by Fujino Omori
Can’t calm down, out of place, scared as hell. Tears are already leaking out of my eyes, every fiber of my being stressed to the limit.
“…”
Aisha runs her fingers through her hair while listening to my plea.
Another woman walks up to the ring of Amazons, carrying a glass with a dark liquid inside. She must be some kind of waitress. Squeezing through a very small opening in the ring, she places the glass on the table in front of Aisha.
The Amazon reaches forward, snatches the glass of expensive-looking wine, and downs it in two gulps.
“We are the harlots of Lady Ishtar. The best brothel is at our disposal…But we Amazons play by our own rules.”
My captor ignores the question and rotates the now empty glass between her fingers.
I shrink away from her, but she just grins and leans forward.
“We refuse to wait quietly at home for a strong male to come our way. We go and find one.”
I tilt my head in confusion. She cocks an eyebrow and leans in farther, close enough to whisper in my ear.
“Amazons have needs. We take our men…and devour them.”
Resistance is futile—those words send another wave of cold sweat down my back.
Amazons.
They have the reputation of being aggressive hand-to-hand fighters. There are several different clans from all over the world. Each has mastered a different type of martial art.
Out of all five races of demi-human, they look the most like us humans. However, despite their appearance, they’re physically capable of bearing only female children. They’re unique in that way. Every child born from an Amazonian mother is another Amazon. Half-Amazons don’t exist.
In other words, they need the cooperation of a male, any male, to reproduce.
Cooperation might be a strong word. They tend to kidnap their prospective partners before going all out…There are stories about them dating back to the Ancient Times, about the terror they caused before the gods and goddesses came to earth. Men of any age, married or not, living away from the cities were at risk of being taken and returning a shell of their former selves.
The clan of females would relentlessly pursue a male who piqued their interest, like predators out for blood.
Those instincts are alive and well within every Amazon.
And I have been taken.
They weren’t planning on asking my opinion from the start.
“Get used to it.”
I’m absolutely petrified. Aisha delivered the final verbal blow.
The ring around us is cackling like hyenas, licking their lips and grinning.
—I’m so dead.
I don’t think there’s enough blood left in my face to blush anymore. My whole body was burning up not too long ago, but now my skin is ice-cold.
“…?”
I’m too distracted by the knowledge of my fate destroying my soul from within to notice that Aisha has looked up and away from me.
The ring follows suit. Each of the Amazons looks in the same direction, a mixture of concern and fear on their faces. It’s at that point that I emerge from the abyss of despair and notice something strange is going on.
Feet, lots of them, running this way.
“What do we do, Aisha? Phryne is coming!”
Another Amazon throws open the double doors and bursts into the room.
Every set of eyes in this room immediately locks onto the look of desperation on her face.
Phryne…?
That’s a cute name…so why is everyone scared stiff?
“Get over here!” “Hide, now!” Aisha pulls me off the couch—but it gets here first.
BOOM! The doors fly off their hinges.
The Amazons closest to the door flinch to protect themselves. I’m just as surprised as all of them.
“—I smell a young’eeeen!”
Nostrils open wide and breathing deep, she appears.
A massive woman, she stands at least two meders tall. She’s wearing a black outfit that looks vaguely like hunting gear. Her scrawny arms and legs are pure muscle and wheat colored. Considering the rest of her body looks like a boulder, her tiny limbs don’t make much sense.
At the same time, her head is much too big.
It looks like there’s a black mushroom or something on her head…Wait, that’s hair?! With beady eyes and really long lips, she looks more like a bullfrog than a human.
M-monster?!
That was really rude of me to think; I only just met her. But this is really shocking.
Don’t know why, but for some reason I can see an equally shocked look on Gramps’s face in the back of my mind.
“Kee-kee-kee-kee! So you caught yourself a man, Aishaaa?”
The massive blob of a woman—or rather, Amazon—walks through the wide-open doorway and into the waiting room.
Even her voice sounds like a croaking frog’s. Aisha snaps her tongue at her.
“Why are you here, Phryne?”
“A little bird told me you’d found a delicious little one. I just had to see for myself.
“So show me,” the Amazon named Phryne says, a little more forcefully.
Then she starts walking straight toward us. There are sofas and tables in the way, but she doesn’t even pause. She plows right through them, not even slowing down.
The Amazons are standing like a wall between her and me, but now she’s close enough to see over their heads. Her long lips curl into a horrific smile.
“Well, if it isn’t Hestia Familia’s bunny rabbit! A little raw for my taste but…definitely my type!”
Her cheeks and bulging chin wrinkle as her lips spread even wider. It’s making my skin crawl.
“GE-GE-GE-GEGEGEH!!” Laughing again, her eyes twinkle like distant stars.
“Bending that fresh body to my will, messing up that cute little face…I’m gonna have fun tonight.”
—I’m so, so dead.
Cold dread floods my veins. Can’t breathe. Come to think of it, I got the same feeling from Lord Apollo…
Standing tall, Aisha leads the Amazons as one to block her path.
