The Second Wall was like a replica of Risadel's First Wall. Unlike the First Wall, everything here was bare and decrepit. The docking areas were destroyed in the aftermath of the last Monster Wave, and whatever brick and wood that remained had long since rotted away. A bridge still connected the two sides of the river, but it was held up together by hopes and a dream—anything more than five people could topple the delicate balance and bring an end to decades of vigil.

  Under the shadows of the Second Wall, the facilities that once housed Rosarium troops and adventurers lay empty and quiet. Half of a flag still hung from the triangular roof top of a building, still singing its lonesome song of patriotism with what little wind it could catch. It rang hollow amidst the decay.

  The massive arch of the Second Wall, cradling the shattered remains of the gigantic river gate, which once served as an on-demand dam, obediently allowed the river passage into the Evil Lake beyond, like a broken loser forced to feed its oppressor. Even the Second Wall itself was littered in moss and vegetation.

  The party was trotting down the brick-paved road on their bird mounts, slowly taking it all in. Aire took point while Anna and Willow followed closely behind. Everyone kept their eyes and ears peeled; there were enough abandoned structures around for monsters to cultivate their nests. Though Willow had already sent a 'pulse check' for hostiles, it paid to be careful.

  Willow noted how the Magic Fencer and Wind Mage's faces turned solemn at the sights, a certain maid especially. For most adventurers, it was old history, just a curio on the map to remind them of the cruel inevitability of the Evil Lake. But Anne seemed to take something deeply personal from the state of the Second Wall as she looked on in unblinking horror.

  "How could this be?" Anne whispered. "When the Kingdom claimed how the old adventurers of Roxidel still lived, that the fortress would stand among the finest and proudest against the Evil Lake, I had imagined a place where valor would burn as bright as that of Venfort. But this..."

  "It's considered bad luck to say the name of a fallen fortress," Willow warned. "I don't mind it, but others will. Try not to make it a habit while you're here in Risadel."

  "I-I'll keep that in mind."

  Somewhere along the river, something finally gave out and rubble splashed into the waters below. Quartz and Ruby, the riding birds, let out a startled cry before their owners soothed their hackled feathers and told them there was nothing to worry about.

  "Disgraceful," Aire said, and for once she had set aside her heroic posturing. "Were there not enough soldiers to spare? Without anyone manning the Second and Third Walls, Risadel is down to its last line of defense. How could anyone by the First Wall live comfortably like this?"

  "We don't," Willow said. "Risadel was... doing relatively okay as a trading hub before the Wild Hunt appeared and cut us off from the mainland. The guild is struggling to organize a response. Now, we're just waiting for help from Providence to arrive and to organize a hunt to take back the roads. Fingers crossed we could still feed everyone before then."

  There was a fissure in the road. Everyone had to hang on as the riding birds gave it a hop, a skip, and a jump. A few bricks cracked. There was a slight stumble before their training kicked in, righting themselves with a flap.

  Aire relaxed the reins. "But if misfortune befalls Risadel and a Monster Wave appears..."

  Willow shrugged. "Then I guess we'll die."

  It got quiet for a moment. From where the White Mage sat, her two charges shared a concerned look—and mimicking their owners, so did Ruby and Quartz—before Anne bit her lips, her eyes downcast under her bangs. "And what of the other branches of Dragon Tale?"

  "Don't know. Same for the rest of the Support Corps: they're either too busy or too far away. Everyone has their own problems, after all."

  "I heard parties like the Azure Dragons travel around the Kingdom to alleviate pressure at the battlefront." Anne seemed to be talking to herself as her voice lowered into a barely audible utterance. "Maybe if we send a letter, we could..."

  "Like you two?"

  "H-Huh? What do you mean?"

  "Neither of you were exactly inconspicuous. Let's just say even Master Gerald had heard about you two."

  The maid flushed. "Oh, dear..."

  Aire laughed. "It seems that our efforts shine through even in this gloomy corner of Rosarium. Why, perhaps they could use a speech. 'Even if the walls were broken, the valiant shall never fall,' that's what I would say!"

  "Quoting Master Hera of Venfort, are we?" Willow droned. "At least she had a full three Walls to work with."

  "Confidence, friend. It's all about confidence! Rosarium did not hold the Evil Lake at bay for hundreds of years with mere tactics and an iron heart." Aire grinned and thumped her fist onto her chest plate. "Have some wonder. I'll make you a true paramour of the literary arts yet!"

