Lakyus looked around at the worried faces of the adventurers who were stepping through the barrier.
The plan had called for the formation of a defensive line, but forming a neat line of battle in the middle of a city was very difficult. Therefore, they had used four parties of orichalcum ranked adventurers as the linchpins of the formation, assigning each of the adventurers to one of them. Someone looking down from above would see something like a beast with all four legs spread.
Since they were the cores of the formation, it was only natural that the orichalcum-ranked adventurers would become the leaders. But right now, they were filled with unease and tension. Lakyus hoped that they could hide their fear and inspire courage in the others around them.
Should I take to the front after all?
Certainly, if an adamantite ranked adventurer like herself stood at their head, morale would surely increase. But right now, Lakyus had no reliable allies by her side. Even if she was adamantite ranked, a lone Blue Rose was less effective than an orichalcum-ranked party. As such, she had handed command of the vanguard to them.
Even if they trusted me, running in and making a fuss would only fill them with unease. But… ah, I should just go to the front and see what happens.
With that, Lakyus stepped through the wall of fire.
A freshly silenced world spread ahead of them. The streets were the same as those of any other in the capital, if you overlooked the fact that there was no presence of human life and many of the residences had been destroyed.
"What happened to the residents? Are they hiding? There’s no smell of blood.”
“Impossible. Look, the doors have been broken down. I fear the people might have been taken somewhere."
"We need to be wary of demons lurking within the houses, should we do a room-to-room search? That will take a lot of time."
"It'll be safer to contact Lakyus-san and wait for further instructions, right?"
"Then, let's hurry up and—"
"There'll no need for that."
Straightening up by reflex at the sound of the voice, the speaking adventurers turned to look behind them. They stared in goggle-eyed surprise at Lakyus, who had just arrived.
"The iron and copper-ranked adventurers will stay behind to search the houses. One mithril-ranked team will remain behind to supervise. The people behind will spread out into the formation and advance. Any objections?"
The shaking heads said there were none.
"Then, let us advance."
Lakyus walked in line with the orichalcum-ranked adventurers. An uncomfortable silence settled around them. It was hard to believe that there had been life here until this evening.
"…speaking of which, Momon-san will be alright, won’t he?"
Lakyus understood how uneasy they were with pinning all their hopes on Momon.
"He'll be fine. Evileye herself admitted that he was even stronger than her. The real problem is the one that fought him to a standstill, the enemy leader, Jaldabaoth. How strong is he, anyway…"
The nearby adventurers heard this and their faces drooped in despair.
"Ah, sorry, don't worry about it. We just need to do what we've been assigned to do, that's all."
"Aye, that's true. It makes me jealous as hell to admit it, but I guess each of us has been tasked to do what we're most suited for. In that case, everyone, forward!"
Standing at the head of the group, together with the orichalcum-ranked adventurers, Lakyus stepped forward
Her hand gripped the Demonic Sword Kilineyram. Its surface was like a stretch of night sky, speckled with sparkling stars.
They had not walked for long before the sound of a distant explosion carried over softly from the distance. The ones who trembled were the lower ranked adventurers. The ones who prepared for battle were the middle ranked adventurers. The ones who scanned their surroundings were the upper ranked adventurers. And the ones who looked straight ahead were the highest ranking adventurers. Amidst this sea of reactions, Lakyus stared out into the distance with a piercing gaze.
"The party on that side has entered combat."
Probably not Tina's group.
"If they've been moving in at the same rate as ourselves, we ought to be encountering enemy resistance soon."
"…What about from above?"
"We have scouts in place, and none of them have reported anything so far."
"That's good. Demons have a lot of flying-type creatures among their numbers. If they spread out in the capital, it would be pretty bad. So we need to draw their attention to the ground where we are now."
"Which means that the plan is essentially unchanged."
"That's right… hm, what's that, did you hear something?"
"Aye, I hear it. Dogs barking. Hey, what's that?"
The arcane magic caster answered the question.
"I haven't confirmed it with my eyes yet, but I think it's a hellhound. Its special ability is fiery breath. I think it has a difficulty ranking of fifteen or so."
"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."