“Let me have a li’l fun, Aishaaa. I’ll give ’im right back.”
“Who do you think I am? I caught him. He’s my prey; get your own.”
Aisha isn’t backing down from…Miss Phryne? In fact, she looks ready to fight.
Not just her, either. Her ring of followers is all on their feet, muscles flexing as if itching for a throwdown.
Every one of them is an Amazon in the same familia, but I’d never believe that if I didn’t see the events unfolding before my very eyes.
I get the feeling that something big is about to happen…but I’m more worried about my own hide. Alarms are still blaring inside my head.
“All the males I’ve had recently couldn’t entertain me. Been bored as hell. So why not let me indulge?”
“Go back to your lair. Can’t count how many men you’ve wasted—you ain’t getting mine.”
They’re standing about five meders apart. I’d fear for the life of anyone stuck in the no-man’s-land between the two Amazonian powerhouses.
Aisha’s tone is harsh and cold. Phryne responds in kind, not holding anything back.
“So, beauty is a sin, now? It’s not my fault that no other woman can measure up…Lady Ishtar comes close, but I’m out of her league.”
She’s serious…!
“It’s your fault adventurers won’t come anywhere near this place. Catching the good ones takes time, energy. Read the writing on the wall, toad.”
“Ooooo, jealousy, how scaaary. I just happen to be the perfect match of beauty and power, wretched varmint.”
All my joints are shaking, even my toes, as I listen to the two Amazons argue. I can feel it—Phryne is the real deal.
It’s been easier to tell after ranking up myself.
I’m starting to sense the size of a person’s spiritual “container” for their Status.
The st
rongest one here is Phryne, quite possibly overwhelmingly so.
It’s the same kind of pressure I feel from top-class adventurers, from her.
Aisha and the rest of the Amazons don’t take Phryne’s taunts lightly. Fists are clenching, shoulders are flexing, even the air in here feels like it’s crackling. The other people in the waiting room hadn’t paid much attention to the large woman’s arrival until now. Now they’re tripping over themselves, making a break for the open door.
Could it be…?
All of them are so angry with one another, staring down their opponent, that no one is looking at me. This is my chance! Carefully, quietly, I start taking small steps back and escape from the ring.
I have to get away…Slowly but surely, the space between us is growing.
“GaaHHH—so pointless! I’ve taken him by force.”
My eyes shoot open the moment those words reach my ears. My window’s closing!
“We are proud Amazons! We take whatever man we see fit! Ain’t that right, Aishaaa?”
“…”
“Why not settle things our way…or are you scaaared?”
The massive woman breaks into more frog-like laughter. Aisha spits at her opponent’s feet.
“…Bring it on, toad.”
The challenge accepted, Aisha and the rest of the Amazons turn around.
There’s only about ten steps in the space between us. Every single set of eyes is burning with enough ferocity to cook an egg.
The warning bells have officially become sirens. I don’t think there’s a dry part of skin anywhere on my body. Haven’t been able to stop sweating since I got here, but the flow just kicked into high gear.
One of them just licked her lips at me.
“First one to reach him keeps him!”
That’s the signal.
All the Amazons and I take off at the sound of Phryne’s deep bellow of a yell.
I spin on my heel and take off toward the back of the room.
Amazonian battle cries sounding behind me, I set my sights on a window and speed up.
Everything’s in slow motion, all sound taking an agonizingly long time to reach my ears. The footsteps, the yells, the sound of furniture being crushed. Seconds feel like hours. The night sky outside the window beckons in front of me.
Keeping my eyes open, I kick off the floor and plow through the glass window, shoulder first.
I’m outside, in midair.
A race of life and death is now under way. The Amazons are on the hunt.
Falling. Night air cold on my sweaty skin.
I listened to the roar of my instincts and jumped out that window with no hesitation. Now I’m zipping through the air.
No need to look; I know the Amazons are following me. I could feel their presence before I heard them on the ground beneath me. What’s worse, the wall shattered behind them. Shards of glass and rock debris are raining down on the street below. THUD! I make my landing.
I take off running.
“Hold it!”
I barely have time to take one breath before the voice of one angry temptress cuts through the night.
Leaving Belit Babili in my dust, I make a break for the Pleasure Quarter.
And so it is that my death race with more than twenty Amazonian warriors is officially under way.
Magic-stone lamps zip by my line of vision as I tear through the backstreet. Men and women hug the walls, their eyes wide open as they see us coming. “EEEEKK!” One working lady jumps out of the way in the nick of time.
“After him!” “Don’t let him escape!” I can hear them yelling, but I’m too scared to take a look. All I can do is keep pumping my arms, pushing forward, forward, forward!
Why did this happen to me?!
Was it because I didn’t listen to Lilly and Welf and go home sooner? Or maybe it’s my fault because I got separated? Lord Hermes isn’t off the hook, either.
I round a corner, my head still trying to find an answer to an impossible question. Another corner, another turn. I zigzag through steadily narrowing streets in an attempt to lose my pursuers once and for all.
I think my random pattern is paying off. I can’t hear the Amazons anymore.
