S rank adventurers are few in number, however they have quality or to be precise, technique and skill, strength, equipment, and experience as indicated by their rank. The party they lead will also be assigned as S rank party. Most of these S rank adventurers of Arx Norr also have tasted the difficult battle against dragonkin. Thus normally none of them should be shocked to see the large dragon. Normally, it is.

Large sized dragons in front of them are not of the ancient or elder dragon class but there are three of them not to mention their riders, demons, one being a demon general.

Even with the guild master on their side the situation can only be interpreted as grim.

“Oh, while I won’t make the dragons attack yet it doesn’t mean I’ll order my other subordinates to stop.”

As the demon general, Alurio said that some adventurers who were stupefied by the sight of intimidating dragons were snatched by wyverns and dropped from high altitude, had their body parts or chunk of flesh bitten off by the wyverns, or bathed in various type of breath attacks.

“Don’t let your guard down! Magicians continue to shoot down the wyverns! Ground teams focus on finishing fallen enemies with worst condition to quickly reduce their number! I will fight the demon general myself!”

The guildmaster, Teobaldur raised his voice, restarting the halted cogs of battle.

“Wait, let me go first.”

A man wearing a set of half-plate armor and holding a long sword in hand stepped in front of the guildmaster who just readied his stance. He is the leader of S rank party, crystal dust, Londart.

“Don’t be foolish. That demon general is stronger than you’d think!”

“I might not be able to win but I think I can weaken him enough to ensure your victory later.”

Londart just made an awkward grin at the guild master who tried to stop him.

"Hoo… I’ll have to praise your courage, human. Alright, how’s this? If you manage to defeat me I’ll make the dragons return without attacking. But I will make one of them attack for one challenger I kill.”

“Tch, you didn’t say anything about stopping the whole attack even when you lose though. You just casually stated that I don’t have the option to sacrifice myself for glory now that my defeat will let a dragon loose either.”

With that said Londart cannot just bail out from the fight as he was the one who stood at the challenge.Not that the enemy will just let him do so anyway. Thinking so Londart raised his sword and stood with his right hand holding the sword and foot in front while he folded his left arm close to his waist.

“Hahaha! I don’t have that much authority. The current demon lord is far stronger than Orcus, He’ll kill me twice if I called off the attack.”

“That, might be scarier than what I am going to do right now…”

Right after saying that Londart charged at Alurio while making a thrust aimed at the neck. Alurio who kept smirking spun his battle axe and parried the quick attack with its handle, launching the sword’s tip against gravity while Londart’s stance crumbled. The spun battle axe’ blade now in course to cut Londart’s body into two parts at his stomach but Londart managed to dodge it by allowing his body to fall backwards, rolling on the ground littered with pebbles and dust to avoid another attack from above.

“You’re doing well for a human. Are you one of the so called S rank adventurers?”

Londart sprung back up from the roll with ragged breathing but he forced a fearless smile before answering.

“Can I consider that a praise? If so, I’ll honestly answer with a ‘yes’.”

“Feel free to do that.”

This time the two moved at the same time and clashed their weapons.

***

“The South west battlefront has been breached! 12 wyverns, incoming!”

An archer shouted so and Lloyd immediately signaled at the magician team on the building across of the one he is on.

Seeing that Martlea then notified the magician team to ready their spells. Earth and water elements cannot be used against airborne enemies so their only options will be fire and wind. To begin with all known conventional magic of earth and water element requires already existing soil or rocks and water. While soil and rocks are abundant here, water is scarce and there are not many long range and projectile magic related to the two element. While there exist a high level master class magic to gather clouds and create rain enough to cause a small scale flood and providing water to further use magic, the mana consumption is enormous thus disabling most from using another magic.

Archers are to open fire first since they are located more to the south than the magicians who will immediately follow up with two teams releasing their magic in rotation as to increase the frequency of their attacks.

After witnessing what happened to their fallen comrades the wyvern riders moved their mounts immediately after the archers shot and scattered to approach their enemies separately. This resulted in only two of the twelve wyverns being shot down.

“Tch. The wyverns are of low class so arrows are effective but their riders aren’t stupid it seems.”

