They came swarming in without giving us a moment to breathe.
Seriously, was this really an intermediate dungeon?
Of course, we had gone in knowing it was hard even among intermediate dungeons, but even so, the difficulty was beyond anything I’d expected.
Well… so far, it was still manageable.
Everyone was holding up well, and the situation was flowing along decently enough, but…
‘Wouldn’t this have been way more dangerous if I wasn’t here?’
The fact that we were holding on meant we were on the defensive, not that we’d shifted to the offensive.
At a glance, it might look like we were on the attack because of how many of them we were mowing down, but in reality, we hadn’t managed to get more than a few steps closer to the boss.
We were simply maintaining the territory we had already taken.
In this situation, the only thing we could rely on was Signica’s magic.
“Argh, seriously!!”
Amid the urgent battle, I was trying to grow as quickly as possible and create some sort of change on the battlefield besides magic,
but I still didn’t feel like I’d found any clue toward the next stage.
As we kept enduring like this, endlessly holding out, thoughts like this occasionally crossed my mind.
‘Can’t we just use Teleport and go right next to the boss?’
But thinking about it again, that was way too stupid.
I’d forgotten that I’d heard Teleport couldn’t be used if there was something around the departure point or the destination.
If it were that ridiculously broken, we could just teleport something like a pendant of the Lunia Order into the Demon King’s brain and the world would be at peace.
I must have been so exhausted that random thoughts were just popping into my head.
‘Sigh. Fuck.’
—Fwoooosh!!!!!
From the tip of my drooping sword, flames of a much higher density than before erupted.
“Eraaah!!!!”
—Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!!!!
With a single swing, far more monsters than before were swept away.
Even if it wasn’t a clue toward the next stage, I was growing little by little,
so I focused on my sword again and continued killing the monsters.
***
—Crackle. Crackle, crackle.
As I forced myself to keep swinging my sword while receiving heals, our party’s first decisive move was slowly nearing completion.
“Kwek! Kweeeek! Gwek!!”
The one that looked like the boss commanded the monsters with comical flaps of its wings.
‘That pattern again.’
The Abraxases began flapping their wings again to cancel out the magic.
That pattern was exactly why we hadn’t made any progress for an entire hour.
If we wanted to break through the countless enemies in front of us all at once, Signica’s magic was perfect for it,
but whether those bastards knew that or not, they kept scattering demonic energy at regular intervals to interfere with her calculations.
Of course, we hadn’t planned to become idiots who relied solely on magic.
Veronica had tried raising her aura to force her way through them,
but…
“Gurgle. Gurgle.”
Elite Abraxases, which hadn’t been present up to the second layer.
With their participation, the number of plans we could take had been greatly reduced.
That was because their toughness was strong enough to endure one round of Veronica’s sword strikes.
In terms of durability alone, they could practically put an upper-tier dungeon to shame.
“Kweeeek!”
“Ugh!”
You thought you’d dealt with one and moved on, only for claws to suddenly come flying at you from behind.
No matter how much of a hero with the attribute of demon-slaying she was, she couldn’t just charge forward recklessly.
Anyway, back to the point.
In the current situation, the most effective move we could play was being continuously obstructed by those things scattering demonic energy.
“Saintess!!!”
“Y-yes?? What is it, Brother??”
“Excuse me, but can you purify that demonic energy?!”
“Well… I can only activate one sustained holy art at a time!! If I want to purify that, I have to cancel Anti-Debuff!!”
“Ah…”
I had figured there was a reason she hadn’t used it, but that was definitely fatal.
If she dispelled Anti-Debuff to purify the demonic energy, the magic would be canceled by the debuff anyway.
On top of that, if we took that cry head-on, not only the magic but the entire party could be rendered unable to fight.
In that case, if we could somehow complete the magic while maintaining Anti-Debuff, that was the correct answer.
“Haa…”
Eladrien, who had suddenly been listening to our conversation from the side, let out a sigh.
‘Out of nowhere…? Did I sound like I was whining?’
I had only asked because I was curious whether she had forgotten she could use it, or whether she simply didn’t know how,
but maybe I should have just kept my mouth shut?
—Kiiik!!!
Fortunately, that was just my paranoia.
—Fwhoosh!!
She fired several arrows at the Abraxases flying in the sky,
but…
—Ting! Ting! Titing!
The ones currently breaking through the magic were elite Abraxases that could withstand Veronica’s aura, so it didn’t really feel like the arrows were landing any effective hits.
Every time an arrow bounced off meaninglessly, her expression grew darker and darker.
But from that expression, I instead realized that she knew of some way to resolve this.
—Fwoosh! Fwoosh!!
I swung my sword as quickly as I could, clearing away the monsters in front of me and creating an opening to speak to her.
“Miss Eladrien!! If you need anything, please tell me!! No matter what it is, I’ll do my best to make it happen!!!”
“……”
Hearing my words, Eladrien stopped shooting her bow for a moment and stared blankly at me.
“………”
She didn’t answer for a long while.
—Whoosh!!
Even when the sound of an arrow being shot into the sky rang out again,
there was still no answer from her.
I didn’t particularly mind and kept cutting down the monsters.
Time passed like that, and after what felt like five minutes,
“If they come again next time… then, I’ll try doing something.”
As expected, she had a method, and she promised to try something next time.
All of us trusted her words and waited.
Signica began chanting again, struggling to complete her magic even under the interference of the demonic energy,
while Veronica and I continued blocking the monsters rushing in as best we could, defending the rear.
Ariel was busy applying heals and buffs at the right places and times.
