「Tsk. Not dead either, huh? Just my luck… No matter. With her heart pierced, she's as good as dead.」

Shien looks over his shoulder at the bloodied vampire steaming on the road.

「How the fuck are you still alive!? Are you a boss with multiple healthbars!?」

Straf spreads his arms in sheer, utter disbelief at Shien's return after his pinball impression. His gold-hemmed blue bodysuit is smeared in dirt, soaked in blood, torn here and there, presumably from jagged wood fragments… And yet, he's standing in front of Straf, pointing his spear square at his chest.

「If that little was enough to kill me, I wouldn't be able to call myself the Beast Hunter.」

Shien takes his offensive, high-speed stance as he lowers his posture.

「Have you maybe considered that normal people would go splat if that happened to them!? I think you're about to have an existential crisis!」

Straf shouts at Shien, pointing at the felled and shattered trees behind him.

「Silence, beast. Die.」

Shien lunges with explosive speed at Straf, kicking up dust behind himself. He aims his broad, blood-stained spearhead straight at Straf's heart. Straf looks in the corner of his vision.

[Contextual Time Perception]

[Active]

Perception acceleration factor: 1210%

《You really could have done that 5, 10 minutes ago before I got mildly attached to that fictional character, you fucking prick. You're about to have a bad day.》

Straf sidesteps out of the sluggish spearhead's way, and moves his fist towards Shien's face. He pauses, only ever-so-slightly moving it forward.

Thwack! Thud!

The fist connects, and Shien flies backwards, a trail of blood streaming from his face as he flips backwards. He lands on the ground face-down, and slides backwards.

「There. Did I kill you? Is that all it took?」

Straf shrugs with his hands as he takes a few steps towards Shien. He coughs out blood, and shakily starts picking himself up.

「You… Wish… Beast…」

With his bloodied teeth clenched and nose visibly broken, Shien rises to his feet and re-assumes his aggressive pose. He spits out blood, and lunges again.

《No, I don't. Lia apparently has issues with me killing people, and whatever the fuck this guy is probably counts.》

Straf waits for the spear to close in, and he grabs the shaft. The sudden shock as if Shien just hit a wall with his spear makes him wince initially, but then he notices Straf is holding onto his weapon with a displeased expression on his face.

「Again!?」

Shien shouts, tugging and pulling at his spear to no effect.

「Yeah. Again. Almost makes you too terrified to try this again, doesn't it? Listen, I don't want to kill you, so how about you fuck off before I accidentally do just that?」

Straf says with a slanted mouth, visibly frustrated. Shien tugs at the spear again, and Straf lets go, resulting in him stumbling backwards.

「Well?」

「Never! You wear a face of a human, but a monster like you has no right of being!」

「Yeah, well, I subscribe to the idea that the only rights you have are the ones you secure with violence, or the threat of it. And I can dish out a lot of violence.」

Straf shrugs, and draws his blue sword. It reflects light as beautiful rainbows, shining like a mirror.

「I'll still be holding back, but if you don't stop, I might have to lop off a limb. Accidentally, or otherwis-」

The blue spearman doesn't allow Straf to finish his sentence, and he leaps towards him like a madman again, slashing with his spear at Straf's throat this time.

Clank!

Appearing as if he always was positioned that way, Straf blocks the incoming spear with his sword, much to Shien's chagrin.

「Come on, just give up already.」

Straf rolls his eyes, and thrusts lightly at the Beast Hunter's arm. The sword connects despite his attempt to dodge. It cleaves his muscles apart leaving a grievous, profusely bleeding wound. The injury makes his hand slip off the spear, and he desperately jabs at Straf with his other hand instead.

Time slows for Straf again, as Shien is trying to guide the spear one-handed towards his throat.

《Man, I'm holding back as much as I can, and still almost cut his arm off. Maybe I should craft myself a blackjack- No, I don't want to leave drooling vegetables in my wake. Guess I'll try this?》

Straf positions his sword in Shien's way, mimicking his tactic from the arena. Holding the hilt of his sword with only his fingers, he allows it to recoil back as Shien rams his arm into it, giving himself a nasty slash. Straf pulls the sword back, and repeats the maneuver with Shien's legs.

Straf finally gets out of the way of Shien's spear, and time returns to normal.

「Argh!」

Shien lets out a pained grunt as all his limbs receive an injury, without him ever seeing how. He stumbles forward, barely managing to stay on his feet as his blood-stained blue bodysuit turns even deeper red from the new wounds.

「Yeah. Sucks, doesn't it? How about you call it quits before I mess up your pretty boy face up even worse- Wait, what the fuck? Didn't you have a broken nose?」

Straf looks closer at Shien's feminine face. His injured face is indeed back to normal, albeit nearly completely coated in blood of varying freshness.

