“Honored Father, I’m booored.”
“Shhh. Quiet.”
“Blade, um, this is really too hard to watch…”
“Shhh. Quiet.”
Blade shushed Cú then Earnest in rapid succession. What was hard to watch? Blade didn’t know, but he wished Earnest would stop saying stupid things to him.
“If you are happy with this, Blade, then so am I.”
“Get back, Sophie. You can’t handle this. Or do you think he looks happy right now? Which part of this pathetic creature clinging to a door, listening intently, looks ‘happy’ to you?”
Blade was getting pretty severely dissed, but he was too busy to respond. He was hanging on every word, every syllable of the conversation taking place beyond the door, stretching his Hero Ears to their limits.
“‘Ahh, yes. Good. Clay. More. Pour more into this part of me, please. More, more.’ Hey, what’s that mean, guys?”
“I think it means exactly what it sounds like. Can someone get Maria over here? Personally, I think this behavior merits some discipline for both of them.” Earnest sounded furious.
“‘No, Iona, I…I can’t make any more for you. I just can’t.’ Hey, what’s that mean, guys?”
“That’s disgusting, Clay!” Claire was just as angry.
“Well, why don’t we give them a little more time before storming in? There’s a kind of clarity that comes over you after the act that’s, like, really important, you know? If we take that away from them, they might not feel fulfilled.” Yessica, meanwhile, was going on about something else entirely.
“Okay, okay, okay, move aside, everyone. Please move aside.”
Maria had arrived, complete with her armband reading DISCIPLINARY COMMITTEE.
“This is the Disciplinary Committee! Hands up! …Um, I mean, is this where the lewd behavior in the dormitory is taking place?”
Maria was incredibly motivated. She was determined to crack down on whatever was going on.
“Wait a moment, dear. I’m rather interested in what’s going on here,” said the Overlord.
“Ah… Stop! Deemo, don’t!”
Maria and the Overlord were talking to each other through the same mouth. Maria’s hands began to betray her as they untied her braids. With a flutter of black hair, the Overlord’s mark appeared on her forehead, and a magic beast took Maria’s place.
“Heh-heh-heh… What we’ll do is, we’ll barge in right at the best part.” The Overlord pressed her ear against the door, right next to Blade.
“‘Ah, more, more, plenty of it… So great and hot… Please put more of that in here for me…’ Hey, what’s that mean, guys?”
“Heh-heh-heh… Don’t be so impatient, Blade. Give them some more time.”
“‘Ahh, it’s coming…it’s coming… Very good, Clay, excellent.’ Hey, what’s that mean, guys?”
Blade had been giving live commentary to the crowd, but no one was answering his questions. The girls were blushing, half of them covering their faces with their hands and peeking through their fingers, while the boys were practically snorting with excitement.
“Hey, what’s that mean, guys?”
“Okay, Blade, now! Let’s go find out!”
The Overlord all but grabbed him by the neck and flung the door open as they marched in.
Two figures were entangled in the darkened room. Clay was on the floor, lying on his back, and Iona was straddling him. The spheres on her arms glowed faintly in the darkness. She took Clay’s hand and pressed it against them.
“Whoa! Hey, Iona, what’s going on?” said Blade, doing his best to assess the situation. “You shouldn’t force him, you know!”
“Oh? Are you mating?” asked the Overlord. “Is this even correct form?” It sounded like she’d been expecting something even stranger.
“H-help me…”
Clay, meanwhile, was calling for assistance. In fact, he looked a bit like a dried-up mummy. When living beings tapped into too much of their spirit, they ran the chance of winding up like this. It was a fairly common sight in the Hero business.
“Can’t you hear him, Iona?” asked Blade. “He’s begging for help.”
“Clay agreed to cooperate with me. This is a consensual extraction.”
“Help me… I’m…dying…”
“You see, Iona? He said he’s dying.”
“Clay. Please hold out for a little longer. You should have enough for several more rounds.”
“That’s enough!”
Blade brought his fist down on Iona’s skull. The force was enough to crack her metal skeleton, proof he was serious.
“That hurt, Master.”
“Explain why you turned Clay into a withered corpse. You’d better give me a convincing reason, or else I’ll tear you apart and throw your wreckage at Mother’s feet, all right?”
“I am honored that you care so much about my fate. I followed the guidance of my young-maiden circuit and attempted a different behavior pattern than usual. It proved to be the right decision.”
“This is your last warning. Answer me.”
“Wow, Blade’s super jealous!” yelled Earnest.
“Am not!”
“Wow! Iona! How did you even do that? Tell me, tell me, tell me! I’ve got to know!”
“Listen to me!”
Earnest was being far too noisy. Did she really need to jump around like that? Blade was the one questioning Iona right now.
