The Dragon Claw Continent

The Dragon Claw Continent was the equivalent of South America on Earth. This was where the most powerful of the evil gods resided—the evil gods, demon gods, and wicked gods that stood at the pinnacle of malevolent deities.

While their domain was vast, they didn't actually control everything. The races that had lived here previously were still putting up a valiant resistance.

For example, along the coast, they could receive supplies and support via sea routes. This was the most common pattern. Along the western coast of the Dragon Claw Continent, the races had scattered strongholds.

In fortress cities, as long as they weren't attacked on the gods' whims, they could survive. This pattern wasn't very common due to food supply issues.

And then there were the guerrilla forces—small groups hiding in forested areas. Earth's history had proven how effective this was against powerful large armies.

Though in this case, since they couldn't scavenge much in the way of weapons from the insect people, they still faced difficulties with supplies.

And now, Sei and the others were heading toward the heroes.

Not to send them back, but to rely on them purely as fighting power.

"Damn it! Can't we get a little more distance?"

Sei stuck his head out from the wagon's canopy, continuously firing fireball spells behind them.

"Impossible! If we go any faster, the horses will collapse!"

Kukuri also shouted anxiously from the driver's seat. To use Lavi's teleportation, they would need to stop once. There was no time for that.

Sei and the others were being pursued.

By a group of monsters, the demon commanding them, and the insect people they were seeing for the first time.

After infiltrating the Dragon Claw Continent, Sei and the others had been traveling to make contact with the heroes as usual.

The problem was the map. Just like the Dragon Wing Continent, the Dragon Claw Continent had even worse map accuracy.

There were few places where Lavi's teleportation could be used, and while Laila's forest walking was somewhat useful, it couldn't be used on grasslands or mountain ranges. In the first place, some forests were contaminated by the gods' power, making forest walking itself unusable.

Travel by wagon was also difficult with bad roads, and the roads themselves were often destroyed or had disappeared entirely along the way.

As they struggled onward, they encountered a large enemy force. No—they had been detected from outside Sei's map range.

They were probably reinforcements heading to the front lines. Sei and the others had tried to avoid them, but it seemed they'd been detected by monsters or insect people with keen senses.

And currently, Sei and the others were being chased by a portion that had separated from the large force.

From Sei and the others' perspective, if they were reinforcements for the front lines, couldn't they just ignore a small group?

However, the army that was used to following orders, even with low intelligence, recognized Sei's group as scouts.

Enemy scouts had to be eliminated. That was standard military practice.

But to continue pursuit even after taking heavy losses—that was probably a characteristic of the insect people, who followed orders absolutely and lacked flexible judgment.

Even the demon seemed to view Sei and the others' combat ability as dangerous. They kept chasing despite taking losses.

This had been going on for half a day now.

The enemy numbered in the hundreds. Probably not a thousand.

But they couldn't afford to stop against such numbers. Never mind Sei and the others—the horses would be killed.

So Sei was fleeing while casting healing magic on the horses.

The problem was fighting back while fleeing.

Among Sei's group, Laila was the most specialized in long-range attacks. She took down monsters with spirit arts, but the demon used defensive magic, so she couldn't deliver decisive blows.

In Lavi's case, she couldn't use her breath without returning to dragon form. And she couldn't very well transform into a dragon while riding in a wagon.

The close-combat specialists used bows and crossbows, but the number of enemies they could take down at once was limited. Lavi also used a bow, making use of her superhuman strength, but perhaps due to her clumsiness, many of her shots didn't fly straight.

In the end, Mako attacked by extending her spear, while Sei and Laila attacked wide areas with magic.

But no matter how many they defeated, the enemy numbers didn't seem to decrease. Looking closer, it appeared that nearby monsters were gathering, perhaps due to the demon's magic.

"If only we could take that guy down…"

For that, they would need to get much closer. And getting closer meant being surrounded. Therefore, this plan was rejected.

"What are we gonna do, Sei? We're gonna be worn down at this rate!"

Actually, the situation wasn't as dire as Kukuri made it sound. If Sei continued to heal using his vast magical power, they could manage the horses' fatigue, if not the wagon's durability. And eventually, the enemy should return to their main force for their original purpose.

But separately from that, Sei could see a future where they escaped this situation.

"Just a little more… just a little longer…"

The wagon passed through a narrow path sandwiched by small cliffs on both sides.

That was the moment.

Attacks rained down on the pursuing enemy forces from both cliffs.

They were arrows, magic, and simple rocks.

"Allies?"

Mako muttered. Of course, Sei's map had detected their presence quite some time ago.

A force of about 100 people from the races. Their average level was around 20. For an armed group with this level, they were a respectable fighting force.

After passing through the narrow path, Sei had Kukuri stop the wagon. A small number of enemies came toward them, having slipped through the races' attacks.

Sei used guided arrows on all of them, killing them completely.

Then he concentrated. For a long-range attack spell against a demon using magical barriers, considerable power was necessary.

'Guided Fire Lance'

A white flame lance was thrown, breaking through the magical barrier and piercing the demon.

Having lost the demon's command, the monsters scattered and fled. The group on the cliffs annihilated the remaining insect people with coordinated attacks.

Sei and the others helped with magic-focused attacks, and after a few minutes, the stragglers were dealt with.

Humans descended from the cliffs.

A few had equipment like regular soldiers, but most wore weapons and armor of non-standardized make.

The racial composition was half human, half demi-human, with a few demons.

It was somewhat similar to Sei's group's composition. Three girls who appeared human, plus an elf, a dwarf, a halfling, and a High Orc.

