Chapter 960

After defeating the giant antidemon, the strange tremors restarted before Fran and Izario could begin moving again.

The earth shook again and again, with varying degrees of intensity.

Then, far off in the distance, we saw a cloud of dust with a huge shadow looming in the middle of it.

「The same one as here?」

「Probably. Judging by the tremors, there’s gotta be five or six, maybe even more. As for the one closest to us……」

「That one?」

「Yeah, that. I think it’s pretty close to Bultori.」

Fran grimaced at Izario’s words, probably because she knew that Bultori’s forces would not be enough to defeat the giant antidemon.

Izario and Ignis’ immense offensive power made it look easy. In reality though, the average town would have a very rough time.

「……What now?」

Fran would usually ask me for my opinion, but instead she’s looking up at Izario to her side. I-It’s not like I’m jealous or anything, you know?

It’s not a bad thing for Fran to have other adults that she can rely on. That meant Fran’s circle of friends was getting wider.

It does feel a bit lonely, but only a little. The happiness I felt from seeing Fran interact with others exceeded that.

「Well, I guess we have to go back. We can’t leave Bultori alone.」

「Okay.」

Izario must have some reason for fighting on this continent for so many years. I’m pretty sure he’d never willingly abandon so many people.

Fran also nodded happily at his words, so it seems we have no choice but to return.

「Then let’s hurry up a bit, shall we?」

「Nn! Urushi, keep at it.」

「Woof!」

Izario jumped on his board and started pouring mana into it. Immediately after, he blasted away at max speed. The board looked kinda like a toy.

The speed, however, was not funny. He clearly went faster than an F1 car. Urushi stared blankly at Izario, who had already disappeared into the distance in the blink of an eye. We called out to him hurriedly.

『Urushi! We’re going too!』

「A-Arf!」

Urushi desperately chased after Izario’s board, still spewing flames as it flew above the ground. Despite Urushi also going full speed, we had a hard time catching up.

Only after having Urushi sprint at max speed, applying support magic, and repeatedly healing him, did we finally manage to reach Izario’s back.

「Little lady, don’t push yourselves too hard! No worries if you arrive a bit later!」

「Okay!」

「Woof woof!」

Urushi tried to put on a tough front, but he’s clearly overexerting himself. It wouldn’t be terrible to let Izario go on ahead of us.

I was considering that, but Urushi kept on running. He had his pride as Fran’s legs on the line, so he refused to lose to some magic tool.

Even though Fran and I tried to convince him to take it easy, he didn’t slow down one bit.

Urushi started breathing so hard that I thought he might vomit blood, as well as desperately swallowing the stomach acid about to rise out of mouth. But he pulled it off. He ran all the way through.

About 100 meters before Bultori, Urushi stopped and immediately collapsed. His chest was heaving up and down at irregular intervals because of his disturbed breathing.

「Pant…… Pant…… Gorf……」

「You’ve got one great beast servant, little lady! I really went all out, and I never thought you’d follow me through to the end!」

「Urushi, you did a great job.」

「Pant……」

「No need to talk.」

『Urushi, rest up good. You were truly amazing.』

（Woof.）

Still collapsed on the ground, Urushi dove into the shadows to rest. He must have pushed himself so hard that he didn’t even have the strength to get back up.

But it was thanks to him that we made it back to Bultori before nightfall.

We could see the giant antidemon on the other side of the city. It looked just like the previous one, a fetus covered in a weird liquid.

The distance between it and the city was no more than 300 meters. Considering how vast the distances are on this continent, that’s actually pretty close.

「There’s only a few soldiers on the walls?」

「I’m sensing a lot of antidemons!」

「If the big guy ain’t moving yet, an antidemon horde’s probably shown up here too. They’re still engaged at the other gate. Let’s hurry.」

「Nn.」

The two of them stopped here partly because Urushi reached his limit, but also because they needed to fly through the city in one go.

Izario’s board could not travel at high altitudes, so he had to dash through on his own.

Now, he spewed flames from the soles of his feet and back, before jumping into the sky. The same trick Mea had done, multiple casts of Vernier.

Combining the acceleration with jumps, the two entered the city’s airspace. Izario hopped off the roofs of houses, while Fran followed closely behind with aerial hops.

「A lot of people sitting down.」

「They must have been drained of mana. Oh, and then evil intoxication after that.」

Most people couldn’t resist the giant antidemon’s mana drain ability, so they lost consciousness after losing too much mana. I guess the symptoms were kinda like anemia. Moreover, the dense evil aura emitted by the giant antidemon covered the city too, inflicting everyone with evil intoxication.

Perhaps their resistance to evil energy also decreased after getting their mana drained.

The problem was that neither of us could do anything to fix mana depletion or evil intoxication. Fran and Izario hurried past the defenseless crowds to reach the giant antidemon.

The closer we got to the gate, the more people we found sitting on the ground, with some of them even collapsed. That’s because the giant antidemon’s absorption was more powerful the closer you got.

If that draining ability could reach over the entire city, then I have to wonder just how much power it managed to absorb.

「Everyone’s in danger if we let this go on.」

「Yeah. The big guy plans to devour the entire town. If we don’t take him down quickly, they’re eventually dying of mana exhaustion.」