Chapter 249: The Loathsome Life of Lua (7)

Four shadows revealed themselves on the highland where silence had settled. The cliff soaring into the sky as if to touch the horizon was filled with purple flowers. Lua was being dragged by me with her arms tied. Eve was walking behind her. Behind Eve was a cart, and on the cart was a certain lump. The cart was covered by a fairly large partition and wine barrels, thoroughly concealing the fact that the lump was there. Eve hugged Cellu in her arms and looked at her surroundings.

Lamias were poking their heads out from the crevices of the cliff's rocks and watching their procession. Bound tightly together by curiosity, fear, and love for their queen, they were preparing for an ambush. Eve drew her curved sword with a heavy expression. After Cellu came down to the ground, she looked at me again.

I laid Lua down on the ground and drew my sword. It wasn't a holy sword. It was a cheap 50 silver sword borrowed from the local forge. Lua spoke.

"To think it would end like this, after all."

I wordlessly looked around the surroundings again. There were no humans who came to watch the Lamia Execution Ceremony because of the group beating of the fish-men. Grudges naturally work in an irrational direction, so people poured more interest into the Fish-man Execution Ceremony that directly swept through the port. The Lamias took their positions one by one and revealed their heads.

At that sight of them seemingly threatening us while showing off their sharp fingernails, Lua instead made a precarious expression and scolded her subordinates.

"What are you doing! Stay quietly!"

I looked around the surroundings again. Only the Lamias were approaching closely. I said to Eve.

"Eve, could you look around the surroundings a bit? To see if there are any people watching this scene."

"Will you be okay? There are so many Lamias over there."

"Just check around nearby to see if there is anyone or not. Don't chase them away, and if there is, just draw a circle in my direction. If not, shake your head."

Eve nodded her head. She roughly parked the cart she had dragged into a corner. At the same time, she let the lump contained in the cart slip and shoved it beyond the tall grass. Cellu stuck close to my side, and Eve carefully gripped her curved sword and went down the highland. Lua looked at the purple flowers blooming on the highland. She spoke.

"Hasom Flower."

"What?"

"These flowers are Hasom Flowers. My favorite flowers."

Lua slowly began to crawl toward the flowers. The sight of her long tail moving was like an earthworm. Crushing the grass on the ground, her smooth scales shone elegantly. The Lamias were slowly approaching. Eve drew a circle from afar. It had the meaning that someone was watching. She gripped her curved sword again and was coming back up. I gripped my sword and flipped over the crawling Lua.

"W-Wait a minute!"

Lua let out a short scream with a flustered face. She used all her strength to escape from my arms.

"A flower crown... let me wear a flower crown! Please... I..."

I wordlessly gripped my sword in a reverse grip. The sharp blade tip emitted a vivid blue light. The Lamias burst out while screaming. Arriving just in time, Eve grabbed one Lamia by the neck and slammed her to the ground. Sprinting out at the same time, Cellu tangled with two Lamias and rolled on the ground.

"Mom!"

Eve was startled and ran toward the Lamias. The roughly three remaining ones didn't give up and lunged at me. As I kicked them away with my foot, they crushed the grass and became covered in dirt. Lua struggled and shouted at me.

"Please...! Please! Spare me, I don't want to die... spare me! The flowers have bloomed like this. I wanted to try wearing a flower crown. I wanted to run around and play with the children on this hill. I hated the humans who made it so we couldn't do that. Why did they deceive us? Why did they treat us like that? Half-Elf. Do you know the answer?"

I raised my sword high. The Lamias collapsed on the ground were moaning. Cellu frowned while looking at her scratched wound. Eve smacked the Lamias that had lunged at Cellu one by one to stun them. She began laying the sprawled Lamias out on the ground like dried yellow corvina. When looking at their limp forms under the sunlight, they looked exactly as if they had been gruesomely murdered.

Tears welled up in Lua's eyes. She looked at me and let out a pitiful moan.

"I don't want to die."

And I drove my sword down.

"Kyaaaagh!"

Lua let out a scream and twisted her body. Blood drops trickled down along the sword that had pierced her stomach. I grabbed Lua's waist and began to stir my sword around inside her body.

"Aaaagh! Aaaagh! Aaaagh! It hurts! It hurts so much!"

I gave Eve a nod. Only then did Eve seem to realize something. Inflicting pain like this wasn't my method. I was intentionally making her scream as if to let someone hear it. Confirming whether there was a person watching. An execution method that inflicted an intentional amount of pain. I pressed down on her neck.

"Keuhuk... Keuk..."

Due to the rope that snapped while piercing Lua's stomach, her hand grabbed my shoulder. Lua shook her head and said to me.

"The children... spare them..."

Lua's hand went completely limp. I pulled out my sword and cleanly finished the clean-up. I stroked her closed-eyed face once and began to dig into the ground on the highland. The bloodstains spread everywhere were beyond gruesome. The collapsed Lamias forced their bodies up and spoke.