「Heh… Isn't life full of mysteries?」

The Beast Hunter flashes a defiant smirk at Straf's question. He lunges at Straf again, albeit his thrust is devoid of his previous grace and technique. It's simply moving his spearhead towards Straf's general direction, and hoping for the best. Straf looks at his buffs again.

[Contextual Time Perception]

[Active]

Perception acceleration factor: 127%

《Man, you've really petered out, haven't you? I have to say, I kind of admire this psycho's single-minded dedication to trying to get himself killed in a funny way, but it's really putting me on the spot. Can't you be somebody else's problem?》

Straf thinks as the spearhead closes in to his throat. He looks at it with bored eyes.

Clang! Hwooshwooswooshwooshclink!

The spear flies out of Shien's hand into the air, whirling and spinning viciously as it flies, before getting embedded in the stone road behind him, near the injured Lily.

「There. You have been disarmed, you're a mess, you did your best. No shame in giv-」

《Oh you son of a fucking bitch.》

Straf clicks his tongue as Shien is attempting to strike him in the face with his bare hand, despite his badly cleaved arm.

《Okay, you asked for it. No more Mr. Fucking Nice Guy.》

Straf sheathes his sword. He grabs Shien's forearm, and time resumes to normal.

「What!?」

Shien's black, vertically-slit eyes widen when he realizes Straf grabbed his arm.

「How many times are you going to say that?」

Straf asks, then gently taps Shien's elbow to the inside with his palm while lightly pulling his arm towards himself.

Crack!

「Argh!!」

Pain sets on Shien's face as he lets out an outright scream of pain. The arm he tried to strike Straf with is now bent the wrong way at the elbow. He stares at Straf with his eyes wide open, and teeth grinding against each other from the pain.

「Sucks, doesn't it? I'm not done yet.」

Straf says as he increases the [Contextual Time Perception] factor. He gently pushes against Shien's knees with his foot, one after the other.

[Contextual Time Perception]

[Active]

Perception acceleration factor: 102%

《Ambush by the turtle, lie helpless like a turtle.》

Straf thinks, as he starts gently pushing Shien with both of his hands on his chest, slightly upwards. Despite the fatigue, Shien seems to be capable of tracking Straf's movements at these speeds, but just as he's about to do something about the fact Straf is pushing him.

「AAaaaaaarrrrrrghhhh!!」

Straf disables his ability, and sends Shien flying backwards with an agonizing scream of pain. Cycelia is both amazed and a little unnerved by Straf's adept handling of the terrifying spearman.

Thud!

「Hnnnrrrghhhhhh- Arrrrrrrrrgh!」

Shien clenches his fist on his only unbroken limb, as he's trying to not pass out from the excruciating pain. Straf walks up to him with a smug smirk on his face.

「How bad is it, from 1 to 10?」

He asks, with his fists on his hips.

「Hnnnnnngh!! Arrrrggggghh!!」

Shien mostly ignores Straf, and keeps grinding his teeth while screaming into them and breathing heavily.

「I am very happy to hear that. That's like a one on a scale relative to my pain, fucker. I'll come back to stir your guts around, if you want the genuine Straf experience-」

Straf looks down at Shien with a mixture of smug satisfaction, and scorn.

「Hrrrrrrgh!」

He screams back incoherently.

「I'm glad you're looking forward to it, but I have something more important to attend to right now…」

Straf says, then walks towards Lily.

「Since you didn't turn into ash or something, I assume you're regular dead, and not dead-dead.」

He says, as he looks at the bloodied little vampire. She slowly turns her crimson eyes at him, and coughs up blood.

「Straf… I won't regenerate without your blood…」

Lily whispers out, barely audibly over Shien's screaming in the background. Cycelia runs up with the vampire girl's parasol, and covers her in its shade.

「Ahhh… That's better…」

She sighs in relief.

「Great, so it went from pleading to emotional blackmail. You look 12, but you have 1000 years of experience after all.」

Straf shrugs, rolling his eyes.

「Are you… Are you going to be okay?」

Cycelia asks Lily with concern on her face.

「She needs- Wants my blood. She's apparently Strafarian, you see.」

Straf answers for Lily, with a narrow-lipped grimace.

「Couldn't you give her a little, Straf?」

Cycelia pleadingly glances at Straf. He sighs.

「You too, Lia? You too? Fine.」

Straf throws his hands up, and draws his sword. Cycelia looks away as Straf prepares to cut his hand.

Slish.

「Ow. Fuck.」

Straf exclaims, almost as if contractually obliged to. He lifts his hand up.

「…Are you- Is your hand bleeding now, Straf?」

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Cycelia asks, still looking away from Straf.

「…Nope.」

Straf replies, mildly annoyed that he managed to inflict pain on himself for nothing.

「I'll try again. This time harder.」

Slish!

