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While firmly supporting the unconscious Ripple before laying her down, Silva gave instructions to the other students.

「Everyone! Form a circle with Lady Ripple at the center! We don’t know how many enemies will show up! Let us fight them by covering each others’ back!」
「Miss Leone and everyone who are in charge of subspace Artifacts are to stay within the inner circle! Fall back and support your friends from behind!」
「「「Yes!」」」

The selected students reacted quickly to the instruction, as they had already started to move into their position. In the midst of it, a number of vortex-like spatial distortions occurred all around the circle. From there, Beastman Magic Stone Beasts appeared.

Those were the type of strengthened Magic Stone Beasts that was as strong as Rahal and Cyrene after they were transformed by Prism Powder, and there were five of them. Even Silva would be gravely injured if he received a clean attack by one of them, making them an opponent to be extremely cautious against.

And there were five of them at once. They were spread out and summoned in an arrangement that surrounded the circle.

「Five of those!? So many of them right off the bat!」
「But we have to do it! If we succeeded here, it means we helped protect Arlman and Shealot!」
「Sure, let’s!」

Leone and Liselotte nodded to each other.

「Uhh……Ah, enemy. But, umm, do I go to assembly with others or…?」

While everyone was wrapped up in a sense of urgency, only Yua was the one loitering around, left behind by their motion.

「Yua! You don’t need to worry about the rest of us, just keep taking down the enemies before you!」

It was Maurice, the leader of the second-year students, who called out to her.
Yua had an outstanding ability, but she isn’t suited to be a leader at all. A role like that was for someone else, and Maurice was that someone else. Being an open-minded person, his and Yua’s relationship wasn’t bad.

「Matchstick!」
「It’s Maurice! Just go berserk!」
「Then, it’s your fault if I got scolded, Matchstick.」

Mumbled Yua to herself before she lightly ran towards the nearest Magic Stone Beast. In Yua’s case, however, anything that she did “lightly” was by no means light at all. In fact, from Leone’s and everyone else’s perspective, it was an astoundingly fast and sharp step.

「Ei!」

A palm strike so soft it might as well count as a pat.

KABOOOM!!

And yet, the Magic Stone Beast was blown away due to it, its body bent in an unnatural manner.

「「「OOOoooohh!!?」」」

The students couldn’t help but exclaim. Even the Magic Stone Beasts seemed to freeze for a moment. Perhaps surprised by the much too shocking phenomenon that happened?

「That’s all she needs to do, right, Principal, Senior Silva!?」
「Yeah. That’s good enough!」

Silva nodded in response to Maurice’s question. Yua was not the type to cooperate with others. Rather than poorly trying to fit her in teamwork, it would be better to let her roam freely.

After she mightily flicked one of them away, Yua headed for the next nearest opponent. However, there were five of them. They were spread out wide and far in-between.

RRRAWWRR!!

One of them, positioned at the opposite end of the circle from Yua, let out a loud warcry. A number of black-light spots began to converge around it. That was a wide heat-ray attack!

It was hard to deal with ranged attacks from a distance once you had assembled into a formation.

「I shan’t let you!」

However, Liselotte flew through the air at full speed with her Gift of a pair of white wings and slipped into the Magic Stone Beast’s arm length just in time.

The thrust of her halberd carried her momentum as it pierced deeply into the monster’s neck, the heat rays that had been converged immediately dissipated at the same time it happened.

「I shall be up forward and distract them! Will that be fine!?」

Siad Liselotte as she pulled out her halberd, which had stuck deep into the beast’s neck.

「Please don’t overexert yourself! You only need to disperse enemies attack!」

Principal Miliera gave her permission. Rather than being stuck in a formation, Liselotte’s ability to maneuver in all directions with her Gift would serve better by letting her move around the place and distract the enemies. Yua alone was not enough to act as a decoy, and it would certainly be better to have Liselotte come out as well.

Liselotte used the Magic Stone Beast’s body as her foothold before she took off to charge at another Magic Stone Beast that was gathering strength to release the heat rays.

「You too! I shan’t let any of you do it!」

She slammed her halberd into the Magic Stone Beast’s chest with her momentum. Her attack once again made the heat rays dissipate.

Right after she attacked, she immediately put her strength into her white wings and retreated. She would keep flying around and interject the enemies’ fatal attacks with hit and run.

After Liselotte attacked yet another one, the Magic Stone Beast tightened its muscles, preventing her to pull out the tip of her halberd.

「Kgh……! How pretentious!」

While it stalled Liselotte, another one approached her from behind. Magic Stone Beasts showed no signs of intellect, but these ones were surprisingly coordinated in battle.

Her choices were either to abandon her halberd to evade or spin around to kick the one approaching from her back. As she hesitated, a black iron blade extended vigorously from the peripheral of her vision.

「I won’t let you!」

That was Leone’s Artifact. It was an attack that was exercised by strongly thrusting her sword while also extending the blade using a Gift, making the thrust even faster and stronger by combining the two forces.

An attack that could even keep Holy Knight Leon at bay. That attack pierced the Magic Stone Beast that approached Liselotte’s back from its behind.

Skewered by it, the beast naturally stopped in its tracks. In the meantime, Liselotte managed to pull her Artifact away and break free.

「Thank you so much, Leone! I see that you’re using both of your Gifts at the same time!」
「Yeah! I practiced, after all!」

Leone answered Liselotte’s smile with hers.

「Amazing……You’re doing great, Miss Leone!」

Seeing this, Principal Miliera couldn’t hide her surprise. Just now, Leone was manipulating a different Gift while she was using a Gift to produce and keep up the isolating subspace. Miliera had expected this to happen sooner or later, but she didn’t think Leone would have learned it so quickly. This was wonderful. It was great that Leone could move around like that even though she had to concentrate on maintaining the subspace.

「Now, let’s keep up with this momentum and continue defeating these Magic Stone Beasts!」

Wrapped in a black sphere, Ripple was still sucking up Miliera and Silva’s mana endlessly. This meant their enemies would keep increasing in numbers…