「HAAAaaa-!！」

Rei dashed forward, narrowing his distance to Cordo while poising his Death Scythe.

Despite declaring that he had many tricks up his sleeve, Cordo was relieved seeing that this attack seemed to have the same power as before.

But he immediately remembered Rei’s words that his previous attack was『an attack that did not contain his magic power』.

(Certainly, his attack that cut off my lower tentacles did not contain magic power, but he couldn’t destroy my shell. Naturally, that means his next attack should be magic empowered.)

Seeing Rei head towards him, Cordo took a breath.

Seeing that movement, Rei had a premonition and shouted almost on reflex.

「Magic Shield!」

Among the skills that the Death Scythe had, it could create a shield of light to block a single attack. The shield of light produced by that skill needed some time to form, but fortunately, it was in time for this moment. As soon as it was created, it disappeared the next moment.

Yes, it immediately blocked the Water Breath spat out of Cordo’s mouth.

Released at high pressure, water could slice through metal smoothly. The Water Breath that Cordo used wasn’t that powerful but was still powerful enough to easily hurt someone. Still, the Magic Shield blocked the attack.

「-!?」

Cordo, seeing his Water Breath blocked, which was one of his trump cards, he stopped moving for a moment in surprise. And for Rei, that moment was enough.

「Haah!」

A single attack from the magic empowered Death Scythe swept up from below. Even so, it only had the power to break or cut through Cordo’s shell. Instead, Rei aimed for the joints between the shells.

By the time Cordo realised it, the blade was already too close to avoid. The next moment, Rei’s swing of the Death Scythe cut the three tentacles growing from Cordo’s right side and sliced cleanly through Cordo’s right elbow, sending it flying into the air.

「Guh!」

Even though he was a Demon Soldier, Cordo still felt pain and gave a groan as his right claw was cut away. Rei wasn’t naive enough to miss the opportunity at the instantaneous gap in motion due to Cordo’s pain.

「Gaah~!」

Cordo gave another groan.

After cutting off Cordo’s right claw, Rei cut through Cordo’s right shoulder on the return slash.

Right arm from the elbow and his entire left arm. Since he had lost both his claws, which were Cordo’s main weapons, he had few means of attack left. All six of his strong defensive tentacles that grew from his sides had been cut off. Cordo had almost no way to attack anymore. ……He had one method left, other than his Water Breath that had been blocked earlier as well.

(He will come closer. Even if I die here, I will do my part as a Demon Soldier. Us Demon Soldier have to keep giving results. That is to encourage those that come after us.)

「……」

Cordo, who was still in a state of shock from being slashed at his right elbow and left shoulder, pretended to lose consciousness as he prepared himself for a final attack to try to reverse the situation.

Za~za~za~, listening to the sounds of Rei approaching him in the garden, he watched his timing……

(……?)

He wondered why the footsteps stopped several meters away from where he had fallen to the ground.

However, since he couldn’t let Rei know that he was still conscious, Cordo kept his eyes closed and waited for a chance.

Probably because Cordo had focused all his consciousness to his limit to release a final attack, he noticed a sound. Otherwise, he probably would have missed it. It came from directly above him and was coming down. It other words, the sound was heading towards him.

「-!?」

Moving the tentacles on his lower body to shift himself. The next moment, Rei swept down with the handle of the Death Scythe where Cordo had been a moment ago.

「……I thought so. Didn’t you say you were a Demon Soldier? I didn’t think that the trump card of the Bestir Empire would faint from something like that.」

Landing on the ground with barely a sound, Rei muttered while holding the Death Scythe.

「……」

Knowing that his surprise attack was now ineffective, Cordo rose up using the tentacles on his lower body as he distorted his lips in bitterness.

「Well, what will you do? You don’t have any way to attack anymore, do you? It will be simple if you surrender here. If you obediently tell us the information we want, you probably could also receive good treatment you know?」
「……」

He disregarded Rei’s proposal without even considering it.

For Cordo, if he turned traitor now, it was clear that the treatment of other Demon Soldiers would get worse, so it was absolutely impossible for him to chose surrender here.

「It seems you have no intention. I don’t know why you won’t, did you have to swear an oath of allegiance when you got this body? 」
「You don’t understand. ……Yes, people with talent like you will never understand our feelings!」

Crying out, as if his flat voice and lack of emotion was a lie, he spat out another Water Breath from his shell covered face.

The first time he used it, it was a surprise, but now that Rei knew about it, it wasn’t hard to deal with.

「-!」

At the Water Breath flying towards his face, Rei shifted his head a few cm to avoid it.

「Since you’ve revealed all your cards, I won’t be caught out even if you use it two or three times. If you don’t surrender, then I can only use more forceful means……is that fine with you?」
「Damn it!」

Rei approached while holding the Death Scythe. Cordo continuously spat out Water Breath to try to stop him, but Rei avoided or blocked all of them with the Death Scythe. Before long, he ran out of body moisture to spit out using Water Breath and just watched Rei silently approach.

Though his eyes hardly showed any emotion, it still demonstrated his will that he would not surrender.

「If possible, I wanted to slice off the tentacles on your lower body so that you couldn’t move. But seeing what happened before, you will probably regrow them. Because of that, I’ll have to knock you out.」

Rei frowned slightly as he looked at Cordo. Most of his body was covered in shell. His defence was the real thing. In order to knock him out in a single attack, he had no choice but to empower his Death Scythe with magic……

「Well, as long as you’re alive, Margrave Rowlocks will be able to do something about it. Don’t die.」

Saying that, he was about to thrust the handle of the magic empowered Death Scythe towards Cordo’s stomach.

「-!?」

That moment, something moved in the corner of his vision. Rei dashed away from Cordo.