「Ow! Fuck.」

「Is it-」

「Nope.」

Straf replies, and sighs with exasperation. He throws his non-bleeding hands up, and rolls his eyes again.

「Guess I'll have to fucking be hardcore about it!」

「Huh?」

Cycelia turns her head towards Straf as he abruptly stands up. He places the hilt of his blue sword on the ground. Before she can even realize what Straf is doing, he slams his palm on its tip.

「Kya!!」 「Ow! Fuck! Son of a fucking bitch! Fuck!」

Cycelia screams, and covers her eyes.

「Okay! That's a fucking bleeding! Son of a bitch!」

Straf clicks his tongue, and exclaims. He brings his profusely bleeding hand to Lily's mouth.

「There. Drink.」

Straf commands her, and she wraps her pink lips around the edge of his palm, letting the flow of blood drip onto her tongue.

Sssslurp. Slurp. Sssssslurp. Shlop. Sssslurp.

Straf stares at Lily with a pensive expression as her tongue runs across his palm, lapping up his blood. She sucks onto his hand, and her hot, wet breath washes over the back of his hand.

Sssslurp. Slurp. Slurp.

「Ahhh… Ahhn~ Ahhh…」

Lily moans out as she keeps slurping on Straf's hand, with inexplicable steam rising from her mouth as she keeps drinking his blood. Even Cycelia gets a little concerned, and peeks through her fingers to make sure Straf is indeed only letting her drink his blood. And nothing else.

Suddenly, Straf pulls his hand out of her mouth.

「Ahn~ Why'd you stop?…」

Lily moans out, breathing clouds of steam out with a blush on her otherwise pale face. Straf points at her with his non-bleeding hand.

「Okay. First off… Stop with that ahhh, ahn~ shit! You're making it fucking weird! Second, can't you just fucking bite into it, like into a half of an orange?」

Straf points at Lily's face with his brows angrily furrowed, and his mouth twisted into a scowl. Cycelia doesn't say anything, but her grimace says everything Straf needs to know.

「…You want me to bite you? Ahh…」

Lily asks, and lets out another moan.

「No!- Well, yes, my point is to get to the point. If you were 1018 year old, I wouldn't really have a problem with this, but it is what it is. Is that going to turn me into a vampire?」

Straf gestures with his uninjured hand as his blood drips down onto the ground from the other.

「No, there has to be intent for you turn into a vampire. And I'll be 1018 in just a few years, what's the difference?」

Lily manages to shake her head as she slowly begins to regenerate her injuries.

「Great, because I have no intent on turning into a vampire, got it? I'm just feeding you. Like a goldfish. And the difference is, I don't want to have to use the but she's a 1000 years old defense. It's weak.」

Straf says, then puts his hand back into Lily's mouth again.

「There. Bite into it, don't make it weird, and don't turn me into a vampire.」

Chomp.

「Ow! Fuck! Come on! Crazy regeneration and I still have to feel all this shit!? What gives!?」

Straf complains to nobody in particular, as Lily drains his hand of blood…

…

About 15 minutes later, Lily retracts her teeth from Straf's hand.

「Ahh… Much better.」

Lily exclaims, and simply gets up. Her gothic dress is torn and bloodied, but the massive slash behind the tear in her dress is gone, revealing only a flat, pale ribcage.

「Ah, too bad about my dress, though… They don't make them like they used to.」

She pulls at the giant hole in her dress, Straf grabs her wrist.

「Yeah, tragic. Don't touch that, don't pull on it, don't do anything with it. Go home to your cave, or castle and go change your dress. Not here.」

「Hm?」

Slightly confused by what Straf means, she humms innocently while looking up at him. Cycelia hands her the parasol back, and she places it back on her shoulder. Straf is forced to look at the sky, to not accidentally expose his eyes to an extremely indecent view.

「Please, just stop fiddling with your dress. It's already exposing more than what most people would be confident looking at with a body like yours.」

Straf desperately pleads with Lily, and despite the confusion, she lets go of her dress.

「…I don't understand, but very well. …What about him?」

She asks, looking at the Beast Hunter that managed to stop his screaming some time ago.

「Yeah. I have a plan for this guy. Heh.」

Straf smirks, and starts walking up to Shien with his hands in his pockets.

「And that is?」

Lily asks, as she follows him. Cycelia stays near the two behind them.

「I'm just going to put him through some torture. Heheheh.」

Straf chuckles, as he stares down at Shien. Their gazes meet. His inhuman vertically-slit black eyes stare back into his. Though defeated, a defiant expression remains on his oddly feminine face.

「Straf… Are you really going to go that far?」

Concerned, Cycelia asks while fingering her medallion.

「Oh yeah, absolutely. Heh. This guy is going to be begging to be killed by the time I'm done with him.」

Straf's smirk turns into a vicious, ominous malevolent grin. Lily smirks as well, waiting to see what's coming for her enemy.

