Their bellies are full. Their HP and morale are boosted. Sweet snacks are, indeed, the ultimate source of strength.
Charlotte rubs her tummy as she takes flight.
“All right, everybody! Let’s go treasure hunting!”
She zooms off. The rest of the group scrambles after her on foot.
Medjed Flay runs alongside her little leader without breaking a sweat but the other three are barely keeping up.
Laius shouts, “Hey, Charlotte! Are you sure we wanna go straight? The room we just passed on the right was one of the hot spots.”
“Keep going! Our target will most likely be where we expect it to be. If we make any detours, Numbers will beat us.”
Marianne wrinkles her brow.
“Are they headed for the same place?”
“They appear to be. They were moving about randomly when they first entered the labyrinth, but now they’re heading straight for our destination.”
Charlotte has a special barrier applied over one of her eyes.
It’s linked to a tracking barrier I planted on Alexei. Char can see where he’s located in the labyrinth.
While she appeared to be lounging about and enjoying a tea break earlier, she was keeping a sharp eye on the enemy’s movements.
For such a young kid, she’s sure got it together. Laius is impressed. But at the same time, he still has some doubts.
“Couldn’t it be a coincidence?”
“It’s possible, but we’re better off assuming it isn’t.”
The fastest team wins the contest.
Even if the treasure isn’t at the destination, converging with the enemy shouldn’t be a problem. All that does is place both teams back at square one.
Before long, they come across another horde of monsters.
The monsters are humanoids clad in armor. They’re all lined up in position and ready to go.
The audience stirs. ‘Aren’t those Wandering Knights?! Yikes!’
‘What’s that? Are they tough?’
‘They’re super tough. You’d need a mana level of at least 30 to fight one alone.’
Little do Char and her friends know that the spectators are in an uproar.
The magical girl waves her wand. “Time to annihilate them clean! Ka-poot!”
Char doesn’t show the slightest hint of fear. After all, she’s fought these guys before. She had Haruto’s direct assistance then. But now, she has an assortment of special powers her brother had built into her wand.
The wand unleashes a barrage of bright blasts. Her attack doesn’t completely decimate the monsters, but it definitely takes the wind out of their sails.
Bam! Vwam!
As the Wandering Knights falter, Irisphilia darts in and clobbers them with her fists. The monsters, although not completely vanquished, don’t have any opportunity to counterattack. Their armored bodies fall apart into pieces.
“…”
Sheet-ghost Flay charges into the oncoming mob. With a cloth covering her body, she can’t attack with her mighty claws, but she thwacks them with her trademark yakuza-kick.
“Whoa, those two are good… Kind of intimidating.” Laius assists her from behind with Light magic. There’s no way he could jump in with all the bits and pieces of monsters flying every which way.
“Flay’s one thing, but hasn’t Iris gotten dramatically stronger in such a brief time?” remarks Marianne.
“Yeah. Hard to believe her mana level was stuck until just recently,” Laius replies.
“Is this the ‘awakening’ they’re talking about? In any case, we’ll just have to do what we can to help out!”
The siblings provide seamless support for Flay and Iris─being careful not to get in their way.
“Take that! And that! And that!” Charlotte fires off nonstop blasts of light.
“Hey, watch it!” hollers Laius.
“Don’t worry! There’s no risk of hitting one of ours. My magic wand has a special function to prevent any friendly fire!”
“What?! That’s cheating!”
It doesn’t take Charlotte and the gang very long to wipe out the Wandering Knights.
Alexei’s team is a step ahead. They’re already one floor below where their opponents are.
Hmm. Looks like they’ve chosen the same route as us.
Unlike Char, who has a special barrier to spy on Alexei’s team, Alexei has no means to track his competitors.
But because he can control the monsters in the dungeon, he’s able to grasp their whereabouts by detecting when which of the monsters have vanished.
They’re predicting our moves. Or more like…tracking us. This is rough.
A rather underhanded act from a party who claims to be all about justice. Haruto or Shiva must be helping them. Their willingness to use any means necessary to achieve their “justice” suggests great zeal in their crusade.
Anyway, I’d better put a stop to it.
He suspects there must be some trick but he can’t figure out what it could be. Could they have affixed something to my body? In which case…
Plink!
…he unleashes a burst of mana and feels something snap behind his back. His team’s footsteps drown out the sound.
The old Alexei wouldn’t have been able to pull off something like that. But with the little bit of power that he gained from the Devil Lord, it’s a piece of cake.
Now they won’t be able to monitor us. If we carry on at this pace, we should be able to get our hands on Mija’s Crystal first, but…
That doesn’t mean their worries are over. Simply obtaining the treasure doesn’t equate to instant victory.
For the team to win, the players need to bring the item back to the Academy.
Getting it snatched from their hands during a face-off would be the worst possible scenario.
It’s not that Alexei is afraid his team won’t win. But if Shiva were to secretly intervene from the shadows, they could be in trouble.
If his opponents are headed for the same destination, there’s a good chance Alexei’s team will run into them on the way out. Were his party to slow down now, there’s the risk of being ambushed the instant they reach the treasure.
“No time to dawdle. Everyone, stay with me!”
Now that the enemy can’t track us, we definitely have an overwhelming advantage.
There’s no use trying to cover his tracks for all the trickery and subterfuge he’s been pulling. Alexei may as well gain the upper hand in deceit tactics also.
What now, Shiva?
At this point─well, from the start, actually─Alexei’s interest is in Shiva.
Charlotte Zenfis is hardly an obstacle to him. No matter how talented the young girl is, without Shiva’s help, her magical abilities will never exceed that of a human, he belittles her.
Little does Alexei know that that will be his downfall.
With one full floor in between themselves and their opponents, Alexei is convinced victory is theirs. That’s when he hears a voice.
“All we have to do is defeat them in a face-off. After that, we can take our time with the treasure hunting!” It’s Charlotte Zenfis.
The enemy team has appeared right in front of them!