Chapter 5: Go East
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However, unlike all the different memories KR was reviewing back in Yamato, Leonardo really was just a force of one, and that fight of his was thoroughly unpolished and clumsy.
“Cowabungaaa!!”
Having leapt from the red dragon with a war cry, Leonardo fell like a stone toward the Black Dragon, then pulled the man in the robe—who was waving his tentacles around, trying to tangle him in them—and the delicate girl along with him. They must have just been sitting astride the dragon, without using any special riding gear: Swept along by Leonardo’s momentum, they were flung out into empty air with startling ease.
Naturally, Leonardo wasn’t able to fly.
He’d only used his excellent Adventurer physical capabilities to leap from the red dragon’s back, and all he did was fall, reflecting on the physical reality of gravitational acceleration as he did so.
“S-s-scaryyyyy…”
“What a strange thing you’ve done.”
“Keh-heh-heh-heh. Embraced by passionate arms, scattering petals like a dahlia…”
The horror of his two nemeses—who were wriggling in a rather self-satisfied way—caused an abrupt premonition of danger that made him thrust out his short sword. There was a biologically repulsive sensation, as if he’d stuck the blade into damp mud, and the robed man melted, running thickly.
Leonardo clamped down a scream in his throat. This seemed to strike the girl he held in his left arm as funny. She gave a light chuckle.
“You amaze me, human. Are you an imbecile? Are you brave? From that height, like a red fruit, flung away. What delight. What joy.”
“Shut up!” Leonardo yelled, feeling a horror that froze his spine for reasons he didn’t understand. He hadn’t been startled by the fact that the girl had spoken. It wasn’t unusual for NPCs to have set lines to say at the end of quests and things. This was true even of monsters.
In addition, Leonardo knew that some monsters, such as lamias and nymphs, looked like beautiful women.
However, this girl was something entirely different from those. He felt a similar horror toward the swarm of worms inside that robe, but the fact that this girl appeared to be delicate and lovely made her abnormality stand out even more.
Compared with her, the People of the Earth seem way more human!
“My, my, whatever’s the matter? Do you finally regret your foolishness, perhaps? How droll. How delightful.”
“Hey, if I hadn’t watched Episode 104, ‘Fly, Froggers!’ I never would’ve done anything this crazy, either!”
The gallant figures of the heroes as they leapt into action to put down an enormous pumpkin monster rose in his mind’s eye. Come to think of it, that pumpkin monster had moved its vines like writhing tentacles. It was just like that robed monster. No, since this monster had a mucky stench and made sickening viscous sounds, it was much worse.
“A hot pulse. The scent of blood. Is this the resonance of factors in sympathy?”
“Save the sleep-talking for when you’re asleep!”
“Ahhh… Heartless sweet nothings. Cold talk. How wretched.”
While Leonardo was distracted by the girl, whose smile was both pretty and cruel, the robed figure slipped out of his grasp. It extended those gray tentacles that had caused him so much grief in all directions, casting several of them into the rapidly approaching treetops.
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