Volume 2 - CH 4.5

Chapter 4: Let’s Raise the New Demon Lord, Part 5

「Oh, look, a new challengers have arrived!」

「Eh, again? But we’ve disposed of the whole group not that long ago.」

Mari lets out an annoyed sigh and materializes two of her swords.

「Yunis, it would be great if you helped me out a bit, you know?!」

「No can do. Treat it like a part of your swordsman training.」

Yunis gave a slick answer to Mari, who was slashing left and right while whining.

Some time has passed since they entered the cave and fought against groups of wild beasts within. Now another small pack approached them. Three of them, to be exact.

Their overall physique resembled that of humans, but they had fur growing on their whole bodies, tusks and sharp claws. From their foreheads, a varying number of sharp horns protruded. Tena and Yutsu called them “demons”.

「Yaaa!」

Slashing away at them, Mari tried to whack one of the enemies in the stomach with a pommel of her sword.

「Darn, they’re hard!」

But the hard fur and the sheer muscles negated the force of the impact, leaving not even a scratch. Irritated, Mari clicked her tongue. She thought that is was going to work.

Not only was she getting exhausted, but the deeper they went, the stronger the enemies were getting.

「Um, should I go help her a bit?」

Yutsu came forward and asked Aur as she was looking at Mari who was being slightly overwhelmed.

Aur glanced at Yunis for a brief moment.

「I guess it’s okay.」

「You sure?」

「I mean, it might be a little rude to Mari since she’s trying so hard, but she could definitely use some help.」

To that statement, Aur only raised a brow.

「I’m going in then!」

Yutsu shouted as she dashed ahead. Her ears changed to pointed ones, her chest swelled significantly and a tail sprouted from between her legs.

「Eh, wait, what is this?!」

Her skin became hard as stone as well. She lashed her tail forward, changing it into a huge hammer with a puff of white smoke.

「Uhm, Mari, Allow me to assist you!」

Yutsu jumped into the air and landed her hammer-tail on the head of a demon who was about to attack Mari. At the moment of the strike, the hammer got even bigger, crushing the demon’s head and creating a gushing fountain of blood. Mari’s eyes widened at that brutal display.

「And heave-ho!」

After she pulled it back out of the demon’s corpse with an unpleasant, sticky sound, it returned to its normal size.

「Mari, be more careful and make sure to avoid such an attack next time, all right?」

Yunis advised Mari before Yutsu swung her hammer again.

「One more swing!」

With that warcry, she descended upon the rest of the demons who tried to flee after they witnessed their friend’s demise.

She engaged them in battle, but soon was in a pinch herself. Her attacks might have been powerful, but they were also slow and quite predictable.

「Uhm, well…」

Although Mari gave chase after the demon who left his comrade alone to save himself, she was puzzled about what she should do. She had to think of a way to bypass his thick defense somehow.

「Oh, that’s right!」

She suddenly came up with an idea that might just work, and switched the swords in her hands.

「Cold and Dry!」

And with her weapons reinforced with those two properties, she descended upon her enemy with deadly force. Because her swords were made of steel, their main governing element was earth. And what are earth’s main traits? Hardness and weight. So she strengthened those traits in her sword, and while the speed of her slashes was kept intact, the blade whose hardness was drastically increased easily cut through the muscles and bones of the demon.

「Wow!」

Mari opened her mouth widely in surprise as she saw the result of her gambit.

「Mama!」

A stone wall was raised from the ground to prevent the attack that was coming towards her from connecting.

「Thank you, Sofia!」

While thanking Sofia, Mari arranged the other two of her swords in the air. This time, she used wind that combined the properties of heat and moisture. In and out of itself, it was a weak combination.

「Please take care of this!」

But it was another story entirely with Sofia here.

Following Mari’s commands, she created a strong gust of wind that threw the last enemy into the air.

「Yutcchan!」

「Who, me? Ah, right, on it!」

Jumping in after being urged by Mari, Yutsu began to spin round and round to increase the speed of her finishing attack, and when she finally released it, the poor demon was literally blasted to gory bits on a nearby wall. Mari pitied the person who will be responsible for cleaning this mess up later.

Mari shook the blood of her blades and sheathed them all back as she approached Yunis with a satisfied smile and her hands fidgeting behind her back.

「Well, I would give that a solid six out of ten.」

「Eh? Why so low?」

Mari voiced her objection towards such an evaluation.

「Your moves are good, but your judgement of the situation is too slow. The same can be said about Yutsu, plus she has the obvious tendency to rushing ahead and fighting alone. But your abilities are quite a nice combination, so it would be good if you could come up with more ways of incorporating them to your strategy if you happen to fight together again.」

「Oh, umm, yes, of course, I… will make sure to remember that.」

Yutsu was also kinda dejected, but nodded her head nevertheless.

Despite such harsh evaluation, Yunis was really proud of Mari’s improvements.

What she was lacking was a real battle experience. Considering that she was leading quite a sheltered life until not so long ago, her current achievements were already plenty amazing. And it was great that she was able to get along with everyone in the Dungeon despite such vast differences between them.

That way she will surely grow stronger, both as a warrior, and as a person.

「As for Sofia…」

Yunis then turn to the little girl whose eyes were shining with expectation.

「Great job! Perfect! Magnificent!」

「Yay! Sofia made it! Waaaaai!」

Sofia was both proud of herself and overjoyed at being stroked on the head for a job well done.

「Why is she the only one who’s getting praised, I don’t get it.」

Getting jealous over a child being praised showed that deep inside Mari was still immature.

「The road is splitting.」

Aur stopped in front of the two roads going in separate directions.

Although there were branching paths before, they always traced back to the main road sooner or later. This was the first time when the split was so apparent.

「Which is the right way to go?」

「None of them. Both are just dead ends.」

「Oh? What’s this? You can’t find the right answer even though you can predict the future?」

「No, it’s not that. If there was some sort of hidden passage, there’s no way I wouldn’t be able to notice it.」

「But you just said that both of them are dead ends.」

「Then I’ll just have to predict again.」

「Yes, you do that.」

Aur ordered Tena so.

「What are the numerical values?」

「Thirty two, fifteen, minus five, thirty, fifteen plus one… why do you want to know?」

「Coordinates. Since they are mostly the same, which would mean that we should be nearing the mountain’s deepest part. So probably in both cases the correct way to go would be forward.」

With that said, Aur looked around everyone who was gathered here.

「There’s no way around it. We have to split.」