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Hans and Jade split up, circling round either side of the small figure . I hold my sword ready and face the figure .

Most likely…This fog hides spider thread as well as spider monsters . By having Hans and Jade to go first, I hope to expose any ambushes and distract the undead . In the opening they create, I’ll take down the main body in one strike . Undead tend to have a high vitality, but I have no intention of letting any chance to bring it down slip by .

The small figure hardly moves at all . I’d thought it’d use more magic while it still has the advantage of distance, but… I expect it’s out of magic power . I don’t want to be overly optimistic, but maintaining a fog of this scale must take a considerable amount of magic power . Its intention might be to limit visibility in order to force a close combat fight .

I hear the sound of rustling coming from near Hans’ feet .

“I-it’s here!”

Hans stops walking and swings his sword . Three shadows crawl across the ground to surround him . They’re spiders, most likely . Perhaps having been caught on their thread, Hans’ movements become slow .

“Damn it! Damn it! Azalea-samah, Azalea-samaa!”

The ambush was prepared over there it seems . Activating the ambush so soon was a mistake . The undead might have some intelligence, but then monsters are never able to handle the finer details of traps . Through a calm approach, the effectiveness of their traps can be drastically reduced . With this, the protection around the main body is weakened somewhat .

“Oraah!”

Jade’s sword swing is blocked by the undead’s large arm . I immediately dash forwards at full speed . I can cover this degree of distance in an instant . The whole reason I had them two go first and didn’t move myself was so that I could catch the undead by surprise like this .

I successfully shorten the distance, entering just outside sword range . While defending against Jade’s sword with one hand, it turns only its head to look at me . Because of the fog, I can’t see its facial expression, but I’m sure it’s staring at me in surprise, not having expected my speed .

From behind me to the side, I see a spider spitting thread towards me .

“Annoying . ”

I hit the ground behind me with my sword, then scrape across the ground in a circular motion . The spray of earth flies into the eyes of the spider .

As I reach out with my sword, the undead pushes Jade aside and turns to shield itself with its thick earthen arm . My swing cuts through the arm . Pieces of it fly through the air as it breaks apart . My sword then smashes into its defenceless chest . It probably meant to block my sword the same way it did Jade’s .

“A, ah…”

The undead groans as it retreats . But it’s too slow . If its speciality is magic, then it should have used it before I closed the distance .

I step forwards in pursuit to match its retreat . Of course, I have no intention of falling back after a single hit . I mean to keep hitting until it’s down .

With its large arm destroyed at the start, I make three thrusts at its completely unguarded abdomen, leg, and chest . Its body is chipped away, and the earth that its composed of dances through the air . My fourth thrust stabs into its neck and lops off its head . The headless undead collapses on the spot .

The head falls to the ground near me . The nearby fog seems to become thinner . As the undead producing the fog loses its strength, its potency is falling .

“Phew… It’s over, then?”

But I can’t be too optimistic . If there are other undead like this, they’ll be a major obstacle . If the disorder caused by the fog isn’t handled properly, an entire battalion could easily be destroyed . I can only hope more undead aren’t laying in wait to ambush Tolman-kakka…

“As expected of Azalea-sama! You destroyed such a thick earth arm so easily…”

Hans and Jade are both safe, it seems . I look down at the fallen undead’s head .

It has the expressionless, hollow look characteristic of undead . When I saw it from a distance before, I thought it looked not more similar to a human, but now that I get a closer look I see that its skin is rough, its appearance similar to make-up applied to earth . So rather than a human, it appears much more similar to a golem . It has the shape of a little girl, so it’s unbearable creepy .

“When I saw it from a distance before, I thought its features were more human-like though… I suppose the visibility was bad . I was simply mistaken . ”

As I say that, I feel a sense of discongruity . There’s something I’ve overlooked . It’s not the same . This isn’t the same as the undead I saw at the start .

The collapsed undead’s torso suddenly bursts open and a thin thread shoots out .

“Guh!”

As it’s a surprise shot at point blank range, I’m unable to dodge and instead cut it with my sword . With my attention is distracted by the thread, I fail to react as the ground at my feet deforms into the shape of an arm and grabs my ankle . A second arm appears and reinforces the restraint .

“A-Azalea-samah!”

Jade hurries over . I see a spider burst out of the undead’s body and swiftly run away .

“Quickly, get away! It’s a trap!”

As I shout, the ground splits open a short distance away, and a young girl appears . She looks different from the lump of earth I saw earlier, with fair porcelain-like skin .

As I thought, it switched places with a substitute under the cover of the fog . It looks like the main body used Clay to hide under the ground . Did it make one arm larger to distract from the smaller differences?

The undead girl has a spider on its arm . It’s a pitch-black spider with a white face . A light shines on the arm .

“It’s [Mana Drain]!”

I was wondering why its magic power wasn’t running out… It has a spider monster with high magic power nearby so it can take from it with [Mana Drain] whenever it wants . Now that its magic power is replenished, an attack is clearly coming .

“[Gale]!”

A tornado bursts forth, drawing a line in the ground as it heads straight towards me . It’s far more powerful than the previous tornado . This is meant to be the decider, it seems .

“This…”

I put strength into my legs to yank them free of the earthen arms . I avoid the newly appearing small arms and smash them with my sword .

I can’t dodge in time… And near me are Jade, who rushed over to help, and Hans, who’s still caught in the spider thread . I’ve no choice but to use [Resist] again .

As I raise my sword towards the oncoming tornado… The pale dragon I saw a short while ago appears in my mind . After I get through this, I still have to defeat that dragon . I can’t use magic . If that’s an ouroboros, then it should be tough . If I don’t survive this, then I also can’t fight that dragon, but… In the first place, if I’m so weak that I’m forced to use magic in a place like this, I won’t have the slightest chance at killing it .

“Uguh…”

I lower my sword .

“A-Azalea-sama! Why!?”

Hans shouts reproachfully .

I stab my lowered sword into the ground, and brace my body with my head pointed downwards . The tornado shreds my back . I put strength into my arms and legs to resist the winds that try to send me flying .