Take Down the Queen!

Anyway, I have to recover my magic power.

Unlike me, who's starting to run out of steam, the Queen is a stamina monster.

She still looks like she's got plenty to spare.

I pick up a mud-covered Topopolock carcass lying around nearby and bring it to my mouth, but......

“MIGYAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”

The Queen immediately attacks me with her claws.

I have no time to eat!

Her sharp claws gouge the ground with a thunderous zudon, zudon.

I have no choice but to keep dodging, and fatigue gradually piles up.

<Let's get away from the Queen for now!>

That's a no-go, Omake-sama.

The only reason that Queen isn't heading for the mansion yet is because her attention is on me.

If I run, she might start attacking the mansion.

If that happens, Sara-chan will be in danger.

<......But at this rate, you're the one in danger, Emi. Have you noticed? As your magic power drops, so does the precision of your 【Body Strengthening】. Your movements have lost their edge.>

I'm tired, too.

If I let my guard down for even a second, I feel like I'll get dizzy and collapse.

......Oops, a biting attack this time.

I dodge, punch her in the face for good measure, and put some distance between us.

Yeah, this much really isn't doing a lot.

<Emi, it's no use. There's no way. At this rate...... you're the one who'll wear out and fall first. You, will be, killed. ......Any more than this, please don't fight.>

......Omake-sama has started losing heart.

<There's no shame in running away. Of course, even I understand how precious that baron's daughter who became your friend is to you. But......>

No.

<You have no finishing blow! No finishing blow that can take down that Queen! Even if you keep punching the Queen the way you have been, you can't beat her!>

No. No! I'm never running away!!

<Have you been able to inflict any major wounds on that thing so far!? You haven't, have you!?>

Be quiet!! Shut up!!!

<No, I will not be quiet!! You have no moves left!! You have no weapons!! You, cannot, beat that!!!>

........................

<Ah...... um, Emi, I'm sorry. I might, have hurt you, but, still, I......>

......A weapon, huh.

<?......?...... Emi?>

Before I knew it, I was running at the Queen again.

◇ ◇ ◇

The Queen was angry. She was furious.

The invasion of the human world.

The construction of a comfortable new village.

The prosperity of her clan.

A small, black human scurrying around in front of her had smashed every bit of the brilliant future she had envisioned.

She swung her claws in a fit of rage, but they didn't hit.

Even her 【Poison Breath】 was dodged.

If even a single blow landed, the black one would probably die instantly.

To the Queen, it was that weak an enemy.

Or so it should have been, and yet it wouldn't go down. She couldn't kill it.

And it wouldn't run away.

Darting around, sly and nimble, it clung to the Queen and would not leave her alone.

She had never encountered a creature that irritated her to this extent.

Gyun!

The black one suddenly put on another burst of speed and closed in on the Queen.

Then, it quickly climbed up her back.

“MIGYAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”

The sensation of something crawling over her body was terribly unpleasant.

And if she left it alone, the black one would start punching her back.

It had done exactly that earlier.

It hurt quite a bit, so she had to stop it.

“Kakaka!”

She immediately generated 【Poison Breath】.

She moved her neck and glared at the black one clinging to her back.

“!?”

And then the Queen's three eyes flew wide open in shock.

The thick, sword-like spikes growing from her back, her prized spikes, had been broken off, several of them!

The one who broke them was, naturally, the black one.

Even now, it was punching the base of the spikes repeatedly at high speed.

In an instant, cracks formed at the base of the spikes, and then.

Kiiin!

With a metallic sound, they snapped.

“BUSHUAAAH!!”

The Queen unleashed 【Poison Breath】, peeling the black one off her back.

Then, she stared blankly at her back, where the spikes were gone.

Topopolock spikes do not grow back.

Once broken, they stay broken.

In youth, the spikes are armor against large beasts; once a Topopolock grows as big as a Queen, they are no longer much use.

That said, it doesn't mean they're dead weight, either.

To repeat, Topopolock spikes do not grow back.

