Crunch!
With a refreshingly crisp sound, one of Pron’s legs was severed.
“…!”
“So I can cut through the bone, right?”
Pron’s posture tilted dramatically to one side, and he collapsed to the floor.
Wikes’ technique, which had sliced Pron’s bones earlier in the day, was now in play once more.
“Then it’s my turn.”
Whoosh!
As Jie’s sword grazed through, this time Pron’s left arm was cut off at the bone.
“You bastards!”
Pron, who had slumped down to the ground, let out a roar and tried to rise using his sword as a cane.
“This time, I’ll split your head open properly.”
“Sounds fun.”
While seated on the ground, Pron desperately tried to block the swords of Jie and Wikes.
He could not swing the great sword freely with just one arm.
Swoosh!
Pron’s head was pierced and pinned to the floor by Salra’s arrow, shot from quite a close distance.
“Now, that’s just sad.”
Wikes sheathed his sword and looked at Pron with pity.
“What the hell! That arrow…”
What Salra had just shot was not an ordinary arrow.
It was large and thick, seemingly far removed from any arrow.
“A stake? You can shoot that?”
“As long as it can be nocked.”
If simply nocking it meant he could shoot, he would have used a bow instead of a gun.
The fact that someone shot a stake, which was at least dozens of times heavier than an arrow and much larger, didn’t make any sense.
Now, Pron, who had even lost the option to escape without a head.
Clack. Clack.
The sound of Salra’s heels slowly approaching Pron echoed softly in the alley.
“That girl is an archer, isn’t she?”
“She shoots a bow, but I’ve never called myself an archer.”
In Salra’s hands were a hammer and a thick stake.
“You said you were sturdy, right? I want to see just how sturdy.”
“Wait! I’m a knight! I want to settle this with a sword!”
“I see. But I’m not a knight, I’m a smith.”
Salra gazed intently at Pron’s remaining right hand.
“Your bones are really thick.”
Salra brought the stake to Pron’s forearm.
“Flesh means nothing to me.”
“No, I’m going for the bones too.”
“Looks like I have to deal with a funny girl. You think you can pierce my bones with that stake…?”
Thud!
Salra’s hammer, lifted high above Pron’s head, struck the top of the stake, driving it deep into his arm.
Even though it didn’t seem like she used excessive force, the stake pierced through Pron’s flesh as if it were tofu and appeared embedded in the bone.
Thud!
After extracting the inserted stake, Salra shifted slightly aside and drove it back in again.
After several repetitions, Pron’s arm was shredded and fell off.
“How could this happen? Not even a sword, but a stake!”
“That’s a secret.”
Shortly after, Pron’s head and body were separated due to Salra’s stake.
“I heard you die if you aim for the core. I can see a large core in your head.”
Salra brought the stake close to Pron’s head, preparing to strike down.
Wikes was holding his sword at the ready, just in case.
Thud!
The clear sound of metal echoed through the alley.
Pron, one of the leaders of the End Times Army, was obliterated.
“Haah…”
Salra, sitting on the floor, gazed blankly into space with her yellow eyes.
“Leave her like this for a moment. She’s probably feeling very satisfied right now.”
“Satisfied?”
“It’s most enjoyable when you sever an enemy’s lifeline with a stake.”
There seemed to be no normal person in this special unit.
After a brief moment, Salra got up, adjusted her clothes, and returned to normal.
“I think I showed a rather poor side of myself. I apologize.”
“No, it’s fine. Since we took down one of the enemy leaders, we’ve alleviated our worries a bit.”
What remained were only the headless Gira and the Necromancer.
I’m not sure about the Necromancer, but there’s one way to find Gira.
First, I headed to the hotel to get what we needed to lure him out.
“Waaaah!”
The vigorous cheers of soldiers echoed from the alley.
With Pron gone, the skeletons under his command had become considerably weaker.
Along with that, the nameless undead were also much weaker than before.
Even when attacked from above the building, the soldiers managed to handle things well.
As we got closer to the hotel, the reappearing undead seemed to return to the same level as before.
It meant there was a commanding leader nearby.
“What’s that?”
Near the hotel, a headless skeleton was raising undead around itself.
“Ghouls! Eat them up!”
The headless skeleton was Gira.
The new undead, which had attacked the soldiers at night, seemed to be ghouls, and the undead that Pron had impersonated.
However, what caught our attention was not Gira or the ghouls.
It was a girl fighting against the ghouls.
A demon clad in a pitch-black dress, each hand wielding an axe.
“Her attacking style… Could she be a senior?”
“A senior?”
“Uh, seems like that’s right.”
Jie, unable to confidently assert anything, spoke in an uncertain tone.
As we approached, the girl, presumed to be Iwan, gleamed her red eyes while she sliced through the ghouls like butter.
The ghouls kept moving even after their heads were severed.
That’s why I thought dealing with them would be quite bothersome.
