Shu drew his weapon without the slightest hesitation and prepared to fight; he trusted Seraphia as his companion. The other adventurers, by contrast, were somewhat hesitant.
"What is that...?"
The Kiden Federation sits mainly on land made of hills and plains, so visibility out in the open is very good, and Seraphia could clearly see the thing racing towards them.
A black metal construction flying through mid-air, apparently some kind of aircraft built using scientific technology.
【This game is far too much of a patchwork job! So many elements crammed into it!】
The aircraft, trailing a blue tail-flame, arrived with an enormous roar, and at this the adventurers belatedly produced their weapons one after another.
"This is a joke, right? Destroying the rails is a serious federal crime too... everyone will come down on them together..."
The trading company's representative was thoroughly astonished that they were being attacked already.
Seraphia had some understanding of this side of things as well.
Because the connections between the various city-states of the Kiden Federation run chiefly on the rails, cutting the rails means a total deterioration of transport conditions, which causes enormous losses to the conglomerates controlling the cities. So by everyone's consensus the rails are the bottom line, and however ugly a so-called 'commercial war' becomes, absolutely no one is permitted to destroy a rail line.
But the fact remained: the enemy had come now.
That black aircraft, whose design did not look like something that would appear within this worldview, drew up around the train, began to slow, and started travelling parallel to it, matching its speed.
The window glass was smashed through, and with the sound of chanted magic, fireballs, wind blades and ice spikes flew out first.
But these magical attacks, of no very high grade, could not produce the slightest shudder in that aircraft.
The adventurers gripping bows looked at that entirely metal shell and felt no great desire to try shooting at it; at a glance it plainly would not work.
But Seraphia wanted to try.
Imitating the adventurers, she smashed the glass beside her with one punch, and then, amid a swell of mana that turned every head present, the great bow of light was constructed once again.
Looking at the enormous arrow taking shape in her hand, like a javelin, Seraphia suddenly felt she could give this 【move】 of hers a name.
Before she could loose it, that huge aircraft had already shifted position, coming to rest above the train carriages.
"Tch."
Seraphia climbed straight out through the window, spread her enormous wings, and kept pace with the speeding train in flight.
With a crisp sound, someone leapt down from inside the aircraft and landed on top of a carriage.
"Well now, well now. Could you possibly not point that thing this way? You'd hit the people in the carriage by mistake."
Her flamboyant red hair in a single ponytail dancing in the wind, Akane raised both hands and adopted a posture of surrender in the face of the drawn bow of light.
But her steps did not stop at all, and she walked at an easy pace towards the coupling between the carriages.
The huge arrow of light adjusted its direction slightly and shot at her all the same.
"So I did say, didn't I. This is very dangerous."
Akane drew that red longsword at her waist, gripped it in both hands and deflected the arrow.
The distance was very short, and she was quite confident the Holy Wing in front of her would not set off her innate magic to detonate it.
In the instant the arrow flew, a double-headed sword formed of light appeared in Seraphia's hand, and in the instant Akane deflected the arrow, she beat her wings, dove, and delivered her attack immediately after.
The weapon formed of Corona collided with the other's red blade once again, and Seraphia's enormous force drove down so hard that the carriage roof beneath Akane's feet sank slightly. Had the mana she used to reinforce her body not arrived in time, that single blow would have been entirely sufficient to shatter her leg bones.
From within the aircraft floating above the train, others dressed in clothing similar to Akane's leapt out as well, producing weapons and attacking Seraphia.
"You're completely no good, you know."
Strength, speed: Seraphia held the advantage in all of it.
The pale gold eyes moved, fixed on the focal point where the weapons met, and she went on fighting along with her body's instinctive movements.
But Akane in front of her, together with a few small fry behind her whose mana felt very weak, held her in check with great ease.
【What is this strange, hemmed-in feeling...】
"My 'instinct' tells me that you, this winged creature, are an opponent I absolutely cannot defeat, and that running is the best option."
Akane hopped back slightly to the end of this carriage, and the several people surrounding Seraphia along with her broke off their assault as well, adopting a posture of standoff.
"But my 'experience' tells me that you're an opponent who is strong on the outside and hollow within, and that killing you would not be so very difficult."
Akane's red blade came up, its edge levelled at Miss Angel's throat.
"..."
Seraphia did not answer her, and only changed the Corona-constructed weapon in her hand from the double-headed sword to a war halberd with a greater attack range.
"From a moment ago until now, your attacks have looked to me like 'pretend attacks'."
"...What is that supposed to mean?"
"When you were small, did you ever play that game with children your own age?"
Akane laughed lightly, those long narrow golden eyes narrowing slightly, with perhaps a flavour of mockery in them.
"Huh?"
At someone who talked during a fight and drew out the suspense on top of it, Seraphia was annoyed into something like a laugh. If there had not been other people around, she would absolutely have poured in a mass of mana and used Corona to produce an arrow capable of raising a mushroom cloud.
"The game where two children pretend to be swordsmen duelling. Both sides take sticks for weapons, and then both sides go on and on aiming at the 'weapon' in the other's hand to launch attacks, and pretend they're conducting a fierce battle."
Seraphia fell silent.
"Let me confirm something first. You do understand, don't you? This is the part where we fight to the death. The throat, the brain, the heart, the lower belly, any of them will do. When you attack, how about giving some proper thought to a method of killing the enemy in front of you?"
Seraphia opened her mouth slightly, and just as she was about to say something, swallowed the words back down.
There was no need to go as far as 'killing', surely.
That was the first thought that arose in her heart.
After all, she was strong. So long as she drove the enemy off and thwarted the assassination plot, and this lot slunk away in defeat, that would do well enough.
But at this moment she suddenly remembered her first meeting with the girl in front of her.
That explosion and fire at the Savour Bond workshop was absolutely connected to the person in front of her as well.
Her actions must have caused a very great many deaths.
"Haven't you improved at all? Still letting your mind wander in the middle of a fight."
The crimson blade came chopping down at her head, and in the instant Seraphia failed to react, it was once again a pair of hands formed of shadow energy, spreading out of the shadow behind her, that blocked the attack.
"That's twice now. Is it really all right, relying on someone else to protect you the whole time?"