Chapter 168: Serious
Link: https://ncode.syosetu.com/n7583de/
Author: Hirukuma
Translated by Zzonkedd
Edited by Gumihou
Enemies leapt out from behind the barricades to rush at us.
Behind Ramis and I, our comrades surged forward, ready to assist us. However, a quick calculation of the distance between our comrades and our enemies, showed that Ramis and I would have to weather the enemies’ attacks on our own for a bit.
Well, that’s perfectly fine with us! With my absolute <Barrier> and Ramis’ strength, we could- [1]
“Please leave them to me.”
With a morning star clutched in each hand, Hevoy charged towards the first man who dared attack us. [1] The light armour was no defence against the heavy weapon, but the man ran over headlong anyway because the spiked ball’s reach was too short-
-the spiked iron ball buried itself into the man’s head before smashing him right into the ground.
“Wait, it’s extendible?”
A thin chain stretched out between the iron ball and the iron shaft. As we watched, the chain retracted, pulling the ball back to the shaft.
Another swing of the morning star smashed into the side of an unsuspecting enemy, blasting him all the way to the wall on the other side of the room.
“Eh? That weapon could be used that way?!” Shui exclaimed as she ran up to us, eyes wide with surprise.
Even she, the one who spent the most time with him at the Whimsical Fools’ party had not known about it?
“I may not get to participate in this battle, Master Hakkon,” said Mishael [2].
It looked like Hevoy could adjust the length of the chain on the morning star held in his right hand at will, making it so that his enemies could not accurately judge where the spiked ball would land. Enemies who managed to evade the spiked ball with the extended chain were met with a sturdy morning star to the face held in the left hand. Thus far, the morning star on the left looked like it was the normal type.
Hevoy was clearly making full use of his <Sensory Manipulation> Gift to sense enemies all around him. He did not need to look behind him for his weapon to strike swiftly and accurately. It was nothing like anything I had ever seen before. Even so, watching Hevoy move stirred some strange feelings inside of me.
“Had Hevoy always been this strong?” Hyurumi muttered, voicing out my thoughts with unerring accuracy.
I knew that he had a Gift of <Strength> like Ramis, but he had never displayed fighting power like this before. While he was still not quite as monstrously powerful as Ramis, he was currently smashing through iron armour as though it was made of cardboard. A far cry from anything he had shown before.
“Had he been hiding this too? I thought you hated lies and deception?” Shui sounded angry, or rather, she sounded very dissatisfied by Hevoy’s sudden show of seriousness. When I looked at her face, instead of angry, she had the expression of a sulking child.
Was the dissatisfaction mostly because she found out something about Hevoy that she had not known about?
Unaware of what was going on in Shui’s mind, Hevoy continued to manipulate the spiked iron ball, crushing skulls and smashing meat into pulp.
In a mere few minutes, he single-handedly scattered the enemies that had come rushing towards us. He also came out of sight without a single scratch on him.
Although this party may have defected into the enemy camp, their abilities could only be considered intermediate at best.
“Y-you monster! How could a priest kill people!?” Tasite, the only one left behind the barricade, yelled desperately at us. He was nearly mad with confusion and anger.
Hevoy stepped forward slowly, approaching his sworn enemy with conviction.
Not a single one of his friends or comrades tried to intervene or stop him.
“Before one is a priest, one is human.”
“I-I’m sorry! I will repent! Please spare my life! I’ll even convert, so please! I beg you!”
The sight of Tasite flinging himself out from behind the barricade to beg his life on the ground was so pitiful that thoughts of beating him up painfully dissipated from my mind. Would Hevoy also feel sorry for him?
We all watched Hevoy, curious about what he would do.
[1] While I could not see Hevoy’s expression, Tasite, who had been quivering on the ground, slowly raised his head to look up in the silence and suddenly fell over.
“H-hiiiii—!!!”
“In the word of God, though one’s birth and circumstances are not equal, death is a great equalizer that comes to all.” [1] As Hevoy spoke, he raised his right arm, still holding the menacing-looking morning star. “Personally, I do not agree with this. Death that befell on the wicked ought not to be equal.”
[1] The weapon came down.
“Ugyaaaaa!” [1]
The heavy spiked iron ball smashed into the man’s right foot, crushing it to pieces.
Nobody looked away as Hevoy exacted his revenge.
In truth, I don’t wish to look at this. However, since we all swore not to get in the way of his revenge, I think we felt obligated to witness the conclusion of our inaction until the end.
“S-stop! I will give you all the money you want! And the women. Go take them and- auuggghhh!!!”
[1] This time, it was his left foot that was flattened.
With the loss of both his feet, Tasite could only retreat from Hevoy by pushing himself along with his arms. Eventually, his back bumped into something draped in black fabric.
After a quick look behind to see what he had bumped into, Tasite looked back at us, his face greasy with sweat and contorted with pain and humiliation.
“Y-you bastards! This is the end! Don’t think you can get away by mocking me like this!”
