I. Descend.(2)

Around the time Aria and Mu began their breakthrough towards the central tower, in other places, as Aria had predicted, students and professors who prioritized regrouping had gathered together and were fending off the approaching undead.

For the most part, the students were of no help, and the professors were dealing with large numbers of undead, but there were also students who were performing as well as the professors.

“Ah, damn it! There’s so many of these filthy things!”

“Instead of yapping, fire one more spell. There’s a limit to how much I can handle with my bow.”

“Both of you, stop fighting and focus on killing the enemies!”

“Cooking undead… I think I’m going to be sick.”

And these four were among them.

In order, Arin, Riana, Shati, and Kana.

Perhaps because they were in the same class, the four who had been transferred to nearby positions found each other quickly, and now they had joined up with other professors and students and were showing off their improved skills.

The four had become quite close over the past month as classmates in Class A, sharing a sense of camaraderie towards Professor Aria.

As such, they were dealing with the undead in their own coordinated way.

Arin would cut down and deflect the undead at the very front, then Riana and Shati would launch a massive bombardment, and Kana would decisively slice up any undead that still survived.

They had already killed about 100 undead this way. However, seeing the endless wave of undead still rushing in, Shati made a disgusted expression.

“There’s no end to them, no end! We’ve taken down 100, but 300 more are coming out? Is this even possible?!”

“At this rate, it’s only a matter of time before we’re overrun. Even though the professors are fighting with us, there’s just too many of them.”

As if there was some sort of comradeship among them, undead from all directions were converging here as they slaughtered them, and it wouldn’t be strange if their formation collapsed at any moment.

Although other areas were being handled by professors and some students, at most they could hold out for 10 minutes, maybe 8 minutes at best.

However, no matter how desperate the situation, they couldn’t give up, if only for the sake of their teacher who had taught them. So after pausing for a moment, the four gripped their weapons again and moved.

“I’ll cut down the front!”

The first to move was naturally Arin, who was standing at the very front.

Arin lightly swung her Carnia at the approaching undead as if dancing.

“Crescent Moon”, “Half Moon”.

Sword techniques directly taught by Professor Aria during swordsmanship class. These were the techniques Aria had shown in the tent when they first met.

Slash──!

The sword Arin swung curved at an odd angle, splitting five approaching undead in half, and the resulting shockwave disturbed the front line of undead charging from behind.

It was truly a golden opportunity. So, not missing that timing, Shati and Riana’s large-scale attacks swept through the undead.

“I’m going with a big technique!”

“I’ll match Shati-san!”

The first to be swung was Shati’s staff.

“Meteor”

A true Meteor with dozens of meteors falling simultaneously, not just the single meteor that had failed during that day’s magic class.

Of course, given the location and the need to be mindful of those behind, the size was greatly reduced, but the power was several times that of the first magic class day.

Boooom────!!!

With a fierce explosion, Shati’s Meteor crushed the enemies and turned them to ash.

And as soon as the Meteor bombardment ended, Riana released the bowstring she had been drawing towards the undead rushing through the smoke.

“Wind Pillar”

An intense pillar of wind that grinds up the undead and rises like a water spout from the ground.

True to its name of Wind Pillar, the wind column that burst from Riana’s arrow ground countless undead into small pieces of flesh.

As it was an attack with a different range, it seemed to have cleared most of the undead, but there were still some persistent undead remaining.

Undead crawling out with their unique tenacious vitality even with their limbs cut off. Kana stood directly in front of such undead, drawing her kitchen knife.

“Cooking undead with all their flesh rotted still makes me want to vomit when I think about it, but…”

Can’t be helped.

Kana muttered inwardly as she raised her kitchen knife, and along with that, an intangible blade rose above the heads of the crawling undead.

“Cutting Board Laying”, “Mincing”

Techniques learned from Yeonhwa during lunch breaks and honed during swordsmanship classes. By now, there was no hesitation and not even a slight delay in preparation.

A wide cutting board spread out beneath her feet, and simultaneously with the cutting board spreading, the crawling undead collapsed to the ground, spilling their innards as Kana’s kitchen knife swung.

The neatly sliced appearance spreading on the ground looked almost like a dish, but the four frowned at the fact that the ingredients were undead.

“But with this, we’ve mostly cleared them for now…”

However, having dealt with most of the undead that had swarmed in, Arin raised her head slightly to catch her breath with some relief, but the sight that greeted her made the expressions of all four, including Arin, sour.

“…I’m sick of this, really sick.”

“There really is no end to them.”

“I knew it, but seeing it directly is too much…”

“Isn’t this too many even if all the Sky Island residents became undead?”

If their combined attack had dealt with about 150 out of 300 undead charging in earlier, what was visible now easily exceeded 500.

