†Chapter 1: Chance Encounter in the Dark†
†Chapter 1: Chance Encounter in the Dark†
“GET away from me! Who are you people?! What are you doing?! Stop it!” Euphemia turned and twisted her body, trying to throw off the men who had yanked her out of the car.
The two men wordlessly dragged her kicking and screaming past the freeway’s hard shoulder and into the plains beyond. The braid wrapped around her head like a crown came undone during her struggle and her specs slid to the tip of her nose.
They no longer waved around the guns they had initially threatened her with.
Two big men didn’t need guns to make one petite woman do their bidding. Case in point, Euphemia knew her efforts failed her and she stumbled forward several times as they forced her to walk over the grass-covered plains.
The balmy winds of the midsummer night carried an ominous atmosphere. Even the rustle of the dry brush sounded similar to the heartless cackling of a jeering mob.
The bright lights of Gothic City were visible under the distant sky. Highways circled the city like Saturn’s rings and its dazzling city center was enclosed by a forest of skyscrapers, emitting only a fraction of the light it once had when it was dubbed the Nightless City.
Nevertheless, the illuminated city looked like an oasis compared to the wild plains shrouded in the same darkness blotting out the sky.
Fuel saving policies for the freeways located on the city’s outskirts required that only the fourth streetlight after every three was to be lit, and although headlights illuminated the fluorescent paint on the road, the paint didn’t emit light on its own. To make matters worse, the moon and stars were hidden behind dark clouds because it was almost time for the daily downpour. While Euphemia saw the silhouettes of her attackers, she couldn’t make out their faces no matter how hard she strained her eyes against the dark.
“Let go of me! What do you want?!” she shouted, not ready to go down without a fight.
People normally didn’t venture into the city outskirts during the daily downpour hours because of the dangers associated. Apart from attending to dire matters, young women never stepped outdoors at this time, even in the highly populated urban center.
Moreover, these outskirts were still a good 5 kyros from Gothic City’s main entrance, Forzarin Gate. If these criminals were after people to mug or women to rape, setting up shop in a place like this would be bad for business. They would catch far more prey elsewhere.
Indeed, aside from those with the most extreme of circumstances, no one was crazy enough to drive through here at this hour.
At least, no normal person who was an upstanding citizen.
What the heck, Erica? Wasn’t restoring public safety one of your campaign promises? Euphemia cursed at her older sister in her thoughts. How in the colonies did this happen? Are you even doing your job? Do I just have bad luck? Or has this city and its outskirts become a whole lot more dangerous?
It’s probably both.
Euphemia furrowed her brow, narrowed her bright-green eyes, and ground her teeth to steel herself against falling into a panic.
The man dragging her behind him with a tight grasp around both her slender wrists not only refused to lessen the pressure but dug his fingers in deeper. He was never going to look back at Euphemia, and even if he did, she knew he wouldn’t give a damn.
He was short and stout, accompanied by a gaunt man of average height who led the way. The two men wore dark-colored patchwork clothing.
“I don’t have any money on me!”
Even the best voice she could muster quivered a little. The men ignored Euphemia and tossed her into the middle of a thicket a slight distance from the freeway.
“Lady, you look like you don’t have a clue ‘bout how this works. Whether you’re broke or not, men’ll only be thinkin’ ‘bout one thing—seeing you saunter ‘round with your pretty face and hot bod, ya got me?”
“Excuse me? Are you implying you specifically targeted me? To rape me?”
“You cut right to the chase, huh, lady? As long as we do as we’re told, they’re gonna give us the street equivalent of one million Nightz. You can see how attractive of a deal this is for us, yah? Now, I’d love to teach you all sorts of things before the deed is done, but sadly they haven’t told us anything aside from what we’re to do to you.”
Nightz was the name of a drug secretly circulating through Gothic City. The drug wasn’t cheap, but it wasn’t so exorbitantly priced that addicts had to sell their left hand to get it. People could easily obtain Nightz by saving up enough money—provided they had the audacity to accept risky jobs like this.
