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Chapter 95
After separating from the Hero's party, we departed from Draupnir. At this moment, we were heading towards our next destination, riding in Tanaka which was running on the road.
Our next location was the northernmost region of the land inhabited by the humanoids. This was the domain which was believed to be the most dangerous place on the continent.
There were three reasons why it was called dangerous.
Firstly, there was its geographical location.
There was nothing perplexing or difficult about this point. The location was just simply bad.
The humanoids had most of their territory taken away by the demon race, so they were living in what little area of land they had left.
And the northernmost land was the location that was closest to the demon race's domain.
Nevertheless, the demon race did not advance any further into the humanoids' land. No, they could not advance any further.
And that was because of the second reason. The northernmost land was the territory of the species said to be the strongest out of the seven humanoid races and believed to be the existence closest to that of a devil. It was the kingdom teeming with vampires - yes, it was the kingdom of [Mjolnir] led by the Vampire Princess Benetnash.
Even if they were of the demon race, just Benetnash alone was someone they absolutely had to watch out for.
It seemed that if one were to ignore her and go around Mjolnir, she would ignore them. However, if they were to accidentally or carelessly try to advance towards Mjolnir, Benetnash would just lead her own army and utterly annihilate all of the enemy's troops.
In other words, the only reason the humanoids were still able to retain their right to exist and it had not yet been stolen by the demons was because it just so happened that the most troublesome individual existed in the most troublesome location.
"Benetnash is there." -That simple fact alone was enough to halt the advancement of the demon race for the past two hundred years.
That... was the information that I had been given by Dina.
"Hmm... even though she's like that, looks like she's still contributing to the humanoids in her own ways."
"The person herself probably doesn't have that intention at all though. For her, in practice, she must just be thinking that even though she hasn't even taken a single step, everyone around her is selfishly fighting their pointless war whilst sandwiching her."
When I honestly praised Benetnash's contribution, Dina smiled bitterly and supplemented me with missing information.
Benetnash herself did not care about the humanoids at all.
She just happened to be in that location. The other humanoids had just selfishly decided to think of her as their shield without her input, while the demons were terrified of her and stopped their advancement on their own, also without her input.
Nevertheless, the fact that just her being there served as a deterrence was something to be impressed about.
"Though, once before, the demon race tried to invade her in an attempt to expand their territory. Well, the outcome of that went horribly wrong."
"Hmm (hou), I'm interested in hearing what happened."
"The strongest seven demons at the time, you could call them the previous generation of the 7 Luminaries, but yeah... seven demons at level 600. Thirty-six strong and fearless warriors at level 500. Two hundred demons at level 300, rivalling the current 7 Luminaries. And an additional one thousand demons no different from small-fry.
Those were the losses suffered by the demon race in the span of a single night against 'Benetnash alone'. If you were to include those killed by her subordinate vampires, then the actual number would likely be a few times higher than that."
.... Benetnash, for real!?
I was about to shout that out subconsciously. However, it was barely held back and no sound leaked from my mouth.
Those spontaneous lines not being voiced out loud must have been one of the good points about possessing Ruphas's body.
Although the tone of her speech was the same as ever, I was thankful about how weird lines like these were restrained from coming out. [1]
"I see. I suppose that's certainly enough to be a deterrence. But did the Demon King do nothing about all of this?"
"They had a small skirmish, but for some reason, neither side fought seriously and both ended up withdrawing. I'm guessing neither side had any interest in the battle at all."
After hearing Dina's words, I was again made to realise just how troublesome Benetnash was, making me want to hold my head with my hands.
I could somewhat understand the reason the two of them wanted to withdraw. In all likelihood, they had sensed that if they had fought with all that they had, neither of them would get away scot-free.
And neither of their goals included destroying the other side. Neither had any benefit in getting involved in a fight where they could end up dying.
From the Demon's King's perspective, although Benetnash was indeed a troublesome individual, her fundamental stance was that she was indifferent to everything that was happening around her.
In other words, if he ignored Benetnash and Mjolnir, they would be relatively harmless. Therefore, he had no reason to have them as his enemy.
