Margaret's smile faded.
She flung the "Karmic Flame Calamity: Fire Throw" she'd gathered at the horde backhanded without even looking, then dropped to one knee to support Leon, worry showing in her eyes:
"Are you okay?"
Leon waved it off and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand:
"I'm fine, just took a careless hit. It's only congealed blood, I feel a lot better with it out. A minor injury."
He took the hand Margaret held out and used it to pull himself up.
"Thanks."
With that, he waved away the dust hanging around him and surveyed the battlefield.
On the front line against the monsters, the armor and cloaks of the two vanguards, Jeanne and Rose, were torn in many places, and they'd picked up more fresh wounds. Judging from their expressions, he concluded that while they still had some fight left in them, their movements had clearly slowed, nowhere near as sharp as at their peak.
Fighting like this, the risk had clearly passed the threshold. Things would spiral out of control, and if they weren't careful, something terrible would happen.
Kureha, who was only Lv.3 compared to the other two at Lv.4, looked as though she'd been fished out of a pool of sweat, half her armor shattered. If not for Iri and the panaceas keeping her going, forget continuing to fight, it was questionable whether she could even stay on her feet.
Needless to say, Kureha's fight was over too.
If even the Lv.4s and the Lv.3 were in such a sorry state, the Lv.1 and Lv.2 members, Laurier, Aura, Margaret, and Iri, went without saying. Though the vanguards had done their best to protect them and they'd taken relatively few hits, every one of them was still wounded to some degree. Their stamina and Mind were nearly exhausted, barely holding at the bare minimum needed to retreat.
"Phew."
"Jeanne!"
Jeanne had just driven back a wave of monsters in front of her, and she turned her head at the call.
The moment their eyes met, each understood the other's intent.
She took a deep breath, her voice firm and decisive:
"Everyone, retreat!"
"Now! Right now, move!"
Everyone's expressions tightened:
"Yes!"
Nobody hesitated. They each drove back the monsters in front of them, killing what they could kill and wounding and repelling whatever they couldn't finish off quickly, then swiftly opened up distance. The party covered the low-level members as they withdrew first, while the rest kept formation by level and fell back in order.
Finally, the job of rear guard at the tail of the party naturally fell to the highest-level member of the team, the Lv.5 Shadow of Sorcery, Leon Hart.
Leon cast a pained look at the slaughtered monster corpses and, suppressing his reluctance, hauled three Wonder Packs by himself, one on his back and one in each hand. Backing away, he kept the Blizzard sweeping across the battlefield, cast Frost Nova now and then to freeze the encroaching monsters, and tap-fired precise Ice Lances at any stragglers that broke through the ice.
He retreated steadily, his firepower undiminished.
Only once everyone had withdrawn into the floor passage did Leon abruptly turn, activate Secret Art: Ice Floe in an instant, and speed away.
A dragon's roar was already rolling in from the far end of the yellow sands, drawing closer and closer, the ground faintly trembling.
Leon's expression hardened.
"Fuck, it actually caught up!"
The Greatest Evil's overwhelming, terrifying pressure seemed to be bearing down again. With no time to mourn the spoils left behind, he tossed out one more Frost Nova and ran for it at full speed without looking back.
"Gotta bounce, gotta bounce..."
...
...
The Dungeon, Floor 18: the Under Resort.
Unlike its usual noise and bustle, today Rivira Town held nothing but screams and the stench of blood.
"P-please! Don't kill me! I've got elderly parents and little kids at home, my wife and children are waiting for me to come back, I, I can't die! I don't want to die!"
"Heh... heh heh heh... Hahahahaha!"
The man pressed one hand to his forehead, covering half his eyes, and threw his head back in a burst of manic laughter.
Suddenly, the neurotic laughter cut off. He bent down sharply, his face nearly touching the face of the man begging on the ground, the corners of his mouth curling into a vicious, amused arc, his voice soft as a whisper:
"Pitiful maggot, why would a weakling like you even become an Adventurer?"
"Wouldn't it have been nicer to stay home and farm like a good boy?"
"Or is it... you think you're special? The Chosen One? Hm?"
"I..."
A silver flash, and a head went flying.
With a click, he sheathed his blade. The man licked the drops of blood that had splattered onto his lips, a sickly flush rising on his face, and then a twisted smile of pleasure spread across it.
"Even if he was just a bug... it's still an Adventurer's blood..."
"Just listening to the sound of a blade cutting through bone makes me tremble with excitement..."
"Wonderful... so wonderful!! Heeheehahahaha!!"
Just as he was reveling alone in this soul-shaking pleasure, his expression suddenly shifted. A rush of hurried, disorderly footsteps was drawing closer.
"Damn it... we're still too late!"
"We came down from the surface the moment we got the intel! Dammit, they moved way too fast!"
"Quit complaining. I doubt even the Braver expected them to dare make a move on Rivira Town with things this tense right now! They're not taking us seriously at all!"
"Is this a provocation?!"
"..."
As the voices spoke, the next moment a line of gallant figures appeared around the corner of the crossroads, coming to a standoff with the Evilus members on opposite sides of the road.
At the sight of this bunch, the hot-tempered Gale stepped forward, face full of fury, and demanded sharply:
"It's you Evilus lunatics again!! What the hell are you trying to do!?"
The Evilus squad leader, his fun interrupted, looked thoroughly displeased. He glanced at these meddling reinforcements and grinned with ill intent:
"What are we trying to do?"
"Heehee! We do whatever we please! You self-righteous bitches, keep your damn noses out of it!"
"You..."
"Hey, Alise... look over there!"
Alise followed her companion's trembling finger, and her pupils contracted sharply.
In the middle of the town's main road, corpses were stacked into a mound like firewood. Thick blood seeped through the cracks between the paving stones, gleaming dark red in the torchlight.
Beside the mound of corpses, several figures in loose black cloaks lounged and stood about casually. One tilted his head with a soft laugh, one idly nudged a severed limb with the tip of his foot, one grinned in silent, manic laughter. Every gaze cast their way was soaked in undisguised contempt, mockery, madness, and a kind of delight, as though they were watching a play.
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