New WorldShadow - 423/424 (Patreon)

Chapter 423: The Trio’s Failed Rehearsal for Infighting

Most of the time, Cid existed in a strange quantum superposition where he both loved trouble and hated it.

If he had his way, he wanted the entire world thrown into chaos, because only then would Shadow, the Eminence in Shadow, have a chance to make his grand appearance.

But at the same time, he also wished the world could be a little more peaceful. At the very least, he didn't want trouble cropping up every single day. It wasn't that he disliked it, but he had a life of his own too. As the saying went, sharpening the axe didn't delay the chopping of wood. Only after attaining enlightenment could he put even better plans into action. If he fought the entire world every few days, everyone would eventually get used to it.

These days, even going to prison had to turn into a problem?

Of course, that wasn't the point. The point was that Cid had estimated the time, and the Prime Minister had probably already begun his speech in Kanagawa Prefecture. According to the original plan, he should have casually killed his opponent under the pretense of "just passing by." But now someone was holding him up, and he couldn't get away!

Plans really couldn't keep up with changing circumstances. Fine, he'd just adjust things on the fly. The Prime Minister wasn't going anywhere. Cid could settle the score with him whenever he wanted. But if he missed what was happening here, there might not be another chance.

“Better not let me find out which stupid dog caused all this trouble, or I'll definitely kill him.”

“Yeah. Kill him.”

Hearing Cid muttering through gritted teeth about the culprit, Yuiri Haba, who was anxious to get down the mountain and save the others, nodded firmly in agreement.

“Shut your mouth, Yuiri Haba. Our top priority is getting down the mountain and finding the others and Yukina. Do you want to attract the monsters in the sky by being so loud?”

Up ahead, Sayaka Kirasaka turned around and quietly scolded Yuiri Haba. At the same time, she nervously glanced at the white mist overhead. Only after confirming that no monster had suddenly appeared did she breathe a sigh of relief.

Yuiri Haba looked embarrassed after being scolded by Sayaka Kirasaka, but she merely gave an awkward smile without saying anything.

Yuiri Haba herself had no complaints about being reprimanded, but her partner, Shio Hikawa, certainly did. She hadn't forgotten Sayaka Kirasaka's mockery and behavior toward them while they were imprisoned. She had only let it slide because the situation had been urgent. Now that her partner was being humiliated, however, she immediately stepped forward.

“Hey, Kirasaka, what's with that attitude? Yuiri was just trying to encourage everyone. She hardly did anything wrong. Is that any way to talk to her?”

“Huh?”

Sayaka Kirasaka had already wasted plenty of time because of interference from the monsters and the Self-Defense Forces. Worried about her companions at the foot of the mountain and increasingly agitated, she immediately blew up when she heard that.

“Of course you're not in a hurry. Your partner is right beside you! The Self-Defense Forces have mutinied, and Yukina and Master might be in trouble. Aren't you worried about them?”

“Hah. You're not really worried about everyone else. You're worried about little Yukina, aren't you? Back at the training school, aside from little Yukina, who was willing to spend time with someone like you who can't talk to people properly and doesn't have a shred of femininity? Nobody else liked you.”

Shio Hikawa let out a disdainful chuckle. Now thoroughly caught up in the argument, she went straight for Sayaka Kirasaka's sore spots, officially escalating their quarrel into personal attacks.

“Guh... Shio Hikawa, you ungrateful bastard! If I'd known this would happen, I should've left you there to die! I can't believe I actually saved a scumbag like you!”

“This is still your fault! If you hadn't packed us those leftovers, we never would've been in such bad shape that we couldn't even notice the attack. We almost got buried alive in the dungeon because you locked the door!”

“What was I supposed to do about that? The Three Saints ordered me to watch you and make sure you didn't escape. I didn't even know what you'd done wrong. If I wasn't supposed to lock the door, was I supposed to leave it wide open?”

“I...”

This was getting completely out of hand.

Cid chewed on a blade of grass he'd casually plucked nearby, tasting the bitterness of its sap as he watched the two women argue more and more fiercely.

