Chapter 66: Debt 66 - Demons and Knights in the Land of Elves

The journey hadn’t been that long; it was actually even faster than flying with Karol’s magic.

But now that they were already close to the dungeon.

They had to divert their path.

Because... something was happening in the elven village, and Ryan couldn’t help but want to go and investigate.

The wyvern began to slice through the wind at full speed.

The closer they got, the more everything began to come into focus.

Smoke clouds everywhere.

Fallen and scorched trees.

Everything indicated that a great battle had been waged there.

"What happened here?" Ryan asked himself.

When the wyvern was only a couple of meters from landing.

Bang!

The wyvern’s body went flying to the left from the force of the powerful attack that struck it.

The wyvern shrieked in pain.

Beatrice jumped.

And Ryan fell beneath the wyvern, being crushed by its weight.

’Damn it, what was that?’

The wyvern was on top of him, writhing. Ryan managed to crawl his way out.

"Recovery."

The wyvern’s wound healed immediately.

"Ryan! Are you okay?" Beatrice asked; she was now standing in front of him.

In her left hand, she held an axe.

And in her right... gripping them by the horns... were the heads of two demons.

"These were the ones who attacked us. I decapitated them before they could call for anyone else. I don’t know what is happening in this place, but it’s a fact that there must be more demons around."

’Now she really does look like a ninja. Well, her class is Assassin after all.’

Ryan began to inspect the area.

Even with his ability to detect stealth.

"I didn’t think I’d be back here, but at least for the moment, there doesn’t seem to be anyone nearby. But what do demons want with the elves?"

"We’ll have to ask them. We need to capture one alive and interrogate him," Beatrice replied, tossing the two heads onto the ground.

"Unfortunately, I don’t have my weapons, so I’ll have to fight using this axe I took from that idiot."

As she finished speaking, she tucked the axe into her waist.

"Don’t worry about that. First, let’s investigate what’s going on."

"Allow me to handle that." She brought her hands together in a gesture, then interlaced her fingers and cracked them.

Ryan frowned. "You intend to go alone?"

"Don’t worry about me, okay? I’m not useless. I’ll use stealth to investigate."

"All right, but don’t be long. And if you see it’s dangerous, come back immediately."

Ryan turned toward the wyvern and then added.

"I’ll try to hide it. We can’t afford to have it stolen or killed; it’s an incredible creature."

"Okay, then I’m off," she said, and almost immediately, she vanished from his sight.

’Stealth is such a useful skill. I’d love to have it...’

Ryan began to head deeper into the forest along with the wyvern. He soon spotted a hole in the ground; it was enormous, as if a very powerful explosion had struck the earth there.

’This will do...’ he thought, and he struck one of the surrounding trees. He made it fall, then another, and then one more.

He led the wyvern into the hole and covered it with those three trees.

Then he sat down on one of those logs.

’But what is happening here? I hope the elves are still alive but... considering the circumstances, it’s unlikely. I don’t want to just stay here and wait, but if I leave now...’

Somehow, the elves had been attacked, although there was no way of knowing what the purpose of it was.

But Ryan knew that even so, there was a possibility they hadn’t found the entrance to the village and that the battle had only been fought right where he was standing.

’If the battle was fought here in the forest, there’s a chance the elves are hidden inside the village. If I remember correctly, that portal-like entrance remains hidden...’

"Ryan!" Beatrice appeared before him.

"Did you find anything out?"

"Yes. I don’t know the cause, but there are demon corpses from the Kingdom of Rigal, and also from the Church..."

"The Holy Knights, you say?"

"Yes."

"Are they looking for us?"

"No, there is no way the people here know about us. They probably don’t even know what happened in the capital. It must be for some other reason, and I suspect they just want to subjugate these elves. Maybe they’re looking for something."

"Are the elves still alive?"

"Yes, but they have many of them in chains. They are interrogating them to force them to give up the location of the village entrance."

At that, Ryan stood up and jumped down from the tree where he had been sitting.

"Fine, then let’s go help them. How many were there?"

"...I counted 32 demons." She paused. "Of course, there were more, but they are dead. In addition to the corpses of the knights, I counted at least 25; maybe there are others in the area."

"All right, let’s not waste any more time."

So Ryan began to follow Beatrice, who showed him the exact path to get there. She showed him where to position himself so as not to be discovered before evaluating the situation.

"There they are," Beatrice pointed out.

Ryan observed. There were at least 11 elves from the group of soldiers he had seen the last time he came to the village.

They were all in chains, and they also had two other prisoners.

Two holy knights, though from this distance, they seemed to be unconscious.

Or perhaps dead.

"Ah!" A cry of pain was heard.

When Ryan turned his gaze, he immediately recognized the person.

He was being whipped by one of the giant demons.

"You can torture us all you want, but we will never say anything!"

The screams reached Ryan’s ears.

"That’s Irina’s grandfather..."

Beatrice looked at him but said nothing.

"Inspect."

Ryan began to evaluate the strength of each of the demons present.

They were Principalities, but stronger than the ordinary ones. At least stronger than a common A-rank.

Then he looked at Beatrice.

’For me, they won’t be a problem, but... I’m worried about her.’

"Don’t look at me with that face. I told you I’m not useless. It takes more than brute force in a fight, you know?"

She said this and leaped forward.

"Hey, stop."

"You want to save them, right? It’s best if they see us and move away from them so we can fight freely."

’Well, one way or another, we had to get started.’