第二十二回：掛龍首示眾傳開張，飛山越嶺惡鴨逼境
"Don't forget to come up with a good name for the bunnygirl club!"
『hai』, Madi-san.
"Make sure that Aya-chan does her arm day, Bunnygirl Ying!!"
『hai, hai』, Madi-san.
"... And give me back my [Narrator's Power], Aya-chan!!"
How about, NO!
After failing to trick me with a psyop at the last minute, Madi-san sloppily slaps the behind of the horse she is on, rearing it while pointing to the front, then galloping off after Annalie and Neko-chan.
Who does she think she is, that Fxxxxh woman!
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"Ahahaha, we sure have our work cut out for us."
The sun is just barely rising over the half-asleep city of 【Pu'yeng】. Annalie and Neko-chan set off while Madi-come-lately had only just come out wearing...
... Bikini armor.
Scratching the side of my head while watching her gallop towards the city gates, I can't help but sigh for this idiot. Don't blame me if a dragon just bites through that loose tube around your chest you call 'armor'! I tried warning you already, Madi-san!
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"Dragonocider, could I have a moment?" Daju beckons from inside the bunnygirl club's double doors, wanting a word with me.
I thought you always went with 'Sister Ayano', Daju? What's with all that measuring tape around your shoulders?
"Don't you think it would look nice displayed... here, sister Ayano?"
Our copper-minded catgirl steps back from inside onto the frontyard with me, squaring up the main entrance, she tugs my arm excitedly, drawing her finger in an outline around doors.
I have the strangest feeling I know, but I'll ask anyway.
What... do you want displayed here?
"The ryuu's head of course!"
Falling backwards on my bum screaming like I had just played the worst jumpscare game of my life. I am not sure how to respond to Daju. A day ago you were trembling at the thought of killing a dragon, now you've seen it done, and you want to use it as an advertising gimmick! I had truly underestimated this orange tabby's morbid obsession with copper coins!
"No...? I guess you are right."
Obviously! Because I did the killing, you're going to draw all the attention to me!
"It IS a little too big. I'll get an artisan to scale a replica down. Thanks, sister Ayano!"
Daju... Daju!!! 『yamero』...! Was it Madi-san who slipped the idea in your mind? That sort of madness is infectious, please don't listen to her on this one. Who knows what kind of clientele we will attract if we put up a dragon's skeletal head on full display!
"The kind of people who have the same ambitions as us, I would say.
After so many years...
... I am finally unafraid to seek 【Those on The Same Path As Myself】! [1]"
That sounded half-cool for a moment.
Alright, Daju's officially gone mad.
I knew that head wound was more serious than everyone thought!
Ou Nygai...! I know you are here somewhere! Help me out!
Screeching to a halt at the back courtyard, I spot the usually dormant short-haired ninja. Ou Nygai is squatted down before a small army of about five dozen little cats, all of different colors and breeds. The one thing that unifies all these strays is a small bamboo holder they carry on their backs like teeny-tiny schoolbags. Stuffed into each hollow bamboo are fistfuls of rolled up parchment.
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"Alright... You heard purple-hair.
Zzz...
Come back before sundown...
Don't worry... if you can't.
But...
If you make it so far as 【Chen'lyu】, good job!"
At Ou Nygai's thumbs up, the strays all scatter in different directions, some leaping onto the courtyard walls and just exiting the stage from there. Others speed between and past my legs, which I have to hop and skip around to avoid being bumped into.
"Not strays... 【Forward Scouts】."
Is the expression on my face that easy to read this morning? In any case, you have to come with me to convince Daju to NOT hang a gigantic dragon's head over the front door. I know we are called 【Hereticates】, but I think this is taking it a little too far, right?! Right...?! Are there rules against dragonslaying or are setting a courtroom precedent here?!
"No such rules. But... I... agree."
Finally! Then let's go...
"Too big, ugly. Needs to be... smaller."
Not you too!
Holding my head from the stress and lack of sleep, I am doing my best to not go full [Reckless Ayaya] on these crazy people now. 『omendeto』[2], Madi-san! You've managed to convince everyone in 【Pu'yeng】that slaying dragons is a noble and honorable profession! Was it all part of your plan? What's the next step?
What's this weird poster that one of those scouts dropped?
My eyes nearly pop out of their sockets as a badly drawn (me) looks back at the real me, sporting evil eyes and an evil grin on the thin parchment. Not only is the anatomy absolutely incorrect, the wrong sort of dragon is drawn behind me in cartoonish defeat, a [x] band-aid pressed over the top of its head and eyes streaming tears. The toon (me) is pointing to myself like a villainous character straight outta a battle manga about proud men rapidly throwing punches at each other in frame-stopping motion. There is some kanji below, which I couldn't read since my knees gave out and I flopped onto the ground as the parchment drifted away in the air.
