Chapter 876: 876: Seliadot Countermeasures

「Hah! Teyaa!」

「Gigigyiii!」

「Tei!」

「Hryiiiii!」

Fran really went all out.

I bet she's been feeling a lot of stress lately. That's why she put everything into slashing, smashing, and blowing up the antidemons.

We've already killed like 500 of them? Still, the horde showed no sign of thinning, just like Fran showed no sign of slowing down.

I guess we should be glad they kept coming, since Fran was nowhere near satisfied yet. She threw out a spell that eliminated a few dozen antidemons, then nodded at me.

「Master, let's do that.」

『Got it!』

It's been a while since we've used Resonance Magic. Now that we had life magic to reduce the burden on Fran, this skill was much easier to use.

We mixed wind magic with thunder magic, both elements emphasizing a wide area of effect. As a result, our wind blades and electric discharges scattered over a huge area around us.

It didn't seem very effective against the stronger antidemons, but this was more than enough for the lower class ones.

Since we were still unable to use our full strength due to the aftereffects from the fierce battle at Castel, we had to get creative to maximize our chances of victory.

While we kept blasting off the Resonance Magic, I also had my mind on a different issue.

That is, how are we gonna deal with Seliadot?

I can hardly detect her at all because of the warding stones. I might be able to notice something off after meeting her a few more times, but we obviously don't have the time for that.

We could end up fighting each other as soon as tomorrow, so I have to figure something out now.

Both sensing-type and perception-type skills are meaningless against her. Is there any other way to detect her? Maybe Life Plunder and Magic Plunder? These skills indiscriminately drain life force and mana from everyone within range.

If we activate those skills while alone, and it successfully drains someone, it means that some person is hiding nearby. But the problem with that is we can't use it in a crowded area.

Let's see...... How about this one? I set my eyes on the Magic Disruption skill.

We've barely ever used this skill since it negatively affected ourselves. But with this skill, we might be able to interfere with the effects of the warding stones.

As long as we managed to slightly disturb the wards, I might be able to break through it.

After consulting with Fran, we decided to try out the skill. I doubt it would have much effect on the antidemons, but we needed to find out how badly it would impede our other abilities.

As a result, I found that I could still control my mana without issue, assuming I concentrated a little harder. My Magic Disruption skill was still level 1, so the effect was probably pretty weak.

That means it probably had little effect on our enemies too, so I couldn't expect it to do much to warding stones. I should try to find an opportunity to test it out once we get back to town.

As we continued cutting down antidemons while trying various experiments, we noticed some other people entering the fray alongside Fran.

(They're strong!)

『Yeah, all of them are.』

They must be the city's other Rank B adventurers besides Fran, who started mopping the floor with the antidemons that got past her. Actually, that seemed to be their intention in the first place.

By positioning themselves on the left and right sides of Fran, they handled the ones we weren't able to reach. It's nice to work with people who can coordinate so well without any communication.

There were four adventurers in total, three of whom were grouped together. I'm guessing the group's a Rank B party.

They seemed more like the type of party recognized as Rank B by the quality of their cooperation rather than their skills as individuals. Each of them would be about Rank C individually, but they worked in perfect unison.

They had a striker-type swordsman with excellent offensive power, and a shieldman specializing in defense wielding a greatshield. In the back, they had a caster specialized in support and recovery.

The shieldman pulled in a big group, then the swordsman delivered a powerful strike to crush all of them at once, finally the healer patched them both up. Then, they repeated the process. It was a simple but very solid fighting style.

On the opposite side, Fran's left, was a short caster-looking adventurer. They wore a hooded robe obscuring their face, but they seemed really slender.

But this was no normal caster. They gracefully swung a naginata to prevent the antidemons from advancing. At the same time, they made good use of dark magic to finish off the weakened antidemons. They only used spells on the weaker sides, probably to conserve MP.

If we considered Fran a warrior capable of magic, this guy was more like a caster capable of using a weapon.

Also, I saw the naginata enveloped in a black light, meaning they used Elemental Sword with the dark attribute.

With a low level in Elemental Sword, this only had the effect of reducing the target's MP. However, it seems the ability to absorb MP was added at higher levels.

The adventurer used Elemental Sword to recover MP after firing a series of weak magic attacks. This fighting style must be very effective for extended battles.

『We're not making full use of Elemental Sword, huh?』

「Nn.」

By the way, Fran can use Elemental Sword for all attributes, but she usually uses only three: fire for inflicting burns, wind for enhancing her slashes, thunder for electrifying foes. That's it.

Water is used for boosting force shockwaves, and earth for enhancing the toughness of the blade. Neither were very effective for swords. Dark-attribute is for MP absorption, and tree-attribute is for HP absorption. But we never needed those since we already had other skills for draining HP and MP.

Lava-attribute gives a super-thermal boost, ice-attribute gives a freezing effect, and dust-attribute drains the moisture of the foe. However, our levels in those elements of magic were pretty low, so I doubt we'd get any spectacular effects.

Meanwhile, we've increased our level in light and life magic, so these two should be very useful. Light-attribute Elemental Sword cloaks the weapon in mana to increase the damage as well as applying a daze effect.

The life-attribute one disrupts the target's life force, increasing the damage dealt while debilitating their physical abilities.

Elemental Sword had so much potential behind it, but Fran mostly used the familiar fire, wind, and thunder. I know that the black cats prefer those attributes, but for the future, we should try using light and life as well.

I mean, I've talked to her about this subject before. It's just hard to fix these kinds of habits. In the heat of battle, she always falls back to the three elements she uses the most.

『There are still plenty of antidemons out there. Good target practice, right?』

「Nn.」