A torrential thunderstorm hammered down. Through the dense, lush subtropical forest, several figures fled, their footsteps creating a heavy, splashing, and clattering rhythm. Amidst the intermittent flashes of lightning, they ran relentlessly, shouting something as they went. Their tattered clothing and the frequent sight of crimson stains indicated that they were the remnants of a defeated force.
Suddenly, the view opened up directly ahead of them. It was a shallow river. It was not a river by nature, but during the dry season, it served as a path for travelers. The fleeing men clicked their tongues and looked back. Behind them, lightning flashed repeatedly, as if slowly cornering them. With no other choice, the men stepped into the shallow but fast-moving current.
“We’ve been waiting for you.” Just before the men could cross, something rose fluidly from the water. There were five in total. Stopping their crossing, the men braced themselves against the appearance of the enemy through the veil of rain. Standing there were demi-human soldiers, their crimson eyes glowing in the rainy twilight. “Tch.” “Lizardmen!!” Struggling against the swift current, the fleeing men readied their respective weapons: broadswords, shortswords, and wing-bladed spears. Their weaponry, typical of a lightly armored mobile unit, was well-suited to this region, where the terrain was treacherous and soldiers rarely wore heavy armor. However… “Is that all you could bring? How pitiful.” The Lizardmen drew their weapons with mocking sneers. Great axes, flails, and even twin large tomahawks. A collective gasp could be heard from the retreating men. Even without armor, the rain-slicked, scaled skin of the Lizardmen could parry and deflect most attacks. Furthermore, their heavy weapons could crush an opponent along with their defense, leaving no room for the delicate technique of swordplay. Moreover, the unstable footing of the riverbed was practically no different from level ground for Lizardmen, who possessed thick tails and a low center of gravity. There was no escape. The men were at an overwhelming disadvantage. “But compared to facing Overnight, a few lizards are nothing!” The men rallied their spirits. And then, they lunged at the demi-humans before them without fear.
It was widely reputed that no warrior demonstrated such stable strength in a wetland as a Lizardman. The water was too shallow for mermen to maneuver, yet the footing was too unstable for humans. In such a place, the Lizardman’s awkward low posture and powerful tail became formidable weapons. The presence of transparent inner eyelids, which remained unobstructed by water splashes, likely contributed to their combat prowess as well. And yet… “Not bad… for a bunch of mere bandits!!” “Tch, don’t get cocky, you merchant’s pawns!!” Before they knew it, the battle had devolved into one-on-one duels. Most of the remnants—no, the bandits—were utterly helpless against the Lizardmen. Only one man, the wielder of the wing-bladed spear, was different. He possessed the skill to precisely and sharply strike the Lizardman’s weakness: the underbelly. The Lizardman squad, which should have once pushed the numbers back to five-against-two, was decimated—one fell, then another, until finally, everyone was wiped out, leaving only the twin-tomahawk user, Gash Zapper.
Gash had survived because he possessed defensive skills that were remarkably exceptional for a wielder of heavy weaponry. Even so, this bandit with the Winged Blade Spear must have been growing fatigued from a battle spent leaping across the water’s surface like a dragonfly.
In an attempt to prevent him from recovering his stamina, Gash hurled his axe.
“Tch!!”
The bandit avoided the strike not by blocking it with his spear, but by throwing his body away from the water’s surface.
The tomahawk struck, causing the river’s surface to explode.
However, Gash immediately pulled the tomahawk back. His twin tomahawks—which were also family heirlooms—were connected by the “Silk Chain,” a sturdy yet thin cord rumored to be a dragon’s treasure. In this heavy rain, it might have looked as though he were pulling it back with magic.
Gash then used both tomahawks like shields to parry the bandit’s spear thrusts. Fortunately for him, the lizardman’s raw strength did not seem sufficient to break through the forged steel of the tomahawks.
The cycle repeated.
