("Looks delicious," "eat"... does she actually eat humans?)
Kazui trembled with fear, feeling as if his legs might give out, yet still tried to escape. But his body refused to move, as if his limbs had been bound.
At some point the woman’s tail had stretched long, wrapped around his body, and tightly restrained his arms and legs. Kazui desperately tried to move, but the grip of the tail was far too strong.
"B-Brigadier-class! Hel— mmpf!"
His cry was cut off mid-shout. The tail wrapped around his mouth like a gag, completely silencing him. He could no longer even call for help.
"You’re so scared... how cute!"
Looking down at Kazui’s face twisted in terror, the woman laughed cheerfully. Then she glanced around to check the surroundings.
"It’s too noisy here. Maybe I’ll eat you somewhere quiet."
Muttering that, she spread her bat-like wings. Without even flapping them, her body floated upward as if freed from gravity.
She did not fly by flapping her wings like a bird or bat. She simply possessed a skill that allowed her to freely soar through the sky as long as her wings were spread.
She could fly by flapping as well, but using the skill was easier, so she usually relied on it. When she was hit by the anti-air attack earlier, the magic had struck her wings and forced them closed, deactivating the skill and causing her to fall.
Still binding Kazui with her tail, the woman rose into the air. She flew toward the forest with him dangling beneath her.
A scene from an animal documentary Kazui had watched on television back in Japan flashed through his mind — the image of a bird of prey such as a hawk or eagle carrying a captured mouse to a safe place, pinning it down with its talons, and tearing it apart with its beak while eating.
In his mind, the bird of prey became the woman, and the mouse became himself.
(This is bad! At this rate I’m going to get eaten somewhere!)
He wanted to scream for help, but his mouth was sealed by the tail. All he could do was let out muffled groans. Helpless, the ground — the grasslands — steadily grew farther and farther away.
"Someone’s been kidnapped by the Brigadier-class! She’s taking him into the forest!"
"That guy... he’s the otherworld refugee with the dud skill Replication, the one who looks like a black cat!"
Some of the adventurers on the ground noticed that the Brigadier-class monster was carrying Kazui away and shouted. Before the tail gagged him, the cry Kazui had managed to make about the Brigadier-class’s appearance had reached a few nearby adventurers.
Among them were people who knew of Kazui, so they realized the one being carried off was him. Since they didn’t know his name, they referred to him as "the otherworld refugee with the dud skill Replication who looks like a black cat."
The news that the owner of the dud skill Replication — Kazui — had been abducted by the Brigadier-class quickly reached the adventurers near the wall. Naturally, it also reached his best friend Yuri.
Yuri was shocked and panicked at his best friend’s crisis. He looked around at the other adventurers, but none of them showed any sign of going to rescue Kazui from the Brigadier-class.
Even though they had noticed Kazui being taken, the adventurers could do nothing. Almost no one possessed a flight skill, so it was impossible to chase a high-speed flying Brigadier-class through the air.
In the current chaos of battle, pursuing on the ground was also difficult. The plains were full of monsters; any attempt to follow the flying monster and Kazui would quickly be blocked by the horde.
Moreover, the Brigadier-class and Kazui were pressed tightly together. If the rear guard tried anti-air attacks, the chance of hitting Kazui as well was high, making it nearly impossible to attack the monster safely.
Yuri quickly realized the harsh reality: none of the other Aquila adventurers present could save Kazui. After a brief moment of biting his lip in thought, a determined expression appeared on his face.
"...I have no choice but to use it."
Yuri steeled himself to use the native skill he had sworn he would never use. To save his best friend whose life was in danger, he judged that he had no other option.
The spherical defensive barrier around him vanished as he deactivated Elinacheus.
Yuri took a deep breath, then touched the transparent, marble-sized orb embedded in the back of his left hand. Activation methods varied by skill, but for his native skill it was simple: touch the Orb while thinking of activating the skill and speak a certain word.
"Leona!"
The moment the required word left his mouth, Leonization activated. The Orb on his hand glowed red, and a large amount of red smoke billowed out from it.
The red smoke completely enveloped Yuri, hiding him from view. Within a few seconds the smoke melted into the surrounding air and disappeared, revealing Yuri once more.
But he looked like a completely different person. His facial features and height had not changed much, yet everything else had transformed so drastically that it was hard to believe he was the same individual.
The surrounding adventurers cried out in surprise at the transformed Yuri. He paid them no attention.
"Wait for me, Kazu! I’m coming to save you right now!"
With that declaration, Yuri rose into the air and flew off toward the forest — the direction in which the Brigadier-class monster had carried Kazui away.