Chapter 220

“…?”

The barrier rippled at its cross-section like the jelly Xiarette had eaten in her past life. Just as it was about to collapse, it reconnected and restored itself.

Back to normal.

“Tch.”

What a pain.

Timani clicked her tongue and pressed a hand to her forehead in annoyance. She seemed to understand—they had run into the worst possible scenario.

—This was a seal imbued with self-repairing capabilities.

It was equivalent to combining the highest-grade sealing magic with the highest-grade perpetual restoration magic. As long as it had a sufficient supply of magic power, it would never vanish from attacks.

It didn’t just demand immense magical reserves; it also required intricate magical control.

It sounded easy to say…

But as far as those actually capable of pulling off something of this magnitude, aside from a certain monster she’d recently encountered and those Fire Dragon Clan elders, Timani really couldn’t think of anyone else who could cast such an outlier of a spell.

Could it be that the one behind this event really was that group…?

In her mind, a pair of crimson vertical pupils suddenly appeared.

The grief-filled cries from when her parents died in the icy mountains echoed in her ears. The moment she recalled those wings that heralded death, a chill swept through Timani’s entire body.

They’ve come again…? Even though I haven’t gone to the Northern Flaming Lands yet, and they already…

“Miss Timani? Miss Timani!”

“Huh?! What is it?”

“What do you mean, ‘what is it’—don’t zone out! Listen, since the sealing magic can repair itself, I’ll try to make a bigger opening with my slashes. While it’s still open, use your flames to push it apart. At the very least, let’s try to see what’s inside!”

“Oh… alright!”

Since she couldn’t handle it alone, then they would try working together.

Xiarette gripped the sword hilt even tighter, putting more strength into her stance. Timani, too, had fire swirling around her.

“I’ll count to three, Miss Timani—then you use the strongest flame spell you can to strike the gap. Three… two… huh?!”

The golden glow faded.

The flames extinguished.

The Holy Sword lost its brilliance.

Because its core had left the blade.

A barefoot blue-haired loli looked up at the magical array in the sky. Her long hair fluttered in the cold wind, making her resemble an elf of the snow. She looked extremely cool.

“Sylatrella…? This is a critical moment… Can we talk about this? Maybe wait a bit before you come out to play…?”

“I didn’t come out to play.” Sylatrella gave Xiarette a glance of disdain without even turning her head. Then, with her small finger, she pointed at the peak of the sealing magic above—the circular magic array suspended in the sky. “I came to tell you this: with just you little brats, you’re not breaking this spell.”

“Li…little brats?”

Timani knew the Holy Sword’s true form only looked young, but hearing someone with a child’s appearance say that still felt weird.

Sylatrella rummaged in her arms and pulled out the fish she had caught for Sheffy.

Xiarette had just been wondering why her chest had suddenly looked more… developed—so that was why.

Placing the fish, now frozen into a block of ice, onto the snow beside her, Sylatrella stood up and blew a warm breath onto her hands before turning her gaze skyward once more.

Xiarette now understood clearly—she hadn’t come out just to fool around.

Because she knew—this was a task entrusted to her by Sheffy.

“Sylatrella, are you saying our plan won’t work?”

“It absolutely won’t work. The actual sealed location is at the top of the array. You lot are just beating at the bottom—what’s the point of that? If you really want to save someone, you have to smash that donut up there.”

“That was a magic array.”

“It looked about the same, but how should I put it… the amount of magic power in that donut was probably ten times that of your dad. That’s a bit ridiculous.”

“Why was my father used as a unit of measurement…”

“Because back when I was in the Kingdom of Aurus, I already knew that kid wasn’t weak. Saying it like this made it easier for you to understand directly.”

“That’s true, but no matter how I listened to it, it still felt uncomfortable.”

It was indeed direct enough.

Xiarette knew her own strength. Compared to her father, Eclight, she was roughly at a four-to-six disadvantage, and it was hard to say she could defeat him.

Although magic density did not directly represent actual combat power, if her father were to deploy defensive magic with ten times his magic power, the current Xiarette would have no possibility of breaking through it.

And the defensive capability of the array at the top layer was exactly at that level.

“Higher races, huh… that was indeed interesting. I never ran into that kind of thing before. Born in the Kingdom of Aurus, and even until death I never saw what higher races were like. Now that I’ve been reborn, I still haven’t seen them.”

“Never seen them? Then what am I?” Timani pointed at herself, feeling a bit offended.

“……”

Alright.

Sylatrella suddenly realized that her regret seemed to have been remedied.

Wasn’t this seeing one already? A higher race.

That aside for now.

Barefoot, Sylatrella walked left and right, observing the orientation of the magic array, completely unafraid of the cold.

“Even for higher races, this thing had to be the work of someone truly capable among them. It looked completely airtight, without any flaws. Well then, it couldn’t be helped! This was something Lady Sheffy entrusted to me. Judging by how anxious you all looked, it was already daylight now, and there probably wasn’t any time left, right? Then I’ll just take action personally.”

A small body did not necessarily mean small power.

The magic of the Holy Sword【Sylatrella】had once supplied the human race for roughly a thousand years, sustaining defensive barriers that spanned both the Demon Clan and the human race. How overwhelming her magic power was—Xiarette naturally understood that.

