Beatrix tossed her mask aside. From her face, I could see that the blue smoke wasn’t affecting her. Nanna’s force field neutralized this poison for us alone, so either she had an iron will, or she had worked out an innate internal defense system to prevent it from affecting her.
It didn’t matter, as long as she could fight. Beatrix knew that one blow wouldn’t be enough to kill me, and so if she kept her mask on, she would be gradually worn down until she met her demise.
The next move would decide this battle.
“I apologize for keeping you waiting...” she said.
“No apologies needed,” I replied. “I understand a lady needs time to get prepared. I’m not so small a man as to complain when a woman is dressing herself for a special occasion.”
“My, what a gentleman... I didn’t think I’d receive such passionate remarks in the heat of battle.”
The assassin gave a wolfish grin as she beckoned me to battle; I gave a smirk of my own in return.
The battlefield was stalling. The kaggen and the huntsman arachne were busy being kept in check by Margit, and they couldn’t act rashly for fear of distracting their leader. Siegfried and his mighty spear kept the hlessi locked down. His weapon was a weighty thing, perhaps three times thicker than your average spear. Unlike my sword, it had enough weight to force its way back even if two blades struck at it simultaneously.
The vierman was hiding as usual. With her hidden, Kaya couldn’t move freely and we had to constantly be on guard for any sudden called shots. However, considering the explosive impact of her arrows, I imagined that she didn’t want to shoot if there was even a slim chance that she could hit her leader.
Such was the situation. My victory here would decide the flow of the entire battle.
I took my favored position and dashed ahead, with my center of gravity slightly forward. I had my blade at the ready, not quite lined up to pop off another Schism just yet. As I closed with Beatrix, she unleashed an unexpected move.
“YAAAAH!”
She’s kicking with her left leg?! The one I mangled?!
Her leg aimed high. On pure instinct, I brought up Schutzwolfe to counter the incoming kick, this time managing to slice right through at around knee height. A great gush of blood came pouring forth from the wound.
“Ngh... My eye!”
This woman’s mad! Beatrix had sacrificed her leg and used some kind of physical buff spell to raise her blood pressure high enough to blind me! Who the hell thinks of something like this?!
I had figured she was up to something when her swinging kick came. Although I hadn’t managed to cover my face with some Unseen Hands, I had spent enough physical training preparing for the possibility that my enemy would go for my eyes to know how to react in the moment. This wasn’t something honed with the Fellowship; this was a practically bone-deep response drilled into me from the time with the Watch.
There are three possibilities that lead a skilled swordsman to meet his end on the battlefield. Overwhelming numbers, exhaustion from a never-ending gauntlet of battles, and involuntary movement prompted by dirty tricks—like having your eyes gouged out.
As soon as I knew the fountain of blood was coming for my face, I closed my right eye and kept the left open so that I wouldn’t miss a moment of the battle until it hit. As soon as I felt the warm splash upon me, I switched eyes. If I hadn’t ground this reaction all the way in, then I would have lost both my eyes.
...Hold on. For some reason, my left eye felt strangely...hot. It didn’t feel like blood had splashed on me, but boiling water. It continued to sting, as if it were inflamed or something. What a crooked technique! So it wasn’t just that she had poisonous hands; her whole body was toxic! She wasn’t bad looking—had she given other victims of hers a literal kiss of death in the past?!
“How long can you put up with it?” Beatrix shouted.
The assassin must have been confident in her technique if she was willing to sacrifice an entire limb for it. However, as I stared back at her with my remaining good eye, she was plainly surprised. She used her momentum to continue her dance and aimed another kick at me. All I needed to do was take her other leg.
My eye hurt. Under my closed lid, it felt like my eyeball was sizzling away to nothing. I shelved away the pain; if I let it distract me from performing at my best, then I wasn’t worthy of calling myself a Fellow of the blade.
Centrifugal force sent Beatrix’s spinning kick toward me. I prepared my sword once more and received her attack. Her own speed had let my cut go cleanly through, and her lower leg came spinning away.
However, this time her sacrifice was a feint. As blood coated the floor, Beatrix slipped into my shadow.
The huntsman and the kaggen cried out at once.
“Together now, Primanne!”
“Of course!”
“I don’t think so!” Margit cut in.