Maybe turning on each other was simply human nature. They'd been holding hands while escaping not long ago, but now that they'd realized the situation had turned against them, they immediately started fighting among themselves despite having absolutely none of the advantages of time, place, or unity on their side.

What a spectacular show!

Cid's eyes lit up as he excitedly watched the two argue until they were practically on the verge of fighting. He formed a stark contrast with Yuiri Haba beside him, whose face was full of worry.

As he watched, inspiration suddenly struck him. Cid looked at the two women and, after confirming that their attention was completely focused on each other, quietly took a step backward.

He'd already calculated it. If he used his real abilities to race down the mountain, came up with some random excuse to kill every Self-Defense Force soldier there, speedran the entire force, and then came back, it would take less than ten minutes.

Cid narrowed his eyes and silently retreated, his figure disappearing into the white mist. The two women, still caught up in their heated argument, didn't notice his disappearance at all and remained completely absorbed in their quarrel.

Excellent. Step one of the plan was complete.

Next, he just had to activate his x-ray vision and locate all the armored vehicles on the mountain.

Magical Power surged into his eyes. Cid confidently opened them and saw...

An enormous army of monsters had somehow already surrounded the area, with even more continuously arriving to join the ambush.

Ah... I forgot. Arguing loudly in the wilderness attracts wild animals.

Damn it. The monster army was playing dirty. They'd suddenly changed their tactics. Instead of attacking en masse from the sky, they were taking advantage of their serpentine nature to encircle the group from every direction.

But there was no need to worry.

Now that Cid was alone, without those two supporting characters beside him, he was no longer Mob Cid.

He was the all-powerful Shadow!

Cid was about to wipe out the hundred-plus bee-snakes before Sayaka Kirasaka and the other two noticed the monster army surrounding them. But just before he acted, he looked at the three women, who were still arguing, then at the monster army surrounding them.

He stopped.

Oh.

He had an idea.

Based on his experience with one of the most common anime tropes, "the main characters quarrel among themselves, then unite against a common enemy and reconcile," if he destroyed the monster army now, he'd still have to put up with their blood-pressure-raising antics when he came back.

But if he secretly gave things a little push, the whole situation would immediately turn into something fit for a children's show.

What astonishing wisdom!

By then, the white mist covering the mountain would be gone, all the patrolling Self-Defense Force soldiers would be dead, and the relationship between the three women would be repaired.

Everything would be perfect.

Plan accepted.

He'd treat this as an early rehearsal for his grand scheme.

It was merely some mist created with Magical Power. Watch him suck it all up in a single breath.

“Huu...”

Cid opened his mouth and controlled the white mist covering the entire mountain range, drawing it toward his position and inhaling all of it into his lungs.

The visibility that had been reduced by the white mist rapidly began to recover.

A few meters.

More than ten meters.

Dozens of meters...

Just as Cid had expected, once visibility recovered to a certain degree, the argument between Sayaka Kirasaka and Shio Hikawa came to an abrupt halt.

The rest was simple.

Now that the three had discovered the monsters encircling them, all they had to do was work together. Breaking through an encirclement that hadn't fully formed yet should be ridiculously easy.

With that thought in mind, Cid began scanning the surrounding area. He quickly located a convoy of armored vehicles and charged straight toward it.

“Slash!”

A pitch-black greatsword flashed.

The armored vehicle formation, still confused by the sudden thinning of the white mist around them, was instantly cleaved apart through the middle.

A violent explosion thundered through the area.

Amid the rolling black smoke, a man clad in black walked calmly through the flames.

“How is this possible? Is that... Shadow?”

Confusion filled Captain Okiyama's mind.

Having narrowly survived the sea of flames, she stared at the man before her. Her violently trembling pupils betrayed the full extent of her shock.

Faced with the woman's bewilderment, the man offered no explanation.

He merely raised a finger to his lips.

“Shh...”

After that single shush, Captain Okiyama's head separated from her body.

She had been the last surviving member of the ground combat unit Tatsumi Azama had sent to hunt down the Lion King Organization personnel who fled into the mountains after the operations center was destroyed.

