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Chapter 288 part 1

It was just a tiny blue spider the size of a fingertip.

However, the magic and divinity bursting from such a seemingly crushable spider was more than enough to make every cell and soul in Selina’s body scream in alarm.

How did it get here? By following the spider thread that Quince herself had extended?

Why here? Because of the invisible spider threads that Quince had extended in all directions?

Quince’s small body lightly floated up. With movements so subtle they were almost invisible, Quince’s left foreleg was thrust out towards Selina.

At such a small spider’s movement, which anyone would laugh at, Selina quickly crossed her arms and poured the magic power she had been holding in reserve into her defense.

An instinctual premonition that her life was in danger compelled even Selina, a Lamia beyond the standards of her kind, to take such action.

「Hmph!」

「Arghhhh!?」

A wave of magical blue light spread like lightning across the surroundings, and the propagated shockwave crushed the already artillery-scarred earth further, overlaying more horrible cracks.

Quince, feeling the returned impact, reevaluated Selina as a formidable foe. Selina, who had been blown away, somehow managed to get her reflexive defenses up in time. She, too, conceded this tiny spider she faced was an extraordinarily powerful enemy.

Despite her violently shaken body, Selina managed to stop her body, which had been sent flying, by slamming her tail into the wilderness.

Selina, with her eyes resembling a blue, wet full moon, without wavering, trembling, or flinching, remained fixed on Quince’s figure, which was no bigger than the size of a bean,

The reason why Selina had not suffered a single wound on her soft body after receiving Quince’s attack was thanks to the translucent serpent coiled around her.

Quince looked at her left front leg, which she had thrust out to finish off Selina in one blow. The tough shell was uncracked and painless, but there was a numbness from striking an object of nearly equal hardness.

If it were comparable to the shell of Quince, who was born in the Age of Gods, then she would have to acknowledge that the Lamia in front of her was comparable to the monsters of that era. Quince knew she would have to respond accordingly; otherwise, the risk was not just painful consequences but even having a table turned on her. Just how astonishing it was for Quince of the Demon King’s Army to acknowledge this, though Selina was unaware of it.

「To constantly activate Jaram and engulf yourself in it to create armor, what an interesting idea, Lamia girl.」

Selina was momentarily bewildered by the gentle female voice emanating from the small spider but engaged in conversation nonetheless. Unbeknownst to her, Quince’s tone was slightly different from when she was perched on Malahau’s shoulder.

This was indicative that Quince, the leader of the demon insects in the Demon King’s army, was in a fighting spirit.

And moreover, both of them were knowingly using the interval in their conversation to newly hone the mana they would employ in their next offensive and defensive moves.

「A dragon friend I know would often clothe himself in flames – that’s what gave me the idea.」

「Interesting. You must have come across a dragon in the Mores Mountains. It must have required considerable effort to put that idea into practice.」

「Yes, yes it did. But thanks to that, I can stand up to you in battle. By the way, my name is Selina.」

The battleground, a life-and-death struggle, remained unchanged, but even though it was a place of serious combat where Selina introduced herself with her earnest expression, Quince did not let down her guard, but inside, she couldn’t help but think, “Well, what a surprise,” with a somewhat deflated tone in her heart.

At the same time, she had a thought – “I already understood the ferocity of her fighting ability, but this girl was definitely not a girl who should be allowed to fight on the battlefield.” It was extremely unreasonable for Quince, the invader, to feel that way, but she felt anger towards the people of Berne who had sent Selina to the battlefield.

Quince looked at Selina again. She was wearing a white tunic that seemed to be the uniform of the Bern Barony’s army and a skirt of the same color that was loosely wrapped around her serpentine lower half, and her loosely wavy hair was tied up with a barrette studded with several high-purity Magic Stones on a mithril pedestal so as not to get in the way.

On each wrist, she wore blue bracelets inlaid with a spirit stone of each element, and in her hand, she held a staff entwined with a serpent that bore a dragon-like head. The snake had a crystal ball in its center that held a rainbow-colored glow that Quince didn’t recognize.

Aside from the Staff of the Dragon Serpent, Dran’s latest staff version made for Selina, the accessories and clothes Selina wore were regular items that could be produced using local materials and technologies within the Barony of Berne.

