Disciple of Immortal

On the way towards the magic city, Manarak, I suddenly heard a loud roar from behind the carriage. The coachman of the merchant carriage who also heard the sound stopped the carriage and turned around to look at us.

「It’s a flute made of ogre shellfish huh. It’s a signal for an all out battle against monsters. That’s why please do your best, Saint Pomera-sama.」

The merchants bowed to Pomera.

「P-Please stop calling me with such an embarrassing name! P-Pomera… is really troubled by that name…」

Pomera’s face flushed red as she spoke to the merchants.

「Is that so?」

「Yes… no, I mean, please. In the first place, Kanata-san is more powerful than Pomera…」

「Eh… was that really the case? I mean, I thought that he’s some sort of attendant…」

The merchant was looking at me with a slightly doubtful look on his face.

「P-Pomera is just a normal adventurer! That’s why, uhm… can you stop attaching weird title to Pomera?」

… I wanted to add that Philia was far more powerful than Pomera, at least by a factor of ten.

「Well, let’s do our job, Pomera-san.」

I leapt out from the window of the carriage along with Philia.

「That child… you’re not going to leave her in the carriage?」

The merchant asked me.

「Yeah, since I don’t know what she’s going to do I can’t leave her out of my watch for the time being.」

I carried Philia on my shoulder as I replied with a wry smile towards the merchant.

After sending a sidelong glance towards the merchant who seems to be unable to understand the meaning behind my explanation, I continued on towards the end of the line of the merchant carriages.

By the way, Pomera chased after us a short bit later.

「Kanata-san… are you sure it’s safe to take Philia-chan along with you? I mean, it’s not like she’s going to get hurt under Kanata-san’s protection but, in the worst case…」

「… Actually, I’ve an even bigger worries if I leave Philia-chan in the carriage since I don’t know what she’s going to do.」

「Kanata-san, what… do you think of Philia-chan?」

A level 1800 homunculus with the power to control the phantasmal class item, 《Dream Sand》.

Though I could say that she’s only your normal everyday girl, one carriage might get accidentally burned to ashes just by her playing around with fire magic.

「It’s o~ka~y! Philia, iz stronk!」

Pomera sent a worried look at hearing Philia’s remark.

As for me, I’m more worried about Philia’s attack being too strong.

I looked around.

All of the eight carriages that had gathered for this journey had already stopped. There were adventurers running towards the other end of the carriage line.

The adventurers around us were fighting against a crowd of huge white-haired monkeys with a pair of huge tusks stretching out of their mouths.

They were monsters called Fang Apes.

Though it was the first time I was seeing them, I’d heard about them before from the adventurer’s guild. They were trouble monsters who liked chasing after caravans and attacked in crowds. In exchange, their danger level was quite low since every individual was a D-rank monster.

Their numbers matched the number of adventurers on our side. They might be able to handle this fight without our help.

Suddenly, two Fang Apes came towards us.

「Let’s just hunt them normally according to our quote to prevent disturbing the other team.」

Pomera and I alone should be more than enough to kill the two who were daring to charge at us. No one would complain if we killed those two Fang Apes.

「Well since we’ve got this rare chance, how about you try to use the spirit magic that you trained so hard?」

Since spirit magic was a magic that borrowed the power of spirits, many of its invocations take a long time in exchange for the minimal amount of mana needed to use it.

Though it had the advantage of suppressing the exhaustion of the caster while allowing the caster to exhibit power far beyond their level, I think the fact that its user is exposed during the invocation was a fatal flaw in real combat. It was literally useless against an experienced opponent.

「Y-Yes! I’ll try it!」

Pomera tightened her grip on her cane.

「Spirit Magic, 8th-Rank, (Salamander Claw》.」

Huge fire claws slashed through the air leaving behind a huge blackened scar on the ground due to its heat.

The Fang Ape who’d gotten hit by the fire claw was bisected in half and rolled to the ground as the fire burned its body.

I heard a commotion from afar.

… I didn’t wish for our battle to make a commotion but…

「I guess we should use weaker magic.」

「S-Sorry… B-But, it’s Kanata-san fault for messing up with Pomera’s common sense!」

When Pomera was sending a resentful faze towards me with slightly blushing cheeks, the other Fang Ape was already closing in on her. It had already leapt towards Pomera, ready to swing its huge claws to end her life.

「SPIRIT MA-!」

Pomera, who’d reacted slower, tried to use her spirit magic to defend herself but she wasn’t able to make it in time.

「KYAAA!」

In a moment of confusion, she ended up pushing her cane towards the Fang Ape.

「GI!」

Pomera’s cane pierced through the Fang Ape’s chest with ease.

Pomera then raised up her cane and swung it down with force.

The Poor Fang Ape’s head crushed sickeningly against the ground, exploding into a gory mess.

「T-T… That was so close.」

This result was only natural considering the difference in their levels, but… for some reason, I felt sorry for the poor Fang Ape.

「Pomera… might not need to use magic anymore…」

Pomera swung down her cane which was now covered with the Fang Ape’s flesh and blood as she muttered those words with a melancholic look on her face.

「You might ended up being surrounded by level 300 enemies if you let your guard down you know.」

「Is that situation even possible outside of 《Distorted World of Cursed Mirror》?」

The level of the devils in the 《Distorted World of Cursed Mirror》 was around 3000 but… for Pomera who couldn’t even see the movements of those devils, level 3000 and level 300 might look the same for her… in a bad way.

「Well, that aside… Thanks for the hard work, Pomera-san. Let’s go back and let the other adventurers to take care of the rest of Fang Apes.」

「Only praising Pomera, so sly! Philia want to fight too!」

Philia, who was sitting on my shoulder, complained to me.

When I looked up at her, she was pouting cutely.

… It seems she wishes to join the battle too.

That moment, I felt an unpleasant presence fast approaching in our direction.

The Fans Apes weren’t the only kind of monster that was attacking us. Something was trying to use the Fang Apes to distract us.