A thunderstorm that strikes with crushing force. Amidst the dense, verdant canopy of a subtropical forest, several figures sprint through the undergrowth, their footsteps splashing and crunching—bashaba-sha-gasha-gasha.
Occasionally illuminated by flashes of lightning, they scream as they press onward without respite. Their tattered clothes and the frequent streaks of crimson staining their bodies betray them as the remnants of a defeated force.
Suddenly, ahead of them, the view opens up. A shallow river stretches before them. It is not a permanent waterway; during the dry season, it serves as a thoroughfare for travelers. The retreating men curse under their breath and glance back. There, lightning flashes repeatedly in the distance, slowly closing in on them like an inevitable trap. With no other choice, they step forward into the swift-flowing stream.
“Waitin’ for ya,” someone calls out. Before the men can cross, something rises from the water—five of them. They halt mid-stride, bracing themselves against the enemy’s emergence through the veil of rain. Standing there are monstrous demi-human soldiers, their red eyes glowing vividly in the twilight gloom of the storm.
“Tch.”
“Lizardmen!!”
The retreating men grip their weapons tightly, trembling slightly as they face the rushing current. Broad swords, short blades, winged spears—light and agile gear suited for a region where footing is treacherous and armor is rarely worn.
But then: “That’s all you could bring? Pathetic.” The lizardmen mockingly reveal their own armaments: massive axes, chain flails, or twin tomahawks of imposing size. A visible intake of breath escapes the retreating men. Even without armor, the rain-slicked scales of the lizardmen deflect attacks with ease. Their heavy weapons crush defenses before any intricate swordplay can be attempted. Moreover, the slippery riverbed poses little challenge to creatures with low centers of gravity and thick tails; escape is impossible. The men are hopelessly outmatched.
“Still, facing a few lizards isn’t half as bad as battling Over-night!” The men rally their spirits and charge forward at the demi-humans before them, unafraid.
It is widely rumored that no warrior matches the stability of strength exhibited by lizardmen in wetlands. Shallow waters unsuitable for merfolk yet unstable ground for humans become the lizardmen’s domain—their awkwardly low stance and powerful tails turn into formidable advantages. Even their transparent inner eyelids, which remain unobstructed by splashing water, contribute to their combat prowess.
But…
“Stop it… you scoundrel!”
“Hmph! Merchants’ pawns dare to boast?”
Before he knew it, they were locked in a one-on-one duel.
Most of the remnants—no, the thieves themselves had been utterly overwhelmed by the lizardmen, unable to even raise a hand or foot in defense. Yet one man stood apart: the Winged Spear wielder. He possessed a technique capable of piercing precisely and sharply at the lizardmen’s vital weakness—their bellies.
The lizardman squad, which had once driven them back with a 5-to-2 advantage, was now being cut down one by one by the Winged Spear user. In the end, only Gash Zapper, the twin-tomahawk user, remained standing; the rest lay dead.
Gash had survived solely because his mastery of defensive techniques—uncommon among heavy-weapon users—had kept him alive. Still, even this thief wielding the Winged Spear must have grown weary from fighting while leaping across the water like a dragonfly skimming its surface.
Determined not to let him recover any stamina, Gash hurled his axe at him. “Hmph!!”
The thief dodged without raising his spear, throwing himself into the water as if surrendering to it.
A tomahawk strike that exploded upon hitting the river’s surface.
But almost immediately, Gash reeled his twin tomahawks back. His heirloom weapons—the Twin Tomahawks—were connected by an incredibly strong yet slender cord known as “Silken Chains,” said to be a dragon treasure. In this rain, it might appear that magic was pulling them back from the thief’s grasp.
Then, Gash deflected the thief’s spear thrusts using both tomahawks like shields. It seemed he couldn’t muster enough power to break through the lizardmen’s strength or the forged steel of their weapons—a fortunate limitation for Gash.
This exchange repeated itself over and over.
