Chapter 5 – It Seems to Be the Beginning of the Rescue

 

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Around that time, a hopeless battle had unfolded inside the fortress.

“Shit! Those guys are on the way!”

“Defend! Hold them back at any cost!”

The fortress’ main gate had already been breached, and the battle had proceeded into the courtyard. The sturdy gate, which had been made out of thick wood and got reinforced with iron, wasn’t anything that would be smashed apart so easily, even with a battering ram, but no sooner than the demons pointed some cylindrical tube – which the dragonoids couldn’t identify at all – and shot something out of the tube’s end, the gate was blown apart with a loud explosion alongside the stone wall around it.

Moreover, the approaching enemy army certainly possessed weapons such as swords and spears which you’d be able to find in any normal battle, but in addition, the enemy soldiers were carrying some small pipes. As soon as sparks scattered from the ends of those pipes alongside consecutive bangs, the soldiers, which were targeted by those pipes, became full of holes and died on the spot.

At this point, it had become a tragedy for the dragonoids who didn’t know about the weapons of Renya’s former world. If Renya had been present, he’d have immediately grasped that a rocket launcher had destroyed the gate and that the enemy soldiers were carrying assault rifles. Moreover, he would have been capable of warning the dragonoids of the danger of those weapons.

However, the dragonoids, who knew nothing of those weapons, were forced into a battle against the demon king’s army while not comprehending why their comrades fell like flies or what caused all the explosions.

“Don’t ease up on the defensive magic! We don’t know what it is, but it’s evident that we’re being attacked!”

Dragonoids had a lot of mana and a high skill at handling magic when compared to humans. Because of that alone, they were able to use defense magic while fighting. If it came to small arms that could be carried by individuals, the dragonoids were able to block the bullets more or less.

Still, that also had its limits. The dragonoids could certainly repel a few dozen bullets that were spat out on full-automatic with their defense barriers, causing the bullets to ricochet against the ground or nearby walls, but if they were showered by hundreds of such bullets on end, their defense barriers wouldn’t be able to endure the burden, and shatter eventually. And the weapons of the enemies mercilessly basked the dragonoids with continuous attacks as if never running out of bullets.

What made the situation even worse for the dragonoids was the circumstance of those small arms being handled by enemy soldiers which were already dead. Those dead soldiers were manipulated by some sort of power, and as such they continued to indifferently advance without fearing battle or getting excited over combat while facing the dragonoids with faces completely devoid of any emotions. No matter whether the dragonoids’ attacks tore up their stomachs or plucked off their arms, those lifeless bodies trudged onwards while dragging their entrails and dripping blood. Without welcoming death. Without agonizing in pain.

“What the fuck are these things!? Their injuries should be fatal, no matter how you look at them!!”

“Idiot! Don’t stop!”

The sword blade cracked open the head of an enemy soldier as it slammed down. And yet the enemy soldier didn’t stop even as brain matter escaped the broken skull. Seeing that, a dragonoid stood stock still in panic. Another dragonoid reprimanded him for that, but it was already too late. The frozen dragonoid was grabbed by the enemy soldier whose head he had split open just moments ago, and got pushed down on the spot.

Once that happened, it became impossible for the living to escape the hands of the dead. One dead after the other swarmed towards the dragonoid who was struggling in an attempt to escape from underneath the dead on top of him. But, his body was pinned down, despite him using all his physical strength, getting crushed by their weight. The dead used their nails and teeth to tear out flesh and skin while breaking his bones.

None of his allies tried to save him as he screamed in death agony. After all, they too had their hands full with just trying to stay alive. However, in a situation where they got attacked by unknown weapons from a distance and crushed by the sheer numbers of undying opponents as soon as they allowed themselves to be caught in close combat, not a single of them had an idea what they could do to break through this predicament.

Among them, only one dragonoid fought while overwhelming the enemy soldiers.

“Don’t falter! We must protect this fortress at any cost!”

The things flying at him from a distance were repelled by a mighty barrier which was backed by his overwhelming mana while he sent the heads of approaching enemy soldiers flying with a single stroke of his sword. The one shouting at his comrades while slicing apart the limbs of a dead, who was trying to grab him despite having lost its head, was no one other than Albert, the one chosen as dragonoid hero.

He wore his usual, casual dressing that allowed him to move nimbly while only being reinforced with leather padding at his vital spots, but his body was sullied with blood, very likely that of his enemies. Then again, it didn’t look like he had remained completely unhurt either, with him being injured at various places. Yet, his presence boosted the morale of the dragonoid soldiers, causing them to persist.

“That’s right! Hero-dono is still with us!”

“Show them the backbone of us dragonoids! We won’t allow the likes of demon king underlings to do with us as they please!”

If the enemy didn’t fall from a single fatal strike, they would just need to chop the enemies apart until they couldn’t move any longer. If they couldn’t block the enemy attacks with a single defensive barrier, they would still be blockable if they piled up several defensive barriers on top of each other.

The dragonoids, who rallied their momentum alongside their morale, succeeded in somehow pushing back the enemy army that had been surging into the fortress’s courtyard.

However, that was no more than a temporary achievement.

By continuing to fight, the surviving dragonoids kept accumulating fatigue, but the ones opposing them on the demon king army’s side were already dead, and the dead didn’t know any fatigue. And another element causing the dragonoids trouble was wafting across the battlefield.

“Bring everything that could serve as a shield! Build barricades! Additional enemy soldiers are going to arrive very soon!”

“Fuck…what the hell’s this stench…? I can’t concentrate as I want to. Just what the fuck are these guys using…!?”

They swiftly assembled barricades at the entrance to the courtyard with the tables and shelves they had gathered from within the fortress before the enemies, which they managed to push back for the moment, would launch another attack, but some of the dragonoid soldiers started to complain about stomach pain or intense headaches with their faces ghastly pale.

The cause behind this was some kind of scent they were able to sense during the battle. The dragonoids, who had no choice but to keep fighting while not understanding the reason for their ailing, were unable to make full use of their usual strength, making the whole battle even more difficult for them despite them being already in a position of having much less soldiers than the enemy.

“Albert-dono! Please use this short break in battle and escape while taking just the shrine princess with you!” An elderly soldier among the dragonoids – probably one with a fairly high standing – told Albert while approaching him as the hero was wiping the blood and gore off his sword. “As reinforcements won’t arrive, it’s only a matter of time until this place falls. But, no matter what happens, we must allow you, the hero who should fight against the demon king, and the shrine princess, who selected you as a hero, to escape!”

