"How strong is his shield?" Bel frowned as another salvo of arrows and icicles fell on the yellow-colored shield surrounding Leo.
"Don’t complain and keep firing. We just need to keep him busy." Blake answered.
"I want to but at this rhythm, I will just waste my arrows." Bel said as he took another arrow out of his quiver. His quiver was a specially enchanted quiver that could hold 100 arrows. He had two of them filled with normal arrows and a third filled with special arrows.
"300 arrows and I already wasted 20 of them on the beast’s shield. This doesn't look good at all." He muttered with a frown.
"Leila, how is it going? You need to hurry up." Blake said as he understood that Bel's worries weren't unjustified.
"I am almost there… ok, she is out." Leila answered as she managed to free Rin and quickly dragged her toward them.
"Phew, it would have been hard to explain if we had more loss than this." As he heard Leila, Blake let out a relieved breath. He knew they were only able to rescue Rin this easily because the beast hadn’t acted. Had it done anything to disturb them, the results may not have been so good.
He wasn’t sure why it did so but he didn’t think too much of it. From what he knew, it could be that the beast wanted to toy with them before killing them or it could be that he was unable to move while using his shield.
"Well, it would be better if he is underestimating us and trying to toy with us. We should try to make him drop his guard even more and then I would try to take him down with the power master gave me." Blake thought as he looked at the beast with a murderous glare.
"How is she?" Blake asked as he turned his gaze toward Bel.
"Bad... third-degree burns and her legs are crushed." Bel said as he carefully fed a bottle of health potion to Rin.
"Ok. Don’t worry, she will be able to recover fully once we get out of here." Blake said calmly.
"Alright." Bel said his expression twisted into a murderous scowl.
***
'Those guys are really good friends.' Leo thought as he watched the trio do their best to rescue their friend. Still, Leo didn’t care about their friendship. He just wanted to be sure that they had nothing that could threaten him.
It wasn’t that he was too cautious. It was just that he had no intention to act rashly and end up with a nuke thrown in his face the moment he really threatened their lives. No grandpa would come out of nowhere to save his life once he screwed up.
"Still, I can’t wait any longer." He muttered as he saw them successfully rescue their friend.
"Anyway, now is a good time to attack." He thought as he saw the hunter move to catch Rin. Now that they rescued their friend, they should drop their guards a bit. Also, their actions would be more restricted as they would need to protect their wounded friend.
'I should create a distraction with shadow spikes and then shadow jump them…' Leo muttered as he devised a plan to attack them…
"What the…" Leo said as he saw Bel suddenly stand up and aim his bow at the unaware Blake and shout at him without hesitation.
BOOOM… CRASH
Unfortunately, or fortunately, the moment the arrow reached Blake an icy white shield appeared around him and protected him.
"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING? ARE YOU CRAZY?" Blake yelled as he jumped in shock at the completely unexpected situation. He couldn’t understand why Bel would attack him in such a situation.
"I don’t understand what is going on but this could be a golden opportunity. "Leo muttered happily. Still, he was curious about the reason behind Bel's unexpected behavior. Even if he had a grudge with Blake, shouldn’t he wait for a better moment to settle it? Or could he be going kamikaze?
"WHY? Shouldn’t you know why? Look at what happened to Rin because of you. Is it worth it?" Bel answered furiously.
"Calm down. Coming here was something we all agreed with. Even Rin was okay with it." Blake said as a red water shield appeared in front of him and blocked another arrow of Bel. This time, the arrow went through the shield but it seems to lose its momentum after and dropped in front of Blake.
"Are you kidding me? Even if the other wanted, we wouldn’t have come here if you hadn’t agreed. It is your greed that led to all this." Bel said as he switched the normal arrows he was using with an arrow exuding a cold aura.
"I understand that you are dissatisfied with me but wait until we leave here first. Then we can talk." Blake continued to pacify Bel as the icy arrow crashed into his shield, freezing the impact point.
