Welcome to the Impregnable Demon King Castle

238 – Party of Five

The battle with the Aym party has ended with our victory.

Even the Destroyer Fran with her high offensive ability finds it tough to pierce through the Flame Spearman Amii, whose body is made of fire, but in terms of the difficulties she experienced in her fight, that was pretty much it.

The enemy are Monsters that specialize in the fire element, but we have the Water Hero on our side.

Using the elemental difference to his advantage, our fearless leader would defeat one person in the blink of an eye and immediately move on to supporting an ally.

Even Amii was frozen in the end and then Fran crushed it with her massive arm.

「Melania, I’ll treat your burns.」

「Th-…thank you. J-Josh.」

The half-cyclops Miner Melania crouches down so that Josh can heal her burns with White Magic.

「Next, you go get healed, too. I’ll keep on the lookout for enemies.」

「…Mm.」

Fran gave a small nod to Wraith’s words.

Her massive right arm is sturdy on top of being destructive, but it isn’t as if it’s a stranger to being damaged.

Our leader, speaking in a voice filled with concern for his childhood friend, then turns his attention to the reckless Black Sorcerer.

In other words, me.

「Jumping in to defeat a high-ranking Majin on your own is…so you.」

I expected him to give me a complaint or two, but for some reason, Wraith seemed happy.

「It was a battle of the parties, including me going at her alone.」

If her allies weren’t there, Aym could have probably let loose a much stronger spell, and it would have been harder to approach her in the first place. I could go on and on.

At first glance, it may look like a one-on-one battle, but it’s still a party battle as everyone is working with the whole team in mind.

Well, I suppose Wraith would know at least that much.

「How humble of you. A Black Sorcerer that can take on a Majin is more than just valuable, though.」

「…Thanks. This…was due to my own reasons. I’ll try to be more careful.」

As a disciple, I wanted to respond to the opinions of a person who knows my master.

However, this is my own personal circumstance.

Or so I thought.

「I don’t think that’s accurate. If it’s your own circumstances, then it’s the party’s circumstance. It’s a different story if it involves a desire to lose, but if you seriously plan to win, then helping someone being reckless is what allies are for. At least, that’s what I think.」

True. Without much discussion, Fran helped send me flying in the air and Wraith helped me glide through the air by putting down an ice slope.

To begin with, Wraith gathered allies without question save for whether or not you have the desire to win.

To put it another way, so long as you work towards winning, you aren’t considered unnecessary as an ally.

He was already a strong kid, but I feel like he’s grown to become a much more dependable hero since the Raid Battle.

「Thanks, leader. I’ll do all I can to win this.」

「I know.」

「…I’m healed.」

Fran straightforwardly appeared, as if wedging herself in between us.

「I see. Show me.」

「Mm.」

Wraith checks his childhood friend’s arm and nods.

「Are you alright, Lem? That was a pretty big explosion.」

Josh came towards me.

「Yeah, I’m fine.」

『And it’s a~ll thanks to my partner’s dependable Holy Sword. Guess he has no choice but to be grateful to Dark, who gave the Divine Blessing.』

The black chick was flapping its wings on my head, showing off.

You’re right, I’m grateful.

The fact is that thanks to the Holy Sword, my battle options have become more extensive.

Up to now, being able to do grand things with the horn is great.

And this is a Holy Sword with only the minimum of functionality within it, which makes a Spirit’s Divine Blessing fearsome.

『In that case, shouldn’t you be more lovey-dovey with your dependable partner?』

Lovey-what…?

I don’t really understand that, but I don’t recall acknowledging you as my partner.

Dark was still saying something, but Josh was speaking so I returned my attention to him.

「…Whenever I see you, you always surprise me, Lem.」

Melania, who is right behind Josh, nods her head quickly at Josh’s words, apparently in full agreement.

「Like, even if they had a Holy Sword in hand, a normal Black Sorcerer wouldn’t be able to make full use of it. They’d just have trouble handling a special weapon that they’re not used to. But you…since you’ve been training your skills with the sword since before you got it, you were already on a level to use it in a real battle the moment you gained the Holy Sword.」

When Josh said that, it hit me.

Because of how my master trained my body, the guidance I got from Furcus, and my experience fighting with a sword in the Tag Tournament…

Even when I suddenly attained a Holy Sword, I was able to use it to some degree.

I can’t say something cool like It wasn’t all for nothing, but…

All of my hard work has come back and helped me in some way or another.

No matter how useless it felt, I’m glad I never gave up.

「Hey Lem, you aren’t really used to being praised, huh? It’s fine. When a great guy is praised, he just says『Right?』in response.」

Ten years’ worth of being treated as a Black Sorcerer won’t go away so easily.

Even now, being praised by someone feels special, so I think the day where I respond to such compliments as how Wraith said, as if it were a matter of course, is far into the future.

「I’ll try to improve on that. But, more importantly…」

「Yeah. It’d be better if we could fight Vampires indoors, though.」

Vampires wouldn’t be able to make full use of their enhanced physical ability, ability to grow wings, or even their ability to manipulate blood in tight spaces.

The walls, ceilings, and objects in a room would hinder them.