But now, the ghouls struck by the girl’s axes were collapsing helplessly to the ground.
It was a nuisance, but killing them was not difficult; the fact that she could handle them so quickly was quite impressive.
Since there was nothing particularly different about her, if she had any secrets, they were certainly in the axes she wielded.
Due to Gira taking a position near the hotel, it seemed unavoidable for us to engage in battle.
Thanks to Gira’s actions, we realized where the ghouls we had faced previously came from.
Gira tapped his staff on the ground several times.
Fresh flesh sprouted on the bodies of nearby skeletons as they transformed into ghouls.
Clearly unsatisfied with the current situation, he commanded in a nervous voice.
“Capture that girl!”
The ghouls rushed to capture the girl, but they were no match for her.
“Why! Why are my subordinates so easily dispatched!”
Facing the skeleton leader alone is not an easy task.
If we hadn’t combined our strength, I couldn’t guarantee we could have dealt with Pron.
They may seem clumsy, but they have a definite strategy.
Using a large number of them to attack is simple, yet effective.
Furthermore, since undead soldiers don’t need to be fed or put to sleep, it was an even more compelling strategy!
Gira gave several ghouls a quick tap with his staff.
The ghouls touched by the staff stared at each other, opened their mouths, and swallowed one of their own.
After a few of them had done this, two larger ghouls appeared among the soldiers.
Though their size was substantial, their movements were surprisingly quick.
The girl’s axe aimed for a ghoul’s hand but barely got lodged in it.
Seeing it seemed dangerous, we finally jumped in to join the fight.
Salra had completely set aside her bow and instead drew stakes on either side.
I was contemplating how much of the Last Ape’s power I should utilize.
Everyone had evacuated, but I felt hesitant about destroying their homes where they once lived.
I wanted to end the war with as little damage as possible.
Jie and Wikes severed the legs of the larger ghoul with their swords.
As the heavy body fell to the ground after losing its legs, the ghoul dragged itself with its arms and didn’t stop attacking.
“You guys…”
The voice that came from the girl was surprisingly youthful.
“You fought well on your own.”
“Stop using informal language!”
The girl yelled angrily at Jie.
“Huh?”
“You’re my junior.”
“So, you really were a senior!”
The girl they had been fighting against until just a moment ago, Gira and the ghouls, was Iwan, who had disappeared during the special unit’s activities.
With bright red hair and red eyes, she was quite a beauty.
It’s exceedingly difficult to guess the age of demons by their appearance.
Iwan was bigger than a child but looked significantly younger than Jie.
Though the Demon King usually looks like a child, they’re actually hundreds of years old.
“And my name is not Iwan.”
“Eh? I’m sure you introduced yourself like that before…”
“Iwaf. That’s my name; you misunderstood it at first!”
Although we hadn’t known each other long, Jie had likely called her Iwan for quite a while.
With her blood boiling from battle, Iwan, or rather Iwaf, was now quite chatty.
As Jie was lectured by Iwaf, a ghoul’s hand flew in from behind.
Swish!
Without looking back, Iwaf raised her axe and swatted the ghoul’s hand away.
The lecturing didn’t stop.
“Let’s talk properly later, but for now, let’s finish the battle.”
“Of course!”
With military discipline, Jie gripped his sword again.
For the first time, the entire special unit fought together properly!
Iwaf’s skills transcended my expectations significantly.
“Are you really part of the Knight Order?”
“I belong to the 2nd Knight Order. Why?”
I hadn’t seen the vice-captain, Riki, fighting, but I had seen Aila in battle many times.
It didn’t make sense that someone with Iwaf’s skills was just an ordinary member.
“Why are you just a regular member with that level of skill?”
Iwaf responded with a puzzled expression at my question.
“With my skills, I can’t even compare to the vice-captain’s toes!”
“Huh?”
“Our vice-captain is strong. The captain must be even stronger.”
If Aila were to assemble an elite team in the Knight Order, I was sure Iwaf would definitely be part of it.
“Oh, by the way, Ririan knows the captain, right?”
“What!”
Jie’s words elicited a very surprised reaction from Iwaf.
“You know the captain personally?!”
“It’s true that we know each other.”
“Can you introduce me later?!”
How little outside activity must Iwaf have had for other members of the same order to want to meet her so badly?
“Just ask her directly for permission.”
“If we achieve something in battle, we might also get praise from the captain!”
Suddenly fueled with enthusiasm, Iwaf pulled out two more axes and hurled them at the ghouls.
“If we catch the enemy leader, we can meet the captain!”
Four axes swooped freely through the swarm of ghouls and skeletons.
As the skeletal soldiers fell, Gira became all the more agitated.
Just like during the ghoul attack, he began merging skeletons to create a massive skeletal soldier.
“Bone golems! Smash the city!”
The empty eye sockets of the giant bone golems glowed red.
The large ghouls and bone golems began to move on the battlefield.
