Chapter 11
Dawn broke.
More precisely, it was afternoon.
Aria sat up, dazed, then rubbed her eyes.
How long had it been since she'd slept in?
Ashtein sat beside her, looking troubled.
“……Did you sleep well?”
At his strangely cautious manner, Aria couldn't help giving a bitter smile.
She hadn't wanted him to see her doing something as mundane as scrubbing her filthy body.
She must have been stressed from only washing briefly for nearly four days.
So she'd ended up washing longer than usual, and the Hero had caught her.
Aria felt embarrassed.
Though she didn't show it.
“Yes. I think it's been a long time since I slept this soundly.”
“……We're going to hunt monsters now. What are you going to do?”
Why would he ask that?
Wasn't it only natural that the thread followed the needle?
“I'm coming.”
“……All right.”
He answered with a troubled expression.
* * *
“Hah, hah.”
Ragged breaths escaped Aria's lips.
Ashtein watched her quietly with an impassive expression, then said just one thing.
“Your stamina's incredible.”
It was obvious sarcasm.
It wasn't as if she enjoyed panting like this.
Aria felt humiliated.
“Hhgh, huh. S-sorry, I... ngh.”
Watching the black-haired saintess stagger, Ashtein sighed.
The terrain was rugged.
It was the tallest mountain in the area, so anyone climbing it for the first time could easily be worn out.
And “tallest” also meant it had steep slopes.
‘Still, running out of steam in thirty minutes is a bit much.’
She could wield holy arts freely, but the saintess's basic stamina was woefully poor.
It was inevitable she'd be exhausted.
From Ashtein's perspective, she was little more than dead weight.
Regardless of her character, shouldn't she at least be useful in combat?
At this rate, he couldn't expect her to help much in battle.
Should he send her back?
Ashtein felt strangely reluctant to send this saintess back.
If only he hadn't seen that scene last night, maybe he wouldn't feel this way.
In the end, he walked in front of the staggering Aria, turned his back to her, and crouched.
“Get on.”
“……I-I can walk.”
Ashtein turned his head slightly to look at Aria.
His eyes were frightening.
Seeing her stiffen, the Hero clicked his tongue.
“Your eyes and legs are both giving out. How do you expect to walk?”
“I-I'll be fine after resting just a little!”
“I doubt resting will help.”
Aria lowered her head.
Even she thought her stamina was pathetic.
And she was going to walk all the way back to the cult like this?
That was a joke.
Ashtein said dryly,
“More than anything, I can't stand watching you struggle.”
“……I-I think I'd smell sweaty and unpleasant if you carried me.”
“Quit talking and get on.”
In the end, Aria climbed onto Ashtein's back.
“You're heavy for a medical kit.”
Aria couldn't argue, and lowered her head.
As expected, she was no help at all.
She was useless.
Just as her self-deprecating thoughts continued, he stopped walking.
“The slimes have frozen solid now that the weather's turned cold.”
At Ashtein's words, Aria flinched.
Slimes didn't bring her any pleasant memories.
“W-where are the slimes?”
“Over there.”
He pointed in a certain direction.
There was a patch of blue-green ice.
“Eek!”
At her horrified voice, Ashtein raised an eyebrow.
“Do you have some bad memories involving slimes?”
Bad memories.
Of course she did.
“N-no.”
It was the sort of thing she couldn't tell him, so Aria trailed off.
Seeing her flustered reaction, Ashtein didn't press her.
He worried he might say something that would hurt her.
Slime.
A horrifying memory surfaced, like a submarine rising to the surface.
* * *
“Ah.”
Aria was hanging limply, both arms shackled with chains.
Her toes barely touched the ground.
How had she ended up in this situation?
Because she'd done something wrong.
Regardless of how big or small the offense was, what mattered was that she, a saintess, had committed one.
Even a minor offense was still an offense.
They didn't want the name of saintess to be tarnished.
Of course, that was nothing more than a pretext to torment her.
An unnamed bishop lifted the robes of the pitifully dangling Aria up to her waist.
Her slender waist, childbearing hips, and completely hairless vulva were exposed.
The bishop marveled at the sight of her immature pussy, pressed tightly shut in a straight line.
How could it be such a vivid shade of pink?
The man's thick fingers slid across her crotch.
Squish, squish.
After a few minutes of fondling, her crotch was soon drenched.
“Ah!”
Unlike before, the saintess Aria had become highly sensitive to touch.
