Estyshana’s POV
   Igmis’s third method of using his Bloodline Magic as little as possible: summoning his loyal minions to do most of his bidding for him. And he has three of them. Supposedly, the Hero has defeated all three of them along with Igmis in their previous fight. However, the Hero made a mistake. Igmis usually stores them inside his three Ring of Absolute Servitude, a type of ancient artifact which allows whatever creature stored inside to be revived no matter how many times they’re obliterated as long as the ring remain intact. And so, here they all are.

   The first one is an extremely rare demon whose body is made of liquid metal. Esty doesn’t even know the name of its kind. She does, however, know that Igmis named it Relgal, which is “Shiny Wave” in the Demonic Language. As its name implies, Relgal’s body reflects the light and has no fixed form just like a wave. Being born with a body made of fluid, it can turn into a whirlpool, a bed of spikes, and just about anything.

   Drokemoth is the vengeful spirit of a drowned demon. According to Igmis, Drokemoth was framed for a crime he didn’t commit and was sunk to the bottom of the ocean while being tied to an iron ball with chains. Devil knows how the chatty demon knows all this, considering the fact that all Drokemoth does is moan and growl like a demented wild beast whenever he was spoken to. Even after his death, the iron ball was still attached to his right leg. He’s also wearing a white long-sleeved shirt, a pair of gray pants, and a pair of black boots. Including Drokemoth himself and his short blonde hair, all of them are drenched, and they remain so no matter how hot the weather is.

   Zorgathos, the third minion of Igmis, is the oddest one of the bunch. It’s literally a lump of human-sized seaweeds with two black holes for eyes, a normal-sized mouth with rows and rows of sharp teeth inside, and a pair of arms and legs. Upon closer look, Esty noticed that its teeth are made of barnacles, while its arms and legs end on sharp conch shells.

   “Where and how did you even found it?” Esty couldn’t help but ask when Igmis brought it back to the Demon Castle for the first time.

   “At the beach of the Savageo Sea, where I always go swimming. He was chasing some seagulls when I happened to pass by.” he informed proudly.

   “...“He”?” Esty repeated.

   “Yup. I’m naming him Zorgathos, so he’s a male now.”

   “Naming something “The Man that came from The Sea” won’t magically change its gender, you know.”

   “And who are you to decide that? He’s a walking seaweed, for crying out loud! Maybe he’ll grow one someday.”

   Sulgran raised her eyes skywards.

   “Thank you, THANK YOU for planting a disturbing image on my head…” she mumbled while shuddering with a disgusted look on her face.

   “You’re very much welcome. Hey boss, can I keep him?” Igmis asked.

   The question was directed towards father, who was sitting on his throne silently the entire time. Now that Esty looked over, she noticed that he had an amused look on his face.

   “Do as you wish. However, be warned that should he enter somewhere he shouldn’t, he will be turned to ashes in an instant.”

   “All right, thanks boss! Now let me give you a grand tour around here, Zorgathos.”

   Esty could barely concentrate as she couldn’t keep something Igmis said earlier out of her mind.

   “Hold on. You mentioned him “growing one” just now. Grow what, exactly?” she asked.

   The entire gang looked at her, then at each other.

   “Igmis, you were the one who started this, so take responsibility!” Sulgran hissed.

   “Me? Even I’m not comfortable to give her a lesson on THAT. Roglon, you do it.”

   The Marquis in question mimed an action of zipping his mouth shut with his fingers.

   “Segdroth?”

   “I have to pass as well. I don’t think I’m worthy enough to educate the Princess on the subject matter.” he declined after sneaking a glance towards father.

   “Wait a minute, how about we leave this to Minase Jin?” Sulgran suggested all of a sudden.

   The other three mumbled and nodded their agreement, except Roglon who just nodded continuously. That is, until father cleared his throat loudly.

   “Estyshana, you are not to seek out that human and inquire him about the topic they were discussing.” he ordered Esty sternly.

   Esty lowered down her head to show that she obeys his order. She was curious about the reason the Hero was chosen specifically, but she was too afraid of her father to ask.

   “As you wish, father.” she obliged formally.

   She hears Sulgran clicking her tongue softly.

   “Um, father?” she eventually mustered up enough courage to ask.

   “What is it, child?”

   “I shall respect your order and not ask the Hero about, well, whatever the four of them were talking about. With that said, is it possible if I go and meet him, anyway?”

   Father exhaled his breath sharply. Esty could still remember the fear she felt back then when she saw him doing that.

   “I am merely thinking of defeating him once and for all so that he will no longer pose as a threat!” she quickly explained in the hope of being able to mitigate the situation.

   “Um, Esty? I don’t think your score of three losses against Minase Jin is ever going to convince your father that you can actually take him on.” Sulgran whispered from the corner of her mouth.

   “You’re not helping here, Sulgran!” Esty hissed softly.

   Segdroth chose this moment to speak up.

