Volume 2 - CH 14.5

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist

Chapter 14: Let’s Incite the Coward, Part 5

「Kuh….!」

Zana created icy spears as she was being forced backwards while letting an agonized voice escape her throat. The spears fly at Sofia with an incredible speed from every direction. An attack like that should not be easily deflected, even for someone like her.

But in the end, she was unable to land even a single hit on the Little Demon Lord.

She was surrounded by the flames of the Sun God that acted as a shield in addition to her invisible labyrinth. That way, even if the ice is coming at her from every possible direction, it gets instantly melted before it could do any real damage to her.

Not to mention that the flames incorporated by Sofia are much stronger than the ones that Eve used before. If hers were like the flickering candles, then the ones surrounding Sofia right now could be likened to the miniature suns.

Zana might have had a chance at defeating her if she just continued to lower the temperature of the entire castle to the point where any fire could not even be ignited from a single spark, but as Sofia noticed earlier, her magic was powerful, but it was severely lacking in the sustainability department in favour of the speed.

Sofia, on the other hand, was the opposite of that. Creating and deploying it took some time, but once it was deployed, it could not be easily extinguished. It could be said that both of them were the poorest possible match when it came to battling.

But.

Even though Sofia was now on the non-stop offensive, she could not gain the clear upper hand over the Ice Queen. And the reason for that was very simple.

Even if she was the daughter of the infamous Demon Lord, she was never taught to kill people.

The flame she received from Eve was essentially the same as the one used by Uzermart, a flame that could burn the very life itself away, leaving not even a trace of the opponent’s soul behind. It was a given that she could not wield such a powerful weapon with its full potential.

Instead, Sofia’s aim was to drain Zana’s stamina up. Surely there must be a limit on how many times she can create ice this powerful. On the contrary, for Sofia, using the Dungeon was as natural as breathing. She just has to continue what she’s been doing so far, and eventually her opponent should be exhausted an unable to continue fighting.

「This has gone far enough.」

But Zana wasn’t going to play by such childish rules.

「I am sorry if this looks a little cliché, but if you value their lives, stop playing with that fire right now.」

She placed the icy blade at the frozen Mari’s throat, doing the same to the other girls in the room. A typical, by the book hostage situation. But it had enormous effect against a kid like Sofia. She looked back and forth between Zana and her frozen mother with a conflicted expression.

「Again, the choice is simple: defy me and sentence all of them to death, or do as I say and become mine.」

Zana forced Sofia to make a difficult choice as she tapped the necks of Lilu, Yunis and Spina with the ice blades.

「Eh?」

But instead of a reply, the only thing that left her mouth was a confused grunt that didn’t fit the situation in the slightest.

「It would seem that you still don’t get the gravity of the situation. I wonder if this’ll help you clear your mind a bit?」

Irritated, Zana shook her sword. That blow, which seemingly had no force in it whatsoever, made a clean cut in Lilu’s frozen neck, and in the next moment, her head fell from her shoulders and rolled on the ground at her feet.

「Ah!」

Sofia’s eyes opened widely.

「Ah…. ahahahahahahahahahahaha!」

She began to laugh her lungs out.

「Wh, what’s so funny about all this?!」

Enraged by her unexpected reaction, she placed her blade at Mari’s neck next.

「I will kill her next! Is that really okay with you?!」

「Sure, go right ahead.」

And then Sofia released as much fire as she could without any hesitation. She shaped the flames into giant fireballs, and send them flying straight at Mari, Yunis and Spina. There is no way that she could have mastered the divine flame up to the point where she could just melt the ice without hurting them in such a short time, so the fire envelopes them with its full might.

「What are you doing?」

Screaming in a panic, Zana hurriedly released more ice to douse the flames. She can’t allow them to die now that she got so far!

「Apparently, I am insane.」

Looking at the state of Panic Zana was in right now, Sofia smiled a little. And then she created the flame in the palm of her other hand, and pointed it towards Zana.

「I’m sorry to disappoint you, but if I have to choose between their lives and my freedom, I guess I’ll choose freedom after all. Zana, please give up if you value your life.」

「Huh? What’re you talking about, you brat?!」

As Eve was watching all of it unfold from the sidelines, it was a sight that she just couldn’t comprehend. Until just a while ago, Sofia was so terrified of Zana who took her mothers as hostages that she could barely stand. She couldn’t wrap her head around what was going on at all.

「So even you’d feel troubled if they died, right, Miss Zana?」

Sofia asks with a terrifying smile on her face.

「And what would make you think that?! I have already killed one of them with cold blood!」

「Yes, you cut off Lilu-mama’s head. And so what? She is a demon, so it’s not like she’s really dead. All I have to do is to summon her back from the Demon World after I’m done with you.」

Sofia said so calmly, blocking Zana’s attempt to swing another sword of hers.

「Spina-mama won’t die completely as long as her core remains intact, and Yunis-mama is a spirit, so she can come back even after her body is completely destroyed.」

She paused there for a second, looking at the frozen Mari.

「Mama… is a genuine human being, so she will definitely die, and that tears my heart apart, but as long as her body is preserved in a good state, day will surely do something about it. So I guess that makes all of you hostages lose their value, am I right?」

「You think that I’m just throwing empty threats around, do you?」

「Yup, pretty much.」

Sofia just blatantly told the truth to Zana, who gritted her teeth in anger.

「You will regret messing with me like that, kid!」

Zana created numerous smaller ice blades in both her hands, and prepared to crush Mari’s head into tiny pieces. If she does that, bringing her back to life might no longer be possible.

But before she could do it, Mari’s body was already being consumed by the flames.

「Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!」

A scream not suited for a lady left Zana’s mouth.

「What are you doing?! What in the everlasting f*ck are you doing?!」

「I burned mommy, that’s all.」

Zana hurriedly releases more ice, but half of Mari’s body had already been burned.

「Do you even realize what you have done? The fire that you used is no ordinary one! It is the same as the primordial fire of Atom, a flame that burns everything down to ashes, even the soul! Now she can never be revived or returned to the cycle of life and death! You dimwitted, obnoxious brat, something like that is not a toy that the likes of you should be playing with!」

Half-consumed by madness, Zana screams. Tears were endlessly flowing down her cheeks.

「I know.」

Contrary to the Ice Queen, Sofia’s attitude remained stone-cold.

「But at least now you can’t win no matter what you do, miss Zana.」

She cancelled her flame armor and approached the queen of Himuro. She was so defenseless and wide open that she could have killed her if she wanted to. But she did nothing of the sort. Instead, she just backed away from her, overtaken by the fear.

「Well, I guess such a result was to be expected.」

「Papa!」

Sofia turned around, overjoyed to hear the voice that she thought she was never going to hear again.

「No… nononononononono, how?! WHY?!」

Zana shouted at the figure of Aur as her eyes nearly popped out of her eye sockets.

「But papa, were you not frozen by Zana like everybody else?」

It was no surprise that Aur was safe. After all, there was no way that something as basic as being frozen could actually kill him. But nevertheless, Sofia was still confused.

「I believe Zana’s reaction when you burned Mari should tell you everything you need to figure that out yourself.」

「Ah, I see, so that’s what it was.」

「W-What is it, what’s going on here?」

The only one still left in the dark was Eve.

「It’s really simple. That was all a farce, a deceit.」

Aur looked at Eve and then at Zana, to whom he called out.

「Rebelling against me, failing, and getting executed, that was your plan, was it not? All for the sake of handling the throne to your sister, Eve.」