A Fragment Of The King Of Defilement

I’ll run away the moment it flinches from my attack—

That was what Grail had thought, but he quickly changed his plan.

(I can’t deal with something like this!)

Fortunately, perhaps because the opponent had no interest in Grail, it remained standing still.

If he slipped past its side, there should be no problem—

Suddenly, Grail’s vision flowed backward.

“Hah?”

A stupid voice leaked from Grail’s mouth. Immediately afterward, with a violent gaahn! Grail’s back slammed into the wall.

“Buheah!?”

Impact—pain. Air spilled from his lungs.

“What the… what happened…?”

When Grail looked forward, the goat head was standing there with its arm swung all the way through. It had knocked Grail away with its arm when he had tried to slip past its side.

“Damn… it…!”

Grail tried to stand up, but—

His body swayed unsteadily.

“Guoooooooooooooooooooooh!”

Grail screamed from the intense pain.

Of course he did.

He had taken a blow with an attack power of 1100 with a defense power of 337.

It was a difference in parameters where, if the goat head had not merely brushed him aside lightly, it would not have been strange for him to die in one blow.

“Ga, ah, ah, ah…!”

The goat head approached Grail as he writhed in pain.

“H-Hi, hiiii…!”

Grail crawled along the floor and fled. He was afraid. An overwhelming strong foe he could not beat even if he stood on his head was approaching him.

The box the goat head had come out of was at the back of the room. Grail fled into the narrow space between the box and the wall.

Grail himself did not believe that something like that would save him.

But this was all he had.

Fleeing in here was all the resistance Grail could manage.

The goat head caught up.

“A-Ah, aaaaaaah! Don’t come near me!”

Grail thrust out his sword.

There was no meaning in that action.

Because Grail’s sword would never wound the goat head.

The goat head’s right hand gripped Grail’s hand as he swung his sword around.

It was only gripping it lightly.

And yet, that alone made Grail unable to move his arm.

Next, with a bakinn! the chainmail gauntlet shattered easily.

The jet-black fingers gripped Grail’s arm itself.

A chill—an intense cold, as if even his soul were freezing, pierced Grail’s skin.

From that point of contact, a horrifying sensation came through, as if countless tiny insects were noisily crawling inside him.

“Kuoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!”

Grail screamed. As if to hide his fear.

He was going to die—he would die. That fact made Grail feel like vomiting. Confusion and fear boiled inside his head and made Grail’s consciousness waver.

At that moment.

A voice rang in Grail’s mind.

—What a truly defiled soul. You may be useful, so I will let you off with only a mark.

Immediately afterward, pain as if his body were being burned attacked Grail.

“Hagyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!?”

With that as the last thing, Grail completely lost consciousness.

The goat head let go of Grail, and then left the room as if it had already forgotten about Grail.

After defeating the trolls, we were taking a short rest in a room.

While holding Nyankoromochi, Misha spoke in high spirits.

“Trolls are easy wins for us now, huh?”

“We’ve been defeating them nonstop for two months, after all…”

Even two months ago, there had not been any problems.

During that time, my level had gone up from 22 to 26, and I had grown stronger. I did not feel like I would lose in terms of either experience or parameters.

“How’s Fighting Spirit Lv3?”

“Let’s see.”

With this skill, my attack power was constantly increased by 10%.

My attack power was 870, so the increase was 87.

The total was 957.

“It’s pretty useful.”

If I stacked many parameter-increase-type skills like this, I would gradually grow stronger through their synergistic effects.

I was looking forward to changing jobs and gathering skills.

Since the status increase effect was not tied to a weapon like the Sword Saint skill, it was also a big point that the effect would remain even if I changed to a job that could not use swords.

“Nishishishi! Nyankoromochiii, your owner is strong!”

When Misha hugged Nyankoromochi tightly, Nyankoromochi let out a nyaaaaaaaaaah! scream.

It was right around then.

We heard a scream.

Not a cat’s—but a human’s.

Misha and I looked at each other.

“Does that feel like something dangerous?”

“Yeah…”

While nodding at Misha’s words, I was thinking about something else.

For some reason, I felt like I had heard that scream before, but—

Was it just my imagination?

“…Ios. Should we go help?”

“Yeah. We can’t just leave them.”

We cut our rest short and stood up.

However—

There was no need for us to head there ourselves.

Pit-pat, pit-pat.

The sound of bare feet came from the other side of the passage.

In the dim light lit inside the dungeon, I could see a jet-black darkness walking toward us.

I placed my hand on the hilt of my sword.

Misha also let go of Nyankoromochi and turned a vigilant gaze forward.

Nyankoromochi bristled her fur and let out a threatening cry.

Before long, it revealed itself.

The first thing that caught my eye was its head, which was exactly like a goat’s skull. Its body was muscular, and its lower body was covered in beast hair. Its whole body was a single shade of black, but in its eye sockets alone, red lights like eyes were shining.

…What is that?

I had never seen something like that on the D-layer before…?

“Misha! What species is that thing!?”

“Hmm… I don’t know…”

Misha gave an uncertain answer.

…Misha didn’t know? It was rare for the clever Misha to react like that.

Did that mean it was not an ordinary monster?

The monster let out a roar.

“Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!”

“We’re doing this!”

I drew my sword and charged toward the goat head.

Even faster than that—

“Fire Arrow! Wind Cutter! Water Blast! Earth Spike!”

Misha’s four-hit combo! The basic attack magic of fire, wind, water, and earth exploded.

Brilliant rays of light shone.

I flashed my sword.

The sword certainly cut into the goat head’s side, but—

“It’s hard!”

What hardness!

A hardness beyond the scales of the giant lizardman traveled through my hand. It had an outrageous defense power. Even though I had grown quite a bit stronger since then—!

But!

“How about this!”

I activated the skill “Heavy Strike Lv3.”

It was a skill that gave the next strike a +5% attack increase.

From an attack power of 957, to 1005!

The returning blade certainly sliced off the goat head’s flesh. A voice of agony rang from the goat head’s mouth.

“Ooooooooooooooooooooooaaaah!?”

“All right!”

It was probably still only a shallow wound. Even so, my blade had gone through—it had dealt enough damage for the enemy to feel pain.

The blade went through. In that case!

There was a way to fight. That was what a warrior was!

“Let’s go, Misha, Nyankoromochi!”