Book 1: Chapter 36: The Hero Lisha’s Compromise
Book 1: Chapter 36: The Hero Lisha’s Compromise
In the Dark Sanctum, Lisha had already been taken off of the cross by Bella, but the silk around her hands had not been removed yet, they had been tied together behind her back now. But as Lisha was in her true form, it shouldn’t even be hard for her to break free if she wanted to.
“Felia… I didn’t do anything bad! Can you undo my hands?”
“Hmph, you’re not even calling me sis anymore, you still dare to say that you didn’t do anything bad?”
“This… but I…”
“If you’re sure that you don’t want to call me sis anymore, I’ll wake up Sister Irene. Then she’ll…”
“No, please… Sis Felia, I was wrong! Don’t wake up Sister Irene please, she had been holding something against me for taking the spot for dragon knight already, if she knew that I wasn’t…”
“You’re Lisha, aren’t you? There’s no problem there. I won’t care about your past, but you should treasure what you have now!”
In the waters of the Unholy Spring, Bella carried the bound Lisha and was discussing something with her. Lisha had been one of Earth’s inhabitants before after all, Bella knew that she wouldn’t be as easy to fool as Irene and Hadias, so Bella decided against taking Lisha’s lips by force, knowing that it might cause Lisha to develop a disliking for her.
“Sis Felia, is it that you like girls!?”
“Little Lisha, how did you know?”
“I… guessed…”
After calming down, Lisha was naturally able to recognize the strange accessories on the bodies of Irene, Hadias, and Lola. Lisha had been a businesswoman back on Earth, not someone who lived in the mountains and had no access to the technology, Lisha had naturally seen a few of those kinds of videos.
“Well, you’re correct! Your sister, who is me, does in fact like girls. Including you too, Lisha!”
“Sis, this… I…”
“What is it? Do you dislike your sis?”
“I don’t dislike sis, but…”
“Then, you like me then? You naughty little sister, you don’t hate me, why do you have to deny your sister’s love?”
“But we’re both girls… isn’t this…”
“Lisha, I’m serious. Do you have anyone that you like? If you have someone in your heart already, I can give up.”
While Bella said that she would give up, but that was just a lie to fool Lisha. How could Bella give up Lisha? Back when Bella had met Irene, she had already planned to take in the other three members of the Octavian Empire’s (Knights) ‘Four Royal Beauty Holy Knights’. As being one of them, Lisha was naturally one of Bella’s targets. After seeing the beauty of Lisha’s true form. Bella was even less willing to give up this beautiful little sister of hers to an outsider.
Lisha’s face was flushed and she wanted to hide somewhere right now, but she couldn’t do so due to how tightly she was being embraced by Bella right now. Lisha didn’t know how to respond to Bella’s ‘confession’.
Back when Lisha was the【Dragon Demon Empress】, the only ones she conversed with were the demon marshal Rebecca and the heroine that she had met in her fourth incarnation. After transmigrating to this world, the one with whom she had interacted the most was Felia, and after that was Lola. So if one were to think about it, those who had the deepest relationships with Lisha were all girls. Back during her incarnation on Earth, she had been surrounded by misfortune and haunted by wicked spirits, making it so that she never had any time to have a relationship with any males.
The three male heroes who had fought alongside her not so long ago,【Berserker】Barthes,【Hand of Revival】Wulfe, and【Grand Enchanter】Hayden, had abandoned her in her time of need, the one that had hurt her the most was the betrayal of Hayden, the handsome youth who had sworn to protect her for as long as he lived. Lisha had felt some inklings of romance towards the talented youth, but that had all disappeared when he had abandoned her when it counted the most.
Lisha, what are you thinking! Felia is your older sister, how can you have such illicit feelings towards her!
Lisha, those heartless men abandoned you, do you still think they’re going to come back for you!? What’s wrong with accepting Sis Felia’s love? Didn’t you always hang around Rebecca in the past, you didn’t seem to think that anything was wrong with that!
There was only friendship between me and Rebecca, nothing else!
Stop lying to yourself, back then there were quite a few of your decorated generals who asked you for Rebecca’s hand in marriage. Yet you would always deny them, even if they rebelled against you later because of this, you call that nothing but friendship?
That was because…
Stop lying to yourself, I know you like girls, you know it too! If you deny Sis Felia now. When you get back, that old emperor is going to sell you off to the highest bidder, and you’re going to have to spend the rest of your life with someone you don’t love, is that what you want!?
Deep in Lisha’s heart, two voices were having a heated argument. The yuri-supporting demon quickly suppressed the angel who was against it. Lisha didn’t have much resistance towards yuri in the first place, or else the demon wouldn’t have won so fast.
