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“I’ll support you,” Emilio said, focusing up.

Roan nodded, “‘Preciate it!”

Though it hardly seemed necessary to lend his aid as with swiftness like a bolt of lightning, the red-haired adventurer left the bounds of the carriage and broke the distance between himself and the hog-beasts.

Though it wasn’t that Roan simply moved like lightning; the man swung his magically-manifested claymore towards one of the tall beasts, cleaving through it with sharpened flames before flicking his fingers towards the other, expelling a bolt of crimson lightning that blew its torso apart.

It wasn’t just fire magic; what Roan wielded was fulmination itself–an element he’d never seen in person: ‘lightning.’

Lightning magic…? I’ve only read about it, but it’s extremely rare to use! It’s as rare as being able to utilize the four base elements! Emilio thought.

Such a sight was fantastical in itself; Roan’s dashed left a trail of red electricity against the cobblestone before he zipped by Emilio, bisecting a hog-man that had snuck behind him.

“–Careful,” Roan warned him.

“Thanks…!” He stammered out.

Roan glanced around, “Looks like they weren’t alone.”

Swarming from around the corner, more of the hog-faced humanoids stomped onto the street, huffing out and running towards them.

“I’ll leave the others to you,” Roan said, facing the incoming group.

“‘Others’?!”_.

As he glanced behind, he found that there were another dozen of the brown-hide, callused humanoids stomping towards their position, to which he raised his staff in preparation.

Using the distance between himself and the hog-men to his advantage, he used the cobblestone street he stood on for resources, spinning pieces of stone into spears and propelling them towards the fiends.

Who has a fear of pig-faced humans?! He questioned.

Though the stone spears were lethal, not all were; some of the hogs managed to tank them and push on, beginning to close the distance as he was forced to fight more close-quarters.

“Ghh..!”

Evading the slam of one of their arms, he countered with a blast of wind that knocked a few back as well.

With one quick glance back, he realized if this were a race, he’d have been left in the dust by Roan.

The red-haired adventurer moved with amazing agility, using his lightning-infused physical might to run along the walls of the abandoned shops before unleashing a whirling spin of his claymore, cutting through the beasts with his reinforced flames.

As one of the hogs tried to latch onto Roan, the man vanished from his spot with only residual sparks of red lightning behind before reappearing and sending a bolt of crimson electricity stabbing through the beast and its kin.

He’s so strong, Emilio thought.

There was no doubt about it: Roan was on an entirely different level than himself.

As he looked forward again, there was a hog-man, larger than the others, swinging down towards him with both of its fists.

“..Gah!”

He managed to dodge it by using a gust of wind to knock himself back before responding by drawing his sword and gripping it tightly.

Alright…let’s hope this works, he thought.

As the horrific beast charged him with its head hung low to use its tusks like lances, he focused, holding his ground before concentrating wind around the steel of his blade.

Just as it came within a meter of him, he swung his sword, enveloping its sharpness and carrying it forward with an imprint of wind that inlaid itself on the hide of the beastly nightmare.

It squealed out as the slice of wind cut through its torso, felling it instantly through the deep cut.

“It worked…” He muttered in surprise.

Again, he found himself feeling small in scale when it came to skill as the hiss of electricity met his ear before he saw a flesh of scarlet lightning traveling overhead.

Roan had speared himself through the air with the form of scarlet lightning, momentarily foregoing his physical state to completely undergo a ‘elemental morph’ of sorts to travel without the limitations of matter before crashing down with an explosive swirl of fire and lightning.

The impact instantly demolished the rest of the hog-men, scorching their flesh with the flames before the blood-red lightning turned their skeletons to ash.

Roan’s scarlet hair swayed in the air generated by his own magecraft as he glanced back with a smile, brushing his gloves off, “Nice work.”

“…Yeah,” he accepted.

The man seemed to notice the blonde-haired boy’s inadequacy as he smiled, “Seriously–at your age, I was still figuring out how to stop shooting smoke instead of flames.”