I had been so focused on Beatrix’s kick that I had allowed her to escape into the shadows. Instantaneously, the two other nearby assassins had clocked this as the perfect moment to strike. Margit leaped once more into action to protect me. The two demihumans were gunning at me, planning to use their greater size to crush me, or at least slow me down. With shear-hands and garrote wire raised, it was obvious from their postures as they soared through the air that they had not factored in a safe landing.
“Margit!”
“Of course!”
My partner and I were perfectly in sync. It only took one word from me for her to know what I wanted from her. There was nothing more encouraging than a partner you could give your back to. I stumbled slightly as she did a half-turn around my body. It was a mite embarrassing, but I managed a perfectly capable sword swing. Margit wasn’t finished either. My partner knew the shape of my body perfectly, and so she took just the right moment to fire her shortbow from underneath my arm at our foe just as I finished my follow-through.
“Grk!”
“Aagh!”
Margit’s target was the huntsman arachne; mine was the kaggen. The one named Primanne came a beat earlier thanks to the speed boost from her wings.
I made a clean cut through her scythe-like limbs; Margit’s arrow pierced the arachne’s mouth. Both were more than enough to incapacitate them. Still, they still tried to use their descent to knock us down. I relaxed all but my core, and my partner shifted her weight. I moved like a puppet on a string, and my body was pulled safely out of harm’s way.
It was close—the dice had decided that I had just passed that check—and I could practically smell them as they passed by and crashed into the ground. They went tumbling away, inertia refusing to loosen its grip. It might have been fight-endingly bad if they’d landed that charge.
“Wouldja mind not flirting mid-fight...?” Siegfried complained as he grappled with the hlessi and their complex onslaught of spins and stabbing strikes.
I felt he was misunderstanding our teamwork. I’d have told him as much, but there was no time for banter.
“YAAAAAGH!”
Like a falling drop of water, Beatrix came pelting toward us from a shadow on the ceiling.
I realized that those two assassins had set into their suicide strike because they’d wanted to draw our attention away from Beatrix. Unfortunately for them, I had seen her meld with the darkness with my own two eyes. I was certain that she hadn’t been running away. A surprise attack from above had always been on the table.
Without legs, there were only so many ways that she could buy herself momentum again. Now in freefall, Beatrix had used the unrelenting power of gravity for a velocity boost on par with her own abilities on the ground.
The ceiling was high up. With the boost from her aerodynamic figure and no drag to speak of from her legs, she’d hit terminal velocity early in the drop. Her height and frame were bulked out by her armor, bringing her easily above seventy kilograms. She must have been rocketing toward us at around two hundred kilometers per hour.
At that speed she’d die if she landed wrong. She let out a fierce shout to squeeze out all of her remaining energy. Her left arm was held in front like a shield; her right was held close to her side. Everything suggested that this was to be her last attack, a total desperation strike.
If I didn’t put up a perfect defense, I would be dead. I couldn’t dodge clear of it either. Judging by her speed, by the time she hit the ground she would collide with my shadow. She could simply dive into it and chain into another attack. I was happy to take on her kamikaze attack, but I didn’t want to give her the option to change course and aim for Kaya or Siegfried instead.
I was a man—if she wanted my blood, then I would gladly take her on.
I had left Margit in charge of evading the last two, so I was still in full form. I had enough strength left to unleash a solid blow. Slashing above your head was a difficult task with a mensch’s physiology, and Hybrid Sword Arts weren’t best suited for it either, but all the same I needed to show my stuff.
This wasn’t a move you were supposed to use with a double-edged sword, but I held it high and braced my left arm against the blade. There would be no swing. I would meet her right here, solid and unmoving, and if I held fast, she would part around me.
Beatrix would be here in the next eyeblink.
The assassin unleashed her spear-hand strike. In the exact same moment, I pushed my sword forward to meet her. Her speed turned against her as my razor-sharp sword made contact. It didn’t take much strength at all to make this cut; all I needed to do was stay firm.
I met her gauntlet-crushing spear-hand with my sword. After an imperceptibly quick moment, I felt the impact ripple down my arm. My sword pierced her glove, dug into her flesh, and shattered through her bones. I had bested her in the clash. My sword shredded through her arm.
“Ngh...” Beatrix groaned. “Graaah! NOW!”