Bella chose not to disturb Lisha who had fallen into a state of confusion, quietly embracing the girl instead. Lisha’s face had been flushed this whole time, but she had not shown any sign of dislike. This showed Bella that within Lisha’s heart, she wasn’t really against the idea of love between two girls, because if she were, it wouldn’t be hard for her to break free from her binds using the power of the【Dragon Demon Empress】.
This was Bella’s first confession in this world, as well as in her whole life. In her past life on Earth as a world-renowned fashion designer, Bella had given her entire life to her work and didn’t have any time for a relationship before she had transmigrated to this world.
Even when she thought about it then, Bella regretted how foolish she was in her past life, not even being able to get herself a girlfriend! Did she have to accept a male’s love now that she was a female in this world? Of course, not! Bella planned to make up for all the lost ‘happiness’ of her past life in this one, and becoming a girl wasn’t going to stop her.
“Sis Felia, can you give me some more time…”
“No Lisha, all I need you to do right now is to tell me whether you like or dislike your Sis Felia?”
“I don’t dislike sis, but…”
“Then you like me, alright, let’s enter the next phase!”
Bella placed her hand over Lisha’s small mouth, not allowing her to deny Bella. She planned to seal their relationship first, they could slowly develop the rest later. This confession was somewhat successful at least, Lisha didn’t show any evident signs of dislike nor did she openly deny her feelings towards Felia. Bella didn’t worry about whether she would be able to succeed, she knew all of Lisha’s secrets. With all this information, Bella could blackmail Lisha if she had denied Bella’s confession.
___
The Gabriel Empire’s (Swordsmen) military town of Sakerid had become the scene of an undead disaster, countless zombies wandered the town’s streets. These zombies were quite different from those who were summoned through a necromancer’s dark magic.
First of all, the zombies summoned through dark magic could be ‘cleansed’ by the Holy Magic of the Church of Light, while the zombies in Sakerid seemed to have strong resistance to light-type magic, meaning that the Church of Light’s clerics were almost completely useless. The first group of clerics from the Church of Light that had arrived here didn’t know about this and had suffered several casualties before they realized and retreated to the town’s outskirts.
Since swordsmen were the most respected people within the Gabriel Empire, swordsmen also made up the majority of the empire’s forces, which led to the current state of the entire town of Sakerid not having a single magician with enough level to contribute to the current situation. The members of the town’s large Church had all left in search of the missing 3rd holy maiden, Antonia Susan, and had not yet returned. These factors caused the town’s garrison to be completely unable to deal with the strange outbreak.
On the third floor of one of the town’s smaller inns, four beauties were hiding. During the onset of the outbreak, Ariel had detected it on time and had come to Kriss, seeking aid, bringing Ivy and Susan with her.
Originally Ariel hadn’t planned on rescuing these two, as she didn’t want any more people knowing about her current looks. She was fortunate that she had possessed the body of a princess that wasn’t very pretty, to say the least. In the three years since Ariel had transmigrated to this world, the Aldrich Empire’s (Magicians) emperor had probably forgotten about her due to her ‘inability’ to be married, allowing Ariel to spend a rather peaceful three years.
It would be quite bothersome if people were to find out how beautiful she had become. Even in the faraway Aldrich Empire, Ariel had heard quite a few rumors and stories about the silver-haired beauty, Kriss. She knew that even though many of the noble families’ young masters showed contempt for Kriss’ silver-hair as it was a bad omen, but out of the public eye, they were discussing with each other on how to obtain Kriss and turn her into their plaything.
It sent a disgusted shiver down Ariel’s spine every time she heard rumors like this, further increasing her hatred towards those hypocritical men. She was also a silver-haired beauty on the level of Kriss, and she knew that if others were to find out about her current looks, she wouldn’t have a much different fate from that of Kriss. Ariel knew that if she wanted to keep living her peaceful life, it would be best to keep her beauty low-key.
However, the clothes that Ivy and Susan wore were those that had been designed by Bella, all styles that Ariel had seen back in her ‘homeland’, Earth. This provoked the multiple-time transmigrator’s yearning for home, so she decided to save Ivy and Susan as well.
Right now the four of them were trapped in the inn’s third floor, like on an island in a sea of undead. Kriss and Ariel had already cleared the entire third floor of any undead, it was fortunate that there weren’t many people living in this inn, meaning that they only needed to eliminate five or six unfortunate zombies.
After clearing the floor’s zombies, Kriss and Ariel barricaded the floor’s entrance using whatever they could find, with Ariel setting up a few additional walls of ice in case the zombies managed to get past them. Kriss’ blade, ‘Darkness’ Torment’ had no ‘scare effect’ on these zombies, meaning that these zombies weren’t summoned through dark magic and therefore had no sensitivity to magic, meaning that the exorcism magic on ‘Darkness’ Torment’ was useless against them.
