Chapter 1252: Sibylla and Madred

Sibylla stood between Fran and Apollonius, having taken a direct hit from the halberd aimed at Fran.

Yet her skin and red hair had not a single scorch on it. She also showed no sign of discomfort on her face.

「S-Siby…」

『Fran! Don’t talk!』

「！」

We need to focus on healing the injuries right now! Marle assisted me with the healing process.

After all, we have no clue what will happen next. We were up against the former Red Knight Captains, and I could easily see Sibylla considering them as comrades.

「Old man, what’s going on here? Have you really become one of the Black Skeleton Corps’s dogs?」

「As if, dumbass! Well, let’s just say various things happened, and I somehow came back to life! More importantly, why are you protecting that girl? She’s from Kranzel, no?」

「For the sake of our people!」

「Ah, I see! It can’t be helped if it’s for our people!」

Okay. I had heard the two weren’t blood relatives, but the conversation confirmed that they were father and daughter without any room for doubt.

However, their fighting spirit was equally as clear. They saw each other as enemies.

「…I’ve always wanted to have a serious fight with my old man.」

「Same goes for me! Bring it on, idiot daughter of mine!」

「About time for you to get sent back to the afterlife, you lousy father!」

Eh? Are they really going to fight?

As I was still confused, Apollonius and Sibylla began their clash.

What’s more, Sibylla wasn’t the only one who arrived. Red arrows rained down on the battlefield, and they weren’t being fired by the Hero Zombie Zinga.

「Madred.」

「…This is for our people. We fight together, for now.」

It seems both Sibylla and Madred decided to join our side.

『Such reassuring reinforcements!』

「Nn!」

Forrund recovered his wounds with one of his swords and returned to the front lines, allowing us to divide our enemies.

Urushi, Avenger, Amanda, Forrund, Sibylla, and Madred took on the rest of the Hero Zombies. Meanwhile, our only opponent was Rob of the Cardinal Flag.

「To think I would get a rematch with the one who felled me.」

「You still have your memories?」

「Yeah, I remember everything.」

Despite Rob’s words, there was no trace of resentment in his eyes. It was quite remarkable how he, despite being a zombie, carried a sense of purity.

「The current me can understand Sibylla’s point of view a bit better, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to hold back. The binds on me prevent that.」

「Nn!」

Rob was certainly strong, but Fran had already defeated him once. She parried all of the knight’s attacks with ease.

However, Fran’s expression started to darken as the battle continued.

『What’s wrong, Fran?』

（Something feels… weird.）

Fran apparently sensed something unusual occurring within her body. Apparently, there was something like a slight delay whenever she tried to move.

『Is it just because you’re exhausted?』

（No.）

If the others felt something like this, they would probably attribute it to the faint cloud of evil energy covering Raydoss. However, such conditions should have no effect on us. I directed my senses toward the land and underground, and sensed the presence of a vortex of mana there. Could this be something similar in nature to illusion magic?

The barrier for absorbing life force and mana may have disappeared, but it seems that wasn’t the only anomaly. There was apparently some sort of magic deployed under Raydoss territory for confusing the senses of living creatures.

Raydoss employs undead as one of its main forces, so such a tactic might be very beneficial to them. Our allies never noticed this, which was likely due to its weak influence and the fact that their senses were already disrupted by evil energy.

I tried casting a purification ward around Fran.

『How does it feel now?』

（Nn. The strange feeling is gone.）

Fran’s movements visibly improved. Until now, I had attributed her somewhat sluggish movements to exhaustion. If I had realized this earlier, it might have spared her from getting injured during her battle with Apollonius.

Now that Fran was back in form, our battle with Rob became more manageable. I didn’t need to allocate as much resources to fending off the others, so we could focus on dealing with him alone.

『Evil God’s Trust, activate!』

「Mrgh! What the…?」

『Ugh, the resistance is insane!』

「Nrrrgh!」

My attempt got repelled completely!

Perhaps it only worked so well on Avenger because he was already favorable to the Evil God. Meanwhile, Rob wasn’t anything close to an Evil God worshiper.

Either way, dominating him won’t work like this.

『In that case, try this!』

This time, I activated the purification spell, Holy Zone. While the purifying effect wasn’t as potent as Purify, this spell was capable of purifying the area contained in a ward over time.

Thus, I could try taking control over Rob once he’s weakened enough!

Unfortunately, Rob proved to be too powerful to be contained by the ward for more than a split second.

（Master, can you try learning a even stronger spell right now?）

『…Good idea. I’ll boost my Purification Magic skill further.』

We might find ourselves fighting a fragment of the Evil God sooner than we think. Whether we choose to fight or to flee, it wouldn’t hurt to have a high level in Purification Magic.

I put several points into Purification Magic, increasing its level from 5 all the way to 10.

《Purification Magic has reached Lv Max. Purification Boost has been added to the skill list. Fran has attained the title “Purification Mage”.》

《The requirements have been met. Obtained the Unique Skill “Essence of Magic”.》

《Fran has attained the title “Divine Mage”.》

I-It wasn’t just Purification Magic! We just got some pretty incredible sounding skills and titles as well!

Essence of Magic seems to be a skill for reducing the recoil and mana consumption of all spells. Apparently, the acquirement condition is to max out multiple schools of higher-tier magic.

Since it’s a Unique Skill, it should be pretty strong.

The “Divine Mage” title was exactly as it sounded, a title for allowing Fran to swap to the Divine Mage job. Must be the same as the Swordking title we got before. Well, I doubt Fran will ever switch to a caster job, but the title also seems to improve mana efficiency.

With the title and Essence of Magic, that’s some huge boosts to our casting capabilities. We only got Guardian Deity’s Shield a short while ago, so we’re really raking in the good skills!

『As for the supreme-tier purification spell… Got it!』

（Nn!）