Chapter 166-4

Chapter 166-4

[Part 4/4]

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. It's a race against time. Nothing more than a stall tactic. If the exchanged oxygen decreases and carbon dioxide increases, there will eventually be a limit. But before that, before that...!?

"Puha, I see it!!"

Kaede pulls away from the overlapping mouths. Silver threads extend, but are swept away in the murky stream. And there's no time to worry about it.

Turning around, a light appears in the darkness of the tunnel.

"Now then. Shall we go!?"

"Yeah. Let's give our thanks!!"

Both Kaede and I were yelling at each other. And then...right after, we were "thrown into the air."

"Ouch, it hurts, ow...!!?"

We hugged each other as we rolled on the ground, soaked and covered in slippery mud. Looking miserable, with a triumphant expression, we turned around.

"Haha. It seems like the mighty snake god has a great heroic appearance again, huh?"

Despite our terrible appearance, I still mocked the snake. In front of us was the figure of a giant snake, exhausted and vomiting profusely. The snake weakly collapsed with its jaw open, drooling uncontrollably like a torrent.

It seemed like the plan had worked well.

(You, could it be that you're in my stomach?)

"You're not in your right mind, are you? Oh, I get it...!!?"

The trick was simple. Kaede used her ability to teleport inside the snake's stomach. That's all there was to it.

Kaede's supernatural power is the ability to exchange herself with feathers, specifically, certain special feathers, as her focal point. It doesn't matter how far away or where she is. And the focal point implanted within the Great Snake was...

(When I devoured her wings...!?)

"You got it. I was planning to make you eat them more skillfully, though!"

The plan wasn't to devour her wings entirely. If somehow during the chaos of battle the snake could manage to swallow one wing... The outcome was terrible, but well...

Moreover, there was a battle even after getting inside the stomach. It was the stomach of a deity. Even if I thrashed around leisurely, I would be digested before causing much of a stomachache. Avoiding burning from the inside out due to transformation into a youkai, the danger to my own body, and the risk of involving Kaede, not to mention at the request of she, were all reasons for that.

Not only steam was stored in the conch shell. I stored something else. A large amount of alcohol. Tengu's homemade brew is much stronger than human-made.

"You're weak against alcohol, arent you? Wasn't it ages ago that you got drunk and lost your head?"

In its stomach, there's a large amount of high-concentration alcohol. I anticipated that it would be much worse to drink it than to expose itself to such a shameful state. It's unlikely that its liver will be damaged. Even so, I was hoping for the exhaustion that comes from drunken vomiting, as per tradition. The snake get drunk on just a sip. And if it's just one sip, all the more so.

"Oh, isn't this something! Haha, how does Mt. Anma Tengu's homemade sake taste? Can you handle drinking it like water?"

Kaede mocked in the same way, soaking wet. It's the result of exchanging her own wings, so of course, it's a joy.

"And now, here it is!"

Kaede trembled as she approached the pile of snake vomit with her wet feet and prodded around. She pulled out what she had found in the midst of the disgusting pile.

She showed the ancient yet divine sword, the "Juusokken Sword (Ten-bundle Sword)," which is a sacred tool inherited by Tengu.

Sheathed my sword, Hina obediently followed my request, much smoother than I anticipated. Whether out of concern for the Middle Counselor hostage, consideration for my position as Household Member Coordinator, or perhaps due to the personal rapport between me and her... I felt the latter held the most weight. In other words, I was being indulged.

"My apologies."

That's all I could say at the moment. There was no other way for me to express gratitude to her, who had just done me a great favor.

Regardless, with this, the main ordeal was resolved without incident. Now, it was just a matter of endless excuses and explanations to patch things up. Adjusting the aftermath...

(But is this really the end...?)

It's still too early to do that.

(...Don't make fun of me, you monkeys and birds! There's no way you can kill a god with this level of skill!!)

I look towards it. The snake was rising up. With its eyes bulging, spilling out a pale red substance from its shattered skull, it still leaped at me in one go. Coming towards me, looking to bite, swallow me whole.

"Tomobe!"

I heard Hinata's voice. Reacting, when I turned towards the voice, a female swordswoman rushed towards me in a hurry. She was in a panic, but I sent her a familiar signal.

"Huh!?"

It seemed almost like a reflex action. Hina immediately stopped in her tracks. I nodded at her reaction. Nodded, and... as for me and Kaede behind me, we were swallowed by the snake's jaws.

"Tomobe!!?"

(You fool!! You're too careless not to even react!!)

Hinata's scream. The snake's sneer. Hinata glared at the snake with hostility. The snake, looking at Hinata like that, grinned even more. And then, it looked at me and Kaede standing there, and was amazed.

(...Another magic trick?)

"No, we didn't do anything. We just opened up your stomach, that's all."

I patiently explained the truth to the puzzled snake.

(Opened up? What? !!? Ah, gaa...!!?)

The snake finally realized. Its body also seemed to realize late. A slit appeared smoothly from its jaw to its stomach. Blood overflowed. A thread extended from the tip of the slit near its tail. The thread extended...it was connected to my hand.

All the way to my hand, to Teguruma.

"I knew it. You can't be dead without divine punishment, right?"

And I knew. Isn't it a monster's promise to ambush?

"We didn't split your head with Tant just for revenge, did we?"

Kaede chimed in nearby. That's right. Pulling out the Tengu's tool spit out was for a more practical reason. After all, the Tant was placed inside the snake's stomach.

Sharper than the blades spat out by Tsuchigumo are the spider threads. Wrapped around, there's hardly anything they can't cut. For instance, a cursed blade soaked in divine punishment, capable of slaying gods... I wrapped Teguruma's threads around the blade and thrust it into the snake's belly wall. As it was carried and spat out, Teguruma continuously rolled and stretched the thread. It passed through into the belly.

And the moment it was spit out, the thread pierced into the snake's internal wall starting from the jaw. It is unimaginable that the inside is tougher than the outer skin. It tore cleanly, but it was so clean that it came late.

"The curse is a vow of our own, right? And... if you soak it in alcohol, it's better to open it up to let the flavor out, right? '(`) zzZZ... () Ha! (^^)The premonition of my great success again!!' ...No, it's over now, isn't it?"

My criticism to the child god spider who just woke up, and the departing giant snake crumbled to the ground almost simultaneously...