"Uuu...! What is going on...?! There was nothing like this in the game I've seen in my dream! Uuughuu...! Somebody save me...!"

"..."

Two tamed monsters glanced at their master and then at each other and shook their heads in disappointment.

In the next second, just as another barrage of magic missiles came at Blueberry from the earth and sky - each one attack much stronger than any of the previous ones - and the black wolf's - Plum's - body glowed with a murky light and both they and the hooded person changed into shadow and shot back towards the orchard where they came from.

With no distraction that needed to be protected underneath her feet, Blueberry dodged the shower of destructive elemental magic skills by nimbly jumping to the side and begun galloping with incredible speed, circling the group, while occasionally slowing down to send another attack their way to keep them occupied.

---

"Everyone watch out! We've lost the visuals on the shadow fang!"

The messenger shouted, but the assault team had their hands full with just trying to hit the giant blue griffin.

"Damn it! Even a young dragon would try to fly up by now! That monster is too smart! Is it a local king?"

A villager cursed and asked her comrade while aiming another spell.

"Worse. That thing must be the emperor griffin, and if the scout is right, it's probably coming from the sea of mist."

"You're kidding me? Out of all the monsters that could have followed us, we had to get an emperor?! How unlucky are we?! Wait! Don't tell me this shit is looking for a new territory?!"

The woman got an answer but not the kind that she had expected and spit to the side with fury.

"Let's hope it was just hungry and got lured by our smell."

"You know that's bullshit! You know how far we are from our territory?!"

"Magic assault team! Stop gossiping and take that monster down!"

It took the barrier villager's command to shut up the chattering villagers.

---

"Skwee! (Master, stop slacking off!) Skwee?! (You could distract them too, you know?!)"

The very real emperor griffin screeched at her master and shook her head so that the neck feathers smacked the face of the cowering brown-haired girl on her back.

"Wh-what?! Blueberry, what is going on? You are keeping them at bay, right? That means you can retreat! Let's just run away!"

The girl sobbed and pulled on Blueberry's feathers in an attempt to make her turn back and ran away.

"Skwee! (Master, you dumbass!) Skwee?! (Weren't you listening to what Plum have told us?!)"

Blueberry got angry, climbed on her hind legs, and released two consecutive talon attacks that turned the villagers' barrier into a wobbly mess for a good few seconds and momentarily stopped their counterattacks.

"Skwee! (You agreed to help those humans, so pull yourself together!) Skwee! (Now, start helping too!)"

Blueberry screeched and released a terrifying series of talon attacks that changed the blue bubble-like barrier into a trembling mess, but still didn't manage to pop it open.

----

"Screw it! Commander! Requesting permission for using frontline-level gear!"

Shouted a woman in the front wearing a slightly different type of high-class equipment underneath some rags.

"Permission granted, let's get this over with as fast as possible."

The man holding up the barrier nodded.

"Gunners! Your turn! Magic Assult squad, change to support formation!"

At the command, ten more villagers stepped forward, each of them was holding up a device similar to a crossbow, but without the cross-arm, and made out of composite minerals.

If Zombie was there he would have recognized the similarity between those things and modern weapons from his previous world...

...or maybe he wouldn't, with the rotten brain title it was really a gamble to bet on what the blue undead would recognize or not.

Anyway, the ten villagers raised their assault rifles that started glowing the moment they've activated their skills as if the firearms were the extensions of their bodies.

As they did, the fifteen villagers that were constantly shooting fire, lightning and ice, at the griffin spread out and some of them change the types of magic they were using.

The fire got switched for the exploding earth shrapnels, lighting assault continued, and the ice became water spears that combined with lightning created electrified puddles that focused on hindering the griffin's movement instead of directly harming it.

"Fire at will!"

The barrier villager shouted a command and the gunners removed the safety locks and aimed at the rampaging monster.

As soon as they got a clear line of fire, their fingers touched the trigger and...!

----

"SHE'S NOT HERE!"

A furious roar pierced the sky and the next second a shape appeared above the villagers' barrier.

----

"What the...?! That's a human! So it's not just a bunch feral beasts attacking us?!"

The barrier villager gasped in shock looking straight up at the materializing shape.

----

"WHERE DID YOU TOOK OUR YOUNG MISS?!"

Ti, who turned out to both the one who roared and the shape that appeared above the barrier, growled - releasing so much bloodlust that even Blueberry, her ally, trembled - and punched the blue bubble.

Her hit made the bubble wobble, but in a different way than any of Blueberry's attacks.

Ti hit the barrier from the very top and created tens of consecutive waves traveling down from the top to the bottom of the bubble.

And once all ten reached the ground...

*SPLASH*

The translucent bubble-like dome broke like a real soap bubble.

----

"Damn it...!"

The barrier villager cursed and clenched his nose trying to stop the bleeding that started when his skill got destroyed.

"Defense formation! ASAP! Local max level hostile player character confirmed!"

He shouted glaring up at the woman hovering in the sky above their heads.

----

"Ah. So you're the leader."

Ti scoffed looking down at the organized group that simply couldn't have been simple villagers.

In particular, she was glaring at the man bleeding man who looked just like a simple fisherman at the first glance.

Only he didn't reveal any fancy armor and was actually wearing only an unbuttoned shirt and short pants.

Yet despite his looks, he was giving the commands.

"I'll make you spit out where did you hide our young miss...!"

Ti's shoulders trembled from anger, and as her body began falling down to earth it also started glowing and the copper-eyed woman disappeared.

"Got you!"

...just to appear right behind the man who had lost his barrier, and threw a punch to incapacitate him before grabbing him as a hostage.