“Really?–Still, lightning magic is something amazing. I’ve never seen it used before,” he said, “You must have a high affinity for fire and wind, right?”

Roan looked at him, scratching his beard as he averted his gaze, “Somethin’ like that. Let’s keep going.”

“…Right,” he nodded.

It seemed the red-haired adventurer avoided his question, but there definitely didn’t feel like there was any ill-intent from doing so. There were a lot of questions he wanted to ask, but time was of the essence, and though Roan seemed easygoing, there was definitely a sense of urgency in his movement.

“Luckily, we’re not completely in the dark when it comes to the Unending Nightmare,” Roan talked while moving down the street.

For a brief moment, he saw the adventurer insignia that Roan had as his necklace swayed from his shirt: it had a pitch-black gem in the center, contrary to the ruby ranks he’d seen before.

…What rank is that? He thought.

Snapping back into focus, he replied, “–We’re not?”

“This thing has been messing with humanity for centuries,” Roan told him, “–This is the boldest it’s ever been, though. As you already know, it manifests the fears of everybody caught in its ‘zone’, that zone right now being all of Larundog.”

“Yeah,” he nodded.

“If you can block out fear and hesitation from your mind totally, even if you have to fake it ’till you make it, chances are none of its spawn will come for you,” Roan said, “It feeds on fear. That being said, if it thinks the manifestations aren’t good enough, it’ll come for you directly.”

“…Directly?”

“We can bring it to us, but it’s a bit arbitrary–I mean, it’s impossible to quantify fear,” Roan said, “but, just clear your head and be ready. I’m right here with ya.”

“Got it,” he nodded again.

They were moving in haste, with him following behind the seasoned, red-haired adventurer who constantly scanned the streets with his eyes, looking for survivors.

“…You’re not afraid?” He asked.

It came out suddenly, but it was the question on his mind when watching how seamlessly Roan moved through the city and handled any monstrous opposition.

The scruffy-bearded man glanced back with a simple answer, “No. After journeying the world as long as I have, you’ll see a whole lot of frightening things. This is just another Tuesday for me.”

There wasn’t any lie about it; he could sense that Roan was as cool as a cucumber. It was that lack of fear and strength behind it that turned the tides in the situation, easing the despair and bringing in hope.

“If I had to guess, the Unending Nightmare itself is probably holed up somewhere in the center of the city,” Roan surmised, “It might be a proactive entity, but it needs a ‘base of operations’, so to speak–somewhere it can feast on the fear its gathered.”

Still, somewhat felt uneasy as the deeper they went into the accursed city, the more it became distorted and twisted: blood painted the pale-gray cobblestone and flesh-like tendrils clung to the walls like nightmarish overgrowth.

The hue of the scarlet sky that loomed over the entrapped city magnified and the man-faced clouds above groaned louder.

…We’re approaching something, he thought.

“On your left,” Roan said.

“Huh–?”

Before he could react, on the upcoming corner, something stomped in from the left pathway through the cobblestone streets.

It was an amalgamation of a horse and a faceless man; like a centaur out of hell with pitch-black skin and a size more fitting of an elephant. The sound of its hooves bouncing off the cobblestone was loud and overbearing with fear as it swooped in with its arms that ended in the shape of swords.

As he was frozen by the sudden appearance of the hellish centaur, he was tackled by Roan, who moved with the essence of his scarlet lightning to move away from the path of the creature’s attack.

A single swipe of its sword-arm swept through the side of a brick-built building, sweeping a wave of dust through the street in the wake of its attack.

That strength is…terrifying, he thought.

Being let go by Roan, he looked up at the crimson-haired man, “…Thanks.”

“We’re getting closer,” Roan commented.

“How can you tell?”

“It might just be conjecture, but…that thing right there is a whole degree stronger than anything else I’ve seen in the city,” Roan told him, “and my guess is, the Unending Nightmare doesn’t want us getting close to it–so it’s pulling out all stops now.”

“I see…that makes sense,” Emilio nodded, readying himself.