Coordinated Strike

The pit filled with water.

Steam began rising from its surface.

Bonfam was heating it up.

"Won't he just swim out?"

"I know. Of course I've got countermeasures for that."

Alexia plunged her hand into the water.

The water was practically hot enough to bathe in, and her skin flushed red.

After a deep breath, she began chanting a spell.

The ambient temperature plummeted.

She apparently intended to freeze the water in the pit with ice magic.

Submerging her hand must have been to strengthen the effect.

The cold became piercing, and ice began spreading outward from Alexia.

But Bonfam was fighting back from the bottom, and past the halfway point the water refused to freeze.

"Heating this much water continuously… At this rate, my mana will run out first."

"Hey, I don't want to be back at square one."

"No choice… Hand me that staff."

The staff Alexia meant was the Thorn Staff.

It radiated an ominous aura. Just touching it seemed like it might curse you.

It was too sinister to leave in the warehouse, so I'd kept it in a supply bag, but using it seemed highly risky.

Yet Alexia had weighed the risks and decided it was necessary.

Azu pulled the Thorn Staff from the bag and handed it to Alexia.

The moment Alexia took it and channeled her mana, the staff's thorns coiled around her arm, piercing her skin. The blood that welled up flowed along the thorns and into the staff.

"Ngh, that hurts!"

The Thorn Staff slowly activated, drinking Alexia's blood and mana.

The sight made me nervous, but Alexia pressed on.

The staff's power was tremendous; the stalled freezing surged forward at once.

At least within visible range, all the water was now solid ice.

Alexia collapsed.

Azu hurriedly pried the Thorn Staff away, and Elza caught her in her arms.

With healing, the color quickly returned to her pallid face.

Even brief use of the Thorn Staff took a horrific toll.

It was truly not made for human use.

With Finn's help, Alexia got to her feet and peered into the pit.

"I doubt this finished him… Better safe than sorry. Let's shatter it. Azu, if you would."

"Understood. I'll give it everything."

Azu raised her sword to the sky and focused her mana.

She drew on the Apostle's power; the color of her right eye shifted to a rainbow hue.

Borrowing the power of the water and Fire Elementals, she brought the blade down onto the ice.

On impact, there was a sharp kin, and the ice split cleanly in two.

The Sealed Sword Grungaus's effect triggered a follow-up strike, pulverizing the two halves into fragments.

The effect propagated deeper over time, reaching the bottom.

One particularly loud crack echoed up.

"Did we get him?"

Just as Finn leaned in to peer into the pit, black soot billowed up from within.

She scrambled back.

The soot drifted on the wind and dissolved into nothing.

"What was that…?"

"I think he disintegrated. Once he was frozen solid and couldn't regenerate, Azu-chan's strike reached him and finished him off."

"Really? I'll go check. When I give the signal, pull me up."

Heeding Elza's words, Finn descended using a rope.

Mani and the other soldiers approached alongside me to watch.

We were ready to haul her up at a moment's notice.

But the signal wasn't coming.

As time dragged on and worry set in, the rope finally moved, and we hurried to pull her up.

Finn was unharmed.

"Nothing down there. No signs of escape either, so it looks like we got him."

"Good. Using that power is exhausting, so I was worried about what to do if he revived."

"I had confidence in the impact, but it's a relief to be sure."

"Let's get moving. We can leave the rest to the soldiers, right?"

Elza asked Mani, who had stood dumbfounded until she finally snapped out of it.

"Y-yeah. Leave it to us. You go on ahead. Thanks for the help. As expected of the Princess… Her Majesty the Queen's trusted retainers."

I was just a hired merchant, though.

Azu and the others were strong, so we were convenient to use and kept getting sent everywhere for work. That was all.

At any rate, rest was in order.

And we'd left in the middle of the coronation, so I was worried about how things stood there.

Honestly, finish one problem and another pops up.

Alexia still couldn't walk. Azu was visibly drained too.

So we borrowed a carriage for easy travel, left this to them, and headed for the Royal Capital.

"I'm sorry, I need to sleep for a bit."

"Me too."

Azu and Alexia fell asleep immediately.

The Thorn Staff had already been put away.

Frankly, I didn't want her using that thing, but against a monster like that, it couldn't be helped.

Finn and I took the reins together, checking our surroundings as we went.

The risk of another attack wasn't zero.

"If more of those things show up, we're in trouble. I specialize in humans."

"Regular soldiers would struggle against something like that too. Just supporting everyone else is a big help. And really, it's strange that we're the ones fighting in the first place."

"Maybe it's fate? You've got Elza, a priestess of the Church of the Creator King, the Church of the Sun God's sworn enemy."

Maybe things were decided the moment I bought Elza.

I couldn't entirely deny it.

And I had no intention of letting her go now.

"As long as we're in the Kingdom, there'll probably be more chances to fight. I'm sure that queen expects it."

"That's… true. If the Kingdom falls, it'd be a problem."

"I might need to train a bit more. Being dead weight hurts my pride."

Finn seemed bothered that she hadn't been on the front lines this time.

It was a matter of fighting style, not something to worry about…

"For now, let's get through the coronation. The enemy's been dealt with; we can think about the rest later."

"Right. Well, with that scheming duke's daughter Anatia around, I'm sure things are fine."

Was Lady Anatia really that scheming?