Lloyd nocked another arrow and shot at the closest wyvern as he said that. Now that the enemies are scattered around the archers’ attacks lost their unity and thus less effective. Each one of the archers chose their own target and this only serve to irritate them as their attacks miss their target more often than not.

“““““En agis serte gladia ar anvis af ensies laminea. Inimi casectes anvis ar ensis.””””””

Led by Martlea the magicians in charge of wind magic unleashed their wind blade spell.

As most of the wyverns are facing the direction of archers group the wind blades coming from the side successfully hit most of them and so they fell one by one.

“It’s our turn now! Charge!”

The ground team came out of their hiding place and attacked the fallen enemies. Granted, this time the riders have expected their fall and although few there are some who managed to avoid being immediately disabled and retaliated at the adventurers.

““““““Lietus, vol en serte en inimica cessarar rauliet. Inimica perfora lietus sagias!”””””

That was the incantation for flaming arrows. As there were barely any flying wyvern left they left it for the archers and the second wave of magic attacks are thus aimed at the fallen enemies. Like this the last line of defense’s first battle ended without casualties on their side.

‘We can do this!’ The adventurers were undoubtedly thinking somewhere along those lines but a loud roaring sound was heard, taking their surprise and attention. When they looked at the source they could see a large dragon rampaging at the frontlines. It is too far to see clearly but some of them noticed two other similar dragon further away. Then from the same direction there are many more wyverns flying this way.

Martlea was shocked when she saw a large sized dragon and more than 50 wyverns heading her way but she quickly pulled herself back and told her guild colleague magician to pass a message while she prepared one of her strongest wind spell.

“Ground team quickly hide behind the buildings! We’re doing that!”

As the guild magician shouted so the ground team who heard but couldn’t see the faraway dragon since their view was blocked by many buildings immediately ran to the closest building to hide inside or behind it. The dazed magicians and archers also started to brace themselves by crouching or holding onto the ledges of the building they are on. They were doing this without questioning what to come since this was planned before.

Liz who crouched was held by Yusa, protecting her from above. Normally Yusa would start to breathe heavily when she is in direct contact with Liz but this time there was only the sound of ragged tensed breathing from her.

Martlea who judged that the number of enemies were too many to be handled in similar way as before started chanting although essentially she just needed to concentrate, control the flow of mana and activate it by just chanting the spell name. Fortunately there is still enough distance between them so she calculated that the chant will be completed in time.

“En agis ar anvis. Iras magna saeve incites anvis. Iudeliant mallravus defrallax anvis. Inimica laciera ur saeve incites anvis. Regant en inimica en inimica laciera lluviar anvis. Hvallei Anvis. Hradtes Anvis. Muspldretes ragna agrrevatus ar Anvis. Castalymus sententraus…”

The wyvern riders failed to notice that they have flown below an area so visibly distorted due to quite the difference in altitude and that they are more focused to look down at their enemies. The distorted area of heavily compressed air continued to grow until its size was around 400 square meter.

“... descentes ruptus sant ar Anvis!”

As she finished chanting, the phenomenon Erik would call as a downburst or in this case a microburst hit the middle of the flock of wyverns while the rest not directly hit were also sucked by the flow and pushed to the ground with tremendous speed and pressure. When the downburst hit the ground it spread strong wind in all directions, sending many objects as heavy as a merchant’s carriage flying. There is quite a distance between where the downburst hit the ground and the buildings the adventurers are on but the wind was strong enough to make their clothes flutter as if in rampage. Liz desperately held onto her important beret given to her by Erik.

“Huff… huff…”

Martlea who crouched while holding to the railings tried to reorganize her breathing but as expected with such a large spell she used most of her mana. She took out a vial of mana regeneration quickening potion and drank it before looking at Liz who stood back up followed by Yusa and then the rest of the magicians.

“I think I can still manage some more wind blade class magic but I’m sorry, Liz… it will be your turn to use a large scale spell next.”

Liz nodded without hesitation before answering.

“Un, leave it to me.”

***

Blood trickled down from Alurio’s chin. A cutting wound on his cheek was quite deep that it won’t stop bleeding anytime soon. His left arm was also covered in several smaller cuts but they have stopped bleeding. With a swoosh Alurio swung down the blade of his battle axe onto the ground, resting it as Londart’s now breathless body lied on a pool of blood nearby. His enchanted steel armor was rent diagonally from the left shoulder along with his flesh.

