Defending Bridget Village (2)

Without hesitation, the moment I heard a woman’s voice coming from inside the alley, Ethan, Agnes, and I moved our steps forward.

What the three of us, the small search party, discovered was a brown-haired woman named ‘Lisa’ leaning against the alley wall with her head bowed in an awkward posture, and a green-haired woman named ‘Mel’ collapsed on the ground, coughing violently.

“Cough, keh, hack! Cough…!”

“……”

“W-wait, both of you, stop fighting!”

…Damn it, am I too late?

Though I spoke up to the two women in the alley, the situation had already unfolded.

Seeing Lisa silently leaning against the wall and Mel collapsed with a red bloodstain on her side, I couldn’t shake off the bitter feeling rising in my head.

‘If only I had moved a little faster, maybe I could have saved one more person…’

Of course, regretting it now wouldn’t bring back the already ‘dead,’ so I pulled out a dagger from under my skirt in preparation for the upcoming boss battle in Bridget Village.

Mel, who had been bleeding and collapsed on the ground, recognized me and the other two and hurriedly tried to get up.

-Swish.

“S-save me! Th-that woman! That woman…!”

-Tap tap!

“D-don’t run! Moving suddenly with such a wound…!”

“Sh-she called me out here in the middle of the night, then suddenly pulled a knife on me, saying I was in the way…!”

-Tap tap!!

“I told you not to run! First, we need to stop the bleeding, then go to the village hall! You need to rest there!”

“N-no! That woman! Just now, that woman…!”

-Thud!!

“After seeing someone get stabbed and die like this, I can’t control my emotions anymore!!!”

Mel, who had been clutching her thigh and running toward us, suddenly pulled out a dagger from her hidden side and thrust it at me.

Since this was an expected pattern, I parried Mel’s dagger with my own sword in a visible motion, while stabbing her wrist with my other sword, sending her hand crashing to the ground.

-Squelch!

“……What?”

Mel, who likely didn’t expect her attack to be countered, immediately clutched her severed wrist and staggered back.

I quietly met her gaze and fully prepared for battle, gripping a dagger in each hand.

“I told you not to run, you bitch.”

“……”

“If you didn’t want your wrist cut off, you should’ve just pretended to die quietly. Does it make sense for a woman stabbed in the side to come running at me so energetically?”

Mel, clutching her bloodless severed wrist as she staggered back, and Ethan and Agnes, who had finished preparing for battle.

Soon, dozens of thin tentacles began sprouting from Mel’s severed wrist, intertwining and merging to form a new ‘hand.’

“You’re amazing, self-defense instructor. I never thought you’d cut off my wrist without hesitation.”

“…I disliked you from the first day of class when you openly talked like a bandit’s lackey. How could I trust a woman who blatantly said she wanted to offer village girls to bandits?”

“I pretended to be weak to disrupt the class a bit, but I never expected you to outright punish me during class. Thanks to that, unlike that woman, I had to pretend to be genuinely exhausted.”

-Thud.

With those words, Lisa’s body, which had been leaning against the wall, suddenly collapsed. A slight regret that I might have been able to save her crept in, but I forced it down.

Even if I had acted to save Lisa, I couldn’t guarantee her survival 100%, and if it hadn’t been her, some other woman in the village would have been sacrificed instead.

The important thing was to prevent this woman from causing more casualties, not to pray for the revival of lives already lost.

…Besides, the enemy I had to face now wasn’t just this one woman.

-Rustle.

“What? You said you’d make it fun, but there are only two women?”

“Idiot, it’s fun because there are only two. Seeing women like that skewered front and back, crying and begging, is hilarious.”

“The first to kill the guy with the dick wins. I’m taking the big-titted one, so don’t even think about it.”

“……”

-Crack.

Ethan gritted his teeth and looked around at the bandits who appeared, openly sexually harassing me and Agnes.

…Judging by his expression, he probably wouldn’t sheathe his sword until all these bastards were dead. I could only hope his shoulder would hold out until then.

