Novel Full Chapter 414 - Struggle
In the end, Ryan decided to ignore Haruna and the others and then headed toward where Femradiel, Furball, and his Steel Eagle were fighting against some black tortoises. Somehow, they managed to hold the monsters back since they still had some mana potions left, but those were about to end.
Ryan equipped his Thunder Lord Crossbow and began to hit the faces of the slow monsters. In the end, Ryan could see dozens of corpses of those creatures, but only a few handfuls of them were still alive… which was odd.
"What happened here?" Ryan asked while frowning and looking around.
"We struggled quite a bit when you disappeared," Femradiel replied. "Some of Haruna's friends died thanks to the massive battle between three species of monsters. I tried to hold them back as much as possible, but with this body, that was impossible. However, some weird guys appeared out of nowhere and protected them. Not only that, they also made the black tortoises back down. Those are the bosses that stayed behind to protect the retreat of the monsters that survived."
"… Where are they?" Ryan asked while frowning.
"They were teleported to this place and when they concluded that we could hold the monsters back, they disappeared," Femradiel said.
"That is suspicious…" Ryan said.
"That is just a part of the story," Femradiel said. "Those guys said that their leader is guarding Tokyo and he asked Haruna to protect the humans who joined the monsters' side because he knows a way to free them."
That was even more suspicious… if someone had that power, why didn't he use it sooner? Ryan thought that Haruna was more intelligent than that since she didn't fall for the monsters' cheap promises, but it looked like being saved by an unknown hero just when her team was about to be wiped out changed her mind a little bit.
In any case, before he could confirm the rest of those facts, Ryan helped Femradiel and his monster to kill the remaining black tortoises. Ryan sighed in relief when the battle was over, but he was a bit unsatisfied in the end since he didn't gain as many coins as he had imagined. He missed a good part of the fight, after all.
When Haruna saw Ryan approaching, she couldn't help but get a little pale. He seemed pretty unsatisfied about her current position, after all. In any case, Ryan also confirmed the resolution in her eyes. Putting the sweet words of an unknown figure aside, she truly wanted to save the Japanese survivors who were fooled by the monsters.
"It looks like you made your decision," Ryan said while looking around and grabbing some weapons with his Telekinesis.
"Yes," Haruna said.
"I won't question your decision, but that doesn't mean I will let some humans who might stab me in the back stay behind of me," Ryan said. "I hope you haven't been fooled like them, so I wish you good luck."
"You fought Yomotsu Shikome, didn't you?" Haruna asked.
"… How do you know that?" Ryan frowned.
"The soldiers of the guardian of Tokyo told us," Haruna said. "At the very beginning, he noticed that something was amiss with those dungeons and once he obtained a certain power, the guardian confirmed that the four bests were being controlled by other monsters. He knew all that, and yet he didn't do anything. Are you fine in trusting someone like that?"
"He did what he could, he protected a good number of people in Tokyo," Haruna said. "His soldiers said that he wants to talk with you, since you gave him the chance to deal a massive blow on the monsters' force. If you head to Tokyo, he says that he will welcome you and create a temporary alliance, but only if you go now."
"Why the hurry?" Ryan asked.
"I don't know, but his soldiers seemed a bit angry when they were talking about you," Haruna said.
"… I will think about it," Ryan said and then headed toward where the azure dragons were.
Without wasting any time, Ryan dug the dragons' hearts and stored them inside his storage dimension. Meanwhile, Furball and the Steel Eagle were eating a good part of their bodies.
"This was tiresome, so I am going to return if you don't mind," Femradiel said, and then she turned into a sphere of light and entered Ryan's body.
"What do you think of that, Femradiel?" Ryan asked.
"My guess is that those soldiers sounded displeased because you killed too many survivors here," Femradiel replied. "While they were on the enemies' side, it looks like there is really a way to save them. That was within their plans: to save the entire population that joined the monsters' side, but you made a mess out of the things from their perspective."
Whoever was the so-called guardian of Tokyo, he certainly was a troublesome individual. He wanted to thank Ryan for giving him a chance to strike back the monsters, but he was also angry at him because he killed the humans who joined the monsters' side. In the end, Ryan decided to ignore such troublesome individuals, nothing good would come out from joining forces with people that could only see their own problems.
"Anyway, why didn't you realize that the silver tigers were zombies?" Ryan asked. "My Illusion Resistance is at a low-level, so it couldn't be helped, but I was expecting more coming from you."
"My skill isn't that high leveled either," Femradiel said. "Illusion users never last long while fighting me since I freeze them all in an instant."
"… It looks like the other monsters are also being controlled by other dungeon masters, did you notice anything different with them?" Ryan asked.
"No, but it is pretty obvious at this point that there are some similarities between them," Femradiel replied. "Regardless, even if we didn't notice, nothing would change, right?"
"Yeah… I still would have to kill them to clear the dungeons," Ryan nodded.