Teresa: Everybody Loves Large Chests (Vol.5)

by Neven Iliev

  The catgirl abruptly stopped and faced the utterly perplexed ‘Hero’ in a way that only he could see her expression. She bore an adorable smile that seemed to contain all the world’s innocence, all dipped in an extra layer of sweetness. That jarringly adorable face then delivered a message only he could hear.

  “Nobody breaks my shinies.”

  *SHLUNK*

  With those parting words, the mithril rapier sank into the shaken and confused human’s eye socket. It impaled his head so thoroughly that the weapon’s bloodied tip poked out the back of his skull. The catgirl viciously kicked the former Hero in the chest, pulling her beautifully deadly blade out of his face in a single motion while his body fell over and collapsed onto the ashen ground.

  [Clash of Fate has been resolved!]

  [The Hero of Chaos has defeated the Hero of the Hammer with a flawless victory!]

  A faint, blue mist rose out of Bernard’s corpse, enveloping around Keira and seeping into her very being.

  [Feat of strength performed! You have unlocked a new Perk: Hero Killer.]

  [Feat of strength performed! You have unlocked a new Perk: Usurper of Justice.]

  [Proficiency level increased. Vengeance is now Level 1.]

  This unexpected boon demanded closer inspection, but Boxxy still had witnesses to deal with. When it turned around, however, what awaited it wasn’t the surprised, perplexed, or otherwise awe-filled faces of Keira’s subordinates. Similarly, the charred wasteland left in Punchy’s wake wasn’t anywhere in sight. Instead, the creature saw an endless sky filled with naught but fluffy white clouds, all of it dyed golden by a soothing glow from a sun that wasn’t there. There was no trace of anything resembling solid ground as far as the eye could see. Even the stuff the shapeshifter stood on looked like little more than solidified mist.

  The presumed owner of this wondrous space loomed over the befuddled creature. The fifty-meter-tall woman had flowing gold locks, bright blue eyes, flawless fair skin, and a stunning, well-proportioned figure. She was draped in a pure white garment halfway between a robe and a dress that left her back, cleavage, shoulders, and arms exposed while the hem of her skirt barely reached her knees. She also wore bracelets, sandals, rings, a tiara, and several other accessories, each of them fashioned from precious metals and inlaid with sparkling gems. Her right hand held onto a matching stately staff while the other stretched out towards the creature. Her red lips parted as she let out an authoritative voice that echoed into eternity.

  “Greetings, creature.”

  Motes of white light gathered in Teresa’s open palm as she spoke.

  “And goodbye.”

  Part Six

  “Woah! Woah-woah-woah!” Keira yelled while waving her hand in a panic. “Let’s not get hasty, Miss Goddess of Justice, Ma’am!”

  Teresa raised an eyebrow while looking down at the creature in every way imaginable. She was a little surprised and slightly delighted that her ‘guest’ recognized her so quickly. Taking this as a prompt to plead its case, the catgirl-shaped monster smiled sweetly and tilted its head to the side in an undeniably charming fashion.

  “You’re a reasonable deity, ma’am. Surely we can work something out,” she offered.

  “Humpf! Divine Smite!”

  However, the ‘reasonable deity’ merely scoffed at the ‘offer’ and unleashed her wrath without another thought. A deluge of holy energy poured out of her hand, drowning the spot in which Boxxy stood. At first glance, the column of white light was extremely reminiscent of the Hero of the Hammer’s signature Skill, Justice From Above. However, there were two key differences. First, it would annihilate the target without any regard for things such as ‘justice’ or ‘evil.’ Second, this magic was dozens of times larger in scope and strength than the watered down version that Teresa’s Hero had invoked. In short, the astral projection caught in its wake would be obliterated without a doubt. With the vile creature’s soul gone, its unconscious body back in the material realm would never wake up.

