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Chapter 212 – Part 1

Translation: Charlotte
Editor: Weasalopes

I got Helix to fly ahead of us and check the situation on the north side of the village.
There were still more monsters around the village.
But their siege of the Wind Spirit Village was quickly crumbling.
The remaining Centaurs were starting to run towards W3.
The Panzer Rhinos did the same.

There were some Majin among the herd too.
Wait, were there more of them than last time?
The more I looked at it, the less it looked like they were retreating.
Were they just looking to keep their distance before striking back?

One of the minor Griffins noticed Helix and was getting closer, so Helix retreated without getting into a fight.
This is bad… They were reorganising.
They were gathering their army to renew their attack on the Wind Spirit Village.

I wouldn’t be able to stop them, not even with more than 30 Summoners in my reconnaissance company.
The Summoners were starting to get tired too, making any fighting twice as difficult.
I had to restrain myself a bit. For the time being, we would have to make do with having liberated the village… But those Centaurs would definitely come back with a vengeance.

『Once we get inside the village feel free to rest up!』

『We will march to the Spring of Mist tomorrow morning. Please do join us again tomorrow!』

『We will share to you all the details as soon as we sort them out!』

As info screen after info screen popped up in front of me, we dissolved our Union and entered the Wind Spirit Village.
As expected, having so many players flood into the Wind Spirit Village was quite a problem.
I was planning on just setting up my tent on some farmland and logging out.

But… It wouldn’t be that simple.
The corner I was in was still very loud.
For some reason, all the Summoners had decided to set up their tents on the same piece of farmland I was on.

They were talking about how many level-ups they got in the battle.
There were a few Summon Monsters that reached their Class Changes too.
Not to mention the new Summon Monsters that would come with a level-up to the 【Summon Magic】 skill.
Well, I was happy for them. It looked like the battle had its fruits too.

「What are you going to do after this, Keith?」

「I would love to go hunting, but after all that, I’m pretty exhausted…」

「You look like you can still go for a while!」

「Maybe? But it’s not like I can take on an army of monsters by myself anyway. I’ll take it easy in the village for a while.」

「Sorry, Keith, but can we ask you for a bit of a favour?」

「Can we see your new Summon Monsters!?」

Konohana and Haruna came up to me to ask something.
Well, that much I can do…

Leaving Volff and Heather, I swapped out all my other Summon Monsters to summon Nias, Shishiku, and Gengetsu.
It was still daytime, so I decided not to summon Telomere.

The area was really lively..
They dragged Nias into their circle…
Peeking at what they were doing, I saw Nias next to a few other Mermaids.
They were the Mermaids Suruga, Nonomura, and Konohana summoned.
Nias was quite popular…
The Imp Gengetsu, along with several other fairies, was playing with Heather.
All the Grey Wolves, White Wolves, and Black Wolves always had at least one person petting them.
Shishiku was as expected, a lot more intimidating, but Adele didn’t seem to care at all, giving him lots of love anyway.
Well, they all had their own tastes and preferences, I suppose.

The party lasted until it was dinnertime.
As soon as the sun set, requests started coming in for me to summon Telomere.
But I gave one condition on which I would do it.
The condition was simply if they would be willing to do some night hunting with me.

The time was 6:30 PM.
It felt a bit strange, but I decided to log out. I set the meeting time for whoever wanted to hunt together and see Telomere to 1 am.

~oOo~

I logged in again at exactly 1 AM.
It was the time I had set earlier, but I was still surprised to see almost all the Summoners from earlier already there.
How much did they want to see Telomere…?

「This is why we came to volunteer in the first place!」

「The event comes later!」

I had a feeling there was something Haruna and Konohana were getting backwards.
Well, whatever. I was grateful for their presence.
I was in such shock I ended up forgetting about the reason I called them all to begin with. I called them so we could hunt together.

What was the goal of the hunt?
The Majin.
And if we were looking for the Majin, we would definitely run into Centaurs too. More specifically, the army of Centaurs from earlier.
I didn’t know whether Panzer Rhinos would be active at night.
Worst case scenario, there could be other types of monsters out there just waiting to ambush us.

Anyway… Worrying about it wouldn’t help.
I started by summoning my Summon Monster team.
Volff, Senki, Ninetails, Shishiku, and Telomere.
The players around me suddenly froze.
Telomere was definitely very beautiful.
But she also had an amazing presence. A certain pressure was almost emanating from her.

I could feel it, even though her hair was half covering her face.
I helped her tie her hair back in a ponytail so it wouldn’t get in her face.
But she was the real deal!
She was certainly intimidating in some ways, but her face was very gentle.
It made for a very stark contrast against the dangerous air about her.
It was almost scary.
I could tell that her pressure was affecting even other Summon Monsters.

「Wow.」

「You can’t get this kind of feeling from screenshots…」

「This is definitely something worthy to work towards!」

Well, I was already expecting something along those lines.
I kind of understood where they were coming from.
I would want to aim for a Vampire myself, were I among them.
Looking around me, I could only see a few Skeletons and Mists.
If showing off Telomere could help increase the variety in Summon Monsters, that would be great.

「We’re just going night hunting, so let’s go at it until 5 am. Let’s hope we find something near the Spring of Mist in that time.」

「Got it!」

「Would that be okay? I did call you here, but you don’t have to force yourself to come hunt with me…」

「I’ve gotten plenty of rest already!」

「We’re good!」

Thinking about it some more, I realised it was about noon in the real world. No wonder they were feeling wide awake.
Anyway… All preparations complete.
There was nothing left to do other than depart.

