Chapter 362: The Survivors Were Ugly
"Are you alright, Master?"
"Of course I am. Not a scratch on me. Haha."
"You’ve already regenerated your wounds, haven’t you? How many stab wounds were there in total?"
"...Seven."
There was no fooling her. I’d tried my best to protect my body, but a five-star spear technique was merciless beyond compare.
My left shoulder, right thigh, and various other spots; seven wounds in total. Thankfully none of them were as deep as a finger’s length, but the humiliation was that I was the only one who’d taken any damage.
"Levis Ann. She’s a strong woman. She clearly didn’t get the Holy Knight Commander position for nothing."
"Her level is also higher than Luna’s. Her primary duty is guarding the Saintess, but she spends more than half of each month fighting on the front lines against the Demon King’s Army and has survived until now. She’s a formidable warrior."
Shaitan reminded me of the information she had on the Holy Knight Commander. I’d known all this already, but having actually fought her again, it really hit home.
"She’s this strong and she’s only around rank sixteen or seventeen?"
"To be precise, that’s her combat strength as an individual. If the entire Holy Knights under her command were to join her, the combined force would be enough to contest dungeons ranked in the top seven."
"So if the full Holy Knights show up, we’re screwed."
We’d barely managed to clear even the rank thirty-eight Halphas dungeon by the skin of our teeth. And now a force rivaling a top-seven dungeon was coming to kill us? In that case, forget Baal’s old dungeon or anything else; we might have to flee somewhere else entirely.
’No wonder she was frustrated by her soldiers’ capabilities.’
She might not have realized it herself, but I could tell from fighting her up close. Levis Ann was the type who led her comrades and subordinates into battle together, not a lone wolf who mowed through enemies solo.
"It’s only because she was leading undisciplined troops that things turned out this way. If she’d had well-trained soldiers, she wouldn’t have pulled back so easily."
"Then we need to take them down and put them to bed before her reinforcements arrive. Shaitan, have any reports come in?"
Operations were happening in multiple places simultaneously, so if Shaitan didn’t know, I couldn’t grasp the overall situation either. Fortunately, Shaitan had fresh intelligence that had arrived just twenty minutes ago.
"The Allocen front is still in a standoff. According to scouts we sent outside the dungeon, the enemy has fortified positions in the wasteland and intends to kill us the moment we emerge from the entrance."
"Did the scouts survive?"
"Gremory confirmed it using an avatar."
"...She didn’t stupidly share pain sensation again, did she? Anyway, that’s good. If the enemy’s sitting there with their mouths open, we just hit the other side."
Thankfully, the forces from House Sagittarius hadn’t pushed their attack into the dungeon’s interior. The offensive might intensify after sunrise, but at least they wouldn’t be rushing the dungeon in a flash.
"Kimaris, Amdusias. What’s the situation at Ras Vegas?"
"Reporting in."
The two leaders of the Death Knight unit, who had waged a mobile battle against the forces camped outside Ras Vegas, knelt before me.
"We launched surprise raids against those who had established a camp and abducted male prisoners. Excluding those who died en route, forty-nine are currently alive."
"What’s their condition?"
"...They’re lying on their backs, doing their best. We needed something to blow off some steam ourselves, after all."
"Understood. They’re fresh male prisoners who just came in, so tell the girls to savor them."
If you flipped the genders, this would be like two orcs and worwolves devouring female adventurers, but since these men had shown hostility toward our legion and been captured as prisoners, that was a consequence they’d have to accept.
’Death by pleasure; how humane a way to go.’
At least their final journey wasn’t just ordinary death but death by pleasure, so they shouldn’t feel too hard done by. If they came to appreciate the joys of Ras and joined our legion, wonderful. And if they died, they’d become ghouls and add to the legion’s strength.
"By now it’s probably already down to forty-eight. What are our casualties?"
"Calling them casualties is a bit of a stretch...."
"We accidentally kidnapped Sir Gray."
"Accidentally?"
I didn’t understand for a moment. How could kidnapping Gray, essentially the enemy unit’s second-in-command, be called an accident?
"W-well, it was dark out and we couldn’t see well, and a man who looked like the enemy commander was leading soldiers to intercept us. So Amdusias and I grabbed him, and when we looked...."
"We couldn’t tell because of the helmet! I seriously had no idea that Gray person would be there doing that!"
"Fair enough. You two might know Gray by face, but you wouldn’t know his subordinates in detail."
