The sky was filled with a bright moon and sparse stars, while the ground was a scene of utter devastation.
Wirbel's camp had been utterly annihilated in the violent explosion, leaving behind a massive crater two to three hundred meters in diameter.
At the center of the crater, a petite member of the Demon Race stood barefoot on the ground.
She was about the height of a human child, and on her forehead grew two horn-like protrusions, not yet fully keratinized and looking quite tender.
Without a doubt, this was a young demon.
Her expression was slightly bewildered.
She lacked any real sense of success.
She scanned the surrounding wreckage but couldn't find what should have been there.
No severed limbs, no shattered human bones, not even the smell of blood.
My surprise attack must have failed, she thought.
But she didn't understand why it had been seen through.
Admittedly, while preparing the spell, she had inevitably emitted a fluctuation of mana. But according to the intelligence she had gathered earlier...
...this camp didn't have any troublesome First-Class Mages.
Moreover, she had deliberately chosen to act late at night. Such a momentary fluctuation... a sleeping human Second-Class Mage shouldn't have been able to detect it.
Was there an unexpected variable? Sani was killed without even a chance to escape... That human reinforcement is indeed dangerous.
But... she hadn't completely failed yet.
Her eyes narrowed slightly. Then, from a bottomless chasm not far behind her, more than a dozen bizarrely shaped monsters crawled out one after another.
They were like humanoid shadows... each figure was pure black, without any discernible marks or features. On the part that resembled a human face, no facial features could be seen; it was just a pure shadow.
And this mass of black shadows, from the moment they crawled out of the hole, began to twist irregularly, or rather, convulse... The scene was dissonant to the extreme.
The young demon then began to command these monsters, advancing toward the direction two kilometers away, where chaotic mana was concentrated.
...
"Hmm... how strange."
Fíliya shivered subconsciously and rubbed her arms with both hands.
She wasn't afraid; she just felt as if something particularly nauseating and repulsive was slowly approaching.
Just then, Ehre and Wirbel returned to the main group, each carrying the bodies of three low-ranked mages.
"Fíliya... I'm sorry. During the explosion, those two demons were also sent flying... We don't know where they're hiding now. We could have finished them."
Ehre's expression was slightly apologetic, like a student who hadn't done well on a test facing their teacher.
"Mm, if you know you didn't do a good job, you'll just have to be quicker next time."
After replying to Ehre, Fíliya glanced casually at the low-ranked mages.
Four with minor injuries, two with serious ones. Thankfully, none were dead.
She nodded and said with a light chuckle.
"Our prediction was spot on, wasn't it? If we were still sleeping in the camp, we could all be reporting to the underworld as a group right now."
"Ugh, Fíliya, can't you say something more auspicious...?"
Ehre crossed her arms, a hint of complaint on her face.
"To think that bastard was brewing an attack of this magnitude... Was it trying to blow us all to smithereens at once?"
Wirbel ignored Fíliya's quip, his brow furrowed as he stared into the distance. It seemed he too had sensed the approach of new enemies.
The old priest, who had been under protection, began his healing work. Naturally, the highest priority for treatment were the unlucky low-ranked mages who had been hit head-on by the shockwave.
...The moonlight was no longer as cold as it had been at the start, but no one could relax yet. The joy of killing two demons was temporarily suppressed.
Wirbel and Ehre stared grimly in the direction of the camp, and all the conscious warriors stood ready.
...
Finally, the small figure appeared clearly within their field of vision, followed closely by the swarm of eerie shadows.
Wirbel and Ehre exchanged glances. They could probably tell that the dark shadows were some kind of monster, but at least the two of them... had never seen them before.
Faced with this unknown threat, both instinctively turned their gazes to Fíliya... After all, the green-haired girl had burst out laughing the moment she saw the ghoulish things.
"Oh my... I think I finally understand why those demons targeted the warriors in their surprise attack."
Fíliya placed one hand on her forehead and the other on her hip, letting out a boisterous laugh.
...Wirbel, who was already used to Fíliya's strange behavior, was the first to ask.
"What in the world are those things?"
Seeing that someone had asked, Fíliya contentedly reined in her laughter, then wagged a finger in front of Wirbel and Ehre.
"Alright, Teacher Fíliya is here to give you a remedial lesson today. Hmm... The ancestors of the Demon Race were monsters that lured humans with their voices from the dark. You two know that, right?"
Wirbel and Ehre looked at each other, then nodded in unison, indicating they knew.
The warriors behind them also pricked up their ears with interest.
For a moment, it felt as if the place had truly become a small classroom.
Fíliya continued.
"This is knowledge I learned from an ancient text. Not all of the Demon Race's ancestors managed to evolve successfully..."
As she spoke, Fíliya pointed forward with her hand.
"Those things writhing together, disgusting as a pile of dog shit, are the products of some of the Demon Race's ancestors failing to evolve."
Eh? Ehre frowned slightly at Fíliya's words, wondering why Fíliya always used such crude language. Couldn't she just be a quiet, beautiful girl for once?
"'Wandering Shadows.' That's the name the book gave these things."
Fíliya explained.
But Wirbel clearly had no interest in what the things were called; he only wanted to know how to fight them, how to kill them.
So, Miss Fíliya kindly added.
"For us mages, those things are quite troublesome... That kind of monster has only one ability, and that is to absorb mana. No matter what kind of attack we use on it, it can absorb it... Of course, these are not powerful monsters, so there's a limit to how much mana they can absorb."
"For a powerful mage, you just need to let it eat its fill and it will burst... It's just a pity."
As Fíliya said this, a regretful expression suddenly appeared on her face.
"A pity about what?"
Miss Ehre played along perfectly, acting as the straight man.
"Mmm, it's a pity that the combined mana of the three of us... even if we add those other six, it definitely won't be enough for them to eat. After all... there are more than a dozen of them over there."
Miss Fíliya shook her head helplessly.
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