With such a bizarre appearance, anyone could easily expect the Dark Beast to begin rampaging on the spot, but it simply stayed by Mira’s side, waiting for further orders as it lied down on the ground, in a posture resembling that of a hungry beast aiming for its prey.

  “Hmm, at least I guess that it will listen to my orders.”

  At first glance, she couldn’t feel the slightest traces of intelligence within the summoned being; however, since it obeyed a simple command given by her, Mira looked up at it and made that assertion.

  Meanwhile, in the battle between the Cockatrice and the Dark Knights, the injuries suffered by both parties were still too small when compared with the damage done to their surroundings. On the demonic beast’s side, not only did it obtain a self-healing ability, but its toughness also greatly increased. On the knight’s side, albeit limited, they also possessed a regenerative power and their evasion abilities were high. Even then, that battle did not seem to be heading to a stalemate, since the Dark Knights were superior due to their numbers and coordination, so if the fight were to continue without any changes, sooner or later they would obtain victory against their foe.

  Yet, at that pace, it was clear that they would only be able to finish everything by sunset.

  “Let me see, how about you show me your true strength?”

  Speaking to the Dark Beast, Mira looked at the battlefield and, after waiting for the right time, pulled back her three knights. The rampaging Cockatrice didn’t even care that its enemies were suddenly trying to move away, and simply charged blindly toward the foes before it. While concentrating solely on destruction, the demonic beast shook the ground as it ran with its thick, tree-like legs, and exactly when it tried to thrust its large body against the knights, something happened.

  Accompanied by a dull and heavy metallic noise, as if something had exploded below the earth, the entire place was filled with the sound of the ground rumbling. A moment later, that sound was substituted by the roaring cry of the Cockatrice, full of grief. Cutting into the battleground, the Dark Beast had stopped with its whole body the strike coming from the Cockatrice’s large build. Enraged, the demonic beast brandished its neck to snap against the new enemy that had appeared, but Mira’s new summon howled and, at the same time, used its gaping mouth to return the bite, with the clear intention of ripping off the attacker’s flesh. Seemingly suffering, the Cockatrice’s dragon-like tail hit the ground countless times, shaking the ground and releasing a booming sound with every strike.

  (So it does not understand detailed orders, huh… I wonder if the only instructions it follows are “stay” and “attack”...)

  In the same way as what she had done with her Dark Knights, the young girl sent several orders to her beast. Nonetheless, every single one of them was ignored and the Dark Beast merely continued its fight. In other words, it could be said that, currently, the creature was acting on its own instincts.

  “Guess I need to… check it first.”

  While looking away from what was happening in front of her eyes, Mira murmured some kind of excuse.

  ◆◆◆

  “Just… what happened here?”

  “Hm? Ooh, is that you, Reynard?”

  The instant Mira heard a voice by her side calling out to her, she turned around and saw both Reynard and Joachim there. With a stiff expression, they were looking at what was unfolding before them—a deadly battle in which both sides completely disregarded their own defenses and focused on attacking only.

  “Although the one over there seems to have suffered a considerable change in its appearance, I believe I can recognize it as the Cockatrice. But the other one...”

  Seemingly worried as he fixed his eyes on the situation in front of him, Joachim still calmly analyzed it. Neither of the two beasts were pulling back and, while still entangled in their battle, tried to destroy each other’s bodies with pure, undiluted violence. Fang against fang, claw against claw, roar against roar. Even while dyed in their own blood, instead of decreasing their pace, the Cockatrice and Dark Beast raged on, their battle actually intensifying more and more.

  “This is what happened after I performed a summon.”

  Not knowing what to say anymore about that situation, Mira pointed out what she had done and shrugged.

  The three just stared, dumbfounded, at the scene unfolding before them. If one were to dare to express that spectacle in words, it would surely be something out of a tokusatsu movie16, where two monsters fought in a great decisive battle. So great they have reached a point at which no one could see the small birds that were flying from the surrounding woods anymore, and even the critters that inhabited the nearby places had completely fled to take refuge from that maelstrom of fury.

  “By the way, I cannot see Garrett around here. Where is he?”

  Asked the girl, trying to forcefully change the topic.

  “Ah, I left the task of taking care of the monsters’ corpses to him. Usually, I am the one in charge of that, but he asked to do the job so I could rush to your aid, Mira-sama. And surely, if we are talking about an opponent on the level of the Cockatrice, of course I would feel worried. However, now I see that there was no need to assist you in battle...”

  Answered Joachim as he gazed, with a distant look on his face, at the two rampaging monsters. Immediately after, a ray of red light surged from the other side of the battlefield.

  (That Garrett... he does not need to worry about me.)

  Upon seeing the swaying, crimson column of fire blazing in the distance, rather than imagining the flames burning everything, Mira envisioned Garrett’s figure there, his face showing a bright smile while he operated the jeep’s turret. After a short while, it seemed like the disposal of corpses had finished as the pillar of flame lost strength and began disappearing.

