Vol. 3 Chapter 33: Capture (Part 5) (Patreon)

Evry, in his beast form, one that resembled a tiger, crashed through the wall of a building after encountering a group of humans. With his sheer size and strength, bashing through wooden walls was trivial. Behind him followed another beastman with brown and black fur, a form resembling a jaguar.

Everyone else separated from them, it was every man for themselves. Even how much Evry disliked it, he couldn’t blame anyone, especially with the situation, with the humans suddenly appearing to attack them. They weren’t prepared at all for a confrontation today.

Ultimately, he was not prepared for the person who brought this upon them — the human, Allie. To think he was the one who allowed Arnaut to think again about his decision and let him retrieve her. And, worse, he wanted to save her too. Did he regret that he felt that way? Yes.

No matter how anyone looked at it, Evry was also at fault. He shouldn’t have felt sympathy or pity for Allie, he shouldn’t have had the desire to help her. It was a mistake. But even so, seeing her cry after she sent that light to the sky, it made Evry doubt if he truly hated her deep inside despite that.

Just why? Why did she do that? She was not the person to do such a thing. He truly never imagined she would be capable of such betrayal. The girl who they saved, one that was kind to them, the girl who loved those that saved her.

He just couldn’t understand it. Who or what could have caused her to commit such an act?

How much did she go through that it made her capable of betraying those that saved her life?

Still, he shouldn’t get stuck in those thoughts right now. Now was the time to focus on escaping — and he hoped that with them split up, at least one could escape. But what if one was captured? It was hard to think of what to do if that were to happen, thus he set it aside in the corner of his mind for now.

He turned to his one ally.

“We lost them, right?”

“Feels like it.”

Just then, two balls of light rose into the sky behind them, from the part where they sensed they lost the humans.

“Notifying their allies, huh.” muttered Evry. “We’ll have a rough way ahead of us, Yuro.”

“Y-Yeah I know. Everything’s messed up. Allie…” a tinge of disappointment formed on his face.

“...”

“What about the leader? Are we just gonna leave him there?”

“What do you want us to do? Go back there and get wrecked by those humans? No! We run!”

“... V-Very well.”

“It will be a lose cause if we go back either way. The least we can do is try to escape from this place, this city.”

“Right…” he fell silent for a moment. “I want to go back home, Evry…”

“I know… But we came here for our home’s sake. We must fight as long as we have to.”

“... Still, I want to see my home… Even for just a day.”

Evry held back a sigh. Yuro was not alone in that sentiment. Nevertheless, Evry must do what he could in here.

Just then, his ears perked up the instant he noticed something quickly approaching him. He instantaneously stopped, and a dagger stabbed the ground an inch before his feet, one more step and he would have been struck by it.

But Evry noticed something. The blade of the dagger was glowing. And then a second later, magic suddenly swirled around it, slashing everything that surrounded it like blades. Its reach was a one-meter radius.

Caught off guard by it, Evry was unable to jump back in time, and thus he was slashed on his leg. But it was far from fatal.

In search of the one who threw that dagger, Evry looked up to the rooftops. It didn’t take long for him to find a knight in full plate armor standing on top of a building, daggers dangling on his waist, along with a sword. Daggers were also strapped around his legs.

He was not the only one, there was another knight on another building, and also a couple of men in dark robes.

“Two of them. We need more men here,” said the knight with daggers.

The other knight jumped over right next to him. “Reinforcement won’t be certain. Everyone else within our line is or could be occupied.”

“Hm, we should at least try. We may expect support from the rear. With the vice-commanders deployed, it all depends on what she decides. For now, it seems we’ll have to do what was discussed in such a scenario.”

“Understood,” the knight raised his hand and a red light began emitting from it.

Yuro slowly stepped closer to Evry. “Any plan…?”

“... They’ll attack us the moment we try to run… But it’s not like we have any other choice. Push through them before their reinforcements arrive.”

“Lead on the push.”

With a growl, Evry charged with tremendous speed and strength, crashing into the building below a knight like it was nothing. Not with the intention of destroying the building, however, but to remove themselves from the enemy’s sights.

They pushed through another building next to it, but then spears of light breached through the walls. Those golden weapons were not aiming to hit them, but rather to expose them, to destroy their covers. And they were quick with their work, but perhaps with weapon conjuration, it was easy to cast weapon after weapon.

