Book 3: Chapter 53: Patch 9.0: The Catacombs' Secret

“Sphinx of crimson quartz, judge my unyielding power and decimate those foolish enough to stand before me!” a woman’s voice shouts out from around the turn just before the tunnel gets lit up from a fiery spell.

Cassiel and Rock, still in the lead, stop to look at each other.

“Bro,” Rao whispers to Fenrir, “that sounded like one of those role-playing things from a video.”

Fenrir originally thought that the line the woman just shouted sounded pretty cool but, thanks to Rao’s words, now he wants to cringe.

Cassiel and Rock reach where the tunnel turns and peek around it.

They weren’t expecting what they see.

“What’s the situation?” Fenrir asks from behind them, sticking close to the wall with Shogun and Rao.

“Just… look for yourself,” Cassiel says, pulling Fenrir up to the bend.

Fenrir takes Cassiel’s place and looks around the corner.

Standing alone in the tunnel is a tall, mature looking woman with long, white hair that flows down almost to her ankles. She is wearing a black dress with a red trim that reaches just down to her thighs before her stockings take over, and a pair of high heels add a few extra inches to her height. She’s even got a hat similar to Serra’s which makes Fenrir realize something.

This woman basically looks like a more mature, taller, much bustier version of Serra.

While Serra looks borderline-loli, this strange girl lighting zombies on fire looks more like the mature Christmas Cake type. Or rather, comparing her to a dominatrix might be a better comparison as her dress makes him think of some sort of pirate-dominatrix hybrid. When she turns around, he sees that the front of it is unbuttoned with plenty of her cleavage purposely on display.

He also takes notice of her bright, red eyes when she looks directly into his own.

Fenrir’s ears twitch when he notices that they are looking right at each other.

The woman’s face turns slightly red as she stutters out, “H-how long have you been there for?!”

Cassiel and the rest of the group come out from hiding, causing the woman’s face to turn even redder.

“We just got here,” Cassiel answers, pouting when she sees just how much cleavage this woman has on display.

But, she finds her eyes drawn to said cleavage as well. The woman’s breasts may not be as obscenely large as Nyaiko’s, but they’re still bigger than her own.

The strange woman spins around, clearly takes some deep breaths, and then turns back around to face the group now with one hand held in front of her face and the other resting on top of her chest. “I see. You have been drawn to me because of my immense power! Heh, I should not be so surprised. How foolish of me to think that I would be able to mask my power level; I could not conceal the dark energies of my flames no matter how much I may try,” she says.

“Yeah, see, bro? This girl reminds me of that video I saw with all the guys dressing up and playing pretend in some woods,” Rao says.

“Honestly, all I can think right now is that I should invest in some fire magic. Look at all these dead trash mobs around here, and her hair is still clean,” Fenrir says, looking at his own hair with a disappointed frown.

“Of course my hair is clean! Even the weakest of my flames are more than capable of incinerating anything and everything before it has a chance to taint my body! Rather than worry about my hair, it is the bodies of my enemies that you should concern yourself over. Look around me, mortals! Lay your eyes upon the dark justice that I have enacted on those wishing to stand in my path!” the woman declares.

Fenrir looks at Oleander. Poor, poor Oleander. Between dealing with Nyaiko’s accent and now this woman’s chuuni role-playing, Fenrir is going to have to get Oleander a good drink soon.

“Now then! I shall grace you with—”

“Why’re you down here?” Fenrir cuts her off.

“I – I… I am down here because I… because I,” the woman’s voice grows quieter and quieter, “because…” she starts tapping her pointer fingers together, “because… I… sensed a dark, evil presence seeking a worthy challenger, and so I have come here to assert my dominance over that which is foolish enough to seek a challenge from the Dark Sorceress of Twisted Flames, the Breaker of Reality, and the One Who will Set the World Ablaze, the Wielder of the Cursed Flame of Bahamut, Azalabulia!”

“Aza…labulia?” Fenrir asks.

“Azalabulia!”

“Azababab?” Oleander asks.

“Az! A! Lab! Bul! Ia! Azalabulia!” Azalabulia declares.

“Ass Ebola?” Rao asks.

Azalabulia glares at Rao and gets ready to pronounce her name again, but instead, Cassiel beats her to it, “She clearly said Azalabulia. Don’t get her name wrong. It’s rude and you’ll never impress a girl if you can’t even say her name right.”

“Heh, you should listen to her, foolish man!” Azalabulia says while pointing at Rao. “You are lucky that you are with her or else I would banish you with my Cursed Flame of Bahamut for so gravely mispronouncing my name!”

Rao rolls his eyes and leans in to whisper to Fenrir, “Bro, I don’t think I can handle this girl. You can just add her to your harem because this is a hard pass for me. She’s hot and all but I can’t.”

“H-hey now, I don’t just add every new girl I see to my harem,” Fenrir whispers back to Rao.