The slaughter did not end with the elimination of a single small unit.

The black Grim Reaper turned his gaze toward the surrounding mountain and resumed his search for the Self-Defense Forces.

Everything on Cid's side was proceeding even more smoothly than he'd imagined.

But were things going just as smoothly for Sayaka Kirasaka and the other two?

Let's take a look at how the trio was doing.

“Bzzzz...”

One enormous mutated monster after another beat its thin wings and charged toward the three women, only to be struck down halfway by a swing of Sayaka Kirasaka's sword and sent crashing heavily to the ground.

“What are you two doing?! Hurry up and retreat! Do you want to get worn down until you die here?!”

The massive silver sword flashed repeatedly through the air with incredible speed and force, creating a silvery-white defensive wall in Sayaka Kirasaka's hands.

But there were simply too many monsters.

The already heavy greatsword couldn't possibly form an absolute defense. Against an attack based on swarm tactics, especially when the monsters' shells were so hard that she could knock them away but couldn't easily kill them, it wasn't long before the first gap appeared in her defense.

Barely avoiding a sneak attack from behind, Sayaka Kirasaka couldn't help turning toward the other two, who were still fighting the monster swarm, and shouting at them.

She couldn't understand why they were wasting so much time.

They were already surrounded. They had to break through and escape while the encirclement was still incomplete. If they let the swarm completely close around them, they would undoubtedly die.

“We're looking for Cid! Sayaka, haven't you noticed someone's missing?”

“He might've been attacked already! We don't even know where he ended up. We have to find him, or he's going to die!”

Shio Hikawa shouted back while drawing her bow. Her hands moved at incredible speed as she repeatedly shot the flying monsters out of the air.

“Huh? Are you kidding me?! That idiot's survival skills are ridiculously good! We don't need to worry about him. We need to get out of here first!”

Sayaka Kirasaka was surprised at first, then immediately shouted back.

A guy who had survived fighting the Dragon King for that long wasn't going to die to an attack like this. Sayaka Kirasaka refused to believe it.

She urged the two to break through the encirclement with her, but neither of them would listen. No matter how much Sayaka Kirasaka tried to persuade them, they remained determined to find Cid first and escape together.

“You two idiots! That moron's probably already gotten out of here by now, and you're still... Guh!”

An attacker could wait for an opening, but a defender couldn’t stay on guard forever.

Sayaka Kirasaka was already outnumbered and unable to properly deal with so many enemies by herself. She could do little more than desperately defend. The instant her attention slipped during the conversation, a bee-snake broke through her defenses and sank its jaws into her shoulder.

“Kirasaka!”

The other two tried to rush over and help her, but the densely packed monster army pinned them down so thoroughly that they couldn't move.

All they could do was watch helplessly as a gigantic bee-snake seized Sayaka Kirasaka and lifted her into the air.

Sayaka Kirasaka spat out a mouthful of blood.

Feeling the severe blood loss and agonizing pain from her shoulder, she let out a muffled groan. The bee-snake's tremendous bite force was almost enough to tear her arm off.

Fortunately, the defensive Magic Formula constantly active on her body triggered instantly.

It entered through the monster's mouth, bypassing its incredibly hard outer shell and destroying the bee-snake's brain from within.

That was the only reason she survived.

“Boom! Boom! Boom!”

With its brain destroyed, the bee-snake's body flew wildly and uncontrollably through the air.

Sayaka Kirasaka, still trapped in its jaws, was dragged along in front of it and smashed through tree after tree.

Finally, enduring the intense pain, she raised the massive sword that remained tightly clenched in her hand and cut off the bee-snake's hideous head.

Only then did Sayaka Kirasaka fall to the ground.

“Cough, cough, cough! Damn you, Shio Hikawa! Damn you, Yuiri Haba! And that idiot too! Where the hell did he run off to at a time like this?!”

With her left arm practically useless, Sayaka Kirasaka looked around.

She was still trapped inside the monster army's encirclement.