“Excuse me? What did you just say?” Euphemia sharply drew in a breath.
They’re saying I was bound to be assaulted at one point or another, so they’re the ones doing it? But who’s targeting me and what for? And what deed are they going to do? I’m sure it’s not good, but do they mean they’re going to rape me? Kill me?
“Sorry, miss. Give up.”
“I won’t!” Euphemia yelled with everything she had. She felt like fear was going to swallow her whole if she didn’t scream. “You’ve made a mistake! There’s no reason for me to be targeted! I’m little more than a junior researcher! I’ve only just graduated; I’m no different from a scrub! Why me?!”
“I told ya, even we don’t know a thing ‘bout our employer. But y’know, even without an explanation, your looks alone are more than enough to invite a man to attack you. Don’t ya think, Pete?”
The gaunt man walking ahead of them turned around for the first time when his accomplice addressed him. “Oh yeah. You thought so too, Danny?” A sickening smile was plastered on his face. “I was just thinkin’ the same thing. She’s a total babe and she’s got a nice rack. It’s a damn waste to feed her to a Muta even if we get to do her first.”
“Muta? Feed me? What are you talking about?” Euphemia asked, barely stopping her voice from sounding hysteric.
Muta was the common name for the creatures that lived deep in the thick forests dotting the planet. The majority were ferocious carnivores. Shudders racked Euphemia’s body.
“We were ordered to feed you to a Muta. But we’ve found somethin’ fun to do before that.”
I don’t want to hear it. Euphemia’s mind recoiled in horror. Her throat constricted; she couldn’t breathe.
“You still don’t get it? You’re one sexy babe. So we’ll feed on you before we let the Muta have the leftovers. Take a look over there.”
Euphemia hadn’t noticed the parked semitrailer until Danny pointed it out.
The metal vehicle gleamed in the darkness where it reflected the freeway lights. Only military vehicles or contractors with permits were allowed to drive off-road outside of the city. Their semitrailer would’ve been reported on sight if it was left in the open, so they kept it hidden in the tall wilderness bushes during the afternoon. It wouldn’t have been hard to do since the semitrailer wasn’t big, and the bushes were.
The men steadily advanced toward the semitrailer while tugging the speechless Euphemia behind them. They circled behind the shipping container on the back of the trailer.
“See this? It’s a Bijour. Ain’t it cute?”
Pete opened the small utility window blinds attached to the container door. Something slammed viciously against the door from the darkness within.
Entertained by Euphemia’s stifled cry and horrified retreat from the container, Danny supported her from behind and whispered the creature’s name in her ear, his voice elated. The small window was made of thick glass, and Euphemia caught a glimpse of the red eyes glowing on the other side.
Bijour.
A beautiful, but terrifying, bipedal creature with a long, serrated tail positioned in an elegant curve. It was an extremely dangerous species of Muta that attacked anything that moved.
“H-How…did you get one of these?!” Euphemia stammered.
“It’s a damn rare Muta all right. I’ve heard they sell for an insane price, but it’s the first time we’ve seen one too. They’re bloody fast little suckers, so they’re almost never caught. But, if we don’t hurry this up, the rain will fall. We’ve gotta get this over with before that.”
“This area here seems soft… Plus, it’s in view of the camera.”
Danny grabbed Euphemia’s tense shoulders and glanced up at the camera affixed to the container door. It was a rearview camera for monitoring what was behind the semitrailer. Were they planning to film their crime with it?
“Hahaha! Down you go!” Danny howled with laughter and shoved Euphemia against the summer grass. Her specs tumbled from her nose onto the brush. She tried to escape, but Pete firmly grabbed hold of her legs and pinned them, and Danny trapped her hands above her head.
“N-No… Stop it… Stop it!” Euphemia’s voice came out in a pathetic whimper, she had never cried in front of others.