  Willow looked over Anne's shoulder to quirk a brow at the Magic Fencer. "Even if it's from wrist-deep inside teeth and monster guts?"

  "Even then! We'll start by slaying the foul beasts that infest these sacred lands!"

  "...Well," Willow pointed. "You might've spoken too soon."

  Because the moss on the Second Wall? It wasn't moss.

  They were close enough now to actually see it, feel it. The air had grown stale, and the color of the water had turned dark. The river moved like molasses, passing under the bridge and toward the mouth of the Second Wall.

  It was pitch-black, oozing, and it was scattered around the mouth of the Second Wall like mold—an infestation.

  Things emerged from the Demontide.

  Arms and legs tried to pull themselves out, but it was like they were growing from the Second Wall itself. Some fell into the water. Some managed to cling unto the stone and swing themselves unto land, where the fresh ichor dripped from their bodies and corrupted the ground.

  They raised their reptilian-like heads and snarled with red, beady eyes.

  "Kobolds, huh?" Willow muttered.

  "T-That's a Monster Spawner?" Anne looked ill, struggling to even keep her eyes up. "It's hideous..."

  Ruby, sensing the agitation of her owner, dug its feet against the ground. Willow had to clutch the bird's tail feathers to keep herself from slipping off.

  "This wasn't in the report," Aire whispered, her eyes hardening.

  "It wasn't," Willow said. "Must've appeared just today..."

  Monsters often appeared around the Second and Third Walls. The guild made sure teams were often sent out to clear them to ensure the safety of Sailors coming in from Sarnaught. The Sailors had it hard enough over there, or so Secretary Layla had once said.

  This was supposed to be a routine quest. Just their luck that there was suddenly a Monster Spawner.

  Willow sighed. The guild wasn't going to like this. "Let's head back," she said. "We'll organize a raid team, and, hopefully, we could have this resolved by next—why are you two looking at each other like that?"

  The kobolds had seen them. As if their presence had triggered an immune response, more kept on spawning; the river rippled with the bodies of their kin, and the Second Wall soon had a dozen running at them with even more on the way. They were like rabid animals, too newly formed to have a functioning mind.

  But neither Aire nor Anne budged. They nodded, coming to an unspoken agreement, and...began to dismount.

  Willow shook her head in disbelief.

  "No. No. We are not doing this."

  "Oh, we are." Aire had swung her hips off of Quartz with a flourish, landing perfectly on her feet. "And we will. It would besmirch my good name to turn my back on this injustice!"

  "You said it yourself: the guild is struggling," Anne said. She had Aire's help coming down, barely keeping her own cloak from getting caught on the saddle. "We cannot in good conscience allow Risadel to burden itself anymore than it already has. We must handle this ourselves, here and now, before the Demontide spreads."

  The maid was leafing through the saddlebag under Ruby's wing. She picked out two potions, securing them to a belt over her skirt before closing the bag with a quick snap. Ruby was fidgeting the entire time, watching the kobolds. Poor girl was about ready to bolt.

  "How about a vote?" Willow blurted. "Your birds seem to disagree, and so do I. That makes three to two in favor of us packing up and going home. Vote over—let's go."

  "But they haven't tried to run away yet. Isn't that right, my brave little Ruby?" Anne tussled the Cherub's cheeks and giggled, like there was absolutely nothing in the world out to kill her. "That makes four to one in favor of monster-slaying. Sorry, Miss White Mage."

  Oh, come on! What happened to the shy and uncertain maid from earlier?!

  This was their first Monster Spawner encounter, so they might not yet appreciate how fast these things proliferate. Raid teams normally needed to be big enough to wipe them out in one go because, once they were threatened, the monster spawning would not stop. It was like disturbing an ant hill.

  Willow was supposed to keep these two out of trouble, and here they were on their first quest together, already about to dive headlong into a crowd of kobolds like they were battle maniacs going out of fashion!

  "This is stupid," Willow hissed. "Really, really stupid."

  For whatever reason, Aire beamed with delight. She brandished her fencing sword and charged into the fray, screaming, "Better a fool in the present than a genius in the past, my wise ol' frieeend!"

  "Quoting the Great Hero Gram—? Falbion the Wise had to save him from wyverns after he said that!"