When the surrounding bee-snakes realized that their companion had failed to devour the woman, they immediately regrouped and swarmed toward Sayaka Kirasaka once again.

“Kirasaka!”

Seeing what was happening from a distance, Shio Hikawa and Yuiri Haba shouted anxiously and tried to rush over to help her.

But with more than a dozen bee-snakes attacking them at once, neither could move an inch.

“I'm done for.”

Having almost completely lost the ability to resist, Sayaka Kirasaka tried to raise her sword again.

But the pain from the wound in her left arm was already severely interfering with her judgment.

Just as Sayaka Kirasaka was about to disappear beneath the swarm of bee-snakes, a hand suddenly grabbed her.

In the next instant, she vanished into the ground.

The bee-snake swarm converging on her lunged at empty air.

They blinked their compound eyes in confusion, then their single-celled brains immediately reached a decision.

They turned around and went after the other two instead.

It only took a few minutes.

Under the assault of more than a hundred bee-snakes, the pair soon suffered the same fate as Sayaka Kirasaka. After managing to take down only a handful of bee-snake monsters at most, they were swallowed by the swarm.

“Could someone please explain to me exactly how the three of you managed to end up like this?”

“Cough, cough, cough...”

Deep underground, a faint emerald glow illuminated the cramped cavern.

Cid had one hand pressed against Yuiri Haba and the other against Shio Hikawa, both of whom had nearly been beaten half to death.

Beside them, Sayaka Kirasaka had been forced to squeeze into the narrow space with the other two. She looked at Cid with an expression that practically said, "Just as I expected."

She'd known Cid's ability to keep himself alive was absurdly good.

“Sayaka, what's with that look?!”

Seeing her expression, Cid couldn't stop himself from snapping.

Maybe he'd been just a tiny bit too conservative with his estimate.

It had taken him only five minutes to wipe out the Self-Defense Forces across the entire mountain, and he'd even rescued quite a few people along the way.

Then he'd returned to find these three on the verge of being beaten to death.

It had left him completely dumbfounded.

Seriously?

Three hero units fought a bunch of ordinary mobs and nearly got themselves killed?

Did they even know how to play?

There were barely more than a hundred monsters!

If Cid had been controlling them himself, he could've cleared the entire encounter without taking a single hit.

Not only had the three of them completely failed to follow the script Cid had prepared, their brain-dead decisions had nearly driven him insane.

They were already badly outnumbered, yet they split up.

They argued and got distracted in the middle of combat.

What kind of useless team was this?!

Couldn't they just follow the script?!

The rehearsal was a failure.

These three were hopeless.

...

Chapter 424: Sayaka Kirasaka, Who Came Unbelievably Close to the Truth. The Frozen Lake Where Nothing Remained

After spending less than five minutes wiping out every Self-Defense Force member on the mountain, Cid returned to where he had started and found Sayaka Kirasaka, Shio Hikawa, and Yuiri Haba on the verge of being beaten to death.

The sheer absurdity of what he was seeing left him frozen in place for a full second before he hurriedly stepped in and rescued the three of them.

There were only two words for it: absolutely absurd.

Even now, with all four of them crammed into the cramped underground space, Cid still couldn't stop thinking about it.

Three hero units had nearly gotten themselves killed fighting minions. How ridiculous could you get? Even a dog might have been able to win that fight. Yet these three had talked such a big game, only to get demolished by a mere few hundred monsters. What kind of useless team was that?!

"You really don't have to insult us that badly. We only stayed there without moving because we had no other choice if we wanted to find you."

Hearing Cid muttering under his breath, Yuiri Haba complained with a bitter expression.

"Recognizing the enormous difference in strength, refusing to admit defeat, raising your weapon, staking everything on the fight, and giving it your all. That's courage. Failing to recognize the difference in strength and rushing in without using your head is called recklessness."

As he dug away the dirt to expand the cramped underground space, Cid lectured Yuiri Haba. Those two really were like newborn calves that didn't know enough to fear a tiger. Even Cid had been genuinely taken aback.

