CH 11.5

Translator: Nefarian                                                    

「Impossible…..」

Seeing the scene of bloody entrails across the floor, the man vomited out the words.

The corpses of his companions were scattered around the surroundings. None of them could be considered weak, these were all men chosen as the elitist of the elite. They were the Imperial Guardsmen of Figuria Kingdom.

In front of his eyes was a girl with crimson hair and a demon with scorching red pupils. The two beings in front of him were painted in the color of blood and fire. Without being able to do anything, these 400 Imperial Guardsmen were annihilated.

「……Are you alright, Yunis?」

Aur replenishes his magical energy from Yunis and starts to cast recovery magic on her. Although the Imperial Guardsmen that attacked her were annihilated, Yunis did not leave the battle totally unharmed either.

Using her sword as support she was breathing quite raggedly as she nodded her head. Her body was covered in wounds all over the place. From four of his arms, Logan also had two of them torn off and one of his horns had also been chipped.

The Imperial Guards thought that they could not be defeated as they had encircled the group and used their battle formations.

They made use of the geographical advantage and they used the fact that there was only a couple of people to attack in waves. Without even having any time to take a break, the two of them continuously fought off the incoming waves and even though these two were powerful, it was still considerably taxing.

「…….. I’m fine, we can go out now.」

Yunis was somehow able to restore her breathing to normal and pushes open the last door.

「Ahaha…….」

And seeing the spectacle reflected in front of her, she lets out a feeble laugh.

「This is going to be a little tough.」

After opening the doors Aur and his group ended up in a location that was split off from the Royal Palace, in one of the corner section of the castle walls. And right in front of them was the presence of fully armed Royal Forces. They numbered at around 4,000 men. This amount of soldiers was enough to be called a full brigade.

Yunis and Logan are strong individuals. They would no doubt live up to the title of being mighty warriors that could match a thousand men, the number of humans living in this world capable of winning against them is probably less than 10.

However, it is still not possible to fight against such numbers. The overwhelming number of soldiers just had that much power to them. These Royal Soldiers were likely one step or even two steps more inferior in comparison to the 400 elite royal guards, but this was more than enough to crush both Logan and Yunis who were already exhausted.

Even if it was possible to deflect 10 spears thrown and use wind magic to repel 100 arrows, if they were to start bombarding them with 1000 magical spells, there was no way to prevent the attack.

Even if they wanted to escape via teleportation, right now, not only was there a barrier from preventing others from entering the castle via teleportation, the barrier also prevented people from leaving the premises.

「Yunis, I’m going to borrow your mana.」

Aur gives Yunis a kiss and he retrieves all of the magical energy savings she still had in her body. Even if she has fallen from grace, she was still the hero. The amount of magical energy she could store within her body was several times more than what Lilu could stockpile. Her magical energy could be compared with several tens of first class magicians gathered together.

He used that mana to cast a magical spell and intended to explode it in the middle of the army.

…….Nevertheless.

The magic attack that was easily capable of blowing an entire gate open was not able to be inflict damage on the army. Even though he could accumulate several tens of people’s worth of magical energy, in the end it only amounted to that much. The Royal Army, had 1000 magician soldiers and 500 amongst them were in charge of defending against magical attacks. Although the magic that Aur could cast was definitely above the norm, he could not fight against the mass difference in numbers.

Aur’s magical attack was prevented and the royal army started to retaliate. Considering they were only fighting against two enemies, they did not even take the risk of trying to fight in close quarters combat. Several hundred of their magicians started to chant out a spell at the same time and they were forming an offensive spell.

An army grade magical spell. This was the type of spell only usable by those fully trained in an army could perform, it wasn’t a spell that any lone individual could normally cast. Aur realized that the enemy force was trying to destroy him and his party along with the whole castle wall behind him.

「Aur, please run okay?」

Yunis unsheathes her sword and bends her body forward.

「It can’t be helped.」

Haa, letting out a sigh Logan also stands next to her side.

In order to let Aur escape, they were planning on thrusting themselves into the midst of the enemy force. If they got in close, the army would not be able to use their large scale magic. They would obviously not want to involve their own comrades in their own attack.

