chapter 59

One day has passed since the matter with Octavio.

I regrouped with Pomera at the adventurer’s guild and looked for a suitable commission posted on the bulletin board together. After that, we went to gather information regarding the commission from various sources such as other adventurers.

According to rumors, Octavio had already left the city. It seems that he’d bought out too many grudges from other adventurers aside from me as well. Though the others weren’t able to do anything before since Octavio used to be more powerful than them, they used this chance after Octavio had lost his dominant arm and attacked him during the night. Though he’d managed to come out of the incident alive, he’d immediately left the city since he knew that he could no longer peacefully live in this city after piling up so many grudges from others.

The good thing was that there were no rumors regarding our involvement in this matter. It seems that we’d scared Octavio enough that he hadn’t tried to do anything further and just fled from the city without further incidents.

「C-rank has so many challenging requests… doesn’t it, Kanata-san?」

Pomera was throwing a sidelong glance towards me.

「Y… yeah.」

I averted my gaze from her.

「W-why are you not looking at my face, Kanata-san? Pomera, uhm… Pomera can’t remember what happened after we had lunch yesterday. And by the time Pomera woke up, she was already in her own room in the inn. W-What Pomera did during those blank moments, Kanata-san?」

「So you don’t remember huh…」

Pomera’s shoulders trembled upon hearing my remark, clutching the staff in her hands tightly.

「S-Sorry… as expected, Pomera must’ve–」

「No, it really isn’t a not big deal!」

「SO POMERA REALLY DID SOMETHING!?」

Turns out that Pomera was… a light-weight drinker.

Well, no, she might be even worse than that.

I’d felt that something was wrong with her after she’d downed her third mug of beer, but unfortunately, at that point… I was too late to stop her.

Though I personally couldn’t differentiate it, I get the feeling that the beer in this world has a higher alcohol concentration than the beer in Japan. That’s why I hadn’t drunk much more than the initial sip.

I should’ve dragged her out of that store as soon as I saw her bottom her first mug and take my mug while speaking in an unusually cheery sing-song voice,『If Kanata-sa~n don’t want to dri~nk it, Pomera will gladly take i~t』. The fact that she had said that without a shred of hesitation of embarrassment unlike the normal Pomera should’ve been an immediate flag.

But unfortunately, I was too late in stopping her and due to that, I’d ended up being on the receiving end of various sorts of harassment from the drunken Pomera such as having my head patted while being told the cliche cheesy line from a light-weight drinker, 『Kanata-sa~n seems to be lightweight drinke~r』. She’d continued to cling to me incessantly and in the end finally took our her staff and started to spin a magic circle in her drunken stupor. I ended up being forced to put her under a sleep spell using soul magic to prevent any actual damage.

「… Uhm, I don’t know what to say but… my apologies.」

「Something big must’ve happened back then right? Please tell Pomera… what did Pomera do that time?」

Pomera asked me with an anxious look on her face.

”

”

I put on a wry smile to try to reassure her somehow, but it backfired and the color drained from Pomera’s face.

… Anyhow, I’ll remember not to let Pomera drink more than three mugs next time.

At that moment, I heard a scream ring out from the outside.

A man suddenly intruded into the guild just when I was wondering what was happening.

「Oi, the color of the sky is strange! It suddenly turned… purplish red!」

Sudden commotion erupted inside the guild as soon as the man finished speaking.

「… Is that a common occurrence in this area?」

When I asked Pomera, she shook her head with worry.

We decided to leave the guild for the time being to check on the situation.

Surely, the color of the sky was a deep purplish-red.

Maybe the sunset? …. But, it doesn’t feel like one.

It was obviously one hell of a bizarre color and everyone was looking up at the sky with concern.

Well, it’s not like they could do anything about this situation other than look at it.

Suddenly, I saw a bird flying far above the city. It ended up being caught inside the bizarre purplish-red sky.

「The sky is… rather, is this phenomenon just happen in this city?」

By the time I’d spoken, the people around me were starting to panic. Upon looking around, I found that some people were leaning against walls or crouching on the floor.

Just what was happening here…?

I thought that this was some sort of natural phenomenon in this world, but after looking at my surroundings, I became convinced that this wasn’t something that was normal.

「O-Ouch… m-my arm, I can’t raise… my arm.」

「I feel… so weak.」

Some of the people started groaning in pain.

「What’s… happening to them?」

「Y-You really don’t feel anything… Kanata-san? I mean, I feel that my stamina is leaking out.」

As soon as Pomera told me so, I looked at my status and confirmed that my HP and MP had decreased a bit.

I’d failed to notice this since the amount leaking from my body was simply far too small.

I was at a loss for words.

Whatever this bizarre phenomena was, it was able to penetrate the Lunaire Robe’s defensive mechanic.

When I looked up to the sky again, I finally realized.

「Barrier Magic…」

The entire city was enveloped by a barrier that would sap the HP and MP of the citizens trapped within the boundary of this barrier.

But, according to Lunaire, it should be impossible to deploy such a gargantuan barrier like this without prior preparation. There should be another independent barrier inside of this barrier… a safe zone that should be created to protect the caster somewhere inside the city.

The caster must’ve had extreme confidence that his or her power would be enough to defeat anyone who might come to stop them.

I’m sure that the culprit isn’t some paper tiger like Lovis. This person was a bonafide high level magician. Maybe it was the man from the wanted poster that was said to have been sighted in this city a while ago.

「Escape from this city immediately…」

When I said that, I caught a glimpse of children leaning against the ramparts. They were crying in pain while being embraced by their mother.

At this rate, it was only a matter of time before the weakest died from being fully exhausted of their HP and MP.

”

”

It’s obvious that this barrier magic indiscriminately sucked up the mana and vitality from everyone within it. It’ll be too late if I don’t beat up the caster of this barrier right away.

Trying to help everyone by myself is impossible since this city is too big. I’m sure that there’ll be a mountain of corpses before everyone can escape from the city. Even if I destroy the barrier, the culprit might’ve planted auxiliary devices within the city. Even if I can deactivate one of these devices, taking all of them out by myself was an impossible task.

Thus, the fastest method is to visit the caster of this barrier and defeat the person myself.

「Okay… I can do this.」

I took a deep breath after understanding the situation and made the best possible decision in this situation based on the priority.

Lunaire has already taught me the most effective ways of dealing with extremely dangerous beings since they’re the ones who’re the most wary of transferred people like me.

I mean, that was the main reason she’d taught me the 《Twin Mind Model》 . Maybe it had been preparation for me to fight against a 《JinMaRyuu》, someone who could transcend the norm.

At least, the strongest person in the Aarburg adventurer’s guild is me. Running away by myself while letting the people in this city die went against my moral principles.

So, just wait for me, culprit-san.