“I can’t hold the barrier up that much longer!” Raynard shouted. He has been standing at the entrance to the underground chamber for the past few minutes, trying to hold up the barrier keeping the zombies from breaking through.

The pastor and the princess were still engaged in a fight, the former keeping the latter busy, so his army had to suffer as few losses as possible. Raynard had barely any mana left, and the undead army repeatedly attacked the barrier with their entire bodies as projectiles, to no avail. So far.

Aurelia occasionally tried breaking through this constant barrage of attacks, but the pastor barely let her form a clear thought, let alone cast a spell, other than for self-defense.

Aurelia had suspected the pastor was strong from his build, but she didn’t expect him to be this strong. At the academy even teachers could barely keep up when it came to her pure strength, after all she had been training and putting on muscle since she was a child. Maybe it was the same with the pastor, and considering he had to be at least twice her age, a difference in strength wouldn’t be surprising. However, Aurelia didn’t get how one could be this strong, while also being a formidable mage.

Every time she threw a spell at the horde he managed to dissolve it with ease.

“Tch,” she held a curse word back. Not that it mattered, no-one would pay attention. And since leaving her family to study at Ataraxia her mouth had developed a life of its own.

She ran through several possibilities on how to continue in her mind, but in the end she gave up. Because everything she thought of would lead to the same conclusion. So instead of trying to fend off the priest, while trying to attack the horde, she thought it would be best to let the monsters go. Raynard would still have some mana left so he might still be a help.

Because if she was being honest the priest posed a bigger threat than those things. After all, he wanted to use the element of surprise for his attack on the village.

I hope Nathan has reached the village by now, she thought to herself. If so, under the lead of Shelly and Nathan the villagers should be able to protect their village.

“Raynard!” She shouted, while just having backed off due to an attack from the priest.

Raynard looked up, heavily panting, but not being able to see the princess through the dead bodies piling up against the force field.

“Stop chanting!” Aurelia shouted again.

At first Raynard frowned at her order but then he decided he trusted her enough with that decision to follow it blindly. She was a princess after all.

Raynard stopped the spell and the barrier disappeared, letting the tower of monsters collapse or rather spill through the gate.

Raynard used that short moment to hastily jump back without falling over, and leaning on one knee, taking on a defensive stance. Reaching behind his back he drew out a sheathed sword, which he then hit the ground with. The sheath the unfolded itself into a shield big enough to cover his rather large body. He drew the sword from his shield and while casting a protective spell at it, he used the sword to mow down the passing monsters.

Or at least that was what he hoped would happen.

He only managed to chop off a limb here and there but most monsters just passed through the gate more or less unharmed.

“Hahah, yes, you finally realized, that there’s no use in resisting, huh?” The priest interrupted his attacks to marvel at the doings of his own creations.

Aurelia predicted as much and used that short moment of carelessness, to dash past the priest and drive her fist into the remaining monsters near the entrance, catapulting their crushed remains into the forest.

“Hahah, take that, suckers!”

Needless to say, she was beyond thrilled to finally have landed a hit against her enemy. Satisfaction spreading on her face she looked to her feet where she simply expected pieces of torn flesh and limbs to lay around.

“Princess ...” Raynard muttered, and in that moment they both realized. The torn body parts were still moving, slowing inching towards each other, to form a completely new monster. The newly-formed was hardly recognizable as human. The head was somewhere on its side, and instead of two arms and legs, it had three arms and only one leg. It seems the body parts just randomly got attached to each other.

“What is this?” The princess exclaimed less shocked, more disgusted and angry.

“Wow, the spell really exceeded my expectations ...” the pastor muttered seemingly to himself.

The monstrosity proceeded to clumsily run after its more handsome peers.

Raynard either didn’t bother to attack this seemingly immortal being, or was to shocked to do anything.

Aurelia ran after it, leaving the tunnel, but coming to a halt when the monster disappeared through the bushes. Raynard followed shortly after.

“Hahaha, well, you seem to have realized that attacking my creations won’t bring the desired result.”

The pastor slowly walked through the gate and after speaking those ancient words closed it behind him.

“But still, I won’t let you run away like that,” he spoke, his face taking on a rather displeased expression.

“Screw you!” Aurelia spat, and took off in the opposite direction only for her path to be blocked. She didn’t even have the time to put her surprise into words. The priest had appeared before her and drove his fist into her stomach, throwing her towards the gate.

Raynard wanted to call out to her, but at the same time he didn’t want draw attention to himself. This priest was truly terrifying. He only looked at his friend hunching with pain on the ground.

He thought about casting a healing spell, or at least a painkiller on her, but he was to far away, and he barely had any magic left.

“I have to admit, you are quite strong,” the priest spoke and thus gave Raynard more time to consider his next step. “But when all you can do is basic elemental spells, you won’t get too far.”

The priest slowly approached Aurelia who still laid on the floor, only changing into a seating position, when he was just a few feet away.

“I know your family,” he suddenly said, as if that statement alone was supposed to have any significance to her. “I bet you dad is the reason you were trained this way. Why else would a girl bulk up like that.”

“Hahah!” Aurelia only responded with mocking laughter. “You know my family? Sure doesn’t seem like it.”

The priest seemingly irritated stopped in his tracks.

“Look, I know exactly, what this is. You’re trying to drag me down, assuming I am in this situation, because of decisions my family made for me. You’re trying to talk me into believing I’m not a good fighter, because I lack the passion for what I am doing.”

She slowly rose up, clutching her aching stomach.

“You’re not the first one trying to do that. People always assume things about me just because I’m a princess, and nearly all the time they are dead wrong about it.”

The priest narrowed his eyes, because she was right and he was wrong. And he did not like being wrong.

The princess took her hand off her stomach and again took on a fighting stance.

“And guess what!” She scoffed. “That punch did barely hurt any more than the stomach pains I experience once a month!”

Now she was all fired up.

“Then show me what true pain is like if you think you’re so tough!” He shouted and spread his arms in an inviting gesture.

That was the moment they’ve waited for.

Aurelia leapt forward moving her arm for a punch.

The priest wasn’t dumb enough to let himself get punched that easily. However ...

“Huh?”

... he did not expect to encounter resistance, while trying to dodge the punch.

When he looked down, he realized his legs were encased in the same protection spell Raynard had used to prevent the undead from breaking out.

He tried dissolving the spell, but realized that its structure was far more complicated than most spells the princess had used.

So he’s the brain and she’s the muscle, he realized. They just weren’t really working together until now.

It quite literally hit him that maybe she was right, when she said his punch wasn’t painful at all.