The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary

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“Damn! I thought I had her, but she blocked it!”

It was Loren who rushed to the scene and threw not one but two daggers at Rage’s head.

The daggers he threw were not his own, but were borrowed from two nearby Empire soldiers who had them hanging on their belts as spares. The two soldiers, who knew they had been picked, stared at Loren with startled faces.

“You. You are as annoying as an insect.”

The daggers that Loren had thrown had definitely been on the trajectory for a direct hit despite the flames, but they were repelled by the force field that Rage had apparently set up around herself and fell to the ground.

She stomped on the blades, and as flames rose up, they burned red and melted down like candies.

“Be good and let me turn you into ashes!”

Rage swung her arm, and flames surged up from it.

Loren defended himself with the flat of his greatsword. The flames only slid across the surface of his armor in a scattering of sparks, but the soldiers around him did not stand a chance. With a sideways glance at the soldiers who had turned into living torches without even time to scream, Loren brandished his greatsword and slashed at Rage.

Seeing the blade, which seemed too huge to be used against a small girl like her, cut through the heated air and flames, Rage quietly clucked her tongue and moved to dodge it while shooting more flames toward Loren.

Loren pulled back the sword, which had not hit its target, and slashed at the flames that were shot at him. The scattered flames burned where his skin was exposed, the stinging pain made Loren grimace as he held his sword up once more.

“You son of a bitch! Let me slowly roast you up!”

“Can’t just shoot fires however you want, can you!”

Loren thought that even if Rage was an Evil God who controlled fire, it would take her some time to produce a flame large enough to burn down the surrounding. Therefore, in order to not allow her that time, he tried to hunt her down without stopping his attacks. Loren’s greatsword managed to occasionally catch the edge of Rage’s clothing, but he was unable to land a solid hit as she kept dodging, taking advantage of her small stature and light weight.

“Oh, you son of a bitch! You shredded the edge of my skirt! What if it makes me less cute?!”

“Don’t worry, your cuteness has become non-existent after you keep burning humans one after another!”

“I’m cute, aren’t I?!”

“Stop spitting nonsense!”

While continuing to attack Rage, who protested with a somewhat hurt look on her face, Loren wondered if he would have to finish her by himself, or if reinforcements would come.

He had not forgotten his previous confrontation with Rage.

Based on that experience, Loren wanted to avoid confronting her, if possible, but running through a battlefield was a bit difficult for Lapis, Gula, or Klaus and his party, who were not accustomed to battlefields, and before long Loren found himself in the position of being the only one at the front. He had also considered waiting until someone else arrived on the scene, but he could not leave Rage burning Empire soldiers to death, so he had no choice but to make a move.

Loren wished from the bottom of his heart that she had been killed by the daggers, but he understood, even if he didn’t like it, by watching Gula and Luxuria, that Evil Gods were not the kind of opponents who would die with a single surprise blow.

“You can’t deny my cuteness!”

Rage, perhaps angered by Loren’s words, raised her eyes and tried to release more flames, but she was hit directly in the face by something, and tumbled backward with a small, cute scream.

Loren, guessing that it was the priestly spell >, shouted without looking in the direction where that something had come from.

“Lapis?!”

“Sorry Loren, it took longer than I expected.”

The voice that responded was of Lapis, just as Loren had expected.

In addition to her white priest robe and eye-catching appearance, Lapis was a girl. She stood out on the battlefield, and seemed to have attracted the attention of the enemy soldiers. This was why she arrived at the scene later than Loren. However, although she had waded through the throngs of enemies, there was no blood or dirt on her clothes or hands.

“Was everything all right?”

“Yes. I can handle this much, and I’ve mostly pushed it to Gula and Luxuria, so it’s not a problem.”

“And Klaus and the others?”

“They seemed to stand out more than I did, with three girls running with a man carrying another man on his back.”

Holding a hand over her eyes, Lapis looked in the direction she had just run through, but there was no sign of Klaus and the others yet; only enemy soldiers were swarming in that direction.

As he dodged the flames that Rage was shooting at him, Loren felt slightly regretful about not having escorted them properly,

“Can you at least bring Klaus? Not so much Klaus himself, but the thing on his back.”

“Klaus?!”

Loren’s question to Lapis seems to have reached Rage’s ears as well.

As if to prove Leila’s statement that she would never forgive him the next time they met, Rage’s expression changed to one of anger, and the flames burning around her grew more intense.

Loren was inwardly grimacing at the thought that he had made a blunder, but Lapis looked back at the battlefield through which she had run and asked.

