Evil Black Maria - Chapter 85. Worst Encounter

She was walking at a brisk pace when she suddenly stopped.

 

“…… Oh? Something wrong, Izuru?”

 

Keith, who was walking beside her, stopped a moment later and looked back at her.

 

Izuru looks up at the sky with a somewhat puzzled look in her eyes.

After a few moments of staring at the purple moon, she turned to Keith with a slight shake of her head.

 

“…… Nothing. I thought I heard Roa’s voice, but maybe it was my imagination.”

 

“Of course it was, they’re on the west side of town. In the opposite direction of us.”

 

The Fafnir mercenaries, who were lodged in the centre of Labrynthos, were divided into two groups of three, one in the east and one in the west, to gather information around the place.

Roa, Clarissa and Hawkeye on the west side. Izuru, Keith and Zack on the east side.

Even though it is no match for the Royal Capital, Labyrinthos was big enough to be called a city. If they didn’t divide their manpower, it would be difficult to even make a quick round of the city in a day.

 

“Are you tired?……It’s a green day tomorrow and you’re going to be in worse shape than usual.”

 

The days of the week in this world change with the arrival of dawn.

In a few hours, the water magic that Izuru was famous for will be weakened.

She breathed a deep sigh of melancholy at the prospect of the day ahead, a day in which her magic would be severely diminished and her health somewhat affected by its effects.

 

“Being a holder of magical powers is not always a good thing. There’s always one day in each week when you are vulnerable.”

 

“There’s no such thing as almighty power, you know. Even the Witch of the Silver Flame was captured because of it. Good for you, you’ve learned your lesson.”

“……I think you need to change that quarrelsome and annoying attitude of yours.”

 

Izuru turned away from Keith as if she didn’t want to listen anymore.

Now it was Keith’s turn to sigh deeply.

 

“What a pain in the arse. Let’s face it, female mercenaries can be a bit brash. But Clarissa is way too shy, I’m worried she might fall for the wrong guy one day.”

 

“Do you really think we’re just going to sit back and let that happen?…..good grief, you’re always so self-centred.”

 

After scratching the back of his bald head roughly, Keith sighed again.

Then he suddenly showed a strange expression.

 

“……Hey, Izuru.”

 

“What’s wrong, Baldie?”

 

Izuru shouts at him, twirling her hair with her fingertips in a grumpy manner.

However, he was not annoyed by this, as he considered it a sign of trust. It is proof enough that she considers him to be an easy person to talk to.

 

“Oh–um…..it’s..”

 

“Disgusting. If you’ve got something to say, just say it quickly.”

 

“What’s with all the unnecessary words !?”

 

After being called disgusting with a tongue lashing, Keith retorted with a quip.

After a pause, he opened his mouth, sighing again at Izuru’s complete lack of remorse.

 

“…..I’ve spoken to Zack and we’re thinking of going to Japone once we’ve sorted this mess out.”

 

“Eh?…”

 

Izuru stood there, stunned.

The reaction, however, was not surprising.

 

Japone was an island country in the Far East, far away from the continent where the Kingdom of Si Levant was located.

In order to get there, they have to pass through several countries and cross the Houlian Sea, an ocean where countless sea-dwelling demonic beasts roam.

The journey itself was a dangerous one, as it would be almost impossible just to go there and return.

“Hey, wait a minute! This is so sudden….”

 

“I don’t want to hear any complaints. It’s the only clue you have to your memories. How can we afford to delay it?”

 

Everyone in Fafnir was aware that Izuru wanted to know about her memories and her past.

And although she hasn’t explained the reason directly, everyone can guess what it is.

 

To begin with, seeking lost memories is a perfectly natural course of action.

In addition to Keith and Zack, it was the decision of all five of the mercenaries, with the exception of Izuru, to go to Japone, where her origins could be traced.

 

“……Izuru”

 

But – at the same time, Keith was worried about something else.

 

“What would you do if your memory came back?”

 

“What?”

 

Suddenly, a question was asked which she could not understand.

When Izuru tilted her head, more questions followed.

 

“If we go to Japone, maybe we can find out something about your memories. Maybe you’ll meet someone who knows you, or even your family.”

 

“…..Yeah. I can’ t remember anything, so I won’t say it’s impossible.”

 

“Oh….then, well.”

 

Keith struggled to speak.

Izuru furrowed her eyebrows, frustrated by the lack of understanding.

 

“If you have something to say, say it. I’ll listen to you.”

 

“Listen to this…… You’re really cute.”

 

He was a bit more honest in the beginning, but why has he become like this?

Inwardly, Keith asked himself this question and was about to shed his tears, but he decided that now was not the time.

 

Determined, he asked.

 

“–if you ever find your way home, would you want to go back?”

“!”

 

At this question, Izuru’s eyes widened slightly.

But it was only for a few seconds at most.

 

“I am shocked. Why do you care so much about that?”

 

A snarky, light-hearted tone.