If the two of them had shown a little more sense last night and simply stayed out of the way, Cid wouldn't have gone out of his way to attack them. More than anything, he simply hadn't expected that, even after his infamous reputation had spread throughout the world and he had replaced the Big Bad Wolf as children's worst nightmare, there would still be people brave enough to attack him.

The same went for what had just happened. If the three of them had simply worked together, they could have broken through without much trouble. With even a little strategy, wiping out the swarm of Bee Snake monsters would have been easy. Yet despite having such an advantage, the three somehow managed to fight independently, lose focus in the middle of battle, and even stand rooted to the spot.

Cid kept replaying the battle he had just witnessed in his head. The more he thought about it, the higher his blood pressure seemed to climb, leaving him completely oblivious to the complicated looks Shio Hikawa and Yuiri Haba were giving him.

"This might be a little rude, but I have to ask, Cid. You aren't some kind of Shadow fanatic, are you?"

After exchanging a glance, Yuiri Haba turned toward Cid with an awkward expression and asked the question.

"No... maybe."

Cid answered absentmindedly, but halfway through, he hesitated. He had always been perfectly clear about how he viewed himself, but this brought up another question. Did he admire the "Shadow" who existed in the world now?

"Either you are or you aren't. What do you mean by 'maybe'?"

Faced with the cryptic answer Cid had unintentionally given, Shio Hikawa responded impatiently.

"What I mean is that, personally, I really do admire Shadow. But the Shadow I admire and look up to is the Shadow in my heart, not the Shadow who exists in reality."

In a sense, Cid was a seeker. What he pursued was the "Shadow" within his heart, the embodiment of an Eminence in Shadow. As for the Shadow who existed in reality... one could only say that he was still on the path toward becoming an Eminence in Shadow.

The same theory could be applied to everyone in the world, because a "person" was the sum total of all their social relationships.

"Your enemies often know you better than you know yourself." But Cid believed that if someone couldn't even define their own existence, then what did that make them?

Perhaps only a God who could truly observe the world from a God's-eye view had the right to confirm and define a person's existence.

That was why Cid admired Shadow. In his mind, a complete Shadow was synonymous with the absolute Eminence in Shadow. At the same time, he was dissatisfied with the Shadow who existed in reality because he still wasn't perfect.

Admiration was the greatest distance from understanding. No one was perfect, so once you truly came to understand someone, the filter through which you saw them would inevitably shatter.

Just like Beta's Chronicles of the Shadow and Epsilon's flowery rhetoric, Cid didn't think he deserved any of those extravagant words of praise.

"So what does that make him?"

"Just call it Cid talking big."

Yuiri Haba asked her partner for an opinion, while Shio Hikawa merely shrugged, not caring about the matter at all.

"A Shadow fanatic..."

The other two might not have cared, but Sayaka Kirasaka certainly did. She studied Cid with a strange look in her eyes.

Come to think of it, wasn't Cid around every time Shadow appeared? Thinking back over the past few days, Sayaka Kirasaka realized that despite having been with Cid for only a short time, she had already encountered Shadow several times. It was almost as if Cid went wherever Shadow went.

Which meant... Cid was a die-hard Shadow fan!

The moment Sayaka Kirasaka reached that conclusion, it was as though she had suddenly attained some earth-shattering revelation. Everything that had happened before finally made sense.

Someone who constantly followed at your heels like that would normally be dealt with if they were an enemy, unless there was absolutely no way to do so.

And Shadow was one of the world's five strongest, an undisputed existence at the very pinnacle, someone who had truly reached the point where he could do whatever he wanted. Would someone like that really tolerate an enemy constantly following him around?

Of course not.

Everything connected.

Once Cid's allegiance became clear, there was finally an explanation for his absurd strength and his ability to conceal himself. Following that logic, the reason the intelligence leak had caused Shadow to appear here was obvious. Someone had told Cid about the Lion King Organization's mission, and Shadow had subsequently learned about it. After investigating and realizing something was wrong, Shadow had come here.

And the "someone" who had drawn Shadow here, unsurprisingly, had to be...

