Akros Zero - 26) Parasites

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{3rd Pov}

“We have finally arrived at the outskirts; the village isn't that far away.” It was about time for the sunrise, meanwhile Subaru had awakened not long ago.

He felt embarrassed realizing how he had fallen asleep on his Lady, and he even felt the drool leaving his lips. However, Priscilla was neither angry nor dissatisfied. She wore the same smile as if it was simply the world revolving around her, as though such a small matter could never disturb her composure.

“You seem rather distressed, what’s the matter? I haven’t even begun explaining the threat we are about to face,” Priscilla asked with a knowing smile on her face as Subaru blushed. “I-I apologize! I slept on your shoulder and even drooled!” He felt embarrassed! The last thing he wanted was to disrespect Priscilla, especially after she had allowed him to use her shoulder as a pillow.

“Hehe, do you think that for such a trifle I would get angry? Or do you expect me to be so self-centered that I would take it as an act of disrespect?” she asked while fanning herself with the Chinese fan as Subaru gulped.

Even Aldebaran and Yae looked at her and wanted to yell yes… they expected her to take that as an act of disrespect.

“Of course not! It is just that I don’t like disrespecting you!” he said from his heart.

Priscilla wanted to kiss him on the lips that moment and tell him that if that was what he called disrespecting her, then she would allow him to do it for the rest of his life.

She giggled as she closed her fan and then pointed at Aldebaran.

“Aldebaran, tell me what will happen if you were to sleep on my shoulder?” she asked as the helmeted guy got stuck. He wanted to say that she would probably accept it, but then stopped himself and said with a sigh, “My head will be off my neck.”

“Correct.” Priscilla didn’t deny it while Subaru blinked in confusion. “Natsuki Subaru, when you slept at my shoulder, you did it out of tiredness. But if Aldebaran were to do it? That would definitely be a desperate way to get close to me or ogle me.” Yae instantly looked at Aldebaran.

“Geez, Princess… You are kinda ruining my reputation,” Aldebaran said, ashamed, meanwhile Priscilla said, “Mine divineself is naturally brilliant and divinely endowed. It is common for lesser men to ogle at me or my chest. If I naturally take those actions as insolence, then nine tenths of the men who met me would be dead.”

“Having desires and acting on them are two different things. If someone tries to grope me, then those fools can expect to be headless or turned to ash, depending on the time of day. If someone looks at me lewdly while trying to get me into their bed, such people will naturally be filth as well,” she said, making it clear how she would punish such people.

“You and Aldebaran also have desires towards me. But this jester will naturally try to take advantage of me, while your respect and duty towards me surpass your desires. If you were to fall asleep on top of me or touch me by mistake, such things, regardless of their intensity, will be pardoned,” she said.

Subaru blinked twice more before blushing.

“Uhhh… I understand! You are really a Saint!”

Leaving Yae and Aldebaran aside, even Priscilla found herself speechless by what ‘Saint’ meant to the current Natsuki Subaru.

Meanwhile, Aldebaran clicked his tongue.

Yes, Priscilla’s words made sense!

But seriously, it wasn’t his fault that Subaru had his love for half-elves and maids, so his respect for Priscilla naturally outclassed his horniness for her.

Aldebaran’s Emilia was basically Priscilla.

He would naturally imagine not so decent situations with her, which meant his actions would be deliberate and therefore considered as taking advantage of her, a crime punishable by death in Priscilla’s dictionary.

But Subaru was different. He had a glorified view of Priscilla, just like Schult. He was horny for a half-elf and an Oni maid instead of Priscilla, so his actions were simply mistakes rather than deliberate attempts to take advantage of her.

Though Aldebaran frowned behind his helmet. Although everything made sense, something was still wrong. Or was he just tripping over his own thoughts?

Of course, finding a man who would be as pure-hearted as Subaru was probably impossible.

Only children like Schult would be as pure-hearted as him, so her logic made sense.

But Priscilla naturally included Subaru as her one and only Darling, so even… more not so decent situations would be considered okay by her.

And again, her patience also had limits when it came to people other than Subaru. Once those lines were crossed, she would punish the other party regardless of their innocence.

“Anyway, we are on the outskirts now… And we still don’t know what threat we have,” Yae said with a wry smile wondering when their Lady will tell them of mission or threat they have come to purge.

