784: Onwards to Nocta

Fran returned to the west port and found herself in the training hall of the Adventurers Guild. Diggins the bear beastman had asked her to participate in a mock battle.

This was a perfect chance to show the strength of the black cats, with the Rank B Diggins as her opponent. There was no way Fran could refuse.

「Let’s do this!」

「Nn!」

With the gallery watching, the mock battle begins.

「Darya!」

Diggins’ attacks were relentless. He knew that he would have to be serious or it wouldn’t even count as a mock battle.

He unleashed blows that could shatter a human body into pieces if they hit, and he even weaved in feints.

「Hmph, hmph, hmph!」

「Too slow!」

「Gugah!」

But it didn’t matter how heavy they were if they didn’t hit. It was only a matter of seconds before the fight was over.

Fran, who had been evading Diggins’ strikes, delivered a blow to his stomach. That was enough to knock Diggins to the wall.

Most of the onlookers probably thought that Diggins would win. A shrieking commotion ensued.

Their eyes had previously looked down at Fran as if she didn’t know her place, and now all of them did a 180 degree turn. Diggins must be pretty famous.

Diggins crashed down pretty hard, but quickly got up and wiped the dirt off his body lightly. He shouldn’t have taken much damage, but he still performed a slight bow and admitted defeat.

「I’ve lost. As impressive as always, Black Lightning Princess-san. To think you’d have this kind of power even when you were taking it easy.」

「I didn’t think you’d be able to get up so quickly either.」

「Heh heh. I’m still confident in my sturdiness. That warmed me up nicely, so may I ask for one more round?」

「Nn, sure.」

They had not made any agreements beforehand, but the two continued the practice match with weapons only, no use of magic or Awakening. Diggins wasn’t lying about his sturdiness, as he quickly got up every time he was knocked down.

With that toughness, self-healing, and inexhaustible stamina, he must be of great use in a long battle against antidemons.

Hilt and Colbert joined in as well, and it became kinda like a disorderly brawl.

Finally it ended with a mock battle between Fran and Colbert, in which Fran displayed a surprising technique.

「Sei!」

「Guh! T-This is… penetrating force?」

「Nn… I’ve been hit by it so many times, that I kinda learned how to use it.」

「Kuhaha… That’s what I’m… talking about…」

It seemed that she got a feel of how to use it after enduring a bunch of hits during the mock battle. She’s used mana to cover her fists many times before, but it looked like the technique had been sharpened considerably.

Since “Penetrating Force” had not been added to her list of skills, I guess it was treated as a technique under Holy Fist Arts.

「Fran, are you sure you don’t want to join the Dimitris Style? You can be a veteran disciple in no time!」

「No thanks.」

「No matter what?」

「Nn.」

「Sigh. I thought so. What a shame.」

Hilt quickly took a chance to sneakily invite Fran. I thought she would be running over to Colbert, since he had fallen down coughing up blood, but I guess she was currently in the “master of the school” mode right now.

After the practice battle was over, it’s time for drinks. Fran seemed to be having a good time with the local adventurers, who were all making a lot of noise.

Now there were probably few adventurers in the western port who didn’t know Fran’s name.


The next day.

We left the west port at sunrise. Normally Fran would sleep in, but I guess she was in a hurry to get to Castel.

Our destination was Nocta, a city in a safe zone.

『Fran, don’t be too hard on yourself, okay?』

「Nn, I’ll be fine.」

Fran was now running in the wilderness on her own feet. No matter how much we conceal Urushi’s mana, he is still more easily detected by antidemons.

Our plan during the journey was that Fran would ride on Urushi’s back only when resting or at night. She still had to move on her own half the time.

Even so, the encounter rate with antidemons was reasonably high. This was because antidemons were more numerous in the interior of the continent.

We kept moving forward, hunting low ranked swordsmen and archers along the way.

After half a day of progress, we discovered a large group of antidemons. There were about 1,000 of them.

And it’s not just the number that’s big. The antidemon in the center was physically huge.

It was still quite a distance away, but the figure was clearly visible. It looked to be about the size of a two-story house.

Its coloring was the same as that of other antidemons. The base was black and the armor it wore was gray. Its eyes, horns, and spines were green. But its distinguishing features were its size and the long, thin tube that extended from the dome-shaped part of the body.

I guess that’s the cannon-type? Despite its huge size, it moved relatively quickly.

At the bottom of the dome-like silhouette of the cannon-type, I saw spider-like legs. You could say it looked like a four-legged spider.

However, the commander of this army was not that cannon-type.

（Next to that big one is the boss? That’s a lot of evil energy.）

『Yeah, it’s gotta be him.』

A knight-type, clad in dense mana and evil energy, stood tall at the center of the army. While several other knight-types were about 3 meters tall, the commander was probably close to 5 meters. It was simply huge.

Perhaps this was one of those Uniques we’ve been hearing about.

（What do we do?）

We shouldn’t take any chances when we don’t know the exact strength of our opponent. While we’re in Gordicia, there are very few safe places we can run to.

『If it were just us, we wouldn’t have to try fighting them, but…』

（There’s a lot of people over there.）

『They’re probably some country’s army. At this rate, they’ll get caught up in a few minutes…』

The troops ahead showed no signs of hurrying away. Either they were unaware, or they intended to intercept the horde.

『For now let’s catch up and try informing them.』

（Got it.）

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