Chapter 1 – It seems to be an Escape Through the Air »

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One might wonder what someone might have felt if they had watched the chain of incidents taking place in this part of the demon country from far away.

A demon army had been swarming towards a mid-sized city. And a wall of wind blocked that army from entering the city in question. This alone could already be labeled as weird. It was very hard to imagine that magic art practitioners, who could span a wind wall big enough to cover a whole city while also powerful enough to stop an army’s advance, existed, even if you searched the entire, huge continent. And if such a powerful caster were to exist, any country would set everything in motion to secure that person for themselves.

But, just when the watcher might have thought that the deadlock between the army trying to advance and the wind wall trying to prevent them from doing so would continue for a while, explosions and huge sword flashes would occur all of a sudden right in the midst of the demon army.

And, just as the watcher would turn their eyes towards the soldiers being blown away left and right, countless trees would suddenly cover the entire city, and as soon as the dragon, which flew into the city, stopped moving about, the entire city would start to glow in a bright white.

Contrary to the watcher’s belief that an earthquake might be going on since the ground was faintly vibrating, the whole city would begin to emit a red light and the ground’s vibrations would become more intense.

And at last, the watcher would observe the absurd spectacle of the city starting to lift off, separating itself from the ground, albeit slowly.

“It’s so much a parade of paranormal phenomenons that anyone would feel like swooning, I’m sure.”

Emil and Shion were in the middle of retreating while mowing down the soldiers crowding them. They had managed to significantly close their distance to the enemy’s headquarter, but just when they got all psyched about facing the enemy’s commander anytime soon, they noticed how the city behind them started to float up while shedding a red light. Apparently out of time, they made a full turn in a hurry, and started to fight their way back towards the city.

“If we’re left behind, we’ll be truly forced to walk back home, huh?”

“That’s not funny in the least!”

Shion’s face was filled with a considerable amount of tension when compared to Emil who looked like she was on some kind of picnic. After all, they’d be left stranded in the midst of the enemy army, if they were to miss the city’s take-off. Well, it wasn’t as though both would be completely helpless if that happened, but it wasn’t a situation they wanted to experience by choice either.

However, apparently having grasped their intent as they started to run away after turning around, the layers of soldiers trying to block Shion and Emil’s retreat accordingly thickened, forcing them to slow down considerably.

“Somehow, I feel like our journey to cross the Miasma Forest together is coming closer by the minute, partner.”

“In that case, we’re going to sprint all the way until Klinge!”

“…I’d really hate doing that.”

Seemingly imagining how the two of them were recklessly running through the wide Miasma Forest, an expression of dejection and aversion crept on Emil’s face. Considering it normally, it was next to impossible to get through the huge Miasma Forest while earnestly running all the way, but it was the abnormal part of these two women that made others think they’d somehow manage to achieve it anyway.

“Still, it doesn’t look like the enemy intends to let us get away easily.”

“Since they’ll be able to break us up if they manage to stall us here, the enemy must be serious as well, don’t you think?”

Emil could agree with the idea that the demon army would frantically try to stop them here, if they expected possible reinforcements. If one thought about the huge combat asset on the human side with the name Renya, it’d be a very reasonable approach to try lowering the combat power around him as much as possible. If they managed to keep dwindling down Renya’s friends one-by-one to isolate Renya at some point, Renya alone should run out of power sooner or later, no matter how outlandish his abilities might be.

Having thought up to this point, Emil asked Shion with little confidence as a doubt had suddenly popped up in her head, “Do you actually believe that Renya might run out of power under some circumstances?”

“No clue! If you have spare time to talk, use it to move your hands, partner!”

Even assuming that everything worked out smoothly, allowing the demons to isolate Renya, Emil still couldn’t imagine that Renya would run out of steam or get defeated. Rather than it going beyond her limit of imagination, she rejected that imagination in itself.

Deciding that there would be no point in delving any further on this if she couldn’t imagine it, Emil, who had been defeating the enemy soldiers almost unconsciously, changed her mindset and tried to open a path of retreat by defeating the soldiers in earnest, but the walls of soldiers were thick, making it unlikely for the two to be allowed returning to the city easily.

“Is it okay for me to cut them down then!?”

“You’re right…I guess there might be no other choice.” Emil reluctantly agreed with Shion who was under pressure.

The vibrations assailing the city gained in intensity, and the cracks running across the ground continued to grow in depth and width.