  With everything secured, Anne shouldered her wooden staff. She looked up at Willow without a single doubt or fear in her eyes. It was enough to silence whatever else the White Mage was going to say. "We won't force you to follow us. We were more than capable of handling this much ourselves," she said, before turning with a swish of her cloak. "Stay with the Cherubs! They'll protect you—hold on, Aire! [Wind Wall]!"

  Slowly, as the Rusties went into the fight, Ruby and Quartz looked over their backs at the White Mage, faces chiseled in abject terror. Anyone else could tell they did not want to be alone with her. At all.

  Her eye twitched. A thin, straight line was drawn across her lips.

  "...I'll be sure to bring your owners back alive, you two," she finally said, before swinging herself off.

  For once, the Cherubs sounded grateful as they ran away to hide with a cowardly cry.

  Aire's red braid swung to the rhythm of her blade as she sliced and diced like the kobolds were vegetables on the platter. A grin grew from her lips, like she was thinking of something else, and not a thought was spared for the monsters in front of her.

  They used the same tactic for the slimes: Anne cast her [Wind Walls], funneling the monsters into a single point, while Aire dueled each kobold to the death in honorable combat. She kept her distance fair and measured. Only the very tip of her orange-glowing blade needed to be bloodied.

  The kobolds just ran at her. No tactics. No self-preservation. They didn't have the ubiquity of the river slime to thwart her senses.

  But it was exactly because of this that they were a different kind of dangerous.

  A kobold skewered itself into her sword. Then a second. Then a third. The Magic Fencer's rhythm broke momentarily, and that was enough for a kobold to go in and take a swipe.

  "Woah!"

  Aire wrenched her blade free to leap back, but it allowed the kobolds to break through the chokehold, swarming the space she was trying to lock down.

  "Oho! In that case... [Needle Stab]!""

  Power coursed through her limbs from her core. She cocked her blade back—and no other movement was necessary as a streak of mana jet through blade form the hilt and pierced the first couple of kobolds. In that same instant, she rolled her shoulders and the sharp tip of the 'needle' made a circular sweep, slicing right through the adjacent monsters.

  The kobolds kept spilling through, however, and replaced the fallen not a moment after. The second call of the Skill was at the edge of her lips, ready to slash them down all at once, maybe for a third and fourth time if she had to... before she was beaten to the punch.

  "[Barrier]."

  The kobolds broke their snouts against a magical wall.

  "...I'm really mad at you two," Willow said, and she planted her glowing staff on the ground. The barrier widened, encompassing the length of both of Anne's wind walls. "But since we're actually doing this, I'll need you all right where I can see you. Or Goddess, help me."

  "Oh? Oh! A line from the Saintess Uriel!" Aire barely held back a squeal. "Is this a declaration of friendship? Is this the ideal bookworm-to-bookworm correspondence I've heard so much about?! Then I accept!"

  "What? No, I said that specifically to convey my disappointment in you two!"

  "Still," Anne smiled warmly beside the White Mage. "Thank you for joining us."

  "Yeah, yeah. Thank me after this is over."

  With a twirl of her staff, the White Mage's barrier moved like a hinged door. With the kobolds all gathered up, they were unceremoniously swept into the river bank below.

  Anne was about to follow up, pointing her staff over the edge, ready to shred them into pieces with a Gale Cutter, but paused. "Huh? Why are there so many?"

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  It seemed the kobolds who first spawned and fell into water earlier had not drowned. Must have swam up the river under their noses. Now they were crawling out of the water, and the river bank was teeming with them, jumping and snarling at the party. Soon, there would be enough of them to use each other as a ladder and rise over the stone walls. More had gathered further up the river to cut off their escape.

  Well, these little guys were a bit more capable than she thought.

  Willow began to focus and sent down a 'pulse'.

  The thin echo of mana swept through the rocks and the water. Down the river. Across the Second Wall. And beyond that. All the signatures she could search returned as faint pings on her staff's crystal receptacle.

  "That strange spell again..." Anne muttered. "Miss White Mage, how many do you see?"

  Willow opened her eyes. "For now? Thirty of them on land. Sixty are still swimming in the river. And a very big one. Good news? There are no other monsters further out. We have the entire Second Wall to work with if we play this right." Her gaze flickered from the river to the next batch of kobolds down the path. "This place is too open. Wind Mage, if you please?"

  "Of course! [Gale Cutter]!"