「……Wait.」

Aur instinctively grabs hold of Yunis’s shoulder. Yunis turns around and shows him a confused expression from the bottom of her heart. Even Aur himself did not understand why he was attempting to stop her.

「What’s that?」

Logan mutters to himself as he looked up at the sky. At first Aur thought that it was rain. It flew in an arc and it was a rain of light. It strikes the ground causing a tremor along with the sound of a terrifying explosion.

The rain did not fall on top of Aur. It was on top of the Royal Army.

Having a rain of light pouring down on them, the Royal Army fell into chaos. Even though they had 500 defensive magicians stationed in the army, it was not possible to continuously defend the whole army. Holes started appearing all over the place. Almost like the rain was aiming itself towards the holes, it just continued falling incessantly. The light that pours down over the soldiers destroys their bodies making their blood spray across the vicinity, the light that fell on the ground crushes the stone pavement turning them into stone pebbles that also struck the soldiers around it.

「……Is it Ellen?!」

Aur finally realizes the reason why that rain only targeted the Royal Army’s forces.

「Ah, Mio is also there! Oii, we’re here!」

Yunis gladly swings both of her hands towards the sky. Although Aur could only see it as a speck of dot in the sky, the rain of light was coming from on top of the flying dragon. Just recently, there was this Wyvern that strayed into the dungeon. Mio steers the Wyvern and on top of its back Ellen and her group of archers were firing magical arrows.

With 5 of these girls firing at the same time, it was exactly like a rain of arrows had fallen from the heavens. There is no need to even fuss about large scale magic any longer. The Royal Army had completely sunk into chaos. Some of the magicians in the army tried to fire magic attacks at Ellen but because she was in such a high-altitude from riding the Wyvern, none of the magical attacks reached her. Being a match for a thousand men. Ellen’s group of elven archers did not lie when they claimed this boastful fact. Just with 5 of them, the whole battle was overturned in Aur’s favor.

「…….. It seems that we’ve been saved.」

Yunis breathes out a sigh of relief as she plops on to the floor. The Royal Army was desperate to even defend against Ellen’s attacks from the skies above and they did not even have any reserve strength to attack Aur.

「Ahh…..」

Aur was absentmindedly looking at his own right hand. At that time, why did he try to stop Yunis from charging in?

It was not because he noticed that Ellen’s group had arrived. Although it somehow ended well because of Ellen’s appearance, when he stopped Yunis in that moment, Aur had not yet realized her arrival.

If he purely considered the best action for the situation, it was without a doubt having Yunis at the forefront of his plan. Making both her and Logan buy him time, he should have tried to find some way to escape the castle. In any case, all he needed to do was escape from the range of the barrier and he would be able to run away by casting his teleportation spell. Then all he needed to do was rebuild his forces and invade the kingdom. It would be hard if he had to lose Yunis, but comparing it to having himself die, the choice should have been clear to make.

The reason he stopped her at such a crucial moment was transparent to him now. It was foolish, trivial affection, emotions from the human mind. Showing empathy for his chess pieces, he did not want to part with them. The fact that these types of emotions still lingered within him caused Aur to grit his teeth in vexation. These types of naïve mannerisms were only acting as a restraint that were useless to him. He believed that it was necessary to abandon these thoughts. After all, Aur was the “Evil Magician”.

Aur strongly clasps his own hand into a fist.

「Aur, you……」

Noticing Aur’s strange appearance, Yunis muttered out those words.

「Don’t be angry at Lilu alright?」

When he turned his gaze towards her, she was still paying attention to the Royal Army.

「When Lilu returned to the dungeon, she was very desperate. She asked me….. No, she asked everyone within the dungeon to save Aur. Mio wasn’t even supposed to be allowed to leave the dungeon. But she still asked her for help.」

Although Mio had been treated as a sort of companion to the group, in the end she was merely one of the girls that was supposed to be sacrificed to Aur. The areas she was able to access within the dungeon was limited and she wasn’t even invited to participate in any of the strategical meetings that took place. But then again, the person herself enjoyed being in the animal’s rooms more so than her own room, so she didn’t particularly mind this fact.

