08



　The journey was going well.
　After escaping the ruins of Tekeli, Leonardo and his team proceeded through the land of Aorsoy.
　Their destination is the end of the earth, the Far East, Japan.
　However, they could not proceed to the east in the dark.
　Even though it is the country of the wilderness, the mid-west of Yuled is full of ups and downs. The land itself is a highland, but there are hundreds of mountain ranges that run here and there through the high wasteland.
　Of course, these mountains are, if you will, little more than a wrinkle in the handkerchief of earth. They were probably not very high compared to the vastness of Yuled.
　But it was not so for the four men and one head who were advancing as if they were clinging to that earth. I'm sure you'll be pleased to know that the mountain ranges that appear in your field of vision, one after another, are thousands of kilometers high.
　The land was so vast that our senses were numbed by the sheer size of the mountains, and it seemed as if we could easily cross them. The sky is that vast and unobstructed.
　To the north, the Tian Shan Mountains, one of the highest mountain ranges on earth, should exist. In the Elder Tail, this area, called Shanmai, is known as the home of the dragon monster, and is supposed to be an unexplored land.
　It may come as a surprise to many newcomers, but in the Elder Tail, where the Half-Gaia Project was adopted, unexplored areas are not so rare.
　Even if the acceleration of time were 12 times greater and the Earth were half its size, this land is still vast. Furthermore, compared to the Earth's population, the players of the Elder Tail are a fraction of the Earth's population.
The numbers are insignificant. It is true that it is a super-class MMO with a 20-year history, but its population is only about 70 million people in total, even if all the servers are combined.
　Exploring the entire world is a dream come true.
　What is the typical Elder Tail play like?
　Usually, you form a party with other players for the day in the player town where you are based. Or, if playing by yourself, you prepare for the day's activities, such as shopping. Then, using the Circle of Fairies, they travel to the destination dungeon or field zone. When you arrive at the target zone, you can go on an adventure or fight a battle.
　As long as you play in this way, the areas outside the Circle of Fairies network are naturally uncivilized. It's a structure that can't be helped, and it's also the reason why it's so romantic to explore uncharted territories and introduce new content.
　With expansion packs, you design towns, dungeons, and attractive field zones in previously uncivilized areas, place monsters and treasures in them, set up stories in the form of quests, and guide adventurers through them with a fairy ring.
　This is a project of a kind of new town development on a global scale.
　The population density of Aorsoy is low, which means that the player population is low and the revenue is low.
　That means a small player population and low profitability. As other areas become more densely populated, they will be more likely to develop, but right now, it's just a wasteland of wasted land.

　Four men on horseback are advancing through that wilderness.
　Leonardo, Elias and Coppelia were riding war horses that each of them had summoned, while Kanami was astride a "Hakusawa" that KR had "soul-possessed".
　The morning sunshine just glistened down equally on the four of them and the land.
　Even though it was a wilderness, it was not a flat landscape. The land beneath their feet is a gray, dull and crumbling sandstone, but from the sheer cliff on their left about five hundred meters away, they can see a great river that meanders in an S-shape far below them.
　The river must be roughly over 500 meters wide. Although the land was desolate, on both sides of the river, bright coniferous trees formed a deep forest.
　The green of that forest and the blue of the great river, which reflected the heavens, were as vivid as the eye can see.
　The group was heading south, roughly speaking, along the high ground overlooking that great river. There were several reasons for this, including the difficulty of crossing the mountain range, and the inefficiency of finding a road that would allow them to ride through while riding to the east.
　There was also the calculation that as long as we continued south along the great river, we would be able to hunt some kind of creature, even if we were to run out of food, in case we ran out of food. When we asked Kanami about it, it seemed that he had chosen to become a cook as a production worker, so he could be counted on to help out in a time of need.

