The Executioner and Her Way of Life

“Panty thieeeef!”

As the black-haired young woman shrieked, an unusually powerful conjuring lanced forth from her finger.

One of the would-be assailants was taken away by knights.

His attempted surprise attack in the open-air bath had failed. One of the targets had caught him in the changing room and managed to stop him somehow. Ultimately, he was arrested by knights under suspicion of stealing underwear.

The men the Recruiter had gathered were all part of the Fourth. They had undergone rigorous training to fight the priestesses of the privileged class someday. It was painful to have one of their fellows treated as an unsavory criminal, but at least it meant their marks remained ignorant of their true intentions.

It was better that the girls believed they had stopped a simple sex offender in the act than to have them suspect their lives were in danger. To keep the targets’ guards down, their captured comrade had swallowed his pride and bravely declared “I am indeed a panty thief” when the knights hauled him off.

As for the girls who had reduced a proud warrior to a common pervert, they were now strolling around the hot spring town together.

The pair wore matching
yukata
as they walked, perhaps intending to take a full-on hot springs tour. One of the assassins who was blending in as part of the staff had suggested that they wear the rented garments, citing it as part of the fun of a hot spring town.

“This place has super-Japanese vibes, especially with these
yukata
. The rooms at the inn all have tatami mats, and the buildings are wood. The whole village is so rustic… It’s almost shockingly similar to an old-fashioned Japanese settlement. This might be the first time I’ve been to such a familiar-looking locale. In a way, you could even say it’s more Japanese than modern Japan.”

“Mm-hmm. So this is what you’d call Japanese? Perhaps the local culture was strongly influenced by some lost lambs. There are mountains all around us, right? Until the train station was built, their community must have been isolated for a long time. People claim this town is surprisingly rich with history and ancient customs. The buildings may even be remains from ancient times.”

“All Japanese people love hot springs, y’know. And some are extra enthusiastic about ’em, so I wouldn’t be surprised if a person like that had a hand in this village.”

“Perhaps this entire street is a remnant of the ancient civilization, then.”

The two girls absentmindedly chatted as they walked.

They had easily dodged one dangerous encounter in the open-air bath at the inn, but there were still more perils surrounding them.

The first surprise attack had failed. It had been unwise to attack the young women alone, even if the attacker hoped to catch them when their guards were down. Thus, the next ambush was based on strength in numbers.

An attack on the main road would draw too much attention. So the group of assailants sent in a consort who worked in the area. The young man, a well-known lecher, was told to entice the girls and lead them into an unwatched alley.

The young fellow approached the pair, his pleasant air and attractive features on full display. Nearly ten skilled assassins were waiting in the narrow street where he was to guide them. Even if she was unusually capable, that had to be more than enough to dispose of a single priestess.

“Hello, ladies—”

“Die.”

“Die?!”

The handsome man couldn’t hide his surprise at the immediate rejection.

It was the priestess girl who’d replied so bluntly that it was painfully obvious she had no intention of continuing the conversation. She made an openly disgusted face, tossing her pink pigtails over her shoulder.

“Yes, just hurry up and die, please. I have no interest in small fries like you. Your very existence irritates me. Begone with you, and tell them to send someone a little more worth the trouble of defeating next time.”

The young man, who believed he generally had a way with women, had to fight to keep his face from twitching at such an unexpected insult. What kind of twisted society would cause a young girl to earnestly wish another person’s death simply because he spoke to her?

The consort swallowed the urge to reply that he wouldn’t be talking to such an immature brat if he wasn’t getting paid to do so.

Meanwhile, the black-haired girl looked on pityingly.

“Come on, Momo. Telling him to die is a little bit extreme…”

“I-it really is! Ah-ha-ha, your sense of humor sure is—”

“At least keep it to a nice
Go away, you creep.
”

“Oof…!”

The handsome man thought the black-haired girl was siding with him, but it turned out to be an ingenious trap. The word
creep
was a severe blow to his relatively high confidence in matters with women. Still, a man who made his living as an escort wouldn’t let a slight injury to his pride crush his spirits completely.

Rejection was second nature to a pickup artist. It was perfectly normal to be ignored at first. Trial and error were all part of the process.

Still, in this particular case, he’d been hired to get results. The amount of money offered was enough to make him reluctant to back down easily.