Then, for some inexplicable reason, he reached up and pulled the black cloth down. [1]
The black fabric fell, revealing the towering figure of a two-headed ogre.
The humanoid body was about twice my size. Its muscles were so exaggeratedly huge that they looked like inflated balloons riddled with bulging veins.
The body alone was scary enough in its dirty purple, overinflated glory, but what was even more frightening were the two heads stuck on top of the body. One of the heads was red and the other blue. Sharp teeth protruded from their mouths and there were three horns on each head.
Both heads were pretty similar. However, the faces were markedly different in one sense. One of the heads was stern and distinctively manly while the other had a female face that emanated a strangely seductive beauty…
Both sets of heads had their eyes closed and were as still as a statue.
This formidable-looking monster must be a trump card of some sort.
“That thing… it’s the floor boss!” Hyurumi shouted.
“The floor boss that is supposed to reside on the highest floor of the Desert Pillar?” Mishael had his weapon out. The fact that he had drawn his weapon made it clear that this was a formidable enemy.
The Ruler of the Netherworld must have somehow moved or lured this creature down from the highest floor to this place.
“It’s over for you all! Wake up, Two-Headed Ogre!” Tasite shouted as he raised his hand. The skull ring on his finger emitted a dazzling light and the four eyes on the ogre slowly opened.
“Food?”
“Food.”
The first words that came out of their mouths were unexpected. The voices that came out from the male and female faces were different as well, corresponding with their gender.
It looked like they possessed some modicum of intelligence. Enough to hold a simple conversation between themselves. Even so, no matter how dumb they look, it’s best not to take them lightly.
“Feast upon those humans, beast!” Tasite yelled.
Four eyes swerved over to stare at him. These were not the eyes of a subordinate, but those of a mighty predator trying to decide if this small fry was worth eating.
“Eat lightly first.”
“Eat lower body.”
The heads nodded, apparently in agreement, stretching out one massive clawed hand at Tasite who was still huddled at their feet.
“O-oi! Stop! I am your master!”
Despite him screaming and brandishing the skull ring at them, the Two-Headed Ogre did not pause. Just as their claws were about to close upon Tasite, chains suddenly appeared around his body and he was snatched backwards.
The Two-Headed Ogre opened its clenched hands. When it did not find its prey there, it opened and closed its hands a few times, as though trying to discern what had happened. Then, it turned its gaze upon us.
Tasite had literally been snatched from the claws of death and was now panting next to me. The chains that had bound him unravelled and quickly retreated into the shaft of Hevoy’s weapon.
Wait, where’s the spiked ball? Is that thing detachable? While I pondered upon this trivial matter, I found myself staring at Hevoy. Hevoy had just saved his sworn enemy, Tasite.
“I have no intention of yielding my prey to a monster,” he said calmly.
Well, it looked like this rescue was no humanitarian act.
“You. Steal our prey.”
“That’s right that’s right that’s right.”
“That should be my line, I had my sights on him first,” said Hevoy, unwavering before the two snarling ogres.
Until now, the rest of us had been mere bystanders. However, with the introduction of this new variable, we can no longer stay in our hands.
“Let’s go.”
“Yup!”
“Let’s go su~!”
Ramis dashed forward, flanked by Mishael and Shui. Botan followed from behind with Kuroyata fluttering like a dark shadow in the air.
“Don’t worry about this guy. We won’t let him escape!” Hyurumi yelled as she took out a length of rope.
“Be careful, everyone,” said Kikoyu as she helped Hyurumi tie up an unresisting Tasite. Looks like he lost so much blood that he could not properly resist anyone. So, I guess it’s fine to leave him to them.
As we lined up beside Hevoy, I noticed that his tense expression appeared to have eased up a bit.
“Let’s quickly take out that ogre beast!”
“With Master Hakkon and everyone else working together, we can take on anything.”
“I’ll assist from the back-su!”
Hevoy glanced at us before letting out a deep breath. It was as though he was expelling something from deep within his chest.
“Thank you for your help… I will depend on you.”
“Kuwaahh—!!”
“Bufuuuu!”
Kuroyata and Botan seemed to answer positively to Hevoy’s words.
“Of course, I expect great things from you two as well.”
The smile on Hevoy’s face looked even more genuine when he addressed those two.
“Start eating? Want meat. Meat.”
“Thighs and offal are good.”
The Two-Headed Ogre had been silently watching our exchange now approached us with arms raised.
It is finally time, for our final battle on this floor.
[Gumihou: Fighting!]
[1] Adjust details for dramatic purpose
[2] Adjust for clarity (especially the dialogue tags)
[3] The dialogues for the oni or ogre appeared very simplified. With ‘food’ in kanji and everything else in katakana, indicating a child-like way of speaking. For example「飯カ」the ‘ka’ here should be か under normal circumstances, but it’s written in katakana instead.
As for the ‘personality’ of the monsters, it was not written which head was male or female, but generally speaking, the male is often depicted as blue (and kind of stupid), while females are red or purple. Then again, this is not a hard and fast rule. Just a general ‘everyone knows’ cultural thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oni
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