Sendai Yuusha wa Inkyou Shitai

Anyway, here is the next chapter. Surprisingly, it is one of the few chapters where I didn’t have any notes at the bottom.

Moonlit Night, Parade of Corpses【５】

「……Yuu, why are you here?」

Separating from me, Alicia asked me as if it were a problem.

「It’s because you are here.

Right now, while I don’t know what Umbra’s objective is, the first thing that I need to protect is you.」

While deeply fixing the hood, I looked around.

Maybe because the teachers and students that were on standby outside of the magic formation couldn’t understand the current situation, they were all unable to move.

Well, of course they’d be like that. If a guy whose whole body was covered in black had suddenly appeared, anyone would become like that. I’d also become like that.

Out of habit, I wrapped my body in those black clothes of the 『Darkness Executioner』 that I had sworn that I would never wear again.

Moreover, remodeling it as she likes as usual, the flame embroidery that was at the sleeves and the coat’s hems were gone, and in exchange, various places on the overcoat were attached with belts, and it had become a ver.2.0 overcoat.

……That damned Baba-chan, for her to set up even more hits on top of gouging out a person’s old wounds.

True, I did hand it over since she said she’d have the hood repaired, but I didn’t know that she had it remodeled, damn it!

And with that, though I am in black from head to toe, just as I said just now, I stayed close by in order to protect Alicia.

I understood even less about the objective of the nearby Umbra who did not come to stop the barrier’s repair but, well, it’s a good thing that Alicia didn’t come under attack.

「Thank you, Yuu.」

「Oi, where are you going, Alicia.」

Taking off her coat and dropping it right there, Alicia started walking with her dress appearance.

It was because those eyes of hers were awfully serious that I asked but, I pretty much knew the words that would come back at me.

「Isn’t it obvious? If it were my Onee-samas, they wouldn’t just stop here, you know?

There are still other monsters around. In that case, even if it’s just a second faster, isn’t it the royalty that is supposed to bestow peace of mind to the people?」

Giggling, Alicia looked like she overlapped with Sylvia, and then……

「Olivia-onee-sama would definitely say the same.」

she looked like she overlapped with the one that “was” their eldest sister.

「Yuu, ……can you lend me your strength?」

「I can’t refuse a request from you guys.」

From Alicia’s words, I drew out the two crystal swords that were stored in the scabbard.

「Yuu! I’ve brought him along!」

「So you’re here, Ossan.」

From around the entrance of the clock tower, a man’s rough voice could be heard. It was the macho Elf, Ossan Gilley.

「That introduction sure was sloppy, oi.」

「For a riajuu that has a beautiful wife, something like that is enough!」

「Yeah, yeah, is that so. ……Wait, it’s the Kulkel that you had asked me for. Since he was soundly sleeping, I kicked him to wake up.」

「Ku, kukeh~……」

「To be able to sleep in even this situation, in a certain sense, you’re amazing.」

Ossan presented the giant bird that he held in one hand in front of me.

A silver feathered type bird, it was Silber.

「A silver……, is it Schvaltz and Weiß’s child?」

Noticing with the feather type, Alicia looked at the silver Kulkel and asked. By the way, Alicia also knew about Schvaltz and Weiß.

「Ou. I’m borrowing him from Sylvia.」

「What is your name?」

「Kuke? Kukekeー」

「Ufufu. I see, so you’re called Silber? What a good name.」

Asking that while stroking Silber’s beak, Alicia seems to have gotten Silber’s name from Silber himself.

「Now then, seeing as how his debut is over. Silber, let Alicia ride you.」

「Kukeh~!」

Moving his wing like an arm and saluting, Silber squatted in front of Alicia in order to let her ride.

「Nsho. Yuu, what will you do?」

While Alicia was riding Silber, she asked me that.

「Even though I may look like this, I was once named as the Hero. ……I have no choice but to rescue everyone from this crisis, right?」

With the blue and green Magic Swords in my hands, I started to run.

◇

The things known as humans are pretty serious beings.

Even if, they are girls that are only about 12 years old, that fact doesn’t change.

「Can’t you speed up any more than this!? They are going to catch up to us!」

「It, it’s impossible for me to go any faster than this!」

「If one person were to get off, Mana and I would become the only two riding and it would become lighter.」

「You, just now, implicitly told me to get down, didn’t you!?」

「AH, please don’t move around so much~!」

Mana was operating the broom, Eri was riding at Mana’s back, and in front of Mana was Henrietta who was heading the line that was straddling the broom.

Though they were young ladies, the broom that was flying with all its might with three humans riding on it, just as Mana had said in her reply to Henrietta’s words, could not accelerate any more than this, and, unable to shake off the decaying dragons that were drawing near from behind, the distance was gradually getting smaller.

