“That's for the sake of the world.”

After muttering these words Fran added, “I'm getting some fresh air,” and then turned and made her way to the exit of the inn room...

“Wait! What do you mean!”

…while completely ignoring Marianne who was trying to stop her. After all, nothing seemed to matter to her at the moment. She just wanted to get as far away from the other two as possible. She especially didn't want to see the unconscious state of her pupil.

So, she left the inn and wandered around the outskirts of the village for a while, where no eyes were on her. After all, as the former High Priestess and as someone almost all the commoners looked up to, she always drew attention to herself whenever other people were present. The attention usually wasn't a problem for her, but now she found it more than just a little annoying.

Luckily, it didn't take her long to find a quiet spot for herself, as she arrived at a burned-down, seemingly abandoned hut in the woods just outside the village.

Therefore, without even bothering to check whether there were people around or whether it was a safe place, Fran just entered the rundown place, sat down in a random corner, and took a deep breath as if to release all the bad energy in her body.

As a researcher and formerly one of the strongest magicians in the world, at least in this country, Fran was confident in her analytical thinking, at least when she was calm and collected. But even with her current mental state in shambles after all her actions, or rather non-actions concerning Rina at the orphanage, she still concluded that she had to calm herself down before analysing what exactly she had done and what she needed to do from now on. That was why she ran away from the two young women and came to this deserted place.

However, this might have been a poor decision for Fran, because now, when her mind was somewhat cleared up, it slowly but surely dawned on her what she had done.

“Did I just kill her?”

Naturally, the elf didn't mean the words she just muttered literally, although the result would be the same.

All the people who had touched a Demon-Spawning-Cloud died shortly after without exceptions. She knew this very well. After all, she had researched these cases in the past.

So, it wasn't far-fetched to state that she had killed Rina, the supposed trump card against the demon invasion. And to continue this line of thought, didn't it also mean, that her actions led to the world having less chance of winning against the demon?

But all this was only half the reason why Fran was in such a confused state.

The other half was that, for some reason, her chest began to hurt when she remembered the state of her pupil. It felt like her heart was being pierced by a thousand needles every time she recalled the scene where Rina was writhing and screaming in pain after coming into contact with the Demon-Spawning-Cloud.

“Did it hurt that much?”

After mumbling these words to no one in particular, Fran buried her head in her arms resting on her knees as if to hide the fact that her already colourless face was turning even paler.

As already mentioned above, coming to a quiet place for herself at the moment might not have been the best idea Fran had come up with. After all, with all these dark thoughts swirling around her head, she found it even harder to keep from panicking. She was sure, that if she didn't do anything to cool down her mind, she might start hyperventilating soon.

Thankfully for her, before it could come that, a soft, bell-like voice called out to her out of nowhere.

“It seems you are a bit confused.”

At first, Fran didn't register that someone had spoken to her. But after a few seconds, she became aware of the presence of someone else in the room, so she reluctantly, but with a high guard nonetheless, looked up.

There she saw a girl about a metre tall in a black one-piece standing a few metres in front of her.

Initially, Fran thought it was just a small and weak village child playing in the forest and thus wanted to lower her guard again. But when she saw the two horns sprouting from the girl's head, Fran widened her eyes and jumped up a split second later in an attempt to gain distance. But as there was a wall behind her, she bumped into it with full force causing her to fall back to her knees.

"Calm down, I'm not going to hurt you."

Even though Fran heard the girl's words, they didn't register in her mind. After all, the being in front of her was a demon, and a high-ranking one at that. So there was no way that Fran had leeway to think about anything other than getting out of this situation alive while inflicting as much damage as possible on the other party.

However, a confined space such as the hut, she was currently in, was not a preferable combat environment for a ranged fighter like her. After all, her fighting style, after she had lost all her magical powers, was to keep her opponent at range while firing arrows at them.

Luckily the hut, she was currently occupying, was dilapidated and the walls of the room she was in had many holes through which she could escape. So, with her brain in 'fight or flight' mode, the elf didn't even waste a split second of thought as she immediately sprinted to the nearest hole.

Fortunately, the demon girl didn't seem to be doing anything to stop it, so Fran successfully made it outside. Without looking back the check whether or not the demon was following her, she fled into the forest and hid behind a tree from which she could see the entrance of the hut. Then, with practised movements, she grabbed the bow and two arrows from her back and aimed one at the hole in the hut she had just left.

She just assumed that if the demon were to follow her, she would leave through the same spot. And even if it wouldn't be the case, Fran was far enough away from the house to have an overview of the entire side of it.

These thoughts, however, were wasted, as the black-haired demon girl left the house shortly after Fran had locked her arrow onto her bow.

Without hesitation, the elf let go of the bowstring and shot the arrow at the demon's head.

“WHAT!?”

From the very beginning, Fran hadn't really expected the arrow to connect. After all, the being in front of her seemed to be one of the commanders of the demon army. There was no way a single arrow would be enough to kill her.

So, what was Fran doing, and why?

In her mind, she was safe once she had successfully escaped from the hut into the forest. After all, even though she had been a mage in the past and had spent most of her life behind walls in the capital, she was still an elf. It was in her genes to have the inborn ability to know her ways inside a forest, including those she had never been to. So there was no way, she couldn't escape from a demon if the environment was a forest, even if her opponent was a high-ranking demon.

So, she had concluded that it might be beneficial to personally measure the power of a demon commander. After all, she had only fought against ordinary demons before. Therefore, everything she knew about high-ranking ones came from myths and legends told in books and ancient scrolls.

Then, back to the topic at hand, why did Fran shout out in surprise shortly after she had shot the arrow?

No, the reason wasn't the black-haired demon girl she had aimed at.

It was because a second, seemingly high-ranking demon had suddenly appeared out of nowhere and caught the flying arrow with their bare hands.

Despite her surprise, and even though Fran had never faced such seemingly strong opponents before, she was still an experienced fighter. So, seeing no aggressive movement from the two demons so far, she aimed the second arrow in her hand at the newly arrived demon and shot it.

Again, albeit this time not to her surprise, it ended the same way, with the demon catching the arrow in mid-flight.

“Milady, it doesn't look like she wants to talk to you,” the second, taller demon said to the first, smaller one while presenting the two arrows.

The small demon simply took the presented objects and looked at them for a few seconds before throwing them to the ground.

After firing the second arrow, and seeing that the demons still didn't take an aggressive stance against her, thus realising that she couldn't possibly deal any damage to them, Fran decided to remain silent instead and concluded that it was better to gather information by observing them.

Even with the knowledge that at least one of the two demons seemed to be much stronger than she was, she calculated that it would still be possible to run away, fetch at least Rina from the village, and escape to the capital.

As for the village itself, however, with the appearance of two high-ranking demons, Fran surmised that...

'Its fate is sealed.'