Chapter 186: Defense of the City of Sandra, Part 1

Now we were heading for the city of Sandra using air step.

The purple-haired girl, Laila, was nowhere near as skilled at air step as El, Ashera, or me, but she was much better than my mother.

I thought she was probably at about the same level we had been at when we were 10 years old.

Considering we were 10 back then, it must have been about 2-3 years since we developed air step.

Once again, I wondered who this purple girl was…

Judging by her friendly attitude, she probably wasn’t an enemy…

When I secretly asked El, his answer was “someone I don’t know.”

Then I glanced at Laila, and next to her I saw a certain woman with flared nostrils and a disgusting smile plastered on her face.

That person was my mother, Rafina, the Ice Witch.

At the last moment, my mother had threatened the elven elder and extorted a rejuvenation elixir from her on the spot.

The timing and method of that extortion were exactly those of a yakuza.

It was true that we had saved them, but I still felt terribly sorry for the village chief.

“Rejuvenation elixir” meant that Ashera had probably also drunk that elixir and become younger.

…Flattened… huh…

I shook my head and changed my train of thought.

“Mother, are we going to keep running through the sky all the way to Sandra?”

“Yes. In the end it’ll be the quickest, and it’ll also cut down on wear and tear.”

“I understand. However, if we do that, we’ll need to recover our mana somewhere.”

“That’s a necessary expense. If we fight the Mantises, we’ll waste not only our mana but also our time.”

What my mother said was to the point.

Certainly, if we stopped to fight the Mantises, there was no telling when we’d reach Sandra.

“How much mana do you have left, Laila?”

“I only have 2/3 left.”

“2/3…”

“Yes. How about you, Aldo?”

“I only have about half left.”

“Then it would be better to recover your mana somewhere once it’s below 1/3.”

“That’s right.”

Laila looked younger than me, but she spoke to me in honorific terms…

Somehow, I could feel that kind of atmosphere about her.

In this way, we departed from the elven village at dawn and headed for the town of Sandra on air step.

It was almost time for lunch————–

“I’m sorry, but my mana is below 1/3.”

Hearing my words, everyone descended onto a nearby tree branch.

“Okay, then let’s take a break.”

At my mother’s words, we each took a break.

It was a little early, but each of us pulled some black bread and dried meat out of our backpacks and began eating.

I didn’t know why, but the purple girl, Laila, sat down next to me and started eating her lunch.

Ashera, who would usually be angry, was acting as if she didn’t notice for some reason.

What was going on… Ashera usually froze the moment anyone other than Olivia flirted with me…

Laila stuck to me perfectly, and to be honest, it was extremely hard to eat.

Whenever I shifted away from Laila a little, she closed the gap by the same amount… After repeating this several times, I’d been pushed out to a very narrow part of the branch.

“Ah, um, Laila…”

“What is it, Aldo-kun?”

Laila seemed happy to be talking to me, and gave me a big smile.

“Could you move over a little that way… The branch is going to break here…”

“Oh, well, then how about you sit on my lap… Or, well, I’ll sit on your lap.”

What was this girl saying… When I looked around for help, Ashera and my mother pretended not to notice, and El was shaking his head.

What had I done…

As I froze, completely at a loss about the situation, the branch finally broke, unable to withstand my weight.

There was no problem, since I immediately took to the air with air step, but I’d need to be careful about this.

I got back down onto the tree and turned to face Laila.

“Laila, I don’t know what you mean by this, but please don’t get too close to me. I have a fiancee named Ashera.”

Laila looked extremely sad and dejected.

“I understand… I’m sorry…”

The atmosphere changed, as if everyone was blaming me… Huh? Was it my fault?

Ashera looked at Laila sadly, and the Ice Witch looked at me with reproachful eyes…

El was the only one who was as confused as I was and didn’t understand what it meant.

For now, I didn’t want the mood to get so bad that someone might get hurt.

I spoke to my mother to change the atmosphere.

“Mother, lunch is over, so how about we get some sleep to recover our mana?”

“That’s right. We’ll have to take turns.”

Laila cut in on my mother’s words.

“I’ve always been alone, so I can teach you how to sleep in a tree.”

From there, I decided to have Laila teach me exactly how to sleep in a tree.

When I asked her about it, I heard that in the early days she’d tied herself to trees and forced herself to sleep, but now she had come up with a method of weaving beds out of strong vines, creepers, and rope and tying them to the branches.

It seemed she had invented the hammock on her own. I couldn’t help but look at her with respect.

I’d never seen or heard of a hammock in this world…

Laila had her own hammock in her backpack, so El, Ashera, and I were carefully taught how to weave one.

