While erecting a defensive barrier against my opponent’s fierce attack, I couldn’t help but remember the past. Zeke had already been a heinous demon two hundred years ago, and even back then, I couldn’t completely defeat him. My only option had been to seal him away.
Though the Hero Party boasted that there wasn’t a single demon we hadn’t beat, he was the one demon that we couldn’t completely vanquish. What is Zeke doing in the modern world? There were so many questions, but now that he was here, I had no choice but to exert the utmost caution while fighting him.
“Eliza, Noel, you two need to run.” It’s too bad, but this time, I won’t have the luxury of fighting my opponent while defending others.
“What are you gonna do, Abel?!” Eliza asked.
“Take him out. I’m probably the only one in the world that can do that.”
Zeke’s objective seemed to be purely revenge, so in that case, it was better for me to fight him alone in order to keep casualties to a minimum.
“Ha ha ha ha! You’ve gotten pretty tiny in the time that I’ve been asleep, black cat!” Zeke cackled before launching another attack, this time rapidly shooting multiple Fireball Magecraft from his hand.
Hm. It’s a sloppy barrage focused more on quantity than quality, but still, the force behind each Fireball is staggering. I analyzed his attacks as they viciously exploded upon contact. If I messed up my defense even the tiniest bit, I’d incur critical damage. But I was able to redirect their trajectories with my Barrier Magecraft and avoid getting hurt.
Now then. I think it’s best to determine our power differential. After all, I haven’t been blessed with the opportunity to fight at my full strength since I reincarnated. I’ll have to warm up a bit first.
“Ha ha ha, what’s the matter?! We’re not gonna get anywhere if you keep scurrying around!”
His firepower was on a whole other level. If the battle dragged on, it’d only be a matter of time until the city turned into a sea of flames.
Just as I was thinking that, something unexpected happened.
“Nothing to fear, kid! I’m here!”
Hm. Looks like other mages have come running. A man suddenly jumped down from a nearby building.
“The name’s Blade! I’m the man with the Roman numeral IV at Chronos!”
Good grief. Looks like I caught the eye of a weirdo. Chronos was the very same organization that Emerson was a part of, and also the successor to Chaos Raid, the organization I’d been in two hundred years ago.
It seemed that among modern mages, there were some mages more skilled than the rest, but I suspected these mages were out of their element here. Blade was a middle-aged man covered from head to toe in a tight bodysuit.
“What a cowardly demon, aiming for the life of a frail, young lad! Allow me to deliver justice!” he said, striking a very uncouth pose.
Hm. Looks like this guy is completely missing the big picture. But to be fair, I don’t think a modern mage would get what I was planning to do. It must’ve seemed like I was trying to run away from Zeke’s attacks.
“Robelle, keep him busy!” Blade requested.
“Roger that!”
Hm. So Blade wasn’t the only mage to arrive. She doesn’t have a human presence at all, so it took me a while to notice. Robelle’s unique appearance was due to her fully mechanical body. It wasn’t clear if she was actually human, but the Roman numeral VIII was engraved on her shoulder.
“Firing immobilizing nets!” Robelle shot out over ten Regalias, each resembling a small ball.
When they burst open, they unleashed countless nets that restrained Zeke’s body.
“Rrgh!”
The Regalias weren’t so fast that Zeke couldn’t react to them. But since he’d just woken up in the modern world, he probably didn’t even know what Regalias were. As a result, he simply got hit by the attack.
“Hm. What a strange magecraft.”
For a moment, Zeke stopped moving. His wariness was reasonable—even for me, it was my first time seeing a Regalia like this. I could tell that it’d been imbued with high level, intricate magecraft equations. And for some reason, it seemed familiar.
The way the magecraft equations had been written were shrewd and foul. If my suspicions were correct, Emerson had been involved in the development of that Regalia. After all, if it was Emerson, then he was definitely observing this battle from somewhere.
“Heh heh. Intriguing. What a very interesting turn of events!”
A brief survey of the area revealed Emerson, as I had predicted. In a lot of ways, Emerson was someone who always lived up to your expectations.
“I’m so lucky to be able to have a real demon to experiment on. I’ll have it test out the powers of my subordinates!” Emerson said to himself, adjusting his glasses.
I see. These two are Emerson’s underlings. If they sent three whole members to deal with just one enemy, they must’ve seen Zeke as a big threat.
“Whoo!” Seeing opportunity in Zeke’s current immobility, Blade cried out and jumped, soaring above the surrounding buildings.
