A Villainess Should Be Strong

Chapter 18: Invasion (2)

"Mind explaining?" Estelle tied her waist - length hair up in a high ponytail as she approached Minerva who still had a space rift opened right beside her.

Sheila had been sent to wherever Minerva set the space rift's destination to. Alan had already been sent away, so there was only two individuals inside of the mansion as of now.

Correction, two individuals faced with an unknown number of monsters.

"An abnormal case. Monsters are few in numbers, they shouldn't appear so casually... and in such large groups. Have you seen the creatures' appearances yet?"

"No, I used a space rift. I rushed to my mother's side. If anything, they all have an absurd amount of power," Estelle replied, preparing herself to have a face-off with the monsters.

Minerva fell into deep thought as she mumbled strange words. From Estelle's perspective, it seemed like she had a clue about what was going on, albeit not completely sure.

Estelle raised a brow at Minerva's sudden trance.

"MINERVA!" Estelle shouted. Casting her chantless magic to surround the area, she was forced to lurch forward and drag Minerva away.

The action was done in a split second. Not even a second after, another explosion was heard, along with the shattering sounds of Estelle's green barrier.

"Shattered?!" Minerva regained her focus and was shaken.

"Punctured, to be precise. The monsters are smart. They managed to combine their magic to launch a potent shot. We're taking this outside, the building is going to collapse anytime soon," Estelle opened a space rift with the wide open training grounds as the destination.

Holding Minerva's hand in hers, she jumped into the space rift. They connected to the training grounds' skies,

Upon reaching the safe grounds, Estelle reopened her area scan magic to track the monsters' movements.

"...Minerva,"

"Yeah?!"

"Did you close the space rift you made?"

"...No," Minerva's face morphed into terror. She guessed why Estelle asked her the question.

"Four creatures disappeared from the total group," Estelle had kept track of the monsters' numbers, so it was easy to detect the sudden subtraction, especially four of them at once.

"Shiiiit..." Minerva winced. She slapped her forehead, her stress increasing even more when she saw the rest of the monsters coming out of the building to follow them into the training grounds.

"You have to go and close that damn rift right now," Estelle sighed.

Both situations were dire.

Space rifts were essentially a disturbance in the spatial realms of the world. Once opened, it will never be able to close unless the opener closed it by themselves.

Although Estelle wasn't sure that she could take the entirety of the attackers by herself, the refugees' lives couldn't be forsaken. It was better for Minerva to chase after the opened space rift and close it down after exterminating the strayed monsters.

"I-I'm sorry!" Minerva ran in great haste, anxious to get there as quick as possible. It wasn't possible to create multiple space rifts to different locations, so she had to return by herself.

"Now... what the hell are they using?" Estelle frowned. She hadn't detected even a sliver of elemental magic in the explosions.

That could only mean two things.

One, they used pure strength to cause a quake.

Two, their elemental affinity is something completely unheard of.

She wished that it was the first option.

The rumbling sounds coming from the shattered wall in front of her made her heartbeat's frequency rise like never before.

This would be Estelle's first real fight.

Up until now, she only spent her time learning both offensive and defensive magic in those short meetings she held with Minerva and Heine throughout her years, careful as to not reveal any connection to the outside world.

Today, not only was she going to face an unprecedented enemy, her mentors were also not in her vicinity. Being left alone was one thing. She could tolerate it.

But today's incident...

It was something she had never experienced.

The faint tremors slightly shaking her foothold, the unknown creature's steps getting nearer with every passing second.

Her heartbeat sped up.

She was clueless as to what she was supposed to do.

Fight? The being close to her was not classified into anything she had learned on previous occasions.

It defied her knowledge. Her combat ability was solely based on knowledge and potential, but not experience.

It was only now that she was faced with such adversities did she freak out without stop.

The importance of experience.

If it was a couple years ago, when she still had faint influences of the mechanical mind, she would have performed according to her logical decisions and would not falter at such a crucial moment.

But alas, her emotional side had successfully integrated with 'Reina' and became a unity.

It was not up to her decision now whether she wanted to choose which mind to act on. She couldn't help but feel restless at the sheer amount of opponents she faced.

"Shield. Shield, shield, shield!" Defense. That was the only thought that came across Estelle's mind. To protect herself from the incoming harm.

From there, she could analyze their habitual actions and concoct the best measure.

The four layers of defensive shields were formidable.

However, the enemy's methods were tactical and practiced. They learned how to counter Estelle's defensive barriers from just dealing with it for a bit. The first layer was punctured by a concentrated blast directed at the weakest spot. The barrier dissolved, leaving only three membranes left.

Using the same method, the other membranes were dispersed at a fast pace as well.

