“I heard she’s seriously strong, y’know?” he went on. “Supposedly hasn’t lost to anyone below executive level. Her contributions to the cult are amazing, too. People say she’s on par with, or maybe even above you, Oakley-senpai.”
“Whip’s… well, self-made,” Joanne cut in. “She’s actually pretty capable.”
I did not feel calm hearing that.
On par with me, the guy who’d destroyed an entire city during the mobile fortress plan?
Like hell there was another heretic like that running around.
No matter how hard I dug through my memories of named rank-and-file heretics, I couldn’t find anyone called Whip in there.
Maybe it’s an alias? I might recognize the face. There were a few background heretics with a strong enough presence to stick, after all.
After that, the hellish tension in the carriage softened a bit, and we started chatting.
That didn’t change the fact that with a carriage running nonstop and no suspension to soften the blows, my body never really got any rest.
All our supplies were just water and food loaded up back at the base. Breaks existed only when the horses needed them; otherwise, we pushed on. At night, we slowed down and followed the road by moonlight and the glow of torches.
Since we had Joanne with us, everyone figured we were safe enough and just brute-forced our way past whatever nocturnal creatures roamed around. People’s lives are really cheap here, huh. Or maybe they just don’t know the word “caution.”
On the fourth day of travel, the land finally began to change color. Snow-white outshone the green of any surviving plants, blanketing the world in pale light.
During one of our rare breaks, I slipped into the bushes to take care of… heavier business. As I was doing my best to maintain the minimum necessary dignity, the nearly bald monk of a man came squatting beside me, yanking his pants down.
He moved with terrifying speed.
Why the hell are you choosing to take a dump right next to me? I pinched my nose in disgust as the blond buzzcut bozo, Alex Eagley, started chatting away with a big, sunny smile, right in the middle of relieving himself.
Apparently unfamiliar with the concept of “awkward,” Alex just kept talking and talking until I cut him off.
“Alex, you’re literally mid-crap. Don’t cheerfully start small talk. And don’t lean over while you do it. That’s… Things would just crawl back up.”
“Aw, come on, it’s fine, senpai,” he said with a grin. “I just really wanted to get closer to you, y’know? Couldn’t really talk in the carriage, with, uh… Joanne-sama bein’ there and all.”
I gave him a look that said I was very tired of this, but Alex only brightened, delighted, and started eagerly explaining why he wanted to buddy up with “Oakley-senpai” so badly.
“Back when we invaded Metasim, I was right behind you, senpai. Don’t you remember? Well, you did kinda leave me in the dust halfway through, but still.”
“Can you at least drop the ‘senpai’ thing? You’re probably older than I am.”
“Eeeh, what’s it matter? We’ve got a nice bond like that, don’t we?”
“I don’t remember us bonding.”
Before I knew it, Alex had dragged me along at his pace, forcing me into a conversation I never wanted to have.
This was exactly why I hated smooth talkers like him. Can’t a man at least get some peace and quiet while he’s trying to take a crap?
“By the way, senpai, you haven’t gone at all since earlier,” he said.
“I’ve got diarrhea.”
“No way, man. That’d be constipation. Even someone as amazing as you gets backed up, huh, senpai?” Alex cackled, snatched up a handful of leaves, wiped, and stood up in one fluid, disgustingly casual motion. “Anyway, senpai. That day, you killed Fuankilo, didn’t you?”
My breath stopped.
I forced myself to stay calm, but my tongue just traced over my lips; no words would come.
“What makes you say that?” I wrung the line out somehow while my fingers quietly drew the knife hidden in my coat.
Alex was well within range. His back was to me. I could slit his throat any time I wanted.
“I saw you, y’know. Your back, in the refinery, swinging that spear around…”
The moment he mentioned the bombardment spear, I kicked off the ground.
I tackled him hard, slamming him down, and jammed the blade into his mouth. Before Alex could shout, I pressed the edge against his sharp canine teeth to shut him up.
“W-Wait! Please! I really do wanna help you, senpai! I just wanted to make sure, that’s all!”
I drove the knife in toward his uvula.
He threw everything he had into resisting, but I already had the mount. My position was overwhelmingly stronger. The tip sliced the inside of his mouth, and Alex’s eyes filled with tears as he shook his head frantically, begging for mercy.
Even if I killed him here, I could just say he fell off a cliff. Or got eaten by wild dogs. There were plenty of ways to write it off.
That was as far as I got before something clicked. “You’re serious about this?”
Alex nodded as hard as he could, desperate. I let the strength drain from my arms and slipped the knife back into my coat.
“T-Thought I was dead for sure…” he muttered.
Stepping over his sweat-soaked torso, I scanned our surroundings. This time, I was sure—no one had seen or heard a thing.
