Chapter 128: Spreading Like A Virus
"Hilda, can you control it?" Esme's seemingly straightforward question instead bore a different goal.
Stalling.
She needed to stall time, and anything that could keep the Heathen within Hilda at bay, anything that could keep the girl fighting back against it to waste time until Jill and Elden arrived-
"No."
"I can't."
-but it was fruitless.
Hilda's quivers amplified significantly, rattling her body, her clothing. Her bewildered, wide ruby eyes squeezed tight into pinhole shapes as she felt it escaping from deep within her, "It's coming out."
Time ran out.
The black and white fabric of Hilda's maid's outfit tore from the core of her abdomen, revealing her surprisingly untouched, smooth skin; with it, however, came an outburst of black, gold, and green crackling outwards with an earsplitting sound directly at the walls of The Canary.
A sleek silver sword engraved with runic carvings sat deep inside the left thigh of a humanoid-esque Heathen, bubbling and boiling with a melting concoction of slime.
Where its mouth should sit was instead a third eye.
Right then, the voices of the cohort entered Hilda's ears again, bringing clarity and memories of what had just occurred inside her body alongside it.
And, from those memories...
From them...
Hilda's face dropped.
She opened her mouth.
And warned:
"Don't look at its third eye!"
The alarming warning rang clearly in Esme's ears, but...
'I looked.'
...she had already looked.
Staring dead into the Profaned Heathen's third eye, a wave of jarringly uncomfortable silence beat at her ears; she had lost the connection with the others, just as Hilda hadn't been connected before.
But, not only that...
"Lardis~"
...she heard a singing voice.
"Kratis~"
It echoed from behind her with a soothing clarity to its tone.
Not to mention...
"Hello? Alora? Hilda?"
Stuttering, Esme slowly turned her head side-to-side.
Esme had come to the vaguely terrifying realisation that the Heathen was gone, that Hilda was gone, the voices of her friends were gone, and that she was stuck in the corridor all on her lonesome.
"Martis~"
The voice continued, eerily drawing her to the source of the singing.
It came from where they had been just minutes ago. The corridor was marked with lit oil lamps, but, either way, she couldn't see what it was that was singing.
Luckily, she knew exactly what to search for.
'That humanoid thing.'
---
"Huh? Why not?" Esme asked Hilda, but as she did, she instantly noticed the lack of sound, the lack of connection to her dear sister.
'It got me? How?'
"Ah! That isn't good!" Hilda stamped forward and grabbed the hilt of her Manifestation. Dragging it out with a tearing slash, she moved to Esme's side, grabbed her arm, and hurriedly stepped away from the Heathen.
"What is this thing, Hilda?"
"It proliferates inside of you! If you look into the third eye where its mouth should be, another one grows inside of you! It's disgusting! Really disgusting! I'd be gone if not for Remmy appearing and saving me! Your mind is split in two right now, one half is talking to me, and the other half is dealing with the Heathen to escape before it assimilates and takes over." Releasing Esme's arm, Hilda took a step in front of the younger girl and took a defensive stance against the recovering abomination.
"So you couldn't use your Manifestation because-"
"Because the me inside was already using it. I don't recommend using yours now; leave it for the you inside of you. Otherwise, you might die before realising it."
The rest of the listeners went quiet. They absorbed Hilda's information and left the girls to deal with the Heathen momentarily whilst Jill and Elden rushed to their side.
They'd be arriving any second now, but these seconds-
"Here it comes!"
-to a Profaned, to a Third Step, to a Cleansed, seconds are enough to determine the beginning, middle, and end of a fight.
The blobs of slime that were its feet coiled and condensed like springs as the three-eyed Heathen cracked the tiles beneath itself and launched at Hilda with intense speed.
Soundwaves ruptured as it broke the sound barrier and arrived with a spear of condensed slime thrusting out of its forehead directly at Hilda's chest.
The lady in question loosened her left hand's hold over the sword and tilted the blade aside in a calculated measure-
CLANG!
