Chapter 62
Inhuman Power and...
The moment after I noticed the rising black smoke, the lights suddenly went out.
The establishment was plunged into darkness, and every light source in the city vanished except for car headlights.
After screams and bewildered voices rose around us, emergency lights came on here and there.
"What the hell? My phone won't connect!"
A voice like that came from another table. When I looked over, a group of people who appeared to be college students were making a commotion with two tables between us.
I reflexively checked my own phone, but just as they had said, it had no signal.
Could an ordinary power outage really cause something like this? An unpleasant sweat trickled down my back.
"Hey, Rosson!"
At Riko-senpai's voice, I looked up to see Rosso-san, who had been sitting by the window, use the table as a foothold to leap into the aisle. She dashed straight for the restaurant's entrance.
She wrenched open the stalled automatic door by brute force and ran outside.
"Wait—"
I ran after her and reached the door, but the moment Rosso-san stepped outside, she manifested her 'Demon Armor.'
Then, with a flap, she spread a pair of 'wings.'
"Wh—!?"
Her deep-red cloak vanished, replaced by wings reminiscent of a bat that sprouted from around her waist.
She glanced back at us for only an instant.
"Sorry!"
Leaving only that behind, she took off into the air.
The wind pressure pushed me back slightly. While I instinctively shielded my eyes, she flew to a height above the building.
So that's the 'Night Dhampir'...!
"Excuse me, the bill."
"Huh? Right now!?"
When I turned toward the voice behind me, Riko-senpai was forcibly pressing the bill and a ten-thousand-yen note into the flustered cashier's hands.
"You can keep the change."
"Uh, um..."
"And, just in case, prepare to evacuate. Anyway, we're in a hurry."
She cut off the conversation unilaterally and walked toward us.
"Shall we go?"
"...Yes!"
I nodded at the words she tossed out as if they were the most natural thing in the world. Takanashi-san followed her, and the three of us went outside.
The panic outside was even worse than inside the establishment.
The traffic lights must have stopped working, because the roads were packed with cars and horns blared here and there. The people on the sidewalks had also stopped, voicing their frustration and anxiety over their phones not connecting.
"Which way did Rosson go?"
"That way."
"Okay."
After pointing toward the direction Rosso-san had gone—the smoke—I deployed my 'Demon Armor.' I drew my staff from its holster and slightly opened the ejection port to confirm that there was a scroll in the chamber.
"Just asking, but do you think this is an ordinary accident?"
"The mana concentration in the air is increasing. It is likely caused by either an ability user or a monster."
"Yeah, figured."
With a tremendous sigh, Riko-senpai deployed her 'Demon Armor' as well and tapped her own shoulder with her folding fan.
"In times like this, running away is the right answer, you know?"
"I was thinking we could run to wherever Rosso-san is."
"Nice. Let's go with that."
Honestly, I wanted to turn tail and run home. More than anything, I wanted to get as far as possible from the place where that black smoke was rising.
But when I remembered my disgraceful behavior last time... well, I figured I'd probably do something stupid partway through. I had a negative track record.
In that case, I decided I would do something stupid only after putting on a brave face. There was still a chance that the monsters spilling out of the dungeon this time were weaker than lycanthropes.
I prayed that the future waiting for us would be one in which no one was hurt, we effortlessly crushed a bunch of weaklings, and then parted ways after receiving thanks from a beautiful woman. Or perhaps police officers or Self-Defense Force ability users would show up along the way and solve everything neatly for us.
"Speaking of which, where's Miyucchi?"
"She's in that alley."
On the opposite side of the road, I spotted a familiar figure between two buildings. I had no idea when she had moved there.
Except she was not a beautiful black-haired woman, but a steel giant.
"She really doesn't hesitate, does she?"
"Well, it's an emergency."
As if urging us on, the light on 'Kenning' blinked on and off for a few seconds.
After exchanging a glance with Riko-senpai, we dashed between the stopped cars and reached the sidewalk on the other side. We then entered the alley.
'Rosso-san's current location is unknown. How should we pursue her?'
Apparently, pursuing Rosso-san had already become a foregone conclusion for Takanashi-san. I was glad she got straight to the point.
No, actually, it was hard to imagine Takanashi-san choosing otherwise.
"Well, if she panicked that badly when she saw the smoke, and then flew toward where it was rising..."
"Then she must have a home around there."
'Understood. I have this city's map memorized. Riko-senpai, over here.'
Holding the shield in its left hand and hooking the baton onto the weapon rack at its waist, Kenning extended its empty right palm toward Riko-senpai.
She climbed onto it while muttering, 'Whoa... This is the kind of thing you see in anime.' Then the machine's main camera turned toward me.
