the black cube in his hand.
“Mona. Wait a moment. I want to handle this.”

“Ariel, you want to do it? Well, he does look like the leader… Alright, I’ll leave it to you.”
While Ariel and Mona were off guard, the chieftain swallowed the black cube in his hand in one gulp.

‘I-I can’t breathe…!’
Ariel wouldn’t miss the chieftain’s suspicious movement.
As she chanted a short incantation, the gravity around the chieftain increased by tens, no, hundreds of times.

“Gu… Guhuk…”
The chieftain’s death throes were brief.
…Because his entire body was crushed like a can under Ariel’s gravity magic.

The chieftain thus marked the end of his long and tenacious life.

“U-Um. Can I open my eyes now?”
“You’d better not look. Ariel seems to be very angry. To think she’d do something like that.”

‘Ueek…’
Despite Mona’s warning, Cherny inadvertently opened her eyes and was shocked at the sight of the chieftain’s corpse.
The chieftain’s body, literally folded.

The chieftain who had seemed so big and strong, but apparently was nothing to Ariel.
Cherny felt a slight pity at the miserable sight, but she shook her head vigorously to shake it off.

“Cherny. What’s wrong?”
“Hehe. It’s nothing.”
Cherny then snuggled into Ariel’s arms, who was looking at her with caring eyes.

“I love you, Ariel-nim.”
“How nice, Ariel. Even getting ‘I love you’ from a demon. As expected of the hero party’s magician.”
“…Don’t tease, Mona. She must have been very scared. Poor Cherny.”

‘As expected, Ariel-nim’s touch feels good…’
Cherny was enjoying Ariel’s gentle caress.
In the midst of this, she witnessed something strange.

‘Huh? Did that just move a bit…?’
The chieftain’s corpse that seemed to have moved slightly. But when she focused and looked again, it was completely motionless as before.

‘I must have seen wrong…?’
Cherny turned her gaze away from the chieftain’s corpse and hugged Ariel again.

“Let’s go home! Ariel-nim!”
“…Alright.”