The Branded Female Fencer

「Wh-what is that?」

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「Well… that’s quite an ugly one you got there.」

「I’ve never seen such a description of a fiend before.
I can’t tell if it’s an evil spirit, a fiend or a mineral lifeform.」

「It could be any of those things.
I’ve never seen a fiend described like this.」

「Lisa can vaguely sense what it looks like, but it’s definitely hard to classify it.」

Alfiris was confused, but so was everyone else.
That’s probably true, too.
First of all, the fiend in front of them was walking with its hand.
It seemed to have about ten arms instead of legs.
Furthermore, the shape of the arms resembled human arms, but the length and thickness were all different, with no sense of unity.
The thickest arm are so long as tbe torso of a Gigantes.

And the body, or rather, the head, is indistinguishable from the body, but it is shaped like a shiny black obsidian column.
It is thick as the Treant from a moment ago.
There are ten, no, eleven hands attached to the base of it.
An odd number is asymmetrical as hell.
And whether you call it a body or a face, there are eyes and mouths irregularly attached to what they would describe as a torso.
They had no idea how many eyes and mouths there are, and their sizes are all over the place.

They wondered how long it was.
It’s much bigger than the Gigantes they saw earlier.
At any rate, it seemed to have a girth of about five meters.
What made Alfiris and the others frown more than its ugliness was the smell it emitted.

「What is this smell? Lisa felt it uncomfortable.」

「I wonder what it are.
I’m not sure, but its mouth stinks.」

「It’s not that bad of a smell.」

「Are you sure this is the Archfiend?」

「You’ll never know.
The ones I’ve met are a bit more creaturely.
At the very least, none of them looked like they had been dragged out of a human nightmare into reality.」

As Alfiris and the others stepped back to get some distance, this fiend stepped on a Gigantes’ corpse.
The eyes of the body all turned to look at it at once.
It picked up Gigantes and looked at the corpse curiously.
Just as Alfiris and the others were wondering what was going on.

「Hii?!」

Alfiris couldn’t help but let out a scream.
The ore-like body part cracked into two and became a large mouth, which began to eat Gigantes without a second thought.

Crack, crack, crunch! Biting, biting, biting…

Alfiris and the others could do nothing but watch as the fiend chewed on the Gigantes.
The blood and flesh of the Gigantes were splattered all around them.
It was a horrible, horrible sight.
No one uttered a single word, or rather, they were unable to.
This fiend was now completely beyond their imagination.

As soon as the fiend finished eating the Gigantes, its eyes, which had been closed, all snapped open at once! And began to shed tears of blood.
At the same time, the small mouths on various parts of its body began to open and it started to laugh strangely.
The archfiend is happy – the scene was so abnormal that it exceeded her imagination, and Alfiris felt dizzy.

「It’s coming…」

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「Ehh?」

When the Archfiend finished laughing, its eyes turned to Alfiris and the others at once.

「Move!」

At the signal of Anorn’s voice, everyone dispersed as if in flight.
The Archfiend attacked with a strange and indescribable voice.

As before, Anorn and Albert deployed to the left and right, while Alfiris and Lisa retreated to keep their distance.
The archfiend’s eyes moved dizzily, catching each of the four of them.

「Are you saying that all eyes see separately?」

Alfiris retreated, picked up an arrow and shot it at the eye, one of the three arrows hit the eye of the Archfiend, but the moment it hit, the Archfiend once again laughed happily.
Then, where there was no eye before, a new one opened.

「What the hell is this? It’s not working?」

「I thought the eyes were its weakness!」

「Alfiris, buy us some time.
I will use Lisa’s power to find this ugly bitch’s weakness!」

「Copy that!」

Alfiris shoots arrows while protecting Lisa so that she can concentrate.
Albert then precedes Anorn and slashes at her.
Albert unleashes a slash, trying to sidestep the fiend, but

Dang!

And then there was a single loud sound and the Archfiend’s huge body… jumped.

「How did it?」

「How can it jumped with that huge body?」

It was jumping higher than the surrounding trees.
They thought it was going to fall straight down, but to their surprise, he used his hands to dexterously stick to the top of the tree.
The great tree bent under the weight of the Archfiend.

「Guh, you’re good!」

「The sword will never reach me.」

「No, take cover!」

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With a word from Alfiris, each of them jumped back from the spot.
At the same time, something fell without a sound.
And then, from the remains of the splattering and something falling, comes a sizzling smoke.

「Acid!?」

「That’s why the mouth stinks.
Too much gastric juice?」

「This is no time to joke, okay?」

They all continued to avoid the fiend’s saliva.
No, Albert was the only one who avoided the fiend’s saliva, but he was still heading towards it.
Then, with a single sword, he slashes down the tree that the Archfiend is using as a foothold.
It was a show of tremendous skill and power.

The Archfiend, as expected, lost its balance and fell.
It held out its hand to stop Albert from slashing over.
But, it wasn’t trying to stop him, it was trying to counterattack.
For a moment, its other hand shriveled, and the thickness of the hand it was about to use to fight back doubled.

「!」

Albert who was about to slash off its arm, reflexively rolled forward to avoid it.

Crack! Crack!

The swinging arms snaps all the tree in its path.
It was one hell of a blow.
But Albert’s reflexes were not to be outdone.
After spinning forward once, he used the recoil to lunge forward even further, slicing off three shriveled arms at once.

