episode_0084

“It won’t be easy to get past this…”

Killua-nim sighed, having confirmed the overflowing light of greed and desire filling the Hero’s eyes.

“Jazel. Will you let me down?”

“Understood.”

Feeling an ominous premonition slowly fill my chest, I lowered my stance to let Killua-nim down from my back, as she had requested.

Then, she carefully stepped onto the ground with her left foot, which was covered in scratches from running barefoot, and slowly got off my back, glaring at the Hero.

“Ahem.”

The Hero lightly brushed off the dust and leaves clinging to his body, as if grooming himself before meeting royalty or nobility, and tidied his slightly disheveled hair.

“What is your plan?”

While the Hero was preoccupied with grooming himself, I quietly asked Killua-nim about her plan.

Killua-nim slowly furrowed her brow as if it was not an easy matter, and answered my question.

“The best option is to escape. In the worst-case scenario, we’ll have to fight the Hero.”

“……”

Even to an ordinary person like me, the Hero’s eyes were visibly brimming with greed and desire.

The Hero had absolutely no intention of letting Killua-nim go easily.

His intense will to make her his own, regardless of Killua-nim’s wishes or decisions, was palpable.

“Will escape be possible?”

I looked at her left foot, covered in scratches, with eyes full of worry.

Her left foot, which had become a mess of scratches from running in a hurry, not even realizing her shoes had come off due to her concern for me, had become a shackle.

Killua-nim tried to put weight on her left foot, which was carefully stepping on the ground, but she subtly winced as if an uncomfortable pain arose.

“I’ll try to buy us some time.”

It was all my fault that her left foot was covered in scratches.

To somehow make up for my mistake, I looked at my axe leaning against the door of the Hero’s house, intending to fight him.

“Don’t talk nonsense. It’s better to fight together than to abandon you and run away alone.”

“Fight?”

As if resolved to confront the Hero, Killua-nim glared at the grooming Hero with serious eyes.

Killua-nim had already expended a large amount of magical power since dawn, casting large-scale detection magic to find me and Ariel, and then to heal me after I fainted from the poison.

Her decision to face the worst enemy in the worst situation was terribly worrying.

“Understood.”

But worry was just worry. I did not doubt her judgment.

Killua-nim’s decision to confront the Hero even in this precarious situation was clearly the best possible move we could make.

“Most otherworldly beings have a few trump cards to avoid decisive blows or fatal wounds. We need to force them to use all of them.”

As if she had faced otherworldly beings more than once or twice, Killua-nim stood beside me and advised me in a serious voice.

I worried if I could inflict a decisive blow or fatal wound on the Hero, who was blessed by the goddess and wielded strange powers, but…

For now, I nodded as if engraving Killua’s words into my mind.

“Ahem… Beautiful lady?”

Meanwhile, the Hero, having finished his grooming, lightly cleared his throat and slowly walked towards us, opening his mouth.

From his mouth flowed a dignified yet captivating voice, completely unlike the frivolous actions and speech he had shown me until now.

“Will you grant me the honor of keeping your brilliant and beautiful life by my side and watching over it? In return, I will dedicate my entire life to you, so that your life may shine even more brilliantly and beautifully.”

And with that voice, he abruptly proposed on their first meeting.

However, as if certain that his surprise proposal would not be refused, the Hero confidently smiled and elegantly extended his hand towards Killua, as if demanding an answer.

“See? Most otherworldly beings who are drunk on their own abilities and power are disgusting like that.”

However, contrary to the Hero’s wishes, Killua frowned and expressed her honest thoughts so bluntly that I, standing beside her, couldn’t help but let out a snicker.

“What… Why isn’t this working?”

As Killua remained in her place, showing no reaction and a cold demeanor to his proposal, the Hero looked up at the air again, as if bewildered by the situation, and began tapping his hand.

“Affection… -100? What is this? Is it broken?”

He frowned with all his might, seemingly displeased with the information appearing on the ‘status window,’ a screen only the Hero could see.

“Hero…”

Then, as if pitying his inability to comprehend the current situation, the space beside him shimmered, and Ermel appeared.

“I told you to be careful with your words!”

Ermel, enraged to the point where her normally emotionless face contorted, yelled at the Hero.

“Traits or cheats don’t work on beings who are fully aware of their existence!”

“Right~ You peeping tom bastard who likes to peek at others’ abilities through the status window.”

As if responding to Ermel’s furious shout, Killua-nim casually threw a remark at the Hero.

The Hero’s eyes widened as he belatedly understood the word ‘status window’ that had come out of Killua-nim’s mouth.

“No… How could you know that…”

“Because I’ve handled bastards who couldn’t adapt or were culled in their own world and were bounced into another, more than once or twice.”

Killua-nim glared at the Hero with eyes full of blatant irritation and disgust.

“It must have been quite enjoyable, wasn’t it? In your original world, you were less than a wandering rat, no, less than rolling trash, but then you come to another world and become a protagonist-level figure, clad in all sorts of cheats and bizarre abilities! And what do you do with it? You act like a scoundrel, stealing other men’s women…”

As if Killua-nim’s words had struck a fatal weak point, the Hero’s face, which had been arrogant and confident until now, twisted hideously.