As we endured like that, just as we had been doing until now, the elite Abraxases once again flew up from the top of the cliff.
We paid them no attention and each silently did what we had to do.
Trusting your comrades and waiting.
That was an essential quality demanded of party members.
—Thud.
Looking at the incoming Abraxases, Eladrien set her bow down on the ground for a moment.
Then she closed her eyes, stretched out her arm, and murmured.
“Sylphy.”
—Whoooooosh!!
A pattern glowing with blue light appeared on Eladrien’s left arm.
At the same time, behind her mint-colored hair, a peregrine falcon wreathed in wind revealed itself.
“Kiru-ru-ruk!”
—Pat. Pat.
Without a word, she stroked her spirit.
“Sylphy… I’m sorry. Can you drive away that demonic energy?”
“Kiru! Kiru!”
At her question, Sylphy immediately nodded, conveying that it was possible.
And at once, it flew into the sky and confronted the Abraxases approaching from the opposite side.
“Kweeeeeek!!!”
“Kiru-ru-ru-ruk!!”
A single small peregrine falcon contrasted against the enormous Abraxases.
But just because it was small didn’t mean there was any reason to look down on Sylphy.
After all, it was a mana life-form, a spirit made of mana.
The wind that had been wrapped around Sylphy’s body spread out widely, as if forming a massive dome.
“Kweeeek?”
The elite Abraxases panicked and attacked the curtain with their claws.
Their goal was to interfere with the mage inside the curtain.
When the curtain did not break, the Abraxases tried all sorts of things, including ramming it with their bodies,
but even so, the curtain remained intact.
—Bang! Bang! Bang!
The Abraxases grew anxious.
They knew that if they failed to interrupt that human mage’s magic, their survival would be threatened,
so if they wanted to live, they had to break this curtain as quickly as possible.
They crashed into the curtain,
and tore at it with their claws.
Several minutes passed like that.
—Shhhh…
The wind scattered, and the curtain finally began to collapse little by little.
Seeing that, the Abraxases smiled at one another and thought,
‘It wasn’t anything special after all.’
That it had been meaningless resistance.
But,
—Rumble… Rummmble……!!
“Kiru-ruk…”
thanks to the brief amount of time that tiny wind spirit had earned by directly facing its natural enemy, demonic energy, while risking its own extinction,
the magic was able to be completed in her hands.
“Seventh-Circle lightning and water dual-element magic—On a Voyage Where Storms and Waves Came Crashing Down.”
As the name of the magic was declared from her lips, water rose around us at tremendous speed.
—Swaaaaaa!!
It took the form of waves and swept away every approaching Abraxas,
and…
—Kwarrrrung!!!!!
the lightning crashing down burned every Abraxas flying in the sky.
“Kweeeeeek!!!”
The Abraxases guarding the boss at its side spread their wings to protect the boss from the lightning.
But,
“Kweek!”
in exchange for protecting the boss, their condition was far from good.
—Thud.
All the guards collapsed,
and with a single spell, the enemy ranks completely fell apart.
Inwardly, I wanted to clap while thinking, ‘Wow, magic is fucking awesome,’ but there was no time for that now.
This was an opportunity that would not come again.
Once this magic ended, new Abraxases might be generated from the cave again.
Since this was the moment that thing was at its weakest,
we had to cut off its head before the Abraxases could form ranks again.
In any case, the Abraxases that had been letting out those cries had vanished within the thunder,
so we left the range of the holy art and began running toward the boss at the same time.
A moment later, I glanced back.
“Haa… haa…”
As expected, Signica was struggling quite a lot and was barely managing to follow us.
Part of it was that she was a mage and lacked stamina, but since the Teleport she had used to bring us here had been a Seventh-Circle spell, her mana was probably scraping the bottom by now.
Judging by the spell she had just used, it didn’t seem like an ordinary Seventh-Circle spell either.
“Wait a moment.”
“Haa… huh…?”
I approached her and skillfully hoisted her onto my back.
“Kyaaak!”
Maybe because she was a mage, her body was smaller and more slender than I had expected.
‘But it’s kind of ridiculous that a body like this has breasts that are actually pretty big.’
What could I do when I could feel the soft sensation against my back?
‘Well… let’s just think of them as mana pouches befitting her mana capacity.’
I ended up learning information I didn’t particularly want to know.
‘Oops. That’s not what’s important.’
I circulated my aura as well and put strength back into my legs.
—Tap!!
After kicking off the ground and running with all my might, we finally managed to arrive at the base of the cliff where the boss was.
—Tap! Tap! Tap!!
By the time I arrived, the hero was already climbing the cliff,
and we had to climb up quickly as well to back her up.
“W-wait. I have enough mana to do that much.”
Signica poked her face out from behind me, squirming as she barely managed to free one arm.
“Fly.”
—Vwoom.
When she cast the spell, our bodies floated into the air,
and…
—Whoosh!
we were able to reach the top of the cliff at high speed.
“Kweeeek…”
The boss Abraxas trembled as it faced us.
Its expression looked as if it had already lost the will to fight.
Veronica stood still with her sword in hand, staring at it.
And then…
—Swish.
In a fleeting instant, she lightly cut off the boss’s head.
—Drip, drip.
None of its blood stained Fiat Lux’s blade.
As if it would permit nothing impure.
—Rumble.
When the boss died, the sound of the dungeon collapsing could be heard.
“Phew…”
It was a little disappointing that the boss died so anticlimactically at the end,
but in any case, my first dungeon conquest was a success.