Chapter 148: Holy Knight VS Reape

Chapter 148: Holy Knight VS Reape

◆Silver Witch; Kuna

Outside the land of Ruvania, Kuna's skyship was wandering outside the barrier.

Compared to the Ruvania region which was always covered in clouds, the sky here was bright.

Alas, the same couldn't be said about Kuna's heart.

「Does that mean that Kuroki met with danger?」

I listened to Clown's report, who had returned.

His body was in tatters.

His doll's body was covered in cracks, and his attire was completely torn everywhere.

It seems he barely managed to escape from Zarxis and the others.

And he brought with him information about Kuroki getting into a dangerous situation.

I had to help him.

「Ye~s. Kuna-sama~. And here~.」

Clown took out a gem from his body.

「RIBBIT?! IF IT ISN'T THE SOUL ORB!」

Heqat exclaimed in shock as she tried to take the gem.

Alas, Kuna took the orb first before Heqat took it.

「Kuna won't give this to you, Heqat. This orb is mine.」

This looked like some sort of gem. But, Kuna knew that it was something really important.

If that was the case, Kuna wouldn't give this orb that easily.

When Kuna hid the orb behind her back, Heqat could only look at Kuna in frustration.

「Ribbit... It can't be helped... But Zarxis might come if we stay in this place. Let's use teleportation first.」

Said Heqat as she started to return to Nargol with teleportation magic.

Alas, Kuna couldn't do that.

「NO! KUNA REFUSES TO ABANDON KUROKI AND RETURN TO NARGOL!」

Heqat's six eyes opened wide upon hearing Kuna's remark.

「RIBBIT! DON'T SPEW NONSENSE, SILVER! ZARXIS WHO REGAINED HIS POWERS IS MUCH MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU! AND EVENTUALLY HE'LL TAKE BACK THE SOUL ORB!」

「HEQAT! ARE YOU PLANNING TO ABANDON KUROKI?!」

Just when Kuna shouted at her.

The sky suddenly got dyed in grey.

The female daemon was rather confused upon seeing that situation.

「KUNA-SAMA! WHAT IS THIS!?」

The female daemon, Guno, asked Kuna, alas Kuna also had no idea about this situation.

「RIBBIT!? OH NO, THIS IS A SEAL OF TELEPORTATION!! THAT GUY IS COMING!」

Heqat exclaimed in shock.

Freezing wind swept the sky ship from the direction of Ruvania.

「WAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT! GIVE ME MY SOUL ORB BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!」

Something with giant bat wings and mouth shouted as it came toward Kuna and co's direction.

Behind that something was a huge skyship.

The skyship enveloped by ghosts should be called a ghost skyship.

「RIBBIT!! THAT'S ZARXIS! HE CAME FASTER THAN I EXPECTED!」

Maybe she was referring to that thing with giant bat wings.

The freezing wind that swept this ship came from Zarxis.

Unable to withstand the freezing wind, Guno and co fell to their knees.

「OH NO!」

Kuna quickly deployed a nine-layered barrier.

The next moment, something flew from Zarxis and punched through five of Kuna's barriers at once.

The thing that flew from Zarxis was none other than his own arm, which then returned to its owner.

To be exact, it got elongated and turned into a screw-shaped sword.

There was still some distance between us alas, the distance steadily got closer.

I glared at Zarxis.

Strong.

Definitely stronger than Kuna.

So Kuna didn't waste any second to deploy the magic shield again.

Though Kuna had somehow managed to block his attack, she couldn't keep doing that.

「FULL SPEED AHEAD TO NORTH DIRECTION!」

Thus Kuna ordered Guno and co to move immediately.

Thereupon, Heqat lost her cool.

「RIBBIT! WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO, SILVER?! ZARXIS' GOING TO OVERTAKE US FIRST! YOU CAN'T BEAT HIM! RIBBIT RIBBIT!」

Alas, I ignored her.

In the first place, no one here could win against Zarxis.

As my magic barrier wasn't deployed fast enough, part of the skyship got pulverized.

「Shut up, Heqat! Kuna knows that! HURRY UP, RAISE THE SPEED!」

Thus, the skyship raised its cruising speed toward the north.

「What are you thinking about, ribbit! Oh well, it can't be helped right, O evil mist!」

Heqat was grumbling at first and then used magic.

She released a magic mist between us and Zarxis.

I noticed that Zarxis' sword weakened a lot.

「GUNO! TAKE GLORIOUS OUT! WE HAVE TO BUY TIME EVEN IF IT'S JUST A SECOND!」

Alas, even a great dragon-like Glorious would have a hard time against Zarxis.

But, we still had to earn some time.

And then head toward the north.

Glorious came out from the deck and fired his exploding breath.

The breath attack that could annihilate daemons and angels wasn't effective against Zarxis.

Yet, it could weaken the freezing wind.

Thanks to that, the daemons regained their power and went to assist Kuna and co.

It seems we will make it in time.

Kuna was no match against Zarxis.

That's why it was only natural for Kuna to dump this problem on that man.

If Kuna and co are no match for Zarxis, will that man be a match?

Zarxis was slowly closing in on us.

His relentless attacks didn't leave any leeway for us.

My barrier couldn't catch up with one of his attacks, which caused partial destruction on the rear side of the ship.

「That was a close call, Silver! What are you really trying to do?! We won't be able to hold on for too long!」

Heqat shouted at Kuna.

Yeah, we're in a really bad situation.

But if my guess was correct, we were about to reach our destination.

「I PRAISE YOU FOR MANAGING TO ESCAPE THIS FAR BUT, THIS IS THE END! TRUE SPIRIT RO—WUT!?」

When the largemouth in Zarxis' abdomen opened wide.

