About twenty militiamen moved to act as shields for her.
“Just kill those bastards for us! We’ll protect you!”
“Got it―”
The sound of flapping wings came from the enemy encampment.
Neia pivoted and pointed her arrow at the source of the sound.
Her eyes were filled with the sight of Pteropuses rising from the enemy formation. There were many of them.
While it seemed as though bypassing the wall should have been their objective, several of them dove from the flock and descended on Neia.
She had long since abandoned the thought of who to aim at. In this silent, pure white world where all she could see were her enemies, Neia calmly loosed an arrow at each and every one of her enemies. Her shooting was inhuman, unhesitating in its mechanical precision.
After downing the Pteropuses heading at her, Neia exhaled lightly. She could hear again after being released from that state of hyperfocus.
To the side―
She wanted to dodge, but a torrent of pain came from her left arm.
The Armatt beside her had torn her arm apart.
“Gwaaargh!”
Despite her cry of pain, Neia still made to pull out another arrow, but then she thought that she might not be able to properly brace her bow. In that case, perhaps drawing her sword might be better.
Her hesitation was a huge weakness, and the savage-looking Armatt raised its arm, preparing to follow up on its previous attack with a strike to the face.
She wanted to backstep, but her opponent was a superior fighter and managed to close the distance to her, so she could not evade it.
Intense pain filled her face. While she had managed to turn her head and thus avoided having her eyes shredded, the claws had ripped through her left cheek and opened a wound that exposed the interior of her mouth.
Fresh blood filled her mouth, and the taste of blood spread over her tongue. In addition, she could feel her warm blood oozing from her cheek, the sensation spreading down her neck and chest.
Neia had no time to draw her sword, and so she slammed Ultimate Shootingstar Super into the Armatt’s face.
The Armatt had probably not expected her to do that with the bow, so it tried to back up to avoid the attack.
Since she could not move her left arm well enough to brace her bow, Neia drew her sword with her right arm.
Neia performed a ramming stab like she was prepared to die for it. The Armatt immediately countered with razor-sharp claws, but a nearby militiaman had wounded its leg and its aim was off. The claw missed her ear by a fraction of an inch, and in turn her steel blade sank into the Armatt’s throat.
She glanced down to the Armatt as it collapsed and then surveyed the situation.
While she had been focusing on loosing arrows, the militiamen on the wall had been almost completely wiped out. The demihumans had reached Neia, and there were only five more men remaining, all pressed close to the wall.
The nearest reinforcements were fighting on the other side of the demihumans who had scaled the ladders, and they would be hard-pressed to help her over here. Frankly speaking, they seemed to be engaged in melee, so they would not have the free time to come help her.
There were over thirty demihumans in Neia’s block, and there were only six people on her side.
Neia glared at the demihumans and they backed off. The pressure on Neia and the others eased a little.
“Sorry about that, Baraja-san!”
The militiamen who had been pressed to the wall took a defensive formation in front of Neia.
“We won’t let those bastards past us, even if it’s the last thing we do!”
The person who said this looked like a cowardly man in his forties, with an unhealthy, protruding gut. However, his face was flushed with what seemed like the excitement of battle, and his body was covered in so much blood that one could not tell if it was his or the enemy’s. Even so, he refused to kneel, standing tall with an indomitable spirit.
He certainly looked like a reliable warrior.
“Thank you very much!” Neia said as she spat out a mouthful of fresh blood which had pooled there. Then, she continued ― “I’ll leave this to you!”
He was not the only one who was like this. None of the fallen militiamen showed any sign that they had attempted to leave the perimeter they had formed around Neia. What else could she say except that she trusted them?
The man’s eyes went to Neia’s left arm, and his face stiffened.
“I can see the bone…”
“Please don’t say that, it hurts a lot when you point it out.”
“Ah, ahhh, sorry.”
Once one reached a certain degree of skill as a paladin, they would be able to use low tier recovery spells. However, Neia was only a squire, so she could not do so. There were no paladins or priests by Neia’s side, and her mana had not yet recovered enough to use the magic item again. It would probably be best to abandon the thought of using her left arm in this battle.
Neia glared at the demihumans, but just moving her eyeballs made the wound on her face ache.
The pain made her gaze that much more ominous, and as the demihumans felt it, they went on their guard.
“Thanks to your shots, nobody else made it up here like that guy just now, Baraja-san. It’s because of you that we managed to survive this long.”
If the demihumans before Neia’s eyes rushed them all at once, the militiamen would probably be routed in an instant. However, they were all wary of Neia the archer, so they could not move together. In truth, she could understand their caution once she heard what the demihumans were saying.
“The Mad-Eyed Archer… could it be that she’s nothing much with a sword?”
“Don’t get careless, she’s just pretending she can’t use a sword to throw her opponents off.”
“Really? You’re a real smart guy.”
“Should we get the Snakemen over and kill her from a distance with spears?”
Neia laughed in her heart. It would seem that she had gained quite an undeserved reputation thanks to the power of the magic bow she had borrowed.
“…Is there hope for me?”
Neia asked herself that question quietly enough that the demihumans could not hear, and then she laughed.
“…If it’s the bow… the bow I borrowed from His Majesty, the Ultimate Shootingstar Super, shooting wouldn’t be a problem, but…”
The man tried saying the name Ultimate Shootingstar Super, and then he laughed forlornly.
“I see… so it’s very bad, huh. Say, Baraja-san… you jump down from the wall and flee. You should live on.”
Neia looked at the man.
“Aiieee! For-Forgive me. It’s only natural for you to be angry at such foolish words. But, but, while I don’t know what sort of hell you’ve gone through, you’re around my daughter’s age… I think, but letting a girl like that die is just…”
I wasn’t angry, I was just looking normally at you. The thought crossed her mind, but this was a common thing by now and Neia did not take offense at it.
The man was speaking the truth. It would be wiser to fall back for the time being and heal her wounds until she could use her bow, rather than swing a sword she was not used to.
―What’ll happen to them if I do that? I know very well. I can’t help them even if I stay and fight. I’ll just die for nothing. But…
Neia swept the bow in her left hand down and to the side.
I need to return this weapon. There’s many reasons why I should run. But, but, what will His Majesty’s enemies think if I run away while I’m wielding a weapon that He lent me? In that case―
“How could I run!?” she bellowed. “How could I, as one who holds a weapon borrowed from His Majesty, turn and run!?”
She tightly gripped the sword in her right hand.