The next day.

By the time it was afternoon, the five of us each were riding on the back of an ignis dragon with 8 rimel birds leading in front.

We would be reaching the fortress where the lich was supposed to be in less than five minutes. I thought it would take us longer to be honest. We’re not going as fast as we could, as we’re being wary of any possible surprise attacks, but the ignis dragon and the rimel birds are still so fast.

We specifically picked out a time unfavorable to the undead. This morning after readying our equipment, we had a meeting, then we left right after an early breakfast, but I didn’t think we would actually arrive in less than an hour.

I’m grateful for my allies. Their fire and wind magic whenever we encountered a battle was invaluable.

Moreover, I hear Rheinbach-sama has a magical beast under him that excels at detecting enemies. It’s called assassin snake. With it’s help we’ll be able to find where the victims are. An excellent tool both for ambushing and defending against ambushes.

We tested the magic tool I created with Kanan before leaving, and we found out that It’ll break after extended use, but it’s newly built, so it probably won’t fail us during some crucial moment. At least unless it gets destroyed.

“Oh?” [Shiva]

The fortress is nowhere to be seen, but the ignis dragons have already started to descend. Rheinbach-sama seems to have ordered them to. Did something happen?

Upon landing I asked Shiva-san if something happened.

“The ignis dragons saw the fortress on alert. It looks like some adventurers have attacked ahead of us. There were also two living wyverns and the corpse of a large bird-type magical beast you don’t normally see around here. A saddle was attached on both of the wyverns, so an adventurer must’ve been controlling them. The area surrounding the fortress is crawling with undead, so the lich is definitely in the fortress.” [Shiva]

“It’s common for a lich to use the undead, but to think it could also use wyverns.” [Rheinbach]

“If it can control slave demons too, then the beasts on our side might end up under its control.” [Remiri]

“High-ranked magical beasts and magical beasts with a lot of magic power have a natural resistance against contracts and curses, but yes, they might still end up controlled anyway.” [Rheinbach]

It seems the reason Rheinbach-sama had us land was to discuss whether to continue with our plan or not.

We discussed a bit after that, and in the end, we decided to revise the plan we made this morning.

The original plan was to split into two groups. One land and one air. With me, my slimes, Shiva-san, and Sebasu-san in the land group, while Rheinbach-sama and his ignis dragons would fight from the air with Remiri-neesan and the rimel birds.

It was a plan we originally came up with in case the lich tried to run away by flying again, so this time we revised it to prioritize dealing with the wyverns.

The slave demons would be fine as long as we found the lich first, and not give him the leeway to cast the Curse of Obedience. As for the undead, the grave slimes should be able to handle them. I’m sure not even the lich would have the magic power to try and usurp control over a horde of more than 10,000 slimes.

After making those changes to our plan, we rode on the ignis dragons, and once again made way for the fortress.

After flying for a while, a cliff that had been roughly leveled to create a crossroad came to view. At the center was an open space shaped like a deformed circle, outside of which was a wall that only reached up to one’s hips. Beyond that wall were the castle walls, and then past that was a clumsily built one-story structure.

The walls were made from the stones of the cliff. The stones used were not uniform, and each and every single one of them were littered with earth and sand all over. In contrast, the gate on the castle walls was cleanly built, and the undead could enter in and out as its two doors opened outwards.

It’s time...

In that tense atmosphere, Rheinbach-sama gave the signal to land, and those of us in the land group landed in one of the paths of the crossroad.

The unfortunate undead in the landing zone were either roasted by the dragons or squashed upon landing, while the undead that didn’t get killed, sluggishly ran away from the place.

Good! They’re not attacking us!

I quickly unfastened the metal fixtures needed to ride the dragons, and got off. Everyone else aside from me, the dragons and the rimel birds included, were tensed and extremely wary.

I took out the slimes from my Dimension Home, instantly filling the road extending to the fortress.

“Go!” [Ryouma]

As soon as I gave the command, the iron and metal slimes jumped out to lead the charge, with the grave slimes following from behind. Among the slimes were also 120 magic-using slimes that were covered in metal slimes. The mimic slime was behind me, transformed in my figure, and equipped with an iron slime katana.

As the horde of slimes pushed on, they turned into a wave of force that gradually took down the slow undead that couldn’t run in time as they made way for the frotress.

When we neared the fortress—

“I found some survivors! There’s three of them in front!” [Rheinbach]

Rheinbach-sama found some of the survivors, and he pointed them out from above. In front of me stood three men with expressionless faces just like Oslo-san and his group. They cut a road through the undead as they made their way toward us. When they got past the undead, they started cutting the iron slimes at the lead. When Sebasu-san saw that, he said.

“They’re attacking everything.” [Sebasu]

I don’t know what order they got, but they’re attacking the zombies, who should be their allies, all the while, also attacking the slimes... But this isn’t really the time to be wondering.

“Sebasu-san.” [Ryouma]

“It’s ready.” [Sebasu]

We decided beforehand to throw the survivors into Sebasu-san’s Dimension Home after catching them, so I checked with Sebasu-san if he was ready.

After hearing his response, I ordered the slime to open a path. Then I ran for the adventurers.