Jaldabaoth pressed at the eye region of his mask, a motion Remedios had seen Calca, Queralt, and her Vice-Captains perform many times in the past.
"...Also, please, prepare yourselves until you are satisfied. The sight of you - who are desperately preparing yourselves to defeat me - being trampled and your lives taken by a power which surpasses even that; truly it is a sight to evoke ever greater despair in those who witness it with their own eyes. -What a wonderful sight it will be."
"I won't let that happen!"
"Sorry, Remedios, but could you quiet down for a bit?"
There was a hint of steel in Calca's voice, and Remedios shut up. It was merely a slight change of tone, but from experience, Remedios knew that Calca was angry.
"Remedios, step back for a bit."
"But, but if I move back, I won't be able to cut him down if he does anything weird..."
"Ah, that is fine. I will not attack until we finish speaking, or until you launch an attack of your own."
"As if we could believe what a demon say-"
"Remedios!"
"-Understood."
Remedios fell back as ordered, and her sister whispered to her through her helmet.
"Calca-sama is trying to learn more from the opposition. You need to ignore what that demon says and bear with it."
Muu, Remedios grimaced, her face seemingly saying, I'm not happy with this.
Their opponent was a demon. That being the case, they ought to consider that everything he said was probably a lie. Rushing in and cutting him up would save effort and brain cells. However, impeding her mistress was a betrayal of her loyalty. Thus, she had grit her teeth and endure this.
"Now then, Demon Emperor Jaldabaoth. I have some things to ask you. Why have you come here? If you wish to trample this country, why not move with the demihuman army from the fortress? Or could it be-"
"...Ah, you need say no more. I can imagine what you wish to say. It would seem you are mistaken. The reason I have come here alone is not to parley with you."
A quiet "I see," came from Calca, who was standing behind Remedios. She sounded clearly disappointed.
"There are two reasons why I have come here alone. The first is because crushing you by myself will deepen your despair that much more compared to if you were slain in a chaotic battle with the demihuman forces. The other reason is - in order to avoid making the same mistakes as from the Kingdom. I had not expected to meet a warrior there who was as powerful as myself. Therefore, the fact that I have come here alone is to see if there is a being comparable to me."
"There might be, you know?"
"Of this I am certain - there are none. That is why I have given you all this time. If anyone like that did exist, they would be in this city - by the side of you, the most important person in this nation. Yet, I have not found anyone like that. That includes those snivelling rats hiding themselves away."
"You bastard! Are you saying we're weaker than that warrior!?"
Remedios could not pretend she had not heard those words, and they made her forget her forbearance and shout in anger. Calca and her sister's words were already halfway out of her head, but the order not to cut him down just barely held on.
"That is exactly what I am saying. Did you not hear me? Is that all you wish to know, Holy Queen-sama?"
"While there's one more thing - Angels, advance!"
Calca's powerful voice filled the plaza, and the angels in the perimeter and hidden among the priests spread their wings and took flight.
There were five angels who held swords of fire, summoned through third tier spells - Archangel Flames. There were twenty more summoned through second tier spells, Angel Guardians. And then, there was a single angel which Calca had summoned before arriving here - a Principality of Peace.
While she did not remember what powers the angels possessed, she remembered that the Principality of Peace which Calca summoned could use low tier divine spells and could use abilities such as the ability to grant protection from evil, smite evil, and cause mass silence, among others. That was because she had often seen Calca summon it.
Sensing the murderous intent around her, Remedios understood that she no longer needed to hold back, and so she charged. Normally, the priests would have supported her with attack spells, but there were none. Perhaps they were conserving mana to summon angels.
Remedios activated a skill from one of her job classes, Evil Slayer. The divine power within her holy sword intensified.
In that moment, five adventurers suddenly appeared behind Jaldabaoth. They must have used invisibility magic to close in on him. She did not know why they had suddenly become visible. While she knew that there was a spell called 「Invisibility」, she had no idea what sort of spell it was or how it could be negated.
Jaldabaoth did not respond to the adventurers who had suddenly appeared. No - it did not seem like he had even noticed them.
At that moment, she wondered if she had been mistaken about the aura of intimidation from Jaldabaoth. Or rather, was this just an illusion or a copy, and the original was not here?
No - she denied the latter deduction. That could not be. Her instincts - her ability to sniff out evil - told her that Jaldabaoth was right there.
The adventurers looked shocked, and slashed at Jaldabaoth in a panic. Just as she thought that their weapons would be able to reach him, Jaldabaoth sprouted a set of strange wings behind him. They impaled the adventurers who had tried to attack him from behind.
Perhaps the frothy blood he was coughing up was because he had been stabbed in the chest and blood was flowing into his lungs, but with his last trace of life, a single adventurer swung his weapon down on Jaldabaoth.
However, Jaldabaoth let the strikes rain down on him, with no sign he had been harmed.
Since they were here, those adventurers ought to have been quite skilled. It was only reasonable to assume that they would be wielding holy-elemental weapons as part of their preparations. Even so, they could not leave a mark on him, showing that this demon was quite a highly ranked being.
In the few moments that it took the battle conditions to change, the charging Remedios screamed Yeeart! and slashed down diagonally with her holy sword.
Jaldabaoth hopped one step back, and those tentacle-like - no, they probably were tentacles - wings threw the perforated adventurers at her.
She had no intention of taking it head-on.
She took her left hand off her sword's hilt, beating them all aside -
"「-Flow Acceleration」."
-then activated a martial art, stepped forward, and thrust.
The holy sword stabbing in at Jaldabaoth's throat was blocked by a set of suddenly-sprouted claws-
"「Holy Strike」!"
She infused the holy power within her sword into the claws in the instant they made contact.
