“──Wagner”
The brown-skinned man whispered with his mouth.
It was as if all the black—no, white pigment had been reversed, and an eerie crescent-shaped slash cut through the space.
The afterimage disappeared in the blink of an eye, and the blue dome that had wrapped Setina and the others shattered into fragments and fell to the ground like broken stained glass.
That ─ the countless scattered fragments disappeared as if they were diffusing while emitting a blue glow ─
"──── Eh"
Setina looks at him with a dumbfounded expression.
It was the same with her enemies Volks and Hermina.
“The ether field is—!?”
──The tree branches swayed.
It didn't sway naturally, it was swayed by something kicking the branch.
Mixed with the sunlight that leaked through the cracks in the forest, a small shadow gradually grew in size──falling over Borks’ head──
"...!"
As Borks raised his helm, a shadow bumped into him.
Vibrations and unpleasant sounds resounded in the surroundings, just as if a bell had been struck in a bad place, and without a moment's delay, the shadow once again kicked the helmet of Volks and flew high, landing on the ground── .
The straw-like tabi rubbed against the ground—
It was as if the recoil from landing was slipping and parrying it to the ground, and the foot quickly came to a standstill while creating a cloud of dust.
Her back is reflected in Setina's field of vision.
Slouched on his ocher back—one knee on the ground and a sliding landing, he paused.
I wonder if she's slightly taller than Setina.
She has dark skin, thin muscles, and hair like a thin silver mohawk, but because she wears a mask, Setina, who is behind her, can't recognize her. I didn't.
──The masked man slowly moves his hands behind his back while still crouching.
On both wrists of the man, perhaps because of the carvings that seem to be peculiar to the ethnic group with some special culture, they were carved directly into the skin, and at first glance, it was a special pattern that made me think that he was not from this country.
“Who—?”
Elmina, who was vigilant, asked the masked man.
"Heh... nothing, nothing, just a lost child--"
A hoarse voice—and the word 'lost child' came out from the man in such a way that it didn't suit the clay figurine-like mask that colored the ruins.
"Huh...? Answer me, what did you do? Was it you who destroyed the ether field?"
"Now then... what should I do?"
Does the masked man have leeway, or is he making leeway?
The masked man didn't take a single move from him—he was still crouching in front of Setina.
(Oh no... I thought it was a girl's pinch, but it looks like a hell of a carnage... Ah, it's impossible ── Should I run away?)
“Borks—Let’s go.”
“………….”
The masked man, still crouching, puts both of his arms behind him—the index finger of his right hand straight into the ground, and begins to write something like scraping the dirt. rice field.
"Close your eyes"
He sent a five-letter message written in Festian to Setina behind him.
The masked man slowly took something out from behind his waist so that Elmina and the others could not see it.
What he was holding was something like a thick, bumpy branch wrapped in a cloth.
There must have been a small cavity at the bottom of the branch, and when he stuck his finger through the cloth, it emitted a flashing red light inside the hole.
It was only for a short time, but Setina hurriedly covered her ears and eyes──
Borks took a heavy—yet powerful step, and at the same time Elmina, who was behind him, pointed her wand at the masked man.
When the masked man threw a branch wrapped in a cloth in front of him as if he were throwing garbage away—the branch exploded violently—with no warning.
Volks and Elmina flew backwards as if they sensed a tremendous explosion coming from the center of the exploding explosion.
Furthermore, right after that, the white smoke that came later covered the area as if everything in the vicinity was caught up in it──
"..."
"Keho ── Ke ho... what is this! Eyes ──"
The masked man muttered softly.
“──Schwatt”
As if to surprise the wary Borks and Elmina even more, a whirling black mist--a mark like a circle appeared at the feet of Volks and Elmina.
(Black ether!?)
While their vision was blocked, the two of them noticed something strange under their feet, and maybe from their instincts, they flew back even faster than when the smoke exploded just now to avoid it.
What suddenly appeared from the circle of black fog was the bloody guillotine-like blade of the ominous guillotine—a ominous blade that could pierce a person's entire body, protruding to the ground.
If I had stayed in that place, I would have become a shrike -- no, it was a horrifying blade, like a sacrifice to the devil.
As the decapitated blade returned to the ground, Elmina was wary of what would happen next.
“──Keho”
"..."
While coughing, Elmina thinks about how to deal with it.
And Borks, who is eerie and unmoving.
(It's a troublesome way to fight...! Oh, it's troublesome... Let's burn this forest down...)
The gesture of gritting her teeth──Is Elmina feeling stressed?
(Okay, I'll deal with you, what's next──what──?)
Elmina decides to fight back.
With her out of sight, he continues to be on guard against her, but the masked man doesn't take his next move.
(…………! No way!?)
A spiral wind surrounds Elmina's staff.
"Rewind!"
She hurriedly stabbed the staff in her hand into the ground, and a spiral wind spread outside.
Along with the wind that spreads like a gust, the white fog that had deprived the field of vision thins and spreads outside.
Setina and the masked man, who should have been lying down there until just a moment ago, were nowhere to be seen.
Far ahead—and even if you look around, you can't see the two of them.
"──I got hit"
"... Hermina"
“Noisy!
At the tip of Elmina's wand, a mysterious purple etheric light converges.
With her staff in both hands, she slammed the earth with such force that it could have broken.
"Summon!"
Large purple circles spread quickly like ripples from the ground you hit.
Immediately from the center, a hole like a boiling quagmire of pure purple spreads out—it's like an ominous hole that seems to lead to some other world.
A roar—with a low wolf howl, a large purple beast leaped into the sky as if it had pierced an ominous hole—
The purple wolf beast that ascended to the heavens landed in front of Elmina on four legs.
"Ragi, look for a woman's scent and follow it."
There was no reaction from the purple wolf beast to Elmina's order.
With a groaning sound in her throat, the purple wolf called Ragi sniffed the ground around her with its big snout.
──After smelling the ground for a while, she sensed something, turned around, and looked ahead with her emotionless eyes.
Suddenly, on four legs with sharp claws, he ran without hesitation as if to run through the forest──
“I won’t let you escape—Let’s go, Volks—”