Chapter 2-25 : Business Competition Ⅱ (part 1)
As soon as the cave became noisy, many Ice Fang Bats came and tried to attack Gil-san who was trying to steal their food.
「You idiot! Why don’t you listen to her until she finishes explaining!?」(Andre)
「I, I’m sorry!」(Gil)
Andre-san immediately jumped in and defended Gil-san by slashing the incoming bats with his sword.
After being yelled at by Andre-san, Gil-san apologized, threw away the frozen fruit in his hand, pulled out his sword and helped Andre-san.
Seeing his friends in trouble, Gray-san pulled out his sword and joined them.
However, the bats were not only attacking the male group, they were also coming for us ladies.
I immediately used magic to shoot the incoming bats and cut the nearby ones with my sword that I had pulled out.
「It’s noon, right!? They should have been sleeping, right!? Why are they suddenly attacking us!?」(Iris)
Iris-san was confused but she kept swinging her sword, attacking the incoming bats.
「Humans suddenly came and tried to steal their food, of course they would wake up.」(Sarasa)
「Food is a matter of life and death for animals after all.」(Kate)
Saying that, Kate-san jumped in between me and Iris-san and prepared her bow. She left the nearby bats to us and started shooting arrows at the incoming bats that were a little farther away from us.
「I got your point, butー Hyaa! Dammit! They’re too many!」(Iris)
While complaining, Iris-san kept swinging her sword.
The Ice Fang Bats’ corpses kept piling up and covering the ground around us, leaving almost no room for us to put our feet.
However, the Ice Fang Bats didn’t stop attacking us.
After a while, the first to run out of breath was Iris-san.
「*Breathing heavily* Hahhh… Hahhh…. Hahh… This is bad… I’m about to reach my limit.」(Iris)
「Iris, don’t you dare give up! Look, Store Owner-san has been working so hard using magic while swinging her sword all this time, and you want to give up and leave the rest to her!?」(Kate)
「Look who’s talking! You’re lecturing me while taking a rest, aren’t you!? Swinging a sword for a long time is tiring, you know!? Well, I feel pathetic for losing to Store Owner-dono in terms of stamina, but…!」(Iris)
「Geez, you two, stop fighting. Don’t worry. If you’re tired, I can strengthen my Air Wall to prevent the bats from attacking us for a while.」(Sarasa)
「Is that possible?」(Iris)
「Of course.」(Sarasa)
「Come to think of it, you once used that spell to deflect Ice Fang Bats the first time we came into this cave.」(Kate)
Originally, Air Wall was a spell to block arrows, not to block falling manure like I’ve been doing for quite a while now.
It has enough power to deflect normal arrows, but if you have a lot of magical power like me, you can strengthen it to the level where you can even deflect Ice Fang Bats’ charge attacks.
I didn’t strengthen this spell from the beginning because deflecting Ice Fang Bats with Air Wall will not kill them. Our purpose for coming here is to kill them, and we can’t kill them if they don’t come close to us, right?
「So, you want me to strengthen it or not?」(Sarasa)
「Ughh… N-No. I’m tired but I will try to keep fighting for now!」(Iris)
「Are you sure? That’s great. I think it will be over soon, so hang in there!」(Sarasa)
「Roger!」(Iris)
My perception magic has a fairly wide range. I can tell there are still a ton of bats coming over here, but I feel like it will be over soon.
Now that Iris-san had decided to keep fighting, she continued attacking the bats while watching Kate-san’s back. Kate-san also continued shooting the bats while watching Iris-san’s back. They were just fighting a moment ago, but I knew they would make up right away.
The moment Andre-san and his party members were starting to run out of breath, the bats finally stopped coming.
「Hahh… hahh… Is it… over…?」(Iris)
「Yeah. At least for now.」(Sarasa)
I nodded to Iris-san, who hung her arm that was holding her sword and looked around while breathing heavily.
「Aaahh… my arms and fingers hurt…」(Kate)
Kate-san took a deep breath and moved her arms around.
She fought until she ran out of arrows and continued fighting with her dagger.
She doesn’t look as tired as Iris-san but I’m sure she’s quite burned out.
「Gwaaaahー! That was tough!」(Andre)
「There were so many of them.」(Gray)
「Aahh! I’m really tired…!」(Gil)
「It’s because of your carelessness to begin with! I hope you reflect upon your mistake!」(Andre)
「Y-Yes, sir! Everyone, I’m really sorry for the trouble!」(Gil)
Gil-san put his hands together in front of his face and bowed down.
I smiled at him and shook my head.
「No one got injured, so it’s okay, but I hope you learn from this.」(Sarasa)
「Thank you!」(Gil)
If the bats kept coming, I was planning to strengthen my Air Wall and protect everyone while they were resting for a while, so the risk of us getting injured was pretty low actually.
「By the way, Store Owner-dono, as expected, you’re really amazing! You kept using magic while swinging your sword, but you didn’t look tired at all!」(Iris)
「Well, I used body strengthening magic, so I wasn’t that tired even though I swung my sword for a long time. My physical strength and stamina without body strengthening is actually not even close to yours, you know? And, Iris-san, you keep forgetting to call me Shinjini. Well, I won’t blame you for not calling me that when the bats were attacking, but now please don’t forget about it again.」(Sarasa)
「O, Okay…」(Iris)
「Aa, now that you mentioned it, I also called you Store Owner-san when the bats were attacking… I’m sorry, but… Do we really need to call you Shinjini in the first place?」(Kate)
「Of course you do. If that merchant finds out about my true identity, it won’t be fun anymoー I mean… it will be a problem, right?」(Sarasa)
After I said that, Andre-san looked at me suspiciously.
「Oi, Shinjini. You’re having fun aren’t you?」(Andre)
「Eh? No, no, no. I’m just looking forward to destroying that greedy merchant’s business. It’s nothing serious.」(Sarasa)
「Nothing serious, huh!?」(Gil)
When I honestly said what I was thinking, Gil-san suddenly made a tsukkomi.
Sarasa is shooting the bats one by one with magic? Just learn offensive spells like Chain Lightning already! Lol.