Chapter 6
““······.””
For a moment, no one could open their mouth.
A situation impossible to comprehend with common sense.
Carmilla, and even the assassins, wore blank expressions.
“······Did it stop?”
A bewildered mutter.
His eyes trembled.
‘The God-Slaying Bow... He was fine even after being hit by a stake···?’
A boy who had appeared from nowhere.
Just before Carmilla was executed, he suddenly sprang from thin air.
“It seems I barged in at a crucial moment.”
A mask.
A grotesquely grinning mask.
“Have I perhaps been rude?”
The boy's reaction was utterly calm.
As if nothing had happened.
Rumble-.
At the clown's feet, the arrow that had been knocked away rolled across the floor.
Damaged by the aftereffects of firing, its tip had melted halfway off.
Sizzle-!
The floor was blackened as though lava had touched it.
That bubbling substance was unmistakably the power of the stake.
““······.””
The assassins could do nothing but swallow dryly.
Even after taking such a blow, not a speck of dust had touched his clothes.
What kind of situation was this?
How had he knocked away the stake?
What was he, and where had he appeared from?
Meaningless questions swarmed through their minds.
“You're all rather quiet. I believe you were chatting away nicely just a moment ago.”
““······.””
That was not all.
Before such rational information could even come to mind, something else seized the assassins by the napes of their necks.
‘What the···.’
It was instinct.
‘What is this oppressive feeling···!’
Killing intent.
A savage aura seethed from the boy.
Just looking at him made it feel as though a swarm of bugs were crawling all over their bodies.
It felt as though tiny teeth were gnawing at them, stripping away every layer of their skin.
“Ngh, ugh···.”
The assassins froze.
The only one who managed to regain his senses was the man who appeared to be their leader.
He bit down hard on his tongue to jolt himself awake.
Then he roused the members who had fallen into chaos.
“Get a grip, you bastards!”
The situation did not change.
Though a strange fellow had appeared, their mission remained the execution of the princess.
“What are you cowering for?! If we can't do it here, we're all dead!”
If they returned empty-handed, there was no way the king would let them off.
In other words, the assassins had no retreat left either.
“Fuck, he's nothing special! He's just one guy!”
“He probably got lucky and managed to take one of us down.”
“We just have to kill him!”
The assassins snapped back to their senses along with that shout.
Shing. Each of them drew a weapon from their waist.
Every one of them held a spear or sword.
“Drawing weapons without a word···! How rude can you be?”
“Don't let your guard down. Two at a time.”
The clown seemed to be deliberately exaggerating his reaction.
His fingers were stroking his own mask.
“What uncivilized gentlemen you are.”
Whether it was crying or laughter.
It was impossible to tell what kind of sound it was.
There were five of them, yet the assassins felt as though they were outnumbered.
“Get him!”
“Aaaaaah!”
The precarious standoff was shattered by the command.
Two of them charged forward first.
Whoosh-!
A gleaming blade tore through the air.
“Whoops.”
The clown took quick little steps in place, as if he did not know what to do.
To the vampires, it was the first time they had ever seen such clumsy footwork.
His steps were such a chaotic mess that they could not read his intentions.
Thus, the assassins judged it to be mockery directed at them.
“Why, you fucking bastard···!”
“You lowly human···!”
The blades came rushing in.
By then, the assassins had reached the boy's immediate vicinity.
That was when it happened.
Crackle-!
As if caught on something, the clown's movement abruptly stopped.
Then he flickered amid a burst of white noise.
It crackled, and he vanished without a trace.
“······?!”
“He disappeared···?”
The next moment.
“How frightening.”
The clown who had evaporated appeared behind them.
The mask rose up from completely outside their field of vision.
“What···!?”
“Must you really carry around such hideous things?”
Before the assassins could react, the clown's hands seized both their arms.
More precisely, the swords they held.
The boy's fingers touched them.
“Allow me to replace them with something more stylish.”
Immediately afterward, the hand that had been heavy felt strangely light.
The assassins were no longer holding swords.
No, they were swords, but their forms were clearly different.
‘Balloons.’
Swords made of balloons.
The weapons they had been holding had turned into toys in an instant.
“What is this···!”
They turned around in confusion, but the clown had already put a considerable distance between them.
The swords the assassins had originally been wielding had vanished without a trace.
The boy spread both hands to show them.
“Ta-da! It's magic!”
A bright remark.
Then he casually dusted off his hands again.
The atmosphere was as clammy as the air in the sewer.
“Since you are all holding such splendid weapons, I should wield one to match.”
Tunk-.
Something was suddenly in the clown's previously empty hand.
A stake.
An arrow forged from silver and colored by sunlight.
Had he picked up the one discarded on the floor?
Though it had shattered, the fragment was as large as a decent dagger.
“I hear vampires are weak to silver, sunlight, and stakes?”
The clown smiled broadly.
“Fortunately, this one has all three, doesn't it?”
“Damn it, kill him···!”
In the end, the vampires could not withstand his momentum.
