Instant Death

“What are you?”

“Can’t you say something a bit more clever? That’s why NPCs are so annoying.”

Suddenly, a man opened the door and walked into Hornet and the other’s room.

From what Iselda could see with her appraisal skills, the man’s name was Yosuke Hiragi, and his class was VRRPG Player.

Iselda could not read any information from the class name. Player could mean participant or competitor. But she had no idea what VRRPG stood for.

His level was 99, which is the upper limit for a normal person who just got a gift. His status was also in line with his level, and his skills were not particularly noteworthy.

If she just looked at the results of the appraisal, she’d think he was no match for Hornet.

But… could she dismiss this man as just a small fry?

This man had opened the special cabin’s heavily secured door.

There wereseveral possible ways to do that, but no matter which one he choose, there was no doubt that he had some kind of power.

From the sound of his name, it was possible that he came from another world.

If that was the case, she couldn’t be too careful.

She thought it was a good idea to keep her eyes peeled for anything new.

“You can’t be a ……pirate?”

Hornet stood up with his sword in his hand.

But he didn’t attack out of the blue. Even if it was an intruder, Hornet was cautious enough to wait and see.

“No, not at all. It’s different.”

“Then what do you think you’re doing? You can’t just walk into someone’s room without permission.”

“Yeah, but it was the same thing. I’d go into a room and I’d come out with everything I could find.”

“I said, “What do you think you’re doing?””

“I couldn’t afford a first-class ticket, that’s why. I don’t have a lot of cash on me because I take what I want. But then, why don’t I just board the ship with a second-class ticket and go to special class on my own? That’s what I came up with. In the city, the guards are annoying, but they’re not here!”

“All right. So it’s some kind of robbery!

To Hornet, Josuke’s words and actions seemed incoherent. Or maybe he was losing his mind, but whatever the case, he was a thug.

Hornet swung his sword on the spot without moving.

At a certain level, distance is no longer an issue for a swordsman’s attack. The distance of a few meters is nothing to Hornet, who was both a hero and a swordsman.

The attack from the sword flash was supposed to cut off Josuke’s arm.

“Oh no. This guy’s insanely strong! As expected of a Hero!”

“What!?“

Josuke was defending his attack with a jar.

It was a decorative jar that had been placed as soon as he entered the room. It may have been of high quality, but it did not seem very sturdy. It was a rather delicate piece of work, but it was completely able to block Hornet’s attack.

Hornet did not see Josuke hold up the jar. He hadn’t seen Josuke take a position to hold it.

But Iselda, who was inside, could see it. Her senses, that were specialized in exploratory research, had caught the moment when Josuke picked up the jar at an uncharacteristically fast pace.

It was not a move that a level 99 human could make, and Iselda grew cautious.

“I know, right? It’s amazing to see it for the first time, isn’t it? As I’m sure you viewers know, I activated Bullet Time from the Tactical Support System (TSS), took the jar, and locked the jar so that it wouldn’t break.”

But the jar was small enough to hold in one hand. No matter how sturdy it was, there was a limit to how much it could survive on its own.

“A thousand cuts!“

Hornet, who earlier had thought it would be enough to cut off one of his limbs and restrain him, stopped holding back.

If a single attack was blocked, then attack in such a way that it couldn’t be prevented or dodged should hit.

Hornet swung his sword in all directions.

If he took a serious hit, he would be torn to shreds, leaving no trace. It was such a technique, but Hornet felt something strange.

The holy sword, which he had never paid attention to its weight before, was unusually heavy.

The recoil of the cut almost took his arm with it, forcing him to use extra strength to control its trajectory.

However, such hardships were fleeting. Hornet, who had used all of his skills, looked at Josuke, out of breath.

Once again, Josuke was unharmed.

An old man collapsed in front of Josuke, who had a look of comfort on his face.

Iselda was watching. The old man had acted as a shield for Josuke and had taken the attack.

“This is terrible. I wonder if I can win this. Oh, I should probably give an explanation. This old man wants to deliver medicinal herbs to his grandchildren, and he’s a quest character but he’s immortal during the quest. So he’s perfect to use as a shield. If I take him around like this without finishing the quest, he’ll come in handy.”

The old man had fallen, but he didn’t seem to be particularly injured.

He was hit head-on by a thousand slashes and was still in good shape.

