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Zeth groaned. The monsters were drawing close, and he had no idea why they were even attacking. If Erza was to be believed, they were apparently docile creatures—certainly not the type that would come crashing into a populated town and start stomping people to death. But then, perhaps believing Erza’s words wasn’t a particularly good idea to begin with.

Whatever was going on, he knew he wanted to avoid causing a disaster. Not only was needless carnage something he’d want to avoid to begin with, but if things got bad enough, the Blood Mage would be able to leverage the disaster to their advantage—all those bodies, all that blood, they’d be able to use it all for their own purposes and cause even more death and destruction.

But Zeth wouldn’t be able to solve anything as he was. He needed to get away from here.

While Erza was still digging through the shed in search of whatever item he was looking for, Zeth used the most natural excuse he had. “Yeah, this isn’t my fight. I’m out of here.”

And with that, he turned tail and ran.

Erza shouted something after him, calling him a coward and telling him to fight like a proper mage, but Zeth ignored his words.

He fled down a road, away from people’s sight, and then straight into the woods opposite the direction the mannitors came from. It’d take too long to go all the way to his base and back, so he stopped once the wall of foliage was thick enough to block the sight of anyone watching.

There, he threw off his overclothes and donned his mask. The tight undershirt and pants were made of simple black wool, covering the majority of his body, and the mask consisted of a hood to cover most of his head, and then a lower face covering to conceal everything but his eyes.

In addition to the clothes, he had also been wearing one more thing underneath his baggy overclothes: a small belt, fashioned out of one he’d already owned, modified to have some simple loops running around it. And within those loops were simple leather containers, like miniature waterskins. Each of them held a small amount of blood—already measured out beforehand to be the exact amount needed to activate a Hellfire Ritual. Only a couple were filled up, though, since he only had the one with him to activate.

The moment Zeth finished changing into his gear, he ran over to another section of woods to ensure he wouldn’t be seen going in and out from the same spot, then emerged, setting his sight on the part of town the mannitors had charged into.

And when he did, he saw carnage. The mannitors apparently seemed to consider the largest things around to be the most threatening, so they’d taken to destroying buildings first, ignoring the people who were running away from them. Already, there were several shops and structures that’d been fully reduced to rubble, the mannitors slamming their tusks into the walls and stomping on the shards. What were they even doing? Surely this wasn’t natural behavior.

Zeth put the question aside for now. Fortunately, it didn’t seem like the battle was completely one-sided. Out of the dozen or so that had started charging at the town, Zeth saw three or four corpses lying in the streets. One was impaled by a shimmering spear that seemed like it was made of pure mana, another had all of its legs chopped clean off, bleeding to death in a pool of its own blood in the town square, and another’s entire head had been caved in by some blunt object. And it looked like there was at least one or two more off in the distance that’d been killed somehow. Even if they were large, they were at least mortal.

But the majority of them were still alive, and still causing chaos. So, Zeth made a beeline for the building he’d stored his Hellfire Ritual in the barrel by. The absolute first thing he needed was a way to protect himself. Not only were there monsters rampaging around, but people would also recognize the Blood Mage, and likely wouldn’t respond kindly to the sight of him.

As he ran to the building, he watched as a mannitor, still running almost aimlessly around as if in a panic, randomly changed course and began heading straight at the still-standing structure. With its massive stature and long legs, it quickly reached the building, kicking its massive hooves right into its walls. The brick shattered, crumbling down with the rest of the roof and the other walls quickly following. The beast stayed there, rearing up on its back feet and then slamming back down, breaking the larger chunks of wall and ceiling into shards.

Seemed like it’d be a lot harder for Zeth to find that scrap of cloth now. Maybe he could just wait for the monster to wander off before he went scrounging around in the rubble for it?

He slowed in his sprint, jogging down the road for a bit before he found an alleyway he could duck into, and slid between the buildings there. The area of town he was currently in was still standing for the most part, the only destruction that’d been wreaked here being caused by the quakes in the earth during the stampede itself, with plenty of pots and other loose items having been shaken off of their surfaces and shattering on the ground.

As he stood in the glass and ceramic by the windowsill of an abandoned house, he heard a shout from behind him.

“Hey!” the voice said. “Get out of here! Haven’t you seen? Monsters are attacking!”

Zeth turned around to see a guard standing right behind him, dressed in full combat gear.

“Go! We’re evacuating to the fields by the…” The guard narrowed her eyes, looking at Zeth’s strange clothes and identity-concealing mask. “Wait. Who are you? What are you doing here?”

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Zeth stepped back, and the guard stepped forward, a cautious hand slowly reaching toward the hilt of her blade. He didn’t know exactly what this woman knew or suspected Zeth of, but he wasn’t about to risk a full conversation. As fast as he could, he turned and ran, headed straight for the monsters. No way anyone would follow him over here—and at least the monsters wouldn’t be actively hunting him down.

Ignoring the guard’s shouts after him, Zeth eventually arrived at the entrance of the portion under attack, where the monsters had done the majority of their damage. The one was still focused on destroying that random building as thoroughly as it could, but Zeth didn’t want to waste any more time. Leaping over fallen beams and dashing between the still-standing structures, he made his way over to the towering beast as it split an entire support beam as thick as he was in two with the simple stomp of a hoof.

