"Kyaaaaah!"
A scream tore from the throat of the woman whose arm had just been slashed open.
Under normal circumstances, she should have suffered a far more grievous wound. The fact that she had gotten off this lightly was likely because, despite everything, she was a member of an organization called Clown and was no stranger to violence. Her ability to instinctively dodge Rei's Flying Slash was the only reason she had managed to survive the encounter at all.
...No, the fact that she couldn't completely evade it was a testament to just how sharp and swift Rei's Flying Slash had been. Had she not twisted her body on reflex mid-throw of a metal sphere, she would have easily lost an arm then and there.
"How dare you inflict wounds on a woman's body! I cannot permit such actions before my very eyes!"
With that shout, the man wearing a pierrot mask over half his face hurled daggers at Rei with even greater speed than before. He had claimed his throws were sometimes called Gale—and the daggers now flying toward Rei were indeed worthy of that name.
Had the recipient been an ordinary opponent, their body would have been riddled with blades by now.
But the man's opponent was Rei.
Wielding the Twilight Spear in his left hand, Rei swung it swiftly, deflecting the daggers one after another.
"Tch! Impossible! My daggers, deflected this easily!?"
The man cried out in indignation. His daggers had never been so effortlessly deflected before; the current situation was clearly abnormal to him. Of course, he understood what kind of existence Rei was. He understood—but even so, he hadn't expected his attacks to be neutralized this effortlessly.
"I'll... back you up!"
Judging the situation dangerous, the woman threw a metal sphere without regard for her wounded arm. That said, having suffered a severe injury to one arm, the power behind her throws was naturally diminished compared to before. Only one arm was injured, but throwing a metal sphere with enough force to pierce walls required the use of her entire body. With one arm out of commission, she couldn't manage that anymore. There was nothing she could do about it now except make do with what she had.
But the diminished power behind her throw meant it was no longer much of a threat to Rei.
Daggers and metal spheres flew at him in rapid succession, but Rei, armed with Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear, deflected them all without a trace of concern—his expression utterly composed as he batted them aside.
Their all-out attacks, being swatted away this easily, not even registering as a threat—the proud man couldn't tolerate it.
"Damn you!"
"Don't!"
Enraged that their attacks were proving useless, the man shouted and increased the number of daggers he threw.
Rei found himself wondering just how many daggers the man was carrying, but he had more pressing matters to attend to.
Deflecting the hail of daggers and spheres, Rei planted strength in his legs—and the moment a gap appeared in the barrage, he leapt. Not straight up, but toward the woman who couldn't use one arm.
Despite having her arm slashed, the woman's movements were growing sluggish from pain, yet she pressed on with her assault. More than that, incensed that her attacks weren't landing, she was even keeping a watchful eye on the man, whose dagger throws were growing erratic as he hurled them at Rei.
If asked which of the two was more troublesome, the answer was the woman without a second thought.
That was precisely why Rei had moved to take her down first.
"！？"
The woman attempted a counterattack as Rei closed the distance. But he had easily anticipated that she would try something of the sort.
Not only did she hurl a metal sphere, she also launched a kick with her well-shaped legs—the kind of legs that would make any man gulp. The kick was not the sort a random woman could produce; it was the strike of a trained warrior. A direct hit would make even a grown man groan in pain.
But for Rei, such attacks were something he had experienced more times than he could count.
Shifting his body slightly, he let the woman's kick cut through empty air.
However, that it didn't end there was a testament to the woman's skill. Using her knee as a pivot, she forcibly altered the kick's trajectory. It was a move that would normally be impossible—an attack requiring extraordinary flexibility in the knee joint—but Rei evaded it with a tilt of his head and swung Death Scythe in his right hand in a wide arc.
A clean cut. The faint sensation of severing flesh lingered in his grip.
The leg that had delivered the kick was severed from mid-thigh, spinning away through the air.
"Guh..."
Her leg gone, the woman crumpled to the floor.
Rei moved to run her through with the Twilight Spear in his left hand, but an incoming dagger disrupted his attempt.
"Do you really think I'd let you kill my comrade so easily?"
His words projected composure, but the look on his face was one of seething hatred. He must have had a strong sense of camaraderie—or perhaps, given that they were a man and a woman, he harbored deeper feelings for her.
"Fair enough. But I've succeeded in stripping this woman of her combat capability. Which means... you're the only one left. Let me warn you—don't do anything foolish. I wouldn't mind killing her right here, you know."
That last remark was directed at the woman, who was in too much pain to even cry out. Blood was pouring from the severed thigh in alarming quantities. Even as she writhed in agony, she fumbled for a potion, and Rei couldn't tell whether she had even heard the warning. But judging that taking down the man came first, he pushed her out of his field of vision.
Normally, killing the woman first would have been the right call. But considering the man's demeanor, killing her here would undoubtedly intensify his killing intent beyond its current level. If heightened rage made his movements simpler, that wouldn't be hard to deal with.
However, based on Rei's instincts and experience, an opponent like the man before him could transform in an instant. Or rather, he could go berserk.
Rei had only been in this world for a few years, but in that time he had experienced more battles than an ordinary adventurer would in an entire lifetime—if they were lucky. That was why he sensed that the man before him had the potential to transform in a flash.