She was pitted against numbers. Her mana could be considered boundless, but the speed of her erecting the barrier was surprisingly slower than the endless barrage of attacks the monsters tried to land.

One barrier was destroyed in less than a second after she erected it.

Not long after, she was unable to keep up and had no more barriers to fend off an attack.

A spear aimed towards her heart came flying.

Dodging the attack by enchanting a super speed magic on herself, she thought that she had regained her footing when she landed on a distant resting table, but her right leg was suddenly pierced by another spear of the same type.

Estelle let out a scream in pain.

The monsters' attack speed was too nonsensical. Perhaps it was indeed due to the overpowering numbers, but even so, Estelle cursed the unfairness it brought against her.

She knew a spell that would block her pain receptors, but her mind was currently zoned out.

Call her arrogant, but she had always thought of herself as a genius. Someone with infinite mana, an astounding capability to memorize new spells, supported with an imagination that could further develop the spells and materialize said magic.

If she did not proclaim herself as a prodigy, who could?

Though, faced with a seasoned fighter, she was as strong as a clueless baby chick who wielded an unparalleled weapon.

The place they were fighting on was not that far away from the Dukedom's main castle. If she was to release a high - ranked magic right then and there, there would be nothing left after the battle.

"Shield!" Estelle cast, her right hand tearing off the spear stabbed deep inside her flesh while simultaneously casting recovery magic.

What pain - blocking spells? In front of a real battlefield, her mind could not process normally and could only stick to basic knowledge.

She had a high - ranked recovery magic, but the pain she had to bear during the spear removal was needless to say, enough to make her faint.

Holding on to her consciousness, she repaired her flesh as she tore it again and again trying to remove the spear embedded deep inside.

Blood was continuously spurting out of the wound and there was nothing she could do to replenish it.

What body - strengthening methods? The pain took over her mind and clouded her sense of reason.

After continuous layers of barriers was put up and punctured, she was on the brink of collapse as her body had bled far too much.

The wound was no longer present, but the pain she faced and the bleeding brought her to a weakened state.

Sweat covered her entire body, tears streamed down her petite face.

In the first place, she should've known better. As a former adult who lived in modern Japan where science was a thing, she should have known that removing a stab wound was not desirable.

Grabbing the nearest handle to support her, she stood up, her legs wobbling like never before.

The monsters had closed in on her.

Her area scan revealed that what she saw was not the entirety of the attackers. Some of them possessed invisibility magic and concealment magic and could not be seen with naked eyes.

She had learned the [Mind's Eye] skill Heine demonstrated multiple times in the past, but how could she think up of such a feature?

Her focus was constantly being tested. Every time she dodged an attack, there was always a follow up to it. After a couple of near death experiences, she learned to form not one large shield, but multiple small shields of the same potency.

It was as if she was knitting a blanket. The small shields came from the same spell, but it was compressed into a smaller surface and could withstand the attacks now.

The monsters soon changed their attack pattern to mixing explosions with the spears.

The explosions would be enough to destroy one of the small shields and a spear would be thrown at the exposed part.

Just then, one of the monsters caused a quake that cracked the ground and forced her to retreat to the sky.

She had thought that the monsters would be capable of flight since they possessed such power, but the reality left her in shock.

She was now able to see the monsters' faces with clarity. They were built like a strange combination between a lizard and a gorilla. Fur and scales joined to create an unnatural pattern that did not mix well together.

Their backs were hunched to the front, and their arms were much longer than the legs.

The sight disturbed Estelle as she had never seen something like this before, but that was not the main concern.

[If I get up to the high ground, they can't follow?] On the brink of fainting, the revelation blew her mind.

She stayed still in the air and none of the monsters got closer to her. They resorted to throwing spears that appeared out of nowhere.

Turns out, the solution was so simple?

For someone who had infinite mana like her, staying up in the sky and maintaining the flight was a piece of cake.

The monsters continued throwing spears at the skies, but several layers of barrier was enough to counterattack the weapon and make it fall back down towards the ground.

Now floating up in the skies, she laughed, her tone cold as ice.

Stretching her hand out, she attacked the monsters below with a barrage of spears, the same thing that they used to attack her.

The blinding golden spears that fell upon the monsters were manufactured using her Creation Magic at an impossible pace.

Supplied by her infinite mana, the amount of spears raining down were in the thousands in just a couple seconds.

She imbued a combination of Water, Wind, and Light affinity magic on the spears. Her judgement was no longer clouded and she could differentiate between elements that could potentially cause irreparable damage.

[I'm dumb... I'm so dumb. These guys are dumber than me, how did I suffer so much?]

She rained more spears down and even materialized a chair imbued with Wind magic to keep it still.

Sitting down, she closed her eyes and tried her best to ignore the screams of the monsters. Only after less than half an hour did the scream vanish, leaving no traces.