episode_0094

There’s no paradise in the place you flee to.

Seriously, I didn’t want to know the truth of that saying like this.

“Do you think you can really escape with sincerity?”

A fairy woman who looked at me and sneered coldly. I gritted my teeth and put my hand on the hilt of my sword.

Trying to escape from the enemy, but ending up in the enemy’s mouth. There’s a limit to misfortune. At this point, I was truly resentful towards the heavens.

What did I do wrong to deserve these trials one after another?

My only fault was harassing the author with comments and applying self-defense a bit liberally. It was unjust.

“Just because you haven’t seen me for a few months, did you forget my skills altogether?”

She raised her right hand above her head, palm outstretched.

Whooooosh…!

The surrounding air gathered swiftly into the center of her palm, swirling and rapidly transforming into the shape of a transparent eagle-like creature, as if compressing a small storm into a form.

“Spirit…!”

An elemental spirit summoned through elven racial abilities, the wind spirit.

As soon as I saw it, I honestly felt foolish. Even knowing the opponent was an elf, I hadn’t thought of elemental magic. Can anyone be this stupid even when they’re already stupid?

She was confident that I couldn’t escape.

She must have been monitoring my movements as the wind spirit since we parted ways. No matter where I ran, she would move first and wait for me.

It was an unavoidable, undeniable perfect ambush.

“Are you going to act tough like earlier, pussy? You’ve got the wrong person. You don’t know someone like that.”

Irina lightly flicked her right hand, dispersing the wind spirit back into the air, then pushed back the hood she had been wearing, revealing her face.

“Oh, feeling a little embarrassed about getting caught while running away?”

Platinum hair tied back, with gem-like mineral green eyes.

She seemed to find the current situation amusing, wearing a mocking smile like a cat with its prey in front of it.

“I had a hunch… and indeed, it was Miss Brunhilde.”

Eimelia, who stood one step behind Irina, also took off her hood.

“I didn’t expect to meet you here. I thought you would be in Felmia.”

Sky-blue long hair and brown eyes resembling a puppy.

At first glance, she looked innocent and pure, but her large hips, which couldn’t be hidden even by the black nun’s habit, revealed her true nature.

Far from the virtues of a priest, purity, her nature was far from refined.

◆◆

Eimelia Elsine Lawrence.

Unlike Irina, who used to openly express her disappointment during the time when the original Fritz was called an incompetent warrior, she was a woman who always defended Fritz to the end.

Someday, he could become strong.

She believed in him as a hero.

Fritz thought it was because Eimelia had a priestly and kind disposition… but that was just an optimistic misconception based on professional bias.

Are only priests all good?

Eimelia wasn’t considering and comforting Fritz, she was just intoxicated with the warm words she gave to the hero as a priest of the hero party.

It was a kind of self-satisfaction.

Like the first saint who polished the inaugural hero, she was self-satisfied, enveloping and nurturing the hero’s suffering.

She didn’t sincerely try to comfort and encourage Fritz, she just wanted to project herself onto the legend of the saint and feel emotional pleasure and satisfaction.

Whether she herself was aware of this is unknown.

Anyway, Eimelia was a woman deeply immersed in the legend of the inaugural hero.

Especially in the romance between the inaugural hero and the first saint.

She was so obsessed with the story, to the extent that a healthy noblewoman devoted herself to the church and chose the path of a priest, it’s not an exaggeration to say that she was completely crazy about it.

The reason she volunteered for the hero party was also because of her desire to have a happy love like the inaugural saint.

Perhaps it was mentioned in the novel. It seems like the character Kim Seung-woo in the novel mocked her as a girl whose head is a flower garden.

However, the original Fritz in the early part of the novel was incredibly weak and ended up being labeled as an incompetent fool.

He was so insensitive that he couldn’t even notice her appeal, no matter how rational it was. He was not the one who could fulfill her fantasies.

That’s why she betrayed him.

She, who couldn’t overcome the disappointment between ideal and reality, succumbed to Gunter’s temptation, full of sweet whispers.