   “Your Majesty, perhaps it is wise to let your daughter fail as much as needed. After all, sometimes one would grow through experiencing defeat.” he told father.

   Father considered what he said for a while.

   “...I supposed that is most true…” he eventually admitted rather grudgingly.

   It’s no wonder father is convinced, considering that it was Segdroth who did the convincing.

   “Father, does that mean…” Esty asked hopefully.

   “Yes, you have my permission to meet that accursed Hero.” he said through gritted teeth.

   Wow, he actually agreed. Sure, he didn’t look happy about it, but he said yes anyway.

   “Really? Thank you, father!”

   Perhaps she should have looked less happy there, for he started to growl while gripping the handles of his throne really tightly. Oh well, at least she could hang out with, she mean, fight the Hero again-

   “-to Von Mantus. Hello~? Anyone in there?”

   That snapped her back to the present. She looks towards her right and sees the Hero standing just a few feet away from her.

   “Why the Devil are you standing right next to me?” she demands.

   “I got worried after you zoned out.” he explains casually. “What were you thinking about?”

   She averts her eyes while blushing slightly. “Nothing.”

   “If you say so. By the way, I’m joining in the fight. Igmis alone is one thing, but if those minions of his are going to be part of this, you’re going to have a very tough time.”

   “...Thanks.” she says extremely reluctantly.

   “Don’t mention it.”

   “Woohoo, look at the married couple joining forces!” Igmis cheers.

   Esty feels herself blushing.

   “Shut it! We’re not married!” she yells.

   “Yet.”

   “I SAID SHUT IT!”

   “Concentrate, Von Mantus. We don’t have time to fool around from this point on.” the Hero says to her.

   Upon hearing that, Esty slaps her cheeks with her hands. That did a good job to clear her mind.

   “Let’s do this. We’re going to thrash them.” she declares.

   “Yup.”

   Even Igmis is putting up a serious expression. Looks like he’s done fooling around. He puts his hands together and claps them loudly three times. Upon hearing it, his three minions get to work. Esty had the privilege of being at Igmis’ side when he was training his minions. As a result, she could tell the orders he gives them in the form of clapping.

   “They’re going to distract us while Igmis hits us with a Time Pause!” Esty cautions.

   “Roger that!” the Hero replies.

   Relgal spreads out into tens of thousands of tiny metallic needles and fly towards Esty and the Hero at alarming speed. At the same time, Drokemoth babbles out some incomprehensible words. Two seconds later, a huge tide wave appears out of nowhere, also coming for the two of them.

   Esty casts Hell’s Gate to stop the wave from advancing. Once the black flame and the seawater clash, the former starts boiling the latter while the latter begins extinguishing the former. Almost instantly, steam starts to appear everywhere, and loud sizzling sounds are heard.

   CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

   Meanwhile, the sound of steel clashing against steel is heard from Esty’s right side. Even without looking, Esty could tell what’s going on based on Relgal’s past actions alone. Whenever he splits himself up like this, he would watch for an opportunity to enlarge a few parts of him into large stakes that could pierce its unsuspecting victim, and that’s what it’s doing right now.

   While dodging and swatting away those said stakes, the Hero charges towards Igmis. Unfortunately, he was too late. Igmis managed to snap his fingers. At the very next second, Esty notices four things simultaneously.

   First of all, the Hero has gone missing. Esty starts to panic and becomes worried, then she remembers who he was. Her concern is an absolute waste of time.

   The next thing Esty noticed is that Igmis is standing at a place several hundred feet away from his original position. He looks relieved at first, then he becomes surprised and begins looking around as if searching for something.

   Thirdly, the Hell’s Gate that she cast and the Crushing Wave that Drokemoth cast are still at it. Thankfully, Esty has never lose her concentration, so she could still maintain Hell’s Gate. On the other side, Drokemoth is maintaining his Spell while groaning and moaning softly.

   Fourth and most importantly, Zorgathos is standing right next to her with his mouth wide open.

   Oh Devil, she’s done for. Already, she feels the air around her getting thinner and thinner. Once he snaps his teeth shut-

   She feels herself being pulled up towards the ceiling. She looks up and sees the Hero there, his right hand stretched out towards her. She takes it without question and get engulfed by his Wind Magic just like him.

   His intervention couldn’t come at a better time as exactly one second later, the spot she was standing at exploded spectacularly.

   BOOM!

   The explosion was so huge the entire cavern shook for a few seconds. Esty was worried for a bit that it might collapse, but her worry was unfounded as Igmis made it quite sturdy. Still, the sound of the explosion was loud enough for Esty to lose some of her hearing temporarily. Her ears are also ringing.

   The Hero looks at her and mouths something. She could tell that he’s not saying anything out loud since his throat isn’t vibrating. He’s also mouthing it real slow so that she could understand what he’s trying to say.

   “Are you hurt? Besides not being able to hear, I mean.”

   “Don’t worry, I’m fine.” Esty assures him.