“Sorry, lady. You’re about to be devoured by that Bijour, but not before we both have our way with you. Then the rain will fall, and come morning, whatever’s left of your body will be found—or so goes the script. I’m of the opinion it didn’t have to be a Bijour of all things, but that seems to be our employer’s hobby. The camera set up is perfect too. Goes to show our employer’s one hell of a perv. He’s got sick tastes.”
Excited in his moment of triumph, the man’s lips became loose and talkative.
“No…no…”
Euphemia twisted, squirmed, and frantically shook her head in a last-ditch struggle, but it had no effect aside from further pulling apart her braid. No sooner did a dirty finger touch the front of her white button-down shirt than another ripped it apart. The nauseating fingers slid over her soft, exposed skin.
She felt the sickening heat of filthy fingers on her and her revulsion brought bile to the back of her throat. The man restraining her hands decided there was no need to miss out on the fun and released her hands to lean over her head and tightly grab hold of her breasts over her bra.
“Stop it!” Euphemia screamed.
No! No! No!
She burst into tears, but the only scenery that filled her wide-open eyes was the darkness known as night. Was her life going to end in such an outrageous, unreasonable way, just when she had finally gained her independence?
This is crazy! I thought I’d finally found my goal in life, and now that’s going to end with me being two scumbags’ plaything and killed in a place like this? I’m going to be food for a Muta?
“Don’t screw with me!” Euphemia shouted.
I can’t…I can’t have it end like this!
Euphemia heard the cool click of metal as her belt was removed from her jeans.
Calm down. Is there anything I can do? I won’t go down without a fight!
As the men enjoyed fondling her chest and thighs, Euphemia thrust her fingers into her lush hair and fumbled for the tiny blade embedded in her only accessory, a decorative hair comb.
It was a custom-made comb her older sister gave her for self-defense when she had left home to live on her own.
Endlessly tolerant and kind, Erica Saionji was Gothic City’s mayor who never overlooked a thing.
Euphemia had deemed the small weapon as unnecessary but Erica forced her to take it, supposedly as a good luck charm. It was a medium-large hair comb made of light materials. She ended up using it all the time because she liked the design and the way the comb held up her thick, unruly hair. In other words, her older sister knew her very well.
Erica!
Euphemia thought of her intelligent and composed older sister. The sister she imagined with a troubled smile stared back at Euphemia in her mind’s eye.
It was ironic. Euphemia had tried her hardest to become independent of her perfect older sister, and yet she ended up falling right into the traps her sister had warned of. It was laughably ironic. Euphemia would never be able to catch up to her now, not in this lifetime.
But I’ll never stand for this.
Euphemia checked the tiny blade in the middle of her hand.
The blade was the length of her thumb. For a second, she considered stabbing the men with it, but such a tiny weapon stood no chance of inflicting damage serious enough to make two men back down, so she threw out the idea. Even if she happened to injure one of them, they would only fly into a rage and rape her in an even more heinous way. They would undoubtedly confiscate her only weapon too.
So this blade had only one purpose.
I absolutely won’t let you have your way with me.
Euphemia’s eyes flew wide open.
The streetlights didn’t glint off the sharp blade because it had been painted black. Euphemia, driven to despair, resolutely raised her free hand to slit her own throat.
†††
“IT reeks…”
Zelaide Silvergray slowed his car as it sped down the freeway. Sliding the silver convertible to a stop on the freeway’s hard shoulder, he hopped out without opening the door.
Chances were the expensive car would be stolen right away without locking the steering wheel and tires, but he broke into a run without giving it a second thought. He reached maximum speed as soon as his right foot kicked off the pavement. His black coat didn’t flutter, but soared behind him like a wicked bird’s tail feathers.
“Hmph. That’s a Bijour’s stench. I’m in luck.”
Zelaide—Zel, as most people knew him, deeply inhaled the lukewarm air. His sense of smell was at least ten times sharper than a human’s. Smell was a hard thing to measure, so the precise difference was hard to know for sure.
