Chapter 25 - For Anemus - Athena Vs Captain

A few hours ago~

When Athena returned to the ship, she was able to witness the most disgusting thing she had ever seen in her entire two lives. The captain was chewing the resurrected one over his head.

Every time he bit into another piece of the man's rotting flesh, a gooey line of cadaverous mucus stretched from his mouth to the flesh that quivered with each bite.

The resurrected one was being devoured 'alive' and because he no longer had a head, he could not scream or call for help. Anyway, even if he could scream and ask for help, hardly anyone would.

Athena couldn't watch it anymore. That scene along with the stench was extremely disgusting to her. Athena jumped back onto the sand and leaned on the ship's hull, feeling her stomach churn.

"I'll wait for him to finish..."

As soon as Athena said that, the hull beside her cracked and then broke. Lunnia was smeared with sand and bone dust. She was panting like an enraged beast.

"Oh! Lunnia, good job in there." Athena said, forgetting about the scene she had just seen.

Lunnia looked at Athena at the compliment and then calmed down. However, she was still under the effect of {Demon Heart} and her greatest desire went from proving herself to Athena, to seeking love.

What more would a person who has lived centuries without experiencing this kind of feeling want? As soon as she saw Athena and let go of her thirst for power, the thirst for love took over her body, heart and brain.

Her target went from being the pile of bones on the ship to Athena. Lunnia finished crossing the hull of the ship and faced Athena. Staring at the woman lustfully.

"... Lunnia?"

"Th-this is all your fault..." Lunnia said and pressing Athena against the wall/hull of the ship, kissed her.

Athena's eyes widened open with a sudden kiss, but then she accepted it. The two women's lips devoured each other and their tongues entwined in a suffocating kiss.

Athena wanted to grope Lunnia's breasts and ass, but the stiff armor prevented it, and instead of grope, Athena had her breasts groped and her ass squeezed by Lunnia.

This just didn't continue because Athena felt she was being watched and when she looked up, there was the captain. The man watched the two kiss as if it were a TV drama scene. Not that he's ever had a TV in his life and afterlife.

When he saw that Athena had noticed him, the captain smiled a rotten smile and with his giant ax, attacked like a pendulum of dungeon trap blades.

Athena hugged Lunnia, pinning her arms, and threw her away and then dodged the ax that descended toward her.

"Have you heard about privacy?" Athena complained.

"Get a room in hell after I kill you guys!"

The captain jumped onto the sand, making a small wave of sand and clouds of dust. The scene just wasn't worse than Athena imagined.

By the time the man had jumped off the ship, Athena had imagined rotting flesh spreading across the ground and tens of thousands of flies flying from his skinny skeletal bones. Athena sighed in relief when that didn't happen.

"What did you do with the other guy?"

"Ate!"

"That I know. I saw it. But why?"

"Source of power."

"Eh~... Did it work?" Athena asked and it happened.

The man who was supposed to be slow because of his size and body fat, in the blink of an eye was eye to eye with Athena.

"Yes!" The man smiled. A rotten stench came out of her broken mouth and a shower of worms fell from his brain onto Athena's face.

Athena shivered in disgust. An icy shiver ran through her body and then an impact flung her body across the yellow sand dune.

The captain was faster and stronger. Athena didn't even have time to dodge or block the attack and when she saw it, she was already rolling in the sand and was beside Lunnia who was unconscious.

Athena took the knight's sword and shield. It was a bastard sword with a dark and icy blade, its guard was an 'X' and its pommel was a small mass. Also, Athena felt like the sword sucked in some mana and then she smiled.

"A magic sword... Damned little."

Well-equipped now, Athena scrambled to her feet and ran toward the walking corpse. However, along the way the captain disappeared from where he was and reappeared beside Athena.

Just by instinct, Athena placed the shield between her and the raw ax blade, and feeling her left arm hurled skyward on impact, she quickly used the sword as a ramp to deflect the blow.

Athena jumped back trying to create distance between them and use magic, but the captain left no room for such a thing. As soon as she was far from the man, like a fly the captain followed and delivered a blow that was either dodged or blocked by Athena.

With no option to use magic, Athena gave up on backing away and focused on attacking rather than defending. She put some mana into the sword and in response the sword shimmered and an icy mist escaped from the blade.

As the Captain approached for another attack, Athena slashed the ax seven times and parried the monster's attack while being hurled away like a golf ball.

"By god! How boring you are!" Athena complained. "Always the same attack pattern. Approaches in an instant, attacks and throws me away and then repeats. Don't you get tired?"

"Not!" The captain replied curtly and then made his move again.

He ran to Athena, struck and had his attack parried and his ax attacked at the same time Athena was thrown again.

However, this time something was wrong. When the captain went to change hands, the ax did not come out of his left hand. His hand had frozen with the ax handle and wouldn't come out at all.

"What? What did you do?"

"Nothing!" Athena said and now it was her turn to attack.

But like every other time, she didn't attack the captain, her target was the axe. If a tempered metal has its temperature lowered to some degree, it will break like glass. That's what Athena was thinking.

That was another piece of information she had no basis for. When she was Arthur, in addition to going out with his friends, Athena only had two hobbies before meeting Luana, games and japanese novels. And this information came from several fights she had read in novels where the characters' weapons were shattered for whatever reason.

