Chapter 398 – The Next Enemy

Seeing the statue fly instantly into the air, Belda and Jearl stood there with their mouths agape.

「What the?」「Gaaa?」

I would have to explain it to her later.

「Leave the rest to me! Femm!」

「Wuff!」

I got on Femm and left the rest to Cruz while I chased after the stone statue flying through the sky.

「I’ll take care of the town Al! You take care of the statue.」

Cruz shouted happily as Femm ran through the town.

Femm ran after the flying statue as only a magical king of the wolves could.

We quickly left the town and went into the woods.

After a little more, we found the statue on the ground.

『In pieces again.』

「Well, the magic I lifted it into the sky with, once it left the town, I reversed and made it heavy with.」

『And it hit the ground with a lot of damage.』

「If it’s connected with the magical circle, then it’s outside of its reach now. It shouldn’t move.」

――ＯＯＯＯ

『It moved.』

「Yeah.」

『Everyone makes mistakes.』

Femm said, with a slightly disappointed voice.

It was a bit embarrassing, so I decided to dispatch it immediately.

I surrounded the statue with a ball of white hot fire. We could both feel the heat from afar.

『That’s so HOT!』

「Back up then.」

With the ball of fire, the statue still moved. It was stone and thus defensive against fire.

Its whole body was in the fireball and it swung its arm at us. The grass around it caught fire.

I dodged backwards and Femm shouted,

『It’s going to cause a fire!』

「I have to take care of the statue first.」

I would take care of any fire afterwards with ice. But I had to keep burning the statue.

『It’s having no effect.』

「Don’t worry, it is.」

『Then I trust you.』

The stone began to turn red. Only a little more.

Just as I was about to cast my next magic.

「I knew it was you, Al.」

「Ah, Luka, what a coincidence.」

「No coincidence. I knew that it was your magic, so I ran away to here.」

「Oh?」

If she ran away from something else then it must have been a strong enemy.

She was answering a quest about something outside of Elkay from yesterday.

It must have been a very strong enemy.

Leah and Leo, who were B ranked adventurers, ran up behind her.

Luka was pretty dirtied up, and Leah and Leo looked worse for the wear.

They also looked like they were very tired.

If it was a hard fight for Luka, then it must have been way harder for the two siblings.

「Leah and Leo, run back to town and tell Cruz and Yureena what’s going on.」

「Understood, we’ll do it!」

The ran off, and Luka stood with me to watch me do my work.

「So what did you run away from, Luka?」

「Maybe you should take care of this guy first.」

「You cut it up and it comes back together. So I thought I’d burn it into powder.」

「I see. I can tell by how hot you’re cooking it.」

「Exactly.」

After heating the statue up to immense heat, I then extinguished the fire and froze the statue immediately.

–Kra…ack!

The sudden change in temperature caused the statue to dissolve into a powdered lump. There were several large pieces remaining though.

Luka jumped right into it. She cut the remaining pieces down into dust.

「Some sword technique you have, Luka!」「Wuff!」

「It takes some detail, but you can’t leave anything.」

『Yeah, no sense in being lax.』

Femm said something like that after hearing me say that it wouldn’t move again before.

「So what did you run from, Luka?」

「Some strange clay-like thing I’ve never seen before.」

If a magical monster expert like Luka had never seen it…then it must be new.

「Clay?」

「Cut it over and over and nothing hurts it.」

「So like this stone statue?」

「I don’t know anything about this stone statue either, but I guess the same.」

Luka said, still smashing the thing with her sword.

I put whatever I could into my magic bag so I could check it over later.

「I see.」

「What do you mean, “I see”?」

「We need to hurry so show me this clay thing.」

「Sure.」

Luka ran off, and I followed with Femm.

While we ran along, I asked her,

「What did you mean “I see”?」

「Well, you put that piece in your magic bag, which means it’s not alive.」

「You’re right. And?」

「I was thinking that this statue and that clay think are linked somehow.」

「Okay, something’s controlling both of them.」

「Exactly. A person or people, or maybe something else.」

As we were talking it over, there were several clay things in front of us.

Three times as tall as me, three mountains of clay.

「They’re fast, so watch out.」

「Got it.」

She ran right at them. They all moved to attack her.

Part of their bodies turned into something like a spear and moved in to attack her.

She cut them into pieces and then cut the clay monsters up as well.

In an instant it seemed they all fell to pieces.

「They do this every time, and then come back together.」

She said, looking at me.

「Do something about them.」

If Luka asked like that, then I had to do something.