Chapter 189

Usato-dono has left for the battlefield.

The back of his head, shoulder to shoulder with Rose-dono, looked the same as it did during the last battle, but it was completely different.

A strong back with a big mission on his shoulders.

When I saw Usato-dono heading towards the battlefield with as much “power” as Rose-dono, I was determined to fulfill my own mission.

“–I have to brace myself …….”

My mission is to protect the tent where the healing magicians of the rescue squad are.

The rescue squad plays an important role in this battle.

I understand well how important it is to protect them.

“Did you hear that, Arc?”

“Hear what?”

I react to the voice of my colleague who is protecting this place with me.

“I heard there’s been a betrayal of our allies on the battlefield.”

“Betrayal ……?”

“I heard from a guy who just came back and went back to the front, and he said that he was suddenly attacked by an ally.”

“……”

Is there a demon that can control people like Nea?

No, it can’t be a vampire that sucks blood in the middle of battle, putting itself in danger.

Is it magic then?

“Anyway, you’d better be careful. The opponent is the Demon Lord’s army. I wouldn’t be surprised if they use any trick they can think of.”

“Yeah. I’ll keep that in mind.”

As I was firmly taking in my colleague’s words, a knight of the Kingdom of Calm Helio, covered in blood, entered from the door in front of my gaze —- a place that was mainly passed by the black-clad members of the Rescue Squad.

“Oh, hey. Is that guy okay?”

“What’s that knight outside doing ……?”

The knight’s upper body armor was dyed red, and he walked towards us with a shaky gait.

My colleague and I quickly ran up to the knight, who looked dangerous by all accounts, but then we felt something strange and stopped.

“No, wait.”

“What are you talking about, that guy is badly injured no matter how you look at him! He’ll die if we leave him alone.”

Ignoring the words of my upset colleague, I stare at the knight’s body.

It was covered in blood and appeared to be injured.

However, something is wrong.

The reason why the knight’s eyes are vacant can be explained by the fact that he is injured.

The fact that he is covered in blood is because he is injured.

But where is the blood flowing from?

His appearance was too clean. No, he was stained with blood, but there were no scratches or holes in his armor or the clothes he wore underneath.

I kept my left hand on the sword at my waist and kept my distance from the knight.

“May I ask you one question?”

“Arc ……?”

“Excuse me, but can you tell me where you’re injured?”

Where did that large amount of blood come from?

The calmer I get, the more I realize how odd the man looks.

There was no way he could have walked all the way here with that amount of blood loss, and he shouldn’t have even been able to stay conscious in the first place.

“Healing, magic ……ian.”

“Yes, I understand that you want to call a healing magician to treat you as soon as possible. But first, please tell me where you are injured. Otherwise, I can’t let you pass from here.”

“Magic…… healing …… come out.”

“……”

“Healing, magician, come out.”

“Arc, this is …….”

The man muttered something about a healing magician, and my colleague put his hand on his sword at his waist as if he sensed something unusual, but I told him to wait.

If we make a scene here, we’ll end up involving the rescue squads in the tent behind us.

If we’re going to capture him, we need to get away from this place before—-

“–Is that person injured!”

The voice that came from behind me scared me.

The girl who had been dispatched as a healing magician — Kate-san — was peeking out from the entrance of the tent where the rescue squad was operating.

The man’s eyes goggled at Kate, but he didn’t notice, and she hurriedly beckoned to him.

“If you’re injured, hurry over here~!　We’ll heal you with healing magic right away.”

The moment I heard the word “healing magic,” I didn’t miss the man’s right arm going around his back.

Before he could pull the broken sword out of his bloodied midsection, I slammed the hilt of the sword into his wrist and twisted his left arm to restrain him.

As I rope the man, who roars and flails like a beast, together with my colleague, I call out to Kate-san, who lets out a small scream.

“Gah, aah!”

“Go back to your tent at once! He’s freaked out!”

“What? Yes, yes!”

Kate-san returned to the tent with the agility of a cat.

After looking her over with her eyes, she looked for any wounds on the knight who was still flailing even after being tied up, but he wasn’t injured anywhere.

“So it’s all just return blood.”

“You mean …… a sudden act of betrayal?”

“No, no.”

I put my face close to the knight’s eyes and peered into them.

He may have originally had blue eyes, but now his blue eyes had a shimmering purple magic that covered the edges.

The moment the flicker disappeared, however, the knight’s body weakened and he fainted.

“Right now, tell this information to Commander Sigurds. The other party is manipulating us with magic to make us fight each other. And that magic user is targeting this place, where the rescue squad is operating.”

“Kuh, that’s what you mean ……!”

While my other colleague hurriedly went to convey the information to the Commander of Sigurds’s Legion, I thought of countermeasures.