Meanwhile, Priscilla crossed her legs.

“Parasites. This village and the nearby ones house parasites that have taken over people. The controlled people are nothing more than undead bodies being controlled by parasites.”

Instantly, all of them froze. They couldn’t believe that the threat Priscilla had mentioned was this great. “P-Princess… Did you inform the Crimson Battlefront?” Aldebaran asked as Priscilla said, “No, I haven’t. The chances of finding the schemer are higher without their presence alerting the mastermind. So, we are on our own.”

The sudden revelation made the situation far more serious than any of them had expected, especially since Priscilla had deliberately chosen not to bring the Crimson Battlefront with them.

‘One thousand? Ten thousand? Probably a million? Damn, how many times do I gotta die?!’ Aldebaran clicked his tongue.

Death didn’t scare him, but it wasn’t pleasant either.

Priscilla Barielle naturally knew his ability and method of winning, but he understood her reasoning. If Priscilla Barielle wanted to catch or kill the mastermind, then it was absolutely necessary.

Though one thing confused him. Why had she brought Natsuki Subaru despite knowing his weak battle prowess and the only cursed ability he had?

Of course, Priscilla must have experienced these events in her previous loops. But during that time, she didn’t know the extent of the threat, so Subaru being with her would not be surprising.

But in this loop, she knew the threat, and Priscilla Barielle wasn’t someone who would throw Subaru’s life away just to win.

‘Maybe she wants Bro to grow? Even Princess might not wanna see Bro… this chaotic,’ he guessed, but again, he could only guess.

Once again, he thought it was Priscilla’s arrogance acting up, as there was no way for him to know what was actually going through her mind.

He could have never guessed that she wanted Subaru to grow so he didn’t hurt himself anymore.

“Ehhh! That seems dangerous! Just like zombies! Infected ones from The Last of Us!” Subaru said. He had played the game in arcades. “While I may not know what type of movie The Last of Us was, bro… It sounds very dangerous. Do we expect a Nemesis?”

“We shall expect a brute woman who is the queen of those vile creatures and, obviously, their mastermind… Sphinx,” Priscilla said as all three of them were greatly confused by the name.

“Uh… who might that be, Priscilla-sama?” Yae asked as Priscilla fanned herself. “A vile woman who was one of the three leaders behind the Demi-human War years ago. She excels at creating undead, and her goal is to become the Witch of Greed, Echidna.”

Aldebaran’s eyes widened in horror… they were potentially going to battle his Sensei?!

Yae and Subaru again didn’t know Echidna, though the word ‘Witch’ alone told them about her prowess. As for Yae, she recognized the weight of fighting against one of the leaders of the Demi-human War!

“Princess, you cannot be joking… Fighting someone like her?! We definitely need an army!” Aldebaran said! It was not because he feared his Sensei, okay?!

“Well, I don’t know how strong she might be… But just hearing that she was one of the three leaders behind the Demi-human War tells me what kind of terrifying foe she will be… I think I have heard about the Witch who used to raise corpses during the war,” Yae said, her lips twitching slightly, seriously this woman wasn't just suicidal! She was an absolute madwoman!

'So we are really going to fight someone like that with just the four of us?' Aldebaran thought, though he quickly reminded himself that he absolutely wasn’t afraid of his Sensei. At least, that was what he would tell himself.

Subaru, who heard and saw how shaken even Yae and Aldebaran looked just from hearing the name of their opponent and learning about her deeds, wondered if he could provide any sort of help.

After all, he had been useless in combat! If he was asked to train himself in some particular ability to help Priscilla, then he would be up for it. But basically, it had only been damn two or three days!

He basically knew nothing that could help Priscilla.

Now, he didn’t fear becoming useless, but he feared becoming an additional burden to Priscilla.

He wanted to improve himself, not make things harder for his Lady. “Boy… It seems you have some words you wanna speak aloud.” Priscilla’s sudden voice broke him out of his trance.

“I think I may become a burden. I really don’t wanna become someone who holds you back. I haven’t trained for anything!” Subaru said, frustrated, when he suddenly felt a sudden jolt on his forehead. “Ouch!” He realized it was Priscilla who had flicked her finger against his forehead… and she was pouting.