「I-I’m sorry…I’m too big…」

Says Melania, hugging herself.

We certainly can’t enter buildings made for Normals with her…

「You have nothing to apologize for. Everyone counts on you, Melania.」

「…!」

Melania’s face turned bright red.

「Besides, that suggestion only works on normal Vampires.」

The Vampire Queen is a different story altogether.

Because she already lies in wait for Adventurers inside a room in the Demon King Castle’s third stratum.

Just how many ways could she obstruct you in a narrow space?

「Plus that assassin lady is with them, too.」

Wraith says with a bitter smile.

Come to think about it, the Evil Eye Assassin Botis, who is currently part of Carmilla’s party, met Wraith face-to-face in the Raid Battle.

Just before he was turned to stone by her Petrifying Evil Eye, the Gale Hero Ewan stepped in front of him.

After that, just before he was given the finishing stab, Wraith reached out to the Water Spirit and defeated her in the nick of time.

「If it’s hard to take advantage of the location, should we attack from here?」

「That’s fine, but let’s move and lie in wait. There’s something I want you to do, Wraith.」

「Oh. Sure, let’s go.」

We didn’t know beforehand what the stage was gonna be, but we still had countless strategy meetings within the party.

Since we know our opponents, we are forming countermeasures.

「U-uhm…Lem?」

While walking, Josh seemed to have difficulty saying something.

「What is it?」

「Well…In this venue, five parties in total were gathered, right?」

「Ah…yeah, that’s right.」

I understand what Josh is trying to say.

「A little while ago, the Vampires and that party clashed.」

Said Wraith.

He and I both have the ability to sense Magical Energy signatures, so we knew.

The other three probably couldn’t perceive them due to the distance.

But that isn’t what Josh wants to know. It goes further from that.

The question is whether or not it’s okay that there are only two parties left, which means that we have to fight the Vampires.

「Of course, I wish them well, personally.」

「I-I thought so…」

I continued.

「But…We’re going to have to fight the Carmilla party.」

◇

A while ago, Lem told me a tale.

A tale of his hardships finding reemployment, before meeting me again.

He said that he found such a party at that time.

The Adventurer Matching Service can be used at the Adventurer Union.

Finding allies is fairly difficult in this vast continent.

So you enter your ideal conditions and search for a match.

Parties looking for a Black Sorcerer are a minority amongst minorities.

He found a result to his search.

It was…a Black Sorcerer party made for Black Sorcerers by a Black Sorcerer.

In the current rules, an Adventurer party cannot be formed without a Hero.

So, the party Lem found was not a formal party at the time of Lem’s search.

In this All-Heaven Festival Contest, a party can be formed regardless of race or Job.

This is why those that couldn’t be active because they couldn’t find a Hero leader can now participate in this Festival.

All five of them are Black Sorcerers, yet they are able to take part in the preliminaries.

Though they aren’t necessarily the same party that Lem found at that time.

「Lady Carmilla.」

Botis appears at my side out of nowhere and whispers.

A female with the upper body of a Human and the lower body of a snake. Everything from the scales on her lower half, her Human skin, and even her long hair are white. Her eyes are covered in bandages, her Evil Eye only exposed when the enemy is within her grasp.

「The party formed of only Black Sorcerers is hiding in order to attack a party by surprise. On your orders, I can take care of them myself.」

She specializes in moving around while completely hiding her presence. Taking advantage of that strong point, I had her serve as an advance scout.

「…I see.」

I don’t believe Botis is underestimating the enemy.

Quite the opposite.

She has Lord Lemegeton as her superior, as well as the Black Explorer Foras as her fellow ally, so she understands Black Sorcerers vastly more than your average Monster.

She has deemed it possible to assassinate all five Black Sorcerers by herself.

Purely thinking about winning or losing, I can leave it to Botis but…

「Lady Carmilla?」

「I’m listening. Indeed, let us proceed like this.」

「…Understood.」

Despite the Festival being a place where the strong compete, it is still another form of entertainment.

Four Vampires delegating all the work to a single Assassin to take out the Black Sorcerer party seems anti-climactic.

And to me, personally, they are a party that I am fond of.

Being Black Sorcerers, they never gave up and continued to search for a way to fight.

If the success of the often coldly treated Black Sorcerers spread across the world, they could bring hope to the people with the same Job.

That said, I don’t have the slightest intention to lose to them.

As a sign of respect, I shall trample them head-on.

「How naive of you, Botis. Big sis-…My queen is essentially saying this. There is no need to assassinate them in the dark, we simply force them to surrender head-on!」

Said the Impaling Daughter Haagenti, affectionately called Lady Haag by my subordinates.

Her complete understanding of what I’m thinking is unnerving but her abilities are tried and true.

「Bold of you to guess my thoughts. But she is right, Botis. You are more than capable, but we cannot simply rely solely on you.」

Without hesitation, we proceed down the road where the enemy is lying in wait.

Come to think of it, this might be the first time I fight a Black Sorcerer other than him.

The party we’re about to do battle with used the preliminary rules to their advantage and passed.

However, this is the first stage of the main event. The same tricks in the preliminaries won’t work here.

Their true worth will be tested.

And from now on, we will confront them with reality.