  The kobolds were shot down with fine accuracy. Razor-sharp blades of wind had bisected most and severely injured others. With nothing to follow them now, Willow waved them over into a narrow alley and squeezed themselves through.

  They winded through the abandoned buildings, lunging over the debris and the rubble. Some of the paths had broken or were blocked by fallen walls, but Willow navigated through the place like it was the back of her hand.

  "You know the way?" Anne asked.

  "It's the same layout as the First Wall." The White Mage took a sharp corner, and the path widened enough for them to pick up the pace. "We're going around and then up. Use the stairs to funnel them. We'll do something about the Monster Spawner while Aire keeps the kobolds off our backs. The big one sleeping in the river will be for last."

  The White Mage quickly glanced over her shoulder to check if they were still following.

  The Magic Fencer was steadily striding along. Not even breaking a sweat. Whatever family training she had undergone, it was serving her well. But with all those sparkles in her eyes, was her head even in the game?

  The maid was faltering a bit, breathing hard from all the running, but there was a bright look in her eyes. She'll be fine for now.

  The two were quick to fall in line when she stole the lead. If everything went as planned, then hopefully...

  "I wonder... If Lady Aire is like Gram the Great Hero," Anne said, "then wouldn't that make you Falbion the Wise?"

  Willow almost tripped. She swung her arms, flailing like a newborn chick, before righting herself with a firm stomp on a piece of walk-way. "Are you trying to curse me? Falbion died of overwork at the end of the story!"

  "S-She gets it!" Why was Aire suddenly holding back a sob? "She really gets it! So few people understand one of Falbion's most tragic flaws!" She skipped over a piece of rubble, but it was more like a girlish leap of joy. "We are going to be the best of friends, you and I!"

  Willow blanched. "No we won't."

  "It's okay to be embarrassed~!"

  "I'm not!"

  They had lost the kobolds through the twists and turns, and what few they happened upon, a stab of Aire's fencing sword earned their silence. They eventually reached the massive face of the Second Wall itself. From there, it was a straight dash toward one of the stairs leading to the top.

  Fresh kobolds had just spawned when they got there. It took a moment for their eyes to form, and when they saw them, they fell down the stairs with their malformed limbs.

  "Make way!"

  Aire ran ahead, picking up speed, and pushed the ground hard enough for it to crack! She was airborne as she took aim with the point of her blade.

  "[Needle Stab]!"

  Three thrusts. The range of her blade extended at each instant. When her heels clicked at the top of the first set of stairs, the perfectly headless bodies of kobolds slumped down, where Anne and the White Mage joined her up the steps.

  The vantage point gave them a much clearer view of the Second Wall's facilities. Monsters were still climbing out of the river channel. Those that finally touched proper ground had entered the alleys, following the ones who were still blindly searching for her and her party. None would've ever thought there was anyone crazy enough to run straight toward the Monster Spawners.

  But as they drew near the tainted spots on the Second Wall, it felt like moving against frigid, dead air.

  The White Mage huffed. "This should be close enough. Anne?"

  Anne took a deep breath and nodded. She raised a hand. It was shaking.

  Nobody could blame her.

  The 'holes' of Demontide above them warbled, as if there were entire legions of demons just waiting beyond them. It was eldritch, baleful, and profane. Just being around it made Willow's skin crawl. This thing could not, should not, be cleansed by mortal hands.

  But Kyaeris would not have given the children of Crescelias the sacred mission to rid the world of Demontide without guidance.

  "O Goddess, hear my voice through the Divine Glass..." Anne whispered. "[Karma]!"

  [Karma]

  1113

  Calling upon one of the four gifts of the Goddess, Anne's Divine Glass made manifest.

  The world's System answered her prayers.

  Corruption detected.

  Initializing [Purification Ritual].

  Please stand by.

  The System window folded. It took shape and rearranged itself with triangular faces, gently, softly, until a crystalline mass as transparent as an abstract glass sculpture was formed. Inside: a light.

  The Demontide recoiled from its majesty.

  Anne lifted the crystal into the air, like an offering toward the heavens. There was no running away from the judgment of the Goddess. The Demontide eroded into firefly-like motes wherever the light touched. Bit by bit, mankind was taking back the Second Wall.

  The monsters felt it, too. Their heads swiveled their way. All of them.

  The air shuddered from the sheer volume of their combined cries. The ground trembled, their voices growing louder and louder as the bulk of their numbers circled back around.

