[Randall's POV]
Embers rose from the structures, most of them located in pairs of horizontal lines. Smoke from the wildfire spread everywhere, dying the already blood-stained heavens with an ominous gray hue. Our footsteps left marks on the dirt roads, only to be shortly erased by...
Followers.
"How many are there now?"
My hand held on to another with considerable strength. They maintained someone important fairly close, after all.
"THEY ARE OVER 40 YOU CRAZY FUCK!" Practically announced the magician currently acting as my partner, Jean.
"Think that is enough??"
"Take a guess!"
I continued running while she kept screaming. Though, despite my current speed greatly surpassing my former numbers, a strange feeling lingered in my head...
One that practically yelled that I could go faster if I left her behind. Strange, but it got ignored.
'I would have never been able to reach this speed in my past life… I know they turned me into a living nuke, but how? How did they turn my body into… This?'
Anyway, back on our followers, I requested Jean to assess their "power levels" a while back. Apparently, most ranged from 7 to 5 in terms of rank...
Right then, a few thousand scenes flashed through my mind. As if they were saying, "do this."
"Be ready!"
"Ehh??? Now what-"
Digging my heel deep into the ground, it turned alongside my body in a 180° turn. The translucent rapier from earlier re-appeared on my free hand, though it didn't stay for long.
Not because of a control issue, no. I just threw it at them.
"Wait a sec-"
And when it reached the middle of the tide, I followed through with the plan.
Exploding it.
'That was effec-'
A sharp pain in my head brought me down to one of my knees, as I grasped the area near my left eye a bit too tightly. Expectedly, dirt dirtied my digging nails and clothes. But I could still hear them coming.
"Ugh…"
"W… What-"
"Wipe them out now!"
I do not know her exact reaction, but I may have heard a magic circle being created in-between my head's palpitations. By the point she launched her attack, the scorching thunderbolts and the screams of the incinerated monsters drowned out the already dwindling pain for a moment.
Then, I guess it was her turn to carry/guiding me on, considering how adamantly she took my hand into hers.
We ran, and ran. I wasn't sure for how long, but eventually my eyes cleared up just enough for my close environments to become somewhat nitid.
Kind of like transitioning from 144p to 480p.
'An… An alleyway-'
A singular slap resounded across the alley. A harmless one, yet strong enough to leave a bright red mark on my cheek.
"The Monarch may have given me the task of taking care of you, but that doesn't mean I'll save you each time you pull a suicidal stunt like that!"
Only the voice of the mage travelled through this narrow place. But even that turned into silence, albeit momentarily. "Once this is over... I'll need an explanation about this," she muttered, looking rather defeated.
A flash of envy dashed past the woman's crimson gaze.
I nodded vaguely. Her face finally cleared up, and the pain from earlier disappeared fully. 'I guess it's time to continue luring monsters.'
"Hopefully the other knights haven't encountered many issue-"
A somewhat loud explosion cut me off, and sent some debris behind us, blocking the way.
"I guess your summoning gave you the power to summon bad luck," she muttered, before running off.
'Eh?'
Despite my confusion, I ran after her.
"Only one of the knights has enough power to be considered a threat to the monsters in the tide. And given the force of that blast... They're definitely involved!"
It didn't take too long for me to catch up. Gaseous stains of smoke brushed past my face. But not even that clouded my goals nor sight, both focused on the horizon. I also grabbed one of her hands, enabling us to be faster.
"Sorry, but you're too slow."
While the streets weren't overflowing with unchecked monsters as earlier, the trails of destruction remained, along with many living monsters, and human corpses splattered everywhere indiscriminately, whether it was along the walls, on the soil, within the ruined buildings or even on top of other corpses.
I could feel someone's trembling hands. But I had to avert my gaze away from everything. I'm pretty sure I felt my insides turn thrice.
… A-anyway, as we arrived at the large, round intersection, our eyes narrated a scene. This gave us all the context we needed within a second.
The squad had been surrounded by a few dozens of monsters on the ground, alongside many others in the buildings. They had a tall, green beast on the front, dressed with leather armor. With a strangely upright position, it looked down on the armored humans while its machete rested in the sheath on its back.
"T-that's the Rank 3… I never thought I'd see a goblin this powerful."
"Say, Jean, what does Rank 3 mean anyway?"
"Do you… Uhm, short version, it's very strong. Even I would have problems facing off against it."
I nodded my head, and let go of her hand.
'To fight against a multitude of opponents with a weapon meant for dueling... I'll definitely struggle here.'