Sayaka Kirasaka abruptly cut off her own train of thought.

"You've got to be kidding me. Yukina and I are actually traitors?!"

Stopping herself was already too late. Sayaka Kirasaka had reached the conclusion, and in despair, she immediately punched the earthen wall.

"What? Kirasaka, what did you just say? What did you become?"

"No, nothing."

With a beaming smile, Sayaka Kirasaka politely rejected Yuiri Haba's concern. For the sake of both her life and Yukina's, she knew she couldn't reveal this secret even if someone beat her to death.

Leaking classified intelligence was already serious enough, but they had also drawn Shadow here. Even if her and Yukina's master was a veteran instructor from the Lion King Organization, they would still be executed if anyone found out.

But who could possibly have predicted this? Their original assignment had been to guard the Prime Minister, only for it to turn into a blockade of the entire mountain range after they arrived. Before that, everyone had known that the Prime Minister was coming to Kanagawa Prefecture. Who could have guessed that it would suddenly turn into a special military operation?

"Did you just say something about being a traitor?"

Yuiri Haba hadn't heard her clearly, but Cid's exceptional hearing allowed him to notice something strange about Sayaka Kirasaka's words. He immediately leaned closer to ask while simultaneously thinking about what she had meant.

"Don't tell me the worst-case scenario actually happened and your superiors sold you out?"

Looking at Cid's perfectly innocent face, as though he knew absolutely nothing, an inexplicable rage surged through Sayaka Kirasaka. She raised the silver sword in her hand with all her strength.

"I'm going to kill you, you bastard!"

"Hey, Kirasaka, stop!"

"What's gotten into you?! Sure, I wanted to strangle Cid-kun after he abandoned us too, but I was only joking!"

Shio Hikawa and Yuiri Haba hurried forward and grabbed Sayaka Kirasaka, who had seemingly gone insane. Sayaka, seeing an opportunity to back down gracefully, cooperated quite readily and allowed herself to be restrained.

It really was a complete farce.

...

By the shores of Kannawa Lake, whose surface had already frozen solid, several armored vehicles and armed combat helicopters were frantically searching the surrounding area.

After Flame Dragon Kreyd joined the battle, the Lion King Organization, which had already redeployed most of its high-level combat forces elsewhere, completely collapsed. A tall tower had been erected over the ruins of the operations headquarters, which had been devastated by overwhelming firepower, while several military tents had been set up below. Urgent shouts continuously rang out from inside.

"Captain Okiyama, come in. Do you copy? Come in..."

"Captain Yanagibayashi, come in. Do you copy..."

"Reporting, Commander Azama. The Marine units currently searching the mountains for fleeing Lion King Organization personnel still haven't reported back. They may have already been wiped out..."

"Smack!"

Tatsumi Azama, who had been sitting anxiously on a stool waiting for news, slammed his palm down on the table the instant he heard the intelligence officer's report, producing a tremendous bang.

"What are you talking about? We've already crushed the Lion King Organization. How could they possibly still have enough fighting power to defeat our elite units? Is there something wrong with the intelligence?"

"Reporting, Commander. That is the staff officers' current assessment. They believe it's highly likely that a third-party force has appeared. Captain Okiyama and her unit may unfortunately have encountered them and been completely annihilated."

"A third-party force? Who? Śakra has already had his attention drawn away by the Lion King Organization's upper ranks. We lured the Third Primogenitor to the shrine. And those people from Netheril aren't worth worrying about. So where did this third-party force come from?"

Tatsumi Azama loudly questioned his subordinate. He simply couldn't understand it. As they understood it, only the Cleansers’ Self-Defense Force and the Cult of Diablos should have been involved in the fighting. Where could a third faction possibly have come from?

"W-well..."

"Report!"

Just as the intelligence officer faltered, unable to come up with an answer, another intelligence officer rushed inside with a photograph in his hand.

"Commander Azama, latest intelligence. Before losing contact, one of our small ground combat units transmitted this photograph to us. According to the staff officers' analysis, the figure in the photo is the legendary Shadow."