Bijour were a particularly rare breed of Muta. Despite being reptilian, the creature walked on two legs and had the appearance of a slim woman. The odor exuded from its crimson, metal, scale-covered body was a prized ingredient in expensive perfumes, and its hide was highly valued for leather. Additionally, its meat was delectable and its teeth and claws were used in art pieces, making it a valuable creature down to every bone, tooth, and nail.
Unfortunately, Bijour were also extremely ferocious and nimble by nature, and highly intelligent for a Muta. Even worse, since they regularly hunted in groups, even an adult human male stood no chance against them when marked as prey. Their hunts were so well-organized that not even midsized guns were capable of taking them down, rendering small caliber firearms useless.
But what’s a Bijour doin’ in a place like this? I hear an engine. The rev sounds like a large vehicle. I’d put my bet on a semi. Somebody’s transporting the Bijour by trailer. Oh, they stopped. Humans…two young males…they’re coming this way.
Zel crouched down and ran through the plains like a wolf.
The capture and transportation of Bijours was strictly regulated. No respectable person or enterprise would transport a Bijour with just one vehicle at an hour this close to rainfall. In other words, capturing either—or both—human and Muta would benefit Zel. For he was a Hunter.
“I knew it. Luck’s on my side,” Zel whispered with a sinister smirk, stopping his full-speed sprint to crouch in the middle of the brush and study the actions of the men getting out of the truck.
He saw in the dark without issue, even from behind his black-tinted specs. The men hid on the side of the highway some kyros ahead of where Zel stopped his car, and they laid in wait for something. What in the frontier worlds were they waiting for three kyros away from the city at this godforsaken hour? Between the Bijour stench and the suspicious men, Zel may have just struck the Hunter’s jackpot.
Oh? Another vehicle is coming from the opposite direction. Normal car. Their target?
A white car came from the same direction as Zel, heading for the city. It bumbled along at a carefree speed without particularly bothering to make haste in the dark night.
The car’s no different from unassuming prey about to fall into a trap. A woman’s driving. Ah, what are you doing? Are you stupid? Do you want to die that bad?
Zel’s fears were proved no sooner than he thought them as the white car came to a sudden stop when the men jumped into the middle of the road in front of it, waving their arms in wide arcs. The men pointed their guns at the car and dragged a petite woman from the driver’s seat. The woman put up a good fight, but her struggle was in vain as they pulled her into the wild plains beyond the freeway.
She’s still a young woman. Why did she have the misfortune of drawin’ their attention? And what’s a woman doing outside the city walls just before rainfall? Isn’t she practically asking to be attacked? Well, it’s got nothing to do with me. But is this related to the Bijour?
Zel hid in the taller brush and left a good gap between them as he tailed the men.
All right, I’ll be watchin’ for a bit to see where you go and what you do.
He spotted a small semitrailer before long. It was probably what the men had driven here in. The peculiar stench of a Bijour wafted from it. Since it didn’t reek of putrid scales, the smell had to be leaking through the air ducts. There couldn’t have been more than one Bijour inside.
Zel closed the distance while keeping a careful watch on his surroundings.
Suddenly, he heard a high-pitched shriek. It was evident the kidnapping had been planned, but the woman hadn’t grasped her situation yet. No matter how Zel thought about it, the woman couldn’t have been an upstanding citizen if she was outside at this hour, but her reaction was oddly inexperienced for someone so far out in the Wilds. Her hair came undone the more she resisted, sending thick blond locks tumbling down her back in a gorgeous cascade of hair that caught the eye even in the dark.
Well, that sucks. Poor woman was pushed onto the ground in no time. Now then, how to deal with this nuisance?
Zel quickly thought up the most logical plan: knocking out the men, taking the semitrailer with the Bijour inside, then selling the Bijour to the black market after he turned the thugs over to the authorities. He couldn’t care less about the woman. His plan would inevitably result in her rescue anyway, but it was up to her to make her way to the police. Her car was still parked on the freeway.