But…

“However, Sylatrella, didn’t you say before that after being reborn, your magic power still wasn’t stable…?”

“Yes. I haven’t regained the capability of my peak state, and the amount of magic I can draw upon isn’t much either. But… if it’s just to neutralize that magic, the price might be falling asleep for a week.”

“A week?!”

“Ugh…! So noisy. A… a week, what about it! It’s just sleeping a bit more, right? It’s fine… huff, it’s fine.”

Her small soles touching the ground had clearly not felt cold before, yet now they were trembling uncontrollably.

Sylatrella feared magma because of the past in which she had been betrayed by her family and cast into eternal ruin.

At the same time, she also feared slumber, because she had once been trapped in an unconscious dark night, sleeping for a thousand years.

For reasons unknown even to herself, Sylatrella had awakened from that millennium-long sleep, with many things still unexplained.

—For example, in the past few days she had always been very sleepy. Clearly she did not want to sleep every day, yet the amount of time she spent sleeping had been increasing.

That was why, during these days, Sylatrella had stayed inside the Holy Sword as much as possible, stabilizing her magic power and searching for the cause.

Other things were still unclear.

But every time she activated magic,

that sense of exhaustion increased just a little more.

So… she was afraid.

But if she was always unable to help… always shrinking back into the Holy Sword to recuperate, would Lady Sheffy slowly forget her…?

【You can only be of some use if you jump in! Only then can the whole family survive! We’re all dead—what meaning is there for you to live on alone! If you have this kind of ability, why don’t you act! Can you stop being so selfish! We want to live too! It’s all your fault! Why did we give birth to a freak like you! Can you save us or not!】

The hysterical shouts of her family from the past were truly grating.

Even knowing full well that it was all wrong, Sylatrella still found it hard to forget those bloodshot eyes filled with hatred.

Lady Sheffy was not that kind of demon—Sylatrella knew that clearly.

But on the other hand… if she did nothing, she would never be someone who could be liked either.

After all, everyone around Sheffy was far too exceptional.

She didn’t want to be ignored by her. She wanted to be visible in her eyes too.

In truth… she was quite envious of everyone.

Anyone could tell that Sylatrella was forcing herself. Even though she spoke as though fearless, her voice had already started trembling.

Just as she was cloaked in golden light and about to rise into the air…

“Miss Sylatrella! May I borrow this fish for a moment?!”

“?”

As cold sweat slid down Sylatrella’s cheeks, her muddled consciousness was pulled back to reality.

She saw Livra pick up the big fish she had placed on the ground earlier, her expression firm, as though she had come up with something.

“You…?”

“I have an idea I want to try!”

“You… you’re actually here too? You’re that Princess from Aurus, right? I didn’t even notice you earlier! Were you hiding? As expected, the Aurus royal family are all shady—you can’t find any of them!”

“Ugh, that’s so mean! I was clearly standing behind you all along!”

—

50. Break the Formation!

A big fish’s life could only be short—or shorter.

Though brief, the weight of its life was immeasurable.

“Seriously… what am I even doing playing along with them like this? Can this really work?”

Crimson dragon wings fully unfurled, stretching over three meters in span.

With a flap of her wings, Timani soared into the air, flying up to within mere meters of the celestial magic array.

They were now a hundred meters above ground.

Looking down from here, everyone waiting and waving below looked as small as ants.

The air at this height was even colder. The ice encasing the fish had frozen even harder.

Timani lifted the large block of ice in her left hand—glancing at the fish inside that looked like it was dying.

Maybe its eyeballs were still rolling around, but all it reflected was Timani’s expression of deep disdain.

Alright.

Time to fulfill your life’s value as a fish.

Timani flew in a circular arc around the array, searching for a suitable angle, then hurled the block of ice forcefully into it!

And what happened next…

Even made the fire lizard, who had been born lacking in intelligence, widen its eyes in shock.

The defensive barrier that couldn’t be broken by high-grade fire magic or sword techniques—yet that frozen fish in ice had passed through the golden glow without any resistance, sinking slowly like falling into a swamp, until its form vanished completely.

The Third Princess of Aurus really did have a sharp mind.

Everything they were doing now was based on her strategy.

—

【Borrowing your fish for a bit.】

【I happened to notice earlier that when birds flew across the sky, they weren’t obstructed by the barrier. I went around to the back of town to check it again… What? I wasn’t running away! I really went to investigate! Ahem. Anyway, judging from the time and the straight-line speed of the bird’s flight, the same bird appeared outside town three minutes later.】

【This proves that birds not only enter the barrier unhindered, but also exit it without any resistance. To them, that golden glow simply doesn’t exist.】

【So I was thinking… maybe this magic was designed to target beings with large magical power. Conversely, for those with minimal magic, it has no effect—or at most, only a negligible one?】

The scene before their eyes now was proving Livra’s theory right.

Just as the ice block was fully submerged in the golden light—

Timani unleashed a conspicuous curtain of flame in all directions.

This wasn’t the beginning of an attack.

—It was a signal, meant to be seen from the ground a hundred meters below.

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