“So, you said something about a thousand cuts, but wasn’t it more like a hundred cuts?”

“…What did you do?

Hornet couldn’t help but listen to Joske’s thought-provoking words.

There was something too unusual going on for him to ignore.

“I’m not sure what to say, but I’ve just lowered the difficulty to very easy. Well, now we’re going to attack!”

Josuke threw a knife.

It was a reasonable attack, flying at a reasonable speed.

Hornet ducked and tried to attack.

But.

The knife plunged into Hornet’s right shoulder.

He should have ducked, and even if he had, his clothes would have bounced off the nondescript knife.

Confused by the unexpected situation, Hornet stoped moving.

However, the damage was not serious. After a moment of delay, Hornet tried to attack, but the sudden pain forced him to stop.

“Ho-kun!“

His mother looked at the Hornet with a bloodshot look on her face.

An attack to the side of the head.

A middle-aged man appeared out of nowhere, thrusting his sword deep into Hornet.

This was not the time to attack Josuke. She should deal with this man first, but just as she thought that, the man disappeared.

“Ah, as expected of a hero. Even if it’s very easy, it can’t be an instant death.”

Hornet was not killed by this level.

HE could continue to fight if even if his internal organs were gouged out.

But Hornet was puzzled.

This man is not like anyone he ever fought before. He did not know how to react.

And for Iselda, this man was a mystery as well. It was as if he was from another dimension.

“ll explain that one too. The old man is a skill. When I attack, there is a chance that a mysterious old man will appear out of nowhere and help you. You can’t know when it’s going to happen, so you can’t dodge it by watching my moves.“

It might be a form of summoning.

But even when he knew that, there was no way he could deal with it.

“The knife is just a critical. You may think that there is no way you can reliably get a critical hit, but I have a skill to stock up on critical hits. So if I save up my criticals in advance, I can trigger them at will.”

That explanation also made no sense to Iselda.

An attack that happened to go well could be described as critical, but it couldn’t be an attack that followed you even if you evaded it and pierced the legendary equipment of the hero’s robe.

Interesting. ……“

Hornet was under pressure.

The difference in strength was obvious and there was no way he could lose, but there was nothing he could do.

Of course, he could have done anything if he had given it his all.

But if he did, the ship would not be safe and many passengers would be involved.

Hornet was not prepared to go that far.

So Iselda was beginning to come out into the open.

A man who attacked in a way she didn’t understand and wasn’t expecting.

She wanted to make the power her own.

Iselda’s only interest was to strengthen herself, and she didn’t care what happened to the passengers on the ship.

Once Yselda is out in the open, her personality and social status as a Hornet would be destroyed.

But for Iselda, Hornet was only one of many platforms, and there were plenty of spares.

Rather than saving Hornet, she decided that she would go to great lengths to secure Josuke. That was what Izelda decided.

“Ho-kun?”

His mother looked at him suspiciously.

Iselda had never been out in the open before.

She must have sensed a change in the atmosphere.

Starved demon’s Soul“ [1]

Iselda used magic.

Immediately a black sphere appeared and covered the old man.

The sphere was covered with countless points of light.

The sphere, which looked like a condensed version of the night sky, soon disappeared, as did the part of the room where the sphere had been.

A part of the room was gouged out into a sphere, and at the same time the old man’s figure disappeared.

“You say he is immortal, but he can’t seem to cope with subspace transference.”

What? What? That’s not fair!“

The game would have been decided if she had suddenly hit Josuke with this.

However, Iselda’s goal was not to destroy Josuke in some unknown subspace.

For the sake of her research, she needed to capture him alive somehow.

Iselda thought of using gas. If she filled the room with a paralyzing gas, it would be impossible to dodge.

But Iselda didn’t know of any magic that would be so convenient.

So, she decided to take an alternative approach.

“You’re a bug that scatters like a haze.”

Iselda extended her left hand to Josuke.

His left hand came apart like a piece of string, and the tip of it spread out like a black mist.

“What’s that? Bugs? You can’t have bugs!”

It was a swarm of tiny bugs.

A large number of small enough bugs would be a good substitute for the gas.

If she could cover them up and get them inside his body from somewhere, she could make him comatose or paralyzed at will.

However, Josuke was quick to judge.

He didn’t try to fight it, but simply ran away.

Or perhaps, as he said, he just didn’t like bugs.

