Cris's SIDE
"Cris! Don't act on your own!"
Seeing Tenma about to be carried off into the sky, I immediately tried to send my horse running, but Jeanne grabbed my horse's reins and stopped me.
"Why are you stopping me?! Tenma is being taken away!"
"That's exactly why—how do you intend to save Tenma all by yourself?! Lord Merlin!"
"Y-yes. I'll go on ahead and somehow tear Tenma away from that woman. Jeanne, you and the others handle support!"
Normally Lord Merlin would be the first to leap out, yet perhaps because seeing Tenma in such a state was a shock, her reaction was delayed. Well, she did immediately give Jeanne her instructions and fly off... but as expected, because of the distance, she couldn't catch up right away after taking off.
"You there! Follow me!"
"Hey!"
"Jeanne, gather the army at once and come after us!"
Pointing at the mounted knights who caught my eye, I gave my command and tried to immediately chase after Lord Merlin... but Jeanne still would not let go of the reins.
"Our opponent is a thing that can bring down Tenma! Gather up as much fighting strength as possible and go at it as one solid body!"
Jeanne shouted, but,
"And you're sending Lord Merlin against an opponent like that all alone?! Even if we have no attack that's effective against that thing, we can at least kick up a fuss at its feet and draw its attention! We gathered in the first place to support Tenma and Lord Merlin! If we can't be useful at a time like this, then what are we for?! Besides, now that another creature like the Lich has appeared, Tenma is absolutely more necessary than I am!"
I shouted back like that and forced my horse into a run. Only about ten knights had been able to move immediately, but they did seem to be following me properly.
"Everyone, watch your surroundings as you chase that thing! Those of you who can use magic, fire it into the sky, even if it won't reach!"
Tenma and that thing had risen quite high into the sky, so I doubted our magic would reach, but if it turned even a little of its attention this way, it might help Lord Merlin. It might, conversely, get in the way instead, but since we were the ones caught on the back foot, if there was even the slightest possibility, we ought to try it. Besides, Lord Merlin, even if magic came raining down like a hailstorm, would surely make straight for Tenma without hesitation.
"Just a little more until Lord Merlin reaches Tenma... and yet we still have such a long way to go before we're at that thing's feet..."
I had the knights fire off magic, hoping to draw its attention this way even for an instant, but because of the distance the effect appeared to be utterly nil.
"Lady Cris! I'm going to use a somewhat large spell! Give me some time!"
When one of the knights who'd come along shouted this, I had the knight nearest him provide support. While he was concentrating, Lord Merlin had closed in to where she'd reach Tenma in another few dozen seconds.
"Here it comes!"
With that, he released the spell in a motion like scooping a ball upward with both hands and hurling it. The spell was loosed at considerable speed, but the angle was too high. Just as I thought it wouldn't reach the woman at that rate,
"Don't look at the sky! Avert your eyes!"
Hearing that shout, I instinctively shut my eyes and faced downward, and immediately after, a dazzling light enveloped the surroundings.
"It's a spell that only gives off light! There's no danger, so keep going as you are!"
Following his words, I tried to urge on my horse, which had stopped in its tracks, but the horse, startled by the light, began to thrash. Even so I somehow soothed it and, to close the distance to Tenma, sent it running—but every horse was startled by that light, and half the knights were thrown from their mounts. Of the thrown knights, half were able to remount immediately, but the rest had their horses flee off into the distance, so they wouldn't be able to keep up any further.
"You lot, go back at once! From here on, there are still few enemies!"
Just as I gave the fallen knights their instructions and tried to send my horse running, Lord Merlin had exactly then caught up to the woman.
Lord Merlin tried to bring her beloved staff down on the woman's head, but the woman, incredibly, caught the descending staff with her free hand. And so it became a contest of strength between Lord Merlin and the woman.
"What kind of monster is she?! To block a two-handed blow from Lord Merlin with one hand!"
Even so, though the contest of strength between the two looked evenly matched at a glance, the fact that the woman's altitude was gradually dropping meant Lord Merlin seemed to have a slight edge.
"Let's catch up while we can! Pick up the pace!"
The height was still out of reach for now, but if Lord Merlin kept pushing that woman down like this, she might descend to a point where even our attacks could just barely reach.
"Lady Cris! Zombies seem to be gathering beneath that woman as well!"
