<h4>Chapter 211, From Breaking In To An Advice</h4>


    Trantor: Lizz


    Amidst G’s flowing chanting, Loren leapt forward into the crater.


    Once he started running, he could do nothing else but continue to speed up across the sloping ground. With his greatsword at the ready, Loren kept moving his feet to avoid falling. Then in front of him, numerous mes red up.


    “Isn’t there only one?”


    He had heard that his opponent would be an Efreet, and was surprised to see there were more than one me. The mes then transformed into the shapes of lizards on four legs.


    “Loren! They’re Smanders!”


    “What the hell is that?”


    Loren retorted as the lizard-shape mes spat fire at him. The columns of fire shot straight at him, and he swung his sword without thinking of dodging or defense. The moment the de’s trajectory met the fire lines, the fire dispersed.


    Loren ran through the flying sparks without slowing down, and before the next columns of fire could be spat out, he closed in on the Smanders. In one swoopingsh, he cut one of the nearby Smanders in half, returning it to mere fire.


    “It even summons lesser spirits. So upright.”


    G said, and started to run down towards Loren. Lapis, who was running beside her, nodded.


    “It’s an introduction. This close to a fire, the Efreet can use its power to summon as many Smanders as it wants.”


    “The terrain is too favorable for the Efreet.”


    While G wasining, the Smanders opened their mouths at them and Loren. When they tried to spit out fire, they were cut down by Loren, who had already closed in. A normal weapon wouldn’t work against spirits, but Loren’s sword did work very well. The Smanders, despite having the forms of lizards, were actually just fire, and all vanished before even withstanding a blow.


    “Spirits just can’t fight, can they?”


    Loren muttered to himself as he looked at the dispersed bodies of the Smanders. He didn’t even know how many he had cut.


    Were they demons, they would leave corpses, and you could strip it for materials and such. But Smanders disappeared when they were cut, so there was nothing left behind. In other words, no matter how many Smanders he cut, there was nothing left to gain.


    Loren wanted to get somepensation for hisbor, but he couldn’t stop cutting them just because there was no profit. He had no choice but to swing his greatsword, and one after another, the Smanders disappeared.


    “Lesser spirits are powerful enemies in their own way.”


    “That’s true. They’re the spirits that control fire, after all. At least they can be snuffed out like candles.”


    As G said this, the surrounding Smanders kept appearing and going out like candles. Of course, it was the yet-to-be-seen Efreet that summoned them, and it was G’s power that extinguished them. The power of the dragon’s ] had once burned out G’s power, but it seemed to have recovered over time and was now regaining its original strength. Moreover,pared to Dragons’ ], the Smanders’ fire was not that powerful, and they were devoured one after another.


    Lapis, on the other hand, did not make any moves of her own and just asionally leapt away to avoid the Smander fire. She had a reason for this.


    “If we can use ice magic, we may have a way to fight it.”


    As their opponent was a fire spirit, naturally fire magic would be less effective against it. If they used magic with the opposite attribute, they would be able to deal damage efficiently. However, if they used a spell powerful enough to work against the Efreet and kill the Smanders at the same time, the temperature of the crater would drop. In that case, even if they sessfully defeated the Efreet, they might not be able to deal with the ck helmet.


    “Since it originates from fire, we can’t defeat it with normal attacks.”


    Seeing an opening, Lapis picked up a stone from under her feet and threw it at a Smander. The stone hit and tore a hole in its body, but the hole closed up the next moment. Spirits couldn’t be defeated so easily by mere physical attacks.


    “What about beating them with extraordinary attacks?”


    “What do you mean by ‘extraordinary attacks’?”


    Not knowing the answer, Lapis shook her head, and G blew ck smoke out of her mouth. Loren began to worry that she was swallowing too much Smander fire, but he was soon distracted by a nearby pir of me that had a different intensity.


    “So it’s finally here!”


    From Loren’s party’s point of view, no matter how many Smanders they defeated, they couldn’t move forward until they defeated the source of the problem, the Efreet. And from the Efreet’s point of view, no matter how many Smanders it sent forth, they didn’t seem able to take care of Loren’s party. It was meaningless to dispatch more Smanders now.


    “The one who strikes first will win!”


