In the World of Midgar 109 — The Beast Country Draupnir (24)

꒰ঌ The Beast Country Draupnir 24

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Four scary demihumans were facing off against one beautiful woman in the forest. By numbers alone, it was four against one. On top of that, the woman was fairly seriously wounded for some reason, and the four demihumans had just shown in the earlier fight that they were elites who could easily fight off the Sword Saint, Plue, humanity's strongest warrior.

But they were unable to make a move. Just one heavily injured unknown woman was completely overpowering them mentally. They couldn't see a single opening. Even in their imaginations, they'd be countered easily no matter how they attacked. They could clearly sense that their power couldn't be compared, since they now knew they were only of middling strength. Their opponent was injured, though… she wasn't unbeatable. Having concluded that, the four of them scattered before assaulting Pyrrha.

"Woooaaarrgghh!"

"Hrmph!"

The first ones to go in were the spiderman and the merman. Each of them used their weapons to strike at Pyrrha. The merman's harpoon was stopped by her javelin, and the spiderman's leg was blocked by a single finger. No matter how much the two of them strained against Pyrrha, neither of them could budge.

Pyrrha first kicked away the merman before swinging the back of her fist into the spiderman. The spiderman managed to react in time and avoid a direct blow, but the strike was incredibly heavy! Her movements should be dulled because of the damage she's taken, so what the hell is this power?! the spiderman thought.

The merman, who'd taken the hit full-on, had hit a tree and was completely knocked out, and the limb that the spiderman blocked with was broken.

"Aqua Blast!"

"Air Slasher!"

The lamia shot a bullet of water, while the dryad launched a blade of air. Pyrrha simply swatted the spells away as if they were flies before quickly counterattacking.

"Ptarmigan!" Pyrrha chanted the spell's name, and lightning spread out of her like wings before piercing through her four foes. The rest of them fell over, trailing black smoke, but they weren't dead yet. Still, a single attack had given them all life-threatening wounds, making the difference between them clear.

As they lay on the ground, Pyrrha spoke to them with a leisurely expression. "I made sure not to take your lives, but if you're going to keep going, then you're going to have to prepare yourselves for death. Now, I'll ask you once. Do you still want to continue?"

"Mnrr…" The spiderman, who seemed to be their leader, let out a muffled grumble before raising his hand and giving orders to the rest of the group. "We're leaving…"

"Wait, seriously?! Some half-dead girl like this should be easy if we all go at her! We won't let our guards down this time!" the dryad bit back when the spiderman calmly ordered their retreat.

The spiderman didn't change his mind. "We've already done what we came here for. There's no reason for us to keep wasting our time here."

The gap in strength was clear. Even if she was damaged, they'd be the ones to die if they continued to fight. The spiderman knew that truly strong people were the most dangerous when they were cornered, so he decided to withdraw. He believed that it was the best choice.

"W-wait! Who the hell are you all?! Why did you do this?!" Haru suddenly shouted after the four of them as they made to leave.

The spiderman turned around and replied in a quiet voice, "We are people who desire a revolution for this world."

"World? Revolution?"

"Exactly. You humans will only be able to parade around like you own the place for a little longer. When the great Sienna gets serious, she'll wipe out both you all and the grimmfolk. Then, our time will come." The spiderman answered honestly even though he didn't have to, and the dryad followed suit and turned around as well.

But then the lamia smacked the two of them over the head. "Hey, stop wasting time talking to them. Let's hurry home."

The lamia dragged the unconscious merman behind her as they left, and the dryad raised her hand reluctantly. When she did, they were enveloped in sudden strong winds, blowing them up into the air. They then quickly flew off. Eventually, they disappeared off into the distance.

"The hell was that?" Teuchi said as he worked to free Haru and Wendy from the spider silk.

Sweating, Mitokado responded, voicing his suspicions. "I have a bad feeling about this. From what they said, something really bad is about to happen."

World revolution, humans and monsters, and the name Sienna… I have a really bad feeling about this. There's no way this is good. Anyway, I can think about this later. Healing the guardian dragon and everyone else is first.

Mitokado joined the rest of the group and looked over their wounds. "Tch, this is awful…"

"D-don't bother with us… Get to the guardian dragon first."

Mitokado looked over Russell, Dove, and Larks, and their wounds were ghastly. Each one was a deep wound that reached down to the bone, and even using high-level healing magic, they'd need several days to fully recover. It looks like they won't be able to continue with us on this journey…

Wendy, having finally regained her freedom, bowed to Pyrrha, who'd saved her, before rushing to the guardian dragon. She actually wanted to take more time thanking her, but the guardian dragon's state was an emergency.

"High Healing!"

She pointed her hand at the guardian dragon, hitting it with healing light. High Healing was a high-ranking fundamental healing heaven-arts. Its effect depended on the skill of the user, so at Wendy's level, one use would heal around 30,000 HP. This meant that to the world today, she could fully heal pretty much anybody in one shot. But the wounds didn't seem to heal at all, and the guardian dragon still didn't open its eyes.

Seeing that, Wendy's face turned pale. It's too late…

It didn't matter what kind of spell was used, none of them would have any effect anymore, because the dragon was already dead.

