“Well, I think he’s angry.” Hel slowly clapped and then patted her shoulder with a grin as if he didn’t just miss.

“He’s not angry but fucking furious, Hel,” Monika corrected him. “Care to explain yourself?”

“Do you really think shooting from this distance is easy?” He said as he lowered his glasses. “Even if he’s not dead, he’s at least half-dead.”

“GHAAAAAA!” Degloth corrected him.

“Haha,” Hel gave an empty laugh as he awkwardly adjusted his glasses. “Well, it happens to the best of us.”

Monika narrowed her eyes to watch him piercingly. “It can’t be helped.”

Her hand tightened around her greatsword. She shifted to the gruesome spectacle.

Tens, no—hundreds of gloths swarmed toward their direction in a quickening advance. The oily bodies were covered in rows of hooked appendages scraping against the surface and propelling them forward in a grating trail of foul-smelling ichor.

Their heads were a mash-up of fangs and whip-like tendrils too large for their bodies. The maws revealed layers of needle-like teeth dripping with squishy saliva.

Monika took a step forward to be stopped by Hel’s raised hand. “Girl, I’m not done yet. I’ll open up a path. You go kill the head,” he instructed.

Monika nodded as she anticipated Hel’s next ‘magic trick’. The situation couldn’t get worse anyway.

He stepped forward and raised his hands in a welcoming manner. “How dare a mere worm ruin my lady’s first impression of me?” he sneered while removing his glasses and tucking them into his pocket.

Hel took a deep breath, closing his eyes, fists clenched.

Monika watched him stand motionless, expressionless.

The worms slithered closer and closer.

Hel raised his hands slowly, steadily. They hung.

He wouldn’t budge, standing fixed in a trance.

His eyes snapped open in a trice, now bloodshot and manic.

Suddenly—

Hands moved in a frenzied blur. Right and left and up and down. Maddened. More. Blood watered down his pale face onto his hands. Golden strings burst forth. They whirled and twirled. They shimmered like strands of pure sunlight. They shivered like the once lively butterflies. The strings danced in a choreography of destruction. The worms were enmeshed in this golden ensemble. The strings severed their flesh both elegantly and repugnantly. His hands moved faster. Faster. Faster—the flaxen strings whirling and whimpering in a whirlwind of fireworks of the writhing worms’ bursting hearts.

Scary bastard.

Monika couldn’t help but flinch at the sight. Some were sliced, some cut, some pierced, and others straight-up decapitated.

I don’t stand a chance against him…

Stupid Monika! Why did you summon a fucking monster in every meaning of the fucking word? It could’ve been dangerous.

Hel's eyes darted to track each worm's movement with supernatural speed. His bulging eyes followed the golden threads as they tore and executed the weak.

Finally, Monika saw a peculiar worm with blood smeared across its anus among the pack. Here you are. She took off, running maddeningly toward the fuming keeper.

“GHAAA!” Degloth, obviously not a coward that could just be trifled with, also shot toward her.

Like the manly Maggoth he was, without a flinch, he slithered with lightning speed toward Monika.

Like the strong and proud Maggoth he was, Degloth didn’t require a backup to finish off the girl.

Like the warrior among warriors, the man amongst men, courage above all things, Degloth skyrocketed toward her even with a heavy injury, half his body drenched in blood.

But suddenly, Degloth halted in his ascend. Monika’s brows furrowed.

—Inflame |E+|—

Degloth swung his tail, puking fiery shit.

Shit, like literally shit.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

What the fuck, Degloth?

I can’t believe my eyes!

Whoosh!

Shit flew past my shoulder.

Shit was close.

I gulp as my march stops. Degloth also pauses.

He gapes at me pervertly. I’m scared shitless.

I’ve been living as a beauty for the past two hours, enjoying my youth. A worthy enemy indeed, he knows all my weaknesses. Degloth! Today, only one of us will remain worthy! Perhaps none will remain honored, though.

The description said he’d excrete fire from his body. I was expecting something akin to fireballs or a blazing storm of fire, but you, Degloth, exceed my expectations by excreting literal shit! Bravo! I can’t help but admire my enemy.