This would bend Emil’s own principle for the sake of not missing their ticket out of here, but the situation had developed up to a point where she apparently had no other choice but to fight with the intention to kill and allow Shion to use the blade’s sharp edge.

“I’m not all that happy about it, but we cannot afford to end up stuck in this place either.”

“If you don’t want to do it, leave it to me! I’ll open a path out of here!”

“Both of you, cling to the ground so you don’t get blown away ~no.”

Just when Emil had resolved herself and Shion was about to flip her katana around, they heard a voice from above. Without even time for doubting, Shion stabbed her katana deep into the ground to use it as a brace, and Emil tightly clung to Shion’s waist.

At almost the same time, the wind wall lost its shape in an instant, and the wind, which had formed the wall, washed across the battlefield like a raging flood.

“Wai-!? Uwaah! Uwah uwaaah!?”

“Isn’t this a bit…too tough!?”

While screaming in panic, Shion tightly gripped the hilt of her katans with both hands while genuflecting. She tried to somehow weather through the wind pressure. Probably because Emil, who was stuck to Shion’s waist, didn’t weigh much, she could hold on with just the power of her arms. Still, her body was trifled with by the wind like a flag fluttering in a storm.

Seeing how Shion and Emil were in such a state despite having prepared in advance, it was pretty clear that the soldiers of the demon army, who hadn’t prepared at all, would be helpless. Being pushed down by the wind pressure, they rolled across the ground unable to resist in any way. Blending with clouds of dirt and other stuff, they were swept away by the wind.

Possessing the eye strength of demons, Emil saw in the far distance how a person in a black dress took on the full brunt of the wind – probably because of her clothes’ big surface area – and was blown away even more spectacularly than the other soldiers, causing Emil to rejoice in her mind while sticking her tongue out.

“Wait a sec!? What’s this!? What’s going on here!?”

“The wind wall was released and turned into a squall…in quite an ingenious way at that.” While still looking quite pathetic herself, Emil answered Shion who desperately endured without understanding the circumstances.

You could say that the person, who triggered this situation, had changed the wind direction of the wind wall which Renya had set to blow upwards, but the ability to undo the formula of the spell Renya had cast with his huge mana and to rearrange it into another spell was a feat impossible to achieve even with the skills of a top-notch magician, Emil deducted.

“Who has done something like this!?”

“Well…there’s only one person who’d be able to process Renya’s magic in such a way, isn’t there?” While answering, Emil looked up to the sky.

Feeling how Emil’s gaze shifted upwards and getting drawn in by it, Shion also looked up to the sky, just to find a figure in an apron dress floating down in an extremely relaxed manner in defiance of the wind force around her.

“Frau!?”

“Shion-ane-sama, Emil-ane-sama, I’ve come to pick you up ~no.”

Buoyantly floating down, Frau quietly landed on Emil’s back after worrying for a short moment where she should get down.

“Ooohhhh!?” Emil screamed awkwardly due to the unexpected weight pressing down on her back, but Frau didn’t seem to care about that at all.

Without knowing what to say about this, Shion removed her left hand from her katana’s hilt, grabbed Emil’s nape, and pulled her back so that she wouldn’t get blown away.

“You two are late ~no. The city is about to fly off ~no!”

“Ah, yeah, sorry, Frau. We did our best, but our strength was lacking.”

“Frau came here because she couldn’t wait any longer ~no. Anyway, we’re going back to the city now ~no.”

“Sure. But before that, could you get off Emil’s back?”

The surrounding wind had started to lose power, albeit little-by-little. Emil somehow managed to fix her posture, placing her feet on the ground, but since her arms were still slung around Shion’s waist, both of them looked as if they were doing a pair performance on the horse as gymnasts. Frau was still on Emil’s back, but being asked by Shion, Frau looked down at her feet and pondered about something, but after widening her feet as they trampled down on Emil’s back, she dropped down butt-first, shifting to a posture as if straddling Emil.

“Okay ~nano.”

“…I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but it sure looks like you’ve no intention to get off from there.”

“Partner…we don’t have any time for this. Let’s just move on like this.” Emil said with Frau on her back.

Emil saying something like that as someone who had a deeper and far longer relationship with Frau than Shion meant that it’d likely be impossible to convince Frau to get off Emil at present. Having perceived as much, Shion stood up within the continuously weakening wind with Emil still clinging to her waist, pulled the katana out of the ground, and slowly started to run towards the city while paying attention to not lose Emil.

“Frau, could you please give it a rest with the heels…?”