The thief knew that if he fled on foot, Gash would surely catch up. Driven by pride in his nation’s army, Gash refused to let him escape.
Time passed alone across the stagnant battlefield where only two combatants remained.
Then, signs of reinforcements appeared in the distance.
Lightning was approaching.
“Hah! The time for tribute has come, you rotten thief!”
”…I wonder.”
The thief grinned, his face smeared with mud.
Gash concluded that the thief’s calm demeanor stemmed not from confidence, but from arrogance born of seeing reinforcements approach—or perhaps merely a bluff.
As if to strip away such false bravado, Gash unleashed his trump card. “Die at least in peace!”
With every ounce of strength left, he hurled both tomahawks simultaneously.
“Hahaha!!”
The man twisted his body to dodge the axe… only to fall backward, restrained by the ultra-thin “Silken Chains” strung between the two flying weapons.
Seizing the moment, Gash charged forward. His final weapon was a tail sweep honed through tribal ancient martial arts—a strike powerful enough to snap even a massive tree trunk held in one embrace.
Just as he prepared to deliver that blow, a fist-sized stone flew toward him from beyond the rain.
”!!”
Gash instinctively slowed his advance, catching the stone with his hand.
Through the downpour, he saw one of the defeated thieves climb onto the shore and hurl another projectile using a makeshift slingshot crafted from a belt.
Without even allowing himself time to feel bitterness, the thief standing before Gash swiftly rose again, lifting his Winged Spear from the water.
”!!”
Clang! Gash’s tail was severed.
The blade sliced cleanly into his soft underbelly, leaving not even a single layer of skin intact as it hung suspended in midair.
“Guh… aaaah!?”
Even a tail is a living organ. A torrent of blood gushed forth, and Gash fell to the ground.
”…I win, you lizard.”
The Winged Blade Thief stood up and grinned.
Gash pounded the riverbed with his fist. If this were a real lizard, it could probably run around even after losing its tail, but the tail of a Lizardman had grown so large that such an option was impossible. The pain nearly knocked him out. He had no weapons left.
The moment he’d let his guard down, defeat was sealed.
“Guh… damn it… ooh…”
He waited for the killing blow.
…But it never came.
”…?”
He lifted his head. The Winged Blade Thief was gone.
All around lay piles of corpses and nothing but a torrential downpour.
The thief had judged that he couldn’t track Gash and fled with the survivors without looking back.
”…Damn it… damn it…!!”
Intense agony.
The life force draining away.
Humiliation.
Amidst his fading consciousness, Gash screamed out a hot, bitter emotion.
“Daaaaamn it…!!!”
And then, he collapsed onto the riverbed.
Even for a Lizardman, the ability to stop bleeding weakened underwater. Knowing that this would be fatal, he had given up in sheer humiliation.
◇◇◇
A rainbow appeared against the dawn sky.
After the heavy rains of the monsoon season subside, sometimes a thick, beautiful rainbow can be seen.
According to Lizardman oral tradition, those seven colors were the lingering image and flight trail of the Origin Dragon that gave birth to Lizardmen in ancient times.
It was said that the Origin Dragon loved the race of Lizardmen it had created.
Even after death, it became a spirit and, at the moment of a Lizardman’s passing, would offer them a kiss and guide them onto the vessel bound for paradise.
”…Are you here to welcome me…?”
Gash murmured while gazing up at the rainbow.
That was fine. A Lizardman soldier, Gash Zapper, had fallen in battle before a formidable foe.
It would have been easiest to believe that he had died with that single blow.
However, a voice sneered at Gash’s comfortable delusion.
“Hah, so you’re the one who believes lizards ride rainbows to paradise? Don’t make me imagine it; it’s disgusting.”
“Hey, you bastard!”
Gash couldn’t help but widen his eyes and jerk his head up.
Gash, being a soldier himself, believed he was less prejudiced against other races compared to the lizardman who had been holed up in the colony all this time. Still, he certainly wasn’t one to lust after members of other species. He found their scale-covered skin, lacking any color gradient, neither sexy nor appealing; he preferred faces that looked more like a lizard’s.
