Combatants Will Be Dispatched - Volume 7 - Chapter 2.2

2

Heine murmurs blankly at the sight in front of her...

“Lady Belial certainly moves quickly...”

Belial’s only been on the planet for about an hour, but our brutal boss has already begun setting fire to this planet’s forests as part of her introductory tour.

She said she wanted to see the hostile life-fonns, so we’ve brought her to the Great Woods.

After Belial demanded that I be her guide, Heine and I accompanied her to the forest. As we stand at a distance watching her unleash her hellfire at the woods, silhouettes begin moving among the flames.

“Oh hey, Six, some weird women showed up.”

“Those ladies come out when you set the forest on fire. They're like guardians of some sort. They split their heads and fire cannonballs out of them, so please be careful!”

Belial was granted pyrokinesis by undergoing Lilith’s mad scientist brain surgery.

Her firepower is so overwhelming that she’s on par with a small arsenal; she’s basically dropped any and all pretenses of being human.

“Have you forgotten who you’re talking to, Six?! Bullets aren't going to do much to me!”

“...Well, yes, but it doesn’t hurt to be safe.”

The enhancement surgery also cranked up Belial’s defenses and physical abilities to superhuman levels, so she prefers leading from the front.

“All! It...doesn't hurt? It doesn't hurt at all! Stop looking at me like that, Six! I said it doesn’t hurt!”

“I get it, so please hide. There’s no reason to go out of your way to get hit by them.”

“How is she still alive after taking a round from the forest guardians...?”

Ignoring Heine’s naked awe at Belial’s toughness, the stubborn Supreme Leader holds back tears from the enemy attacks and swiftly hides behind the tree line.

At the same time, the burning trees begin spraying water from their branches to start dousing the flames.

“Hey, do they have sprinklers embedded in them?!”

“This planet’s forest puts out its own fires. Because of that, we haven't been able to do any slash-and-burn agriculture.”

Belial nods, impressed by this discovery, and retrieves something from her pocket.

“So what you’re saying is that we need more firepower to burn down these woods.”

“Um, I don’t think that’s it at all, but if that’s what makes sense to you. Lady Belial, sure.”

Nodding to herself, Belial injects the ampule into her neck.

The cartridge is mostly made up of nitro. It’s a booster that enhances Belial's pyrokinesis.

If she overuses it, she’s pretty much useless the next day, but since she seems to have no ability to learn from her own mistakes, she never hesitates to use the injections no matter how much we try to stop her.

The nitro flows into Belial’s veins, and her eyes become bloodshot and shimmer.

“Hey, rookie! Make sure you take notes! So long as we have enough firepower, we flame wielders are unmatched!”

“Y-yes, ma’am!”

Belial smirks happily at Heine’s respectful response and sticks out her hand from behind the tree.

“Taaaaaake thaaaaaaaaaaaaaat! ”

As Belial’s shout rings out, a huge inferno erupts from the middle of the forest—!

“I see, so that’s the cause of all this.”

The shockwave from Belial incinerating a chunk of the forest as a little introduction to this world wiped out all the glass windows in Hideout City.

The sudden explosion sent the residents of the city into a panic, and the Grace Kingdom had sent a messenger to check in.

After cleaning up our mess, Alice makes us sit contritely in a corner of the glass shard-infested conference room.

“Sorry, Alice. I did my usual attack without considering where I was. I mean, all of the windows in our base on Earth have reinforced glass, right? And besides, the people over there are used to explosions.”

Belial looks apologetic, scratching the back of her head as she musters an apology.

“No, it’s not your fault. Lady Belial. I called you here with the understanding there’d be the occasional problem. It’s these two who are at fault for not properly backing you up.”

“Hold on a minute! I can’t be at fault here! I had no idea just how powerful Lady Belial was!”

Heine had changed her tone of voice and accent after witnessing Belial’s firepower.

“Oh? You trying to pin all the blame on me, then? Well, that’s a compliment for a Kisaragi employee! You’re also one of Lady Belial’s companions! You can’t be the only one who dodges responsibility!”

“You’ve known Lady Belial a long time, right. Six?! Then you should’ve been able to see this coming!”

Alice lets out an exasperated sigh as we start bickering.

“All the windows here at the hideout are goners, but considering Lady Belial’s accomplishments, it’s a small price to pay. After all, she opened up a huge clearing in the woods that we’ve been trying to develop. Once we fill in the crater, we can stall building immediately.”

I’m told Belial’s maximum firepower is the equivalent of ten thousand tons of TNT.

I don’t know how powerful that actually is, but one of Belial’s strengths is that she can shoot off blasts like that with ease by using just a single nitro cartridge.

“Besides, even I didn’t expect Lady Belial to start her campaign as soon as she arrived. But now that Kisaragi’s ultimate weapon is here, the Hiiragi tribe doesn’t stand a chance.

Alice, who is a fervent believer in the power of Kisaragi science, holds up her fist triumphantly.

“We can’t let them think they can attack an evil corporation and get away with it! We’ll gather our Combat Agents tomorrow and go save the Bashin tribe’s village!”

“Yeah! It’s time to avenge our chimeras! We’ll make the enemy suffer for what they've done!”

As Alice and Heine work themselves into a lather, Belial leans over and whispers:

"Hev, why can t we just go now...? ”

I wish Belial could give even a tenth of her motivation and initiative to that lazy brat Lilith.

The next day.

“Urgh... Six, gross...”

“Why are you calling me gross this early in the morning?”

Belial insults me the moment I arrive to pick her up from her room.

“Not what I meant... I feel gross... My head hurts...”

