Lorelei continued toward the whirlpool of magic in front of her. Having recognized the Demon King, it would do her no good to run. Plus, the army after her seemed like good enough reason to continue forward. If she was included as the target of the great magic… she would deal with it at that time. Which would be… less than a minute away.

She kept running, even after the mana finished gathering. Then it flowed toward her. She couldn’t help but flinch as it flowed past her, even though if released at that point it would just scatter and create no effects. When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw it take form. Wind magic. Useless… except at such large energy levels. With it forming like that it made… a miniature tornado. Perhaps it was better to call it a twister or vortex, but regardless the idea was the same. A high volume of air spinning in a circle rapidly.

She couldn’t look back long, but soon heard the effects. There was a lot of yelling and screaming behind her. At that level of force, it could be deadly… but mostly to normal people. Those inside were martial artists, and had the benefit of ki defenses and training. They wouldn’t likely die from the fall it would create, so they only had to worry about the debris flying around… which was still a problem, but most of the debris was other martial artists. Some of them would probably even manage to stay on the ground, if they recognized what was going on in time.

Unfortunately, Lorelei ran out of time to think about people flying about and crashing into each other, as she had to come up with something to say to the Demon King. He hadn’t tried to kill her, which was a good sign, so perhaps he didn’t know what she had done. As long as she acted like nothing was wrong…

Finally, his figure came into sight. Well, there was always the easy start. “Greetings, o’ mighty… William?”

-----

William grinned at Lorelei, “Well hi. Fancy meeting you here. Need a horse?” He looked next to him. “I’ve only got one, but you look like you need a chance to sit down.” She didn’t argue, but merely climbed on, and they started moving. “The people following you will probably sort themselves out soon, so we need to get going. There’s uh… no more mana around here.”

“Yes.” Lorelei blinked, and looked down at William jogging along next to her, “That was… quite powerful magic.”

“Chris is a pretty dang good staff. Plus I got part of the magical ability of the Demon King and… also part of a bunch of people he absorbed.”

“Even so, that was equivalent to the Demon King… without you having all of his potential.”

“Again, Chris,” William shrugged, “Besides, you said the Demon King was stupid and bad at magic control. I practice.”

“And you’re not stupid.” Lorelei nodded, “I hadn’t realized quite how much that power was wasted on the Demon King.”

“So, why are you here?”

“Because of you, obviously! Who told you to go get your communication disks broken?”

“Well, yeah, obviously. But why are you here? What happened that you had to come look for me?”

“Oh… Well. We need to head back. There’s a lot of ruckus to deal with… among other things, the lords are realizing the Demon King hasn’t returned yet. I need to be there… and if we want you to have any kind of position in the future, you do as well. As for the Demon King fragments here… we just have to hope that they fall on the probabilities where they don’t show up.”

-----

“They’re coming,” William stated flatly.

“Still? What a pain.” Lorelei looked back the way they had come. “Shouldn’t they have given up by now?”

“I wouldn’t expect them to give up after just a little bit of being tossed around in the air.”

“You call that a little bit?”

“They’re still alive aren’t they? Most of them didn’t even break many bones.” William concentrated for a moment, “Half of them are still in good enough condition to keep chasing us. That says something.”

“That we need faster horses?”

“...Yes.” William looked down at the horse Lorelei was riding. Over short distances they could outpace most humans- even martial artists or knights- but their endurance couldn’t last forever. It didn’t help that these horses weren’t bred to handle gevai. Gevai had stronger physical bodies than humans, but that made them heavier. William and Lorelei trained their bodies, and that made them even heavier, though not quite as much as William might have expected. Regardless, even quality horses would have trouble after some time. The only benefit they provided was that William and Lorelei didn’t have to use their own energy to move, especially in Lorelei’s case because she needed to rest. “What I meant was that they are quite tough. I’ll have to use something else to take them down for a while. Then as long as we avoid cities, we should be able to leave just fine…”

“Don’t do anything crazy. They still outnumber you.”

“Relax. I know another twister won’t be enough anyway. I’ll do something else.”

“...You could do that again?”

“Sure, I could. There’s more mana here.”

“Aren’t you get exhausted?”

“Should I be?” William shook his head, “One more time wouldn’t be a problem, but I have something better.”

“Oh? I’ll be glad to see it. Is it the... laser... again?”

“That’s only good for a few people at best.” William looked around, “Think we can make it to that valley? Between those two hills there? I’d rather not have anyone try to sneak around.”

“Mmm… how far are they?”

“Not that far… we’ll probably have to push the horse, but we shouldn’t need it after that.”

“As long as you’re confident in your plan. Either way, I’ve gotten a bit of rest, so I should be able to handle myself if it doesn’t work.”

“It will work. It involves very simple principles.” William frowned. “They’re getting too close. I feel bad for the horse but… time to speed up.”