Chapter 896: Hero Candidates
Elaine leapt back immediately, her spear igniting with black death energy as she narrowed her eyes at the newcomer, a tall man clad in full plate armour with a bloody sword hanging from his waist.
He grabbed the shield bearer’s hand and pulled him lightly, lifting his body off the ground and tossing him toward the spearman.
When his feet hit the ground, the earth cracked slightly, and seeing this, Elaine’s instincts screamed warnings to her.
’This one... he’s the most dangerous of them!’
And it wasn’t just because he had casually lifted someone nearly twice his size with one arm and flung them through the air.
The sheer amount of magic power, the intensity of his presence, and the vitality he radiated... all eclipsed every other Infernal Devil.
Elaine immediately began calculating the fastest route to escape, and perhaps noticing this, the man stopped moving, then removed his helmet to reveal his face.
His lean, cheerful features were framed by a full head of white hair and a small goatee, and his glowing golden eyes stood out against the dark sheen of his black armour.
"Hello there, Miss. Sorry about my companions, but we have no hostile intentions toward you."
Of course, his polite apology did nothing to make Elaine lower her guard, and at this, the archer perched in the window spoke up.
"Dude, I think she doesn’t believe you."
"No shit," the spearman replied.
The white-haired man ignored them both and continued.
"I suppose a proper introduction would be in order to clear up the misunderstanding. I am the ’Knight’."
Elaine blinked at his words, tilting her head in confusion as she repeated, "The night?"
"No, not night, as in the night sky," the man corrected, then pointed to his sword as he continued. "This kind of Knight."
Elaine glanced down at his sword, then back at his face, still confused, and asked, "...is that supposed to be your name?"
She’d been expecting an actual name, not a profession, and seeing her confusion, the man nodded to himself.
"Most people usually understand who I am after that.
But with you not killing the wyrmlings and now this, you’re not from around here, are you?"
"..."
Elaine didn’t answer his question, and the man just laughed at the way she tightened her grip on her spear.
"Don’t worry. There’s no problem even if you aren’t. Just..."
He trailed off, reaching for his belt and pulling a badge hanging from it, turning it over toward Elaine as he asked, "You recognise this?"
Naturally, the answer was no, and Elaine didn’t need to speak for him to know that.
"Clearly, you don’t."
Hearing this, the spearman blinked in surprise. "Wait, what? How don’t you? Have you been living in a forest or something?"
Just as he spoke, the archer, who hadn’t climbed down from the window, said,
"Dude, I think she really did come from the forest."
All eyes turned toward him, his glowing pupils immediately drawing attention as he stared directly at the forest Elaine had emerged from, specifically the gap in the wall she’d used to enter the settlement.
Elaine had no idea how he’d done it, but his comrades who knew his powers realised that he’d used his tracking skills to trace her steps.
The shield bearer’s eyes lit up, and acting like an excited child, he shouted,
"Oh!! She’s got to be one of them! The disciples of those legendary hermits living in the restricted forests!"
"Those are just stories they told us as kids," the female Infernal Devil immediately replied. "No one’s crazy enough to live in forests with Class 3 monsters around the outskirts, much less train disciples there."
While they spoke, Elaine silently retracted her energy, relaxing her stance but not her grip on her spear.
Sure, she’d seen that they weren’t hostile, but that didn’t mean she was going to lower her guard around them. After all, even without the appraisal skill, she could tell they were all Level 800+ like her.
She was completely certain that the female devil with the staff and the one calling himself ’Knight’ were at least Level 850 as well.
Just as that thought crossed her mind, the Knight hooked his badge back onto his belt and spoke.
"Since you don’t know us, proper introductions are in order. As I said earlier, I am the ’Knight.’"
He gestured to each of them as he spoke, introducing the others.
"She is the ’Mage’. The one up there is the ’Archer’, and those two are the ’Lancer’ and the ’Tank’."
Elaine’s expression grew strange as she looked between them and asked, "Those are your actual names?"
They sounded more like roles in a combat party than real names, and Knight, perhaps realising what she was thinking, explained.
"We’re Hero Candidates who have given up our names to walk the paths of our Roles on our trial to become worthy of the title of ’Hero’."
"Heroes?!"
Elaine’s eyes widened at the man’s words, her mind immediately recalling all the details of the ’Hero’ title Arthur had told her.
’Planetary Defence Mechanisms. And they usually can identify enemies of their world with a glance...!’
Elaine was here with the goal of summoning someone with the power to destroy their world, clear grounds for this planet to brand her a ’World Enemy’.
But before her mind could even process that the Planet couldn’t read her thoughts and wouldn’t know her intentions until she acted, Knight spoke up.
"We’re just Candidates."
"Candidates?" Elaine echoed, and the man nodded.
"Yes. We’re this continent’s Hero Candidates, on a trial journey to grow stronger and become worthy of the title."
His words gave Elaine multiple pieces of information at once, helping her understand more about this world.
First, they weren’t Heroes yet, which meant they didn’t have the ability to detect World Enemies, and for some reason, each continent had its own Hero Candidates.