This was an elementary technique for paladins, and it was originally intended to be used in the moment one's blade bit into a foe's flesh, but that did not mean it could not be used as a touch attack. Since most of the divine power simply exploded on the surface, it would not do much harm, but she had still used it anyway. That was because in the moment that the adventurers had been killed, her instincts as a paladin - which her little sister called an animal instinct - screamed that she needed to show that they could still resist Jaldabaoth, and prevent the morale of the surrounding soldiers from falling.
"I see..."
The Angels jammed themselves in between Remedios and Jaldabaoth as the latter was backing off. They launched their attack while floating at roughly head height.
"Tch," Remedios clicked her tongue.
The metallic sound that rang out as her holy sword made contact with Jaldabaoth's claws showed how hard those claws were. In addition, the fact that he could easily evade a blow from her magically-enhanced self - although in a somewhat clumsy fashion - showed how high his physical abilities were.
There were only a few people who could contend with such a mighty being. While the angels summoned through third and second tier spells usually excelled at slaying monsters, they only served to get in the way during this battle. In particular, the greaves of the angels floating back and forth were an eyesore.
"「Penetrate Magic - Holy Ray」."
Her sister cast a spell. However, it vanished before Jaldabaoth's face like it had been deflected.
"「Twin Penetrate Magic - Holy Ray」."
Calca emitted two rays of light. She was probably thinking that it would be fine as long as one of them could pierce Jaldabaoth's spell immunity, but unfortunately her attack was ultimately as ineffective as her sister's.
That meant he possessed very high magic resistance. In other words-
I need to give it my all!
She shouted a battle cry to fire herself up.
"Use your head and let the angels fight! There's no point in this!"
The fact was that even though the angels had the advantage of height and surrounded him on all sides, Jaldabaoth was still quite composed. But that was only natural. Even after being surrounded by so many people, not a single attack had hit Jaldabaoth.
The adventurers ran over to collect their comrades who had fallen by Remedios's feet. While their immobile bodies were clearly dead, they still believed in the faint probability that it might nor be so.
"...How bothersome. Even if they are nothing more than insects, a swarm of them is still unpleasant."
Jaldabaoth sounded perfectly composed.
Indeed, being able to negate the spells cast on him from the rear and perfectly evade physical attacks made him seem overwhelmingly superior. However-
Do you think we've never fought enemies like this before?
Unless their summoners were specialists, summoned monsters were generally weaker than the ones who called them forth. Therefore, there were cases where angels' attacks ended up being useless.
Against a powerful foe, the best way to use angels was-
The airborne angels rushed Jaldabaoth as one. They did not use their swords, but tackled him.
-To hinder their opponents' movements in this fashion.
It was quite effective.
Perhaps he was starting to grow tense, but Jaldabaoth went on the offensive, and a single swipe of his claws caused several angels to vanish into nothingness.
However, the angels from behind filled the gap, continuing the attack in place of their absent fellows.
This was the frightening thing about summoned monsters. Since they were beings that did not die even when they were killed, they could be fully utilized in this fashion.
The angels came like a ferocious waterfall, without rest or respite, and Jaldabaoth's flowing counterattacks left Remedios staring in awe. However-
That's carelessness on your part!
Remedios had moved subtly to step into an opening in Jaldabaoth's defense, a fatal flaw that was exposed when he was on guard against the angels coming from above.
"-What!?"
"Yeeart!"
She activated a skill, and then her martial arts, using her holy sword to strike a blow with all her might.
She had chosen to conserve the greatest power of her holy sword because her instincts told her that then was not the time for that powerful move, which could only be used once a day.
Stricken by the mightiest blow she could muster apart from that move, Jaldabaoth flew back as though he was being smashed to the horizon, until he crashed into a store on the other side of the plaza.
Remedios looked down at the hands which held her blade.
"-Oh crap."
"Nee-sama! You did it!"
She shouted angrily in response to her little sister's excited exclamation.
"It's not over yet! How could he have flown so far!?"
"Given your brute strength, I think it's possible, Nee-sama..."
"He flew out by himself!"
Indeed, not only had she allowed Jaldabaoth to escape the encirclement, she had even given him the chance to hide in a house.
The reason why they could take on enemies like Jaldabaoth was because they could encircle their opponent and force them to face many people at once. Allowing him to hide in a cramped home was too dangerous.
In addition, Jaldabaoth's actions would change now. It was possible he would stop playing around now.
"Remedios! What should we do?" Calca shouted.
Usually, Remedios would ask and then Calca would answer, but now the opposite was the case. During battle, she was better able to make the right choice than the other two.
"Demolish the house without going near it!"
After hearing that, the priests cast attack spells one after the other.
They collapsed the house in short order. However, it was hard to believe Jaldabaoth had been crushed under the falling debris. Even Remedios in her enchanted armor could survive that much unless she was very unlucky. Also-
Remedios looked down at her blade, which was unstained by blood.
Could he have rolled with that blow just by flying away? Had he used a martial art like 「Fortress」 or something? Or was it a demon-only skill? There were many possibilities for that, but things would become troublesome if she could not see through it.
Amidst the sounds of destruction, the neighboring houses crumbled under the area-effect spells. Dirt and dust filled the air, and she could not help coughing.
"Say, Remedios, why hasn't Jaldabaoth come out yet?"
"...Nee-sama, could it be he's already escaped by teleportation?"
That demon, who spoke so arrogantly? I can't imagine he'd escape without being hurt...
"...We ought to use fire. Pour on the oil and ignite it. May I ask you to bless it, Calca-sama?"
"Nee-sama, are we going to conduct the ritual of Holy Fire? Doing so to harm an opponent... is that really what a paladin ought to be doing?"
"That's fine, if Remedios thinks that's the best way, then we'll go with it. No, we should do it. Since he's a demon, there's no reason he won't be hurt."