From Benetnash's perspective, the Demon King was an eyesore, but that was it.
If they were hostile to her, she would swat them down. But if they were not, she couldn't care less about what they did.
If they left her alone and fought against the humanoids, then go right ahead. She had no interest in interfering in a war between fodder trying to kill each other. - Such was her mindset.
As a result, the two had judged that this was not their battleground. After just a small skirmish, they withdrew from the battle.
Such a situation was what had likely happened.
Furthermore, the most troublesome thing was that if I happened to be her enemy, she would not withdraw from the fight.
In all likelihood, once she locked onto me, she would continue chasing me down until one of us died.
She was the most reliable person with no equal only because she was our ally. As an enemy, she was nothing short of terrifying.
"And the third reason?"
"Ah, yes, the magical beasts... or more precisely, the existence of [Tyrfing], an alliance between the demi-humans. [2] With the strongest of the Tyrannical Way 12 Heavenly Stars, Leon-sama, as their chief, they mainly consist of centaurs, merfolk, spiderkin, plantkin, snakekin and giants. If we only consider the number of individuals that they have, they surpass Mjolnir."
"So the species that weren't recognised as humanoids, huh...."
As an honest opinion, I was not very keen on culling them down.
It was because they were the victims.
Their body shapes differed slightly from the definition of a humanoid. Alternatively, they were just a little too big.
Just because of such a pointless reason, they were categorised and treated as magical beasts, and at times, suffered the fate of being subjugated.
Of course, I could not say that the ones who had set the definition of what it meant to be humanoids were unconditionally at fault.
They might have had their own circumstances that they had to worry about and base their decision on. Similarly, they might have had to think about the consequences of including certain races as humanoids and to calculate what the likely outcome would be after weighing the pros and cons. Eventually, it resulted in them reluctantly cutting off those races.
Nevertheless, whether the species that were treated as magical beasts would accept their fate or not was a completely different issue. And clearly, because they could not accept such an unreasonable thing, the current situation existed.
As bonus information, although it was not totally relevant to the issue at hand, the orcs were also excluded.
Notwithstanding that they were simply reaping what they sowed, I still felt a little pitiful for them.
"Well then, our objective this time is Leon and the magical beasts - no, let's call them demi-humans. We're going to stop them, but this time, it's going to be a little complicated because Mjolnir's very close to it. There would be no problem if Benet doesn't notice me, but..."
"She'll probably notice you, almost without fail. The vampires are similar to me and it's the race that's the closest to the devils. There's no way she wouldn't notice the mana emanated by Ruphas-sama."
There would not be any problem if Benetnash did not notice my presence.
However, Aigokeros casually shattered such fleeting expectations of mine.
It seemed I was emanating and shrouded with such an aura of mana that only existences like them could notice.
I'm actually technically a flugel, you know...
I'm supposed to be part of the race that's the furthest away from mana, so how did things even turn out this way?
As I was lamenting such a thing, from the ceiling rang a loud noise as if something came crashing down.
In response to that, Libra immediately reacted and climbed up onto the roof after getting out of the window.
Did something just happen?
After recognising that something happened, I promptly stopped Tanaka and exited the vehicle myself.
And what I ended up seeing was -
The appearance of an ever-beautiful young girl with silver hair sitting atop Tanaka's roof.
"Tsk, Benetnash!"
Aries shouted out loud whilst he enveloped his hand in flames and stared at the young girl who was sitting atop the roof.
In unison with his words, the other 12 Stars also prepared for combat. However, there was still no response from the young girl's side.
Let alone any response, she had a faint smile full of leisure. Her eyes ignored everything else and pierced straight into mine.
I see.... . She's Benetnash, huh.
I (ore) could not remember seeing her face before. However, I (yo) did remember seeing her figure before. [3]
There had been absolutely no change to her compared to two hundred years ago.
Skin as white as snow. Eyes as crimson as blood.
Her flowing silver hair reflected the moonlight and sparkled. And her countenance was overly well-proportioned.
From her outer appearance, her age appeared to be around fourteen years old. She had an appearance which looked to be much younger than I was expecting.