After finishing these preparations, Kriss and Ariel quickly retreated into their room and barricaded the door. Only within the room did the two of them feel an inkling of warmth. This room had been blessed by Susan using Holy Magic and there shouldn’t be anyone malicious intent that could infiltrate this room.
The terror within this town wasn’t caused only by zombies, all of these zombies had died an unnatural death. If these zombies were summoned by dark magic, their souls should still be trapped within their ‘vessel’. These zombies, however, had been caused by a strange virus or something similar and their souls had all been pushed out of their bodies, manifesting into malicious spirits that roamed the town.
“How’s the situation outside, Kriss?”
“Pretty bad Ivy, we’re the only four still alive in this area. There are way too many zombies, and they seem to be immune to exorcism using light magic, making them too difficult to deal with at the moment. There are also quite a few malicious spirits just hanging around outside.”
“The Church’s forces should arrive soon, this undead outbreak is quite large in the scale after all. Should we light a signal to tell them about our location?”
“Susan, do you want to be seen nude by others? Maybe you should think about the situation we’re in! I don’t care, if you send for help from males, this party is disbanded, and we can each go our separate ways! I’d rather not have my unclothed body seen by a male, thank you very much.”
Ariel immediately shot down Susan’s proposition, the four of them had their clothes dissolved by the same virus that caused the infection. Ariel didn’t want to risk getting seen nude by a stranger, especially a male. After reaching that conclusion, Ariel tightly clasped onto Kriss’ right arm; Kriss was much more reliable in Ariel’s eyes when compared to Ivy and Susan, she knew that it would be key to listen to this ‘reliable’ teammate if she wanted to get out of here in one piece.
Kriss looked a little conflicted at both sides, Ariel’s actions had a clear intent to them, she wanted to pull Kriss to her side. Back when they were sweeping the floor for zombies, she had seen Ariel’s ability and knew that she could be relied on. However, Ivy was one of the best friends of the previous owner of Kriss’ body, and it would also be difficult to do anything without Susan’s Holy Magic due to all those malicious spirits flying around!
“Alright, alright, let’s stop arguing, for now, Susan was only thinking for our sakes. Calm down a bit, princess Ariel, I’m sure there’s another way we can get ourselves out of this mess that doesn’t require us to be seen by males.”
Ivy stepped in and managed to pull the party back from the brink of dissolution. Right at this time, a strange floral scent came through the window which they had already barricaded previously, after smelling this scent, all four girls felt a little lightheaded.
“This scent is toxic, quick, get into the basin!”
Kriss and Ariel reacted quickly and dragged Susan and Ivy, who had almost passed out, into the wooden basin. Fortunately, this basin was large enough for the four of them, it just wasn’t a very comfortable fit.
Kriss brought out another one of her swords, ‘Venom’s Kiss’, and stuck it into the side of the wooden basin, using the sword’s poison to fight back against the floral scent, keeping the scent from getting close to the girls. However, their situation hadn’t improved much from before, and their living space had been reduced by half by the toxic air.
They could hear terrifying wails coming from the staircase, it seemed that the malicious spirits were directing the zombies to attempt and break through the barricade that Kriss and Ariel had set up. Malicious spirits teaming up with the zombies to attack them was something that Kriss and Ariel had not considered nor expected.
In this moment of danger, the staircase to the third floor collapsed to the excessive weight. Due to the small number of customers normally, the inn’s stairs were designed to carry no more than a few people at one time, it was a miracle that it had managed to last so long under the weight of a horde of zombies.
Without stairs, most of the zombies surrounding them left the area. The remaining malicious spirits were restricted from entering the room due to fear of Kriss’ ‘Darkness’ Torment’ and could only wait outside of their room, making their presence known through their bloodcurdling wails.
“Hey, we should contact Bella, she’ll surely come and save us!”
Only now did Ivy remember that when they had parted ways with Bella, she had given Ivy and Susan a ‘communication stone’, and now seemed like the right situation to use it in.
Bella’s party was a legendary one that had won against the SS+ class monster [Fierce Dragon], she should be able to deal with the zombies here. Also, in Ivy’s impression of Bella, Bella didn’t seem to hang around any males, choosing instead to surround herself with a large group of beautiful girls whenever possible.
Susan and Kriss immediately agreed to Ivy’s suggestion, they’ve already shared some skinship with Bella after all, so there was nothing to be embarrassed about to let Bella see their current state. Ariel had initially wanted to dispute this decision, but could only give in begrudgingly to the majority with the promise that there wouldn’t be any males being called in to save them.