"Riveria!"
Along with Finn's shout, soundless Mana exploded behind the elven woman; in an instant, the enormous kinetic force shoved both her and Lumina's bodies away, sending them crashing down in different directions.
"Damn it."
She had only made use of a tiny bit of "[Explosion Magic]"—no, to put it precisely, it should be the "explosion" she had mastered after "learning" it from Lefiya, created purely by harnessing attributeless Mana.
It couldn't even count as an attack.
Just a simple attempt—condensing Mana into form, then letting it explode of its own accord.
It was only that Lefiya's "[Explosion Magic]" poured out the entirety of her own mental energy all at once, in a single rush.
Riveria, by contrast, was far more careful and cautious.
Probably for personal reasons.
The woman leaned more toward creating small-scale explosions to assist in combat; and one of the effects she'd worked out was exactly what had just happened—using the kinetic force converted from an explosion to forcibly set her own body in motion at a critical moment.
To this end, Riveria had even gone specially to seek out the witch, Lady Lenoa, and had a new magic dress made, strengthening its defensive power against Mana explosions.
Combined with the Defensive Magic she herself released, [Dream of Borrowed Life], she had forcibly reduced its side effects to the absolute minimum.
One hand braced against the ground, a graceful turn.
Riveria swiftly rose to her feet, and then she saw, off in the distance, that female Barbarian gripping a great axe also loosening up her muscles and standing up out of the Mana explosion.
"Don't worry about my side—you deal with that fellow first!"
"Got it!"
Facing the BOSS that had suddenly joined the fray, Riveria had a very clear judgment.
At this moment.
If she had Finn or Gareth come over to support her, the battle would turn into a tug-of-war and grind into a stalemate, which would instead be disadvantageous for their side—after all, who the hell knew what would happen next.
Having Gareth and Finn prioritize taking down one of them together first, and only then coming to help her, was the correct choice.
Come to think of it, why was this hunter attacking her?
Was it a trap?
Was everything she'd said just now a lie?
Or else...
Riveria's doubts would have no answer—after all, when it came down to it, the other party was nothing more than a monster.
"Then you be careful!"
"Hey! Focus, Finn, this thing's gone wrong too!!"
"Hm?"
The voices of the Pallum and the Dwarf came once more from afar, and along with them, inside the cavern, that thick, scorching water-vapor heated up again.
Forget visibility.
Even sound was gradually being swallowed up completely.
Very soon, all Riveria could see before her was a pale expanse of mist.
At the same time, that scorching, stinging sensation began to creep up her body; the woman quickly took out from the pack at her side a scarf made from a fire-attribute Spirit cloth and draped it on, which made her body feel somewhat more comfortable.
Yet even so, the skin exposed to the air still slowly began to flush red.
And so.
Riveria began to chant her magic.
"O harbinger of the end, O pure white snow. As the hour of twilight nears, sweep up—the raging wind..."
Facing the high-temperature field caused by the Half-Fish-Man, she needed to use ice-attribute magic to neutralize it.
This was an exceedingly simple and ordinary line of thinking.
However.
At the very instant the Mana began to gather, out of the thick fog, a heavy great axe came hacking toward her, wrapped in a foul, unbearably rank gale.
[Just as I thought!]
As though she'd confirmed something.
Riveria instantly broke off her own chant, and at the same time drew an ice-attribute magic sword from her pack.
No chant needed, no need to mobilize Mana.
The magic sword activated in an instant.
Countless ice crystals burst and scattered, then froze together, forming a thick wall of ice that blocked the great axe while spreading outward along with the frost—clearly meaning to freeze solid the fellow currently gripping the axe as well.
But the spreading had only just begun when the frost directly shattered and withered, dissolving into formless Mana.
A million Valis, gone.
It had blocked only a single strike, and held out for less than two seconds.
To Riveria this was of course of no consequence, and besides, it had helped her roughly gauge the opponent's strength.
[At the very least Lv.6, approaching Lv.7.]
The magic released by the magic sword in her hand was probably around Lv.4 in strength—more than enough for dealing with ordinary monsters, but against the fellow before her its effect was extremely limited.
And what's more——
"Found you, adventurer—"
Lumina's coarse, savage sneer alone was enough to send a chill down one's spine; as the great axe came down, but this time, what transmitted back to her hands was not the feedback flesh and blood ought to give.
"Hm?"
The great axe split through the scalding fog, and what it struck was a mound of earth risen up from the ground.
The mud and stone seemed as if activated.
Once again it swiftly split off several thick, sturdy "great hands" that grabbed toward the great axe, as though trying to wrest away the weapon in Lumina's grip.
But this, of course, was futile as well.
The Barbarian woman merely gave a careless, forceful twist, and the earthen mound was destroyed once more, revealing from within the magic sword that had been thrust into the ground.
"Hah!"
With one kick she directly shattered the magic sword that had long since lost its use.
Clearly.
Just a moment ago, Riveria had used the magic sword as a decoy, having already slipped into the thick fog herself, and at the same time she had confirmed one thing—that the "Hunter" Lumina could sense the presence of Mana.
In a thick fog like this that masked both sight and sound, such an ability could quite simply be called a "Mage-killer"!
How is it that the hunter and the prey are even working together?!
