Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 5 - Chapter 19

Chapter 19: How to Defeat a Hero

“Yaaaah!”

Lily charged barehanded at Iino, though Iino was far beyond the combined efforts of all my servants. She didn’t have her favorite black spear in hand. Iino had snatched it away during her previous attack, and she hadn’t had the opportunity to retrieve it.

“What can you do without a weapon?” Iino asked in astonishment.

She wasn’t looking at Lily. She was looking at me... For some reason, Iino only ever talked to me this entire time. Those words were meant for Lily, but were instead directed at me. After seeing this multiple times now, I finally realized what I had found strange. It was like Iino wasn’t acknowledging the girls’ individuality. She didn’t acknowledge that monsters could act independently.

Now that I thought of it, when Iino faced off against Gerbera, she’d yelled, “I won’t lose to some monster being manipulated by a villain.” The ability to manipulate monsters... I recalled the definitive difference between Kudou and myself. Was this truly just a coincidence? Why was Iino attacking us in the first place?

She had overwhelmed us so completely, with no room for debate, that I hadn’t really had time to consider it. Perhaps she was greatly misunderstanding something.

“Ah?!”

Before I could put my doubts into words, I saw Iino thrust her foot into Lily’s stomach. With no weapon in hand, Lily had no choice but to defenselessly take the blow to her gut. However, it was Lily who flashed a smile, while Iino looked slightly shocked.

“What the? What’s this feeling...?”

Iino’s foot sank deep into Lily’s belly. It was as if Lily’s innards were utterly smashed, but that wasn’t what happened. I suddenly understood what Lily’s goal was. She had partially undone her mimicry to turn a portion of her body back into a slime. The gelatinous substance was both lithe and tenacious. It could absorb a simple blow.

“Got you.”

Using the momentary opening from Iino’s shock, Lily grabbed Iino’s leg. She gathered her mana on the spot. A green glyph took shape. It was grade 3 wind magic. Its effective range was narrow, but that only made it more dense as an attack.

The magic activated, enveloping both Iino and Lily. Lily was controlling it as best she could to avoid hitting herself, but she couldn’t avoid her own magic entirely. This attack risked her own life. There was no way it wouldn’t damage Iino.

Or so I thought. Iino bent her knees slightly. Before I could even think “no way,” she’d already taken action. Her leg sprang up, and she kicked off the ground with the jumping power of the Skanda. She took off with explosive force.

“Y-You’re kidding me?!” Lily screamed as both her legs came off the ground.

There was nothing left to suppress the Skanda’s speed anymore. Iino withdrew from the range of Lily’s magic in a flash. Lily’s resolute gamble had torn up nothing but the air.

“You sure are cruel, Majima,” Iino said to me as she shook Lily off her leg. “Even if they’re just your convenient playthings, using your monsters as sacrificial pawns is just...”

I could see a burning rage deep within her eyes. Seeing her like this, I was sure she was misunderstanding something here.

“Iino Yuna!”

Just then, a sharp voice cut in between our stare-down. Even Iino, who looked like she was ready to lunge in and punch me at any second, raised a brow. She then turned to the owner of the voice. It was a perfectly normal reaction, but this was the first time she gave us a moment to breathe since she’d appeared before us.

“Ummm, you’re...”

“I serve as the lieutenant of the Third Company of the Alliance Knights. My name is Shiran.”

“Oh, right. Lieutenant Shiran. We spoke once before, if I recall.”

Her reaction was clearly different from when she was dealing with Lily and the other girls. Her expression was still somewhat cold, but at the very least, Iino would converse with Shiran. Put another way, she wholly disregarded anything the others said, meaning this entire disaster she brought with her was all born from her misunderstanding.

“Why have you suddenly attacked us? I would hear of your intentions.”

Shiran spoke vehemently, as if she was forcing her way between us. She couldn’t hide the criticism in her tone. Her confident expression was a little stiff, probably because she understood how bad this situation was. Even if she lent her support, the outcome couldn’t be overturned. That was how overwhelming the difference was between Iino and us.

