—Ludie’s Perspective—
That Rina-looking shadow possessed power completely unlike the Rina I knew.
She moved freely on jet-black wings and broke through rock as she attacked us with the claws sprouting from its hands. Her speed and her strength were far greater than I would have thought possible.
I might have lost to this version of Rina if I had fought her. She was so strong, I couldn’t help thinking so.
However, there was someone even stronger in front of me.
“She’s got power, but she’s just throwing it around haphazardly. It’s too bad.”
Despite how powerful this Rina-looking shadow was, Yukine overcame it easily, to the point where I almost felt bad for the demon.
Yukine battled as if she were entertaining a child in her spare time. In terms of simple brute strength, she might have been the lesser of the two. But that slight discrepancy in power was nothing she could not overcome with her superb technique.
The Rina-looking shadow groveled on the ground. Then she slowly began to heal herself.
After witnessing Yukine’s overwhelming strength, I couldn’t help but think, She’s practically on President Monica’s level.
Something about the spectacle reminded me of the strongest fighter at the Academy, President Monica. Obviously, their fighting styles were completely different, and they wielded different weapons, too. Still, the way Yukine had effortlessly dodged her foes’ attack, then brought them low, was classic President Monica.
Before long, the Rina-looking shade stopped moving completely.
“Ludie, let’s destroy this thing,” she said, glancing sidelong at the shade lying on the ground and healing herself. After Yukine and I launched our attacks, the magic stone quickly crumbled away.
“I hope Yuika and Kousuke are all right…,” I said.
Yukine nodded.
“Let’s hurry back to Takioto. I’m worried about everyone.”
✦ ✦ ✦
—Takioto’s Perspective—
“I thought this would work out…!” Iori cursed.
I could sympathize—I’d thought the same exact thing when I was playing the game, too.
“None of us expected this demon to start hurting himself like this,” Esmeralda said as she guarded against the demon’s Pain spell.
At first, Iori and Esmeralda had assumed the demon wouldn’t be able to use Pain if they refrained from attacking him.
While this powerful technique could send back the damage taken from an attack twofold, it wasn’t scary once you understood how it worked. Iori and Esmeralda had assumed they would just need to hold out against Andrealphus’s regular dark magic attacks and wait for good news.
However, they had no such luck.
“Here it comes again!” Iori shouted, readying his shield.
The demon smirked as he summoned several Dark Lances and—shockingly—fired them at himself.
“Angh, aaaugh! I-it’s working.”
To be blunt, it was a bizarre sight.
Countless dark spears ran through the demon’s body, and yet in spite of this, his smile never faded.
Then he immediately cast several Pain spells at once.
These attacks, fired mostly at Esmeralda and Iori, and occasionally Nanami and the Saint, were impossible to dodge. They seemed to possess a homing ability, and they wouldn’t disappear until they hit someone or something.
“Self-harming, of all things,” the Saint murmured with irritation. She then used healing magic on Esmeralda and Iori as they defended her.
“Honestly, hurting himself? His resemblance to Master is getting stronger by the minute.”
Nanami interrupted with a joke. My mental health was doing just fine, thank you.
“Pain is already enough trouble, but these other underhanded attacks of his are so vexing.”
Just as the Saint had said, Pain and Dark Lance weren’t the only irritating moves in the demon’s arsenal. He was also using Vampiric Blade, a skill that healed himself while dealing damage; Grudge, a spell that afflicted a foe with a movement-dulling Curse status effect; and poison magic.
Since the demon had the magic stones at his disposal, he was able to attack without end, but under normal circumstances, his strategy would probably be to inflict Curse and Poison on his foe and use Vampiric Blade to attack and heal at the same time, while countering with Pain. Insidious, right? This guy really had to be friendless.
I was deeply grateful that we had the Saint here with us for this.
Since she was both a healing specialist and an anti-demon specialist, the others were managing to avoid serious damage and status effects with her help.
Regardless…
“Things have still gotten a bit dicey…”
Although we could hold out for a long time by devoting ourselves completely to defense, we wouldn’t last forever. Around thirty minutes had elapsed since the others had gone to destroy the magic stones, but unfortunately our opponent’s magic and stamina were basically endless, and he didn’t show any signs of exhaustion. We were the only ones running out of steam.
I made sure to carry a large reserve of mana recovery items with me at all times. However, when I saw that the Saint had started using them like they were going out of style, telling me, “Why do you have so many of these, Takioto? I’ll be taking them, then,” my worries only intensified. In an absolute pinch, I could donate my mana to her, but the question would be who would handle Katorina in the meantime.
Still, there was something even more troubling than our waning stamina…
“Yikes, Katorina. A hit from that would’ve broken some bones, y’know.”
Katorina’s power.
Going off appearances, she should have been weak. Katorina was short, her boobs were tiny, and she had beady eyes. She had a dirty mouth, and she got embarrassed when anyone thanked her. Her demonic transformation had given her horns, a spade-shaped tail, and cute wings, which looked utterly incapable of supporting her body in the air—the classic cute little devil girl look.
Yet despite all that, her strength and speed weren’t insignificant in the slightest.
“Think you could give me a chance to catch my breath here?”
Despite my request, Katorina didn’t stop. I mean, she was being controlled, so there was no way she would stop, but still.
“!”
Katorina exhaled loudly while swinging her claws at me.
It was a sideswipe this time. I jumped back from her arm, swinging at me like a whip. In response, Katorina kicked the ground and closed the gap between us before attacking with the opposite arm.
Uh-oh, my gut was telling me I couldn’t dodge this one. I immediately brought my Third Hand up to block it. This time, however, I didn’t dig my feet in at all.
In order to curb even the slightest amount of her unbelievable force, I jumped in the same direction as the attack.
A powerful impact hit my Third Hand. After I was sent flying several yards, I used my Fourth Hand to make an acrobatic landing.
I quickly moved to change my posture. I needed to stand out in front to ensure that Nanami and the Saint wouldn’t be hit.
“Yeah, it’s way better to parry these attacks.”
While I was capable of blocking her strikes, I opened myself up to taking some damage by doing so.
As I stood between Katorina and the Saint, I was enveloped in a gentle light.
“Thank you very much, Saint Stef.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Just make sure to keep me safe,” the Saint said before turning to Iori and Esmeralda. She was focused on those two since they seemed to be losing ground in their battle. I really had to avoid requiring her healing magic the best I could.
Nanami was busy aiding them, too. Though I also needed to prevent Katorina from getting hurt by Nanami’s attacks, so that was unavoidable, really.
As I continued to handle Katorina’s offensive onslaught, Andrealphus abruptly gave her an order.
“Finish off Stole Boy and come over here to help me!”
It appeared the demon was lacking offense. While he had his recovery magic, he was one against many, and Iori’s team had the Saint helping them, too, so I imagined the tides were gradually turning against him.
But it was going to be difficult to get through me. I was pretty confident in my defensive skills, after all.
While I continued to pin Katorina down, Andrealphus began to laugh, as though suddenly realizing something.
“Honestly, who would have ever thought? You’re truly beyond my expectations. Heh-heh,” Andrealphus said, an edge to his voice.
What did he mean by “beyond his expectations”…?
“You’re surprised at how strong we are, right?”
“That, I cannot deny. You children are strong. I’ll grant you that,” he said, clapping. It was all too clear his praise wasn’t genuine.