"Difficulty... yeah, speaking of which, what rank were Jaldabaoth and the insect maid?"
Lakyus was lost as to how she should answer. If she was honest, it would most likely shatter their resolve, but if they went into battle with a false impression of the enemy because she lied to them, it would be just as disastrous. She agonized about it for a while before deciding to tell the truth.
"...150."
"Aye?"
Everyone who heard Lakyus' voice had the same reaction.
"The insect maid's difficulty ranking was at least 150. Jaldabaoth himself is estimated at 200 or more."
"Hah?!"
Everyone aside from Lakyus was speechless. That much was expected. Even the highest-ranking orichalcum adventurers would only rate around 80 on the difficulty rankings. Although one could still triumph over a foe ranked roughly 15 points over oneself, trying to do the same with an enemy ranked almost twice as high as oneself was nothing short of laughable. And then—
"Wait a minute! Are you saying Momon-san is going to fight that difficulty 200 monster by himself?"
"Exactly. That's why I said we'd just be getting in the way."
"But that's not the same... you said 200? Are you kidding me? Are all adamantite ranked adventurers that strong?"
"If only. Even we’re ranked around 90 at best."
"Then... then how the hell are we even supposed to win?!"
The adventurers looked around, holding their breath.
Lakyus had not lied, but neither had she told them the whole truth. Although Lakyus herself was rated at ninety, Evileye was over one hundred and fifty, which was how she had come to the conclusion about the insect maid and Jaldabaoth. And that was also why Evileye was not part of this defensive line.
In order to quickly recover her expended mana, she had chosen to meditate and rest. After that, she had followed Momon to where Jaldabaoth was, in order to provide support so Momon could battle Jaldabaoth one-on-one. Their fear was that they would encounter the insect maid again.
While Lakyus was lost in thought, she felt the depressive mood around her prickling on her skin. Everyone's morale had plummeted, and there were murmurs about abandoning the whole thing and fleeing the capital.
As she had predicted, everyone was feeling demoralized. Lakyus knew because the first time she heard Evileye talk about their battle, she had felt the same way herself.
"You heard Evileye, right? Momon-san is the kind of man who can fight evenly with Jaldabaoth. Because of that, we're trusting everything to Momon-san, and instead we're going to do what we can do."
"B-but if Jaldabaoth is fighting Momon-san, then what if the insect maid appears here?"
"Leave that to us, Blue Rose. Evileye has a special item that allows her to teleport over to us. She's got a way of dealing with the insect maid, so she can overcome that difficulty gap and beat her."
That brought a wave of cheers from the adventurers. It seemed that their fighting spirit was restored.
Just in the nick of time
The roars of beasts came from the way ahead, along with the sound of footsteps.
"They're coming. We'll build our defensive line here. The people on the flying disks above will drop into the side roads. Leave the main road to me!"
The beasts were on the main road. Though they looked like large dogs, their eyes were filled with an infernal intelligence, and in place of drool, flames leaked from their maws.
There were fifteen of these hellhounds here. Standing before them was Lakyus, who gripped the demonic sword Kilineyram with both hands.
"You petty demons, don't you dare look down on me."
With a prayer to the water god on her lips, Lakyus clove the leaping hellhound in half with a single strike. The floating swords surrounding her acted as shields, blocking the attacks of the hellhounds from her flanks. She kicked away another one that was snapping at her ankles.
Lakyus was handling six hellhounds by herself, and the rest went on to attack the other adventurers. The weaker ones took them on one at a time, while the stronger ones handled multiple hellhounds at once. In this way, they whittled down the numbers facing them. By the time Lakyus had slain all six of hers, the others were done as well.
"Tend to the wounded!"
"No problem, Lakyus-san!"
Of course, they hadn't gotten through untouched, but the injuries weren't severe. Considering they had to conserve their mana, it was quite an auspicious start.
"People on the sides, I say again! Advance 50 meters and hold!"
The cry to advance echoed from both sides. Holding her sword, Lakyus went forth as well.
♦ ♦ ♦
Lower Fire Month (9th Month) , 5th Day, 02:41
Three men ran down the dark and narrow alleyways. Nobody else was there with them.
These three men were Climb, Brain, and the former orichalcum ranked thief that had accompanied them during their attack against Zero's base.
The adventurers working for Marquis Raeven were all patrolling the capital’s streets in order to hunt down any demons who broke through the containment line. Climb had only managed to obtain the services of the thief because according to Marquis Raeven, the man himself had asked to help Climb out. That was to repay the kindness Climb had shown by blocking Zero's attack on him and for healing him. In addition, Raeven wanted to repay the favor he owed to Renner.
Thanks to the thief's choice of routes, they had not encountered a single demon so far. They might not even have made it here without him.
Although they had some confidence in facing demons who relied purely on strength and speed, they would be done for if any demons who could use special abilities showed up. Given that this team was a largely mundane one that lived and died by their steel, they would have a hard time defending against attacks that weren't purely physical in nature.
Their acquaintance had only been a brief one, but because of this, the thief understood that Climb and Brain were sorely deficient in this department, which was why he had joined this pair of clearly suicidal men.
Brain silently thanked him as he ran on, hunkering down to reduce the size of his silhouette. Gradually, the style of the surrounding buildings began to change; the amount of non-residential buildings began to increase. It seemed they were nearing their objective.