CH 157

Chapter 157

When Peaceful Times Cease To Exist : The Archfiend Workshop, Part 12 — Pursuit

Translated by KaiesV

Edited by KaiesV

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「I didn’t feel alive…」

「Yes. I’m surprised we made it out alive.」

Outside, Elsa and Eliza were taking a breather. Since they had ordered the『dog』to call for support in advance, there were already about 30 Arnelia Church officials waiting outside, who had been summoned from a nearby branch. Either way, the two who had fled for their lives from the workshop were unlikely to have the energy to take another step.

They both sipped the warm drinks offered to them by the sisters and relaxed. But they still have to be on their guard. For now, they’re letting the knights confirm that the cave has been sealed while they take a breather, but if it’s that female swordsman, it’s not surprising that she would immediately attack after them. She used a considerable amount of gunpowder earlier, and since the sand in the hourglass had already fallen, Elsa’s delay spell was activated and the workshop could have been destroyed with a high probability, but she had to leave this place in a hurry in case she had to.

「As soon as we have confirmation, we will leave. Everyone get ready!」

「Understood!」

With Elsa’s order, everyone began to move briskly. Eliza was trembling beside Elsa.

「What’s wrong, Eliza? Are you still afraid?」

「…Yes. Albert once told me,『You can tell the quality of a knight by what happens after you realize how helpless you are and how terrifying the battlefield is.』I wondered if I was a good knight to be this frightened.」

「I see…」

Elsa chooses her words carefully. Honestly, Eliza did an unquestionable job on this mission. Elsa is impressed with how well she did for someone so inexperienced, but she thinks that giving her praise without giving it away might hinder Eliza’s growth.

「…Well, I think I can give you a passing grade this time. The most important thing is that you made it home alive. I admit that my assessment of the enemy’s strength was rather naive. I honestly didn’t expect such a monster.」

「Are you talking about that female swordsman?」

「Yes. What was your impression of her?」

「Let me think.」

The face of the dark-haired female swordsman comes vividly to Eliza’s mind. Surely she was not at her best. Even a single blow to slash through that facility wouldn’t be out of the realm of everyday movement. She never thought a sword could do such a thing. Surely that female swordsman is stronger than anyone else. More than herself, more than Albert, perhaps even more than Miliazar. The dimensions were so different that Eliza couldn’t judge their strength. Eliza expresses such honest opinions.

「I honestly don’t know. It’s just…」

「Just?」

「My gut feeling is that he is the strongest sword wielder in history. No evidence, just a hunch.」

「I wouldn’t say it’s just a hunch that the Lazaar family speaks of.」

Elsa crossed her arms and pondered. Even though she certainly couldn’t imagine the extent of their strength, if an enemy of that level had attacked Arnelia. The damage wouldn’t be to the extent that the boy from recently had attacked. Elsa was skeptical when Miliazar told her that the enemy wasn’t serious about the attempt, but now she can honestly nod her head in agreement.

「（Was it the strength of that female swordsman that should be examined? But we aren’t even comparable. From the way Eliza speaks, she probably outranks Miliazar-sama. I guess it’s a good thing we found that out.）」

While Elsa reflects on how well she did on this mission, the preparations for retreat are completed. Even though they are knights on provincial duty, they are very good at what they do.

「Elsa-sama, the soldiers who have been searching have come out. The cave seems to be completely filled!」

「All right, I’ll leave a couple of lookouts behind and retreat for once. Position the lookouts in a position where they can just barely see this place through their binoculars, and make sure they never get too close. Dragons pull back!」

「Understood!」

The knight who came to report comes out of the cave and goes to send a message to the knight who is waiting. Elsa breathes a sigh of relief as she watches. It was a difficult mission, but just when it seemed like we would be able to return home safely this time as well.

「Kyaaaaahh!」

A deafening scream was heard. Everyone present turned around at once to look near the entrance of the cave where the scream had come from.

「What was that!?」

The knights shouted in unison as they took their battle stance. Both Elsa and Eliza could not believe the scene before them.