Time to make my move then, Zel concluded, and took a step forward to enact his simple plan, when he spotted the pinned woman thrusting her fingers into the top of her hair. What he had thought was a simple hair accessory released a sharp blade from its comb.
And what he saw next would stay with him forever—
—beautiful eyes that were curiously clear as they fixed on the sinister blade.
Faster than he could think, “ah,” she raised her arm overhead and brought the blade down in a wicked arc aimed for her throat.
Before he knew it, Zel was already on the move. The tiny blade she swung down was as brutally sharp as he expected, and it pierced right through his palm where he caught it. But Zel paid the pain no mind as he swept his other arm toward the men.
“Huh…? Agh!”
The man groping the woman’s breasts over her ripped shirt flew backward and loudly plunged headfirst into a tall, spiky bush.
“Wha-?! Gah!” Surprised by his partner’s sudden departure, the other man jerked his head up from trying to pull down the woman’s pants. Zel grabbed his throat and squeezed out a toad-like croak from his crushed airway. He lifted the man off the ground by his throat as he flailed his short, puny legs.
“Who do you work for?” Zel asked in a low growl, slightly easing the pressure of his fingers sinking into the man’s throat. His canine teeth gleamed behind his thin lips.
“Guh! Ach!”
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll crush your throat. Or would you rather I break your jaw? Messin’ you up so bad you can only eat tofu the rest of your life is no problem for me either.”
“S-Somebody…h-help me!”
“Oh? Your dick completely deflated, y’know? Would you like me to crush it along with your throat?”
“I’ll tell you! I’ll speak s-so…d-don’t k-kill me! P-Please…”
Zel’s lips quirked into a smirk under the black specs he wore despite the dark. “Wow, you’re filthy. Don’t drool on me, you piece of shit. Spit it out already!”
“We’re called Insects…we ain’t no more than Vermis…”
Vermis referred to small-time gangs made up of no-good punks, not much different from a group of delinquent street kids who never learned better. Basically, they were thugs who did subcontractor work under big-time crime syndicates until it went to their heads and they smugly gave their insignificant ragtag group of gangs a name.
“Vermis? Is that true? You aren’t Inferni?” Zel asked, dropping the name of the syndicate that viewed him as an enemy.
“I-I…dunno… What’s I-Inferni?” The man trembled and tried to shake his head as though he truly didn’t know.
“Doesn’t matter if you don’t know. Then why’d you assault this woman?” Zel gestured toward the woman with his chin. He glimpsed that she had somehow succeeded in pulling together her ripped clothing as she looked up at him from where she still sat on the ground. She probably couldn’t move yet.
“I dunno that either…! A man named Shank hired us to rape and kill the woman who was going to pass through this area just before rainfall… We were gonna be paid in Nightz. We accepted the job because he said he’ll give us a shitload of Nightz!”
“Hmm…”
Zel didn’t recognize the name Shank. In all likelihood, it was a fake name, and the man ensured that they never saw his face. These men really didn’t seem to have a connection to Infernum, the syndicate the Inferni were members of, so Zel lost complete interest in them. He was about to throw the man into the brush like the last one, when he suddenly got a deep whiff of a putrid odor. It was the stench of a Bijour getting excited.
“What else do you know? Tell me everything! Right now!” Sensing the Muta’s bloodlust in the darkness, Zel dug his fingers into the man’s throat.
“Ack! I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you everythin’! That woman’s probably a member of some syndicate, don’t ya think?! She seems like the easiest target to knock off so that’s why she was picked!”
“Syndicate?”
“Y-Yeah. But I dunno the details. I was seriously only a hired man!”
Just what kind of syndicate? A different syndicate from Infernum? She’s awfully naïve for syndicate life.
“Anything else?”
“Nothing! I mean it! Spare me!”
“Hmph. Then return to your employer and give him the message to never go after this girl’s ass again. If you say it’s from Zel, he’ll know who you mean.”
