Slaughter
What is Sabbath?
In short, it"s an all-you-can-eat buffet, but it"s nothing like the gachih.o.m.o"s white loincloth parties, the fashionable gays" cigarette parties, the transvest.i.tes" frenzy dancing, or the gachilezes" fun bath parties.
It"s an anything goes free-for-all suitable for the worst that the demons have to offer.
Naturally there will be an orgy going on, drugs will be aplenty, there might be a few strange summoning rituals here and there, exceptionally excited individuals would bring in their own food, whatever that might consist of, and in the end, they"ll bring out the sacrifices they kidnapped and do what they want to them just for the fun of it..
Even demons aren"t supposed to be allowed to hold one without the Demon Lord"s approval, so for a person, no, any living creature that would attend one would be described as the absolute worst. That is what a Sabbath is supposed to be.
The fact that Sabbath has now been legalized means that any of those actions would now be allowed as well. Honestly, anybody sane would never allow this. Making it the perfect decree for a now insane king.
“The ban on Sabbath has been lifted,” and
“For the Sabbath"s sacrifices, adults can volunteer, and children are fine so long as they are given with parental consent.”
These two decrees spread through Skycastle like wildfire.
n.o.bles throughout the city crammed themselves into the castle to try and find out the King"s true intentions with this. Unfortunately the situation was at a standstill because the only person they could talk to was the King"s spokesman who didn"t understand the King"s goal in this either.
When the Dragon Maiden and her dragon first arrived at the castle, they offered to act as the personal guards for His Highness along with their two companions as attendants, a proposal the King happily accepted. After that, the spokesman never heard from the King again. All of the royal decrees pa.s.sed since were delivered on paper in the King"s handwriting.
When the spokesman first received the King"s decree from the larger of the the two new attendant men, he naturally started questioning His Highness"s sanity just like everyone else was now. That was why he decided to ask the King forgiveness for his insolence later and barged into His Highness"s bedroom to find out the real story behind this mess. But, “It"s my decision,” was the only response the King gave from his bed.
“My oh my, Mister Spokesman, this type of insolence isn"t allowed,” and then a woman"s voice came out from the King"s bed as well. The spokesman recognized it immediately as the voice of the new Dragon Maiden.
But this left the spokesman even more confused than before. Weren"t Dragon Maidens supposed to devote themselves to their dragons completely? And well, that"s all he was able to get from the meeting. Before he could work through his confusion and ask anything else, the two attendant men came up from behind him, picked him up by his arms, and carried him out of the room. From behind, he could hear the King lifelessly called after him, “I"ll overlook it this time, but don"t do it again.”
So when the n.o.bles bombarded him with questions, the spokesman could only repeat back to them what the King had told him. “It"s a royal decree.” There were a number of n.o.bles who left after that saying, “It"s the will of the King,” some even going as far as voicing their approval. The situation has already deteriorated to a point where there was little a n.o.ble could do.
“That created even more chaos than I expected,” the naked Peach murmured.
“It seems some of that lot have started to act recklessly as a result, but that"s part of the fun,” a naked man muttered back.
The King was lying unconscious on his back between them.
“Oh, you already have a sacrifice?”
“Yeah, doesn"t she look delicious?”
“So you grabbed her because you really wanted to eat her yourself then?”
“I”m really looking forward to sinking my teeth in the heart and liver.”
“I"ve always been more into a person"s eyes myself.”
“She"s young, so her uterus and ovaries will be tender.”
“I think I"ll lap up all her blood in one go.”
“We"re a pretty good group of friends don"t you think?”
“Yeah, it"s good that we all have such different tastes in food.”
“By the way, did you get consent from this girl"s parents?”
“What"s that?”
“Oh no, you can"t do that. The bosses clearly said we had to get consent from any kids" parents before we eat them.”
“How are you supposed to get that?”
“It"s easy. All you have to do is tell the parent, “The King has ordered your girl to be a sacrifice. Are you going to give her up, or are you going to go against the King?” and that"ll be the end of it.”