It was still too far for me to see, but a sharp-eyed knight could apparently make it out, and he said that at our current speed we might reach the area beneath the woman a little sooner.
"Everyone, steel yourselves! There's a high chance the fighting will begin the moment we arrive!"
Even if we did just barely get there first, enemies would surely come attacking while we were engaging that woman. And against that, our horses, which had run at nearly full speed all this way, would surely have a hard time getting away.
"If any of you have gotten cold feet, you may still turn back now and come with Captain Jeanne and the others."
I asked just in case, but at this point no one turned back. Well, if someone truly had turned back, that knight could expect no advancement from here on. In a double sense: being looked down upon by the other knights taking part in this battle, and smearing mud on the face of the superior who'd sent him out.
"She's come down quite a bit, but there's still height to her... Does anyone have a bow and arrows?"
"I did bring the ones that were issued to me, just as they were, but I'm not very good with them."
When I asked whether anyone had a bow and arrows, as a weapon that might reach, one of the knights said he had a full set of issued bow and arrows in his magic bag, so I took them.
Ideally, it would have been good if a knight skilled in magic had remained, but the knight who was skilled in magic had fallen from his horse when he loosed that light spell earlier, so it couldn't be helped.
"Let's see, I channel magic power into the bow, and separately from that, use wind magic on the arrow..."
Having watched Tenma and Lord Merlin cast magic on their weapons to raise their performance and power, I decided to try that method. If I failed at casting the magic, there would surely be a fair amount of danger, but the only attack method that could reach that woman now was the only one that came to my mind.
"Just in case, all of you keep a little distance from me!"
When I shouted this, the knights immediately moved a few meters away from me. In truth, since there was no telling what kind of failure might happen, I'd have wanted them much, much farther, but if they got too far away they couldn't respond to enemies lying in wait and such, so they'd probably judged this to be the limit.
"First shot... ow!"
For the very first shot, everything up to reinforcing the bow and using wind magic on the arrow went well. But the instant the arrow left my fingers, the magic on the arrow burst, and the shock made blood run from my cheek. That arrow flew less far than an ordinary shot, rising only to a height of about ten meters.
"Second shot... urgh!"
For the second shot, I loosed it while being careful about how I used the wind magic, and though it flew incomparably farther than the first, my control of the magic was apparently still poor, and the instant the arrow left my fingers, countless cuts opened on my right hand. Still, though it didn't quite reach right beside the woman, it passed about twenty meters below her.
"I've mostly got it now. The next one will reach!"
Thanks to Lord Merlin, the woman's altitude was dropping, and we were closing in too, so the next one should go right up close to the woman. And, vaguely, I'd grasped something like the knack of it, and I could tell that I was, even to my own surprise, concentrating in a wonderfully good state. If there was one problem, it was that I had no feeling my magic control would go well... but I'd learned that even without perfect control it would reach, so I just had to endure the pain until I was hurt badly enough that I couldn't draw the bow anymore.
"Phew... hah! ...So close!"
On the third shot, the arrow passed right beside the woman. In exchange, this time cuts opened on my left hand too, but I seemed to be gradually getting used to controlling the magic, and the wounds were small.
"Lady Cris! The zombies seem to be lagging behind us! But at this rate, they'll pass beneath Lord Otori and collide with us not long after, I think!"
"In that case, we have to shoot that woman down before then!"
The following fourth shot went wider off the mark than the third, but that was because the woman, wary of my arrows, had forcibly tried to dodge. And Lord Merlin, of course, was not one to miss that opening; she pushed in all at once, and at last the woman's altitude came down to somewhere around a dozen meters. At this height, even something other than an arrow ought to reach.
"You lot, fire your magic, even low-powered is fine! There's no need to hit—aim a few meters below that woman!"
At this close a range, unskilled at magic as they might be, the chance of hitting Lord Merlin shot up sharply, so it should be clearer and better to deliberately designate a spot that couldn't be hit. Besides, even if we landed one shot of our magic, two shots... indeed even a few dozen shots squarely on her, I didn't think it could deal that woman any real damage.
Just as I nocked an arrow to my bow while thinking this,
"Nnrrraaahhh!"
"Tenma!"
Lord Merlin, with tremendous ferocity, pushed the woman in still further, and with that impetus the woman's hand that had been gripping Tenma came free.
