Chapter 552
Repulsion
Riding on Feat, I first met up with Bolt together with the knights riding their flying drakes.
(Aniue!)
“Good work, Bolt. Sorry for asking you to do so many things.”
(No, I’m happy that I could be of help.)
First, I thanked Bolt for the work he had been doing ahead of us.
(For now, this is a place where the ground is fairly flat and wide. What do you think?)
“Yeah, the location seems fine. Now the only question is whether the ground unit will make it before the wyverns arrive…”
(Niisama, I can see the ground unit.)
“Then they’ll make it in time.”
I contacted Vector and had him guide them to this location.
“They’re here.”
Once the ground unit had also taken position and finished preparing for battle, the wyverns had already come within visible range.
“Then proceed according to the plan!”
“““Yes!”””
The strategy was simple.
Feat, Bolt, and I would stall the wyverns one at a time and shoot them down to the ground, or kill them. The flying drakes unit would work in pairs to focus their attacks on one wyvern and bring it down. Another flying drake unit would play the role of keeping the last wyvern in check so it couldn’t escape or interfere with those fighting the others.
“”””“Gyaaaaah!”””””
The wyverns noticed us and roared threateningly.
The roar was extremely loud, and it felt like the air around us was vibrating.
“Thunderbolt!”
“Gugyaaaaaa!”
As a preemptive strike, I called down a bolt of lightning aimed straight at the head of the leading wyvern.
(As expected of you, Niisama. Didn’t that one die?)
The wyvern struck by lightning fell straight to the ground.
I hadn’t practiced Lightning Magic very much, so the power must have been stronger than expected.
The ground unit, or rather… Vector, immediately rushed toward the fallen wyvern. But since the wyvern didn’t seem to move, he poked it with his forepaw to check whether it was alive or dead.
(It’s dead~ Niichan, drop them while they’re still alive~)
It seemed I had killed it properly, and Vector’s half-crying telepathic complaint reached me.
(Oh my, oh my. That can’t be helped. Let’s see then… Wind Edge.)
“Gugya~!”
Feat released a wind blade, and the wyvern’s wing membrane, or perhaps its forelimb, was sliced clean off.
Once it lost one forelimb, the wyvern could no longer fly and began to fall.
(Vector, here it comes~)
(Yay. Thanks, Feat!)
Even before Feat called out, Vector was already running toward the falling wyvern.
“Rudolph-san and the others chased after it too, so the one we dropped should be fine. Now then, next…”
I looked around to see how the remaining three wyverns were doing.
(Over here~)
Bolt was flying through the air while leading two wyverns around.
Rather than running away, it looked more like he was teasing them and making them chase him. Was that a game of tag?
“Oh my.”
(Since Bolt has two of them occupied, it seems all the flying drakes are focusing on the remaining one.)
“Are wyverns not very smart?”
The wyverns chasing Bolt looked quite desperate.
“The flying drake unit looks like they’re going all out. They probably don’t need help, right?”
(They’ve been landing attacks little by little, so they’ll likely bring it down eventually.)
Even if the flying drake unit couldn’t deal major damage, they were consistently landing magic attacks.
As long as they didn’t run out of mana, they should eventually win. Well, they were selected for the flying drake unit, so they probably had plenty of mana.
“It looks like things are finished down below.”
The wyvern Feat had dropped seemed to have been successfully dealt with, and I could see Rudolph-san waving toward us.
“Bolt, drop one of them.”
(Understood… Thunderbolt.)
Bolt called down lightning on one of the wyverns chasing him.
Perhaps he held back a bit, the wyvern lost its balance and fell, but it seemed to still be alive.
“Is it okay if I finish the other one?”
(I think that’s fine~ Niisama, go for it!)
“Roger. Thunderbolt.”
Making sure not to hit Bolt, who was still playing tag, I called down lightning aimed at the wyvern’s head just like with the first one. Since it was fine to kill it, I used about the same power as before.
(Now the last one is with the flying drakes and knights.)
“The wyvern is already wobbling quite a bit, so it’ll probably fall soon.”
(It looks like things below are finished too, so it should be fine.)
Feat, Bolt, and I had already switched to spectator mode.
(Ah, it fell.)
“Feat, could you fly us close enough to talk? I want to check if the flying drake unit has any injuries.”
(Of course.)
We immediately moved to join the flying drake unit.
“Good work. Is anyone injured?”
“Just minor scratches. No problems. Um… thank you for the assistance.”
“Hm?”
There didn’t seem to be any major injuries, but the next words they said made me tilt my head.
Assistance?
But I didn’t remember helping them.
“Your familiar…”
“Feat and Bolt?”
“The Celestial Tiger. She was probably using wind magic to hinder the wyvern’s movements.”
“Eh!? Feat, is that true!?”
(Oh my, I thought I had done it without anyone noticing, but you realized. I still have a long way to go.)
It seemed Feat had been helping the flying drake unit without me even noticing.
“Wait, what exactly were you doing, Feat?”
(I created turbulent air currents around the wyvern.)
“Yes. Thanks to that, the wyvern kept losing its balance, and the number of attacks directed at us was clearly reduced. Without that, bringing it down by ourselves would have been extremely difficult.”
“I see… thank you, Feat.”
(Hehe. You’re the commander here, Niisama. We must prevent casualties, and even serious injuries if possible.)
“… Feat.”
I was filled with surprise and emotion realizing that Feat had thought that far ahead.
But… wait a second.
How did I not notice Feat’s magic at all? Even though I thought I was calm, maybe I had been more nervous than I realized.
(Oh my, it looks like everything below has been dealt with too. Niisama, let’s land for now?)
“Yeah, please.”
There hadn’t been any problems on the combat side, but it seemed I still had a long way to go when it came to commanding while watching the entire battlefield.
Well, our family tends to move around freely anyway, yet somehow everything still ends up coordinated. From now on, maybe I should observe how leaders of adventurer parties act and learn from them.
“Takumi! Taking down five wyverns this easily is seriously ridiculous!”
“Yeah… you almost never see something go this smoothly.”
The moment I landed, Rudolph-san started criticizing me, while Natally-san looked exasperated.
“And Takumi’s magic! What do you mean one-shotting a wyvern!?”
“I misjudged the amount of power.”
“Isn’t that the same thing you said when you sliced that Evil Viper in the Gaya Forest!?”
“Oh, now that you mention it, you’re right. Wait… does that mean I haven’t grown at all!?”
Now that I thought about it, I did say the exact same thing when I defeated the Evil Viper in the Gaya Forest.
If I really hadn’t grown since then, that was honestly pretty bad. That was kind of a shock!
“More importantly! Let me at least check whether anyone is injured first!”
“Everyone’s fine! No major injuries!”
Since my mood had soured a little, I snapped back while checking for injuries. Rudolph-san responded with the same kind of heated tone.