14

O(I)O(I)

The upside of hallucinating this adventure of two ebullient girls was he didn't have to watch the arduous walking it took to reach the base—he was per se in the fray where dire wolves were biting them in a narrow passageway.

The red haired girl delivered a strong roundhouse to the wolves faces while her purple haired friend chanted a spell that covered her in an orange mist; her strength was temporarily elevated.

After the dire wolves they dashed down the hecatomb until they eventually encountered a hideous gnoll.

The gnoll bellowed at them in anger before jabbing its spear at them. The two girls unsheathed their blades and crossed their blades in an X parry catching the gnoll's blade in between. He struggled to break through their conjoined blades but at the end it was too much for him, and his struggling ended when Eilho brought her derringer out and shot one round into the gnoll's head at point blank range. It completely froze, its limbs quivering for only a few miliseconds, and then it fell sprawling downwards on the ground.

They faced more low level monsters, relied more on strategy than actual power unlike when Saitama hurtled down the halls eviscerating's everything like he was a bullet train going through, until eventually they reached the same giant door where the boss was hiding.

They did the exact same thing Saitama did, sit cross-legged on the ground watching the opaque hallway they walked through, only it wasn't for the same reasons as him. They were resting.

"I think even if the boss is five times the monster those things were we can still take it." said Eilho.

"I hope your right," Sauve said very meekly like a girl who lost her cat or dog. "I really need to finish a difficult mission...for my parents."

Sauve stopped looking at the ground and looked at her friend who had her fist out. Sauve mimicked her friend whose smile gleamed throughout this tomb.

"I would never let my 'sister' down and neither should you. We trained our entire childhood to use our strength to take down big monsters and now is our day to let all that 'training' show how it's helped us. Soon everyone will know our name, The Poison Sisters."

What Eilho said soothed Sauve's spirit but she didn't smile. She was the kind of girl who got nervous over a heartfelt speech over feeling relaxed. After bumping her own fist with Eilho's, the two "sisters" stood up and started moving towards the door. With their small but well toned arms they pushed it until it was fully open.

Sauve walked in first then waited for Eilho who was looking back at the outside from this new forest they were in thinking with a glimmer of hope that some other adventurer would show up and make their job easier at taking the monster down, but sadly she waited too long and eventually her arm closed the door on its own.

Standing ideally close they walked left right into the trees and bushes. It was sorta nostalgic of the times they would have their stick fights in a forest while standing on severed tree branches, but their reasons for going into the forest was so Sauve could climb a tree and spot the boss.

Eilho felt at ease nestled in this tall tree, like if danger was looming she could intercept it with just one hand. Despite feeling this way, however, she was caught completely off guard when a serpentine creature with mottled orange scales shot upwards out of the foliage trying to maim her with two sharp fangs.

It was only through her high stamina she managed to move like the wind veering away as the giant snake came crashing down shattering the tree she was just standing on to tiny splinters. As luck would have it, Sauve was by her side where she was shuddering in fear after seeing her friend nearly being eaten.

"I think we don't need that tree anymore."

The two girls stood in silence for a fleeting moment before Eilho finally let out a loud laugh. She was chortling it out while leaning her back downward and holding her ribs.

"You don't usually tell jokes but when you do...dammit, their funny!" She exclaimed in joy.

Sauve acted completely innocent of what her friend just said until Eilho recomposed herself. And then—they scuttled around the forest.

Saitama, still watching this wondering when it was going to be anything but filler, was following them as they moved faster than cheetah's after deer. They weren't hard to follow, however, when he turned around the face of the giant snake came out of nowhere! He threw a punch with the same enthusiasm as a parent cheering for their child at a tetherball game, but instead of hitting the snake it just phased past him; slithering after the girls while moving through him like he wasn't even there.

'Duh, I'm a ghost in this lousy place.' He thought.

The only person in this small forest to have any fun were the girls when Sauve jounced off a tree and cleaved her blade into a midsection leaving a small slit on its mottled orange scales. The way she moved rippled sparkly obsidian winds with purple and grey oscillating with the ripples. It was completely different than when Flashy Flash moved fast creating a heated ripple, Etoile doing the same thing only her blade was empowered with a purple aura when she cleaved.

The girls were doing surprisingly well going out and in attacking the snake, only Saitama knew if Flashy Flash was here he would have finished this monster off already.

Not only were they slower they also couldn't cut more than the equivalent of a paper cut leaving dozens of small incisions; which is impressive in its own right but against a boss...they were just agitating it to the point it would have a better chance of hitting them with a powerful attack.

