I seriously thought I'd only meet Leonhardt during Ravenna's trial, but instead, I run into THIS DAMN PSYCHOPATH MISOGYNIST HERE!
Lady? Lady?!? Why the hell do you think I'm a lady, damn it? Can't you see I have six pounds of hair in this cleavage, literally holding a crumpled piece of paper, and my dick is almost popping out from under this ripped skirt?! Leonhardt, what the hell is your problem?!
"No need to be afraid, miss, I promise I'll protect you from this... thing..."
Besides being a misogynist, you're a racist too, you jerk? She's just a demi-human, what's your problem with calling her a person?! If you hadn't protected me just now, I swear I'd be crushing your neck.
You, you hell-spawn protagonist, are the reason I hated the novel so much. Dense, stupid, idiotic, doesn't think before acting, and kills the best characters in the story for no reason! If by any chance I meet the author too... man, I'm going to throw some punches.
A rustling sound comes from behind the hedge. Pollen?
"Cough cough, what the hell is that?"
"Hold your breath, lady. Pollen is released by certain insectoid demi-humans when they feel threatened, it's a defense mechanism to combat predators."
Leonhardt steps in front of me and brandishes his sword. He stares at the silhouette appearing in the shadows, none other than an absolutely furious Moriah! Her body has changed color, instead of pale skin, she's completely green, as if blood were pumping back in a crazy pulsation.
Veins throb across her body, especially around the neck and the four outstretched arms. Her wings also look a bit different... more retracted, so to speak, as if they're shrunken inward.
What is that? Something is very wrong with this woman.
Moriah lunges forward. Her face no longer shows the lustful smile from before, only a strange emptiness with nothing but a kind of rage, fully focused on the potential threat, aka the Charming Prince Leonhardt.
He, meanwhile, takes a generic battle pose. Wait, that pose... No, you're not going to do that!
As the Countess propels herself like a rocket against the MC, I tackle Leonhardt from behind, knocking him down before she can attack him. The moth-woman whizzes over us in a low pass and crashes on the other side of the garden, scratching the grass with her legs.
"Are you crazy trying to kill her?!" I slap the delinquent's face. "She's Count Vandric's wife, you retard! Killing a noble in the royal capital is a very serious crime, I'll be dragged down with you if you do that!"
"Oh, I didn't know..."
"You didn't know?! Then why the fuck are you swinging that piece of trash sword at anyone in front of you?! Just try... not to... hurt her..."
Damn, my vision started blurring. The pollen entered my nostrils, I'm feeling incredibly weak. I stumble to the side, my eyes burning like crazy. What's in this stuff? A lethal toxin?
"It's alright, don't worry, miss..."
Leonhardt raises his hand above me and casts some kind of healing magic that I don't know how it works, I just know I feel fine, but my bigger concern is the Countess's life and what idiotic thing this damn hero is going to pull off.
The golden light of Leonhardt's magic wraps around my body with that annoying warmth of gratuitous protagonism.
It's comforting... but only physically. Emotionally, I'm one step away from getting up and drop-kicking this idiotic paladin in the teeth.
"Ah, miss... your heartbeat is fast. Do you still feel weakness in your arms? Chills? Cold sweat?" he asks with the gentlest, most paternalistic voice in the world.
"I feel like shoving your sword up your ass, does that count?"
Fortunately, the healing energy also gave me the breath to curse more. I get up, a bit wobbly, my dress now stuck tight to me because of the damp pollen in the air and the sweat of desperation. But there's no time to think about hygiene, because Moriah got up.
The devil's moth has rebalanced herself, four arms flexing around her body, her wings stiffer than before, and her gaze? Fixed on Leonhardt. She grinds her teeth, foam coming from the corner of her mouth. Either she's turned into a zombie or she's very, very keen on killing.
She lunges straight forward, the wind begins to hum just from her body moving in a straight line. Leonhardt plants his feet on the ground, impeccable posture from a generic hero's manual. The sword gleams at the stars, while Moriah flaps her wings and lets out a terrifying buzz. Damn, she didn't even make that noise in bed!
Her four arms stretch out straight, launching a sequence of attacks that come from different directions, but Leonhardt spins his sword and blocks them, the metal grinding with each consecutive impact. Still, the pressure is enough to make him retreat.
The Countess digs her lower arms into the sides of the sword and nearly rips it from the little hero's hands, using her other two to slash the model's face with her curved black nails. Ooooh, that was a close one, it'll at least leave a mark for the next few days.
She hisses in a very strange way, then her antennae tremble. Antennae? Of course, you idiot!
"HEY! HIT THE ANTENNAE, MORON!"
Leonhardt hesitates, looking at me for a split second then refocusing on a Moriah forcing him to take more steps back. Then he spins his body and elbows the side of her head, right between the sensory filaments.
The impact is enough to make her disoriented, her body slumping to the side like a doll, but it doesn't take long for her to get back up, and one of her black nails rises like a dagger to cut his neck. He dodges by tilting his face to the side, gaining a new hole in the clothes.
Her wings spray a jet of pollen. Damn, my throat's all irritated now! I can't breathe, but this might be our only chance to knock her out without this damn hero killing the Countess!
I take advantage of that second of imbalance and run to her back, pulling her antennae back with all my strength. The hums and noises coming from Moriah's mouth are deafening, it's like I have needles in my ear!
Finally, Leonhardt answers the call and uses the pommel of his sword to strike the middle of the Countess's face with such violence that I actually fear she'll be disfigured later. In any case, it works, she stops resisting and her body collapses.
I lay her down with a rare tender care coming from me. Seriously, why does this kind of thing follow me?
I mean, look at my situation: ripped dress, chest exposed, a hero beside me, a mutant countess unconscious behind us, and we're here in the middle of a noble's mansion fighting her in the dead of night.
Totally normal. Absolutely normal. Did this yesterday.
"Are you alright, miss? No injuries?"
"Only mental ones. My mental state is in pieces, you bastard!"
He smiles as if I'd made a joke. I really want to stab this idiot with his own holy sword. But the important thing is: I'm still alive, and the letter is with me.
Oh no. Weakness, right now? My vision blurs as if I'd taken a punch from the duke. I feel my throat burn again and my lungs feel full of thorns. I stumble sideways, hands on my chest, trying to pull in air, but it feels like everything's being sucked inward.
"D-damn it... the pollen... is it like... mustard gas...?"
"Miss!" Leonhardt grabs my arm, stopping me from tripping over my own feet. "You inhaled too much, you need to rest immediately. My healing magic isn't enough to remove toxins like this."
"I need to... slap you in the... face... your voice makes me sick..."
My tongue isn't working right anymore. I'm not going to die, am I? My knees go weak, and I throw my arms up, trying to grab onto something, him, the ground, myself, but it's no use. I'm scared, very scared. I don't want to die, not after all this.
My last vision is of Leonhardt's serious face leaning over me, with that damn "gentle prince" look. The moonlight shines on his blond hair, with crickets chirping in the background and a strange gay tension forming in the air, especially with my damn cleavage showing so erotically.
And then... he lifts me, he takes me into his arms.
"It's all right now, my lady."
I can't scream or thrash. The only thing I can think before passing out is just one thing, a thought so intimate that I wanted to express it in words because of how furious I am right now:
Motherfucker.