89 – Waistband Attack

The world, frozen in time, is quiet.

Perhaps that’s why…

My ragged breathing and that damned Kon’s screeching seem all the louder.

[It’s been over six hours!! SIX HOURS!! In that time, we’ve passed no less than 315 mares, and 89 of them were even virgins! How much longer must we endure this? Do you even begin to comprehend the sorrow of passing by mares ripe to bear my children, only to be unable to act due to my bodiless state!?!]

“It hasn’t been six hours. We’re just *perceiving* it as six hours. In this world, not even a second has passed.”

[Is that supposed to be comforting! I’m starting to tire. How are we supposed to know when some hunchbacked woman with spindly limbs is going to pop up? Just wandering around aimlessly like this!!”

Rather than being angered by Kon’s complaints, I found myself agreeing.

Perhaps I *am* going about this too haphazardly.

But, well…

Considering the revelations I’ve received, this is relatively mild.

It’s certainly better than, say, showing up in the capital and pretending to be a saint, like back in Erpa.

“Just bear with it a bit longer, Kon. We need to find this woman. We *must*. I’ve explained it countless times during our journey.”

[I know. I know. Damn it. You have to die in that woman’s place for the world to find peace. What a gloriously convoluted suicide mission… hey. Should we just do this?]

“Do what?”

[Unleash all my psychic power at once. I’ll be incapacitated for a while as I recharge, but in return, I can scan a vast area of people simultaneously. How much longer are we going to wander around without a plan? Wouldn’t it be better to just conduct a wide-scale search?]

Kon’s proposition wasn’t half bad.

He had a point.

Wandering aimlessly like this *is* wearing us both down.

“I suppose there’s no helping it. Let’s try it.”

[You agree?]

“Yes. Go ahead. It seems much better than wandering around aimlessly.”

[Good.]

The locket around my neck began to vibrate with terrifying intensity.

The locket, humming with immense power, emitted a chillingly potent psychic wave that pulsed outwards.

“Well? Kon? Did you find her? Is there, perhaps, a woman with withered limbs and a tumor, like I described?”

[……..Here]

The weary timbre in Kohn’s voice, a sound I’d never heard before, widened my eyes.

“Here? Really?”

[That way. Keep running straight to your right. It’s there. But… you need to hurry.]

The psychic amplifier’s vibrations faded at a rapid clip.

[That woman… she’s dying… sleepy…]

“What? Dying? What are you talking about? Explain it better!”

The psychic amplifier died completely.

And, at that instant, an immense mental burden slammed into my brain.

“Ah, damn it all.”

Though the world’s time hadn’t moved a second, I’d been moving for six solid hours within the frozen time.

My mental fortitude couldn’t have remained untouched, and because of that, the moment the psychic amplifier vanished, I couldn’t maintain the time-stop.

If a man, neither mage nor knight, demonstrates a light-foot technique leaping ten meters with each step, it’s practically shouting about divine intervention, right?

So, when the time-stop released, I tried to walk as quietly as possible…

“Why does she have to be dying, why?!”

This time, there was no way I could do that.

After releasing the time-stop, I hastily scanned my surroundings.

Late evening.

Perhaps because it was a remote area in the northern reaches of the Empire’s frontier.

Not a soul in sight.

At least if someone saw me now, they wouldn’t start blathering about some miracle.

My strength-enhanced legs creaked as they slammed against the ground with tremendous force.

While time was frozen, there wasn’t so much as a breeze on my cheek, making it easy to move, but now, as I practiced light-foot technique in the flowing time, the wind whistling past my ears began to sound vicious.

“Damn it! Don’t die!! No way!!”

Please.

Don’t die.

“I’ll die in your place!!”

How could I lose the opportunity for soul destruction that I’d finally grasped?

I couldn’t let it slip away.

*

Within the cramped confines of a magic circle,

the properties of spear and dagger,

and a body starved and parched for days.

Even worse, one was a divine being of Pandemonium, reaping the greatest rewards from the celestial war, while the other was a deity so shattered she would cease to exist unless anchored to a human soul.

The fight was never destined to last long.

“Guh!”

The acolyte of Sloth deflected the spear thrust with a light flick of his dagger, then slammed his foot hard into Kanya’s stomach.

Her insides surely ruptured, she staggered back, coughing up a torrent of blood.

“aaah, so bothersome! Why do you insist on running away and making things so difficult for me?”

A dark energy seemed to gather in the acolyte’s hand, materializing in the next instant and hurtling toward Kanya.

[Kanya!]

A crimson divinity, symbolizing the Goddess of War, enveloped Kanya.

A piercing screech filled the air as the dark energy and red aura clashed.

Kanya remained unharmed, but her frail body could barely withstand the shockwave radiating from the impact.

She crumpled to the ground.

Even then, she refused to relinquish her staff, though it trembled precariously in her grasp.

“Let’s finish this quickly.”

The acolyte charged again.

The goddess summoned her divine power at the sight, but the amount was pitifully small.

[No! Kanya!!]

It was no wonder, for Kanya’s body, the conduit for her divinity, was grievously wounded.

The weakened divine power could not adequately counter the black magic, and the staff was effortlessly cleaved in two by the dagger.

