CH 40.4

“A Weichsel mage?! Then, take this!”

Intuitively sensing that the girl is dangerous, Cornelia shoots an arrow without hesitation. The pale red barrier in front of the girl blocks the arrow by decreasing its speed. As the arrow loses its momentum, the girl nonchalantly grabs it and tosses it away.

“Haha, are all young mages these days inhumanly talented or what?” Havoc quips.

“That guy was bad enough. I’m getting fed up with this,” Cornelia joins in. Even as they joke with each other, their faces which should be smiling are stiff. For a beginner adventurer, Cornelia is quite skilled with a bow. Breaking through a barrier that not even her arrow could pierce is no easy task.

Not even looking at the enemy soldiers in front of her, the girl looks behind her.

“Irene, I’ll leave this to you,” the girl tells a red-haired female knight standing a short distance away.

“…Yes, my lady,” she replies.

“Don’t you ignore us!”

Liam jumps at the girl with a downward swing of his sword. Before the tip of his sword touches the barrier, Liam feels an impact shoot through his abdomen.

“Guh!”

“Liam! You…!”

Liam is sent flying into the wall. By the time they realized it, the female knight named Irene closed the distance and kicked Liam away. Having received a direct hit, Liam looks to be in pain, holding his abdomen with saliva dripping out of the corner of his mouth, but his injuries are not beyond hope of recovery.

“I will not allow you to stand in Lady Alexia’s way,” Irene says, shooting them a cold gaze.

“Heh, that attitude… Like you’re looking down on me… I think I’m starting to hate you,” Liam says, wiping the drool and unsteadily rising to his feet.

“Liam, don’t overdo it. That woman is pretty strong,” Cornelia says as she rushes over to him.

“You cannot win alone. We all need to work together right now,” Emilia says. Since her friends are in danger, she also came running, prioritizing them over the wounded soldiers.

The girl named Alexia ignores even this exchange and continues on her way. They want to stop her, but with Irene’s daunting presence, they cannot act carelessly.

“No way around it. We’ll have to defeat this beauty first and then stop the girl.”

When Havoc gives the signal, Liam and the others move in two groups. Havoc and Liam simultaneously attack Irene from both sides. From the differences between their movements, Irene determines that Havoc is more dangerous and targets him. With her rapier, she aims for the gaps in his full plate armor to pierce through it like a needle in fabric.

“Here she comes!” Havoc says with a grin.

“I won’t let her! Wisdom Barrier!” Emilia says, having finished casting. A thin shield appears in front of Havoc and stops the rapier’s thrust.

Wisdom Barrier is a spell that clerics can learn which creates a shield that completely blocks attacks. However, the shield is small and can only protect a single person, and on top of that, it disappears once it receives a certain amount of damage. Emilia’s goal was to activate the spell and stop Irene’s attack the moment she attacked either Havoc or Liam. For the first time, astonishment appears on Irene’s face.

“Got you!” Liam shouts, attacking from the opposite side. Above Irene’s head is Liam’s sword. With such perfect timing, there is no way to dodge.

If his opponent was not Irene, that is. Unperturbed, Irene puts her strength into her rapier. The Wisdom Barrier begins to crack.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me!”

Although Wisdom Barriers break after a certain amount of damage, this limit changes depending on the cleric’s ability and cannot be so easily broken by a single attack. However, Irene’s attack easily surpasses the Wisdom Barrier’s damage limit. As soon as the shield breaks, the tip of the rapier pierces through Havoc’s arm with great force. If Havoc hadn’t noticed this abnormality and repositioned himself, it might have hit his vitals.

Rather than pursuing Havoc, Irene immediately changes her focus to counterattacking. After moving a step back and causing Liam’s attack to miss, she proceeds to shove him from behind, slamming him against the ground.

“S**t, that hurts! Guh!” Liam says, collapsed on the ground, as Irene steps on his head.

“I’m a bit surprised. That was pretty well coordinated,” she says in admiration.

“Then as a reward, how about you move your foot? I’m not into this kinda stuff,” Liam quips back. Irene stomps harder.

“Sorry, but I cannot afford to lose.”

“Gyaaaaah!”

The more Liam screams, the harder Irene’s foot presses down on him.

At that moment, a single arrow is released.

Unlike Alexia, Irene has no barriers. In that case, arrows should hit. In other words, Cornelia’s arrow was what they were really after, and their coordinated attacks aren’t over yet.

