908: Sophie's Entrance

Pororon…!

We heard the faint sound of a harp, but it came with a powerful effect disproportionate to the volume.

Namely, all the antidemons surrounding us suddenly stopped moving.

The mana imbued in that sound seemed to catch their full attention.

「She’s here.」

『Yeah!』

「Woof!」

Who? That’s so obvious we didn’t even need to ask. Sophie had come to our rescue.

Fran’s face regained its color. Like I thought, the uncertainty of whether or not anyone would come had been wearing her spirit down little by little.

Simply hearing the sound of Sophie’s harp was all the encouragement she needed.

Fran leapt up again, cutting down several antidemons before she hit the ground.

Sophie’s support didn’t end there. Instead of playing a song, she continued spinning out the same sound at regular intervals.

As if distracted by the sound, the antidemons failed to pay attention to Fran’s movements.

Since Sophie had experience fighting on Gordicia for several years, she must be more familiar than us when it comes to the ecology and habits of the antidemons. She was basically playing them like a fiddle with these mana infused sounds.

The only issue is that I doubt it will last forever. If she could seal their movements permanently, she would have just done it at Castel.

Sure enough, the antidemons gradually regained their composure after losing interest in Sophie.

『Fran, Urushi! Let’s do it!』

「Nn!」

「Grrr!」

This was our chance to break through the antidemons while Sophie’s sonic waves still had an effect.

Fran readied me and jumped forward with Urushi. Why didn’t we fall back? Because that wouldn’t solve the situation at all.

So what will? Taking down the antidemon commander.

Taking down the stronger antidemons would be helpful by itself, but we could even weaken the entire horde by eliminating the commander.

Fran and Urushi ran down the narrow path I created with light and wind magic. That led them to a knight-type antidemon with red horns.

This guy had way more mana than any antidemon in the vicinity. I’d say comparable to a Threat Level C monster.

Just one of these powerful antidemons entering Sendia would result in thousands of deaths.

And that’s exactly why we need the commander gone.

Defeating this one guy can greatly reduce the power of all antidemons around him.

「Awakening! Urushi, follow me!」

「Woof!」

Urushi heard Fran’s words and jumped into her shadow. His entire figure disappeared as if diving into a pool of water.

After checking that Urushi was gone, Fran raised her speed even further.

Each kick of her wind-cloaked feet on the ground increased her speed, and she even launched flames behind her to force herself forward even faster.

This was Fran’s current max speed, so fast that she even left her shadow behind. And of course, the next move was a deadly Sheaths of Wind.

No feints, no tricks, just the fastest slash we could pull off.

We had plenty of power and speed, but we were up against the same red horned knight-type that gave us lots of trouble in Castel. Taking him down wouldn’t be that easy.

The knight reacted to Fran’s slash and raised his sword to block me.

Just before our blades collided, however, the red horned knight’s stance was thrown off.

「Arf!」

Urushi jumped out of our shadow and bit off the knight’s right leg.

As a result, the red horned knight failed to block our strike and got decapitated by Fran. With his head gone and movements disabled, I evaporated what was left of him with the spell I prepared.

The remaining antidemons started moving more erratically. Like I thought, that knight was the commander of this horde.

But then the antidemons got back into the swing of things several times faster than we expected. A black horned knight, who seemed to be the second-in-command, let loose a roar. This caused all the antidemons to rush towards Fran again.

I activated the short-range teleport I had prepared to escape the encirclement. The black horned knight failed to follow our teleportation, so they lost sight of Fran as she reappeared in the skies above them.

They quickly found us again, but that minor delay was important. It allowed us to finish charging our mana, so our spell would strike the antidemons before they could respond.

I covered the entire horde in flame magic, making them lose sight of us again.

While it certainly didn’t do much damage, the mana in those flames blocked their detection of us. I could see them running around frantically to find us again.

Meanwhile, Fran landed at the spot between the antidemons and the town. Urushi also returned using Shadow Shift.

『Our ambush was successful, but there are still too many of them.』

「It’s okay. We can still fight. Besides, Sophie’s here.」

「Woof!」

I doubt Sophie actually heard Fran say that from this distance, but her music started at exactly that timing.

A gentle harp melody filled with warm mana.

Fran and Urushi’s bodies were enveloped in light, restoring their stamina slightly. Their breaths grew lighter, their heartbeats calmed, and their wounds began closing up.

A pretty mild effect compared to her other songs, but Fran was extremely grateful.

Fran turned to look at the top of the wall and made eye contact with Sophie. Don’t tell me she actually heard Fran’s whisper in the middle of a battlefield?

Now that I think about it, Sophie did say she had good hearing. How good do you have to be to hear a little whisper like that from so far away?

Fran waved her hand lightly. Sophie raised her hand in return, but her expression looked a bit distraught. It seems she was concerned about how few people she was able to bring.

While Sophie did bring us a mix of soldiers and adventurers, they totaled less than fifty.

Everyone else must be short-handed too. Fran’s presence detection should have sensed how few people there were, but that didn’t discourage her.

「That’s fine. I can keep going as long as Sophie’s here.」

Immediately after Fran’s whisper, Sophie turned downward with a tearful look on her face. However, she soon remembered that she was on a battlefield.

Her raised head still had the same look of sadness, but her fingers were already on the harp.

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