If we keep going south, there's only one village.
You're a smart guy, KR.
　The adventurer, who is possessed by the three-eyed beast, Shirasawa, which resembles a white horse, spoke to Kanami on his back. From the volume of her voice, it's clear that she told the others around her at the same time.
　Kanami is a woman with a natural leadership style, or rather, a cheerful charisma that brings people together. She is selfish, but there is no hint of the insidiousness of trying to force her to do so or the greed of using that selfishness to satisfy her own desires. He's not for everyone, but his character is hard to hate.
　However, it seems there is a difference between acknowledging charisma and respect.
　KR, who was said to be an old friend, acknowledged Kanami's leadership, but didn't seem to rely on his sense of geography or his knowledge of the surrounding area at all. He proceeded through the wilderness with an attitude that could almost be described as dogmatic.
　Kanami seemed to accept it with a hawkish attitude and didn't seem to have any problems with it. Looking at such a relationship, I think her caliber is impressive.
"Village, de?
That's true. I could do it in town.
What's going on here?　KR-dono.
　At Elias' question, KR stopped speaking and continued to walk away. It was more like he was thinking about how to answer it rather than ignoring it.
　That would be true too.
　Elias and Kanami seemed to be close, and apparently they had already been traveling together when Coppelia joined them. But Elias is an 'ancient species'. He's not from Earth. It's difficult to decide whether it's okay to explain the game-like convenience part of Elder Tail or whether it's still a secret.
　Since the recent camp, Leonardo and the others have talked about the expansion pack, but Elias apparently understands it to be a ritual sorcery so massive that it affects the world itself. That understanding is correct in one respect - in that it affects this world, but it misses the mark in that this world was created by a game development company that exists on Earth, outside of this world. Leonardo sighed that it was program code, not magic, that created this world.
　This central part of Yuled, near Aorsoy, is still an underdeveloped area for game content. The terrain is an automatic creation from satellite photos and laser measurements, and the plants and rocks are programmatically placed fractacle objects.
　In the same way, the "village" we are heading to now should be a nondescript village created automatically by the Automatic Village Generation Program based on certain random numbers.

　In the real world, villages are created based on the conditions of rivers and topography. Villages are then connected by roads, and when conditions are right, they grow until they become cities and towns.
　The world of Elder Tail is designed on the model of Earth, but while it has a fictional history, it has not undergone any real progress or development. For this reason, it roughly simulates the development of villages, with settlements being built where cities of a certain size were located on the real Earth.
　In the case of large cities, this is done by the game designers from the start, modeling each one individually as a distinctive settlement. The player town, the city where the game begins, is particularly elaborate and landscaped, with a large number of earthlings and facilities.
　Medium-sized cities are mainly for the Lichens. However, for the adventurers, there are stores and Daichihito, who have been given special conversational data to help them advance their quests.

　Smaller villages are created by the Automatic Village Generation Program.
　Leonardo was only a player, so his knowledge of the development system was limited to interviews on game information websites. However, according to his memory, once the location, size and number of people in the town were determined, the only thing left to do was to place the wooden houses according to the actual terrain, to populate them with appropriate "earthlings", and to decorate the surrounding landscape with fields and the like. In other words, the program was an auxiliary program to create a "village with no characteristics," but with an "authentic atmosphere.
In terms of the surrounding river traffic, roads, and scale of trade, it could have been a city or a town, but right now it's just a village..." "That's what I'm talking about," he said. That's what I meant, Mr. Elias.
　Leonardo continued to say so.
　Over the past few days, Leonardo had made a reasonable friendship with the party. Kanami was unassuming, and Coppelia was an all-around reserved, likable girl.
　Elias is something very difficult to comment on, a hero born between a fairy race and a human, but his personality itself is refreshing and easy to get along with. He was not a bad companion on the journey, as long as you pay attention to the occasional comments of delusions of grandeur (not all of them are delusions since he has the magical power to actually carry them out).

''I'm detecting a shadow up ahead that appears to be a village.
　A diminutive shadow in a maid's uniform, sitting sideways and riding deftly, pointed to a point far ahead.
　I could see several streaks of boiling smoke rising like a white thread in the clear, glassy blue sky.
　Even if the village was auto-generated, it would at least be able to get the food and other supplies it needed for the time being. Also, if you ask, you may be able to find out about the traffic in the area and how well the roads are maintained.
　We don't even know if we will need to cross the desert to continue eastward. Apart from the easy-going Kanami, the party was unanimous in its opinion that they needed to get the information.
'Yes, that's it. That's the village we've been looking for, Sekek.
　I heard KR's lazy voice.



