Hero-Killing Bride: Volume 3 (eBook)

Aoikou (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
250 Seiten
J-Novel Club (Verlag)
978-1-7183-9237-3 (ISBN)

Infos

Alicia's beloved cat and her not-so-beloved boss have gone missing, but there's even more bad news right around the corner! Fresh in the wake of Glasses's disappearance, Alicia and Cion receive word of a large-scale invasion by the Demon Lord's former army. The two girls reach out to the demons' general in search of a peaceful resolution, but negotiations quickly break down. As the invasion resumes, two new players arrive on the scene. The first is a black-pelted wolfman who-to Cion's shock-wields Veiss's trusty sword. The second is the Demon Lord's former right hand, a mysterious devil-touched man bearing secrets about his lord's death and Alicia's past... What will happen as the two girls learn the truth about themselves and each other? Will they be able to find a path to peace? What judgment awaits Cion, and what price will she have to pay? The time has come for the final battle and for Alicia and Cion to step toward the future!

Textauszug

Chapter 1

“Ugh... I already want to go home...”

It was obvious at a single glance that we were losing this battle, and badly.

We were riding through a vast forest, on the western edge of the mountain range that cut across the center of the continent. The closer our horses got, the louder the screams and roars echoed between the trees. As I started to hear the men’s dying cries and the shouts of joy amid the clamor, my spirits sank at the thought that we were about to step into the middle of it all.

“It’s all right. I’ll protect you, Alicia!”

Riding just ahead of me, Cion gripped her horse’s reins tightly. She had an unusually serious look in her eyes; she’d clearly been locked in and ready to go for the kill well before we’d arrived. So her next move didn’t exactly take me by surprise, but still—!

“Cion?! Slow down! We need to stick together!” I shouted after her as she jumped off her horse and danced into the middle of the chaotic free-for-all between the mercenaries and the demons.

We were hopelessly outnumbered. The demons were physically stronger than us to begin with, and the forest surrounding us was hampering our vision. As the mercenaries had fled Arshelm, they’d played perfectly into the demons’ hands. Now, they were on the brink of total annihilation.

“But, Alicia! At this rate—”

“I know!”

Next to me, a mercenary stood with his back unguarded. As a demon lunged for his neck from behind, I kicked him out of the way and held up my bible as a shield to block the encroaching talons.

We were losing this battle.

A few moments ago, I’d caught a glimpse of a certain innkeeper leading the mercenaries, but I couldn’t get close enough to talk to him. I scanned my surroundings as best as I could, but it wasn’t much use. Beneath the dense tree cover, the beast-like forms of the demons blended in with the thick foliage, and I couldn’t spot the person I was looking for...

“Gods dammit... Why do I—?!”

A blow from a minotaur sent a heavyset man flying straight into a tree trunk. As he coughed up blood, I started healing him with an orison and sent down a thunderbolt to blind the monster.

In my peripheral vision, I could see Cion moving behind me to fend off incoming attackers. With her guarding my back, I reached out to grab the arm of a mercenary and pull him away before a demon could split him in two. I’d extended his life just a little longer, at least. I jumped up to kick the horned demon in the jaw.

If you’re gonna drop dead, do it somewhere I don’t have to think about it, dammit!

Amid the whirling chaos of the battlefield, for a brief moment—just the tiniest instant—I ground my teeth in frustration as I recalled the soft smile of the “witch” who’d sent me out here. I kicked away another minotaur charging at me; I wasn’t striking to kill, so I just used his own momentum against him. But my anger gave my kick a little extra force, and his huge body went flying, knocking into several other demons along the way.

That’s friendly fire. Not my fault.

“If you don’t want to die, stand down! I need to speak with your commander!” I shouted out into the brief stillness.

I glared out at my surroundings... But it was no good. The battlefield was overflowing with screams and cries; no one was listening to me.

“Why do I always get stuck with the worst jobs?!”

As I griped to myself, a group of monkey-like demons leaped at me from the trees. I dodged them, grabbed a tail as it slipped past me, swung it around, threw it, healed more mercenaries, shielded, kicked, parried—

“Aargh—! Dammit!!!”

I felt like my head was about to blow a gasket. Entrusting my back to Cion, I took a brief pause to catch my breath and get my thoughts settled.

How had things ended up like this? Well, that was obvious. It had all started when my boss, High Cardinal Salamanrius, had disappeared.

***

“Glasses is missing. And he took my cat with him.”

When we returned from the Holy City, I was greeted by my boss’s office half in ruins. He’d clearly been attacked by someone, and the words “rest is up to you” had been hastily scrawled out on top of the desk.

