Chapter 104: The Second Turning Point

It was Kaguya who spoke next, pleased to have proven to Freya what she’d been saying from the start, even if she wasn’t the one who’d done it.

"See, I told you! The fly was strange!"

Freya didn’t answer.

The fly had moved behind them during the exchange. Freya turned on her heels and struck, fast, without waiting a second longer, in the quickest motion her body was capable of producing.

Her fist caught the insect mid-air, and a shockwave left the point of impact and swept across the whole balcony.

She pushed the swing all the way through, as a precaution.

What was left of the fly hit the balcony’s glass, which gave at once. The entire pane went together, top to bottom, and the pieces came down onto the stone in one long clatter before settling, scattered across the floor, each one throwing back a piece of the sun.

Freya stayed with her arm out, her hand in the open air beyond the frame.

The silence held.

Then.

Bzzzzzz~

Another fly rose from the edge of the balcony.

"You insult me and then you kill me?! Where are your manners?!"

Freya turned slowly, already drawing her conclusions while the thing talked at her.

"So. A control ability."

The fly froze for half a second.

Then it carried on, and there was something delighted in the way it did.

"Aaaah... that’s exactly why you’re so entertaining. To think you were probing me with that, checking whether I was really a fly or something else... Freya, you are so entertaining~~!"

I was bluffing about what I thought his ability was. So it really is that?

A short pause.

"Then again, perhaps I should say Maid!"

Freya didn’t move, unsurprised to hear the name.

"So you did see my system..."

"Unfortunately for you, yes. Although, you know, after following you this long I did have my suspicions, given all the girls in maid outfits around you! Not that I’m judging your kinks, by the way!"

The fly came to rest on the ledge.

Kaguya, meanwhile, was backing away step by step without making a sound, putting as much distance between herself and Freya as she quietly could.

Because Freya’s face was twisted with rage.

It wasn’t the irritation she showed now and then, nor the coldness she took on when something displeased her. It was something else, something that pulled her jaw down and left her stare fixed.

Kaguya had never seen her like that. Nobody in this world had ever seen her like that.

"Eeek... your face is frightening! What happened to your little saint act?"

Freya raised her hand.

She raised it slowly, and she held it there.

Would it actually be any use? How many flies can he control? A hundred? A thousand? A million? Would killing this one even mean anything? Would it erase what he already knows?

Her hand was shaking.

She ended up setting it back down on the ledge, beside the fly, her fingers tightening so hard on the stone that it began to crack beneath them.

Calm down, Freya.

She started breathing, the way she always did.

Once. Then a second time.

One thing at a time. Things must not get worse. Yes, you’ve been played. Yes, he has you. But it isn’t over yet.

So she started thinking again, because that was the only thing she had left.

"You mentioned the name Maid specifically. So I assume you’re another Dungeon Lord, is that it?"

"Yes, that’s it."

"And so what do you want from me?"

"Entertainment, Maid! What else?"

The fly shifted on the ledge, its wings buzzing once.

"Let me tell you, watching you put it all together, taking Evangel through the shadows rather than by force, and that finale above all..."

It cut itself off, as though the memory had taken hold of it again.

"It was magnificent! Truly magnificent! Hehehehe~! In both my lives, across both worlds, it was the most captivating thing I have ever seen!"

Something eased in Freya’s chest.

So he’s after entertainment, not after hurting me. Maybe there’s still a chance.

It wasn’t much, but it was something. Someone who wants to be entertained needs you to keep entertaining them.

And that, she knew how to do.

So she asked the next question, taking care to keep her voice level.

"Then why reveal yourself now?"

"Aaah..."

The fly shook its head from side to side.

"I thought you’d have understood me straight away... that you’d have guessed my intentions... I’m disappointed, Maid..."

Freya looked for another answer.

Any other one, something that wasn’t the one that had come to her first.

She couldn’t find it.

So, afraid of being right, she murmured the reason anyway.

"Because it’s meant to create future entertainment for you..."

"Bingo!"

Aaaah...

The little she had just recovered went straight back out again.

He wasn’t revealing himself in order to talk to her. He was revealing himself because this was the perfect moment to do it, the moment that in his eyes would be the most entertaining.

And there was nothing she could do about that.

"So what’s the next step?" the fly went on. "Simply strengthen Evangel? Your dungeon? Expand your territory little by little over time?"

Freya was about to answer, not really having a choice, and not wanting to put it in a worse mood than it already was.

But the fly waved its forelegs as though to stop her.

"No! No! No! Don’t tell me! Who wants to be spoiled?! I’m simply saying that as a follow-up it lacks—"

It didn’t finish the sentence.

Freya’s fist came in from the side and took out the entire section of railing it was sitting on.