“Sounds troublesome.”
“Well, won"t it be fine as long as we get consent afterwards?”
“Yeah, let"s just eat first. It"ll be really annoying trying to find her parents on an empty stomach.”
Mebett was forced to listen to such an outrageous conversation, yet still she stayed brave while waiting for her elder sister and the other girls to come save her. But, there was a limit.
“All right, little girl. Come on down.”
Mebett tried tearing through her gag with her teeth, and the rope binding her wrists and ankles cut into her skin as she tried to break free. But with her pet.i.te limbs failing her completely, she was left unable to do anything as her kidnapper lifted her off the ground. She was carried over to a stone pillar at the room"s center lit by candlelight.
Mebett had her limbs spread out, bound to the stone column and put on full display for the monsters surrounding her.
“Now then little girl, be sure to let out a nice voice for us.”
“We"ll make sure this hurts as much as possible.”
“If you could listen to my most sincere request, please live survive as long as possible.”
All of the men put into their own small requests for Mebett to follow.
“Now let"s shed these.”
One of the men pulled off Mebett"s gag. As he did, Mebett could no longer hold herself back, raising a h.e.l.lish scream.
“Good, GOOD!!”
Each of the men sprouted claws from their fingers, taking turns tearing away at Mebett"s clothes. The cute blouse she was wearing was shredded, exposing her immature body to the starving demons.
After Ferdinand and the others had informed Ellis about the ‘legalization of Sabbath,” they knew there was a high probability that Mebett had been kidnapped to act as a sacrifice. With that being the case, then the kidnappers should make some attempt at contacting Sir Chaffee.
And so, Sir Chaffee was to send a message to Duke Marsfield who would then tell Ferdinand, who would then tell Ellis the moment that the kidnappers made contact. For the time though, Chaffee was a mess, sending message after message to Duke Marsfield, all essentially boiling down to, “I don"t care what it costs me, I just want to save Mebett!” It"s no good. He"s likely to get him and his daughter killed acting like this. Duke Marsfield spent most of this time trying to talk Sir Chaffee down, trying to convince him to wait for Ellis and the other girls.
“Claire, still!?”
“It"s just a little further, so calm down Reeve!”
“I am calm!”
Claire was desperately tracking the signal from {Find Marker}. Finally she was able to lock onto a specific location, a n.o.ble"s mansion that the two girls had just pa.s.sed by. From the outside, all the lights were off and it looked like n.o.body was home.
“Reeve, there!”
After getting Claire"s confirmation, Reeve shouted into the Howling Plush Toy in her hand.
“Ellis, we found it!”
“Understood Reeve. We"ll be there soon, so wait just a little while longer!”
But at that moment, Mebett"s scream reverberated through her doll.
“We"re out of time Ellis! We"re going now!”
“If you"re going to change the strategy, then don"t hesitate to kill all of them! Don"t miss any! Claire too!”
One of the men slowly moved his claws to Mebett"s chest.
“No, she"ll die right away if you stab her heart first.”
“That"s right. Start with her stomach.”
“Her abdomen, no, her eye would be the least lethal.”
“We have a winner.”
The man moved his claws towards Mebett"s eyes instead.
“Here we go.”
The man"s cold words overlapped with Mebett"s screams. But as the claws moved in, craving blood, a light suddenly began to shine at Mebett"s finger. And then a shadow spread across her whole body.
Besides the Howling Plush Toy, Mebett had another small toy tied around her neck. This was a golem Claire had put her heart and soul into. Defense Doll-kun. That large shadow was the gallant figure of Defense Doll-kun rolling into action.
Defense Doll-kun is made up of two parts, a ring and the doll itself. When the life of the ring"s owner is in danger, Defense Doll-kun activates automatically, and does everything in its power to guard its owner.
A Sacrificial Doll would naturally be more efficient when saving someone"s life. However, if Mebett was ever in a situation where her life would be in danger, then a second life would probably not be enough. It would be easy to imagine an attacker giving a second or third killing blow immediately after. That"s why Ellis and Claire worked together to build Defense Doll-kun as a way to protect the general public.
