Taming The Villainesses
Chapter 423: Small and Trivial Habit (2)

Everyone stopped relaxing and immediately drew their weapons. The first to shout was Elga.

“Move into the formation we planned for!”

At her command, we swiftly gathered around Elga in perfect unison. As we aimed our weapons in every direction, Stella spoke up.

“I didn’t hear any approaching footsteps at all, though?”

Though she may have looked like she was leisurely soaking her feet in the cold stream, Stella—who had recently begun learning pre-spell techniques—now had a sensitivity that far surpassed mine.

The fact that she hadn’t noticed something approaching was strange.

When something suddenly burst out of the underbrush, I immediately understood why there had been no sound of footsteps.

—GRRAAAHH...!!!

It was a beast, feline in nature.

Its wide-open jaws revealed fangs longer than my fingers—absolutely terrifying. But what was even more bizarre was that only its head was floating in midair.

Of course we hadn’t heard any footsteps.

“What the hell is that supposed to be now?”

Elga frowned in disgust. Even for her, it seemed this was her first time seeing a floating predator head.

But there was no time for wonder.

“Stick to the plan!”

We had no time to gawk. Whatever kind of monster this was, we could study it once we took it down.

“Unni, it’s coming your way!”

Narmee shouted. Just as she said, the floating beast’s head bared its menacing fangs and lunged straight toward Mirna.

—KRRRRRAHHH!!!

It let out a thunderous roar.

Shhhk—

Mirna calmly drew her sword and brought it down hard upon the beast’s head.

“Crescent Slash.”

The sword traced a half-moon arc and split the beast’s head clean in two.

SPLAT.

Thud—thump.

As the neatly bisected head fell to the ground, we all breathed a slight sigh of relief. At least they could be taken down.

But the situation wasn’t over yet.

Elga shouted:

“Hey—more of ‘em are coming out over there...!”

Through the underbrush emerged more heads—floating in midair. Deer, rabbit, dog, bear—there was no consistent type. A grotesque, disjointed swarm.

As they charged toward us, I quickly expanded my mana shield to protect our formation.

—No Entry!

A Sixth Rank defensive spell: No Entry. It enhanced the physical protection of the mana shield with a simple additional effect, just as the name implied—it blocked approach itself.

Thanks to that, the flying heads that had charged at us bounced off the barrier and scattered to the ground, rolling away.

The problem was that even more of them kept coming. Dozens. Maybe hundreds.

Tsk—Stella clicked her tongue.

“So that’s why there weren’t any animals in the forest. They were all turned into this? I don’t know what’s going on, but... Narmee, any thoughts? Zombies? Ghosts?”

“If it’s just heads moving after death... I don’t know. I’d like to study them more closely after we take them down...!”

Even Narmee, with her deep knowledge of necromancy, didn’t seem to understand what was happening. None of us said it aloud, but we were all tense—the surreal horror of the scene had us rattled.

The atmosphere was growing increasingly surreal—like ice cream melting under a blazing sun. Maybe we’d have to use large-scale magic to wipe them out?

But then the pursuers would immediately figure out our location.

It was at that moment—

Elga shouted.

“Hey, Mirna! Look at the ground...!”

Her finger pointed at the beast’s head that Mirna had bisected earlier. It was now floating again—still in two halves—and lunging toward us.

And not just that—the heads that had bounced off my No Entry barrier were also beginning to rise again and come at us once more.

Thud-thud-thud—

They slammed against the barrier like a horde of zombies attacking a survivors’ shelter, completely indifferent to the fact that their own skulls were being smashed.

From this, we could draw a single conclusion.

“These things revive even after being taken down!”

Just as Elga said.

They revived. Were they immortals? No, that couldn’t be. Such a thing shouldn’t exist. My 《Calm Thinking》 didn’t activate, so I was caught off guard—but I forced myself to stay composed.

And then—

“Something’s coming.”

Ayra, who until just now had been relatively calm beside us, raised her wand and shouted.

“Something outrageous—!”

If even Ayra looked this tense, the situation must’ve been dire. Her pale pink lips opened, ready to chant something...

Ssshhh—

Suddenly, from somewhere in the trees above, something scattered outward in every direction.

With my 《Clairvoyance》-enhanced vision, I recognized them immediately—arrows.

No, more accurately—bolts, the kind fired from a crossbow rather than a bow.

Fwoosh-fwoosh-fwoosh-fwoosh—!

The bolts embedded themselves into the left eyes of the floating heads. Dozens of heads fell to the ground, twitching violently.

Shff.

A long, distorted figure lightly stepped onto the earth.

At the same time, I felt something shift inside me—the paper spider Bael stirred restlessly within.

—Hiooong...

Yeah. I know, Bael. That one’s not normal.

He was probably a man.

His entire body was wrapped in a ragged black cloak and layers of dark bandages, so it was hard to tell who he was—but the visible muscle and tall frame under the wrappings made it clear.

“You...”

Ayra was the first to react. Naturally so—she had some history with him.

The man approached us, his snow-white hair flowing like a cloak behind him.

He picked up one of the fallen beast heads, and with his long fingers, grabbed the bolt and plucked out the left eye.

SQUELCH.