At her honey-sweet moan, the bishop felt blood rush to his lower body.
He yearned to thrust his hard, erect cock into the young saintess's vagina and thrust it around, but he managed to resist with astonishing patience.
He couldn't do that.
Aria was supposed to be punished.
The bishop cleared his throat and took out the flask he'd prepared.
It was larger than an ordinary flask.
No, was it even right to call it a flask?
It was a massive glass jar.
It could hold at least ten liters.
Inside was a blue liquid, but it wasn't an ordinary liquid.
Its name was slime.
A hideous, shapeless monster with potent acid, it had killed many inexperienced adventurers.
It usually lived in dark, damp places and obtained nutrients by decomposing animal carcasses.
Since its body was transparent, you could see right through it; perhaps for that reason, one could sometimes watch humans or animals melt away inside it.
The sight was cruel and disturbing enough to cause psychological trauma.
Of course, the bishop had no intention of doing something inhumane like feeding the saintess to the slime.
This slime had been stripped of its ‘acid’ through holy arts.
The bishop's vile voice pierced Aria's ears.
“Do you know what this is, Saintess?”
“……I don't know.”
“It's a slime.”
At the word slime, she trembled faintly.
The sharp-witted girl seemed to understand why he'd brought the slime.
“N-no, please.”
Aria shook her head, trembling all over.
But the bishop had no intention of letting her off.
“Wasn't it you, Saintess, who committed the offense?”
“I won't let it happen again. Please, please forgive me just this once.”
“You should have been careful from the beginning.”
Be careful from the beginning?
It was absurd logic.
Even though they'd set her up from the start.
“……Th-that makes no sense.”
The bishop caught a glimpse of Aria's defiant eyes and smiled sinisterly.
“Look at you. You still refuse to admit it.”
He uncorked the flask, then tilted its mouth toward the floor.
Glug, glug.
The slime began oozing out of the flask.
Aria stared at it in terror.
“P-please stop. I'll do anything! Anything I can, I-I'll do it!”
“All I want is for you to accept this punishment obediently, Saintess.”
“N-no. I-I really might die.”
“People don't die that easily. Besides, Saintess, you're naturally brimming with holy power, so your body regenerates quickly. You needn't worry about dying of shock.”
Aria trembled, then shouted as if she couldn't take it anymore.
“Y-you crazy bastard! And you call yourself a clergyman?! Stop it! What did I do wrong?!”
“I'm sure the Saintess knows better than I do.”
“What, what do I know?! I don't know anything! Stop doing this! How much more obedient do I have to be? I did what you told me to, everything you ordered! What are you so dissatisfied with?!”
The bishop didn't answer.
He only smiled lasciviously.
The slime had all poured out, and was slowly moving toward Aria.
“Perhaps I should come back once the Saintess's defiance has been broken.”
Leaving those words behind, the bishop walked out of the chamber of penance.
Aria watched the blue liquid slowly approaching her with despairing eyes.
As mentioned earlier, slimes preferred dark, damp places.
And a woman's body had just the right place for this slime.
‘The vagina.’
Bound as she was, Aria could only watch the rippling slime approach.
Splash, splash.
“Eek!”
The cool, sticky sensation of slime slid over her ankle.
She'd just been lightly fondled by the bishop, so her body was already heated; this sensation was extremely dangerous.
“……Fuck, seriously, why are you doing this to me?”
No one answered her question.
Blue liquid crawled from her calf, over the back of her knee, and up her thigh.
It made her skin crawl.
Though it had no acid, the liquid still exerted a strange pressure.
Would liquid metal feel this heavy?
Perhaps because of that, the more the slime climbed over her body, the more fiercely Aria's wrists hurt where they were shackled.
It felt as though her wrists might snap.
“Ahg, s-stop, stop! Please stop! You bastard! Don't come up here!”
There was no way the slime would heed Aria's protests.
It had no intelligence to speak of, and it wanted the comfort it sensed in the narrow opening of this woman named Aria.
So the slime passed her groin and reached her vulva.
“Hah!”
The sensation of liquid rubbing against her labia alone gave Aria a feeling of ecstasy.
Goosebumps rose all over her body.
Sexual pleasure cruelly destroyed her brain cells.
Even in that cruel reality, she couldn't resist with so much as a finger.
She could only lament her situation.
As if testing whether Aria's narrow opening suited it, the slime moved back and forth at the entrance to her vagina.
Once this was over, nearly ten liters of slime would enter Aria's body.
Not just her vagina, but her anus as well.
Though she'd been penetrated vaginally many times, she'd never taken it from behind.
In a way, she was about to give her first time to a slime.
Humiliation and fear took over her mind.
“Stop, stop, please stop.”
Aria cried out desperately.
She screamed at the top of her lungs.
“You think I don't know someone's watching from there? I know, I do! So stop now, please, I said stop! I'll beg, I'll get down on my knees, just please!”
The slime now tapped at her anus, too.
Shuddering at the sensation, Aria said,
“I-I can't take this anymore. I really feel like I'm going crazy.”
Her desperate cries echoed through the chamber of penance.
Still, no answer came.
“I'm sorry.”
“How much longer do I have to beg?”
“I really hate this now. I hate it so much. I don't want this.”
“Uhh, sob, stop it.”
They still didn't answer, even as Aria was on the verge of bursting into tears.
Her mind was crumbling rapidly.
And then, at some point—
“Hic!”
As if it had judged the fit, the slime rushed into Aria's vagina.
“Hgh.”
The sound was like a scream from being stabbed.
A painful gasp, like someone choking after inhaling too quickly.
“Hh, my stomach, i-it feels strangeee.”
As the liquid surged into her like a flood, Aria tried to squeeze her legs shut in spasms.
But the slime forced her legs apart, as though it wouldn't tolerate her trying.
Wide open.
Her legs were spread in an M, and her vagina was stretched wide by the slime's penetration, exposed in full.
Her vaginal opening, stretched to its limit, looked as though it might tear at any moment.
“Kyaaah!”
A moan that sounded like she was dying.
Aria's eyes rolled back.
It looked as though she'd gone into shock from the unbearable pain, but—
Vmmm!
As if it wouldn't allow her to escape by fainting,
gentle holy power forcibly brought her back to consciousness.
When Aria came to, her body trembled all over.
As if she couldn't take it anymore, she screamed.
“Stoooop!”
It was a scream so loud her voice cracked.
She gasped roughly and spilled out words in a torrent.
“Stop! It hurts, it hurts. I'm tearing. I'm going crazy, stop. This isn't fun. I'm weird, it hurts.”
Her words made no sense.
Aria, utterly broken, was taking the slime as she gasped raggedly.
Watching from outside, the bishop asked Priest Ronin with an uneasy look,
“Isn't this enough to correct her? If the saintess ends up broken, then who's going to take responsibility……?”
Priest Ronin smiled.
“I will.”
The bishop wondered if this was the kind of smile a real demon would wear.
Ronin's smile was in full bloom.
That smile, as if it held all the malice in the world, filled the bishop with instinctive unease.
How could anyone wearing a human face push a girl who was like his own daughter this far?
“……Still, isn't this too much? You said you'd only punish her a little at first.”
Priest Ronin had clearly said this:
He'd stop once Aria began screaming.
But look at the situation now.
Even as she cried and struggled, he was doing nothing but watching.
Judging by his expression, he was delighted.
“Isn't this much necessary to properly correct the Saintess?”
“……This isn't a pleasant sight. We should stop now, surely.”
Priest Ronin's expression changed completely.
His face turned as cold as a blade.
He quietly said the bishop's name.
“Bishop Kardal.”
It was a chilling sensation, as if a blade had been thrust deep into his stomach.
“W-what is it, Priest Ronin?”
“I am the one in charge of ‘correcting’ the Saintess. If you have a complaint, submit a formal protest to Cardinal Marblov.”
“……I-I suppose I overstepped my place.”
Bishop Kardal broke into a cold sweat and fled as if running away.
Priest Ronin contained his displeasure and looked into the chamber of penance.
The beastlike howls and pleading voices could no longer be heard.
All that remained was a girl whose front and back entrances had both been violated by the slime.
“Ahh, hih, it's, it's all the way in.”
Whether her central nervous system had been shattered or her brain was secreting pleasure-inducing neurotransmitters because of the extreme pain, she cried out ecstatically.
“It hurts, it feels good, it hurts, it feels good, it's strange, my pussy and butt hurt, but it feels good. Ehehe, hehe, heugh.”
She was being utterly ruined.
Ronin felt unsurpassed excitement at the sight.
The greatest pleasure.
“Uegh.”
Vomit came from Aria's mouth.
And yet she was smiling.
Like a broken doll.
“Eek, ah, ah, it hurts! No, i-it's going in, I don't want it!”
Beautiful.
Ronin genuinely thought so.