First of all, I have to send a warning to all the black-clad people who bring us injured people.

They come through here quite often, so I can tell them right away.

“But what if someone manipulated in the guise of a fallen wounded person is brought into the tent ……?”

The one who had manipulated the knight earlier had clearly targeted this place.

It was the kind of opponent that would not hesitate to make them fight each other. It wouldn’t be surprising if it took advantage of their conscience of the rescue squad.

“I guess we should do what we can now.”

It would be difficult to take complete countermeasures, but we should be able to take precautions.

I raise my voice so that the guards present can hear me.

“Those who are controlled by the Demon Lord’s army are manipulating our allies and trying to harm the rescue squad that is doing their best for us here! Therefore, in order to protect them, we will now deploy guards not only outside, but also inside the tent!”

I won’t let them get their hands on the rescuers.

That’s what all the guards here are thinking.

After confirming that my colleagues nodded at my words, I quickly decided where to reposition them.

Returning to my post, I look at the wall where the battle is taking place.

“I’m definitely not going to let them get their hands on them.”

It was the same in Hinomoto, and the situation is no different now.

I’ll just have to trust him and fight my own battles.

—I’m sure that Usato-dono is still fighting for the injured.

I had been running around the battlefield non-stop healing the wounded since I arrived at the battlefield, and I tried to help a knight who was lying on the ground.

Just as I was about to carry him to safety, he suddenly got up, picked up a sword that had fallen beside him, and swung it at me.

“Please stop! I’ll heal you now!”

“Heal me, magician!”

“You’re delirious!”

As he muttered “healing magician” to himself, I grabbed his sword with my gauntlet, but it didn’t seem to have any effect.

But it’s clear that he’s hostile to me.

Could it be that …… this is what Ururu-san was talking about, a leopard changing?

“Usato, this man is being controlled by magic or something!?”

“You mean someone from the Demon King’s army did this?”

I grit my teeth at the sound of Nea’s voice.

I can’t just sit here and wait for him to come to his senses.

I can’t help it! I really don’t want to do this, but!

“Wake up, please!”

“Gofuh!

“That’s more like a fainting spell!”

If he flails, I’ll stun him with a healing punch.

I hold him in my arms as he falls forward, and immediately explain the situation briefly to a nearby knight, who leaves him with me before running off.

“–I see we’re getting pushed over here.”

“Yeah. I guess the anxiety that our allies might be being manipulated is making the people here slow down.”

“To think that far ahead in their strategy. ……”

It’s a vicious but effective strategy.

It’s making us feel uneasy, and at the same time, it’s slowing down the movement of the entire army.

Nea could do the same thing with her vampire powers and her necromancer powers, but it would take a lot of work, and more importantly, she would not be able to support me.

Considering that, we can assume that the person who is controlling our side is quite powerful.

“If we don’t do something soon, the formation might collapse. ……!”

However, there’s nothing I can do about it.

As I grit my teeth at my own helplessness, I see the sight of a flying dragon rampaging down to the ground in front of me.

I see a knight being trampled by a foot with sharp claws, and another knight having his foot bitten by a mouth with fangs.

“Don’t make me do more than that! Healing magic bullet!”

[———-Huh?! Guhaa?]

Healing magic bullet strikes down a soldier of the Demon King’s army on the back of a flying dragon that has landed on the ground.

After confirming this, I slammed a foot-knife kick into the shin area to save the knights who were about to be killed by the flying dragon, and then I lost my balance and drove my right fist as hard as I could into the exposed abdomen – and then I was able to get the knight’s head back on the ground.

“Open your mouth!”

—-He thrusts his right fist into the exposed abdomen.

The flying dragon screamed in agony and opened its mouth in response to the impact emanating from the cage

[Gu-Gya—–]

“Usato!”

“Alright!”

I quickly received the knight that was released from the flying dragon’s mouth, and I carried the other knight that had been kicked in the leg and took off at once.

“If I had been a little bit slower, I wouldn’t have made it ……!”

The flying dragon that the soldiers of the demon king’s army usually ride is more than five meters long.

Just being bigger than humans is a threat, but flying dragons breathe fire and are also very powerful.

……In the meantime, we need to get the two people who are completely unconscious to a safe place. ……

[The healing magician is here!]

[W-Where?!]

[Over there, over there!]

[I can’t find him anywhere.]

In front of me, there are soldiers of the Demon Lord’s army looking for me, a healing magician.

If I don’t, they’ll find me and attack me – but there’s no time for me to bypass them.

“You’re treated like a rare beast in the Demon King’s Army?”

“Nea, resistance to wind pressure. –We’re going to go through it.”

