I try appraising the idiot that jumped out in defense of Murellia.
Name: Johan Magnolia
Age: 45
Race: Human
Occupation: Covert Knight
Level: 53/99
HP: 457 MP: 209
Arm Strength: 238
Physical Strength: 198
Agility: 192
Intelligence: 110
Magical Power: 97
Dexterity: 99
Skills:
Assassination Lv. 6
Acting Lv. 5
Lie Detection Lv. 3
Stealth Lv. 6
Detection Lv. 6
Court Etiquette Lv. 2
Attitude Detection Lv. 3
Archery Lv. 3
Swordplay Lv. 7
Swordsmanship Lv. 8
Social Skills Lv. 5
Shield Techniques Lv. 4
Shield Arts Lv. 6
Covert Actions Lv. 3
Poison Resistance Lv. 5
Poison Techniques Lv. 6
Paralysis Resistance Lv. 3
Water Magic Lv. 1
Speechcraft Lv. 5
Power Control
Painless
Unique Skills
Danger Sight
Titles
Murder
Vice Knight of Bashar
This guy isn’t half bad. Although he’s nowhere near as strong as Fran, he’d still put up a good fight in a physical battle. He’s not so much a violent killer as he is a guy that slinks around in the shadows and quietly takes lives.
Plus, his title is the Vice Knight of Bashar. Although I don’t know the ranks of knights in the kingdom, chances are he ranks pretty high. Murellia had an alliance with the Basharian Kingdom, so it’s not really strange that he’s here.
Johan deflected our attack and shouted towards Murellia.
“I’ll be supporting you!”
“What in the world are you doing here? Your job doesn’t involve helping me!”
Even though he’s helping out, Murellia yells at him furiously. Murellia has a look of rage on her face, though Johan laughs it off with a refreshing smile.
“Hahaha! My job may only be to monitor you, but you’ve done far too much for our country to simply watch as you’re slain in battle.”
“… Do whatever you want.”
Murellia closes her eyes and concentrates on recovery.
“Won’t let you!”
“Too eager, aren’t you.”
This guy easily keeps up with Fran’s movements. Each time she attempts to charge Murellia she finds the knight’s shield waiting for her. This is probably the effect of his unique skill. From the name, it probably simulates the effect of danger detection except displays the danger visually.
“HAAAAA!”
[Eat this!]
Even if you can see it, it doesn’t matter if you can’t prevent it! In order to throw off Johann, I start throwing out wind and flame magic in sync with Fran’s strikes.
But somehow, Johann is even able to stave this attack off. Utilizing both sword skills and shield skills, he scatters our wind magic with flicks of his sword while simply dodging the flames. This unique skill is a hell of a lot more useful than I thought.
However, it seems that his sword hand has gotten exhausted due to neutralizing all of the wind magic. Spurred on by my annoyance at Johann’s persistence, I unleashed a telekinetic catapult at Murellia while he’s distracted. The purpose being to put pressure on Murellia with ranged attacks while keeping the knight occupied with melee attacks.
“Dammit, dodge this!”
Johann put up his shield just in time for me to slam into him, though he’s pushed back several feet by the impact. Fran jumps forward and reclaims me, twisting to slam me once again into the knight’s shield, and he’s blown away to the side from the impact.
We don’t pursue him any further, since our aim is Murellia anyways, but magic gets shot at us from somewhere to interrupt us.
『Air Slicer!』
Nearly 20 blades of air come hurtling out of the sky around us. Each of them is quite powerful, probably nearly enough to slice a limb off. While dodging the rain of attacks, we spy the man likely responsible for attacking us, a man dressed like a magician surrounded by some knights that seemed like his subordinates. Where the heck were these guys? Right after Johann showed up I scanned the surroundings just to make sure there wasn’t going to be any more surprises… was it some kind of skill?
“We’ll protect Murellia!!”
“You’ll never lay a hand on our lord!”
“Fuhaha! Are you trying to hide behind our benefactor?”
“If you’re hiding away, it’ll bring shame to the knight’s name!”
The name of the sorcerer man who was screaming is Sanhawk Goldie. Appraisal says he’s a 43 year old Storm Knight. Although his swordmanship is worse than Johann’s, he has Storm Magic at level 4 and Chant Reduction at level 6, and he also has a good balance of offense and defense. He also possesses a skill called Group Stealth. This one is probably why I didn’t notice them.
As Sunhawk began to cast again, he turned his sharp eyes towards Fran. These guys are probably ready to become shields for Murellia.
“First, eliminate the escorts.”