The plains at night were quiet.
I had a general idea of where the Centaur army could be.
Approaching them, I noticed most of them were Passive.
They were sleeping.
The Panzer Rhinos were sound asleep among the army.
I guess I could ambush them.
But there were issues with that strategy too.

There were Skeleton Raptors.
Not just a few either, but a big pack of them.
I was very relieved that they were in the opposite direction to the army of Centaurs.
But there were definitely more than 100 Skeleton Raptors there.
At the centre of the group was a monster I was unfortunately quite familiar with…
A Skeleton Mammoth…
What are you doing here?
I really didn’t want to have to fight it.

Altogether, our little raid consisted of about 40 parties of players.
There were some volunteers with us who weren’t Summoners.
It would probably lead to some imbalances when it came to experience points, but that wasn’t a big issue.
There were many familiar faces in our Union.

To name a few…
I saw Yosaku, Shinonome, Fay, Hannes, Margrid, and Reina in one party.
Yeah. Seeing them was quite a scary sight.
Even with Telomere and Shishiku, I was unsure about whether I could beat them in a fight.

Guren’s party was there too.
Apparently, they had just come to the north, and hadn’t seen enough action yet.

There was Lydia’s and Gavi’s party there too.
Their party was a very scary sight. Everyone in their party had reached their first Class Change.
Lydia has become a Light Elemental Sorcerer.
Gavi became a Ruins Diver.
The other members of their party seemed very strong too.

『Objective spotted! Army of Centaurs over there!』

『Should we ambush them with our owls?』

「That’s a good idea, but let’s get a bit closer.」

『I somehow feel like there’s more of them than we saw yesterday…?』

『Well, as long as we’re careful, we should be alright…』

I understood Irina’s concern.
Adele had a point too. There were definitely a lot more of them.
But that wouldn’t really make a difference. We could just ambush them like usual.
I could get the bats to do it completely silently, but they wouldn’t have enough power to take down everyone.
If we were going to ambush them, we might as well do it, guns blazing.

We got closer, and the Centaurs were still oblivious to our presence.
Good.
I guess we could try attacking.

A swarm of bats was above us.
The owls joined in too.
But all the bats and owls looked like they were converging on Telomere.
It looked like an especially dark atmosphere was around her. I couldn’t even see the shadow of the bats and owls beneath her feet.
Hey, hey, hey! I didn’t know you could do that!?
She looked very much like a villain of sorts, but that was fine.
I knew Telomere would do her best to get the job done.
The first strike came from her.
Her first attack also served as a signal for the rest of us.

Bullets of fire were sprayed by Telomere at the army of Centaurs, each ending in a small explosion.
At the same time, all of us ran at the startled army of Centaurs.
With the pack of wolves running in the lead, the bats and owls flying in the sky attacked at once.
The first stage of the ambush was a success.
After that, the battle immediately descended into a brawl.
Telomere’s flame attacks were enough to set the whole battlefield aflame, giving us plenty of light in the darkness.
No spells to secure night vision were necessary.

But what about me?
I was fighting in my usual style, with a Tonfa of Torment in one hand, and a Tokkosho in the other.
The Tokkosho was set to 【Lightning Magic】.
The bursts of light were very flashy at night.
But that was fine too.
The monsters were in a panic, attacking at whatever was closest to them.

Thinking about it in terms of numbers, our side was technically far inferior.
But with area-of-effect attack spells, that disadvantage wasn’t a problem.
It wasn’t just that our disadvantages became non-existent.
It was more like we could just do whatever we wanted.

Yosaku’s party took on the Panzer Rhinos on their own, taking them out before they could organise themselves into formation.
Yosaku’s fighting style was as scary as always, swinging his giant axe left to right with much vigour.
There were a few Centaurs that were trying to run away, but the players around me set up wall spells to prevent that from happening.
Some players were in charge of rounding up Centaurs, while other players used【Pitfall】.
Yeah. It was fun to just watch the brawl around me.
That sense of teamwork was superb.

Shishiku could only use his fire breath attack once, but he was still amazing even without his breath skill, pouncing on nearby Panzer Rhinos with tremendous momentum.
Oh dear, Shishiku was eating them…
It was a terrifying sight.
Beside Shishiku, Senki was grabbing onto a Panzer Rhino, smashing its neck with just his bare fists.
That was amazing too
It probably wasn’t something I could imitate though.
Ninetails sat on my shoulder and continued with what he was best at, supporting me and the surrounding players with spells.
He had a nice sense of teamwork, for a Summon Monster..

I saw a Beast Tamer riding a Centaur, but Telomere quickly took it down.
Telomere’s MP bar was almost at zero, from all the Special Skills she had been using.
But she sank her fangs into the Beast Tamer’s neck, and her MP bar started recovering.
After she was done with the Beast Tamer, Telomere sank her fangs into the Centaur Fencer the Beast Tamer was riding as well.
Even after fully draining two victims, her MP bar was still not back to full.
Wow… As expected from Telomere.

The Majin that fell off their horses were very quickly surrounded and then taken out by multiple players.
Telomere had her hammer to fend off any Centaur Fencers that would dare attack her too.
Telomere really was one scary beast.