“How is the situation?!”
“At the moment, the adventurers and mercenaries who happened to be present are fighting the culprit. The knights and the city guards are focusing on evacuating the city.”
“Have three platoons of imperial guards head there immediately.” Okyst strode swiftly through the palace’s corridors as he gave out orders. “We’ll send the army too,” he continued. “Call on the men at once.”
“B-But, Your Highness! The opponents are undead monsters! The army’s equipment isn’t—”
“Most of the enemies are lower-rank monsters. Plunging their swords in holy water beforehand will be more than enough. Ask for the cooperation of every church of Ibris in the capital and secure as much holy water as possible.”
“Un-Understood!”
Having given his orders, Okyst changed into his armor. It was a masterpiece passed down through the imperial family, and the armor itself was imbued with holy mana.
“Your Highness! I’ve summoned the army and ordered them to get ready to move as quickly as possible.”
“Perfect. I’ll join the soldiers,” Okyst replied.
Several hundred soldiers had already gathered in the training grounds of the imperial palace. Okyst stood in front of them on an elevated platform.
“Soldiers,” he started, his eyes scanning through the crowd, “a crisis is upon us.” Okyst waited, letting the weight of his words sink in. “We cannot let the people of this empire down. Today, we must fight against the wicked to protect them!” he exclaimed.
The air grew tense as clergymen ran through the ranks carrying buckets of holy water.
“Do not fear, soldiers!” Okyst continued. “As you can see, we have the support of the Church of Ibris. With the blessing of holy water, you shall easily slay the undead with your swords!” The imperial prince unsheathed his own sword and raised it. “And I will be right by your side, leading the charge!”
✦ ✦ ✦
I felt like I saw the man’s body sway ever so slightly, and immediately after, he vanished into thin air.
A chill ran through my back and I shivered. He’d closed the distance between us in the blink of an eye. The man lifted his arm and I saw a piece of thread glimmer. I had no time to dodge as he brought down his arm. Thankfully, Egret’s shamshir deflected the thread before it could cut open my abdomen.
“Impressive,” the man said.
“You... You’re Spider, aren’t you?” Egret said, parrying more pieces of thread.
“Spider?” I repeated.
“I don’t know much about him either, but I’ve heard that among the members of a mysterious organization operating on the Central Continent, there is an assassin with a Southern Continent accent who uses threads as a weapon. According to my source, that organization may be involved in the political unrest of the Nile Kingdom,” Egret explained.
“Are you sure that info’s legit?” Tida asked.
“I heard it from a merchant who frequents the royal palace often,” he replied, “though I couldn’t say how credible it actually is.”
“This all sounds pretty fishy,” Elsa chimed in.
A mysterious organization operating from the shadows? I knew of quite a few of these from my days in the kingdom. I’d even had to confront some of them, including the People of the New Haldoria, which had approached Friede in an attempt to use him politically, the Dawn of Sorcery, which abducted children who had large mana pools, and the Patriotic Liberation Union, which had been trying to instigate insurrections in Haldoria’s vassal countries. I’d destroyed all three of them, so it couldn’t be one of those, though. This Spider character had to belong to another organization.
The man in black looked at us with a composed expression and smiled.
“You would be correct,” he told Egret. “Our organization acts upon receiving requests.”
“Does that mean the organization itself has no clear objective or purpose?” Yuu whispered pensively.
Elsa nodded. “There are crime syndicates like that.”
The man had completely recovered his balance, and we had surrounded him in a semicircle. He looked at each of us one by one, then lifted his arms and spoke.
“I believe that’s enough chatter.” He waved his arms like an orchestra conductor. In response, a morbid symphony of skeletons and zombies rushed at us in unison.
“What’s going on?!” Sistia exclaimed, using her army of Mud Dolls to destroy as many skeletons as she could. “There are clearly way more of them than dead citizens and guards!”
“He’s using his mana as a catalyst to summon more,” I replied. “Tida!”
“Yes, yes, I know!”
We left Yuu, Elsa, and Egret in charge of the front line and moved back somewhat. I summoned my Grimoire of Beelzebub and stood back-to-back with Tida while I swiftly flipped through the pages.
“Purification!” we both cast simultaneously.
✦ ✦ ✦
Our holy spells combined and crashed onto the undead like a wave of light. The skeletons and zombies vanished, but since we’d both limited the power of the spell to increase its range, the higher-level monsters weren’t affected. Thankfully, Yuu, Elsa, and Egret took care of them.
“The Envoy and the Silver Witch teaming up to produce a purification spell? I expected nothing less of you. But I wonder, how will you respond to this?”
Spider’s fingers twitched slightly, and the remaining monsters that had overrun the square disappeared, turning into miasma. The vapor gathered into several lumps and gave birth to new undead monsters.
“Elder liches?!”
Skeletons wearing mages’ robes had just appeared. They exuded much more pressure and mana than the regular skeletons we’d been fighting so far.
“As well as a giant skeleton, a skeleton dragon, and more...” said Yuu.
I let my Grimoire of Beelzebub disappear and condensed my mana in my hand once more.
“Divine Artifact, Grimoire of Belphegor,” I chanted. I took silver coins out of my pockets and threw them in the air, using them as catalysts to summon saint birds. “Fly around the area,” I ordered.
The birds chirped and took off.
I poured more mana into my grimoire and chanted, “Synchrosense.” That spell allowed me to share the senses of the monsters I had contracts with, and what the birds saw appeared in my head. “High-level undead monsters have emerged on a large scale,” I said.
Synchrosense did not have any particular attribute, but I couldn’t use it unless I was holding my Grimoire of Belphegor. While the most powerful enemy here was most likely the man in front of us, the biggest threat to the city was the undead. Keeping track of them was well worth giving up on my other grimoires for the time being.
“Yuu, Elsa, Tida, go!” I yelled.
Many adventurers and knights were already grappling with the elder liches, but they had to be stopped—and fast. Otherwise, they would keep on summoning other powerful undead monsters for as long as they had mana.
“Yuu and Elsa, focus on the most powerful monsters! Tida, please imbue the weapons of the strongest fighters with holy mana!”
There was no time to discuss strategy, so I just gave out directions. Tida immediately imbued holy mana into Yuu’s and Elsa’s Divine Artifacts, and the three of them dashed away.
Tida ran toward the adventurers who were fighting the elder liches, Yuu headed straight toward the giant skeleton made of ominous black bones, and Elsa joined a group of knights who were struggling to face a large number of undead.
“Are you sure splitting your forces was wise?” Spider asked.
“Don’t act tough,” Egret said. “You need a ton of mana to maintain your threads, and pulling from that magic item also requires you to use your own mana first, right?”
“After summoning so many powerful undead monsters, you must have become weaker,” I added.
Our words didn’t seem to fluster Spider in the slightest. Attacking him directly wouldn’t be easy because of his threads. If we dove in headfirst without thinking, we’d be turned into mincemeat.
Despite the thunderous fighting noises around us, Egret, Spider, and I were stuck in an eerily silent standstill.