Chapter 18
The Reaper girl regained her composure after grasping two things.
‘They clearly think I'm human.’
‘The moment I speak, they'll recognize me as an enemy.’
She certainly looked human.
There wasn't a single demonic feature visible on her.
But just because she looked like them didn't mean she could be on their side.
“우҉̢͕̞̰̅͋͆͠ 리҉̨̯͇̀͞파҈̢͓̖͆̔̿͝티҉̨͓̟̇̕에҈̧̞̙̎̃̕들҈̢͙̫̪̒͞어오҈̡̩̭҇̒지҉̨͉̠͙͛͒͡않҉̟͓̌̃̚͢͡을҉͇̈́͐͜͡래҈̨̜̋̕?̷̨̮̤̔̕”
To the Reaper girl, their voices were more than merely a language she couldn't understand…
They sounded like voices rejected at the level of the soul.
It was almost a direct suggestion that the two sides could not coexist in a single world and were fated to be born to fight one another.
In other words.
It was highly likely that any sounds she made would sound horrifying to them as well.
After reaching that conclusion, the Reaper girl kept her mouth shut.
She couldn't let them experience the same instinctive revulsion she had.
There was also a stroke of luck.
The girl had a habit of keeping blades she wasn't using far away from her.
If she hadn't, and had left the scythe within reach while eating, she would have swung it in a panic when the mage teleported over.
If that had happened, combat would have begun immediately, forcing her into an unfavorable three-on-one fight.
Thanks to that, even though she'd allowed three intruders to approach while she was defenseless, the girl had gained the upper hand.
She had secured the precious advantage of striking first.
The three adventurers kept talking to the girl, never dreaming that she was the owner of Floor 60.
“Did you kill all the monsters up to Floor 60?”
“No way, Leon. This adorable little girl?”
“Then she must already have a party traveling with her.”
“You're right. Where are the others?”
When the girl couldn't answer, they stopped talking to her and began whispering among themselves.
“She must not know the common language at all.”
“I'll give it a try.”
One of the women then began trying all sorts of bizarre languages in front of the girl.
A little while later, she finally gave up.
“Grrrk! Shashak…! Hmm, she doesn't understand Lizardman, either….”
“Puena, are you stupid? Why would a girl like this speak a reptile language?!!”
“The fact that Puena knows even the Lizardman language makes me think she's not stupid, though…”
Just as they were bickering among themselves.
“Could this girl… be a slave?”
At the man's one remark, the way they looked at the girl began to change.
“That seems like the only explanation… If she's a slave born in a foreign land, she wouldn't know the common language.”
“She must have been forcibly dragged here by some shady adventurer….”
“I thought her clothes were unusual… Maybe they wanted to dress her in a gown like this and turn her into a doll.”
“Looks like they set up a base camp here, had the slave cook for them, and went upstairs.”
They reached that conclusion entirely on their own.
The woman rummaged through her bag with sympathy in her eyes.
“Now that I look at you again, you're way too thin. You aren't eating properly, are you? Here, have this.”
She placed a piece of bread in the girl's hand.
“……”
The girl accepted the bread reflexively.
Crunch-
She cautiously took a bite, set the bread down on the table, then offered the chair she had been sitting in to the mage who had given her the bread.
“Oh? Are you telling me to sit here? Thank you.”
The girl approached the tent, tore open three packets of instant coffee mix, emptied them into paper cups, and poured in hot water.
Swish-
Then she held out the three cups of coffee to them.
“Oh? You're giving these to us? How kind of you.”
“Even ours? What a good girl…”
Rather than the coffee, they examined the paper cups this way and that as though they were fascinating, then cautiously took a sip.
And immediately gave an explosive reaction.
“……”
The woman's eyes widened.
“Whoa, holy shit! This is incredible! What's this?!!”
“Really?”
Another woman also made a fuss while drinking coffee, but the man set his cup down on the table untouched.
The Reaper girl's eyes narrowed at the sight.
‘I need to be careful of that man.’
“Leon is so suspicious. This is the tea she was drinking herself just a moment ago~”
“Yeah, Leon…! Try it…! This tea is amazing! It's so sweet and delicious.”
“I'm fine. More importantly… we need to get going. We don't have time to sit around like this…”
The two female mages then chided the man.
“You were the one who wouldn't let either of us use Levitation so we could conserve mana..! We climbed sixty floors of stairs in this huge building on foot!”
“She's right. Let's take a break, Leon…”
Hearing their complaints, the man gave an awkward smile.
“Fine. But we're leaving as soon as you finish that.”
With that, the man turned away.
“Where are you going?”
“I'm going to take a quick look at the situation farther up the stairs.”
And so the man left.
The two women who remained began chatting about the girl.
“But look at her. She's a slave, but she doesn't smell at all!”
“Really? I guess they take good care of her. She smells like she's wearing some kind of perfume.”
“No, it's not perfume. She's just… completely scentless. That's so strange.”