「Wha–…」

「So persistent!」

Eliza also shouted, but unbelievably, there stood Cerberus with one of the knights in his mouth. His body was in shreds, probably from the explosion, and his intestines were protruding from his belly, but it seemed that life support itself was unaffected. The evidence of this is firmly standing on four legs.

The knight in his mouth still seems to have some breath left in him, and he weakly punches Cerberus in an attempt to get it off him, but the more he resists, the more his teeth dig in, and he’s unable to get any effect. Cerberus, perhaps not wanting to be resisted, begins to swing the knight around with it in his mouth. He stopped resisting and went limp as knights and sisters involuntarily screamed at the blood being spilled, and then the head of the knight in his mouth hit the ground and the sickening sound of a broken neck echoed through the air.

「Sister Elsa! What is that thing?」

One of the knights raised his voice. He probably can’t believe what he sees before his eyes.

「……I’d rather hear it from him. Well, I guess you could say he’s the guardian of hell, or rather, their watchdog.」

「Is this the Archfiend we’ve heard so much about?」

「I don’t know? Whatever, get in formation while you still can, he’s tough!」

Everyone’s faces tighten at Elsa’s command, and they form a circle around Cerberus. However, the knights who have come here are on regular duty. They’re not the elite of the headquarters staff or the Templar Knights. Therefore, the faces of the people weren’t hiding a hint of fear, and some of the sisters and priests, who weren’t used to fighting, even looked like they’re cowardly.

「（Is that too much to ask? Even I am scared. Let’s just be glad they didn’t run away.）」

The knights are still willing to fight because their commander is the famous Elsa, but to be honest, Elsa couldn’t expect much from these knights. They had little to no proper combat experience. If there were to be, it would probably be a goblin or orc sweep at best.

Elsa regrets that she didn’t bring along the elite from headquarters, but most of the action was basically clandestine. Calling for reinforcements this time was almost a violation of the order itself, but considering the retreat, we wanted to be sure. When she saw the cave, Elsa’s intuition told her that this mission would not be a simple one. It’s undeniable that the level of danger was far greater than she had imagined.

Considering the importance of the mission, at worst, she had to consider her own retreat at the expense of these reinforcements. As she was contemplating these unpleasant options, she heard a disgusted tone in her ears from earlier.

「Dagra, aren’t you feeling strangely hungry?」

「You too, Dagra? Me too!」

Two heads come gurgling out. They are the orcs she mentioned earlier.

「You’re really persistent, you two! I’m so sick and tired of it.」

「Even if you say so, we have to work hard too, or else I’m afraid of being punished by Anomaly-sama!」

「That’s right. He’s a terrible masochist, but he has no mercy when it comes to torture. I’m sure he’ll tear us apart while we’re still alive.」

「No, no, we’ve already been dismembered, which is why we’re in this body, right?」

「Oh really? I don’t remember that.」

Two heads turn their heads to face each other. It’s a dumb gesture for an enemy, but both Elsa and Eliza are now fully wounded. There is no guarantee that they will win. Moreover, Eliza had taken out a spare sword from her luggage outside, but without her twin swords, she was not sure if it would work. Can a sword as big as Cerberus really pass through a sword as big as a Cerberus?

「Uoohh!」

「Gueeeh!」

Even Dagra and Dogra were caught off guard and made dumb noises, but Cerberus’ agility in a wide space lightly exceeded Elsa’s expectations. Stepping in with a single step, they sideswipes the knight in front of him with his paw, and several are caught up in the blasted knight. At that moment, Cerberus knocks down one of the knights who bravely slashed at him from above with his opposite leg, kicking him in the leg and flying toward the rock wall.

The knights’ swords slash through the air, and Cerberus uses the wall to triangularly jump and attack the knights from another angle. He then bit into the head of one of the knights he had knocked down and began to eat it slowly. Dogra and Dogra bite into the knight’s body in the same way, as if their consciousness is becoming closer to Pochi’s. A knight, still only held down by a foot, screams half-crazed at the sight of the gushing blood up close. But no one had already dared enough to swing his sword to help.