「Hmpf. Do your worst, beast. I was prepared to die in pain from the very start of my vengeance.」

Though he attempts to keep a defiant expression, it's clear some uncertainty mixed with fear is slipping in. He looks aside, trying to maintain an uncaring facade. Straf squats down next to his face.

「Buddy, I've got some quotes you're just going to love. I can quote them for hours. You can't get more contrived and generic than this. Are you ready?」

Straf asks, suppressing his evil cackle.

「…What?」

The spearman's brows furrow in confusion, as he looks back at Straf's face.

「Okay, here's one. He who fights with monsters, should take care to not become one. For when you gaze into the abyss… The abyss gazes back.」

Straf can barely contain his snickers and chuckles while he grins like a madman at Shien.

「What?…」

Shien's eyes drift away from Straf with a surprised face, he stares towards nowhere in particular, just ahead.

「Straf…」

Cycelia quietly utters out. Her jaw drops slightly as she plays with her medallion in the background.

「Heh… I see…」

Lily crosses her arms and looks away, smugly smirking as if she just won.

「What?」

Straf looks up at Lily and Cycelia standing behind him, spreading his hands a little in confusion, wondering why they seem to be so amazed.

Shien's eyes re-focus, as if he just came across some life-changing epiphany. He lets out a dejected scoff.

「I see… Indeed, in my pursuit for power to fight the beasts, I have become quite bestial myself…」

Shien concedes with a troubled expression as he shakily lifts his unbroken arm up, and looks at his slashes on his arm visibly healing and shrinking.

「Wait, you're not supposed to draw anything new from this. It's a stupid, old, cliched quote.」

Straf shakes his head as Shien plunges deeper and deeper into his discovery.

「At some point, I probably should have stopped and asked myself if it's not enough. Perhaps that point was before I devoured the mutagenic chimera. Perhaps the more beasts I devoured, the more I became the very thing I swore to destroy.」

「Hey. Come the fuck on, seriously?」

「Or maybe I already knew I crossed this point, but I didn't want to ask myself the question of am I even human anymore? My eyes are that of a beast, to help me hunt them in low-light conditions. My muscles are that of a monster, to help me match their strength. My reflexes are that of one as well, as the fastest beast wins.」

Shien sighs, and looks Straf in the eyes with a gloomy expression.

「As you have said, Straf Katastrof Vindict… A normal human would have been long dead. Maybe even my mind is becoming like that of a beast. I felt vitriolic hatred towards you, as soon as that man revealed the truth about you to me. Even though I have never met you before.」

Shien's expression slowly turns to that of a beaten dog. Straf's brows rise.

「What man? And I don't remember telling you my name either.」

Straf eyes Shien suspiciously, as he's yet another person that didn't need an introduction.

「The man from the east. I think he said Willow was his name? He told me what you did.」

As Shien explains, Straf throws his arms up.

「Great. And here I was, thinking I tricked everyone.」

「And you nearly did, but some mages are hard to fool. If you are not going to kill me, leave me here. I need to think on this. And on what to do next. You are a very wise man to open my eyes like this, Straf Katastrof Vindict.」

Shien sighs, as he looks straight up at the sky with a dejected face.

「It's not even my fucking quote. Seriously? You don't think it's a little too fitting? Generic? Overused?」

「Then whoever said it, is a very wise man.」

Shien's vertically-slit eyes snap to Straf. Straf sighs, and gets up.

「Whatever. Wallow here in your angst. Bet you'd love the quote about marble and the sculptor.」

Straf shakes his head and starts walking away.

「Wait! Where are you heading to?」

Shien calls out to Straf. He stops, and looks over his shoulder.

「What's it to you? Want to stab me again? You missed your chance.」

「No. Perhaps we can meet again, when I get my mind in order.」

「Yeah, good luck with that. You're gonna need it. I'm heading to the capital to kill the king, you're free to come up with some good quotes while you're here.」

Straf turns away, and shakes his head as he walks away with his hands in his pockets. Lily and Cycelia follow close beside him…

…

An hour later, Shien is still on the floor, recovering from his injuries.

「…The abyss stares back, huh? I wonder how long I have been staring into it… No longer. I have become a beast, and there's no changing it. Hunting beasts is all I know… But I don't have to hunt them out of petty hatred. There has to be more to it- Hm?」

Something catches Shien's attention in the corner of his vision.

「…A turtle? What is it doing here- Ow!」

Shien asks himself, before the turtle chomps onto his arm painfully. It lets go, and backs out.

「You little- Stop this at once!」

Chomp!

「Ow! How dare you attack me while I'm helpless!?」

Chomp!

「Gyah! When I get up, I'm going to make soup out of you!」

Chomp!