'Yahiro-san too.'
"No. I need to be able to react quickly in a pinch. Besides, I want to keep watch over the surroundings from above."
I answered and raised the tip of my staff toward the sky.
I usually conserve scrolls for moments like this. Today, I might as well splurge.
'Scroll: Telekinesis.'
Almost simultaneously with my pulling the trigger, an invisible arm—semi-transparent when seen through my magic eye—stretched upward.
It was my first time trying this for real, but there was no problem. This was my magic.
What I was imagining now had to be possible.
The moment the telekinetic arm grabbed a thick pipe running along the wall, I pulled 'myself' with all my strength.
The surrounding scenery streamed past at tremendous speed, and in the literal blink of an eye, I was higher than a nearby four-story building.
I gripped the lower part of the staff's tip with my right hand and moved the lever with my left. The empty scroll case was ejected, and the next scroll was loaded.
I twisted my body around in midair and extended the telekinetic arm toward a fence on the roof of another building.
Using the same method, I moved the semi-transparent arm and pulled myself toward it.
Just as I had expected, this was faster than traveling through the air with 'Levitation.' It was also more convenient because I could ignore the terrain to some extent.
When I glanced down at the ground, I saw Takanashi-san deftly turn Kenning around despite the alley not being particularly wide. The moment she finished turning, she set off on the rollers in its soles.
Even at a time like this, I almost laughed at the sight of a humanoid robot racing through the alley while elegantly avoiding even empty beer crates and trash cans.
But I steeled my expression beneath my face guard.
"I'll go ahead and keep watch over our surroundings!"
'Understood!'
After shouting that to each other, we began moving at full speed.
As expected, the chaos in the city looked terrible from above.
In some places, car headlights were shining in haphazard directions, suggesting that accidents had occurred.
Even apart from that, the people's voices carried all the way up here. Some were trying to take shelter in nearby buildings, while others were filming their surroundings with their phones.
I made my way through the chaos, extending semi-transparent arms from building to building and pulling myself toward them.
Just before the scrolls in my staff ran out, I went especially high, swapped magazines in midair with a flick, and flew toward another building.
I was moving like some kind of spider-themed hero, but I still could not see Rosso-san.
Maybe she had already descended. If so, she had flown to the vicinity of her destination at an unbelievable speed.
I had thought she was a powerful ability user, but it seemed I had still underestimated her. At night, she could really bring out this level of performance.
We were moving at a considerable speed ourselves. Thanks to that, we had gotten quite close to the place where the black smoke was rising.
The smell of something burning. Someone's scream. And then────.
A swath of red spread across the ground to greet us.
"There are enemies nearby! Stay alert!"
The streetlights in this area must have been equipped for power outages. Even after the lights in the surrounding buildings had gone out, they still illuminated the road clearly.
Several corpses lay scattered across the street. Even an amateur could tell that they had not died in an accident.
Their limbs bore marks that looked as though they had been bitten off, while their torsos and heads were covered in wounds from something sharp.
And we soon spotted the culprit as well.
A giant roughly two and a half meters tall. Steel-colored scales completely covered its well-developed muscles.
Its skeleton was close to human, but a long tail extended from behind its waist. This inhuman creature had twisted horns growing from its head. It was holding up a corpse that still clutched a doll in one hand while devouring its intestines.
The monster must have reacted to that shout. It turned its face toward us.
Rows of sharp teeth showed through its mouth, drenched bright red with blood. Its head was like a lizard's, with vertically slit pupils.
'Zmeu.'
A creature of mixed human and dragon origin from Eastern European folklore. A being that used its powerful body and magic to wreak destruction and slaughter.
A monster possessing inhuman strength and human-level intelligence. My eyes met those of the dragonkin.
"...!"
'GAAAAAAA!'
It tossed the corpse aside like garbage, lowered its center of gravity, and raised both arms.
I did not recognize the stance, but there was no mistaking it: it was martial arts.
No, that did not matter. That thing was───an enemy.
"Probable Zmeu sighted! Engaging!"
Summoning the last scraps of my reason, I shouted to Takanashi-san and the others.
I tried to tear my eyes away from the corpse it had just thrown aside, but I could not suppress my rage. Brain chemicals flooded from my single horn. Driven by anger, my thoughts turned toward battle.
As I extended a telekinetic arm toward the streetlight near it, I drew my sword with my right hand. The monster, meanwhile, brought its fingers together into a spear-hand stance.
"Ooooooooooh!"
'GGGOOOOOOO!'
From the air, my one-handed bastard sword came swinging down with all its momentum.
From the ground, the dragonkin's claws rose to intercept it, and the two collided.
The sound of enormous iron masses crashing together echoed through the city at night.