  Aire audibly gulped. "White Mage, do we know how long the Purification Ritual will take, perhaps?"

  "Ten minutes if the spread is superficial. But if it's deep inside the Wall? Up to three hours." Willow really wished they had more people to help speed things up, but what was done was done. "Hope you two are feeling lucky, because I certainly don't."

  "...Lucky? On this fine day, a fateful meeting with a new friend?"

  "Are you still on with that?"

  "Why, I feel like I'm the luckiest woman in the world!" Aire dashed down the stairs to greet the foul beasts with the tip of her mighty rapier. "When we achieve victory, let's talk about our favorite books together on our return! En Garde~!"

  Willow wanted to smack herself with her own staff. A death flag. Why must she trip a death flag?

  Well, great! What else was going to go wrong today?!

  "Um..."

  Willow turned to Anne, who was looking up, trembling.

  "They're still coming out!"

  Even though the karmic light had reversed its spread, there was still enough Demontide to summon monsters. Limbs wriggled and spazzed out of the holes. Another batch of kobolds would be upon them soon. Aire was already occupied with the swarm of kobolds down below, so it was up to them now.

  The White Mage simply adjusted the grip on her staff. "Don't worry about it."

  The kobolds fully took shape. Three fell into the water but two managed to slam right on top of the stone railings. Anne stepped back. She raised her wooden staff to invoke a Skill even if it meant canceling the Purification Ritual. But the White Mage?

  "Miss White Mage, step back—!"

  The White Mage stepped forward. Her staff cratered each of their heads, coldly and methodically. The river splashed with their fallen bodies.

  "...Eh?"

  "Like I said, don't worry about it."

  Sighing, she wiped the bits of blood off her forehead. This was going to be tough, but to keep Aire from getting overwhelmed too soon, she'll need to be more proactive.

  "[Barrier]."

  Hefting herself up on the stone railing, she gave a tentative step on the magical plane. It held up. Of course it did; it always did, but damn did it feel like she was a mistake away from falling to her death. With an uneasy breath, she raised herself up along the barrier until she was face to face with the Monster Spawners themselves.

  Time to play Wack-A-Mole.

  Willow wacked, smacked, and smashed. The icky feeling was the worst, with how close she got or how some bits of ichor got on her. But Anne's light wiped it off, thankfully, and Willow had been drenched in monster guts enough times that, at this point, what did it matter she was beating the shit out of the devil's puke hole?

  The kobolds had no weapons to speak of. No armor to defend against Aire's enhanced blade or Willow's crude application of her magic staff. Hearing the dramatic battle cries of Aire dueling over countless kobolds at the stair steps, it was safe to say she was doing fine. Absolutely fine.

  Glad for her. Really.

  The minutes dragged on. Willow eventually had a steady rhythm going. She made more platforms, reaching higher and further places along the Monster Spawner, and executed with extreme prejudice. Kobolds barely had half their bodies formed before perishing under the weight of her staff.

  One kobold, growing out head first and moaning with its unhinged jaw, was about to bite her ankle. Willow just lifted her foot and shoved it back in there. But for the one that had the audacity to spawn at the complete opposite of the Monster Spawner, she kicked its head right off! She frantically ran back and forth like this, even when her limbs started to ache.

  She liked to think her spawn camping had kept up with Aire's kill count. Frankly, she lost track after a hundred. They probably rack up together over three hundred, with more on the way, as they chipped at the corruption.

  But the Purification Ritual was working. The Monster Spawners had shrunk, and the spawn rate had slowed down. Just a little bit more, and her work space should also...

  A thump shook the air, like a heartbeat.

  It came from the biggest stain on the Second Wall, the one that was the slowest for the Purification Ritual to cleanse away. The Demontide had decided to switch things up as something other than a kobold began to emerge.

  It was only just a head, but it was already the size of an adult. Scales, ridges, and a horn on its nose took shape. The eyes were still gooey and glassy, but Willow could make out the serpentine slits of its pupils, swiveling until they looked down on her, promising death and damnation and—

  —they went cross-eyed, bashed in the face by Willow's new barrier.

  "No! No final boss fight! Your main character is in another damn castle!"

  Willow had to disperse the other platforms and ignore everything else to put all of her energy into preventing a real ass god damn dragon from crawling out of the Monster Spawner.

  "Miss White Mage?!" Anne cried.

