Chapter 40: Taking the Side
“This fucking annoying elixir!” the bald man exclaimed as the shot hit his armor directly.
Aware of the kind of opponent that had appeared, he scanned his surroundings in search of… her. “Medusa! I swear I’ll tear your grating throat out if you keep interfering with me!”
A hiss echoed from all directions, bouncing off the trees, followed by a charismatic yet derisive tone that somehow struck a perfect balance. “You’ve been saying that for a year now… but have you ever laid a hand on me?”
For those who knew this woman, her voice was anything but charismatic. It draped condescension over anyone Medusa deemed worthless or her enemy. Playful hisses blended with her laughter.
Yet again, anyone who had seen her mesmerizing face and the long tongue peeking from her small lips would be rubbed the wrong way. In a very wrong way, which, in most cases—mainly among males—induced desires one shouldn’t openly discuss.
That said, this was the prison world.
Morals, ethics, and other rules held no function here. Only strength and connections mattered.
Once again, something crashed into the bald man’s armor, his expression twisting in pain. He heard the sizzling sound from the back of his armor as a dent formed, melting a second hole.
Unsheathing his sword, he roared and thrust it into the ground, creating invisible waves that swept across the forest.
Nith felt the impact of that skill on his skin, ruffling his feathers. Rather, it could be said that it stripped him bare, leaving him vulnerable to the bald man. But he wasn’t one to speak in metaphors much.
What mattered was that he had finally met someone whose skills branched out to locate enemies, which worked really well against him. He didn’t possess any of those skills, only the ability to read his enemies’ movements in his Dark Haze.
Huxley had shown Nith how vulnerable his Dark Haze was.
Learning such skills would help him come up with countermeasures and empower him further.
“There you are, bitch, running like a pest!” the bald man sneered, licking his lips before disappearing from Nith’s sight, leaving him with a blank stare.
A second later, the familiar hissing sound reverberated again, but this time from a single location.
The man must have pinpointed Medusa accurately, and she responded with her instinctive flick of her forked tongue, assuming she really was a snake woman.
That tongue helped her detect her prey, and much more.
Nith knew this much since he had interacted with various species during his time as a player. One of them was a snake tribe that could morph into full-fledged gigantic snakes or keep a human form with snake characteristics.
Their eyes, tongues, and scales had been particularly famous items that hunters of various species sought. The most magical thing about them was that they could retain human legs and tails in their humanoid form, which made them similar to dragons’ human forms.
The difference between these two traits was that the snakes’ tails elongated far more.
Amidst the hisses, curses, and slashes—the latter surely from the human baldie’s sword—Nith cracked his neck and thought, ‘Medusa is a name no snake woman would dare give her children. It’s a unique name reserved for the direct bloodline, the queen of the snake tribe. The Queen of all snakes.’
Chances were that Nith had somehow ended up in a place where the queen of the species, capable of producing venom within their bodies, lived.
No, it was his faulty personality that threw him in there.
One could call it destiny!
‘Just because she dares to call herself Medusa doesn’t mean she’s really one. Maybe it’s a moniker given to her by those idiots from the Inmate Gang. Anyway, she’s using poisons, so the side has been chosen before I could even think about it,’ Nith thought.
His experience with the snake tribe had been unique enough for him to wish he could have wiped the slate clean before reincarnating into this world.
Still, he’d deliberately been calling himself Nightshade so that he could rekindle old connections, whether good or bad.
‘Chances are her tribe doesn’t remember me,’ Nith thought as he ran toward the battle.
Hiding behind a tree, Nith squinted, searching for the clash.
It didn’t take him long to spot them. The man’s speed and explosive swordsmanship required intervals in which he had to stop, making him visible.
On the other hand, Medusa’s form blended humanity and snake traits, with the lower half being a thick, light-violet tail that slithered nimbly on the ground and around the trees, showcasing her clever style.
There was also an enchanting aura to her movements, which Nith watched without blinking, indulging himself for… reasons.
Both parties had suffered wounds in their clash. The man’s armor had melted, exposing his vest around the shoulder and right torso. Much of the steel on his back had evaporated as well.
In Medusa’s case, her tail and snake parts had been cut in several places, blood oozing from the wounds. She slithered continuously, smearing blood across her slick form, kneading dirt into her injuries, which didn’t seem like a great long-term plan.
‘That must be the man’s tactic to hurt her more. He’s smart,’ Nith thought. ‘But Medusa is cleverer than she seems. I can smell that familiar poison.’
Smirking upon realizing that Medusa was using the same poison he could produce within his own body, Nith slightly parted his lips and exhaled Asphyxiation Toxin toward her foe, using the wind to spread it faster.
Medusa noticed this soon enough.
As the battle raged on, the baldie’s hand suddenly went limp. He dropped his sword, a shocked expression crossing his face.
“What?! Why is your elixir… more potent?!” he screamed. ‘I’m usually able to tell when this whore’s elixir gets too deep into my body! Has she become so strong to actually outpace me? Me? Me, who relies on speed more than anything else?! This fucking whore!’
