Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 2 - Chapter 7

Chapter 7: The Second Coming of Tyranny

Our blowfox was running away slower than the firefang we chased the other day, but it still felt like it was going fast. Or maybe it was better to say it was light on its feet. It was able to cut corners much tighter because of its smaller size. The firefang might have been faster in a straight line, but the blowfox could put up some fierce competition in a forest filled with obstacles. It was just a scant difference, though. The monster still couldn’t escape Gerbera.

“...It’s not meeting up with any of its kind,” Gerbera muttered a few minutes into the chase.

“Is it a stray?” I asked her, paying careful attention not to bite my tongue while I looked at her beautiful face right in front of me.

“Perhaps,” she whispered as she brought her face three centimeters closer. “If that’s the case, there’s no meaning in pursuing it any further.”

“Right. Seems like we’ve chased it enough. Can you finish it off when you get the chance?”

“Very well... Although, with so much shrubbery around, it would be difficult to catch it with my threads. I cannot possibly increase my speed much more while carrying you either, My Lord...” Gerbera nodded but suddenly raised her brow and squinted her red eyes. “Drats, that sly little rascal. What a blunder. It’s gone into a clearing.”

Just as she said, there was an open area ahead of us that even I could identify at this distance. Such places came up once in a while during our exploration of the forest. The clearing was about ten meters in diameter, forming a crooked circle in the middle of the densely packed trees. I could see the brown earth between the sporadic undergrowth. It didn’t look like a natural clearing, perhaps more the result of a recent forest fire.

In the one second it took me to think that, Gerbera arrived in the clearing. Just as she did, the blowfox dove into a thicket on the opposite side.

“You shan’t get away!”

Gerbera leaped into the air with such elegance one wouldn’t think she was handicapped by carrying me. But her landing in the middle of the clearing was the trigger for the perilous events to follow.

◆ ◆ ◆

Let’s talk a bit of theory. Our approach to more efficiently encountering monsters was to find packs of them, but how would the others react if we told them that? Lily would have absolutely been right here with us out of concern. Rose would’ve objected fiercely and we wouldn’t even be here in the first place. And if I had consulted Katou about this, she would’ve likely realized the massive pitfall to our plan that I hadn’t noticed.

I was now cognizant of this pitfall, one which threatened my life. Before, the following thoughts had gone through my mind:

Gerbera is here, so there’s no need to fear common monsters.

Rare monsters are the targets for my taming ability, and they’re not threats either.

If pushed to say, we only have to be careful of high monsters, but we won’t meet those even if we try.

I wasn’t wrong to think so. I wasn’t wrong... But I forgot to factor one thing into my calculations: I was an enormous vulnerability—a fatal flaw. I thought I was well aware of the greatest weakness of my ability already. However, I was too naïve. I didn’t scrutinize things adequately. I didn’t spend enough time thinking about it... or more specifically, I didn’t have the time to do so.

I needed to resolve the divide between Gerbera and Rose and the obligation I felt toward Katou, along with a whole bunch of other matters I had to carefully consider. There were a ton of things I needed to deal with, but I couldn’t settle them all in a single day. Because of that, there were some things I ended up overlooking.

One example of this was how I completely overlooked the matter regarding the mangled corpses that Katou pointed out yesterday evening. And now, my oversight was exposed in the worst way possible.

I judged it impossible for any monster to surpass Gerbera in battle. That wasn’t a mistake. But I was wrong to stop thinking there. Gerbera was in fact overwhelmingly powerful. It would be difficult for any monster in this forest to beat her in a head-on confrontation. However, that didn’t mean we would be safe in any situation. That’s because there was only one of her.

This was perfectly obvious. We humans weren’t capable of handling more than our two arms and legs could support. Gerbera had eight legs, but she still had a limit. To put it simply, I had forgotten that any single person could only do so much on their own.

◆ ◆ ◆

“...Wha—?!”

My eyes shot open the moment Gerbera came out into the clearing. Taking the place of the blowfox who jumped into the thickets were other blowfoxes jumping out all around us, already swollen up like balloons. There were well over 30 of them. That’s when I fully realized that what I truly needed to be careful of wasn’t a high monster, whose existence couldn’t even be proven, but a pack of common monsters attacking us in a wave of violence that even Gerbera couldn’t keep up with.

The hunter had become the prey. By the time I regretted how shallow I’d been, the trigger had already been pulled.