“Run as quickly as possible ~no. There’s no time left ~no.”

With Frau acting as if she was spurring on Emil to raise the speed like a rider would urge its horse, Shion sheathed her katana, thinking that it’d increase the speed a bit. While holding onto Emil’s arms, Shion attempted to increase her running speed.

◇◆◇

Around that time, Renya noticed a change happening to a part of his body while receiving healing through Rona’s divine arts as he lay on the plaza with a languid body due to having run out of mana.

Rona apparently noticed that change as well. She looked at Renya fiddling around with that part as if watching something mysterious.

That change was a part of Renya’s black hair losing its color and turning into a slightly shiny silver. Having noticed this happening for the first time, Renya thought that his hair might turn gray because of his body weakening from an overuse of mana, but considering it was supposed to be gray hair, it was a bit too glossy. Moreover, since it looked as though it was faintly glittering as well, he looked at Rona to ask for her opinion. As a result, both agreed to call it silver hair.

Renya played around with the part of his bangs which had transformed as if a streak had been added to his hair, but eventually he lowered his hand, apparently having lost interest.

“Is it a side effect from using too much mana?” Going by the lack of confidence in the way Rona asked this, it was plain obvious that she said this even while knowing that her words held no credibility.

“I wouldn’t know. There’s no corresponding information about this within the draconic magic knowledge.”

“Do you feel any abnormalities in your body?”

“It feels sluggish and doesn’t want to move, but…it’s not to the extent that I’d call it a bad condition.”

Even Renya understood the reason for this reaction of his body. It was because the mana, which usually filled Renya’s body, had completely run out. Renya’s mana, which had dried out to start the magic crest for making the city fly to such an extent that it started to squeeze out some weird power, had slowly begun to recover now that the mana consumption had dropped down to only maintaining the magic crest.

However, with him still spending mana, his mana couldn’t quickly recover, and moreover, because he had expended it to the point of hitting rock bottom this time, Renya’s body suffered from a worsened physical condition because of mana shortage.

“It’s not to the degree that I can’t move if I force it, and it’s not a situation where I can take a nap either. I’ll try asking Kilie about my hair once we get back to Klinge. She’s a knowledgeable peddler, and thus might have encountered similar cases.”

“Kilie…-san?”

Apparently having pondered and guessed various things based on her position as clergy, and furthermore saintess, Rona looked as if she wanted to say something, but Renya slowly sat up on the stone paving, turned towards Rona, and placed his index finger in front of his lips.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but it’s better to not voice it out. Not to mention when it comes to a topic the person herself doesn’t want to be touched upon.”

“Haah…is that how it is?”

“I think she’ll tell you if she wants to do so. As for me, I don’t give a damn whether a halo floats about her head or wings grow out of her back. Rather than that…” Renya stood up slowly.

Thanks to Rona’s healing and his own regenerative powers, his condition had drastically improved, although he still felt slightly giddy. But at least he could stand on his own without requiring any help.

“Pursuers might come after us and they might have repaired the barrier we destroyed when entering this country. It should be fine as long as it floats, but we need to make sure to not destroy anything when landing. In the first place, it’s questionable where we should land this thing. There’s many things to do and consider, so it’s not the time to take a rest.”

Given that Renya had received a report from Frau through their telepathy that she had succeeded in picking up Emil and Shion, he didn’t need to worry about that side, but he still had a lot of explanations to the citizens, soldiers, and Jade ahead of him, and discuss with the others what to do from now on. But, at present, all of this had the precondition of them safely leaving the sphere of the demons’ influence.

“Now then, I wonder whether they’re going to let us leave just like this.”

While thinking that he’d launch another attack if he were one of the pursuers, Renya took the worried Rona with him and started to walk towards the place where he suspected Jade to be in order to report the current situation and discuss the future with him as the highest authority in this city.

◇◆

A mountain, after having turned upside-down, was flying wasn’t the right way to express it, but at the same time it was true, making it a contradictory statement. The current condition of the city where Renya’s party was at right now was just like that, despite it making no sense as a description.

That huge mass of the city’s foundation, which had been ripped out of the ground, was flying through the air as if a crooked cone had been inverted, and although it wasn’t a mountain to begin with, it now looked like an upside-down mountain.

“This gotta be a sight I wanna look at from the surface by all means.” Emil uttered her impression, gained from the scenery she could see through the window in a room of Jade’s mansion.

No doubt, a huge flying mass similar to a mountain hovering in the sky was a spectacle Renya wouldn’t have been able to see in his former world either.