“I…I cannot call myself a hero any longer. I lost my qualification as a hero the moment when I ran away from Earl Kunugi’s place, which managed all heroes.”

“But, that’s just because that human earl was supporting the likes of a demon…”

Albert stopped the soldier, who tried to argue vehemently, by quietly shaking his head, “I’m sure that he must have had a reason for that as well. However, without even trying to understand that reason while only reproaching him for allying with demons, I chose a path different from theirs. How could I call myself a hero now after all this!?”

“Albert-dono…”

“But, I shall do as you said, Milord. Even if it’s just Shrine Princess-sama, we must allow her to escape this place. Now that the Witenagemot is gone, that lady is the only one who can bring the dragonoids together. Therefore, I’d like you, Milord, to take the shrine princess and run away from here.”

“Albert-dono!?” The soldier cried out, being completely flabbergasted due to the sudden request.

But, Albert continued with his face overflowing with firm resolve, “It’s necessary for someone to buy enough time so you and the princess can get away, correct? That duty is most appropriate for me. Even though I may look like this, I’m someone who was once called a hero. Please watch me buy you enough time to escape, even if I have to use up all of my soul for it.”

“But, Albert-dono! In that case, you should entrust that duty to us! Albert-dono, you might be the only one able to get through the Miasma Forest and request help from another race while guarding the princess. Us making it through that forest alive is close to impossible. Hence, it should be us who remain in this place to stall for time.”

“I said it before, but I’ve already parted with that earl. I can’t believe that any of the other races would lend me an ear at this point, even if I begged them for help. Therefore, it ought to be my duty to stay back in this place.”

“Please wait!”

It was the voice of a girl that interrupted the heated argument of the two men. Once the two looked in the direction of the voice, they spotted a girl with her long, black hair being tied up while wearing an attire formed by multiple layers of silk.

“I shan’t escape from this place!”

“Shrine Princess-sama!?” The soldier yelled in surprise.

“Shrine Princess…no, Charlotte-sama…” Albert faltered.

While walking up to those two, Charlotte further added, “I chose you, Albert-sama, as hero after hearing god’s voice, so it’s my duty to bear that responsibility. Do you think I would be able to escape by myself while being told that you will remain behind, Albert-sama?”

“But, Charlotte-sama, if we lose you now, any paths other than the doom of the dragonoids as a race will be…”

“Then escape together with me, Albert-sama.”

Having this bluntly thrown at him, Albert couldn’t find any words to talk back. The only two choices available to him were to say yes or no. But, no matter which he chose, neither would open up a path to the future for him. If he answered with yes, Albert’s strength might certainly be enough to allow to get through the Miasma Forest while protecting Charlotte, but after having chosen a path different from that earl who possessed a big influence among humans, elves, and possibly beastmen, Albert would have no place where he could go to ask for help. But, if he answered no, Charlotte wouldn’t escape this fortress, and the only future awaiting him and everyone else was to die fighting here.

 

————– End of Part 1 ————–

 

Albert considered whether he should force his hands here, and make Charlotte faint in order to have her carried away from this place by soldiers, but if she were to kill herself after having done something like that to her, it would lead to the same outcome in the end. As such, Albert couldn’t find an answer as to what he should do in this situation.

 

“Or something along those lines?”

“Don’t make up some horseplay.”

“…Horseplay? Or rather, how come you can look inside that fortress, Kilie?”

As Rubydra was drawing big circles high up in the sky above the fortress, Kilie had relayed the conversation between the hero, the shrine princess, and the soldiers which had taken place just moments ago while shading her eyes as she stared down at the fortress. It earned her a biting comment from Renya and caused Shion to tilt her head in confusion.

Although the fortress was in the center of her circling, Rubydra was actually drawing a very huge circle in the sky, and thus the dragonoids inside the fortress apparently hadn’t noticed her presence yet. Rubydra shouldn’t be exactly silent during her flight either, or rather, she was pretty loud, but the dragonoids already had their hands full with themselves and thus couldn’t pay any attention to other things, Renya suspected.

“That’s a girl’s secret.”

“…Kilie, you’re at an age where you’d still be called a girl?”

“Women are always girls. You understand what I mean, don’t you Shion-san?”

“Not quite…but if it’s a girl’s secret, it can’t be helped.”

While watching Kilie and Shion having such completely tension-less talk, Renya pondered how they should tackle this situation. In the first place, Albert seemed to believe that he had no place to go to even if escaped this place since he tread a path different from Renya, but in Renya’s eyes, Albert was overestimating himself way too much. Renya had supported the demons for the sake of saving Emil, but it wasn’t as though he couldn’t understand Albert’s feelings who considered it preposterous to save demons. Naturally, Renya hadn’t told the elves or beastmen anything about not accepting Albert if he were to ask for their help. Nor was he able to do so to begin with.

In other words, the best option would be for Albert and the woman called Charlotte, who seemed to be a shrine princess, to escape this place hand-in-hand, but going by the situation inside the fortress, as far as Kilie had passed it on, it seemed extremely unlikely for Albert to notice that and choose that option.

“I have several options I can take here.”

“What kind of?”

Leaving the matter with Kilie’s girly secret alone, Shion lent an ear to Renya’s words. Renya first raised an index finger in front of her.

“First, I can gallantly enter the battlefield as reinforcement, and save the dragonoids.”

“That sounds like a faultless option.”

It’s an alternative where no one will be unhappy, Shion assessed.

“Second, I could watch the course of events, and choose the best timing to make my entrance.”

“You’re going to wait until there will be a scene fit for a dramatic entry? I won’t say that’s a bad move, but I don’t really feel like supporting it either.”

It might lead to an increase in the debts the dragonoids would owe him after everything ended, but choosing the ideal timing to make an appearance on the stage while not saving the people who could be saved wasn’t anything Shion wanted to approve of.

“Third, I can watch from up here like this until everything has ended down there.”

“That’s…you mean because your ultimate goal is securing Albert? As in, all will be fine now that you know where to find him as long as you can recover Albert, dead or alive? That’s a bit…”

Basically it meant, it’d be fine if the dragonoids could save themselves out of their own power, but even if not, Renya would be able to secure Albert’s body right away after the rest got annihilated. Naturally, Shion didn’t feel overly pleased with that option.

“Fourth, we wrap up everything with our powers. With Rubydra’s and my firepower, things will be over in no time.”

