The sword clothed with holy light vanquished the undead knights.
Erminio, his attendant knights, and even Edgar, whose main role was to support the search, surpassed the undead purely by their swordsmanship.
Erminio, who had been slashing at three skeletons, jumped away.
At that moment, a fireball flew from above the castle wall.
The three skeletons were operating a line of strange brass and mithril skeleton-like specimens.
“This stuff doesn’t work!”
Erminio held up his sword like an umbrella and caught the flames.
There was almost no damage. It was the power of the armor.
The armor Erminio wore was made of Adamantite, and it was heavily enchanted to increase its defense and magic defense. He didn’t use any protective charms to receive buffing magic from his allies, but he didn’t need them either.
However, only Loretta was a little in danger.
Although she was dressed so lightly that she appeared to be wearing only lingerie, the nature of her armor and the magical spells applied to her were designed to make her resistant to physical attacks. She was countering the fireballs by using «Fire Cancel».
“Hey, wait a minute, Erminio! I’m being drained of magic power by the «Item Box», you know? Do something!”
“I don’t need to be told. I’m not that much of an opponent. Just give me the buff. … Hey Edgar, let’s test out my new purchase. Bring out the Fire shooter!”
“Yes, master.”
Edgar pulled out a thin, tubular magic wand.
After receiving the wand, Erminio swung it at the skeleton on the wall.
“Haha!”
A fireball shot out from the wand and hit the skeleton on the wall, sending a tail of fire sparks through the air.
Despite the small size of the fireball, there was a huge explosion and the skeleton’s head was blown off.
“Yippee, it hit!”
“Well done, master.”
“The range is just as advertised. Uh-huh, it’s not bad for this range.”
Erminio was pleased.
“Fire Shooter”. It was a magic item with built-in magic tank and formula, and even non-magicians could use the spell «Spitfire». Erminio bought it for a dozen gold coins (he had already forgotten the exact price).
“Amazing!”
“I’ll shoot them all down… Oops, missed!”
A fireball that missed its target burned down one of the red rose flags on the wall.
“Watch, I’ll hit you next time. Yeeeeaaah!”
The next blow missed its target and hit a skeleton operating a defensive weapon.
A zombie in knight’s armor approached from the ground to block Erminio’s attack.
However, Erminio repeled the sword of the attacking zombie and thrusted his sword at its head. The zombie collapsed as though its strings had been severed.
“Not much. It’s just a bunch of zombies. You just have to watch out for a few lucky critical hits.”
“Do you think that’s what’s happening?”
“What?”
An eerie-sounding voice descended.
A black shadow danced across the sky.
It leapt from the top of the castle wall and landed lightly over the moat.
A man in a kimono with a katana at the ready and his hair tied up high.
Pale skin and cloudy eyes. A ghoul.
“This is…”
“Weird equipment, Ghoul General class?”
The strong exert a commensurate amount of pressure.
The adventurers stared at the ghoul and even felt physical pressure from it.
“This is the princess’s capital. She is the princess of the city, and she is the one who gets up on those dirty feet and does whatever she pleases… “The third time even the Buddha gets mad and drops the meteors.” I am Udanosuke, the instructor of swordsmanship. You shall be vanquished!!”
“Something that smells like a mid-boss came out.”
The ghoul who called himself “Udanosuke” was clearly a strong one, a force apart from the surrounding undead.
Perhaps thinking it was no longer possible to push with their numbers, the other undead took a step back.
“We don’t care about the undead. We want to fight the big boss as soon as possible.”
“The princess is not here. Even if she were here, you would not be able to see her honor.”
At Udanosuke’s answer, Erminio tilted his head in a bluntly discouraged manner.
“Oh? What, she’s not here? What’s wrong? Well, whatever, just beat this guy …”
He then tried to point his sword at Udanosuke.
By that time, Udanosuke was already right in front of Erminio’s eyes.
“Uh, ooooh!?”
“Sushi! Engawa! Gari! Tekka! Murasaki! Bri-hamachiiiiiiiii!”
The continuous attacks came like a storm.
The katana was swung like a flailing serpent, and Erminio barely managed to defend himself as he retreated.
The sound of a clear swordfight echoed through the dead city.
“Tsk!”
Erminio swung his left arm.
Then the armor of Erminio’s hand peeled off.
“Nnn!?”
The mithril armor was bathed in lightning and floated in the air.
“Kasumo no Kagote”.
It was a magic item that could detach armor and turn it into a shield that floated in mid-air.
The floating shield caught Udanosuke’s katana. With a shallow slice, the katana was sucked into the armor.
“I got it!”
Erminio aimed for that opening.
Udanosuke took one hand off the katana, tightened his grip and delivered a compact fist strike!
“Doskoi!!”
“Gwah!?”
Udanosuke’s fist slammed into Erminio’s stomach.
Although his fist was blocked and burned by «Consecration», Udanosuke’s blow had more than enough impact.
Blown to pieces, Erminio rolled on the ground and leapt up, taking a direct defensive stance.