“The S rank adventurer here was not so bad but still far cry from enough to force me to use magic. So, who’s next? Better send someone stronger or another one will start attacking.”

As he said so one dragon rider also moved and his dragon mount started attacking the adventurers.

“Ghu… All S rank adventurers focus on the attacking dragon! I’ll fight the demon general myself.”

“Ah, of course I won’t forget my main target.”

The one who stepped forward was the guild master, Teobaldur.

“Multepri kravaes dea mifl en virebrus fero, rau en ornis augmn.”

“Hoo, ornis augmn eh… to think that you have non-elemental affinity. I don’t think I can take this easy anymore so I guess I should do the same then.”

Alurio used the same spell without chanting and so with both of them using body strengthening spell the battle between one of seven humanity strongest versus one of demon general started with a loud clanging sound of two metal objects, lance and battle axe hitting then grazing each other.

Full plate armor, tower shield, and a lance. The guild master’s equipment should be so heavy that anyone donning them would not be able to run and change direction easily. However the guild master dashed forward with speed faster than a professional sprinter and when Alurio used the battle axe to parry his lance while jumping away to the side the guild master immediately responded by spinning to face Alurio and continued his dash almost without any pause other than a brief braking. This time the guild master attacked Alurio with multiple thrusts. Due to its shape and size, it is more than just difficult to parry such quick and accurate thrusts with a battle axe so Alurio only parried the most dangerous ones and dodged the rest.

“Tch.”

Alurio who couldn’t completely dodge all of the guild master’s attacks used hardened earth spikes. The guild master struck the ground with his tower shield which expelled two metal rod that hit the ground while exuding whitish light of pure mana seeping into the ground. The encroaching earth spikes stopped with only a tip touching the shield however it provided Alurio with enough time to move away from the guild master.

“My, my… it seems I have underestimated you. Both your speed and strength exceeded my expectation. And that shield seems to be a magic tool as well.”

“... I’m not here to have a talk.”

“Oops.”

Thinking that prolonging the battle with Alurio will be detrimental for the adventurers’ side the guild master wanted to end this quickly and rejoin the main battle so he was filled with impatience.

Without minding Alurio’s small talk the guild master attacked again with a charging dash. This time Alurio chose to attack the lance by making a large swing with his battle axe. Another loud clanging sound was heard before the lance stabbed the ground with an axe hitting a part of its front half. Amazingly, both weapons do not show any sign of damage or even a scratch.

Alurio shifted the blade of his axe to face the guild master and moved it along the lance’s body as he moved forward.

To avoid the axe aiming for his face the guild master let his lance go and dodged by leaning sharply to his left before he swung his shield at Alurio’s back who jumped to soften the impact but was still flung away. As the guild master plucked off his lance from the ground Alurio also straightened his posture while groaning.

“Hurgh, this somehow looked bad for me. Only using small magic is not enough to go against you eh. If normal earth spikes didn’t work then how about this?”

The earth on four direction surrounding the guild master bulged and large lance shaped earth sprung out of them all pointing to the guild master. Jumping was the only option so that was what the guild master did but then all four lance stopped at length before it could even touch where the guild master was standing. Then another earth lance sprung right from below his position throughout the gap of the four lance’ tips.

Midair and with an unstable posture the guild master blocked the earth lance with his shield which bounced off forcing his left arm to the side with the earth lance barely missing his body.

“Ghu.”

“Gotcha!”

Running on top of an earth lance was Alurio who brandished his battle axe to attack the guild master who was still midair and couldn’t move due to the earlier impact.

Before Alurio could swing his axe however, someone jumped in and blocked the axe with a sword.

While Alurio jumped away the one who blocked his attack grouped with the guild master.

“Mu, I thought I ordered all S rank adventurers to attack the dragon. I am grateful however.”

"As long as it is only one dragon then the others can hold it off just fine, that is if the A ranks can handle the wyverns without us.”

The one who helped the guild master was a female S rank adventurer, Izarea. She was a member, of Gale hawk who went to demon race territory with the guild master.

