We continued talking for a while. They had said too much anyway, as Kabal put it, so they might as well go all the way. These guys were a lot more good-natured than I gave them credit for at first.
And if the cave was no longer a location of interest, maybe we wouldn’t be the center of attention after all. I was considering having the town moved as a worst-case scenario, but now I doubted it’d be necessary. No country had any legal right to this land, so it wasn’t as if anyone could force us out.
Just in case, I decided to ask whether the guild would have any problems with us building a town here.
“It…oughta be fine, right?” Kabal said.
“Yeah,” Elen agreed. “It’s not the guild’s problem in the first place. What about the local governments, though?”
“Ooh, that ain’t for me to say,” was Gido’s opinion.
Of course, the guild wouldn’t know what their host nations were thinking. Plus, if any of them took action, they’d have to prove their claim to the other nearby nations. It wouldn’t be worth it.
Then, as I thought over this, I noticed that something was going on with Shizu, who’d been sitting there listening the whole time. Suddenly, she slumped to the floor, unconscious. We all immediately came up to her, trying to hold her up, when…
✦ ✦ ✦
“Nhh… Nraaaaahhhhhh!!”
✦ ✦ ✦
Things progressed quickly after that.
✦ ✦ ✦
Once Shizu’s extended groan ended, the tent was visited by absolute silence.
Cracks were now appearing over her mask, mystical force wafting out from beneath. All of us could tell that something bad was happening.
“Summon magic?!” Elen shouted in surprise.
“Whoa, for real? Where the hell’d that come from? What rank is it?”
“…Umm, judging by the size of the magic circle, I’d have to guess B-plus or higher.”
“Well, we can’t just sit here, boss. We gotta stop it!”
So they were seasoned adventurers after all, when they needed to be. A few words exchanged, and they immediately leaped into action.
“Great Earth, place thy bonds over her! Mud Hand!”
“Urrrrrraaahhh! Knockdown!!”
First, Elen tied her down. Then Kabal landed a full-body blow. Gido played backup, ready to act the moment trouble appeared. Hmm. For B ranks, their teamwork was top-notch. Not a single wasted movement.
But all Shizu had to do was lift the top of her index finger up a bit, and that was enough to trigger a small explosion around her. So much for my tent—which I didn’t mind that much, but what about those three? Were they hurt? There was a bit of a shock wave, but I was unscathed.
Kabal, who had landed a Knockdown on Shizu after Elen bound her, had sadly taken the full brunt of the explosion with his body. It had sent him flying. Gido was fine, however, and he’d sensed danger early enough that he’d pushed Elen aside to safety as well.
“You all right?”
“We’re just fine, yeah!”
“Um, I’m kinda aching all over!” Elen protested. “They better give us some hazard pay for this!”
Kabal, for his part, was already on his feet. “Owww… Guys, could you worry about your leader at least a little?” He must’ve been made of some sturdy stuff.
“I knew Shizu was a magic user, but summoning, too…?”
“What’d she summon, anyway?”
“No, no,” Gido cut in, “that ain’t even the half of it. As far as I know, you can’t launch magic without a chant during a summoning—”
Before he could finish, he stopped, looking at Shizu as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. He had just hit upon an idea.
“Wait… No way… The Conqueror of Flames?”
Shizu was still casting a spell. Her entire body was glowing bright red, hovering in the air a little. Her mask remained prominent on her face as her long black hair spilled out of her robe. What’s she trying to do? She seemed strange to me a moment before all this happened…
“Rigurd, get everyone out of town! Don’t let anyone near here!” I shouted.
“But…”
“That’s an order! Once they’re evacuated, get Ranga here for me!”
“Yes, Sir Rimuru!”
The goblin king sped off.
I could tell neither he nor his race could do much against this. It’d be a waste of countless lives. And I didn’t want Ranga as a fighting companion. I’d called for him simply because I’d considered the possibility that this was all an act on the adventurers’ part to divert our attention. Their oddly loose lips made a lot more sense to me if they’d never intended to let us live from the start. That, or they really could have been that stupid, but…
If this was an act, they might try to stab me in the back while I was struggling with Shizu. That was what Ranga would be for. Maybe I was overthinking things, but you can never be too careful.
“Yo, Gido! What’s that Conqueror of Flames thing?”
“Wasn’t that a hero or something?” Elen chimed in first. “I think she was active around fifty or so years ago?”
Famous, then? I thought to myself. Then Shizu’s mask fell off her face.
✦ ✦ ✦
Flames shot upward.
Up in the sky, three flame salamanders appeared. It was a hell of a way for Shizu to reveal her face to us. Her black hair fanned outward with the shock wave, shining brilliantly against the inferno. She had a fleeting, transient beauty to her—but her eyes emitted a wicked shine, and the edges of her lips were twisted upward in what seemed to be an expression of utter joy at the carnage she had seen.
Something about it struck me as completely unnatural, in a way I couldn’t describe very well. Then…
✦ ✦ ✦
Launching unique skill “Deviant.”
The voice of the world echoed around us. As it did, the beautiful young girl transformed into a giant of pure fire.
“No mistakin’ it,” Gido shouted. “That’s the Conqueror of Flames, the master of Ifrit the titan… The strongest elementalist in the world!”
Ifrit, the fire titan. The lord of fire, capable of burning anything in his path. A level above any royalty, mortal or divine.
“Gahh! Ifrit? Isn’t that spirit, like, above A rank and stuff?!” Kabal yelped.
“Oof… That’s my first time seeing it,” Elen said. “But…how could we ever beat that?!”
“Yeah, we can’t,” retorted Gido. “We’re all gonna die here… Sure was a short life, I guess.”
With his three flame salamanders by his side, the Conqueror of Flames surveyed his domain. No wonder the three of them were in such a panic. Even a single salamander boasted B-plus strength. But… What was the deal with Shizu? To me, it didn’t seem as if she was controlling all this—more like Ifrit was controlling Shizu.
There was a shock wave as Shizu—or Ifrit—unleashed a torrent of magic force.
…That was weird. It wasn’t aimed at anyone, not meant to kill—just a little show of violence, although there was nothing little about it. It didn’t seem like the work of a free mind; the attack looked more as if it was preprogrammed by someone. Now there was no doubting it. This wasn’t Shizu’s will at work. Ifrit was supposed to be hers to handle, but now he was out of control.
Whether that theory was right or not didn’t matter right now. The problem was the force behind those attacks. It was beyond lethal. Pale red shock waves rolled across the landscape, hot enough to instantly burn all the buildings we had under construction.
God dammit! We just got started, too!
The three adventurers tried using a Magic Barrier to block the attack, I guess, but it didn’t even last a single shock wave. They weren’t dead, but they weren’t doing too well, either—conscious, but probably immobile by now.
“Guys, don’t move!” I yelled at them. “You’ll wind up getting targeted!”
They responded by bunching up together, launching both Magic Barrier and Aura Shield. Guess this isn’t an act. They were seriously defending themselves. So much for the “let’s kill all the monsters” theory.
Talk about force, though. The magic power Ifrit was releasing—with no casting time at all—was blowing searing-hot wind a good hundred feet in every direction around us. If I didn’t fight these guys—Ifrit and those three flame salamanders—we were all going down. What a pain.
But it was strange.
Even in this predicament, I wasn’t trembling with fear or anything. Maybe it was because I was a monster now. I mean, Veldora and that black snake kinda freaked me out at first, but both wound up being good experiences in the end.
“Hey. What’re you trying to do?”
“…”
✦ ✦ ✦
Pop!