’That’s how this planet does things? It’s different from what Arthur said.’
Elaine thought that, but quickly pushed it aside, focusing on the present.
But before she could even open her mouth to respond, her life force detection picked up a massive signal rushing toward them, and she immediately raised her eyes to the clouds.
"Run!"
With that single word, she kicked off the ground and sprinted toward the forest, and just as she did, Archer’s eyes widened as he shouted,
"Shit! Class 2 Demonic Dragon!"
As if in response, a loud roar echoed, parting the clouds to reveal the massive black-scaled, horned dragon descending from above.
Elaine didn’t bother looking back, already leaping across rooftops and heading toward the forest she had first arrived in.
She wasn’t about to face a dragon that looked on the verge of reaching the Superior Stage while surrounded by several Infernal Devils who could be potential enemies.
Unfortunately, the dragon had targeted the Hero Candidates specifically, and to stop them from escaping like Elaine was attempting, it released a burst of demonic energy that intertwined with the ambient spatial law energy.
[BOUNDED FIELD: CURSE GRAVEYARD!]
The demonic energy erupting from the dragon’s body spread across the sky, enveloping the entire town like a dome. The energy poured downward like a waterfall, crashing into the ground with immense force and terraforming the land.
Everyone within its range was trapped, Elaine included.
"Curse my luck."
Elaine clicked her tongue and turned to see the massive black dragon land atop one of the town’s buildings and roar, its voice sending shockwaves of demonic energy sweeping across the area.
The Hero Candidates immediately roused their own energies to shield themselves and drew their weapons, and just as they did, the dragon grinned widely, its jaws gleaming as it infused demonic energy into the building it perched on.
The energy flowed through the structure and into the ground, activating the Bounded Field’s ability.
All the land around turned to black sand, even concrete floors, and gravestones immediately began rising from the earth.
Sensing the immense ambient death law energy gathering, Elaine quickly absorbed as much ambient life law energy around her spear as she could before the death energy dispersed it, raised her spear without hesitation, and channelled 90% of the energy from her Life Well into it before stabbing it straight into the ground.
"Life Ripple!!" she shouted as the spear pierced the earth, sending all that life energy into the ground instantly.
The life energy rippled outward through the land at supersonic speed, spreading in all directions as it clashed with the demonic energy the dragon had infused into the ground through its Bounded Field.
The sudden flood of life energy caught the dragon off guard, and as its head snapped toward Elaine, Archer fired an arrow that drew the dragon’s attention, forcing it to conjure a barrier to block the shot.
That brief distraction kept the dragon from defending properly against Elaine’s interference, and her life energy destabilised the demonic death energy infused in the ground, causing the rising gravestones to crack and crumble into ash.
[Gurg!]
A groan escaped the dragon as it took backlash damage, its body staggering backwards, nearly toppling off the building it had been perched on.
Seeing the crumbling gravestones and the life energy filling the cracks in the Bounded Field’s energy network on the ground, Mage’s eyes widened as she shouted, alerting the others to what Elaine had just done.
"This...she disabled its Bounded Field ability!?"
Her words reminded the dragon, and it immediately turned a hateful glare toward Elaine, condensing demonic energy in its mouth before unleashing it as a full-powered breath without hesitation.
Before Elaine could leap aside to avoid the black fire, Tank summoned a small round shield, throwing it toward her, teleporting in front of it, and slamming his tower shield into the ground, generating a massive curved barrier of fortification law energy that fully blocked the attack.
Knight moved at the same time, swirling sword law energy around his weapon and swinging it downward, unleashing a powerful slash that forced the dragon to fly into the sky as the strike split the town in half, starting from the building the dragon had been on.
Mage began casting spells immediately, and as Lancer coiled law energy around his spear, the dragon growled and shouted.
[I DON’T NEED THAT TO DEAL WITH YOU! YOU’VE ROBBED YOURSELVES OF A SWIFT DEATH. I’LL MAKE YOUR ENDS AS AGONIZING AS POSSIBLE!!]
As it spoke, dozens of magic circles appeared in the air around it, each firing missiles and orbs of a different element at the Hero Candidates.
"Cover Move!" Tank shouted, teleporting in front of Mage, who had the least mobility and defensive power among them, raising his shield to block the rain of magic.
Knight swung his sword again, his blade projecting slashes that cut through the air and split the incoming magic spears, while Lancer thrust his spear, its tip piercing the cores of the spells and dispersing the magic power that composed them in bursts.
As for Archer, he relied on his superior mobility to dodge all the spells, firing several arrows at the dragon immediately afterwards.
The dragon raised a magic shield to block them, but the arrows cracked it, weakening the barrier enough that Mage’s follow-up spells shattered it and hit the dragon.
Lancer unfurled his devil wings and leapt into the air, charging at the dragon as it tried to evade, while Archer released another volley of arrows that curved around the dragon’s shields to hit it.
Mage fired another set of spells, and Knight swung his sword again, all four attacks converging on the dragon simultaneously.