THIS is what is being circulated?!
This...
This goes beyond scandalous!
Not even the worst dramatuubas would dare put this up!
We have to stop this from getting out there, Ou Nygai...!
I could have sworn that she was lying flat on the back garden floor three seconds ago, now she's completely disappeared again! 『sasuga』,【Pu'yeng's】resident ninja!
Alright.
Who else?
Who else would like to share their madness with me this fine morning!
Ah, I shouldn't have spoke.
The moment I thought those words, a phantomic limb with purplish hue wraps itself around my mouth, with the other limbs grappling my arms to my sides and pulling me down onto a circular shadowy pit that appeared out of nowhere.
A wooden sliding door bangs open from inside the bunnygirl club;
the shadows of a grey-robed cultivator looms over me,
"Little oooone, its 'arm day' time!!!"
No, Ying-onee, no!!!!
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As a group of heroes dash, ride and gallop northwards towards 【Rei Ditu territory】, a certain unwanted visitor was embarking on official business towards 【Yan Province】.
Proceeding along the path from 【Xu Province】, the unpleasantly rickety carriage is forced to a complete halt. The passenger, impatient to wait, sits on its feathery bum outside, slurping on the maw of a withered white bone.
This animal is not one we are familiar with, but of kin to magistrate ducky. This is Tu Shubei, the elder duck. White narrowed brows sit above pitch-black sanpaku eyes which want to control you. It wears the same dull colored cyanic robes as Duck Mcducks, weathered not from years of service but from long years of abusing power for petty gain. Needless to say, its body goes wide, perhaps a trait that is passed down devoutly in this ducked up family.
It suddenly spits fragments of bone on a masked duck NPC in black clothes before it.
"Useless, useless GUARKS!
What good is an assassin,
if they cannot tell the path is blocked!"
I too, cannot tell (you), dear reader, why an assassin needs to have a degree in topology as well. Ah, the perils of scholarly inflation. The black-clothed assassins, all of rather portly duck-like stature themselves look at each other in confusion. Their cloth masks awkwardly stretch outwards from their duck bills; I'm pretty sure if you bent down you could see the color of their bills. That kind of defeats the point of those assassin's masks doesn't it?
Throwing the bone marrow that had been sucked dry straight ahead, it flies over the kneeling ducks and feebly bounces off the source of Shubei's anger and frustration.
A total mountainous collapse had blocked off the road. A portion of the assassin ducks have been assigned to impotently try and move the boulders that are halting their advance, to no avail.
Just as Old Quark is about to lose its temper again, an assassin leans in its side, and immediately, its mood brightens again.
"Good, GUARK! Yue Fuyi... is a GOOD sla---!"
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The girl mentioned between quacking gasps is currently standing atop one of those misty hills that dot the eastern pathways between Yan and Xu province. Taking in a deep breath, she stretches her little legs fully to the left, then to the right, snapping them back together and coiling her body in a springing squat...
... she leaps in a curved trajectory,
astoundingly clearing a full quarter of a li in one bound!
At the height of her impossible jump's curve, the girl with curly red-tinted pigtails grabs the side of a higher mountain, fingers piercing into the cliff's side. Barely spotting the agitated ducky movement beneath the mist, she imagines herself in mid-air pivoting herself with soles pointed in a downwards footdive...
... and thrusts off the mountainside with her educated feet---!
As gravity brings her downwards, the red aura of her 【Qi】envelopes her completely; to the duck clan below, it would have looked like a straight beam of red light was being shot down from the stars above!
The human laser easily collides into the impervious roadblock, the chaotic impact smashing it loose! Large boulders fly and ducks scream for ancestral mother and father as a roadside rockslide commences, the maliciously oblivious girl stands, pats the dust off her short cape and proudly declares,
"Never fear, the heroine Yue Fuyi is here!"
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NEXT: Even Heroines Can Perform Malicious Compliance, Not All Dragonociders Can Into Dao
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TERMINOLOGY
[1] 【Those on The Same Path As Myself】- here Daju uses the specific phrasing 【同道者】, in reference to those who have the same aims and goals, but not necessarily desiring the same things. Plot relevant? Oooooof coooourse! - Author-kun
GO GO AND LEARN MOONRUNES WITH AYA-CHAN!
[2] 『omendeto』- Congratulations! This is usually preceded by people surrounding you and clapping, but then you wake up to the horror of the entire world having gone into a red mushy state.