Horobi — blonde hair coiled behind her head, a tight combat suit hugging her mature frame — kept firing her short Steam Pistol, shot after shot, each round drilling straight for a Kabane's heart.
ROAAAR!!
A giant Wazatori — nearly three meters tall, a grotesque fusion of three Kabane — charged straight at her.
Bang!
Her bullet sparked uselessly off its massive, hardened arm. The monster reached out to seize her.
Horobi flipped backward with practiced agility, narrowly slipping past that crushing hand, and snapped her gun up again — aiming for the thing's heart.
Bang!
This time a Kabane embedded in its chest twisted into the line of fire, blocking the shot.
"Damn it... doing this alone is still too much..."
ROAR!
The giant didn't give her a second to breathe and lunged again. With no way to peel away the other Kabane fused into its body, Horobi could only retreat — running hard as it chased her without pause.
Worse, a dual-blade Wazatori suddenly appeared ahead, cutting off her escape. She fired as she ran.
Bang! Bang-bang!
One by one, her bullets were sliced out of the air — while the giant behind her closed the distance.
Front and back, the pincer pressure tightened. Horobi's focus wavered for an instant; her foot caught on a severed leg in the churned-up ground.
Thud!
She stumbled.
The charging giant's shadow swallowed her from behind, and the dual-blade Wazatori ahead was about to reach her too.
At the last second, a dark blur swept in and yanked her into a strong embrace, twisting away from the simultaneous strike.
When Horobi regained her senses, she realized she was being held against the chest of a young, handsome boy.
Her shadow flickered — and in the next heartbeat, a pair of red eyes glinted from within it.
Just now, Ryuji had carved his way across who knew how far. The moment he saw the blonde "mature" beauty he'd taken interest in about to be crushed between two threats, he ignored the fist-fighting Kabaneri he'd been facing and sprinted straight for her.
A clawed silhouette within Horobi's shadow had been ready to lash out, but the instant it saw Ryuji arrive, it didn't dare ruin its master's heroic rescue. The claws withdrew obediently, and the presence sank back into the shadow, silent.
Ryuji looked down at Horobi, who stared up at him in a daze, and felt genuinely puzzled.
Did rescuing her once make her fall for him that fast?
Then again... "hero saves the beauty" plus "generous curves" was a combo that hit pretty hard. In that case, it wasn't strange.
Ryuji lifted his gaze to the charging giant and the dual-blade Wazatori. Keeping one arm wrapped around Horobi's waist, he spun aside as the Wazatori hurled a tachi at him — then kicked the flat of the blade.
The sword shot away like a boomerang, whistling back toward the giant.
Slash!
The giant raised the Kabane on its own head like a living shield. The returning tachi split that smaller Kabane from chest to spine, then snapped in two. The broken half buried itself in the giant's neck.
ROAAAR!!
Enraged, the Wazatori surged forward even faster. A hand the size of a fan snatched up a severed leg and hurled it at Ryuji like a club.
At the same time, the dual-blade Wazatori — now forced into a single-blade stance — closed in. It gripped the sword with both hands and brought it down in a brutal overhead chop, trying to cleave both humans in one strike.
The tachi fell.
CLANG!
The Wazatori's neck craned. Gray eyes widened in confusion as it stared at the empty air that had somehow stopped its blade.
Ryuji held the Shadowless Sword.
He flicked upward.
The tachi flew.
[Saeko: I know this move!]
Thud!
The unseen blade pierced straight through the Wazatori's heart.
Whoosh!
A tearing howl split the air.
The severed leg the giant had thrown screamed toward Ryuji. With one hand still on his sword, he snapped his wrist and flung the Wazatori's corpse into the projectile.
BOOM!
The corpse collided with the leg and burst into a spray of blood.
From the crimson mist, a fan-sized gray hand shot out, snatching for Ryuji's head. If it grabbed him, his skull would pop like an apple in a strongman's grip.
Ryuji had no intention of becoming an exploding apple. He slashed.
The arm — hard enough to shrug off Steam Pistol rounds — split open like firewood under an axe, bone cleaved clean through.
ROAR! ROAR! ROAR!
With one hand ruined, the giant Wazatori only grew more feral. It grabbed a Kabane in front of it and flung the body at Ryuji, then threw its massive frame forward to ram him.