According to the two of them, they’d kidnapped a man who was actively issuing commands to his subordinates in order to disrupt the enemy’s chain of command, and it turned out to be Gray.
’I can picture it. I can picture it perfectly.’
Gray, diligently commanding the adventurers to avoid suspicion. The first abduction goes off without a hitch, and they launch the second, but Kimaris is thrown off by the suddenly reinforced defenses. Still, the Death Knights dodge arrows and spells to throw their lassos once more, and a subordinate who didn’t recognize Gray happened to snatch him in an attempt to score a merit.
"You almost made Harpuia a widow."
Thankfully, Eila spotted Gray’s face just before he was about to be devoured. Otherwise, Gray might have been mounted by the dullahans and unicorns.
"Hehe, but honestly, didn’t you grab him because he was handsome? I heard from Shaitan that the girls were picking and choosing based on their tastes. For supposedly not being able to see in the dark, you sure brought back a lot of good-looking ones, didn’t you?"
"...Well, I mean, the girls said that since they were going to enjoy themselves anyway, what’s the harm in grabbing the handsome, well-built ones...."
"You said it yourself last time, Master! A feast for the eyes is a feast for the body!"
"Correct answer, Death Knights."
Of the subjugation force stationed at Ras Vegas, only the handsome men had been kidnapped. Put another way, the survivors had survived because they were ugly. To put it more charitably, they survived because they didn’t meet the dullahans’ standards.
"If they receive seed from handsome men, the children born will surely be handsome and beautiful too. Just like when I fathered Meri and Arthur. Hahaha."
"...."
The dullahans were former humans. I offered a moment of silent condolence toward the subjugation force from a distance.
"But they are prisoners. Tell the girls not to get too attached. Warn them strictly not to go easy on anyone just because they fell for a pretty face. There might be some who’d be completely fooled by a honeytrap."
"It’s fine. We agreed that if anyone does that, I’ll discipline them with this. Personally."
Kimaris lightly tapped her lower abdomen. Then, like a time-lapse of a mushroom growing, the front of Kimaris’s armored trousers suddenly bulged outward as if a tent had been pitched.
"Wh-what on earth is that?"
"Didn’t you already know? It developed when we merged."
"No, I mean, I knew you all became futanari... is that sex magic?"
"Yes. At first everyone kept theirs out because it was novel, but the constant dangling got uncomfortable, so we learned sex magic. We got some help from Lady Shaitan."
"Ah, I see. So this is the retractable type."
Sex magic is something else.
For me, mine was always standing stiff rather than dangling, so it wasn’t much of an issue. But seeing how different others looked from their previous lives, it must genuinely be uncomfortable. That said, there was no way I’d ever learn that spell to tuck mine away.
"Alright, let’s take stock. If we add up the ones we killed in the dungeon and the ones we kidnapped, how many is that?"
"Being generous with the estimate, about a hundred and fifty... no, probably around a hundred."
"After all that mobile warfare, we only captured a hundred?"
We’d shaved off roughly ten percent of the enemy’s fighting strength in the opening engagement, but it was unfortunate that we’d accidentally kidnapped Gray, who was arguably our best spy.
’Well, there wasn’t really a way to coordinate with Gray anyway.’
It wasn’t as if we had some secret communication channel with Gray, so there was no way to exchange messages. All we could do was hope Gray would cause internal disruption on his own, but even so, Gray was quite a capable asset.
Five stars. His level had climbed into the upper sixties before I knew it.
Compared to a certain someone at level ninety-two, it was woefully insufficient, but Gray had been growing steadily through his double life.
Of course, what I’d wanted was for him to feed us real-time intelligence as a spy, but Gray didn’t have the means to do that. Until I’d checked his rank, he had been nothing more than a member of a low-ranking noble house.
"Well... I should try making some kind of secret communication device. I can’t keep using Shaitan as a relay forever."
It was incredibly inconvenient not having real-time information from every battlefield. The foundation of RTS was responding to information as it came in, but whether it was a Seizure Battle or a war against humanity, the lack of real-time data was endlessly frustrating.
’Gremory and Meri mostly know offensive magic, and Shaitan only knows sex magic.’
I needed to find some kind of communication method.
"Where’s Gray right now?"
"He’s at Harpuia’s house in Ras Vegas. Should we stage it to look like he escaped again?"