Her outfit consisted of what I believed to be a white dress shirt and a black skirt.
On top, she wore a black overcoat over her shoulders without passing her arms through the sleeves.
Judging purely from her appearance, she was a lovely young girl. However, I was able to understand it.
This was THE Vampire Princess. She was, without a doubt, THAT Benetnash.
"It's been a while, Ruphas Mafahl. It's been two hundred years and four months. I knew about your damn existence and that you were in good health already, but now that I've seen you in the flesh, it's definitely a different level of relief. I'm joyful that you are still alive."
".... . Looks like you also haven't changed at all. Your appearance hasn't changed one bit compared to what's in my memory."
"Of course, I won't ever change. My time has been stopped, all this time, ever since then. Even if I wanted to change, I'm not able to."
Benetnash was smiling very gently as if she was joyful about this long-awaited reunion.
And chances were, she really was joyful from the bottom of her heart.
Rejoicing about this reunion with me, truly from the bottom of her heart.
However, as opposed to everything else, her eyes alone were not smiling.
With the eyes of a wild beast looking at its prey and without any fluctuations, she was staring straight at me.
In response to that relaxed attitude, Libra judged it to be an opportunity to attack and thus turned her arm into a blade and swung at Benetnash.
However, without even turning back to look at Libra, Benetnash grabbed Libra's arm and gripped it with what looked to be an unimaginable superhuman strength.
"—-!"
"I recommend you stop, doll. I'm actually in an excellent mood right now. If you don't do anything, I don't mind letting you go... but if you want to be in the way of my reunion with Mafahl, know that I won't guarantee your safety."[4]
After saying that, with only the strength in her arms, she threw Libra towards my direction.
Although Libra landed back down softly, it was not as if there was no damage at all.
If one were to look at Libra properly, her wrist had cracks running through them, making it very obvious how overpowered the Vampire Princess's strength was even if one did not want to find out.
"You fools too, 12 Stars. You lot are a little capable, I'll give you that much. But in the end, you're just Mafahl's cherished pets. You're not really my enemy. If you don't want to die, just go tremble in the corner."
"Heeh... ! You're really talking big, aren't cha, midget!"
Responding to Benetnash's ridiculing words, Scorpius charged towards her.
Similarly, Aigokeros circled around to the other side of Benetnash and blasted an attack towards her at the same time without holding back.
Notwithstanding this, what happened the next instance was that the two who had attacked her were blown away as I thought Benetnash's figure disappeared.
Magic? No. Wrong.
She was simply fast. With an absolute speed faster than one could imagine, she avoided the attacks from the two of them and countered them.
If I were asked to describe it in words, I could only come up with a simple answer, but.... - This is not good. She's so damn fast it's not even funny.
....... . Ever since I obtained this body, this was the first time I had "lost track" of someone's movements.
Even whilst observing everything from the sidelines, I was barely able to understand that they had gotten counterattacked.
The two individuals involved were unlikely to have even sensed what had just happened to themselves.
"...... tsk! To show such a disgraceful sight in front of Ruphas-sama.... ! I can't forgive you.... I'll kill you... !"
"—don't think you'll be able to return alive."
Scorpius and Aigokeros quickly got back up and started to release their true selves.
However, before the two of them could transform, I stopped them by signalling them with my hand.
It was not yet determined that the two of them would lose. Nevertheless, if they were to fight against Benetnash, they were unlikely to come out unscathed.
Even if they were to win, in all likelihood, one of them would... or in the worst case scenario, both of them would end up dead.
Therefore, I would not allow them to act any further.
"Fall back, both of you. Don't get provoked by her."
After shutting Scorpius and Aigokeros up, I looked at Benetnash again.
Even during all of this time, her eyes were fixed right on me.
She did not even bother to have Scorpius and Aigokeros in her peripheral view.
They were literally not in her eyes.
"A wise decision. Even if they continued the fight, it would only end with your cute pets dying. The only one who's able to fight with me is you."
"You're saying whatever you want, aren't you? Weren't you and Leon enemies?"
