Chapter 96 - Demon Hawks

Just before the sun peaked its head over the horizon, Cecil's party, the Little Kings, were already heading back out into the forest to finish their quest.

This time they had a plan and it would revolve around Ainz and Lucia's area attack spells.

"Remember okay, Eli, Veli, and I will lure the flock into the open field in the middle of the forest, after that I'll 'Blink' the three of us out of there. Once we've cleared the area, Ainz will cast Tornado and Lucia will follow up with Crimson Pillar."

"Okay~"

"Alright."

Everyone gave their affirmative with only Fina raising her hand in the air. Cecil turned towards her and asked, "What's up Fina?"

"W-what will I be doing?"

"You're on support, just in case something unexpected happens and we get stuck in the middle of the flock later, I want you to cast an Aqua and ice barrier on us. So even if we fail to get out in time, we'll at least be able to endure the flames from Lucia's spell until we can break out of there."

"Okay!"

"Say... don't you think that's a little dangerous?" Lucia frowned.

"Like I said, it's only a backup plan just in case something DOES happen. All we have to do is make sure we don't screw up later. Although not everything will probably go as planned, but at least we should take measures to prioritize our safety while at the same time make sure we complete our mission."

"...Alright."

As they were talking, the group finally arrived at the clearing where they would stage their plan.

"Okay, Eli and Velicia go to the east and lure the flock over. I'll head west and lure that part of the flock. Ainz, Lulu, get ready."

"Let's go Veli."

"Gotcha~"

Eli and Velicia moved towards the east of the forest to lure the flock of demon hawks, Cecil took a glance at the rest and nodded. He activated Mana Burst and disappeared from his spot.

Ainz whistled seeing this, "Man, I never get tired seeing that."

"Enough, let's prepare."

"Alright." Ainz began chanting, Lucia however didn't. She took out her magic pen and ink then began writing inscriptions on her magic scrolls.

It was quick and after she wrote them she started placing them around the field. She also asked Fina to help her with this.

"Lucia? What are these for?"

"Plan B, just in case Plan A goes wrong."

"Oh! A contingency!" Fina exclaimed.

"Just like Cecil said, we should prioritize our safety while at the same time finish our mission. At least I hope this will help."

"Mhm!"

Ainz had finished chanting his spell when Lucia came back to begin chanting hers. Ainz was concentrating to delay the activation so he didn't have any spare time to observe what Lucia and Fina had been doing earlier.

Over at Eli and Velicia's side, the two were drawing near the area that the flock of demon hawks had nestled down upon. When they arrived, they could see that many of the hawks were just awakening from their slumber or still asleep.

Elizabeth and Velicia stopped at a safe distance. Elizabeth turned towards Velicia and whispered.

"Okay, here should be good enough... let me cast a Flame Sword to attract their attention. Veli keep an eye out."

"Okay!" Velicia whispered in reply.

Elizabeth quickly finished her spell and she locked onto the area where the most demon hawks were congested. She pointed her rapier at her targeted area and yelled,

"FLAME SWORD!"

WOOOSHHH BOOOOOOOMMM

The flaming sword cut through the air and quickly struck at the flock of demon hawks and exploded.

Many charred corpses of the hawks rained down from the air and littered the forest floor. Her scream and the resulting explosion from Elizabeth's spell startled awake the entire flock.

The entire flock of demon hawks began cawing and screeching in fury. The monsters quickly located their attacker and rushed towards the two girls.

The sheer amount of demon hawks that flocked towards the two girls would have caused anyone to freeze in fear.

This had happened to almost everyone in the group when they first encountered the flock. The majestic, but deadly sight of hundreds of thousands of monsters rushing at them aiming for their life caused everyone in the Little Kings party to freeze in fear, all except for Lucia and Cecil.

This wasn't the first time they had to deal with a horde of monsters, so the two were able to quickly respond and cast spells to delay and hinder the flock of monsters' assault. Their actions caused the rest of the group to snap out of their fear.

Since this was already the second or third time the two girls were facing such a situation, they had already adapted and no longer froze in fear at the spectacle.

Velicia was on lookout and had already casted a combat skill on herself, she quickly grabbed ahold of Elizabeth and turned around to run. Elizabeth was currently sending more Flame Swords at the flock, trying as hard as she can to attract the attention of as many demon hawks as she can while being carried by Velicia.

After her 4th Flame Sword, Elizabeth began casting a combat skill. After her body was enhanced with the skill, Velicia quickly threw her forward. While in the air Elizabeth started sending flame lances and fire bolts at the flock of demon hawks.

After Velicia caught up with her, Eli turned around and the two began to run towards the clearing where they would spring the trap on the flock.

Over at Cecil's side, he had already located his flock of birds, but there was a problem. The Demon Hawk King was currently present in his part of the flock.

The bird was huge. Cecil speculated that it stood at least 3-4 meters in height if it was standing on the ground. The 2 large wings on its sides were adorned with black steel-like, razor sharp feathers. Its dark claws were also glinting with a greenish light. It was painfully obvious that it had a poison claw attack in its arsenal.

The red and yellow crown-like plumes on its head was also an indication of the status it had in the flock of demon hawks.

"Tsk... this could pose a problem... oh, what's that?" Cecil was currently eyeing the majestically slumbering Demon Hawk King when he suddenly spotted 2 fruits radiating mana intensely on the tree where it was nesting on.

He quickly activated Mana Vision and saw that the fruits had an intense amount of mana stored inside.

