Chapter 3:Let’s Establish Peaceful Relations with the Native Tribes , Part 6

「Nnn.. mu?」

Today as well, Tena woke up in the middle of the night after falling asleep quite early.

「What’s going on?」

After getting out of bed and noticing that her ability to predict the future has been blocked, she passes through the bricked corridor and arrives in the room where Aur is already waiting for her. Then he shows her the mirror and she notices her rejuvenation.

This scenario has been repeated countless times already.

「Mu...!」

This time however, was different from all the other times.

Aur frowns at the sight of his own blood.

Tena has hid a short sword in her night gown, and when the Demon Lord let his guard down, she slashed him on the forehead with a quick movement.

「I see, so that’s how you want to play.」

The command she received in the form of scratch marks on her body was short and simple.

Although she couldn’t exactly remember what, it was obvious to her that something related to Aur was happening with her after she was falling asleep, so this time she decided to sleep with a weapon concealed in her night gown. That decision appeared to have been correct.

「You sure you want to come swinging at me with such a feeble weapon?」

「You’ll see that bringing me my youth back was a grave mistake!」

She pierced her thumb and smeared her blood on her cheeks, creating the bloody war marks.

「Come!」

The silver hair silently extended, ears took on the triangular shape, fur covered her whole body, and a bushy tail grew out from between her legs.

「And now we have lycanthropes.. what a fun day.」

Impressed, Aur muttered to himself.

The beastmen he was familiar with had animal ears and tails, and they also retained their intelligence.

So there are beings here on this continent that could change their whole body, unlike Tatsuki, who was able to only change a part of her body.

Fire flashed at the ends of Tena’s four tails as she swung them at Aur. The fireballs flew through the air faster than arrows, but each projectile was deflected by Aur’s cube.

「You cannot beat me in my Dungeon.」

「We’ll see about that!」

With those words, Tena’s figure disappeared from Aur’s sight.

「An illusion?」

But it was only her figure that disappeared. Due to the sound of the footsteps and movement of the air within the Dungeon, Aur was able to determine where she was. Following his thoughts, the cube moved behind him and sparked.

「Tch.」

Tena clicked her tongue. She planned to use her invisibility to take Aur by surprise, but it would seem that his defenses were ready for even that kind of threat.

「There you are.」

Aur cast a spell and Tena became visible once again. At the same time, a number of stones on the floor turned into tentacles that reached towards her to capture her. But their movement was predictable, so she managed to outmaneuver by them by hair’s width with complex movements, resulting with them colliding and entangling one another.

Her strength and senses were both enhanced now, and she could also use prediction to determine their movements.

「Then how about this?!」

Tena saw it sooner than Aur could act.

The stone cage would rise from the floor, sealing her movements. Even if she tried to escape it quickly, the range would be too broad for her to do anything.

「In that case..!」

Her body morphed into something akin to a serpent and she slipped out of the forming cage.

「I see you have some neat tricks up your sleeve!」

「You’re also quite dexterous!」

She threw another set of flames at him, which was once more deflected by his automatic defenses. Or rather would have been deflected, if she didn’t bend it at the last second, scoring a direct hit on Aur.

「Gh..!」

In a panic, Aur used magic to get rid of the flames eating away at his robes. It had protective enchantments placed on it, making it as effective as a set of armor, but it was still made of fabric that would catch fire when exposed to heat.

「So that’s how you operate, huh?」

Tena laughed grimly when she saw through the mechanism behind the stone cube’s defenses.

At first she thought that it was automatically deployed to protect its user against any attack, but that was not the case. In order to do so, it required a very sophisticated magic.

It had to decide what was attacking and what was not attacking, and respond to the threat in a split second. The more accurate and precise the action, the more magical power it was consuming, and it was not able to cope with multiple attacks of varying speed at once.

His normal defense was way simpler. Using magic, he was constantly placing invisible, defensive walls around himself. At the moment of receiving an attack, only the blocked part was materialized, creating the illusion that they were extending. That was the truth about Aur’s cube. It could well be called a small dungeon that always surrounded its master. If he was to be besieged by an omnidirectional attack, he would be unable to use any other form of magic, as he would have to focus all of his energy into defending himself, or navigate his attacks through the small openings in his defense, which would both require an immense amount of concentration and put him in a risky position.

Nevertheless, aiming for such small openings would also prove to be quite problematic for his opponents. The only ones who would be capable of pulling something like that off would be the likes of Ellen and her bow that could fire precise, thin arrows weaved from the wind itself.

「Here I go!」

But..

Tena could definitely pull it off. After all, she could shoot fire from her tails and shape it accordingly to her needs. And her prediction would definitely show her the right way towards victory, rendering this seemingly “perfect” defense useless.

「As if I’d let you!」

To block the incoming blasts, Aur used the walls of the Dungeon itself. If you cannot do something the way you want, just look for another!

But that was exactly what Tena aimed for.

She only had one chance. There was absolutely no room for any mistakes.

But she would do it. That is what her foresight was telling her.

「BEND!」

Reacting to the flame changing direction, Aur waved his fingers to the side, commanding the wall to move. It caught all of the fiery bullets that exploded, leaving only small holes in it. But for Tena, it was more than enough. She morphed into a small bird, and then into an insect, to fly directly through one of those holes.

His magic was not producing stone. It just moved them. So if he operates the wall, the floor will be thinner, and if he operates the floor, the walls will be that much thinner. In that case, it should be possible for Tena’s flames to destroy them and land a finishing blow.

But then, suddenly..

「Grandmother!」

「Yutsu!」

Her granddaughter appeared out of nowhere. What is the meaning of this?! What is she doing here?!

At that moment, she had another prediction. Stone spears created by Aur pierced her granddaughter’s chest.

Turning around, she shook her tail. It changed into four separate swords, and destroyed the spears as they emerged from the floor in the very next moment. They danced in the air and fell to the ground.

「Grandmother!」

Yutsu’s appearance also changed to that of a beast. When it came to battle potential, Yutsu was stronger than Tena. She was still bothered by the fact that she was here in the first place, but with the two of them working together, they could surely defeat the Demon Lord.

「Yutsu, lend me your strength!」

Tena cried out as she was about to reach Aur.

But instead of helping her, Yutsu grabbed her and pinned her down in a Nelson hold.

「Wh, what are you doing?!」

She was completely restrained by her own granddaughter, unable to move her arms or escape.

「Yutsu, it’s me, Tena, your grandmother!」

「Yes, grandmother, I know that.」

Yutsu answered with her usual smile.

「What in the hell is going on here?」

Then as she was held in place, helpless, Aur slowly approached her with an evil grin on his face, and reached his hand towards her face.

After that, she woke up screaming. Hearing that, Yutsu came running to her along with all the villagers, but when she saw them, she broke into a cold sweat.

Something was wrong here. Seriously, seriously wrong. Yutsu was supposed to be the only young girl in their village, but for some reason all the females looked exactly like their young selves.

She didn’t know whether or not is was still a dream or some sort of twisted waking nightmare, but she knew one thing for sure:

She realized that the village itself had already fallen into the hands of Aur.