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AT the time, Euphemia had no idea what had happened.
Dying by her own hand would have been far better than letting the scumbags rape her till they were satisfied before tossing her as a nighttime snack to the most brutal of all Mutas on the planet.
Euphemia had chosen how to end her life in a matter of seconds, so fast that she would laugh about it when she remembered the incident later. She would always remember the time she had wasted dragging her feet, deciding and redeciding what to do with her life, like a bad joke considering how quickly she had come to a decision about ending that same life in that horrible moment.
I’ll be the one to end my life, with my hands! With that thought, she swung down the blade she had received from her sister for self-defense—or at least, she tried to.
Yet the instant when the beautiful blade sunk into her throat never came, and instead of pain, she felt the weight on her body lighten. First, the man tenaciously fondling her breasts vanished from view, then the man yanking down her pants disappeared.
How?
While Euphemia was overcome with surprise, loud cracks erupted from the thicket a good distance away, accompanied by an unpleasant toe-curling scream.
But she didn’t have the time or leisure to care. Euphemia somehow managed to sit up and scoot backwards.
She would’ve loved to run to her car parked on the freeway, but her legs buckled with fear whenever she tried to stand. For that matter, she didn’t even know whether the threat of assault was truly gone. The immediate danger might have dissipated, but she definitely couldn’t call her current situation safe. A massive shadow lurked 10 mols away, the broad back turned toward her.
The shadow belonged to yet another man, this one a good two heads taller than the other two.
He grabbed one man’s neck and tossed him over his shoulder with ease. He constricted the other by the throat and held him up at arm’s length with his right hand. The man dangled there as he lost the strength to fight back. The newcomer’s strength was tremendous. In stature and physique alone, the two thugs were no match for his impressive figure.
Even in the weak glow cast by the streetlights, she could tell the man clad in all-black was impressively tall with long legs. In contrast, his head appeared unduly white in the dark because of his long silvery hair.
Who is he? What is he? The enemy? Or help?
“Who do you work for?” A deep voice growled. The tone was calm, but chilled to the core. The man hanging inelegantly by his throat croaked out a pitiful moan.
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll crush your throat. Or would you rather I break your jaw? Messin’ you up so bad you can only eat tofu the rest of your life is no problem for me either.”
“Your dick completely deflated, y’know? Would you like me to crush it along with your throat?”
“Wow, you’re filthy. Don’t drool on me, you piece of shit.”
Unrefined phrases came out of the man’s mouth with an odd pronunciation, but he surprisingly wasn’t as vulgar as he could be. He was menacing the thug, but in a manner so flippant, Euphemia guessed he was doing it for kicks. He was simply enjoying the process of threatening someone he could easily snap in two if he felt like it. In which case, he was the dangerous kind of person after all.
That’s what Euphemia sensed about him.
The conversation—if it could be called one—progressed in the direction of why the men had targeted her. She was very curious about that, so she clasped her torn clothing together, lowered herself down as far as she could, and strained her ears to pick up on what was said.
Someone named Shank came up while Euphemia spied on them, but she had never heard the name before. She was positive this was all just one big misunderstanding anyway.
She was just a junior researcher at a public research facility, and while she didn’t lack drive for her research, she had yet to produce any major results. She wanted to believe she wasn’t worth being targeted, raped, then killed by hired killers.
“Then return to your employer and give him the message to never go after this girl’s ass again. If you say it’s from Zel, he’ll know who you mean,” ordered the man with hair that gleamed silver in the dark.
Zel? Is that this man’s name? Forget this. I need to focus on getting out of here.
To Euphemia, both the man hanging by his throat and the man in black going by the name of Zel meant nothing. Whatever way she looked at it, neither of them were 100% respectable, trustworthy men. Compared to them, Euphemia, despite her somewhat flashy appearance, was an upstanding citizen to the bone.
A sickeningly sweet smell wafted her way from the darkness ahead just as she was about to force her trembling legs into action. Her various senses must have been numbed from everything that had happened to her, because she only now noticed the fairly loud mechanical noise. It was relatively familiar, reminding her of the electric door to the storage room at work.
“I guess your buddy woke up?”
