The beast tamer exiled from the hero’s party and the cat eared girl from the strongest race meet
Rain, Kanade, Nina, and Al-san.
We waited until nightfall because we wanted to launch a surprise attack, and then returned to the place where we had found Kuu’s mother yesterday.
“This is where… Kuu’s mama was.”
“Come to think of it, why was Kuu’s mother able to move around freely? If she was being used for monsterization research, I would’ve imagined her being locked up.”
“She was probably no longer useful. And disposing of her was too much trouble, so they just let her escape carelessly… It’s a horrible story.”
“Unforgivable.”
Nina was burning with anger for once.
She adored Kuu…
And she probably saw a bit of herself in her too, which made it even harder to forgive.
“How do we search?”
“Good question. We could ask the animals for help, but… Al-san, is Mona especially skilled in detection abilities?”
“She has a spell that senses lifeforms within a certain range and alerts her. Since she isn’t suited for direct combat, she’s definitely using it. And if she realizes enemies have come, she’ll surely run away.”
“Hm.”
We wanted to capture her here to gather information.
Or at least defeat her.
The worst possible outcome would be letting her escape, so failure wasn’t an option.
Now then, what should we do?
“Nyah, how are we supposed to find her? Nobody knows the exact location, right?”
“That is where Kanade comes in.”
“Me?”
“You shall use your excellent sense of smell to sniff out Mona’s location!”
“I’m not a dog!?”
Kanade looked indignant at Al-san’s unreasonable demand.
“At times like this, maybe we should’ve brought Sakura along too?”
“That would have been a poor move. Do you really think Sakura would stay quiet?”
“……”
Even while we were supposed to be sneaking around, it was easy to imagine her cheerfully shouting, “Onn!” at full volume.
“So then, do your best, Kanade.”
“That’s way too unreasonable!? Well, I’ll try though…”
The fact that she didn’t refuse made her seem kind to a fault.
Rain worried that Kanade might end up getting pushed around too much.
“Sniff sniff, sniff sniff.”
Kanade twitched her nose and looked around restlessly.
After a moment, though still slightly uncertain, she pointed toward one corner of the forest.
“Mmm… probably this way?”
“You can actually tell!? I was only joking…”
“Isn’t that awful!?”
Calming them down with a “there, there,” we trusted Kanade and headed deeper into the forest.
We concealed our presence and moved forward slowly with the utmost caution…
And then, we discovered a cave.
“Suspicious.”
“Yeah, definitely suspicious.”
It looked like a small cave from the outside, but there was an unpleasant aura around it.
Kanade’s nose was reacting too, so this was almost certainly Mona’s hideout.
“Rain, what should we do?”
“Let’s see…”
This depended on the assumption that Mona hadn’t noticed our movements yet…
But I thought it might be fine to launch the surprise attack as is.
It was nighttime now.
If she had let her guard down thinking there were no enemies around, Mona was probably asleep.
There would likely be some traps, but we should still have the advantage.
On the other hand, if she had already noticed us, it would be dangerous.
She might have prepared countless traps and be waiting for us.
It was a difficult decision.
“Well, all we need to do is this.”
“Al-san, do you have a plan?”
“Mhm. Just watch.”
Al-san stepped a few paces forward.
Then, wings of light sprouted from her back…
“Garuda Blast!”
She suddenly unleashed a supreme-class spell.
GOOOOSH!!!
An enormous storm and shockwave obliterated the small cave.
“Wha!?”
“Nyah!?”
I hurriedly pulled Nina into my arms and threw myself to the ground.
Kanade didn’t make it in time and got blown away by the aftershock.
And then…
All that remained was a collapsed cave and a mountain of rubble.
Looking at it, Al-san nodded in satisfaction.
“Mhm. That was refreshing.”
“What exactly are you doing all of a sudden…?”
“A preemptive strike.”
“That’s way too ruthless…”
“The part where Luna is completely over-the-top definitely comes from Al-san…”
Kanade and I sighed in exasperation together, but then—
“…coming.”
Nina muttered with a tense expression.
We immediately switched gears as well and glared at the remains of the cave, now reduced to a pile of rubble.
Normally, there was no way anyone could survive that.
But Mona wasn’t normal—she was an extraordinary existence, a former spiritfolk and now a demon.
“Pwahーーー!!!? That scared me!!!?”
Blasting away the pile of rubble, Mona appeared completely covered in dirt.
“What what what!? What just happened!? My field research lab suddenly exploded!?”
“Ifrit Disaster!”
“Gyaaaaaaaaaah!!!?”
The merciless second attack swallowed Mona in an explosion of flames.
Well, I mean…
Mona was the enemy, and she had done something absolutely unforgivable…
But even so, I couldn’t help feeling a little sympathy for her after such a merciless assault.
“Cough, hack… W-What is going on…?”
As expected of her.
Even after taking two supreme-class spells head-on, Mona was still alive.
Staggering unsteadily, she got back to her feet…
“Geh, Al!?”
The moment she saw Al-san, her face twisted dramatically in shock.
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