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Mira climbed up the largest fort until she was behind Soul Howl, where she walked closer to him.
「Isenfald and the Seven Valkyrie Sisters. Elder, is it a coincidence that you’re here?」
Before Mira could say anything, Soul Howl asked with an arrogant voice, before turning around with a smug smirk.
「Hwha-?」
But the instant he saw Mira he let out an almost idiotic voice, his confusion palpable.
「Huh?」
He finished turning around, but he was still puzzled seeing Mira. But that reaction was normal, Mira was almost the opposite of the person he had been expecting to see behind him.
「Umm… It’s been a while, Soul Howl.」
Mira acted like Mira would, not evading that gaze and just waving her hand awkwardly. Explaining her current appearance was something she always struggled with, so she wanted to act as normal as she could to avoid too many questions.
「It… it’s you, right? Elder? Did you use a Vanity Case? Why would you do that though? Did Lumi-nee influence you too much?」
But things would not go the way Mira wished. Danbulf’s obsessive grooming habits and the way he always valued his appearance was famous amongst the Nine Wisemen. There he stood now, transformed into someone completely different. It was impossible not to be curious about the reason behind it. Also, Soul Howl had the habit of referring to Danbulf as Elder, and Lumi-nee was Luminaria… though at first it was Lumi-niisan.
「Well… a lot happened, I’ll explain later. We should focus on the situation at hand first, you need to get past this, yes?」
Mira dodged the question, claiming they would talk about it later. Her intention was to sweep everything under the rug though.
「I knew it, it’s no coincidence that you came.」
Soul Howl’s eyes became suspicious as he looked at Mira, guessing that much from her words. But she replied with a quick shrug.
「It’s all a long story. Do you think you can win?」
「Yeah, of course.」
The two did not seem to care too much about the smaller details and focused on the battle again. Now that they were working together the fight grew even more violent.
Isenfald’s attacks were slowly tearing through Machina Guardian’s armor. But the enemy was not an easy foe to contain, as its many limbs seemed to always find a way to attack back. They had already weakened Isenfald’s main defense, the barrier, down to half its power.
Alfina and her sisters were also trying their best, but there was little they could do against the solid armor on Machina Guardian.
Soul Howl’s army was not falling behind either, the cannon turrets and golems ready to attack at any moment even while he talked with Mira. But the hundreds of skeletons had been decimated to just a few dozens, making it harder to serve as a distraction.
「Maybe it’s about time now. Let’s take a break. You… can send everyone back and return to the entrance.」
Soul Howl looked around, then gave those directions. Regardless if they were going to fight together or not, he was not going to abandon his initial plan.
「Hmm… alright.」
Mira still did not understand what Soul Howl was trying to do, but she knew he would not have entered such a reckless fight without a proper plan. She quickly nodded and did as told, sending Isenfald and the Valkyrie Sisters away and then rushing to the entrance.
There she turned around to see the sudden change on the battlefield. Without Isenfald and the sisters holding Machina Guardian back, it was trampling the last skeletons.
The tens of turrets collapsed in the blink of an eye and the large golems were shattered. Only Soul Howl’s fort remained, the Armored Fortress Golem.
Having destroyed all the nearby targets, Machina Guardian set its sights on Soul Howl, using its eight limbs to run through the battlefield toward him.
That seemed like a hopeless situation for a single person facing the strongest raid boss. But Mira watched that without raising a finger, she knew Soul Howl had some sort of plan.
The mechanical limbs easily pierced the fort’s reinforced walls, which repeated many times until Soul Howl’s Armored Fortress Golem was full of holes.
Soul Howl climbed on his bicorn and jumped off, just as the fort began to glow red and molten lava erupted from it.
The power of Burial Skills scaled with the size of a golem. The Armored Fortress was larger than a common house, so the skill was as powerful as an actual volcanic eruption, emitting heat while making a rumbling sound.
Machina Guardian was quickly swallowed by the lava. Soul Howl rode his bicorn all the way to the entrance, without looking back, and erected multiple golems there.
They were really simplistic golems, like those a beginner necromancer would create, being only one meter tall.
「Are they a measure to stop it from healing?」
Mira had a hunch about what the golems were for, but she asked to be sure. Soul Howl nodded, 「Yeah.」 One of them would charge at Machina Guardian every nine minutes and explode.
「I’m employing the strategy you thought of, Elder. It’s quite effective.」
Soul Howl finished forming nearly fifty golems as he spoke, then threw a quick glance at the battlefield and muttered 「That’s twenty percent of the way there…」
「I’m glad to hear that.」
Machina Guardian had freed itself from the lava, standing there in watch. There were plenty of marks left by the previous attacks though, showing just how much abuse it had taken.
「Come with me.」
Soul Howl departed without waiting for a reply.
「Let’s have dinner then. I actually have a special dessert for you.」
It was already night, and Mira said that as she followed after Soul Howl, but he turned around and glared at her saying, 「I’ll pass if it’s that red fruit.」
Mira could only click her tongue.
Soul Howl led Mira to a large room located around half a kilometer away from the arena. When she asked why he was staying so far away, he replied that the explosion sounds made it hard to sleep, which was something Mira could accept.
Monsters would not spawn in the biggest rooms in the seventh floor which were not the arena, so they would often be used as meeting rooms to discuss the strategy before fighting the boss.
Soul Howl had appropriated one of them, as there were cooking utensils and other things strewn about.
「So tell me, Elder… I can still call you Elder, right? So why are you here?」
Even he had fallen in love with the Dinowal Store’s sleeping bag, as he sat on top of one and sipped on some drink while looking questioningly at Mira.
「I go by the name Mira now. You can also call me Mira.」
Mira ignored Soul Howl’s gaze as she replied, taking out her own sleeping bag and sitting on it like he did.
「I mean it’s just your appearance that changed. You’re still the same.」
「How kind of you.」
Using the nickname he always used was easier for him. That was what came to his mind faster, and getting used to a new name would take longer.
Hearing that made Mira realize that he had not changed one bit, and she started telling him about her experiences so far. How the Limited Armistice Treaty was about to expire so she was searching for the Nine Wisemen to bolster the national defenses, how she first thought of Soul Howl’s stronghold, the Chalk Castle inside the Ancient Temple Nevrapolis, how she used the materials there to figure out all sorts of things, eventually arriving at their current location. And she also mentioned how she was aware that Soul Howl was trying to obtain the Brilliant Chalice of Divine Decree to rescue a frozen woman.
She did not delve into many details, but covered most of her trajectory, ending with a grinning, 「And I finally caught you here.」
「I see. So you already found out all of that. Good job.」
It seemed like Mira’s assumptions about his motives had been spot on. Soul Howl shook his head for a bit, but then smirked as he said, 「You’ll help me out now too then, right?」 He was clearly hinting at the fact that he would return to their country once his current quest was complete. If Mira wanted to speed up his return, she would need to assist him.
「I guess so, yes.」
Defeating Machina Guardian sooner would speed his affairs up, so it was best if Mira helped. She had no choice but to accept, though she had already assumed it would come down to offering her help, just like it did with Kagura.
「Can I ask you something more before we discuss your plan to destroy Machina Guardian though?」
Both of them knew what they had to do next. They would defeat Machina Guardian and then obtain the necessary items to create the Brilliant Chalice. Such fights were unavoidable. But Mira still wanted to ask something before that.
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