Chapter 181 - Fortress

*yawn~

Rubbing her eyes, Yin looked up and saw that Shiro was currently carrying her on her back.

"Mum?" She called out.

"Mn? You finally awake sleepy head?" Shiro smiled.

"Yeah. Where are we going?"

"We're going deeper into the demon territory. They undid one of the barriers to reveal a completed fort so we're going to be invading it this time." Shiro smiled.

"Are you sure teach? I mean I don't think I'll be able to help much since my level is a little low when compared to the ones at the fort." Lisandra frowned slightly.

"Don't worry, you'll be fine. I've already checked out the average level inside the fort and its only 45. You're not too far away from that so it's fine."

"Level 45 is crazy for me! I'm only level 38 you know teach?!" Lisandra cried out.

"It's not crazy Little Lis, mum could kill level 50's as level 38 you know? I think she could kill them when she's level 30 if it wasn't for her injury." Yin chipped in as she made herself comfortable on Shiro's back.

Lisandra wanted to say something but no words came out. The only reaction she had was to widen her eyes in disbelief, an action she had been doing often after meeting Shiro.

"Anyways, you'll be fine. Think about it this way, if you're careful with your placement, being alone against a group is beneficial. Not only do they have to worry about friendly fire, not all of them would be able to attack you at the same time. Just be careful with your placement and you'll be fine." Shiro smiled.

"if you're not confident, I'll help you storm the first line of defence. After that, I'll cover you from above with Yin."

"… Arg it's not like what I say will change your mind anyways." Lisandra sighed.

Arriving at the fort, they could see three layers of defences. The outer wall had several sniper towers filled with archers. In addition to this, there was also the presence of Igni Colossus.

With the archers warning the main force about an attack, the Igni Colossus would fling flaming rocks towards the intruders.

"It's not too bad. I can take out the snipers and get rid of their 'eye' for now." Shiro muttered.

Touching her bracelet, she pretended to take out her heavy bow.

"Wait we're starting already?!" Lisandra cried out since they were still quite far away.

"We should take care of the archers first. I have a way to get us closer to the fort quickly." Shiro replied.

Drawing back on her bowstring, Shiro created the Calamity Dragon Arrow.

*BOOMMM!!!!!

The formation of the arrow caused a heavy gust of wind to explode outwards as both Yin and Lisandra quickly stabilised themselves.

However, Shiro wasn't done. Since there were multiple archer towers, a single arrow would not be enough.

*KISH KISH KISH!

Splitting apart one by one, Shiro was holding onto four arrows at the same time. Injecting some Dark Star element into the arrows, the tips burst into purple flames.

*TZZZZ!!!!

Lightning flickered off the body of the bow as she aimed it up into the air.

"Little Lis, I suggest getting behind me." Yin suggested.

Tilting her head in confusion, Lisandra did what Yin said.

*BANG!!!!!

The force of the bow launching the arrows into the air caused the ground under her to crack apart as a cloud of dust was created around Shiro.

Arrows left four separate trails of light behind them as they flew through the air.

Narrowing her eyes, Shiro estimated that it should be high enough,

Flexing her finger, the arrows split themselves into three copies with each one flying towards an archer tower.

*BOOM BOOM BOOM !!!!!!!

Looking at the explosion of dark purple fire in the distance, Shiro nodded her head in satisfaction since she knew that there were bound to be some fire inside the towers. By adding the dark star element, she was able to amplify the power of her spell.

"Right then, with the towers taken care of, let's move." Shiro smiled.

Grabbing Lisandra, she jumped into the rift with Yin following right behind her.

"Mum, with Rift Walker becoming tier 3, you'll get a much bigger speed bonus inside the rift and you can also stay inside for much longer as well." Yin said as she was casually jogging besides Shiro.

"I can tell." Shiro nodded.

Looking over at Yin who was keeping up with her easily, Shiro couldn't help but feel a little grateful that the C classed enemies that she had faced in this quest were mostly strength based enemies. If she was against a speed type demon, her first instinct would naturally be to run the f*ck away.

Jumping out of the rift, they found themselves face to face with an Igni Colossus.

Throwing Lisandra to Yin, Shiro tapped her necklace and summoned her swords.

'No 6th sword?' She thought as she would have expected the dark star element to give her another sword.

'No matter."

Twisting her body, she shifted Ataraxia's element to metal for more damage overall.

*PUCHI!!!!!

In a few short moments, deep lacerations could be seen all over the demon's body. He opened his mouth in an attempt to breath fire on Shiro but she flicked a tiny spark of dark star element in his mouth.

*BOOOMMM!!!!!

Combusting into a ball of purple fire, the demon crumbled away into ash.

Walking to the edge of the wall, Shiro looked down and saw several fire balls being shot towards her by a legion of Igni Colossus's.

"Tsk."

Clicking her tongue, she snapped her fingers and raised her palm in front of her.

*KRRRRRR!!!!!

Ice crystalised in front of her as it continued to spread.

*BANG BANG BANG BANG!

Even though the ice shield was taking heavy hits, there wasn't a single fracture or dent. At most, it was just a small layer of ice that was melting from the heat.

"Are you ready Lisa?" Shiro asked.

"Uh… No?"

"Mn, too bad. Get ready then." Shiro replied with a smile.

"Urg, you don't really take no for an answer do you teach?"

"Little Lis, you've been with mum for a while now you should have gotten used to this hehe~." Yin chuckled as she stroke Lisandra's hair.

"You're right. Fine, see you in a bit." Lisandra sighed as she hopped off the wall.

Landing softly on her feet, she retrieved two swords and dashed into the crowd of Igni Colossuses.

'Their size is huge and they focus on long ranged combat. While their physical prowess is strong, they have heavy bodies meaning their reaction is a little slow.' She analysed.