“What? Two? That redhead’s a woman too?”

-Snap.

“The fuck, does that look like a woman to you?! I’d rather fuck a goat’s ass than that bitch! What kind of twisted fetish makes you want to hug a damn log like that…?”

-Bang!

“Guh, gah! Fuck! Fire! Put it out, you fucking bitch!!!”

One bandit, foolish enough to comment on Agnes’s figure, screamed as his head caught fire.

While I could also use fire magic, the power and context made it clear who had cast the spell.

“Agnes, conserve your mana. We still have to fight demons, so wasting it on something like this isn’t good, is it?”

“…So you’re saying I should just listen quietly to that?”

“Not that, but to use a more efficient method. Men suffer far more from their crotches burning than their heads.”

“……What?”

-Flinch.

“……”

Ethan gave me a sidelong glance at my remark, but I ignored it and explained to Agnes how to use fire magic more efficiently.

“Burning an entire head takes a lot of mana, but burning between the legs takes less than 10% of that. Meanwhile, the pain a man feels is a hundred times worse than having his head burned. If the goal is to kill, attacking the head is the way, but since you were just venting, this should be enough.”

“……”

“Hey! Watch out for that crazy redhead! That flat-chested bitch definitely used fire magic…!!”

-Bang!

“Guhhhhk?! Gah…!! Kghhh…!!”

Agnes, having taken my advice, promptly blasted another bandit’s crotch with fire magic, silencing him.

The terror, familiar to any man, seemed to spread among the bandits, as the number of eyes on me and Agnes noticeably decreased.

“See? Much more efficient, right?”

“…Yeah, learned something useful.”

“…I wouldn’t recommend using it on someone you’ll have to face more than once.”

“I know that much.”

Even Ethan, our ally, couldn’t help but offer advice, seemingly shocked by Agnes’s fire magic.

A few bandits, terrified, tried to flee, but the tentacle woman confronting us prevented their escape.

“Sh-shit! No one said there was a mage! And how are we supposed to fight such a cruel bitch…?”

-Stab!

“Guh, ghk…! Kghhh…!”

“…Don’t run away. It’s rude to flee from the playground I made just for you, isn’t it?”

A sharp tentacle from Mel’s hand stabbed a fleeing bandit through the back.

-Thud.

The bandit, impaled through the chest, collapsed lifelessly to the ground.

The terrifying sight made the remaining bandits even more tense, but at least it stopped any further attempts to flee.

“I won’t forgive anyone who tries to leave the playground I prepared for you. Your role is to rape these women until they cry and beg in front of me…!!”

“F-fuck it! If we’re gonna die anyway, let’s at least fuck these bitches once! Kill that guy first, you bastards!”

“Kill them! There are way more of us, just rush them all at once!!”

At the words of one particularly bold bandit, the horde charged at us.

None of them seemed particularly skilled, so one of us could probably handle this many.

Since Ethan wasn’t well-suited to fight Mel, it was clear who would take on the bandits.

“Dan, your attacks won’t work on that woman. Simple slashes can’t keep up with a swarm-type demon’s regeneration.”

“…Right.”

“So, while Agnes and I fight, I need you to keep the others from getting close. …It’s a bit much for one person, but there don’t seem to be any Sword Experts among them.”

“Got it, leave it to me. I’ll cut out the tongues of every bastard who talked shit to you.”

…Excessive anger leads to excitement, so it’s best to restrain emotions when swinging a sword, but Ethan would be fine.

Given how Ethan became strong in the first place, his greatest motivation was closer to lust.

In a way, anger is similar to excitement, so a moderate level of rage would act like emotional doping for him.

“Arcane, sharpen my blade.”

-Clang.

“Come back safely, Dan.”

“…Don’t get hurt, Lis.”

With our final pre-battle exchange, Ethan charged at the bandits, swords in both hands.

The final battle to defend Bridget Village had begun.