Chapter 222 - Man’s Best Friend

Rollback time a little to when Cecil was first assaulted by the Empire's Nocturne Lions' First Fang, Silver was currently in his pet form silently observing the black clothed beastmen intruding into his master's room.

He sensed the people outside first placing some sort of incense burner in front of the door and using a wind magic spell to blow the smoke into the room before backing away. When the smoke had wafted into the room for a couple of seconds, Silver felt uneasy and was about to use his wind magic to blow away the smoke, but suddenly his master had awoken.

Silver could see his master stumbling and nearly fall down onto the floor. The boy pulled out his Adamantium Sword and the intruders quickly bust open the door.

After saying something about going along with them quietly, the beastmen started attacking his master. Silver was about to pounce out, but saw his master eyeing him.

'Master?'

His master's eyes conveyed everything. Don't interfere. Go to Lucia, tell her to come back. That's what Cecil's eyes were telling him.

Silver couldn't understand it. His master didn't want him to interfere, but the more he waited the more pain and torture his master was going through.

It was obvious that there was something wrong with his master's body. He couldn't move it very well and he was always late to respond to attacks he normally wouldn't have a hard time dealing with.

Silver also sensed that the mana inside his master's body was in total disarray. He wanted to rush out and help, but remembering what his master had told him to do, Silver waited...and waited.

He grew angrier by the second when he saw the black clothed beastmen beating and toying with his master. They could have long since taken him away, but they didn't. They just continued to attack Cecil and it seemed like they were saying some derisive things to him.

His anger grew and Silver soon felt enraged. A lethal attack landed onto Cecil's body and his blood splattered across the room. Some of the blood landed near the bed, just in front of Silver.

The blood smelled familiar and Silver knew that it was from his master. In the next instant, it wasn't only the blood on the ground that turned red, but everything in Silver's vision had also turned red.

******

"RROOOARR!!"

"SILVY! SNAP OUT OF IT! CALM DOWN!"

"GRROOOOAARRRR!"

Lucia and Silver were currently facing off against each other. Lucia didn't want to hurt Silver, but the enraged wolf just wouldn't let her approach the unconscious Cecil.

Cecil's body was beginning to corrode as more and more of the miasma began affecting him. If this kept up, Cecil's body might be permanently damaged or worse, he might even die.

Thinking about this, Lucia resolved herself to attack Silver, but that resolve was immediately broken, whenever Silver let out a roar.

Now that they were closer, Lucia could somehow make out the indiscernible message Silver was releasing with every roar. He wasn't saying anything, but his feelings were conveyed.

Silver was confused, scared, and angry, he didn't know what he was doing. All he knew was that everything approaching his master was an enemy. He couldn't even identify that the girl confronting him was actually Lucia.

"Silvy...please, don't make me hurt you...look at Cecil...he's already getting hurt by you!"

Silver still didn't break his eyes away from the girl. He stared menacingly at her and was adamant about not letting anyone approach his master. In his mind, they'll only hurt him.

It was the first time Silver ever saw his master so helpless. His master was the strongest, and he always powered through everything obstructing his path.

Silver knew that the people that had attacked his master had done something to him beforehand. That's why his master was helpless. His rage took over and he resolved not to let anyone go near his master ever again.

They'll only do something underhanded to him and take advantage of his weakness to hurt him, just as the beastmen had done earlier.

Even this fox girl in front of him...

"Grrr...?"

"S-Silvy? Can you hear me Silv?! Please...please stop! Everything's okay now, you've defeated all the bad guys, look!"

When Lucia saw the confusion in Silver's eyes after she had repeatedly called out to him, she immediately tried talk to him again.

"Look! All the bad guys are dead now! No one's going to hurt Cecil anymore!"

Silver's enraged eyes looked around the area. All the black clothed people that were attacking his master and him...were all collapsed on the floor. He finally saw the melted down bodies of his enemies.

"Grrr...raahhh..."

"Yes, calm down, Silvy...everything's okay now...let me take Cecil away...okay?"

Silver turned around and walked over to Cecil. He began nudging his head.

"..."

Lucia slowly approached the two. Silver turned his head up to look at her. Lucia stopped immediately, but Silver didn't lash out at her anymore. He simply lay down next to Cecil and began nudging his body again, but his master still didn't stir awake.

"Silvy, the miasma in the air is poisoning Cecil...let me take him away from here, alright?"

Lucia had walked up next to Silver and began petting him. The hand that had made contact with Silver's fur immediately began to sizzle. The aura surrounding her hand was being corroded even further from her just touching Silver.

Lucia couldn't help, but grimace when she saw that. 'I hope Silvy's transformation isn't permanent...I won't be able to hug him anymore...'

Lucia slowly lifted Cecil up and placed his arm over her shoulder. She turned to look at Silver, but the black wolf didn't move. He just stayed there on the ground with his head looking at the two.

"I'll be back, Silvy...calm down first, okay?"

"Grrr..."

Lucia smiled at the wolf and she quickly dashed away from the area. Silver appeared a little lonely, just lying there in the middle of the place surrounded by the miasma and corpses.