“Damn! What is this guy? He’s so strong!”
“Stand down, little boy.”
Etre and Alfonso stepped forward to protect Erminio.
The two split to the left and right to flank Udanosuke and slash at him.
“Kuh!”
The two attacked from the left and right with a slight time difference.
Udanosuke dodged Etre’s slash and caught Alfonso’s blow with his katana, which he swung diagonally backward.
The three (two and one?) were dizzyingly switching positions as they slashed at each other.
Udanosuke moved to get out of the way so as not to be caught between the two, while Etre and Alfonso stood in Udanosuke’s blind spots.
The intermittent flashes of silver light were like a tornado of steel. If they carelessly approached, they would be caught in it and instantly cut to pieces.
Erminio glared at all the other undead except for Udanosuke.
They were not trying to help Udanosuke, but were closing the distance to gradually surround Erminio and the others.
“Etre! Alfonso! You deal with that guy! We’ll take care of the guys surrounding us!”
“Got it!”
“Let’s go, Loretta, Edgar!”
The three of them moved on to clearing out the undead…
The undead were fast to break.
Edgar’s blades rushed past, slashing down the undead as they rubbed against each other, and Erminio knocked down two or three of them at a time.
A zombie that tackled Erminio was kicked away by him, and Edgar, who was waiting for him, cut it in half.
Loretta’s «Shock Ball» flew between the two and hit a skeleton, dismembering it.
“I won’t let it get away!”
Erminio slammed his sword after the undead who started to flee.
It was a blow through the armor, but the skeleton disintegrated due to the impact and the holy energy of the «Consecration».
After all, it was a monster of a lower rank, and there was no way they could defeat it with only 10 or 20 skeletons.
The undead, who had temporarily retreated, regrouped, but their numbers were reduced to about half.
“What’s the matter? There’s no response at all.”
“They’re all just a bunch of zombies. Or is Erminio too strong?”
Erminio and Loretta were proud of their victory. The “Decisive Drolette” were fighting the usual battles. They were the second strongest party in Ciel-Terra, and it was not every day that they faced an enemy who would give them such a hard time. The middle boss, who called himself Udanosuke, was not a problem, but the other monsters were just as bad with or without him.
“I’m going to destroy all the undead here for now. Then I’ll go to the treasure room and wait for the “Rose Princess of Hellrage” to come back.”
But Erminio’s words were cut short.
Just as he realized that the top of the wall was shining, a flash of intense heat radiated from it, engulfing Erminio.
*
In the middle of the main street, far from where Udanosuke and the others were fighting.
Erminio had been hit by a flash of light and was lying on the ground, burned too well-done.
“B-boy!? B-Boy!!”
The two temple knights retreated, keeping a watchful eye on Udanosuke.
Udanosuke did not chase after them, but looked away.
“… Fuu.”
The ghoul … Alastair, who was seated on the gunnery seat and dressed like an aristocrat, wiped away the sweat that was not even flowing.
That was a fishing out.
The other party took advantage of the fact that they split the party and intentionally made them lose in a way that made them go deep and lured them out into the middle of the main street. The undead soldiers then targeted the Erminio markers with their own discarded bodies, and fired a converging volley of their “Divine Thunder Cannon”, a city defense weapon, and fired away.
The force of the shot was made deliberate so as to leave a corpse behind.
As long as there was hope of reviving them, they would attempt to do so by returning at full speed to the temple in the nearest city.
It was the most effective way to drive them back.
“Adventurers. You knights are used to fighting monsters, but you have neglected to pay attention to defensive weapons. Thank goodness you are stupid.”
The royal capitals and major fortified cities of each country were often chosen to be built on top of a place where the land’s magical power was pooled. This was to generate the enormous amount of magical power to be used for defensive weapons and building defenses.
The former royal capital of Ciel-Terra, Terra Ruale, was no exception to this rule, with its magical mechanical artifact defense weapons were preserved.
The “Divine Thunder Cannon” was an ultra-high-powered magic power cannon that could even cleave an entire main street. By switching the firing mode, pinpoint sniping with high fuel efficiency was also possible, as it did now.
“Thank you. You hit it, didn’t you?”
Udanosuke scrambled up to the top of the wall.
Apparently, he had arrived here by hanging on to a slight ledge on the castle wall.
“The hardship they endured was their own expression. You have endured so well against the Temple Knights.”
“I could not withstand the holy magic of the charms, so I could only slice and dice them as best I could. If they have to reapply «Consecration» over and over again, their attacks won’t get through.”
Udanosuke looked disappointed. Alastair felt the same way.
Although they were entrusted to keep the intruders away, they were too busy turning them away to make them pay by killing them all, or to secure their bodies as material for undead.
“Let’s go back inside. We don’t have a lot of time to wait for the resurrection.”
“I’m sorry. …I lost a lot of the undead knights that the princess entrusted to me.”
But they did the best they could. The small number of troops who stayed at the royal capital did what they could do. It was impossible to do anything more with effort, perseverance, and loyalty.
Things couldn’t go on like this…
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