“That’s because you used a nitro cartridge yesterday. This is why I keep telling you to stop using those; they’re so bad for you.”

Belial’s robe is only loosely draped around her body, and she’s pale, as though she’s badly hungover. She reaches over and grabs a nitro cartridge.

“Best thing to do when I feel like this is to take a shot in the morning.”

“You sound like a drunkard talking about the hair of the dog. I’m not letting you use a cartridge just so you can ease your withdrawal.”

Belial glares at me as I snatch the cartridge away.

“Give me back my precious...”

“I can’t. Lady Lilith warned me not to let you use too many.”

As I gently push the wobbly Belial back into her room so she can change, I hear- something heavy fall to the ground behind me.

I turn to find the source of the noise...

“Commander... What’s the precious thing you took from this skanky woman?”

Grimm stands there staring at me.

There’s a picnic basket, probably filled with sandwiches or something, lying on the floor at her feet.

“What did you take from that hungover and super skanky-looking woman? Her robes are undone... What’s the precious thing you took?!”

“It’s too early for your histrionics. I took this from her, okay? One of Lady Belial’s nitro cartridges.”

Grimm’s expression rapidly returns to normal as I show her the cartridge.

"...Lady Belial? The name’s familiar.."

“She’s one of Kisaragi’s Supreme Leaders. She’s my boss and one of the most important people in the company.”

Grimm sits down formally, bowing deeply to Belial.

“Our Commander’s in your debt, Lady Belial. I am his subordinate and fiancée, Grimm Grimoire. We may be inexperienced, but we hope that you will continue to provide us with your guidance.”

“Stop telling everyone you see that we’re engaged. You’re going to end up regretting it.”

I can’t help but interject, prompting a wide-eyed stare from Grimm.

“What do you mean I’ll regret it?! You can’t get out of it now!”

“I’m just trying to tell you that if you go around telling people you’re engaged, there won’t be any guys coming your way.”

I pick up the basket and hand it over to Grimm as she seems lost in contemplation. Belial, who seems to have recovered from her nausea, turns to us and speaks.

“I see your weird charms are still working. What’s with this fiancée stuff?”

“I just promised I’d marry her if we were both single in ten years. Though, I have every intention of getting married to someone else before that.”

“What a terrible thing to say in front of your fiancée.”

Belial gazes intently at Grimm, who hugs the basket and mutters to herself.

“Hey, Grimm, was it? Why are you barefoot?”

“It’s a religious thing. If I wear shoes or socks, terrible things happen,” Grimm says with a smile, answering a common question thrown her way upon making a new acquaintance.

"...Six, let’s put some socks on her.”

“We can’t, Lady Belial. If I’m right, that’ll just kill her.”

But Belial’s eyes are shimmering with curiosity.

"That’s ridiculous, no one dies because they put on socks. And besides, I'm a Supreme Leader in an evil organization. Telling me that someone doesn’t want to do something makes me want to do it even more.”

“No, no, this one dies all the time. The moment I let her out of my sight, she always gets killed by the most idiotic and useless thing.”

Even as I say this, Belial takes out her portable teleporter and a memo pad.

Seems she’s serious about this. If I don’t do something, Grimm’s going to croak.

“...Hey, Commander, she’s not serious, is she? I brought you breakfast because I wanted to feed you. I’m a great catch, aren’t I? Whyever would you want to let such a wonderful fiancée die in your presence?”

“Listen, Grimm, when I give the signal, run as fast as you can. Belial’s the sort who doesn’t listen once she gets an idea into her head. I’ll throw myself in front of her to distract her. If you avoid her long enough, she’ll forget what she was trying to do.”

As though sensing the seriousness of my tone, Grimm pales as she slowly backs away.

However, instead of running, she softly sets the basket she’s been hugging to her chest onto the floor.

“Commander, I put more work into today’s sandwiches than usual. I'm pretty confident in them. They use high-grade Chirping Mole meat. When this battle’s finished, let’s have them together in the courtyard.”

“Don’t use meat I’ve never heard of. I’ll decide whether to eat it or not after seeing what the original animal looks like... But that’s completely beside the point. You need to run! We couldn’t even beat her with a small army!”

Grimm lightly presses her index finger to her lips and smiles sweetly.

“I’m not just a pretty face to be protected, you know. I’m not the type of rational, calculating woman who can abandon her fiancé when he’s about to put his life on the line for the girl he loves. Heh, if I could do that, I would’ve married some rich and handsome man a long time ago...”

“I’m not trying to put my life on the line. Also, calling yourself the girl I love is a bit of an exaggeration.”

Grimm ignores my comment and produces a large number of rings from her pocket.

“These are all the fruits of love that I gathered from patrolling the nighttime streets! The affection of these men and women will now—”

“Hraagh!”

Grimm is so caught up in the moment that she has no time to react as Belial cuts right through her speech and tackles her from below.

Damn, no wonder she’s considered Kisaragi’s best. Even I could barely react.

“Welp, it’s too late now that Lady Belial’s caught you. Oh well, I’ll go gather some offerings to put on the altar.”

“Don’t give up so quickly! I thought you were going to protect me, Commander!” Grimm wails as Belial pins her to the ground. Alas, the most I can do when facing a Supreme Leader is buy some time...

“That’s why I told you to run, dammit... Excuse me, Lady Belial, she’s still one of my subordinates. I can’t have her dying...”

“Here we go!”

It's not that Belial can't read the room, it’s that she doesn’t want to bother doing so. And after completely ignoring Grimm’s and my exchange, she forces a pair of socks onto Grimm’s feet.