That was supposed to be the case.
But when he felt an undeniable surge of arousal as he saw the naked body of what appeared to be a human girl sitting sideways on his waist and running her hand through her hair… he couldn’t suppress the sudden “thump” in his chest.
”…Wow, it’s gotten big.”
”!??”
The girl spoke with no allure whatsoever, as if something had merely moved like an insect.
In that moment, Gash realized one of his hemipenes was already inserted inside the girl’s body.
“W-what… what are you doing!?”
“It’s a rescue operation… wow, wow, it’s still getting bigger? Like, this much bigger!?”
“N-no, wait!”
Gash was confused. Not only had he never felt arousal toward a human before, but waking up to find himself already having sex was also unprecedented. Moreover, contrary to his expectation of being near death, he was surprisingly energetic—a development he hadn’t calculated at all. He simply didn’t understand what was going on.
This man was accustomed to unexpected outcomes that worked in his favor, but the opposite had never happened to him before.
”…Ah, screw it! Just do it already!!”
And so, overwhelmed by confusion, he decided to surrender completely to his instincts. Since he had already resigned himself to death and given up on rationality, dealing with things logically seemed absurd at that moment.
“Eh? Eh?”
The girl was flustered as she saw her hemipenes, now fully erect inside and outside Gash’s body, but she hadn’t expected the awakened Gash to suddenly glare with bloodshot eyes and demand sex.
He immediately grabbed the girl by the waist and arms, then began thrusting one of his swollen bifurcated penises in and out with vigor. It was a forced riding position devoid of any atmosphere or foreplay.
“I-it hurts… w-wait, this is too much…!?”
“You bit my dick without warning, so don’t act all high-and-mighty!”
“W-whoa, that’s not right… c-come on, already…!!”
The girl slapped Gash’s face with her free hand.
Since it had no effect, Gash continued to swing his hips while panting heavily. As a lizardman capable of maintaining balance with both legs and his tail, he was particularly skilled at thrusting upward.
It was only when he realized his tail was missing halfway through that he vaguely understood: this wasn’t heaven, and that battle hadn’t been a dream.
The girl kept tapping Gash’s face rhythmically, but after a while, she seemed to give up—or rather, began to feel something—and stopped her hands.
“Tch, idiot… you ungrateful lizard bastard…!”
“Haa, haa… who cares? Who gives a damn? You’re a shameless little female kid making lewd moves while someone’s dying slowly right in front of you…!!”
”…B-but I’m going to make you kowtow later, okay…!!”
“I said who cares! Ah, man, your womb feels so good!”
It was practically rape as Gash ruthlessly rubbed his penis against the girl’s twitching vagina.
Although he had engaged in relations with female lizardmen before, this sensation was completely different.
His instincts commanded him: he wanted to ejaculate into her womb. He wanted to lay eggs deep within that womb.
He wanted to make her produce a bunch of eggs fertilized by his sperm, shaking them violently inside her.
Pre-cum began leaking from the penis still outside, and Gash slammed it firmly against the girl’s abdomen while thrusting his hips vigorously. Finally, he ejaculated.
“G-guh, oooohhh…!!”
“Nnnn… w-whoa… t-this is intense… haaah…!!”
The girl’s womb and her abdomen were simultaneously flooded with a massive volume of semen. Deep into the womb, across the belly, around the navel, over the breasts, on the nipples, along the jawline, and across the collarbones. A copious amount of slick, thick semen was ejaculated—more than even she could have imagined.
“Y-y-you idiot… my stomach’s gonna burst…” The girl grimaced, her face glistening with sweat.
Her penis, now unnaturally enlarged, had been thrust deep into her cervix, and despite that, an impossible-for-a-human quantity of viscous semen was relentlessly pumped into her again and again. She endured the cycle: her lower abdomen swelling strangely as semen traveled down the shaft of his penis to her legs, over and over.
