Ankoku Kishi Monogatari (WN)

◆Foreign Magic Princess, Chiyuki

We boarded the small flying ship, departed from Gyptis, and headed toward Arnak. The flying ship was something we borrowed from Maat, the Pharaoh.

Even though I said it was a small flying ship, it was because the target of comparison was the oversized flying ships belonging to Rena and Ishtar, which could literally cover a whole continent. In fact, this flying ship was big enough for us, Ishtar, and her attendants.

But maybe due to its small size, it couldn't float too high in the air, just a little over one meter from the ground.

The ship kept flying forward toward its destination. Time passed so quickly and the night had come, but the desert wasn't dark thanks to the starlight. Since the small flying ship had no roof, there was nothing to interrupt us from seeing the surrounding scenery.

「It seems there's nothing to see right, Reiji-kun.」

「Yeah Chiyuki. As if there's nothing at all.」

Reiji agreed with me.

According to Maat, the road to Arnak was riddled with danger, but as far as I could see, I couldn't see anyone in the desert.

「I wonder about that… I have a bad feeling about this…」

Suddenly, someone spoke from behind us. When I turned around, I found that the one who spoke was the young God with a monkey face, Pistis.

Since when did he stand behind us?

In the first place, he shouldn't have boarded the ship back then.

「What do you mean, Pistis? Please do explain.」

「U~hm. I can only say it's noisy, Ishtar-sama. And my instincts tell me that something dangerous is fast approaching.」

Pistis explained so to Ishtar. The monkey tail growing from Pistis's bottom hung down listlessly. Maybe, something was coming toward us. But, my detection magic didn't catch anything.

What did he mean?

「Something’s approaching us, is it? Be confident in your crisis detection ability, which caused a huge headache even for Al. Everyone, pay attention to your surrounding!!」

The Al she was talking about must be the God of Song and Arts, Alphos who is also the big brother of the Goddess of Wisdom and Victory, Rena.

According to the myth, the monkey God Pistis was captured by Alphos. Pistis, who got cornered at that time, then pleaded to Ishtar who happened to be there by Alphos' side. After hearing Pistis' plea, Ishtar asked Alphos to release Pistis. Alphos, who couldn't refuse the request of the one who raised him, then released Pistis. Since then, Pistis became the subordinate God of Ishtar.

Back to the present, the catfolk attendants drew their swords the moment Ishtar said so. Every single one of them was Ishtar's priest, they wielded a shamshir-like weapon. In this regard, they were no different from humans, needing a weapon.

「EVERYONE BE CAREFUL!! SOMETHING IS COMING!!」

The sand in front of the ship exploded upward right after Reiji finished his warning. Something was coming toward us from the pillar of sand. The one who came was a man, wielding a long spear.

「Ishtar!! Come with me!!」

The man hoisted his spear, pointing toward Ishtar. Ishtar on the other hand just sat quietly.

「In your dreams!!」

Reiji drew his sword as his body shot toward the man.

The next moment, the sound of clashing weapons, along with shockwaves, resonated, with them as the center.

The catfolk attendants stopped the flying ship in a hurry

.

Two men came from the air, landing on the deck of the flying ship.

「HEH! Not bad, despite your playboy-like face, you can actually block my great Poisonous Spear, Pisar!」

The man smirked happily as he pointed his spear at Reiji. He was a red-haired man with reddish brown skin. It was obvious from the compact muscle on his upper body that he was a trained warrior. At a glance, he looked like a normal human.

But, I felt a powerful surge of magical power from his shining, golden eyes. His tongue was long and had a split end, just like a snake's tongue.

「I won't lose to a cowardly bastard who uses sneak attacks on women!! If you want to come, just come from the front like a man!!」

Reiji readied his two swords, replying to the man with a daring smile on his face.

「Yeah!! That actually works better for me!! Well then, here I come!!」

The red-haired man unleashed a flurry of spear stabs like raging waves. Reiji parried those stabs with the two swords in his hand.

「HEYAAAH!!!」

「WHAT THE?!!」

Reiji closed in the moment he saw the gap between the man's attacks and slashed at the man.

The man leaped back, opening some distance between him and Reiji, and then touched his chest.

I could see a trail of blood from the gap in his hand.

「Impossible!! Who the hell are you?! How can you inflict such an injury to this great me?!!!」

For some reason, the man looked delighted instead of angry.

He might be a battle junkie.

I realized that his eyes started shining. It might be some sort of evil eye ability.

「You should introduce yourself before you ask for someone's name, right?」

Reiji asked the same while pointing his sword toward the man.

「Indeed!! Name's Dahark!! The Serpent Prince!! Now it's your turn!!」

The attendants gasped the moment they heard the man's name. Is he by chance, a famous figure?

「No way, the Snake Prince himself is the one who came. I never expected you to still be alive even though you were supposed to be killed by Alphos.」

「Is he your acquaintance, Pistis?」

I asked Pistis who stayed silent until now.

「He's the son of the Serpent Queen, sis. The Serpent Prince, Dahark. The Serpent God rules the land of Apophis in the south of Gypseal.」

「What is the son of the Serpent Queen doing here?!」

The Serpent Queen was the enemy of Elios. Since we were summoned by Elios' Goddess, Rena, that made her our enemy too.

The problem was, what was he doing here? This was the Gypseal region, not the Serpent Queen's territory.

「How surprising. To think that the Serpent Prince himself infiltrated so far in this region.」

Pistis looked shocked and scared at the same time.

It seems not even he predicted this kind of situation.

「I'm the Hero of Light, Reiji. Even though you introduced your name, I've already forgotten about it.」

Dahark let out a grin when Reiji introduced himself.

「So you're that Hero of Light huh? I've heard about you. About how a weak ass like you got beaten senseless by the Dark Knight, but you've come to this place eh.」

「… Thanks for reminding me about that.」

Reiji actually faltered, maybe his defeat against the Dark Knight was a sore spot for him.

「HERE I COME, HERO OF LIGHT!!」

Both men's weapons clashed right at the next moment.

I could barely follow the clashes of their sword and spear which had gone beyond the realm of humans with my eyes. And yet, they seemed to be having fun fighting against each other.

「I'll assist Reiji-kun.」

I raised my cane and pointed it at where those two fought.

「You better stop now, Sis. He isn't so stupid to the point of coming by himself without prior planning. I have a bad feeling about this. Let's wait while taking Ishtar-sama to a safe place.」

Pistis stopped me from assisting Reiji.

「Lie?」

My magic didn't work like usual. Come to think of it, I also failed to detect Dahark's presence a while ago. It seems even Reiji couldn't detect his presence until he was very close to us. Did that mean that they had some sort of means to obstruct our senses?

A chill ran down my spine.

Obstructing magic means they obstructed my sensing abilities too. My current sensing abilities might be even weaker than the catfolk attendants.

「THERE!!」

Pistis threw the empty cup on the deck of the flying ship.

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