Chapter 266
Hera’s long ears twitched slightly up, down, left, and right as she grasped the sounds of the surroundings.
“Thirty-two. Among them, twenty-four have bows, and the remaining eight have daggers.”
“…That’s exactly right.”
“It’s nothing special. I’m just distinguishing and grasping the sounds they make as they move.”
It was quite an incredible ability to call it nothing special. Excluding Franz’s mana detection, it was safe to say that no one could match her in enemy detection capabilities.
Anyway, how could she distinguish such details? To Franz, whose physical abilities were no different from an ordinary person’s, it was simply amazing.
Not long after, the group of corrupted Elves appeared. They were moving freely through the trees as if they were animals.
Elves were naturally good at climbing trees, but their abilities seemed to have been further enhanced.
“Then I will begin.”
“Yeah.”
As Hera drew and released her bowstring, the arrow split into dozens of projectiles and spread out in all directions.
The corrupted group positioned in the trees moved swiftly between the branches to avoid the arrows.
Even so, they managed to intercept the incoming arrows with the bows and daggers in their hands, so their combat skills were on a similar level to those of the skeletons on the 3rd Basement Floor and 5th Floor of the underground labyrinth where Yuna of the Destroyed World had been.
'Ordinary hunters probably wouldn’t stand a chance…'
Even if they sent out carefully selected experts, they would ultimately fail to clear this labyrinth. The boss waiting at the end would be too much for them to handle.
That meant that from now on, gates exceeding the measurement limit would have to be handled by Franz, or someone of a similar level.
Franz didn’t have any particular complaints about that fact. If they were the bosses emerging from those Labyrinths, he wanted to resolve it himself.
While his thoughts led from one to another, Hera’s arrows dropped over ten enemies from the trees at once. They seemed to be the ones who had failed to intercept the arrows in time.
Some died instantly, but others did not, so they couldn’t afford to hesitate.
Franz and Arian used magic at the same time.
6th circle ice magic, Freezing Field.
In a split second, the magic circle was completed, and a domain made of ice spread out rapidly like a wave.
Starting with the fallen leaves piled up on the ground, the wave advanced, freezing everything, and finally froze the corrupted Elves wriggling on the ground.
It was then.
Were they refusing to just sit back and take it? Arrows flew in simultaneously from all directions. The arrows, filled with evil energy, were a wavering dark red color.
Of course, Franz was not one to allow such an attack.
Snap-.
As he snapped his fingers, a translucent, hemispherical shield appeared. The arrows they shot failed to pierce the shield and disappeared, causing explosions on the spot.
It was a shield that had even stopped the Demon God’s Spear, so there was no way mere arrows could pierce it.
Afterward, Franz transformed the created shield into small blades and shot them into the air.
The blades, moving freely according to Franz’s hand gestures, relentlessly chased after the ones moving quickly through the trees.
At the same time, Hera’s arrows were also chasing them, so their deaths were only a matter of time.
Perhaps they realized that fact too. A few came down from the trees and charged.
There were four charging in total, all holding daggers.
“I’ll take care of this side.”
Yuna said that and kicked off the ground. In an instant, her figure disappeared, and the air in the area was pushed back heavily.
Not long after, the entire situation was resolved.
Hera’s arrows and Franz’s blades took care of the ones in the trees, and Yuna handled the ones that came down to the ground.
The time it took to deal with thirty-two enemies was merely a few minutes. It was an amount of time in which one could have brewed a pot of tea, fought the battle, and it would have been fine.
They were a party that had won against a Demon God, so there was no need to even mention their underlying strength.
“Let’s take a short break before we go.”
At Franz’s words, Yuna, Tii, and Arian sat on a nearby tree stump.
One way or another, fighting consecutive battles in a short time must have built up quite a bit of fatigue. The tension of battle induced significant mental fatigue, separate from the physical exertion.
“Then I will be back in a moment.”
Hera walked off somewhere.
He could tell where her destination was without having to ask. She was definitely going to collect the Elves' necklaces.
Watching her back, Franz let out a short sigh and took a step in the opposite direction.
“Magic Tower lord, where are you going?”
