"A demon? So it was a devil-kin after all."
It had a face like a crocodile's, with horns set at either brow. It stood roughly three times the size of a grown man, its whole body sheathed in scales. And a murky aura was seeping off it.
Las reacted fastest of anyone.
When he stretched an arm into empty air, a long staff as tall as a man was summoned. In the same moment a purple mage's hat and cloak formed and settled into place.
The other paladins drew their arms to match.
For the paladins, faced with a monster none of them had seen in their lives, the tension was plain on every face.
"Demon?"
Ran tilted his head at the name, hearing it for the first time.
Meanwhile Moor drew Jaka to ready himself for the fight.
'Groundless worry after all, was it.'
Moor set his unease aside and focused on the enemy in front of him.
The thing they called a demon swung an arm at the paladins. A considerable shockwave came with it, and miasmic poison began spreading outward.
The attack was slow, fortunately. Every paladin targeted succeeded in evading, and the shockwave drove into the ground and detonated. Then the poison spread.
"Questions later! First, everyone protect your lungs with the Benediction Arts!"
At Las's shout, everyone cast. Moor put the Benediction Arts on himself and laid the same form on Ran in the same breath.
The demon raised its claws and swung at the nearest paladins. The more lightly armed paladins dodged and opened distance fast, while the shield-bearers stepped forward into the gap.
And so a formation took shape.
In that opening, a golden sphere had formed at the tip of Las's staff.
The golden sphere flew fast and struck the demon square.
The blast that followed hurt it badly — it bled, and some of the miasma around it dispersed.
While the demon reeled, Leo leaped at it. And swung a fist.
A small fist, sized to her small frame, landed on the demon's face. A dull sound came with it, and the demon — absurdly large next to her — staggered and went down.
Still airborne, Leo formed a spear of ice at once. And, using the force of her descent, drove it straight into the demon. Then she landed some distance away, leaving the ice spear where it was.
The demon howled in pain and thrashed violently, and the ice spear lodged in its body shattered.
Las cast again. A pillar of golden light came down from the sky and struck the demon dead on.
"The rest of you, circle around the back and check on the other team!"
When the demon's movements faltered after the casting, Las issued orders to the paladins fast. Four of them heard him and moved off into the forest behind.
"Formidable coordination. No warning needed here at all."
Standing a little apart, Moor watched Las and Leo's teamwork and the paladins' movements with admiration. Their movements — Leo's especially — looked as if she already knew exactly what the demon would do. You could feel how many fights with devil-kin lay behind that.
Beyond the fluid ease of their coordination, Las's golden mana and Leo's ice sorcery were plainly optimized for one thing: fighting beings connected to the devil-kin.
The other paladins supported the pair with their Benediction-charged weapons or weakened the demon by purifying the spreading miasma. The demon's strength matched its size, but its fighting was extremely simple, so the paladins grew used to it quickly and took few losses.
After several minutes of much the same exchange, the demon stopped moving.
"That's strange."
Las went closer to check its condition. The other paladins immediately headed off to reinforce the four who had gone ahead.
"So it is..."
"What's strange?"
Moor felt it too, and approached the demon's body. Ran couldn't follow their conversation at all.
Demon or devil, only a portion of their power crosses over into this world. Which is to say they have no flesh; take damage close to lethal and their activity halts, and they vanish, leaving only a slight trace behind.
The same is true of those who come over from other layers.
"And yet a corpse remains."
Moor frowned hard as he examined the demon's body.
"Devil-kin come in two broad types. Lawful evil and chaotic evil."
"Hm?"
Las had spoken suddenly at Ran's side, and Ran reacted with mild surprise.
"It occurred to me we've been talking among ourselves without explaining anything."
"Ah, a moment ago?"
"Yes, exactly."
Moor had started out on Sage-related work and was still on Sage-related work.
But Las, thanks to his exceptional ability, was one of the Order's very few rotating personnel. He had even served as an ordinary paladin before the Order was founded.
Ran, on the other hand, knew nothing outside Sage work.
As they talked, Ran, Moor, Las, and Leo walked in the direction the paladins ahead had taken.
"The ones with names, titles, and rank are called lawful evil, and we call them devils. And the rest — low intelligence, forming no society, like the one just now — are chaotic evil: demons."