“WONWON!”
Guendalfa and Urushi launch themselves at the group of knights.Kuina and Mianoa are probably both exhausted, and as much as I’d like for them to help keep back the knights, I don’t expect them to join in. It can’t be helped.
“Let’s go! We can’t sit here and be useless!”
“Ou!”
“We’re going to take that man’s head!”
Our adventurer escorts were… pretty much useless. They must’ve saved their stamina and watched for an opportunity to attack. They quickly realized that they couldn’t win even if they fought conservatively and waited for a chance to strike. Perhaps it would’ve worked if they were up against rookie adventurers, but their opponent was too strong.
“Stop! You people! Those knights are-!”
Guendalfa called out to stop them, but the adventurer’s paid no heed. Before they were even able to reach the knights, black bullets shot out and pierced through the adventurers, shot from Murellia. They don’t instantly die from the attack, which suggests that she only aimed to knock them out to begin with.
But, this is an opportunity. With the attack she just threw out, Murellia probably barely has any evil energy left. She’s probably barely conscious right now. As soon as the knight group is distracted, we dash through the center of them. The knights probably noted something shot past them, as many of them looked back with wide eyes, but it was far too late. We were already one step away from Murellia.
[We made it!]
“HAA!”
At the moment Fran strikes out, a newly recovered Johann jumps in to intercept the attack. Apparently he sensed the attack with his unique skill. How many times have we been interrupted now?!
“Guhaa!”
“So persistent!”
Fran’s thrust that should’ve hit Murellia pierces Johann’s chest instead. But it’s too soon for us to stop. Fran puts even more strength behind the strike in Johann’s chest.
“I. WON’T. LET. YOU!!”
“Don’t overdo it Johann!”
Murellia cries out, but Johann doesn’t heed her.
“Nugaa!”
Johann doesn’t hesitate to stab the sword deeper into his body, just to take a step closer to us. We’re probably only a few feet away from Murellia at this point. Johann grabs the blade in his chest, hurting his hand but trying to keep the blade from moving anywhere else.
“You’ll die here.. With me!”
There is no hesitation in his words. The group of knights behind us surrounds us and dash towards Fran.
[Tch.]
We escaped for the time being. Johann sunk to the ground in a bloody heap after receiving the attacks meant for us from his friends. The attack failed but it looks like that was enough to take care of the Vice Knight for a while. We’ll reach Murellia for sure with this next attack. Fran was probably thinking along the same lines, as she readies me in her stance again.
But before we’re able to advance, we are attacked from behind from an unexpected opponent.
“Gaa!”
“Hyaaa!”
“Gaoo!”
It was… the adventurers that fell to Murellia? Their skin is a sickly color, and they’re clearly in an abnormal state.
The adventurers rush towards Fran, one after another. It looks like they’ve turned into undead.
“Ahaha! Just even if it doesn’t work on that irritating sword, the rule of the Evil God still reigns supreme!”
I see, those bullets she shot must’ve been laced with the Evil God’s influence, and now they’re under Murellia’s control.
“As of this moment, you all are–?”
Murellia, who was just starting to get back in her regular haughty attitude, apparently sensed something and turned away. Following her gaze, she seems to be looking at the to the northern skyline.
“Hang on, what are you talking about? I still have Johann of the 3rd Knights… Intruder?!”
Huh? What the hell is she on about?
“Hold on! You want me to withdraw…! Do you even see what’s going on? That’s — Dammit!”
It seems that she’s talking to someone… And that she’s going to be withdrawing.
“My apologies, I’m going to have to withdraw. I expect you to be following behind me.”
“Haha! Please don’t worry about me!”
“Is that so.”
“This is my job after all.”
“Your job should be monitoring me! I won’t to die yet, Johann.”
Murrelia uncorked and sprinkled a life potion over Johann. We watch in awe as the knight’s flesh weaves and stitched itself back together. That must’ve been a top tier potion!
[Fran, Murellia’s running!]
“Nn!”
We immediately dash up to Murellia, and Fran unleashed a slash at her.
“Haaa!”
“Gaa! This little brat! Next time we meet will be the end for you, remember that!”
[Dammit. She’s teleporting!]
Murellia vanishes from the spot, even though her arms were cleanly severed by Fran. I can’t sense her presence anywhere around me. It seems she really did escape.
“Where did she go?”
[Listen Fran, I want to pursue her as much as you do, but we need to take care of the knights and adventurers first.]
“… Understood.”
This is going to be the trickiest part, we need to subdue these guys without killing them.