“That’s…umm…what exactly do you mean? …Does that possibly mean you’re going to burn the entire region around here to cinders? If you do that, the demon king’s army will be annihilated, and Albert will die as well. Sure, since his body will be reduced to ashes, it will be impossible to reuse his abilities. But, isn’t that somewhat too cruel!?” Shion appealed, wanting to stop Renya if possible at all.

After pondering for a short while, Renya suddenly placed a hand on Shion’s head and started to slowly stroke it.

“Renya?”

“For you to have reached a level where you understand what I want to say, albeit vaguely…you sure have grown, Shion.”

“I think you probably intended to say that as a praise, but to be honest, I can’t really feel happy about it…” Shion muttered with an indescribably miserable expression.

While continuing to stroke her head, Renya wondered whether he’d said something bad. And while watching those two, Kilie sighed deeply as if realizing that this was a lost cause. At the same time, Rubydra wondered whether they couldn’t hurry up with their decision on how they’d act, but realized that it’d likely take a while longer and continued to circle above the fortress, not knowing how many rounds she’d need to make.

 

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It wasn’t just soldiers who were cooped up in the fortress. Citizens incapable of fighting, the elderly, and children had also taken refuge deep inside the fortress. However, the demon king’s army wasn’t as merciful as to make a distinction between them and the soldiers.

Moreover, it was exceedingly logical for the soldiers of the demon king’s army, who had plenty of means to easily scale the fortress’s walls despite all efforts of the defenders inside the fortress’s courtyard, to not limit their attacks to just the front.

“Those brutes have shown up. Take the children deeper into the fortress.”

“We’ll stop them here. As long as we can buy some time, hero-sama will come to help us.”

Although you might describe them as elderly, the abilities of dragonoids were far above those of other races. Many dragonoids blocked the way by taking on the enemy soldiers, which had intruded into the fortress after destroying a part of the fortress’s wall, trying to somehow stop their advance, but it wasn’t as if those dragonoids had gone through military drills like soldiers. On top of that, their movements were slow since their abilities had clearly deteriorated from age. In exchange for a few losses among the demon king’s troops, many elderly dragonoids had their lives ruthlessly stolen.

Speaking of a battle to stall for time might sound nice, but in reality, the dragonoids were in a situation where everyone could tell that they were gradually getting cornered inside the fortress as time passed, soon losing all possibilities to escape this place.

Among those dragonoids, who kept fleeing deeper and deeper into the fortress, a single, young girl stopped her feet. Seemingly having resigned herself to the fact that they wouldn’t be able to get away much longer, all light was gone from her eyes as knelt down on the spot while vacantly staring at the demon king’s soldiers slowly creeping closer with their iron weapons at the ready.

No one tried to save her. The others suspected that her heart might have broken and believed that it might be better for her to be finished off now and here rather than pointlessly investing effort into trying to rescue her.

Of course, such circumstances didn’t matter to the soldiers who were chasing after them. They simply thrust their weapons at the girl who stood in their way as an enemy.

The girl looked up to the face of a soldier pointing his weapon at her. His face was blank, not showing a shred of anything that could be described as an expression.

If the weapon in his hand blew its fire, the girl’s body wouldn’t be able to endure its firepower and most likely crumble on the spot like some tattered piece of rags.

“Dear…God…”

As if seeing no value in considering what the girl’s eyes saw and what her mind was thinking for her to mutter something like that, the soldier put strength into the finger resting on the trigger.

However, in that instant, the soldier’s right arm soundlessly dropped from its shoulder to the ground. After taking a vacant look at the wound that didn’t spout much blood, probably because he’d been dead to begin with, the soldier tried to turn around. But, someone’s foot slammed with a ridiculous speed against his flank, crushing his entrails and easily shattering his spine. In the next instant the soldier’s body was blown away sideways.

The force behind that blow was so strong that the soldier’s body crashed against the fortress’s wall without bouncing on the ground even once, turning into a single, big, red stain as his body hadn’t been able to endure the impact of its contact with the wall.

Without sparing the fate of the soldier even a single glance, a young man sheathed his sword after swinging the blade, which didn’t have any blood on it, once. Instead, he looked down at the dragonoid girl, who had light return into her eyes, probably because she got so startled by what happened in front of her, with an expression as if he hadn’t even registered that he pulverized an enemy soldier just moments ago.

“God…?”

“Unfortunately, I’ve never experienced anything like wings growing out of my back. With god you mean that, right?”

Once the girl lifted her face even further, following with her eyes where the youth was pointing, she noticed that the ceiling, which ought to be there, was gone.

 

 

 

 

In exchange, a huge, cleanly round hole, which showed a cut end as if it had been sliced open with a very sharp blade, extended all the way through the several layers of the fortress, which should exist above this place, allowing a clear look at the azure sky.

A girl with wings growing out of her back was in the middle of descending through that hole while frantically flapping her wings as she carried another girl of similar age.

The dragonoid girl couldn’t comprehend just where the ceiling, which should have existed above her head, had gone to. The crazy idea that the youth standing in front of her might have created this hole in order to save them did cross her mind, but in that case, it was weird for no fragments of the destroyed ceiling to rain down on their heads.

The girl simply couldn’t comprehend.

 

———– End of Part 2 ———–

 

At her unintentionally blurting out 「God」, the youth in front of her pointed at the girl, who was frantically flapping her wings while carrying another person, indicating that she had to mean that one, but a being looking like a human while having wings grow out of its back shouldn’t exist in this world. Hence the girl asked herself just who the twintail girl, who had approached close enough to somehow allow a peek at her bright red face as she kept descending ever so slowly, might be. Moreover, the girl wondered about the identity of the somewhat shady girl, who was carried by the twintail girl like a cat that got caught by the scruff of its neck while languidly dangling around.

And the girl still couldn’t understand.

The soldier, who was about to kill her moments ago, had become a red stain on the wall. And although the youth’s action didn’t bring that much of a change to the whole situation, just a fleeting glare over his shoulder had caused the demon king’s soldier to stop moving. Nevertheless, the girl wondered who he might be, how he came to this place, and from where he came.

“Don’t bother with all the complicated stuff.”

Seemingly having somehow guessed the girl’s confusion, the youth stopped glaring over his shoulder, faced the girl in front of him, and revealed a slightly troubled smile while placing his left hand on the her head. The youth began to stroke her head with a slightly ginger feeling, but the warmth passed on through his hand gave the girl a sense of security despite the masses of armed enemy soldiers behind him.

“Very likely no further casualties will occur on your side anymore. You may leave the rest to us.”

