1002: Robe Guy

『The guy who was supposed to be the mastermind died so easily…』

（Master, everyone is…）

With Georg defeated, a change to over Frederick and the others.

All of them ceased combat and began writhing in pain instead, clutching their heads and moaning. The light of reason came back to their faces.

Velmeria and Frederick retained their consciousness, but Tilanaria simply collapsed to the ground.

「Fr…an…」

「Velmeria!」

It definitely looks like Georg was the one making them crazy like that. But why was Georg himself in a similar state?

「I’ll heal you!」

「No, stop!」

「Velmeria?」

「We still… don’t know… what’s coming next. Leave us be… for now.」

Velmeria seems to believe that someone might be able to puppet them again. That’s why they thought it would be better for them to remain out of action.

Apparently, they kept the memories of their time being controlled. The fallen Frederick also appeared very apologetic.

「Black Lightning Princess, forgive us.」

「Don’t worry. Anyway, are you okay?」

「Yeah…」

The damage taken by their bodies wasn’t quite as severe as the recoil and exhaustion from going all out. Even without healing, their injuries weren’t so serious as to kill them.

Should we evacuate Velmeria and the others before we deal with the robe guy? Fran agreed with my line of thought.

「Izario, we should evacuate Velmer――」

「Why I would let you do that?」

Fran’s words were interrupted by the lovely voice of a young girl. Her voice was so harmonious that they literally felt like music to my ears.

What surprised me most was the source of this voice.

「Oh boy. You’ve been quiet all this time, and you pick now to speak up. Eh, robe guy?」

「I am no guy.」

「A girl?」

「I’m also not young enough to be called a girl.」

A beautiful young girl with elegant, wavy blonde hair and unblemished white skin appeared from under the robe. She looked rather short, so there’s no way she was over 20 years old.

But her ears were pointed, so maybe she’s an elf? As usual, my appraisal was still getting repelled… Whatever cloaking ability she’s using must be very high level.

As I struggled to find some way to appraise her, the girl suddenly started laughing hysterically.

「Ahahahahaha! What a farce this is, really! I’ve prepared my plan for ages before finally taking action, and you ruin everything in a matter of minutes! It’s just all so laughable!」

Despite her words, her eyes were not smiling. They continued staring at us with disgust.

「And you, calling yourself the true king of the dragonkin! I even gave you the Dragon Divine Form skill, and you still managed to lose! Truly useless! I was a fool to expect anything from such scum! As I should have known from the beginning, garbage dragonkin are nothing but walking failures!」

There was not the slightest hint of a smile on the girl’s face as she stomped the ground in anger. All I could see in her deep, dark eyes was spite and madness.

Despite all of this coming from a small girl, she radiated a strangely intense aura. Izario began speaking to the girl, slowly and cautiously.

「So? Who are you?」

「Take a guess.」

「Are you an elf?」

The girl simply snickered at the question, as if she had the utmost confidence in herself. Meanwhile, Izario twisted his lips into a grin as well.

It seems he’s decided to play along for now. Realizing this, Fran paused her own movements to avoid provoking the girl.

「It seems you have some grudge against the dragonkin.」

「Oh? You can tell?」

「Judging by your response, little girl, I take it you’re no elf?」

「Just so you know, I’m pretty sure I’m older than you.」

She looked about the same age as Fran, but her being older than Izario was no surprise if she’s from the long-lived races. So she had a similar appearance to elves and lived as long as them, but was no elf? What could her race be?

「That so? I suppose I should show some respect to my elders then. So why did you come all the way here? If you hated the Dragon King so much, why did you team up with him?」

「Team up? Did it really look that way to you?」

「Well, at least the structure of your team seemed pretty rigid.」

「Fufu, of course. I have a talent for disciplining those lizards.」

Velmeria responded to the robed girl’s dark laughter.

「What are you――」

「I don’t recall giving the lizards permission to speak. Shut your mouth, I don’t want your taint contaminating the air.」

The girl’s smile completely disappeared when she replied. Just by that face, I could tell she hated the dragonkin with every fiber of her being. The eyes staring at Velmeria showed not a single shred of positive emotions.

「Wow, that’s scary. What made you hate the dragonkin so much?」

「Hmph, nothing you’ll want to hear, I’m sure. They’re the target for our vengeance, and that’s all there is to it.」

「Uh-huh, I see.」

So it’s all about revenge? Indeed not something we wanted to hear. The trouble with people acting on a grudge was that it’s hard to get them to stop.

「Can we put an end to this little game now? If you leave those dragonkin behind, I’ll consider letting you off the hook.」

「You certainly seem confident, huh? The guy in front of you is a Rank S adventurer, you know. I’m rather strong myself.」

「True. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to beat you.」

Despite her words, the girl maintained her confident attitude.

She grabbed the hilt of the strange sword still impaled in the core, and turned her other palm toward us. Immediately after, the girl blasted us with a dense mass of evil energy.

『Get outta here!』

The evil energy reached out to grab us like tentacles, but I dissipated all of them with my skill. It seems Evil Domination works well against this kind of attack.

Upon seeing this, the girl’s face twisted in surprise for the first time.

「No way! Someone else with the power to control evil energy…?」

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