"Woah, I'm guessing that should be a treasure?" Cecil began to think, even if he lured away the flock, there's no way the Demon Hawk King would step away from the tree with those two fruits.

"Let's deal with the other small fries first, once it's only that oversized chicken that's left, we'll swoop in and claim our prize!"

Cecil made up his mind and quickly dashed towards the northern area of the forest. He decided that it was best to leave this part of the flock for last since the demon hawk king wasn't accounted in their current plan.

Cecil arrived at the northern side really quick, he didn't hesitate and sent a mana volley into the area that was most densely packed with demon hawks.

He didn't stop there, he kept on firing mana volley after mana volley, he killed many of the hawks, but even more were still heading his way.

Cecil smirked and started dashing backwards, he didn't stop sending mana volleys into the surrounding area, hoping to attract more and more demon hawks his way.

Back in the opening, Lucia, Ainz and Fina finally noticed the commotion that was currently heading their way.

The commotion originated from the east where Eli and Velicia had headed off to, but the other one was originating from the north. They frowned at this.

"D-did Cecil... p-perhaps–"

"No." Lucia abruptly cut off. "There must be a good reason why he's deviated from the plan, let's just trust him."

"Alright..." Fina nodded.

Ainz had already sensed the commotion, so he adjusted the area at where he would cast the Tornado spell.

"Good thing that I set up all those inscriptions earlier, judging by how huge of the commotion Cecil's caused from the north, there seems to be twice– no, three times as much birds he's lured out compared to Eli's and Veli's."

"...yeah, but will he be alright?" Fina worriedly asked.

"Hah, it's Cecil, what could possibly happen? Ahaha~"

"..." Fina could only smile wryly at that.

"Get ready, here they come."

Not long after, Eli and Velicia rushed in from the east part of the field, along with them an ocean of black followed behind. As soon as they appeared, so did Cecil from the north side of the field.

Just as Lucia said, the flock of demon hawks that were chasing after him was at least 3 times the size of Eli's.

"GUYS! PHASE TWO! GO GO GO!"

At Cecil's shout, the 3 'baits' rushed into the middle of the clearing, after quickly grouping up. Cecil paused for a moment to let the flock of birds get closer. Just as the hawks were about to collide with them, Cecil quickly grabbed onto the two girls and the 3 disappeared from where they were standing, leaving behind the flock of birds to crash into each other in confusion.

They appeared a couple of meters away from the collision area. Seeing this, Lucia immediately commanded,

"AINZ NOW!"

"RISE! TORNADO!!!"

At the word, a small gale formed in the middle of the clearing just above the area where the demon hawks had collided into each other. The wind from the gale started spinning faster and faster. Not long after, a large tornado formed pulling in the demon hawks in the surroundings.

"CRIMSON LOTUS!"

The flock of demon hawks was much bigger than what Lucia and the rest first expected, so instead of Crimson Pillar, Lucia casted her original spell Crimson Lotus.

As the flaming lotus bloomed in the middle of the tornado, the winds picked up the flames and the tornado turned into a flaming tornado that caused devastation to the flock of monsters.

The flaming tornado's suction force kept on dragging in the demon hawks into it. The monsters were charred to ashes. Ainz controlled the tornado to move around and suck in more demon hawks.

Seeing their plan work, Cecil shouted, "OKAY, PHASE 3 EVERYONE!"

Fina and Lucia quickly began casting aqua barrier onto their party's 3 vanguards. Once the aqua barriers were up, Cecil, Elizabeth, and Velicia charged forward and began picking off the demon hawks that weren't caught up in Lucia's and Ainz's combo spell.

Lucia and Fina had also begun sending lava bolts, frost bolts, and aqua bolts at the flock. There was also an unexpected development during their assault.

When Fina's aqua bolt had accidently missed and was sent flying into the flaming tornado, a large explosion ensued. This caused even more damage to the flock and Lucia and Fina began casting aqua bolts into the tornado.

With this development, the party was able to quickly finish off all the demon hawks that they had lured.

Once they were finished with the first round, Cecil and his party sat down to rest.

"Okay, we'll just have to keep doing this for the northern and eastern part. We don't have to eliminate them entirely, just enough so that we've thinned the flock to a more reasonable level."

"...why not just kill them all?" Ainz asked.

"We shouldn't," Cecil said solemnly. "If we kill them all off, then another group of monsters will just come in and take their place. I saw the Demon Hawk King earlier at the western side of the forest. If there's a king that's willing to reside here in the forest that means that the forest itself is a largely contested nesting ground for monsters."

"... I still don't get it."

"Think about it, if we kill off the entire flock. Another group of monsters lead by a monster king will just come in and occupy the forest. We won't be helping the villagers this way. All we're doing is destroying the monsters and letting in new ones to come and terrorize the surrounding villages."

"Hmmm, well whatever you say lead. Let's hurry up though, I'm starving!" Ainz laughed.

"Hold on, I'm not finished. The demon hawk king I saw earlier was guarding some sort of tree, and on the tree were 2 red brown fruits that were radiating mana intensely. When I got closer I was able to sense that the mana stored inside the fruits was huge!"

"Red brown fruits? Ah, are you saying that you saw a maroon demon fruit?" Fina asked excitedly.

"I dunno, all I saw was the demon hawk king guarding those two fruits."

Fina stood up excitedly and exclaimed, "If what I'm thinking is true, then those fruits are bound to be maroon demon fruits! We've struck it rich you guys!"