With little patience or time to waste, Makima blasted her way through the castle wall by wall, building a straight path to reach Diadora's throne room as quickly as possible.
She had certainly heard the rumbles and tremors that reverberated through every corner of the two mirrored castles, so it was obvious that he would send some of his pieces to stop Makima.
The wreckage of a wall was still falling to the ground when Makima came out of one of the many rooms she had destroyed. Her steps were calm, seemingly unconcerned with the fact that she had blown up over five walls in a row at the last minute.
Thus, she arrived in what appeared to be a kitchen. Although sumptuous, it was almost empty... at least for the moment. When Makima saw a plate on the table with a piece of meat on it, she picked it up and took a bite, swallowing without haste.
A group of hooded women appeared around her.
The pieces of Diadora Astaroth, of course.
Makima looked at them with a dull stare, finishing her bite before bothering to speak to them.
"If you are here to try to stop me, I suggest you do it quickly. I don't like being interrupted while I eat."
The women looked at each other, and one of the taller ones stepped forward and pulled back her hood. She had long silver hair and looked confidently at Makima.
"A devil who destroys everything she sees in front of herself does not differ from a monster, and monsters cannot get to Diadora without first passing through us," she said with a simple smile.
Makima raised an eyebrow. "And you're humans who have given up your faith to serve a false savior..."
Behind those hoods, the expressions of all six nuns surrounding Makima changed. They seemed confident and happy to be six against one, but Makima's provocation made their faces twist with anger.
Diadora Astaroth was a monster who deceived and manipulated nuns he found beautiful, sweet, and pure. He made them emotionally vulnerable, declaring himself to them and making them fall in love with him. With empty promises of a pure but forbidden love, he corroded their minds so that he could then 'save' them. After that, when they were at his mercy, he tortured, raped, and humiliated them.
But even knowing this, many of them still believed that they had no other path and that no one else would accept them.
Makima let out a light sigh, as if bored. "Are you going to attack me, or are you going to wait for me to make the first move?"
At that moment, the silver-haired former nun raised her hands and chanted an incantation, and the others followed.
Fire Magic, Water Magic, Wind Magic, and Ice Magic!
Not all of them were Bishops, but they all knew high-level attack magic.
"Hmph." Makima dropped her plate on the table and snapped her fingers. The ground beneath her feet instantly cracked.
The first ex-warrior fired. Golden flames rose from the ground, trying to consume Makima, but Makima floated away and used a large magic shield.
'It's a good thing Gasper taught me that,' she thought. Then, all the other women's spells slammed into the circle magic shield she had created around herself.
However, the shield wasn't invincible, and taking that much damage caused it to crack quickly. So Makima, seeing that she had no other option, dispersed the shield.
"Was that all you had to try and defeat me?" Makima asked as she landed on the ground.
"Tsk! What the hell!" one nun exclaimed and pulled out a magic spear from inside her cloak, with which she struck in Makima's direction.
"Bang!" Makima pointed her index finger at the woman with the spear, which caused the woman to be thrown backward with overwhelming, unconscionable force.
The nun only felt the impact of her back against a thick wall before she was completely knocked unconscious.
"Tcharamm~! The first piece fell. One of Diadora Astaroth's Bishops is out of the game!" Serafall Leviathan announced, and the announcement rang out both inside the mirrored castles and to the entire audience in the Ajuka Stadium.
The short, green-haired woman who had collided with the wall began to fade into glowing particles, leaving only the crater generated by her impact.
On my throne, I almost laughed when I heard the message and I bet Diadora would start biting her nails, because I knew that when one fell, the others would be desperate to try and eliminate Makima and that would cause…
"Wow! Another piece from Diadora-chan's side has been eliminated by the Queen of Milicas-chan! And now another! And another! Yaaaay! This is so much fun!"
However, although Makima was powerful, she wasn't perfect yet. In a moment of distraction, she didn't see that there was a seventh piece of Diadora in the shadows. This woman spotted Makima's back and stepped forward to attack her. But just as she was about to drive her dagger into Makima's back, she suddenly stopped walking.
Makima, who had been listening to the woman's footsteps for a while, turned to see her frozen in place and smiled. "Thank you, Gasper-chan."
Just then, a little girl with short blonde hair, dressed in the Kuoh Academy school uniform, stepped out of the smoke from the wreckage of the wall that Makima had just blown up.
"I-I could help?"
"Yes, you saved me," Makima replied with a brief smile. At the same time, she sent another piece of Diadora flying into a wall without even glancing at the victim.
"And there goes another piece of Diadora Astaroth! That's four pawns! Looks like the numerical advantage won't be that relevant in this game!"
In my throne room, Asia heard the messages and became visibly excited.
"Are you listening to this, Milicas? We're winning! And it's all thanks to Makima!"
"Yes, we're winning. But we can't stay here any longer..." I stood up from my throne.
"But I thought..."
"Makima is drawing attention and creating a path to our opponent. However, they'll try to take advantage of this by attacking from the flanks. Imagine the two castles as a chessboard. I've positioned my Queen and one of my Bishops to confront Diadora-san's Pawns, but he'll send his other pieces to target the King while the Queen is distracted."
A light bulb appeared over Asia's head as she finally understood.
"That means they're coming here," said Asia.
"They're not coming. They're already here."
Suddenly, one of the large windows in the throne room shattered into a million pieces. A sharp sound reverberated, and a sudden glow illuminated Asia's vision for an instant. When she blinked to understand what had happened, she realized the glow she saw was the tip of a spear that had stopped inches from her face.
"Are you all right?" I asked, moving the spear away from Asia's face.
She swallowed. "Y-yes, thanks to you."
[Several Patrons were thrilled to witness your level of reflex.]
[100 credits were sponsored.]
It would be harsh to admit, but I was breaking into a cold sweat because it was more luck than actual reflexes.
'Fortunately, I managed to grab that spear in time with one of my hands. Otherwise, I would have lost my Healer before the battle even began.'
The other windows in the throne room exploded seconds later, as hooded figures broke through them and entered the room. There were five of them, and considering they all carried melee weapons, I knew they were warriors. In that respect, I thought I was in luck. Fighting head-on was much more my style than throwing around a bunch of spells.
"Asia, please take the rear," I ordered as I descended the few steps to face my opponents. "It will be safer for you to just watch for now. When I need your help, you know what to do."
The little blonde-haired girl clutched her hands close to her chest and nodded, showing she understood my instructions.
"Right, now it's time to play a bit." I looked at the hooded women and twirled the spear I was holding. "But first of all, I have to ask you a question."
The women looked at each other, unsure whether to listen to the question or attack me, until one of them finally spoke.
"I'm sorry, but if you're going to ask us to betray our master, I'm afraid we're going to have to refuse that request and kick your ass."
"Betray? Of course, I wouldn't ask that... This is a Rating Game, and the fun of it is that we fight, right? I just have to ask: do you want me to use one hand or both?"
*
*
*
Support me to write more and read chapters ahead of all regular readers!
P-atreon.com/palmer1998
(Just remove the hyphen to access Patreon normally.)
In chapters R-18, there are original and exclusive images for the patreons!
Discord: https://discord.gg/2pn9Twxrng