Without a moment’s hesitation, the acolyte plunged his sword into Kanya’s heart.

“Kyaaa! aaack!!!”

“Shhh, shhh… Just a little longer, and you will once again belong to Lord Belphegor, Miss Kanya.”

“No!! I refuse!!”

“Accept the Binding Oath once more. Your soul, your body. You will become wholly His.”

Slowly, dark energy emanating from the dagger snaked down Kanya’s body like a serpent.

And as it descended, that dark energy began to slowly…

inscribe magic circles across her skin.

The highest echelon of black magic.

It was the scene of an enchantment spell, gifted directly by the Demon Lord, taking hold.

“[You fiend!! You wretch!! You think I’ll allow this!!]”

The goddess, dwelling within Kanya’s soul, roared, unleashing divine power. But her resistance was snuffed out with almost insulting ease.

The acolyte looked down upon the goddess’s defiance with amusement.

“What great feat could a divine being, who lost a war and now clings to the soul of a mere mortal like a parasite, possibly achieve? Still, be grateful to Lord Belphegor. War Goddess. Considering your renown from three hundred years past, he, in his indolence, personally bestowed this enchantment upon you.”

“[No! Kanya!]”

At the goddess’s cry, Kanya seized the acolyte’s wrist with her gaunt hands. And desperately, she began to force the dagger embedded in her heart away.

“I curse you all. I endlessly curse everyone in this hell! For making my body like this! For stealing everything I loved! For forging a life devoid of even a single happy memory!! I curse you all!! I will not yield!! I’d rather die than return to that place again!!…….”

“Ah, so tiresome.”

The acolyte did not hesitate.

Seizing Kanya’s emaciated arm, he applied a light pressure, and with the sound of cracking bone, her hand twisted in a grotesque direction.

And before Kanya could even scream, the acolyte’s fist smashed into her face.

With the sound of shattering bone, Kanya’s teeth and nose were pulverized and erupted outwards.

Her visage a grotesque ruin, she collapsed, unconscious.

Meanwhile, the black energy emanating from the dagger plunged into her heart greedily snaked out, enveloping her entire body.

“What a pain in the ass b*tch, even to the end.”

The acolyte spat, annoyed.

“[Kanya!!…….Ka!………]”

Enveloped entirely in the high-purity demonic energy bestowed by the Demon Lord, the goddess could no longer even vocalize.

The acolyte casually brushed the fragments of Kanya’s teeth and blood from his hand and stood up.

“In about three minutes, this little digression will be over. Great War Goddess. Or rather, should we start calling you Lord Belphegor’s toy number three?”

The acolyte stretched languidly, a complacent expression on his face.

Now, all that remained was to wait leisurely for the enchantment of subjugation to fully take root once more within the body and soul of this sacrifice.

Broken and shrunken as it was, divine power was still divine power.

Belphegor was a Demon Lord who greatly enjoyed collecting such divine beings and using them as needed.

She never liked directly stepping onto the front lines.

To have others do her bidding.

To manipulate others.

To move others as she pleased – that was the kind of entity she was.

That was Belphegor, the demon lord of sloth.

The war goddess, that one there… if she was caught again, she’d be forced to handle even more grueling and horrific tasks in Hell as punishment for escaping.

And her divine power would be endlessly chipped away in Hell, as she worked and toiled only for Belphegor.

But did it matter?

“Belphegor, Lord of Sloth, accept my offering and grant me your reward. Heh heh heh.”

What happened to the war goddess, from the follower’s perspective, was…

None of his concern.

He only needed to collect his reward.

“I wonder what I should ask for this time…”

The follower, pleasantly pondering whether to choose a woman or money, suddenly narrowed his eyes.

“…Huh?”

The sun had set, but it wasn’t quite the dead of night; an oddly bright time.

Far off in the distance, something could be seen bouncing up and down.

The follower craned his neck, focusing his gaze on the horizon.

Something went up and down over the horizon…

Up and down, again and again.

It took a while, but finally.

“…A person?”

The follower realized it was a person.

And the moment he recognized it as a person,

A chilling feeling washed over him.

“What kind of person jumps that high?”

From what he could tell, each leap covered at least 10 to 20 meters at a ridiculous speed.

Even holy knights and knights, whose physical abilities were considered superhuman, didn’t move like that.

They only accelerated to such tremendous speeds when necessary; they wouldn’t do something so insane as to constantly maintain that speed.

“Just who is that?…”

And the next moment,

The follower felt even more chilled.

“That b*stard…”

The leaping figure was headed straight for him.

“That b*stard’s coming this way, isn’t he?”

He was flying toward the acolyte.

The acolyte looked down at the ground in haste.

The veil of deception magic was working properly.

Not only was it impossible for a being inside to exit without permission, but it was magic that prevented those outside from even seeing what was happening within.

“Unless it’s a high priest or a Chosen One, there’s no way they could penetrate this magic and see through it…”

The acolyte, taking pride in the black magic he had honed his whole life, raised his head.

Two sensations washed over him.

One was the visual information that an enraged young man was making a motion as if swinging something.

And the other was…

“Guaaack!!!!”

The sensation of a belt mercilessly striking his cheek.