  Teresa sighed deeply as the unnecessarily long downpour of magic bombarded Boxxy’s spot over the course of several seconds. She held such high hopes for Bernard and was certain he was finally going to be ‘the one.’ Her obsession with him ran so deep that she had resurrected him knowing full well she would draw the ire of her peers, especially Mortimer. Being on the shit-list of the God of Death and Commerce was never a good thing, even for a fellow deity. Teresa managed to deflect the pantheon’s displeasure by accusing that conniving nitwit Hillary of purposefully targeting her Hero by detonating his dungeon core at Monotal. Whether that was or wasn’t the case didn’t matter, as she nevertheless succeeded in placating the other divinities.

  However, her current actions were utterly inexcusable. The Goddess of Truth and Justice had interfered in such a direct and egregious manner that it would be centuries before she heard the end of it. Teresa knew this full well, but in her grief she no longer cared about those busybodies in the pantheon. She lost her precious Hero yet again. Worse still, she couldn’t even bring him back to life this time around.

  Bernard Samson’s death was decided in a Clash of Fate. It was a sacred dueling rite that was invoked whenever two Heroes stood in direct conflict to one another, with the victor often claiming a fraction of the loser’s divine gifts as their own. Not that a Clash of Fate had to be resolved exclusively through violence and death. The duel could take on any form so long as it ended with a clear and undisputed winner. A battle of wits and wordplay, a contest of craftsmanship, or even a foot race across the continent were all perfectly reasonable alternatives. Even armed conflict needed not necessarily end with lethal force so long as one side submitted to the other. It was also possible for the whole affair to result in a draw should both sides agree to it.

  However, the Clash of Fate between Justice and Chaos couldn’t have ended any other way. That malicious box did not have the habit of sparing its enemies, nor could Bernard feasibly stand against its monstrous might once his Justice From Above failed. His death was all but certain the instant that mockery of a duel began. Worse still, the terms and conditions of the contest were absolute, enforced by the combined divine authority of the entire pantheon. No single god had the power to directly or indirectly interfere with a Clash, and that included undoing the outcome after the fact.

  Teresa had thus been forced to watch as that hideous, contemptuous creature toyed with and ultimately murdered her Hero, sending his soul directly into Mortimer’s clutches. Teresa shed more than a few tears during that time, since it was highly unlikely a man of Bernard’s caliber would appear any time soon. She saw the potential within him to become the greatest Hero of the Hammer that ever lived, someone who could finally make her wishes come true. Yet, his journey was tragically cut short a second time by the same culprit – a truly despicable monster that could not even say ‘good morning’ without lying twice.

  And so Teresa’s hate boiled over, causing her to drag Boxxy into her realm so that she could wipe its foul existence from the world with great vengeance and furious anger. Or at least, that had been her intent. However, when her Divine Smite finally ran its course, the goddess felt a strange oddity within her domain. She glanced at the platform where the shapeshifter had been summoned. The semi-solid cloud had been dispersed by her merciless attack, and though she saw no sign of the creature, something was definitely down there.

  It was a black and circular pool of magical energy about a meter wide that swirled around in a slightly hypnotic fashion.

  A few moments later, Boxxy was violently ejected from its own Storage. It flew up into the air, landing roughly on a nearby chunk of cloud. The monster had reverted to its base hylt creeper form and was coughing violently, launching spurts of thick, dark red blood from its vertical mouth. Hiding inside its own pocket dimension was how Boxxy had evaded Bernard’s Judgment From Above just a minute ago. It had no guarantee that the same trick would work against the guy’s sugar-momma, but it didn’t exactly have a lo
t of options. Thankfully, it succeeded, though at a price.

  Boxxy dipping inside its own Storage Skill was a grievous misuse of the ability. It was the magical equivalent of putting a bag inside itself, and the otherwise stable vortex of magic reacted badly as it tried to resolve that paradox. The feedback effect the monster suffered as a result caused its body to rip itself apart from the inside. The backlash was negligible and easily disguised during the Clash since it only lasted a moment, allowing it to play the thing off as Keira miraculously dodging the ability. However, Teresa’s version lasted for almost five seconds straight. Boxxy suffered so much feedback damage during that time that its brilliant evasive maneuver almost turned into a form of suicide.

  Almost, but not quite.

  “Heh. Hehehe! He-hack! Koff! Hehehehehe!”