My strike had knocked her off her original trajectory. She reached out her left hand and grabbed the collar of my armor as she fell. I couldn’t keep my poise any longer. I collapsed. Margit was forced to leap off.
Even this full-body assault was just a distraction! That explained why she had fallen with such a disregard for her landing.
From a beam up on the ceiling, I felt a welling bloodlust. It was the vierman. In her hands was a mighty bow, supported by her two left hands. The bowstring groaned like steel cables on a bridge in a heavy storm. She must have judged this to be her final chance to strike.
Unlike last time, she had pulled the string back with her two right hands right up to her cheek. It was a full-power shot, with the capacity to injure her if she misjudged it. She was ready to unleash the mightiest shot we’d ever seen out of her.
I couldn’t avoid it like this, and I couldn’t take it head-on either. I considered creating a barrier with space-time magic, but the room was thick with mana. I didn’t want to set off any kind of accidental chain reaction with such a potent spell. The scale of the possible explosion would make divine retribution look petty.
“Kaya! A—” I said.
“I’m already on it!” came the quick reply.
It was as our reliable herbalist had said—her sling-staff was all set. A potion was safely cradled in a pouch attached to a seaweed rope. The bottle went soaring through the air before the vierman could loose her shot. The sling-staff made up for Kaya’s lack of physical strength—her magical missile flew farther and more accurately than any throw could manage. It didn’t matter too much, given the concoction inside. The bottle shattered and cast its arrow-warding mist around the area.
“Whoa?!” came Kaya’s own confused response.
It had taken a little while for me to realize that even if it was the same concoction, the potions that Kaya used herself were always far more potent than if anyone else used them. Sure, arguably she wasn’t too skilled at manifesting magic through her staff, but she had grown fully capable of refining the spells that she brewed up.
When it came to the arrow-ward, it didn’t stop at just arrows. It was potent enough to eat away at the bow itself. In almost no time at all, the mist seeped deep into the vierman’s bow and caused the body and the string to break down. This was a mighty bow that a normal person couldn’t even draw an inch; the damage from the snapback would be huge. As the bow started to fall apart, the tension in the bowstring released, causing the remaining pieces to go haywire; the arrow misfired and the string hit her right in the face. A huge gash opened up on her face and lip, and a tooth leaped from its place in her jaw. The bow couldn’t stand the weight of the damage it had received. It shattered, and the pieces flew out of her hands.
Even the vierman couldn’t handle such a mighty whiplash. She covered her face in her hands as she fell from the rafters.
“Gurgh!” she said as she fell.
The first to react was the huntsman arachne, still with an arrow stuck in her jaw.
Margit had aimed true. The arrow hadn’t gone straight through—in addition, it wasn’t tipped with poison, as ideally we wanted to capture the assassins alive—and hadn’t been a fatal hit. She pooled her little remaining strength to dash across the room to catch her falling comrade.
Back at the table, there were only a few things that killed min-maxed adventurers: suffocation or irreducible fall damage. How many foolish adventurers had plunged to their deaths in an attempt to prove their guts after being told that anyone would die if they fell from a height of ten meters?
The next to react was Beatrix, who still had me pinned down. She used her remaining hand to claw her way up my body and opened her mouth to reveal a tongue tattooed with another lily of the valley.
Ahh, so she does have the kiss of death as part of her arsenal, I thought. With both legs out of commission, one arm sliced through, and the other grabbing my armor, the only way left to kill me was through her toxic bodily fluids.
As the idle and irrelevant thought that she certainly had the looks for honeypot assassinations flitted through my mind, her face closed in on mine.
“I warned you about looking at my man the wrong way!” Margit said.
Just as our lips were about to touch, I felt soft flesh upon them. Margit had blocked the kiss with her own hand.
I made use of the moment’s opening to deliver a big kick. Beatrix let out a spluttering groan. With only one limb left, it seemed like she had finally run out of energy. She had lost a lot of blood already, and my kick had told me that I’d just broken a few ribs in the process. She was a professional, it was true, but even someone of her caliber wouldn’t be able to stay conscious with this much damage.
“Bea... You o’ay?!” came the hlessi’s voice.
“Don’t you dare move,” came Siegfried’s curt reply. “I’m bad at judgin’ my strength.”
The hlessi had evidently cottoned on to the fact that all four of their allies had been felled. Siegfried didn’t miss the opening. He used the butt end of his spear to finally pin his foe and placed his foot on them for good measure.