Evry now exposed, a knight with the sword charged through and promptly swung his sword at him. Using his claws, Evry parried the knight’s blade multiple times before the other beastman, Yuro, suddenly emerged from hiding with silent steps and raised his hand to strike the knight in the back.

However, before he could touch the knight, a dagger whizzed through the air. Yuro noticed it, and with smooth swiftness, shifted his body to evade it. The dagger hit a wall, then a swirl of magic erupted around it, breaking everything it touched.

The other knight held a sword in one hand, and his other swiftly grabbed another dagger. He charged towards Yuro and attacked him with both blades, but with Yuro’s agility and reflexes, none of them touched him. Just then, a man in a black robe jumped in, swiftly swinging a golden sword at his back.

Yuro was only able to dodge just in time for the blade to make a shallow cut. He stepped away, trying to make some distance.

A second man in robe appeared and attacked Evry along with the knight he was currently facing.

These two were not hard to deal with. However, the focus here was not to kill the humans but to run away. It was then Evry noticed it.

He glanced at his ally, Yuro. He was dealing with the humans well, they were struggling compared to him. However, Yuro was getting more distant from him.

Evry gritted his teeth before shouting.

“Yuro! Do not let them separate us!”

The humans flinched the moment the beastmen realized their intentions. Evry roared, and his body began to glow in an orange hue, then what started as a thin layer of magic slowly grew into some sort of barrier protecting his body.

With a wave of his hand, the barrier broke apart, and like blades, shot forward towards the humans. The humans scrambled into defense against the hail of blades that were destroying everything in their path.

A couple of seconds later, the barrier reformed to protect him again. An arc of light flew towards him, but when it made contact with his barrier, the light vibrated for a second before it was deflected in another direction, surprising the knight who sent that attack.

The man in black robe swiftly ran towards him and struck down with his blade. However, Evry did not move at all and received the attack calmly. He watched the struggling human as he tried to push his blade against the barrier, fighting against a deflecting force. It didn’t take long, however, and the barrier’s power flung him back.

“Your weapons are useless on me. Nothing is.”

It was an art of his family bloodline, an absolute defense, and a powerful offense. It was an ability that can withstand all kinds of attacks, not even three beastmen with their offensive magic could break through this. He was as tough and sturdy as a mountain.

He took in a deep breath, and his barrier split into pieces and was propelled in the direction of the humans once again. This time, they weren’t safe from the shards.

Meanwhile, Yuro slipped away from the humans attacking him and returned to Evry’s side.

For only after a moment, Evry’s barrier returned, and he said. “Let’s go.”

Like a raging beast, or a boulder rolling down a cliff, he bashed through both stone and wooden walls unhindered and with absolute ease. None to slow him down. That being said, now that he had used this ability, they had to get to safety soon.

***

“What the hell was that? That thing’s a damn monster!” the knight complained as he endured the painful wound on his chest. Thankfully, his armor took most of the damage.

The other knight, Elson, glared at the fleeing beasts. “That one’s absolute trouble.” He then turned to look at the other priests. “You’re alright, good. Heal him quickly if you can.”

The priests were wounded, but nothing fatal. The knight that got struck on the chest was losing plenty of blood and needed medical attention, and thus one priest disregarded his own wounds and quickly cast healing magic to the knight.

Elson then spoke to the other priest. “Let us send the signals.”

The two of them pulled out a wooden cylinder with a blue crystal on top.

Light of gold rose to the sky.

Then the priest asked. “Will we not go after them? That orange beast will be hard to defeat with just those in the rear. Not to mention there’s two of them.”

“I know… but the plan was not to leave our area without orders or unless things are desperate. An enemy might suddenly come up here, we can stop it from joining the rear and fight it ourselves. But… yes… if they call for reinforcements, we can go to the last line. Go up and watch out for a signal.”

The priest, with a nod, jumped up to the roof.

Meanwhile, Elson went on to check the condition of the other knight. “How is he?”

“The bleeding stopped, he should be fine for now.” Said the priest.

“Yeah, I can still fight. This is nothing but a scratch.”

Elson smirked from within his helm. “If you say so.”

A moment later.

“ — A red signal!”

Elson immediately looked up towards the priest on the roof. “Then we go.”

Perhaps it was the best option to do, the rear would be hard-pressed to subdue that orange beastman. And also, the princess should be there where the enemies were heading.