“—GE-GE-GE-GE-GE-GEH!!”
Except for her.
She’s the only one my Level 3 Agility can’t outrun.
Her croaking echoes off the walls. A long shadow falls over me.
It grows bigger and bigger in the moon’s blue light behind me. She’s coming from above?!
“Uw-UWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
A dark-colored boulder slams into the street just in front of me, sending debris everywhere.
Somehow managing to kill her momentum, the absolutely monstrous woman—Phryne—pulls her meaty fists out of the street before turning to face me.
“You’re not getting away, little bunny!”
She charges, the space between us disappearing in an instant. A plump hand comes straight at my eyes.
Duck! I yell at myself and just barely manage to dodge. I can hear the wind being torn to shreds as her now outstretched fingers pass by my ear. My feet stumble backward in the sudden gust of wind generated by that near-miss.
My eyes open as wide as they go the instant I see Phryne’s merciless follow-up attack coming my way.
I barely manage to jump to the side as her fist takes a chunk out of the wall of the brothel behind me. Her other arm follows as I manage to take cover behind a barrel in the street. Off-balance, her third punch barely grazes the side of it. But that’s enough to make it burst into splinters. She’s empty-handed, but even still she has more than enough power to rip my head off! There’s been no time to catch my breath.
Th-this speed, this power…!
This is exactly how it was in those days on the city wall, during my intense training with that other Amazonian girl and my idol.
I was right—she’s a top-class adventurer!
Bits of wood and stone are flying everywhere. Sweat flings off my body at each twist and turn. She drives me back farther and farther, until finally getting ahold of my collar.
“AEEEEHH!”
“Hold still alreadyyy!!”
She swings my body up in a full arc and slams me down back-first onto the ground.
A burst of pain shoots through every bone in my body. She loses her grip, sending me tumbling down the road.
I get my bearings and raise my head, only to see Phryne careening toward me.
Her black shadow growing by the second, the putrid smile on her long lips is so horrid that I forget to breathe.
“““Stop, toad!”””
The other Amazons have arrived. Three of them slam feetfirst into Phryne while she’s in midair. All two meders of the massive woman suddenly disappear from my line of sight.
WHAM!! Phryne slams into the wall but she screams, “Outta my wayyy!”
She knocks all three of the attacking Amazons clear across the street with a single flick of her arm.
“GAAHHH!”
I finally take a deep breath, coughing in the process. More and more Amazons appear from the roofs of the other brothels, jumping down and engaging Phryne in combat one after another.
“Keep that idiot busy!”
They keep raining down on her. A flurry of kicks and punches is keeping the massive woman from regaining her feet.
It feels like I’m watching a party of adventurers keeping a large-category monster at bay. Phryne bellows once again as the Amazons wrap their arms around her neck, shoulders, and legs.
They’re breaking both familia and racial alliances for their prey—me. “Hyeeee…!” A pitiful sound escapes my throat.
“You’re mine!”
“DAHH!”
I’m still sitting on the street, trying to catch my breath, when another Amazon drops down from overhead.
I force my body off the ground and dart forward to escape her trap.
“Ahhh, he got away!”
“I don�
��t mind if he escapes. Just don’t let Phryne have him!”
Now several of the Amazons are on my tail. They’ve split up, one group on Phryne and the rest coming after me. My lungs are on fire, but there’s no time to breathe.
Several male customers on the street ahead of me turn in to another street or take cover to avoid trouble as I race down the long alleyway.
“—You’re not going anywhere.”
“?!”
Aisha?!
She’s been following me on the rooftops! As she jumps down from out of nowhere, I see one of her long legs stretch high above her head.
It’s a perfect ambush. Even though I manage to block her kick with my right arm, it’s powerful enough to knock me off balance.
Not good! I yell at myself as I force myself backward to gain some distance. Unfortunately, her long legs didn’t give me the time.
Another kick is already heading my way—it reaches out like a long scythe and catches my shoulder.
Flying forward, I see her body flow like water as she prepares to launch another one of her ranged attacks with legs that could pass as swords. I’m caught in the middle of a deadly dance.
Martial arts?!
One leg on the ground. The other one is high over me, coming down hard heel-first. I roll out of the way, but she’s already airborne and spinning.
Spinning down! Both her hands hit the ground as both her legs whip through the air.
I can’t predict her movements—I can’t defend!
The prowess of one Amazonian warrior, not to mention sharp kicks from her long legs, has me pinned down.
One moment those deadly appendages are being thrust at me like swords, the next she’s whipping them around like clubs. I don’t have enough arms to block everything—the moment I lean down to protect my head and upper body, she undercuts everything with a low sweep.
“UWAH!”
I fall, hitting my back on the stone pavement once again.
“You’re mine.”
Pain, lots of pain. The stars in front of my eyes fade in time for me to see Aisha swing a leg over my chest and straddle me.
I’ve got to be pale as a ghost by now. She leans down, long hair brushing across my face. I’m completely pinned.
She wets her lips, smiling like she enjoys inflicting pain, and reaches for the collar of my shirt.