◆09



　Sekek was a plain, ordinary village of the Earthmen.
　Of course it was. From the standpoint of programmatic random generation, we don't want anything unusual. It's just that there's a certain amount of "normalcy" that goes with the terrain.
　Probably, each server and region has its own rough data and models. The houses in the dusty village are made of sun-dried bricks and knotty wood, and are typical of a nomadic people built in the wilderness.
　There was a well at the entrance of the village, only this well was tightly constructed of dark gray stone. A broadleaf tree stood at the edge of it, casting a dark shadow in the early autumn sunlight.


　There must have been thirty or so houses in the area.
　Most of the villagers were either inside their homes or out in the narrow fields nearby, or on their way back from the wilderness in pursuit of a surprisingly large number of sheep. It's a small village, just enough to be contained within sight if you look around. In New York City, the population is about a block of streets. That seems to be all the bubbles floating in this wilderness.
　As Leonardo and his group proceeded along the road that runs through the center of the village, the "earthlings" cleared the way. They looked wary, but not afraid. Even if they didn't know the Adventurer directly, Leonardo thought, they had probably heard of him, or at least heard of him.
　Leonardo, too, had traveled alone through this Aorsoy land until he arrived at the ruins of Tekeli, where the worst trap was located. Because of his experience in the Big Apple, he had avoided groups of his peers, but he had stopped at several of the Daichijin's villages. They were looking for food, oil and other necessities.
　The Daichijin's reaction to this village was a reasonable one.
"Hey!　Is there a place that sells rice?
　Kanami, who was advancing ahead of Leonardo, asked the man from the Daichijin in a bright voice. The middle-aged man wearing a square hat on his head looked amused by the voice, but thought for a moment before returning his words.
There's nowhere to serve you food. It's just a small village. But if it's food for the journey, I'm sure they'll share it at Yagud's.
Yagud?
It's the chief.
　In that brief conversation, I found out that there were no independent shops in this village.
　If the population is less than three hundred people, that's how it should be. A traveling merchant is enough for trade goods from outside. The similar villages that Leonardo has stopped by so far are of such a scale.
''I see, thanks!
　After telling them there was no need to thank me, the middle-aged villagers returned to their homes.
　The earthlings around the area also returned to their duties, tending to their fields and fetching water. The adventurers must have been unusual. It seems that their curiosity was satisfied when they realized that the purpose of the trip seemed to be to replenish their supplies.

　I guess it's the same in every village.
　Leonardo thought so.
　Well, that was a better perception. This is much better than the Big Apple's Earthlings,'' he said. The only thing on the other side's face was despair and emptiness. If that was the case, then the look of alarm on their faces, like in this village, was much better. It was also something that was common in the wilderness village, and Leonardo would feel that way even if he were in their position.

(Come to think of it, though, I've been traveling in Aorsoy.)
Hey, where did Kanami and Elias come from?　Have you been traveling by horse all this time?
　I'm curious and call out to him.
'Yes. Well, Ulster to here, together, right?
What's an Ulster?
"Britten,
You've been to England. But then, the Via de Fleur.
I met Coppélia in Paris. Before that I was living in Europe in circles. Me. I had so much to learn.
　Kanami, who had dismounted and was stirring up her magic bag, replied in an above board manner. Perhaps sensing this, Elias, who had also dismounted from his horse and was patting her neck, sent out a boat to help her.
''Meet up with Kanami-dono at the outskirts of Rondenium.
Really?
　Leonardo also got off his horse.
　This area is traditionally a land of nomads. Even the earthlings were adept at handling horses, even as children. However, he thought it might be impolite to ride a horse to the center of the village.
　He gave the slow-moving Coppelia a hand.
　It's unexpectedly heavy. It seems to be because of the heavy armor that looks like a maid's uniform at first glance.
　However, it's not too much of a burden for Leonardo's strengthened arm strength after becoming an adventurer. The Leonardo of this world isn't an IT worker's gigue who stays at home and undertakes the maintenance of servers and e-commerce sites. He's an indefatigable ninja hero.
'You said you've been touring Europe. Well what about Europe?
　Leonardo asked.
　There was a hesitation in his voice when he thought of his home in North America. Elias may or may not have noticed it, but he let out a thick breath and stared into the distance.
　Beyond that was the great western sky.
　The sun was slowly advancing across the blue sky, and beyond that was the European Union.
'Europe. It's an unfamiliar word, but the western end of Yuled is probably just as Lord Leonardo imagined, too.''
　Elias continues as he takes his horse's shoes and walks away.