There was a reason I hadn’t killed Alex.
There’s no point in telling me, when we’re alone like this, that he saw me kill Fuankilo. If he wanted to, he could’ve just reported it. But he didn’t. This guy really does intend to help me.
I grabbed Alex’s hand and hauled him to his feet, demanding, “What do you want out of this?”
“Y-You’re asking my goal? I don’t really have one, y’know. I just honestly wanna help. I just wanna see you work up close, senpai.”
“…”
“So, who’re we killing next? Joanne-sama? Pawk-sama? Maybe Celestia-sama or Stella-sama? Ooh, or heck, we could go all the way and take out Aros-sama himself. Talk about a worthy opponent, right?”
I was speechless. Those were the kind of lines that would ruin anyone’s life if overheard. My thoughts completely locked up.
Is this guy… crazy?
“For now, don’t tell anyone about this,” I said at last.
“Got it, senpai,” he replied with a smile.
First Joanne, now Alex. One unforeseen development after another. Things were straying so far off the rails of my expectations that my stomach was starting to hurt.
What is wrong with these people?
I climbed back into the carriage and pressed my fingers into my temples.
“What’s wrong, Oakley? You look like death warmed over,” Joanne asked.
“It’s cold outside. My head hurts…”
Hearing my miserable little complaint, Joanne raised one index finger.
“I’ll tell you something that’ll take your mind off it… The executives of the Aros Temple Cult don’t need to excrete at all.”
“For real, Joanne-sama!? That’s news to me!” Alex burst out.
“Of course. We’re executives. We don’t use the toilet.”
“But, senpai, I know for a fact. Joanne-sama, the other day in the bushes, you were totally—”
“You wanna die?”
“Er, no ma’am! Shutting up now…”
“No sense of delicacy, that man,” Joanne muttered.
You’re one to talk, Joanne.
And then, on the seventh day…
“There. I see it. That’s the Northeastern Branch.” Joanne leaned close to share my view through the window, pointing to a single spot in the landscape.
Half-buried in snow and concealed among jagged rock, the entrance to the Northeastern Branch base yawned quietly open.
Hidden among the snow and trees, the entrance was so narrow, the line of sight so bad, that it did wonders for concealment. Unless you came right up to it, you’d never notice it was there.
We squeezed through an opening just barely wide enough for the carriage, and the walls inside glowed dully in the light of torches, blackened with smoke.
After we’d gone a little deeper, the passage suddenly widened out. A group of hooded figures, each holding a torch, stepped in to surround the carriage.
Joanne shot me a look that clearly said, “Open the door,” so I pushed it open and helped her down into the cave.
She strode toward the hooded crowd and swept her gaze over them with a bored, almost sullen air.
“Joanne Sagamix and her subordinates have arrived at the Northeastern Branch. Is Stella here?”
A short distance away, Celestia, who had come ahead of us, lifted a hand in a casual wave. Even mixed into the sea of black hoods, she looked perfectly at home. She folded her arms again, drawing that voluptuous body in as if to hug herself.
“Alex. Where’s Whip Funny Task?” I asked.
“Over there, senpai.”
Alex pointed to a single spot. Among the men who had thrown back their hoods stood one abnormality—a single girl, the lone woman in the group.
She was a head shorter than the brawny men around her, but… there was something about the air around her that screamed executive class.
“I’m here as Stella-chan’s stand-in! Name’s Whip-chan!”
Her voice was so bright you could almost hear a sparkle sound effect. Whip posed with a peace sign next to her face, stuck out a red tongue with a playful peh, and even topped it off with a wink.
Another intense one.
She was a long-haired blonde wearing the habit of the Kenneth Orthodoxy, a look not unlike what Celestia used to have.
But even from a distance, there was something about her—her bones, or the way her flesh sat on them, or… something I couldn’t put my finger on—that didn’t feel human.
Objectively speaking, she was a textbook beauty. And yet that uncanny quality wouldn’t let me look away.
She wasn’t like Joanne, or Stella, or Celestia. She felt closer to Aros, wrapped in that same off-kilter presence.
“Jo-chan, long time no see! Been doing good?” she chirped.
“You haven’t changed at all. It’s nice and cool here. Easier to live in than Metasim,” Joanne replied.
I stared, stunned, as Whip casually called Joanne “Jo-chan” like they were childhood friends. To make it worse, she reached out and patted Joanne on the head.
My cheek twitched.
Joanne was, without question, the type of person you called “difficult.” It was practically routine for her to lop off some no-name believer’s head over a trivial slight and have the remains sent off as feed for the gestation sacs.
There was no way Whip didn’t know that about her.