The stone burst apart, the whole panel tore away from the balcony and went over into the drop, and the pieces fell for a long time before reaching the courtyard, where they broke apart one after another.

The dust came back up the façade and drifted past her.

Fucking hell. I’m screwed. Completely screwed.

A new fly rose.

"Hahahaha! As I was saying before—"

The fist went out. The insect burst against the stone.

I don’t want to.

Another came up.

"—that—"

I don’t want to hear the rest of it.

I did everything right.

Another one still.

"—that as a—"

Why? Why is this happening to me? Why me?

And while she struck, she was counting back.

Every fly she had come across since Evangel. In the streets. In the Paydragon estate. In the squares, while she played the saint on her knees in the dust.

And even in the office, the first time she had met Kyiara.

The city had been under watch from the very beginning. Not since this week. Not since the arrest. From the very beginning.

And her dungeon too, where she had crushed one after Aria came back from Evangel.

Aria had brought it with her. Without knowing.

And she, Freya, had killed it without giving it a second’s thought, without pausing on the act, without once wondering what a fly was doing there.

Everything was perfect!

Another rose. She crushed it before it could open its mouth.

I did everything to make sure it was! I thought of every small detail! Of every single thing! Every person placed in the right spot, every word, every line, every role handed out!

Another.

I even raised a hero! I took him when he was nothing and I made a hero of him, myself, with my own hands, over weeks!

Another.

I did everything, everything, EVERYTHING to make it perfect!

And that was precisely the problem.

Because she already knew it, and she had known it from the first word this thing had spoken. Everything had indeed been perfect. Nothing had failed. Nothing had gone wrong.

It simply had never mattered in the slightest.

Someone had been watching from the beginning, and everything she had built with such care had been, in that someone’s eyes, nothing more than a pleasant show while waiting for the one that came next.

Every time a fly came up, she destroyed it before it could speak.

She didn’t want to. She preferred not to understand. She preferred to deny reality for as long as her fist could keep up the pace.

So she carried on like that for a good ten minutes, killing everything that rose onto that balcony.

Then.

"Fuck!"

One last blow went into the wall, this time with no fly on it.

The wall split from top to bottom.

Then Freya stopped moving, her fist still buried in the stone, her breathing heavy.

No more came up. They were waiting.

Then a single one rose, unhurried, and settled a few paces from her.

"Are you calm now?"

Freya didn’t answer.

She simply looked at the fly, and her face gave off a fury so complete that the air around her had begun to shake, waves forming and rolling outward at intervals like an invisible aura that refused to stay in place.

Kaguya had retreated into a corner of the balcony, terrified by the state of her big sister.

"Well, this will do all the same! I was simply saying that as a follow-up it lacked a bit of spark, after that wonderful show you gave us!"

The fly came a little closer, weaving through the air.

"So I’ve made you a little gift~ I’ll let you open the global chat and find out."

Freya did it against her better judgement.

She knew before she even opened it. She knew she would regret having done it, that she would kick herself for it, but she also knew there was nothing left she could do.

That this was how it was, that she had been played, and that it was simply so.

[ Dungeon Lord Chat ]

[Belzebuth]: On the Southern continent, at its very southern tip, in the kingdom of Artenzia, and more precisely still in the forest cradling the village of Veille in the Frarken barony, lies the dungeon of Maid, the Dungeon Overlord, and the Calamity of Greed. +1...+15....+124

[LustDemonKing]: SERIOUSLY?! +1..+76

[LucasBraveHeart]: This could be a lie! Don’t be fools! Let’s make certain of it first. +1...+75...+102

[SkyStrategist]: And how do we make certain? +1.. +78

There it was. Exactly what she’d been dreading.

Well, slightly less than what she’d been imagining, but she was still watching her location leak across the global chat, line after line, with the counters climbing beneath each one.

She was being doxxed in another world. By a fly.

She looked away, and the fly picked up again when it saw she had finished reading.

"Of course, my other flies are at this very moment telling the same thing in a few key places across the continent. Well... perhaps... everywhere... But that’s done so that the—"

BAAAM—

Freya’s fist burst the fly apart, unable to control herself once again.

And that was the moment the notifications appeared.

[ An unprecedented event is unfolding in this world at this very moment. ]

[ The rumour spreads, and the world learns the location of a Calamity’s heart. ]

[ Congratulations! A new event quest has been created as a result! ]

[ Quest — Maid vs The World: Conquer Maid’s dungeon and annex it to your own! ]

[ Reward: Dungeon Overlord status | Calamity of Greed title | 1,000,000 Mana points ]

[ Mana bless the dungeon lords! And Maid! ]

Aaaah... I am completely screwed...