The youth lightly tapped the girl’s head as if indicating that things were over with this, and turned around before the girl could respond in any way. The girl, who felt like she had to at least ask for his name and was about to speak up, was interrupted by the yelling of two girls who landed, or rather, crashed down nearby.

“Hey!? Kilie, what’s with that landing!?

“My wings, you see, are basically made for carrying me alone, so it’s difficult to fly while holding someone else!”

As the armed girl, who had comically flopped down on her bum, and the twintail girl, who had fallen onto the ground face-first with her bum sticking out into the air and her wings powerlessly drooping down, were bitching at each other, the youth revealed an expression making it clear that he was fed up with their antics, and called out to the two.

“Kilie, get up right away and protect the non-combatants. Shion, get ready by drawing your sword. It’s our long-awaited customers, you know?”

“Renya, my butt hurts from the impact. Could you gently stroke it, please.”

“Aren’t you way too terrible in your use of a goddess? I’ll admit you’re much less exploitative than my mistress, though.”

“Both of you,” Renya smiled while kindly addressing Shion, who was rubbing her butt she had apparently hurt during the crash, and Kilie, who was unleashing a flood of muttered complaints.

The faces of both girls immediately froze and became ghastly pale, which appeared extremely odd to the girl who had been watching the whole show from the side.

“If you give me too much trouble, I won’t mind getting rid of you together with the enemy soldiers, okay?”

“”I will get ready at once!””

As if being operated by a puppeteer, both stood up in the same moment and way. The armed girl drew the katana at her waist while the twintail girl’s wings scattered into many light particles and disappeared as she got up.

“Come on, hurry up. This place is dangerous, so let’s group up with everyone over there. If you don’t do that, it’ll become very difficult for me to protect you.”

The now wingless girl, Kilie, put an arm on the girl’s shoulder and mostly pushed her towards the other dragonoids who had been evacuating deeper into the fortress.

Without even watching it happening, Renya sighed deeply while casting a sidelong glance at Shion who was standing next to him, drawn katana in hand.

“This was a failure, I guess.”

“What was?”

“If it’s a fortress where non-combatants had taken refuge, we should have first considered how to let these people evacuate, besides the soldiers and Albert.”

Renya’s eyes were pinned on the corpses of the old dragonoids who had become shields for the sake of letting the younger dragonoids get away.

“I guess we allowed for quite a few casualties to appear in the time we used to carefreely watch how things would pan out. This was my error in judgment.”

Shion tilted her head, not sure whether this was really the case. Normally, no one would entertain the idea of relieving a fortress on the brink of falling with merely three people. And even if they did consider it, it’d be impossible to actually put it into practice.

“Since we’ve singled out Albert’s location, we should have immediately headed over to rescue him.”

“That’s…a hindsight-based opinion, isn’t it?”

Given that their objective had been to secure Albert, even Shion wouldn’t go as far as saying that he should have also protected the dragonoid civilians. And even if she had thought of that, the current outcome was the result of the dragonoids’ own choices, and thus Shion didn’t consider pushing the blame for it on someone else.

However, she also believed that it might be inevitable for the human called Renya to fret about it to some extent since he had a tendency of hating civilians taking the brunt of battle, contrary to his very indifferent approach when it came to combatants.

“That’s another good part of him, though,” muttered Shion with the intention to keep it so quiet that Renya wouldn’t hear her.

However, even that faint whisper apparently reached Renya’s sharp ears, causing him to ask in a low voice with his eyes still resting on the corpses of the dragonoids, “Did you say something?”

As he had apparently registered her murmur as a sound but didn’t quite understand what she said in detail, Shion felt relieved while still feeling a tiny pang of fluster. Her words were nothing that would put her in trouble if he had heard them, but if she considered that he might have reprimanded her to consider time and place, she assessed that it might be fortunate for him having been unable to hear them.

“Nothing in particular. Anyway, we came here to rescue them, so we should get rid of the enemy soldiers so that the sacrifices of the dragonoids over there won’t go to waste, right?”

“…You got a point there.”

Once Shion diverted the conversation towards them having to take action, Renya put his hand together in prayer towards the dead dragonoids, before turning his eyes towards the demon king’s soldiers who were filling the vicinity around them, seemingly agreeing with Shion’s argument. The enemy soldiers were very likely manipulated corpses, but once Renya looked in their direction, most of them retreated several steps as if fearing his stare for some reason.

Shion wondered whether Renya’s look frightened even the dead, but Renya didn’t seem to think anything like that.”

“Someone is manipulating these guys, but they seem to know about me.”

“Is that…so?”

“The dead harbor no fear, do they? These guys retreating just now stems from their puppetmaster knowing and fearing me.”

Apparently reacting to Renya’s words, the demon king’s soldiers, who were about to fall back further, readied their weapons again, which they had lowered until then as if having forgotten about their existence altogether. Most of the weapons were firearms Renya had seen in his previous world and which originally didn’t exist in this world. As far as Renya knew, only one person came into question as supplier. Renya didn’t know what kind of relation that guy had with the person manipulating those dead, but it meant that at least one Lost of the demon king’s side was present in this place.

“If I had killed him properly back then, things wouldn’t have become such a pain in the ass though.”

The bloodlust and anger, which he put into his words, were so fierce that they made even Shion shudder, despite her knowing that those weren’t turned on her. Seemingly being also passed on to the one steering those corpses, the dead couldn’t pull the triggers of their weapons, albeit having their fingers placed on them.

“I did offer you a hand once, but you denied it. Seeing how you’re cooperating with the demon king and his ilk on top of that, you should make up your resolve that you won’t leave this place alive anymore.”

It was definitely true that Renya loathed to fight people who weren’t professional soldiers. But, it was just as true that he showed no mercy towards those who chose to fight in addition to becoming his enemies.

One of the manipulated dead pulled the trigger in a manner that could be called somewhat accidental due to the fierce pressure which was so overpowering that any spectator might hallucinate about hearing the air crackling, as the gun hadn’t been aimed properly, the bullet flew off in the completely wrong direction while ripping through the quiet place.

But, as if using that as a trigger, Renya and Shion charged at the army of the dead.

 

◆◇◆

————— End of Part 3 —————

 

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Under normal circumstances, firearms would have an overwhelming advantage against katana. On top of being relatively easy to use without requiring that much ability, they were able to incapacitate their target, or kill them in the best case, if they hit. It was unnecessary to shorten the distance to hit an enemy, and the bullets possessed enough penetrative force to pierce the target as long as they wore weaker armor.