"Wh-what's wrong, Miss Wendy? Why aren't you healing it?" Pakkun grabbed onto Wendy's shoulders and shook her as he spoke, but Wendy averted her eyes and shook her head.

"Sorry… With my skill, it's…"

There was indeed a technique to revive the dead. There was only a small window after death where it was effective, but a heaven-arts technique to revive the dead did in fact exist. It was the highest-ranking, most difficult of techniques, and Wendy had yet to learn it. Lucifen might have been able to use it, but it was impossible for Wendy.

"N-no way, that can't be… I-I heard from Haru! You're one of Ouzelia Lucifen's friends, right? Th-Then, nothing should be…"

"Sorry… I'm the weakest and lowest leveled out of everyone, so…"

"…"

Having heard Wendy's reply, Pakkun finally let go of her with a grave expression. His expression warped, looking like he was somewhere between grief-stricken and furious. As a knight, he couldn't vent his anger and grief on Wendy, so with no outlet in the vicinity, he chose to blame the monsters to barely maintain his mental balance.

"Damn you, monsters! DAAMMNNN YOOOUUUUU!" Pakkun cried and hissed, all the hairs on his body standing on end.

Pyrrha, drawn over by the outburst of emotion, joined Wendy and Pakkun. She gave Wendy a serious once-over.

Eventually, Wendy spoke, unable to silently withstand the scrutiny. "U-um?"

"Ah, sorry. I was being rude, staring at you like that. Forgive me. Do you know Lady Lucy?"

"Ah, yes."

Answering the question "are you Lucifen's friend?" like that was nothing short of a bad move. It wouldn't have been strange to have been captured right then and there. But the red haired woman just muttered, "I see," before happily nodding and taking a small bottle out of her pocket. Then, she poured the contents of the bottle into the guardian dragon's mouth.

"Um, what's that…?"

"It's called 'Amrita.' It's the pinnacle of alchemy, made by putting water from the Well of Urd into a pot and mixing it with things like elixirs, the blood of a Dragon King, and the blood of a phoenix. Its effect is greater than that of an elixir and can even revive the dead, though it has to be used within a short window after death. It's something even Lady Lucy only ever made a small amount of."

Wendy actually didn't understand much of what Pyrrha said, but she did understand that it was an absurdly rare and valuable thing. As proof of that, Mitokado's eyes had already rolled into the back of his head.

"Blood of the Dragon King… Phoenix blood… Water from the Well of Urd… Agabababagabagagaba…"

"U-um… Is that really all right? Using such a precious thing, I mean."

"Oh, don't worry about it. It seems you're one of my new comrades, after all. Just think of this as a small form of celebration to welcome you."

"Then you're…"

"Ah, right. I haven't introduced myself. Sorry about that. I am one of the Heavenly Twelve Zodiac's Guardians, Pyrrha, one of Gemini guardians."

Having heard the name Twelve Zodiac's Guardians, Teuchi swiftly and suddenly put his guard up. For some reason, Haru didn't feel like that would be necessary, so he simply continued watching over Wendy and Pyrrha. Hmm… It feels different… I can feel a sort of calmness that didn't exist in the other Twelve Zodiac's Guardians. To Haru, she was at least calm enough not to warrant immediate caution. Most importantly, she'd just saved them all. Haru felt that being on guard like that would actually be rude, so she couldn't bring herself to put up a stance for battle.

"Hmm? Looks like the dragon's breathing again. That's a dragon's vitality for you."

Everyone reacted to what Pyrrha said and looked over to the guardian dragon. They saw that she was telling the truth; the guardian dragon's wounds had completely healed, and she was now peacefully sleeping. Seeing that, Pyrrha smiled, satisfied. She walked up to a nearby tree and sat, leaning against it.

"A-are you okay?" Haru questioned Pyrrha worriedly.

"Mmm. I'm fine. I messed up a little before coming here, so I need to take a rest. I'll be able to walk again after," she replied calmly. Then, she looked around at everyone and continued speaking. "More importantly, are you guys sure you can afford to sit around here? I'm not entirely sure what's going on, but it seems real complicated. I think it'd be a better use of your time to figure this out among yourselves instead of worrying about me."

Pyrrha's words had Haru and the rest of them looking at each other.

She's right. We need to go back and report on what just happened. It was likely that what had happened just now wasn't a random monster attack. More specifically, we have to assume that they intend to make an enemy of the entire country — no, all of humanity.

"You're right. Dove and the others need serious medical attention too. Let's go back."

"But they might come back. Don't we have to stay and guard the dragon?"

Haru suggested going back, but Teuchi made the point that they had to leave someone here on guard. The one who volunteered was Wendy.

"Then I'll stay. I want to chat with Pyrrha for a while too."

"Okay… But you make sure you run away the moment you think she's going to try something. She's one of the Twelve Zodiac's Guardians. You don't know what she'll try to pull."

"Ah, okay."

Worried, Mitokado tried to warn Wendy, who'd volunteered to stay. But Wendy was also one of the Twelve Zodiac's Guardians, so in a sense he was telling her, "There's no telling what you might do." Of course, that wasn't what Mitokado had meant at all.

In the end, Haru and his party left the forest, leaving Wendy and Pyrrha alone with the guardian dragon.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire. She's got a lot going on too, doesn't she? Wendy thought as she ran towards her, sighing.

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