CH 241.2

241 – Dancing Amidst the Sudden Rain of Blood 2 (Part 2)

A power that can turn even the Gale Hero Ewan to stone. A considerable amount of Magical Energy would be required to Resist it.

Wraith and I are the only ones who can guard against it in this party.

Right now, Fran is fighting Short Hair while avoiding places that Botis is likely to hide in.

No matter how good Botis is at hiding, it isn’t as if she can truly disappear without a trace.

Fighting in an open space, it is possible to defend against her surprise attacks by keeping in mind the effective range of her Evil Eye.

Fran’s Job is Destroyer, but she is also Wraith’s childhood friend. She specializes in a bold way of fighting, but that isn’t to say that fighting strategically is a weak point of hers.

Fran looked at me for a brief moment.

I quickly nodded back.

It’s alright. Leave it to me.

Fran quickly turned away from me and displayed a far more intense offensive than before.

「Josh, it’s your time to shine.」

「Yeah…!」

We are currently riding atop Melania’s shoulder.

I brush aside her fluffy hair and approach her ear.

「Melania.」

「Hyaa…! Wh-what is it?」

Looks like that tickled her. I apologized and then told her the battle plan.

「Can I count on you?」

The mild-mannered girl gave an uncharacteristically strong-willed nod in response.

「Lady Carmilla’s orders. The tower must fall.」

That was the voice of the Blood Manipulator Long Hair who came up behind us.

「I-I won’t lose~…!」

Melania forcefully swings her club downwards.

He…does not avoid it.

A Vampire’s response time should be fast enough to dodge it. Even considering how strong they are, it wouldn’t be a good idea to stop this attack with his hand-… Of course!

I notice his motive a moment too late.

「Thanks for the help, milady. Thanks to your club, I am sheltered from the rain.」

Ignoring the sounds of muscle and bones breaking coming from his arm, there is a fearless smile on his face.

「Melania! Retreat-」

Receiving a blow from her downward-swung club means that it is now in a position in between him and the sky.

In other words, a space where rain doesn’t fall was created.

With no interruptions from the rain, the superior Blood Manipulator from the third stratum assaults Melania.

It looked like a belt. A red belt-shaped sword big enough to be a bandage for Giants. Two of them grew out of his back.

He runs along the underside of the club and slices up Melania’s right wrist.

Blood replacement Magical Energy particles scattered about.

Losing strength in her arm, Melania dropped her club.

Long Hair caught it without a moment’s delay and forcibly wielded a club meant for a Cyclops, albeit only a Half-Cyclops.

His muscles bulged. No, it wasn’t just that. Blood too? He manipulated the blood that was wrapped around him to acquire the power needed to wield it.

A thunderous noise rang from Melania’s right knee, causing her posture to break.

It was a tremendous impact.

Josh and I were thrown into the air, each flying in a different direction.

I somehow managed to perform Ukemi as I landed, but I wasn’t able to completely kill the momentum. [1. TL Note: Ukemi is an art of falling or breaking one’s fall safely. It’s used in many martial arts as well as MMA.]

I bounced and rolled several times on the wet plaza floor until I finally came to a stop.

The timing is just right when my allies are downed by an unexpected attack and I have to regain my posture.

That’s right… I was aiming for this.

「…Wha-?!」

Botis, who removed the bandages on her eyes and pointed her Evil Eye in my direction, was clearly shocked.

At a time that couldn’t be any more perfect than this, her Evil Eye was Resisted.

Her timing couldn’t have been better.

She brilliantly took advantage of the moment when a person’s guard is down after trying to regain their composure.

Resist is a technique that constantly drains your Magical Energy, and it cannot be released to defend against Botis’s Evil Eye unless you focus a large amount of Magical Energy in order to do so.

Even against an opponent with an abundance of Magical Energy, they can be turned to stone during moments that they aren’t releasing Magical Energy.

Wraith, Fran, me. I figured that it would be one of us that she would aim for.

To me, they are precious allies, but from the enemy party’s point of view, they are threats to be considered.

Fran is always vigilant, and Wraith would find a way to make it work even if he was targeted.

The target would have to be me. The Black Sorcerer with a Holy Sword whose Black Magic would become a problem if left alone.

「You… Our plan…」

Even if it is unclear when, where, and how it would happen…

As long as it was clear who the target was, I just had to be constantly vigilant for when the time comes.

「Thanks for being cautious of me.」

The Carmilla party decided that Melania and Josh can be defeated without using the Evil Eye.

If they fought one-on-one with the Vampires, that probably would have been true.

But together as a party, I don’t believe we are weaker than them.

「…Well played.」

Precisely because she has to pour everything she has into activating her Evil Eye, and because she made her presence disappear until the very last minute, Botis didn’t cover herself in Magical Energy.

In front of a Black Sorcerer, that is fatal.

With Speed Down cast on her, she wasn’t able to intercept my slash and I cut her down.

As the Evil Eye Assassin Botis turns into Magical Energy particles, another battle was about to reach its conclusion.

The long-haired Vampire cut up Melania’s right wrist with his belt-shaped sword.

And then he used the club that she dropped to smash her knee.

Right now, that guy is…fluttering in the air.

In exchange for dropping her club, she wrapped the belt-shaped sword around her arm.

This is as dangerous as grabbing a hold of a blade with your bare hands, but her hands were wrapped in Magical Energy before the confrontation even began… We have a White Sorcerer.

By the time that Long Hair, who was so focused on pressing the attack, noticed that the blood belt sword was entangled around her arm, his whole body was pulled up into the air.

The Blood Manipulator was slightly late in tearing off the belt from his back and throwing it away, but he was a step too slow.

「Gr…the rain…!」

He could manipulate his blood if he put in a vast amount of Magical Energy, but doing that just moments after losing a large amount of blood is impossible.

Even the option of growing wings or shapeshifting into another animal is sealed.

「I said so earlier…」

With the Giant’s shield on her left hand, she charges at the Vampire while pushing aside all the surrounding air.

「I won’t lose…!」

A dull sound echoed and soon after, he flew through several buildings one after another, leaving a man-shaped hole in each one.

Melania’s one attack made him go through the walls of a total of four buildings.

As expected, I couldn’t see the Magical Energy particles from here, but there’s no way he could have avoided being defeated by that.

「Alright…!」

Both Josh and I yelled.

I want to celebrate Melania’s hard-fought victory, but the battle still rages on.

I tried to confirm the progress of Wraith and Fran’s battle… Then I saw it.

「Eh? What…?」

A whip made of blood pierces through Josh’s abdomen.

「Oh my, how sturdy. I suppose it is to be expected from an Ogre.」

The Impaling Daughter Haagenti.

No. It was…

「…Carmilla.」

That slipped out of my mouth, and instead of it being drowned out by the sound of falling rain, it seemed to reach her ears.

「Indeed. Tis I, Carmilla. Black Sorcerer Lem.」