For this reason, it’d be no exaggeration to state that the appearance of guns on the battlefield had completely changed the way of fighting.

But, that reality was currently being overturned in a section of the fort where the surviving dragonoids had holed themselves up after being cornered by the demon king’s army.

“In the first place, it’s something that’s liable to be misunderstood, but if you compare guns with katana, the katana has a much higher capability of inflicting fatal wounds.”

Once Renya smoothly shifted his body sideways to the right, the bullet, which should have originally hit his body, passed through without being even able to graze him as if they had arranged this feat in advance. The gun-wielding soldier didn’t seem to be worked up by the ridiculous act of dodging a bullet at all, and simply turned the muzzle so as to target Renya’s body once more, but at that point, his target was already gone from that spot.

In exchange, Renya had closed the distance to the gunner in the blink of an eye, and slashed him diagonally from the shoulder in one stroke. The gunner’s body split into two body halves as it fell to the ground.

“The reason is pretty simple since katana, which slash in strokes, cause a lot more damage if they hit than bullets which only hit a point, but the opinions are divided on this since it also depends on the bullets used.”

The soldiers scanned their vicinity after having lost their target, and readjusted their guns to point at the place where the voice came from, but it wasn’t as though the voice’s owner stood still either. By the time their muzzles had turned, he was already gone from there.

Instead, yet another soldier fell. This time, the soldier had his torso sliced apart in a straight, horizontal line. The soldier’s lower body went down on its knees in the pool of bloody mush its upper body created as the entrails and everything else spluttered out due to the internal pressure of the body.

“But, even if you ignore that fact, a katana’s movements are free in comparison to a bullet that will always fly in a straight line once it leaves the gun’s muzzle. This is a huge difference, especially when it comes to close combat.”

Even though they should be in an area with no covers, the soldiers couldn’t spot the voice’s owner ever since they lost sight of him once. They had nothing other than the voice to go by, but at the time when all of them turned their eyes in the direction of the voice, they couldn’t find anyone over there, and in exchange, one of theirs definitely died or became unable to fight.

“So, as you can see, my pet theory is that there’s no disadvantage or advantage to be found in the weapons’ differences, if you fight at this kind of distance. Do you understand?”

“Sorry, Renya. Somehow I don’t get what you’re saying.”

Although Shion got ready by drawing her katana and taking up position, she could only stare in sheer astonishment at the massacre taking place in front of her, unable to move from where she was standing.

The array of explanations was Renya’s idea of giving Shion advice on how to deal with gun-wielding opponents, but Shion was apparently unable to grasp what Renya was telling her.

“Is it because even your brain consists of nothing but muscles?”

Renya didn’t believe that he’d said anything too complicated, and pinned Shion’s failure to understand his words on her lacking comprehensive abilities, but Shion denied that while repeatedly shaking her head.

“No…how to put it…? Umm, how can you dodge those bullets – was it? – which are flying at you with such crazy speed?”

Although Shion’s eyes were good enough for her to tell that the objects, which were spat out by the weapons in the hands of the enemy soldiers, were similar to small pebbles, they seemed to move at such a speed that she couldn’t even fathom how she should spot them, shift to evasion, and dodge them in time. For this very reason, she couldn’t understand how Renya was dodging them so easily either.

“I told you, didn’t I? Bullets can only fly in a straight line from the gun’s muzzle. In other words, as long as you move your body out of the muzzle’s straight fire line before the bullet is shot, it’ll never hit you. What matter is the direction of the muzzle and the finger placed on the trigger,” Renya taught Shion, but in Shion’s eyes, paying attention to the muzzles and the fingers on the triggers to detect the moment the bullet would be fired while being in combat at the same time was beyond impossible.

“Well, the weapons those guys carry have something called full-auto mode. It allows them to lay a barrage of bullets by pressing down on the trigger, so the muzzle is more important than the finger. In short, you just need to move so fast that their muzzles can’t catch up with you.”

“That’s impossible for me.”

“Yeah, given that the bullet’s trajectory can also veer off due to various circumstances, you must continue to dodge while keeping a certain level of margin for error in mind. Because it’s possible that you’ll get hit from an unexpected direction, you have to be careful.”

“No, I told you just now. It’s impossible for me.”

“As it doesn’t look like they’re reloading, I think that their weapons are cheats with an infinite amount of bullets in the cartridges, but those guys only use their weapons for three-shot bursts or single shots, don’t they? Is it because the accuracy goes down when using them in their full-auto mode?”

“As if I’d know anything like that.”

“By the way…”

Suddenly Renya changed his stance, holding an object with both his hands. It was an assault rifle he had stolen from the soldier he cut down moments ago.

Anyone with deeper weapon knowledge might have been able to identify the rifle’s name, but from Renya’s standpoint, a gun only had to shoot its bullets when you pushed its trigger, and thus he saw no value in remembering some worthless information such as weapon names.

“Even someone like me is capable of around this much.”

After setting the selector to full-auto, Renya casually pushed the trigger. Renya pressed and released the trigger in alternation as the rifle would continue to shoot its bullets until it ran out of ammo if he kept pressing the trigger indefinitely, and thus adjusted the way of firing the bullets.

The bullets, which were shot out consecutively in bursts, hit the heads of the enemy soldiers, who belatedly tried to point the muzzles of their guns at Renya, resulting in them dropping like flies while scattering spurts of red and pink like smashed watermelons.

“This is a technique called headshooting, but…as I thought, it’s so damn boring. It’s closer to work than fighting. Since it doesn’t require reloads either, you could kill off all the armies of this world by just doing this, however.”

Around the time when Renya randomly tossed his rifle away, most of the demon king’s soldiers had turned into cruelly mutilated corpses with their heads gone. Because of the extremely quick work, Shion looked with a somewhat scared expression at the rifle, which Renya had discarded, while sheathing her katana after not getting a single chance to use it.

“What was that just now?”

“Nothing all that complicated. I just tracked the enemies with the muzzle. If you choose the proper timing to press and release the trigger, you can suppress the recoil and oscillation while hitting most of the time. Probably because they’ve been dead to begin with, or maybe because they were manipulated, the soldiers’ movements were slow. It was easy to hit them.”

“By the way, what about the enemy soldiers losing sight of you, Renya?”

“I just continued moving between their blind spots. Normally, they would compensate for each other since they had several friendly units in place, but probably because they were manipulated by just one guy, they all focused their gazes in just one direction, so it was easy to enter their blind spots.”

“Okay, but I’ll be troubled if you tell me that it’s something that can be pulled off by anyone.”

