Huffing and puffing, the remaining members of the party of pedos finally stopped running and rested. They had made it to a safe zone, one of the few places that no normal monster could infiltrate without taking some massive penalties to their basic abilities.

“Fucking hell…” grumbled Haruto as he set down Olga’s lifeless body. “I’ll kill that bitch for this.”

Haruto then began to remove certain items from Olga’s person, taking great care not to damage them as he peeled several magic objects directly from the preteen’s body, leaving reddened marks where the items once had resided. With each one he removed, a part of his affection for the girl, as twisted as it was, faded, and once all of them were removed he only saw the corpse with disgust.

“Leave the body.” said Johann with annoyance. “We’ll find another one and d the same thing. The Apocalypse made tons of orphans, so one will be gullible enough to let us control her as she had been.”

“We’ll need a new healer, too.” remarked Ralph, leaning against his tower shield and looking into the distance. Maybe we’ll hit pay-dirt and get a two for one, eh? I think I remember seeing a nice, pretty face among the orphans at one of the Churches.”

“Best not to try that, I think.” Haruto said dismissively. “If we make an enemy of one of those Churches then we’ll never have a place to run to should shit go sideways. Any other potential kiddies to diddle?”

The three guys stayed silent and then burst out laughing.

“Ah, that was a good one. We’re doing them a favor, so they should be more than happy to learn about adult things from us.”

As if the immeasurable power of karma itself had beef with them and their words and behaviors, the air around the three bastards dropped several degrees, and it only began to drop further, eventually leading to the three monsters in the guise of humans being able to see their breath.

“Hey, guys?” asked Haruto.

“Y-yeah?” Johann said while shivering.

“What was the predicted boss monster for this week supposed to be for this area?”

“Lemme c-check.”

Johann pulled out a notebook from his bag and flipped through it with cold fingers.

“It was… o-oh…”

The sound of a long, drawn-out hiss that seemed to crack the air as it blew frigid wind got all three bastards to look in one direction. Frost was crawling in from a dark place just a few dozen meters away, and in that darkness, a pair of piercing yellow eyes drew closer.

“Oh, no fucking way…” said Johann with even greater despair.

“The zone-buster….”

“We’re screwed…”

As if on cue, another voice added itself to the mix.

“Damn fucking straight you are. Luxnilae, do the thing.”

And at that, another voice that was overly familiar to the three bastards was heard, and it was dripping with hate, fury, and vengeful rage.

“Gladly, Mother.”

The discarded body of Olga began to twitch as light began to pour from every part of her dead form, and only after the light faded did Olga, now fully resurrected, open her eyes and scream bloody murder while scampering away toward the pair of female voices. Like Mary before her, once free of the mind-altering power of a few certain people via an unorthodox means, she was sobbing uncontrollably.

Though, to be fair, given what she had gone through and been forced to endure while also being forced to watch helplessly as it was done it was no surprise that she emoted in such a way. This snapped the three bastards out of their shock.

“Mary!” shouted Ralph. “You’re alive! Come help us, now!”

“Oh, I’m alive, alright…” hissed Luxnilae as she emerged from the shadows, a crying Olga still held in her arms. “And you’ll pay dearly for what you turned me into while I was with you, and for what you did to my precious little Olga, as well.”

As she came into view, the three bastards' faces fell.

“Gods…” Haruto muttered in disbelief. “What did that bitch do to you?!”

“She freed me from your influence, you damn monsters, just like how she inadvertently freed Olga, as well. I would take great pleasure in killing you myself, but that honor belongs to the one you hurt the most.”

Luxnilae looked down at Olga, who she was holding in her arms.

“Olga, though I may be something more and less than human, will you still trust me like you did before we both found ourselves under their control?”

Olga looked up, tears still streaming down her face, and nodded.

“Good, now be strong, this will be scary, but you won’t be connected to them, even by the line of the same species, if you do what I say. Do you see the big snake over there?”

Olga looked and saw the pale blue snake that was the same size as the one that ate Mary.

“Go and be eaten by it. You’ll see the light fade immediately, and then you’ll see it again mere moments after. Trust me, and be reborn as something infinitely better than those monsters.”

“Olga, don’t listen to it,” Haruto said in an authoritative voice. He held his hand out and beckoned her. “Come to me, and I’ll treat you well.”

Olga looked between the former Mary, Haruto, and the big snake before closing her eyes and making her choice. She ran to her destiny, and it embraced her.

…

“NO!” Haruto screamed as Olga was devoured by the Frost Serpent in a single bite. “You!” he glared at Luxnilae with rage in his eyes. “WHY?!”

Luxnilae smiled and her words sent shivers down the spines of her former teammates/ jailers of her.

“Mother, it’s all yours, and they are all mine.”

“Of course, my child.” came a voice as the sound of a snake screaming in pain drew the gazes of the bastards back to the other threat in the now frigid area. They watched in shock as the monster they had fought mere minutes before held tightly to the head of the writhing snake, one finger lodged down to the rest of her hand inside the ‘forehead’ of the snake.

Eventually, the snake stopped moving and fell over, seemingly dead. The monster that looked more human than was acceptable got up, puled its finger clear, and cleared away from the still cold serpent of unusual size.

“What?” asked one of the three, and he was met with a hand that formed the Universal Motion for ‘Stop’.

“Wait for it.” the creature said as the snake began to twitch ever more violently. “Waaaaaait for iiiit….”

The snake began to bubble and boil until it was unrecognizable, and then this mass of meat and bone began to shrink rapidly, eventually forming a featureless humanoid of small stature huddled in the fetal position.

The monster raised both hands to the air and yelled “SUCCESS!” as the pale featureless mannequin of a being took on more natural features, with light blue scales slowly dotting the skin and hair of an equal hue growing and draping the head and neck as clothing came into being from nothing.

Then a gasp rang out, and the being stood. It looked at least mostly like Olga, but it was still different. She looked around, locked eyes with the pair of monster women, and rushed to them, hugging the former Mary as she and her ‘Mother’ flashed shit-eating grins at the trio of pedo bastards.

“Hey, little one.” Lyrhea said softly.

“Yes, Mother?” asked the former Olga.

“See those fuckers over there?”

The being formerly known as Olga looked at them with visible contempt.

“Yes.” she said coldly and with overt malice in her voice.

“Why don’t you test out your new body by showing them how you feel about all they’ve done to you before you were reborn?”

The new Lyrhean’s face twisted in sadistic glee at that, and she pulled a bow made of ice from nowhere, snapped it in half, and twirled the new swords around like a pro. She sneered and showed her teeth as she uttered one, bone-chilling word.

“Gladly.”