“I underwent certain modifications which enabled me to manipulate spirit.”
“Spirit? Modifications? I don’t understand.”
“Heh-heh-heh! Then let me, Eliza Maxwell, explain the facts to you mortals,” said Eliza, appearing from behind the crowd. “As a machine, Iona cannot handle spirit or fighting force. She may contain some biological components, but she lacks the critical mass required to generate the chakra organs necessary to circulate and amplify spirit. Furthermore, the complexity of her own tissues has yet to reach the point where fractal structures can form independently.”
“Um…can you explain that in a way normal humans can understand.”
“Well, there’s this little invention I came up with a while back… You know the cartridges that store spirit and magical force, right? It’s standard equipment for you guys by now. Well, I built an upgraded version—a set of highly efficient, high-capacity energy absorption crystals—and implanted them into Iona.”
“Yes, and it is working excellently,” said Iona. “You are a genius, Eliza.”
“That goes without saying by now, don’t you think? But…hee-hee! All right. I’ll let you say it again.”
“You are a genius. A genius. A genius. I can control my spirit now thanks to you. I am very grateful. Dragon Smasher!”
With a thud, energy coursed out of Iona and blew a hole in the wall.
“Look, Master. I am a living being now. I am human.” The energy absorption crystals in her eyes and palms glowed green in the darkness.
Really? She thinks that’s human? Is she for real…?
“No you’re not. You’re a life-sucking monster. And actually…there were some of you in the Overlord’s army, too, sucking humans dry… What were they called? Oh, right. The Succubus Force.”
Once upon a time, back when he was a Hero, Blade fell into a trap and got surrounded by dozens of succubi at once. He managed to escape after “filling them up” to maximum, but if it were hundreds or thousands of them instead of just dozens, even a Hero like him would’ve been in danger.
“Succubi are magic beasts, and magic beasts are not that different from people,” argued Iona. “In fact, Ovie’s a Nightwalker, but she is treated as human by all of you.”
“I’m pretty sure she’s only half.” Blade wrapped his arm around the Overlord’s neck. She chuckled and rubbed her cheek against his.
“What are you talking about, Master? Right now, I am much more human than a super-being like you.”
“Oh… Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” Earnest nodded. Everyone else seemed to agree.
That was sure harsh.
“Okay, okay, okay. So what we thought was going on in here was something else entirely and just a misunderstanding!” said Earnest. “It’s time to disperse, okay, everyone? And Iona, stop going overboard, all right? We can’t have you producing mummies like this. Learn to rein it in a little. And if there are any more volunteers among the boys, you can go talk to Iona later. But no cutting in line, all right? Good. Dismissed!” The Empress clapped her hands and sent everyone off.
“Master. Master, Master. Master. Now I can fire Dragon Smasher dozens more times. Look at me, look at me. Let’s go to the Proving Ground so I can show you. Fire, fire, fire. When else can I fire them but now, I ask you?” Iona threw the mummified Clay aside and ran up to Blade.
“I already saw that today.”
Blade began walking down the hallway, already fed up with Iona as she clung to his feet like a puppy. He definitely wasn’t heading to the Proving Ground…
Still, something didn’t sit right with him about all this. Especially the part where Earnest got all smug and claimed he was jealous. That had made no sense. How could he be jealous over Iona? It was stupid, stupid, stupid. He didn’t even know what “jealous” meant.
✦ ✦ ✦
“Dragon…Smasher.”
Clay, still not fully conscious and looking like a wrinkly old man, shouted the name of the technique with the kind of enthusiasm you’d expect from someone with one foot in the grave.
But then the magic armor he’d targeted exploded into a million pieces.
“Nice one, Clay!”
Blade had to hand it to him. That was perfect. He had mastered the move and delivered a Dragon Smasher at full power. Before, he’d always rushed it, limiting the move’s power to a fraction of its true potential. But now it was perfect. In fact, it was beyond perfect. It was complete. There weren’t a lot of people who could fire it off with such perfection, even in the Hero business.
“Dragon Smasher, Dragon Smasher, Dragon Smasher.”
And he could even use it rapid-fire without any preliminary setup.
“Dragon Smasher, Dragon Smasher, Dragon Smasher.”
His body might have been squeezed dry by Iona, left completely dehydrated with only a few drops of energy left, but he still boasted some very impressive rapid-fire skills. This was beyond the realm of mastery or expertise. Clay had achieved total clarity, the sort Yessica had spoke of outside his door. What that meant, Blade couldn’t say, but it was definitely amazing. True clarity was incredible.
“Dragon Smasher of Sorrow…”
And he’d even added a suffix to his version of the move. Perhaps Clay had come up with a whole new technique. With the amount of “clarity” he now had in his life, he seemed more than capable of it.