"We will kill you. The sin of killing our queen, the queen. You will have to pay for it with your deaths."

I wasn't scared in the slightest. Even if these Lamias swarmed me in groups of a hundred, I was confident I could turn them all into a butchered state. I checked Lua's pulse one more time.

I was satisfied that the pit was dug much deeper than I had thought. Since my strength had improved, my working speed was on the level of an excavator. I roughly pushed aside the piles of dirt scattered in the surroundings. Lua was still lying on the ground. I slowly pushed her into the deeply dug pit with my foot. When her limp body rolled down, it made a Thud! sound. I took a letter out from my arms and threw it on top of Lua's chest. I covered her lightly with dirt and worried about what I should erect on top of it. I didn't need to worry because the buried mark remained clearly visible, but I was still worried.

Eve tied up all the Lamias showing hints of resistance again and bunched them up on the ground. Seeing the Lamias, tied up in the cave in the shape of a flower, swaying their tails from all sides, they looked exactly like an octopus. I asked Eve.

"Did that bastard leave?"

"I think he left? I don't see him. I don't feel his presence either."

It meant that whoever came to watch us had disappeared. I stared at the tied-up Lamias and asked.

"You guys, if I let you go, will you live quietly?"

"We will kill all the humans!"

"The enemy who killed our queen! We will definitely get our revenge!"

Passionate shouts erupted, almost to an artificial degree. They glared at me with sharp eyes and ground their teeth. They were using all their strength to untie their ropes. I let out a Kik! scoff and approached them. When I approached holding my sword, the Lamias began to have a seizure.

"What! No! Don't! Doooooon't!"

"Don't do that! I told you not to kill us! You bad guy! You're mean! Trash!"

I ignored their shouts and untied their ropes. The Lamias, who had been trembling in fear, looked at me with dumbfounded expressions when I untied their ropes. I asked Eve again.

"Are you sure there is no one in the surroundings?"

Cellu poked her head out from the tall grass and nodded her head. The Lamias shrank their bodies and stared at me. I spoke.

"Protect your queen well."

Leaving the dumbfounded Lamias behind like that, we came down the highland. The Lamias murmured among themselves and then stared at the grave. Eve asked.

"What if those bastards gather together and cause a fuss?"

"Then should we go back and kill them?"

"I don't know."

"As soon as I get back, I'm going to send a letter to Ahildern. Telling them I killed one of the Four Heavenly Kings, but I really can't gauge if I killed her properly, so you, the Hero, should go and thoroughly search the area. Sparing them is a one-time thing. You know, right? Lamias are smart. Having done this much, I've fulfilled my duty."

"I guess so."

Far across the territory, the sun was setting. From Mermaid Island, a skiff came drifting in along with the gentle waves. As the sun set, a massive feast was held in the territory to announce the conclusion of the case. Both Eve and Cellu joined in the middle of that feast and sipped their drinks. I held my drinking cup and looked at the highland.

****

"Puha!"

In a corner of the highland, from a space shallowly buried in dirt, a woman's hand pierced through the grave. She was the Lamia Queen Lua. Still caressing her throbbing stomach, she was scanning the surroundings. There was absolutely no wound on the stomach that Lucius had dug into with his sword.

"Heok... Heok... What? What is this?"

"Queen!"

As if waiting for her to wake up, small Lamias revealed themselves from every corner of the highland. Lua looked around her surroundings with a dumbfounded face. A single letter was placed on top of her chest. Lua hurriedly unfolded and read the letter.

[The corpse is in the corner, the boat is below the cliff.]

One Lamia dragged a corpse over from the corner. It was a Lamia's corpse. It was clearly a corpse that had died in the middle of this attack. In the distant village, a campfire was taking place. The villagers were burning the tightly bound lumps. Lua could understand the meaning this corpse held. It was an intention telling them to leave quietly since he would treat them as dead. Lua wordlessly threw the Lamia's corpse into the grave and covered it with dirt again.

"Idiots. Truly idiots."

Grumbling, she went down the cliff just as written on the note. The other Lamias quietly followed behind her. The skiff was visible in the distance. Chilly air swirled on the beach where the sun didn't reach. Lua stared at the bobbing boat on the beach and grumbled again.

"There are so many of us, so how are we supposed to escape? Am I supposed to escape all alone? What a real fool."

And the waves crashed against the beach. Smack!

A single hand popped up onto the deck of the skiff. A pale hand. Lua's eyes widened. She kept her mouth tightly shut, her gaze unable to find its focus. Parting the water current, mermaids poked their heads out one by one. All of them were grinning. Parting the water current, one mermaid approached closely.

Ann. Lua also knew her name. Ann grabbed Lua's hand.

"Let's go. Our queen."

"...Fools."

Lua sniffled. She couldn't hold back her tears. Nothing mattered anymore. Pouring out her tears, Lua tightly hugged Ann.

"You guys are truly foolish idiots. Do you really like me that much?"