“Unn…unnn….” he whined.
“…This is my first time seeing Wol sacred,” said Pomera as she watched Wolzottl lie down. Philia also watched him, her large eyes blinking in surprise.
It seemed…Wolzottl instinctually sensed Lunaère was in charge. Or maybe it was because of the unholy impurity?
“…It seems it would be better if I flew alongside,” said Lunaère sadly.
✦ ✦ ✦
-3-
WHEN WE ARRIVED AT COCYTUS…there were more monsters than when we checked in on the situation with Tiamat’s Eye while still in Luperm. The wall was broken, and fragments of golem littered the ground.
“Where’s Veranta…?” I asked, looking for him from Wolzottl’s back.
“There he is, Kanata! Over there!” Pomera pointed, and I caught sight of Veranta.
He was rushing about on top of the remains of the wall fighting a massive bird monster.
The bird monster was cloaked in armor of flames and firing balls of fire at Veranta. Veranta doggedly searched for openings to fire off the weapon he made using Omnipotent Alchemy, but it seemed to be quite the resilient monster, because it didn’t look like Veranta was doing much damage.
“That bird…it’s a phoenix,” said Lunaère. “They’re high level and they can recover like nothing ever happened even if you get them down to zero hit points. They’re quite dangerous. The easiest way to defeat them is to strike them with physical attacks to create an opening for a death magic spell that directly cuts off their life. This might be difficult for Veranta to handle on his own.”
Lunaère split off from where she had been flying beside Wolzottl and sped up, heading toward Veranta.
“Kaaaaaaaaaw!” The phoenix opened its beak wide and screeched to threaten Lunaère as she approached. She kept moving closer, showing no signs that she was intimidated, and formed a magic circle.
“Gravity Bomb.”
A shimmering blackness caught the phoenix, then imploded. It was crushed into a sphere, causing flames to explode out. The spell smashed its body, but it immediately tried to resurrect itself back to its original form.
Lunaère quickly extended her hand toward the bird. “Death.”
Purple light spread out, centered on the phoenix.
“Kyaaah!” It gave one last squawk before its body turned to ash and crumbled.
Veranta’s shoulders slumped, and he let out a heavy sigh. Then he looked in my direction, where I was still on Wolzottl.
“Huff, Kanata, and the others… You saved me. My apologies, but, as you can see, I failed to defend Cocytus. A powerful demon attacked and blew away the entire entrance, along with my defenses. There was absolutely no way I could stand in a fight against him. All I could manage was secretly withdrawing to avoid getting caught in the blast,” said Veranta apologetically.
“A demon attacked…?” I asked.
Veranta might be able to fight someone if they were around level 4,000 or so. It’d be safer to assume this demon was at least level 5,000.
And I didn’t think a demon that powerful could avoid the attention of the Unseen Hand of the Gods entirely. Which led me to only one conclusion: this demon was another assassin sent by the higher beings, just like Reniement.
“Curse Locklore! I only pray the other two will bring destruction upon the world!”
That’s what Reniement said when he saw his defeat looming. That meant there were probably three assassins in total the higher beings were going to send. This was number two.
“And so, now I am fighting off the monsters overflowing from Cocytus,” said Veranta. “I needed help for now, so I had the Sopia Trading Company dispatch the mercenaries working for it, while also requesting all A-Rank adventurers or higher from nearby cities to provide support.”
“Right…I think I’m up to speed now,” I said. “But Cocytus is massive, and there are a huge amount of monsters in it. Your fighting force is already dwindling, and even though you got some reinforcements, that’s going to tail off…”
“I have a request for the two of you, Kanata and Lunaère. It’s likely the demon from earlier released the seal on Cocytus. I need you two to go after him and defeat him.”
“Me and Lunaère-san?”
“Yes. This demon is a fairly high level. Only someone with significant levels will be able to even leave so much as a scratch on him. I’m not even certain that I can hold the line here, so I would also like Pomera and Zolophilia to remain. I should be able to secure the surface if I have Pomera’s white magic and Zolophilia’s area attacks.”
It seemed a good idea, based on what I was hearing, to assume the demon that went into Cocytus was even a higher level than Jonas. Pomera’s magic probably wouldn’t even be able to cause superficial wounds. That meant it would be better for her to stay here on the surface and support defense rather than get dragged with us for no reason.
I glanced at Lunaère.
“Let’s do this, Kanata,” she said. “We’ve nearly completed cleaning up the dangerous pawns in this world. Our enemy will likely be a high level, but he is also one of the higher beings’ secret weapons. Sending something this powerful at this stage means they are finally running out of things to throw at us.”
“Okay. The two of us will take out this demon. Pomera-san, Philia-chan, you help with the monsters up here,” I said.
“O-okay! We’ll give it our all! Make sure you two are careful!” said Pomera.
“So, we’ve come this far…now back to Cocytus. Kanata, let’s go kick some ass!” said Noble, reaching out his tongue and getting pumped up.
“Noble, wouldn’t it be best for you to stay up here?” said Lunaère, her hand on her chin.
“What?! But I want to hang out with Kanata for a while!”
“But this enemy seems a far higher level than you, Noble, and you don’t have any useful long-distance spells. I think it’s simply too dangerous. You would be more helpful if you stayed on the surface and defeated monsters here.” Lunaère’s tone was calm as she shook her head and refused.
She didn’t look embarrassed in the least, meaning this was nothing more than Lunaère dismissing Noble from this mission. Noble seemed to sense that as well, since his tongue drooped in disappointment.
“T-take care of things up here, Noble,” I said. “It’ll probably take some time for us to chase down this demon. I’ll feel a lot better knowing you’re up here, since your level is in the three thousands.”
“…I know you’re just trying to make me feel better.”