“Haa… haa… N-no, not a human female… it’s too much…” Gash still seemed ready to continue. Having thought himself dead, he felt no need to consider anything else—or rather, he simply didn’t want to.
But the girl finally punched him in the face with a clenched fist.
“N-not a human!! I’m a spirit! A water spirit!”
”…Huh?”
──Legend says in the marshlands: Somewhere in the swamps of this region dwells a water spirit. Its power can surpass even dragons, described as nothing less than nature itself. The people revere its strength and must be grateful for their lives; otherwise, this land would dry up just like the Russell Desert to the north, becoming a barren wasteland inhabited only by desert lizards and monsters────.
“Why on earth did that water spirit mate with a lizardman, you idiot?”
“But we saved him! What kind of attitude is that?!”
The naked girl, freed from Gash’s groin, glared at him in fury.
“That position was just convenient for channeling ‘ki’—I have no need for your offspring!”
”…Nuu…”
He’d heard of it before. Internal alchemy. A ridiculous health-enhancement technique used by some dark elves and ogre women. He’d always thought it was nothing more than exaggerated advertising from the adult industry. He never imagined it could actually save him.
“So… why did you save me?”
“Was there any reason not to?”
“There were plenty of others who died.”
Gash wasn’t a special lizardman, nor particularly strong among them, nor did he come from an illustrious lineage.
”…Because I smelled something familiar.”
“Huh?”
“The scent. That’s all. Besides, you were dying right where I was.”
”…I don’t get it.”
“Does it matter?”
Gash felt dizzy hearing such flippant words after being saved.
“But if you’re grateful for my favor,” the girl said, tapping Gash’s head with a twig she’d picked up—she’d tried hitting him with it before and realized it didn’t work well enough.
“Cooperate a bit, Gash Zapper.”
“Huh?”
“I want to see the Spirit Festival.”
”…Spirit Festival?”
It was a festival held once every six months across the entire country, a celebration of gratitude toward the spirits of heaven and earth.
Originally, it was supposed to be a raucous affair dedicated entirely to the spirits.
”…So you’ve never seen those ‘spirits’ before?”
“There’s no way I could see them if I don’t go. The core elements of the spirits can’t move on their own in the direction people prefer.”
”…”
In the country, spirits were widely recognized as omnipresent beings—existing everywhere and nowhere at once.
The shocking truth that they weren’t actually like that was now revealed to Gash, who had shown little interest in them to begin with.
“No good?”
A sigh escaped her lips.
”…Alright then. I’ll give you the life I dropped for you to pick up. Where do you want to go? What should we do?”
“Great! Um, scoop up some water from around here… fill it into a bag or container…”
◇◇◇
Time passed since that day in midsummer, and soon the season of the Spirit Festival arrived again.
“It’s almost time for what I’ve been waiting for, Heeri,” Gash said.
“Yeah.”
In an inn nestled between the desert and the lakes, a certain city hosted them.
A tailless lizardman sat close to a strikingly present elf girl, sharing drinks.
Gash Zapper and Heeri Water—a retired veteran and a so-called half-elf.
Since humans could barely use magic, the water spirit had adopted long ears to appear more elven; yet when questioned about her true nature by actual elves, she simply claimed to be a half-elf. Over time, she had become Gash’s trusted partner, despite his increasingly short temper.
”…So, after the Spirit Festival is over…”
Gash was about to ask what they should do next, but Heeri swiftly struck him once with the short staff made from that same twig they’d used before. She smiled softly and raised her index finger.
“We don’t talk about things after a fun festival has ended before it even begins.”
“But if we don’t, how can we plan for next year?”
“Yeah. For now, all we can really do is…”
She leaned in closer.
”…Something like ‘What are you going to do tonight?’”
”…This lustful spirit,” Gash muttered.
“That’s what some perverted lizardman must have been thinking every night,” Heeri retorted.
Though they constantly exchanged sharp remarks, the two seemed surprisingly happy together.
(TBC)