“Ho-kun. It’s ……”

Hornet’s mother asks in horror.

The body of what had been Hornet was in a rather painful state, if only in appearance.

Iselda returned the arm to its original state.

However, the magic power that was reduced by the earlier magic was not so easy to return.

This body was still in the process of development, and as a vessel for the great mage Iselda, it was still insufficient.

“Hmm. I don’t have enough magic power to keep this up.”

Iselda grabbed her mother’s face with her revived left hand.

“It’s bad luck, mother. If nothing had happened to you, you could have lived out your life with your beloved son.”

However, this mother was one of the vessels that had been prepared. She was just a vessel maker and emergency food, and Iselda didn’t feel much emotion.

“The parent body is in bad shape. I think I’ll let your sister or the woman we met before we came aboard replace you.”

Hornet’s body would not be able to withstand Yselda’s manifestation for a long time.

Everything that needed to be done had to be done before the body collapsed.

After squeezing the magic out of his mother, Yselda walked into the hallway to catch Josuke as he ran away. free𝒘ℯ𝗯𝙣𝗼ν𝑒𝗹.𝒄o𝒎

＊＊＊＊＊

Tomochika was laying on a beach chair by the pool, enjoying the resort atmosphere.

Naturally, she was wearing a swimsuit, which drew a lot of attention, but she was used to being stared at, and she was proud of it.

“Hmmm. Those who stare at it thinking it’s just an erotic body don’t know that within the fat that covers your entire body are vicious muscles!”

Mokomoko proudly said while lying next to Tomochika

She was of course possessing Enju and was also wearing a swim suit.

“Don’t call me fat!”

Tomochika’s body looked soft, but was both flexible and strong.

Tomochika herself had not been particularly aware of this, but Mokomoko said that this was the body of Dannoura that she had developed over the years.

“And because of the density of the flesh, you’re heavier than you look!”

“Don’t call me heavy!”

“No, no, weight is an important factor in battle.”

“In that case, wouldn’t your sister be better suited for Dannoura?”

Mokomoko gently looked away.

“Why do you look away?”

“She is a failure of Dannoura that are sometimes born. It is a figure that cannot keep its flesh inside and overflows outside. ……”

“I asked her a few questions and she told me about his family’s dark side! What? If that’s the case, then what’s the point of Mokomoko’s appearance? Are you a failure?”

“In my case, it’s not a failure, because I’ve not yet started to manage my bloodline!”

“Sis, you’re just a reincarnation. ……“

But, as she recalled, none of her family members or relatives had the same curvaceous figure as her sister.

She seemed to have a special body shape.

“Well. That’s all right. It’s a bit immoral to play in a pool of fresh water on a boat going over the sea, isn’t it?”

“Well, it’s a luxury use of water, though I suppose in this world you can create water with magic.”

Tomochika and Mokomoko were enjoying the boat trip together, leaving Yogiri alone because he wanted to keet sleeping.

“Hey? Don’t you think this is going to go without a problem?

“Isn’t that a flag?”

“No, no, no, no. It’s just a little boat ride, okay?”

“You got in trouble on a train that was just moving along.”

“No, we’re on the ocean. What do you think is coming?”

“I don’t know. Maybe there’s something on board.”

Tomochika stood up and looked out over the sea from the port side.

It was a clear day.

There were no obstacles in sight, the waves were calm, and the voyage was unhindered.

“At least nothing is coming from outside—”

Just as Tomochika was saying that much, the ship suddenly shook.

“What?“

As she was puzzled as to what had happened, something jumped out of the sea.

Something white, long, and huge.

It was a tentacle with several suckers that fell from the sky toward the ship.

As the tentacle slammed into the ship, the ship shook again and screams echoed through the air.

“I knew something would come.”

“I knew something like this would happen!”

Tomochika thought that it would be better to assume that something would happen from the beginning.

previous Index next

Thank you Luis, Venoltar and TeeTwoLee for supporting me on Ko-fi!

Holy moly, I just looked in my security plugin for wordpress and there are 7600 denied malicous requests since I set it up 2 weeks ago… Most of the times it’s some bot that fails the captcha or tries to login with “admin” though.

Notes:

↑1 「餓鬼魂」should mean something like hungry Soul but im not really sure about that, It’s also a name of a Japanese horror Movie