“Uwaaaah?!”

Over 100 fireballs came rushing in, causing a surging wall of flames all around us. There was nowhere to run. The fiery scenery turned pitch black as I closed my eyes in despair. This could only be described as careless. Monsters didn’t possess a firm will like humans, but they did have the same intelligence as animals. There were many animals back on Earth who hunted their prey strategically in packs, like wolves, lions, and hyenas. Meaning it wouldn’t be strange for monsters to do the same.

This clearing was their hunting ground; after inviting us in, it was now our execution site. Nothing could be done anymore. It was over. That was what I seriously thought. I even pictured my own grave. However, just then...

“Like I’ll let you!” Gerbera roared.

She freed up one of her hands while still carrying me and swung around ten or so spider threads like whips. I pretty much followed her hand with my eyes on reflex. There were fireballs right there in front of me. The dancing spider threads crashed into several of them.

I recalled the sight of the blowfox’s fireball smashing into a tree. Given enough of a solid impact, the fireball exploded. This was of course no different for a spider thread swung about with the full might of a high monster.

The fireballs struck by the thread in midair began exploding one after the other. If they were impossible to dodge, then it was better for them to explode early. That was surely Gerbera’s plan. It was a fairly violent approach, but there was no other means of escape.

The explosions occurred just a few meters away from us. Even if this was better than being swallowed up by them, we couldn’t do anything about the hot blast of wind enveloping us. Gerbera held me tight against her body to shield me, but the heat still burned my skin.

I couldn’t do anything but close my eyes and endure the pain. My screams were drowned out by the explosions and didn’t even reach my own ears.

I just had to endure.

I just had to bear the pain.

Hardly enough time passed for a breeze to blow through, yet it felt a hundred times longer than that.

The bomb blast finally passed me by. But that wasn’t the end.

“Sorry!”

I could barely hear Gerbera’s voice as I half lost my consciousness. The situation began changing far faster than my thoughts could process.

“U-Uwaaah?!”

I had no idea what was going on anymore, and I was once more bathed in burning heat. The interval between the spider threads intercepting the fireballs was getting shorter. Gerbera was charging full force to break through the siege while carrying me.

The ground burned. The air was scorching. Fortunately, Gerbera’s jumping power allowed her to charge in or retreat in an instant. Before I knew it, we were back into the dense atmosphere of the forest. Around the same time, a huge explosion broke out right behind us. I opened my eyes ever so slightly and saw a pillar of fire. The myriad of fireballs the blowfoxes spat out had crashed right into the center of the clearing we were occupying just moments ago and exploded in unison.

It was a horrifying sight. If Gerbera had taken just a split-second longer to make her decision, we would’ve been right in the middle of the explosion. She could likely survive the blast on her own, but there was no way I would’ve walked out of there. It was questionable whether I’d even leave a corpse. Just from our retreat, I was left with burns on my face and limbs. If not for the clothes Gerbera made of her own threads, my entire body would’ve been burned, presumably killing me from the shock.

“We’re withdrawing!” Gerbera screamed as she stooped down and leaped once more.

She was desperately trying to get away from the pack of blowfoxes. However, just as she was about to jump for the third time, Gerbera dug her talons into the ground and stopped. She had no other choice but to do so.

“It can’t be... That’s impossible...”

Such despair was unbefitting of her. But when I looked, I could see through my hazy vision what left her completely speechless.

There were a countless number of giant, lily-like flowers hanging down from the trees. I knew full well this was a monster in the form of a creeper. We brought one back for Lily as a souvenir yesterday. These were bullet creepers. They were parasites who absorbed nutrition from trees and scattered seeds from their flowers like bullets to actively assault their prey. Gerbera had stepped foot into an area where they were clinging to the trees as far as the eye could see.

Their response was ferocious. Countless bullet-like seeds shot out from the flowers and tore through the air. I felt an impact on my left hand from the first volley. After that, I was just in shock.

“Gaaah! Aaargh?!”

I took a shot to my shoulder. A seed dug into my stomach. Blood shot out of my thigh. It might have been fortunate that my consciousness was in a haze already from the burns, rendering my entire body somewhat numb. Discounting the horrible misfortune that had befallen me, that is.

Actually, calling this bad luck was somewhat inappropriate. Interpreting our escape into bullet creeper territory as bad luck was misinterpreting the problem. No matter how much bad luck I had, this kind of coincidence was out of the question. It was more natural to assume that this was part of the blowfoxes’ ultimate trap.