“This hero suit that Chronos made for me makes me ten times stronger, and I’m already ten times stronger than the average mage! You see what I’m getting at?!”
It’s a suit-type Regalia, huh? It’s my first time seeing something like this. Just like the robot from earlier, the suit must’ve been made by Emerson.
“It means that I’m a hundred times stronger now! So take this, my one-hundred-times-stronger kiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick!” he yelled, leaping and aiming a kick at Zeke with all his might.
The force of his kick is honestly not bad. It’s relatively exceptional compared to the standards of modern mages, and with the suit strengthening his attack even further, he could make it incredibly powerful.
But even so, Zeke took his powerful kick without even flinching.
“Ridiculous,” Zeke scoffed.
“Wha—?!”
In order to clearly demonstrate just how different they were, Zeke most likely held back from fighting for real, and had instead stopped Blade’s kick with a single finger, much to Blade’s complete and utter disbelief.
“Hmph. That guy earlier and you are the same... Why are modern mages so confident despite being incredibly weak? I just don’t understand.”
As a counterattack, Zeke punched Blade, sending him flying.
All I can say is that Blade’s picked the wrong opponent. Even two hundred years ago, Zeke was considered to be so strong that he was recognized as a natural disaster. It’d be difficult for modern mages to take him on no matter what plans they came up with.
“Gaaaaaah!” Blade yelled, flying through the air before crashing into a building.
Doesn’t look like the impact killed him, but I’m sure he broke some bones. It was lucky that he survived the attack, but that meant I probably couldn’t expect much help here.
“Whoa... What’s happening? Are demons really this powerful?! They’re such intriguing subjects to study!” For some reason, Emerson seemed extremely excited and was leaning forward. “If I take data on his vitals, I can revolutionize the industry! This is wonderful! This’ll lead to the ultimate innovation!”
Good grief. Your own ally is in trouble, but this is how you’re acting? How inconsiderate. Then again, it was just like Emerson to put his curiosity over the safety of others.
“Looks like we have no choice, Robelle! Don’t hold back! No need for a preamble, hit him with everything you have and eliminate him!”
“Yes, my master!” the robot said, accepting Emerson’s orders.
Robelle was clearly no match for Zeke, so what was Emerson’s scheme here? The next thing she did took even me by surprise.
“Releasing limiter. Booting up Buster Mode!”
Robelle’s body suddenly started to transform. She was probably receiving external energy from somewhere; her mana levels had risen rapidly.
“Eliminating target. Fire!” she said, voice even and emotionless. A cannon emerged from her back and fired a laser.
It was the first time I was seeing a magecraft like this. It was using Fire Magecraft as its base for the attack. It was one of the more powerful Modern Magecrafts, but in terms of pure strength, it was many times more powerful than Blade’s kick with the suit.
“Lukewarm... You’re gonna make me yawn,” Zeke grumbled.
As a counterattack, Zeke activated magecraft of his own—Fireball. It was a plain, average, and rudimentary Fire Magecraft, but the power Zeke used to fire off the attack was in a league of its own, strong enough to push back and suppress the laser beam that’d been fired at him.
“That’s not possible! He’s pushing back the attack?!” Emerson cried in disbelief.
It seemed that Robelle’s attack wasn’t able to beat out Zeke’s Fireball. If anything, his attack completely overpowered hers, and flew towards the robot girl unimpeded.
“Guh!”
Though Emerson had quickly tried to use a Barrier Magecraft to protect himself, it couldn’t stop all the damage. There was a deafening explosion and, in the next moment, the buildings that had taken a direct hit from Zeke’s attack had been half-blown away by the powerful blast.
“How is that possible?! My foolproof plan is in tatters!” Emerson moaned in despair.
Emerson not having a good read on a demon such as Zeke—the strongest of all demons even two hundred ago—wasn’t a surprise.
“Grr... How?! This isn’t supposed to have happened! My perfect plan...” Emerson bemoaned.
Hm. By deploying a shield Regalia just in the nick of time, he was able to avoid sustaining any major injuries. You really can’t ever count him out.
But even so, he wasn’t able to completely prevent the damage. Due to the wind from the blast, he’d been blown away, and from the looks of things, he didn’t have any more will to fight.
“I guess I’ll start by cleaning up the rest of the garbage around here,” Zeke said.
Zeke knew Emerson and Blade were still alive. He kicked off the ground, flying towards the crumbled building where Blade was lying.
Good grief. Far too optimistic of me to think I could avoid all the hassle of fighting if others could handle him. Of course things didn’t go that smoothly. At this rate, Emerson and the others were certain to be wiped out.