The eyeball came out with a spray of blood. But what was even more disturbing... was what squirmed inside it. Something like a shrimp or a lobster, a wriggling, insectoid creature.

About the size of my thumb, maybe?

—SCREEEEE! SKRIIIII! KREEEEE!

The thing let out a terrible scream, its twitching form enough to make me nauseous even though I hadn’t eaten anything.

The man spoke:

“This is a corpse maggot. It parasitizes near the brain and controls the host. Even after death, it moves the head around like this.”

Then, parting the bandages around his mouth, he ate it—eye and maggot both—biting down with shark-like teeth. The crunching sound was revolting.

The man—the Villain Hunter—said:

“Tastes like shrimp.”

***

The novel Villain Hunter was a story that had enjoyed a fair bit of popularity. A taciturn protagonist wandered the world, crushing evildoers—

That was the whole premise. But people responded positively to how the emotionless hunter slowly became more human through his interactions with warmhearted companions,

and how he mercilessly executed villains without hesitation.

I liked it too.

It was a cool, manly story.

But thinking back on it now, there wasn’t actually that much we knew about the protagonist.

He didn’t talk much with his companions—much less with the readers.

What was known was that he was incredibly strong.

And that he burned with vengeance toward villains.

The only hint we were given was that, as a child, his family had been killed by evildoers—

and that he had sharpened that grudge into a singular blade of vengeance.

Still, as a reader, that was plenty to relate to.

But all of that applied only when I was a reader and he was a character.

Now that I’d become a character in the world of that novel, there was no avoiding the tension I felt when I encountered the original protagonist—the Villain Hunter.

I’d already suffered quite a bit during that trial-by-combat with him. Even now, my stomach twisted when I thought about it.

I never imagined I’d run into him again, all the way out here, beyond the barrier in this desolate land.

“Hey, you’re here. I brought some food—

...Wait, who the hell are all these people hanging off you?”

The Hunter led us to a cave where his companions were staying.

Inside, a barbarian woman and a priestess were building a fire and roasting something that looked vaguely like a rabbit.

The female warrior frowned the moment she saw us.

“Who the hell are—oh. Never mind. I recognize those faces. Didn’t think we’d run into you way out here. Fate’s funny like that. Heh.”

The priestess, on the other hand, shook her head.

“We barely have enough food for ourselves. What are we supposed to do now?”

Just looking at their ragged appearance made it clear how hard the Hunter’s party had had it out here beyond the barrier.

This man—he had formally lost to me in the trial-by-combat. As a result, he had been exiled beyond the barrier.

We hadn’t heard anything from him since.

Even when we were staying in Sandora near the barrier, or when we’d taken over Gargarta Fortress,

I’d half-expected to find traces of the Hunter’s movements—but he’d left no trail whatsoever.

Clean. Precise. Like a ghost.

Now I understood why. He was living like a savage out here in the wilderness—of course I couldn’t find him.

The warrior woman said:

“You lot look different than the last time we met. Though, I guess if you were still the same people as before, you wouldn’t have made it all the way out here to the edge of civilization.”

She seemed to have picked up on the fact that something extraordinary had brought us this far.

I, too, scanned the three of them with quiet observation.

The ash-haired priestess.

And the barbarian woman wielding a massive greatsword.

Anyone who’d read the original Villain Hunter novel would never forget this trio.

The blonde, blue-eyed priestess—was her name Miriam?

She was a perverted holy knight who liked beautiful women.

And judging by the way she was eyeing the girls in our ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) party with a smile, that part hadn’t changed one bit.

The female warrior with brown hair and emerald eyes—what was her name again? I couldn’t quite remember.

She was usually just called the warrior. She had a bold, wild personality and was addicted to battle.

Stella spoke:

“It’s been a while since Ark. You guys have changed a bit yourselves. Though, I suppose living in a place like this would do that to anyone.”

As she said this, her eyes turned toward the Hunter. He was roasting the maggot-like creature he had pulled from the floating head over the fire on a skewer.

Crouched like that, he looked like a gaunt giant. But if memory served, the Hunter’s hair had once been black—dark as a cursed wolf’s pelt.

Now, his hair was as white and lifeless as snow.

It didn’t look dyed, either.

Had he aged overnight from all the suffering?

Even so, he looked powerful.

Far more powerful than he had been during our trial-by-combat.

Maybe, in the original novel, he had always been this strong from the start.

He didn’t say a word—just kept chewing those shrimp-flavored maggots with his shark-like teeth.

Still quiet as ever, it seemed.

In his place, the relatively sociable priestess Miriam opened her mouth.

“So then—what brings such esteemed company all the way out here? Did a rebellion break out or something?”

Her blue eyes held both curiosity and—perhaps—a trace of schadenfreude.

After all, it was me and Ayra who had cast them beyond the barrier.

A little bitterness was only natural.

And it wasn’t like there were many plausible explanations for why a queen would cross the barrier like a fugitive.

Fleeing the flames of rebellion? That was the obvious guess.

Before I answered, I asked something first.

“What are you doing out here?”

To that, the warrior woman, who had been sharpening her greatsword, replied:

“We’re heading to the Broken City. You know—the Final City.”

For whatever reason, their destination was the same as ours.

Could we maybe join forces?

Could we count on their help?

The thought stirred a glimmer of hope in me.