Chapter 53 - Nicely Caught

Chapter 53 : Nicely Caught

===A Certain Undead With Communication Disorder===

I left the city along with the female Holy Knight.

For various reasons, I ended up investigating the reason behind this abnormal monster parade along with her.

…Eh, it was not like I was happy that I was not doing this alone, you know?

But refusing her at this point was literally impossible.

She was the most important factor in realizing my goal after all.

I absolutely couldn’t piss her off in this kind of situation.

「…Well then. First thing is where to start…」

The female Holy Knight spoke while looking around in every direction.

Eh?

Could it be that she came along without even knowing where we were going?

Unable to let her remain ignorant, I pointed toward the forest at northeast direction.

「…Over there.」

「…Eh? How did you know?」

「Well… that’s the place with the most monsters so far… So the source of the monster parade must be somewhere in that direction inside the forest.」

「Okay, let’s go in that direction.」

Thus, we were walking toward the forest.

And just as I had expected, the number of approaching monsters increased exponentially.

We finally arrived at the entrance of that forest while crushing through those hordes of monsters.

…To be honest, things would be far easier if I unleashed my miasma since that alone was enough to scare all the monsters around me, saving a lot of time needed to defeat those incoming monsters one by one.

But the reason I chose the hard way was that the female Holy Knight would literally pass out the moment I unleashed my miasma.

When I was looking into the depths of the forest, I caught a glimpse of so many monsters inside.

It seemed that the forest itself was overflowing with monsters.

「I see, the number of monsters is definitely… overwhelming.」

「…Are you okay?」

「Don’t worry about me.」

I jumped to block her way in a hurry the moment I saw the confident female Holy Knight about to charge forward recklessly.

「What are you trying to do?」

「I’ll… walk in the front.」

「…」

As expected, my pride as a man wouldn’t allow me to let a girl younger than me lead the way.

Moreover, I had this almost indestructible body.

「I-I have a… tougher body than you after all…」

After that, we were knocking down one monster after another while advancing deep into the forest.

What a huge forest.

“

I had no idea how much time it’d take for us to find the source behind this abnormal monster parade at the exact location either.

But I knew that the number of incoming monsters would increase sharply if I approached the correct location.

That was the only lead I had to find the reason behind this incident.

「…At worst… this might… take few days…」

「Don’t worry about it. Despite how I look, I’ve lost count of how many times I camped in the wild.」

「…」

I also had no need to eat and sleep, but…

No matter how many times I thought about it, our paces were greatly different. I definitely could locate and arrive at the source of this strange event within a single day.

「…Wait. Something is…」

「GURUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!」

Suddenly, a giant lion-like monster leaped from the shadow of the trees.

But wait, upon a closer look, its face looked like that of a human with a bad hobby.

「Be careful. It’s a manticore?! Its tail can spit extremely powerful poison!」

The female Holy Knight cautioned me from the side, and the manticore swung its tail toward us.

The tip of its tail suddenly swelled up and bloomed like a flower, the inside of the tip of its tail was countless sharp-looking needles.

「Or so I want to say, but it’s not like its poison will work against you…」

I ignored the female Holy Knight’s last remark and stretched my right hand to grab the tail.

The manticore’s human face smirked upon seeing that, but…

「Your poison doesn’t work on me, you know.」

I calmly caught the needles in the tail with my hand.

The needles broke apart and fell to the ground.

The manticore’s face was visibly cramped upon seeing this scene.

It suddenly turned around, trying to escape since I might remind it of an existence that couldn’t be killed by its poison.

Naturally, it was already too late.

I didn’t let go of its tail so no matter how much the manticore clawed around with its limbs, it didn’t even move an inch from where it stood before.

When I pulled its tail lightly, the manticore’s huge body pulled back like a piece of paper.

「~??!」

And then, after spinning its body in midair by using its tail, I threw away its huge body toward the closest tree.

GUSHAAA!

Manticore’s face planted on the trunk of a tree, and then stopped twitching.

「…Your power is as nonsensical as usual. To think that you look like you just were toying around with a manticore, a disaster-rank monster.」

The female Holy Knight approached with a dumbfounded look on her face.

「Rather than that… did you hear that… sound?」

「Sound?」

The female Holy Knight asked with a frown on her face, it appeared she suspected me.

