But I had no intention of making light of those sorts of ideals. One’s pride, one’s duty, one’s mission — the amount of passion brought about by these formless things sometimes had the power to smash all ordinary predictions and calculations.
“Thank you very much, Menel!” Al called out. “But I will win. I will beat this thing!”
Then he roared. “On the flame and the fire, the mountainfolk shall put thee to death!” He sprinted at the demons’ leader with the ferocious roar of a warrior.
“Take my dwarven axe!” His halberd cleaved an arc through the air towards the commander of the demons.
The demon’s club intercepted the halberd. Splinters flew everywhere.
Immediately, the halberd turned, cutting a new arc towards its foe. Roaring, Al chained together attacks with violent intensity, pulling back and swinging around his long-handled axe. Because Al was tall for a dwarf, when he swung around his halberd, he had a moderate edge in reach compared to the Scarabaeus with its club. With this all-out barrage of blows from outside his opponent’s range, which reminded me suddenly of Blood and his broadsword, Al was probably intending to make the most of his advantage.
However, I didn’t have the luxury of watching intently.
The Hall of Light reverberated with loud footsteps, the shrill screeching of weapons, wails, and deathly cries.
Hordes of Soldier demons attempted repeated assaults against us through the entrance we came in by, and each time, they were crushed by Reystov and Ghelreis. Like a storm, Reystov stabbed, swept, and cut them down with his blade of mana. The ones who managed to narrowly evade his attacks were checked by Ghelreis waiting to the side and smashed to pulp.
Just as a lion doesn’t fear a herd of gazelles, and a wolf doesn’t fear a flock of sheep, the two trained warriors didn’t fear these hordes of demons and in fact were driving them away. I too readied my spear, pointing it towards a demon that was starting to get too close and held a curved sword in its hand.
All around the hall, demons that had probably been waiting in ambush here the entire time were appearing. They were mostly Commanders, but occasionally there were some of higher level that were likely approaching General rank.
Brandishing Pale Moon, I stabbed them, slammed them, and destroyed them one by one.
A chill ran down the nape of my neck. I instinctively bent backward.
Something swept by where my throat had just been. Then came a second and third strike. I parried the slash and the thrust mostly by gut feeling and took a large leap backwards to dodge. I’d definitely knocked away something, but I still couldn’t see a thing.
“Cadere Araneum! ” I incanted a Word, dropping down a web of magic.
Entangled in the web, there was something in a place where nothing seemed to be. Maybe this demon had hidden its form with the Word of Invisibility, or maybe it was always invisible to begin with. I had no time to check. As the enemy struggled, I swung down my spear and crushed it. “There’s invisible enemies here!”
“Oh, for hell’s sake! ‘Gnome and Sylph, dance hand in hand! Whirlwinds of ochre and curtains of dust!’” Immediately after I shouted, Menel called to the elementals of air, and dusty winds blew about the hall. It was the spell Ochre Dust. We fired arrows and threw daggers one after another into the places where the dust warped strangely, and invisible foes let out cries of mortal agony.
Menel dashed around the battlefield keeping a reasonable distance from the rest of us, prioritizing flying demons, spellcasters, and enemies with frustrating abilities like that invisibility and taking them out at frightening speed. I felt grateful that because of him, I didn’t have to be too wary of back attacks and could focus on using my muscle power to tackle the things in front of me.
That said, I also couldn’t afford not to use my head.
“Currere Oleum. ”
After completing a sideways sweep with the blade of my spear, I cast a Word and ran grease across the floor. Several of the enemy group fell flat on the ground. As they struggled to escape while covered in grease, I ran each of them through with the blade of my spear. The tricks I’d inherited from Gus for the specialized use of magic for crowd control were as versatile as ever.
Once the enemy forces had eased off a little, I breathed out and took a glance around at the situation. Reystov and Ghelreis were still fighting and holding an advantage.
I took a look over at Al as he let out a loud roar.
From a series of overhead swings hammered down with all his might, he suddenly changed direction and executed a precise foot sweep. But it wasn’t just any foot sweep; the Scarabaeus’s foot had been taken out by a halberd with a metal hook. Its left ankle twisted violently.
“!”
The demon let out an inhuman scream, its mouthparts making scratchy insectile noises, and it collapsed to the ground. Al stepped forward. He raised his halberd high into the air. He was going for the kill.
That instant, the demon grinned.
The Scarabaeus dodged the axeblade and jumped, as though it had no ankle injury at all.
“Wh—”
No, it wasn’t “as though.” As if by a miracle, its wound was actually gone.
“Blessing!”
By the time I realized it, it was too late. The attack that Al had put his whole body into had missed, and the demon, laughing raucously, slammed its club into his torso.
“Gah—”
Al’s feet left the ground, and he slammed back-first into a pillar. At the same time, there was a flash. Layers of chains made of mana wrapped themselves around Al’s body, binding him to the pillar. The club had the Sign of Spellbinding engraved into it!
It looked as if Al had managed to take the blow itself on his armor, but there was no way to avoid the damage to his organs. He had just barely kept hold of his halberd, but those magical chains couldn’t be destroyed by physical strength.
He was in mortal danger.
Demons were warriors who knew no fear, and the higher-level ones among them were sometimes sorcerers or priests of the god of dimensions, Dyrhygma. I should have known that they would use blessings just like me!
I grunted in frustration. I wanted to fire off the Word “Dispel Magic,” but doing so wasn’t so easy. As two demons came at me from the left and right, I exploited a slight mismatch in their coordination, first kicking one away and then immediately turning adroitly and stabbing the other. But even in that small amount of time, the next attack from another demon was already heading my way. I whipped my spear down and smashed the demon to the ground. This really wasn’t the kind of situation where I could afford to give Al a helping hand.
“Dammit!” Menel cursed. He had his hands full as well.
Reystov and Ghelreis, too, were stretched to their limits dispatching hordes of demons. The beetle-demon clicked its mouthparts and laughed unsettlingly as it drew close to Al, who was still chained to the pillar.
“Al!” I couldn’t help but shout.
“I’m… fine.” Amid the noise of battle, for some reason, I could make out his voice — and the heat that filled his words. “I will not lose.” The indestructible chains groaned. “I swear on my oath and on the dreams of my kin…”
Al’s face turned bright red as he pulled at the chains with all his might. The pillar to which he was chained seemed to warp. It groaned. Fissures ran through it—
“I will…”
The Scarabaeus realized what was about to happen, and it raised its spiked club in a panic, ready to strike. But it was too late.
“Take back our homeland!”