“What? Ah wait——“

After re-holding the injured man, I stepped on the ground with all my strength and released him at once.

With Nea’s magic, I had acquired a resistance to wind pressure, or air resistance, and I pushed forward, letting myself feel as if I were leaving the sounds around me behind.

“–I’ve healed your wounds. Please take the two of them to a safe place.”

“Tha, thank you!”

I was able to safely break away from the front line and leave the two injured people with the knight in the rear.

The place where we are now is one step ahead of the front line – the place where the people who are entrusted with supporting the rear are.

We’ll be safe here, but I need to get back to the front line as soon as I can.

“Nea, can you make it?”

“I had a bad experience earlier, but I can go. ……”

…… Are you still upset that I ran full speed right in front of the enemy?

I smiled at Nea’s grimace, and tried to run to the front, but…

“What?”

At that moment, I felt a strange chill that I’ve never felt before.

It was the same kind of killing intent that had been directed by Koga in Hinomoto.

However, it was incomparably sharper than his, with a chill that made me shiver.

Without a doubt, I sensed that something was approaching, and as soon as I deployed my gauntlets, I changed the direction in which I was running toward the direction where I felt the chill.

“Ugh, Usato, what’s wrong with you!”

“Nea, give me …… resistance to slashing!”

“Eh, why–“

“Quick!”

Surprised by my urgent voice, she gives me resistance to slashes.

As I continue to run towards the front, I notice that the number of soldiers in the Demon King’s army is decreasing.

If that’s all there is to it, it would seem that our side is winning, but somehow the expressions on the knights’ faces as they pass each other are not joy at having the upper hand in the battle, but fear of “something” ahead of me.

Gradually, I noticed that the knights had stopped with their weapons at the ready and were looking in the same direction.

As I tried to move in that direction, a knight from the Kingdom of Lingle flew towards me, blood pouring from his chest, and I hurried to catch him.

“Gee, are you okay!”

“Gu, ugh, Usato-sama……”

“Please don’t talk!”

My torso has been sliced open……!

I immediately tried to cast a healing spell —- but the moment I poured magic power into the wound, the magic power was drowned out as if it were dissipating.

“What?

The healing magic didn’t work.

No matter how desperately I tried to apply the healing magic, my wounds could not be healed.

The knight, who grabbed my arm as I still tried to apply healing magic, looked at me in frustration and called out to me, his voice trembling.

“His sword is cursed. We can’t afford to lose you now. …… Leave this place immediately. ……”

“As I said, don’t talk to me. ……”

“……”

The light faded from the knight’s eyes, and the strength drained from the hand that had been gripping my arm.

I lowered his corpse to the ground quietly, and after hitting the ground with all my might just once, I called out to the other knight who was standing by my side.

“……The effect of not accepting recovery magic should disappear with the passage of time.”

“……What?”

“The injured who don’t accept healing and recovery magic should be stopped bleeding and then transported to the rescuer’s base. There is a sufficient amount of bandages and tools there. If possible, please call the black clothes here and tell them the method I instructed you to use.”

“Right, got it! What are you going to do, Usato-sama, ……?”

“I’m going to …… halt the enemy.”

Before the knight could call a halt, I advanced toward the direction where the stinging killing intent was being released.

“Nea. Hurry up and get the Leader.”

To tell the truth, I don’t want to bring Rose together with the person we’re about to face.

But if I don’t, there will be more casualties.

“…… I understand.”

“Before I fuck up, okay?”

“Don’t tell me that’s a bad omen. I’ll leave you some …… resistance magic, okay?”

“Thanks.”

I turn around to see Nea flying away from my shoulder.

There —- standing in the midst of the fallen knights —- was a demon.

He had dusky blond hair, twisted horns, and brown skin.

Unlike the other soldiers, he was clad in armor and a cloak, and in his hand was a blood-red sword.

He was—Nero Argents rolled his eyes slightly as he looked at me.

“White clothes ……”

“Nero Argents, right?”

“Do you know my name?”

A wind and sword wielder who was at least as good as Rose.

Even though he doesn’t show any signs of being ready to fight, he’s completely unflappable.

I know it when I see it.

I can’t win.

But still, I can’t back down here.

If I leave him here, a lot of people will fall prey to the cursed sword. If that happens, even we, the healing magicians, won’t be able to do anything about it.

In order to prevent that from happening, I’ll try my best to stall him.

“Oh, I see.”

He nodded with a calm voice that was out of place on the battlefield as I remained alert with my gauntlets deployed.

“So you’re Rose’s apprentice.”

The moment he muttered that, Nero carelessly cut up his magic sword—and released a wind blade.

Author’s Note:

Usato’s frustration gauge is going up and up …….

The next chapter will be updated tomorrow at 6pm.