Well, I guess she couldn’t hear that sound.

Well, my hearing was truly exceptional.

It was an extremely light sound that couldn’t be heard by a normal human.

「It’s like the voice of… crying child…」

「Child? Don’t tell me, this place is」

「…Over there.」

I went deeper into the forest, toward the origin of that sound.

「Uuuu… uuuuu…」

I think I was already close to the origin of that voice.

Yeah, it was like the sobbing voice of a child.

「Yeah, I can hear that voice too now… But I have no idea that you can hear such a small voice from afar?」

It seemed the female Holy Knight could hear that sound too now.

「…That’s.」

The thing we found was a small shadow crouching in a thicket.

It looked like a 10-year-old kid.

「Are you okay?」

The female Holy Knight quickly rushed toward that child’s side.

I, on the other hand, felt that there was something wrong with this situation.

I mean, this was a disaster that made this forest overflowing with monsters.

And yet, here, we found a crying child deep inside the forest.

Moreover, there was something wrong with the air around that child.

Or rather, it was almost like that child had no presence at all.

And yet, I felt a presence coming from be―

「W-WATCH… out! S-TOP!」

I quickly realized what was wrong and rushing to stop the female Holy Knight in a hurry.

But she had already arrived by that kid’s side.

「Show me your inju― What?」

The figure of the kid stumbled down easily when she tapped lightly on its shoulder.

「This is…」

It was not a child.

It was just a lump of the entwined root of a plant that resembled a child.

「Uuuu… uuuuu…」

And the source of the crying voice was, right below her.

「Hah!」

The next moment, the ground beneath the female Holy Knight vanished, and her figure was already floating in the air.

When I looked at the vanished ground, there was a dagger-like fang… No, a thorn lying in wait inside the ground.

It was a man-eater plant.

The root that look-like a kid that we saw before was none other than a trap created to bait humans.

The plant which resembled a giant venus flytrap was about to eat the female Holy Knight who was falling down with its dragon-like jaws leaves.

「Dammit.」

I jumped at once.

I closed the distance at once and caught the female Holy Knight right before she got eaten by the carnivorous plant.

But at this rate, I wouldn’t make it in time to pull the female Holy Knight away before the predator plant’s jaw-leaf closed.

It was a snap decision; I decided to jump into the jaw myself.

At the same time, I embraced the female Holy Knight to protect her from the sharp teeth as the jaw-leaf closed.

Upon a closer look, numerous small thorns were growing inside of the leaves, and those fine thorns were stabbing my body.

Moreover, a fluid that looked like the plant’s digestive fluid or venom was gushing out from all directions.

「A… Are you okay?」

Eh, close, your face is too close?!

I was extremely flustered upon seeing the female Holy Knight’s well-ordered face from close by.

Moreover, it might be an act of God, but our bodies were so close right now as if we were glued together.

Maybe… I wasn’t the only one feeling unwell in this situation.

Naturally, I wasn’t referring to my body; I was referring to my mental state.

If this kept going on, I might die—I mean my heart.

…I had to do something about this situation immediately!

BON!

When I tried to knock my fist lightly on the predator plant’s leaf, I found out that it blew off far too easily.

I kicked the other leaf to jump out from the inside and threw out the female Holy Knight immediately.

「AAAH, CAN YOU LET ME OFF WITH A MORE NORMAL METHOD?!」

She was complaining to me. But sorry, I was at my limit, my heart almost exploded (though, it stopped beating a long time ago).

「Anyhow, thanks for saving me from that predicament.」

「DDDDDD-DON’T WWWW-WORRYYYY.」

「…Are you okay?」

「NNNNNNN-NONONONONONO PPPPPPP-PROBLEEEEEM!」

I was so flustered that even I had no idea what I was talking about.

At that moment…

It seemed that the digestive fluids of that predator plant were quite strong.

Although it was far from enough to kill me, it seemed my clothes were done in by those digestive fluids, the back which directly exposed to those fluids had melted―

Swish.

The front parts of my clothes which survived that ordeal dropped down to the ground due to a light breeze.

As a result, now I look like a per*vert who exposed my naked figure in front of the female Holy Knight.

「~?! YOU DAMN FLASHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEER!!」

===

TN: How bold, a DATE!!!