109 – Ethiopia – 3
A white-haired man with a calm atmosphere quietly emerged from the cave.
I could tell who he was without anyone explaining it.
Cron Illusin.
One of the officers of Avatar who appears in the final battle of the original work.
If there’s anything I remember clearly about him.
“First of all, standing in a place like this is tiring, so why don’t we go in and talk?”
Of all the characters in the original work, he has the most peculiar personality.
“You….”
“Ah, come to think of it, you didn’t introduce yourself. My name is Cron Illusin. He works as an executive in Avatar. I look forward to.”
In a weak atmosphere that makes it seem like he can’t even kill an ant, he smiles softly and always uses honorifics even if he knows the other person is an enemy.
When Sophia and Leon saw him for the first time, they had high hopes that he might end well.
But his words and actions are literally all fake.
This is to thoroughly hide their true nature.
“Why do we need to talk to you?”
At Helen’s reasonable question, Cron pondered for a moment before opening his mouth.
“… Certainly I am Avatar. And since you belong to Astraia, it is understandable that you are reluctant to talk. To put it simply, we have an adversarial relationship.”
Cron begins to explain his thoughts step by step.
“But could that be a reason not to talk? No matter how much we are enemies, if we talk, we might be able to come to an agreement.”
Obviously, Cron’s words were a tight argument.
Until that word came out.
“If you do it well, you might be able to create a result that everyone can laugh at, right?”
“How dare you say such a thing… !”
It wasn’t me who screamed at those words, it was Raina.
The emotion in Reina’s purple eyes as she bit her lip was clearly anger.
And even while looking at those eyes, Crone.
“I wonder if I made a mistake?”
He smiled as if nothing was wrong.
“That’s what you say… !”
“Calm down, Reina.”
“But Ike, now that person…” !”
“Don’t get excited. Because that’s what he’s after.”
Cron Illusin.
The fragile atmosphere and soft smile are all pretense to hide their true nature.
“Cron Illusin. There is no need to hide it.”
And his nature.
“Yes?”
“Anyway, even if it was resolved through dialogue, you wouldn’t be satisfied, right? No matter what happens, you are the one who sincerely wants to fight and kill us.”
A murderer who takes pleasure in killing enemies after a full-on fight.
“… hehehe It seems that what Mr. Diet said was true.”
If it comes to fighting, it’s different from Helen, who is a battle fanatic who enjoys the battle itself.
He kills his opponent at the end of a desperate struggle.
In other words, they feel joy in death itself.
Unlike the other executives who cursed the empire even at the end of the original work, he was so happy that he could die after a desperate struggle to the point of facing death.
“Then, since you got caught, let’s introduce ourselves again.”
Cron smiled and lowered his head.
At the same time, life began to spurt out.
“I belong to Avatar. His name is Cron Illusin. I wonder how much you can entertain me.”
“Reina, the barrier stone!”
“I have already prepared it.”
At some point, Reina’s hand was holding a barrier stone.
The transparent curtain unfolded in an instant, and we built formations as we said before departing for Ethiopia.
Of course, there would be loopholes without Charlotte, but there was no time to complain about that fact.
I guess I have no choice but to make a decision every moment and move.
“Hmm?”
Cron Illusin’s ability as a demon is physical transformation.
Her entire body freely transforms into that of a demon.
An attack that combines the beast’s body and human skills is literally a deadly blow.
Of course, I should never have made him use that ability.
“… Really not?”
The barrier stone appeared to be working normally.
With that alone, the hope for us to survive certainly increased, so I could truly consider it fortunate.
“Your Highness said there must be a contingency plan, but I never thought it would be true.”
But Cron smiled as if nothing was wrong.
On the contrary, he seemed happy.
Of course I knew why.
“You know what? As long as I can fight and kill my opponent, I don’t mind any method.”
That was definitely something I had seen somewhere before.
Of course.
The words he’s saying now are the same lines he used when fighting Sofia and Leon in the original story.
That was after his ability as a demon was sealed by the holy sword.