His arsenal is as vast as his visage, and his power as vast as his ass.

Degloth rears back. He tenses as a fiery glow lightens from deep within his gaping butthole. He unleashes a rain of blazing shit with a rasping puke.

My eyes widen as the first comet of shit hurtles toward me. I tighten my grip on the greatsword and sidestep the first few bombardments, the heat singeing where I stood moments before.

The second barrage of shitballs comes quicker, then another, each one a flaming missile. I dodge left, then right, then left again, evading each as I dare not deflect it.

When Hel said that science doesn’t apply to this world, I doubted him. But now I’m sure. How can his body carry so much shit? How he’s so full of shit? What is it if not magic?

Oh, shit!

I barely manage to buckle down as it scrapes my hair.

Shit! Are you for real? Where do I wash my hair in this accursed cave?

Tears well up in my eyes from the repugnant smell. Shit traces down my cheek.

“MOTHERFUCKER!”

—Bloodshot |D|—

|Strength |E| –> |D-||

|Agility |E| -> |E+||

|Stamina |E+| -> |E-||

Inflicted |Bloodloss |E||

“I’LL FUCKING STICK THIS SWORD IN YOUR ASSSS!!!!!”

Shit scorches my cheeks while grazing and vaporizing my tears.

I am a young, beautiful, magical girl. A young. A beautiful. A magical. A girl!

No more! It’s all gone!

Now, I’m nothing but a shitty young not-so-beautiful magical wench.

My perception detects a gloth who attacks from the back. I hurriedly turn around and slice it in two.

Splash!

I fall as my face splatters against the floor, my nose broken.

My hair… it burns?

Burns?

My hair?

How painful. Too painful.

Ahh, my young, innocent heart and hair! My unmatched glamour! Gone! All gone to shit!

“Yahahaha…”

I stand up as I dodge the upcoming barrage of dumpster fire. I reach up to my head after throwing my greatsword away. My fingers tangle in the flaming, shit-smeared hair. The heat sears across my palms. Shit smears across my fingers.

Clenching it with my hands burning, I yank back with all the strength I can muster as clumps of hair ablaze with fire and shit tear free from my scalp, leaving raw, bleeding patches of skin.

Blood oozes down my forehead and temples to mesh with the sweat and ash on my face. My eyes blaze as I fling the burning hair away for the flames to hiss as they meet the ground.

I smell the acrid odor of burning hair, flesh, and shit, and blood trickles down the side of my face, staining my tattered office uniform. The shit in my hair has been extinguished, but the fire within me burns fiercer than any shit.

“Degloth…”

I smile at him kindly.

“Do you have any idea as to what you’ve done? Hmm? Hmm?”

Degloth hurls another shitstorm toward me. I plant my feet. My muscles tense. I reach out and catch it in my hand. The shit splatters through my fingers to my face with the heat scorching it.

I twist my body 360 degrees to release it. The blazing projectile of vengeance rockets back toward the worm. It collides with his gaping maw to explode in a fiery burst. The impact sends the worm reeling. His roar reverberates through the cave.

“Eat shit.”

The horde of gloths stands in my way. I step in his direction after picking up the greatsword. The first worm lunges at me with a maw wide and asking, asking me to be cleaved in half. And so I do. Its body falls to the ground in twitching pieces. The ichor stains the floor.

I dispatch another rearing worm with a downward slash. The blade sinks deep into its flesh. I wrench the sword free of the worm's wretched death throes that barely register as I move on.

Two more worms surge at me from either side. I spin to slice through one worm and then the other in one motion. Their lifelessly broken bodies crumple to the ground.

One worm tries to flank me. I catch it with a backhanded swing and carve a path through its middle. Another sinner dares to attack head-on to be met with a thrust that impales it through its gnashing jaws. The worms now hesitate as I continue cutting them down.

My target is finally a few reaches away.

“You will not have an easy death, Degloth.”

Once a continental beauty—

Now an ugly baldy.

“Yahahaha…”

I can’t hold my laugh back. It’s not laughable, though, but it is a tragedy. I am a tragedy. Accidentally, I reach my hand to my mouth to press my trembling fingers against my lips to stifle the sound.

“...”

…