'The coastal areas of Ridroots and the Seventh Woman Kingdom are closed down.
Shut down--?
Independent city. City-states, if you will. They all hold groups of adventurers in their midst like knights, ready to defend themselves against other cities.
Is there a war going on?
No, it's not all that simple. But the world is a harsh place. If left unchecked, the monster's power will grow and it will begin to attack people. Princes and nobles have chosen to fortify their cities and stay there. Some of the good rulers provide security and defense for their territories, but many small towns and villages that do not have walls or soldiers are abandoned.
What do you mean?
Literally. When the monsters attack, they don't come to help. At least the lord's soldiers aren't going to help.
Why?　Isn't it their territory?
The argument is that if their home base is attacked while they're trying to help, more of their territory will be harmed.
　Elias' expression was twisted in disgust.
He said, "In order to protect ourselves from the monsters, we gather the Adventurers close to us. But if a city is able to gather the Adventurers close to it, the surrounding cities will be wary of invasion, right?　That's why I must sign up with the Adventurer's Guild as a defensive force, and put them in charge of the city's defense. It's an arms race.
　Leonardo's mind conjured up the scene as it happened.
　In this chaotic world, it was just as likely to happen.
In the Seven Kingdoms and in the Kingdom of Gallian, the union of the Earthmen is no longer famous. The traditional Ulster Knight-Sword League is on the verge of collapse. The Citadel is now competing to see who can sign up with the most powerful and respected Adventurer's Guild. Those cities that are able to hire the most powerful Adventurer's Guild will advertise their security and gain more influence over the farmers and merchants in the area. The churches have also been able to cozy up to the Adventurers, so the price of contracts has been soaring.
　The leading guilds of the Adventurer's Guild here are probably the major guilds that engage in large-scale battles. A guild of that size can form a Legion Raid, a 96-man operational unit.
　This unit, made up of less than a hundred adventurers, is the most powerful military unit in the Elder Tail.
　Of course, the Earthmen could muster a larger force, but a unit of adventurers with superior individual fighting ability and telepathic communication would be able to fight with 96 men, more than the thousands of men of the Earthmen.