Seeing Tenma falling, I reflexively flung away my bow and arrows and sent my horse running, but no matter how I struggled, I wasn't going to make it in time to catch him. Still, positionally, I'd surely be the first to reach Tenma, ahead of Lord Merlin or the woman.
"Please, just don't land in some awful way!"
Given how sturdy Tenma is, I wouldn't be surprised even if he fell from a height of about ten meters and came out unharmed—but that's when he's fully conscious.
There was no way I could believe Tenma in that state was conscious, and if he fell headfirst, it wouldn't be strange for him to die instantly. Conversely, if he landed feet-first, then for most injuries Tenma would heal them himself once he regained consciousness.
Praying his injuries would stay as light as possible, I made for the predicted point of impact... but the sight of Tenma being slammed into the ground never came.
Cris's SIDE. End.
Merlin's SIDE
Thanks to Cris and the others' support, I'd managed to push the woman in even further... but as a result, an emergency arose: Tenma fell.
If only Cris had been directly beneath him, but as ill luck would have it, Cris was still several dozen meters away. At this rate Tenma would fall completely defenseless! ...Just as I thought that, something beyond imagination happened. The woman, who until this very moment had been pinned by me and unable to move, vanished from before my eyes in an instant. No—she chased Tenma so fast that it was as if she'd vanished, overtook him before he struck the ground, and caught him right there in
mid
air
she
caught him right there.
If it had been a height of several dozen meters, I think even I could do the same, but considering it started from about ten meters up and from a state in which she was being pinned down, I could hardly imagine imitating it. I'd think Tenma might manage it, but whether even Tenma could is doubtful.
"Cris, run!"
Startled by the woman's movement, I froze for an instant, but in the current situation the one in the most danger was Cris. To secure Tenma, Cris had thrown away the weapon she'd been holding (the bow and arrows) and was focused solely on making her horse run.
And into the path right before such a defenseless Cris, there suddenly cut in that mysterious
woman
...and moreover, she must of course have realized who it was that had been attacking her up until then. In that case, the woman's next action was easy to predict.
"Hgyah!"
Cris took a horizontal sweeping blow from something like a black spear the woman had produced from somewhere, and was sent flying several meters from atop her horse to slam into the ground.
The woman's spear (or spearlike weapon), at a glance, looked like a long black thorn, and its tip didn't appear to have a blade on it, but from the fact that its horizontal sweep had easily lopped off the head of the horse in front of Cris, I could tell it was a weapon with very high killing power.
"Cris!"
Fortunately... though I'm not sure that's the word for it, Cris—perhaps because the horse had blunted the force—wasn't cleaved in two the way the horse's head had been. But even so, the spear's impact must have been considerable, and above all, from slamming into the ground she lay without so much as a twitch.
The woman raised the spear over such a Cris, so,
"I won't let you!"
Before it could leave her hand, from above I loosed a spell aimed at the space between the woman and Cris.
The woman, perhaps because the spell had thrown off her timing, was readjusting her grip on the raised spear, so seizing that opening I tried to deliver a blow with my staff from above, but,
"You coward!"
Of all things, the woman thrust Tenma out before me as if using him for a shield. I hurriedly halted my staff, wrenched my body around, and landed at a spot away from the woman, but with this Tenma's rescue was back to square one... no, it had become even more difficult. And there,
"Stop! You all, run!"
The knights who'd come with Cris to rescue Tenma fell upon the woman all at once.
They'd probably judged this was their chance since the woman had turned her body toward me... but against that woman, a
sur
prise
att
ack
of
the
sort
that an ordinary person might mount could not possibly work, and the knights who tried it fell prey to the woman's spear in the blink of an eye.
The knights were struck down, and the only ally I had left now was Cris, behind me. But even that Cris—it wasn't even certain whether she was alive.
In this situation where nothing could be done, the woman grabbed Tenma by the collar and...
"Wha..."
pressed him against her own body and took him inside it. It looked, almost, as though Tenma were being eaten headfirst.
"Heh heh... I've finally obtained it..."
Muttering this, the woman, as if she'd lost all interest in me and Cris, flew off somewhere without so much as a glance our way.
The scene just now had been too shocking, and all I could do was blankly watch the woman fly away.
Merlin's SIDE. End.