"What the hell?!"

Tatsumi Azama shouted even louder as he snatched the photograph from the intelligence officer's hand and held it in front of his face. In the picture, a black figure stood amid a convoy of armored vehicles that had been reduced entirely to scrap metal.

"Damn it! Our intelligence was wrong. Shadow has appeared. Abandon the pursuit of the remaining Lion King Organization personnel and accelerate the search. No matter what, we have to find that superweapon at the bottom of the lake!"

He was panicking, but precisely because of that, Tatsumi Azama felt even more confident in his plan, even as the pressure bearing down on him intensified.

There was only one thing that could make one of the world's strongest personally take action: the presence of another existence on the same level.

In other words, the people from the Cult of Diablos hadn't lied to him.

That made things simple.

This was a life-or-death race against time. As long as he found that superweapon first, he would win.

At least, that was what he believed.

...

At the edge of the frozen lake, a copper-red Dragon swept through the white mist before plunging into the mountains.

"Kreyd, aren't we going to continue searching the bottom of the lake?"

The armored figure clutched in Kreyd's dragon claws noticed the change in direction and raised his head to ask what was happening.

"It seems the one carrying the key has been taken away. I can sense that there's nothing left at the bottom of the lake now. We came in from the front, so there was no way she could have escaped in that direction. That means she can only be somewhere in the mountains."

"I see..."

"Sergey, how are the preparations I asked you to make coming along?"

Kreyd spoke calmly. Sergey nodded without betraying any emotion and pulled a device from inside his clothes.

"One drop of her blood is enough. Just one drop, and we'll be able to obtain that key."

"I see. That's not bad. After all, she is one of my own kind."

As the two were speaking, a burly figure clad in golden armor stepped into their path, pale lightning crackling around his hands.

"Hey, you two over there. I've got something I want to ask you."

Hearing the voice, Sergey looked toward Kreyd.

"What should we do?"

"Take this guy out!"

Kreyd coldly gave the order. Not recognizing the man before him, he unleashed a dragon's roar and charged straight at the stranger.

...

Carrying a silver Spear with an unconscious little girl on her back, Yukina Himeragi sprinted through the mountains at full speed, constantly evading the attacks of the magical beasts in the sky.

"Snowdrift Wolf!"

Blue Spiritual Energy surged from the tip of her spear and instantly pierced through a Bee Snake blocking her path. Yukina Himeragi didn't slow down in the slightest, however, because the monsters pursuing her weren't just one or two. There were more than a hundred of them.

Ever since she had found the unconscious little girl on the frozen lake and taken her onto her back, Yukina Himeragi's ordeal had become almost unimaginable.

She had barely managed to escape the Bee Snake swarm before, but once she encountered the little girl, every method she used to shake them off suddenly stopped working. The swarm pursued her as though they had somehow locked onto her exact location.

After being chased for a full half hour, Yukina Himeragi had nearly exhausted both her Spiritual Energy and her physical stamina. Yet aside from losing a dozen or so members, the Bee Snake swarm behind her showed no signs of relenting. They seemed determined to continue until she was dead.

At this rate, the moment they caught her, she would undoubtedly die.

Realizing that, Yukina Himeragi's expression darkened.

Throw away the little girl on her back...

Even setting aside the fact that Yukina Himeragi's personality would never allow her to do such a thing, she had already killed more than a dozen of their Bee Snakes. She didn't believe for a second that the swarm of magical beasts would simply let her go now.

Stop and fight to the death...

How would that be any different from suicide?

She could defeat a handful of them using Snowdrift Wolf's destructive power, but against more than a hundred monsters, even if she stood perfectly still, her Spiritual Energy wouldn't be enough to sustain Snowdrift Wolf's consumption.

The more she thought about it, the more hopeless the situation seemed. Once the difference in combat strength grew large enough, no amount of thinking could produce a solution.

Her mind growing hazy, Yukina Himeragi stumbled and fell to the ground.

"Oh no!"

She struggled to get back to her feet, but in less than a second, the sound of wild bees beating their wings was already ringing out behind her.