“Hmm, what a rude woman… How dare you interrupt a duel between gentlemen?”

Alurio said so with his lips curved into a smile while his eyes not sharing the expression.

“Humph, you never said anything about it being one-to-one fight.”

“That is… true… I guess. Hahaha… actually I don’t hate that. Then, shall we resume our battle?”

***

After using many spells including three of her strongest fire magic, even Liz started to feel tired. Her body swayed left and right and she almost collapsed to the side if Yusa didn’t catch her.

“L, Lizzy… are you okay? Here, you can use my share of mana regeneration potion. You will put it to better use than me anyway.”

“Un… thank you, Yusa.”

Liz accepted the potion and drank it in several gulps.

All the magicians, archers, and even the melee fighter on the ground are clearly tired with some of them on their bottoms or even lying down.

“You’re amazing Liz. To think that you have higher mana capacity than me…”

Martlea was standing upright but her legs are trembling slightly. As the leader she forced herself so not to lower the whole team’s morale any further.

“This is thanks to Erik who took me to the tower many times. I think I have more than twice the capacity compared to when I first came to Arx Norr.”

“...”

Martlea didn’t hold back her uncomfortable expression when she heard Erik’s name.

“M, Martlea?”

“Nothing… I just personally can’t accept the fact that he can be unexpectedly useful here.”

“Eeh…”

Liz smiled awkwardly. She was about to ask why Martlea dislikes Erik that much but then…

“I, incoming attack from the north!”

“Damn, how many times does this make?”

“I… don’t think I can use anymore magic…”

The magicians’ voice was tinged with despair. A faint shouting stating that they have ran out of arrows was also heard from the archer team’s direction.

“I will use another solar flare spell.”

Liz stood to face the wyverns in the distance followed by staggering Yusa and Martlea. Some magicians who could still use magic also stood and followed suit. They have seen Liz’s effort and their pride as fellow magician doesn’t allow them to just sit and watch.

“Sorry, Liz. Leave the excess to us then.”

“Okay.”

Liz looked at the wyverns, took a deep breath, and concentrated on her spell.

“Lietus vel solus. Cantras acervatus magna ar lietus. En agis serte ar lietus vel solus mer varge. En inimica ardustia rivelus venos fiamle liet. Cant en inimica en inimica laneos Liet. Sterle liet. Solus liet. Infelr ar lietus ragna insant ar Liet. Aspocalymus saeve ar liet…”

The wyvern riders immediately spread around the sky as they saw giant ball of flame with countless flare erupting on its surface. However Liz who has perfect control and concentration from her experience in the tower will not miss any of them.

“...Lietus mer irbrium Solus.”

As she chanted the keywords, the erupting flares extended and moved as if they are alive to catch the wyverns and the riders faster than the speed of their flight.

Crimson flame instantly engulfed each one that was hit by the flares and thus they fell one by one in flames not requiring the ground team to finish them off. Some who were lucky enough to not be her target then were shot by Martlea and the rest of the magicians, urging the ground team to finish them off. The ones burnt by Liz’s flame were majority and thus the ground team’s burden was small.

Clutching her fists to her chest, Liz actually felt something akin to disgust at herself during the whole battle. She was killing her fellow demon race. However, being betrayed once by those of demon race and that she held Arx Norr and her friends living there as important she decided to swallow it whole. Moreover, she can’t have Arx Norr be conquered by the demon race before Erik returns.

“Erik… please come back quickly…”

There is no turning back. So Liz wished for the one she has been waiting, she wanted to rely on him, to have him ease the unpleasant feeling. Liz truly wanted to see Erik right now. Mana exhaustion and the feeling weighing on her mind were too much for someone her age. Realizing Liz’s state Yusa and Martlea who were standing at Liz’s both sides and heard Liz muttered about her wish for Erik’s return looked at each other. However, before any of them could soothe Liz, this time the shout warning of incoming enemies came from the archer team’s side.

“More? How can this many enemies get through the front lines easily?”

“Maybe they just ignored their fallen comrade and rushed forward?”

“Don’t tell me they realized that we have civilians in the tower already? If they took the civilians as hostage then our defeat is set in stone…”

No matter how much they wanted to continue fighting their stamina and mana are at the lowest point.

