CH 153

Chapter 153

When Peaceful Times Cease To Exist : The Archfiend Workshop, Part 8 — With Dance And Fist

Translated by KaiesV

Edited by KaiesV

「Are you the one who built this workshop? Or are you just in charge? Which is it?」

For a moment, Anomaly looked doubtful. He had expected to be asked something more direct, like what their purpose was. Anomaly had no intention of answering her when asked such a question, however, and was looking forward to making fun of the woman in front of him and seeing her frustrated face. But, as if unable to gauge Elsa’s true intentions, Anomaly answered in a faltering manner.

「…I am the one who built this workshop. I’m in charge of managing it.」

「That seems pretty tough, this place is huge.」

「Not really. There’s plenty of me.」

「Oh. If you have that many, you might have too many hands.」

「Not that either, there’s plenty of work to be done.」

「They say you are a genius.」

「Of course. Unless you are a genius like me, you can’t manage a workshop. That’s why I made so many of my own. There’s never enough Demon Kings, and even after they’re created, they still need to be taken care of. Even with all of me, it’s still not enough… hey, haven’t you heard about 4 more?」

「Oh, I’ve only heard one thing. That was you responding to my monologue. When did I ask you a second question, anyway?」

「H–Huh?」

Anomaly, with his mouth gaping open at the outburst, wasn’t too much to say. But so far, it was just as Elsa had predicted.

In her view, men who are like Anomaly tend to be overconfident despite their appearance. There is no doubt that he is a psycho, but there is also no doubt that he is terribly intelligent and capable of rational thought. These kinds of people are common among mages and researchers, and Elsa has had to deal with a few of them, though not as bad as Anomaly.

When dealing with this type of person, the first thing to do is to pace yourself and not give them time to think with seemingly reasonable rhetoric. The more reasonable a person’s thinking is, the more vulnerable he or she is when the premise is destroyed. The first two choices look like two choices, but they are not. The answer could be either, and the goal was to get into small talk afterwards. The conversation was now at Elsa’s pace. She was actually able to pull out quite a bit of information just from this point alone.

The Archfiends needs to be controlled. In other words, Elsa hypothesizes that if nothing is done, their lifespan will be short, or they won’t be able to be completely controlled. What is also quite probable is that once Anomaly is defeated here in front of them, it will no longer be possible to manufacture and manage it. If the work could be done by others to help, Elsa thought, there would be no need to duplicate himself. But crazy people can do anything, so Elsa’s hypothesis is far from certain.

Still, convinced that she has the upper hand for now, Elsa continues.

「Then, the second question!」

「H–Hold on!」

「Aren’t you worried about making so much of yourself? What if someone revolts?」

Elsa have no interest in listening about Anomaly. Elsa even thinks it’s okay if the conversation breaks off here. She doesn’t expect to hear proper information directly from the enemy. That is why Elsa continues to ask questions while preparing herself to be ready for battle at any time. That said, she don’t intend to skimp on the questions.

In contrast, Anomaly is flustered by Elsa’s question, but is still unable to gauge the true meaning of the question. He liked this situation a little better, however, because he likes to be blamed. While Anomalies like “Is this a kind of verbal torture?” and other such nonsense, he think it is okay to answer if it’s about himself.

「I’m not worried. I’m not worried about the increase in my number.」

「Oh, why is that?」

「…It doesn’t matter, so I didn’t care.」

Anomaly also didn’t clearly say what the answer was, since he didn’t know what Elsa’s intentions were. But the reply was enough to make Elsa formulate a hypothesis. There was no doubt that Anomaly was taking Elsa lightly in front of him.

「（Hmmm. It shouldn’t matter if he had a lot of them. So, it’s a degraded version of the main body, or a bunch of these guys are shackled so that they can’t do anything. At least not each individual is in the same line. I was thinking of prioritizing the annihilation of these guys over the facility, depending on the situation, but if they are shoddy products that can be mass produced, wouldn’t it make sense to annihilate them?）」

Elsa’s thoughts spin dizzyingly. On the other hand, she has already thought about the last question. This is, so to speak, a battle of the brains without weapons.

「Now, since this is the last question, I thought it over…」

「Three. What does the Archfiends do research for? I’m sure you could make something even more amazing, couldn’t you?」

「Damn it! You should listen to someone for a minute, can you!?」

「I won’t ask. Come on, answer me. You brought this on yourself, didn’t you?」

As expected, Anomaly is somewhat irritated, but the truth is that he too hasn’t been given a clear answer. He just makes them as he is told. He was just obediently following someone called Master because it suits his research and is more efficient than doing it alone.

Unable to be honest about such a thing, Anomaly decided to flake out. However, just as Anomaly was about to provoke Elsa a little, Elsa spoke first.

「A little thing like you anyway, you don’t know what your purpose is, do you? It’s mostly just a hobby or something like that, right?」

The words were so on the mark that Anomaly was so obvious that he couldn’t help but look at her. Elsa, for her part, wasn’t sure about any of this, but she had a feeling from her past experience that it was somewhat like that, so she put the kettle on. She have asked killers she have caught why they commit murder. But the most common answer was「because I want to.」Elsa doesn’t believe that duty or work can create the hellish scene around her. Although she was ordered to do it, she felt that this was the closest thing to a correct answer that suited Anomaly’s tastes.