He hadn’t failed yet. The young man gathered his inner strength.

The pink-haired girl already looked irritated that he seemed intent on speaking to them again, but then her face brightened, as if she’d hit upon an idea. The handsome consort waited to see if she might offer up a topic of conversation and was surprised when she pushed the black-haired girl forward.

“If you’re trying to pick us up, then here, you can have this healthy specimen. I can’t think of a single use for her, so feel free to go off somewhere together and do whatever you like.”

“Momo?!” the black-haired girl shrieked in surprise.

Even the veteran consort had never experienced a woman blatantly selling off her friend to him before. He had no idea how to react.

The girl being offered was equally brazen. No sooner had she realized that her companion was betraying her than she pursed her lips and glared sharply at the pink-haired young woman.

“Just because you’re tiny, flat, and unlikable doesn’t mean you should jump right to that. For all we know, this guy might be into that! In fact, he’s gotta be, or he wouldn’t have started with you. Hey, mister! If you have any pride as a pedo, you’ll take this girl instead!”

The sudden accusation made the consort’s face go dead serious; he happened to prefer older women.

“I am not a pedo.”

“Come on, no need to be shy!”

He should never have taken this job.

As the man silently cursed himself for suffering the accusation without denial, each girl kept trying to give the other away. Thankfully, he somehow managed to get them to follow him to the alley, though it required an unbelievable amount of effort.

As soon as they arrived at the dead-end backstreet, the ten-odd men appeared and blocked the exit.

“Yesss, just in time—”

A fist smashed into the consort’s face, cutting his words short.

“I told you to die, remember?”

Since they were out of view, Momo immediately opted to use violence. Her first victim was the handsome man who had led them to the alley. First, she struck him squarely on the nose. She grabbed his sleeve and threw him to the ground as he staggered back. Then, just as the wind was knocked out of him when he hit the ground, Momo mercilessly and repeatedly stomped on his face.

The man groaned in agony a few times, but even that soon stopped. The priestess looked down coldly at the unconscious body and said, “…Now my shoes are dirty.”

After ruining another person’s face, that was all she had to offer.

The damage to his handsome features was bound to harm his future as a consort.

Momo kicked him off to the side of the alley with alarmingly practiced ease, then looked around slowly.

“I thought you were just a pickup artist, but…this isn’t half bad.”

As she spoke, the luminous glow of Guiding Force surrounded Momo’s body.

A shiver of fear ran through the group of assailants.

Guiding Enhancement. A Guiding Force manipulation technique that raised the user’s physical prowess.

Priestesses of the Faust were strong. By nature, they had to be adept enough at manipulating Guiding Force to operate the complex Guiding vessels known as scriptures. There were rumors that the path to being chosen as an official priestess was even more complicated, including combat training in the Wild Frontier.

The men in the alley were aware of this, for those who worked in the criminal underworld studied their mortal enemies.

But the amount of Guiding Force that the girl before them was using to enhance herself was visibly next-level. It was a sign that she had more combat power than the average priestess.

This was not good. Making a snap decision, the men attempted to flee. They had wisely concluded that their ambush based solely on overpowering their targets with numbers would not be enough.

Unfortunately, Momo was already behind them.

It had been a mistake to choose a dead-end alley to trap their target. As Momo moved nearer, she slammed her fist into the ground.

A dull crash echoed through the small street.

The tremor that ran through the ground left no room for doubting the petite girl’s might—spiderweb-like cracks spread from the point of impact.

Guiding Enhancement alone shouldn’t have been enough to produce this level of superhuman force. The men froze in shock at the show of superiority.

“If any of you try to run, I’ll be happy to introduce you to my fist like I did to that piece of trash.”

How could a teenage girl be so merciless? Why did her eyes not contain a single trace of compassion, a virtue supposedly touted by her church? And hadn’t she just caused major collateral damage to a home, making her something of a criminal herself? The assailants had many questions, but most dared not to voice them.

“Wh-what do you mean,
if
we try to run?” one of the would-be attackers inquired cautiously. “What should we do, then?”

It was clear that their group of ten was no contest for Momo. Still, she made no move to torment the men. This had to mean that there was something she wanted.

If they complied, would she let them walk away? The man who had posed the question certainly hoped so.

