Riders of The Light

“Oh, no! I had a chance to kill “Decisive Drolette”! And Lawrence! I was supposed to use them as fertilizer for the poisonous plants, but I left them behind!”

Teleportation, flight, and relocation.

The holy spotlight prepared by the “Decisive Drolette” seemed to be a stationary type, and René moved away from it for the time being. It was a little troublesome to deal with the holy beasts while avoiding it.

She felt her body gradually getting lighter and lighter, and she realized that the undead soldiers were being cleared away.

While keeping the undead in place, René continued to consume magic power. That load was gradually decreasing.

–Not all the holy beasts I saw earlier … the undead response I brought in is disappearing fast. They’re being unleashed all over the city. Ordinary undead soldiers are no match for them. How can there be so many of these high-level summons?

To use a powerful summon, you needed a skilled summoner.　

It was hard to believe that such a group of magicians would be swarming around in a place like this. It wasn’t like they were holding a class reunion in a place like this.

Not wanting to waste time thinking about it, René moved to a nearby location where a battle was taking place. A holy beast was rampaging on the city wall, fighting against the undead soldiers who were trying to climb over the wall.

“You’re in the way!”

René immediately slashed at the holy beast.

The tiger-shaped holy beast raised its muscular forearm and tried to tear René apart, but René slid in and avoided the tiger’s strike, while cutting off the holy beast’s arm with the red blade she raised.

The body of the holy beast, woven together by the holy energy of holy magic, was canceled by the magical power of the curse in the red blade, and it was supposed… to disappear into dust.

But René felt a strange response.

A watery sound. A slight tug on the blade. The forearm of the slashed holy beast fell down with a thud, and rolled while spurting blood from the cut section.

–It’s not right! This is not a magically maintained ethereal entity, but a … incarnation!?

Normally, summoned beasts only hypothetically acquired their substance through magical power.

But the gilded-equipped white tiger in front of her had a physical body. It was bleeding from its slashed forearm and breathing heavily in agitation.

Having a summoned beast deliberately have a physical body was not a very common technique. The summoned beast’s main function was to be a “disposable servant”, and there was no point in using it in an operational sense.

The holy beast bared its fangs and leapt at René.

René jumped, rolled forward in the air, and swung the red blade.

The holy beast was cut in half as if it had run into an electric thread saw.

Its body parted, weeping from side to side as it spluttered its guts out.

A fishy smell rose up.

“What is this…”

Anyway, while René was dealing with the holy beast, the nearby undead soldiers jumped down the city wall and retreated.

This holy beast, strong indeed, was not a thing for René.

But now René had something she could not afford to lose.

She could not afford to let undead ex-soldiers die in vain, even if they were just pawns. Good soldiers were a valuable asset.

“The next dangerous one is …”

René looked over the city from the top of the city wall. But then the holy beasts flew across the rooftops of the city and approached.

“It’s really depressing!”

Just as the armor of the lead holy beast was about to catch René.

René jumped into a nearby alley using ≪Warp≫.

René moved away by repeating the transition further, while the holy beasts foolishly pursued her.

And then, a screeching eagle cry echoed from overhead.

“Even in the sky!?”

The hippogriff zombies were being stalked by several bird-shaped holy beasts.

Covered in pure white feathers, they were huge birds with gold ornaments hanging from their wings like a Christmas tree for the rich and famous. Its face resembled a golden mask, and its feet were golden machine-like claws.

The loss of an airborne cavalryman was even more irreparable than the loss of a soldier.

René immediately kicked off the ground, casted a «Fly» spell on herself, and launched herself like a bullet.

However, René immediately braked suddenly.

“≪Event Horizon≫”

Because in front of René’s eyes, the bird-shaped holy beasts were covered with holes.

Like ice cream scooped out of a disher. Or like Swiss cheese hollowed out by air bubbles.

A number of spherical “Nothingnesses” were generated, and half of the holy beasts’ bodies were gouged out and vanished. The shredded wreckage rained down, leaving a trail of gushing blood.

With the holy beasts defeated, the cavalrymen succeeded in escaping. They flew over the city walls and out of the city.

–What was that!?

It was attack magic. She knew that.

But who did it and what for?

“Hi, hi, nice to meet you. You looked like you were in trouble, so I tried to help you out, but was it none of my business?”

A loose voice came from below.

When René looked down, she saw a woman walking in the air toward René as if she were on a transparent staircase.

She had mysterious and glamorous purple crystal eyes, suspicious and glamorous dark purple hair. Her skin was white, glossy, and glamorous. She was tall and had a beautiful body, covered with flesh where it counted.