  "Just! Peachy!" Willow grunted. The barrier shuddered against the dragon head's weight. "How's everything down there?!"

  "There's too many! The kobolds are piling up along the stairs and might go over the railing!"

  Willow tore her eyes away to look. Every monster the Magic Fencer had killed or pushed back were used as stepping stones. Aire had to give ground to avoid getting overwhelmed, and Anne couldn't let up on the purification ritual, or else the monsters will keep on spawning.

  "Fret not! This is nothing!"

  Aire twirled her rapier like a wand. Its orange glow burst into flames.

  "[Flame Waltz]!"

  In a single sweep, a whirlwind of fire engulfed the kobolds. Those closest to Aire were reduced to charred corpses and set the rest aflame. The Skill was still going—the blade swung to and fro like a music conductor's baton, guiding the flames to the flow of an orchestra, catching the Kobolds in its wake. The flames raised high. The flames dipped low. Finally, at the crescendo, she swung and a combustive blast blew them all away.

  Willow felt herself sweat from the heat. So this was where their confidence came from...

  It looked like it worked. Kobolds screamed in agony. The pile of bodies burned, and the flames kept the monsters at bay. This should've bought them enough time to finish the job.

  Instead, in a suicidal rage, they ran themselves through the fire and trudged on like zombies.

  Flaming Kamikaze Kobolds.

  Wonderful.

  Aire took a step back from the heat, a sheepish grin on her face. "...Apologies, but it appears that I made it worse."

  "Aire, you dummy!" Anne wailed.

  But it gave Willow an idea.

  The kobolds—they still hadn't developed a functioning mind, but at least their bodies were well-formed, with none of that Demontide holding them together. Now they relied on the laws of physics and their own biology to function.

  She can work with this.

  "Everyone! When I give the signal, hold your breaths and don't breathe until I tell you to!"

  No need to wait for a response: Willow reached into her waist pack and pulled out a mana potion. She popped out the cork, then down the hatch it went. The bitter liquid was popping along her tongue, and she had half a mind to just retch out from all the panic and disarray, but she pushed through. Swallowing, she dragged herself into a different world.

  Ignore the dragon's pressure on the barrier.

  Tune out the noise.

  Filter the stench.

  Focus.

  Mana welled up in her core, restoring her reserves the very instant the potion reached her gut. They were all put to work without a second to lose.

  She sent out a series of magical pulses: the first to establish her area of effect, the second to pinpoint her targets, and the third and fourth to formulate her spell.

  She still remembered her time in the Collegium. It was something she picked up, something that was meant for a different spell, a different person. A pale imitation at best. But she supposed this, too, was a valid enough application.

  Finally, with the fifth pulse, she pushed almost all of her mana into the spell work and pulled the trigger.

  "Now! [Mass Synthesis]!"

  The heat disappeared. The flames on the corpses, on the kobolds: gone. The horde still moved for a few seconds before they suddenly gasped, wheezed, and then collapsed like broken dolls, a white mist wafting out of their mouths and frost forming at the corner of their lips.

  The grounds below was soon awash with the mist, as if a cloud had grown directly from their bodies and the ground itself. For something that took almost all the mana she could spare, it seemed like nothing, at first.

  But it was enough.

  The kobolds were still coming, charging on through and snarling for vengeance. With their short stature, they easily waded under the surface of the fog, barely visible save for the tips of their ears... only to mysteriously meet the same fate no more than ten steps later.

  Anne and Aire watched, mystified, covering their mouths and holding their breaths.

  It was almost eerie. The corpses piled up with barely any struggle. For more than five minutes, the phenomenon silenced the once fearsome cacophony of kobolds, one batch after another.

  In that time, most of the Demontide had been cleared away, as the dragon head, unable to sustain itself, slowly lost cohesion. Like puss flowing out of a wound, the dragon head broke apart into its original black ooze. All the other spots on the Second Wall were no more than faint scars, and, at some point, the Demontide had seemingly given up and stopped spawning its army altogether.

  There were still many kobolds even then. Had they developed even a handful of survival instinct or intelligence, they could've just waited until the fog dissipated and swarmed the party afterward. But no, they scrambled over the bodies of the dead, testing their luck against the fog of death, like the mindless monsters they were.

  It was down to the last group. Some had tripped over the corpses of their kin, and they never got back up. Some kept on going, even when their lungs wheezed, even when their eyes drooped, and even when their limbs failed.