“Can you hold on until I bring him?”

“Well, I don’t know.”

Rage once again dodged the sword Loren swung to keep her in check.

Even though she seemed to be on fire with anger, she appeared to understand that Loren’s weapon was somehow dangerous, and didn’t carelessly lunge at him.

As Rage continued shooting flames while keeping a distance, Shayna continuously used Energy Drain on her from within Loren, but from outward appearance alone, he had no idea if it had any effects. He wondered if he would be able to hold out until Klaus and the others arrived with Lapis’ help.

“I didn’t know you knew him!”

“He is totally at fault for what you are upset about. Even I know that there is no room for arguments there. It’s a bit of a pity that he wasn’t burned to ashes right after he made a pass at you.”

“You’re quite reasonable.”

The way Loren reacted, in which he fully acknowledged Rage’s side of the story without any attempts to defend Klaus’s actions, seemed to have calmed Rage’s anger somewhat, and the intensity of the flames lessened to some degree.

Seeing this, Lapis silently patted Loren’s shoulder before turning around and returning to the battlefield from which she had just exited.

“She went to call in a friend or something? You got some kind of plan to get to me?”

“Well, I guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

“I mean, do you think you can stand in front of me until those reinforcements arrive?”

“We’ll have to wait and see.”

While Loren fixed his grip on the greatsword, Rage casually stepped forward.

However, her action was never completed.

Loren did not immediately understand what the reason was, but Rage was stepping forward when, without any warning, she was suddenly knocked down and fell forward with such force that her face hit the ground hard.

Loren, who was looking at the fallen Rage to see what had happened, understood when he saw a small shadow moving at her feet.

It was Nigg, who had secured Wraith’s feet firmly to the ground with the threads he had spit out.

After succeeding in making Rage fall down in front of Loren, who was both surprised or dismayed to see the spider there, Nigg climbed on top of the body of Rage, who was still confused about what had happened, and began to spit out a large number of threads.

It was often mistakenly believed that spider silk was flammable, but the truth was, even though they could be burned off, they could not catch fire. While Rage was still confused and unable to react, Nigg skilfully wrapped her body up like a package while she was lying on her face.

When Rage belatedly realized the situation, she began trying to burn off the spider’s threads by emitting flames from her body, but Nigg’s tough threads were not burned off so easily. The spider wrapped the threads around her body two, three, and more times, and eventually succeeded in trapping her inside a huge cocoon.

Nigg raised his front legs as if to strike a triumphant pose, then, having done his job, climbed up from under Loren’s feet, clung to his shoulder at his usual spot, and stopped moving.

“Hey, I was surprised. You’re amazing.”

After wrapping his greatsword in cloth and thrusting it into the ground, Loren patted Nigg, who was now clinging to his shoulder, and the spider shook with joy.

In front of Loren’s eyes lay a pure white oval cocoon, as tall as his waist, with what sounded like moans coming from inside and flames occasionally flickering out from between the threads.

Although one had to wonder what in the world was in Nigg’s body to make him able to spit out that many threads, the scene in front of his eyes was real, and this should be able to block the Rage’s movements for a while. Knowing that much was enough for Loren now; the rest was relatively unimportant to him.

He considered taking this opportunity to stab Rage, but there was no point in damaging the cocoon so badly that it would break the Evil God’s restraints. And above all, the threads that Nigg spit out were strong enough that he didn’t think he could manage to stab through it and finish Rage with a single blow.

“Let me out! Let me out of here! Damn it, I’m going to burn these threads… Hot?! The threads are melting?! Melted threads, hot!”

From the screams coming from the cocoon, it seemed that Rage was trying to escape by burning it from inside, but the flames roasted the threads and melted them into a hot liquid, which then caught on her body and caused an uproar.

Loren was once again reminded that Nigg had the power to restrict an Evil God’s actions, even if only temporarily, and that even though she had the appearance of a small spider, she was still a powerful magical creature in her own right.

“It’s reassuring to have you on my side. You really saved me.”

[‘I did my best too, onii-san!’]

“Yes, you did. Shayna’s strength helped me, too. I probably wouldn’t be able to do it on my own.”

When Loren thanked Shayna aloud, she showed a hint of embarrassment in his mind.

While wishing he could somehow return Shayna to her original human body, Loren looked around and saw that both enemies and allies had fled due to Rage’s flames. After confirming that his surroundings were like a vacuum in the middle of the battlefield, he leaned on the greatsword he had thrust into the ground and took a moment of break.

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