The assassins kicked off the ground and closed in on the clown in an instant.
They surrounded him.
They had decided they had to seize the initiative somehow.
But it was a meaningless struggle.
Crackle-!
The clown took those clumsy steps once more.
No.
He did not stop at once, but repeated them several times.
Crackle-!
Crackle-!
Crackle-!
The clown flickered again and again.
Each time his body blinked, he appeared from every direction around the assassins.
Behind them, beside them, above them, and sometimes even beyond the wall···.
“Got you.”
Stab-.
The trick he used was nothing special.
He simply moved backward and stabbed the assassins with the tip of the stake.
But that alone was enough.
“Urgh, aaagh! My leg···!”
“My hand is melting! My hand is melting away···!”
“It's hot, it's hot···! Aaaaargh!”
A stake.
Even without being loaded into the God-Slaying Bow, it was already a powerful weapon in its own right.
At least against vampires, its compatibility was nothing short of disastrous.
The clown casually dealt with the assassins one after another.
“Ghk, kuh-ugh···!”
Flop-.
Another vampire sprawled across the floor.
Limbs engulfed in blazing flames.
“Now you're the only one left, aren't you?”
“A, ah···.”
The only one remaining was the leader of the assassins.
The vampire looked up at the clown while lying on his back.
His complexion was deathly pale.
The mask slowly bent at the waist.
“What is the matter?”
Their eyes were roughly level.
The mask was smiling.
“You were shouting earlier that you'd kill me, weren't you?”
“······.”
“Come now, your prey is right in front of you. Surely you can't let it get away?”
The clown personally placed a sword in the assassin's hand.
As if telling him to hurry up and stab the clown in the neck with it.
The assassin could not move.
“Hurry.”
“······.”
His eyes blinked.
His breathing trembled.
The assassin could not bring himself to look away from the clown.
The chill, fear, and terror pressing down on him grew beyond his control.
He could not breathe.
“Haha, you're trembling quite a lot, aren't you?”
His breath
was
cut off.
“Huff, huff···.”
“Take a deep breath. I haven't even done anyth#~?%?? yet?”
The clown's voice shattered into fragments.
His field of vision twisted however it pleased.
A mask.
A smiling mask.
The corners of its grotesquely smiling mouth stretched wide apart.
“You needn't be so frightened; we can still have a gentlemanly con>#{@}versation#@$????????<runrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrunrun······>”
The pitch-black mouth opened, revealing an interior larger than the sewer itself.
Tentacles writhed within.
Sticky things licked the assassin's cheek.
A churning scene that split apart and violated his brain.
His vision tore into vivid colors.
‘Eyes.’
Eyes blinked within it.
Eyes opened blood-red among the tentacles.
Eyes looking at the assassin.
Eyes watching.
Eyes watching,
Watch
ing
eyes.
“Could it be.”
EyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyesEyes
“?deracs era uoy”
An upside-down world.
The world spun and shattered into pieces.
His mind collapsed, unable to maintain consciousness any longer.
“Ah, uee···.”
Terror reaching its limit destroyed the brain.
In the end, the assassin fainted with his eyes rolled back.
Ssshhh-
The thin stream running from his trousers mixed directly with the sewage.
***
“Oops, it broke.”
I had been using it for quite a while, though.
I muttered as I looked down at the unconscious assassin.
“Was it really that scary?”
It seemed stakes were a vampire's worst nightmare.
I had merely held it in front of him and frightened him with a few words, but he had fainted on the spot.
I rose to my feet.
“Whew···.”
My whole body was exhausted.
My back was drenched in cold sweat, and I was covered in a generous amount of blood to boot.
My vision was dizzy from all the footwork, too.
‘I'm exhausted to death.’
Fortunately, the item had kept me from being injured.
I lightly tapped the MVP of the day.
[Mask of the Evil God]
-Effect:Negates three attacks directed at the wearer. Activates only while equipped.
-Uses remaining:2/3
Without this thing, I would have been skewered the moment the stake hit me.
I wiped the blood from the mask.
Then I turned my back on today's objective.
“Princess.”
Carmilla.
She was sitting on the floor.
“······.”
The girl said nothing and held her breath.
She seemed terrified.
‘Well, she nearly died. I suppose it can't be helped.’
I approached her, intending to comfort her.
“There now, this clown has dealt with all the bad assassins.”
Rustle-.
I handed her a bouquet made of balloons from my inventory.
They say a present is the best way to stop someone from crying.
There was a little blood on it, but so what?
What mattered was the thought behind the gift.
“Shall we go now?”
“······Please.”
Carmilla muttered faintly.
Looking closely, I saw tears streaming down her face.
“P, please save me···.”
“Huh?”
Her shoulders trembled.
The fear in her red eyes was unmistakably directed at me.
“I, I want to live···.”
Carmilla had been broken down even more pitifully since the assassins had captured her.
She curled up as though trying to hide from me, even if only a little.
I could do nothing but panic.
“Please, save me···.”
“Deth.”
What the hell.
Why was she suddenly acting like this?