The bandit knew that if he ran, Gash would catch him. Driven by the pride of the National Army, Gash was determined not to let him escape.
Time flowed on over the battlefield where only two combatants remained in a stalemate.
Then, a sign of approaching reinforcements appeared.
Lightning was drawing near.
“Heh, your time is up, you filthy bandit!”
”…I wonder about that.”
The bandit grinned, his face covered in mud.
Gash was certain it was mere bravity, born from the bandit’s overconfidence—or rather, the lapse in focus that came from believing help was close.
As if determined to strip away even that bravado, Gash played his trump card.
“At least die with some dignity!”
With every ounce of his strength, he threw both tomahawks simultaneously.
“Hyahahaha!!”
The man leaned back to dodge the axes… only to be ensnared by the ultra-fine “Silk Chain” stretching between them, causing him to fall backward.
Gash charged. His final weapon was a horizontal sweep with his tail, a limb tempered by tribal martial arts and possessing the power to snap a tree trunk.
Just as he was about to strike the man, a fist-sized stone flew toward Gash from beyond the rain.
”!!”
Unintentionally losing his momentum, Gash caught the stone with his hand.
Through the rain, he saw one of the bandit’s comrades—whom he thought he had already defeated—clamber onto the shore and hurl the stone using a makeshift sling made from a belt.
Before he could even process his bitterness, the bandit before his eyes rose swiftly, brandishing the Winged Blade Spear from the water.
”!!”
With a wet slice, Gash’s tail was severed.
The blade entered through the soft side of his underbelly, leaving the flesh hanging by a mere strip of skin.
“Ugh… Aaaaagh!?”
Though it was a tail, it was undeniably a living organ. Gash collapsed, blood erupting from the wound in great torrents.
”…I win, you lizard.”
The bandit with the Winged Blade Spear stood over him with a smirk.
Gash struck the riverbed with his fist. A true lizard might be able to run around unfazed after losing a tail, but because a lizardman’s tail was so highly developed, it was not so simple. He felt as though he might lose consciousness from the pain. He had no weapons left.
The moment he had let his guard down, his defeat had been sealed.
“D… damn it… urgh…”
He waited for the finishing blow.
…But it did not come.
”…?”
He lifted his head. The bandit of the Winged Blade Spear was nowhere to be seen. Only a mounting pile of corpses and the torrential rain remained around him. The bandit had concluded that Gash possessed no tracking ability and had fled, taking the survivor with them. ”…Damn it… Damn it all…!!” Intense pain. The draining of his lifeblood. Humiliation. Amidst his fading consciousness, Gash poured his hot, bitter emotions into a scream. “Daaaaaaaammit!!” And then, he collapsed onto the riverbed. Even for a Lizardman, the ability to staunch bleeding diminished while submerged in water. Even though he knew this would prove fatal, he had succumbed to a sense of utter despair, overcome by the sheer indignance of it all.
◇◇◇
A rainbow stretched across the sky, set against the backdrop of the morning glow. When the violent rains of the wet season cease, thick and beautiful rainbows can sometimes appear. According to Lizardman oral tradition, that seven-colored form was the afterimage and flight path of the Origin Dragon, the primordial being that birthed the Lizardman race. It was said that the Origin Dragon loved the Lizardman species it had created. That even after death, it became a spirit, and upon a Lizardman’s passing, it would guide them to the path to paradise with a kiss. ”…Is it time to come and collect me…?” Gash muttered, gazing up at the rainbow. He thought that would be fine. As a Lizardman soldier, Gash Zapper had died in battle against a powerful foe. It was easiest to tell himself that he had died with that single blow. However, a voice snickering with contempt shattered his comfortable delusion. “Ha! Is that that story about lizards riding rainbows to paradise? Don’t make me imagine it, it’s gross.” “What did you say, you bastard!?” Gash’s eyes flew open, and he jerked his head up.
