[V3C27] Like Looking at a Strange Creature
Translated by Jodas 3: The Fateful Brothers“Gehahahaha! Next, we’ll experiment by increasing the Magical Flying Device’s output! Ooh, my heart just leaps with excitement at the thought up increasing the power!”
……And so, old man Kappel modified the Magical Flying Device for higher output and sent Tia flying with vigor towards the Second Spire: Golden Needle. If anything, she felt like a shell being launched out of a cannon. She flew so fast that Barrett’s flight magic simply couldn’t catch up.
After tumbling through the air, the moment she came close to the ground and started to wonder if death was coming near, something wrapped itself around her ankle.
It felt like a rope of some sort. Whatever it was, it pulled Tia’s body downwards, stopping the rotation.
(Now’s my chance…… I can do it!)
Tia puffed out her chest, spread her arms wide, and poured mana into the magical device on her back.
When she felt the wind all over her body, that was when she knew she was gaining altitude.
“……………..I’m flying.”
It was still hard to consider her flight stable. It was a very awkward way to fly.
Nonetheless, her body wasn’t tumbling over. She was actually riding the wind currents.
“Wow……. Woooowww……!”
Her heart shook with excitement, and Tia raised her voice in a songlike cheer.
“Pyorororro! Pyorororro! I’m flying! I’m actually flying!”
As Tia sang with emotion, she heard someone screaming some kind of “Gyah” from below.
Now that she thought about it, something was wrapped around her leg. That acted as a counterweight, helping her maintain her balance.
While staying mindful of the angle of her body, Tia looked to see what was hanging from her legs.
There was a black, leather whip wrapped around her ankle, and dangling from the other end was a huge man.
Tia thanked him with a huge smile on her face.
“I got my balance! Thank you, kind person dangling there!”
“Don’t give me that shit! You….. You’re an Apprentice too, huh!?”
“Yes! Apprentice! HELLO!”
The whip wrapped around Tia’s ankle shook. It reminded her of a happy human waving their hand while holding a bag — so that meant he had no ill will towards her!
The screaming beneath her feet only grew louder.
“SET ME DOWN, RIGHT NOW!”
“I wanna fly a little more, so later, okay!”
“YOU PIECE OF SHIIITTT!”
It was hard to call what she was doing slicing through the wind. It was all she could manage to catch onto the wind currents and ride around on them.
To remind herself of how it felt, Tia leaned over her body. The counterweight below her swung to the side, screaming all the while.
“AAAHHH! All the Apprentices this year are THE WORST!”
“Piyo?”
“I’M GONNA FORCE YOU ALL INTO THE EXTERMINATION OFFICE AND USE YOU AS MEAT SHIELDS!”
“………..”
Tia’s amber eyes drifted down to look at the man.
The man was running his mouth, shouting all kinds of nasty things.
“THAT’S ALL YOU APPRENTICES WILL EVER BE WORTH!”
“……….”
“YOU’LL NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING, SO BE USEFUL AND DIE FOR US! YOU PIECES OF SHIT!”
“……….Pyofu, fufufufufu.”
Tia couldn’t stop herself from licking her lips.
— What an attractive human.
His tough, muscular body. The fragrant smell of anger that reminded her of the abyss from which Monsters are born.
Harpies preferred men with strong bodies and filled with negative emotions as their ideal mating partners.
In that sense, this man was extremely attractive and convenient to her.
If the words ‘I love you’ were to be used to subjugate another person to your whims, then this human was perfectly suited for her to ‘love,’ as it were.
(But, I feel like that’s not what Sevil meant when she said ‘beloved companions’…….)
She decided to leave the matter of ‘love’ to the side for the time being.
At the very least, it was a fact that this man was an attractive prey for Harpies.
(I can’t reproduce, so I don’t need him, but I wonder if my sister would want him?)
This might make a good souvenir, Tia stared at the man’s face before she realized something.
The man had a huge X-shaped scar on his face.
Out of the Monsters who left marks on their favorite humans, the claw marks of the Primordial Beast were the most famous. Tia knew it well.
It wouldn’t be a good idea for another Monster to mess with one of the Primordial Beast’s favorites.
“Piyo? That scar…..”
At that point, the magical device on her back made a pitiful fwoop sound. That must mean it was out of mana.
The output of wind weakened, and Tia’s body started to drift.
“PyoaaAAAAHHH!”
“GYAAAAHHHHH!”
Tia and the man hanging from her legs dropped from the sky.
Tia suddenly spun around and slammed into a nearby tree.
(Shit, shit, fucking shit!!)
After collapsing onto the ground, Dammer cursed as he pushed himself up.
