Chapter 117: Caress the Tense Blue (1) (Patreon)

There had been something fishy about this mission since the very beginning. 

It was difficult to imagine that those bandits that we fought were capable of dealing with the people that we had in our outpost. Certainly, they wouldn’t be up to snuff compared to the rest of us, but for them to lose to those bandits? That seemed a far-fetched idea. 

It might be explained away by the presence of those poisonous herbs that they were growing. There was a reason I was looking into using poison. It was effective. But those bandits would have a difficult time even hitting us, and the difference between us and someone stationed at the outpost couldn’t be exceptionally big. Most of us had only been training for a year. 

And so, having those suspicions, I kindly informed Ruel. Yet Vast had told Ruel more or less the same thing some time ago, so perhaps my comments only stood to affirm his decision to be cautious. Considering he’d given no special instruction to us, he seemed to have things under control. 

Didn’t mean I trusted him to do things right. 

“Don’t forget to ‘clean your spear’ very frequently, dear sister,” I reminded her, leaning over as we stared off at the distant floating island held aloft by powerful trails of fire. 

She only nodded vaguely. I’d given her a cloth soaked in some poison. If she were to rub it in on the tip of her spear, it would do the job of poisoning well enough. 

I didn’t have a weapon to poison; one of the demerits of conjuring your weapons. Maybe that was something to look into. I didn’t want to have any unnecessary expenses, though. 

In the far distance, I heard a light bang, and lifted my head up to look. A streak of green fire rose into the air. When it rose far enough, it burst into a big ball of green flame, like a miniature green sun. It looked quite fascinating—so much so, in fact, that I barely recognized it as the signal. 

“Let’s go,” Ruel said simply, strapping his gargantuan shield to his back and climbing up the rocks.

#####

It seems we’re expected, I mused in my head as I followed behind Ruel. He jogged at a brisk pace, and everyone rushed behind him. Since we were a distraction, the most distracting thing to do was to go through the front gate. As was only natural, there were many people lined up to receive us. They seemed nervous and uncomfortable in their gray uniforms. 

All of them held out their hands, and the air distorted as some sort of energy gathered in front of them. It wasn’t Primordial Energy—looked vaguely foggy, like mist. It gathered into a tight ball, and I watched nervously. Ruel kept running forward, but he had his hands on his shield.

One man called out the signal, and they all fired their attacks at the same time. It was like a terrible railgun. It seemed quite dangerous. I crouched lower so as not to be dismembered terribly, but my fear proved unnecessary. Ruel grabbed the top of his shield and pulled it from behind his bat. He swung it as though it was cardboard and not a piece of ridiculously hard metal and the fog-like energy dispersed. I held my breath in case it proved to be poisonous. 

Ruel slowed down and set his shield at his side, and the rest of us swarmed past him like a river against a rock. The group of people lined up at the gate conjured their weapon of choice, but one caught my eye. He had a metal sword. That’s something I can use. 

I tried to get ahead from the rest of the squad, wanting to be the first to meet the enemy. Zinuetet kept pace with me, and we collided with the enemies together. Upon the first hit, it was very quickly proved that this would not be as simple as the bandits. 

I clashed together with a man wielding an axe made of Primordial Energy. He looked pig-like, and was rather disgusting to behold, but he was taking the fight very seriously. My conjured gladius of Primordial Energy collided with his axe’s blade again and again. I didn’t have the maneuverability I usually did because I was surrounded by such a big crowd, and that proved to be to my detriment. 

My opponent was ruthless with his axe, with short and precise attacks anywhere I gave him an opening. It was quite a struggle to keep him at bay. Damn it. This would be so easy with two arms. Seeing an opportunity, I took a step back and his axe barely glanced with my chest. I stabbed his hand, then shoulder-tackled him. He collapsed to the ground, and though he tried to escape, I stepped on his leg and dispatched him quickly. 

I threw my gaze around the others battling, searching for someone to help. Zinuetet had handled the one she was fighting far better than I did, and had already moved on to helping Gray. I didn’t have enough time to find another opponent before the fighting was finished. We had some injuries—Grendel’s back was badly split open—but altogether, we could continue without issue. 

Ruel walked past us and continued up the stairs, marveling at the work briefly. “Passable work. Now, let’s make some noise.”

We stormed towards the mansion door. Ruel barely needed to apply any effort at all for the big steel door to burst from its hinges and scatter bolts across the floor. There were two people waiting for us inside, but they wasted their attacks at Ruel. He let them hit him square, but they didn’t even break his skin. He brushed them off as one might a piece of linen stuck to their clothes. 

Those on the fringes quickly executed the two that had tried to attack Ruel. Though they were strong, any man of equal strength would die when dealing with a group of well-trained mercenaries. The hallway was barricaded with metal gates. The people behind were preparing the same fog-like railgun projectile. 

“Now, I can’t do everything for you guys,” Ruel said, turning around. “You’ll have to dodge this time. Or block.” Behind him, the enemies continued to ready their attacks. 

The solution quickly fell into my mind when I considered our options. “Hey, Giir!” I shouted above the mayhem. “Why don’t you fill in for the teacher for a bit?”

Giir looked towards Vast first for confirmation, and when Vast nodded, he stepped forward to deal with the attacks. A barrier of his patented thick Primordial Energy appeared before him. The bolts of fog soared through the air, and when they collided with Giir’s barrier, dispersed as though it was Ruel who had dealt with it, and not someone else. 

“And there you have it,” Ruel commented. “Good teamwork. Now, let’s see how all of you dismantle these metal gates. There’s a trick to it—I’ll show you at the last one,” he commented freely. 

I was starting to feel confident—well, more so than usual. Nonetheless, I held a sense of wariness in my heart. I didn’t expect things to go especially smoothly this time.