“Raph,” Raph-chan replied, seemingly understanding exactly what I had asked, and pointed at the town—at the castle. It seemed that was the direction Raphtalia was in.

“Right. Enough playing around. Let’s get moving. However . . . be sure to take care. If you’ve got a low level, be extra careful,” I cautioned them. I proceeded to cast support magic on everyone, and then we headed for the town around the castle.

In front of the town—in front of the castle gates—there was a battle that could only be said to be “raging.” Troops in armor I didn’t recognize were fighting those wearing armor worn by L’Arc’s forces, each side hacking at the other, weapons in hand. It looked like we’d walked into an invasion of L’Arc’s country.

As I fought through the ranks, I protected Filo and Ethnobalt and made my way to the front line. If I kept Shooting Star Shield up, there was no worry of someone catching a stray arrow.

A grunt attracted my attention, and I turned to see Glass and Raphtalia with their weapons locked in combat against someone holding the scythe that should have belonged to L’Arc. Raphtalia was there! And she looked to be losing ground. From L’Arc I sensed a real tension, a kind of panic.

“Now! Defeat the arrogant King L’Arc Berg, former holder of a vassal weapon!” yelled a voice. This came from a woman standing at the rear of the enemy forces. She had an atmosphere around here that, at worst, could have been said to be like Witch. Meanwhile, Therese was fighting behind Raphtalia and Glass.

“You scum! Stealing my weapon and doing all of this! I keep telling you, this is not the intended purpose of these weapons!” L’Arc growled.

Someone else was there—a man retorted, “Hah! Why would we listen to someone whose weapon dumped him? This sweet little scythe doesn’t want a goody-goody justice lover like you! It came to me because I’m the kind of owner it always wanted!” The man holding the actual scythe snorted at L’Arc’s anger. He had the same atmosphere about him as Kyo and Takt.

“You lie! The scythe vassal weapon would never think such a thing!” Therese denied those claims, and Raphtalia and Glass glared the speaker down. The enemy with the scythe dropped back, launching a follow-up of countless magic and ofuda directly at Raphtalia and Glass. The two women fought them all off.

“Seriously? You can’t do a thing unless you all bunch together! Pathetic. You can’t hope to save this world, at this level,” the enemy cackled. Things certainly didn’t look good. For one thing, L’Arc had bandages wrapped around his head and arm. He didn’t have his scythe vassal weapon either. It sounded like it had been stolen, much like Takt stole our weapons. Therese also had bandages wrapped around her arm and leg. From the way she was walking, she had suffered serious injuries. Glass didn’t seem to have any particular injuries on her, but her clothing had definitely seen better days. They were clearly all worn down from a string of successive battles.