Lilia's Tale

Chapter 80: Invasion

The look on the mayor's face was one of confusion. However, as he looked up to where Greg was pointing, his expression turned exactly into what Greg had. Horror.

"A-Are you sure it's a demonic portal?"

"I don't think it could be anything else! It's growing, too! It might be a full-scale invasion!"

At this point, I realised what the goddess wanted to warn me about. Whatever was about to happen, I had to protect everyone from it.

"Greg!" I shouted. "We have to take the civilians to safety and contact the military!"

"This little girl is right," the mayor confirmed. "We have to save everyone!"

He went ahead and shouted to the now panicking crowd, as they heard our conversation with the mayor. He told them to rush to the castle, where they would be the safest, as well as notify the army.

Souji and Riogh took it upon themselves to handle the first set of demons coming through in order to buy some time, while Greg would notify the Guild in order to rally more adventurers.

To my dismay, they wanted me to join the civilians in rushing to the castle.

"I'm staying," I said with as authoritarian a voice as I could.

"You can't stay here, it will be dangerous!" Souji replied.

"I'm not...Well, rather, I might be a small girl, I'm still strong. I want to help you three."

"You don't have fighting experience, and this will be a life or death situation! We can't have you throw your life away!"

"I will be fine. I'm strong, even if inexperienced. And I won't be alone. Mayor?"

"Y-Yes?"

"Requesting permission to summon creatures in order to help in the fight."

"P-Permission granted."

I nodded and told Alice that we would be needing her help. She came on top of my head, telling me:

"Master! I'm here! ~"

"This is Alice. My strongest summon. She's a Light elemental moth, so she can assist you greatly in the fight."

"...You did say that summoning was your strongest magic, right?"

"Yes. I can support you two with large numbers of summons."

"Large numbers? Just how many?"

"Uhm..." the mayor interrupted. "I don't want to stop your strategy meeting but... They're here."

As he said his last word, I heard a loud crashing sound from behind, followed by many more. I looked and saw a lot of large creatures having just landed from below the portal. They were coming down one after another, almost endlessly.

"We don't have time. Kill as many as you can," Souji said as he used blood magic on himself.

"Oni's? Taking on such a large amount will be difficult. We won't be able to protect Lilia like this."

"We'll have to try and hold until the military arrives. Lilia, you do as much as you can to keep as many away from us as you can."

"Understood."

"Alice," I continued in my head. "Do you think giant moths would be able to carry those... oni's? I think that's what they called them."

"They look very heavy, I'm not sure."

Heavy they sure seemed. Their very muscular body adorning dark-blue and dark-red skin tones, alongside their immense height, created nothing but a body to be frightened of. Their singular horn on their forehead, probably much thicker than my leg, their two blood-shot eyes and their gigantic canines protruding from their bottom jaw made them look about as bloodthirsty as they probably were.