Was he talking about the pervert who had been fondling her breasts? I thought I saw him catapult through the air. What a sickeningly sweet smell. Like an overripe fruit from the south.
Her mind stuck in sensory overload, Euphemia was absently inhaling the sweet smell when the semitrailer parked right beside her suddenly sped off toward the freeway with its tires spinning. The mechanical sound she’d heard was the container’s shutter door opening. The man she’d seen flung aside decided to abandon his friend and escape alone. Something that set her skin crawling loomed in the empty darkness left in the semitrailer’s wake.
Two red lights gleamed just above the bush. They were the same unblinking lights she had seen through the small window in the container door. The sickeningly sweet smell permeated the surrounding darkness, even stronger than before.
Oh no! Is it the Bijour?! The one those scumbags were going to feed me to?!
The danger never left! The threat to her life had only gotten worse. Euphemia dropped her chin to her chest in utter despair. It was all over for her now—hope was lost. There was no escape. Not for her or the mystery man.
A savage Muta had been let loose.
“No…no…” Euphemia started hyperventilating.
This is awful. This is more than awful.
Two dangerous men were close enough to catch her, and an even more vicious Muta lay not much farther past them. The Bijour’s metal scales emitted a dull glimmer. Its red eyes ascertained its surroundings before setting its sights on them.
How and where should she run in order to arrive home in one piece? The chances of her getting back safe were almost zero. Forgetting all about the fact that she had nearly committed suicide only minutes prior, Euphemia stared at the three separate life-threatening beings only steps away from her.
The Muta would have no issue slaughtering the two men. And then, Euphemia would be next. She just knew it.
The Bijour tilted its rangy neck. The gesture was a far cry from cute. And then it screeched a mind-numbing shriek. Two wicked red stars soared high into the air.
The Bijour had jumped.
What happened after that should’ve only occurred in the span of a few seconds, but when Euphemia reflected on the events later, they replayed in her head as vividly as a movie on TV.
The tall man swung his right arm to the side, sending the man he had clasped by the throat flying. Then he cocked his head slightly, thrust his left hand high, and prepared himself to take on the fierce Muta descending toward his head.
Euphemia visualized the beautiful and baleful Muta she had only ever seen in textbooks.
The Bijour’s hooked talons were well-suited for kicking off the ground into a high jump and for running up the side of trees. They were also perfect for tearing into its chosen prey.
The man twisted around and thwarted its overhead attack by grabbing hold of the Bijour’s ankles, then used his shoulders to slam it into the ground. He straddled the Muta faster than Euphemia’s eyes could follow, and locked his hand securely under its chin.
The Bijour never imagined its attack would be evaded. It fought back with its serrated tail and strong legs, but the tall man had twice the weight on the Muta, rendering it impossible to shake off his hold.
“I wanted to take it alive, but the situation is what it is,” the man said casually.
Euphemia heard a snap that sounded like he broke the Muta’s neck just before the vicious creature’s body shot up and curled in on itself. After convulsing several times, the legs dropped to the ground first, then the curled-up tail thudded behind them, and it ceased moving at all.
It’s dead.
Euphemia blankly watched the brutal end to the ferocious creature’s life.
“S-Somebody! Save me! Monster! There’s a monster!”
The gaunt man whose legs had also given out on him let out an ugly scream and scampered away. Euphemia wanted to do the same thing more than anything else.
But she couldn’t.
The tall man stood and slowly turned around, not even giving the lifeless Muta another look. Euphemia was rooted to the spot, unable to pry her eyes from the way he moved. Were his refined movements the manifestation of his confidence?
The “monster” wasn’t the Muta that just died. The man was the real beast.
The man who fled had called him a monster for that reason. Euphemia finally understood why. Steel-blue gems glimmered in the dark. The pair of eyes emitted a strong glow that rivaled, if not surpassed, the wicked red eyes of the slaughtered Muta.
“You’re still here?”
The man made a slight movement and the light of his eyes disappeared with his heartless words. He had put on specs.
But what I just saw…were they human eyes?
Euphemia was glued to the ground.
She couldn’t shake off the terror she felt when looking into his eyes. But…they were so beautiful.
At the end of that thought, Euphemia’s consciousness quickly gave away.