“I want to ask why you’re traveling with Majima Takahiro,” Iino replied in a thorny voice. “He’s the one who manipulated monsters into attacking Fort Tilia, you know?”

Shiran’s eye shot open, while I narrowed mine and knit my brows. I knew my suspicions were right now. Not that I could be happy about it. But with this, I got the gist of the situation. About two months ago, Iino had left Fort Tilia to head into the Depths. If all went to plan, she was to return after one month, meaning she would’ve seen the now-ruined Fort Tilia. She should’ve gotten a decent idea of what had happened based on that alone.

However, that was nothing more than an idea. She didn’t fully understand the events that had transpired. Hearsay lacked details, and it was possible that errors got included in any information she’d heard. Still, this was misinformation to a cruel degree.

I didn’t know what had happened, but Iino was under the impression that I was the culprit behind the attack. The reason she ignored everything Lily and the other girls were saying was because she thought they were nothing more than manipulated monsters. This was certainly a tremendous misunderstanding. The problem was that it was a major pain to fix a misunderstanding of this size.

“Wha—?! Y-You’ve got it wrong, Yuna,” Shiran said, her expression changing entirely.

“What have I gotten wrong?” Iino replied, her gaze strong.

“The monster tamer who attacked Fort Tilia was Kudou Riku, not Takahiro.”

“I heard about Kudou...”

“S-So that makes things easy! Takahiro had nothing to do with the attack. At any rate, it was Takahiro who defeated Fort Tilia’s assailant, Juumonji Tatsuya, and routed the monster tamer Kudou Riku, who was working behind the scenes!”

It was all true. Shiran didn’t tell a single lie. But Iino shook her head.

“I didn’t hear anything about that.”

“Th-That can’t be...!”

From Iino’s perspective, what she’d heard before and what Shiran was telling her now were both hearsay from strangers. As such, it was a matter of who she trusted more. Shiran was accompanying me, so it wasn’t strange Iino doubted her claims.

“Besides, Juumonji attacked the fortress?” Iino’s gaze grew sharper. “I heard there were people out there spreading such stupid rumors. Looks like it’s true.”

Juumonji was a member of the first expeditionary force and Iino’s companion as they traveled through the Woodlands. It was difficult for her to believe he was a culprit. Furthermore, Iino had heard about these “stupid rumors” beforehand. She wasn’t going to pay any attention to such claims no matter who told her of them now. It would only worsen her impression of us.

Iino knew I had fed Mizushima Miho to Lily. She might even believe I was the one who had killed her. I didn’t do anything of the sort, of course, but I didn’t have any evidence to prove otherwise. Even if I did manage to prove my innocence somehow, it didn’t change the fact that I had Lily eat her corpse.

Even if it was necessary for my own survival, it wasn’t a valid excuse. Majima Takahiro was evil, so it made sense he would attack Fort Tilia. So long as she believed that, Iino wouldn’t back down.

It was impossible to defeat the Skanda in a direct confrontation. Even though Shiran was a third party, her words couldn’t reach Iino. It was hopeless. We were blocked off from every direction. If I were alone, I’d simply resign myself here.

“Hey, can you give yourself up already?” Iino averted her gaze from Shiran and spoke to me, sounding fed up. “You can already tell you can’t win, right?”

Iino glanced to the side where Lily was accumulating her mana.

“Lily...” I muttered.

There was a strength in her expression that differed from Iino’s. It was a sign of her tenacious will. Lily had yet to give up. I could tell through our mental path that all the others felt the same. As such—even if that weren’t the case—I couldn’t afford to give up either. Yet as I made my resolve, something completely unexpected happened.

“Waaaah!”

Someone yelled. It wasn’t me. It wasn’t Lily, or Gerbera, or Rose.

“K-Katou?!” I cried.

The one who yelled in self-abandonment and ran right past me was the girl who was supposed to be totally powerless. She ran down the mountain path that clung to the cliffside, holding a knife in a reverse grip. Her strides were slow and uneven. It was so unexpected that everybody was late to react, but the Skanda was still the fastest to move.

