Chapter 428 Surprise
With Kuromi taking command of the battlefield, the tide was soon turned as the attackers realised that they were being pushed back.
Kuromi had set it up so that only 4 people were needed to defend the carriage and the other 22 guards were free to kill the attackers.
Pairing up each of the guards so that their strengths complemented each other, they were able to finish the fight in less than 10 minutes, forcing them to retreat.
Watching the entire process happen, Shiro had to admit that the sight was quite scary in a way. From her perspective, Kuromi was like a conductor as everyone was under her control. Working together seamlessly, they overwhelmed the enemies despite their disadvantage in numbers.
Closing her notepad, Kuromi nodded with a satisfied smile.
"Everyone, stick with your pairs from now on since you'll be working with them in the next battle." Kuromi called out before walking back into the carriage.
Following behind her, Shiro also went inside the carriage.
"What do you think? Brute force isn't always the answer no?" Kuromi smiled towards Shiro.
"I'll admit, it is helpful. But if I had access to Celestial Raiment, I'd be able to deal with them easily." Shiro replied.
"Yes, but the problem right now is that you don't have that access do you? Well just relax for now and big sis will deal with everything. Once we need brute force, I'll call for you ok?" Kuromi chuckled.
". . . Fine." Shiro nodded after a moment.
###
"What? You mean almost everyone was killed???" The man widened his eyes. He had made sure that they outnumbered the enemy so that capture should only be a matter of time.
With a ratio of 3:1, he had 78 people surrounding the carriage.
"After the black haired woman exited out of the carriage, their formation seemed to have been reinforced as it was very hard to harm the guards. Each of them paired up with one another and overwhelmed us in the shortest time possible." The servant reported as his face was a little pale.
Furrowing his brows, the man thought for a moment before sighing.
"Seems like the white haired girl is one that's focused on combat while the black haired one is focused on strategy. We'll cut our losses here. Just observe them for now and don't make a single move. I want to see what they're planning to do in Teriu forest." The man ordered.
He understood that with a good strategist, brute force is a questionable approach so the best he could do right now is to just give up and think of another way.
"Understood."
###
As the group continued towards the forest, they noticed a lack of attackers ever since the first encounter.
"Ya think they got scared?" Shiro asked while peering out of the carriage.
"Probably. Any sane person would do so after we won a fight that had us outnumbered." Kuromi replied while flipping through her book to make any small adjustments to the guard's stat pages.
"Mn… Say, do you have any way for me to use Celestial Energy more efficiently? The current spell we have requires me to 'charge up' for quite a long time." Shiro asked since she somewhat wanted to give fighting the dragon a go.
"Why would you need that? I'm still working on the spell so you can't rush me." Kuromi replied.
"Oh you know, just so that we can lure the dragon and giant better." Shiro replied.
". . .That's a lie. You just want to punch a dragon and have it chase you." Kuromi sighed and looked up from her notepad.
"Maybe~" Shiro grinned.
"Well I have something better for you to do but you NEED to get the f*ck out of there the moment you do that ok?"
"Oh? What do you mean?" Shiro tilted her head.
"What I mean is I'm allowing you to attack the dragon's reverse scale or rather, the rear. You can piss it off as much as you want to as long as you direct its hatred to Teriu City."
". . . Say it again." Shiro said as she sat down seriously.
"I'm allowing you, Shiro, to target the dragon's ass and piss it off."
Curling her smile into a grin, Shiro started to plan out how she was going to do this. Since it is a reptile, the dragon will have a cloaca to hide its rear meaning, she'll need to move it out of the way first.
Thinking about it for a moment, Shiro looked back at Kuromi.
"Can I use Celestial Raiment?" She asked with a smile.
"Yes but do remember that there is only a limited amount of time that the armour is up. We'll have to charge the armour up before we split up so you'll need to find the dragon as quick as you can during that time." Kuromi nodded.
"Great. Since that's the case then I don't think we need that many guards, You can have more on your side in order to look for the giant."
As they made their way to the forest, Kuromi notified the guards about the slight change that they made.
Phillip wasn't exactly thrilled about the whole situation to begin with but with Kuromi reducing the number of guards with Shiro, he had his doubts.
"First young miss, you know that second young miss doesn't have access to Celestial energy. So what you're doing now is clearly endangering her, please reconsider." Phillip reminded as he had a frown on his face.
"Phillip, once we arrive, I'll show you why I decided on reducing the guards." Kuromi said as Phillip paused for a moment.
"Understood. Just so you know miss, if this doesn't guarantee second young misses safety, I will not agree to it."
"Of course. I'm not a cruel big sis you know? If Shiro can't handle it, I won't let her go to begin with. Otherwise who else am I going to hug in my sleep?" Kuromi smiled.
Shiro didn't notice that Kuromi had just spoiled the secret to every guard as she was more focused on what she should do to make the most out of her limited reservoir after activating Celestial Raiment.
Even back in their world, she couldn't use the armour for an extended period of time so she would leave it as a last resort of sorts.
Currently, she had a variant of Celestial Raiment for each of her attunements meaning 11 sets of armour for her to choose from. With her current reservoir, she can use two armours before running out so she would need to make sure that the first can piss off the dragon while the second allows her to run.
'Hmm… the one with the most damage is most likely Void Star, Apocalyptic Lightning and Cosmic Ice. As for the ones that are focused around speed, they're Lightning, Shadow and probably star. I don't want to use shadow since it's rather revealing but it does allow me to use Rift Strider again.' Shiro thought to herself.
In the end, she decided to go with Lighting to attack the dragon and shadow to run away.
Arriving in the forest, they made their way back to the lake as they knew that the dragon was roughly around the northern part of the forest.
Sending out a few of the guards to scout out for the dragon, Shiro waited with eagerness.
Phillip didn't know why Shiro seemed to be so excited but decided to be patient and see what would happen before giving his thoughts about the situation.
After a short while, the guards returned with the location of the dragon. It seemed to have made a nest in one of the mountains and was currently recovering from its fight with the giant.
"Alright, now then, are you ready Shiro?" Kuromi said with a smile.
"Oh I've been waiting for this." Shiro nodded.
Standing up, Shiro watched as Kuromi etched a magic circle of sorts on the ground.
"Right then, pass me one of the enchanted arrows." Kuromi called out as she Prim handed her the arrow.
Stabbing it into the ground, the energy seemed to be drained from the arrow into the magic circle.
Flaring up with a green light, it started to absorb the energy around them as tethers could be seen slowly connecting to Shiro and Kuromi.
Realising that this seemed to be a variant of the formation that they used to reveal their soul, Philip furrowed his brows in confusion.
As time passed, the tether seemed to grow stronger.
"That should do. Remember Shiro, once I activate this, you'll have to use your raiment as quickly as possible since you're on a timer." Kuromi reminded once more.
"Don't worry, I got this." Shiro replied with a grin.
"Good."
Clasping her hands together, she closed her eyes and started to tug on her tether.
Ripping it out from her body, she stumbled back as a translucent flow of energy started to filter through Shiro's tether.
*BOOM!!!
An aura exploded out from her as Phillip realised that this was no doubt celestial energy.
"No way…" He muttered shock. In front of him, Shiro stood with bright yellow hair and armour that seemed to be crafted from lightning itself.