After hearing the cry, Van immediately ducked. At the same time, the hole in the witch’s palm vibrated and the attack began.

Dozens of dark awls unfold in the shape of a fan.

Swoosh Puck!

The dark awl flew over Van’s back and got stuck in the tree behind him. Upon impact, the awl immediately shattered into several sharp fragments.

Instead of confirming the attack he avoided, Van scattered the sword energy without missing a gap. The witch who couldn’t make the barrier was hit. Sword energy succeeded in creating a shallow wound by passing through her shoulder.

“Tsk!”

Drops of purple blood splashed over her white cheeks. As if the stinging pain was irritating, blood veins throbbed on the witch’s forehead.

“You human!”

Her eyes were fixed on Cadel. It seemed quite distasteful that his own magic had been discovered. Whether or not, Cadel was relieved, secretly sweeping his chest.

‘I never thought I would use [Shadow Barrage] over there. Luckily Van’s reaction speed is excellent, otherwise, his punctured body would have flown all the way here.’

Not concerning her identity as a witch, the casting speed was no joke. In addition, all of the attacks were dark and dreadful, like her dark attribute magic. It was not suitable to deal with in such a dark forest at such a late night.

‘It’s not like I can’t light it up all over the place…….’

If he did such a thing, it was not worth scratching the witch’s nerves hard. Cadel, who licked his lips, opened the <Magic Attribute Window>.

<Magic Attribute Distribution>

Retained Point: 10

——————

Fire: 10/100

Ice: 0/100

Lightning: 0/100

Wind: 0/100

Earth: 0/100

Light: 0/100

Darkness: 0/100

‘Points received as a reward for the previous tutorial quest……. I didn’t know what kind of enemy I would encounter, so I was saving it for now. I’m gonna have to start using it.’

Unfortunately, in 「Hero of Knights」, the flexible attribute distribution was not easily achieved. In order to reverse the point distribution once decided, an expensive item was needed. So now, he needed to focus on fostering knights. he couldn’t waste points carelessly.

‘Since the enemy is of the dark attribute, it is not bad to distribute them to the opposite light attribute. As long as it’s not the same dark attribute, I can spend half of them no matter what I choose…… It’s okay to go all-in on Fire instead of half-half.’

For a brief moment, Cadel’s head went tight.

Van constantly kept the witch in check by flying the sword energy, and the witch measured the timing to attack persistently while backing down using the female believer as a shield. However, she still didn’t stop being wary of her surroundings. Rather, she realized that Cadel was no big deal, so she stopped watching both of them and paid half of her attention to Van and the rest to looking around.

‘She’s thinking more people might come. We have to keep her eyes on this side so that she doesn’t even think about it!’

He couldn’t order Van to go all out. It was also because of the female believer who was caught by the witch. They had to take a living believer for the reward of the temple. Even though she used the female believer as a meat shield, if the rough fight continued, the future was obvious.

‘I have to make her look this way again. I can inflate my skills with the least amount of mana…… Such an attribute is needed.’

Decided. Cadel swallowed dryly and finished the distribution of points. Whether this was a good choice or not, he would know when he used it.

On the other hand, the witch, who allowed a small wound, was planning a strategy to take a full-fledged attack to recover her self-esteem.

Certainly, that human swordsman couldn’t harm this woman. Then, after using this woman as a shield, she would give him a blow right under his nose.

After that, she could finish off that magician, a noisy empty vessel, and savor the well-prepared dinner. She continued to be wary of her surroundings, but there was no sign of other humans joining in. She didn’t wake up from a cold and hard winter sleep to be beaten by these idiots.

‘You will gradually become isolated without your knowledge. The great work is near……. Huh?’

However, while she was gathering mana, a hot wind came from the side of the magician, whom she had been ignoring. Panicked, she shifted her gaze to see a threatening stream of fire with its head raised like a giant serpent.

“Flame magic? What’s that ignorant size…….”

Besides, what was that movement? Was it possible for such a large stream of fire to travel at such high speed while avoiding all trees and grass?

The fire was coming toward the land where she stepped, bending freely like a life with an ego. Even though it was just facing this way, the hot wind was strong enough to make her skin feel hot.

‘He can handle fire this delicately? ……No way. The first fireball was not only meant to block my movement, but it deliberately deceived my eyes with insufficient power!’

Of course, the power of Cadel’s fire magic remained the same. The only thing that had changed was that ‘Wind’ had been added to his magic attribute. But for her, who could not have known that Cadel was artificially controlling the range and moving radius of the flame by creating a wind path, the fact that she was caught up in a human trick was unbearably insulting.

Quickly, she gnashed her teeth and fired a series of black orbs to block the approaching fire. However, the stream of fire evaded her attack by changing its trajectory with a hateful swiftness. If things kept going like this, she would be surrounded by that fire and human swordsman!

Feeling impatient for the first time, the witch turned around and looked at Van. He still kept a reasonable distance and fired his sword energy whenever he could see a gap. Right now, the red sword energy was condensed on top of the huge greatsword.

A strange glance passed through the witch’s eyes. The magician’s attack would not devour his allies. The swordsman would regard her behavior of running to him to avoid the fire as a ‘misjudgment of the person in distress’.

‘Let me put an end to this.’

With the sea of hope, she threw herself away from the fire that came close and ran toward Van. Van immediately raised his greatsword, aiming for the witch’s neck.

“See where you’re going to strike me!”

The witch raised the corner of her mouth to the fullest, putting the Mary she was holding in front of her with a creepy smile. As expected, Van couldn’t swing his greatsword.

Van paused to look at Mary. It was an opportunity.

With her hands on Mary’s back, she was ready to attack. Her plan was to fire the dark awl from earlier with Mary’s body in between. Mary’s body, which would receive the attack from the front line, would become inedible, but it didn’t matter. She had many opportunities in the future.

“Goodbye, annoying human.”

The witch shoved Mary into Van’s arms. Her hand on Mary’s back was black. The moment when Van hugged Mary, whom he had accepted by surprise, and faltered due to the killing intent he felt.

“No! Get out of the way, Van!”

Along with Cadel’s panicked cry, a flash of light passed between them.

“Wha…….”

The proud witch’s fine brow wrinkled. She looked at her own right hand, tinged with her black magic, which had been perfectly prepared for the magic deployment just a moment ago.

She could no longer feel the magic in her right hand. How could this happen all of a sudden? She had never failed to discharge the magic right before casting. When she tried to infuse magic once again with a sense of wonder.

Tuk.

Her right arm, which had been intact until just a moment ago, fell to the floor in an absurdly vain way.

“……Huh?”

In an instant, her thought stopped.

She opened her mouth small, staring at the empty space below her elbow. A bewilderingly clean cut. Her right arm, which had disappeared neatly as if someone had briefly covered under her elbow, made it less realistic.

And after a while.

Phoosh!

Before the pain of the severed arm, a huge amount of blood gushed out from the severed surface. The dark purple blood flowed straight to Van in front of her. Van blocked all the blood with the side of his greatsword.

The greatsword, which absorbed blood in an instant, vibrated with redder energy than before.

“U, uaa…… Uaaaargh!”

Screaming in belated pain, she glared at Van with wide eyes. A face half-hidden by the greatsword blocking the front. His eyes, which were stained red, radiated an insidious aura and curved slightly.

“I’ll enjoy it well.”

Was it because of the shock of her arm being cut off out of nowhere? She didn’t realize that Mary, who she was trying to use as bait until a while ago, was no longer in Van’s arms.

The missing Mary was picked up by a third person who she hadn’t noticed so far and ended up in the hands of the magician who she had been wary of for a very short time.