Chapter 18: A Friend is Here

Staff of exiles, lamp of inventors,

Confessor of the hanged and of conspirators,

O, Satan,

Have pity on my long misery!

— "The Litanies of Satan", Charles Baudelaire

The curtain of an intense, blinding flash of light slowly melted away, ascending.

The chalk-white world yielded to the cold, frost-covered ground, slowly pulling them back down to reality.

Standing alone on the snow-covered earth was a beautiful, brown-skinned girl with a grotesque form, her left arm morphed into a massive gun barrel.

"Hmph, looks like I reserved a bit too much Oracle. I put way too much power into it, and the thing vanished without a trace. Heave-ho!"

Plumes of pressurized steam vented and expelled from the turret of the Ray Gun, an ominously shaped irradiation weapon.

Then, with a mechanical shifting sound, the shape of her left arm transformed, reverting to the adorable, slender arm of the girl.

"Aah~, it was pretty fun at first, but... it was so half-baked. Now I'm left unsatisfied. I don't feel like I went nearly wild enough."

The girl looked visibly dissatisfied, opening and closing her hand while stretching her arm and back.

"...Bell... Which one are you right now? ...Are you saying that is your true form?"

Werner, who ordinarily should have praised and celebrated the safety of the extraordinary girl who had just fought such a battle and easily slaughtered a massive Aragami, instead found himself filled with an endless sense of dread.

Bell(?) glanced at Werner, who was crouching in the rubble, and flashed a lewd, vulgar grin.

"Hmm? Oh, right, the old man was here, wasn't he? The AGE—the God Eater—that she saved on a whim... I know, I just thought of something good♡"

She leaped from her spot, landing softly right in front of Werner. With a sweep of her long, undulating tail, she knocked down Werner, who had been leaning against the rubble.

"Whoa!? W-what are you..."

Werner fell onto his back. Flustered by the girl's sudden actions, he tried to half-rise, but—

"There♡"

The girl jumped onto Werner's body, pinning him down. She straddled him, leaning her weight onto his chest.

"Ugh!?"

"Heheh♡ You're gonna keep me company for a bit and help relieve my frustration, okay? Old man♡ A male old man and a female me—there's only one thing for us to do, right?♡ Seriously, my excitement just won't die down♡ I don't think I can hold back anymore♡"

Her face flushed with excitement, the girl grinned as she lewdly let her red tongue loll out. An obscenity overflowed from her, much like a female animal in heat.

"Wha..."

Werner's face paled as he realized her intent. Trying to force his body to move despite the lingering damage from the previous battle, he attempted to push her away.

However, the girl's thick tail slithered around his upper body, wrapping tightly around him to secure him in place so he couldn't struggle.

"No~pe♡ You're my prey now, old man♡ You belong to me♡ Sooo♡ Just be a good boy and let me devour you♡ Ah, in a sexual way, of course♡ Hihihi♡"

The crystalline scales wrapping the body of the girl pinning him down retracted and vanished, completely exposing her naked body, hiding neither her breasts nor her nether regions.

"Guhhh! I have no intention of doing such a thing with you!"

Werner raised his voice, twisting his body in resistance, but he couldn't fight against the crushing pressure of the girl's coiled tail.

"Haha♡ I know, you've been holding back all this time too, haven't you? After all, you've got a beautiful girl like me hanging around you every day, practically naked and defenseless♡ It's only natural for a male to react, right?♡ Look, look♡"

Smirking, the girl grabbed and hoisted up her bountiful twin peaks with both hands, pressing them directly against Werner's chest, forcing him to feel their squishy softness and elasticity.

Furthermore, she pressed her straddling hips closely against him, deliberately grinding against his lower abdomen.

Letting out sweet, teasing sighs, she brought her face intimately close, running her tongue along his neck and licking away the slowly beading sweat. The slow, wet tip of her tongue traced down from his neck to his chest, descending lower and lower.

"Guh! Stop...!"

The raw, vivid advances of a voluptuous, naked beautiful girl—yet right now, to Werner, it evoked nothing but sheer disgust.

"What's wrong? You're not really getting into it. Even though you don't actually hate it. If you asked her, she'd happily swing her hips and mate with you, y'know? Well, whatever♡ I'm gonna make you feel better than you ever have before♡ Just stay perfectly still for me♡"

The slender fingers of the straddling girl carefully toyed with his lower abdomen before eventually finding his trouser belt and undoing it.

"Bell! Is this truly what you want to do!? Are you really okay with this!? Wake up!"

Desperately twisting, thrashing in resistance, Werner hurled words at her.

"Huh? What are you talking about, old man? Besides, you've got your God Arc fully deployed for combat♡ I'm gonna give your energetic little soldier a very thorough maintenance♡ This is how a male treats a female~ and how a female treats a male~. It's the law of nature, ain't it?"

"I'm not talking to the fake you! I'm talking to her—the real Bell! Can you hear my voice!? Bell!!"

"...Hmph. It's useless, no matter how much you call out. She's fast asleep right now. Besides, I'm the genuine, real Bell too, you know? ...It hurts my feelings when you treat me like that... Sigh... And here I was planning to gently make you feel good..."

The girl's previously cheerful mood instantly shifted into something wicked.

"...Alright then, I'm gonna thoroughly milk every last drop of your seed until you dry up into a mummy and die.........♡ And after that, I'll gorge myself, devouring every last human and Aragami until my stomach bursts. Hahaha!!"

Narrowing her glaring, dangerous eyes maliciously, the laughing girl spread her legs wide and dropped her hips, fully mounting the immobilized Werner.

"Stop!! Bell!!!"

"Ahahaha! Humans are nothing more than this in the end! Nothing changes. Male or female, it's no big deal. What they do never changes. Every last one of them is just a selfish prick... Compared to this, Aragami live much more naturally... live... Ara, gami? Hu, man? I... I am..."

The laughing girl straddling him suddenly grabbed her head and began to writhe in agony.

"Gah... Gh...! Human... Aragami, no...!"

"Bell...? Bell! Wake up! Open your eyes! Wake up!!"

"Shit...! She's waking up already...! Damn it... Back into the cage... I go... Ugh, G-g-g-g... Aaaaahhh─────!"

Responding to Werner's cries, Bell wildly thrashed her head.

Then, her movements stopped abruptly, and she collapsed onto Werner's body like a puppet with its strings cut.

The tail binding him lost its strength and unraveled, freeing him.

"Ugh... Werner..."

"Are you awake, Bell?"

He gently wiped the sweat from the girl's forehead.

"...I had... a scary dream..."

The girl clung to Werner with trembling hands.

"...I was... turning into someone else... A dream where I devoured everyone... Everything... Even devouring you, Werner... A really awful... scary dream..."

"It's alright... I'm right here. I'm right here."

He hugged the small, trembling girl.

"I'm right here. By your side. It's going to be okay."

As Werner held the girl close, brushing against the darkness within this girl so full of mysteries, he fell into thought.

It wouldn't be long before the other girl inside her surfaced once again.

He had to come up with some kind of countermeasure.

But he still didn't know what to do.

Frost danced on the cold wind.

The paths of two people who, originally, should never have crossed.

The trembling girl in his arms, and the man supporting her.

The faint warmth of the sun piercing through the clouds faintly illuminated and enveloped them, as if it were their only salvation.