Liz who couldn’t immediately prepare another solar flare racked her mind and decided on another method. She was unsure whether she can pull it off but she proceeded to do it anyway.

“Lietus, vol en serte en inimica cessarar rauliet…”

“Liz?”

Martlea was surprised seeing Liz preparing flaming arrows. No matter how fast she could chant it many times over, there are too many enemies approaching. Even doing it chantless won’t be enough. But, seeing Liz’s serious look and that there were barely any other magicians who could use more magic Martlea was also about to muster the last of her mana and prepare a low level master class wind magic but Liz’s next chant made her stop.

“Prasent”

No matter how high your mana capacity, the spell can only produce a maximum number of 10 arrows while the average is 5. However when Liz chanted that, 10 more arrows were created.

“Prasent”

Now there are 30 flaming arrows floating above Liz. Martlea heard about spell augmentation but this is her first time seeing it happens. The augmentation requires tremendous amount of concentration but each addition only requires half the mana of the first one.

“Prasent”

Everyone there looked at Liz in both surprise and amazement. Martlea who judged not to use magic as not to disturb the flow of mana in the air also chose not to chant until after Liz released the flaming arrows and that there are some remaining enemies by then.

“Prasent”

While the mana being used is less than the solar flare, the concentration needed to maintain more than 5 augmentation on the flaming arrows spell exceeded it.

“Prasent… Prasent… Prasent… Prasent… Prasent…”

Everyone around gulped their saliva as they saw 100 flaming arrows created by a single magician.

“...Inimica perfora lietus sagias!”

All 100 flaming arrows flew true to their respective target and hit the wyverns and their riders who have come close. The ground team who didn’t know that it was a single magician who shot down the wyverns immediately moved to attack the fallen enemies albeit their movements clearly showed that they are also tired.

A unified exclamation of admiration could be heard as the event concluded.

“Lizzy… that’s amazing! It was the first time I saw something like that!”

Yusa looked at Liz excitedly but then she saw Liz was lying down with rough breathing and sweat all over her body.

“Lizzy!” “Liz!”

With worried murmur from everyone else as backsound Yusa and Martlea immediately approached Liz and Yusa raised Liz’s body by leaning it to her own.

“Lizzy! Are you okay? Hey!”

Liz slowly opened her eyes and responded weakly.

“Un, I’m okay… just need some… rest.”

“You really worried us there, Liz… “

Liz looked weakly at Martlea who said that.

“Fuee… s, sorry…”

“No, that… uhh… while I can’t commend you for forcing yourself that far you did nothing wrong. I can only thank you for taking down that many enemies by yourself.”

“H… hey… seriously?”

“I… it’s over for us…”

Yusa and Martlea each looked at different direction, north and south west. Both of them saw more wyverns coming.

“Miss Martlea! What should we do!?”

Panicked Yusa looked at Martlea who looked back with a perplexed face.

Liz is down. Yusa cannot use high class spell, Martlea herself barely has much mana and the rest of the magician team is more or less just the same.

“Lizzy? No… you can’t use anymore magic!”

Martlea who was thinking hard looked at Liz who was forcing herself to stand up while yusa tried to stop her.

“I have… to protect… Arx… Norr… place… for Erik to return…”

“Liz!”

Martlea wanted to stop Liz but she has no word to say to Liz.

“Miss Lissa. Please rest assured for the most reliable butler has come to your rescue.”

Everyone present slowly turned their head to look at the man who just spoke. A man in black butler uniform was bowing in Liz’s direction. A smile plastered on his face somehow dispersed their worry for reason unknown to themselves.

“M…Mareritter…? Why… are you here?”

Liz was surprised that someone who should be with Erik appeared in front of her.

“Erik… has Erik…”

“Unfortunately, master has not returned yet. I want to tell you more about it but it seems there is no time.”

Mareritter cut in before Liz could complete her sentence and then he slowly walked to the roof’s edge while speaking to himself in low voice.

“Khukhuhu… I have appeared at the perfect timing befitting a he… *ahem… butler. I have the feeling that I was forgotten by many people so this should remind them of this perfect butler.”

Erik might give a retort to Mareritter’s whisper if he could hear it but unfortunately Erik was not around.