Yeah, well, I understand falling for it.

Elven and human features mixed in a handsome, masculine appearance. Unlike Freid, who whined without achieving anything, Gunter had built a firm position of power.

Moreover, being a knight just like Freid, only from a different country, it was obvious that Gunter was more attractive than Freid to anyone.

Even that guy had some kind of characteristic like a “horse’s bridle” as if he were the antagonist in an NTR novel.

For these reasons, Emelia completely fell for Gunter both mentally and physically shortly after meeting him.

If the original saint had seen that, wouldn’t she have smashed Emelia’s head? She said she never did such a thing.

Well, Emelia herself might consider everything she did as the will of the goddess and as guidance, so she probably feels no guilt for giving herself to Gunter or betraying Freid.

“This is also the guidance of the goddess. Miss Brunhilde, you should offer yourself to Sir Gunter.”

Look at this. She’s saying that trying to abduct me is also the guidance of the goddess. Blasphemy at its finest.

Does she even know what she’s talking about?

Offering myself to Gunter is the guidance of the goddess. She’s treating her own goddess like a mere hostess. She probably doesn’t even realize it.

“…Talking nonsense.”

I bit my tongue between my teeth and placed my left hand on top of the helmet.

There’s no need for a warrant for a current offender. As Irina said, there was no way out for me, caught red-handed.

It would be meaningless to resist.

“You don’t seem to have any intention of making excuses now, do you? Too bad. Your flustered look was quite amusing.”

Irina fluttered her lips and snorted.

“You must be the funny one. A deaf prostitute who sold herself to a half-deaf man. What’s even funnier is where in the world such a thing exists.”

“…Your mouth has really gotten loose. Seems like the life of an adventurer suits your nature, huh?”

Whether it was thoroughly scratched or not, Irina, with a face devoid of any trace of laughter, glared at me as if growling and replied.

Factual violence is truly the essence of verbal sparring. It seemed to have spread more intensely than ordinary curses, as it was a truth that even she couldn’t deny.

Unlike Emelia, who had recklessly succumbed to desire and pleasure in the theme of priesthood, Irina had rejected Fritz for political reasons.

The homeland of the elves, Elfen Lied, instructed Gunter to cooperate with the humans.

Although he was only half, Gunter was a hybrid with high elf blood, which could be considered as part of the upper echelons of Elfen Lied.

Irina accepted this despite knowing that the ‘cooperation’ included bodily demands, attaching the condition of lowering her elven status.

Even if she had to sell her body, it meant allowing entry into Alfeim, the capital of Elfen Lied.

The desire to enter the capital itself was understandable.

The wealth and civilization of the elven kingdom were concentrated within Alfeim, leaving non-high elves to wander as nomads outside its plains.

Otherwise, they would have to abandon Elfen Lied and live as strangers in human lands within human civilization.

Neither option was particularly appealing to Irina.

So, the moment she received Gunter’s proposal to cooperate, she saw it as an opportunity for social advancement and accepted it without hesitation.

…Well, I don’t know for sure.

“It seems like being a prostitute suits your nature. I remember the last time I saw you. It was quite a spectacle.”

The snide remark from the bed next to Gunter’s was truly unbearable to witness.

“Oh, really? Consider it a preview. You’ll soon end up like us. Probably worse than us, actually. Gunter is eager for it.”

“Eager all your life. I won’t go by his side, alive or dead.”

I answered as if I were spitting out the lock of the helmet with my fingertips.

Rather than becoming a prey to something like words like the two women in front of me, I’d rather commit suicide.

Why does that half-breed cling to me and act like an idiot on a subject where there are many women around? Seriously annoying.

“That’s not something you get to choose, is it?”

“It’s not something you get to choose either.”

I threw off the unlocked helmet roughly behind my head, drew the longsword from my waist, and declared while gripping it.

“Let’s do this. Irina Winter. Emelia Elsine Lawrence.”

“Even if you win, all you can take is my corpse.”

The black iron longsword flashed with moonlight.