“Fool! Did you forget my promise?!” she said, somewhat frustrated, as Subaru realized what she meant. “You may have questions about why and when I made such a promise. Time shall reveal thy doubts, but remember. My promise was that no harm would come to you while under me until you are capable of handling yourself. I shall die before any fatal injury befalls you,” Priscilla said.

Her words shocked all of them.

Subaru’s lips trembled as he quickly hid his mouth by covering it with his palm while looking away with a blush on his face.

Aldebaran wanted to complain about why Subaru was acting like a girl in love?!

Though if Priscilla told those words to him… He would be ready to die a million times just to hear that type of concern from her. Even the thought of Priscilla making such a promise to him was enough to make Aldebaran feel that he would willingly accept countless deaths just to hear her say that she would protect him... though it was better to stop daydreaming, jesters don't have such days.

Yae’s eyebrows twitched, and she couldn’t keep a straight face at all!

The difficulty of her original mission had just increased… a lot. She had to deal with this second-rate, one-handed Swordsman mercenary, the big baby Natsuki Subaru, and the weirdly Mommy Priscilla Barielle, who was her target.

All the while, she had to make sure that she survived the encounter with those undead and Sphinx.

She seriously was going to charge her client ten times more for this assassination! The original mission had already been troublesome enough, but this was becoming far more complicated than she had expected.

The carriage stopped as soon as the small window from behind Priscilla opened. “Lady Priscilla, we have arrived… There are people working in the fields.”

Aldebaran and Yae tensed upon hearing that. It seemed the driver hadn’t heard their conversation properly, or perhaps he hadn’t heard it at all, or maybe he was simply that composed!

Meanwhile, Priscilla grinned, and for a moment, hatred and disgust, absolute loathing for these vermin flashed in her eyes.

“Let’s show those imbeciles their place,” Priscilla said as Subaru instantly opened the gate from inside, letting her down.

Aldebaran and Yae Tenzen followed them outside.

Looking into the distance, they could see some farmers working and even more people gathering, waving their hands at them and looking at them with friendly smiles. It gave everyone except Priscilla the creeps, as they all knew the truth about these beings.

“Norio, return to the domain,” Priscilla ordered the driver, who looked at her and then asked, “Priscilla-sama, should I call on the Crimson Battlefront?” he asked as Yae and Aldebaran looked at the man.

Priscilla smirked. “Tell them to surround the villages near the Tenrill River.”

“Yes, M’lady!” He nodded and instantly turned the carriage backwards, riding away at full speed.

“Didn’t you want not to alert the enemy, Princess?” Aldebaran asked as Priscilla said, “Half a day for my message to reach them, and half a day for them to reach here. We have plenty of time! If within this time we cannot kill the mastermind, then it is better to gain the support of our army.”

Aldebaran wanted to commend her! Priscilla was actually being less suicidal than he thought!

Okay, this was still suicidal, but it was the first time he was seeing her having made all the plans beforehand and being a bit less arrogant in her approach.

At least, she was thinking about what would happen if they failed and had already prepared another option.

Meanwhile, the people from the village continued approaching them. “This doesn’t look good. I think they are thinking of surrounding us,” Subaru said as he realized how some villagers were spreading out.

Even though they weren’t that near yet, he could tell what they wanted and what their formation seemed to be preparing for.

“Aldebaran, if you want a reward, you may attack first,” Priscilla said as Aldebaran’s eyes lit up. He immediately asked, “Can I ask for a lap pillow?” and Priscilla chuckled. “If you can solve them… and all the men approaching us who are filth.” Nothing more needed to be said.

‘For a lap pillow and the best view of boobies!’ he screamed in his mind as he drew his Blue Dragon Sword and marched towards the enemy.

A few minutes later, he was screaming for help while running towards them. “Princess, help meeee!” Both Yae Tenzen and Natsuki Subaru were rendered speechless.

He had barely killed two undead after a lot of effort, and he was already being overwhelmed. In fact, when Subaru saw Aldebaran drawing his curved sword, he thought he was going to see Julius level blade mastery.

What he got was Aldebaran barely defeating two opponents, who, by the way, were still wriggling on the ground while tentacles of parasitic creatures were coming out of their sliced off body parts.

So, one could say they weren’t truly killed.