-the powerful spear was parried aside, slamming and piercing the ground beside them as Hilda brought the crushingly strong Heathen to a complete halt with one technique. Shifting her weight forward, the sword slipped up the shaft of the horn, slashing at the exposed scalp of the monster.
Shifting its two true eyes upwards, the sword seemed to grind to a halt as time slowed in its Cursed mind.
In that minutely brief moment, the horn began reforming into a short, sharp-edged blade, while the monster tilted its head to the side-
Swish!
-avoiding the sword by a hair's breadth and counterattacking with its own new blade.
Cracking her heel into the ground, Hilda leaned backwards instantly. The blade swept above her nose, skinnning a micrometre of skin off it.
Twisting the grip of her Manifestation, a jolt of golden aura swept across the blade. She pulled it with full force, against all odds in this erratic posture of hers, back onto the Heathen's neck.
'Not strong enough.'
But her leaning posture, which the abomination had forced her into to avoid the blade, couldn't draw out Hilda's full strength.
The carved-edge of Hilda's Manifestation cut into the monster's neck with an explosive shockwave gushing out of the point of impact. This cut, however-
Thud.
Swivelling on her feet, Hilda twirled her body, drew out the power of her hips, and slammed her heel into the Heathen's torso, sending it tumbling backwards with solid impacts skidding across the wooden tiling.
-it barely cut into its skin.
The abomination wasn't damaged.
"Ugh." Hilda grunted and skidded back herself to Esme's side. Though she had been the one to kick it, the impact had also affected her.
Fixing her posture, Hilda drew her sword back into a defensive stance and wiped a streak of blood dripping down her nose. Even though it had skimmed an invisible cut into her nose, its Curses drew blood nonetheless.
"As you can see... Phew. It can adjust its body to create any weapon it wants. If you get into close contact with it, it can create spikes from its abdomen, back, legs, arms, etc, to pierce you. It's smart. And now we're going to have to face a third one after you're done gestating it."
"Hold up, third?" Esme couldn't help but ask.
"Oh, right!" Hilda poked her tongue out while keeping a close eye on the rising Heathen, "There's a third one on the deck of The Canary."
"...You should have said that earlier! You big dummy!" Alora's pissed, yet adorably accustomed to Hilda's antics, voice came through into Hilda's ears.
"I trust you can deal with it, little dummy!"
Their impromptu comedic voice comms came to a halt right then and there.
The Heathen had gotten back up.
This time, though, Esme stepped up to Hilda's side. She wasn't going to let this dumbass deal with it all on her lonesome.
---
I finished cleaning up the mess on the main deck just as Hilda's slightly shocking declaration came through.
A third one up here?
However, when I reflected on it, it made sense.
She had to have contracted it somehow, meaning she looked into the so-called third eye of the Heathen while still up here-
So where is it?
Nemora was still up by Hildekar, so in case it attacked him, she'd take care of it.
But for now-
Where are you?
-I had to keep my eyes wide open for any signs of it.
Right. I also can't look into its eye, which makes it even harder to search for. In that case, should I not even search for it?
Should I wait for it to show itself?
Both options were sketchy.
I'm also a Cursed creature, could it even infect me as it did Hilda and Esme?
That vague suspicion of mine directed me to the former option; I'll search for it.
Scanning the main deck, I squeezed my vision into every nook and cranny. From the scratches on the railing surrounding the main deck to the hatch that led to the main storage area below the deck-
The storage area?
The hatch?
-right, I hadn't thought about it.
The Canary was more than just the cabins and corridors leading to the private rooms; it also had a hatch on the deck connected to a vast storage area where Nemora had stored all of our preparations.
Ignoring the flurry of voices lingering in my ears from the people below us, I asked Hildekar a question really quickly, "Hildekar, what are the odds it could get into the storage area below the deck?"
The man responded with, "Low. The hatch is locked, and the only other entrance into the storage is through the corridors."
So is it not?
I put that aside for a moment and continued checking every other section of the ship.
Then where is it?
How did Hilda look it in the eye when she couldn't see?
The whole situation felt...
Off.
...Does it truly procreate by looking into its third eye?