Dark Fantasy: Super Coward Mode

---

I push through the bandits and forge ahead.

The ridiculous sounds of impacts and screams assault my ears.

The starkly contrasting noises made me feel quite bizarre.

“Muji Absoluta is charging! Everyone, protect him!”

At Leydan Tanton’s sharp command, all the knights turned their gazes towards us in unison.

The bandits pursuing me to catch me stumbled in surprise and halted in their tracks.

With a rallying cry, the knights charged at the bandits.

The bandits, who had been acting as if they would flee, reluctantly clashed swords with them.

As a result, we were able to move forward more easily towards the domain.

However, the distance to the domain was still far too great.

At this rate, it was clear that the knights, fighting defensively to protect me, would be injured.

“Hunter, Asti, and Princess! Hold on tight to me!”

They looked at me with puzzled expressions, but soon understood as they glanced at the wings extending from my back.

If running was slow, then the solution was simple: just fly.

“Come on!”

With my shout, they all clung onto me.

One by one, it felt relatively light, but with all three hanging on at once, it was certainly not easy.

However, it was still manageable.

I probably wouldn’t be able to soar high.

So, I had to commit everything to low-altitude flying and my reflexes.

I shook my wings a few times and then leaned forward as if to lay my body flat in the air.

Maybe thinking the princess would fall, she let out a shriek, “Eek!” But thankfully that didn’t happen.

The ground seemed so close I could almost touch it with an outstretched arm.

I was only flying at that height.

“Collision! Be careful!”

The Hunter warned me while keeping an eye forward despite the chaos.

Fortunately, I was able to shift my body just in time to avoid an accident.

At this point, it seemed I had no choice but to glide in a gentle arc.

“I’ll use the power of the Outsider! Everyone, shoot them down at once!”

“What?!”

At the bandit captain’s shout, some of the bandits drew arrows and aimed them at me.

I didn’t mind arrows being shot at me.

There was a chance I could dodge them somehow.

However, I hadn’t yet escaped the crowds.

If this continues, unnecessary casualties would surely increase.

And as the time dragged on due to healing victims, the success rate of the operation would drop exponentially.

“Hold on tight to me, Leydan Tanton.”

“…!”

At that moment, I heard the Hunter’s voice and instinctively wrapped my arm tightly around her shoulder.

Then, the Hunter pulled out something I had seen before: a revolver.

“Hunter, what do you plan to do with that…?”

“Brace for the recoil. Accuracy will drop.”

With that, the Hunter began to fire the revolver in the direction of the bandits as if she was shooting indiscriminately.

Pew, pew, pew, pew!

Each shot made my body sway, but I gritted my teeth and endured.

Surprisingly, her almost rapid-fire shooting was taking down the bandits aiming their arrows.

Finally, she just needed to hit one last shot to wipe out the archer bandit.

But…

“It missed…!”

I noticed the Hunter’s and Princess’s pupils dilate at Asti’s shout.

No, it wasn’t a miss; the bandit had twisted their head and dodged it.

That bandit pulled back his bowstring with a smug and serious expression, aiming the arrow directly at me.

The arrow’s trajectory was flying at an angle that precisely penetrated all my intended movements, more accurately than I had thought.

No matter how I dodged, it felt like either I or the Hunter would take the hit.

In this life-threatening situation.

“Fuhhh!”

With a battle cry, some figure launched and perfectly split the arrow aimed at my side.

Flying at breakneck speed, I looked back.

There stood the God of War holding an axe in each hand, one arm raised high.

“How dare that pathetic arrow try to block the path of a knight bringing glory to our empire! I won’t forgive this!”

The God of War shouted and charged at the bandit aiming at me.

The speed was so overwhelming that it was hard to even follow with my eyes.

“Tanton! We’re almost at the domain!”

At the princess’s shout, I looked ahead and spotted the defenseless open gate, left wide open due to the distraction from fighting the bandits.

This was where the real beginning could be said to start.

Even upon entering the domain, the flying didn’t stop.

The distance to the second princess was still quite far.

Despite the possibility of motion sickness, none of the people clinging to me showed any signs of discomfort.

That meant everyone was fully committed to this endeavor.

“Is the God of War going to be alright? He charged at the Candles alone just earlier…”

“He mentioned he was of the same caliber as the Deputy Director, so I doubt the Candle’s barrage would even scratch him.”

I replied logically to the slightly somber voice of the princess, who seemed worried about the God of War who had rushed in to save me from the arrows just earlier.

The God of War, reminiscent of a warrior, was sturdy—as opposed to the Deputy Director—showing incredible resilience.

He wouldn’t fall no matter how many blows he took.

I remembered how even when he was brainwashed during Gaia’s rampage, he shrugged off the headbutt I had launched without a hitch, so I couldn’t fathom him dying in a war.