“Zel…? O-Ok. I promise. I’ll never go for her again.”
“Good. Hm?”
Zel heard the grating sound of metal moving. He shifted his eyes to the parked semitrailer, where he saw the automatic shutter doors rolling up. Inside the container was pitch-black.
Two glowing red lights ominously appeared within the darkness.
The forest Muta, Bijour.
Tch. I screwed up.
“I guess your buddy woke up?”
Danny sneaked around to the other side of the semitrailer, wormed his way into the driver’s seat, and opened the container from inside the truck. The shutter door hadn’t rolled all the way up yet, but a small crack was more than enough space for the slender creature.
As soon as the Bijour slipped outside, the other man stepped on the gas and hightailed it out of there without his accomplice. The semitrailer looked like a panicked metal animal fleeing from danger.
“O-Oi! …OI! Wait! Wait! Danny! Danny!”
The man’s cries were the trigger.
The beautiful wild Muta lunged through the air with enough jumping power to captivate a person. It leapt with the confidence of a predator that had marked them as easy prey. The pair of red eyes soared right above Zel’s head like warning lights of death.
In the next moment, the Bijour would flawlessly knock down its prey with its powerful hind-legs, and then rip out the soft windpipe with its sharp, curved foreleg talons.
But it was the lithe reptile that got flipped over and slammed into the ground. The Muta’s only weakness was said to be its long, thin neck. Zel grabbed it there, then shoved it, neck and all, against the ground as its long tail and powerful hind-legs jerked wildly through the air.
This Bijour might’ve been a youngling as its size was no bigger than a petite human, but a Muta was a Muta. No ordinary human strength was capable of holding one down with a single hand, but Zel was no ordinary human. The paralyzed man on the ground beside Zel had fallen on his hands and knees, none the wiser about how he got there—Zel had chucked him aside to seize the Bijour.
“I wanted to take it alive, but, the situation is what it is,” Zel remarked casually, as if he had only caught a stray dog, not a creature capable of taking down armed men. The Muta raged under his hand in a desperate struggle for life. Zel lifted his other hand to remove his black-tinted specs.
A pale glow emerged in the dark. His eyes were filled with a gleam more frightening than the Muta’s evil red eyes.
The raging Bijour temporarily stopped moving, as if captivated by the glow. The uncanny sound of bone snapping echoed through the plains. Both legs of the violently struggling Bijour suddenly twitched then spasmed two or three times before thudding to the ground.
“Well, that sucked. But how could I have transported it? The trailer took off, and it’d be visible in my car—Oi… C’mon now.”
“S-Somebody! Save me! Monster! There’s a monster!”
When the gaunt man on the ground met Zel’s eyes, he scampered backwards on the ground to get away. The moment the puny man had managed to clamber to his feet, he made a stumbling streak for the bright freeway, falling over himself. The shameful sloshing sounds coming from his pants hinted that he was wetting himself along the way.
Tch. He ran away. What a pain… But I don’t care enough to chase him. Oh yeah. Zel turned around as he remembered the other human.
He had forgotten all about the woman too afraid to stand, watching him from the ground about 10 mols from where he stood. The young woman clasped her torn shirt in front of her chest, but her pure white neck and shoulders stood out vividly to his night vision.
“You’re still here?” Zel sneered coldly as he put his specs back on.
Had the woman not been paralyzed with fear, she would’ve seen his fingers were trembling.
†††
AT the time, Euphemia had no idea what had happened.
Dying by her own hand would have been far better than letting the scumbags rape her till they were satisfied before tossing her as a nighttime snack to the most brutal of all Mutas on the planet.
Euphemia had chosen how to end her life in a matter of seconds, so fast that she would laugh about it when she remembered the incident later. She would always remember the time she had wasted dragging her feet, deciding and redeciding what to do with her life, like a bad joke considering how quickly she had come to a decision about ending that same life in that horrible moment.