Once they realized they couldn't smell the girl's body odor, they moved to either side of her and began sniffing.
The girl backed away, feeling overwhelmed.
As she did, she watched them carefully.
‘Now…?’
They were close, and she had made them sufficiently careless.
On top of that, the strongest-looking man had left.
No matter how she thought about it, now was the time.
The Reaper girl slowly shifted her hips toward the scythe propped against the tent wall.
And then…
Clack!
Her elbow accidentally nudged the man's coffee cup sitting on the table.
Slither.
The coffee spilled straight onto the hem of the woman who had drawn close.
That was when it happened.
Along with her habit of handling blades, a second habit of modern humans activated.
“Oh. Sorry….”
The words slipped out instinctively.
She covered her mouth immediately, but the women's faces had already twisted in horror.
“Aaaaaaaaaah!!!!”
“Eek!!!!!”
They screamed and covered their ears.
Just as the girl had expected.
To them, those words clearly sounded like a grotesque noise.
“Ghk… Puena…! Wh-what language was that just now?!”
“Could that… even be a language?… I…I don't know either…”
Just then.
The man who had gone to check the stairs came rushing back down, his face urgent.
He had confirmed that the door leading upward was firmly blocked and pieced together the whole situation.
“……”
There could only be one reason the door to the next floor wouldn't open.
He had intended to conceal that he'd realized this and launch a surprise attack, but…
When the man confirmed that the girl had begun to act, he shouted.
“Get away from her right now!!!!! That woman isn't human!!!! She's the monster of Floor 60!!!!!!”
His scream rang through the chamber.
But it was too late.
The girl seized the scythe and swung it at that moment.
Slash-!
It sliced away half the nearby woman's body and one arm in a single stroke.
“Uuugh… guys. My arm…”
Because she didn't understand what had happened, only an awkward scream escaped her.
Blood sprayed in every direction.
“PUENA!!!!!!!!”
She immediately passed out from shock.
One mage named Puena was rendered unable to fight.
Vwoom-!
Ellen immediately cast spatial transference, caught Puena, and retreated a considerable distance from the girl.
“Gasp… We need to stop the bleeding…!”
She tried to cover the gaping wound with trembling hands, but didn't know where to begin.
Her face went pale.
The inexperienced young mage lost her grip on reality in her confusion.
The male swordsman said.
“Vomit that drink right now!!!! You drank a beverage given to you by a demon!!!”
That's right.
They had put that in their mouths, too.
“Bleeugh…! Hrrrgh!!!”
“Eeeeeeeeeeugh!!!!!”
There was no need to stick their fingers down their throats.
Terror triggered their gag reflexes, and they vomited up all the coffee.
Their eyes became bloodshot.
“…You demon…”
Vrrrrrr-!
The woman who had finished vomiting trembled violently as she concentrated mana at the tip of her staff.
Seeing that, the Reaper girl murmured.
“Why… did I hesitate?”
It was an expression of remorse.
The fact that she had accidentally spilled the coffee and apologized were both because…
she had hesitated to kill these people.
The reason she hadn't cut their throats in one stroke was part of the same hesitation.
The same went for offering them coffee in the first place.
It had been less an attempt to make them lower their guard than a gesture of thanks for the bread they'd given her.
The reason was that…
these were the first human faces she'd seen in four days, after being trapped in this enclosed space and fighting monsters.
But the girl's eyes had settled now.
“Black Shift.”
Whoom-!
The flower garden inside the girl's head.
The last flower in that garden, which had originally been in full bloom, had just been plucked and vanished.
The mist cleared.
The girl had used Black Shift to move behind the mage who was preparing to cast a spell.
The mage, who prided herself on being an expert in spatial transference, had been caught from behind by spatial transference.
Technically, it was the active effect of equipment, but there was no way for them to know that.
All three of them had lost track of the girl's movements.
In an instant.
It happened almost simultaneously with her movement.
The girl pointed the scythe's blade downward and then…
Swaaash—.
swept it straight across the woman's abdomen.
Squish- Splatter-
Her insides spilled onto the cold marble.
A scream burst out.
“Aaaaaah…!!!!”
“Ellen!!!”
A second awkward scream rang out.
But the Reaper girl's second attack was not awkward.
The girl's blue earrings glinted.
The corpse had definitely counted as another stack.
She hadn't overlooked it, either.
She needed to keep tracking the movements of the man standing ahead of her.
The man was stunned by the horrific sight before him.
“I can't forgive you…”
Soon the man himself charged.
He was incredibly fast.
If the girl's Senses stat had been even five points lower, she'd have been helpless against that speed.
But there was no reason in the man's eyes.
It was exactly as the girl had calculated.
That was why she had killed the woman by spilling her insides instead of slicing her throat.
The girl did not raise the scythe in front of herself.
Leaving the attack coming straight at her unchecked…
she brought the blade to her own nape.
And moved her hand.
“Death's End.”