She have also heard from Miliazar that there is a possibility that the enemy may have an even more chieftainly figure. This changed to an even higher probability with the reaction of Anomaly just now. And by the time Anomaly again tried to change his perception of Elsa as a tricky person, Elsa had already moved on to her next move.

「This woman…」

「You’re slow!」

Before Anomaly, who was in the lead, could say anything, Elsa punched him in the face. She was too much for Anomaly to resist and he was blown away, but as if on cue, all the other individuals simultaneously entered into a fighting stance. At the same time, she doesn’t know how long they’ve been there, but an Anomaly on the wall pulls the lever.

「Go ahead, you『failures-to-be』!」

「Gururururu!」

At the same time as the lever was pulled, the bars of the cage on the wall were raised and a giant beast slithered out from inside. It appeared to be a person walking on all fours, but its body was discolored reddish-black like Pochi’s, and drool was constantly dripping on the ground. And the moment those guys looked up, she knew exactly why.

They had only one eye. No, some of them didn’t even have eyes. One huge eye is in front of his face. His mouth is split wide and slanted, and he is licking his face with a strangely long tongue. Perhaps their tongues are too long to fit in their mouths, which is why they drool all the time. Looking closely, she can see that its arms and legs are also unnaturally long for a human. There seems to be individual differences in appearance, but they are all the same in ugliness. The only difference between the same ugliness and the Anomaly in front of her is that she cannot sense a shred of intelligence in any of them.

Unbeknownst to Elsa, they are the failed products of the process of making Hecatoncheires, but at the same time they are the gatekeepers of this workshop. It was Pochi he mentioned earlier who was in command of the gatekeepers, but there is nothing wrong with Anomalies giving orders instead. Although they no longer have the intellectual capacity to perform anything more than feeding, some of them have retained the ability to reproduce, and once this was discovered, experiments were repeated in a way that was very difficult to talk about. The woman whom Elsa had just examined was the subject of that experiment, and the result was that Pochi. But it would be happier if they didn’t know that.

Then, more of the “skunks” emerge from the cage. Recognizing Elsa and Eliza as enemies, they gradually close the distance between them. Normally, this would frighten even a seasoned warrior, but Elsa was unconcerned and said only one word.

「Eliza, I’ll leave this you.」

「Understood.」

With a single word, Elsa rushes into the anomalies and the others. Furthermore, Eliza’s removed the cloth that was wrapped around her back long. Out of it came a twin sword—— a weapon originally used by assault soldiers on horseback, with a blade attached to the hilt as well, as if it were a sword attached to a hilt.

The spear is a thrust-only weapon and is often useless once it bites into an enemy, but with a twin sword, simply wielding this on horseback can be quite effective. However, with the help of custom-made twin swords and her own training, Eliza has succeeded in transforming them into weapons of her own.

This is one of the conclusions of Eliza, who, despite being a woman, aspired to become a knight and lamented her own powerlessness because of it. With a weapon of this weight, she thought that depending on how it was handled, even an ineffectual woman could make it capable of killing. At first Elsa wondered if she could really handle such a weapon, but once Eliza showed her how to use it, she was very convinced. And Eliza’s fighting is only really effective when it is her versus many.

「Eliza, a knight of the House of Lazaar. I’m coming in!」

With her voice, Eliza kicks up the sword she stabbed into the ground and spins it above her head. The reason she does not remove her garb during her journey is that she cannot kick the blades of the twin swords with her bare feet. Since it is quite fatiguing to lift this heavy weapon with arm strength, she uses rotational motion and gravity to handle it. The way she fights is like a dance. Elsa had once been shown a kata by Eliza when she was handling her twin swords, and she thought it was more beautiful than any first-class dancer. Of course, Elsa had never seen so many dances, and Eliza had no intention of dancing.

But Eliza’s fights are not only beautiful, they are suited to knocking down a multitude of enemies. In fact, those『failures-to-be』who tried to attack her were cut down one by one without even being able to touch her. Their heads cracked open, their arms deflected, their bodies battered. Just as even the creatures of the Prairie are helpless in the face of a tornado.

Elsa knows this fighting style of Eliza’s, which is why she herself jumped out of the way. Normally, she would have supported them with magic from the rear, but this time, she had no time to waste. She will exterminate them in one fell swoop. That was Elsa’s decision. Once she made up her mind, she moved quickly. In no time at all, she closed the distance with Anomalies and punches them one after another. But instead of forcing a strong blow, she simply jabs them lightly to make them sprawl. One shot at a time. The Anomalies were unable to counterattack due to their quick actions and unexpected boldness. In addition, since they had jumped into each other’s necks all at once, there was a danger of a friendly fire if they used magic in the wrong way. The desire to take the most blows may have also weakened their counterattack. After finishing her blows, Elsa moved away from the Anomalies once.

「Aww–aww… is it over? I can’t cum like this at all, can I?」

「Don’t worry, you’ll be gone soon. Delay Spell Activate!」

Elsa smiled wryly, as if she were sure of victory. Then, the head of the first Anomaly she hit suddenly explodes. The heads of the Anomalies exploded one after another, starting with the first one.

「What!?」

By the time they realized it, it was too late. But the Anomaly was that they just laughed, really enjoying themselves.

「Fufu, this is a harsh punishment. Play again… Bah!」

The last Anomaly also had its head blown off before it could finish saying anything. She guess she doesn’t need to hear it anyway, Elsa thought suddenly.