“Hey, boys you better sit the hell down and play nice, otherwise momma’s gonna come around and shove this sword right up your ass!”

“...”

Lucia paused, she didn’t know what compelled her to say those words, or why she even said them, but she was definitely beet red under that mask of hers. Though if she didn’t have that mask of hers she would have realized she was beet red for a whole other reason, but that's beyond the point.

And well at this point it was really too late to turn back, she had jumped straight into the crowd and was completely surrounded by bandits to the left and to the right. There was no plan, she just jumped straight in the spur of the moment.

Lucia resisted the urge to drop her sword and run away, and took up a battle stance when suddenly one of the bandits in the crowd yelled, “You can’t threaten me with something I want!”

The rest of the all simultaneously turned towards the one bandit, while those who were nearby slowly backed away in disgust. That one bandit grew flustered and pointed his sword towards her, “I-I mean who do you think you are! You think you can shove a sword up my ass!? I’ll shove one up there myself!”

“...”

“You can shove anything up there if there’s already-”

One of the bandits behind him took his sword and smashed it into the back of his head knocking him unconscious and sighed.

Lucia turned towards that bandit and gave a slight bow, “Thanks…”

“No, it’s our fault…”

The air was filled with an awkward moment of silence, the bandit with the sword turned towards Lucia and asked, “Can we you know, take it from the top?”

“Yeah...”

Lucia coughed, and said, “Bandits prepare to die!”

The bandit raised his sword, “Kill her!”

Several Orcs charged forward with swords and maces in hand swinging it downwards, but with a single slash, these massive orcs far larger than your average man were sent flying knocking into several other bandits behind them.

Lucia turned around and glanced at the Knights pinned to the ground. She quickly dashed over with the assistance of the armor and cut apart the bandits with her great sword.

Then she turned towards the goblins holding the short woman they dragged out of the carriage and seemingly disappeared reappearing directly before them. Even though her sword grew lighter thanks to Dewl’s tentacles it also grew far larger and she wasn’t used to it just yet.

So instead she grabbed the one of the goblins small head and slammed it directly into the ground crushing his skull. The other goblins yelped in fear and grabbed their daggers, but these puny blades couldn’t hope to pierce Dewl’s remarkably tough armor.

And thanks to the physical augmentations she could easily crush their necks, taking their lives with her bare hands with little to no effort. Lucia turned to the girl and seeing that she was fine, release a sigh of relief.

The girl turned to her and said, “Um...excuse me, but I-”

“Don’t worry, I’ll carve a path open. When I do, take your Knights and run away”

“But I-”

Before the girl could finish, Lucia turned around and charged straight into the crowd of bandits once more with great sword in hand. Although she could only use simple swings and thrusts with the swords size and weight as well as the increase in her physical strength it was more than enough.

With each swing, several heads would fly or bodies would be sent flying. And although she was surrounded, her armor was able to completely protect her and all she had to do was focus on swinging.

It was almost too easy really. She never expected that wearing Dewl’s tentacle armor could make her this strong. Well rather she was strong in the first place, being a Crusader Knight Captain, but compared to the likes of the Hero or the Head Commander of the Crusade she was nothing.

She probably couldn’t even place amongst the top 100 Knights in the army, perhaps only in the top 1000. But with Dewl on perhaps, she might even be a match for the top 10 Knights in the army. Perhaps she was even as strong as the Hero himself.

But as she was casually swinging her sword and thinking about this Dewl yelled, “Watch out!”

A tentacle shot out of her armor into the air several inches away from her face grabbing onto a spear. Lucia immediately jumped back in fright.

“Oh? That’s some armor you have their succubus.”

A sickly pale skinned Oni with a single horn protruding out of his held the spear in his hand. He pulled the spear's blade closer to his head and inspected it before laughing,

“A living armor with an autonomous defense system enough to react to my thrust and strong enough to chip magically reinforced metal. How extravagant! We really hit it, big boys.”

He threw the spear in his hand away and grabbed a spear lying on the floor, “With the money from the contract, and from selling that armor we’d have more than enough to live a life of luxury for the rest of our lives and then some! Hell, with that armor maybe I’ll be able to take on a position under one of the Lords!”