「……」

An attack aiming to reverse the situation from the brink. Cordo seemed to have a regretful expression.

After Rei took some distance from Cordo, he looked towards the place he had been earlier. There were two tentacles with sharp points like spears stabbed into the ground. The tentacles came from Cordo’s lower body.

He had about 20 tentacles growing from his lower body. Among them, two were longer than the others and had sharp pointed tips.

(……Are those squid tentacles?)

Squid tentacles. This referred to the two extra long tentacles that squids had, the other tentacles of squids usually called arms. It was an organ used by squids to capture their pray, a squid’s biggest weapon.

(It can’t be, a Demon Soldier with squid aspects as well? No, a squid isn’t a monster in the first place, so there shouldn’t be such a magic stone.)

While thinking to himself, the Death Scythe struck quickly swaying whip like tentacles.

「Guh!」

Unlike the other tentacles growing from his lower body, whether he felt the pain sensation or not, he gave a groan of pain from these ones. Not missing that moment that Cordo stopped, Rei swung the Death Scythe back with a flick of his wrist and used the momentum to thrust the tip of the handle towards Cordo’s body.

Cordo’s shell had enough defense to break mediocre weapons. But as expected, it was impossible to block the magic empowered Death Scythe. The handle of the Death Scythe sank in as it crushed the shell.

If he didn’t limit his magic power, he could have pierced the handle of the Death Scythe through Cordo’s back without much difficulty. However, Rei’s purpose was the Bestir Empire……in addition, as a prisoner of war, they could obtain more information about the existence of Demon Soldiers, which they didn’t know a lot of at the moment. Because of that, if he killed Cordo, he would get nothing out of it.

Alternatively, they could also get information out of the alchemist who should be suppressed inside Bolton’s mansion. They might also be able to get information out of Minas, who was currently in an intense fight with Set. But Rei decided that it would be better to have multiple information sources.

(Well, seeing the loyal personality of Cordo, I don’t think he’ll sell out any information on his friends. Margrave Rowlocks’ subordinates who will be doing the interrogating will have to do their best.)

While Rei was knocking Cordo out into a half dead state, the fight between Set and Minas was about to reach its climax.

 

 

「Ugh, why……why-!」

Though she swung her whip, which seemed to have come out of nowhere, the tip couldn’t even scratch Set, who was flying around freely in the sky.

Even though they were both Demon Soldiers, unlike Cordo, who had both his hands turned into crab claws, aside from the scales, Minas had a normal human hand. Because of that, in terms of pure power, she was weaker than Cordo. However, this meant that she could use weapons that required human dexterity.

The effect of the simplified inheritance ceremony that the Bestir Empire used was that it was completely unknown what appearance the person would have until the ceremony was completed. The quality of the magic stone, the person’s personality, physical condition, magic power and disposition. The compatibility between the magic stone and the person. They were all connected in complex ways that decided the ultimate appearance of the person.That is to say, Minas, who still kept her human appearance, had a good compatibility with her magic stone.

However, even if she had a compatible magic stone, it was still impossible to fight a Griffon.

Even though it was an A rank monster, as a Demon soldier, Minas never thought she could be defeated by one. However, her confidence collapsed as soon as the fight started.

「This-!　For a beast like you to be stronger than a Demon Soldier……I will not admit it. I will not acknowledge it!」

Minas swung her whip while shouting.

Minas, who as a Demon Soldier, boasted a physical strength several times greater than that of a normal human, swung her whip around. The whip with that power behind it struck at Set at lightning speed. However, Set avoided or parried all her attacks with his forefeet.

「Gurururururu~!」

Pan-! The sound echoed into the surroundings.

But that was just the sound of the whip hitting the ground without hitting Set.

And when Set saw that, he would flap his wings and soar back up into the sky.

As soon as that happened, as Minas had no means of long range attack, she had to wait for Set to come back down again.

Set would freely fly in the air and attack Minas every time he saw an opportunity.

However, Set also had a handicap in a sense. This was currently downtown. There were also countless people watching him from Bolton’s mansion. In such circumstances, he could carelessly use the skills he learnt from absorbing magic stones, which was a part of the Magic Beast Art. Set understood that what he could use was Size Transformation, which was easy to miss in the darkness of night. He might also be able to get away with using Poison Claws and trick the people watching him, but there was a possibility that the information could be leaked by the person struck by Poison Claw, so he couldn’t really use that either.

「Gururururu~!」

Deciding that there was no choice but to throw himself into melee, from a height of about 20m, Set started a steep descent towards Minas, who was brandishing her whip at him.

「So you’ve come!」

Minas waited, ready to tie Set up with her whip……

「Haah!」

She swung her whip as soon as Set got within range. However……

「Gururu~!」

With a sharp cry, Set used his Size Transformation skill and shrunk himself to 1m in a moment.

Most people would have felt a sense of incongruity at his sudden descent and barrel roll to avoid the whip, it was fortunate that no one could be sure that he had shrunk. Of course, Set had done the barrel roll aiming for that.

While avoiding the high speed whip by shrinking himself and doing a barrel roll, Set descended to Minas.

「Gurururururu~!」

As soon as he avoided the whip, he used his Size Transformation skill again to return to his original size……

「Gururu~!」

Set made a horizontal swipe with his right claw .

「KAAA-!」

Of course, it wasn’t an ordinary attack. It was a strike from Set, a Griffon. His power was brutal to say the least. Even though Minas was a Demon Soldier and was covered in scales, it couldn’t stop the attack and was blasted 10m away, fainting from the impact.

This garden, which just a few minutes ago was filled with sounds of violent battle, was once again wrapped in the silence of the night as the battles ended.

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