Having taken action yet unable to achieve the result she had envisaged, Hilma was caught in the worst possible situation and couldn’t help but retreat slowly. What terrified her the most was the fact that despite the chain of events that had transpired, the boy’s expression had not changed even once. Even when he was attacked, neither anxiety nor hostility could be seen.
“Ah, ah, then, let’s… get moving.”
“Where to?”
In the moment that Hilda harboured this doubt, a surge of excruciating pain came from her knee. It was so severe that she could not even stand up, and helplessly fell onto the floor.
“Aaaaaahhhhhhh!!”
She issued a pained shout; the pain was enough to make her sweat heavily. She unwillingly glanced at her knee and immediately regretted doing so.
Her left foot was twisted in the opposite direction, the bone visibly exposed as it had pierced her flesh.
As Hilma cried, she also thought about using her hand to press down on the painful area, but she hesitated, afraid.
The boy grabbed Hilma’s hair and dragged her outside.
An observer of this scene would not be able to tell that she was being dragged along with a powerful force. His strength was immense, even causing many hairs to be yanked out, yet he paid no attention to this.
“No! No! Please stop!”
The boy glanced at the wailing Hilma, but did not halt his pace for even a second.
“Quickly! We’ll get in trouble if we don’t hurry up!”
Part 2
After assaulting the mansion, Entoma Vasilissa Zeta walked out through the main door.
She picked up a piece of paper that was lying next to her feet, crumpled it into a ball and threw it towards the mansion.
The original plan was to sweep the mansion clean of humans, then retrieve important books and valuable items before retreating. Like fleeting birds, they were to leave no trace that they had been there, and since time was tight, they would only take what they could. However, in the end the house had been left completely empty, as if it had been cleared out by thieves.
Nonetheless, this was also completely fine because Demiurge, the one who had sent Entoma and Mare here, mentioned that this was a possibility. But then again, the overall time spent here had exceeded their estimations by far.
Together with the other demons, Mare and her should have departed much earlier. Mare had taken the most important person of this mansion and went ahead to the rendezvous point. Because there was still enough time, the lower-class demons brought along a mountain of stolen goods and were preparing for everybody to evacuate.
That should have been the case, but then they discovered an underground storage which was completely packed with stolen goods and illegal drugs during their retreat.
The appropriation work was therefore slowed down.
Firstly, the underground area was divided into many rooms, with valuable items and many cheap goods piled together, making it incredibly difficult to search through. It was basically like finding a specific tree in the middle of a forest. Even if it were Entoma and the demons, they could not possibly relocate all of the items, as such it was necessary to locate the desired tree within the forest.
If the woman taken away by Mare had still been here, this problem would have been dealt with early on, but it was already too late for that.
Entoma and the demons stuffed the goods which they deemed to be trash to one side of the room. Even for demons who had far more strength than humans, this was rather cumbersome work. But thanks to this method and their efforts, they were able to successfully take away all of the items that had value.
As the person responsible, Entoma, who stayed to the end, had the refreshed expression one would have at the completion of an assignment. She looked at the night sky, using her hand to wipe off her sweat. Although she did not secrete a single drop of sweat, that was how she felt.
“Ha. Everybody move the items away then~”
Obeying Entoma’s command, huge insects the size of a man carrying large amounts of cargo on their backs flew into the night sky. These giant beetles were all summoned through her entomomancer ability.
Their wings gave off a heavy and low vibrating sound, and then the insects flew in a straight line formation towards their destination.
After personally sending off the insects transporting the heavy goods, Entoma pondered as she looked at the object she held in one hand.
“Ah, must resist eating. I must, I must.”
With a ‘bop’ sound, she gently knocked herself on the head, and brought the severed hand of a man to the area below her chin. The man’s hand then disappeared with a ‘chomp chomp chomp’ sound as Entoma’s throat continuously moved. Her expression was extremely cute, but the smell of blood had also slowly spread out.
“Women’s fat is soft and the meat tastes delicious. Children’s fat is thin, and the meat tastes great as well. But, ah, the best is of course the textured meat of men.”
She nimbly avoided the bones as she ate, then threw the rest of the hand into the mansion.
“Thank you for the meal!”
She bowed in the direction of the mansion, and, in order not to be late, she began to head off to her destination in accordance with her orders. However she had not taken many steps when a nearby sound made her stop.
“Yo. It is a beautiful night, is it not?”
“…Tonight is a beautiful night indeed, but I gather it isn’t so wonderful for you?”
It was unclear whether the one who slowly revealed herself was a man or a woman. Although it felt like she was a woman, her physique was that of a man.
“You, what are you doing here?”
“Taking a walk.”
“…You, what was it that you ate so eagerly just now??”
“Meat.”
“…Human meat?”
The manwoman’s voice was as cold as ice, yet Entoma was not fazed at all. She didn’t care what kind of emotions humans harboured against her. If they dared to interfere, they would be crushed; If they did not, they would be ignored. If she were hungry, they would be caught for food. For Entoma, this was all their existence amounted to.
Slowly, the manwoman lifted her war pick. After seeing this action, Entoma spoke in a troubled voice for the first time.
“Then, have we met before?”
The manwoman had an incredulous expression, and thought to herself “Could that be?”, but did not voice this out loud.
“I am here because of work. Having you as my opponent will be troublesome, and moreover my stomach is full right now.”
“…Please excuse me. I am one of the Kingdom’s top-class adventurers. Upon encountering a man-eating monster, I cannot allow you to get away. Your continued existence in the human world is a problem.”
“Ah, so troublesome. But you are strong. In that case I’ll turn you into preserved food.
For the first time Entoma looked straight at the manwoman.
She couldn’t help thinking that this was a powerful warrior.
Mm, yes, definitely very strong.
Entoma was not a pure warrior, so she had no means to assess the strength of her opponent. However, she did not consider the other side to be stronger than herself.
“Oriyaaa!”
The manwoman darted over, and sent her war pick crashing downwards.
Entoma elegantly dodged the attack. But a follow-up attack immediately pursued her, with the war pick making a significant change in direction mid-swing, heading straight for Entoma. This movement was not a smooth blow relying on centrifugal force, but was instead a move purely based on an illogical amount of brute force.