Flaring up her aura coat, she flashed behind the colossus's legs and slashed both her sword at the back of his knees.

Quickly jumping away from the area, she saw the colossus fall and create a domino effect with the other demons.

"Good job." Shiro praised as she snapped her fingers and shattered her ice shield.

Morphing the shards into spikes, she sent them flying towards the demons.

"Make your way towards the main building, I'll cover you from above." Shiro called out.

"Got it!" Lisandra nodded as she dashed to the next layer of defence.

"Yin. Care to give me a lift?" Shiro asked, glancing back at Yin.

"Of course, this baby is obedient after all." Yin grinned as she morphed back into her phoenix form.

Hopping on her back, Shiro flexed her fingers and created her sniper.

Yin flapped her wings and flew high into the sky.

Glancing through her sniper scope, Shiro helped reduced the amount of pressure on Lisandra. While she couldn't kill them, since the recoil induced by the sniper would fling her off Yin's back, it was enough to just stun them. It allowed Lisandra to get more EXP and level up.

Plus, she didn't need the EXP right now.

The more times she pseudo level up, the harder it is for her to level up later on. Right now, with the amount of EXP she had received, she would technically be level 53 but since all the EXP was earned before the class up, it was wasted as she wasn't getting as much stat points as she could.

*BANG BANG BANG BANG!

As she continued to fire her sniper, she started to notice a small problem.

"They're all long ranged fighters. No competent commander would leave their fort like this." She muttered in suspicion.

Sending out a pulse of mana, Shiro wasn't able to scout out the inside of the fort since her mana was blocked by something.

"No something is definitely wrong. Lisa! Retreat!" Shiro called out over the crystal.

Patting Yin on the head, she gestured for her to go grab Lisandra.

*KI!

As Yin swooped down to grab Lisandra, Shiro made sure to keep her guard up on what could be inside the main building.

Changing her sniper to a bow as to not raise suspicion, she helped Lisandra onto Yin.

"Why are we going back, teach? Weren't we doing good?" Lisandra asked in confusion.

"We were. But it was unnatural. The demons aren't idiots. As if they would just defend a fort using long ranged forces. We're heading back now." Shiro shook her head. There were simply too many uncertainties inside the fort. Plus, she wasn't about to waste one of her power up items just so that they could escape from something that could have been avoided.

As they left the area, a few pairs of eyes glanced towards them from the main building.

"They're gone? Shame." A feminine voice chuckled slightly.

"Hm, she's not as dumb as we were told. Previously they just razed through everything but it seems like they do have brains after all." Another replied.

"What do you think of that bird and the weapon she used?"

"Bird looks tasty and the weapon is strong. From the looks of things, the weapon is probably a bow.

"Well it'll be easy to find the bird when the war does start so we just have to be patient. The king has been waiting for years now."

"Yeah, a few more days shouldn't be hard."

Meanwhile, Shiro who felt several pairs of eyes lock onto her, felt cold sweat down her back. Each of the stares gave her the feeling of danger as she knew they would be in serious danger if they had continued into the fort.

Even if she had the items that boosted her power to the next class, the EXP would be wasted along with the fact that she didn't know how many more there were inside the fort.

Showing Yin the way back to the kingdom, Shiro crossed her legs and started to contemplate about everything that she's learned so far.

'Right now there are 3 Main sections to this quest. Number one is that I have to defend the kingdom, negotiate with the other powerful beings to work together and the final section is to defend the fallen god's corpse. As for side quests for extra points, one of them is definitely to get Lisandra to level 50 but right now as it stands, that is pretty much impossible if I didn't want to waste one of my life saving items.

'Then there's also the fact that I need to ask the king about the medicine along with finding out about what happened to Lisa's brother.' She thought to herself as she understood that the more she found out about the quest, the more points she would receive along with a better grade.

'Hais, if I can complete the class up requirements and evolve, I can probably help Lisa get to level 50 since I wouldn't mind using one of the charges of the Calamity Dragon Scale. I'll be benefitting from that anyways. But if I used it now, it'll only cause me problems later on since the EXP I need would be much bigger.'

Shaking her head, Shiro was in a small dilemma. On one hand, she could use one of her life saving item's uses to get a better grade in this quest since she knew the rewards were going to be bountiful. But at the same time, she would be making life a little harder later due to the level up's becoming harder.

However, if she was going to save her item, she would be missing out on a good opportunity. If just the base reward is a wish bag and an emergency bag then the rest was surely going to be worth it.

Both choices had their own appeal but Shiro understood that there were bound to be opportunities in the future.

'I guess I'll see how it goes. If Lisa manages to reach level 50 then that's a bonus. If not, I still get an item that I need.' Shiro thought.

As Yin approached the kingdom, Shiro saw several guards gather on the walls.

"Right, they don't know about you. Yin, let's walk from here." Shiro said as she hopped off with Lisandra.

Morphing herself back into a human, Yin's first actions were to climb onto Shiro's shoulder again.

"You really like this spot, don't you?" Shiro asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Mn, it's comfy after all." Yin nodded her head happily.

Walking towards the castle, the guards were a little on guard since they just saw a phoenix approach their location.

However, since the phoenix was with the royal tutor, Shiro, and their princess, Lisandra, they let the two pass.

"I'm going to go talk to your father. Take this time to rest ok?" Shiro smiled as Lisandra nodded. She couldn't wait to sleep in a proper bed since she had been resting out in the wild for almost a month.

Watching Lisandra go back to her room, Shiro made her way towards the throne room with Yin.

She was going to ask him about the demon corpse and the reason for the nodes. But most importantly, she was going to ask about the medicine he took since that could be helpful to her.