But the money to pay them will have to be siphoned off from the local people. Nobles and lords trying to cope with the catastrophe are often forced to impose heavy taxes here and there, causing financial ruin. Riots and riots. Some of them even want the Adventurers to pay in kind, or in exchange for benefits.
An actual--?
'Don't ask. I don't like to talk about it. The one who undertakes it is the one who undertakes it, in my opinion.
Still.
　Leonardo heard a muttering voice and turned around.
　It was Coppelia.
　She clutched the reins of her horse without showing any expression, and continued her words.
'Life in the city, says Coppelia, is safer than that of the wilderness and the frontier, says Coppelia. The danger of rural life has increased by 150% in the last year. Due to roving adventurers and unfulfilled quests.
　Leonardo and Elias are at a loss for words, and Coppellia continues, "In Romarnes, there was an outbreak of the Corrosion Corpses (Poison Ghoul).
In Romarnes, there has been an outbreak of the Corrosion Corpses (Poison Ghoul). "In Romarnes, there has been an outbreak of the Corrosion Corpses (Poison Ghoul), which is similar to a contagious disease, and it's spreading among the earthlings living in the provinces. Coppelia has killed 5,629 Corrosive Wights in the salt land of Romarnes, and there has been no change in the situation.
Why so much?　Alone?
'Lord Coppelia was fighting alone when Lady Kanami and I passed by.
....
　Coppelia nodded as if it was nothing.
　The pure white prims swayed over her indigo shortcut. Was the content of the conversation nothing to Coppelia? The girl continues indifferently, without any particular expression on her face.
The girl said, "In the green plain where Coppelia was conducting the battle, there is a village just like this one. You can find it anywhere, and it's just a characterless village. There were four hundred and fifty-nine unique inhabitants living in that village. Conveniently for the Adventurer, the village had a blacksmith who could repair armor, and a food store. And there was a food store. In both cases, they were men of the earth, and there was nothing special about them, including their age and gender.
　Leonardo listened closely to Coppellia's voice.
'To Coppelia, that village was a convenient base of operations. Coppelia made patrols to hunt for targets in the vicinity, but she often returned to the village to repair her equipment and sometimes replenish her items. On her seventh visit, the village had gained one more resident. An unremarkable "earthling" infant had been added. The inhabitants of the village asked for Coppelia's blessing. The villagers seemed to expect that the Priestesses had the ability to do some good. Coppelia did not know how to bless him.
　It was a strangely haunting story.
"Does Coppelia wish to 'heal' you, Death?" I asked. The people in the village did not seem to understand. Coppelia used a level 85 Sun Rhyme (Symbol of Sun). The villagers were so ignorant that they believed the effect to be a miracle. Many thanks to Coppelia. Coppelia learned to ask others for hope. It was a useful insight.
　Coppelia stared off into the distance as if remembering something.
　But it did not appear to Leonardo that he had found what he was looking for.
The ninth time Coppélia stopped by the village, its population had dropped to zero. There were dozens of Corroded Corpses left in the village. After destroying the target, Coppelia moved further into the plains to continue the battle. There were many targets, and Coppelia was not short of targets. Weapons were damaged and it was inconvenient that there were no bases to repair, but the hunt went well. Coppelia obeyed the order perfectly. Had it not been for the encounter with the Master, Coppelia would still be carrying out the prior order.
　Leonardo wasn't sure how Coppelia felt about talking about such things. However, Coppelia just gave her report in a matter-of-fact manner.

'Coppelia is--'
　Just as Leonardo was about to call out to them without knowing what to say, a cloud of dust rose with a loud noise of destruction in the forward direction, far ahead of the village chief's house where he had been introduced. The commotion included a scream.
'Elias!'
Oh, Master Leonard. Kanami is missing. Bastard! She ran into another one, didn't she?
　Leonardo and Elias ran off in a straight line towards the commotion.



◆10





　Sekek is a small village built in the wilderness.
　Naturally, its main street was less than two kilometers long. Sprinting with the strength of their adventurer's legs, Elias and Leonardo arrived at the site of the dust cloud almost instantaneously.
''Hey tanma!
　It was Kanami who blew up at Leonardo. For a moment, Leonardo thought about avoiding her, but then he reminded himself that Kanami was a woman, no matter how foul-mouthed she was, and held her back. However, when Kanami, who looked as if she had been hit by a dumpster, was hugged to the side, Leonardo quickly tossed her aside.
'What are you doing!　Kellonald!
That's all right. It's just a matter of killing the momentum. It can't hurt you.
　Leonardo held his sword as it was and stared at the building in front of him that was neither a barn nor a stable. The reason for such an ambiguous description is that the structure was so broken that it could no longer be called an abandoned building.
　Something of immense power had gone rogue, snapping pillars, smashing through walls and splashing Kanami with its violence.
　Next to Leonardo, Elias could be seen with the same tense look on his face, holding a crystal-clear two-handed sword.
'Kanami-dono, what's there?'
Boyish?
What?
It looked like a boy.
　The questions and answers didn't last any longer.
　The barn in front of them collapsed with a roar. Something jumped out of the dust cloud and crashed head-on into Elias. A scream comes from the Daichijin, who have jumped out of the way at the sheer commotion.

