“We are defeating the monsters relatively safely thanks to the magic Itsuki cast,” Rishia reported. The discussion turned to the combat itself. Itsuki took the opposite approach from me, using support magic that debuffed all of an opponent’s status. If we shared a battlefield and both used our respective support magic, it was quite a thing—the enemies got weaker and we got stronger. I was already using Liberation Aura X, which boosted our allies multiple times. If the massive reduction that Liberation Down X offered was then also applied to the enemies, it was hard to calculate the gap in status that would be applied. I practically had zero attack power, and even I might be able to defeat such foes.

Under those circumstances, the thing we really had to watch out for were status-rating attacks, like those Kyo had unleashed. If that happened, we should just use our boosted status to avoid them or use the power of Hengen Muso Style life force to escape.

There were plans in place . . . was my point.

“The forces seem pretty locked in place . . . The issue is travel time,” I pondered aloud.

“Yes. Return Dragon Vein is sealed off too, meaning we have to take the fight directly to them,” Glass responded.

“More wasted days on the road. Just keeping the waves under control is trouble enough already,” I said. We were helping with the waves in this world with Glass, L’Arc, and Raphtalia, but they came at high frequency now. With backup from Itsuki and me, the fighting itself wasn’t presenting much of an issue . . . yet. Our biggest issue was information warfare. We weren’t facing complete idiots. If it started getting around that the guy who stole the scythe vassal weapon had been wiped out in seconds with the aid of support magic provided by a group coming from another world, they were going to put their guard up.

The issue there was the potential for Kizuna’s abduction to be used against us. It would be for the best if we could get her back first and then go about wiping these guys out.

In any case, we needed to move while the wind was at our backs.

“First things first, we need to work out where Kizuna is being held. Chris, you can sense where Kizuna is, correct?” I asked.

“Pen . . .” Chris said.

“He should be able to,” Glass confirmed, “but that didn’t apply when Kizuna was trapped in the never-ending labyrinth. The same problem seems to apply this time . . .” Kizuna definitely had a thing for going missing—even if I knew she wasn’t doing it on purpose.

“Pen!” Chris had been looking forlorn, but then he placed his flippers together and started to concentrate on something. A moment later, he opened his eyes and pointed in a certain direction.