Keith was taken aback by the unexpected response, as his concerns were easily dismissed.

 

“Your right, I may have a home in Japone. Maybe that’s where my family, my friends and my lover are.”

 

With sharp, clacking footsteps, Izuru walked up to Keith and pointed at his nose

She raised her droopy eyebrows even more than usual and stared up at Keith.

 

Then, with her free hand, she clutched the emblem around her neck.

The emblem of the Fafnir Mercenaries, engraved with the symbol of a snake and a ring.

 

“’If I get my memory back, do you think I’d be so heartless as to throw all this away so easily?”

 

“What–No way–!!”

 

Keith’s reflex was to raise his voice, but he choked it back.

In retrospect, he realised that he had said nothing different from what she had just said.

 

Poking Keith’s forehead with his fingertips, Izuru continues in a light-hearted tone.

 

“Oh, dear. I can’t leave you people alone, you’re not capable of dealing with the world. If it weren’t for me, you’d still be working hard for less than you should be paid.”

 

“Uh….”

 

Keith couldn’t find the right words to say.

In fact, the Fafnir mercenaries had not been treated well before Izuru’s arrival.

They were treated as a bunch of young country bumpkins, and the only jobs they got were troublesome and unprofitable. And even then, the clients took advantage of them, haggled over their fees and left them in a mess.

 

If they had not met Izuru four years ago. There is no doubt that the five of them could have fled back to their hometown, unable to bear the difference between the dream and the reality.

It’s also possible that they would have been unable to pay the guild’s cancellation fee and would have continued to live like that forever.

 

She was an indispensable person for Fafnir.

And – for Keith – she is more than that.

 

“You’re so helpless, you know that? You don’t have enough of a brain for all this nonsense.”

 

“It’s ……, you should be more careful with your words–”

 

Keith tried to complain about her rude words, but he never got to the end of it.

She giggled and smiled with a gentle expression on her face that she rarely showed.

 

“You seem a bit bored. If you’ve got time to think about anything else, you should be polishing your dirty bald head.”

 

“Who are you calling a dirty bald man? I clean my head every day!”

 

“Pfft, hahaha!”

 

Keith bared his teeth and shouted.

Izuru finally starts to laugh out loud, as her words have hit the nail on the head.

 

–Keith was relieved.

If her memory came back, she might leave. Such vague fears were dismissed with surprising ease.

 

And then.

 

 

“Ah, there you are. I finally found you guys.”

 

 

It was a quiet night in the street, no one was around but them.

Someone’s voice, not their own, vibrated in the air.

 

“Damn, it’s a pain in the ass to be in a town you don’t know. I can’t find my way around.”

 

A blonde, red-eyed woman emerged from the darkness into the moonlight.

A slight breeze whipped the hem of her tailored jacket, and she cracked her neck as she walked with her hands in the pockets of her pants.

 

“I don’t remember much about the road, though.”

 

She muttered to herself, as if she really didn’t care.

As soon as the distance between her and Izuru and Keith was only a few meters, the woman – Casca – stopped.

“If I wasn’t reapplying nail polish on the way out, I’d have found you a bit sooner.”

 

As soon as she stopped, she pulled her hands out of her pockets and revealed her ten fingers, their nails painted bright red.

The piercing on her exposed belly button bounced in the moonlight and glinted.

 

“……Who the f**k are you?”

 

It was Keith who, with his battle axe at the ready, asked the question in a growling voice.

In response to his question, Casca stretched softly, whether she heard him or not.

 

“Hmmm……AH, my neck is killing me. It’s probably cause I slept in a weird position.”

 

“I asked you who you are!　Answer me!”

 

Keith yelled in anger.

It was more than a little aggressive for someone he’d just met.

 

But he had sensed something that was worthy of caution.

The woman who stood before him exuded a great deal of pure malice.

 

–Casca scowled angrily as she was yelled at.

 

“Shut up……,it’s not like my ears are plugged, I can hear you fine without screaming.”

 

‘What kind of idiot doesn’t know that?’, She continued saying a few more words, then she took her eyes off Keith, who was in front of her. She looked at Izuru in the back.

 

“…..huh?”

 

“….”

 

Despite the fact that it is a dark night with only moonlight as a light source, her crimson eyes gleam unusually brightly.

When she looked into Casca’s eyes, Izuru felt a sharp stab of fear and a shiver of dread ran down her spine.

 

Instantly.

 

“I see. That’s pretty interesting.”

 

Before she even realised.

Casca, who was standing a few meters away, now stood right in front of Izuru, staring at her face.

 

“–eh?”

 

“What the….!?”

 

The two were completely slow to react.

The position where Casca had been standing until the last moment was left with only a small amount of dust lifted up by her steps.

 

There was nothing to it.

In a fraction of a second, she had moved from one place to another.

 

“What the little brat was saying wasn’t that crazy then, I guess.”

