CH 54

[Roasting]

Actually, Higaki Ao’s movement sense was above that of Sakurai, it could be said that Higaki could basically do anything that Sakurai could.

Therefore, as long as she had the mental ‘momentum’, she could push her way through the paths formed of threads. In her first step, she missed her footing and bounced her whole body into the air only because she lacked too much of that ‘momentum’.

After that, she got angry at the imaginary Sakurai’s ridicule that came to her mind, and arrived at Iris’s side faster than she was, so her failure could be said did not count essentially.

Then, Higaki and Iris attacked Van Dead below.

Van Dead, who had not been paying attention to above him, could not defend against their surprise attack, his shoulder received a heavy slash from Higaki, and the top of his head received a powerful hit from Iris’s long rod.

(Shallow… ngh!)

However, having turned into his demon-kin form, Van Dead’s skin… armor-like scales peculiar to reptiles stopped Higaki’s slash with a minor injury, and although slightly delayed, by slightly tilting his body, he shifted the hit spot of Iris’s blow, succeeding in reducing the permeation of the blow.

Van Dead then looked back calmly with leisure, and when he saw that the people who attacked him were two still young girls, he leaked a smile of ridicule.

“A shame, riiight? Your attacks didn’t seem to work on me at all. Let me tell you the reason; both sword and magic are powerless against the great me who have turned into a demon-kin!!” (Van Dead)

Abandoning his injured body by ‘molting’, Van Dead, having recovered an uninjured body, said so as if pleased with the two’s shocked reaction.

The two facing him made slight eye contact and split up in two direction to enter Van Dead’s blind spot.

Van Dead, seeing that, turned his body toward Higaki, who had a distinct weapon that was a sword, and jumped.

He accelerated by kicking a nearby wall in the air and, added with his own mass, slammed her with the increased destructive power of the weapon called ‘My Body’.

Diving Body Press.

Although he would receive recoil damage after using it in the original game, ‘in exchange for having to move last, he would deal 1.5 times the damage he received in the turn it was used’ – so was Van Dead Roast’s exclusive skill, the ultimate move that Sakurai was wary of.

“Slow! Flame Sword, ‘Firefall’!” (Higaki)

However, Higaki, who avoided Van Dead’s body slam by leaping sideways, aimed at the enemy while turning her body and swung up the tip of her flame-cladded Flame Sword, grazing the floor.

The flames cladding the Flame Sword propagated from its tip to Van Dead’s feet, creating a bursting up, reverse-flowing torrent of flames.

“Guoooooohhh!?” (Van Dead)

Vanded who was swallowed in it had his whole body roasted and burnt by the extra-hot heat and raised a scream of agony.

Even so, Van Dead was able to survived through the torrent of flames with his inherent physical strength; he waved his arms and escaped from the flames.

“This girl! Injuring me to this extent!!” (Van Dead)

“Kongeki, ‘Watari Go Mon’ (lit. soul attack, ferrying across five crests)!” (Iris)

“Gah, goh, gah!?” (Van Dead)

This time, Iris threw five consecutive attacks at Van Dead who had tided over the flames and tried to counterattack. They were the fists of Netherworld that not only struck the body but also the soul.

She kicked the back of his knees, struck his solar plexus in a flowing manner, hit his chin, and then ending it by striking both the left and right side of his temporal region without a pause.

Van Dead, who was shaken to the soul due to those attacks that were precisely aimed at his vital spots, fell to his knees. The damage to his soul directly led to the flickering of his consciousness, making him exposed a big opening in front of the two.

Naturally, the two wouldn’t miss that opening, Iris swung her long rod and created a water ball at its tip, and Higaki, while turning her body, created a number of ‘Fire Snakes’ along her sword.

“Iris!” (Higak)

“Let’s!” (Iris)

““‘Cremation Sea World!’””

The water ball struck Van Dead, exploded, and turned into a number of tentacles, creating a water cage that isolated him.

Then, nine ‘fire snakes’ released by Higaki enter the gaps and burn his body in flames.

The cage closed its gaps as the snakes entered inside, and transformed into a water cube containing an enemy and flames.

“Ngh! !?!? !!!” (Van Dead)

The surface of the cube occasionally popped out from the inside.

Van Dead inside must be rampaging to escape to the outside.