“What kind of life did you live in your original world, anyway? It’s obvious you lived a life of being left behind or culled by society. You were afraid of meeting and talking to others, so you holed up in a corner of your room, lost in delusions and fantasies of yourself as the protagonist, and then obviously died suddenly.”

“Ki… Killua-nim…”

Was it perhaps due to her intense anger and hatred towards otherworldly beings?

“Your parents, who struggled to bring a bastard like you into this world, are truly pitiful.”

The provocation that spilled from her lips was so terrible that even I, standing beside her, felt uncomfortable hearing it.

“Considering what you’ve done to him, even this much cursing isn’t enough.”

But Killua-nim’s terrible provocation was not personal anger or hatred towards otherworldly beings.

It was her pouring out insults on my behalf to the Hero, who had forcibly taken Ariel from me using even the cowardly means of a succubus.

“You fucking bitch!”

However, the Hero’s rage, fueled by such insults and accusations, was entirely focused on Killua-nim.

“Killua-nim!”

Judging that there was no telling what the Hero might do, I hurriedly stepped forward as if to protect Killua-nim.

Fortunately, however, the Hero, after spitting out the short curse, did not immediately rush at Killua-nim but merely glared at her with bloodshot eyes full of fury.

“You… I’ll make you regret those words for the rest of your life. I’ll lock you in a room… and use you until your -100 affection turns into 100. From now on, the only sounds coming from your mouth will be the cries of a sow in heat!”

The Hero uttered a vulgar threat, as if retaliating against Killua-nim’s provocation directed at him.

However, such a low-level threat didn’t make Killua-nim waver; instead, it only made even me, who was protecting her, let out a hollow laugh.

“Truly… among all the otherworldly beings I’ve seen, you’re the trashiest and the worst.”

“By the way, is there any way to resolve this situation?”

The Hero, expressing intense rage towards Killua, intended to imprison Killua-nim in his personal space, an extraterrestrial villa, just as he had threatened.

The fate of Killua-nim, once imprisoned… would probably be exactly as the Hero’s vulgar threat implied.

Such a situation was absolutely unacceptable to me, so I merely glared at the enraged Hero with tense eyes, as if determined not to miss his every move.

“We’re not the only ones the Hero has to fight.”

Simultaneously with Killua-nim’s explanation, a red shadow surged up behind the Hero, who was burning with rage and glaring only at Killua-nim.

“You fucking bastard!”

Whack!

A wooden staff, raised high into the sky, was swung almost vertically, striking the crown of the Hero’s head.

At the exhilarating sound of the impact, delivered mercilessly with enough force to completely shatter his skull, Killua-nim and I, who were watching, slightly flinched.

“What… what was that about taking responsibility for me for the rest of my life?! Saying that this morning and then proposing to Killua-nim… What kind of outrageous behavior is that!?”

The owner of the staff that struck the crown of his head was none other than Ariel.

Until now, she had been frozen, as if disbelieving her eyes, at the Hero’s blatant proposal to another woman, Killua, right in front of her.

But after snapping out of it, in a surge of belated fury, she immediately struck the Hero’s head with her staff, just as she had smacked Rai’s head when Rai tried to kill Killua.

“Woah… As expected of a Flame Mage. She’s fiery.”

Killua let out a small gasp of admiration at Ariel’s fiercely exhilarating retribution.

If the Hero had fallen or fainted from Ariel’s surprise attack, it would have truly been the best-case scenario, but…

“Hah… Nothing ever goes right…”

The Hero rubbed his head, which had been hit by Ariel, glared at her, and let out a frustrated groan.

“Alright, alright. First, I need to explain this situation, right?”

The Hero spread his arms towards Ariel and approached her, as if to calm her down.

Ariel, in turn, merely glared at his mouth, her arms tightly crossed, as if she would listen to his explanation for now.

“But it’s troublesome… I should use the simplest solution.”

“What…?”

And then, everything happened in an instant.

A dagger suddenly appeared in the Hero’s hand as he approached Ariel, seemingly to apologize and explain.

“I’ve always wanted to see if this was actually possible. An abortion stab.”

Thrust.

Ariel, who had been caught off guard by the Hero approaching empty-handed, was directly stabbed in the lower abdomen by the dagger that had abruptly appeared in his hand without warning.

“Is the uterus… here? Or here?”

Thrust. Thrust.

Having utterly failed to anticipate such a situation, Ariel, with wide eyes, clutched the body of the Hero who had stabbed her in the stomach, unable to say anything, merely flinching with every knife thrust.

“Well… this should be enough, right?”

Rip!

As if not satisfied with merely stabbing, he finally dragged the dagger, embedded in Ariel’s lower abdomen, horizontally.

Subsequently, he frowned at Ariel’s blood and fragments of flesh profusely clinging to his body, then kicked away Ariel’s lifeless body, which had gone limp and was hanging from his own.