She was dressed in a black wide-brimmed hat and black clothes in the traditional witch’s style. However, her clothes were so revealing that the sleeves, which looked like Furisode (long-sleeved kimono), might have had more fabric than her torso.

And on her back, for some reason, was a Furoshiki (wrapping cloth). A slightly dull green furoshiki with a bold arabesque pattern. She was carrying a huge furoshiki with all sorts of steampunk junk, big and small.

“Huh…? Uh, no, thank you…, but…”

–What? This classic Thief style wh*re. The presence is evil, but … human?

“Oops, I’m sorry for my unsightly appearance. I came here with all my moving luggage.”

“No, I’m concerned about your weird baggage, but that’s not the problem. Who are you…? Why did you help me?”

She smiled with a hint of sophistication, as though to say, “I’m so glad you asked.”

“Oh, I’m late to introduce myself. I am the Great Witch Everis. I have served three Demon Lords in the past, and I am the only ‘World Conquest Consultant’ in this world!”

“World Conquest Consultant…”

The word “bizarre” rang out.

If ‘suspiciousness’ or ‘stinkiness’ could be quantified, she was suspicious enough to make her scanner explode.

Everis shrugged as she met René’s suspicious gaze.

“No, no, no, I know I’m shady, but I need you to trust me for a moment. You can see that I am evil to the bone, can’t you? I’m not on the side of the human race.”

“That’s, well…”

“The reason why I’m helping you is because it wouldn’t do me any good if my hypothetical new client, René-sama, were to lose a lot of capital. The rest was just a light demonstration.”

–A new client?

In her mind, René mentally reflected on those words.

For the time being, René lowered her altitude and landed in an alley, thinking that she would be the target of an attack if she stood in the air talking. Everis followed her down.

This allowed them to hide behind a building, but still the unpleasant sensation was approaching. It seemed that a tiger-shaped holy beast was following René’s presence.

“I’d love to get right down to business, but it’s a bit noisy in here. What are you going to do now? I can only help you escape for now. I’ll offer my services as a greeting.”

The power of emotional detection captured Everis.

For the moment, she knew that she was telling the truth.

René decided to trust Everis. Right now, she was in need of a cat’s or a witch’s help.

“Before escaping, I want to collect as much of the undead that are still in one piece as possible. I’m going to put them back together and store them with «Inventory» so could you please transfer me there? Also, there is someone north of the city that I would like to collect.”

“Yes, yes, I understand. No problem!”

“And …, hold on a second.”

René looked back at the nearby wall.

There seemed to be nothing there, but there was an emotion of ‘surprise’.

“There’s something there… «Cursebind».”

“Kyan!?”

Chains of curses gushed out from René’s hand and bound something invisible.

There was a scream, roughly the level of an alert.

As the fog wavered, something unseen appeared.

Wrapped around her entire body in black-purple colored magical chains was an adventurer in light armor. She was a girl with honey-blonde hair, twin-tailed with red ribbons.

No, no. René knew.

It was a man.

He was an adventurer of some renown in this country. He was a mysterious figure with a discrepancy between his appearance and his age and gender.

He was the Thief Tracy.

“Woah!? Wait! Why!? I was supposed to be completely invisible!? I didn’t even make a breathing sound!?”

Tracy, who was in a caterpillar state, screamed as he thrashed about.

“Don’t worry about it… You’re right, you were perfectly hidden, okay? I wouldn’t have found you if I hadn’t used magic to look for ‘something hidden’ myself. How did you find them, Princess?”

“I can read minds, you know.”

“Ah…, I understand everything now. I see… you mean that thing in the capital, this and that.”

“You saw that?”

“We’ll talk about that later…”

Everis was smiling a deceptively wry smile.

“So who is this eavesdropper?”

“I guess you could call it eavesdropping… Maybe they were trying to escape stealthily and just happened to run into us.”

Tracy’s sunset-colored eyes widened as he looked at the two of them.

René strode up to Tracy and lifted him up by the back of his armor like a mother cat plucking up her kittens.

“Tracy, a 6th class Elite adventurer and a Thief. … I’ve got a good find.”

“Eh, uh, excuse me.”

“Then let’s get out of here!”

“Oh noooooo…!?”

Leaving Tracy’s screams in their wake, the evil duo and their loot (approximately 1 person) vanished with teleportation magic.

You can get access to 10 Chapters ahead of the Novelupdates release on my Patreon. <3