No matter much this is a fantasy world, this must be quite a rare sight. If I should get an opportunity, I’d love to try taking a look at it from outside the city, Renya wished, but with him being the one flying it, and since it’d be impossible to maintain the effect of the magic crest outside the crest, the city would simply plummet to the ground if Renya were to leave the city. And, as long as no other person capable of letting such a huge object besides Renya existed in this world, making his wish come true was naught but a pipe dream.

“Emil-ane-sama, are you going to leave the city ~no?” Frau asked as she looked up to Emil while clinging to Renya’s waist.

After Frau brought back Shion and Emil, she had been clinging to Renya, whose physical condition was anything but perfect due to his mana shortage, not even attempting to separate from him. Seeing how she normally received her mana supply from Renya, Frau had tried to return some of the mana she had stored in great quantities in her own body, but Renya had turned down her offer.

The reason lay in his skill <Limitless Growth>. The aggregate amount of Renya’s mana, which got overused to the extent of running out, was slowly recovering currently as he was continuing to fly the city, but he still kept consuming a considerable amount of mana. Because of this, Renya’s total amount of mana had been growing without an end in sight. And this was still continuing at present.

As far as Renya could perceive, the gap between his total mana and Frau’s had drastically widened, and thus, even if he allowed her to return the mana she had stored in her body and magic stones, he believed that she wouldn’t be able to fill up his mana completely. Besides, Renya’s shortage of mana only caused his physical condition to be bad, and although everyone tended to forget it, Frau originally was a fairy, which meant that her very existence would very likely vanish if she ran out of mana.

As such Renya believed that he shouldn’t unnecessarily put Frau at risk since he just had to endure for the time of the city’s flight, but from Frau’s point of view, this was extremely dissatisfying. On top of Renya having been forced to try all kinds of tricks just to get her to agree, he also had to put up with her remaining stuck to him.

“Yeah. I mean, it’s a sight you won’t be able to see often if at all, right?”

“Emil-ane-sama, you’re going to leave the city even though master’s health took a hit from a lack of mana ~no?”

“Ugh…”

“You’re saying you’re going to satisfy your curiosity and admire this work from outside, although master is afflicted by this state because he’s continuing to fly this city ~no?”

“Eh? No, that’s…umm…”

Frau expressionlessly kept questioning Emil, who started to become flustered with a faint sheen of sweat forming on her forehead, obviously cornering her mercilessly. With a wry smile, Renya helped out Emil who was getting pounced without a chance to object, seemingly feeling somewhat guilty.

While stroking Frau’s head, he said, “Don’t be so hard on her. It’s inevitable for her to be led by her curiosity, you know?”

“But…”

“Rather than something like this…”

Renya surveyed the room he was currently in by making a full turn. The others of Renya’s party, and Jade had also assembled in this room, all of them waiting while sitting on chairs or leaning against walls, basically doing what they wanted.

“It’s more important to talk about what we’re going to do from now on, correct?”

“From now on means you have some idea?” Jade got the ball rolling.

The fact that Jade had joined their conversation without bringing guards with him could be taken as proof of his trust in Renya’s party, but him leaving the guards away was also founded on his understanding that they wouldn’t actually be of any use whatsoever when taking on Renya. Jade himself seemed to be considerably strong as a demon, but he fell somewhat short when compared to Emil. Hence, even if soldiers, who were much weaker than Jade, were present here, it’d be obviously pointless. Making the judgment that it’d be a waste to just bring them along for the sake of it, Jade sent all his soldiers to the residents.

“Let me first thank you for having saved my people. Moreover, I know it’s pathetic to say something like this as the one being rescued, but I don’t have any plan on how to proceed. Thus I shall abide by your idea, Renya-dono.”

“Being honest is best.”

Having been thrust upon the mighty feat of letting an entire city fly through the air, it was impossible for Jade to speak up in front of the man responsible for this feat, no matter how superior demons were regarded when compared to humans. Even if he had that official stance in front of his subordinates, Jade had no need to to force himself to act condescending towards Renya’s group anymore since even his subordinates were already in the process of accepting Renya’s party as people outside any norm.

Besides, even going by the written notes during their first meeting, Jade was a man knowing etiquette, so he wouldn’t take a pointlessly arrogant attitude if not necessary.

“First I’ll bring down this city close to Klinge. I’m still in the middle of thinking how to do that, but I doubt there’s any other place where we could lower the city.”