He had been able to tell that the white-haired girl who was flying with the Magical Flying Device was about to fall, so he waited until they’d dropped low enough then let go of his whip to make the best landing he could.
Due to the force of the landing, he’d had to suffer through rolling across the ground, but as a member of the Extermination Office, he was strong. He’d braced himself, so he hadn’t suffered any major injuries.
“What the fuck is the problem with this year’s shitty Apprentices!!?”
When he vented his anger, Dammer heard rustling from above and froze in shock. The white-haired girl showed herself, hanging upside down in front of him.
It looked like she was hanging by her feet from a limb on the tree above him.
The girl’s upside-down face dangled just at the same level as Dammer’s face.
The girl’s face was entirely expressionless. Her amber eyes stared unblinkingly at Dammer’s face.
“That scar……”
The girl’s white hand stretched out to point at the scar on Dammer’s face.
Dammer tried to suppress his shaking and laughed nervously.
“This is the scar left by the Primordial Beast.”
An emotion shone through on the girl’s previously expressionless face. It was neither fear nor respect.
It was the face of a carefree child who had just discovered a rare bug they’d read about in their field guide.
“Mister, you do the weirdest things, don’t you?”
“—!!”
An icy chill ran down Dammer’s spine.
While Dammer froze, the girl, still hanging upside-down, lost herself in thought.
“What was it that Kai said…… Oh, now I remember!”
The girl’s white fingertips caressed Dammer’s cheeks.
Her amber eyes stared into Dammer’s soul.
“The more someone doesn’t treat others as human, the more I want to treat them as a human.”
The girl spoke as if she was singing, with a carefree, childish, and yet bone-chilling and intoxicating voice.
“……Funny, isn’t it?”
Her sweet voice reverberated deep into his ears, and those reverberations felt as if they ran across his whole body.
It was sweet and chilling, as if both the gentle dripping of sweet honey and ice water cold enough to freeze his organs poured out from her throat.
He felt a chill as if he were standing before something deeply terrifying.
Dammer’s throat constricted in fear.
(What’s up with this kid……!)
To rid himself of the fear, Dammer balled his hand into a fist and tried to punch the girl in the face.
However, before he could, someone descended from the sky. A man with reddish-brown hair wearing a leather jacket — Winston Barrett, a mage of the Management Office.
“Ah, you almost gave me a heart attack there…….. You still alive, little squirt?”
“Piyo! Oh, Mr. Barrett! Hey, Barrett! Did you see? I was flying!”
“Yeah, I saw, I saw. Anyways, you won’t be able to keep it up for long at that output, so we need to work on that some more.”
As he said that, Barrett lifted the girl onto his shoulders.
I have to say something Dammer thought. After he’d been so thoroughly humiliated.
And yet, his throat felt as if it was frozen solid.
He had a mountain of things to complain about, and yet that girl’s sweet, chilling voice echoed only in his head, again and again.
“Alright, then let’s head back. I apologize for the trouble.”
“Okaaay. Bye-bye, mister!”
Ultimately, Dammer wordlessly watched Barrett and the girl fly away into the distance.
His throat felt terribly dry. The hand he’d balled into a fist was soaked with cold sweat.
(…….I’m thinking about it too much. There’s no way that brat could know something like that……but…..)
If the opportunity arose, it would be best to get rid of her, and make it look like an accident.
That was what his instincts told him.
“Little squirt, are you hurt at all?”
“Not at all! I’m totally okay! By the way, Mr. Barrett. Once you put mana back into this device, I want to try it out again.”
“You don’t have to force yourself. If you go along with that old fogey’s whims, you’ll never hear the end of it.”
“No. I want do do it.”
While resting on Barrett’s shoulders, Tia could feel her heart pounding.
This was the high she felt after once again experiencing flight on her own terms.
(……I can fly. I will definitely be able to fly again.)
At first, she had spun around, unable to go any direction but forward, but once she managed to pick up a counterweight in the middle, she could actually grasp the sensation.
She could fly. She would be able to fly better, faster, and higher!
(If I could fly better and better, I might even be able to zoom around like Frederik!)
When she thought about it, Tia realized she’d never really experienced the sensation of working her hardest towards a goal before. If she really had to come up with an example, she did work hard to pretend to be human, but that was something she had done out of necessity.
As a Harpy, Tia was satisfied just being able to have fun flying and singing.
And yet, for the first time, the seeds of competitiveness began to bloom within Tia.
She wanted to show off the things she’d worked to be able to do and compare them to other people. After all, she’d worked for this.
(Suddenly, I feel a little motivated to try my best in the magic battle.)
That was the moment a small fighting spirit came to dwell within a Harpy’s eyes.