「There’s an opening!」

Anorn tried to follow, but the Archfiend’s mouth gaped open and a black mist sprayed out.

「It’s a Breath!」

「Tsk!」

As soon as the two of them avoided it, the trees around them rotted into goo all at once.
It’s the breath of corrosion.
It must have a taken less than a minute from the time the Archfiend appeared to the time of the attack.
But it was a dense exchange of lives that felt as if they had been fighting for hours.
Of course, Alfiris had never experienced a battle like this.

「(It was one hell of a fight.
I’m certainly not strong enough.)」

Alfiris forgot to shoot the arrow and looked at it somewhat.
Lisa murmured behind her.

「… Oh no!」

「What’s wrong, Lisa?」

「I can’t find anything that looks like a weakness in that fiend.」

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「What do you mean?」

「Normally, any living creature has a weak point.
I can detect it by the flow of its body, its presence, or even its chi, or the way it protects itself… The contents of that fiend are always moving, and there is no definitive weakness.」

「What did you say!?」

Lisa is upset.
It seemed that the Archfiend in front of her was a monster beyond her imagination.
But Albert cut off three of its arms a while ago, so it’s not like it can die.
Yet,

【Summon】

As soon as they thought they heard an eerie voice, something that looked like a magic circle appeared around the fiend.
Then, the goblins and orcs are summoned from there.
They didn’t know that it could do this, they’re now that in front of them is truly a Archfiend.

「I see, so this is how you summon your minions.」

「This is no time to be impressed, we can’t afford to deal with the other fiends!」

「No, summons are not a problem… What the?」

Anorn raised her voice in astonishment.
Instead of using the summoned fiends as a fighting force, this Archfiend grabbed them and it started to them from the head up.
As expected, Albert was stunned, but what was even more surprising was that the amount of food it ate, the arm he cut off regenerated.

The newly-summoned and slow-moving fiends are screaming and running away from this unusual situation, but the Archfiend doesn’t seem to want to let any of them go, and is devouring them one by one.
The Archfiend seemed to be interested in eating the fiends it had summoned, leaving Alfiris and the others alone.

Alfiris and the others forgot to fight and watched the scene in amazement.

「…None of the survey team should have come back.
We’ll never make it back with this thing chasing us.」

「Hey, hey.
Is this the kind of creature the Archfiend is?」

「No, I’ve had my share of pricks, but never one this ugly.
To be honest, I’m fed up with it too.」

「It doesn’t seem to have any weaknesses.
What should we do? I think this is a situation where running away is an option to consider.」

Lisa, as expected, was a little uneasy.
But after a few moments of hesitation, Anorn replied.

「There’s a way.
It’s dangerous, though.」

「And I’m not sure if I can escape.
There is one eye that has been constantly looking at us.
If it starts to run away, it will come towards us at once.
Apparently, its intelligence is reasonably high.」

Albert, who was about to slash at it when he saw an opening, pulled back to Alfiris and the others.
And when Alfiris looked at the point where he was pointing, she noticed that apart from the eyes that were moving rapidly as they chased goblins, there was another eye that was looking at them without even blinking.

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「Then, I’ll come back at once when I’m done eating.」

「Right.
Then let’s fight for now.
Lisa, can you use your sensor ability to get its attention?」

「I can do that, but… you want Lisa to take the bait?」

Lisa looked incredulous, but Anorn’s expression was serious.

「I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.
Alfie will take the role of an escort instead.
You can find a slightly open area about 300 meters back from here.
Can you lead her there?」

「It’s not the most pleasant thing in the world to have a large woman as an escort, but… we have no choice, let’s do it.」

「Good.
You’ll be able to find a lot more than just a few of them.
Albert, just think about cutting its torso in half.
If it’s still alive, or if you can’t stop it, retreat at once.
Any objections?」

Everyone replied with their eyes that there was no dependence.

「Okay, Lisa, you have 30 seconds to do it.
Me and Albert will get to that point first, but good luck to all of us!」

After confirming that they all nodded to each other, the two of them ran ahead.
The remaining Lisa sighed.

「I knew it was going to be difficult request, but I didn’t expect it to turn out like this… Do it right, Alfie.」

「Leave it to me! … It’s not like I would be able protect you that much, but I’ll try my best to protect Lisa.」

「I trust your words more than your confidence.
I’ll give you a perfect score, Alfie.」

「Oh, that’s unusual.」

Lisa remembered how she had backed off the female swordsman in front of her at the guild, not Anorn nor Albert.
She felt that the two of them were overwhelmingly strong, but her instincts had told her that this female swordsman was the most reliable.
Why did she talk to the swordswoman in front of her and accept the request without asking her what it was? Lisa was not convinced of her actions.

However, after parting ways with her, she tried to reconsider her decision, but while her rational mind knew that this request was highly dangerous, her instincts told her to go.
Lisa had never gambled on a request based on instinct, but for some reason she felt she should do it this time.

She had only been with Alfiris for a day or so when she accepted the request, but she had a feeling of certainty.
She was sure that she would continue to involve with this female swordsman.
There was no way she would die here.
Before that, there were circumstances that required Lisa to return to Mysia no matter what.
And Lisa made up her mind.

「So much for joking around.
Let’s go, Alfie.」

「Anytime, Lisa!」

Lisa’s senses flew like sonar to attract the Archfiend’s attention, and instantly the Archfiend’s eyes all turned towards Alfiris and Lisa at once.
From here on, it’s a deadly game of tag.