Evil Black Maria - Chapter 86. Unreasonable Queen

“Keith! Stay with me, Keith!”

Keith was lying on the ground helplessly, having been blasted a distance that would have taken him more than a few minutes to cover even if he had run as fast as he could.

Izuru shouted frantically as she helped him up, a footprint clearly visible on the chest of his sheet metal armour.

“Uh…guh…”

Eventually, her call was heard.

Keith let out a small moan from deep within his throat, his eyelids fluttering open.

At the same time, a series of cracks appeared through his armour, and then shattered loudly.

Keith’s own body showed no signs of any serious injury.

His armour absorbed most of the impact.

“Keith……Oh, thank goodness……!”

“I am…..”

Izuru breathed a deep sigh of relief.

Soon after, Keith’s dazed eyes lit up as he regained consciousness..

Licking the back of her curled up hand, Casca looked on from a distance, looking bored.

“Hey. If you’re alive, get the f**k up and come over here, because I’m not going to walk all the way there.”

Her tone and words lacked any sense of seriousness.

It is likely that she had assessed Keith’s ability by the recent exchange.

Nothing different from the usual riff raff.

It’s an opponent who does not need to be taken seriously.

“Damn you……bastards…..!”

Keith was furious at the insult and stood up, staggering slightly.

Although he had no external injuries, he was still able to stand on his own feet and remain conscious despite the fact that he had been hit by the same force as a head-on collision with a large truck.

He was a very tough man.

“……Izuru, I need you to strengthen my weapon.I don’t know how she does it, but I can’t cut through her with my blade.”

“Eh….”

The blood was rushing to Keith’s head, he was ready to fight

In response to his words, Izuru flinched in a somewhat reluctant manner.

There was still a nasty pain in her left shoulder from when Casca had grabbed her.

In the first place, the situation was so sudden that she hardly had time to process it.

She could not even decide whether fighting Casca was the right choice.

–But the madness that was hidden behind those red eyes was enough to convince her that she was an impossible person to reason with.

Then there was the outrageous speed, of which they had just had a glimpse. It would be foolish to turn their backs on her.

“I’ll be fine. Zack’s around here too, he’ll be here soon. And how can anyone win against us when that guy’s with us?”

“……Okay. I’ll cover you from behind with magic. Don’t do anything stupid.”

In the end, trust in her comrades won out over fear.

Exhaling deeply and quietly, Izuru nodded and held out her hand to Keith’s battle axe.

[Cry, Raven of the Sky]

“……Ah?”

A sudden flash of yellow lightning in the pale purple darkness of the night.

Casca, who had been rubbing her neck in discomfort, had a puzzled look on her face.

[El Chanto Iste]

The yellow lightning overflowed from Izuru’s palm, creating a crackling noise.

The magic that was released was given a distinct effect by the chanting, and attached to the battle axe.

[Lightning Enchantment]

The Lightning Enchantment was a low-level magic that imbued weapons and armour with lightning.

Keith’s battle axe received it and produced a violent surge of lightning on its surface.

“What? She’s a magic holder?”

Casca murmurs to herself as she watches the scene from a few dozen metres away.

A holder of magic power can basically be identified by the magic circle engraved on their chest.

However, not everyone exposes their chest the way Jeanne does, so in the end it’s often only when the other person uses magic that you find out.

“Okay……Izuru get back!”

Swoosh, swinging his battle axe, Keith rushed forward at once.

Without the heavy sheet metal armour, he was much more agile than before.

“I don’t know who you are, but I’ll show you who you are picking a fight with!”

Keith’s face twisted into a scowl as he closed the distance between himself and Casca in a single lunge.

Casca, on the other hand, didn’t even look like she cared to get ready.

“Sighs….”

On the contrary, she sighed softly.

She didn’t even see Keith as an actual opponent.

“You won’t be able to get away with this now……!”

With a furious shout, Keith charged into battle.

He swung his battle-axe again.

A strike enhanced with a lightning enchantment enhanced its strength and cutting ability multiple times.

If exposed to this attack unprotected, no matter how Casca was, she was bound to suffer some injury.

“That’s enough.”

There was no way to be able to get a clean hit with a big, heavy, blunt attack on someone who possessed outrageous physical abilities and whose agility was inhuman.

“Haa….!”

The blade was easily deflected halfway and was flung away.

But Keith, with all his might, suppressed his momentum and continued with a sideways strike.

And then.

“F**k off”

A loose fist, launched in the form of an uppercut, like a bullet against the edge of the blade.

As soon as it struck the battle-axe, it easily shattered the sturdily forged blade into pieces with no struggle at all.

“—-ah?”

The weight of the weapon, transmitted through the long handle, became noticeably lighter with a high-pitched metallic sound.

Keith couldn’t believe his eyes as he watched his weapon shatter like a block of ice.

“You bastard! I’ve already had enough of this magic stuff with that dumbass Jeanne. She shoots fireballs that melt rocks and steel like crazy.”

“Gah….!?”

A sharp kick to his side knocked him out of the way.

With a few broken ribs, he fell back and knelt down in agony.

“Oi, first one. Just die for now.”

Casca strode up to him and raised her fist in a careless manner.

The impact of the kick and the pain of the fracture prevented Keith from moving, and he could only stare wide-eyed.

But just as the fist was about to land.

A crackling spark saved Keith from a painful death.

[Lightning Bullet]

A bullet of lightning, the size of a grown man’s fist.

Five or six of them shot towards Casca and she jumped back as quickly as she could.

“What the…. That’s– Stop it! Electricity damages my hair–”

Casca complained in a more relaxed tone than usual, maybe due to the fact she resembled Shizuru a lot, and kept her distance.

Meanwhile, Izuru ran towards Keith.

“pant….pant…Keith!”

“……Ugh……I’m fine.”

He was sweating heavily, and the pained tone of his voice made it sound like he was on the verge of collapse.

She couldn’t believe that the sturdiest man in the group was so easily brought to his knees by a simple strike.

“(What the hell is that woman…..!)”

With each passing second, the assessment of Casca’s ability increased.

Her fighting ability was beyond any opponent they had ever faced, and it was absurd.

A part of her instinctively cried out that they were not even capable of putting up a fight.

“….. Zach……!”

Her trembling tongue unconsciously uttered the name of a man who was stronger than anyone she had ever known.

The first person she saw, the first person whose voice she heard, the first person she trusted after losing her memory.

“Save us….!”

It was the sort of thing that the fierce Izuru would normally never say.

But swallowed by the madness of the monster in front of her, she was gripped by fear and unconsciously called for help.

–As though in response to Izuru’s call.

“Huh?”

Casca paused in her slow, languid steps.

A long sword with the emblem of a snake and a ring engraved on its hilt came from somewhere.

It stuck deep into the ground between Izuru and Casca.