Desolate World

"Yesss...!" The man beside him also shouted. He seemed to understand what Elo meant. He became more enthusiastic.

'But, it can't stay like this,' Elo complained in his heart. He knew although his HP and MP were replenished after leveling up, his stamina wasn't. He knew although many more people would level up, it couldn't help the situation much.

'Is that anything that I can do?' Elo thought. 

'What will Noah do, if he is here?' Elo asked in his heart.

However, he couldn't get an answer. He wasn't Noah. He knew Noah's secret that he didn't want many people to know. The reason he was so brilliant, so strong and so wise was because he was the rising star of the capital academy. 

He was also one of the best soldiers that the kingdom had. If not because of his disappointment toward the kingdom that had sent civilians to the front line, he wouldn't be among the refugees. 

'But he isn't with us now,' Elo sighed. 

As time passed, more and more people leveled up. Even behind the defensive line, there seemed to be some people who leveled up.

It somehow made them hold on longer. With their injuries healed and both their HP and MP were replenished, at least they could overcome the hardest phase of the fighting for the time being.

So another half an hour passed. The defensive line once again looked sluggish.

'We are at our limit,' Elo said in his heart.

Then the requests for reinforcement were heard again. The injured ones who had been healed by leveling up and took a rest for a while came back to replace whoever who had been at their limits.

'I'm sorry, honey. It's my limit!' Elo said in his heart, while imagining the face of a stern middle-aged woman who should be behind him, together with other women. 

Elo, who had held on this far felt that his view started to blur and he couldn't muster his strength anymore. As he was about to fall down, a loud explosion was heard not far in front of him.

"What!" He exclaimed. 

His blurred eyes came back to be clear. Then he saw many more flashes of lightning fall down from above.

Then he saw him. He fell down from a big flying monster to the center of a crowd of monsters. He then swung his axe wide to the monsters around him.

"Sorry for being late!" A familiar sound was heard. Elo knew whose voice was that.

"Noah?! You come," Then someone's excited voice that was pretty loud was heard by every person on the battlefield.

Elo then felt a stream of warm energy flowing into his body.

"How?" Then he looked behind. He knew it was stupid to be distracted on the battlefield. But he couldn't hold his curiosity. He felt the stream of energy was from behind him.

Then he saw her. An old woman who he met in the cave. She was healing multiple people at the same time. He also saw a kid that was running towards some injured men who were being taken care of by the women in the camp. He then gave the women many bottles of something.

*Bam* *Bam* 

Then two explosions were heard from the front of him. Elo couldn't help but be surprised. He then found that in front of him a monster was killed. It made him sweat. 

'Too careless!!!' Elo said in his heart.

"Be careful uncle! You can take a rest if you are tired. We will give you several minutes to take a breath," Elo heard someone's voice from above. Then he found Ace looking at him from above a tree a few meters in front of him.

The young guardian then looked at the crowd of monsters, and said, "Blue, Red, and Torch, Start the bombardment! Jumpy, take care of any monster that slips out!"

Then, two AoE spells fell down from two floating monsters to monsters under them and fire-like bullets were shot continuously from a chicken-like monster that he didn't know from when had already on top of a tree not far from Ace.

Ace himself targeted the monsters that succeeded in escaping the spell bombardment of the pets of Ace's son.

Meanwhile, a big metallic spider attacked the rest of the coming monsters. 

"You can take a rest for a moment. Use it well. Because you must fight again later," Noah, who had cleaned up the monsters around him, shouted. 

Elo could hear sighs of relief from men on the defensive line. He then saw the men flopped at the same place they had fought. Elo then followed them to sit down. He took a bag of water from his inventory to drink it and then poured it over his head. Although the temperature should be cool in the evening, he couldn't feel it. Maybe because of fighting for a long time, his body felt hot and damp because of sweat.

He then felt the energy current from the old lady guardian stopped. He found that his HP was full again. He then looked behind to find the old lady had already gone to another place to heal other injured refugees.

Then he saw Geo came from the place where wounded men were treated and started to assist his pet.

Elo could also see four men that looked too tired, retreating to behind. At their former place, four men who should stay in the cave with all of the people who rescued the transforming refugees stood still. They were watching the fight that was done by two people and four pets on their side. 

What made Elo stunned was, with only the six's efforts, they could block the monsters' attack. However, it was only possible because the monsters were fighting without any tactic. They rushed to whoever was in front of them, in this case Noah and Jumpy who were a few meters from the front line of the refugees' defensive line that became monsters targets.

Then he saw Cloud come near him and seemed to heal Noah and jumpy, as Elo saw the two's HPs were up and down. 

***