Nashetania yelled, “Let’s break right through! Goldof!”
In response, Goldof crouched and then rushed at one of the fiends like a giant bullet. He thrust his spear out in a twisting motion, his entire body weight behind it. His target was a fiend that looked like a bear with the head of an insect. Even though his foe was nearly ten times his body mass, Goldof blasted the creature backward. He then tried to break through the opening he’d created, but a tiger-fiend that had been standing beside the bear-fiend screamed. It was difficult to make out what it said, but the creature was definitely speaking human language.
“They…come. Sur…round…them!”
The row of fiends attacked their closest target, Goldof, all at once.
He’s too impatient, thought Adlet. It’s like he’s begging them to overwhelm him. These monsters were a cut above those they had destroyed earlier. They understood human speech and had the intellect necessary for a certain degree of strategy. They were mature fiends, those that had lived a number of years.
Goldof scattered the demons attacking him from either side. Nashetania defended his back and finished off the ones that fell. Adlet and Fremy were also surrounded. Adlet tossed the iron box off his back and engaged. The battle turned chaotic. At this rate, it would be impossible to break through the ring of enemies and escape toward their goal.
“Adlet, please head for the temple. We’ll take over here!” Nashetania shouted as she blocked a wolf-fiend’s attacks.
“Yeah, I got you,” said Adlet. “Breaking through this kind of tough situation is just the job for me! Hey, Fremy, Goldof—watch this. I’m the strongest man in the world!”
“Stop bragging and just go!” ordered Nashetania.
He hadn’t been merely fooling around, though—during his speech, he’d come up with a way to break through the line. “Nashetania, Goldof, Fremy!” he yelled. “Attack the fiends on the temple side as hard as you can!”
Nashetania and Goldof nodded. Fremy was expressionless, but she did seem to basically agree. Goldof sent one fiend flying with a thrust of his spear. Nashetania stabbed the one behind it with one of her blades, and Fremy’s bullet tore through another that had been in front of Adlet.
“Perfect!” Adlet ran over the flat of Nashetania’s summoned blade. When one final fiend attacked him, he used a poison blow dart to force it to withdraw. Adlet broke through the circle and pushed forward toward the temple.
“We’re counting on you!” cried Nashetania.
“I’m on it!” Adlet called back. Without being told, Nashetania blocked any creatures that attempted pursuit. None were chasing him. It seemed as though his path was clear of ambush as well.
He ran at full speed for about ten minutes. The sounds of battle grew distant, and finally, the forest opened up so Adlet could see the temple. “This is it,” he said, stopping to get a good look. The fiends that had been bombing it were already gone, but the smell of gunpowder remained thick in the air.
The temple was smaller than he had expected—about the size of an average house. But its stone walls were surprisingly sturdy. The entire building was surrounded by about twenty white pillars—probably the Saint of Salt’s barricade to keep out fiends. Outside the ring of pillars, he could see footprints left by a great variety of demons, but not a single one within the ring. Apparently, the fiends were unable to pass between them.
Portions of the salt pillars were missing due to the bombing, and there were scorch marks on the temple, too. The building, though, was still firmly intact. So no damage, huh? thought Adlet. That was when he saw a woman lying on the ground beside one of the salt pillars.
“Hey, what’s wrong?!” Adlet ran up to her. The woman was dressed in the garb of a priestess. Part of her back was terribly burned. “Hold on, I’ll treat your wounds!” he said, and he lifted the woman into a sitting position. “Don’t worry, they aren’t deep!” He searched through the pouches at his waist for medicine.
“Hur…ry…,” the woman said, pointing to the temple.
“Never mind that now! Don’t move.”
“Hurry…now…you won’t make it…please…it’s all…”
Adlet ground his teeth. As much as he might have wanted to treat her, he didn’t have the medicine. I should have brought my iron box, he thought. Then he would have bandages and medicated gauze for burns.
“I’ll be okay…I am…a Saint, after all…,” she said.
“Don’t you die on me!” he replied as he gently laid the woman on the ground, then passed through the pillars of salt to stand in front of the temple.
The doors were sealed with a sturdy lock. Adlet thrust his sword into the keyhole and twisted it forcefully, but the lock didn’t budge. “Damn it, I didn’t hear anything about the doors being locked! Do you have the key?!” he yelled to the woman, but she shook her head.
Adlet pulled some explosives from a pouch, affixed them to the lock with adhesive, and lit it. The lock blew off the door with a powerful bang, and two soldiers emerged from within. The soldiers both wore full body armor with spikes protruding. They charged Adlet.
“The hell are you guys doing?!” he wailed.
The soldiers went straight for him, but they weren’t that fast. Adlet didn’t even have to use his secret tools—he just whacked them on their heads with the hilt of his sword to take them down. But when their helmets fell off, he saw that the armor was empty.
“What the hell?” Adlet was about to ask the woman in priestess attire what was going on when she erupted into shrill laughter.
“Hee-kee-kee-kee-kee-kee-kee!” Prostrate on the earth, she contorted and cackled. Her body bent limply, a single horn grew from her forehead, and she transformed into a creature resembling a skinny, ugly monkey. Adlet knew—this was a transforming fiend. Adlet’s master had told him that although very few fiends could disguise
