Gacha Harem System

Akira reached into her spatial ring and retrieved a sword. The sword was plain.

It was just a normal steel sword, and not an [Item], so there was nothing remarkable about it.

She glanced at [Temptation], which was still in Melody’s hands, before looking up at the drow, her grin widening.

"Have fun with it," she said.

Then she was gone, blurring across the clearing straight at the S-rank lion before either of the other two had fully processed her words.

The lion was fast, its S-rank speed making Zipper Bears look sluggish by comparison. It saw her coming and began to shift, muscles loading for a dodge.

But it was not fast enough, Akira having taken everyone by surprise.

Her sword came down with all her strength, aimed directly at the lion’s skull.

The blade connected with a loud crack before snapping, the upper half spinning away into the undergrowth.

But Akira hadn’t been aiming to cut the lion’s skin. She already knew it was impossible with the sword she was holding.

She grinned, watching as the half of the broken blade still connected to the sword transferred the force of her full-strength blow into the lion’s head, introducing it to a blow it had never encountered before.

The lion’s head drove sideways and downwards, its body following. The creature crashed into the ground hard enough to send dirt spraying in a wide arc.

Akira raised her boot, and stomped.

The lion rolled away, scrambling upright faster than something that size should have been able to manage, putting distance between them, shaking its head.

While its skin still looked intact, its skull had cracked.

She could see it in the way the lion moved, its usual arrogant gait replaced with something more cautious.

It watched her and she watched it back, still holding the broken hilt, turning it once in her fingers.

She cracked her neck.

Then she went back in.

***

The lioness came off the ground the moment Melody moved towards her, eyeing the sword in Melody’s hands with the instinct of a predator that understood danger without needing to think about it.

[Temptation] carried something the lioness could feel. An energy that made every survival instinct it had point away from it.

So it leapt at Lukas instead.

It crossed the clearing in a burst and came at him fast.

Lukas grinned. The lioness had chosen the person with the highest stats to attack.

He planted his feet, pulled his right fist back, and punched.

His knuckles connected with the lioness’s snout, and the lioness was sent flying.

It traveled backwards through the tree line, slamming into a trunk that shattered on contact.

It kept flying, slamming into a second tree, then a third, each one slowing the body incrementally until it plowed a short trench in the ground and came to rest among the wreckage of the fallen trees.

The forest was quiet for a moment, Lukas staring with wide eyes, unable to believe what he’d just done.

The lioness stood slowly. Its vision was clearly cycling, the world tilting around it. Its head throbbed with pain.

If it had been another beast that had received that blow, it would have died almost immediately. But being a Nemean Lioness, its hide had dispersed the force, while its bones had cracked.

Melody suddenly appeared from above, descending fast with [Temptation] in both hands.

The lioness dodged, but it was already too late.

The blade grazed the side of its neck, creating a shallow cut. It was barely more than a part in the fur, but it was enough to draw blood.

The blood that welled up was immediately absorbed into the blade before a single drop reached the ground.

The lioness landed, spun, and found something that wasn’t there.

An indistinct figure stood between the trees, firing arrows at it.

With her concussion, she had no time to decide if the figure was real or not, immediately dodging the danger she could see from the illusion.

So, the lioness fought, swiping and snarling. It leapt at empty air, landing and spinning, then leaping again, fighting a threat that existed only to her senses.

Lukas came to stand beside Melody, both of them watching the lioness exhaust itself against nothing.

"That’s genuinely impressive," he said. He kept his tone level but the slight edge in it was audible.

Melody glanced sideways at him. "Are you jealous?"

"Of you wielding an Adept rank weapon that traps opponents in illusions using their own blood?" He paused. "A big fat yes."

She laughed. "Don’t worry, you’ll have your turn."

***

The S-rank lion had learned something from the first attack.

It was much more cautious as it attacked Akira. It surged forward, and just as she stabbed with her sword, it blurred to the right.

Unfortunately for it, she’d expected that.

As the lion shifted to the right, she planted her foot and leapt into the air.

The lion’s claws blurred through where her legs had been a half second earlier.

As she descended, she jerked her knee forward, catching the lion in the jaw.

The lion skidded back, its claws tearing furrows in the ground as it caught itself, stopping hard.

Akira straightened and rolled her shoulder.

"Having trouble keeping up?" she asked.

The lion stared at her with those amber eyes, and whatever lived behind them had shifted from caution to something with even less confidence.

"I’ve killed a lot of your kind," she said pleasantly, as if she was talking about the weather. "More than I can count at this point. Well, I can actually count them but it just sounds cooler to say it that way."

She grinned. "You’re talented, I’ll give you that. But I’ve been doing this for a long time, kiddo."

The lion’s chest expanded. Then it opened its mouth and roared.

The sound moved through the trees, vibrating their branches and sending birds scattering from the canopy above.

Then it attacked.

Akira shifted her weight forward, the broken sword still in her hand, and the grin still on her face.

She’d been waiting for it to stop holding back.