“Well, that makes sense.” Az agreed with Renya’s idea.

As Liaris and Az could be reasonably counted as being on ordinary-person-level among the people present in this room right now, you could call their opinion as precious and common in a certain way. However, those two were dragoon on the one hand, and high-ranking magician on the other. They were people where it’d be somewhat doubtful whether you could really describe them as ordinary people, but it should pose no problem to categorize them like that for the time being.

“No matter how much you might claim that they’re running away, it won’t be that easy to avoid confusion if this many demons enter an area under human control all of a sudden. In this regard, Klinge is an abnormality.”

“How rude…”

There was no way for Renya to be alright with the city under his rule to be called abnormal. But, given that Renya also understood that this was the truth, he didn’t plan on filing any further objections.

“I think the citizens of Klinge will be startled as well, though?”

“…Shion, things finishing with them just being startled would already fulfill the condition of being abnormal…” Rona immediately shot down Shion’s comment which was apparently made with the intent to throw a lifeline.

Shion agreeing there while laughing couldn’t be seen as anything but delivering the finishing blow against Renya, rather than trying to help him out.

While persuading himself that she very likely didn’t mean any harm, Renya said to Jade, “We’ll somehow manage things so that the people of Klinge don’t panic. We have no choice but to leave the demon’s side to you.”

“Please trust me on this. On my name as Jade Rajah I promise you that I shall do my utmost so that my people cause no problems.”

“But, if the information about you sheltering demons spreads, it’s possible that some political powers will claim that you’ve switched sides, Renya.” Croire uttered a bad prediction.

While twisting the corners of his mouth, Renya confronted Croire with a question even he himself considered to be deliberately mean.

“Is it fine for me to understand it as the elves being included in this assessment as well?”

“…I don’t know what my father is going to think about this.”

Although Croire was part of Renya’s party, she currently held the right to succeed the crown, and although she was quite far back in the succession line, she also had her duties as part of the imperial family. No matter how the current emperor decided, it’d normally obligate her to follow that decision. That alone made the question right now nasty.

For this reason Renya had asked while anticipating that she might dodge a clear answer, but Crioire’s next words were clear and straightforward.

“However, I think the day the elves decide to harm Klinge, your territory, will be the day of my father’s death.”

For an instant, no one in the room understood what Croire meant, and they all looked at her with puzzled looks. But then almost all of them simultaneously comprehended the meaning behind her words.

“…Coup d’etat…”

When Liaris unintentionally muttered this, Croire faced her with a smile that seemed to sparkle. As Liaris took a step back since she didn’t understand why Croire would smile there, Croire answered her as if she was talking about today’s weather, “Don’t worry, it’s not that much work. It’ll immediately be over after I just have the forty members of the imperial family die.”

“You’ve got quite a few members in your family…”

Wondering what she should answer, Liaris first began with some inoffensive, small talk in response to Croire’s extremely dangerous statement, but was hurriedly hidden by Az stepping in front of her.

“Well, no need to worry about the elves since we’re talking about that emperor here. The humans and beastmen are somewhat worrisome. As for the dragonoids, it’ll definitely earn us their animosity.”

Considering the reaction of Albert, the dragonoid hero, before they left to rescue Emil, Renya thought that he’d very likely get vehemently criticized by the dragonoids for having rescued demons. It wasn’t as though he couldn’t understand their feelings, seeing how they had suffered the most from the demons with their land being devastated and their people being murdered, and since it wasn’t anything where you could say let bygones be bygones, it was an issue that caused quite a bit of a headache even for Renya.

However, Renya decided to shelve this problem and forget about it for the moment. On top of having no great idea how to resolve it, it was meaningless to ponder about it now. This approach stemmed from him believing that he’d just lose himself in endless worrying over a problem with no solution, if he didn’t tackle it with the hope that it’d work out one way or the other, even though it was an irresponsible and haphazard approach.

“Mayria and I will persuade mother for the human side.”

“At present our Trident Principality is the strongest power among the humans, so we should be able to avoid chaos, even if only on the surface, as long as we manage to get Her Majesty’s approval.”

“There’s no other choice but to leave the beastmen to Kaede and Lepard, but…I suppose I’ll have no choice but to deal with personally in the worst case.”

The beastmen tended to place more importance on physical strength than logic. Renya believed that it’d be fine if he could persuade them through reasoning and their hero’s support, but if that didn’t work out, it’s be necessary for him to head out and give them a good beating, if there were complaints.