That moment came when Sauve tumbled into its awaiting mouth. There was a thwack sound indicating the snake somehow snapped its tail into her while she was soaring. Things weren't looking up for her, the snake snapped its fangs and in the time it took for him to blink it had her right leg trapped in its mouth, Sauve dangling and screaming while it had her.

Seeing her terrified and in a life or death situation stifled him from making any jokes, and to his horror she had no choice but to use her own blade, whisking it out at first trying to stab it in the snakes' eyes to no avail...she gruesomely severed her own leg off just to escape it.

While falling he noticed how her once long and slender leg was a grungy, red spraying mess that healing magic she muttered turned into a lumpy coagulation.

She fell arm first on the grass, felt like a boulder fell from the sky on top of her...if only that was the worse thing to come.

She wasn't alone, and that was clear when many tiny snakes with large talon-esque horns slithered out of the bush. They were heading towards her...her who couldn't even stand, all her attention using mana to heal herself, and sweating in fear. She was afraid of being maimed by them—

"Wind Slash Blade!"

Tearing behind a spiraling typhon that looked nothing like a blade was a crevasse. It sliced through the midsections of six of the snake's at one time, startling the others.

Sauve's eyes widened with hope when her gallant friend Eilho jumped into the fray and started swinging her sword in a fast arc, slicing through most of them. Eilho was slicing snake after snake thrusting upward and downward in quick succession; it made Sauve nostalgic of the composure she had back when they were little girls practicing their sword skills on one another.

Sauve could feel the ground pulsating on her fingers like a heartbeat, it was an omen something bad was going to happen. With only one leg, she hobbled at first, moved until she was behind her friend and jumped...snake fangs sinking into her shoulder.

Eilho had no knowledge of this, slicing way until the snake's slithered into the woods, still looking at her with eerie bright yellow eyes that shimmered as if yellow rubies were inlaid, and finally she noticed...

"Ah! Ah! Ah! AHHH! SAUVE!"

Eilho kneeled down trying to help her friend up, but she pushed her away. Eilho was still adamantly trying to get her friend to safety, but the more she struggled to help her the more Sauve insistently pushed her away.

"It's too late for me! I've been poisoned and I'm going to die...save yourself!"

Eilho understood that, had no problems with her ear canal, but she still tried to find the spot Sauve said she was bitten and suck out the venom.

The holes were marred and steaming out purple venom that smelled like turpentine. Eilho opened her mouth willing herself to taste whatever foulness was swelling in those holes...

A flying projectile shot past her ear, still nibbled maybe a microscopic bit of her ear off, pocked into the underbellies of a few snakes that leapt at them, and sent them flying where they landed in a slam-dunk into metal sconces behind the trees.

Sauve had gotten Eilho's attention now. She wasn't going to like what she had to say:

"Eilho...you need to gallop away: I can help you escape. I only have enough energy for three more of my trump card so you have to move quickly and whatever you do don't look back." Just hearing all this caused her friend to fidget, all hope she had of both of them clearing this boss area was diminished. She soon raised her voice as if she was gargling turpentine "RUN SO THE LEGACY OF THE POISON SISTERS CAN LIVE ON!"

Eilho was shivering in place while the snakes slithered closer, and then after those conflicting emotions were eating her from the inside...she hurried as fast as she could towards the door; the snakes were waiting for her with coiled tails and protruding horns.

Even Eilho couldn't dodge the dozens of snakes that were going to lash at her once she made it to where they nestled but like Sauve promised they were killed by flying projectiles belonging to her using a move that involved slashing winds :

"Whirlwind of the Griffon!"

This attack actually looked like razor sharp wind as it sliced snakes in their bellies or left a long incision rom their heads to the tip of their tails before their bodies split apart and splattered on the floor.

Sauve was swaying her sword with fast-moving whisks as if she was using a toy wand to expel ghosts. It seemed like she could go on for hours with her technique, but only a few minutes later, the door making a loud uncomfortable sound as her friend left, she lurched her arm back to her side and took a deep breath. She gazed at the ceiling as if she was a kid trying to look at the sky during predawn...

And then—the giant snake came at her and swallowed her in one giant gulp!

Saitama could not believe this horror: a young girl aiming to become an adventurer with her friend only to be swallowed by a snake. Not to mention snake's have a much slower digestion rate even for a cold blooded animal and she was eaten alive; the agony of being melted alive was too abhorrent it was unimaginable.

After she was eaten Saitama was teleported to a white room. He had no idea what he was doing here but it became clear he wasn't alone when he heard a voice, it was meek and sweet and in his head.

Don't feel sorry for me, it was at that moment I stopped feeling pain.