“If I had to ask what I like the most, this is it.”
As if responding to Cron’s words, the space is distorted.
And what appeared there.
“Then let’s fight with all our might from now on.”
It was an ominously red spear.
★
Be strong.
I knew right away the moment Neia and Cron’s lances collided.
Even if you are fighting 4:1, you must never be careless.
“Everyone, you are better than I thought.”
It’s not even funny.
Rather than feeling it as a compliment, I suspect it might be ridicule.
I was holding on from the front, Helen was looking for gaps around me, and Atal was healing all the wounds from Cron.
Even with Raina’s magic, Cron’s body movements will be slow and his head will be dizzy.
Even under such circumstances, we couldn’t give him a clear advantage at all.
“Especially Ike Axus. Your tactics are really interesting.”
“Keugh… !”
The red spear is trying to penetrate my gap.
However, I was able to narrowly avoid or deflect the attack.
“Haap!”
And while I was holding on like that, Helen threw her fist at her side, but Cron swung her spear stick and deflected her fist as if it were natural.
“You can move like that because you trust the people behind you, right?”
Damn it.
A spear is basically characterized by a point-piercing attack.
Then a sword for drawing lines and a spear for piercing dots.
If a swordsman and a spearman fight, who will have the advantage?
It is a matter of course, but spearmen are much more advantageous due to the difference in range.
Above all, just as kendo can perform stabbing attacks depending on the situation, spears can also perform slashing attacks.
In a way, it is literally a weapon that can be called an upper level sword.
Of course, there are ways to win on the prosecutor side.
All you have to do is dig in as far as possible to avoid the spear blades.
Because spearheads have no blades, both attack and defense are difficult.
But that was the story when the swordsmen had overwhelming skills over the spearmen.
If a swordsman and a spearman are of equal skill, there is absolutely no way the spearman would give them any distance.
That is. Even in the 4:1 situation, we couldn’t really dig into Cron’s gaps, which obviously meant that our skills were lower than that.
“Ha ha, ha ha.”
I start to get out of breath little by little.
No matter how much healing magic it is, it doesn’t restore all of your physical strength, so it was natural.
“Deliberately expose gaps and induce the opponent to aim for them. If you aim for that gap, you knew it from the beginning, so you can avoid it or take minimal damage, and if you aim elsewhere, you can defend it as it is. You might call it ignorant, but it’s a surefire tactic.”
It was as Cron said.
The movements that a genius can do are impossible for me.
But the people I will be with and the enemies I have to deal with are geniuses.
In order to follow that, I had to find my own way to follow the geniuses, and that’s how I came up with it now.
Never attack first.
And deliberately expose gaps to induce the opponent’s attack, and counterattack depending on the situation.
Did you already see through that?
“Especially in the current situation, honestly, it would be difficult for anyone to break through.”
But the crone who was talking like that and playing with the spear seemed much more relaxed than we were.
Damn it.
Even without Charlotte.
“It’s such a big difference… ?”
I had no choice but to grit my teeth.
As expected, I had to receive even a little support from the Empire.
Of course, I didn’t think that we would lose just because we kept going like this.
But that didn’t mean I could win.
It would be fortunate if Charlotte came first while we endured like this, but what if Rex shows up to help Cron?
That was literally the worst thing I could ever imagine.
“Well, by the way, Ike Axus. I had a question for you.”
Cron let go of Helen’s fist, pierced my shoulder, and opened his mouth.
In a 4:1 situation, anyway, how could he be so relaxed in a situation where the wounds are gradually piling up?
I couldn’t understand.
“How does it feel to be fooling everyone around you?”
… What?
“If what Your Highness said is true, you are Ike Axus, but you are not Ike Axus, are you?”
What are you talking about?
Dite must have thought I came from the future.
Listening to what you say is like….
“But now you are struggling to save someone important to you.”
You seem to know that I’m possessed.
“How can I say that, it is a very funny story.”
Cron, who said that, was clearly laughing.