In that case, I just need to deal with him before that happens.
If he would transform and grow stronger, then handling him beforehand was the obvious solution. It was that simple. Holding Death Scythe and the Twilight Spear at the ready, Rei addressed the man.
"Is the next opponent not coming out? I figured that with some variation in timing, another one would show up every time I took one of you down."
"...I have no obligation to tell you that!"
With those words, the man hurled daggers at Rei. But compared to the ones from earlier, these lacked sharpness. The speed itself was greater, but against attacks flying straight at him, evasion was not difficult.
Rei pressed forward, weaving past the daggers. The man threw blade after blade in rapid succession, but even when combined with the woman's metal spheres, Rei had handled them effortlessly. With her now out of commission, there was no way his throws would land.
Having closed the distance, Rei raised Death Scythe before the man, who glared at him with fury—and just as he was about to swing, as if it were inevitable, as if it were entirely expected, he sensed something cutting through the air and hurtling toward him.
Just as I thought!
Experience had taught him that the moment he tried to kill the man before him, enemy reinforcements would appear to interfere. Having anticipated exactly that, Rei naturally launched his counterattack.
With Death Scythe in his right hand, he bisected the man's torso—upper from lower—while simultaneously deflecting whatever was flying at him with the Twilight Spear in his left.
Death Scythe transmitted the unmistakable sensation of cleaving through flesh and bone. But what the Twilight Spear conveyed was an unexpectedly light impact.
That bothered him, but having just bisected the man's torso at close range, he knew lingering would mean getting splattered by the blood now spurting from the body. He kicked the man's lower half aside and created distance.
Turning his gaze toward the new arrival, he found a woman wearing a mask that covered the area around her eyes—the kind one might wear to a masquerade. The mask concealed her gaze, but her lustrous red lips and the shape of her face made it easy to guess she was a considerable beauty. Her outfit was highly revealing, a costume seemingly designed to stoke a man's desire, and she held a whip in her hand.
Rei's overall impression: A dominatrix?
Not a queen in the sense of a nation's ruler, but a queen in the sense of BDSM.
Despite her appearance, the look she directed at Rei burned with fierce hatred. With her comrades being cut down one after another, that was only natural.
Clown seems to have strong camaraderie too. For all that, it's strange that nobody comes out until a comrade is actually killed. ...Still, a whip, huh.
He now understood why the impact when he'd deflected the earlier attack with the Twilight Spear had felt so light. In the hands of a master, the tip of a whip could exceed the speed of sound. But naturally, the mass at the tip was negligible. Of course, that only applied to someone of Rei's caliber—bring in an ordinary adventurer, and they wouldn't be able to deflect a whip's tip with a spear as he had done.
"Now then, you're next? That's quite a... stimulating outfit to show up in."
"Hmph. What I choose to wear is none of your business, is it? Not that it matters to a man who's about to die here...!"
With those words, the woman cracked her whip once more. The strike was too fast to track visually—but if his eyes couldn't follow it, he simply didn't need to. All he had to do was predict the trajectory of the tip and place the blade of Death Scythe or the shaft of the Twilight Spear along its path. Even if predicting it perfectly was impossible, Rei could sense it intuitively—roughly, around there.
This too was an ability forged through the sheer volume and intensity of combat he had endured.
A sharp crack rang out through the room—the sound of the whip striking the shaft of the Twilight Spear. It was the kind of sound that made anyone hearing it want to cover their ears, a crack that conjured the image of pain itself.
...Especially for Rei, who had already identified the woman as a dominatrix, the association was all the stronger.
But regardless—she was hostile. Whether the opponent was a woman or a man, a Noble or a dominatrix, Rei would not hesitate.
Deflecting the relentless whip strikes, he gradually narrowed the gap between them... when a question surfaced in his mind.
This woman had surely seen the dagger-throwing man get bisected by Death Scythe—upper body from lower. At that time too, Rei had advanced little by little while deflecting attacks, just as he was doing now. She was heading for the exact same fate as the man. So why was she so composed?
Rei found it suspicious. Then, as he drew closer, his sense of smell reacted.
A sweet... no, cloyingly sweet fragrance. The moment he caught it, his consciousness flickered—drifting elsewhere for just an instant.
That it lasted only a heartbeat was thanks to Rei's sharp olfactory senses. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have detected the scent until he was much closer. Even so, the fact that he had lost awareness even for a moment was proof that this fragrance carried a vicious effect.
"Wind Hand!"
Leaping backward to escape the sweet scent, he activated the skill. It produced a colorless, transparent tentacle—at Level 4, its current range extended 250 meters. Within this room, it could reach anywhere.
...Granted, Wind Hand itself was not an overt attack skill like Flying Slash. Even so, it could grasp or lift light objects. Its strength wasn't great, but in the middle of combat, what would happen if it did just that?
"She ran!? Honestly!"
The woman raised her whip to strike at Rei, who had detected the scent and retreated. But for a moment—truly just a moment—Wind Hand caught the tip of the whip. In the next instant it was shaken free, but the disruption in the woman's timing sent the whip sailing off in an entirely wrong direction.
And Rei was not one to let an opponent's opening slip by.
"Take this!"
With a sharp shout, he hurled the Twilight Spear.