Bro, I'm not an Undead!
Chapter 1553: Harems Are Overrated

Chapter 1553: Harems Are Overrated

Before Fulgardt and Skullius’ battle began...

It was a tense standoff.

Rias and the nine women of the Order of the Trodden Rose stood against Sila, Kintar, Uyuniya and the Stark troops.

"The only thing that will be funny is to watch you eat your words, dwarf," Rias said.

"Is that so?" Kintar was beaming. She couldn’t have been happier that the masked man called her that – a dwarf.

Eager to make him eat his words first, she undid a knot she had tied around herself in a string of ways than went beyond just physical. She had bound a portion of her powers – and her physical body – in order to yield a greater benefit later.

But later was now.

Kintar grew taller, her Granted Star Armament adjusting to accommodate the generous changes. Her limbs turned spindly, her shape turned lethal... in the enticing sort of way. Her dark blue hair, cut in bowl, grew longer and wilder. Suddenly, it reached her waist and took on an otherworldly lustre. Even her face became more even. Her eyes remained ovular and creepy, but there was a satin grey lustre to them now, stunning.

Kintar was a dwarf no more. She had turned into a high-class beauty. A creepy one, but a beauty nonetheless.

Sila, Uyuniya and even the members of the infamous Order of the Trodden Rose were stunned by this transformation.

They could never have guessed that the diminutive figure they had been looking at was actually hiding a more pleasing form, not to mention a greater well of power. Only Uyuniya and Rias managed to detect Kintar’s sharp rise in strength, however, because her Granted Star Armament masked any signature of her powers in general.

The Stark Troops present weren’t quite fazed. They knew, quite like everyone else who had been part of Skullius’ Faction, that this was what Kintar had always looked like – if a plenty uglier, before she got stronger.

They had still only just been introduced to this power of Kintar’s, however, and didn’t really know the full extent of its applications. All they knew was that after the Impossible Task, the Unlimited Star had suddenly become... this.

Watching Kintar unravel, or perhaps bloom, might have been a pleasure. It might have even been reassuring, but the Stark Troops did not find motivation to feel that way.

Gerriey, the Stark Trooper who had complained to Skullius about how Kintar had imprisoned her and her mates all this while, only looked especially furious at the Unlimited Star still.

Her gaze was so intense that Kintar felt it. She didn’t address it immediately, though.

Instead, she relished in her strength and floated a little higher above ground. Her gaze fell upon Rias as though to urge him to mock her now. She couldn’t help being petty.

The ghost of the masked man wasn’t the least bit moved, however.

"By Quintess!" Sila exclaimed. He could hardly believe it. His opinion of Kintar grew ever slightly positive. It wasn’t because he had a bias against shorter individuals, of course. He had yet to recover from Kintar’s snide remarks about him from earlier.

The only other person to voice an opinion about Kintar’s change was actually Nigerra.

She beamed at the sight of Uyuniya.

Taking a few steps forward, past even Rias, she grinned and said, "Are you acquainted with a girl who goes by the name Yuyui?"

Kintar wasn’t quite surprised by the question. She had been able to keep track of Boron’s Distant Magnets scattered all over Aigas. She couldn’t have missed the raging battle that had happened between Yuyui and the Order of the Trodden Rose if she tried.

"Oh. You’re one of those women she fought," Kintar said and her ovular eyes thinned to slits. "Yes. Yuyui is a... subordinate of mine. She gave you a bit of a hard time, didn’t she?"

Gerriey scoffed and looked at Kintar with an accusing, shaming look. The Stark-Soul Order’s Deputy ignored.

"She was certainly impressive. I suspect you’re even more so," said Nigerra. She stole a glance at Uyuniya. That woman had a dreadful, strange pressure about her. It was similar to the one Rias gave off. Nigerra could not work with that. She turned back to Kintar. "Yuyui was an oddball. She had a... unique lesson to teach, but ultimately, I felt that she was misguided. How about you, though? If I can prove to you that there can be more to you than... this, would you consider joining me?"

Rias crossed his arms before his chest.

He wasn’t sure if Nigerra was aware that all these people were Skullius’ subordinates – his enemies – but for his amusement’s sake, he let the scene unfold. It wouldn’t hurt to learn the nature of his opponents, would it? Because of how he died in his last life, that excruciating ordeal Skullius put him through, he wasn’t willing to take the Hybrid Warmoth’s subordinates lightly, even if most of them were mortal.

In response to the question posed, Kintar smiled and she slowly closed the distance until she was right in front of Nigerra. Both women had easy-going smiles, but they were sizing each other up.

Kintar immediately deduced that Nigerra was the strongest person after Rias from this group. She was a Beyond the Veil Stager to boot.

Nigerra, on the other hand, couldn’t discern Kintar’s powers properly, but she could tell that the Unlimited Star was a very powerful Mage. Her instincts as a Beyond the Veil Stager rejected the idea that she was a mere Arch-Mage and that made her vigilance peak.

"You have an interesting proposition, I’ll say," said Kintar, "but the thing is, harems are overrated. Out of every crop of wide-hipped bitches flocking around some heavy-jawed hunk, only a handful tend to be useful. In this case, you alone hold even the slightest bit of... sauce." She turned to Rias. "And look at the man you’re buzzing around. A shame. If he had more than two arms, I would have considered your offer, but I don’t know..."

Nigerra found Kintar’s words genuinely amusing, as did even Gerriey and Uyuniya, who found it in them to smirk.

The women behind Nigerra weren’t too pleased, however. A wonder why.

Their Nitros shuddered and surged. One of them was bold enough to speak.

"Nigerra... You better kill that smouldering idiot before I do." It was a blonde, shapely, but broad-shouldered. She had the build of a Form User.

Kintar... did not like her attitude.

She turned to her and the others, and her expression turned cold. She looked down on all of them with eyes that suggested that even the dirt they stood on had better optics than they did.

"Oh, I’m sorry. Did I offend you with that little jibe?" Kintar said. "Well. Let me make it up to you. I know just the place for lifeless, humourless, sour spots like you."

The Unlimited Star made no gesture, but everyone knew it was her doing.

Four of the eight women behind Nigerra suddenly inflated like great balloons in a fraction of a microsecond and were suffused with a rippling white light that gushed from deep within them!

...Then they exploded with all the grace of ten thousand geysers...each!

It was jarring. Charred mince rained all around, along with heavy mana residuals. It was no mystery what had happened. Having one’s mana core spontaneously detonate was as extreme of a way to die as any.

Nigerra narrowed her eyes at Kintar.

’Oh...’ she thought.

She wasn’t shaken by the deaths of her mates, but she couldn’t help but look at Kintar a bit differently.

Where had a monster like this come from?