  The monster laughed wickedly while sputtering up blood. It stared right at the befuddled goddess’s face and split its visage into a truly monstrous cross-smile.

  “Excuse me, your divine bitchiness!” it brazenly taunted her. “I do believe you missed! Aaaah, hahahaohohohahahoahehehehohohahaha!”

  “Will you just fucking DIE?!”

  Outraged beyond reason by that cackling, mocking, downright blasphemous laughter, Teresa swung her arm down in a dramatic arc. The motion unleashed a second Divine Smite upon the shapeshifter, which Boxxy evaded exactly like the first one. Once back in its pocket dimension, it quickly reached for one of the Rejuvenation Potions it had in stock and ate it in one bite, crystal vial and all. What followed was the wholly indescribable sensation of its astral body rapidly tearing itself apart while the alchemical miracle-in-a-bottle stitched it back together. The latter outpaced the former by a significant margin, allowing it to endure until the repeat performance ended.

  Unfortunately, this momentary respite only delayed the inevitable. Boxxy had no idea how it could win from this position. It was surviving for the moment, but another Divine Smite would surely come down on it the instant it popped out of Storage. There were only so many times it could undertake the ‘evasive maneuver’ before it was incapacitated by potion sickness. Furthermore, it had no means of escaping Teresa’s divine space, and even if it did she’d just drag it back in again. The shapeshifter was utterly and completely doomed. Nevertheless, it refused to give up. No matter how hopeless its situation, no monster would go out without thrashing wildly until the bitter end, and Boxxy was the most monstrous monster that ever monstered.

  Now, the shapeshifter had no idea whether killing or even harming a deity was possible in general, let alone inside their own godly domain. But it knew how to find out. Wherever or whatever this space was, it still followed the same rules and principles as the endless white room Jonathan had invited it to a few times before. It knew from experience it was a place where both Spells and Skills were usable. Thus, it stood to reason that magic items would function as well. So, if Boxxy could use all of those, then it had a venue through which it could at least fight back. It found a great deal of satisfaction in the thought of giving Teresa a black eye before it got annihilated – something of a final ‘fuck you’ to the Goddess of Sore Losers.

  When the opportunity presented itself, Boxxy leapt out of its interdimensional hidey-hole yet again, though this time it brought a little something-something out with it. The monster was still mostly clueless as to what it was going to do, but it felt confident it wouldn’t accomplish anything by its lonesome. That was why it had popped back into Teresa’s reality while firmly clutching the demonic skull-headed staff known as Voidcaller. It secured its footing as best it could before Teresa could strike a third time and activated the Artifact-grade item’s unique ability to instantly call forth one of its familiars.

  A three-meter tall door made out of seething crimson energy appeared out of thin air, and a certain thoroughly disoriented muscle-head stumbled out of the Beyond.

  “Ugh… Boss?” Kora groaned. “Where are- Woah!”

  The fiend wasn’t given the chance to even get her bearings before Boxxy wrapped a tentacle around her waist and flung her straight at Teresa’s face with all its might. The shapeshifter then ducked back inside its Storage as yet another downpour of radiant annihilation bombarded its position, barely missing Kora in the process. The demon had no idea where she was or what was going on, but she recognized who she hurtled towards. That was all the information she needed to figure out what to do next. She twisted her body around in mid-air just in time to deliver a full-forced drop-kick to the distracted bitch’s face.

  More specifically, her nose.

  “ORA!”

  *Thud*

  *Snap*

  Correction – her broken nose.

  “Gaaah!”

  Teresa let out a rather unladylike scream, causing her to flinch away and lose her concentration. With the Divine Smite interrupted well ahead of schedule, Boxxy departed the pocket dimension post-haste. It really didn’t have much choice in the matter, either, as it surely couldn’t survive another full encore performance. It had more Rejuvenation Potions, yes, but it was already on the brink of passing out from potion sickness.

  “Reality Slash!”

