Chapter 433 (2/2)

It was as if…

“Trouble,” Rose announced. Annie calmly knocked an arrow.

A screech tore across the sky, and Randidly looked up sharply. Floating above them, zooming down towards the group were 3…. bats. There were giant, leathery bats, with larger, more powerful legs that ended in sharp claws.

As Annie raised her bow to point it at the sky, Lucretia gasped, and Randidly half turned to see what the issue was. Alana had reached up towards her face, her expression grim, and her hand had flexed, almost instinctively. And when she did so, a helmet grew out of her hand, a black/red, beaten and dented thing.

There were two long squares for eyes and a nose guard. But the most eye-catching detail was that two wings, wrought of the red iron, stretched backward from Alana’s head, giving her the typical valkyrie helm. In a clean movement, she settled it over her face and drew her spear.

Frowning, Randidly stared intently at the helmet. Had Alana had this before? Was it an equipment that he hadn’t noticed in the past? Because although his System assisted memory was sharp, he would miss things that he wasn’t looking for. Could she have just had a secret helmet locked away… that conveniently matched the Class that she had recently received…?

What convenient luck.

But what really gave it away was that, immediately after putting it on, Alana started, and then patted the helmet several times. It was like it was more reflex than anything else, and she had done it completely instinctively, without even understanding what was going on.

Well, not that Randidly really could understand what was going on either…

Is this… the true form of a Fate…? Then I… Lucretia whispered, her attention swiftly moving inward.

Randidly ignored her, there were more pressing issues. He drew his spear, moving to stand next to Alana. His presence brought her attention back around, and she stopped feeling the helmet. But Randidly did notice that she didn’t remove it.

In a smooth motion, Annie whipped her bow upwards and loosed an arrow. It streaked across the sky, but one of the bat monsters spun out of the way, dropping lower. And as it did so, its speed seemed to increase, as it sped on its low flight path towards the party.

Unfortunately for this creature, Annie was not the type to file only a single arrow. And she had back up.

Three more arrows darted forward, two dodged again by the low flying bat, but the third struck it in the shoulder, eliciting a roar of fury. Meanwhile, Clarissa sent bolts of Chain Lightning upwards, making the two remaining high flyers swerve back and forth as they attempted to close in on the group.

Randidly waited calmly until one of the higher bats did a barrel roll to dodge a lightning bolt, and shot an Incinerating Bolt upwards towards its blindspot. In addition to traveling in a straight line at a much higher speed, and being highly concentrated, the Incinerating Bolt contained none of the crackling noise of the lightning bolt. It soundlessly sped forward, slamming into the monster’s gut, knocking the wind out of it.

Randidly frowned. ...Yes, only the wind was knocked out of it, because its leathery skin was able to withstand the force from the Incinerating Bolt.

With a crash, it fell to the ground, around the same time that the low flying bat attempted to dodge one of Annie’s arrows and simply hit the ground, beginning to skid over towards the group. The third circled once, calling down to its compatriots, then turned and glided away.

Randidly considered firing more Incinerating Bolts, but even if he could take it by surprise, there didn’t seem to be any point in killing the escaping enemy. If it went and warned the nest, so much the better if these would gather up more of themselves, for the group to slaughter.

“Careful, these Death Cultists are thick skinned. Usually, we rely on binding them, or poisons, to subdue large groups.” Aratta announced. “In a 1 v 1 match… none of you are its match.”