This Victor guy looked downright giddy. But I didn’t want him thinking he’d found a comrade.
Still…he was a different flavor from the other Gods of the Moon bastards. In him, I didn’t sense any of the contempt or malice his friends felt for me. Then again, that didn’t really matter. The guy had basically announced, I’ve come to fucking kill you. As far as I’m concerned, there was only one way I could respond: Send him where he needs to go.
Whether that was prison or Hades was up to him.
“Shit…well, whatever. It’s me you want, right? Let’s just get this over with.”
I charged up my magic, my powers stirring up a wild breeze around me.
I don’t wanna drag this out any longer than necessary. Let’s just end it. I wish I had a weapon…but I couldn’t help it. I never dreamed the cultists would pick the day we’re playing shop to come and kill me.
“Ooh! So valiant. You are a Valkyrie personified—it would seem my read on you was correct.”
“Ya sure you don’t wanna borrow any powers from your shitty god? I ain’t pulling any punches.”
I clenched my fists and fell into my stance, ready to spring at any second.
“Oh my, my, how impatient we are! Well…no matter. I don’t like to let a scene drag—it can become rather absurd that way.”
With an awkward chuckle, Victor raised his arm. I thought he was winding up for a magic attack—but he wasn’t. Instead, he loudly snapped his finger.
It’s not a spell. It’s a signal.
A man entered from the wings of the podium. He was bald and muscular.
So, he brought some friends… From the look of it, baldie is quite the fighter, too.
As I measured up my opponents, I caught something fly in out the corner of my eye. I didn’t believe it for a second.
“Mmf…! Mylene!”
The Gods of the Moon’s new arrival had a girl with him. She was petite, and her soft, fluffy locks swayed as he shook her.
“Melissa…?! What the hell are you doing here?!”
“We found her wandering the halls in search of your group. Then I recalled the intel that she was friendly with you, so I added her to the cast of our little performance.”
Melissa Tullio, the Priestess of Eltania who it had taken me so long to win over, was now in enemy hands.
“You bastard…taking hostages is foul play!” Colette cried out in anger.
But Victor carelessly spread his arms wide and said, “Now, now, don’t jump to conclusions, my dear. Such a trash scenario, riddled with plot holes—do you honestly think I would write something that lowbrow?”
Victor fixed me with a challenging look, sending all eyes on me. Instead of answering him, I cursed under my breath.
“I thought not. It was a happy accident, really, but this young lady here is no idiot—she is incredibly rational. In other words, she’s realized that her being my hostage would not ensure the safety of her friends after her death. To wit, she has no value as a hostage in this scenario.”
……Victor was right.
If he took Melissa hostage, and I did everything he said to save her, there was no guarantee Albert and Colette would be saved. That’s why I would leave Melissa for dead if I had to, so I could destroy this pansy and save Colette and Albert.
“See? That’s why I’ve chosen her not as a prop, but as one of the characters in our little play.”
Victor beckoned to the muscular man, who dragged Melissa before him. As she stood in front of him, Victor extended his hand. If I was right, there was a ball of Thunder magic in his palm.
Melissa’s eyes shot open in terror.
“Don’t—that’s fucked up!”
……If it came down to it, I would sacrifice one life to save another. He wasn’t wrong there. But that didn’t mean I was so stoic that I could just abandon my friend when she was right in front of me.
I filled my arms with magic and sprung at Victor on the podium.
“Ah—ah—ahhh?!”
But I was too late. With a violet burst of light from Victor’s hand, Melissa screamed—and crumpled to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.
“Motherfucker…,” I cursed under my breath, raining my fists down on Victor.
“Whoa there?!”
But with a little jump, Victor pushed Melissa away and leaped backward. With nowhere to go, my fists smashed into the wooden floor of the stage.
Not skipping a beat, I let a roundhouse kick fly. But Victor backflipped away from that, too.
“Okay, now you’re dead, you pretentious prick!”
My anger on full display, I followed my glare with a violent body slam. In battle, nothing good came from anger. That was because magic amplified what was in your heart. Anger was like a raging tornado: powerful but completely useless if you couldn’t control it.
But that was why the deepest recesses of my heart were calm. I’d rage once now, and I’d have plenty of time to grieve later. Unless I killed this bastard, my anger would be meaningless.
“Ooh, I’m shaking,” Victor teased. “However, I think you jumped to conclusions there. Are you okay with that? Surely your fury is proof of the kinship you felt toward her.”
But Victor’s taunting prompted me to look at Melissa by his feet. Her eyes were closed, but her chest was moving distinctly up and down—
She’s alive!
On instinct, I crouched down and picked her up.
“I took you for a cynic, but you’re actually quite compassionate, aren’t you?”
His baiting words fell on deaf ears. But I kept my gaze fast on my enemy as I checked to make sure Melissa was okay. She was probably hit by Thunder magic. I couldn’t tell how much damage she’d taken, but she was breathing for now, so I didn’t think it was life-threatening.
But…why had he let her live? Victor called himself a grandmaster. If he had the same level of powers as Pearlman, he could have easily killed Melissa in an instant if he wanted to.
“I’m liking you more and more, Mylene. My comrades say you sicken them, but—and maybe this is the playwright in me speaking—I rather like a heroic character like you… And I suppose that’s why this sort of tactic works on you.”
“Huh…? What the hell are ya saying—?!”
That’s why I should have noticed sooner. I should have caught onto why he’d let Melissa live and sent her back to me.
“Ah—AHHHH!”
A girl’s earsplitting scream rang in my ear.
“Mylene!”
“Miss Mylene!”
Colette’s and Albert’s voices layered on top of it.
In that moment, the pair was surely connected by intuition. I followed their gazes, sharp as spears, to find not our enemy, but Melissa, in my arms.
She was screaming, slashing down at me with nails imbued with magic.
“Mmf—?!”
I released her and yanked my head away. With fingers that had transformed into magic blades, Melissa swiped through the empty space just beside my head.
A trickle of red flowed on my cheek.
I was careless. If I’d noticed her only a second later, I would have a face I could never show in public again.
Without even regrouping her stance, Melissa crashed to the floor, her arms still flailing. But seemingly unfazed, she started writhing like a flame in a lamp.
“Whooo! Whooo!”
Rising to her feet, Melissa spewed air through her bared teeth. Her face was filled with a violent rage, like an animal. Actually, I take it back—her seemingly complete lack of sense made “beast” a more apt word to describe her.
“What did you do to her…?!”
“Ha-hah! Do you like it?! I’ve drawn out her latent instincts and unleashed her powers beyond their full potential with my Brain Reeling! Maybe you could have left her for dead, but can you punch her in the face?!”
It was hard to believe, but Victor had Melissa under some kind of manipulation spell. It was magic I’d never seen or heard of.
“Ah-ah-ah!”
“Shit!”