“Urk.”

Iino restrained Katou in an instant.

“What are you trying to do? From what I can tell, you haven’t awakened to your cheat or anything...”

Katou’s face twisted in pain. Iino took a closer look at her and suddenly frowned.

“Huh? Are you...Katou Mana?”

“You...know me...? Agh.”

Katou let out a stifled groan as Iino twisted her hand behind her back, forcing her to drop Rose’s specially made knife. Iino stopped the rest of us with her gaze as we nearly rushed over to Katou on reflex.

“I heard from Takaya. Your stature is similar to what he described.”

“Oh. Now that you mention it, Takaya did meet back up with the expeditionary force, didn’t he?”

“This is baffling... From what Takaya told me, you’re Mizushima’s junior and got along with her very well. So why are you with Majima? He made his monster eat Mizushima.”

“Who knows? Isn’t it because my standards for evaluation are different from yours?”

Though her expression stiffened in pain, Katou responded rather flippantly. I couldn’t understand her, in an entirely different way from Iino.

“Iino, I believe what you’re saying is right,” Katou continued. She wasn’t acting like a girl driven to the end of her rope. “What Majima-senpai did is wrong. That’s why he’s a villain... I get it. You must be very virtuous to say such a thing. What’s more, you’re overflowing with a sense of justice. Even if we weren’t treated as saviors here, I’m sure you would’ve acted exactly the same. People like you truly might be real heroes.”

“What are you trying to—”

“But even so, Majima-senpai was the one who saved me. Not you.” Iino faltered as Katou strengthened her glare. “From my perspective, you’re the evil one for hurting him.”

“I-I’m...evil...?”

“Yes. It doesn’t matter to me whether you’re virtuous... Oh, maybe it does. I guess you could say it’s rather convenient for me.”

Her choice of words was strange. Iino looked at her, wondering what she meant.

“Iino, you’ve been holding back all this time, right?”

“Huh?”

Katou continued, ignoring my astonished gasp. “I mean, if you were so inclined, you could’ve decapitated everyone by now, right?”

What’s she saying? I thought. But now that she mentioned it, despite the overwhelming gulf between us, nobody had died yet. The only one Iino had swung her sword at was Gerbera, and even then, she had only cut off her legs.

“Even though you know they’re monsters, do you refrain from using your sword when they look like humans? With Majima-senpai too. You should’ve been able to cut him down instead of just punching him.”

“Wh-What are you saying?! He’d die!” Iino replied in a startled tone.

I was taken aback by the difference in cognition. After giving it some thought, however, Iino had only ever said that she was going to “beat me down.” All she had actually done to me was punch me in the face. She had done so with her swordhand, but she didn’t cut me. I had been desperate, thinking I would get killed, while Iino was fighting with no intent to do so. I’d thought that the situation before me was hopeless, but that wasn’t how Katou had interpreted it.

“You’re right. It’d be bad if he died, huh? You really are a true hero. I’m glad you are. Truly glad.”

A cold sweat ran down Katou’s face as she endured the pain and forced a self-assured smile.

“Please don’t forget,” she continued. “Just as you said, I’m no more than a normal human. I have no strength. I can’t fight. I have no means of surviving if something happens to me. I’m not opposed to taking advantage of others’ weaknesses either. I’m a weak human, after all.”

“What are you—” Iino began to say, when she suddenly raised her head.

“Hee hee... Hee hee hee. Katou, I truly do find you to be the most terrifying of all.”

Iino’s gaze was fixed on Gerbera, who had been defeated quite spectacularly moments ago. Gerbera had apparently managed to pull herself together while Katou bought time.

“I sincerely doubt your sanity,” Gerbera said to Katou.

“How mean. I told you before, didn’t I? I’m actually quite the scaredy-cat.”

“That’s precisely why you are terrifying.”