I’ll be the one to end my life, with my hands! With that thought, she swung down the blade she had received from her sister for self-defense—or at least, she tried to.
Yet the instant when the beautiful blade sunk into her throat never came, and instead of pain, she felt the weight on her body lighten. First, the man tenaciously fondling her breasts vanished from view, then the man yanking down her pants disappeared.
How?
While Euphemia was overcome with surprise, loud cracks erupted from the thicket a good distance away, accompanied by an unpleasant toe-curling scream.
But she didn’t have the time or leisure to care. Euphemia somehow managed to sit up and scoot backwards.
She would’ve loved to run to her car parked on the freeway, but her legs buckled with fear whenever she tried to stand. For that matter, she didn’t even know whether the threat of assault was truly gone. The immediate danger might have dissipated, but she definitely couldn’t call her current situation safe. A massive shadow lurked 10 mols away, the broad back turned toward her.
The shadow belonged to yet another man, this one a good two heads taller than the other two.
He grabbed one man’s neck and tossed him over his shoulder with ease. He constricted the other by the throat and held him up at arm’s length with his right hand. The man dangled there as he lost the strength to fight back. The newcomer’s strength was tremendous. In stature and physique alone, the two thugs were no match for his impressive figure.
Even in the weak glow cast by the streetlights, she could tell the man clad in all-black was impressively tall with long legs. In contrast, his head appeared unduly white in the dark because of his long silvery hair.
Who is he? What is he? The enemy? Or help?
“Who do you work for?” A deep voice growled. The tone was calm, but chilled to the core. The man hanging inelegantly by his throat croaked out a pitiful moan.
“If you don’t tell me, I’ll crush your throat. Or would you rather I break your jaw? Messin’ you up so bad you can only eat tofu the rest of your life is no problem for me either.”
“Your dick completely deflated, y’know? Would you like me to crush it along with your throat?”
“Wow, you’re filthy. Don’t drool on me, you piece of shit.”
Unrefined phrases came out of the man’s mouth with an odd pronunciation, but he surprisingly wasn’t as vulgar as he could be. He was menacing the thug, but in a manner so flippant, Euphemia guessed he was doing it for kicks. He was simply enjoying the process of threatening someone he could easily snap in two if he felt like it. In which case, he was the dangerous kind of person after all.
That’s what Euphemia sensed about him.
The conversation—if it could be called one—progressed in the direction of why the men had targeted her. She was very curious about that, so she clasped her torn clothing together, lowered herself down as far as she could, and strained her ears to pick up on what was said.
Someone named Shank came up while Euphemia spied on them, but she had never heard the name before. She was positive this was all just one big misunderstanding anyway.
She was just a junior researcher at a public research facility, and while she didn’t lack drive for her research, she had yet to produce any major results. She wanted to believe she wasn’t worth being targeted, raped, then killed by hired killers.
“Then return to your employer and give him the message to never go after this girl’s ass again. If you say it’s from Zel, he’ll know who you mean,” ordered the man with hair that gleamed silver in the dark.
Zel? Is that this man’s name? Forget this. I need to focus on getting out of here.
To Euphemia, both the man hanging by his throat and the man in black going by the name of Zel meant nothing. Whatever way she looked at it, neither of them were 100% respectable, trustworthy men. Compared to them, Euphemia, despite her somewhat flashy appearance, was an upstanding citizen to the bone.
A sickeningly sweet smell wafted her way from the darkness ahead just as she was about to force her trembling legs into action. Her various senses must have been numbed from everything that had happened to her, because she only now noticed the fairly loud mechanical noise. It was relatively familiar, reminding her of the electric door to the storage room at work.
“I guess your buddy woke up?”
Was he talking about the pervert who had been fondling her breasts? I thought I saw him catapult through the air. What a sickeningly sweet smell. Like an overripe fruit from the south.