  Then, at that moment, something red was once again launched towards the sky. In quick succession, a certain shriek resounded across the grasslands, cutting off the usual howls of intimidation the beasts had been launching against each other just a few seconds ago. The cry, that came out of the Cockatrice’s throat, was a sign to the shower of fluttering red in the air: the demonic beast’s own blood. Looking carefully, it was possible to notice that one of its wings had been ripped from the base, and the blood was gushing forth from that wound.

  “How… fierce.”

  Was what Reynard muttered, involuntarily. With a keen gaze directed toward the Dark Beast, a creature able to fight against a Cockatrice that had its ferocity boosted, the Knight realized how bottomless was the area of summoning, causing his evaluation of Mira to gradually change.

  The Dark Beast then made a motion to spit something it had been holding with its mouth, revealing an abundant amount of blood dripping from that place. What actually fell on the ground was the Cockatrice’s lost wing, its tragically sorry state indicating how savage the entire fight was.

  And yet, the demonic beast did not stop, for its eye still shone with both insanity and the will to fight. When it warded off its foe’s charge with the remaining wing, the Cockatrice’s massive body shook violently, apparently dragged by the swinging action of that impromptu shield. Taking into account its excessively large build, the Cockatrice’s sense of balance had been broken the moment it lost one of its wings, so it couldn’t control its movements after thrusting itself with the mighty physical strength it possessed.

  That opportunity wasn’t overlooked by Mira’s summoned beast. As soon as the Cockatrice staggered, the Dark Beast firmly planted its four legs on the ground and split its mouth open, seemingly ready to roar. Instead, escaping from the bottom of the monster’s throat was a blinding, glimmering light.

  “This magical power is…”

  Sensing the enormous amount of magical power being gathered inside the Dark Beast’s mouth, Joachim opened his eyes wide in surprise. Promptly, right before the black monstrosity steadied its aim, the Cockatrice turned around and swung in a huge arc its tail—covered in thick and tough scales—to deliver a strike against the side of its enemy’s face. Accompanied by a heavy and dull impact sound, the Dark Beast’s body swayed dangerously. However, that wasn’t enough to stop it, because a split second after getting hit, the beast released a beam of light from its mouth.

  A thunderous roar resounded in the distance and even the air itself trembled as soon as the that dazzling flash came out. In spite of that, the beam didn’t hit the Cockatrice directly. What saved the demonic beast from the line of fire was its tail strike, which managed to turn away the Dark Beast’s face. With the aiming disturbed, the light ray gouged the ground and teared open the forest in its path. In addition, as if giving the finishing blow, explosive flames erupted from the trenches that had just been formed, by the wave of light, on the grasslands’ surface.

  Before everyone’s eyes, the scene that unfolded was akin to the episode of an apocalyptic war being acted out. As they looked at the towering walls of dust that had been formed, each whirling to the tune of a tremendous rumbling, Reynard and Joachim weren’t the only ones standing still, looking stupefied; even Mira herself couldn’t help but display the same reaction.

  Nonetheless, disregarding the three onlookers’ state, the battle continued. Appearing to struggle for the very air that transmitted them, two deep and angry roars filled the surroundings. And then, all of a sudden, one of the air-shattering sounds vanished.

  It was the Cockatrice’s voice. The demonic beast’s large body fell, taking with it the fierce howls it had been releasing. At a closer look, its left leg had been cleanly burned to ashes from the knee down. It seemed like the beam of light had completely missed its target, but it actually slightly grazed the demon’s leg.

  “Looks like the fight is over.”

  Although it now lied on the ground, through the shine on its sole pupil, the injured beast still showed a will to continue the battle; however, against the foe it had been fighting on almost even grounds, without one wing and a leg its chances of winning were gone. Realizing that, Reynard revealed a somewhat relieved expression on his face. Afterwards, the Dark Beast that was calmly standing in place just needed to finish off the writhing Cockatrice, be it by swinging down its claws or by stabbing the demon’s body with its fangs.

  Instead, what came a moment later made a chill run down the spines of the observers. The Dark Beast had braced itself on its four legs, mouth wide open.

  “This magical power…! Does it intend to shoot that thing again!?”

  After a single look at the terrible spectacle promoted by the monster’s previous attack, Joachim asked a question in panic, to which Mira promptly turned her face away and hesitated to speak. She did try to do it several times already, but as expected, the Dark Beast wasn’t following any of her detailed commands. In other words, it could be said that the girl’s summoned beast had been merely acting on its own instincts.

  “Hey… this might be worse than the one from earlier.”

  Said Reynard while directing his sight once more towards the monster. Since it apparently had enough time now, the magic energy being gathered for the light beam had already exceeded the amount used for the previous one; furthermore, with each second that passed, the accumulated power grew even stronger. In proportion to that growth in strength, the light leaking out of the Dark Beast’s mouth began shining brightly, its form resembling that of sharp blades. It was as if the sun itself was being held hostage deep inside the beast’s throat, giving the dangerous feeling that it could end up exploding at any moment.