“It’s all a question of experience. Apart from that, more enemies have shown up, you know? Or do you plan to make me do all the work here?”

The enemy soldiers around them had been swept clean thanks to Renya’s shooting, but that didn’t mean it was over with just those few soldiers. In no time, additional enemy soldiers approached their area.

“If you won’t do it, I don’t mind cleaning up all of them either, though.”

“Sudden <Roar>!!”

The cluster of wind, which converged in an instant, transformed into a storm that swallowed up the wall’s fragments and the corpses of the enemy soldiers. After that wind cluster was slammed against the enemy soldiers, which had just entered the area with Renya and Shion, the fortress’ wall got dragged into the destruction as well, and everything and anything was blown outside the fort.

If that <Roar> had been released in the direction of the main gate, where Albert and the other dragonoids were still fighting, it might have led to a disastrous outcome, but fortunately the flight path of the <Roar> apparently deviated quite a bit, and after meticulously destroying the wall and everything else in its path, it finally pierced through, resulting in creating a hole to the outside, big enough for several adults to easily walk through it next to each other.

“How about this power output, Renya!?” Shion bragged while throwing out her chest in triumph.

“You idiot. Didn’t you just create another invasion path for the enemy outside the fort with this?” Renya remonstrated her while slapping the back of Shion’s head with his hand.

While rubbing the place he hit, Shion pondered for a moment, and then voiced out the excuse she had apparently come up with, “B-But, can’t you also say that I opened up an escape route with this?”

“That’s, well…it’d be true if this fortress wasn’t surrounded by enemy soldiers in all directions.”

Shion’s <Roar>, which had ripped open a big hole in the fort’s wall, had also caused significant losses among the enemy soldiers outside the fort, but of course it wasn’t an attack strong enough to annihilate all of them, and thus enemy soldiers started to swarm into the fort through the new hole.

‘However, multiple invasion paths had been opened up by the enemy forces even before Shion added that big hole to the wall, so I doubt her adding yet another hole would matter at this point in time,’ Renya assessed.

“That blow just now probably exposed our intrusion to Albert and the other dragonoids.”

“That’s no problem, is it?”

“Probably. Anyway, fix the mess you perpetrated yourself, and clean up the enemy soldiers by unleashing another shot,” ordered Renya while pointing at the soldiers flooding inside the fort through the new hole.

Shion began to manipulate her mana once more. Unlike the shot from before which had contained all her might while being imperfect in preparation and mana accumulation, she focused properly now, manipulating the atmosphere while also creating a cesspool.

“This is…my full-power <Roar>!”

“Ah, wait a…”

Before Renya could finish with “sec,” Shion released the power she had sufficiently thickened. The compressed wind, which she had amassed to such an extent that you couldn’t even begin to compare it with the previous Roar, was unleashed in an instant, raging through the hole she had opened up moments ago.

Rubble and people were jumbled together, swept away, and jostled around, just to get indiscriminately smashed against walls or ground. The <Roar>, which boomed like thunder, left only red pools of blood, and debris in its wake while opening yet another hole, gaping so widely that around ten adult men could easily line up next to each other without filling the hole’s entire width.

“Huh?”

 

————- End of Part 4 ————-

 

 

“Don’t huh me. …Well, it’s also my fault since I only saw it coming right before you released your attack.”

It was natural for the power of Shion’s <Roar> to exceed the first shot, which already possessed so much firepower despite being half-baked, by far if she was allowed to properly prepare the skill on top of not having to hold back. Renya believed that he should have warned her in advance while watching how the stones founding this fortress had started to crumble to the ground all over the place, beginning with the hole that Shion had widened.

“Oh my?”

“It’s no oh my either. If you open up such huge holes in a fortress that had been destroyed at various spots by the enemy, it won’t be weird for the whole thing to break apart.”

They were currently located deep inside the fortress. If you created huge holes towards the outside from a place like that, it’d be quite possible to break several pillars holding the entire fortress without realizing it.

“The fortress is going to collapse?”

“I don’t think it’ll break apart completely, but…well, even if it does, it’s not really that much of a problem either.”

Given that Kilie was protecting the refugees, Renya judged that the dragonoids would be alright, even if they should get dragged into the collapse of the fortress. Renya himself had enough confidence that he’d be able to deal with any stones falling at him from above.

“Shion, you’ll…somehow I got the feeling you’ll be alright as well.”

“No, wait a sec. I don’t think I’d get out of this unscathed if this fortress were to fall on my head, you know?”

Shion didn’t know how many stones were built into the fortress above her head, but even if she deducted the hole created by Kilie, it should still leave a crazy amount of weight. If something like that came down on her all at once, she couldn’t even begin to imagine how she was supposed to get through this.

“But, you were the one who destroyed it, no…?”

“Didn’t you tell me to shoot another Roar, Renya!?”

“That’s certainly true…well, now it’s too late to whine about it anyway,” Renya said as he scrutinized the ceiling above him

Cracks had started to develop on the stones that formed the ceiling, and some eerie vibration had begun to assail the entire fortress. Shion clung to Renya who was still looking upwards while pieces of stones had commenced to rain down.

As if having waited for Shion to do that, the cracks suddenly widened and spread, before eventually expanding all over the place with dull sounds of destruction. In the next moment, the ceiling started to come down as Renya stood there with Shion stuck to him.

Just around that time, Albert and the other dragonoid soldiers, who had been taking a break in the courtyard after temporarily pushing back the enemy, got surprised by the tempest pushing outside the fortress from within. The instant Albert felt that this might be caused by Renya and his friends, he witnessed the scene of debris and people being blown out by a second gust with his eyes having turned into dots, just for a part of the fortress, which apparently couldn’t endure those two attacks, to collapse with a terrifying loud boom at the end.

 

◆◇◆

 

The fortress’s collapse didn’t affect the whole compound. No one could tell whether it was a lucky coincidence or an outstanding feat of the architect who had built this fortress, but the collapse, which had started from the hole created by Shion, stopped at only destroying a part of the fortress, resulting in the dragonoids, who had been fighting on the courtyard, not being harmed.

Still, the fact of a part of the fortress, which they had been protecting so far, getting destroyed, delivered a fairly, heavy blow to the dragonoid soldiers. Moreover, with civilians supposedly having taken shelter inside the fortress, the idea that those non-combatants would have come to terrible harm if they got dragged into that collapse aggravated that shock.