Sighing, I told her to get ready. With my rapier appearing on my hand, I dashed up to the doomed horde.
A singular stab of my blade created a red spurt. Five more followed after the first one dyed their dirty graves.
Another beautifully-drawn arc of light met the beasts that seeked my demise. Only to meet theirs instead.
"Who-!"
My second strike seemed to have gashed the goblin's stomach, somehow. That thing screamed out in pain, and five or so monsters surrounded it immediately, moving outside the circle.
"Get their hobbit!" yelled the furious yet tall goblin.
Dozens of bugs heeded the call of their leader, all for naught. The fate of this conflict was sealed the moment I got involved.
The knights –still maintaining the circular formation– quickly adapted to the situation. Some in the front dug their weapons into the ground, releasing a tangible wave of mana that threw off the balance of all the monsters. Meanwhile, the ranged units quickly picked off a bunch of them, either through magic spells or shooting projectiles.
'... Using Time Alter here is far from worth it.'
I kicked a dog-faced bipedal beast down, crushing its organs as soon as my feet made contact with its pathetically weak body, and sent it flying.
The corpse hit its companions, impairing their movement even further. The archers took the chance and did what they did best: Picking up kills.
'... These things are weak.'
Soon enough, the battle had reached its predictable conclusion. With my unannounced command, the white rapier vanished from my hand.
... The monsters ran away alongside their leader. The scout suggested pursuing them, but the commanders shot down that idea quickly. With this, the most dangerous battle had drawn to a close, and the losers had the most deaths to mourn.
Though, that didn't mean we got off unharmed.
One of the elves had accumulated a concerning number of bruises, a human knight obtained a fairly deep stab wound in the heat of the battle, and William ended up with a dislocated arm.
Oh, and the Princess' dress got some blood on it.
Needless to say, the greatest tragedy was nor seeing the end of the conflict, but the aftermath of the battle.
"Waaaah! My dress! My beautiful, perfect, shining, fittingly good dress! Why, world?! Why are you taking my darling away from me?!"
The elven princess yelled amidst her genuine tears, while the others lowered their heads with expressions showing concealed rage, frustration or even sadness.
Though, the same didn't apply for a certain magician...
With her hands tightly clenched, she calmly walked up to her. A punch echoed in the vicinity, the body of a royal elf collapsed down to the ground.
The princess, and glared at the one who attacked her with rage in her eyes. "Bitch, who do you think you-"
Her words were interrupted by a kick to the stomach, and subsequent attacks aimed straight to her body.
"Dozens of people are being torn apart because we have to save YOU, yet you dare to complain about something as insignificant as a damned dress?!"
No one got in her way. And to be honest, I wish I didn't have to...
But we had no time to waste here.
Upon taking a hold of Jean's left shoulder, I spoke. "Stop it, time is ticking."
As for the elven squadron? They all pretended to be looking away…
"... Alright, we're close to the extraction point. Just a bit more, and we'll part ways," declared William.
Before we departed, the Princess had no choice but to heal the critically wounded members, Ryan and the stabbed human, back to fighting shape. As for William, the elven commander merely relocated his arm back into place.
"T-thanks, Miss Ladenia," mumbled Ryan, in spite of the Princess' constant whining.
Shortly after she finished, we left towards the point where our paths would diverge.
As the humans and elves said their farewells, William and Gregor pulled me aside to talk, with William being the first to speak.
'Aha, I guess it's time for the talk.'
Hopefully it won't be too bad.
While the others grouped up near the horses, which Adam somehow managed to find, the three of us went closer to the nearby forest.
"So, Randall… You tagged alongside us under the one condition of not disobeying orders. But you did just that, not only by breaking the formation, but also taking a valuable member of the team away."
William's body stood tall, as a tower. The crimson greatsword he held earlier? Nowhere to be seen. Instead, the strict aura surrounding him acted as a replacement for it.
He stopped for a moment, and Gregor sighed. "He did get us out of that sticky situation, y'know? Plus, his actions shaved off a lot of time that we would have had to spend sneaking around otherwise."
'This…'
William stopped to think, and nodded. "That's… kind of true, actually."
He let out a deep breath, and stared at me dead in the eyes. "Look, given the results of this operation, it would be unfair for you to be punished, since your contributions were key to our success. But, please don't repeat this again."
'… I wouldn't be surprised if the build-up to that phrase was an act.'
I nodded, and the air around us relaxed a bit. I bid them farewell and watched as the elven squadron departed with the horses.
As for us? Our job wasn't done yet.
"Come on people, we got a town to cleanse."