No, wrong!!
Rather, it should be said that this was the battlefield the "Hunter" Lumina had carefully chosen; from the very start, the three of them had been marked as prey by the other party!
Yet sometimes the hunter is also the prey, and the prey becomes the hunter.
Within the thick fog.
The elven woman's loud chant rang out once more.
"O harbinger of the end, O pure white snow. As the hour of twilight nears, sweep up the raging wind, seal away the light..."
The surge of Mana once again emerged from the thick fog; Lumina abruptly charged toward it, but what came rushing to meet her head-on was a surging onslaught of wind blades.
As well as.
Yet another magic sword thrust into the ground.
Chanting magic did not mean Mana had been invoked; Riveria had evidently used a magic sword once again to draw away Lumina's attention.
And it was in that very instant.
Along with those wind blades slicing through the fog, some kind of immensely huge and terrifying power was rapidly taking shape.
"!!!"
A horrifying surge of Mana forcibly dragged Lumina's attention back.
The wind blades originally loosed from the magic sword posed no threat to her at all, but at the instant they touched her, something was rapidly forming before her—that was——
"[Explosion Magic]."
Riveria did not like to do as Lefiya did, squandering all her own Mana in one go purely in pursuit of destructive force.
But that didn't mean she couldn't.
That gorgeous orb, condensed to the very extreme and inherently extremely unstable, exploded almost the instant it took shape, the moment the wind blades touched it.
In that split second.
Lumina saw only a brilliant light obliterate everything.
Everything—sight, sound, even the sense of touch, all of it, every last bit, vanished entirely—on the tall, powerfully built Barbarian woman, the fur wrapped about her body was scorched in an instant, and the great axe in her hand began to crumble at an extremely rapid speed.
Flesh and blood vanished in the blink of an eye, and the woman was laid bare—a horrifying expanse of bone, mostly white as jade.
But even so, it still hadn't died.
Riveria used the last of her strength to gulp down a potion that restored mental energy, and then took out the item Isagi called a "reserve battery."
Inside this little thing was stored a certain amount of Mana; even if one's own mental energy were already completely drained, one could still use it to chant magic.
A [Mystery] item crafted by Asfi—truly beyond imagining.
Riveria quickly crushed it.
Then, she once again began to chant her magic.
"——O harbinger of the end, O pure white snow. As the hour of twilight nears, sweep up the raging wind, seal away the light, the frozen earth, snow blowing across the heavens, the threefold deep winter—my name is Alf!"
All in one breath.
In the span of mere seconds she finished reciting the whole long string of chant-words.
At the fastest possible speed, condensing the magic into form and then releasing it——as a Mage, speeding up or drawing out one's own magic chant was the most basic of basics; with this, Riveria of course had no trouble at all.
And so.
Ice and snow came breathing forth, enveloping the female Barbarian whose body had by now been reduced for the most part to white bone.
On its own, her first-stage attack magic [Ecstasy · Fimbulwinter] could neither inflict any real damage on this fellow nor restrain the opponent for too long.
But at this moment, Lumina was right at the center of where the "[Explosion Magic]" had detonated.
Riveria knew it.
The most terrifying thing about this magic was, in fact, that it would "erase" everything entirely, leaving behind only pure Mana residue.
Whether material or formless, even including the "air."
That's right.
At this moment Lumina was, in fact, in a state of vacuum.
Of course, for a monster, being unable to breathe for a short while was nothing all that unbearable, but what if it just so happened to be covered in ice and snow as well?
At the very least, it could stretch the stalling time out a little longer, and that little bit of time was exactly what Riveria needed.
The loud chanting of magic continued.
"——Before long, the flames shall be unleashed, the war-fire creeping silently nearer, the destruction none can avoid. The horns of battle sound on high; encompassing all tyrannous strife and turmoil, come forth, crimson lotus flame, merciless raging fire—thou art the incarnation of inferno that sweeps away a thousand armies and ten thousand steeds, bringing down the final curtain upon great warfare. Burn all to ashes, sword of Surtr——my name is Alf!"
"[High-Class · Sword of Victory]!"
Heavenly fire descended once more.
Because the air did not exist, not even the wretched shrieks of the monster that called itself "Hunter" could be heard.
Riveria could only watch the crimson red plunge down, burning everything before her eyes entirely to nothing; and once it died out, a benign Magic Stone was left resting amid those charcoal-like ashes.
Apart from that, there was indeed one more thing, something that looked like some kind of item—it was an emblem.
But Riveria no longer had the strength to pick it up and look at it.
Borrowing the mental energy from the "reserve battery" to release magic placed no burden whatsoever on the body, but the "[Explosion Magic]" had genuinely drained her dry.
Thankfully...
Before long, the thick fog gradually dispersed as well.
Riveria saw Gareth walk over, the surface of his heavy armor like a red-hot branding iron, looking just like a steamed crab.
Cursing and grumbling, his meticulously groomed great beard had been reduced entirely to charcoal.
And on the other side, the red-eyed Finn was struggling to suppress his own fury, trying his hardest to calm down.
The battle was over.
None of the three had ever imagined that, as Lv.6 adventurers, having only just set foot in the boy's "special Dungeon," they would already be at the point of having to give it their absolute all.
This really was...
____
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