“But with all that said, all of you are pretty much useless at this point so do me a favor and…DIE!”

The Oni swung his spear and a silver beam shot out decapitating all the nearby bandits. The rest of the bandits turned towards the oni and screamed, “Y-You bastard! You betrayed us?”

“Well I wouldn’t really call it betraying, I never agree to team up with you guys in the first place.”

“What about what you said earlier! If we all work together there’d be more than enough to live a life of luxury for the rest of our lives!”

“Of course, of course. But you see the thing is, I’m trying to go places. I’m not trash like you guys who need to group up to do anything. I have a future. I could have been an adventurer or high ranking officer, or perhaps I could have married a noble's, daughter. But do you know why I decided to be a bandit? A rogue? A mercenary? Why I decided to lower myself to the likes of you?”

“Because I want to go beyond being just another adventurer, or a soldier, or a noble. And well you see doing so can only be accomplished by no ordinary means. With all the money from finishing this contract on my own I can offer it to Lord Greed and with my skills and that armor, there’s no way he wouldn’t take me as a student”

“And with Lord Greed’s help, there’s no way I can’t rise up above all those adventurers, nobles, and soldiers. Hell maybe in a century or so you might all be referring to me as Lord Greed!”

The white skinned oni turned to Lucia, “So what do you say armor? I know you possess some level sentience, you’re at the very least a B Grade Living armor after all. If you abandon that girl I can take you to even further heights! And with Lord Greed’s help, I might be able to turn you into an S Grade Living Armor!”

Lucia felt Dewl stiffen and noticed her body was moving involuntarily, she quietly whispered, “Dewl please! I took you out of the cave.”

Lucia’s face paled as she realized that she was no longer in control of her body. She knew Dewl had some control over her body, but she never realized he could completely take over.

Dewl lowered her sword and slowly began walking forward. The oni in front of her smiled, “Yes! Come to me, we can be one, we can be perfect!”

Then suddenly, Dewl disappeared, but it wasn’t like before when Lucia dashed forward with incredible speed. It was silent, it was as if Dewl simply just vanished, or rather that's exactly what happened.

The oni looked where Dewl was standing wide-eyed, and as he was just about to say something he felt something pierce him from behind. He turned around and saw Dewl standing right behind him, holding one of the bandits swords now covered in his tentacles right into his butt causing him to fall flat on the floor.

The oni turned his head, and weakly asked, “W-Why…”

Dewl used the sword in the oni’s butt to speak to him, “I don’t swing that way.”

The white skinned Oni was rendered speechless, both by Dewl’s remark and by having his very life drained out of him by Dewl. As for the rest of the bandits, they stared at Lucia in fear. That Oni she had just stabbed involuntarily was undoubtedly speaking the truth.

He was superior to all of them combined, he could easily kill all of them and run away with the rewards. The armor in front of them was undoubtedly at the very least a B Grade Living Armor. But this woman before them had just instantly killed their strongest fighter in the most terrifying way causing them to involuntarily clench their butts.

They all turned to each other and nodded, “Run? Run.”

All the remaining bandits quickly ran away, in the beginning, they were several hundred strong and could take on even a battalion of a company of knights. And with the white oni with them, there was nothing to be afraid of.

But with the deaths of easily over two hundred bandits and the white oni himself, they were powerless. They could either stay and fight a futile battle and suffer the worst death imaginable like the white oni or they could run.

Lucia turned towards Dewl, “You know you could have said something. Also, I didn’t know you could go invisible.”

“We've known each other for a day, there's plenty of things you don't know I could do.”

“Hmm, I suppose you're right well anyways that ended rather anticlimactically.”

Lucia turned towards the little girl by the carriages, she slowly walked over and patted her head, “You should be fine now, I’ll be-”

Suddenly the little girl slapped away her hand, and screamed, “What have you done!”

“Huh?”

“Who's going to rape me now! I had it all planned out, I even spent a fortune enticing this many bandits to come assault me and get this many guards willing to destroy their wombs to ensure only I was the one getting gang raped.”

“What’s going to happen now? Where’s my gang rape of a lifetime! Who’s gonna fuck me now!”