The one who stepped forward from the group was a boy who still looked to be in his teens. But he seemed to be leading this group. When Sei used Identify on him, he was actually level 50.

It was easy to forget with all the recent level inflation, but level 50 meant he was quite a formidable warrior.

"Coming from the north—don't tell me you broke through the gods' forces from the Dragon Wing Continent?"

The boy asked, shouldering his longsword. Sei gave him accurate information.

"The gods' forces were annihilated by a hero's power—hundreds of thousands of them. So we slipped through during that opening."

He wasn't lying.

"… Seriously? Well, assuming that's true, what are you doing on this continent? This isn't a place for little ladies to go sightseeing."

"We're looking for heroes. The remaining four should be on this continent."

The boy's expression turned suspicious.

"Heroes? I'd heard rumors, but I was told that after Neosis was destroyed by a dragon, they were missing. Plus, the continent is huge. Why are you looking for them? To use them as fighting power?"

"Well, let's start with introductions. I'm Sei. I'm working to send the heroes back to their original world."

"Wait, wait. There's already a problem with that information!"

In the end, Sei and the boy exchanged introductions and current situations while traveling.

The boy's name was Lynx. He appeared to be the captain of one group among the guerrilla forces fighting the gods.

It seemed to be a subdivision of a much larger organization, but that was apparently secret, as he only hinted at it. Sei didn't expect to get that information so quickly anyway.

And having seen Sei and the others fight the gods' forces, Lynx seemed to trust them somewhat. He guided them to one of the bases in the forest. They took a detour along a bumpy road that the wagon could barely pass through to reach that base.

There were no residents. This was purely a base, with only minimal supplies and several tents where they could rest.

The 100 or so allies had apparently scattered to other bases along the way here.

There was a crucial difference between the guerrillas that existed on Earth and the guerrillas of the Dragon Claw Continent.

On Earth, armies couldn't distinguish between guerrillas and civilians, and couldn't just massacre everyone.

But the Dragon Claw Continent was different. To demons and insect people alike, all races were prey. Disguising as civilians was useless.

So they made large bases where they gathered combat support personnel and those of the races who couldn't even manage that, then created small bases around them. Even the large bases were designed to be abandoned and fled from if necessary.

Groups that could fight moved between small bases and protected the larger bases. The place Sei and the others were guided to was one of these.

"Well then, shall we start talking seriously?"

"I thought we'd been talking seriously the whole time."

At Sei's joking words, Lynx showed a wry smile.

"I want to know about the Dragon Wing Continent's situation. And specifically, how you broke through the evil gods' forces. No matter how strong a hero is, one person can't really defeat an army of hundreds of thousands, right?"

Actually, they could.

"Each hero has powerful Gifts. That particular hero had the Gift of 'Poison'. Poison so deadly it could kill instantly when carried on the wind. We adjusted the wind direction with magic and spread it."

"… That's amazing. Where is that hero now?"

"Unfortunately, they've already returned to their original world."

"… With that much power, couldn't they have fought more?"

"No, considering how the poison spreads, allies in the vicinity might have been harmed."

As they exchanged information like this, it seemed Lynx didn't really view Sei and the others as fighting power.

With four young maidens present, never mind the dwarf and High Orc, perhaps it couldn't be helped.

"Still, it's surprising you brought us to your base."

Even though they'd been chased by demons, they were strangers meeting for the first time. Normally, wouldn't he be more cautious?

"Well, you seemed serious about fighting the demons, and honestly, if you have supplies, I'd like you to share."

Here was another difference between Earth's guerrillas and Nears' guerrillas.

Earth's guerrillas could use weapons that were provided or captured. But on Nears, it was different.

For monsters, demons, and insect people, their physical abilities were basically their weapons. Even when they had weapons, they were primitive ones.

So if Sei and the others had anything, there was a request to provide it.

What Lynx and his people could provide was mostly geographical information about the area.

"We don't have much in the way of weapons or armor. We do have a fair amount of food though…"

What was loaded in the wagon was basically preserved food. All the important things were in Sei's folder.

"Can't believe you came to this continent with such preparation…"

Lynx was exasperated, but well, just looking at it, he would think that. This group had no one with the Identify skill or users of advanced Principle magic. Even though they'd seen Sei and the others' abilities in the earlier battle to some extent, they were surely underestimating them quite a bit.

"Well, we had good luck, and we had trump cards if it came down to it."

Lynx seemed somewhat interested in those trump cards, but deliberately didn't ask about them. It would be wrong to expect to be told about such trump cards.

And so negotiations began.

What Lynx requested were weapons and ammunition as expected, but these supplies that were difficult to resupply were naturally stored in Sei's folder as well. So he couldn't give them to the guerrillas.

At best, he could provide pre-modern weapons like swords, spears, and bows, along with basic equipment like armor and boots.

And what Lynx provided was maps and terrain information of this area. It was especially helpful to learn which roads the wagon could pass through.

Sei's map had an effective range of 20 kilometers, which was wide yet narrow. On a continent where the original main roads were completely severed, they sometimes had to make big detours to reach their destination.

"If possible, I'd like you to join our group, you know."

Lynx said that, but it didn't align with Sei's objectives.

"Well, the information and equipment were helpful. I tried to tell you about routes with as little danger as possible, but be careful."

"Yeah, thanks. Our maps had become useless too, so this really helps."

And the two were about to shake hands and part ways when—

"Lynx! Enemies! At base number 12 to the northwest!"

A man burst into the tent and shouted.