1050: The Power of a Demonoid Ogre
Fran was up against Marle, a girl wearing a military uniform. However, the sight of her opponent wearing a slave collar caused her to hesitate, preventing her from going on the offensive.
Her trauma must have been triggered by the sight of this enslaved girl. Even if we are powerful enough to defeat the girl easily, that only matters if Fran is willing to fight.
『She’s closing in!』
The girl jumped around in the sky using a combination of ice footholds and wind magic, before getting up close and unleas.h.i.+ng an ice spell that would even damage herself.
「Diamond Dust.」
「Kuh!」
『That packs quite a punch!』
Fran grimaced at the cold gale blasted at us.
Getting turned into a demonoid must have enhanced the power of her magic. Our barrier took quite the beating from that single spell.
The girl continued to cast additional spells in succession. Parallel Thought allowed her to chant multiple spells at the same time, and unleash them one after another. Her strategy was probably to launch an endless barrage of magic.
A normal human should not be able to withstand the immense migraines from doing so… But it seems the girl could ignore the pain due to being manipulated.
And that wasn’t all.
「White mist.」
『This is…!』
It seems the real purpose of her repeated casts of Diamond Dust was to fill the surrounding area with frigid air. The cold mist restricted our visibility, as well as enhancing the potency of ice magic.
『Fran! We’re just wasting our time like this!』
（Nn…）
『Even if you don’t want to kill her, we have to stop her movements. Cut off a limb or two and disable her!』
（…Okay.）
After glancing over at the burning city, Fran remembered that we had no time to lose. She held me up with a look of sadness. It’d be great if we could paralyze Marle instead, but she had resistance to status.
「Teyaa!」
『I’d rather not do this either, but it’s time for you settle down!』
Fran put everything into her barrier and dashed forward, deflecting the ice spells. Despite seeing us leap at her out of the cold mist, Marle’s face did not so much as twitch.
Without delay, she drew the saber at her waist in an attempt to block our slash. However, there’s no way we’d let that happen after getting this close.
Fran slammed Marle’s saber away with the back of her left fist, before slas.h.i.+ng up to sever the girl’s undefended right arm. Without any loss of momentum, Fran’s blade continued in a beautiful arc to come back down and sever the girl’s left leg.
While not displaying any pain on her face, this certainly knocked the girl off her balance. She was forced to pause and regain her posture.
Meanwhile, Fran smashed Marle right above her head and slammed her down into the s.h.i.+p below. A vicious kick with her left foot, packing the divine attribute.
Marle impacted the mast with tremendous force, snapping it in two. It seems that also killed her momentum, so she just hit the deck with a thud rather than smas.h.i.+ng through.
She seems to have stopped moving, but is she really knocked out?
『Nice, now keep her pinned for a bit! I hope the slave collar is weak enough that my level of contract magic can override it…』
「Nn!」
We saw some sailors rus.h.i.+ng to Marle’s side, but we blocked them with a series of spells. However, the sailors refused to retreat and kept trying to get closer.
「Princess!」
「Save the princess!」
They called Marle a princess. Also, an emblem resembling an eight-headed serpent could be seen on the broken mast. It seems the small s.h.i.+ps used as damage subst.i.tutes were manned by sailors from the Kingdom of Seedran.
In other words, Seedran’s sailors were intended to be disposable from the beginning.
Fran’s face distorted after understanding the situation. Raydoss’s vile acts must have disgusted her.
After knocking the sailors back with magic, Fran rushed to Marle atop the deck.
「d.a.m.n… Princess…」
「Princess Marle, no…!」
All the sailors on the deck were only worried about their princess despite themselves collapsing to the ground. She must have been a good princess if not for the manipulation.
Maybe she and Fran could have been friends too if they met under different circ.u.mstances.
「Master, the collar――」
『Get back, Fran!』
Immediately as we tried to remove the collar, Marle unleashed an enormous amount of icy mana. This covered the deck in an instant, and even overflowed into the surrounding area.
The surface of the sea froze over, and the sailors worried about Marle had been reduced to statues of ice.
「G-Gah…GAAAAAAAAAAH!」
『Regeneration? No, she remade her lost limbs with ice?』
Marle stood up with a high-pitched roar. Rather than her earlier blank expression, her face was now as vicious as a wild beast.
Her body looked bigger, and not just because of her intimidating aura. Marle’s body was completely covered with ice, giving her the appearance of a white ogre. It seems this ice also took the place of her lost limbs.
The girl stood up without any loss of balance.
「UROOOOOHH!」
Her magic is instant now?! Moreover, with a bigger range of effect than before.
Though the boat we were on was small, that’s only when compared to the other vessels in the fleet. As a wars.h.i.+p, it’s still way larger than your average fis.h.i.+ng boat. Maybe around the size of a cruiser on Earth.
Yet the cold air released by Marle instantly engulfed the s.h.i.+p and froze it white. No doubt her friends were not even on her mind.
Marle’s eyes were fixed only on Fran.
Not one glance at the remains of the sailors who were so worried about her. Perhaps it’s for the best if she can no longer recognize them.
「GRAAAAH!」
「Teya!」
Fran dodged a punch from Marle, before slas.h.i.+ng her arm off. The mana covering her arm made it really tough, so this took quite a bit of my durability.
It wasn’t tough enough to repel Fran’s slash though. Marle’s right arm flew off past the elbow, but it seems the current Marle had decided to stop being human.
「…It grew right back.」
『Judging by that feeling, I’m pretty sure that should have been her physical body. It’s not just the ice covering her, her entire body has mutated too.』
「Nn.」
We just got back from Gordicia, and there’s no time to relax!