Quoted By:
"I didn't think there'd be so many bandit chicks." You commented, looking at some of the corpses.
"I'm not shocked, guv'." Cattleya meows while wiping her claws with a towel. "There's women that think they're hot shite, 'avin a good ol' knees up, but end up just followin' someone bigger and badder until they get killed."
"There's mostly women around the planet, so, like, I guess it's natural that you'd see at least a few girl bandits." Bertha said while beside you. She showed her worth this fight, using Hammer-Bomb and Multi-Gigahammer against the enemy to great effect.
It felt like a waste to use so many hot women as cannon fodder, but these chicks were trying to kill you and your wives so you couldn't muster up sympathy.
Just as you were about to respond to Bertha and Cattleya, Mel gave another report: The bombings became too much for the bandits and they began to flee.
As soon as everyone was beginning to think this was over and a cheer was sounded, you suddenly felt an unknown mana presence. But before you could do anything an explosion could be heard from one of the stone structures.
You're not sure what it was, or how it happened, but evidence pointed to the following: One of Mel's traps—that she'd created right before you all left for Centria—seemed to have captured the other bandit beguiler, apparently the twin of the one that tried to kill you. She wiggled free from the trap with her own beguiling skills, got chased in the mansion and greenhouse by some clankers. She tried to sabotage some things, did enough to ruin some of the gourds, only to get cornered by a clank. The ensuing battle between them would remain a mystery, but one thing was certain—the clank exploded and took her down with it, if your robot's scattered pieces and the gore that remained of her body told anything.
"OH COME ON!" Herta said, beyond annoyed. You couldn't blame her, she'd worked hard on fixing the structures up. While you also felt sad about the clank, at the very least it was the only one that was destroyed.
After consoling the frustrated goddess, mostly by calling the her a sow-bitch that needed to shut up before you <span class="mu-i">made her</span> shut up, you asked if you needed to worry about the magic from the structures being unstable. She responded that if she got to work right away there'd be nothing to worry about.
Herta was interesting this way—easily swaying between wanting to do too much work or too little. You figured it was just the moodiness women get from pregnancy, at least according to what Eisho said.
You'd reunited with a very tired Mel some time earlier. On top of everything she helped you with, she'd done more; checking and double-checking the area with you to make sure no bandit-beguilers remained, disarming the traps they left, and even helping you kill a couple bandits on horseback as they were running away. She happily fell asleep after you 'cherished' her for all the effort she put in yesterday and today.