Just where on earth did this volume of undead keep coming from?

It was truly an absurd situation they wanted to complain about, but there was no time for that. In the current situation with 500 more joining, they needed to kill even one more as quickly as possible.

Praying that other helpers, preferably Professor Aria and her colleagues, would appear quickly, Arin, Riana, Shati, and Kana raised their weapons once again, and.

Jingle──

“I will purify. ‘Divine Purge’.”

Along with the sound of bells coming from somewhere, a wave of holy light spread out, engulfing the undead even before the four could act.

No, not just the undead, but Arin’s group and the students and professors fighting behind them, and even the undead they were blocking.

The wave of light rippled brightly, engulfing everything in the area, spreading fatal holy power to the undead and warm healing holy power to the people.

“Fortunately, it seems I’m not too late. It would have been troublesome if anyone had headed towards the central tower.”

“Who?”

“Ah, you’re──.”

Of course, with the undead that had been crowding around and the wounds on their bodies disappearing in an instant, the four turned their gaze towards the source of the holy power without anyone leading, and seeing the platinum-blonde girl standing there, Arin let out a questioning sound while Shati exclaimed.

For Shati, it was a familiar face she had always seen in class, so she was about to introduce the girl to Arin and the others, but before that, the girl opened her mouth and introduced herself.

“I’m Pina from Class 1-C… is what I’d like to say, but for now, I’ve come to help as a candidate for the next Pope. Please feel free to call me Pina.”

Originally, she would have been an ordinary academy student, but having received orders from the Traveler, she was now a person of the temple.

Pina struck her huge staff down, making a clear bell sound, intending to calm the situation first.

From the edge of the Sky Island to the central tower, cutting down about 3,000 undead took roughly 55 seconds.

Even though they were magic-created clones, they fought quite well, nearly as good as the original, so the time was shortened more than expected.

Therefore, looking up at one side of the central tower that we arrived at too quickly, I muttered while shielding my eyes.

“Then… is this the West Gate?”

There are four gates in the central tower, namely the East Gate, West Gate, South Gate, and North Gate.

And currently, I was in Aria’s form, having arrived at the West Gate.

Mu, in Meiyel’s form, headed to the East Gate, and the clones in Yujia and Kama’s forms went to the South and North Gates respectively.

As the central tower was so huge that it occupied 1/5 of the Sky Island’s size, the other locations weren’t visible, and all I could see right now was the wide-open West Gate in front of me.

“Seeing that even the undead don’t come this far, I guess they also want a one-on-one fight.”

Although there were quite a number of undead even after reaching the central tower, not a single undead was visible here now.

Seeing that they’re not attacking us, they’ve probably sent them to the students or professors who might be elsewhere, which means the demon executives also want a confrontation with us.

As I had already expected this, I leisurely waited for my opponent to appear with my sword resting on my shoulder, and after about a minute had passed, a woman walked out from the dark interior of the West Gate.

Click── Click──

The woman walking out into the sunlight with the sound of high-heeled shoes. As she fully emerged from the shadow-filled interior to outside the West Gate, I examined her clear appearance.

White long hair flowing down to her hips, eyes shining with a deep green color as if poison had been poured into them, and five swords hanging at her waist visible under the tight-fitting tights costume.

Moreover, each of the swords hanging at her waist was a demon sword exuding vicious demonic energy.

The moment I saw that, without needing to look further, I spoke her name.

“So you’re one of the demon executives, Morgan of the Demon Sword?”

“Oh my, I didn’t expect you to even know my name. Are you sure it’s okay to show so blatantly that you seem to know everything about us?”

Morgan, who seemed genuinely surprised that I knew her name, showed a brief moment of honest confusion before quickly putting on a seductive smile and asking back.

Certainly, as she said, such a statement was quite dangerous for me as well, but I didn’t think it was much of a problem right now. After all.

“It doesn’t matter. After all, if I capture you here and now, it’ll be a fact only you will know.”

If I subdued Morgan here and took her away, there would be no problem at all. And at these words of mine, Morgan threw her head back and burst into laughter.

“Kyahahaha!! What amazing confidence indeed. I like it.”

“Is that so.”

It was laughter loud enough to slightly hurt my ears, but I took a combat stance, thinking it was laughter that would soon stop anyway, with the mindset of ‘laugh more’.

And as I responded indifferently and gripped the sword I had been resting on my shoulder, Morgan also slightly erased her smile and drew one of the five swords she possessed.

“……”

“……”

A moment of silence flowed between her and me.

Neither of us wanted to delay the fight any longer by continuing the conversation.

Clang───!!!

The sound of metal against metal that rang out the next moment coldly announced that the battle between Morgan and me had begun.