Too humiliating. It was downright humiliating.
I was almost literally being dragged along by the Lady Inquisitor in a half-crawl, half-tumble through a series of dim rooms and corridors that felt like a haunted house. The cardio I was doing was wildly diverse, including (but not limited to) sprinting, donkey-rolling, interval runs, long jumps, and push-ups.
My lungs burned like they were about to explode on the spot. Every breath came with a sharp, searing pain. The muscles in my legs had long since progressed beyond "sore" and entered a state of ripping agony. With adrenaline flooding me, deafening gunshots behind us, and furious shouting piling on top of that, I was pretty sure my performance right now would have my old PE teacher moved to tears, then awarding me a certificate on the spot: "Breakthrough in Fitness."
At first, the cold damp heaviness and sticky shame in my crotch was still messing with my movement. Every step made me want to die of embarrassment. But once my body fully warmed up—once the fear of death crushed everything else—that tiny little "biological issue" stopped mattering.
Don't laugh. I didn't want it either. But this is a primal instinct carved into the deepest part of every animal's genetic code: when you judge yourself to be in extreme danger, you automatically dump any unnecessary "load" so you can run at full speed.
A trained soldier can suppress that instinct through conditioning—meaning they've gotten used to danger. I'm not trained. I'm just a normal shut-in. So when all that happened just now, I didn't even have time to react. I only felt a sudden lightness down there, and then… it happened naturally.
Don't bring up Donigaton. That wasn't the same. Back then, the ones being targeted were the soldiers. I was just a spectator close to the scene. And later, wrapped in thick power armour, I didn't really feel the battlefield.
But when someone is genuinely hosing you down with weapons, it's completely different. Anyone who's played PvP games knows exactly how huge the gap is between taking potshots and being focus-fired.
The Lady Inquisitor didn't look much better than I did. Her pale golden hair—normally pinned up so neatly—was a total mess now, with loose strands plastered against her dust-smeared cheeks. But obviously I couldn't afford a single disrespectful thought toward someone who was fighting for her life to protect me.
If anything, a crushing guilt had seized my heart: as a powerless, ordinary person, at a moment like this, I couldn't help her at all. Worse, I'd become the heaviest, most lethal deadweight chained to her.
Of course, that was also because she was unprepared. Neither of us had imagined that in a situation this stable, in Spirepeak City, inside the Ecclesiarchy's own headquarters, we'd end up fighting a pack of zealots.
The Lady Inquisitor had come to this cathedral with an almost "visiting the old family home" sort of goodwill. She hadn't worn the oppressive power armour I'd first seen her in. Instead, she was dressed in a lighter set of armour—closer to formal wear, with limited protection.
…Then she grabbed my hand and, like a hammer-throw athlete, hurled me as hard as she could into a vast hall that looked like a library, and the fighting exploded again without warning.
Like a frightened monkey, I curled up under a massive metal bookshelf that rose and fell slowly on enormous chains, like some kind of meat grinder. I trembled there, watching the Lady Inquisitor's slender white back as she roared and charged several towering black silhouettes rushing us from the opposite side.
Maybe my brain was finally crawling out of its constant stunned haze. Maybe I'd just started getting used to this hellscape. Either way, this time I finally saw her fight a little more clearly.
The hem and shawl of the red mantle she wore were already shredded from the earlier running and clashes, reduced to many short, ragged strips that whipped and flailed like tentacles as she moved. Her once-pristine white armour was filthy, scored with scratches, and split by shallow tears.
And those black silhouettes opposite her answered with their own roars.
But the voices were female.
I froze, stunned, and dared to steal another look.
They were women in heavy black plate—so bulky they looked a full size larger than the Lady Inquisitor. From the power packs on their backs, superheated steam vented in rapid bursts, like human-shaped locomotives about to surge forward. None of them wore helmets. I could clearly see their distinctive white bob-cut hair bouncing and snapping through the air with each violent motion.
The irony was that I realized both sides were shouting almost the same lines. Over and over, it was nothing but "By the God-Emperor!" and "For the Emperor!" and other slogans.
Really. Same family, same house. I couldn't help a bitter laugh in my head.
There's a specific English slang phrase for women fighting—"pussyfight"—a crude double entendre, and admittedly pretty vivid. But it didn't apply here at all. There was nothing remotely "sisterly" about what I was seeing. Every exchange was heavy with brute force and lethal ferocity.
The Lady Inquisitor drew the pistol she carried—a big Mauser-style broomhandle sidearm in shape—and fired scorching red beams at the enemy. But when those beams struck the women's thick black armour, all they did was hiss and throw up a little smoke. It didn't seem to slow them down at all.
Meanwhile, the black-armoured women carried short, assault-rifle-like weapons of absurd caliber. Every time those guns spat flame, they blasted our "cover" apart—metal shelves erupting into shards, wood splintering, paper and scraps flying everywhere. The sheer boom, boom of it made my heart stutter and my ears ring.
But the Lady Inquisitor clearly understood the massive disadvantage she had in firepower and protection. Every shot she took was aimed with vicious precision at the enemy's unprotected head and face, forcing them to duck and hide their features behind their oversized shoulder plates.
At the same time, she moved.
Her figure was like a nimble white cat, slipping lightly and rapidly through the gaps between shelves, railings, and desks. Exploiting their narrowed vision, she closed the distance in the blink of an eye.
Then—
A sheet of dazzling lightning erupted.
With a muffled scream, one of the women lost her entire gun hand at the wrist, cleanly severed. Almost at the same moment the heavy weapon and half a hand hit the floor with a clang, the Lady Inquisitor's blade—dragging crackling blue energy—carved a vicious arc and chopped down toward another opponent behind her.
That woman reacted instantly, raising her gun to block.
But the Lady Inquisitor's sword bit into the weapon with a long spray of blinding sparks, nearly slicing the massive gun in two.
Sword against gun.
And somehow it played out like, "Within seven steps, the sword is both precise and fast."
(End of Chapter)
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