One such platoon of guards had sent some of their members to help the adventurers retreating past them, and had learned a lot in the process.
This group, however, had not done so because their leader was frozen with fear and had not even turned to look at the retreating adventurers, and he certainly did not want to decrease the amount of troops guarding the barricade by assisting the adventurers.
"They're paid more than us to do the same job! They should fight harder! Until they die!"
Several men nodded as Bona shouted.
"Our lives are at risk too! Those guys shouldn't be running off and leaving it all to us!"
Bona called out to the nearby guards. Those further away stared coldly at him, while the ones closer to him yelled out their displeasure with the adventurers as well.
"They're here!"
At the sound of the lookouts' voices, Bona looked like he'd been choked.
Everyone's eyes filled with the shapes of the demons loping towards them from the shadowed street.
At their head was a demon that looked like a cross between a man and a frog. Its skin was a jaundiced yellow, gleaming with a sticky, shiny coating. It was covered in huge lumps all over, which looked like human faces pressed out against the skin from the inside.
A mouth that could swallow a man in one gulp gaped open, and an abnormally long tongue began tasting the air.
Around it, the hellhounds followed, as though waiting for their prey.
After that were demons which looked like a human being that had been skinned and its exposed musculature painted with some kind of black, tarry liquid.
There were fifty of the hounds, one swollen-bodied demon covered in faces, and six of the flayed demons.
"There's too many!" Bona cried like the tolling of a bell. "We can't hold them! Run!"
"Dammit!" came the angry retort. "Shut the hell up!"
Ignoring Bona's wails of despair, the guards looked to their comrades, tension knotting up their faces.
"Listen up! All you need to do is stick them with the pointy end! Our job isn't to kill them! It's to buy time! It's not hard! We're all going to make it!"
We're going to make it. Some people repeated it, and then it was taken up by others.
"Hell yeah! Let's go!"
Even the guards with terrified faces grabbed their spears and got into their ranks.
"You come join us too!"
Someone grabbed Bona and dragged him to his place. There was no time for playing around.
The demonic beasts howled, and began tearing down the barricade at an incredible speed. The guards' spears stabbed out at them from between the ever-widening gaps in the barricade.
The pained wails of the hellhounds rose up from all around them. Those demonic beasts that had not been stabbed hastily fled the barricade. They howled mournfully as they paced around the barricade, as though assessing the situation.
Some of the more collected guards thrust their spears through the gaps at the nearer hellhounds, which drove them away.
Slowly, the faces of the guards began to cheer up.
The grins of the demons in the back were disgusting, and the guards were still uneasy because they didn't know what the demons would do. However, letting time pass like this was still good. After all, their job was not to defeat the demons.
"Wh-what the?!" a lone guard cried out as he watched what was happening in front of him.
The enemy had formed into a neat line, beyond the reach of the thrusting spears.
This was completely different from the wild assault just now. The guards began growing uneasy. If they knew what the hellhounds were up to, maybe they could have changed their formation or done something about it. As it was, all they could do was thrust their spears between the gaps.
But just when they thought that was all they would have to do, the demonic beasts opened their maws, so widely that it looked as though they were dislocated. The red within their throats was not flesh, but fire.
Jets of crimson flame shot out in unison at the barricade, engulfing the entire thing in flames. The guards' eyes could see nothing but the fire.
Although the fire was intense, it still could not burn down the barricades within a few seconds. This didn't make much difference to the guards on the other side, though.
Screams broke out all around. Some had their eyes burned up, others had their lungs and gullets scorched because they inhaled the flames. In the end, all of them fell like flies. The only guards to survive were the ones at the sides, because the ones in the center were no longer breathing after being consumed by the flame.
"W-we're doomed!"
The words nobody wanted to say escaped from Bona's mouth. His movements thereafter were remarkably fast, as he threw down his spear and discarded his helmet, all to let him flee faster.
The remaining guards were stunned. They had considered retreating, of course, but none of them had embraced the idea as completely as him.
Bona ran away with a speed that was hard for human beings to describe. The surviving guards looked on slack-jawed as Bona's back faded into the distance.
However, his flight was abruptly halted by a demon falling out of the sky.
The swollen-bodied demon flew without wings, and landed squarely on Bona's back, making a croaking noise as it did. Bona cried out in pain. Though it could have killed him easily, the demon did not do so. However, in light of what it did afterward, it was definitely not out of mercy.
The demon opened its mouth and swallowed Bona whole. Its distended belly hardly changed even as it ingested him— no, there was a new swelling, with a human face on it.
Though it was hard to tell, it looked like it belonged to Bona.
Even though the sound of the barricade being torn down reached their ears, the guards did not move. So much for being an obstacle; against demons, it was little more than a pile of matchsticks.
The demons who broke through the barricade encircled the guards. A strangled cry came up from them, for they knew they would certainly die here.
It was answered by the laughter of the demons, mocking the guards' foolishness.
One of the guards looked to the sky, praying for his god to save him.
What answered him was something else entirely.