An arrow suddenly flew straight toward Zarxis.

Zarxis quickly used his screw sword to defend against that arrow.

It seems he barely made it in time.

Kuna turned around toward the direction that the ship was heading to and saw a man riding on a white dragon.

A lot of angels were flying around him.

「Are you okay, Princess?」

Asked the man riding on the white dragon.

「Ribbit, Alphos?」

How many times now I wonder?

Heqat received another shock for who knows how many times.

Alphos and the angels observed Kuna.

That's why they knew Kuna and co's position.

But, Kuna had no idea about their position.

The reason Kuna knew about their position was thanks to the information from Rena.

「Alphos! Save Kuna! Saving a beauty is your raison d'être right?!」

When Kuna said so, Alphos revealed a laugh.

「Naturally, dear Princess! Leave it to me!」

Said Alphos as he readied his bow.

He was already clad in his holy knight armor.

Personality aside, Kuna knew that he could at least keep Zarxis at bay.

That's why Kuna dumped Zarxis for this guy.

「WHY ARE YOU SAVING THEM, ALPHOS-SAMA?!」

Said the female angel beside Alphos.

「Though I don't know much about the details, the Dark Knight did save your lives, right? Don't you think that I'll look more like a bad guy if he saves you but I don't do the same in return?」

Alphos replied at her while firing his arrow.

Thanks to Alphos' arrow, Zarxis couldn't attack us.

Our ship then passed by the side of the angels.

Maybe because of Alphos' action, they didn't stop us.

「Don't expect a thank you from me, Alphos! You saved us at your own convenience after all!」

I shouted at Alphos.

It was only natural for him to save Kuna.

That's why Kuna had no reason to thank him.

「Sure! Princess! Leave Zarxis to me! Let's go Valjinias! Time to kill some harmful insects!」

The moment Alphos said so, the white dragon Valjinias roared as if to follow that, the angels had also taken a battle formation.

「DON'T UNDERESTIMATE ME, SHI*TTY BRAT!」

Zarxis roared in anger.

Thus began the battle between the Reaper and the Holy Knight.

Alas, that was a trivial matter to Kuna, nor did she care about it.

The plan was to let Alphos fight Zarxis while Kuna used that chance to go looking for Kuroki.

That's why wait for me, Kuroki!

◆Dark Knight; Kuroki

Some time had elapsed since I came to this village.

There was a commotion outside of the village.

It seems they brought another captured human who infiltrated this village.

Strangely enough, none of them was killed. They just got captured.

Maybe I should go save them later.

According to Tibel, part of the adults in this village seemed to go to the castle of the lord of this village to take care of those captured people.

That was the reason why the security around the children got loosened lately.

Thanks to that Wendy could visit this dilapidated house more frequently.

She came frequently to listen to my story.

It was already past the time she was supposed to come and yet, she had yet to visit me.

「Kuroki-sama~.Bad ne~ws.」

Suddenly, Tibel returned while raising a shriek.

She should be accompanied by Wendy.

「What's the matter, Tibel? Why did you not come with Wendy?」

Wendy cooperated with Tibel to investigate this village.

They usually come back together.

「Kuroki-sama~. That human slave got kidnappe~d.」

「Eh!? Wendy got what?!」

The human slave was the nickname Tibel gave to Wendy.

Though I felt bad for treating Wendy like a servant, now wasn't the time to worry about such a thing.

I mean, what did she mean by "kidnapped"?

Why did she get kidnapped?

I've got a bad feeling about this.

「What do you mean? Does that mean that Wendy is in danger?」

If that was the case, I had to go save her.

「No Kuroki-sama~. What happened to that slave is a trivial matter~. The problem is, we won't be able to secure fo~od.」

I almost scratched my head upon hearing Tibel's remark.

Tibel was more worried about food than Wendy's safety.

「... Yeah. That's bad news indeed. By the way, Tibel. Do you know where they took Wendy to?」

I stood on my feet as I asked that question.

「Yes Kuroki-sama~. They brought her along with the other small humans to the castle~.」

「Other small humans?」

「Ye~s. They brought everyone~. And since the big humans don't eat, we won't get food from now o~n.」

The small humans might be referring to the children of the house of lost children.

And they brought everyone on top of that.

And the big humans referred to the adults who covered their faces with a white veil.

It seems those adults didn't eat for some reason.

I suspect that they're not ordinary humans. That fact was clear from the way they hid their faces.

The veil was probably used to hide their hideous appearances to not scare the children.

That didn't seem to be an act out of good intentions.

「Maybe we have to move in a hurry...」

I looked at the castle from the window.

The castle was as eerie as ever. It was definitely the nest of the undead.

Still, I had to go.

「Move? You mean, saving that slave~? Noo~. Stop Kuroki-sama~. You have yet to recove~r.」

Said Tibel as she flew around in panic.

Yeah, it's just as she said.

My body had yet to fully recover.

But if I had given up with just this, I wouldn't have even bothered to challenge Reiji in the first place.

It seems I really overexerted myself after that fight.

I mean, I won that fight and got Kuna as a reward.

It felt as if I was drunk in the sense of victory ever since then.

Had I not met this stumbling block, I might have rushed forward to my own demise.

Abandoning Wendy in this situation was the correct answer.

Alas, I knew that if I backed away here, I wouldn't be able to fight again in the future.

「Sorry Tibel. I cannot afford to back down on this one. I will do my best to not overexert myself. I promise.」

「Uu~h. I see~. Oka~y. I'll come with you~.」

Thus, Tibel decided to tag along with me.

「Thanks, Tibel. Let's go.」