The weaving method was a bit unusual, but within 30 minutes, four fine hammocks were finished and hung between the branches.

“Let me lie down for a bit.”

To my surprise, the Ice Witch lay down in my hammock!

“Mother, please weave your own yourself!”

“Hey, I only said I’d lie down for a bit…”

She said that as she climbed down from the hammock.

“Then all four of you, take sleeping pills. You’ll wake up in four hours, once your mana has fully recovered.”

It would be good to take sleeping pills… but what was my mother planning to do…

“What are you going to do, Mother?”

“Me? I’ll be the bodyguard for you four. I think it’ll be fine, but just in case.”

“I appreciate that, but… will your mana last until we reach the town of Sandra?”

“…Al, you made this, didn’t you? This magic tool…”

That was it! Mom was jumping with a magic tool, so she wasn’t consuming any mana.

Considering mana consumption while traveling, it might be better for El, Ashera, and me to carry air step magic tools as standard equipment too.

I looked at my mother again, feeling like the scales had fallen from my eyes.

“Get to bed early. You’ll sleep for four hours, so no matter how quickly we go, we’ll reach Sandra in the evening.”

“Yes.”

Impressed that my mother was calmer and more organized than I’d expected, I went to sleep.

I woke up slowly, swaying in the hammock.

When I tried to get up, I couldn’t keep my balance and almost fell.

Since that was a pain, I used air step to get down onto a branch and found my mother stretching on it.

“Thank you for keeping watch, Mother.”

“Huh? Ah, yeah… There was no problem…”

Something seemed suspicious… When I looked closely at my mother, I saw clear drool marks on her face.

“Mother… you didn’t fall asleep, did you?”

“W-What are you saying! I didn’t fall asleep and fall out of the tree twice!”

As I thought to myself in surprise, ‘She fell twice…’, I saw countless Mantis corpses lying under the tree.

I pretended I hadn’t seen anything and waited for El, Ashera, and Laila to wake up.

Since we had taken the sleeping pills at the same time, everyone woke up within 5 minutes.

After confirming that everyone was present, my mother began to speak.

“It’s about time we head to the town of Sandra. Are you ready?”

“”””Yes!””””

Not only El, Ashera, and I, but Laila too replied cheerfully.

From here, it should take less than 30 minutes to reach the town of Sandra.

If we didn’t keep our guard up, something unexpected could knock us off our feet.

As we headed along the road to Sandra with El in the lead, we saw smoke rising in the distance.

“Hurry!”

El, who was in the lead, picked up his speed when he heard my mother’s voice.

When the forest opened up and we reached a spot where I could see the city of Sandra, I felt a touch of despair.

“We’re being invaded…”

Whoever had muttered that, it seemed the gate hadn’t been breached yet, but the Mantises had wings.

Like the praying mantis insect, they weren’t good at flying, but they could definitely fly.

“Al, El, choose the best spot for Condense Ray and deploy territory there. From there, annihilate them with Condense Ray!”

“Yes!”

“Laila is Al and El’s bodyguard. If they get mana sickness, take the two of them and run to Blue Ring.”

“I understand. Aldo-kun, please tell me about mana sickness while we’re moving.”

“Yes.”

“Ashera will clean up the Mantises with me. No melee combat this time. Shoot down the small fry with Wind Bullet.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Then everyone, spread out! I’m counting on you.”

Following my mother’s instructions, El, Laila, and I chose a small hill as our base in order to wipe out the Mantises one-sidedly.

“El, what about that hill?”

“I think it’s good.”

“Then, to clear it out, I’ll charge in with Reactive Armor and call Ao.”

“Yes!”

I brought out a mana shield in each hand and prepared Reactive Armor. Naturally, I turned the power up.

El took out the shield in his hand and mana shields on both shoulders, and set Reactive Armor on all three shields.

The two of us charged roaring toward the hill, which was about 10 mede away.

A total of five explosions went off in succession, clearing the hill for a moment.

I immediately called Ao and took a Miasma Stone out of Storage.

“Ao, territory, please. Sorry!”

“Aldo’s always like this… What a rough spirit user!”

Seeing me frantically annihilating the remaining enemies, Ao set up territory even though he complained.

My mana was recovering…

First, I shouted to El and Laila so we could fire the first Condense Ray.

“El, fire the first shot of Condense Ray! There’ll be a heat wave, so when you finish shooting, deploy your strongest air-conditioning magic and a mana shield in a spherical shape.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Laila, don’t leave our side no matter what!”

“Yes… Aldo-kyun…”

A chill ran down my spine, but I fired my first Condense Ray…