Chapter 577 Barrier Restored
"Can these work as power sources?"
"Hmm? Can what wo-OAH!!"
The technician couldn't help but scream out when he saw Eliza casually pull out five level 300 monster magic stones.
She then proceeded to toss them to him in the same manner, an action that had even some police officers rushing to catch the stones like they were glass.
"t-this, no-o, th-these ar-"
"You can have those, there are more where they came from."
The technicians quickly thanked her with loud voices before running towards the barrier generator with the magic stones, their actions alerting some nearby people that Eliza had apparently 'helped them in restoring the barrier'.
When she left the area where the generator was, she felt the gazes of countless people on her, along with their mutters about how she was the 'battle priestess in the newspapers', and how she was 'so young yet so strong' reaching her ears.
[Looks like you're as popular as ever.]
Eliza gave a wry smile as she deactivated her Ethereal Equilibrium skill, returning to normal before replying to his words.
"Fame, huh? It does have its hassles, but I would not say I hate the feeling."
She silently activated a magic spell as she began making her way towards the exit which was being repaired by some earth mages, only to sense a small life sign beelining towards her.
"Huh?"
When she turned, she caught sight of a small girl, who looked to be somewhere around 6 and 8 running up to her and hugging her legs.
"Pretty Big Sister, thank you."
After the sudden but not unexpected words of gratitude, the girl looked up at Eliza before continuing.
"Mummy said you stopped the big bad monsters, and Daddy said to always thank people who help me."
The girl's words made Eliza crouch down to her eye level and smile at her while patting her head.
"Good girl, you listened to Daddy's teachings."
"Umu."
With the little girl as the icebreaker, Eliza had some other people coming up to her to give her thanks, and the same went for the other adventurers and combatants who were present.
The little girl's mother soon broke through the crowd of people around Eliza to retrieve her daughter who had suddenly run off when she momentarily looked away to make sure their belongings were safe.
Eliza guessed the situation after seeing the mother's worried look and reprimanded the girl a little, telling her not to make her mother sad by running off before leaving.
The Battle Priestess did find the mother's, and some other peoples' over-the-top politeness and nearly servile attitudes confusing, but Kuro chipped in and reminded her of the fact that she held a Viscountess title in the GWE.
With her being a Noble, and them being commoners, their attitudes made sense.
However, some children didn't seem to understand or care about that.
One small boy ran up to Eliza, and just when she thought she was about to see a repeat of the earlier situation, the following conversation turned out unlike what she expected.
"You're the Battle Priestess they talk about on the radio, right?!"
"…probably."
"That means you know the Hero Evan, right?! Is he here too?!"
'Ah, he's Evan's fan.'
That much was obvious given how intensely he was questioning her with an excited expression on his face. She felt a bit bad about it, but she had to dampen his mood.
"He's in another part of the city, saving people from the monsters over there."
"oh…"
Naturally, that ended with the boy quickly becoming sad that he could not meet the Hero he admired, however, Eliza helped him recover his mood by telling him she'd inform Evan about him and that was enough to make the boy smile again.
'Children are so simple…'
[Do we really have the time to be doing all this now?]
By 'all this', Kuro meant Eliza entertaining the little children who ran up to her and those whom she had healed earlier coming to thank her and all, but the battle priestess only turned her gaze around before replying.
"If it can make it easier for the soldiers and the police to manage the civilians after we leave, then yes, I can spare some time.
Besides, I'm taking the time to recover some of my expended energy."
Eliza's presence normally had a calming effect on those nearby due to her life affinity, and with a little bit of magic power, she could spread this effect and increase its range.
It was certainly helpful to the police members who had to manage the civilians who were suddenly thrust out of their normal daily lives due to the dungeon break. A lot of them were being very uncooperative due to their panic and anger so she did that to make them mellow a bit.
Before she left the shelter, she ended up encountering someone who asked her for an autograph, something she clearly never expected given the current circumstances.