"Ahh, that thing. Hmm, I'll admit he's fairly strong. Indeed, to defeat him is difficult. But a fight where the outcome is predetermined cannot be called a battle. It's difficult to defeat him, but that's all it amounts to. That thing's not able to win against me."
Benetnash replied matter-of-factly as if it was the most natural answer in the world and without a hint of it sounding like a tough act or a bluff.
She would have some difficulties. She would have to actually put the effort in.
However, she did not even believe for a moment that it was possible for her to be defeated by him.
Her expression and wording suggested to me that she had absolute confidence in her victory, definitively and without fail.
Was it just her self-conceit or was it absolute confidence backed by her abilities... ?
"This is just my perspective, but I think battle can only be considered a battle when we can't foresee the outcome. To me, walking into a fight against a strong opponent where it makes me feel that there's a high chance of being defeated is what's considered a battle... and aside from you, there's no one else that can make me feel that way. It's fine to be proud of yourself, Mafahl. The only opponent that I can 'challenge' is you and only you."
After Benetnash made such a statement to me, she threw a single piece of paper at me.
The content of what I had received... an invitation?
The invitation, which courteously had the address of the location, even had Benetnash's signature. And on the back, there was an instruction to freely let anyone with the invitation pass to the castle without any interference.
"And this is?"
"It's exactly as it seems. I want to invite you to my castle. Ahh, you can be at ease. I won't be preparing any traps or guards. To begin with, small tricks like that are meaningless against you anyways. What I seek is only one thing... this time for sure, I want to have a complete one-on-one fight to the death against you without anyone else's interference."
Her wish was a one-on-one fight against me, huh.
In other words, for today, she only came to send me a message.
Should I be saying that she was unexpectedly honest and upright, or that she was thorough about weird things?
"For my sake, don't run, Mafahl. I've waited two hundred years just to have a conclusive battle with you. If you were to disregard me, I might end up sulking and cause a temper tantrum."
"No worries, you can also be at ease. Even if you don't threaten me like that, it's an invitation from my old friend. I'll be accepting it graciously."
"If that's so, everything is well."
Benetnash displayed a smile which could make anybody fall for her and proceeded to whisper with a sweet voice.
"The only one that's permitted to kill you is me, and the only one that's permitted to kill me is you. - There will be no compromise on this. This time for sure, let's do it until one of us dies."
Her face was truly that of a constantly smiling young girl right before her long-awaited date.
However, what came out of her mouth was, without a doubt, an invitation to kill each other, and the aura emitted from her was filled with murderous impulses.
The silver-haired young girl who had such an unbalanced atmosphere looked at me for one last moment and then disappeared as she flew away in the moonlight.
............. .
Not good. What should I do? That girl's just too much.
__
(Author note)
Benet: "However much I wait, you wouldn't come to me, so I came to you personally!"
With all that said, these were Leon and Benet. The first one to strike was Benet.
If she had remained sitting and waiting on her throne, with her specs alone, she would be the final boss. However, because she came out earlier, she now appears like a mid boss.
She just was not patient enough...
Furthermore, although it should be quite obvious by now, in truth, Benet does not particularly hate Ruphas.
If anything, she really loves Ruphas.
Or more like, if she hated Ruphas, they would not have formed a party in the first place.
If you were to ask me how much she loved Ruphas, it would be that she wanted to be able to stand next to Ruphas so much that she was somehow able to become level 1000 without consuming the golden apple through sheer willpower and effort.
She only ends up attacking Ruphas because she loves Ruphas so much.
In other words, she is the once famous archetype, the violent tsundere heroine. [5]
A character archetype who used violence when she became embarrassed. Even though she was not in a relationship with the protagonist, when he looked at another woman, she would use so much violence that it would not be strange for her to instantly kill a person out of her jealousy.
Hmm, yep. Definitely a classic tsundere.
Furthermore, things had gone beyond the point of a joke and she dealt constant damage to her target. Therefore, if the main character was someone like Sei, the gag scene mentioned earlier would result in him seriously dying.
Benet: "It's - it's not like I like you or anything!" Smack! Splatter.
Remains of what used to be the main character: ""
This is what would have happened to a normal character if Benet had a favourable impression of them.
(Author note end)
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