“For now, we need to find the Deputy Director. We should move ahead and call the Elite Outsiders here.”

“Speaking of which, the line has broken from here.”

The Hunter said as she scanned the surroundings.

“It’s not exactly a good situation.”

“Hey, I see the line.”

As the Hunter muttered in a lowered tone, Asti pointed out something she had discovered.

There, not only was the Deputy Director present.

But also a massive number of Divine Race flooding the area.

Surrounding the Deputy Director’s team, they were looking for an opportunity to attack.

It was clearly a dangerous situation.

I hastily pulled out a Party Flute from my pocket and blew into it.

Hearing the sound of the flute, the Divine Race’s attention turned sharply towards me.

Thanks to that, the Deputy Director’s team was given a momentary opportunity.

“Fuhhh!”

I saw the Deputy Director drive his great sword into the ground.

At the same moment, a large crack formed in the earth, causing some of the nearby Divine Race to bounce away and a gap to appear.

As I played the Party Flute, Bell, Fiore, Zumiya, and Apta began to manifest.

In a place like the Gardener’s Garden, they would appear immediately without any waiting time, but here, it was within the reach of the second princess’s powers.

It was bound to take some time.

That meant I had to buy time while assisting the Deputy Director.

“Princess, stay here!”

“Yes…!”

I placed the princess on the roof of a tall building while keeping hold of the Hunter and Asti and moved towards the Deputy Director.

Just as we were about to land almost to the ground, they landed in a rather striking posture and immediately joined the battle.

Asti gathered red energy in both hands.

The Hunter readied a double-barrel shotgun.

While they extinguished the immediate fire, I thought I needed to halt the advancing waves of Divine Race from behind.

With my body freed, I soared high into the sky.

The invading Divine Race from the outside.

They were no different from bandits, and the fact that they entered aggregated just now meant they were coming in with selfish thoughts, just like the bandits.

Not thinking about a bright future, but only their immediate survival.

I took a breath and drew every bit of heat in my body into my mouth.

After a short while, I finally opened my mouth just wide enough to barely hold the fireball.

It was a moment where I felt once again the part where Zumiya could instantly unleash such power while she was supposed to be a mere half-breed.

It seemed the Deputy Director confirmed what I was doing and shouted to his team.

“Knights! Quickly evacuate through the opening created by the Hunter!”

“Understood!”

At the Deputy Director’s command, the knights began to swiftly distance themselves from where the Divine Race was.

The experience gained from countless battles was truly remarkable.

Thanks to that, I could comfortably fire.

Fwhoosh!

With a sound effect like boiling fire, a massive flame erupted from my mouth, engulfing the Divine Race entirely.

The Divine Race in that location was all wrapped in flames and vanished as if they had never existed.

The buildings that were there were also set ablaze and disappeared.

Only the people frozen by the second princess remained in their spots.

I briefly descended to the ground.

To check on the Hunter, Asti, and the princess.

Also, to see how the Deputy Director was faring.

Just in time, most of the half-breeds had gathered, so we should be ready to depart.

As I considered this and approached the Deputy Director.

“Tanton! Behind!”

The Deputy Director’s shout rang out, and I immediately turned around.

There was a giant of a Divine Race, swinging a massive hammer down at me.

“Die!”

Normally, I’d think it’d be okay to just take a hit, but that hammer was far too big.

Yeah.

I’d probably die instantly upon impact, right?

“No way!”

“Tanton!”

At that moment, Bell, who had just appeared, raced towards me like a maniac trying to save me, but she was still too far away.

Meanwhile, the hammer continued its descent above my head.

Time slowed down.

I felt like I could move and escape at any moment, but the problem was my body was moving slowly too.

Ah, so this is how it ends?

Could there really be any Divine Race who escaped the flames?

If I die, our side would suffer a major defeat in this war.

All sorts of thoughts flooded my mind at that moment.

Thud.

I heard a sound.

But there was no sensation on my head.

No pain either.

It was merely a trivial sound echoing in my ear.

“Whew, just in time.”

That sounded like an oddly aggressive honorific.

In fact, I’d rather they just spoke informally, as that tone seemed to sap away my disbelief.

The hammer that was about to smash me crumbled to dust, scattering everywhere.

Realizing that something had happened to their hammer, the Divine Race twisted their face in confusion, but upon seeing the strange figure using honorifics, they seemed to lose all strength and crawled away.

She didn’t chase after that Divine Race.

It seemed she had business with me instead.

“If you’re alive, just say so. I could’ve helped earlier.”

When that figure finally turned around and met my eyes, I couldn’t help but let out a laugh.

I never expected her to show up in this situation.

“So you’re trying to do a good deed, huh? The sun must be rising in the west, Gaia.”

Gaia chuckled at my words with a smirk and replied.

“I’m going to trust you just this once. Your words.”

 

---