　The one Elias caught with his sword was a boy.
　He was dressed in a nondescript outfit, just like any other child in this village, but his expression was distorted by madness. But his expression is distorted into madness, and with a beastly posture, he catches the sword swung by Elias with a bite and two hands.
　The boy, taking advantage of Elias's gaping hole in his astonishment, broke his own stance and jumped into Elias's bosom with a swift, black gale like swiftness.
　In a flash of crossing, the pure white coat Elias wore was ripped wide open.
　The shiny outfit is a trademark of Elias, a member of the prestigious Order of the Red Branch, a trademark of Elias. At first glance, it appears to be a smooth fabric, but it has excellent blade protection, and its defensive capabilities are higher than half-hearted metal armor.
　However, the boy who easily tore through that coat flicked up his long, extended claws.
　On Elias's chest, a faint wound could be seen behind the torn garment.
''Erias, are you alright?''
No problem. Lady Kanami. I'll tell you what else is wrong with the boy.
　Without giving him a chance to converse, the boy jumps on Elias again. It's the very speed of the beast. The low, crouched posture was not that of a bipedal. It was that of a quadrupedal beast. The black shadow, which repeatedly changes its direction of disillusionment as if it were grasping the desolate earth with its feet, attacked Elias from an unexpected angle.
''No!
　Elias returned the blade to Kanami's voice.
　The crystal-clear two-handed sword disrupts its trajectory midway through and is swung out like a giant club. The boy jumped back at the swing, but of course he didn't seem to endure the attack because it wasn't an attack that could inflict a wound.
''Kero Naldo........''
I know.
　Regardless of the call for a rude nickname, Leonardo can see what Kanami means.
　Boy status.
　His name is Sejin. His level is thirty-four.
　And his occupation is (Noor).
　It was impossible.
　Ash-Spotted Inuoni is a type of evil monster. They are a wicked race with a dog-like head and small, round ears. They maintain hyena-like habits and hunt in groups.
　They are highly intelligent and use leather armor and one-handed weapons. Normally they walk on two legs, but when traveling long distances or in combat, they can move on all four legs.

　Many such monsters can be found in the world of the Elder Tail. These include the Goblin Green Ogre, the Orc Ugly Pig, and the Lizard Man, but there are also the Bug Bear Ogre and the Kobold Ogre - all of which are formidable enemies that threaten adventurers. . The Ash-Spotted Demon is another obstacle that mid-level adventurers will encounter.

　Naturally, Leonardo has fought them before, but the Ash-Spotted Demon does not look like this. It would have been shaggy, with ominous speckles that looked neither gray nor brown, and eyes that glowed yellow, as if the moon had been set in them.
　It was definitely not the appearance of an earthling, and there was no way it could disguise its appearance.
　Most critically, the boy, Sae-Jin's status column was flickering. His occupation as an Ash-Spotted Dog Demon flickered and flickered, alternating with Settlers, and his level went back and forth between thirty-four and two in waves.
"What's going on, Master Leonard?
You shouldn't have knocked him down.
　Leonardo shouted back at Elias's question, but even he didn't know what to do.
　However, even Leonardo himself didn't know what to do.
　The thirty-fourth level is not a great strength.
　It's not difficult to defeat them if you're determined to defeat them, although Elias was taken by surprise and distracted by them.
　Elias may not be able to stop it due to its characteristics, but even so, he can at least drive it out of action.

　Even Leonardo is convinced that a few attacks will be enough to bring him to his death. Even the quick movements are not so much that they cannot be seen now that the dust cloud has cleared.
　That's not the point.
"What the hell is this thing?
Don't you understand, Kjellnerdo?
I don't know. So you think Kanami knows?
I wouldn't be asking you if I knew!
　Leaving the useless kanami alone, Leonardo ran towards the boy. The boy jumped back five meters as if he didn't like Leonardo's approach, probably out of wild caution. However, Leonardo's physical abilities no longer completely supplemented his movements.
　Leonardo, who matched his trajectory with room to spare, drew his twin swords in the middle of his leap and released them.
''No!　Leonardo!
I don't believe it. This is the enemy. If it's going to happen, people are going to get hurt!
　Leonardo used the writhing of his body to cleave the boy's torso with his left-hand sword. It was a small blow to the biggest target, no tricks. I'm not going to let him dodge or duck. It's not a must-attack, but a sharp, spirited blow that was sure to cause significant damage to the boy - Sae-Jin.
''Gishak!
　The boy, who let out a beastly cry, did not avoid that Leonardo's sword. Rather, he smashed his right palm perpendicular to the sword's trajectory. No sooner had Leonardo applied the brakes than the blade bit into the boy's palm, cutting both sides, and going on to slice through his arm, his elbow, and even his second arm.
　The blade stopped just short of reaching his shoulder, but the boy was no longer a two-armed monster. He was a beast with two tattered rubber tube-like straps hanging from his right shoulder that had become useless.
'Gishashashashash!'
　It was no longer possible to call him an earthling, as he was breathing heavily and repeatedly, drooling with blood.
　The villagers who had gathered here also turned away, screaming in pain.
　There was no way to tell at this point whether the boy was from this village or an intruder. That would have been a blessing. If the boy's mother had been here, it was a horrific sight that would have left an indelible mark on his mind.