"No, forget it. I can’t exactly summon him all the way to the dungeon and tell him to walk out carrying Andras’s head from the sub-dungeon."
The enemy would be catching on soon enough anyway. That attacking Ras Vegas would be easier than attacking the dungeon.
Unlike the dungeon, where blocking the entrance left no way in except to break through, Ras Vegas was wide open; just hop over the fences that stretched in every direction and you’d be right in the center of town.
"Prepare for the enemy’s offensive. To monitor whether they’re heading for the dungeon... contact Nifela and have the cream elves run reconnaissance. I’m heading to Ras Vegas as well."
For a blitz-style mobile operation, we’d only managed to kill or capture about ten percent of the enemy, but that was enough. After all, the number of hostages would soon grow from a mere few dozen to several thousand.
"Shaitan. Still no word from them?"
"No. Nothing yet."
"...Wake Lily. I need to go to Spica Castle immediately and find out what’s happened."
"No need... for that...."
A familiar voice came from behind me. As a face poked through the portal, I instinctively raised my axe.
"Lime?"
"Already ate the Baroness."
Before my eyes, Virginia Virgo, who had stolen my virginity while I slept, was waving at me. I dashed over in a single stride and pulled at her skin. It was Lime.
"You did it! What happened to Meri?"
"Meri picked up holy sword."
"What?"
"Meri... picked up holy sword. No, holy sword picked up Meri."
"???????"
She’d cut out all the context and just said she picked up a holy sword. What did that even mean? And why was a holy sword suddenly coming up here?
"A holy sword? What holy sword?"
"So, Meri was..."
"Lime. Try explaining it in Slime-speak."
"...Gloop."
Lime began glooping with a sulky expression. I felt bad for Lime, but "translating" her glooping noises was faster to understand.
"She says a holy sword that House Virgo had been keeping in their basement chose Meri as its master. But Meri is refusing to become the holy sword’s owner because of its conditions."
"Conditions?"
"Yes. The wielder must live as a virgin until death. If anyone who isn’t a virgin touches the holy sword, their life force gets drained and they die."
"...A holy sword? That’s a cursed blade if I’ve ever seen one."
A holy sword that killed anyone who touched it unless they were a virgin. What kind of holy sword was that? I fully understood why Meri didn’t want to become the holy sword’s master, but even so, hearing it was a holy sword made me feel a twinge of regret.
"Hehe, that’s my daughter for you. Chosen as the master of a holy sword."
"Not the time, for that. Right now Meri and the holy sword are fighting...."
"Fighting? Why?"
"Meri...gloop."
"Um, so."
Lune broke into a nervous sweat mid-translation.
"...The sword is telling her it’ll protect her virginity for the rest of her life, so please live together with it until she dies..."
"...Shaitan! Change of plans! I’m leading a detachment starting now!"
"Good grief, understood. What are you going to do?"
I grabbed my axe and pointed at the portal leading to Ras Vegas. The destination was through Ras Vegas and onward to the basement of Spica Castle: Avalon.
"I’m saving my daughter from the holy sword’s clutches! Gather everyone who isn’t a virgin...."
Everyone’s expressions turned awkward. I squeezed my eyes shut in embarrassment.
"...Right. I deflowered every virgin in our legion. Damn it, is there a virgin anywhere...."
Then, a brilliant idea flashed through my mind.
"Hehehe, that’s right. Meri doesn’t have to become the holy sword’s master."
There was no need for a holy sword wielder to emerge.
If no one in our legion was going to be the holy sword’s master, then no one outside our legion needed to be its master either.
There were no virgins in our legion besides Meri.
"But what if it became a cursed blade’s master instead...?"
It was essentially a cursed blade that drained the life force of any non-virgin woman who touched it, so wouldn’t it be fine to just turn it into a genuine cursed blade oozing with demonic energy?
"Master, that’s dangerous. How do you plan to turn a holy sword into a cursed blade? One wrong move and you could be exposed to the divine power the holy sword radiates."
"It’s worth the risk. Hehe. As for how.... I suppose my holy sword will have to cross blades with it, won’t it?"
"Master...."
"I’m joking. Even I won’t stick it in if there’s no hole. So then...."
I sprinted toward the portal.
"What if I splash it with demonic fluids?"
If it doesn’t work, so be it.
Leaving Ras Vegas in Eila’s hands, I gathered everyone who wasn’t a virgin and rushed to Avalon.
