“Phew... That was close,” muttered Yui, tossing the demon on the ground.
“Sorry. I’m the reason you had the most dangerous job of us all.” I had wanted to be the one to carry the demon if possible, but Yui had been positioned closer, and Daggers had needed to carry his shield. It would have been a difficult job for Silica or Cross as well. Plus, I was pretty confident that no matter how many buffs I cast on myself, I wouldn’t be able to hold a candle to Yui. To ensure the survival of everyone, I had no choice but to leave the job to her.
Though still, I did feel bad about it. “Yui, I’m really sorry,” I said, bowing my head.
“It’s fine! We’re a party, right? It’s only natural that we’d help each other out!”
“But...”
“No ‘buts’! It’s fine! Plus...” Yui glanced at the demon collapsed on the ground and the girl still on my back. “We’ve gotta figure out what to do with these guys.”
The girl—the beastwoman—was probably our first priority. We could leave the demon for later. Given his current state, he couldn’t bite off his tongue, nor could he use magic. Both suicide and escape would be impossible, which meant healing the girl on the brink of death came first.
“Can you heal her, Lloyd?”
“Her wounds, at least.” As long as her sanity remained somewhat intact, she may still be able to recover it slowly, though I wasn’t certain. “In any case, let me at least heal her injuries.” I gently laid her on the ground and cast my magic. “Heal.”
That was a recovery spell, and the healing magic I was the most skilled at. The majority of white mages could likely cast the spell, and since it was so simple, it was easy to improve upon. She had no grave or life-threatening injuries, which meant that rather than casting a grand healing spell that depleted a lot of MP, it would be more effective to cast Heal multiple times.
“Wow... Her wounds are disappearing!”
“Lloyd, was Heal always such an amazing spell?” asked Silica, her eyes wide.
Though I didn’t remember doing anything so awe-inspiring. Yes, I had improved the spell, but I was a supporter. It would have been much more effective to cast a buff on a healing class and have them use the base spell. Not to mention, a supporter class like a white mage depleted twice the amount of MP when casting recovery magic as a healing class. It could hardly be considered efficient, especially if you were using an improved version of the spell. That’s why I had never cast any recovery magic myself while I still belonged to the Hero’s party.
“I’m just a white mage, and it’s a spell even I can use. I did improve it, but that’s nothing impressive.”
“Wait, Lloyd...again? I think messing with spells itself is crazy amazing enough,” muttered Yui.
“She’s right, Lloyd. Adventurers don’t typically fine-tune their spells,” said Silica.
“Really?” But Master Merlin didn’t just improve spells, she invented her own.
“Well, let’s just let him be. After a few days with Lloyd, we already knew he wasn’t too good with common sense,” said Daggers.
“Yeah, you’re right. No need to let it bother us now!”
After healing her wounds, I looked down at the sleeping beastwoman. I had mended her outer wounds and bruises, which were all the injuries I could. But the damage she had accumulated—her exhaustion and weakness—had yet to recover.
“Let’s let her sleep for a little while longer.” Once she woke up, I’d cast Refresh, a mental recovery spell. Though I wasn’t expecting it to help much...
“First, let’s get that demon to cough up some intel. It’s clear they were plotting something.” I picked up my weapon and positioned Silica and Cross to attack him from a distance. The rest of us surrounded him.
The demon panted. “Why the hell are you still alive?!” He glared at us, seemingly awfully shocked to see us still breathing. So these demons really were the perpetrators.
“That doesn’t matter. Tell us what you’re after, and nothing more.”
Daggers held the demon on the ground, while Yui pointed her blade at his neck.
“Eek!”
“Hurry up and spit it out! We’ve got places to be!” shouted Yui.
The demon seemed quite terrified at the sight of her sword. But for just a moment, he let slip a wicked grin. “Well, whatever. You guys won’t make it in time anyway. Once you get to Ishtar, the city will have already fallen...to our giant monster horde!”
“Huh...?!”
“A giant horde of monsters is heading straight for Ishtar! And some of them are buffed, the very type that so easily defeated the Hero and his friends just days ago!”
“Buffed monsters...? You mean you cast strengthening spells on them?”
“Not exactly, but you’ve got the idea. They were created by one of the Four Fiends, someone you weaklings have no chance against! Killing me...solves nothing!” The demon impaled his own throat on Yui’s blade.
“Huh?! Why...?” Yui hurried to retract her blade, but the demon had already died, a smile still on his lips.
“Damn it! He was just trying to waste our time!”
“This is bad. If what he said was true, then...” I immediately activated my detection magic, expanding its scope to search for the monsters. “It is true.”
“Huh?! Then that horde of monsters is already...?” Yui looked at me with an expression of pure terror.
“No, they’re not there quite yet. The hordes’ attacking force are traversing the area a short distance from the city. They number...around ten thousand.”
“Huh?! T-Ten thousand?!”
The demons had gathered all the monsters in the forest.
“Lloyd, we’ve gotta hurry...!”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
I once again picked up the beastwoman on my back. Then, we ran straight for Ishtar.