Chapter 46: A Sister Complex
And here we are, a few hours and a few draws later, after he’d braved the forest, the labyrinth, and the whole dungeon without Freya laying a single trap for him, save for the ones already in place.
Not out of laziness, or anything of the sort. Simply because it would have been pointless. Because the man in armor standing before her was weak, terribly weak compared to what the dungeon had just faced these past few days.
So let’s pick up the thread, mid-way through Freya’s ever-so-polished performance, comfortably settled on the throne Mei had forged for her in record time, to her great surprise, incidentally.
"CHARGE OF THE BRAVE!"
"Wait, hero!! I really did come in peace, I’m begging you, don’t—"
The words stopped there.
The sword was already at her throat.
CLANG—
The blade struck the fountain pen. Yes, yes, that’s not a mistake, no wall of ink, but the fountain pen itself, which knocked it back while the hero, startled, immediately leapt away to regain his distance.
Of course, you’ll have guessed, a fountain pen should never have been able to halt so dazzling a charge that easily. And dazzling was very much the word.
Cursed skill designed for nothing but showing off! Where’s the optimization in that, exactly?
Freya didn’t really know much about skills, but she could tell from that slow, far-too-showy gesture that this one was made to catch the eye, not to actually be effective.
Anyway, whatever the reason it had been created for, under normal circumstances a mere pen could never have stopped a charge like that on its own.
Except Freya had decided to cast her Enchantment Gacha on it, obtaining, luck or not:
[ Enchantment obtained — Herculean Musculature — Rank A : Effect: Constitution +++, Strength +++, Endurance ++. Prodigiously multiplies the host’s muscular power. Duration: 24 hours. ]
Yes, yes, you’re not dreaming, the flying fountain pen now possessed, for the next twenty-four hours, the strength of Hercules.
Coming out of her thoughts to savor the young hero’s crumpled face, she uttered the following words, which she may, and I do mean may, have prepared in advance with the girls.
"Poor hero, you thought me weak..." She began to laugh, a laugh that may, too, have been a touch over-rehearsed...
"Unfortunately for you, I’m not. And on top of that, I’m not alone, contrary to what you were saying."
She snapped her fingers, a gesture that, too, may have been...
From where they came, several Mycofoxes sprang forth, all enraged, letting out furious growls along the lines of "Kyuuuuurrhhhggg," more adorable than enraged, truth be told, but the effect landed all the same on a person alone in enemy territory, who’d just watched all his predictions collapse one after another.
To her right appeared the three girls, one of whom, Naïa, was applauding.
"Well done, Madam, very well done! Excellent acting, and completely improvised, no less!"
"Isn’t it?" Freya replied, while Mei, trembling as usual, held out the imp’s scythe to her summoner.
Freya took hold of it.
[ Everfrost Scythe — Rank S ]
[ A scythe forged in Nymeria, blessed by the powers of Artalia. Grants +10% speed and +5% strength. Contains an activatable skill — Permafrost Domain: creates a domain around the bearer that, through cold, slows enemy movements and drains their stamina faster. ]
Once again, I realize just how lucky we were against that Winter Calamity. If by some misfortune he hadn’t been disarmed, I wouldn’t be here, sitting comfortably, thinking it over.
On that thought, she drew the scythe against herself, the blade passing behind the nape of her neck, wrapping around her like an embrace.
"So, dear hero, do you finally understand the situation you’re in?"
Startled and frightened by it all, he resolved himself inwardly, and she watched him calculate what he might still attempt, only to arrive at the one possible conclusion.
That he was caught like a rat.
Because yes, all this rehearsed staging had served to entertain Freya, sure, but above all to make the hero understand that she’d quite simply been playing with him from the very start, which snuffed out any desire to fight in an instant, the moment he grasped just how pointless it was.
Cling. Cling. Cling.
His sword first fell to the ground, bouncing against the stone.
A clever Mycofox came over at once and picked it up in its teeth, already adding it to the dungeon’s spoils.
Then it was his knees that hit the floor, before the rest of his body slumped in turn, into a posture of absolute submission.
Huh? Just like that? That easily? I was expecting a bare minimum of fight...
"Please... I know you’re not human... that you’re a horrible, heartless monster with a pretty face... but I beg of you... I have two little sisters back home, six and eleven years old... I just want to be able to watch them grow up... I won’t tell anyone what I saw here... I... I..."
Tears welled up in his eyes, as though he understood that all the misfortune in the world that had rained down on him wasn’t going to stop there after all, and would only get worse.
"Stop! Stop! Stop!" Freya let out, waving her arms.
He lifted his head toward her, sniffling a thread of snot, sobbing like a puppy.
"First of all! Who are you to keep calling me a monster this whole time? Aren’t you rather the monster here, coming to attack me for no reason whatsoever?"
He tilted his head to the side, not understanding.
"But... I’m simply an apprentice hero... it’s my duty... to save the world from its ills..."
Apprentice hero? So he wasn’t even a real hero?
Which explained his fragile mind, and above all that cruel lack of strength. He was still nothing but a little cub.
She looked at him there, with his blond hair, dripping with tears and snot.
Or maybe more of a puppy?
"That does hold up, admittedly. BUT could you stop crying, little golden retriever? It’s off-putting."
"Huh?"
"Yes! Stop crying!"
"No but... did you say golden retriever?"
"Tch..."
And as he realized he wouldn’t get any more answers to his questions, they all waited, patiently, for the so-called hero to pull himself together.
After a few minutes, he finally regained some semblance of calm, and Freya spoke up again.
"So... for an apprentice hero, you’re... let’s say... rather pathetic?" she asked to no one in particular.
It was Naïa who confirmed it. "Yes, he’s terribly pathetic."
"I know..."
He wiped his face, swallowing back his emotions, and the apprentice hero climbed, more or less, back onto his stage.
"Well then, be one all the more, but naked." Freya raised a hand. "Strip this hero of his armor for me."
At those words, Mei and the Mycofoxes set about removing his armor, without him objecting in the slightest to any of it.
What impressed Freya, on the other hand, was Mei. This Mei so trembling, so timid she could barely get a single word out, yet who, in situations like this one, when she had to be serious, was serious to perfection.
A true professional.
And as proof, she was at that very moment undressing a young boy without trembling in the least, and without the slightest qualm.
And so it was that Aldric found himself there, on his knees and in his undergarments, stripped of all his belongings before an invader from another world, shivering.
This is definitely my last day. How did all this even begin? How could I have been so naive? Believing myself above it all, simply because I was an apprentice hero?
He understood more and more that he’d been nothing but a frog at the bottom of its well, and wondered why the powerful of this world and the gods themselves had sent him here, straight toward his death, while his poor sisters awaited his return at the estate.
What is the meaning of all this? What did I do to deserve death, dear gods? What is your design, through all of this?
"Heyyy~ Hellooo~ You done daydreaming?" said the woman, well, the demon, seated on her throne across from him.
"Ah... ah yes... sorry..."
"Good. Let’s begin."
So this is it? Am I supposed to say my final words now?
Aldric clasped his hands together, the way he was used to doing to pray.
"OPHÉLIE, AMELIA, YOUR BIG BROTHER IS SORRY, I LOVE YOU!"
At the very same moment, Freya spoke her own line, which overlapped exactly with his.
"Laïa, Naïa, introduce yourselves and tell him the truth about the village, please."
Then, the shock. Freya’s mouth fell wide open at the young apprentice hero’s words, his face turning completely red as he realized the mix-up, before letting out a:
"Huh?"
Freya, caught off guard, couldn’t help thinking out loud.
"Huh? A siscon?"