Las explained it calmly to Ran, eyes forward. Moor listened along and nodded.
And a moment later they all stopped walking and took in the sight before them.
"Oh no... we're too late. Is it over?"
Ahead lay not the central lake but a smaller one. And around it, paladins lay fallen. The four who had arrived as the advance party were holding up the ones who still looked to have a chance and casting the Benediction Arts.
Shocked by the sight, the rest of the group hurried to check the fallen paladins or to help the others.
"It isn't over yet..."
"Hm? Ah!"
Ran said it low, and Moor caught his meaning. He swung his gun up fast toward the lake. Las, Leo, and several paladins looked at Moor in surprise, then turned their eyes at once to the small lake he was aiming at.
Just then, bubbles rose in the still water, and the lake began to stain a dark purple from the center outward.
The bubbles began multiplying, faster and faster.
"Move the people first!"
Leo shouted it to the other paladins and ran straight for the lake, plunging her right hand into the water. The lake began to freeze, fast.
Her ice sorcery spread at speed and froze the whole lake over.
"Remarkable. It's been such a short time, and she'd pass for a formal mage now."
Moor glanced at Leo — whom he had taught, however briefly — as he spoke. There was a touch of pride in his voice.
"Not quite. Leo worked out early that she had no talent for magic and switched her track to alchemy."
When Moor marveled at Leo's skill, Las corrected him. Moor turned to look at him in surprise.
"Alchemy?"
"Yes, that's right. That isn't made by magic — it's ice by way of alchemy. She can transmute ice at a very high grade now. Ice with the Benediction Arts infused into it, no less."
Moor looked at Leo again, impressed. The large-scale working that froze an entire lake had clearly cost her; her small frame heaved as she fought to steady her breathing.
But her eyes stayed fixed on the frozen lake.
Meanwhile the other paladins were moving to carry the fallen away, as Leo had said.
"Oh no... it's persistent."
Leo spoke sharply and settled back into her stance. Moor and Las caught her meaning and readied themselves as well. The other paladins began to move fast too — some setting themselves for battle, some preparing to recover bodies or move those still breathing.
"We'll hold here, so get all the wounded to base camp!"
Moor shouted it at those preparing to fight. They grasped what he meant and began helping the others.
CRRRACK — CRASH—!
Before long, with a roar, cracks began running through the ice Leo had made. And it shattered.
Up through the broken ice crawled another demon much like the first. It was already covered in blood, presumably from Leo's ice.
"Rrraaaaargh!"
The demon stretched itself out and began howling in pain. Several paladins went pale at it — and moved faster.
BANG BANG
Moor fired Jaka at the demon at once. One round hit the right arm, one the head.
The force tore the demon's right arm away, but the head was untouched. Instead, the shock of the round to the head knocked it flat on its back.
"Sturdy."
Moor seemed to think nothing at all of having torn off an arm in a single shot; he was put out that it hadn't died instantly.
Nor did it end there. Cracks began appearing throughout Leo's ice at once. In places it shattered fast, and another demon crawled out. From there, the whole frozen lake began to churn.
"Leo!"
"I know!"
Leo urgently set a hand to the already-frozen lake again. Light began to pour out of the ice, and the cracks slowly filled in. The demons that had already emerged began freezing and breaking apart against ice reinforced with the Benediction Arts.
Moor and Las picked off the demons already up on the ice with their respective weapons.
"Is there a 'window' under this lake? Surely not...... Hm?"
Before Moor could finish, a chill ran up all four of their backs at once.
The demons they had faced until now were grotesque in form, and strong, and the fear they inspired came from the unknown.
But this — this fear climbing their bodies was of an entirely different order, and it told them a far more certain death was approaching.
"So it finally shows itself."
Las turned to face the forest. And prepared himself to meet the source of that fear. Meanwhile, among the other paladins, some were crushed enough by the presence beyond the trees to start vomiting.
"Ran!"
"I know! You don't have to shout!"
Out of the forest at the paladins' backs came a man and a woman, walking together. Both wore black suits from head to foot. Moor, Las, and Leo could all feel that these were not the demons they had been fighting, but something else.
"So it wasn't a wasted trip."
To Ran, the beings in front of him looked entirely different. Life came back into the eyes of a boy who had been listless up to now.
"Those two carry the stink of a Sage."