Chapter 400 – Strange Barrier

Luka continued running without slowing as she explained it to me,

「Elkay has a mithril mine, right?」

「Yeah, I heard that.」

The mithril mine was Elkay’s prime production resource.

The mine had gone dry though, so Millia and Vi-Vi were planning to try agriculture.

「The first job that I got when I came to Elkay was to clear out the magical monsters in the mine.」

「Oh?」

「Yeah, and that wasn’t very difficult, but…」

「What were the monster ranks?」

「B rank magical monsters.」

Luka said they weren’t that high, but B rank monsters were a threat to everyone.

Also, there weren’t any adventurers in Elkay with that level. Well, except Leah and Leo.

Even so, Leo and Leah fighting monsters like that alone was still quite dangerous.

That said, there was no point in sending the other adventurers with them.

All the other adventurers in Elkay were newbies with F rank levels.

If they went along, Leo and Leah would have to defend the F ranks and would be attacked even harder, thus resulting in a higher chance of someone dying.

「I also heard that all the monsters weren’t in one group, so just in case I went along.」

「Good. I’d rather have an A rank squad against B ranked monsters like that.」

「Yeah. I went along with Leah and Leo.」

So Luka and the others travelled down into the mine and quickly killed five B ranked magic monsters.

Pretty obvious Luka could do that easily…Leo and Leah weren’t weak either.

「So we were on the way back to Elkay and the monsters kept on attacking us on the way back.」

「Oh?」

It seems that the monsters were intent on retaking the mine again.

Strange, because something like that isn’t natural.

「Zombies?」

「They weren’t zombies.」

「That makes the whole thing really strange then.」

「I don’t think that’s the case.」

Maybe Luka is right, but lately all the monsters controlled have been zombies.

I guess there are different ways to control monsters…

「So with the two others we fought all night to destroy them.」

「Sounds rough.」

「It was, but if we ran off, they’d destroy the inside of the mine we thought, right?」

That would be a big hit to Elkay if there was still mithril in there.

「So were you able to defend the mine?」

「Yeah, thanks to Leah and Leo doing their best.」

I bet they had to have been super tired.

Fighting hour after hour and Luka still looking pretty healthy…it was strange.

「So we were hunting down monsters on the way back to Elkay…」

「And those clay monsters attacked you.」

「Exactly. They were definitely headed to Elkay as well.」

And it seemed that they were a lot faster than expected. You cut them up and they’d stop, but then they’d come back to life again.

So they cut them up over and over to stop them, and just as Leah was about to go for help,

「We saw that stone statue fly over us and crash into the ground.」

「I see.」

「And the only one that could do that is you right?」

Luka said with a laugh.

While we were talking about it, we had arrived at Elkay.

We were stopped at the gate of Elkay.

The complete town of Elkay was now covered in a pale white magical barrier.

「ryaaa?」

Shiggy said when she saw the barrier.

「What can this be, Al? Did we set off something, you think?」

She touched the barrier and it pushed her back. Femm tried to claw the barrier.

—GRAWNNNN

『Even my claws can’t pierce it!』

Inside was Cruz and Yureena. Vi-Vi, Steff, Leo, and Leah as well.

I knew they were probably okay, but I was still a bit unsettled.

「Al, I’ll leave this to you. I need to get my strength back…if something happens, I might be out of strength.」

「Sure, leave it to me.」

I put the box with the demon in it on the ground.

It was easy for even someone like Luka at the end of her strength to be hurt by fighting further.

So I rode on Femm, closely observing the barrier and its magical flow.

「The center is that weird metal statue again.」

「That ugly looking pyramid?」

「Yeah, I guess we shouldn’t break it though.」

Both Cruz and Kay thought that weird looking pyramid looked cool.

Kay and Cruz had good sense in this case.

If Cruz thought it looked cool, then there was a chance the statue wasn’t just something evil.

Even so, I had to examine the flow of the barrier and open a hole in it.

Just then, I could feel a strong flow towards the middle of Elkay.

「Luka, I’m opening a hole, so go inside.」

「Sure.」

She grabbed the metal box with the demon and went inside the hole.

「Femm, go on.」

「Wuff.」

Femm ran inside with her and I entered, and allowed the whole in the barrier to close.

「Okay, at least then we can connect with Cruz.」

「Yeah, I wonder if Leah and Leo did the same.」

「It depends on the timing of this barrier.」

So we ran towards the center of Elkay.