“Natsuki Subaru… if you defeat one enemy, I shall give you a lap pillow,” Priscilla said, amused by the boy whose lips twitched.

At least Aldebaran knew how to use a weapon! All Subaru had were two daggers strapped under his suit! They had a short reach, and he had no mastery over them.

“I shall decline the offer,” Subaru said. He thought that Priscilla was probably testing him, wondering if he would let his lust take over and end up in the same pathetic condition as Aldebaran.

Meanwhile, Priscilla sighed. ‘What a pity. All he would have needed was to finish off one of the fallen ones.’ Yes, everything had long been part of her plan. She knew that unless Aldebaran used his Authority, he was going to get his ass whooped, but he would still probably put one or two of them into a half dead state.

Then she would ask Natsuki Subaru to use his special poisoned daggers to finish them while giving him a lap pillow in the form of a reward, a totally win win situation for both of them, with the only casualty probably being Aldebaran and his dream for her boobies. Alas, Subaru was thinking with his mind, not with his third leg like Aldebaran.

Truly a regrettable thing in Priscilla’s dictionary. The only man she wanted to be horny for was Natsuki Subaru, but again, fate worked in mysterious ways.

Ahem

“Princess, I am about to get eaten!!” Aldebaran screamed as multiple parasitic monsters were running after him. Not to mention, just seeing those wriggling tentacles made his skin crawl, making the whole situation even more horrifying for him.

“What an idiot,” Priscilla clicked her tongue before chanting, “Asperia.” Instantly, swords made of light manifested in the air before being shot at immense speed and vaporizing the zombies behind Aldebaran. Yae, who was witnessing such a scene for the first time, was completely gobsmacked by it!

‘This was not in the intel!’ She wanted to curse her client over and over again! What kind of bastard gave such incomplete intel?! Did he feel it was not important to tell her that Priscilla knew a unique type of magic?! All she knew was that Priscilla could use the Yang Sword during the day, and her plan revolved around assassinating her during the night!

‘Damn bastard!’ If only she could chew that man alive! Now the question was, how the fuck was she going to stay alive? If she tried to take advantage of the situation and somehow kill Priscilla, these Undeads would be after her as well.

‘For now, it’s best to be on their side. When we win and they are exhausted, then I will strike!’ she thought, making a short but effective plan as she got ready to use her Kunai to kill the Undeads.

Though it never came to that, the Undeads were turned into ashes by Priscilla’s attacks, all of them dying one by one. While Aldebaran finally stopped by their side and looked at the dying opponents. “This attack of Princess is really useful! It saves mana and does a lot of damage!” he commented, knowing well about the weaknesses of Priscilla.

“It saves mana? I am sure attacks of that intensity and saving mana shouldn’t be in the same sentence at all!” Yae complained, while Aldebaran sighed. “Princess’ weapon is a mana sucker. She is at least saving ten times the mana by using these attacks!”

“If you two can stop being background NPCs for a moment! I think Priscilla just handled all the enemies, and I can see women coming out this time!” Subaru said as Aldebaran’s lips twitched.

‘We all three are background NPCs in front of Princess!’

He wanted to scream that Subaru wasn’t doing anything great either! All of them were standing behind the Lady they were supposed to protect while discussing the death of Parasites like background characters who existed only to praise the Main Character.

“D-Did she kill them?” a woman said in fear. Suddenly, from their group, a man came running out and screamed, “What’s happening here?! W-Why are there…” He fell to the ground in fear, smelling the rotten stench of burned meat and looking at the vaporized and charred bodies lying on the ground.

“I am Priscilla Barielle, Lord of this domain. The parasites that took over your husbands, sons, and fathers are dead,” Priscilla declared, shocking them. A few women even fell to the ground, bursting into tears of relief and joy.

Meanwhile, the man couldn’t understand what was going on?!

Though he did realize that Priscilla was speaking the truth.

Her attire, the way she looked! Everything matched the descriptions! But why was the Lord of their domain in this remote village?!

Why the hell had she killed his family while speaking about some parasites that had taken over them?!

The questions kept piling up in his mind as he stared at the scene before him, unable to understand what had just happened.

“Now…” Priscilla suddenly turned her hand towards the air, and it seemed to manifest from the sky itself, a blazing sword appearing in her grasp.