After that, she met with an A ranker who had noticed the Serenity Inducement spell she had been using on a large scale, dilating its effect over a large area and mixing it with her normal calming aura.
While she was talking with him, someone shouted out a question wondering where the rest of the 'Anomalies' were.
"They're saving other people at in other parts of the city!"
She shouted back at the person even though she really didn't need to, before turning back to the A ranker she was conversing with.
"Anomalies, that's one hell of a party name."
"Apparently, we're all considered nonstandard."
Eliza shrugged her shoulders and from her expression, the man could tell she didn't really consider herself to be an 'anomaly'.
'I see, so she's the type who's ignorant of how ridiculous she is, huh? Being an S ranker at less than 18 years of age is not exactly something considered 'normal'.'
He kept those thoughts to himself, about to speak about something else when he suddenly sensed an incoming mass of energy heading in their direction.
"Oh, here comes another Anomaly."
The soldiers and adventurers nearby had already taken up combat positions, but Eliza's words and her calm demeanour made them drop their wariness, albeit slightly.
She held up her hand and generated a barrier in the air, just in time for the streak of red light shooting through the air to crash down on it.
The force of the collision had cracks spreading out across the barrier, with Eliza's brows twitching annoyedly in response.
"Oh, it's Evan's other half. And here I was wondering who took out the demons on this side."
The voice of one of said demons, the Deadly Sin who represented greed rang out, as the man jumped off the barrier with his great sword over on his shoulder.
"We're getting closer to the dungeon; more grandmaster-level monsters are beginning to show up."
"Indeed. I got held up by two on my way here.
I turned them to corpses, though."
[Correction, 'We' turned them into corpses.]
Milena who was on his shoulder added, placing emphasis on the fact that she assisted, but Greed only shrugged his shoulders while unsummoning Mammonas and replying.
"Don't sweat the little details."
As they spoke with each other, the adventurers nearby looked at the two 'humans', and the two spirits on their shoulders, with some of them nodding to themselves while muttering something along the lines of 'understanding where the talk about the 'Human Half and Spirit Half' of the Anomalies came from'.
"Look, it's another S ranker!"
"I told you that guy was spouting bullshit!"
'Again?!'
Eliza turned around with an irritated expression on her face, this time seeing a completely different set of people arguing about the same thing as earlier.
'For goodness' sake, just get inside the damn shelter already! Why are you guys even outside?!'
While she ranted internally, the argument between the two groups was escalating.
"I was talking with an S ranker and he vanished before my very eyes. I know what I saw!"
"And I'm telling you what I'm currently seeing! What we're both seeing."
"He's not the only one, I also saw an entire party of S and SS rankers disappear."
"Then how are these two in front of us?!"
Before the next person could talk, Eliza's eyes flashed and they all suddenly went silent, with the one who was grabbing another person's shirt releasing it immediately.
'Ah, too much!'
She quickly controlled the spell she used to an appropriate level, before turning around and blatantly avoiding the gaze a certain A ranker was giving her.
"That looks like Wrath's Anger absorption."
Greed commented upon noticing what she did too, but the Battle priestess only pulled him to move away.
Right after, the technicians finally finished restoring the barrier generator and switched it on, deploying the square-shaped barrier around the entire shelter once more to protect it from monster attacks.
"Finally."
"Oh, you were waiting for that?"
"Yep."
She replied to Greed while activating putting the Radiant Codex that had been floating beside her back into her spatial ring, carrying on right after.
"Since we've already met up, how about we just head towards the Buffer Zone together?"
"Fine by me. You wanna race?"
"Of course not."
Eliza rolled her eyes in tandem with her reply, while Greed shrugged his shoulders like he genuinely could not care less.
"Kuro."
[On it.]
Kuro's shadow manipulation had their shadows wriggling a bit before fusing with each other. At the last moment, Eliza turned towards the barrier where the leaders of the armed forces squads present were and upon seeing her looking at them, they bowed to thank her for her help once more.
Right after that, the shadows surged upwards and enveloped their bodies, warping away.
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