  Crackling with the destructive energy from Power Overwhelming, the monster unleashed its favorite Ruin Spell. The invisible blade of force cleaved through the air with a terrifying howl as it flew towards Teresa’s thigh. However, it vanished like a fart in the wind before it could even touch her. It was briefly confused since Kora’s attacks were definitely landing. Even now she clung to the deity’s jeweled necklace with one hand while the other three viciously pounded her colossal collarbone. Boxxy needed time to figure this out, but it didn’t get the chance to do so before Teresa got serious.

  “That’s enough!”

  The Goddess was well and truly done with this farce. What should have been a simple execution of an annoying pest had suddenly turned into a mockery of both her power and her authority. Deciding it was time to put an end to this whole thing, Teresa flexed all of her divine muscles for the first time in a long while. Countless chains of shining gold erupted from the nearby clouds in response to her will. Boxxy and Kora evaded and struggled best they could, but they only lasted for a few seconds each before they were caught. The pair inevitably found themselves bound to a cloud next to each other, their bodies paralyzed by the magical restraints.

  “You’ve made a fool of me for the last time!” Teresa bellowed.

  “I wouldn’t put money on that if I were you, dearie.”

  An eloquent male voice, one undoubtedly belonging to the God of Chaos himself, echoed throughout the gilded heavens.

  “You?!” Teresa cried out, her anger laced with surprise. “What are you doing there?!”

  “Oh, you know, just thought I’d drop by and see if you wanted any cookies this fine afternoon- What the fuck do you think I’m doing here?!”

  Her eyes darted all over the gold-tinted heavens, but she couldn’t find where those words were coming from.

  “If you’ve come to save your precious box and your worthless figment, then you’re far too late!”

  “Save?! Oh-hoh-hoh-ho! My, how wrong you are! I’m not here to save anyone! Well, technically I’m not here at all, but that’s beside the point. And the point is this – the reason for this house call is that I’ve come to punish a certain uppity brat for being naughty. Want to take a guess as to who that brat is? I’ll give you a hint – it’s you.”

  “You seriously think you can just barge in here like this?! Let’s see you ‘punish’ me when I- When I-! Grrrrrnn!”

  Teresa’s face visibly strained as she attempted and failed to eject the foreign presence within her divine domain.

  “No… Why? Why can’t I force you out!?” she bellowed.

  “To put it simply, it’s because I have my foot in the door.”

  *CRRCK*

  That crashing sound drew Teresa, Boxxy, and Kora’s attention towards the red doorway opened by Voidcaller. Normally, the portal-like magic would fade immedi
ately after fulfilling its function, but that particular instance was still there. Not only that, the very air around it was cracked and distorted like broken glass. None of the three had a clue as to what Rupert was trying to do or how he was doing it, but one thing rapidly became clear – the eldest deity in existence was about to demonstrate that said title was hardly just for show.

  “Now then,” Gregory continued in a casual tone. “I would show up in person but, seeing as how one of my cute brats is already there, I don’t think that’ll actually be necessary.”

  With a terrifying howl and streaks of lime-green light pouring out of it, the door-shaped rift expanded into a ten-meter wide circle of interdimensional impossibility. A foul stream gushed forth from the tear in reality. The liquid had a glowing red color one would expect from magma, yet its consistency and texture were closer to ink. The mysterious fluid rushed through the air as if flowing through an invisible hose before it splashed against the chained-up demon.

  “Haargh! Raaaaaaaagh!”

  Kora roared and thrashed against her bindings as the strange goo seeped into her being. Her screams resonated with the dimensional wound, causing it to shudder violently. Teresa had no idea what was happening, but she knew it couldn’t be allowed to continue. She tried to stop it by launching another burst of raw godly power at the two foreign entities, but the Divine Smite curved bizarrely around the fiend and her master like a river parted by a boulder.

  *FTWOOOOM*

  A tense few moments later, both Boxxy and Teresa were thrown back by a massive shock wave that originated from Kora’s body. The monster’s shackles and the deity’s Divine Smite were forcefully dispersed in that same instant, sending the shapeshifter flying uncontrollably through the air until it landed safely on a floating red sofa. The out-of-place piece of furniture clearly wasn’t there by chance given the humanoid-shaped puff of white cloud that was sitting on the other end of it.

  “Hey, Boxxy. Long time no see,” it said with a wave.