======[ Belita ]======
“Damn it.”
After finally breaking free from the overwhelming encirclement, Belita, using her arms like a beast, dashed away.
She ran towards her followers chasing the wagon, grinding her teeth with mounting shame and humiliation.
“What a disgrace! To get shoulders checked right there…!”
She had shown up confidently, trying to fight while testing the waters, only to be countered and escaping like a coward.
Since becoming a national fugitive after slaying all the renowned adventurers, has there ever been a day as humiliating as today?
“Damn, damn…!”
Belita bit her lips hard enough to draw blood.
The psychological damage was severe.
Though she had been hiding and felt like she had gotten rusty, she never expected to be injured so badly against just two female knights.
She tried not to show it in front of the enemies, but inside, her heart was boiling with unbearable frustration and embarrassment.
Throb.
“Ugh, damn it. It hurts like hell…!”
It wasn’t just mental wounds; her body was in shambles too. Or rather, if you calculated correctly, the physical damage was far worse.
She couldn’t even retrieve the spear she had just bought, and although she managed to apply emergency potion treatment to her right shoulder, blood was still flowing profusely.
Moreover, her left arm had taken quite the beating, jumping and slashing around.
Between the broken pieces of her armor, her gray skin showed signs of severe lacerations.
“What the hell is up with that woman?”
Staring at her left arm, which was slowly regenerating, Belita recalled the armored knight she had faced just a moment ago.
While her skill level was merely average, a bizarre sense of danger surged each time their eyes met.
“Even if her swordsmanship would suit a spear better, how could she muster enough strength not to be crushed by a troll’s arm? Where the hell does she get such power from?”
Her thrusting technique was coarse yet systematic, and the occasional display of strength rivaled the arm of a troll.
Could that strength be the source of the danger Belita felt? She couldn’t understand it anymore.
“It’s not just her. There was that little brat beside her with the messy hair too. Something was off about her as well.”
The black-haired girl with long, unkempt hair. She also emanated an oddly strong sense of danger.
“Why was she so dangerous…? Though her strength and movements were decent, in the end, they were just typical knight levels.”
She wasn’t a pufferfish inflating itself, yet she looked far more perilous than what she displayed.
Now it felt more like a pitiful excuse, but the reason Belita couldn’t fully showcase her abilities and was outmatched was precisely that sensation.
It was that disparity in danger that irritated her to the core, leading Belita to believe her opponent was concealing some ace up their sleeve.
Thus, the blonde girl and the black-haired kid had cautiously tested the waters while fighting, showing just enough of their true selves.
…They ended up being overly cautious, leading to a sudden counterattack and shifting the tides against them.
“…….”
Belita shook her head fiercely, as thinking about it only made her blood boil.
“…Let’s put that thought aside for now. First, I need to accomplish the mission given to me by Ariane.”
Ariane tasked her to seize the heart of the Jotun before the other Abyss Priests.
With the uncertainty of when the other Abyss Priests might show up, she needed to quickly capture and exterminate the fleeing ones, snatch the Jotun’s heart, and escape.
“―Kill the wheels!”
“Get the hell away! Stay the hell away!”
Gurk…!
And at that moment, it was almost upon her.
Her followers, focused on the wagon wheels, along with those poor sap bandits desperately trying to thwart them while riding or running alongside the cart.
Seeing they were now just twenty steps away, Belita accelerated like a whip-struck steed.
“Focus on the trash! I’ll break the wagon―!”
The troll’s left arm bulged, crackling ominously.
◆◆
It didn’t take long for Rug and his guards to meet their demise.
Belita swung her left arm infused with the troll’s power fiercely, smashing and tearing apart everything within reach.
Blood and screams spread like a wave, and broken heads flew through the air like discarded toys.
Though she had made a severe mess against Hilde, Belita was a powerhouse capable of taking down even a squad of ten knights.
Compared to Hilde or Friede, even Rug’s guards, who were merely average adventurers, were no match for her.
After destroying the wagon and killing the horses, she grabbed the heads of the resisting bandits and yanked them off like turnips, all within seconds.
“Hah, it was bound to end up like this anyway. What’s with all this unnecessary resistance?”
Guk…!
In the sea of blood from the headless corpses, Belita stepped on the crushed head of Rug, laughing maniacally.
“The idea of disguising as a weak bandit to steal the heart was good, but bad luck to get caught like this. Don’t you think?”
As she swept away the humiliation in her heart with the exhilaration of tormenting the weak.
Guhhh….
Rug couldn’t even respond.
He had no mind left for that. His senses were already slipping away due to the immense pain.
With his limbs flattened like paper and bursting apart, it was a pain Rug, not a fighter, couldn’t withstand.
“I think the goddess or whoever is punishing you guys. Stealing from the church’s trophies, you all are quite the brazen lot.”
Belita teased Rug, moving her foot back and forth on his crushed face, shaking his head mockingly.
If only she had a little more time, she would have torn him to shreds until he begged for death.
But time was of the essence.
