Who Needs Magic in a Fantasy World Anyway?

Chapter 120: City Under Fire

Christina's P.O.V

Unable to continue forward due to the tunnels collapsing, it took the group of adventurers nearly another day to eventually make it out of both the dungeon and tunnels. Though it would have taken even longer if Senshi hadn't suddenly become calm after Koko had vanished and helped them up the tall chamber where the stairs had disappeared while afterwards climbing into Christina's satchel. However, even though they'd made it outside, there was no room for cheering as the army was gone and the group continued onto Goldgate to discover why.

While it was a beautiful city full of life and laughter only two days ago, none of the adventurers could say anything as the city was covered in a haze with most of the once visible roofs either being lost in the spoke or on fire. The castle, while it was thankfully still standing tall, was missing several of its towers and had a large section of its side collapsed. But while the sight of the city was a shock to say the least, once they grew closer, they all started moving faster as the sounds of screaming and fighting could still be heard in the distance.

"Stay together in a group when we enter the city and kill any monsters or demons that we come across!" Conner shouted his orders as they finally reached the front gates to see that there was an entire squad of city guards that were laying dead on the ground with a mountain of both coins and items around them. Though the wealth didn't matter at the moment as the group entered the city to find that the creatures that they'd seen down in the tunnels had flooded the streets and were ransacking every building that they could get into.

"Destroy them all and push through to the city's center!" Conner yelled with his orders seeming to be combined with a war cry and, seeing as she was on the front lines, Christina helped lead the charge forwards as she used her sword to kill two giant ants before sending her magic forward to obliterate a level fifty-two humanoid demon with red skin and short black horns on the top of its head called an imp.

"Mages will focus on groups of enemies while rangers kill the demons!" Conner continued giving orders. "Everyone else support the front lines and charge through them!"

Yelling as they followed orders, the group of adventurers never stopped as they carved a path through the invaders until they eventually reached the city's center to find that the guardsmen had managed to hold it but were on the defensive as all of the monsters and demons nearest to them were launching continuous attacks against their shield wall.

"All civilians get to the castle if you can! Those that can't, barricade yourselves the best that you can and we'll try to save you!" Ess, the commander of the kingdom's rangers, called out from behind all of the guardsmen before she let two arrows loose which struck two demons that had been on the roofs in front of the group of adventurers while killing them instantly.

"Ess! What's the situation?!" Conner asked as soon as the guardsmen parted to allow the adventurers through.

"We were caught completely unaware and the invaders have been pouring out of the sewers ever since yesterday afternoon." Ess replied as she ran to meet with them. "Their reinforcements have stopped coming, but the city is still infested and there are a lot of civilians that are out there in need of assistance."

"What can we do to help?" He asked.

"Take your forces and clear the northern residential area." She answered. "Tristan is already leading his knights in circling around the city to exterminate the enemy, but remember that the lives of the civilians comes first"

"Alright, then we'll be heading out." Conner replied before turning around to address the others. "We need to repel the invaders and save the civilians! Everyone that doesn't have the energy to keep going will stay here and support the guardsmen!"

With most of their group looking both frustrated and angry at themselves, their journey through the dungeon and tunnels had been a long one and most of them stayed behind while Conner led the remaining group of seven north.

"Richard, are you alright?" Christina asked while running to follow the headmaster. And while she was fine, she was worried about her friend seeing as she didn't think that he was as physically fit as the others that had continued with them. Not to mention that he'd only recently recovered from being knocked unconscious.

"I'm so angry right now that I could level their entire army and still keep going." Richard replied. "Let' just fix this so that we can find Koko!"

"Right..." She agreed immediately while trying and failing not to focus on all of the bodies on the streets. Though it wasn't just that as the sounds from people screaming and the heat from the burning buildings filled her with dread until their group met with their first group of monsters and demons and she was able to distract herself by skewering two of the demons with her flying swords before she stabbed a nightmare beetle with her regular sword. But while she'd been distracted at first, the small fight ended all too soon for her liking as she was soon running through the streets again.

"Alright, we've made it!" Conner announced as their group reached the center of the northern residential area. However, while the man gave more orders, Christina didn't hear them as her mind drowned out everything other than the collapsed building in front of her which had once been the blacksmith that she'd once taken for Father Celdric. Though now there was hardly anything left of it as a large fire was quickly consuming anything that had collapsed. And as she continued to watch, she only hoped that Royce and his family had escaped before a hand shaking her shoulder snapped her back to reality.

"Christina! I need your help here!" Richard yelled before he let go of her and slashed his sword to his side while cutting the arm off of an imp. And after he used his other hand to blast the rest of it away with magic, Christina looked around to see that they were completely surrounded with none of the other members from their group in sight.

"Where did everyone go?" She asked as she created a barrier around herself in order to stop a fireball that had been heading towards her before using a beam of light to cut the attacking demon in half.

"They're looking through the buildings to try and find survivors, but it's up to us to hold here so that they have a place to fall back!" Richard explained while releasing a bolt of lightning from his free hand which traveled from enemy to enemy over twenty times before they all turned into black smoke and a little less than half of the invaders around them were wiped out before even more came and replaced those that had fallen.

"Understood." She replied before creating several more flying swords behind her as they all shot more beams of light which pierced through the enemies in front of her and continued on to the monsters and demons behind the original targets as well. However, while they were successfully holding the center of the residential area from what seemed like a never-ending horde, the surroundings suddenly grew dark as storm clouds covered the sun overhead at an unnatural pace. And once crimson lightning started flashing between the clouds, everything seemed to stop and all sound was drained from the world as a small portion of the clouds opened to reveal a gigantic red mass of magic of some kind with its edges releasing even more of the crimson lightning that the clouds had been.

"W- What is that?" Christina asked with a shaking voice until she was answered as hundreds or perhaps thousands of large flying demons started pouring from the portal.

"Probably... What we were sent here to stop..." Richard replied with his words making no sense to Christina before Conner and the other adventurers returned while leading a group of survivors that they'd found.

"Come on, we're going back to the city center!" Conner yelled as soon as he rejoined them. "Keep your heads down, cover the civilians and stay alive! That's an order!" 

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A.N.- Hey guys! I just wanted to inform everyone who doesn't know already about my book 'Unleash the Chuunibyou!'. It's a somewhat similar concept to this book but the MC is the exact opposite of Koko in terms of abilities. It's something to read while waiting for more chapters and I hope that you enjoy it!