However, the cube formed of water only expanded and contracted, could not be destroyed; the resistance then gradually disappeared.

Just like that, the roasting continued for a few minutes.

When the fire snakes inside burned out, the cube froze as if all the heat had been taken away by the flames.

Rolling out of the cube that gradually cracked and shattered was Van Dead who had lost consciousness due to the frostbite and burns on his whole body, and a lack of oxygen.

“That was easy.” (Higaki)

“It is the victory of our… or rather, Higaki-san’s affinity, isn’t it? The ability to recover by ‘molting’ no matter how injured he is, is actually pretty amazing.” (Iris)

“If you burn his old skin and the new skin underneath when he tries to ‘molt’, his ability will be sealed… it went as Sakurai said, huh.” (Higaki)

“He probably won’t wake up for a while, so let’s freeze his limbs and tie him to a pillar. Since he was that confident in his strength and boastful of his regeneration ability, I am sure he would not die.” (Iris)

Iris used magic to freeze Van Dead’s limbs and stick him to the wall to restrain him.

Even during that time, mobs were constantly attacking them, but they were mobs who only come to their way because there was no opponent to attack nearby, so their number was not that large.

Furthermore, most of the rampaging mobs were ordinary people affected by the ‘Blood Mist’; it was one thing if everyone in the hall came at them, but if there were only several people, they could handle them even with one hand with room to spare.

“Now, what should we do next?” (Higaki)

“Hmm—, Sakurai-san said that he doesn’t need assistance. What was his name again, Amanai-san, was it? Should we go help him?” (Iris)

“I don’t know much about Amanai and his friends, but since the letter says it’s okay to put off giving him a hand, he must be quite powerful. If that is the case, wouldn’t it be better for us to move to put the situation in order? I don’t think the outside knows of the turmoil here, so it’s better to report it to the knight order or the likes.” (Higaki)

“The knight order… are they the people who maintain the security in this world? If so, we should report it to them. Manpower is required to suppress the rampaging people and to take the subdued people to the authority after all.” (Iris)

Higaki turned her gaze to the stage while discussing with Iris.

There, she saw the figure of Sakurai fighting the Diva Luisina, manipulating threads and sword dexterously.

Luisina, on the other hand, was toying with Sakurai, who was a few meters away, with a skillful manipulation of her, for some reason, elastic arms, backed by her inhuman physical abilities.

The two observed the movements of Sakurai and Luisina, predicted the transition of the battle, and at the same time considered whether to interve——

“Shall we go call the knight order?” (Higaki)

“It seems like he is doing well anyway, right?” (Iris)

“Yeah.” (Higaki)

――Both Higaki and Iris concluded that Sakurai would not lose, so there would be no problem to leave him alone.

The decisive factor was the movement of Luisina.

There was a fatal weakness in her movement. They did not think that Sakurai missed that, and if he got that, yet still taking his time dealing with her calmly, that meant he was confident that he definitely could win.

Therefore, the two decided to capture a nearby mob and break out of the opera venue first.

To be on the safe side, they lightly froze the doorway so that the mobs would not pour out, and then carrying the captured man, they ran through the night city in dresses.

The spectacle of beauties in beautiful dresses carrying weapons, and a clearly unconscious man whose limbs were bound was so strange to the passersby who were not aware of the circumstance to the point they looked back twice.

“Hey, doesn’t this make us look pretty suspicious?” (Higaki)

“But if we want to get them to believe our story, wouldn’t it be easier if we go bringing a person who had actually rampaged like this?” (Iris)

“Well, that’s true, however. For some reason, the idea feels like one that Sakurai would come up with…” (Higaki)

“I can’t state definitively that I have not been influenced, yeah~. In any case, let’s discuss that later.” (Iris)

While having such a conversation, the two headed to the knight order’s station without minding the public gaze.

Higaki looked at Iris rushing forward as if there was nothing to be ashamed of, and quietly decided that Sakurai’s influence had to be removed from her mind.

“You there! What on earth are you guys doing!?”

“Thank you for getting out of your way and came here. My arms are getting dead tired.” (Iris)

“No, this will obviously be a hassle. Iris, let’s have you relearn common sense when all these are over, alright?” (Higaki)

In the end, before they even arrived at the knight order’s station, the patrolling knights, who were notified of their suspiciousness by the people who saw them, came and dragged them to the station for questioning.