How To Suck Honey With Extras [EN]: Chapter 135

149. Assault on the Grand Duke’s Estate (2)

“Excuse me? What do you mean by that?”

“It’s nothing. More importantly, pay more attention to the other soldiers than to me. Some of them must still be shaken up by all this.”

“…Lucel.”

“What? Surprised to hear an elf say something like that?”

Lucel, noticing a strangely indifferent gaze, made a joke. The knights shook their heads, surprised.

“Ah, no!”

“Haa… Never mind, just go.”

Lucel reached for a potion to catch his breath. It was one of the many Aileen had recently given him as a gift.

‘He’s just taking it out and drinking it as he pleases, but she wouldn’t complain, would she?’ he thought.

‘After all, he was the one protecting them while they went to recover the artifacts.’

“…Ugh?!”

Just then, he felt a strange sensation emanating from the main gate of the Grand Duke’s castle.

A place now firmly sealed with an iron gate for the siege.

For some reason, the skin all over his body prickled.

And then…

KWAANGAAAAAAANG!

The solid iron gate shattered into four pieces with a sound of violently crumpling metal, the fragments flying into the air.

“Pu-huk! W-What happened!”

Lucel was so surprised that he involuntarily spilled some of the potion he had in his mouth.

The gate was breached?

The gate was incredibly thick, easily twice the size of an average man’s torso.

And now it was being torn apart and flying through the air.

By a single human.

“Honestly, you’re all pathetic. Can’t even open a light gate like this… Tin cans, did you see that properly?”

The red-haired woman who had blown away the iron gate wore a belligerent smile, as if she found something amusing, and shook her left wrist.

“If a door doesn’t open, you just punch it roughly like this, and it’ll open.”

“I-Is that so?”

“That’s right~ …Tsk.”

The red-haired mercenary looked at the bewildered soldiers and knights and sighed, as if dumbfounded.

“Seriously… If this were my mercenary group, I would have drilled them for ages and fixed that pathetic state first.”

She grumbled and roughly kicked the butt of a knight who was equally stunned.

“What are you standing around for? Why aren’t you rushing in? Who do you think opened the door for you? Huh? Are you not going to work while I’m working?”

“Y-Yes, ma’am!”

Only then did the enemies seem to snap out of it and rush in through the door that the red-haired woman had opened.

There was no time to stand idly by.

“The gate has been breached!”

“Stop them! Don’t just stand there!”

The soldiers of the Grand Duchy hurriedly rushed to defend the breached gate, colliding with the onrushing enemy soldiers.

“Seriously! Give me a break!”

Lucel tried to summon the Ice Spirit to target the enemy soldiers who had broken through.

“Oops! That would be troublesome!”

The red-haired woman who had just smashed the main gate rushed in front of the charging Ice Spirit.

“…Are you crazy?”

Lucel gritted his teeth and unhesitatingly ordered an attack.

He didn’t know who that woman was, but the fact that she had torn down the iron gate with her bare hands was already ominous.

If such a monster was willingly throwing herself in, there was no reason to let her go.

“Freeze her, crush her!”

The Ice Spirit, Grace, responded to Lucel’s command and flapped her wings.

The spirit’s energy soon became a chilling wind that swirled around.

A glittering ice storm poured down on the red-haired woman.

‘She’s caught for sure!’

He was worried about what would happen if she dodged, but the enemy was simply swallowed up by the ice storm.

Lucel was about to rejoice inwardly.

Crack!

A sound of something breaking.

A red flash that burst through the storm rushed straight towards Lucel’s Ice Spirit.

“Ahah! It’s been a while since I’ve faced proper spirit magic. It’s still unnecessarily flashy. Well, I like that about it, though.”

She had taken the ice storm head-on and only suffered slight frost on her equipment. She grinned as if she was enjoying herself.

And then…

She slashed the Ice Spirit in half.

It seemed like only a single red line was drawn, and the Ice Spirit was shattered into pieces.

Her materialized body was destroyed, and she returned to the spirit realm.

“Hmm~ I guess spirits don’t die just from being cut?”

The arm of the female mercenary who had sent Lucel’s spirit back with a single blow was wrapped with a strange sword.

The sword was only a blade.

Only a blade with strange characters densely engraved on it.

There wasn’t even a handle to hold it.

That’s why she had no choice but to wield it like this, and the lower part of the blade was wrapped around the woman’s left arm like a snake.