Recalling the beastmen’s situation who had remained silent for a fairly long time now, and wondering whom he should use as contact person in such a case, Renya speculated that it’d be probably alright to go with the queen called Lobelia.

“Anyway, all of this only matters if we manage to get back home safely, though.”

“You’re saying there will be further problems?”

Shion asked while pondering, but even after considering whether there might be some issue until they’d reach Klinge, she couldn’t come up with any specific threat. Even though there was the option of a pursuit by the demon king’s army, she had trouble imagining that the demon king’s side, who had only deployed ground forces, had troops at hand who would be able to follow a flying city. If they had such forces, they should have sent them out when attacking Jade’s city. It might have allowed the demon king’s army to annihilate Jade and his men before the arrival of Renya’s party by pressuring them on the surface and from the sky.

Even at the time when they allowed Dra-kun to trespass into the city and let Shion and Emil cut into the demon king’s army, there was absolutely no assistance by airborne units, so Shion found it hard to believe that the army had such forces available.

“Assuming I was the demon king…”

“……”

For some reason everyone froze on the spot upon Renya’s words, voiced out with the intent of being hypothetical. Even Frau, who was still clinging to the waist, was the same.

Renya wondered whether he might have added anything so shocking to the remark he made just now.

“It’s just figurative speech, okay?”

“Y-Yeah…that’s right, isn’t it? It’s just figurative speech, yep.” Shion, who addressed Renya with everyone else except for Jade trying to not meet Renya’s eyes, answered while repeatedly nodding as if confirming something in great haste.

“I’m pretty sure it’d work even if you left the hypothetical part away…”

“Emil, Renya will be able to hear you.”

Croire and Emil were whispering amongst each other, but their voices were clearly audible to Renya. Even he didn’t know whether the two really believed that he wouldn’t be able to hear their whispers or whether they deliberately allowed him to hear their words, but it was wholly unexpected that he didn’t feel uncomfortable about being called demon king.

After clearing his throat unnaturally, Croire and Emil quickly shut up.

“Anyway, if I consider things from the standpoint of the demon king’s side, I wouldn’t have any intention to let us get away just like that, even if I wouldn’t be able to have the army pursuit. They should definitely stand in our way through some kind of method.”

“But, a pursuit by the army is impossible. Even combat forces like the evil dragons who appeared a while ago would lack firepower when faced with the mass of an entire city, don’t you think?”

Shion’s view was very reasonable. If they sent out evil dragons like the ones Renya’s party fought before, they might be able to cause some level of damage, but they wouldn’t have enough power to block the path of a flying city. Moreover, right now a huge wall of plants, overgrown to the extent that it’d be impossible for Dra-kun to get out of the city without getting stuck, covered Jade’s city.

Renya answered Shion’s doubt whether the demon king’s side would deliberately dispatch airborne forces like dragons to deliver damage that could be at most counted as harassment.

“There’s a method to stop our advance reliably even without sending out any dragons.”

“What would that be…?”

“The barrier. They just need to redeploy the barrier we destroyed when entering, matching it with the city’s progress. Or, if they’ve already fixed it, this city is going to smash into it as long as we don’t tear the barrier open again.”

Even if they couldn’t deploy a barrier covering the entirety of the demon territory, placing a barrier in the city would become plenty of a snare. In such a case, the demon king’s side would lure them in until the last moment before making it appear so that they wouldn’t be able to avoid it, or it’d also be fine to have the wall appear along the city’s flight path to make it collide with the city.

If they were able to accomplish this, the demon king’s side would be able to stop or bring down Renya’s side even without starting any pursuits.

“We might be able to take down the barrier if they put up the same one they used before, but…do you think the demon king is that much of a fool?”

The barrier’s strength might increase if its size got lowered. And even if not, it was quite imaginable that the demon king would set up some countermeasures so that it wouldn’t be destroyed this time.

It was a fact that they were able to take down that barrier without Renya’s help when they entered the demon country. But this time they would need to pass through a barrier, which would be very likely different from the previous, without the guarantee called Renya.

“Renya, how long do you think we’ll need until we reach the place where the barrier is going to appear?”

“Ultimately it’s just my guess, but we should have something around a full day, I think. We’re flying slowly when compared to a dragon, but even so, we’re heading straight for human territory.”

“Got it. Renya, you keep up the magic crest. We’ll come up with an idea how to pass through, okay?” Shion looked around her.

Everyone deeply nodded at her words.

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