In the chaotic mess of rubble, he managed to spot a glimpse of the barrel’s lid, but waited for the mannitor to turn away from him before he tried searching. The moment it did, he dashed forward, ducking down into the rubble and tossing bricks and planks aside in an attempt to find the scrap of cloth.

Gods, he thought, frantically searching for his one method of self-defense, maybe Erza was right—Blood Magus as a Class is powerful, but damn inconvenient. I wish I could have it easy like him, always having a whole loadout of items and gadgets available to use, able to flaunt them around without anyone trying to murder him for it.

Eventually, he managed to find the barrel, but as expected, the scrap of cloth was no longer stuck between the planks. Just as he tried lifting it up to search for his weapon, he saw a shadow form beneath him, glancing up to see a hoof flying down to crush his head.

He kicked back to avoid certain death as the mannitor’s hoof slammed into the rubble, sending shards of wood and stone flying. Flecks stabbed into his face, but he ignored the stinging pain, continuing to back away from the rampaging beast. The moment it lifted its hoof back up to kick into something else, he dove back into the rubble to begin searching once again. He did his best to split his perception between trying his best to find the single scrap of cloth as quickly as possible and trying to spot any sign of the monster coming back to crush him.

Until eventually, as he tossed one last brick behind him, he spotted the barest corner of the familiar cloth. With one last glance around him to ensure he wasn’t about to be splattered into a stain on the road, he snatched it from underneath the board it was stuck under, leapt to his feet, and backed away.

Okay, he thought, breathing heavily as he threw his gaze around. Okay, I got it. Now what?

He only realized then that, while it was far better to have the ritual cloth than not, he still wouldn’t be able to do much more than kill a single monster using it. And once he did kill that single monster, he’d suddenly be right back where he started, with nothing left to defend himself. Maybe he’d be able to kill one of them in a flashy enough way that it would scare off the others? They certainly seemed like they were a skittish bunch. But that wasn’t a gamble he was excited to take.

He bit his lip. Maybe it was time to use his last last resort—the demon he still had hiding out in the woods. He’d been extremely reluctant to call that monster into a populated area like this one, but at this point, he wasn’t sure what that thing could do that was worse than this horde of monsters. And if his goal was to scare off the mannitors, having a demon around to induce such a powerful fear effect would be helpful.

Zeth was ripped from his thoughts as, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the waving fur of a charging mannitor, and leapt to the side to dodge its path of chaos, landing with his face in the dirt. He needed to be on high-alert.

As he got to his feet, he glanced behind himself only to see that this particular mannitor wasn’t just running aimlessly around like the others; it had a pursuer. Erza himself was charging after the thing, dressed in some sort of wispy mana-based suit of armor that Zeth could just barely see through, each bound in his sprint a massive leap that sent him far enough to actually be able to keep up with the gigantic monsters.

Erza held his hand back like he was holding something, and before his eyes, Zeth watched as a spear like the one he’d seen before materialized in his grip. After the moment it took for the object to form inside the man’s grasp, he reared back and threw it with supernatural might after the mannitor. It was certainly enough force to pierce straight through the beast’s body, but Erza seemed to accidentally throw the spear a little too wide, and the projectile went whizzing past the monster’s head, simply chipping off a piece of its horn.

He looked down at his gauntleted hand, flexing his fingers back and forth, and Zeth heard him mutter under his breath, “Damn."

Seemed like all the fancy equipment in the world couldn’t make up for a simple lack of practice with the weapon one was using.

Erza glanced around to see Zeth standing there watching him, and frowned. “What’s with the mask, stranger? Have something to hide?”

“You don’t sound very urgent, considering the circumstances,” Zeth said, deepening his voice to disguise it as usual.

Erza shrugged. “Not my town. Besides, my teammates should be able to kill these things eventually. I’m just enjoying the free target practice. I have to assume you’re here for your own reasons? Perhaps gathering blood for your next ritual?”

Zeth’s irritation grew. Did this fucking guy just assume every single person he met was the Blood Mage?

“Perhaps I should take a break from the practice and move onto my true prey,” Erza said, stepping closer to Zeth.

It couldn’t be helped. Perhaps the people around here would be able to kill the gigantic beasts off, but there were clearly not enough to prevent mass casualties. Erza didn’t give a shit about saving people, and most of the guards seemed more focused on keeping people out than actually killing the monsters. Maybe their plan was even to simply wait until the mannitors wandered off on their own. But Zeth wasn’t the type to see something killing people and to just let it continue. He didn’t care if it was a person or a beast, if he wanted something dead, he’d kill it.

Besides, he really wanted to fuck Erza up, if just a little bit.

As Erza held his hand out in the same position he had to summon the spear beforehand, Zeth took a deep breath, and then shouted out at the top of his lungs, “Demon!”

Erza blinked in surprise, taking a step back and instantly swapping to a cautious posture, like he hadn’t really thought the person in front of him was actually the Blood Mage. And in the split second he took to do so, Zeth saw the treeline shake, and, from a similar spot that the mannitors came from, a red figure burst out of the woods and came charging up to Zeth.

At that, Erza’s face morphed from caution to straight-up terror. As he watched the demon approach, he stumbled back and reached for an object on his belt, holding out the now-formed spear in his hand as if to deter attackers.

[Influence check failed.]

The demon slowed to a stop near Zeth, a sadistic smile on the beast’s face as he watched Erza stumble back in fear. “Do you have another deal to make with me, summoner?”