And while wrapped around, it was sucking its owner’s blood.

“…Kugh!”

Lucel gritted his teeth and jumped back.

His judgment had been naive.

Only now did he realize that this woman was a master beyond his imagination.

And the sword she had was no ordinary sword.

“…A magic sword?”

Since her companion also possessed a powerful item, he couldn’t help but know.

“Aha~ So you’re an elf up close~.”

Unlike Lucel, who was gritting his teeth as if nervous, the red-haired woman laughed cheerfully.

“An elf and a spirit mage. That’s definitely rare. No wonder those tin cans are struggling.”

“…”

“Then, miss… No, since you’re an elf, are you older than me? Then, I’ll take on that older sister. Those guys are weak knights, so they’re very afraid of spirits, I hear. Puhuhuhuhuh! They’re so pathetic. Right?”

Unlike Lucel, who was on full alert, the red-haired woman approached him as if to play, giggling defenselessly.

And then…

“So, I’ll have to do some work myself!”

As if telling him to respond, she even raised her voice on purpose and charged straight at Lucel.

She was fast.

Lucel quickly summoned a spirit.

“Tempest!”

A snake that created wind was summoned into the air and repeatedly spat out powerful wind pressure bullets.

It was a mid-grade wind spirit, one of Lucel’s contracted spirits.

However…

“A spirit! You’ve also contracted with a wind spirit! Good. A very good spirit!”

She laughed as if she was enjoying it and swung her sword.

As the red sword energy was drawn, the wind pressure bullets scattered, and the wind snake was shattered into pieces.

‘What kind of person is that?!’

He felt like screaming, but there was no time to do so.

The red-haired woman who had already shattered the wind snake had reached just five steps in front of Lucel.

He would be cut.

“Tch!”

Lucel reached behind his waist and drew the short sword he had there.

The exposed blade gleamed, and he swung it straight at the neck of the red-haired woman who was charging at him.

It wasn’t like Lucel had no other talents at all.

You could learn talents if you just tried!

That was the iron rule that his companion insisted on.

He had learned some swordsmanship in preparation for emergencies, even while being nagged.

He was even capable of adding mana to the sword itself to make it sharper, even if it wasn’t full-fledged aura [a technique to enhance weapons with life energy].

‘At the very least, to catch her off guard and prevent her from thinking about approaching easily…’

A check to catch her off guard and create an opening.

At the very least, he would use the opportunity to feed her the spirit magic that he could activate the fastest while that woman was blocking this sword.

However, Lucel’s eyes widened at the enemy’s unexpected action.

The red-haired woman simply bit down on the short sword that Lucel had swung and blocked it.

Clang!

Lucel’s sword stopped, chewed by her teeth.

Then, she forcibly shook her head to take the sword away and spat it out.

It was an unimaginable response.

‘What kind of woman is that?! Is she crazy?!’

In fact, wasn’t she a monster in human skin?

For a moment, he even had such thoughts.

He couldn’t just be surprised.

Lucel barely calmed down and urgently summoned a spirit.

Five lower-grade water spirits in the form of fish began to float around her.

The lower-grade water spirits simultaneously shot out high-pressure streams of water, aiming for the blind spots in her vision.

Precise streams of water that accurately targeted the blind spots.

This was a method that even Lucel’s companion had praised as dangerous.

“Ahah~ So you use them like that, huh.”

However, for some reason, the enemy only raised the corners of her mouth as if she was dumbfounded.

It was as if she was saying this.

Naive.

At that moment, it seemed to Lucel that the streams of water shot from five directions were hitting something invisible and bouncing off.

She had deflected the streams of water by wielding her sword with skill that was impossible to detect.

“Too bad, Elf sister.”

And the sword she swung grazed Lucel’s torso.

“Too weak. Below expectations.”

It was over.

However, she tilted her head to the side even after swinging her sword.

“Huh?”

Lucel, who he thought had been cut, jumped back with all his might to create distance.

However, it wasn’t like he was unharmed.

“Ugh…”

Drip. Drip.

Every time Lucel staggered, drops of blood fell to the floor.

“Huh? That’s strange? I was definitely going to tear you apart.”

She tilted her head in doubt, then nodded as if she understood what had happened.

A spirit that had not been visible until now had been summoned on the floor.

And scattered around it were torn pieces of iron stained with blood.

“Ahah~.”

She smiled as if she understood how he had blocked it.