 

A hand reached out carelessly towards the confused Izuru.

She immediately tries to step back when she touches her face.

 

However, she couldn’t step back.

In spite of her rude first impression, the madness that lay behind her surprisingly good looks was so close to her that she was unable to move because the smell of death was too strong.

 

“I like you. Sure, there are some things that aren’t quite right, but I think this is a good substitute.”

 

The corners of her mouth lifted quietly in a grin.

A row of sharp, shark-like teeth peeked out from the edge of her mouth.

If there was such a thing as the Grim Reaper, it would probably smile like this, she thought.

 

“–I’ve always wanted to try it. The most precious thing for me, the most lovely guy I’ve ever fallen helplessly in love with.”

 

“Guh…!?”

 

The hand moved from her face towards her hand.

Her shoulders feel as if they are going to shatter at any moment, and she screams.

 

“I wanted to destroy him once and for all with my own hands.”

 

A rough, red tongue flicked across her upper lip.

Her red eyes fluttered, and the horrifying intensity of her madness increased.

 

“I wanted to make him cry until his throat was ripped open, make him beg for forgiveness until he licked my shoes, and make him so messed up that I couldn’t tell what his original shape was…….!”

 

Izuru did not know who Casca was. She had no way of knowing.

On top of that, she was frozen in instinctive fear and couldn’t comprehend half of what was being whispered to her.

 

“………!!”

 

Izuru struggled desperately to escape.

 

But Casca grabbed her by the shoulders with a vice-like grip, and with just that, she had her completely pinned down, unable to take even a single step away from her.

 

“Hey, hey, don’t run away, let’s play nice, okay? Anyway, let’s…..try to pull your right arm out of your shoulder.”

 

“Huh…stop….”

 

For Casca, it was like picking up an ant with her fingertips, though she tried to resist half-heartedly.

With such close proximity, there was no way for the physically weak Izuru, who lacked any means of combat other than magic, to get out of the way.

She now regretted not having a pistol when Hawkeye had offered her one for self-defence, as she disliked the smell of gunpowder.

 

“Zu…… ugh……!!!”

 

Unable to resist in front of Casca, Izuru’s shoulders began to creak from the inside.

She knows she can’t escape and shudders at the thought of the bone crushing impact that will come in a few seconds.

 

But. She was not the only one here.

 

“—–Hey”

 

“Oh!”

 

The sound of an angry voice echoed from behind her.

When Casca turned around, she saw Keith, his battle axe raised in a rage.

 

“Get the f**k away from her!”

 

A heavy blade swung down with a scream. It’s a rock-crushing blow that exceeds even the leader’s Zack in physical strength.

With all his might, he unleashes a strike that catches Casca on the shoulder as if she were being sucked in.

 

However, the result that the attack brought was hard to believe immediately.

 

“What…..the?”

 

The battle-axe, which he swung from his shoulder, with its trajectory could cut down a person diagonally into two, even if they were wearing armour.

In fact, that’s how Keith has slaughtered so many of his opponents.

 

However,

 

“……, you f**king b**tard.”

 

A thud. A heavy, dull crashing sound, like hitting a lump of metal.

Through the handle of the battle-axe, a powerful recoil came to both hands, a mixture of numbness and pain.

The blade had ripped through the fabric of Casca’s tailored jacket, but had stopped just short of cutting into her skin.

 

Each of her muscle fibers had tremendous strength, and her bones were made up of an unusual density, contained within a thin layer of subcutaneous fat.

In a world where the average human has a physical capacity far greater than that of humans on Earth, this is a physical structure that is beyond the ordinary.

 

Keith’s all-out blow, which boasted contained all of his superhuman strength, gave Casca, who was almost defenseless, not even a bruise, let alone a wound.

 

“You’re kidding……?”

 

“What are you doing, you stupid baldie? People are trying to have fun here.”

 

“What!?”

 

With a click of her tongue, Casca pushed Izuru away and turned to Keith behind her.

She suddenly remembered that she hadn’t answered his question the first time he asked her.

 

“Yeah, well, you asked me who I was, didn’t you?”

 

“Urgh…”

 

The battle-axe, which was considered a super-heavy weapon, was flicked off with the tip of her finger, stunning Keith, who stumbled.

Immediately afterwards, he was struck with such a blow that he felt as if his whole body was going to be torn to shreds.

 

“—Gaaaah!?”

 

The kick was so fast and powerful that the foot of the kick became a blur

 

Keith, who weighed more than 200 kilograms including his equipment, was blown several dozen meters into the air, parallel to the ground.

 

“Keith…!”

 

Izuru got up, holding her shoulder, and ran to Keith, who was rolling on the dirt.

Casca did not dare to follow her, but stripped off his tailored jacket, the fabric of which had been ripped.

 

“It doesn’t matter, ya know. You’re going to die soon anyway.”

 

With a sigh.

She scratched her head lazily with the hand that had thrown off her jacket and muttered to herself.