Still holding Horobi, Ryuji sprang lightly and landed behind the giant. He turned and cut.
Slash!
A gush of orange fluid erupted from the Wazatori's chest.
Boom!
Ryuji drew back the Shadowless Sword and flicked the liquid away. The giant Wazatori crashed to the ground.
The entire exchange took less than a minute.
Horobi remained in Ryuji's arms, staring blankly as she watched it happen. He glanced down and saw she was still dazed, so he didn't loosen the hand at her waist.
Maybe because she fought so often, Horobi's waist was both slim and flexible. Under his palm he could feel firm, springy muscle lines.
"My name is Biba Amatori. Thank you for saving my subordinate." Biba rode over, dismounted nearby, and addressed Ryuji.
He'd watched the entire fight from start to finish. When it came to the strong, he always showed respect.
His gaze slid to Horobi, and a trace of disappointment flickered through his eyes.
"Oh, it was nothing. I'm Ryuji Ken." Ryuji answered flatly.
"I still need to keep crushing the Kabane horde, so I'll take my leave." Biba said.
Seeing Ryuji's cold attitude, he didn't bother pressing. He gave a curt farewell and rode off.
As for Horobi — because Biba believed only the strong deserved to survive, she'd already been filed away as weak.
Ryuji watched him go and felt a faint tug of emotion.
A scapegoat thrown onto the battlefield by a conservative father at twelve, then shoved into battle again and again by hostile radicals... it would be stranger if someone like that didn't end up twisted.
"Only the strong survive" might be true — but it doesn't erase the stubbornness of the weak. After all, the food you eat and the things you use are all produced by the labor of the weak. If you chase nothing but strength, you'll end up as nothing more than a puppet of power.
Of course, Biba wasn't a puppet of power — just a pitiful avenger.
And now, the target of that revenge had already sent an assassin after him.
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"You probably don't know this, but someone wants your life."
A man named Enoku approached Biba from behind after Biba finished killing a Kabane.
"I'm the one they sent. When the time is right, I'll assassinate you."
Biba: "Is that so."
Enoku hurried on, "I can tell you where they really are — but please keep me alive. In return, I'll fight for you under your command!"
Biba turned and looked at him with cold indifference.
"No need. Get lost."
"So that's your answer!"
Enoku hadn't expected that after risking everything to come here — trying to prove his worth — Biba would still reject him.
Shing!
He lunged, drew his long blade, and slashed at Biba.
Biba squeezed his horse's belly. The black horse surged forward; using that momentum, he slipped off the saddle and evaded the slash. He spun and kicked Enoku's weapon away, sending the sword skidding across the ground.
"Spare me!" Enoku raised both hands, sitting in the dirt and trembling.
The tip of Biba's blade stopped right in front of Enoku's face. He stared down at him, expression glacial, "You decided to betray me from the beginning. You're nothing but a weakling."
Slash!
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"No!"
Ryuji paused and glanced toward the shout.
Alright — Ikoma showed up again.
But Ryuji wanted to test the new skill he'd just obtained.
Fortune Plunder — activate.
A thin golden thread — visible only to him — rose from Ikoma and flowed into Ryuji's body. He watched closely. Ikoma's expression shifted ever so slightly, then quickly returned to normal.
'So it only extracted fortune. No skill, no talent gained.'
Ryuji didn't care about Ikoma's skills anyway. He had so many he couldn't even use them all. And he could vaguely sense that if he wanted... all he needed to do was kill Ikoma and take his place — becoming this world's protagonist.
"Um... Lord Ryuji... can you let go of me now?" Horobi glanced at him, then lowered her head shyly.
Ryuji found it amusing. She clearly had a mature "big sister" body type, yet her mannerisms were almost like Mumei's.
Maybe it was simply because this was Horobi's first close contact with a man — especially one who'd just saved her life.
Ryuji released her waist gently.
Horobi took two steps back, then bowed.
"Thank you, Lord Ryuji, for saving me just now. My name is Horobi."
"Mm. Horobi — nice name." Ryuji said.
His eyes stayed deadpan. Whoever picked that name had to be messing with her. It sounded terrible.
Horobi? Extinguish what fire...?
{T/N: 'To extinguish fire' is the meaning of her name...}
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