Taming The Villainesses novel Chapter 426

The farther north we traveled, the more grotesque the monsters that appeared before us.

Some of them looked like insects crushed in a child’s careless game. Others had no recognizable form at all—just clumps of energy, like lumps of clay mashed together without rhyme or reason.

“Half-Moon Slash!”

Shhhhk!

Mirna’s sharp blade split one of the airborne mud-like creatures clean in two. But the bisected pile of sludge flopped to the ground with a splat, only to begin writhing and knitting itself back together again.

That was when the hunter drew a dagger from his waist and threw it with deft precision toward the regenerating mass. Swish. The dagger sliced through the air and embedded itself into the mud.

━━Screeeeeeech...!

With a disturbing scream, the mud melted away. The hunter retrieved the hilt embedded in the ground and casually wiped the residue from his blade with his sleeve.

“There’s a core inside them, about the size of a pinky nail. Destroy that, and they go down.”

It was a short and concise explanation—but more than helpful enough. Before long, we too had learned to handle the mud monsters with similar finesse.

Swish.

━━Screeeeeeech!

“Now that we know the trick, it’s easy,” Stella remarked as she pulled an arrow from a monster’s torso.

“Still, I’ve never seen monsters like these before. Are they a species that evolved in isolation here?”

To that question, the priestess Miriam—who was wiping down her mace—answered.

“There are beings said to have fallen from the sky. From beyond the rift up there—”

CRACK.

━━SKREEEEEECH!

“Terrifying creatures have been falling through. No matter how many we kill, they’ll never end. They just keep coming, falling from another world into this one.”

Narmee raised a question in response to Miriam’s words.

“Another world?”

“Ah—forget I said that,” Miriam replied quickly.

She seemed to realize she had let something slip. But words, once spoken, cannot be taken back. Narmee, once intrigued, never backed down.

“So, there really is another world beyond the sky? Like heaven or something?”

Miriam looked visibly troubled by the question. Just as she opened her mouth to respond—

“There’s no such thing as heaven. All that’s beyond that sky is pain.”

It was the taciturn hunter who spoke in her stead.

Pain only.

His tone was flatly certain. So final that it was as if he had been there himself and returned. We all fell silent for a moment.

Even if we asked him what he meant, that tight-lipped man would just hold his tongue. He only spoke when he wanted to. Otherwise, he stayed quiet. Truly, a man who lived life on his own terms.

Still, he was the type who never said anything unnecessary. It was as if he conserved energy, speaking only when it mattered. That was precisely why we never dismissed what he had to say.

And so, with each person fulfilling their role, we eventually reached a great cliff.

Below it stretched a sky that looked like shattered glass struck by a baseball, and beneath that—a broken city.

A broken city.

Who had given it such a name?

Whoever they were, they had quite the sense for description. That view truly could only be called broken.

While gazing down at the tiny silhouette of the city from the edge of the cliff, Elga spoke up lightly.

“That’s the last city—Gargarta... It doesn’t even look like it belongs to this world. It’s all jumbled up.”

I didn’t respond, but I agreed. Jumbled up. Like someone had built a cube-shaped city and then scrambled all the pieces.

Roads jutted into the sky or sank into the ground. Some buildings didn’t rise from the earth but seemed to grow downward from the heavens.

Looking at the roads and structures floating mid-air, it truly felt like the laws of physics no longer applied.

But what really grated on our nerves—

WRAAAAAAAAAAAAGH—!!!

━━GYEEEUUUGH—!!!

—were the monsters clinging to the city walls like swarms of ants, howling nonstop. All the monsters that had vanished beyond this northern region were gathered below that sky, screaming in unison like hell itself had opened.

There weren’t just thousands—there were tens of thousands. Trying to break through them with just our group would’ve been sheer madness. The wise move would be to turn back now.

Shhk, grkk-grkk.

Stella raised her telescope and peered toward the city walls.

“There are way too many. And ogres... trolls... It’s full of hideous beasts.”

Mirna grimaced.

“But didn’t they say trolls were completely wiped out during the war with the Demon King?”

“Apparently not all of them. Charging in head-on would be suicide.”

Of course, we didn’t plan to. According to Miriam, the priestess of the hunter’s party, they knew of a secret passage into the ancient city of Gargarta.

That meant we wouldn’t need to force our way through the wall. We wouldn’t have to throw ourselves into that horde of monsters.

“......”

Looking back, I hadn’t realized how fortunate it was that we’d met them beyond the barrier. That my duel tribunal had sent them past the wall ended up acting like a stroke of fate.

It felt like luck was finally on my side.

“We’re moving.”

Shfft. At that moment, the hunter turned and started walking. As we followed his lead one by one, I noticed Ayra hadn’t moved from the cliff’s edge.

Her eyes were fixed on the ruined city below.

“Lady Ayra?”

“That city... What you see isn’t all there is.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s much bigger than it looks. Enormous. But I can feel it—he’s there. Somewhere inside that vast city.”

With those words, Ayra spun around and walked away.