第二十五回：安🐱單騎陷陣破營，粉發整骨懾蛇達人
How could age-old strategies have gone so wrong?
When forces are matched, offer battle.
When forces are uneven, avoid the enemy.
When forces are outnumbered, flee the enemy.
And the unwritten rule...
When the enemy is inferior, crush them.
It is three madwomen against an entire fort of 【Rei Ditu's】 finest footsoldiers.
And yet...
Miss Slit-Iris cowers from behind cover, stealing a terrified sideglance at the steel shield that had embedded itself into the fort wall. Between being nearly decapitated by that murder weapon, and the sub-general who was taken out by that self same shield in one hit...
... morale has absolutely been crushed.
Are we the inferior forces here?
Yes.
As if to answer that question, two girls one horse charged straight for gatehouse, now wide open!
"S-stop them, you fools!"
Now completely distraught, the orders came down messily, but were executed perfectly by the speared NPCs. Arrayed in a three row deep formation, they raise their spears silently against their impending doom.
"Annalie, breach!"
There is a resounding crash from within the gatehouse, NPC soldiers fly like ragdolls out the other side; Just before their ride met the spear wall, both Annalie and Neko-chan leapt off their tan-horse, weapons drawn. Lightning and greatsword plough through the conscripted formation on impact, leaving what little morale was left in tatters!
"There's no need to hold back. These are all non-humans."
Our Neko-tachi remarks, observing the NPCs that formerly made up the orange-uniformed spear wall dissolve into puddles of shadow. Emerging from the fallen heap, the two aggressors have breached the central courtyard of the keep!
"Ora-sis! We're inside! Can you hear us!"
Annalie shouts at no direction in particular, randomly guessing at where Oracion might be held.
"... if I had to guess, the only human here knows where [Faction Leader] is."
Reptilian irises contract in fear when Neko-chan lifts her blade and points it towards the strategist up top. Back against the wall, she hears the sickening sound of something piercing itself into the wall, again! Shakily peeking around cover, she sees that the long serpent-spear that had fallen on the ground outside had pierced through the entirety of the wall, edged tip just poking out of the stone on her side like a forked tongue!
That one... hit too close to home...!
Down bad below, Madi-san is cursing colorfully with her arm in a forward throwing stance,
"I hate the STR requirements, I hate the STR requirements, I hate the STR requirements...!"
Whatever that means, Madi-san probably expected her throw to go a lot more better!
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"Stay there!" The madwoman cups her mouth and shouts at the top of the walls, "Wait till I get my hands on a real DEXXMAXX weapon!" Slapping the behind of her horse, it sets off on an unsteady, rapid trot, copper gong in hand now clanging a crazed call for emergency!
The strategist didn't bother sticking around,
she bolted right after she CTRL+A, right clicked her remaining forces on Neko-tachi and Annalie who are speeding up the stone stairs!
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Fleeing deeper into the keep, cryin' snake-eyes must be wondering where she went wrong in life. She studied the texts. She played the meta. She was a scholar. She had joined the right side of the 【Three Kingdoms】. Now all she had to do was to do was cultivate【Karuma】 and steadily rise up the ranks...
As it happens, all strategy evaporates on real combat.
All that time cultivating 【Karuma】by spitting out zesty zingers and posting traditional ink portraits on less-than-visible vore subs...
Gone...!
No...!
There was still one more strategy she could take!
She still had the pink-haired one in her hands...!
Fumbling with the keys to the cell's locks, she shakily undoes one latch, the next, another heavyset chain, before angrily throwing the wooden door bar to the ground.
Ah, yes. I see now. The infamous 'hostage taking' strategy. Abused by many, somehow everyone's INT drops by ten thousand points whenever a hostage is involved. This isn't me taking snark at Oxe Pxxxe, but you really have to kill somebody once in a while! How did you ever get to be an Emperor if your only strategy is 'take hostages'?
Shoving the locked door open with a slam...
The cell was empty.
Empty.
Empty chains hung at the back of the cell, still and motionless in eerie silence.
There was no sign of damage to the chains at all.
No signs of struggle, nothing.
It was as if the pink-haired prisoner simply vanished.
But that's impossible.
Miss Hisses-Like-A-Snake must not be very smart, since she doesn't read detective manga!
Anyone who does knows that a locked room can only be created in three ways, before, during and after!
It couldn't have been made before, it couldn't have been made after...
So that means only one thing!