  The last kobold was the closest to reaching them. Its angry, beady eyes honed in on the light of the karmic crystal on Anne's hand, so it clambered up the pile of charred bodies, reaching out to Anne and Aire who watched with morbid fascination its struggle, as if snuffing out that light was the sole of purpose of its existence.

  White mist puffed out of its snout, having obviously breathed some of it, blood dripping from its lips as it tried to keep itself on its upright—until weakness finally overtook it, and it fell. It bounced down to the bottom of the pile. There was one last gasp, one last shudder, before it finally joined its brothers in hell.

  Silence returned to the Second Wall.

  The party had to wait a little while longer for the white mist to thin out and settle lower toward the ground before Willow could finally relax. Thank the superhuman constitution of this world's denizens; otherwise they probably would've passed out holding their breaths after the third minute.

  "...Okay, we're good now."

  The girls let out a greedy gasp.

  Willow felt her barriers shudder. She was running out of mana. Biting her lip, she noted how the largest blotch of Demontide still had not gone away, but seeing how no more were coming, it was a safe bet that they were in the clear.

  Jumping off the barrier platform, she canceled the rest of her spells as her boots hit the stairs—and almost crumpled. She had to brace a hand against a wall before she banged her head somewhere, but thankfully it was only a momentary lapse. The mass effect spell took a bit more out of her than she thought.

  "W-What was that?" Anne asked. "Ice? Poison? There were no alchemical ingredients; I never knew Synthesis could still do something like that!"

  "It's...both. The details would take a while to explain."

  After all, this world had yet to figure out the periodic table. The scholars here favored the magical sciences over the physical ones, so she supposed knowledge gaps were expected.

  Willow had turned the oxygen into dry ice. She could've used the deadlier carbon monoxide—but she rather the party leave this place alive, herself included. Carbon dioxide worked well enough, poisonous at high enough concentration and easy to synthesize with any carbons she had in range. But it seemed like most of the deaths were actually from when the dry ice froze and destroyed their lungs, instead of suffocation like she had intended, if the blood dripping from their mouths meant anything.

  Perhaps she should've expected that, given how magic would manifest given phenomenon where—

  "W-Wait, really? Every mage I knew, even those from Collegium, always kept their arcane knowledge under strict secrecy. You'll actually tell?"

  Sparkles. The same kind the Magic Fencer always had in her eyes every time she talked about legendary heroes. Willow tried to step back, but the Wind Mage took two with an intense look on her face.

  "Uh..." Willow's eyes trailed aside. Aire was grinning, shaking her fists like she was cheering the maid on. "Yes—?"

  Too close! Way too close! Willow's back touched the wall of the fort. Anne's arms had trapped her from both sides, making sure she didn't escape. The karmic crystal used to purify the Demontide was right up to Willow's face like an interrogation light, the maid breathing so deeply she thought she would pass out.

  "So no secrets?! No riddles, no conditions, no impossibles tests—you'll answer my questions? Any of my questions? And you won't hate me if I-I ask too much?! Will you teach me!?"

  "Y-Yeah, sure, so if you'll please—!"

  Anne grabbed Willow's face, squishing her cheek. "You will?!"

  "Anne, you were supposed to be the sane one!"

  The river exploded.

  A gelatinous liquid smashed against the part of the Second Wall that was still being purified, pulverizing the surrounding brick and stone. It stretched back—and dragged along the entire chunk of the wall. Again, the river exploded. The surface bubbled, the waves rippled back and forth, like normal, until it suddenly flattened out.

  Then the water the began to rise.

  Aire worked her jaw. "...You said there was another we must save for last, correct?"

  Higher.

  "Yes," Willow squinted. "It would explain why there were no monsters before we came."

  Higher.

  "Had it been sleeping in the river bed this whole time?" Anne breathed. "Even while kobolds swam? And nobody noticed?"

  Higher.

  "Mhm. And I think it woke up just in time for lunch."

  It squeezed in itself. Through the semi-transparent material, they could see the chunk of Demontide churning in its bowels. The entire thing completely dissolved, leaving behind the pitch-black mass. But then it vibrated. Like an infant dissatisfied with its food, it smacked the water in front of it.

  A shadow casted over them.

  Willow smacked her lips. "...We should run."

  And they did—right before the Giant Slime crashed into the steps they were just on.