Chapter 26

I was running through the city at full speed, with Invisible Blade activated on all ten fingers and both of my feet, tearing monsters apart, left and right. They were only Huge Spiders, but there were simply too many of them. No matter how many I killed, they just kept coming.

I took a look at the walls and noticed that monsters were freely pouring into the city from outside. Damn it… At this rate, this’ll never end. I have to find the leader. It’s probably outside, positioned at a safe distance away. I activated Twilight Sight to check, but I couldn’t detect any large monsters nearby. I decided to head to the castle and try to regroup with the others.

“Wait a minute,” I thought aloud. Regroup with the others? That doesn’t make sense. All the S-Rank Exorcists should be in this city, but I’ve seen neither hide nor hair of any of them. The only Exorcists out here are all with the military…

Well, the only living Exorcists, at least. There were countless dead bodies everywhere, piled up along the roads. The air was thick with smoke, the flames constantly surrounding me, and yet the monsters didn’t seem to care in the slightest. Are they mutants?

My mind racing, I finally made it to the castle. The Exorcists at the front line there seemed relieved to see me. “What’s the situation?” I asked.

“…Please enter. We were instructed to send you inside if you arrived.”

“Understood!” I shouted, going inside. There was a huge number of people gathered inside the castle. I scanned the crowd, looking for another S-Rank, and found… Eira.

“Yuria!”

“Eira! What’s going on?!”

She was treating the injured. There were a lot of casualties inside the castle, the air thick with the scent of blood. Their voices echoed throughout the room, with sadness, confusion, anger, and countless other emotions overlapping each other. Wait… Why is Eira the only person tending to the injured?

“Alright, that should take care of this one. Yuria… Things are bad here. Follow me.”

“Got it.”

I followed her to… the conference room, of all places. What? Why are we here?

She spoke to the closed door. “Cyrus, I brought Yuria.”

“Oh, you’re alive. That’s good. Well, let me get to the point: the only S-Ranks we’re capable of deploying right now are you and Eira.”

“…What?!” I shouted. That’s… impossible. What happened to all the others? And why won’t Cyrus open the door?

“Why the hell won’t this damn door open?! Open the fuck up!”

“Roy, calm down. You’re just wasting your strength!”

I could hear Roy and Claudia’s voices through the door. Wait… Are they…

“As you might have surmised, we are unfortunately trapped in here. All of us, that is. Someone has set up an ancient barrier around this room. It will take us some time to break through.”

“A barrier… huh? And it’s so strong that all of you combined still can’t break it…”

“You and Eira left immediately after our meeting ended, and, well, it seems the barrier was set up shortly after that. We’ve tried to break it, but it seems impossible for now. And so, the two of you are all we’ve got out there. The military hasn’t responded in full force yet, so the two of you really are our greatest combat assets on the ground.”

“…That’s…”

Something felt off. I thought whatever it was that happened to Dan was weird, but this was even more so. Not only was it shocking that it was even possible to trap almost all the S-Rank Exorcists with a single barrier, but it seemed that whoever cast that barrier intended to trap all of us in that room. It was really weird, and I couldn’t help but get the feeling that someone was pulling the strings in the background.

“Yuria, Eira… I’m sorry. There’s nothing we can do to help,” Cyrus said, sadness tinging his voice. He probably desperately wanted to head into the city and help, but he was trapped. All he could do was trust the two of us – the two most recently appointed S-Ranks to somehow pull through. Well, I guess we just have to do it. We have to take control and somehow turn this around. I may be anxious; I may be scared, but it’s no exaggeration to say the fate of mankind is on our shoulders.

My fear was highly understandable, of course. I may have gotten stronger, but I wasn’t all-powerful. I didn’t have the kind of overwhelming, unquestionable strength that could defeat everything in its path. But despite the fear, looking out over the burning city, I felt something stir in my heart. I felt like I had to do something to help, as an S-Rank Exorcist. I couldn’t allow myself to waver.

With that in mind, I said, “I understand. I’ll do my best. At the least, I won’t let things get any worse.”

“…I’ll go too. Join us as soon as you get out,” Eira said.

“Got it. We’ll do our best to get out of here.”

We headed downstairs to come up with a plan. “For starters, we’ve got to get a handle on the current situation,” she said.

“True. The most important thing to do here is find the monsters’ leader, outside the city, and kill it. I noticed the barriers are down, too, allowing monsters to endlessly flood into the city. Oh, and all the monsters outside are Huge Spiders, but there’s simply a countless number of them. That’s all I’ve managed to confirm about the situation.”

Eira nodded, urging me to continue.

“Unfortunately, my combat style is best for fighting one-on-one. I’m not as good against multiple enemies,” I finished.

“…I guess this is what they call a ‘silver lining’, isn’t it? I’m the exact opposite: I specialise in fighting against large groups.”

“Really?”

“You didn’t know? Have you never heard what people call me?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“‘The Frozen Witch’. That’s what they call me.”

We finalised our plans and headed out.

***

Currently, I was tearing through monsters with Invisible Blade. Eira was fighting, too, with her overwhelmingly powerful magic. Her nickname was definitely well-earned – her Ice Magic freezes everything it comes in contact with. With a simple wave of her hands, she could freeze everything in a line out in front of herself, immediately killing any monsters in its path.

The two of us were fighting on the front lines, entirely focused on killing monsters, with the Exorcists behind us bringing civilians to safety and taking care of any monsters that we let through. With just two people, though, it was getting increasingly difficult to maintain the line. The monsters were gaining momentum, coming at us faster. We could keep up, but we weren’t gaining any more ground.

We really need to take care of the leader, I thought. I could see it with Twilight Sight – there was a flow of mana through the air, and it seemed to continue outwards, outside the city. If I follow the flow, I should be able to find the leader… Damn it! If only we had reinforcements, I thought.

Then I spotted two familiar faces – Sherry and Sophia. The two were defending a group of about ten children, but there were too many monsters. They seemed to be on the verge of defeat.

“Eira!” I shouted, running towards Sherry and Sophia.

“I know!” she replied, freezing the ground under the monsters in the area.

I crossed the distance between us, slicing through the monsters and freeing the two of them. “Sherry, Sophia, are you okay?”

“Yuria… You’re alive…”

“Ah… We’re saved… I thought we were gonna die…”

I looked behind the two of them and saw the children standing there, trembling in fear. Why… Why do they have to go through this, I thought, but I had no answer. The only thing I can do is eliminate these monsters, but still… I can’t help but wonder why this has to happen.

And so, our hellish battle… continued.