In her moment of hesitation, she heard it.
Right behind her.
The unnerving cracking of bone slamming against wall.
Not just one bone, but multiple bones set themselves in place at once.
Then,
something not quite human reached from behind her,
grasping at her neck and pulling her into the darkness behind the door.
In murderous neck-holding embrace, Snake-eyes can only stutter,
"How... did you free yourself...?"
"I dislocated my joints."
It was an absurd, pain-filled answer. One of the things that Oracion is able to do is to reset her bones at will. [1] It was a nice, horrifying party trick when she showed it off at our little sleepover, I still have nightmares over it! I am sure that rather than the truth, she would rather have taken 'its magick, I don't have to explain sheeto!'
Instead, her last words were:
"Was it extremely painful?"
The pink-haired one doesn't answer.
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"She went this way!"
Neko-chan harshly kicks an NPC guard blocking her path in the knee, causing it to fall down in silent agony. The NPC falls down the tower steps, Annalie jumping vertically up to avoid the dissipating and tumbling log of a non-personage.
There was only one path in and out of this tower they were ascending, if the cowardly woman were to try and do anything against Oracion, it would be now...!
"Ora-sis! Are you here?! We're here to find you!" Annalie shouts, casually bashing an NPC guard trying to stop her in the head, metal pipe in hand.
"There's no need, I heard you two the first time."
Standing at a full five and seven chi, the unexpressive maiden hides her thoughts behind steely pink eyes. Her irises are oddly shaped, four-sided with gapped sides, dangerously resembling a squared target. Pink hair naturally falls down in long, voluminous, messy strands. Not much for doing her hair, a singular braided crown adorns the top of her head, while a simpler ponytail braid falls down the front left side of her face. Despite being kept hungry for days, her slender body is still lightly toned with muscle and wariness.
Dragging the unfortunate 【Rei Ditu】 strategist by the nape of the robes behind her, she lets go when Annalie catches Oracion in a bearhug.
"Bwaaaah! I thought we were dead for sure back then!", Annalie bawls while clutching Oracion's sides. Neko-chan has sheathed her longblade, and is standing shiftingly away until Oracion beckons her over. Whereupon the three share an embrace wholeheartedly. Neko-chan in closed-eyed embarrassment is hugged close while having the top of her head rubbed, while the much taller Oracion pulls them both in, one arm on each of them.
"Thanks. For looking for me."
This moment of tenderness is quickly ruined by our local barbarian.
Sliding herself into the scene through a side-window, Madi-san chances upon the fallen lootbag and starts repeatedly kicking Snake-Eyes in the ribs with the vigor of an Apxx player teabagging a fallen enemy while her teammates floss around her.
"Where's the loot? Where's the loot? I call >NEED! If you have dragons in the dungeons, lemme at em' too!"
This kicking does not go unnoticed by the [Trono Palido] trio, now casting looks of feline disgust, dead-fished lifelessness, and closed-eyed (-__-) at the ceremonial disturbance.
"Madison Delaroux. You again."
"Yes, that's moi', piinku! Jobbing again?!"
"Whenever something goes wrong, why is it always you?"
"Hmm hmm! Why is it that (You) never learn?! Stop fighting final bossus at game start!"
Our pink-haired assassin blows a 'pft' on her messy fringe, choking her laugh in her well-toned abs. I can't believe that Oracion actually caught that one! Have you two been playing Dxrk Sxxxs co-op all this time?! Neko-chan grits her teeth at the embodiment of chaos, but there are more important things at hand. Turning a head of concern for her [Faction Leader]...
"I'm fine, if a little starved. The Raspberry-Haired Weirdo didn't do anything to me."
"We have to get out fast, Ora-sis! Neko-chan's cousin is covering for us!"
"Cousin...?"
"You can," Madi-san grunts between kicks of the floorborne pinata, "give the yabai details later!" It was an incredible thing, Madi-san wanting to take the pragmatic approach; but this was not out of concern for pursuing enemies, nor even the slightest care for the setting darkness,
"We have a bunnygirl club to run!"
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NEXT: The Red Hare Loft Is A Loft Among Lofts, Queuecutting Is Rude And Disrepectful!
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TERMINOLOGY
[1] Bonesetting - See: the sleepover chapter in [The /Showdown/ of Madison Delaroux] where the [Trono Palido] girls visit Sachiko-senpai's home to clear up a misunderstanding!