The same goes for Logan. In the case of an emergency situation, either Logan or Yunis was supposed to remain on stand-by within the dungeon and those were the orders. In saying that, the only other person capable of giving commands to Logan other than Aur himself was Lilu, therefore, there is no doubt that she also requested Logan to come and save Aur.

To begin with, there wasn’t anything in the contract that forced Lilu to try and save Aur. The curse of compulsion created by the contract was easily able to forbid a demon to perform a certain action, but if you wanted a demon to do something for you, that would be extremely difficult to accomplish. If you wanted to force them to do something, it had to be something very concrete and only a single type of action. Things that are overly vague like 『Always obey my orders』or 『Perpetually protect me』was something that would not hold true if written in a contract.

That’s because the contract can be interpreted in different ways. In spite of this fact, Lilu was doing everything in her power in order to save Aur.

「……Why. Why did Lilu try to save me? I don’t think it would have profited her in any way.」

In fact, if Aur would just die, she could return to her own devil world immediately. Her body had already been filled to the brim with Aur’s magical energy. If she was any normal demon, she would have surely abandoned him.

「Asking that kind of thing, isn’t it obvious? It’s because she likes you.」

Aur was asking the question to himself without noticing he was speaking out loud and Yunis immediately answers him.

「….Is that so?」

「That’s how it is. After all I also really like Aur, so I can tell.」

「Has there ever been a case where a demon likes a human being?」

「Well, not normally.」

Instead of Yunis, Logan is the one who answers him.

「What do you think about Marie?」

「Marie-chan is totally an angel!」

In response to Yunis’s question, Logan gives a wink with his right eye and thrust him thumb out in approval. Considering that he had the face akin to a goat, when he acted like this it was revolting.

「……..But you know? If I were to speak honestly, to me Marie can be compared to a beautiful statue or a painting that is highly admirable. Not only is she like a beautiful statue she is also extremely delicious tasting like the sweetest candy. It’s so rare for such a human being to exist so I jumped at the chance to create a contract…… But, it’s still kind of like that foolish game you played a while back. So if you were to ask me if I would sacrifice my own body for her, the answer would be a resounding no. Well, because this particular body can be re-created no matter how many times it’s destroyed, I definitely wouldn’t mind protecting her with it over and over again, but yeah.」

Returning to his usual serious expression Logan answers in this manner.

His sense of values was very typical even amongst the demon race. It could even be considered close to a human being. But even he has made it clear that he has not fallen in love with a human before, even if it was Marie.

「But rather than speculating like this, isn’t it just easier if you ask the her yourself?」

Aur was keeping silent and looked as if he was troubled by the matter so Yunis stepped in to just suggest it to him plainly. Her opinion was very frank. When he followed her gaze to look towards the sky, the Wyvern seemed to have taken a break from fighting the Royal Army as it landed towards the group.

「I’m so sorry!」

Getting off the Wyvern’s back Mio was bowing towards Aur with watery eyes.

「I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!」

「If you’re worried about the fact that you left the dungeon without permission then you can feel relieved. I won’t punish you.」

Shaking her head indicating that was not what she meant, both Ellen and Lilu appeared with awkward expressions.

「That you Lilu? ……….This time around, it was me who became negligent. I don’t really have a punishment for you…..」

Aur started to say the words but Lilu also shakes her head cutting him off.

「I’m really happy to hear that but, that’s not what it is…. Umm, err, I’m sorry. I never really thought that it would end up like that.」

「Did something happen? Say it clearly.」

「Umu. We weren’t able to stop Spina. Well, in regards to Lilu-dono and myself, we had no intentions of stopping her though.」

Switching with Lilu, Ellen described the situation concisely. However, Aur was still unable to grasp the exact meaning of her words and so she pointed towards the horizon. Following where she pointed, there was something green that was looming over the royal army far into the distance. It was only the size of her finger tips but the fact that it could be seen from this distance only proved that it was of gigantic proportions.

「….What is that thing?」

「It’s something that Spina made…. A Slime.」

Lilu spoke as if she was apologizing.