“Dammit...” he muttered. “My body count’s still trailing...”
The hlessi tried to squirm free, but with my comrade’s heavy boot upon them, they had no way out. We’d trained him too well to capitalize on their moment of helplessness to cause them undue harm. He used his spear to push away the hlessi’s daggers, then placed the business end to their neck to warn them to stay still.
“Bea... Bea...!”
“Stop moving!” Siegfried said. “Dammit... I know this is the best way of doin’ this, but you’re makin’ me feel like the bad guy...”
And with everyone neutralized our mission was comple—
“Blood and stars! Useless, useless adventurers! Stand up! Get back to work! My despair hasn’t yet run its course!”
Oh yeah, this guy. He had been squealing all throughout the battle, but I’d tuned him out.
“Margit, stay on guard, please,” I said. “Kaya! Tend to the wounded!”
“W-Waaah!” Kaya screamed. “Erich?! I think you’re the most wounded here! Your f-face, it’s...it’s bubbling!”
As I was giving the order to Siegfried and Etan to knock out our opponents for good measure, Kaya came dashing up to me, her face as white as a sheet.
In the chaos of the battle, I’d forgotten that Beatrix had slung her toxic blood over half of my face. That wasn’t to say it didn’t hurt—stung like hell, in fact—but I’d filed it away under “beats dyin’.”
“Holy crap...” my comrade said. “Erich... Your face is somethin’ else...!”
“Huh? Really, guys? It hurts, but...” I said.
“O-Okay, we’ll sanitize your eye first!” Kaya said. “Stay right there! Don’t you dare move!”
As she wiped away the blood with short, firm strokes, I heard a strange ripping sound and felt something fall from my face. It was my face. More accurately, the skin Beatrix’s poison had killed.
“Eep...”
Seeing my own decayed flesh made a squeak escape my throat. I could hear the telltale rattling of a SAN check in the confines of my skull.
Seriously? I thought. I’m gonna be okay...right? Right?! It’ll go back to normal, won’t it? I’ll be able to see again, won’t I?! I might’ve said it would be cool to be a one-eyed warrior like Date Masamune, but I don’t want any kind of grotesque injury that will send my APP into free fall!
“W-Wow... Y-Your eye is...not a color a mensch eye should be...” Margit said.
“D-Don’t frighten me like that!” I yelled. “Margit, don’t! Don’t tell me what’s happening!”
“Calm down, Erich!” Kaya said. “If your pulse rises, the toxins will be carried around your body more quickly! It’s only gone skin deep, so I’ll do what I can to deal with it!”
Kaya’s work was quick and efficient even as I panicked. Thanks to her incredible handiwork, the pain was gone in no time. She applied distilled water to remove any toxins and used a razor to cut away the remaining dead tissue. It was only after she applied a healing potion and told me that I would be back to normal—healed perfectly nice and cleanly even without the boon of an alfish favor, apparently—that I could finally relax.
“Your eye will take more time to heal, I’m afraid,” Kaya said. “It might take up to twenty days for your vision to return, but you’ll need to keep taking eye drops for the next season or so. You’ll need an eye patch for a while too.”
“Th-Thank goodness...” I said. “Thanks Kaya. I’m just happy so long as I can see again. I mean...eye patches are cool, but it’d totally throw off my depth perception.”
“You worry about the weirdest shit, I swear!” Sieg said.
I was thrilled. I had chosen to ignore Kaya’s comment that if she had been even half a minute later in treating me, then my eye might have fizzled into sludge.
DoT-damage poisons were terrifying stuff. They were kind of boring in TRPGs, so I’d not given them much thought, but they weren’t something you ever wanted to deal with in real life.
Now that I was calm and knew I’d be fine, I found the worst parts of my brain succumbing to runaway thoughts of how cool it would be to have a magical eye in a different color, or how baller I’d look as your prototypical eye patch-wearing swashbuckler... Fortunately a brief reality check sobered me.
Despite our fiddling and gabbing, none of the assassins had managed to get up. We hadn’t finished this quite in one piece, but our mission to neutralize the factory was a success.
[Tips] Status ailments chiefly ramify during battle, but they can cause dreadful lasting effects afterward if correct treatment isn’t given or if physical checks are failed.
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