They’re not looking down on Irene in the least. If anything, it’s because they were cautious of her that they were hiding their trump card. Originally, after Havoc and Liam held Irene back, Cornelia was supposed to take that opportunity to finish her off. However, Liam got caught. Even so, Cornelia continued waiting for a chance to make her move. Concealing her presence to the limits of her ability and suppressing her discomposure from all their expectations falling apart and her urge to go save her screaming friend, she shot her arrow, an attack made up of all her friends’ efforts combined.

Yes, they weren’t looking down on her. Until their final move.

Irene moves her foot off of Liam and dodges the arrow, moving at such great speeds that it makes her impossible to see. In other words, Irene noticed the arrow flying towards her and reacted even faster than that.

“I see. So your coordinated attack didn’t end with that man. You took the elf into account as well.”

Cornelia clicks her tongue. She’s strong. There are no openings for them to take advantage of. Physical ability similar to a monster’s and skills developed through training. These two things are combined at a high level.

“You aren’t soldiers. You’re far too accustomed to coordinating in small groups. Are you adventurers?” Irene asks.

“Yes, we are,” Cornelia answers.

“I only know one adventurer, but are all of you this determined?”

“Now, I wonder about that. Very few of the adventurers I know, at least. I also learned from a certain adventurer. He taught me that difference in ability doesn’t matter. Depending on your methods, there are always ways to fight. …I’m nowhere near his level now, but someday, I’ll become as strong as him no matter what it takes.”

These are Cornelia’s true inner feelings. When Cornelia and Chaos first met, there was almost no difference in ability between the two. Cornelia thought that the difference between the two presented itself in their sense of fighting style and ingenuity. That is the reason why she was so frustrated and why she was determined to become stronger through ingenuity.

Then, in a short period of time, Chaos achieved the spectacular feat of defeating the servant of the evil god. When she first heard this, she was unable to comprehend the truth, but as soon as she accepted it, the fact that the difference between them widened all at once caused jealousy to arise within her.

If it had been a stranger, she would have been able to accept it. But as a fellow rookie adventurer, since she thought that there was originally no difference in ability between them, she felt like she was being left behind.

It isn’t only Cornelia who feels this way, but Liam as well. That is why they struggle in order to fill that gap even the slightest bit and why they desperately honed their skills while coming here to Clermont.

“I see.” Irene’s expression is slightly bitter, but then it changes and she appears deeply moved. “I also have something I must do. I cannot give up here. Resistance is useless,” she says, her expression becoming tense.

“It’s not useless. Thanks to that, there’s something I was able to see,” Liam says, grinning as he clutches his neck.

“Oh? And what’s that?”

“That speed from when you kicked me at the start and when you dodged that arrow. It was clearly abnormal. But it’s weird. Why don’t you always move that fast? With that speed, you could have taken us out right away.”

Irene reacts with a twitch.

“That speed is a technique that uses mana. And it can’t be used continuously. I also saw that it takes time to use it again. Even with that, you can’t dodge an arrow if you’re not paying attention to it. We still have a chance!”

“Liam,” Havoc says. “To think that you could use your head like that even though you’ve miscalculated the money you send home and gone hungry… I’m kind of impressed. Also, don’t just reveal your strategy.”

“You really have grown…! If you learn tactics just a bit more, it would be perfect,” Emilia says.

“You’re not dead weight anymore. Now, you’re a liability,” Cornelia says.

“Hey, that’s a secret between party members! …Wait, c**p!” Liam says.

“Are you sure you’re adventurers and not jesters?”

Liam, who was trying to look cool, becomes depressed after receiving the disapproval of all his fellow party members. Seeing this, Irene is taken aback, slightly dumbfounded.

In the midst of this, Havoc rushes at Irene. Even having lost her focus, Irene immediately dodges the axe attack.

“Isn’t attacking during a conversation a bit underhanded?”

“Hah, what’s wrong with a veteran adventurer being crafty?! And you’re just buying time until you can use that technique again, aren’t you?! The same goes for you too!”

It seems that he received proper treatment from Emilia during their conversation. The fact that  his arm was stabbed is having almost no effect on his axe swings.

Unable to block the heavy axe with a thin rapier, Irene focuses on dodging. Havoc quickly swings the slow-moving axe, but Irene is several times faster.

“You seem to have misunderstood, so allow me to correct you.”

“Stop!”

However, a single word cannot stop Irene in combat. Having seen through the axe’s movements, she hits the axe-head with the pommel of her rapier and skillfully alters its angle.

“You seem to think you can win if I don’t use my technique, but you are mistaken.”

Liam, who was supposed to be in Havoc’s place, scrambles to his feet. An arrow is shot by Cornelia, who was waiting for an opportunity to create a gap in her defenses. Emilia casts a spell to create a shield. However, none of them make it in time.

The sharp tip of the rapier is thrust towards Havoc’s body.