Anyway, Athena attacked, seven, nine, fifteen times in a short period of time until cracks began to appear in the captain's ax.

"Finally!" Athena celebrated.

"Do you think cracks will stop me from killing you?"

"No, but I'll be able to hit you more safely until you don't move anymore!" Athena said and left for her onslaught.

The captain swung the ax with force that could easily rip Athena's head off, and Athena slipped to her knees through the sand and cut where the tendons in the man's knees should have been.

The sword easily cut into the captain's rotting flesh and froze part of his knees. But Athena didn't stop there. She turned quickly and made three cuts on the monster's back, which twisted its body, causing its fat belly to fold and tear.

Gray and gooey organs spread across the sandy desert floor and the stench spread further. The captain was about to attack, but then he looked down at his organs on the ground.

In the midst of those grey-green, sticky puddles lay the captain's stomach. A large, misshapen package of meat.

The strength of a resurrected like the captain comes from his soul, and by devouring another resurrected one, they souls had almost merged in one. With the abilities that the resurrected one had, it had become possible for the captain to fight and subjugate Athena. But not anymore.

"My stomach..."

"Yeah... pretty disgusting." Athena said and continued to attack.

Every sword cut from her, froze the captain's rotten flesh. The captain tried to fight back and defend, but he was slower and weaker and even though he saw Athena's attacks, his body didn't follow his thoughts.

In the end, Athena was on her feet, covered in sweat and sand, facing a large frozen corpse.

"Hm... Let's put a final touch. [Hew]"

Athena cut the captain into several pieces until there was only crushed ice in the desert sand.

"Now…" Athena looked at the ship and smiled. It was like exploring a dungeon and collecting loot after killing the boss. It gave the same sense of achievement that she felt in the game.

Athena entered the ship through the hole Lunnia had created in the hull and saw the damage the knight had wrought in the place. Destroyed cells, broken columns and more.

After searching both parts of the ship, with the exception of the captain's cabin, all Athena had in her hands was a long sword in a scabbard.

Like the blade and hilt of the sword, the scabbard was a dull blue-gray, with simple carvings.

The sword's cross-shaped guard had jewel carvings, but there were no inset jewels, and its scabbard followed the same pattern. But this was not a simple sword. Athena could feel a performance similar to Lunnia's sword, but still different.

Leaving it to be examined later, Athena looked again at the captain's cabin with its door open and pondered.

"If I go in there, the stench will definitely stick to me but... What if there's something really good?" She untied the skirt of her dress and paced. "What if I just stand at the door...? I have an idea!"

Athena tore a piece of the skirt off her dress, soaked it in perfume, and covered her nose, but she still hasn't entered the cabin. The stink of the place was even more pungent up close.

From the door she could see the cabin almost completely and the place was completely different from the rest of the rotten ship. It was like two different places and separated by hundreds of years despite their stench.

The cabin was in the same state it would have been when the crew was still alive. Varnished and red wood furniture, a wine rack and a table set with fresh food. In the corner near the bed, a black-and-gold chest looked very tempting, but the smell of the place was discouraging.

Athena frowned, frustrated by the loss of something that could be something really good. But then she perked up.

"Maybe what's in there isn't that good." Athena said, trying to convince herself.

She turned her back to the cabin, still feeling repentant, then shook her head. She puffed out her chest with the courage to abandon the precious chest and marched away in a forced manner.

After pulling away, she cast {Fire Ray} and then cried when the cabin started to burn.

***

Now~

Due to exhaustion from the aftereffect of the {Demon Heart}, Lunnia was passed out for half the day and the rest she lay there, moaning in pain as Athena apologized and promised not to use magic on her again.

When night fell and Lunnia was better, Kima and Lunnia's pegasus were exhausted and could no longer fly. Because of this the women were camping in the middle of the desert.

Lunnia and Athena were sitting in front of a fire and watching the galleon still burning in the distance.

"Are you going to sulk? I already apologized." Athena said.

However, Lunnia was not sulking, she were embarrassed for having kissed Athena. She couldn't face the woman who was supposed to be her friend without turning her face almost purple with embarrassment.

"Ah! Here, look at this. I got that guy's sword. It looks pretty strong."

Lunnia looked at the sword, avoiding looking at Athena. Sword in hand, Lunnia studied the blade that didn't even reflect the firelight beside her.

The sword was bluish gray and lackluster. It was as if it had been made of stone and not metal.

Lunnia stood up, still feeling pain throughout her body and then put mana on the sword after realizing it was also a magic sword.

Athena, who watched closely, was surprised when the sword began to glow a vivid blue. And even more so when Lunnia released the sword's energy in a blow to the air.

"It's an amplifying sword." Lunnia said and handed the sword to Athena.

"Sword what?"

"Amplifier. Unlike other magic swords that have their own spells, this one can channel and amplify whatever magic and skill its owner wants." Lunnia explained in a low voice.

"Hm... I think my old sword was that too." Athena replied, remembering the sword that was part of the celestial mithril set.

Athena and Lunnia continued talking about swords for a while longer. It made Lunnia forget her shame and look Athena in the eye again. They laughed talking about what had happened until they fell asleep.

In the morning, before the sun even appeared over the horizon, Athena and Lunnia finished their preparations, mounted their mounts and flew east, leaving the still-hot coal of what was a haunted galleon behind.