“You kind of do,” Oleander whispers, inserting himself between the two men.

“Olly has a point, but Serra is just as guilty,” Cassiel says, inserting herself between the two men opposite of Oleander.

Before the four know it, they’ve formed a circle with their hands on each others’ shoulders as if huddling together for a secret meeting.

“Why are we doing this?” Rao asks.

“I thought we were having a secret meeting,” Cassiel answers.

“I just wanted to tease Fenny,” Oleander explains.

Rock and Shogun are the next two to butt into the group’s private discussion.

“I – I see what is going on! You must all be conspiring in secret to brainstorm how you could possibly defeat somebody with powers as dark and as awesome as mine! You wish to defeat me and take my Cursed Flame of Bahamut for yourselves! H-heh, foolish mortals, you can try but know that I shall not go easy on you!” Azalabulia says, striking some sort of “cool” pose again.

“Oh, no, we’re just saying how you’re probably going to somehow join Fenny’s harem,” Oleander explains to her.

“Ex-excuse me? Join – join a harem? Who is ‘Fenny?’”

Everybody but Shogun, Rock included, points at Fenrir.

“H-heh! As – as if I would ever be interested in something so childish with somebody wearing the remains of the dead! Perhaps if he was a dark lord even more powerful than I, I would consider becoming his faithful servant so that we could someday rule over this pitiful realm together, but he looks as if he struggles against even simple undead!” Azalabulia announces.

Her words wouldn’t normally hurt Fenrir, but with how filthy he already feels because of his current cleanliness situation, her words sting him at his core.

Cassiel and Oleander pat Fenrir to comfort him while Rao looks down at Azalabulia’s feet.

“Hey, you’ve got some of those weird maggot things on your shoes,” Rao says.

Azalabulia freezes stiff, slowly looks downward, and her eyes widen when she confirms Rao’s words. Three fat undead maggot-leeches are crawling on the tops of her heels.

“Get them off, get them off, get them off! I hate this! I hate this place! I want out already! Why’d I have to get lost in this stupid place!” she screams and cries while shaking her feet around and kicking the wall to try and shake the creatures off of her. “I’ve been in here for hours now! First that stupid tentacle thing ambushed me, then I got chased into hiding, and then I got found and have been fighting ever since! I just want out already! I! Want! Out! I! Hate! This!” she cries, falling to her knees and bringing her hands up to her face to wipe away her tears.

Then she remembers she has company.

Azalabulia stands up, brushes herself off, straightens out her clothes, and looks at the group with a cool pose struck once more. “Heh, I bet I fooled you all with my impression of yourselves! We may have only just met, but thanks to my awesome powers, I can already flawlessly imitate each and every one of you,” she explains, her quivering lip and eyes telling a different story than her words.

“You can imitate all of us perfectly?” Fenrir asks her.

“Of course. Who do you think you are talking to?”

Fenrir looks at Rock and says, “Paw,” while holding out one of his hands.

Rock happily barks and lifts up one of her paws to place on Fenrir’s hand.

“Good girl,” Fenrir says, petting her atop her head before returning his attention to Azalabulia.

“Wh-what do you think you’re doing?” Azalabulia asks when Fenrir stands right in front of her.

“Paw,” Fenrir says, holding one of his hands out just like he was doing with Rock.

“E-eh? What – I’m not – I’m not some dog! I am Azalabu—”

“You said you could perfectly imitate all of us. So, paw.”

Cassiel facepalms while Rao takes notes.

“You – are you – are you serious? You – you want me to… you want me to – paw?” Azalabulia asks.

“Paw,” Fenrir says again. “Oh, and don’t forget that she barked, too. And was wagging her tail.”

Azalabulia’s face offers strong competition to how red Cassiel’s can turn.

“Fi-fine! But – but I will only do this to prove my point that I am awesome enough to perfectly imitate all of you! Even a dog!” Azalabulia declares before taking a deep gulp. “Wo…wo…wo-woof,” she says while “wagging” her rear and placing one of her hands on top of Fenrir’s.

“Uh-oh,” Oleander says.

“What’s wrong?” Rao asks him.

“Fenny found somebody he can bully.”

“He bullies girls?”

“He loves bullying people who pretend to be confident and who never back down from challenges. He’s gotten so many guys to do some of the most stupid, cringy things because they wanted to prove that they had the balls to do it.”

“H-hey, Olly,” Cassiel whispers, “is he… is he into that sort of play?”

“What sort of play?”

“Y-you know, the kind he’s basically doing right now.”

“Petplay?”

“I – I guess.”

“Oh, yeah, he loves that stuff. He’s drunkenly told me a few times back in the day how he’d hope that he’d get a girlfriend who would wear dog ears for him and make puppy noises in bed.”

“What?”

“Yep. Just Fenny things.”

Cassiel looks back over at her boyfriend and sees the sadistic expression on his face as he convinces Azalabulia to behave like a puppy.

She’s jealous.