However, just one man among the dragonoid soldiers didn’t feel shocked as he had noticed that this whole situation was weird and thus guessed, albeit only faintly, that something else must be afoot here.

That man was the hero, Albert.

Before the partial destruction of the fortress he suddenly sensed some terrifying presence having appeared behind him and felt the tempest surging out of the fortress. And on top of that, he accidentally saw a huge, red dragon circling in the sky while clad in an aura of extreme carefreeness.

“Maybe…no, don’t tell me…”

“Albert-sama?”

While Charlotte, the priestess princess, quizzically stared at Albert, who looked dumbfounded as he muttered to himself, he proceeded on top of the fortress’s ruins while being mostly sure of his assumption.

“Renya-dono!? Is that you, Renya-dono!?” Albert shouted.

What appeared below him first, at a spot where a small mountain of rubble had formed, in response to Albert’s shout was a semi-circular, glittering, golden force field that flicked away all the rubble. The dragonoid civilians, who had taken shelter inside the fortress, were huddled inside that force field, and in their midst stood a winged, twintail girl who had thrust her hands above her head as if to protect the civilians from the falling debris.

“That was close…if not for me, everyone would have died after being crushed by the debris.”

At the same time as the girl lowered her arms, the golden force field dissipated. The civilians firmly hugged each other while curling up their bodies, apparently scared by the noise of the debris crumbling apart after it lost the force field as its support, but the twintail girl showed absolutely no interest in their reaction, floated up lightly while flapping her wings, and shrugged her shoulders while moving outside the circle of civilians.

“For the allies to be scarier than the enemy…well, I guess that’s what you have to expect when being on Renya-san’s side.”

“Who are you!?” Albert asked her loudly.

As far as Albert knew, no people with wings on their back existed in this world. Even among the beastmen with strong beast components, there should be none who owned bird traits.

Hence, it triggered the question who that girl in front of him was supposed to be, but as Albert’s voice contained a faint trace of an edge, the girl, who had immediately noticed it with her acute hearing, blatantly twisted her face at his question.

“Could I have you shut up for a bit? The situation will be directly explained to you by the right person.”

“What…?”

“The problem is…where he’s buried at the moment.”

The girl started to fly around near the ground while audibly flapping her wings and calling out, “Renya-san? Shion-san? Please answer meeee!”

“Renya-dono is below all that rubble!?”

Surprised by the girl’s words, Alberd reflexively stared at the mountain of debris sprawling at his feet. It was such a gigantic amount that it made him shy away from even considering just how much rubble had piled up. It was a sight that made it impossible to believe that anyone stuck under so much weight would be fine. On the one hand Albert thought that there was no way that such an amount of debris could have possibly done anything to that earl, but on the other hand he couldn’t help but to think that maybe, just maybe, that earl had somehow suffered a direct hit by the rubble.

Yet, the twintail girl kept calling out to him from atop the rubble, not showing even the slightest hint of doubt about Renya’s safety.

“Shion-san? Isn’t there a limit to being so dumb that you’d hurt yourself? Really.”

“Leaving aside Earl-dono, Shion-dono…” Albert started to say, but suddenly he saw a slender woman’s leg stabbing out from beneath the rubble, causing him to freeze with his eyes wide open, unable to utter a single word.

In contrast to Albert, the twintail girl descended next to the leg, looking as if she had been waiting for this all the time, grabbed it with both hands as if about to pull some vegetable out of a field, and started to tug at it.

“This is…have they been buried at an unexpectedly deep place?”

“……”

“It’s almost as if a cheeky daikon has spread its roots deeply in the ground!”

“Who’s a daikon!?”

Sending the twintail girl flying alongside the rubble, Shion shouted while raising her body from where she had been buried. Even though she should have been buried underneath a ridiculous amount of debris, she didn’t seem to have a single injury. While standing up, she blew away even more rubble, grabbed the collar of the twintail girl, who was lying face-up on the debris with her eyes spinning from the initial blow, and pulled her face close to her own.

“Whose leg is a daikon!? Tell me! Come on!”

“N-No, that’s…not because it’s fat or anything…umm, because it’s so white. Yep, it’s because your leg is as white and smooth as a daikon, yep!”

“Giliel! Even I’m not that stupid to fall for such blunt deception!”

“I-I’m telling you the truth! In Renya’s former world, having your legs described as daikon was regarded as high praise for them being slender and slim!”

“…Really? I’m gonna ask Renya about it later, you know?”

“Go ahead, I don’t mind. But, please get him to explain it properly, okay?”

The twintail girl, Giliel, frantically piled up excuses. Apparently judging from Giliel’s expression that she hadn’t made up some random bullshit, Shion released her by letting go of her collar.

Having regained her freedom, Giliel decided that she had to ask Renya to correctly explain the original meaning of daikon legs before Shion would ask him herself, while panting heavily.

 

————- End of Part 5 ————-

 

 

However, for some reason she felt like Renya’s interest would be rather drawn towards the surprising fact of daikon existing in this world rather than Shion’s legs looking like daikon.

 

 

“By the way, what about Renya?” Shion asked with a puzzled look after realizing that she couldn’t see him anywhere.

In response, Giliel silently pointed at her feet.

After staring at the place Giliel was pointing for a while, Shion realized what she meant with that gesture and pulled a surprised face, “He’s buried!?”

When she tried to recall the events from back then Shion remembered that it had been Renya to whom she clung to at the moment when the ceiling came down. Since Shion had been buried and given that Renya hadn’t escaped by himself after shaking off Shion, it was only natural to assume that he was still buried beneath all the rubble.

“Very likely.”

“No way…we have to save him!”

“Okay, then remind me again who buried him to begin with?” Giliel asked while scrutinizing Shion with narrowed eyes.

“That’s a matter of a distant past! Rather than that…Renya! Answer me…Renya!”

After flatly warding off Giliel’s snarky remark, Shion began to fiercely brush the rubble at her feet aside. Using a force so strong that it caused Albert to wonder just where she was hiding so much strength in her frail body, Shion grabbed one piece of debris after the other, and tossed them far away in quick succession.

The pieces had all kinds of sizes, ranging from palm-sized to an armful, but Shion hurled them away as if they all weighed as much as a feather. Watching her, the dragonoid soldiers’ faces, who had belatedly arrived here after Albert, froze.

“Albert-sama, this is?”

“No, this is, you see…it’s okay. These people aren’t enemies.”

By the time Albert soothed his confused soldiers to give them a peace of mind, Shion had already removed a fairly big amount of rubble. Then she thrust her head into the hole she had dug free herself, just to pull it out again and stare in Giliel’s direction while being at a loss.