Being a soldier, Gash considered himself relatively free of prejudice toward other races compared to the Lizardmen who remained secluded in their colonies—but he wasn’t so much of an eccentric that he felt lust toward other species. Skin without scales or color gradients wasn’t at all seductive to him; he preferred faces that looked more lizard-like. Or so he thought. Because as he looked at the naked body of a girl who appeared to be human—sitting astride his waist and brushing her hair back—he could not suppress the sudden, heavy throb of lust. ”…Whoa, it got bigger.” ”!?” The girl spoke without a hint of allure, as if she were describing an insect twitching. In that moment, Gash realized that one half of his hemipenis was inserted inside her. “Wh—What the hell are you doing!?” “Rescuing a life. …Whoa, whoa, it’s still getting bigger—wait, it gets this big!?” “H-Hey, wait a minute!” Gash was in total chaos. Not only was this his first time feeling lust toward a human, but it was also his first time waking up to find he was already having sex. Furthermore, the fact that he was unexpectedly vigorous despite being on the brink of death was an unexpected variable; he couldn’t make heads or tails of it. This man was used to inconvenient surprises, but he had never experienced the reverse. ”…Argh, forget it, just let me do it!!” Ultimately, driven by confusion, he decided to surrender entirely to instinct. Having already been prepared to die, the idea of trying to handle things rationally felt utterly foolish. “Eh? Huh?”
The girl was visibly flustered by the hemipenises, both internal and external, that had suddenly become erect, but she seemingly hadn’t expected Gash to snap awake with bloodshot eyes and immediately demand sex.
Without warning, he grabbed her waist and arms, thrusting one side of his swollen, bifurcated penis back and forth. There was no romance or atmosphere to speak of—it was a forced cowgirl position.
“Ow, wait… stop, this is…!?” “You were just sucking on someone else’s cock, don’t act all innocent now!” “N-no, wait, that’s not… ugh, you…!!”
The girl swung her free hand, slapping Gash across the nose.
Gash, completely unfazed, continued to heave his hips with heavy breathing. As a lizardman capable of maintaining his posture using his tail in addition to both legs, he was a master of upward thrusting.
Realizing halfway through that her tail was missing, she vaguely understood that this wasn’t heaven, nor was that battle a dream.
The girl kept slapping Gash’s nose, but eventually, she seemed to give up… or perhaps she simply began to feel the pleasure, and her hands went still.
“Ugh, you idiot… you idiot lizard, you ungrateful…!” “Hah… hah… Who cares? I don’t give a damn! You’re just an impudent brat, getting all erotic while someone is literally dying right in front of you…!!” ”…I’m… I’m really going to make you grovel for this later…!!” “I told you, I don’t care!! Ah, god, your womb feels so good!!”
It was essentially rape; Gash ruthlessly rubbed his penis against the girl’s vagina as she squirmed. He had mated with lizardwomen several times before, but this sensation was entirely different.
His instincts commanded him: I want to spill everything inside her. I want to make her lay eggs from the depths of this womb. I want to make her burst with eggs fertilized by my seed.
Pre-ejaculate began to overflow from the external penis, and Gash thrust his hips violently, slamming that penis against her abdomen as well, until he finally climaxed.
“Gngh, OOOOOHHH!!” “Nngh… wa-wait… this is too tight… haaaah!!”
He ejaculated a massive amount of semen simultaneously into the girl’s womb and onto her stomach. It flooded her womb, her belly, her navel, her breasts, her nipples, her chin, and her collarbone. A viscous amount of semen erupted, far more than even he could have expected.
“You… idiot… my stomach is going to burst…”
The girl broke into a cold sweat, looking pained. She was enduring the sensation of a penis that had grown larger than expected being driven into her cervix, followed by the relentless injection of a volume of thick semen that no normal human could ever withstand—the area below her navel swelling strangely before leaking down the shaft of the penis in a repetitive cycle.