「Kuh. ……Mana-san, please fly straight ahead just like that, alright?」

「Eh? Funya!?」

Feeling irritated by this situation, Henrietta turned around……Changing to a position where she was facing Mana, she pointed her staff towards the closing in decaying dragon.

「『BlitzRegen』！」

Lightning was fired from the tip of the staff, and it captured a single dragon.

But,

「Mu. ……It was, just as I feared.」

Although the decaying dragon that had received the flash of lightning had its wings blown away and had staggered, it headed towards Henrietta and the others as it did before.

「Even though it lost its wings, it’s flying. ……Is it magic?」

「That would seem to be the case. ……Most likely, this incident is the work of the Duke class that had once harassed the Preceding Hero-sama and his group by manipulating the dead.」

*Hyu* (Whoosh), the swung staff cut through the wind. When it did, thunder balls appeared with Henrietta at the center, and all of them were then fired at the decaying dragons. Although each separate attack was weak, the decaying dragons’ firm scales that were like armor crumbled from the magic that had rapid fire capabilities just like the Magic Guns, and the decaying dragons were shot down.

「Is that so……Wait, why do you know that?」

Eri asked that of Henrietta, who was speaking as if she had been present at that scene.

「……I, I just read it in a book. In the eighth volume of 『Hero Biographies』, the scoundrel that had turned a single town into a ghost’s paradise, the Ghost User 『Umbra』 had made his appearance.

At that time, due to the cooperation of Saint-sama and a High Elf warrior, what they had hit down was……」

「Aaahhh! H, how mean of you to give spoilers, Henrietta-sama! I, I, I was looking forward to reading too!」

「I see, are you the empathetic type?」

「This is not the time to be talking about unrelated matters right now, is it!?」

Even while she was blushing, Henrietta shot down the decaying dragon that was flying in with a thunder ball.

At the time when the number of dragons she had shot down risen in the two digits, Henrietta, together with a click of the tongue, swept her hand as if she were knocking something down.

「They certainly are troublesome……『BlitzRegen』.」

An amount of thunderous rain that was too bothersome to count poured down from the skies onto the decaying dragons.

The night turning into midday, after an enormous amount of light that was enough to cover one’s field of vision had flooded, thunder rang, and the flashes of lightning burned many decaying dragons into nothing.

「……As expected of the 『Princess Knight』.」

From the overwhelming battle that had just occurred in front of her eyes, the face of the Eri that doesn’t show very many facial expressions was flushed as if she were excited.

However, the face of the Henrietta in question looked pale.

「To have only taken out this much……As expected, though they are of a low rank, they are still of the Dragon species.」

Henrietta clicked her tongue at the armor of scales that were more solid than she had expected.

「Normally, one wouldn’t be able to defeat that many.」

「If I were to be normal, I would not be called a 『Princess Knight』!」

While replying like that, Henrietta continued to consecutively fire lightning and thunder balls.

However, maybe because the last attack had made the enemy strongly aware of Henrietta and the others’ existence, a number of decaying dragons that was enough that Henrietta’s magic couldn’t overtake them, started to gather.

「They just keep on gathering~!」

Skillfully operating the broom, though she passed through the gaps of the buildings to shake them off, the decaying dragons also quickened their circling speed and couldn’t be shaken off.

「っ……There are too many of them.」

While bashing the jaw of the decaying dragon that had opened its mouth and tried to eat them with the Stand, Eri clicked her tongue.

「My, limit for parallel invocations is only up to two, you know?」

Although she boldly laughed, Henrietta continued to fire magic while feeling something cold along her spine.

「Uuuu～～……Eh?」

The three of them were attacked by a windstorm.

「Kyaaaahh!」

「Wh, what was that!?」

「”Something”, passed us!」

Although the broom had spun two or three times, without dropping any of the three young girls riding it, it stopped in the air.

「Just what in the world did!?」

The young girls saw it. The decaying dragons that had been coming closer and trying to eat them, were smashed up from touching “after-effects” of something that soared through the sky with an overwhelming speed, the scene of those dragons being turned to pieces of meat is what those girls saw.

「……There is, someone there.」

Eri turned her eyes to the direction where that “something” had been fired from, and perceived it.

The figure that had its body wrapped up in black clothes that made it as if they had slipped into the darkness.

「It couldn’t be, that’s! ……The one that appeared at the Glard Wastelands, the one said to have everything other than his name covered up in mystery, the mysterious swordsman.」

The princess of the country of knights, Crestolia, who had dispatched her army to the previous war, saw that figure, and her eyes opened wide.

「Storm Bringer, also known as, Darkness Executioner! ……Why, is he here!?」

That existence that had seemed to have accompanied the night, looked up at the sky with the pair of eyes that were inside that hood.