"Leave here? Are you still unable to understand? We can’t leave, we are going to die. At least I can die in peace if I kill you myself." Bel said as his hands turned into a blur and he unleashed a rain of arrows upon Blake.
"Shit, Bel, don’t force my hand. And you, Leila, how long are you going to stay silent. We may really die if this keeps going on." Blake said as his calm expression gradually turned into a furious one.
"Ah, yes. Bel, can you stop, please." Leila said with a pleading tone. However, from her flat and disinterested expression, one could see that he couldn’t care less if he did or not.
"Looks like the archer guy really lost his shit." Celia chuckled. "Want one." She said as she showed Leo a fishball.
"You are really carefree, uh! Where did you even find it?" Leo asked as Celia put the fishball inside his mouth.
"Magic." She said with a smile.
"Tsk. Still, something is fishy with the whole situation. That archer seemed to be the most cautious of the lot. For him to suddenly lose his mind is strange. Even if he is ready to die, I don’t think he would put the life of the girl in danger. He cares too much for her to do something like that." Leo said as he remembered how carefully Bel held Rin when he was feeding her the potion.
He then looked at Leila who stood aside and seemed to have no intention to stop the fight between her two friends. "The girl is suspicious. No, the whole fight is suspicious." He said.
"Could it be that they are trying to trick us? Or did the girl do something we don’t know?" Celia asked as she too looked at Leila.
"Well, if it is a play, it is a really expensive one. And they have to really believe in the strength of the girl. With all the mana they are wasting, she would end up being the only one who could fight us." Leo said with a frown. He was really curious about Leila now. After all, she was the only one whose powers he had no idea about.
"Munch… Well, we can just watch and act only when one of them is almost dead." Celia said calmly. "If they were trying to trick us, they would stop way before that point. Munch."
"Yes. There is no need to hurry." Leo said as he sat down and continued to watch the play ongoing in front of him.
****
"Shut up, bitch. Do you think you too have nothing to do with this? Just wait until I am done with Blake." Bel said as he glared at Leila.
"Looks like Bel won’t listen to us. You know what we have to do. If we don’t stop him, he will end up killing all of us." Leila said as she looked coldly at Bel.
"Shit." Blake cursed as he finally decided to attack. "I will make it quick, please keep an eye on the beast for me." He said as a head-sized water sphere appeared in front of him.
"Water missile." He muttered as the water ball churned and dozens of water missiles were formed and thrown toward the rampaging Bel.
The water balls were as fast as Bel’s arrow and swarmed him in an instant. Bel didn’t bring shame to the agility-focused nature of his profession. With a dexterity worthy of a cat, he dodged all the water missiles and was even able to shoot while dodging.
However, by the time the first wave ended, another one was already coming toward him. Also, the ground was now covered in frost left by the missile he previously dodged making it much slipperier.
In those conditions, Bel quickly found himself unable to avoid all of Blake’s missiles. Each time a missile hit him, that part of his body would be covered in frost and become stiffer.
"I have to act before the effects of my suggestion wear off. And that would be soon if that dumbass continued to get so much damage." Leila frowned as the fight rapidly tilted in Blake’s direction.
"Tsk, truly an impressive genius." She muttered as she was truly impressed by Blake's style. Even though Bel was the one in a disadvantageous situation, as an archer he was fighting in a close-range situation, she had to say that Blake's mastery over his power and his control of the fight’s rhythm was beautiful.
During the fight, the place where the ground froze always ended up being in the way when Bel wanted to dodge. Then when Bel managed to dodge, a water missile always seemed to be waiting for him. It was almost like Bel was always where Blake wanted him to be.
If it wasn't that he was unwilling to kill Bel, Leila was sure the fight would have already concluded by now.
'Let’s talk with our friends then.' She smirked as she sent a sound transmission toward Leo.
"Hello, we have to talk." She said as her voice sounded beside Leo’s ear.
Thank you for the chapter.