The reason Gerbera ran away in this direction had nothing to do with a whim. This was the most efficient route to get away from the initial trap. In other words, she chose to break through where their siege was weakest. And that’s where the second trap awaited us. Meaning the blowfoxes were using the bullet creepers.

The monsters of this world weren’t like those in RPGs. They didn’t line up side by side for battle regardless of race. However, one could still use another against a common foe. The initial trap they created was already deadly, and there was an even more deadly trap awaiting those who tore through their net. Perhaps such behavior was how the relatively weak blowfox survived in this forest.

After several more seconds of being torn up in a storm of violence, the volley of fire from the bullet creepers came to a stop. I didn’t know how many Gerbera had managed to intercept or how many she managed to take with her own body to cover for me. The fact that I got away without any fatal blows to my head or vitals was undoubtedly because she was desperately protecting me.

However, that was naught but futile resistance. The bullet creepers around us were ready for their next volley. The large pack of blowfoxes was closing in behind us. Gerbera had managed to just barely get me through this, but this was the end.

Actually, it was worth praising her for getting me this far. Asking for more was just unreasonable. I resolved myself for death through my hazy consciousness.

“Don’t...”

However, Gerbera had yet to give up. This refusal to abandon hope... this insistence to survive through all odds was likely what allowed her to live so long and opened the path to becoming a high monster. There was no way of making her give up other than tearing her young heart to shreds like Katou did. She was just that manner of horror.

“Don’t screw with me!”

Gerbera screamed as if denying the foreseeable future with all her might and let go of the luggage she had been carrying all this time—me. Now that her hands were free, she sheltered my body with her large body and legs.

“...”

I was now lying on the ground face up. All I could see was the original form of the white arachne above me. She had spent ages all alone. She fought all on her own. Because of that, she wasn’t used to fighting while protecting someone. Her true value in battle was fighting independently. Now that she had set aside the fetters which were tying her down, she was free.

In the short time allotted to her, when the bullet creepers were still loading their next volley and the blowfoxes had yet to arrive, Gerbera went on the offensive.

“Never again! I shall never allow my lord to face death because of me ever again!”

Gerbera swung both her arms. She brandished as many threads as she could manage and spread them into her surroundings indiscriminately. They struck everything in sight. Monsters. Trees. Anything and everything. There was no precision to it, and many of the threads missed. But Gerbera didn’t pay such trifling matters any mind. There was no need to. The threads wound about everything except for me, hidden under her body. Then, she took a firm grasp of all of them in her hand.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

She let out a bloodcurdling scream which shook the very air of the forest. Her eight legs dug into the ground. Gerbera was now fixed to the spot with her talons deeply taking root. It was the second coming of the white horror, the incarnation of tyranny.

All she did was pull on her threads at full force. That was it. However, what did such a simple action mean when performed by a horror among monsters?

The world contracted in on her position. The scene before my eyes was so absurd I could only see it as such. Her white threads pulled everything in sight with a terrifying force. The trees collided with each other as they were uprooted and smashed to bits with a roar. The bullet creepers wrapped around the trees could do nothing as they were torn off and flattened. The blowfoxes, just a step away from being caught in the disaster, ran away immediately.

Everything in the area, regardless of whether they were caught by her threads, met the same fate. Crashed, smashed, torn apart, and thrown into the air. Everything she pulled up collided one last time in the skies and was pulverized to pieces.

Broken fragments of wood, greenery, and monsters jumbled together in the sky and fluttered down like snowflakes. Nothing had retained its original shape. Even in my current state, I felt like laughing. This was some serious nonsense.

I had such a force at my command, yet I managed to make such a tremendous blunder. I was beyond redemption. I completely failed at being a master. To all the girls. That’s what I seriously thought. It was so pathetic I felt like I was better off just dying here.

“My Lord! Keep it together!”

Nevertheless, I couldn’t afford to die. My life was one Lily, Rose, and now Gerbera desperately fought to protect. I had a responsibility to survive even if I had to sink my teeth into a rock to cling for dear life.

“I’ll bring you to Lily immediately! Stay strong!”

I no longer possessed the strength to reply to her. I was bleeding all over. My flesh was burned, covered in red and black. However...

Like hell I’m gonna die here.

And as Gerbera carried me away, I desperately clung to life.