Episode 26 : What One Yearns For (4)

[This time, you all must defeat the enemies that approach you.] Eve explained.

[That's not all. You must destroy any enemies that may come and steal all the plants here.]

[If you look closely, you can see the 10 flowers that are in the middle of this place. They are the important ones here.]

Pointing at the ten totally different flowers in the center of the field, Eve kept on informing everyone here without wasting a second.

[If all of those flowers get picked up by either one of those pests, that'll end this Phase as a failure.]

Currently, after getting transported to the same place where the three participants had finished Phase 1, Mirai, Alaine and Mya were now listening closely to whatever Eve was saying.

After that, Eve mentioned. [You cannot harm the plants in anyways, of course, if it were your intention. But if you somehow did some damage in the result of battling the pests, that will be fine.]

Since the only thing that they knew in advance from Frostina, was Phase 1. As a result, they had no choice but to listen to Eve's explanation.

[Is that all clear? Once again, no using consumables!] Eve spoke before clapping her hands to begin the second phase.

Anyways, there was one person who couldn't focus at all. That person was the puzzled Mya who was trying to find an answer for Mirai's words earlier, and was blankly staring at the system message in front of her.

[Phase 2 : Pest Control.]

"Come to think of it.. Isn't Miss Mirai a spider..?" Mya turned to look at Mirai when she had realized that.

By the way, HwanGi had told everyone about Mirai being a spider just to lessen the surprises whenever Mirai turned into a spider.

Anyhow, Alaine, who had overheard Mya because she was worried for the child, became nosy.

"Mirai. Are you alright with doing pest control?" Alaine asked, leaning her head toward Mirai who had her face covered with her fan.

When Mirai heard that question, she felt displeasure by how Alaine and Mya thought that she was related with these pests in this garden.

"These are pests, not my species." Vexed, Mirai responded, snapping her fan together fiercely.

"..I-I'm sorry! I didn't know m-much.." Mya replied, stuttering her words as though she wasn't comfortable talking to Mirai.

During this moment, Alaine watched as the child was reverting back to her old self where she would stutter every time.

'I should have stopped Mirai from saying all those mean things at Mya.' Alaine sighed, rubbing her lips where she had already gotten rid of Mirai's web.

Out of a sudden when Alaine perceived a hand resting on her shoulder, she shifted her gaze over there to find Mirai instructing her.

Mirai said, staring at Alaine's silk arm. "Alaine, you'll be protecting the plants while I take care of the pest."

"Then what about Mya?" Alaine asked.

"She will help us until she can come up with a response to everything I have said to her."

"..?!" Dazed, Mya became shocked by Mirai.

Even Alaine was surprised too, so she refused. "No way, we need all the help we can get!"

"Shh. For one to think, they need time. So Mya can take as long as she wants~. Anyways, time to act."

By then, Mirai had placed her finger on Alaine's lips before moving her gaze at the distance.

Because of this, Alaine's eyes followed where Mirai was looking, only to notice dozens of human sized pests charging in this direction.

"Merde alors!!" Alaine exclaimed with a horrified expression almost as if she was surprised and disgusted at the same time.

* ( "Merde alors" French → English "Holy shit". )

"What the crap.. Just why?! I didn't think they were that big!! Oh my freaking god, there's a giant worm!"

Alaine cried out as she was too disgusted with what she had seen with her innocent eyes. Obviously, she would have fainted already if it were for her changing where she was looking at.

Without expecting it, Alaine spotted Mya who literally and entirely passed out from just sighting a huge cockroach.

Alaine spoke nervously. "Oh dear…"

"..." Mirai, almost getting angry by this, caressed Mya's forehead to check if she was okay. 'Humans. Why can't they be more like my captain?'

"I'll leave defending to you."

Mirai exclaimed as she laid Mya on the ground before spraying out plenty of strings toward the pests.

Out of the blue, one of her strings was pulled back with a great amount of strength which was enough to drag Mirai forcibly to that area.

"Hmph!" Concentrated, Mirai grasped her strings firmly.

Even though she was getting flung toward the crowds of pests, she remained calm and went in with killing intentions in her mind.

Upon getting tossed to that one pest, Mirai pulled her strings back to drag her prey toward her while covering her fists with her strings.

In due course, Mirai landed a punch to the exoskeleton of her prey, resulting in its exoskeleton getting a great deal of cracks forming on its body.

Not only that, Mirai manipulated her strings to tie itself onto the body of the pest, wrapping them on its legs to make this pest look like a puppet.

Because of this, Mirai now had a puppet who she would control to fight for her. Now with a helping hand from her puppet, Mirai unfolded her usual fan which looked different than before.

A fan with kunai knives instead of wood, Mirai threw those knives toward her enemies, piercing them into their bodies.

Once touched by the knives, her enemies soon appeared to be collapsing and struggling to keep their lives in checks.

The reason was that Mirai's kunai knives had her venom coating on the tips of those knives. Which made it deadly to all the pests in this area, enough to one hit kill them.

"Woah… Is that a puppet spider? Mirai didn't even hesitate when fighting that! So cool!" Amazed, Alaine gasped until she became aware of her duty.

"Hup!"

Slashing the leg off an ant that creeped out behind her, Alaine kicked the heck out of that ant and knocked its gut away.

