The Impostors' Struggle, and the Slaughter Begins

“Hey, hey...... what's that?”

Now, let us go back a little in time.

Patchino, who had stepped out of the branch office just as Emi went in, frowned at what he saw over in the base's fields.

Why? Because he had noticed smoke rising from the fields.

......And not just one, either.

“Ain't that a field burn?”

“No, we haven't finished picking the beans. No way they'd burn the field.”

Modokin, walking beside him, gave a careless reply.

Before he had been asked by Earthcell to go call Emi, he had been working with Darmacy to haul in materials.

Darmacy's work was sloppy, so he couldn't stop worrying that the storehouse had turned into a mess with him left alone.

“Let's go look.”

“Huh? I've got other work, though.”

“Shut it. Leader's orders.”

Grabbing Modokin firmly by the scruff of the neck as he tried to slip away, Patchino headed into the soboro bean field.

They pushed through the bean vines, gasa gasa, and what they found on the other side was...... the remains of a fire, already nearly out.

“What's this...... ugh, it stinks!?”

Stepping up to the remains of the fire, Patchino pinched his nose and yelled in spite of himself!

What hit him was a foul odor so strong he wanted to run away in spite of himself.

A sour smell that stung the nose was drifting from the remains of the fire, where a few embers still smoldered.

He glanced over, and Modokin, whom he had dragged along, had gone pale too.

“Hahaha! What a face, Modokin! If you're gonna puke, do it where I can't see!”

“......This is bad, Patchino.”

But Modokin was acting strange as he faced Patchino's laughter.

He didn't look like he was joking.

Patchino braced himself at once.

“What do you mean?”

“This is bad. I think, maybe, this smell...... burn something like this in a demon realm and......!”

“Hey! Don't go freaking out on your own! What is this smell? What was burned in this fire? Tell me, Modokin!”

Lightly slapping the trembling Modokin's cheek a few times, Patchino snapped the grubby man back to his senses.

Coming to, Modokin turned to Patchino and shouted!

“It's monster lure! Somebody was burning monster lure!”

“Wh......!?”

And it was at the same moment!

DOON!!

DON, DODON!!

DOOOOOON!!

That such a tremendous roar and shaking rocked their bodies!

◇ ◇ ◇

“Hiee!?”

“What the hell is this......!!”

As soon as the shaking subsided, Patchino and Modokin pushed through the bean field and ran toward the sound.

And there, they saw it.

Blasted by some explosion and brought crashing down...... the wretched remains of the defensive wall!

“Migyaaa!”

“Migya! Migyaaaa!”

““!!””

But this was no time to stand there dazed.

From outside the collapsed wall, monsters were trying to enter the base one after another!

“Well...... of course they'd come! After a noise that big...... hah!”

Drawing the sword at his hip, Patchino cursed as he effortlessly cut down two Forest Topopolocks that leaped at him.

Modokin also quickly drove in his knife and finished off the Noshteruketch behind them.

“M, maybe it's not just the noise......”

“Huh?”

“In the forest...... this smell...... they might be burning stimulant......”

“What!?”

Where the trembling Modokin pointed, there were countless streaks of red smoke stretching from the forest toward the sky.

Both monster lure and stimulants were common drugs that adventurers sometimes used for monster hunting.

And so, being a scout, Modokin knew enough about them to tell them apart by smell.

“Monster lure in the base, stimulant in the forest!? And blowing up the wall!? What idiot would pull something like that! Do they mean to wipe out this base!?”

“That's the only, way, I can see it!”

Even as they spoke, monsters driven mad by the stimulant came surging one after another, scrambling over the collapsed wall toward the base!

Patchino and Modokin managed to hold back the intrusion by cutting them down one by one, but...... they were hopelessly outnumbered, fatigue gradually accumulated, and their movements began to lose their edge.

In the midst of it...... despair appeared.

“Migyaaaa......”

Growling low as it emerged from the depths of the forest was a three-eyed creature with brown scales.

On its back were countless spikes.

Its shape was like the Forest Topopolocks they had been cutting down by the dozen, but its size was in another league entirely.

It was as big as a bear.

“Mountain...... Topopolock......!”

Cold sweat ran down Patchino's forehead.

A Mountain Topopolock was a monster that a thoroughly prepared party, working well together, might or might not finally manage to kill.

He had even heard stories of foolish soldiers being completely wiped out by a single one because they let their guard down.

It was too much for one magic swordsman and one scout.

“Mi, mi, mi, migyaaa......”

“Migyaggya!”

And there were three of them!

Lumbering along, shaking their heavy bodies, they approached......!

Under the stimulant's influence as they probably were now, the demon-repelling herbs planted all around the base would do nothing to them.

With a zushari, a Mountain Topopolock trampled the demon-repelling herbs.

“......Should we run?”

Modokin muttered under his breath.

Until now, that was how “Brown Dragon's Heel” had lived.

They were drifters.

Whenever something unpleasant happened, whenever trouble came up, they turned tail and ran.

