Chapter 214: A disaster

Once again, space itself split into two. As if my body dropped into an event horizon, the sight of the world around me started to narrow up, before both ends of what I could see turned into a circle. A moment later, and nothing but endless darkness surrounded me.

For a few moments, that was the state of the situation. With nothing capable of attacking me, with nothing capable of amusing me, I just waited.

And surely enough, it didn't take long for the magical effects to wear off. The recurring stone melted under the pressure of so strongly compressed magic. Without the core that would sustain the spell, the magic structures quickly dissolved into nothingness… But the reality still had to catch up.

Even once the magic of the stone was fully exhausted, the world around me didn't change all that much. Rather than rapidly returning to the world proper, the sight of my surroundings that formerly turned into a singular point now started to grow again, but at a much slower pace.

Yet, inevitably, after roughly a few more minutes, the circle broke up once again, finally returning the sight of my surroundings to shapes and forms my human brain could process.

And then, as if the restoration of the space suddenly accelerated, everything returned to normality.

That is if a scene of a complete disaster surrounding me in every direction for at least fifty meters could be called normal.

"And here I already forgot just how insane those recurring stones were," I muttered to myself as I leaned my head to the back in order to look above.

This time, no puppets fell from the skies.

Understanding just a bit of the inner working of the recurring stones, I wasn't surprised with that result at all. I could see that the area of effect of the stone was roughly the fifty meters that I could see in any direction… And those directions also included upwards to the skies.

At this point, I couldn't help but wonder what that puppet-master thought, when the spatial hideout he had for himself suddenly collapsed along with every other complicated structure around. Given how even the ground itself would end up deformed after the disasters of the recurring stones, I had no doubts that this first real threat to my safety in any of the world I visited so far, was surely gone.

"I wonder if they managed to escape…" Looking around, I couldn't see any traces of my companions. While I was hopeful that Teria managed to grab hold of them and take off to leave this area in time, right now, there was hardly any way for me to confirm it.

Crash!

Just as I was despairing over the potential loss of the capable companions of mine, Teria crashed into the ground. Initially startled, I backed off a few steps, only to realize what was the reason for this desperate landing, one that didn't fit this prideful, winged girl.

"Auch!" Teria protested as she climbed out of the pile of bodies. "Give me some more time to run away next time!" As soon as her eyes landed on me, Teria's face twisted in anger, before exhaustion took the better of her, stopping any expression from coming on her face.

"I didn't really have the means to handle it at a slower pace." Rather than accepting the guild, I shrugged my arms while refusing to condone my own actions. "If I were to be even a little too late, you would have to deal with that monster on your own."

Even though I was pretty sure that the man who controlled the puppets was a human, I generously attributed him as a monster. Not because of his personal strength, the strength that I never experienced. I did it because of how insanely powerful the combo of his skills was.

First off, he could produce puppets. Just as if he was some kind of player transmigrated into another world, he could do whatever he wanted without the fear of repercussions. After all, in the worst-case scenario, it would be his puppet getting punished. And as long as their creator didn't replicate his own face on his products, there was hardly any way to even find out who their creator was!

On the other hand, came the puppet's swordsmanship. While for someone born in the information age, implanting a complex set of moves into a puppet didn't appear to be all that hard, there was no way that anyone from this kind of medieval world like the one I was in could achieve something that even I would consider pretty difficult.

And that meant that it wasn't some kind of program that controlled the puppets. At least, not all of them.

It was hinted as soon as more than one enemy appeared. When I saw it at first, my entire soul trembled. For a moment, I saw what would happen if all those puppets could wield the strength as the first one, one I barely managed to defeat.

But it didn't happen. Because the other puppets weren't all that strong at all.

From this, only two conjunctions could be drawn. First, the more obvious one.

It was the sword.

There was no denying that most of the clones were aiming to grab hold of the sword as soon as they appeared. And once one of them succeeded, I was pushed back in a flash before being forced to use my heaviest gun to get rid of them all.

But there was also a second possibility. One that was born in my mind when I realized that there was always one special puppet, a puppet that moved pretty well even without holding that sword of its.

And that could only mean that while the creator of the puppets could make any number of them, not only was he able to control one directly, he was also a master swordsman, way above the league of the likes of Longinus!

Who, on the side note, appeared to already be near this world's top fighters list!

"Well, it's good that he is done now." Teria finally managed to squeeze out from between the bodies that she carried away. A moment later, all those lifeless bodies suddenly turned awake, slowly trying to make their way out of the pit where Teria landed them all.

"Yeah, there is no way his hideout would survive the blast." I nodded my head. I saw the inner workings of the recurring stones a few times already. While maybe I wasn't an expert, I couldn't imagine what kind of trick one would have to use to survive the onslaught that I brought to this world just now!

"Good. The queen wants to visit you." Changing the topic, Teria pointed her hand towards the lands that the devastation omitted. Even though they were only fifty meters away, the plains filled with terror-stricken people felt like an entirely another world altogether. "On that note, she also wants to meet with your companions…" Teria allowed her sentence the hang in the air, passing everything about how she felt about it without even using a single word to describe her thoughts.

"I…" For a moment, I was unsure what to do. While I enlisted the help of Longinus and other wingless humans to achieve what Dearie was set to achieve, it wasn't like I had permission to do it. Even if all the humans, winged or wingless alike, were bound to end up as her subjects, it didn't change the fact that the first meeting between the two long-hostile parties wouldn't be easy.

"I understand. Will Longinus suffice?" Recognizing one of the men trying to crawl out of the pit, I smiled. Even in such a situation, a plan somehow formed in my mind.

"I guess…" Avoiding the answer, Teria looked away. But that also was an answer of sorts.

Encouraged by the lack of girl's protest, I approached Longinus before helping him out of the pit.

"I know you are exhausted and you just saw something like an apocalypse," I started speaking, trying to put my words in a way that wouldn't scare the mercenary.

"Cut the crap. What do we need to do?" Wiping his forehead clean of the sweat, Longinus didn't waste a single moment. Whether it was his innate desire to act or just a drive still remaining after observing the disaster, it didn't really matter at this point.

"I need you to go with me and meet the woman I hail as queen of this world." Rather than hiding the truth, I revealed it in a pretty direct way to the mercenary.

"Huh, that's all?" And in return for my honesty, Lonignus only shrugged as if there was no need to mention this topic at all in the first place.

"Yeah, that's all." Rather than trying to argue with the mercenary, I simply breathed in and out before answering.

"Good. Then let's not waste any time and go!"