“What are we going to do? Renya is gone.”

“Well, you see, it’s just a vague feeling, but since we’re talking about Renya here, I doubt that he’d let himself get buried so easily.”

“So, where did he go then?”

“Hmm, I’d say the answer to that question lies in our liberty to pointlessly waste time like this even though the enemy attack hasn’t ended yet.”

“That means…”

Just when Shion was about to ask what Giliel meant with her explanation, her words were interrupted by an ear-piercing sound. That noise assailed the ears of everyone present, and as Shion looked up to the sky while bearing the pain it had caused, she spotted something similar to a white mist crashing towards the ground at a ridiculous speed while swirling around, though she couldn’t tell from what height it originated.

“That’s…”

“So far as it goes, it looks like we’ll be safe inside the fortress.”

Giliel making that carefree statement and the white mist wrapping up the fortress after pouring down from the sky happened at almost the same instant.

“This is Renya’s!?”

“It’s a spell allowing you to strike the ground with very cold air. Usually, things would be over with one blow, though.”

Giliel answered, but she perceived that the something, which was about to happen around the fortress from now on, wasn’t anything that would be finished with one downburst blow. And as if to approve of her intuitional suspicion, several streaks of lightning stabbed the ground, which had transformed into a world of white that encompassed anything and everything after the white mist passed, with eardrum-bursting thunderous roars, starting to blow up huge amounts of soil.

Shion and Giliel grasped that these were <Roaring Lightning> spells as they had witnessed that spell in action on many occasions. And although the usage of that spell didn’t cause those two to become that flustered, it was still a highly sophisticated magic art only very few people in this extremely vast world could actually use. Moreover, with those lightning spells not limited to just one instance but coming down like a shower, the dragonoids, who had never witnessed anything like that, gawped at the endless stream of lightning strikes with their mouths wide open.

As soon as the lightning play came to an end, bluish-white flame lances pierced the ground around the fortress successively from above in such a ridiculously huge number that it’d be silly to even try counting them, before they all started to go up in huge pillars of fire.

For the time being, it seemed as though the fortress itself was protected by some kind of barrier, just as Giliel had nonchalantly murmured a little while ago, but even though they knew that the damage wouldn’t reach them, the sight of lightning raining, fire blazing upwards, and the ground violently shaken as if hit by repeated earthquakes caused not only the citizens but even the dragonoid soldiers to become anxious. After all, it was a spectacle that completely justified any normal person’s body freezing up in fear.

“Is there any meaning in this?”

The only ones remaining completely calm were Shion and Giliel. One of them, Giliel, asked the other one, Shion.

“Maybe, a grand display of overpowering coercion?”

“I think Renya-san is able to be coercive enough by just acting normal. Even without producing such a spectacle that looks like the world is coming to its end, he can emit a coercion so powerful that it’d cause the people here to collapse with their mouths foaming by just releasing his bloodlust.”

“So, what’s this about…or rather, where did Rubydra go?”

“During the first downburst…err, the first mass of extremely cold air coming down, she frantically dealt with it by flying off somewhere.”

If she got dragged into this by mistake, even Rubydra would likely be helpless, Giliel judged. Rubydra having used magic for being in time with her escape meant that she had likely spotted Renya while up there in the sky.

“This is no threat, but him cleaning up the demon king army swarming this place from the outside, I think.”

“I see. Well, it makes sense since it’d take him all day if he went around and cut down each and every single one with his katana.”

Shion couldn’t pinpoint just how many troops the demon king’s army fielded outside the fortress, but she knew from when she looked down from Rubydra’s back that it’d take a substantial amount of time, even if Renya and her wholeheartedly focused on cutting down the enemies.

Under these circumstances, it was a very reasonable line of thinking to blow away the enemy with area-of-effect attacks to wipe them out in one swoop.

“If I had to name an issue with that method…it’d be the change of terrain it’s definitely going to cause.”

“You call it change, but wouldn’t it be more appropriate to describe it as having everything and anything disappear altogether?”

The fire-based attacks showed no sign of ending. As far as Shion and Giliel were concerned, the spectacle of flame lances incessantly raining down from the sky looked like a fantastic, beautiful sight, but in the eyes of the dragonoids, this was nothing more than an exhibition of endless purgatory.

“Albert-dono!? Just what the hell is going on here!?”

“Look! The ground which was pure white moments ago, now looks crimson! Crimson and gooey, for that matter!”

“Why are we able to stay safe within this hellish onslaught…?”

Albert desperately calmed the soldiers who had partially succumbed to panic.

A figure, which had slowly walked over from outside the fortress, came to a halt next to Shion who had been watching the show curiously.

“Oh, Renya. Welcome back”

“Thanks, I’m back. …Wait, why is there such a huge uproar going on around here? This little is no reason to get all flustered, is it?”

“No, I wonder about that. For people not used to this sight, it must look like the end of the world, you know?”

Contrary to Renya who was watching the screaming and clamoring of the dragonoid soldiers with an expression full of astonishment, Giliel seemed to pity them, if one had to describe her look. As if it was a bad joke, only the fortress’ interior had remained safe, but everything outside had been first frozen solid, then got riddled with deep holes by lightning strikes, and now it had started to melt away into a crimson mud.

Telling someone to remain calm in the midst of all this is probably too unreasonable, Giliel assessed.

“Well, I tried to be a bit flashy about it, but even so, it looks like the ringleader of this time’s attack wasn’t outside the fortress.”

“The ringleader?”

Giliel thought that the ringleader meant by Renya referred to the person who had launched the demon king’s army at the dragonoids as its commander, but if that person had been outside the fortress, she suspected that they’d have dragged into Renya’s array of attacks and perished by now.

But, Renya declaring that he wasn’t present meant that he didn’t take him down, causing Giliel to wonder where he went in such a case.

“I wondered about it back when we entered this fortress, but somehow a weird stench is enveloping the area. The fact of the stench not having disappeared yet means that the source of it still remains inside the fortress.”

Renya’s remark caused Shion to immediately draw her katana and put herself on guard. While casting a sidelong glance at Albert, who had also readied his swords with a slight delay, Renya called out to no one in particular with a tone so carefree that you’d think he was going on a walk.

“Now then, how about you show yourself anytime soon? You’re not at an age to play hide-and-seek anymore, are you?”

As if responding to Renya’s invitation, a part of the rubble pile crumbled apart with a clattering.

 

 

 

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Translation Notes: