Chapter 158
The ocher curtain that had dyed the sky collapsed.
When the unidentified fragments buried themselves in the ground.
The bloated body revealed itself.
What the Imperial Army deployed on the ground faced was an enormous shadow whose end could not be seen.
Overwhelmed by the sheer bulk filling their vision, everyone held their breath and stared blankly.
“Everyone, brace for impact!”
Richard, the first to grasp the situation, shouted.
But it was before his roar could spread through the entire army. Rahav’s torso crashed straight down into the gorge.
-KABOOOOOM!
A thunderous roar like the birth of a new world.
Solid bedrock crumpled like a sheet of paper. Pulverized stone erupted like a fountain and scattered in every direction.
A massive shock wave swept over the encampment.
Tents and supplies flew like fallen leaves caught in a storm.
“Ngh…!”
Rosanna braced herself by driving her sheathed sword into the ground.
Richard covered his face with one arm and stared intently at the shock’s epicenter.
“Could it be… he actually succeeded?”
Had a single human really brought down a calamity?
Was such a thing even possible?
And by nothing more than a slave?
Even though I was seeing it with my own eyes, I simply could not believe it.
“What should we do, Commander? Shouldn’t we charge in now?”
Hugo asked anxiously, worried they might somehow lose Rahav.
Even as the unit members looked to him for orders, Richard was too overwhelmed by the scene before him to readily open his mouth.
“Commander!”
It was then.
A soldier from the rear came running toward them in a panic, his face ashen.
“What is it?”
“Th-that’s…!”
The soldier could not continue, as though he had seen something no one was meant to see.
“Is it true that Rahav has appeared here?”
A calm voice came from behind him.
Richard’s gaze naturally turned back.
The people split apart to either side as if opening a path. Four people strolled through the gap.
At their head.
A green-haired girl who gave off a mysterious air utterly out of place amid the rough battlefield.
Richard’s eyes widened for an instant when he saw her.
“You’re……”
***
The place where Rahav fell.
In the center of a crater swirling with thick dust and murky air.
“Whoa, look at all this dust.”
I alighted lightly there, waving my hand to clear away the thick dust.
Far below my feet.
At the center of the enormous crater, Rahav’s body lay sprawled in a mangled heap.
Dark, viscous fluid gushed in pulses from every severed leg.
The calamity, stripped of its limbs, lay plastered to the ground and let out an enraged groan.
-Kieeeeeeeek!
A pathetic sight utterly at odds with its grand title, the Despair That Crawls Across the Sky.
It looked like nothing more than a large, unsightly serpent.
I looked at it and formed a simple impression.
‘So this works.’
The textbook way to defeat the boss monster Rahav.
Dragging the one that crawled across the sky down to the ground.
Even knowing the strategy, carrying it out perfectly was nearly impossible.
You had to be unharmed by the miasma, get up into the sky where it was, and cut off every one of those legs.
Unreasonable and absurd.
‘But it can’t be helped.’
Rahav was not a mere trash mob; it was a boss monster.
A being like a piece of stage machinery meant to let the protagonist shine.
If an army charged in and brought it down, its very reason for existing would disappear.
‘The fact that I can defeat it is a genuine coincidence too.’
If I had not trained, if I had not learned sword control and the Formless Sword, I would have had to stand on the ground and stare blankly.
It was the result of persistent effort.
Of course, if I subjugated Rahav, it would remove one of the major stages on which the protagonist was meant to shine.
‘Then she should have come sooner.’
I was in no position to worry about others right now.
She and I were both just people; the one who was needed should live.
Of course, if she said, ‘That slave bastard stole my achievement,’ I wouldn’t have an answer.
-Kieeeeeek!
The shriek stabbed at my eardrums.
Rahav vented miasma like a plume of steam.
It writhed its long body this way and that, trying to move.
Cutting off its legs had merely been a means of taking away its mobility and making it fall to the ground.
I had not dealt a decisive, fatal wound to its main body.
I drew my sword to finish it off.
Like an insect, I should split it into three parts—head, thorax, and abdomen……
‘……Which part is the thorax, and which is the abdomen?’
To begin with, did centipedes even belong to the insect family? I remembered they did not.
No, that trivial detail was not important in this situation.
Who cared about biological classification? Anyway, if I made it into three pieces, that made it an insect.
“C’mere.”
I like breasts bigger than the head.
I’ll turn you into a big-breasted centipede.
***
Rahav had exactly two core characteristics that made it troublesome.
Miasma.
Aerial movement.
If I could somehow counter just these two things, defeating Rahav would be incredibly easy.
‘That’s the problem—I can’t.’
In that sense, Rahav, with its legs cut off and its body fallen to the ground, had been reduced to an excellent source of protein.
I sliced the thrashing body into three pieces.
Head.
Breeeeeeasts.
Abdomen.
Its boobs were larger than all its other parts combined. At that size, it would provide more than enough food for a year.
Ah, of course, I have no intention of eating it even if I die.
-Click.
I lightly shook the debris from my blade and slid the sword into its scabbard.
Sheathing my sword after knocking down every last enemy always felt good.
‘Am I free now?’
I defeated a calamity all by myself.
There was no achievement greater than this.
Even the Emperor had made a contract, so he could not break his promise.
‘So this moment really has come.’
There were still two calamities left, but surely they could handle those themselves.
If I took care of everything myself, what would everyone else live on?
I was making a special concession to them.
‘Shall I head back, then?’
I had to tell everyone that I had subjugated a calamity.
I should bring people over and brag about it.
I turned around, brimming with delight.
It was at that moment.
-Whoosh!
“Hmm?”
The wind blew.
It was an extraordinarily fresh breeze.
The revolting smell of blood that had stung my nose and the stench of miasma were washed away in an instant.
The wind embracing the entire gorge was strangely refreshing.
An unmistakable anomaly.
Could this be Phase Two?
Or had something else appeared?
I kept my guard up and stared toward the direction from which the wind had come.
The place where the Imperial Army was stationed.
Something was flying toward me from there at tremendous speed.
A single figure streaked toward me like a meteor, trailing a turquoise arc.
‘Is it magic?’
Was it trying to erase Rahav and me along with it?
Had they really meant to do that when they said they could simply get a new slave?
With a fierce momentum that made it seem as though artillery were about to rain down, I reached for my sword hilt again.
The thing that had flown toward me at such a violent speed soon came to a gentle stop in front of me.
There was no shock wave, no cloud of dust.
It merely set one foot lightly on the ground, raising only a gentle breeze.
The blue veil slowly drew back.
At the figure revealed through it, I opened my eyes wide.
Emerald hair billowed luxuriantly past her waist.
Silver eyes gleamed like polished mirrors.
An indescribably mystical aura emanated from the long black spear in her hand.
I knew who she was.
‘The Hero, Shabel.’
The protagonist of the [Lady Maker] expansion.
Shabel de Rochefort.
‘Why is she here?’
No, there was nothing strange about it at all.
Defeating the Three Great Calamities had been designated her role from the very beginning.
If anything, she had appeared late.
“……”
Shabel’s silver eyes turned toward me.
But, as though she had no particular interest in me, her gaze passed straight beyond me.
Then, almost immediately, her eyes widened.
“Ra, Rahav…? H-how? Why?”
Shabel stammered.
Her pupils shook violently, making her bewilderment plain.
Her eyes repeatedly examined the severed sections of the corpse, as though she simply could not believe it.
After wandering aimlessly for a long while, her gaze returned to me.
“Did you…… do this?”
“As you can see.”
“By yourself?”
“As you can see.”
Shabel stared blankly at me.
The mysterious air she had possessed when I first saw her was nowhere to be found.
Now she wore the hollow expression of someone who had watched all the food sell out right before their eyes.
Well, I understood.
To Shabel, the Three Great Calamities were the enemies of her entire life.
She had spent her whole life driven by the single determination to defeat the Three Great Calamities with her own hands.
Yet her object of vengeance was already dead, so of course she felt empty.
‘That’s why you should have come sooner.’
It wasn’t as though I had stolen some fortuitous encounter from her, nor had I gone after it just to spite her.
It had come toward me, and I had no choice but to deal with it.
I hadn’t done anything wrong.
“……”
But Shabel did not seem to see it that way.
Her vengeance, with nowhere to go, began twisting in an unexpected direction.
She made her hostility toward me unmistakably clear.
“What…… are you?”
“I’m a slave.”
“A slave……?”
Like everyone else, Shabel could not understand it at once and looked puzzled.
Then, apparently reaching her own conclusion, she nodded.
“Aha, you must be a knight’s squire. Where is your master?”
“She’s in the Imperial Palace. My master is the First Imperial Princess.”
“What?”
“You seem to be misunderstanding, so let me correct you: I really did defeat it alone.”
“Didn’t you say you were a slave?”
“I am a slave. A rather strong slave.”
Shabel narrowed her eyes.
“Are you making fun of me? I’m sorry, but this is not a situation for jokes.”
“Well, I’m telling you, it’s true.”
Was being a slave like constantly taking a potion that made everyone hate you?
Thanks to that, Shabel’s wariness toward me reached its peak.
She glared at me as though I were an enemy soldier.
I felt there was no point in saying anything more here.
“Shall we return to the encampment for now? I need to go brag to everyone that I defeated a calamity all by myself.”
“……”
Oh dear, she seemed rather distraught.
But what could I do?
I was far too excited.
Work your ass off.
I’m heading back.