And so they treasure their spikes.

Spikes are their treasures, their pride, and a symbol of sexual appeal.

A Topopolock with beautiful, magnificent spikes is popular with the opposite sex.

The Queen, with spikes as sharp and thick as swords, was naturally the top female in the horde.

She was a total heartthrob, far beyond the reach of any other female.

She had even formed a reverse harem.

Strong, the boss of the horde, and a total heartthrob on top of that.

It was no exaggeration to call her a winner in life (in Topopolock life).

But those prized spikes had been snapped off.

Her back no longer bore any trace of its former glory.

Only a few spikes stood lonely, like withered trees on a bald mountain.

“MI, MI, MIGYAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”

The Queen screamed in a fit of rage!

That black thing!

It finally snapped even her pride!

It trampled even her dignity!

On and on, on and on, on and on, it makes a fool of me!!

I won't forgive it! I won't forgive it! I'll never, forgive it!!!

Screaming, she stomped her feet and swung her claws wildly in her rage.

......This was the greatest blunder in the long battle between Emi and the Queen.

The black one, Emi.

She did not miss that opening, not for a moment.

Emi focused 【Body Strengthening】 on both legs.

At the same time, she used 【Solidification】 to force the muddy footing hard, and with a push from the repulsive force she generated with magic power, she leaped high, high into the air. This was the original use of 【Grasshopper】.

In her hand, a sword gleaming dully in the rain, no, the Queen's broken spike.

When the Queen's giant body looked about as big as her own small fist, Emi began to fall.

She applied 【Solidification】 to the sword-like spike in her hand.

Using an application of 【Mantis】, she wrapped the spike in magic power “for cutting.”

Pointing the tip straight down, she fell straight, straight down.

Aiming for the Queen's back.

Just as the Queen, somehow reining in her rage that boiled like magma, swung her head left and right looking for the black one she had lost sight of.

“MIGYAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!?”

With a gusari, a tremendous pain shot through the Queen's whole body.

In a panic she looked back at the source of the pain, her back, and there a new spike had grown.

Except, it was upside down.

Topopolock spikes are hard and sharp.

Only the base is brittle, so that a Topopolock can leave the spike in an enemy and escape, but the tip is unbelievably hard.

Hard enough to pierce the Queen's own sturdy skin, penetrate the flesh, and make her bleed!

The Queen writhed in agony from the sheer pain.

Why!? How!?

Having lost herself in rage, the Queen had taken the attack completely by surprise; bewildered, she looked around.

And then she found it.

The one who had made this attack.

Naturally, it was the black one.

Emi had plunged the spike into the Queen using the momentum of her fall, then used magic power to break her fall and landed safely on the ground.

And in her hand,

was another new spike, held tight.

What the Queen saw was the black one,

at the very moment it plunged that spike into her flank.

“MIGYAGYAGYAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!”

It hurts! It hurts! Stop, stop it!!

The Queen was a sturdy creature.

Her skin had repelled every attack until now.

And so she was not used to pain.

Desperately.

Desperately, she begged for her life.

Immediately forgetting the rage from a moment ago.

Gusari.

“MIGYAGYAGYAGYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”

Even so, the black one did not let up!

One after another, she picked up the thick spikes that had fallen and plunged them into the writhing Queen's body!

Unfortunately, the black one could not understand what Topopolock cries meant!! The pleas for mercy never got through!!

Done plunging in every spike, the black one leaped onto the back of the prone Queen and began punching her, as if to make sure.

“MI, MIGYA, MIGYAAH......”

Every single blow was a 【Magic Strike】, normally strong enough to shatter rock.

Every time she was punched, blood spurted from the wounds where the spikes were embedded.

Gradually, gradually, the Queen's consciousness grew hazy.

The last sight she ever saw, it was.

A small black human clinging to her body, which could no longer move, and biting into her body, its 【Body Strengthening】 gone.

Slurping up her flesh and blood, a hideous sight.

......Won!

And if you win, you eat.

The law of nature.