“To help Hera a bit, you guys rest there.”
Even if not as much as Hera, Franz had affection for the Elves. He also held the position of grand chieftain in his own way.
Didn’t they say a burden shared is a burden halved? Honestly, he didn’t know if that saying was true, but…
He moved with the thought that it might make her feel even a little bit better.
Eventually, Franz had detached all the necklace ornaments from the Elves in the area.
Turning his head at the sudden sound of footsteps, he saw Hera standing there, blinking her eyes.
“Franz…? What are you doing…?”
“Here, this.”
Franz handed over the necklace ornaments he had torn off the Elves.
As Hera received them, her eyes widened in bewilderment.
“Why…”
“I’m the grand chieftain. If it’s something you have to do, then of course I should do it too.”
“…You know very well that it’s a position I forced upon you.”
“Whether you forced it or it was a natural position, it doesn’t really matter. We aren’t close enough to be called kin… but I still think we’re quite close in our own way.”
When had he ever not been like that? Regardless of the circumstances or the position he was placed in, he simply did his best.
“You really are…”
Hera tightly gripped the necklace ornaments filling her two hands. Along with that, her body was trembling faintly, as if her emotions were welling up.
Soon, after putting the wooden ornaments into her bag, Hera suddenly hugged Franz tightly.
“What do you plan to do by making me fall for you even more than this?”
“I don’t really have any plans to do anything.”
“You might not, but I keep getting the urge to do something. I will definitely hold you responsible for today’s matter, so keep that in mind.”
What exactly was that responsibility…
Franz had that question come to mind, but he didn’t bother voicing it.
He merely patted the back of his close friend who was going through a difficult time.
Perhaps this action too was the “making me fall for you” behavior she had mentioned, but…
He decided to think about that after a little more time had passed. He hadn’t even given her the answer he held in his heart yet, after all.
Having ended their short secret rendezvous, Franz and Hera returned to where everyone else was.
“Good job, both of you. Let’s rest a little more and then set off.”
Normally, they would have interrogated them about what the two of them had been doing, but for now, they didn’t say a word.
As expected, they were close despite everything. They too understood Hera’s feelings.
“Yeah, let’s rest a bit more then.”
Saying that, Franz sat on the tree stump and slowly shifted his gaze somewhere. It was the center of the Great Forest, where the boss of the labyrinth was waiting.
Right after crossing the gate, it had been obscured by thick demonic energy and hard to see, but now that the distance had closed, its figure was clearly visible.
It had pointy and long ears, hair coming down to the waist, and a bow held in one hand.
That appearance was unmistakably Hera.
Why was she, who was unaffected by demonic energy thanks to the Spirit King’s protection, guarding this place?
“No, perhaps thinking like that is itself wrong.”
Didn’t all Elves live with the noble will to protect the Great Forest and the World Tree? It was only natural for her to remain here.
Aside from that fact, a sigh escaped naturally at the reality that the one waiting ahead was Hera.
Even if they had never met, as long as she wore the face of his close friend, his mind couldn’t be at ease.
How much time had passed while he continued to ponder like that?
“Then let’s get going.”
With Franz at the lead, everyone began to resume their steps forward. The sound of crunching fallen leaves sounded somewhat sorrowful for some reason.
After that, two more battles occurred. One was against a group of Elves, and the other was against a group of monsters in the form of animals.
Naturally, Franz and everyone else won the battles effortlessly. It was such an overwhelming result that they didn’t even get a single scratch.
And so, they finally arrived at the center of the Great Forest. The densely grown trees around them disappeared at some point, and an enormously large tree appeared before their eyes.
He could tell the identity of that tree without having to ask anyone. There was only one tree that large in this world.
Even if it was grotesquely twisted and spewing demonic energy, the fact that it was the World Tree did not change.
And in front of that World Tree.
A familiar face welcomed them.
No, perhaps it wasn’t welcoming them.
“Did you bastards make our kin into slaves too…?”
Hera did talk constantly about wanting to be made a slave, but…
“…I thought I killed them all, but I guess that wasn’t the case.”
It seemed a huge misunderstanding had occurred.