Her mind stuck in sensory overload, Euphemia was absently inhaling the sweet smell when the semitrailer parked right beside her suddenly sped off toward the freeway with its tires spinning. The mechanical sound she’d heard was the container’s shutter door opening. The man she’d seen flung aside decided to abandon his friend and escape alone. Something that set her skin crawling loomed in the empty darkness left in the semitrailer’s wake.
Two red lights gleamed just above the bush. They were the same unblinking lights she had seen through the small window in the container door. The sickeningly sweet smell permeated the surrounding darkness, even stronger than before.
Oh no! Is it the Bijour?! The one those scumbags were going to feed me to?!
The danger never left! The threat to her life had only gotten worse. Euphemia dropped her chin to her chest in utter despair. It was all over for her now—hope was lost. There was no escape. Not for her or the mystery man.
A savage Muta had been let loose.
“No…no…” Euphemia started hyperventilating.
This is awful. This is more than awful.
Two dangerous men were close enough to catch her, and an even more vicious Muta lay not much farther past them. The Bijour’s metal scales emitted a dull glimmer. Its red eyes ascertained its surroundings before setting its sights on them.
How and where should she run in order to arrive home in one piece? The chances of her getting back safe were almost zero. Forgetting all about the fact that she had nearly committed suicide only minutes prior, Euphemia stared at the three separate life-threatening beings only steps away from her.
The Muta would have no issue slaughtering the two men. And then, Euphemia would be next. She just knew it.
The Bijour tilted its rangy neck. The gesture was a far cry from cute. And then it screeched a mind-numbing shriek. Two wicked red stars soared high into the air.
The Bijour had jumped.
What happened after that should’ve only occurred in the span of a few seconds, but when Euphemia reflected on the events later, they replayed in her head as vividly as a movie on TV.
The tall man swung his right arm to the side, sending the man he had clasped by the throat flying. Then he cocked his head slightly, thrust his left hand high, and prepared himself to take on the fierce Muta descending toward his head.
Euphemia visualized the beautiful and baleful Muta she had only ever seen in textbooks.
The Bijour’s hooked talons were well-suited for kicking off the ground into a high jump and for running up the side of trees. They were also perfect for tearing into its chosen prey.
The man twisted around and thwarted its overhead attack by grabbing hold of the Bijour’s ankles, then used his shoulders to slam it into the ground. He straddled the Muta faster than Euphemia’s eyes could follow, and locked his hand securely under its chin.
The Bijour never imagined its attack would be evaded. It fought back with its serrated tail and strong legs, but the tall man had twice the weight on the Muta, rendering it impossible to shake off his hold.
“I wanted to take it alive, but the situation is what it is,” the man said casually.
Euphemia heard a snap that sounded like he broke the Muta’s neck just before the vicious creature’s body shot up and curled in on itself. After convulsing several times, the legs dropped to the ground first, then the curled-up tail thudded behind them, and it ceased moving at all.
It’s dead.
Euphemia blankly watched the brutal end to the ferocious creature’s life.
“S-Somebody! Save me! Monster! There’s a monster!”
The gaunt man whose legs had also given out on him let out an ugly scream and scampered away. Euphemia wanted to do the same thing more than anything else.
But she couldn’t.
The tall man stood and slowly turned around, not even giving the lifeless Muta another look. Euphemia was rooted to the spot, unable to pry her eyes from the way he moved. Were his refined movements the manifestation of his confidence?
The “monster” wasn’t the Muta that just died. The man was the real beast.
The man who fled had called him a monster for that reason. Euphemia finally understood why. Steel-blue gems glimmered in the dark. The pair of eyes emitted a strong glow that rivaled, if not surpassed, the wicked red eyes of the slaughtered Muta.
“You’re still here?”
The man made a slight movement and the light of his eyes disappeared with his heartless words. He had put on specs.
But what I just saw…were they human eyes?
Euphemia was glued to the ground.
She couldn’t shake off the terror she felt when looking into his eyes. But…they were so beautiful.
At the end of that thought, Euphemia’s consciousness quickly gave away.