Monogatari Series - Volume 31 - Chapter 45

Kissshot Ranking

000

“Oh yeah, Kissshot. I’d like to take this opportunity to ask you something, if you don’t mind. You know how, thanks to those three vampire hunters: Dramaturgy, Episode, and Guillotinecutter—you ended up being completely and helplessly beaten up, right?”

“I shall turn you into charcoal.”

You are way too lacking in delicacy, she said.

The iron-blooded, hot-blooded, cold-blooded vampire, the King of Oddities, Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade, glared at me—being glared at by her in her perfected form sent chills not just down my spine, but also through my blood.

But, charcoal?

“Now that I have become complete, I can even breathe fire.”

“At that point, you’re no longer a demon but a kaiju, aren’t you?”

Well, I guess she was already like a kaiju.

Besides, if that middle-aged man in a Hawaiian shirt, Oshino Meme, hadn’t taken out her heart, it was true that she probably wouldn’t have had her limbs taken from her even if it took all three of the vampire hunters—at the very least, not as easily.

Oshino’s skill in stealing her heart without the person herself noticing was nothing short of awe-inspiring, but in other words, it meant that he wouldn’t have been able to do such a thing against Kissshot if he hadn’t caught her off guard.

She wasn’t just the King of Oddities for show.

Even if you took away the fact that I was currently her servant and had to view her in a favorable light, I would still say as such—and that was why I wanted to ask.

Though it was just simple curiosity.

“In the five hundred years you’ve spent alive—well, I suppose you weren’t exactly alive, since you’re a vampire—how would you describe the strongest among the opponents you’ve fought before? It doesn’t have to be limited to vampires, and it doesn’t even have to be oddities, either.”

“The strongest? You mean, the strongest after me, right?”

Even the way she tilted her head was pompous.

Well, yes, the strongest after Kissshot herself.

Even though I asked about it casually, it seemed to have been a tumultuous five hundred years, so the predicament we found ourselves in this time may not have necessarily been her biggest crisis—had she had experiences where she felt even more cornered than now?

As a high school third-year who had gone through three consecutive battles against a bunch that were quite literally beyond human, I couldn’t help but be simply curious—had there been anyone even stronger than those three?

There had to have been.

“I wonder about that. ‘Strong’ and 'weak’ are just standards, after all.”

Kissshot said, quite self-importantly.

What, are you planning on spouting some enlightened philosophy?

“For example… My servant. From your perspective, out of those three battles, which of them did you find the strongest?”

“Hm?”

“If you ask me, then just as I advised, it would be Guillotinecutter at the top, and then Episode, and then Dramaturgy. However, contrary to expectations, from your experience, the hardest fights were in the reverse order, were they not?”

“Hmm…”

Now that she’d said that, it could be true.

The fight against Guillotinecutter where Hanekawa had been taken hostage, and the fight against Episode where Hanekawa had nearly died… Just remembering them was utterly repulsive, but on the other hand, even though that class rep among class reps hadn’t gotten involved, the fight against Dramaturgy that had driven me to the wall had been the one where I’d been the closest to dying.

In the first place, if that giant hadn’t so graciously withdrawn from the fight, it was very unclear whether or not I could’ve actually won… I could believe it if he’d made the professional decision that “it wasn’t worth it to get serious and injure this small fry that was just starting out”. In that surrender, there may have been a plan to flatter this amateur and make me feel good about walking away.

Even if, on my end, I had my own excuses, or rather, circumstances, that it was my first battle…

“Are you saying that compatibility matters when it comes to battles?”

“I—and you also, now—we may be bad with the sun, but most beings that live on this Earth have no problem with sunlight. Meanwhile, there are beings that die from oxygen—would you define a being that dies from eating garlic the 'strongest’?”

So she was saying that even the strong had their weak points.

Even though garlic was just tasty—although, now it would kill me if I ate it.

Then, were poisonous mushrooms the strongest? The fugu? However, it was hard to think of poison, which only went into effect when ingested, as meeting the conditions for being the “strongest"—not to mention, with the fugu, we even went to the trouble of removing the poison before eating it.

Right now, the strongest person from my point of view would have to be Dramaturgy, but if I expanded my outlook, I could say that my past encounter with the flu had been an even tougher battle. A fever of 40 degrees that lasted for days on end. In terms of how many times I thought I would die, the vampire hunters barely amounted to anything..

"Also, if we’re talking about mental damage, then the times I got beaten up by my little sisters were definitely more overwhelming…”

“Everyone is weak to family, after all. …When it came to my first thrall, the original Oddity Slayer, I did not make him my thrall because he was strong.”

In the first place, “fighting” was a rare occurrence over my five hundred years of activity—said Kissshot.

“Is that so? I always had the impression that vampires were battle-hungry, though.”

“That is a mistaken impression produced by the media.”

“'Mistaken impression produced by the media’?”

“With the specialists, 'tis hunt and be hunted. The reason you ended up with these three consecutive battles this time was because of that Hawaiian shirt’s plan—it was a game.”

I see.

Vampire hunters—so that’s what it meant to have those hunters as enemies. It wasn’t that fleeing was winning, but that you won by fleeing. From the perspective of the vampires who were on the side of the hunted, they weren’t on equal footing to begin with.

It’s because so many countermeasures had been put in place against her that she’d been stripped of her limbs and had her heart taken from her… For someone like me, who was just starting out—if the same countermeasures were taken against me, I would surely die in an instant. In fact, it was only because I was given time to take countermeasures and strategies that I was able to exploit the weakness of the professionals who weren’t accustomed to the situation of “the enemy coming after them"—it wouldn’t be good for the future if I thought that I was able to beat those three entirely because of my own abilities.

After all, my own abilities were but a fraction of Kissshot’s abilities. If she was attacked, if she was marked a target for extermination because she was strong, then that may as well mean that she was weak… Like an endangered species that was hunted to excess.

"I guess it’s like how your grades and your intelligence don’t necessarily coincide.”

Though there were people like Hanekawa whose grades and intelligence did coincide—putting aside whether or not they coincided for me.

“And as for if the culprit is stronger than the victim in murder cases, that would definitely be a no…”

It really made me think.

I’d secretly schemed to tie things up with the play on words of “Strength [tsuyosa] alone is not applicable [tsuuyou shinai]”, but the current mood had become not so frivolous—perhaps it was time for me to dejectedly leave from the side exit [tsuuyoumon].

“In the end, it doesn’t really matter if you’re strong or weak, huh.”

“Nay, of course it matters if you are strong. However, 'tis only in second, or maybe third place—competing with whether you win or lose.”

There may be times where the strong end up losing, it would be an error in judgment to say that you should be happy to win while weak—although, there were probably a number of people who would prefer to be strong, even if they lose.

Then, what came in first place?

“Of course. 'Tis whether you live or die.”

Even if you may be weak, even if you may lose.

Being alive is what matters most—said the immortal oddity. And I, not yet having returned to being human—being dead just by being alive—did not know what she was thinking as she said that.