Since the Raider Knights are under the control of Christina’s direct subordinate – Dran, the items are of the highest Grade, but they were still within the range that, other than Dran, magic blacksmiths without special skills could make if they wanted to.

From Quince’s point of view, they were wonderful pieces of equipment that matched Selina’s ability – an adversary’s formidable arsenal.

[Oh great, it’s been a while since I felt so unlucky to meet someone. Meet Quince, a little spider holding a seat among the Six Demon Generals.]

[Yes, then, Ms. Quince. Um, n-nice to meet you!!]

If one were to trace Selina’s combat experience, most of the people she had faced were either villains with extreme malice or monsters beyond common sense.

If it was such an opponent, Selina would be able to fight fearlessly and relentlessly, but a rare opponent like Quince, who, although had the willingness to fight, was not extraordinarily evil, and she could not regain her composure unless she did something like a clownish act to push her own back.

[Argh, you really are a woman who shouldn’t be on the battlefield. Are you really someone I have to fight, someone I have to kill?

A cotton-like sigh that could not even blow away a feather escaped from Quince’s mouth. And simultaneously, numerous shells rained down from above. This unforeseen barrage, targeting even the Quince she had been focusing in front of her, startled Selina.

「Wait! Is it okay to fire me, your ally!!!?」

From Selina’s point of view, it was like slamming Jaram into Dramina and Diadora. Reflecting on it, however, she wondered, [Wouldn’t that actually be okay even if it hit that woman directly?]

「So, you’re saying it’s okay to shoot because it won’t affect you much?」

「You understand well. It’s also a matter of trust.」

The barrage from Megyn Orr, which regained control from Selina’s serpent eye’s vision, continued the bombardment relentlessly, and once again, the area around Selina and Quince was engulfed in the impact and roar of the explosions.

The switch to magic-compressed shells was due to the report from Quince to Malahau via the spider thread, that Selina was using Jaram as a defense. To whittle down Jaram, a mass of magic, using another mass of magic was the quickest method.

What troubled Selina most about the indiscriminate shelling was not its power but the dust clouds it kicked up, obscuring her view and threatening to make her lose sight of the tiny Quince.

Quince, possessing absurd mana and spiritual stature as a creature of the Age of Gods, was adept at concealing her tremendous abilities. If she lost sight of Quince once, Selina knew it would take an enormous effort to locate her again and that she would be vulnerable.

Despite lingering doubts about her timidity, despite Quince’s doubt that Selina was unsuitable for the battlefield, this Lamia girl had survived battles that would terrify even the fiercest veterans. Calmly and ruthlessly, a part of Selina’s mind was analyzing the situation.

「Jaff Jalud!!!」

Inside the semi-transparent apex of the Jaram, where Selina gestured with her left hand to the ground, instantaneously, thousands of tiny magical snakes materialized around her, rapidly spreading in every direction.

This was the unique magic of the Lamia race, previously used to collectively annihilate the demons that emerged within Ente-Yggdrasil. The vipers, dispersing amidst the barrage of artillery fire, served as both an offensive weapon and a surveillance network to keep track of Quince.

Should they be destroyed in the bombardment, their scattered magic would detect Quince’s movements and inform Selina of her whereabouts.

「Still not enough, Jaram!」

Another Jaram, distinct from the defensive one, appeared and lunged at Quince, who had maneuvered to Selina’s left side, opening its massive jaws in the attack. It was the same astonishingly huge Jaram that had attacked Megyn Orr.

Selina, who had cast such a large-scale spell without chanting and managed the enormous magical energy without even a change in her breathing, earned a thoughtful hum from Quince. Quince then strung a single spider thread vertically in front of herself.

The thin thread connecting the ground to one of the floating islands high in the sky was too fragile against the Jaram approaching her.

However, the Jaram, which had been dripping venom as thick as the liquid from its fangs, was unexpectedly split vertically by the spider thread, being sliced cleanly from the head to the midsection. The sight was so astonishing that it left Selina in disbelief.

Venom poured out like a flood, but Quince elegantly avoided it by rising into the air with another spider thread. The small snakes that had swarmed the area were finely chopped by spider thread, circling Quince at thousands of revolutions per second.

In addition to evasion and defense, these small spiders were also attacking Selina.