Elsez stared at Rashiel with wide, startled eyes.
“How did you suddenly appear?!”
“Our contract also included summoning magic.”
In the mana resonance contract Rashiel had proposed to Elsez, there was also a spell that would move him to her location whenever she used mana resonance.
He had already experienced losing her once before his eyes. There was no way he would have left without at least that much of a safeguard.
Layering his own magic over the barrier Elsez had created, Rashiel spoke to her.
“Leave this to me. You fight together with those guys. I’ll cover you.”
When Rashiel mentioned “those guys” with a glance, he meant Cassian and Tezette.
The two, worried that Elsez might have been struck by the breath attack, turned around with startled eyes—then, seeing Rashiel appear at just the right moment, looked relieved.
Rashiel added as he looked at Elsez.
“Just standing there defending doesn’t suit you, right?”
At his words that pierced right through her, Elsez gave a small, defeated smile.
“I’ll go win this.”
Elsez stepped out of the magical barrier and moved toward where Tezette and Cassian were.
‘How can I catch that thing while minimizing damage?’
In truth, if they could fight without holding back, a dragon, though troublesome, wasn’t an opponent four of them couldn’t handle.
But right now, the dragon and the four were in the very center of the Holy Nation’s village square.
Each time the dragon moved in its exchange of blows, homes were smashed and the damage only grew.
After a brief thought, Elsez quickly came up with a plan and shouted to Cassian.
“Cassian! Taunt that thing to draw its attention and land some hits!”
Now with nothing to hold her back, she freely called out his name.
“Got it!”
Given the situation, Cassian was so focused on fighting the dragon that he didn’t even notice the change in how she addressed him.
Next was Tezette’s turn.
“Tezette! When I attack that thing, hit it from the opposite side!”
Elsez intended to keep the dragon distracted by attacking from three directions so it couldn’t move freely.
Tezette answered only with a single glance at her.
Having shared the strategy with the two, Elsez took her position.
Cassian used his taunt skill on the dragon, forcing it to focus solely on him.
Taking that opening, Elsez leapt onto its foreleg and struck its torso.
Kwaaang!
“Groooargh!”
The tremendous impact shook not only the dragon’s body but even the surrounding air.
With most of the Demon God’s power restored, Elsez’s attack was truly overwhelming.
As the dragon staggered from the blow, Tezette, from the opposite side, struck with great speed.
The dragon, reeling from that strike, stumbled toward Elsez’s side.
She gave it no chance to move in any direction, striking again and again.
Hemmed in by the three heroes’ combined assault from three sides, the dragon could hardly move at all.
Driven to the peak of its rage, the dragon finally unleashed its breath.
Fwoooosh—
But the three, who knew every detail of its attack patterns, easily dodged.
Behind them lay the village, but Rashiel’s magical barrier held firm, shielding it from harm.
‘Good, if this keeps up!’
Having succeeded in wearing down some of the dragon’s strength, Elsez quickly dashed toward its tail.
‘Is she not afraid at all? What’s she trying to do? That tail even has a poisonous stinger…’
Cassian, watching with anxious eyes, was about to say something—when it happened.
Elsez grabbed the dragon’s tail and, with a heave, hurled the entire beast straight into the still-open dimensional rift.
The three men who saw it were utterly shaken.
‘She just… threw it?’
Ignoring gravity, up into the sky?
Elsez herself was just as shocked by her own strength.
‘Wow.’
She marveled as she watched the dragon get sucked back into the dimensional rift.
She had always known that her soul, bearing the Demon God’s power, made her naturally strong.
And now, with nearly all of that power restored, she had tried it out just in case…
‘And it worked?’
Dusting off her hands, Elsez turned back toward the three men.
But seeing them gathered there suddenly brought someone else to mind.
‘What’s Astaire doing?’
Before the festival, when she had gone looking for Cassian—
She had also looked for Astaire, but couldn’t find him either.
Since they had captured the remnants of the Demon Resurrection Cult that morning, she thought he must have had many duties to handle as a cardinal, so only she and Tezette had come out.
‘But it’s strange.’
No matter how busy, Astaire was the type who would’ve been the first to step up and handle things if the Holy Nation was in such chaos.
‘Surely nothing’s happened to him…?’
Elsez, worrying, had just reached the others when—
The sound of urgent footsteps came, and Ruel appeared.