For the time being, I reached out to the one other Church leader who might be willing to listen to me. I contacted the Horny Slut—or rather, the Holy Saint—and she agreed that until we found Glasses’s body, he’d be treated as “missing” rather than dead.

Regardless, we were still in the wake of the recent cardinal assassinations; none of the Church higher-ups would want to publicly announce that yet another one of the Seven High Cardinals had been killed. And so, the disappearance of High Cardinal Salamanrius was swept under the rug, and the Slut—I mean, the Blind-Eyed Saint, Nevissa Vernalia—became my boss for the interim.

That was what they told me, anyway. I wasn’t especially concerned about it, though. There was no way Glasses would drop dead that easily, so I was just worried about my cat, Atalanta.

In the meantime, I decided to focus on cleaning up the trashed office... Then, around a week later, the saint showed up in person at Glasses’s cathedral.

“Arshelm fell last night. The Demon Lord’s former army attacked the city.”

I froze up, holding a sliced-up book in my hand. “Excuse me?”

That sure woke me up.

“There are reports of a separate invasion force in the northeast as well... In any case, we should go somewhere we can sit down and discuss this. The situation is worsening by the hour, but a hasty response won’t improve matters.”

I was supposed to be the one hosting her, but I was rushed into a meeting room next door to the ruined office. The saint told her attendant, Sister Loria, to go and prepare her guest quarters. That left three of us in the room: the saint, her devil-touched bodyguard, and me.

What was the dog-eared guard’s name, again...?

“It’s Schnoë.”

“Right, thank you.” I gave a perfunctory bow in response.

If she’d sent Loria out of the room, I had to assume we were about to discuss some shady business. I’d made the right call sending Cion on an errand as well.

“So, what’s going on?” I asked as the saint sat down. “Is this connected to Glasses going missing?”

The saint had Schnoë unroll a map of the continent on the table. She must’ve already brought him up to speed on the situation.

“We only just received word, but we believe the invasion began at the same time as the attack on High Cardinal Salamanrius.”

“Who’s behind it?”

“That’s still unclear. What we do know is that another large-scale invasion force has already arrived on the other side of the central mountains, in the Damoxas Plains to the northeast. According to our scouts, there are several hundred demons at Arshelm, and even more at Damoxas.”

She held out a sheaf of documents—reports from scouts, presumably. My brow furrowed as I stared at them. This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment invasion; the demons had some sort of objective here. I had to imagine Glasses’s disappearance was related somehow.

“Royal knights have already been deployed to Damoxas, and I’ve received word that holy knights are on their way from Eldias as well. However, reinforcements for the Arshelm front have been delayed.”

The eastern front was wide-open plains, but the western front was all mountains and forests—there were too many obstacles. Cavalry would be more effective in the east. That was why there were large numbers of mercenaries stationed in Arshelm, carrying out guerrilla attacks against the demons...

“Have the mercenaries been wiped out?” I asked the question that had risen to the top of my mind.

“Not quite yet,” the saint said calmly. “The attack primarily targeted the city’s cathedral. That allowed the mercenaries to construct several defensive lines; they’ve been repeatedly falling back and buying time for the citizens to evacuate.”

They were holding out against enemies way above their pay grade, trusting that help would come.

“It’s only a matter of time until they’re annihilated completely,” she continued.

Sitting there staring at a map, I had no way of knowing the full extent of the slaughter. But from the markings and annotations here and there, it was clear that many lives had been lost.

“I’m told that Inquisitor Karm is accompanying the royal knights. I’ll be sending out some of my own people to join them via a separate route. So I’d like you to go to the mercenaries’ aid, Alicia.”

My interim boss remained cool and composed as she spoke.

This woman was a Horny Slut, a Holy Saint, a figure of reverence within the Church, and the savior of the weak. But, all of that was just her public-facing position. Underneath it all, not only was she a Horny Slut—she was also a demon.

“They’re your people, aren’t they?” I asked slowly. “Can’t you get them to stop somehow?”

If the Demon Lord had wanted peace with humanity, then maybe...

“I don’t imagine so. I am an exile from their...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 8.7.2025
• Reihe/Serie: The Hero-Killing Bride
• Illustrationen: Aoikou
• Übersetzer: Aoikou
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• Schlagworte: Antihero • Battle • combat nuns • Cross-dressing • Dark Fantasy • Light Novel • Yuri
• ISBN-10: 1-7183-9237-0 / 1718392370
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7183-9237-3 / 9781718392373