The pieces of iron that had appeared in front of Lucel’s torso must have blocked the sword to some extent.

“Hee? There was such a spirit?”

“…”

“Judging from what I see, it manipulates iron, right? Then, is it an iron spirit? It’s amazing that you can summon iron from nothing, huh?”

Iron, a mid-grade iron spirit.

It was a spirit with a fairly rare attribute among the spirits Lucel had contracted with.

“Shut up!”

As the iron spirit reacted to Lucel’s hostile shout.

Black waves spewed out from all directions and poured towards the red-haired mercenary.

As a spirit that manipulated iron, it gathered and manipulated the iron sand sleeping beneath the ground.

In addition, it gathered and launched the scattered weapons around it.

“Oh?”

The red-haired mercenary admired and stopped moving.

However, she didn’t stop on her own.

The iron included in her equipment was interfered with by the spirit’s ability, which interfered with her movements.

As it was, she was swallowed up by the storm of iron sand.

Lucel watched the storm of iron that would grind even rocks in an instant and gritted his teeth as he summoned the next spirit.

“Ifrit!”

From behind the storm of iron, a giant of fire appeared and ignited the flames as they were.

The iron began to melt sticky with high heat, and vivid crimson liquid danced in the air like a red-hot furnace, covering the enemy.

It was a method that even Lucel wouldn’t use unless he had to.

However…

“…I’m jealous. You have so many talents. Elf sister, you don’t have to worry about starving~.”

Everything was shattered with just a few more red lines drawn again.

“Ifrit!”

The giant of fire swung its arm with the momentum to blow her away.

“But still, you’re weak.”

She received Ifrit’s forearm with just her bare hands, let alone a sword.

“Even if you have many talents, if you don’t have power, you’re useless.”

And when she kicked upwards, Ifrit’s giant body bounced off and scattered into embers.

“…Aura.”

The extreme density of aura.

Without even drawing a weapon, she concentrated only on the aura to give a more intense shock than an ordinary blunt weapon.

The extreme of pure aura training.

She was definitely not a common master.

A monster of the first class or higher.

“Who… are you?”

“Me? Just a mercenary who’s crazy about money.”

She wasn’t being sarcastic, but she seemed to think so sincerely, and there was an unusually strong emotion in her answer.

“A mercenary?”

“And this is a request. A common request to capture this castle and bring back what I want.”

“…Is it at the instigation of the Forellos Empire?”

“Oh my~ I can’t say that much, no matter what.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter whether I do it or not,” she muttered and just smiled.

“Anyway. Since I still can’t see that princess, I guess I have to find her myself… There are no traces of her coming out, so is there an air-raid shelter inside the castle? That would be annoying. Ah, do you happen to have a map? Well, I guess you wouldn’t.”

The red-haired woman, who was complaining as if that was more troublesome, gave Lucel a slightly cold look.

She was going to end it now.

“I’m sorry, but especially types like you, Elf sister, who have so much promising talent, are troublesome if I leave you alive. So, I have to finish you off for sure.”

“Don’t make me laugh… I don’t have to listen to a brat who doesn’t even seem to have lived half my life!”

“Ahahaha! That was rude of me!”

The enemy laughed wildly as if she was happy and raised her sword.

Lucel suppressed his injuries and desperately gathered more mana.

He didn’t feel like he had a chance of winning, but he wasn’t satisfied with giving up either.

Just as Lucel was prepared and trying to gather strength.

“…”

Suddenly, Lucel’s expression changed.

And she also jumped back for some reason to create distance.

And chasing after Lucel from behind were hundreds of water spears.

They even changed direction in the air to chase the enemy.

“Huh? It doesn’t seem like those are from that Elf sister…”

While she was lightly waving her hand to check the water arrows.

Suddenly, her steps slowed down.

“Huh? Weight?”

A purple light flickered, as if forcibly pressing down on her body.

And additionally, flames were poured down.

Watching the scene, Lucel took half the strength out of his body and sat down.

“…I’ll give you a warning, but that thing isn’t dead. It’s a complete monster.”

“I know that without you telling me.”

A boy’s voice answered as if he was fed up with it.

When Lucel glanced back, he saw Aileen’s figure, using spirit magic with a stiff expression.

“I know that monster well enough to be sick of it, so Lucel, you step back for now.”

The boy quietly stared at the enemy.

“I’ll take care of the rest somehow.”

He declared.