“Belita! We found the ‘heart’!”
“Oh, really? Then this is useless now?”
Crack!
As soon as Belita heard her follower reporting that they’d found the heart of the Jotun, she stomped down with her raised foot, shattering Rug’s head into pieces.
His eyes popped out like marbles, and blood mixed with brain matter gushed out, soaking the ground beneath her.
The middle-aged man’s body twitched like an insect, embarrassing himself.
“Ptht.”
Belita spat on Rug’s back, stared back toward the wagon, and wiped her shoe on the now bloodless ground.
The broken wagon, resembling an old man with a shattered spine. One of her masked followers emerged with a box no bigger than a person’s torso.
“Bring it here. If there are any potions, hand those over too.”
“Yes!”
The masked man quickly approached, handing her a potion vial while opening the box to reveal its contents.
A foul stench wafted up.
“Hmmm…”
Belita frowned slightly as she poured the new potion on her right shoulder, inspecting the contents that emitted a foul odor.
A decayed chunk of flesh, blackened with rot, alongside a heart, the size of a human torso, emanated a chilling breeze mixed with that putrid smell.
“…Looks like it’s the right one.”
She nodded, then flicked her finger, ordering him to close the lid again, a faint satisfaction lingering on her disgusted face.
‘Great, now all that’s left is to return.’
Though things had gotten messy and she lost her dignity seriously, looking at the outcome couldn’t be deemed unlucky.
Regardless, she had now secured the heart of the Jotun, and her initial worry about the intrusion of other Abyss Priests was merely a false alarm.
Now, only one task remained: to hastily leave this place and safely deliver the heart to her master.
If she lollygagged here and crossed paths with other Abyss Priests, it would be a complete disaster.
“Everyone did well. Leave the heart to me, and disperse as planned to return quietly!”
Belita shouted at her followers tending to their wounds.
Carrying the heart back was her responsibility. The rest were to scatter and return without drawing attention.
“Yes, Lady Radros!”
Though their numbers had diminished slightly, the remaining followers still energetically nodded and turned to disperse in all directions.
…Or at least they tried to do so.
“Flamma Procélla.”
Had it not been for the cheerful, lighthearted laughter of an unknown woman, they certainly would have.
But now, it was too late.
Whoosh.
A circle of flames rose around the sea of blood where Belita and her subordinates stood.
The small flames flickered and then extinguished in an instant,
BAAAAM!
The next moment, a fierce storm of blazing fire swept through.
“What the hell is this?!”
“A mage! Damn it, Lady Belita!”
Inside the flaming whirlwind that blocked their escape, Belita’s flabbergasted followers screamed in disbelief just as they tried to retreat.
“Heehee~ incinerate, incinerate!”
With a playful tone, the woman’s voice followed, and the swirling wall of fire narrowed, sweeping over them like a tide.
It was not just a fireball; it was wide-scale destruction magic, the manifestation of Firestorm.
GRAAAAH!
“AAAH! My body! MY BODYYYY!!!”
“Belita! Get… uh, GAAAAAH!!!”
The men engulfed in flames danced, screaming like torches.
The sheer firepower capable of incinerating a person in an instant. Blisters popped on their skin, and flesh and muscle turned into ash like coal.
Hiiiish…!
The pool of blood, drenched with heat, evaporated, releasing a crimson mist into the air like a cloud.
With overwhelming destructive force that left no room for resistance, close to twenty men were reduced to mere hunks of meat in an instant.
“Shit… what the hell….”
Amidst it all, only Belita stood in shock, her mouth agape.
“That’s enough, Diren. Are you trying to burn the heart too?”
From behind the firestorm came a voice, soft yet chilling, admonishing the woman named Diren.
“Oh, right? One moment please!”
The woman who had turned the remains of the wagon into a hellfire answered sweetly, extinguishing the firestorm.
“…….”
Belita stared at her burned followers, unable to comprehend, then looked up towards the source of the voice.
Hiiiish…!
Through the rising crimson steam, beyond the flickering flames, a man clad in gorgeous armor approached her.
“Is that the heart? Looks like it’s still intact.”
His obsidian armor adorned with golden engravings, golden hair shining, and ruby-red eyes glimmering.
“Rivilla had said to trust him, but I never expected it to end this badly. Lucky I came to check.”
He was a handsome youth exuding noble lineage and grace, clearly of a higher status than ordinary folks.
“Uh… uh…?”
Belita gaped, unable to form words, overwhelmed by a monumental shock.
An unexpected ambush.
Her minions had turned to ash in a mockery of a joke.
Yet she couldn’t even care about that fact due to the crushing impact hitting her hard.
She recognized that face.
Or rather, it was a face she’d be surprised not to recognize, especially if he were from this country, the Kingdom of Hervor.
“H-Heid…?”
“Who do you think you are, mentioning my name so casually, you insignificant wench?”
Heid Gardarick Hervor.
The 1st Prince of the Kingdom of Hervor; wielder of the Holy Sword Tirving.
The hero of Hervor stood before her.