"Phew. Looks like I'm not scared of these guys anymore!" Alaine cheered until she noticed a silhouette casting onto her.

"Fkxfejajes4kgitdy!!!!!"

Shouting gibberish, Alaine was now having goosebumps everywhere on her body, along with her expression turning much worse than earlier, Alaine sensed as though her body was trembling and wasn't at all able to move an inch in that moment.

On the other hand, the monster that was causing her to act this way, was beginning to slam its jaw-like mandibles upon the scared Alaine.

"Oh my fuc—I can't!! Yikes!!"

Though she was frightened of the creeps, Alaine managed to jump out of the way while she carried Mya from that spot.

Thanks to her somewhat good flexibility, Alaine was able to dodge the centipede's venomous injection.

"This is...so.." Alaine spoke as she was backing away from that area as a result of the centipede's venomous venom.

The ground that had so many flowers and lively plants, were now withering away because of this venom.

"If I didn't move, I could have died..! Oh christ..!" Alaine covering her mouth, felt like gagging from this scene.

In spite of wanting to run away the moment she had a glimpse of her enemies, Alaine already knew she must fight to become stronger.

"I want to curse so bad, but Louis will kill me if I curse in front of Mya." Alaine mumbled before disappearing from her place.

Eventually, Alaine had sprinted toward where the 10 flowers were which was the center of the field. Sooner or later, Alaine had rested Mya on that floor before turning around to resume her fight against the centipede.

Leaving behind a few clones to protect that area, Alaine leapt off from one of her clones who gave her a good boost.

Afterwards, Alaine uttered as she was going to land onto the gigantic centipede.

"This is so..yuck.."

The pairs of countless legs on its long body was making Alaine hesitant on cutting off those gross legs, but when the moment she was close to the centipede, she had to slice off a couple of its legs.

Alaine exclaimed. "Eat this!"

Accompanied with a slash, Alaine landed a blow to the centipede's jaw when it was attempting to bite her.

"..!?! Dang it!"

However, it seemed that the centipede knew Alaine was going to hit it, which was why the centipede directed its jaws at Alaine's right arm and dug its jaws into her arm.

"Crap crap crap!!"

Alaine cursed before lashing out by pounding her dagger into the hard exoskeleton, releasing dozens of slashes at it constantly.

By then, she suddenly realized.. "Wait.."

"That's my silk arm." Dumbfounded by herself, Alaine said while staring at her silk arm.

Naturally, infuriated by the fact Alaine was stupid not to check, she clenched the dagger on her silk hand before drilling it into the centipede's mandible.

SHRIEKKK!

In the end, the centipede did not like the fact that its venom didn't work on Alaine's silk arm and it proceeded to fling its head around, prompting Alaine to undergo a havoc ride.

Not once did the centipede release Alaine's arm while it was circling around the places.

..But that wasn't the problem.

"...I think.. I'm gonna..pf—" Alaine spoke weakly as she was covering her mouth to try to hold it in.

..Yet, she failed in preventing herself from puking all her gut out. Fortunately for her, unleashing such a thing onto the centipede was enough to force the pest to stop its movements and dropped off Alaine from its jaws.

"..Oh..my..blerghh!!!"

In spite of Alaine descending to the ground, she continued to vomit one to two more times on the ground. But as if anyone would let her do that, the centipede went back to attack mode after getting rid of the vomit on itself.

Going in for the kill, the centipede surrounded its long body around Alaine, ultimately blocking any escape exits for Alaine.

SCREECH!!!

With its legs getting closer to touching Alaine, it was ready to kill her when it was finished with encasing her. The moment the centipede knew that she wouldn't have anywhere to escape, it rushed its head down upon Alaine, unveiling its jaw-like mandibles to bite onto its meal.

"...ugh.." Alaine grunted, wiping away the stuff on her lips before getting up slowly.

"I HATE YOU!"

Yelling at the top of her lungs, Alaine generated a couple of her clones around her before jumping toward the centipede to cut off its antennas in a matter of a second.

With her clones underneath her, they went ahead and decapitated the long body into pieces, including the legs now looking like big twigs and sticks after getting detached from the centipede's body.

Afterwards, the real Alaine used her skill, 'Flurry Strike' to create a huge amount of cuts and wounds onto the centipede's exoskeleton where the eyes and head were.

ScReeEcHHHH!!!!!

Cracking into the head to pluck out its brain, Alaine hopped into the inside of its head swiftly. She then crushed the brain by using her strong silk arm, smashing it nonstop to reduce it to mashed potatoes.

By then, Alaine suddenly felt a shift of movements from the centipede as it was starting to fall down to the earth.

"Oh no.." Alaine muttered when she noticed it too late and fell with the centipede.

Although it didn't do anything harmful to her when she fell alongside the centipede, the brain that was turned into mashed potatoes, was now everywhere on Alaine's body and clothes.

So of course, Alaine uttered with all of her disgusts. "Ewwww!! This is..disgusting..!!!"

Alaine, feeling as if she was going for another round of vomiting, managed to stop herself from puking.

"Blarghh!!!"

..Or so it seemed. If it weren't for her to take a sniff of the brain goo, she wouldn't have vomited.

"Urgh… why…?!!?? Blurrghh!!"