“Gah… Rimmil-dono, that miserable wretch! To think she would use such a craven trick to distract me… I should have expected as much from our habitual infiltrator.”
Soulgros gritted her teeth with frustration as she remembered her failure preceding her visit to Master’s study. Yerkchira possessed world-class firepower, and few had successfully infiltrated their halls. Rimmil was the only one who lived not only to tell the tale, but to do so multiple times. The guild had embarked on multiple search-and-destroy missions aimed at tracking her down, but she had evaded death time and time again. Soulgros’s failure, then, was hardly exceptional, but it still stung. Huffily, she turned her thoughts away from the intruder altogether.
“Oh, Master!”
She fixed her gaze on Master, who stood a short distance ahead, his back turned coolly to her as he fought the lizardman before him. His pose resonated deeply with the womanhood within her.
“No words could describe the rugged beauty of his combat… Ah, the ease with which he plougheth through every soul in his path!”
Nothing could be more manly than obliterating one reptilian beast after another. If he were using nothing but brute force, she’d hardly glance twice at him—no, it was the cool smile that tickled his lips even in the throes of combat that sent her quivering. The heavy throbbing of her heart was nearly too intense to bear.
“That smile… The nobility of that smile tempts me to his front, in hopes of catching a glimpse!”
Soulgros didn’t move so much as a muscle, however, her eyes firmly glued to his back. She possessed the jumping strength to circle around him in a heartbeat if she so chose—but no, she was sworn to watch his most vulnerable point. That, and she was far more aroused by his back in general.
“Hehehe… I shall watch thee forever, Master, until the end of time itself!”
✦ ✦ ✦
Soulgros, in a word, had a fetishistic love for watching him from the shadows. It was far better to watch him at his most vulnerable and unsuspecting than it was to talk to him face-to-face. The less aware he was of her gaze, the more aroused she became—to the point she was becoming a stalker to her very core. She was always watching him, always. Even though she had her observational duties like her guildmates and was forced from his “side” far too often, she’d gone so far as to develop a unique means of always watching him.
“Hehe… Much as I enjoy observing him from behind, there exists no angle from which he does not appear divine…”
She put her hand to her face and chuckled. Her other hand was gone, missing at the wrist, though not from any feat of the lizardmen’s doing. She’d cut it off herself and planted it on him, such that it could always send her detailed information on his exact whereabouts. In short, she mastered self-replication.
“What a magnificent sight from his right… Oh, but his left is every bit as appealing!”
Soulgros had replicated her right hand several times, situating them all about him so that she could view him from every angle. A low, contented chuckle escaped her lips, and if not for her face scarf, the drool escaping the corner of her mouth would’ve been painfully obvious.
“Ah, no—not that way. Not from that angle…”
Her observations were for more than personal pleasure, however, as she was constantly alert to particularly large warbands or threats that went undetected by him. It was up to her to detect such threats and dispose of them. Case in point, one was creeping up behind him. She swiftly robbed the beast of its vision with a kunai to each eye, and as it flailed about blindly, her third knife embedded itself deep in its throat. It was a tad overkill, granted, but such was the price of threatening her Master.
“Hm?!”
Just as she released a sigh of relief at a job well done, Master shot her a sidelong look as he dispatched a lizardman of his own. His smile parted only briefly to utter a curt thank-you.
“Heh… hehe…” She froze for only a moment before half-melting with pleasure. It took her a while to notice the state of the forest floor around them. “Ah, Master! Another warband slain, I see. What efficient work!”
There were precious few bodies left intact, despite the number they’d slain. Only those slain by Soulgros’s kunai remained; Master’s mana-bullets left no remains.
“Nonetheless, this shall be enough for my mission,” she muttered to herself after the scales were harvested and counted. “Now, if only I might be permitted to spend the remainder of my time with him…”
Her primary objective in accepting the quest was to have an excuse to take a walk with Master and to help him ward off the cabin fever he’d been experiencing. Her second objective was, of course, to watch him in action. Both tasks had been fulfilled to appreciable extents, and she considered inviting him for a walk about the nearby town. If she were lucky, she might even persuade him to “rest” for a spell at a nearby hotel. Her guildmates were watching her however they could, no doubt, but Soulgros was the uncontested best covert operative amongst them. She could shake their pitiful surveillance tactics in a heartbeat if she needed to.
“Hehehehe… Master…” A delusional grin spread across her face. She was getting lightheaded at the mere thought of what was to come. She was so infatuated with her thoughts that she failed to realize the approaching figures until they were nearly upon them.
“D-Drat!”
There were four of them, all with uncertain strides upon the forest floor, and that alone was proof the newcomers would pose little threat to Soulgros. She let out the breath she’d been holding—even if the group was hostile, she could slay them all before they posed any real threat to Master. He also seemed to notice their approach, turning to peer into the underbrush they were stumbling through.
“Uwah!”
With cacophonous rustlings, four men stumbled out of the trees and into the open. Each was armed and clad in full armor, marking them as adventurers of some as-yet-unknown guild. At their head was a young man with bright red hair.
“Hey, you!”
He stormed up to Master, his face a mask of rage. Master simply smiled, a little confused.
I mustn’t allow this.
Soulgros dropped from the tree she was perching in, landing immediately behind the transgressor. She pressed the edge of the knife into the boy’s throat.
“Halt.”
His eyes widened. “The shit?!”
“Lucil!” one of his companions shouted from behind.
Soulgros saw one of the boy’s—Lucil’s—comrades start toward her, but he stopped. She was too close to him for anyone to stop her; even if he should try to rush them, Soulgros would slit Lucil’s throat in a heartbeat.
“Thou had best stay put,” Soulgros hissed. “All of you—not one step.”
Lucil swallowed hard as she emphatically pressed her knife into his throat, a thin trail of blood creeping down and into his shirt.
“Y-You got it all wrong!” shouted one of the adventurers, a man visibly older than the rest. “We mean you no harm!”
The kunoichi’s eyes narrowed lethally. “No harm? Thou attempteth to assault Master with fury in thine eyes, and even now thou wouldst lie?”
Soulgros had already decided the adventurers were dead. Only Master himself could change their fates.
“Please!” Lucil begged. “We don’t want to hurt anyone!”
Despite how close they were, his pleas never reached Soulgros’s ears. The second she tightened her grip to slit his throat, however, Master gestured to her.
“Mm. As thou willst.”
She obediently withdrew her blade, and in a blur of movement, she took her place behind Master once more.
“Sh-She’s fast,” said the last adventurer, a young boy with long, trailing sleeves who had been silent until then.
Lucil only gasped, eyes spinning as he felt for his neck and confirmed he was still alive.
Master approached the boy, addressing him with great kindness and asking what the matter was.
The youth snapped back to attention. “Uh… Right.”
Soulgros felt her heart swell with renewed affection for him. Adventurers never interacted with each other out of town as a matter of policy, barring extreme or unusual circumstances. Anyone out in the wilds was on a quest, and it was rude to interfere—and if one was actively approached by other adventurers, they were brigands and highwaymen from a gray guild most of the time.
This time, however, Soulgros’s expectations were utterly betrayed.
“Please!” Lucil cried, his head bowing deeply. “You’ve got to help us!”