(Motion, stop...)
　Leonardo was ready for it.
　The blow he had just delivered was by no means sloppy, but it was far from a serious blow. The next blow would saturate his motor skills. It's a paralyzing attack . If that doesn't stop him, he won't even hesitate to use the Sweeper.
　Having made up his mind, Leonardo wasn't surprised by Sae-Jin's surprise attack. He calmly backstepped and ate a thrusting front kick to its abdomen. He even had time to call out to Elias, who turned in front of the boy who was about to move to escape.
'Elias. Throw it over here.
Yes!　Huh!　The Arm of the Black Night Fairy!　Night Splash!
　The boy, splashed like a soccer ball, used his beastly sense of smell to seek out the prey he sought. Taking advantage of the recoil from being slammed into the earth, he runs with an almost grounded motion. Running. Becoming the black shadow of Issun.
　Its destination was Coppelia, who finally emerged after wading through the distant figures.
　When he saw the black shadow closing in on Coppelia's small and gentle figure with a lack of expression, Leonardo threw away all control. It closed in on the boy's neck with a speed that to the casual observer looked as if it had moved at a moment's notice.
　In a slow moment when even the sound becomes mucousy, Leonardo sees a dead spot on his neck that glows blue. It is the marker of the instant death attack〈Sweeper〉. If Sezin's level was seventy, it would have been a different story, but at thirty-four, it's the Reaper's Scythe that can't be spared.
''Ha!''
　But Leonardo chooses the Paralyze Blow, which I know is an NPC. I know it's an NPC, and I know it's an emergency evacuation. Nevertheless, the thought of beheading it, of showing it to Coppelia and his traveling companions, made Leonardo's face contort with a terribly unpleasant physiological sensation.
　Fortunately, the boy fell as if pasted to the ground.
　His body's motor nerves were paralyzed, and he must still be trying to force himself to move. Leonardo quickly seized the body, which was repeatedly twitching with insect-like movements. What comes out of the boy's throat is a muffled groan.
　It's just one of the sallow, tanned boys of Aorsoy, pathetically small and with the shaved-off, skinny face typical of the "earthlings" of this region. The boy's vicious expression, paralyzed like a broken machine, was ghastly and gruesome.
''Coppelia........''
I'll be fine. Coppellia is aware of the situation.
　Coppelia kneels beside the boy and chants a recovery spell.
　He didn't know what Coppelia had in mind when she was trying to recover, but as soon as she approached, the boy's condition changed. The frightened, excited twitching grew stronger, and a hitching breath, almost like a gasp, escaped from his throat, where he could not speak.
Seven bells, white wings that should not be praised for ringing, a blessing to be struck and used to fulfill your will - the Sacred Cure.
　The quiet, muttering voice soothes the boy's 'paralysis'.
　But the boy's madness should not be some sort of status abnormality. It's not the familiar phenomenon of paralysis. It was something more mysterious and terrifying. However, apart from Leonardo's fears, the evil aspect slipped away from the boy's face.
　Under the watchful eye of Coppelia, who placed her hand on his forehead and calmly observed him, the boy's breathing gradually became more regular and calm. There was no longer the beastly aura that had been there earlier.
You're safe...?
　Kanami's voice spoke for all of them in their doubts.
　At those words, Coppelia nodded one nod and paid off the air.
　Leonardo's eyes seemed to catch the jet-black shadow that was blown away by Coppelia's fingertips, but a moment later, only the clear, cold wind of Aorsoy remained, as if nothing had happened.