Until now, that had been fine.

“Don't kid around.”

But Patchino shot back at once, and laughed between heavy breaths.

Running, running, running.

And in the end, a place to belong, found at last by shameless people who had even stooped to hero fraud.

That was this base.

“......Yeah, guess so......”

Modokin's shoulders slumped with a sigh, but he smiled too.

He held a knife in his right hand, and in his left, he gripped a pellet of paralysis powder Niese had made, which he had taken from his pocket.

“......Let's do what we can.”

“Yeah.”

The two of them steeled themselves for death and took one step toward the despair before them...... and it was then.

That with a gou! and a blast of wind, something small and black shot between the two of them!

That something, maintaining its momentum...... punched one Mountain Topopolock as hard as it could, too fast for the eye to follow!

That alone, just that single blow, and the monster burst apart into a mere lump of meat.

“Miss......!!”

The black something's true identity.

It was, of course, Emi!

Patchino and Modokin knew the strength of this black-haired, black-eyed girl.

So, in spite of themselves, they clenched their fists in joy!

Because the strongest help there was had come.

Naturally, they tried to call out to her.

But they couldn't.

Because Emi was angry.

“............”

Glancing at the collapsed wall, Emi was expressionless as usual.

No emotion could be read from that face.

But still, Patchino and the others could tell.

Right now Emi, faced with her base attacked, its wall brought down, in danger.

With something precious to her hurt.

Was furiously angry!

Emi's anger was so tremendous that even Patchino and Modokin, rather on the “dense” side, could tell.

Out of sheer rage, the magic power she usually suppressed leaked out, giving off 【Intimidation】 in every direction.

That magic power was strongly condensed and colored murky black, visible even to ordinary people; now Emi's small body was covered in an ominous, pitch-black haze.

When Patchino and the others first met Emi, they had been subjected to an unreasonable 【Intimidation】 from this girl.

But the presence Emi was giving off now was incomparably more intense.

An all-too-fierce emotion of rage, and real killing intent.

The two of them flinched before it.

So badly that they forgot to breathe in spite of themselves and could not move.

“............”

Emi glared in silence at the Mountain Topopolocks that were still growling, and at the motley horde of monsters squirming behind them.

“Migya......!”

But the Mountain Topopolock, its reason gone thanks to the stimulant, didn't so much as flinch at Emi's 【Intimidation】!

“MIGYAAAA!!”

One of the remaining two Mountain Topopolocks let out a deep war cry and charged at Emi with all its might!

This was their specialty, the charge!

Hard scales, the speed born of powerful muscles, and a huge body—in other words, pure mass!

Added to that, the power of the charge was boosted significantly by 【Body Strengthening】 via magic power; it was terrifying, in a word!

Until now, the Mountain Topopolocks had used this charge to smash through defenses like armor and scales without a second thought, crushing the bodies of hostile creatures into a pulp!

Simple and clear, yet impossible to block...... the violence of kinetic energy!

“............”

But Emi showed no sign of panic.

Naturally.

To her, this much was no threat at all.

The Mountain Topopolock bore down on Emi like a giant cannonball.

At it, Emi.

Carelessly, with irritation, simply and purely.

Punched!

It was simple violence, the kind anyone could wield if they had a mind to.

But it was an absurdity unleashed by something that had taken in countless monsters, the Black Dragon's blood, and even the remnants of a god.

A Mountain Topopolock, a wild creature merely as big as a bear and merely fairly strong, could never come away unscathed from such an absurdity.

Just like the first one, this one had charged too, and it took Emi's fist, went flying in a spray of blood and flesh, and died.

“Mi”

The last Mountain Topopolock, seeing that, flew into a rage!

And at the very moment it tried to let out an angry cry!

Before it knew it, Emi was on its back; her hand chop cut off its head, and it died!

Emi picked up the rolling head, held it high, and showed it to the monsters squirming in the forest.

Then she tossed it carelessly at her feet and stomped on it with all her strength.

The Mountain Topopolock's head burst with a gushari!

“......You wanna go?”

Still giving off a powerful 【Intimidation】, Emi murmured it, low, so low.

It was a small voice, yet strangely it carried all around.

It reached the ears of Patchino and Modokin clearly, and the same had to be true for the monsters.

But, still.

“Migyaaa! Migya! Migyaaa!”

“Guoooooooh!”

“Gohe! Gohe!”

“Chiwawa! Chiwawawawa!”

That 【Intimidation】 did not reach monsters whose reason the stimulant had destroyed.

The monsters mistook Emi's threat display for a provocation, each of them worked itself into a fury, and with a chorus of screams they all charged at Emi at once!

“......I see.”

Seeing this, Emi closed her eyes lightly once.

“Then.”

Then she dropped her hips, raised her fists, opened her eyes.

And shouted!

“......I'LL KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU!!!”

The slaughter begins!!

Someone messed with her territory, so Emi has completely snapped.

But during that last threat display, she had cooled down just a little.

Next time comes to you from someone else's point of view.