Gerbera dug what talons she had left into the ground. She held up the manamobile she’d crashed into with one hand.

Iino looked somewhat exasperated at her. “That’s quite crude, isn’t it?”

“Don’t be like that. This manner of weapon happens to suit me best, just so you know.”

Gerbera was wielding the vehicle like a club. This should’ve put a fair amount of stress on the frame, but Rose had customized this manamobile. Even though it creaked, it didn’t break apart. It could be used as a blunt weapon. But that didn’t seem like it would be enough to deal with Iino. No matter how powerful a weapon was, it didn’t mean anything if it couldn’t hit. Its effectiveness would also be hindered by Gerbera’s missing legs.

“Majima, I know this one is your strongest trump card, but no matter how you put it, it’s unreasonable to rely on it now.”

It was natural she’d think this way, but I had something else on my mind entirely. Gerbera was...well, Gerbera. That was why I felt something was out of place. Katou and Rose got along really well, something Iino had no way of knowing. Despite this, Katou hadn’t rushed to Rose’s side when she slammed into the cliffside. Instead, she had run to Gerbera first.

It looked like Katou had lost her composure, but if so, she would have gone to Rose right away. Since she hadn’t, didn’t it mean the complete opposite, then? Katou wasn’t panicking. She had calmly analyzed the situation with a cool head and then taken action. The reason she had gone over to Gerbera was because she had a clear purpose in doing so.

“With this, it’s over,” Iino declared, breaking into a sprint toward Gerbera.

Gerbera responded by swinging the manamobile with all her strength. There was no way such a crude attack would hit the fleet-footed Skanda. That was why Gerbera wasn’t aiming for Iino to begin with.

“Wha—?!”

The manamobile left Gerbera’s hand, flew over Shiran and Kei’s heads, and collided into the cliffside hanging over the road. Iino had yet to get close to Gerbera, so she had no way of stopping it.

The cliffside was already brittle enough that it had almost crumbled when Rose crashed into it. Now the powerful Great White Spider had thrown a sturdy vehicle at it with all her strength. The force of the impact was terrifying, shattering both the vehicle and the cliffside into pieces. As a result, a natural phenomenon occurred, one that had stopped us on our journey many times over now—a landslide. A torrent of rocks and dirt came pouring down onto the mountain road.

Naturally, the Skanda wouldn’t take any damage from this. With her speed, it would be easy for her to get out of the way. Yes. It would be ever so easy—for her, that is.

“Wh-Why...?”

Iino was completely taken aback. She was definitely remembering what Katou had just told her.

“Please don’t forget. Just as you said, I’m no more than a normal human. I have no strength. I can’t fight. I have no means of surviving if something happens to me.”

“No way!”

Iino cried out and turned around. Katou was standing there, holding her hand out and smiling. I couldn’t suppress a shudder at the thought of what was going through Katou’s mind. We couldn’t escape Iino just by causing a landslide. Iino was intent on at least capturing me. But in this situation, with a fragile girl who possessed no strength about to die right in front of her, what would she do?

“Y-You idiot!”

Iino didn’t hesitate. She broke into a sprint with all the power of the Skanda. However...Iino had misunderstood. Katou certainly lacked the strength to directly take part in any fighting, but she was in no way weak.

Her weapon was her resolve. Her way wasn’t justice, but that didn’t make her evil. Katou Mana was merely acting in earnest desperation. That was why the hand she held out wasn’t seeking Iino’s help. The bracelet on her wrist was a magic tool I had given her for her own self-defense. The gem embedded in it was an imitation flash runestone. It could only be used once to create a non-lethal blinding light.

“I’m not opposed to taking advantage of others’ weaknesses either.”

That was what Katou had said, and she was doing just that with Iino. A blinding white light enveloped the crumbling cliffside.

“W-Wait! H-Hang on!”

Iino never could’ve guessed that the girl she was trying to save would launch a surprise attack on her. She ended up plunging into the light.

“Y-You’ve gotta be kidding?!”

Thus, the Skanda fell with a scream.