*******

"Good, master's got Cecil." Yuna mumbled and she quickly descended to the ground.

She waited at the edge of the misty barrier for her master and Cecil to come out. She waited only for a short time before she waved her hand and opened a hole in the barrier.

Lucia then rushed out of the opening with Cecil on her back.

"Mas—Lucia! Are you two okay?"

"Hey, Yuna...I'm alright...but Cecil and Silver..."

"Don't worry about Silver. He's managed to calm down now. Give him a day or two and he'll return to normal."

"Really? Hoohhh...that's a relief," Lucia said as she released a relieved sigh upon hearing that.

"We have to make sure that no one enters the barrier, or else they'll be exposed to Silver's miasma."

"Yeah, but Cecil...he was directly exposed to it...will he be okay?"

"...I'm not sure. Normally, if someone was exposed to a Black Fenrir's corrosive miasma, they'd quickly melt down and die. Cecil's been in there for a while, but only his skin and small patches of his flesh was corroded. It's a miracle, but I think he'll be fine..."

"That's good...I'll put Cecil in the care of the Darkfang family...we should go ahead and support the defense at the walls!"

"Yes. The maddening aura is also slowly dissipating, so things will eventually calm down. However, that'll take some time...once monsters go berserk it's hard to stop them unless you wipe them all out..."

"Mhm." Lucia didn't understand what Yuna meant by the aura, but she did feel something creep into her mind earlier. It had gotten even worse when she moved closer and closer to the enraged Silver.

The feeling was going away now, but she kind of understood the cause of the monster tide now.

'So it was because of Silver...those two...were they also responsible for the massacre last night?'

She felt worried, but there had to be some reason why the two did what they did.

'I'll ask Cel later when he wakes up...for now I should help the city.'

Lucia quickly found the Darkfang family's temporary command center. It was in the middle district's largest marketplace. The members of the family had all moved here and they had gathered most of the evacuating citizens here.

All the citizens had noticed the commotion already, but it was a good thing that the city's guards that were on shift to patrol the city had acted quickly to quell the citizen's worries.

Now that the family's leaders were taking direct command, the citizens were now at ease and were only waiting for the outcome of this disaster.

"Hey...did you here? The beastmen were the cause of the monster attack and the attacks on the Darkfang family's estate..."

"Yeah! I heard it from one of the soldiers, apparently the Kingdom's 2nd Princess is also on the walls defending the city and she was the one who confirmed that the beastmen were the cause!"

"Tsk...Damn those beasts! We let them into our kingdom and territory in order to trade for all the new magi-tech that our artificers have painstakingly created... and the first thing they do is attack and send a monster tide at us, those ungrateful bastards!"

"They're obviously declaring war on us!"

"Yeah!"

"I heard that the humans were attacking them, and the Emperor was pressuring the nearby kingdoms to help out with their problem!"

"Bah! Is this how you ask an ally to help out? By invading their country?! Screw them! I say, we attack their lands! With the humans on the front and us at the back, that'll show those beastmen!"

While the more hot-headed and easily provoked beastkin were calling out for war, some of the other more mild-tempered beastkin were worried that things will devolve into such a state.

"Are you suggesting for us to go to war with them?! What about our families? Our children are the ones going off to fight them y'know!"

"Urk..."

"...I don't think the kingdom will go to war, but we must seek some answers for this transgression! If our city wasn't powerful enough...then that monster tide would have most likely wiped out everyone here!"

"It's a relief that we have the Princess of Victory with us!"

"Our Kingdom's very own princess is defending the walls! We'll pull through this! I don't want war, but with the princess here, the beastmen will have to provide us a satisfactory answer to this transgression!"

The citizens weren't sure of how large the monster tide was, but when they witnessed the large scale high ranked spell that Eli had previously used, they immediately thought that the threat was over. They still weren't particularly worried since they all thought that the 2nd princess' spell had wiped out the entire monster tide.

However, to their dismay, the roars and howls of the monsters had only begun to grow more and more numerous and the sounds of battle at the walls didn't die down, but had instead intensified. Despite all that, the citizen still weren't all that worried since they had the Princess of Victory defending the walls for them.

This new title that Eli had earned for herself was being circulated around the ordinary citizens and injured soldiers who had come down from the wall and bore witness to the awesome might of Elizabeth's performance. Her entrance followed up by her Meteor Fall spell had quelled the unease that was creeping up in the citizens' hearts due to the monster tide.

Lucia was walking through the market place hearing all the gossip from the citizens she passed by. She couldn't help but grimace at their words, but at the same time she felt relieved and proud of her friend.

"Hmhm~ Eli's got a new title huh? Princess of Victory, that sounds so cool!"

Lucia also thought about the beastmen who were attacking Cecil and Silver earlier and couldn't help but scoff in derisively.

'I'm sorry, but you beastmen are just going to have to take the blame...it's your fault that you tried to attack Cel and enraged Silvy...'

With that thought, Lucia quickly opened up a Misty Gate connected to the city's ramparts.