“Haa… haa… A human female… how nice…”
Gash looked ready to keep going. Since he had thought himself dead, he had nothing else to think about. Or rather, he simply didn’t want to think about anything else.
However, the girl finally struck him with her fist.
“I-I’m not human!! I am a spirit, a water spirit!” ”…Huh?”
—A legend passed down in the lake and marshlands. In a swamp somewhere in this region, there lives a water spirit. Its power occasionally surpasses even that of dragons, and can be described as the embodiment of nature itself. People must revere that power and be grateful for the life it sustains. Otherwise, this region, much like the Russell Desert to the north, will wither away, becoming a barren wasteland inhabited only by desert lizards and monsters—.
“Why is that water spirit mating with a lizardman, you idiot?” “How can you say that after I went out of my way to save you!?”
The naked girl, now freed from Gash’s groin, was visibly fuming.
“That was simply a position that was convenient for sending ‘Qi’! I don’t need your seed or anything!” ”…Guh.”
I had heard the name before. Bedchamber arts. An outrageous health regimen used by certain dark elves and female ogres. I had assumed it was nothing more than hyperbole used by the sex industry. I never imagined I would be saved by it.
”…So, uh… why? Why did you save me?” “Is there a reason I shouldn’t?” “There were plenty of others who died besides me.”
Gash was no special lizardman. He wasn’t the strongest of his kind, nor did he possess any illustrious lineage.
”…Because you smelled nostalgic.” “Huh?” “The smell. That’s all. And besides, you just happened to be dying right where I was.” ”…That makes no sense.” “Who cares about that?”
Gash felt dizzy at her blatant lack of consideration after such a life-saving deed.
“But, if you feel indebted…” The girl smacked Gash on the head with a tree branch (which she had picked up since hitting him with her hand had no effect). “Then cooperate with me a little. Gash Zapper.” “What?” “You see, I want to see the Spirit Festival.” ”…The Spirit Festival?”
A festival held once every six months across the entire country to give thanks to the spirits of heaven and earth. By all rights, it was supposed to be a boisterous celebration offered to the spirits.
”…Don’t tell me the spirits can’t see that?” “Of course they can’t see it unless they go. The elemental cores of spirits can’t move themselves toward things they like very easily.” ”…………”
Within the country, spirits were recognized as omnipresent beings—existing everywhere and nowhere all at once. The shocking truth—that this wasn’t actually the case—was now being revealed to Gash, who had never held much interest in the matter.
“Is that a no?” A sigh. ”…Fine. That life was mine to lose and yours to take. I’ll give it to you. …Where do you want to go? What do I need to do?” “Yay! Okay, so, take some water from around here… put it in a bag or a container…”
◇◇◇
Time flowed on from that day in midsummer, and the season of the Spirit Festival returned.
“The season you’ve been waiting for is almost here, Heely.” “Yeah.”
A cheap tavern in a certain city nestled between a desert and a marsh. A tailless lizardman and a strikingly present beautiful elf sat close together, drinking. Gash Zapper and Heely Water. A veteran and a pseudo-half-elf. Since humans can hardly use magic, the water spirit had begun calling herself a half-elf to present long ears, yet to avoid trouble if questioned by a true elf. Before long, she had become the perfect partner for the hot-headed Gash.
”…Hey, once the Spirit Festival is over…”
Gash was about to ask what she planned to do, but Heeray gave him a light thwack with the short wand she had fashioned from a tree branch back then, a small smile playing on her lips as she raised her index finger.
“We don’t talk about what happens after the festival before the fun has even begun.”
“Even if you say that, it means we won’t be able to talk about next year, either.”
“Yep. The most we should be talking about right now is…”
She leaned her lips close to his.
”…Something like, ‘What are we going to do tonight?’”
”…You lewd spirit…”
“Well, isn’t it because some perverted lizardman has been plotting something every single night?”
Despite the constant stream of insults, the two of them looked unexpectedly happy.
(To be continued)