“Sorry I’m late! I had to evacuate people first…”
Still catching his breath as he explained his tardiness, Ruel suddenly stopped when his eyes met Rashiel’s.
Seeing the two face each other, Elsez’s heart sank.
‘Rashiel doesn’t know about the imposter yet.’
If he saw the fake in Ruel’s form, he would surely be shaken…
As Elsez tried to explain, Rashiel, staring coldly at Ruel, spoke first.
“What is that?”
Contrary to her fears, Rashiel’s gaze toward Ruel was only icy.
Ruel flinched at that look.
Then Cassian, frowning, stepped in front of Ruel.
“What do you mean, ‘that’? Can’t you tell? It’s Ruel. Our comrade.”
Elsez, watching, stepped forward ahead of Cassian.
With Rashiel and Tezette both knowing the truth, it was time to tell him as well.
“Cassian, I have something to tell you.”
“Yeah, I’d like to finally hear what secret you three have been keeping—”
But Cassian couldn’t finish his words.
At that moment, the dragon’s tail came down from the sky, coiling around Elsez and snatching her up.
The eyes of the three men watching shook violently.
“…No.”
Tezette reached out his hand toward Elsez, but by then she had already been dragged far upward.
‘That bastard…!’
Elsez struggled against the tail that bound her, but with her arms pinned as well, she couldn’t do anything.
Rashiel quickly cast teleportation magic, appearing atop the dragon’s tail that was coiled around Elsez.
It was more accurate to cast magic up close than from a distance—that’s why he chose to move there.
By then, the dragon’s tail binding Elsez had almost reached the dimensional rift.
From the open rift, an alien surge of mana could be felt.
Just before the two were pulled into the rift, Rashiel struck with attack magic at the last possible moment, severing the dragon’s tail.
But at that instant—
The dragon’s foreleg emerged from the rift, snatching up both of them and dragging them inside.
Soon after, the rift that had swallowed them shut completely.
****
When Astaire stepped out of the portal in Dike’s office, he arrived in a dark underground chamber.
As soon as he emerged, the stench hit his nose, making him frown.
‘It reeks everywhere.’
The smell of filth… and something rotting.
At his feet was a staircase leading even further down.
Astaire followed the light of the lamps on the walls, stepping quietly as he descended into the basement.
The moment his foot touched the bottom step, growling cries rose up from all directions.
The sound was like beasts… or monsters.
Astaire pulled a magic tool from his pocket and shone it around.
Then a wolf-shaped monster appeared clearly in the light, hurling itself at him.
“Grrraaah!”
Startled, Astaire stepped back, but thankfully, the monster was trapped inside a cage.
He pointed the light in another direction.
The basement was lined on all sides with massive cages, and within them were monsters and beasts, all imprisoned.
‘Why are monsters and beasts here…?’
Then, from near his feet, came the sound of something rolling.
Looking down, he saw what seemed to be a monster egg rolling along a carved-out groove.
He followed the direction it rolled.
At the end, in the center of the dim basement, a shining sword illuminated the dark.
‘That’s… the Holy Sword?’
Though he had never seen it before, Astaire instantly recognized what it was.
Dike’s Holy Sword.
The sword said to have been created by the gods alongside her, a weapon only she could wield.
But after she lost her power in the battle against the Demon God, it was said she could no longer use it.
Just as Astaire moved closer to the Holy Sword, he froze at the sound of footsteps coming from the portal.
The monsters and beasts began growling at the unfamiliar steps.
Panicked, Astaire quickly hid behind the staircase.
Tap, tap, tap—
The sound of shoes descending the stairs echoed, and in the faint light, Dike appeared.
She approached the Holy Sword, which was planted firmly in the very center of the vast basement.
When she lifted it and swung it through the air, space split apart like paper, revealing a darkness deeper than the basement’s own shadows.
‘…She created a dimensional rift?’
Dike lifted the pile of monster eggs at her feet with magic and tossed them into the rift.
Watching, a thought flashed through Astaire’s mind.
‘Those monster eggs… don’t tell me…’
The rift that absorbed the eggs slowly closed, then vanished completely.
Dike, gazing silently at it, finally spoke.
“Astaire.”
She turned her head, looking directly toward where he was hiding, and asked:
“Shall we have a little talk?”
She smiled as gently as always.
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