“If you can attack that dimwit there and win, I’ll let you go.”

Akari, who hadn’t been granted the kindness of having any of this explained to her beforehand, stared at Momo in utter disbelief. Her gaze seemed to ask,
Are you all right in the head?

“I told you to learn to use your powers in combat, didn’t I? At first, I thought this was nothing more than a bad pickup attempt, but I’m pleased to see that there was more to it.”

“…Wait, Momo, is this why you wanted to go out?”

“Of course. Strutting around unguarded was bound to attract some idiots.”

The men twitched. Had their target seen through their plan of attack from the very beginning? It was inconceivable.

However, they still didn’t understand what Momo wanted. They’d tried to launch a surprise attack, but one of their marks had commanded they go after her companion. No average person could understand the logic behind Momo’s suggestion.

“Since the effects of your conjurings are so strange, it doesn’t matter if you can’t control them too precisely. Just try some things out in real combat.”

“Umm… I’m not very good at regulating it yet, though…”

“It’s fine. You only need to keep practicing. Even if you waste some Guiding Force, it will work out, probably.”

“W-wait!”

It was a plan that obviously valued firepower and force over finesse. The men frantically tried to stop her.

“It’s dangerous to misuse Guiding Force without the proper training! Especially if there’s Guiding Force discharge?! That’s not the kind of thing a noncombatant should try!”

He was right.

This was absolutely the most reasonable response. It was a basic precaution detailed in any manual on Guiding Enhancement or other techniques. Guiding Force was an energy produced by the soul. Conjurings were precise techniques that used that power.

There were plenty of exceptions, however.

“Really?”

“No need to listen to a criminal’s opinion.”

Momo, who had very little concern for Akari’s well-being, gave an irresponsible go-ahead signal.

The men steeled themselves. This was a far cry from what they’d expected going in, but they had no other choice. Their only hope was to protect the black-haired girl being fooled by this vicious priestess and run like hell.

The Faust really were a nasty bunch. Full of righteous indignation, one of the men reached out to save Akari.

When he grabbed her arm, she automatically pulled back.

“Eek!”

Unlike the short scream that came from her mouth, the results were anything but small and cute.

For just a moment, Akari’s entire body shone with Guiding Light, and then the man who’d seized her detected a strange conjuring he was unfamiliar with. A moment later, he soared into the air.

All eyes in the alley followed the man as he flew in a perfect parabola.

This was the result of Akari swinging her arm too swiftly to be visible to the human eye. She flung the man so hard that gravity did little to stop him from rocketing skyward.

Then he fell back down with a gruesomely loud
SPLAT
.

It was an extremely painful-sounding noise. Fortunately, the man didn’t stay conscious long enough to suffer from the impact. He dropped too fast for any attempt to protect himself and could have easily struck his head and been killed instantly. He was fortunate enough to land in such a way that he simply fainted and rolled across the ground, however.

“Ohh…” The black-haired girl looked embarrassed. “S-sorry about that… I guess I didn’t hold back my
[Acceleration]
enough…?”

Akari was one who apologized for her mistakes. That wasn’t exactly helpful in this particular situation, but it was still better to say sorry than not.

“L-look, Momo. I really don’t know how to moderate my powers. Is this truly okay? Aren’t we kinda…committing a crime here? Like, I sorta feel like we’re the bad guys right now.”

“It’s fine. There’s no need to hold back. Aim for maximum output and maximum results at all times, please.”

“Are you sure…?”

“Of course I am. All self-defense is legitimate, so it doesn’t matter what you do to criminals.”

Clearly, Momo had no concept of “overkill.” Judging by the confidence with which she made this statement, it was evident that she genuinely didn’t care what happened to the men.

“Still, the amount of power you produce really is something. I suppose that’s inevitable with all the Guiding Force you have…but we have the perfect test subjects here. Just keep trying out whatever you like.”

The men shuddered at being designated test subjects.

They were the ones who initially sprung an ambush, yet now they found themselves the lab rats of a vicious experiment.

A so-called holy woman who suggested violent experiments on humans was a disgrace to her kind. But no one here really thought of Momo as a holy woman anymore. The men realized she was still an assistant priestess despite being more powerful than any typical one because her mental state drastically lowered her rating.