Cerberus then turns to face another knight at his feet. Seeing this, Eliza snatches the sword from the nearby knight and turns it into her signature two swords.

「Give it to me, I’ll take care of him.」

「Eliza, wait!」

「I won’t wait!」

Eliza’s knightly responsibility, her own sense of justice, and exhaustion made her quicken her judgment. Eliza bravely slashed at Cerberus, but her movements were only half of what they would’ve been at full strength. She easily dodged and was flicked off the sword with her head. He also used Dogra’s head like a pendulum, and Eliza was bounced on her back.

「Aaaghh!」

Eliza is knocked to the ground with a scream. Cerberus leaps on top of her without a moment’s pause. He then holds Eliza’s hands with his paws and looks down on her from above.

「Let go, of me!」

Eliza struggles to escape, but Cerberus is over four meters tall. Once it was ensnared, Eliza’s slender arms were no match for it. However, Cerberus didn’t bite Eliza either, but rather sniffed her scent constantly. Eliza wondered how Cerberus was doing, but when Douglas and Dogra’s heads reached out, they began chewing through Eliza’s clothes.

「Ahh! What are you doing!」

「I–It’s not our will!」

「It’s Pochi doing it!」

At that moment, Eliza, Dagra and Dogra all three noticed at the same time that Pochi was breathing unusually hard. It was not that his intestines were protruding a little or that he was damaged by the explosion, but that he was simply excited to recognize Eliza as a female. Dagra and Dogra share a body, so they can kind of sense it, and Eliza has seen the lower half of Pochi’s body. Eliza’s face turns pale as she realizes what the beast in front of her is about to do.

「Sto–… stop it!」

「Hey, Pochi! Even though we’re all proud of ourselves, now is not the time for such things!」

「No good. He’s so full of it, he won’t listen to a word we say!」

Dagra and Dogra were making a lot of noise, but Elsa was calmly thinking about it as she watched the scene.

「（Using Eliza as bait would create an opening… even she wouldn’t be able to maintain his attention during the act. At that time, if I hit Pochi’s head in one or two places and make it explode. But I doubt if I even recovered enough magic for one shot… I mean, what was I thinking! There is no way I would have sacrificed the young Eliza!? No, but if this keeps up, we could be wiped out… Damn, what am I supposed to do!?）」

Elsa’s mind is torn between the priority of the mission and the scruples of her conscience. It was only a short time before Elsa was distracted by a presence pulling on Elsa’s sleeve at that moment. Elsa turns around again at the sound of Eliza’s scream.

「No, nooo! Such a thing… noooooo!!」

Even though Eliza was born into the house of Lazaar and chose to take up arms, she was sadly a woman in her essence. Of course, as much as she wanted to master the way of the sword, she also thought it wouldn’t be a bad idea to marry the man she loved, retire, and raise a happy family as a chaste wife. Since she haven’t yet had the opportunity to do so, love is something she only hear about in stories and tales, but the longing is there, as it is for the average girl.

A cruel reality strikes such Eliza. Although it’s something that a woman must be prepared for when she goes into battle and is defeated, Eliza, who has rarely been beaten even by the elite of the Templar Knights, was in a distant world that she couldn’t really feel. And even more so when the other party is a human being. It’s too unrealistic to expect to be raped by an unidentified magical beast in front of her fellow knights. The unimaginable reality about to hit her broke Eliza’s heart.

But the pride of the last knight? It was no longer possible for Eliza to remain calm, although she didn’t directly ask for help. Elsa jumped out of the way at the sound of Eliza’s desperate cries as she struggled desperately under Cerberus.

「Shit! If it comes to this, we’ll take our chances!」

Forgetting even to send instructions to the knights around her, Elsa tries to jump on Cerberus. However, her timing is clearly too late.

「Hiee!!」

Eliza’s thighs were held by the heads of Dogra and Dagra, and just as Eliza’s purity was about to be dissipated, completely unable to move, there was a voice echoing from overhead.