“Time to free you all.” She calmly walked towards them with the weapon in her hand.

“W-Wait a minute! What are you going to do?! Why are you taking that sword towards us?!” the man cried as he instantly stood up in front of the women and shielded them. “You cannot hurt them!” His eyes were bloodshot as Priscilla tilted her head. She didn’t have a smile on her face.

“Their wriggling forms disgust me. I will not tolerate them anymore! Explanations can wait,” she said.

Priscilla loathed those parasites with all her heart. Whether it was in her previous timeline or her current timeline, it remained the same.

The sight of them was enough to make her disgust clear, and she had no intention of tolerating their existence any longer.

“Princess! Wait!” Aldebaran was terrified! He thought Priscilla was going to kill the women as well.

Although they didn’t look infected, they were probably infected too! But they seemed to have their sanity intact!

Which, again, to be fair, seemed to be the case with the men as well, but they didn’t have the same uneasiness around them.

“Do not worry! I trust her!” Subaru said as he placed his hand over Aldebaran’s shoulder, who wanted to shout, ‘Bro, don’t be so optimistic! If they are infected! Princess’ first priority will be to eliminate them rather than trying to find a way to save them!’ he thought.

Perhaps there was no way to save them, but even so, he didn’t want totally sane people to be massacred so brutally.

He wanted to give them more pleasant deaths and perhaps some time before they died.

But before he could speak, Priscilla chanted, “Al Luxa.” Instantly, her figure vanished.

The next moment, her sword sliced through everyone, not even sparing the man shielding the women.

In an instant, bodies fell to the ground.

…

“Okay, I thought they had died… but it seems they all are alive,” Yae said as she observed the women who had regained consciousness.

“Indeed! Princess’ sword only burns through what she wants! So that single guy and all the women remained safe, but whatever parasites were inside them were burned! Though I didn’t know Princess could observe them this carefully!” Aldebaran said.

“Not bad. It seems your brain hasn’t been totally muddled from thoughts of ogling me all day!” Priscilla said as Aldebaran smiled wryly. “I was almost going to say RIP to them.”

Priscilla’s lips twitched. She knew what the fuck he meant! She knew that English word and its definition!

Her mastery of English was probably at the same level as Aldebaran’s, after all, she had spent decades by her Darling… Natsuki Subaru’s side.

Over those years, she had naturally become familiar with the words and expressions he used, including ones as simple and strange as the English abbreviation Aldebaran had just mentioned.

“Are you okay? Have some water?” Subaru, meanwhile, looked at the single guy who was sitting there terrified and pale while sweating heavily.

“I-I thought I was going to die… Seriously, I beg of you. Tell me what’s going on,” he asked, looking at Subaru with expectation. Subaru instead stared at the women, waiting for them to explain what had happened.

“I would like to know the same thing.”

Soon, the women told the entire story of how something had taken over all the men in the village, who were undead.

They acted like real people, but they weren’t, and the women were forced to act like everything was normal while sewing their falling body parts back together.

They had to continue behaving as if nothing was wrong, even while knowing that the men around them were no longer truly the people they used to be.

Hearing the horror they had witnessed, the man named Array Denkuts was terrified.

It was also revealed that when he had returned to his village, the women who had been infected but not taken over like the men had done their best to ensure he didn’t get infected.

They gave him secretly saved supplies, boiled water, and other food items to make sure he didn’t get infected as well, which proved to be the correct decision, as he was the only man who hadn’t been infected.

“So the women were infected? But with your special weapon, you managed to eliminate the parasites inside them?” Subaru asked as Priscilla nodded. “Basically, that is it. Those men were no longer themselves. They were parasites, so sadly, I couldn’t save them.”

One could only say that these remaining villagers were lucky they had Priscilla saving them, as her weapon seemed to be a perfect counter to these parasites. Without her special weapon, the situation could have been much worse for the remaining villagers, who had already been struggling to survive while hiding what had happened to the men.

To be continued...

(A/N: This portion of story is taken from Pride and Prejudice and Zombies Side-chapter that occurred roughly ten days after arc 4 if I am not wrong. Don't expect me to read it again, shit's not available in my country and last time I read it I had to watch damn ads every 1 minute.)