    The pir of fire was still rising, and the Efreet had yet to take on any form like the Smanders. But Loren thought that the white sword of the Demon King would still be able to do some damage even with the Efreet in that state, and he immediately shed at the pir of fire.


    However, before the tip of the sword could touch the pir, the pir dispersed as if burst from within, and crimson mes attacked Loren. He hurriedly stopped his attack and moved to dodge them, but a fist of me tore through the air and came straight at him.


    “Is this an Efreet?!”


    As a mercenary, Loren had never seen a Smander before, let alone an Efreet. It took the form of a naked giant whose entire body wasposed of bright red mes, and was muchrger than Loren in stature.


    As the Efreet’s ming crimson hair fluttered in the air, it struck Loren with both fists. The newly summoned Smanders, as if to support it, spat mes at Loren one after the other.


    [‘Just a bit of Energy Drain.’]


    As soon as he thought he heard Shayna’s voice, all the fire that was about to beunched at Loren was extinguished. At the same time, he felt his breathing, which had been a bit erratic during the previous attacks, calmed down.


    Focusing only on the Efreet in front of him, Loren swung his sword. The de met the ming fist and tore it apart, but as the Efreet’s body was made entirely of mes, it didn’t lose its stance. Instead, it dealt with Loren’s blow in the most unusual way: immediately vanished its arm and re-grew it.


    “A human fighting an Efreet is just too strange.”


    G said as she watched Loren and the Efreet attacking and defending, neither able to deal a decisive blow.


    The number of Smanders summoned by the Efreet had stopped increasing when it began to engage Loren in directbat. This was a sign that the Efreet could no longer afford to call lesser spirits. Feeling that she had less and less to do, G looked at Loren.


    “Aren’t you being a littlete?”


    “Can we give up on that question?”


    Both Lapis and G did not forget to use magic and spells to support Loren, whose burden had increased as their own had decreased.


    “It’s a Demon King’s weapon, so using ] on it is useless. Should I use a self-boost technique on him? Something like ] and ]?”


    “I’ll give him ] and ].”


    “Eh? Lapis-chan, you can use more spells now?”


    “Hehehe, I am growing every day. I won’t stay a novice priest who can only use two spells a day forever.”


    Lapis stood with hands on her hips, looking rather proud, and G gave her a round of apuse. Loren thought that they were being a bit too carefree, but their support magic did strengthen him properly, and he shed at the Efreet with even more speed and precision.


    “I’m sorry about this, but we have our own reason too. If you’re going to interfere, I have no choice but to cut you down.”


    There was no way that Loren knew how to calm down an angry spirit. He hadn’t met any spirits when he was a mercenary, and naturally didn’t have any knowledge of such beings. He didn’t know how to stop them aside from cutting them down.


    However, it was not impossible to understand why an angry spirit would attack them. It would be easy to me everything on Demon King Judie, but Loren had no idea whether a spirit would understand such a story. Still, he spoke to the Efreet, which is gradually weakening with each cut:


    “If I can help it, I don’t want to attack you until you disappear. We just have a task to do, and we’ll leave immediately after. Could you ignore us until we leave?”


    Loren asked the Efreet regardless of whether spirits could understand humannguage, since killing a spirit that only meant to protect the fire crater from being harmed would leave him with a bad aftertaste. However, what they would do was no different from Demon King Judie’s mischief, and Loren began to think that it would be difficult to obtain the Efreet’s approval.


    But the spirit stopped its attacks and moved away from Loren. Thinking that it would attack from a distance, Loren immediately readied himself for an assault. Seeing that, the Efreet somehow looked frustrated, then abruptly discarded its form and dispersed into countless sparks of fire.


    “I didn’t kill it, did I?”


    Seeing the Efreet scattered itself into fire sparks, Loren muttered as if to confirm, even though he could still sense its power and aura.


    “Seems like it decided that it can’t stop us and pulled back.”


    Lapis concluded while watching, the Efreet disappeared entirely.


    After making sure that no Smander would show up, Loren put his greatsword back on his back and exhaled deeply.


    “You’ve worked hard, Loren.”


    “Really. I have toin to the Demon King.”


    “Comin to the Demon King… Can someone even do that?”


    G folded her arms and tilted her head, finding it difficult to ascertain whether Loren’s remark came from ignorance or foolhardiness or an understanding of the Demon King’s character.