   He nods while looking satisfied. A few seconds later, the ringing in her ears has finally stopped, and she can hear again. She lets out a sigh of relief.

   “Whew, I’m not deaf anymore.” she reports.

   “I hate to break it to you, but we’re going to have more problems.” the Hero says while looking towards the ground.

   Esty looks downwards as well. Igmis and all three of his minions are looking upwards, with Igmis himself having a look of “So that’s where you went.”.

   “Do you need some time alone?” Igmis asks loudly.

   Esty wondered the point of that question until she finally noticed that she’s hugging the Hero rather tightly with both her arms. He’s also circling his right arm around her waist. Esty starts to fluster. She wants to let go due to embarrassment, but at the same time she doesn’t want to let go of the Hero. At least, not yet.

   “No need to worry. We’re going on a date once we’re done with you.” the Hero assures Igmis.

   Esty blushes at that, and she hated herself for not hating the idea.

   “Wow, look at how lovey-dovey you are!” Igmis chortles.

   Esty ignores the teasing and decides to focus on the task at hand, which is to defeat him. That said, it’s easier said than done, since both him and his minions are extremely tough to deal with.

   “You concentrate on dealing with Igmis. I’ll deal with his minions.” the Hero tells her.

   Esty nods in agreement. “Got it.”

   “That said, remember to always watch out for your surroundings-”

   And the planning is left at that, since Drokemoth fires another Crushing Wave at them. The Hero let goes of Esty at once, and she pushes herself away from him after activating her own Wind Magic in order to stay afloat. The water Spell misses the two of them and hits the ceiling with a loud splash.

   “Why don’t the two of you come down so that we could party?” Igmis invites.

   “You could come up here instead.” Esty says to him. “Or are you too much of a chicken?”

   “Now that’s fighting words.”

   “So it is. What are you going to do about it, fish demon wannabe?”

   “Are we done with the cheap taunts?” the Hero asks with a bored tone.

   “Don’t be like that, man! Try to live a little!” Igmis encourages.

   Instead of answering, the Hero points his right index finger at Igmis and starts muttering some words. Upon seeing this, Esty quickly and stealthily gets to work. The moment he fired Energy Arrows, which is an unnecessary flashy Spell, Esty uses youjutsu and creates a body double. At the same time, she also made herself invisible while hundreds of arrows that are made of lightning fly towards Igmis and his three minions.

   Igmis scoffs loudly.

   “Energy Arrows? Really? A mere Level 3 Spell?” he asks.

   One of his rings glow, and all the arrows flying towards him were absorbed by an invisible wall.

   “Come on, you can do better than this, Hero-san!” the Marquis taunts.

   Naturally, the Hero ignored him and continued to fire the Spell. After all, its true purpose is to serve as a distraction so that Esty could sneak up on him. And she’s slowly flying towards him right now. She doesn’t even have to worry about one of the Arrows hitting her. That annoying Hero could somehow tell her exact location and make sure to steer away any that got too close to her while making it look as natural as possible. And speaking of natural, Esty can’t have Igmis and/or his clones suspecting that the one they’re looking at is a fake, which is why she’s also casting Energy Arrows that appear around the clone.

   “Would it kill you to cast a different Spell?” the Hero complains on purpose.

   “Shut it! It doesn’t really matter, does it?” Esty asks through the mouth of the clone.

   Several hundred feet to go…

   Relgal turned itself into a round disc. Its metallic body somehow reflects most Spells directed at it, and Energy Arrows are no exceptions to this. As dozens and dozens of arrows reach it, some of them are immediately bounced back to the Hero, who proceeds to redirect each and every one of them back to the formless demon. This exchange might seem pointless to some, but it’s actually effective at keeping Relgal at bay.

   Drokemoth was visibly upset with seeing the lightning arrows, probably due to the fact that Light and Lightning Magic are extremely effective against the undead. In order to repel them, he cast literal waves and waves of Water Spells. When the two types of Spells collide, they create a loud sizzling sound, and the smell of ozone is spread throughout the cavern.

   Zorgathos is…just standing there without doing a single thing. All the Energy Arrows that went to him were either bounced back or being swallowed into his seaweed body. It didn’t take him long to get bored. He lets out a huge yawn and starts scratching the right side of his head with his hand.

   “You gotta be more enthusiastic with this, Zorgathos!” Igmis chides.

   The minion in question looked at his master with an expression that clearly asks “Do I really have to?”.

   “It must be tough to have an unmotivated minion. I would know, since the dragon at my house is pretty lazy too.” the Hero says to Igmis.

   Igmis laughs at that.

   “Well, it’s true that he’s mostly unmotivated and lazy. Still, I find him cute in his own way.”

   “I could never understand your weird taste.”

   While the two of them are having the casual conversation like they’re not actually trying to kill each other, Esty manages to get to Igmis’ back. Now all she has to do is to finish him off from behind…