The doll repelled the man"s claws with one of its arm while the other ripped off the ropes holding Mebett"s limbs in place. While the demons were all left stunned at the sudden appearance of an enemy, Mebett jumped off the pillar and tried to make a run for it.
“WhWhat is that!?”
“It"s, wait, the girl"s trying to run away!”
The men were surprised for a second, but they came to their senses soon enough and started chasing the doll down. They shot arrows, threw spears, shot magic at the doll"s back, but that was perfectly fine with the golem. It allowed the demons" attacks to shave away at its body, the whole time using its fully grown ma.s.s to guard Mebett as she climbed up the stairs out of the bas.e.m.e.nt she was being kept in and made a break for any exit she could find.
But then the continued attacks caused one of its knees to buckle under, forcing it to fall to the ground. Even as it did though, it still used its body to take on any and all attacks, falling in a way so as to fully cover Mebett. Even as its arm was ripped from its shoulder, it only moved to tighten its hold on Mebett.
The doll huddled up like a turtle, using its whole body like a sh.e.l.l to guard Mebett from any harm. Not a single arrow or stray flame would get through.
“This b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Suddenly appearing out of nowhere!”
“Just break it open already so we can get at the girl!”
The demons were finally able to catch up to the turtled doll, determined to get their meal. One of the demons had brought an ax with him and lifted it up high in the air, ready to dig a hole straight through the doll"s body if it meant getting at the prize underneath. But as the ax swung down, dozens of small lights formed inside the pitch-black mansion.
“{Homing Missile}”
Claire"s spell shot out, pelting the demons with flames and knocking them away from the hunched over doll. Then from within the doctors, a shadow jumped out.
“Good job enduring Mebett.”
Reeve rushed towards the gathered group of men while whispering to the little girl still hiding underneath the broken golem. Along the way, Su-chan leaped off of Reeve"s chest, soaring high above the demons" heads.
The truth was that Claire had pulled her spell back so that it wouldn"t kill a single one of the demons that had chased after Mebett, but that wasn"t because of anything even resembling mercy. Tonight was different than that time during the carnival. The girls didn"t need any information from these demons. They didn"t need them for any hara.s.sment either. All these demons needed to do, was die, and after all the stress she had worked up until this moment, Reeve really needed this chance to kill them herself.
So Claire held her own anger back, silently watching as Reeve dug her blade into the first demon"s eye and out the back of its throat. From their Reeve pulled out her sword, slicing another demon down the middle, its blood forming a pool under its lifeless corpse. It was over in the blink of an eye, but with each of the demons having been blown over by Claire"s {Homing Missile}, none of them could even try to fight back as Reeve subjected each of the hapless demons to a one-sided execution.
After flying over the other demons, Su-chan made his way down to the bas.e.m.e.nt. Lacking the need to offer such a personal touch, he finished his work up faster than Reeve even though he started a little later. A few seconds after Su-chan flew into the bas.e.m.e.nt, the whole mansion was filled with the surprised demons" screams. The echo of his wind blades carving through stone and flesh echoed inside the mansion long after the bas.e.m.e.nt"s stone walls had become awash with blood, organs, and limbs.
The slaughter ended only a short time after it had begun.
Reeve returned to Mebett"s side. Pulling her out from under the golem, Reeve gently held her niece close, having her rest her head on her chest.
“You endured so well, good job Mebett.”
“Big Sister, I, did my best………..I did my best………..” despite the tears lining her cheeks, Mebett did her best to act bravely, even as she fainted in her aunt"s arms.
“You did your best,”
Claire confirmed Mebett"s words while stroking the top of her head before removing the ring on her finger. She then crouched down, carefully picking up every single piece of Defense Doll-kun that had broken apart and scattered across the floor.
“You did your best too. I"ll fix you right away.”
Not long after, Ellis and the others arrived at the mansion, joining up with Reeve and Claire.