  The first ray of light had been launched when the monster, after taking the same posture it displayed now, charged the attack for about two or three seconds. But currently, it had already been accumulating power for around ten seconds. With that amount of magical power amassed, one could only wonder about how strong the attack would be. Instantly, the image of everything in her field of view getting razed to the ground, scorched, passed through the girl’s mind. That thought wasn’t an exaggeration, as even Joachim envisioned a similar scenery after observing the large quantity of magical energy being accumulated.

  Immediately, a huge magic circle appeared at the Dark Beast’s feet. It shone in the same poisonous-looking color of the previous magic circle used to summon the beast, but instead of summoning, it began to pull the black monster in. As soon as Mira had cancelled her summon, the process of sending the beast away began. Almost like dragging it back into the gates of hell, the pulsating magic circle was swallowing the Dark Beast, a scene that took the three observers’ breath away.

  Still facing the Cockatrice even as it was being dismissed, the monster revealed in its eyes the will to fight. When the only thing left to disappear in the circle was its head, the brightness coming from the Dark Beast’s mouth increased in an instant.

  “Mira-sama!”

  “On it!”

  A split second later, Mira gave a command to her Dark Knight on standby. Then, dashing like the wind, the knight followed its summoner’s orders and hit the Dark Beast right in the jaw. Simultaneously, a flash clad in a spectacular radiance surged toward the heavens. As the condensed magical energy pierced through the sky and above, it eventually dispersed, turning into miniscule particles of light that kept raining all around the place. By now, the Dark Beast—the main culprit of that grand show—was nowhere to be found, its dismissal process concluded.

  Despite finally feeling a sense of relief, the three people caught sight of another problem. With the wound on its leg closed, the Cockatrice let out a groan and forced itself up from the ground. Then, even without a wing and a leg, the demonic beast released a roar filled with madness, making a display of the overwhelming insanity it possessed.

  “It might be wounded, but don’t even think of getting careless.”

  “I know that.”

  To the intense show of vigor before them, once again both Reynard and Joachim braced themselves, ready to face their enemy.

  “Step back. This one is my responsibility.”

  While stopping the other two with a hand, Mira faced the Cockatrice. Shortly after that, all of a sudden, nearly twenty Dark Knights appeared and surrounded the beast in the blink of an eye.

  “Hngh…!”

  “Now that is something...”

  Seeing the unexpected appearance of the group of knights, the Knight and the Expert revealed an expression of astonishment on their faces. Forget the Summoning Experts in the army, not even Cleos, the Elder Substitute, could do something like simultaneously summoning in an instant that number of Dark Knights. Just what kind of meaning did the title of Sage’s Pupil hold? While the two were at a loss for words to describe how bottomless it appeared to be, the fight had been settled.

  Even with its body covered in wounds, the Cockatrice still held the advantage in physical strength. On the other hand, that wasn’t enough to beat the sheer number of foes and their violent strikes; as a result, its knee gave up and, for the second time, the demonic beast fell on the ground. Then, there was no way for the Cockatrice to resist anymore, so its entire body suffered all the slashing and piercing attacks coming from the swarm of knights, at a rate that its regenerative power couldn’t keep up with. Blood gushed out from several places on the demon’s body, causing the earth below it to become quickly dyed in dark red.

  At first sight, what was there looked like a small hill of squirming black, but with a closer inspection of the scene, it appeared as the performance of a lynch mob. Around them, the Dark Beast’s parting gift continued to fall in the form of a rain of light, causing one to wonder just how much magical power had been collected for the attack.

  If the observers were to turn around, they would see shining light particles fluttering all over the richly colored flower field, the gentle addition of the wind evoking the image of a smiling angel, its whispers sparkling in the air. Standing in a place that could be said to be between Heaven and Hell, Reynard and Joachim quietly turned to face the “Heaven” side.

  Chapter 20

  The group of Dark Knights had finally, and without any problems, brought an end to the demonic beast Cockatrice. As Joachim used his sorcery to take care of the cleanup job, burning the beast’s and the Lesser Demon’s corpses, Garrett joined up with them, a plain look of disappointment on his face. It seemed like he still wanted to shoot the Jeep’s cannon. Then, with their mission finished, the party set out on their return journey, smiling brightly as if nothing had happened.

  ◆◆◆

  Sometime around evening. While giving her report in the King’s Office of the Arkite Castle, Mira nibbled a late snack, relaxed. As for Solomon, he listened attentively to his friend’s recounts, giving the occasional affirmative responses and, at the same time, looked over the report done by Joachim, written during his trip back to the castle.

  “The Lesser Demon cursed the Cockatrice? Yeah, never heard of anything like that happening in the thirty years I’ve been living here. To begin with, this is the first time in, like, ten years since we had a Lesser Demon appearing here.”

  “Is that so? I wonder what the hell was that… just when I thought the mist would simply disappear, that thing happened out of nowhere.”

  “Well, you have my thanks for taking care of it.”

  There was a huge, near-infinite wall of differences between the past and the present. Consequently, the girl thought that what she had seen happening for the first time was, one way or another, a fact already well known in the new world. And yet, the occurrence of a living creature being cursed by the substance of malice was also a first for Solomon.