Escape

Just in case, Allen checked his Status one final time.

___

Name: Allen

Age: 12

Class: Summoner

Level: 41

HP: 1,040 + 240

MP: 1,620 + 20

Attack: 570 + 200

Endurance: 570 + 635

Agility: 1,065 + 679

Intelligence: 1,630 + 104

Luck: 1,065

Skills: Summoning {5}, Creation {5}, Synthesis {5}, Strengthening {5}, Expansion {4}, Storage, Sharing, Deletion, Sword Mastery {3}, Throwing {3}

XP: 37,839,560/50,000,000

Skill Levels

Summoning: 5

Creation: 5

Synthesis: 5

Strengthening: 5

Skill Experience

Creation: 12,482/10,000,000

Synthesis: 10,265/10,000,000

Strengthening: 8,269,330/10,000,000

Creatable Summons

Insect: D, E, F, G, H

Beast: D, E, F, G, H

Bird: D, E, F, G

Grass: D, E, F

Stone: D, E

Fish: D

Holder

Insect: F x 1, E x 1, D x 29

Beast: D x 10

Bird: G x 2, D x 4

Grass:

Stone: D x 2

Fish: D x 1

___

"Looks like you really need a beating."

Despite her fear, Cecil gave Helgei a death glare as he approached. The man pulled his fist back.

'Ugh, you guys are really forcing my hand here. Ageha, use Scale Powder!'

"What?!" the kidnappers exclaimed in astonishment as a massive, meter-tall swallowtail butterfly appeared out of thin air. It flapped its wings furiously, filling the entire room with yellow powder.

'Nice, one of them fell asleep.'

The dagger-user collapsed like a toy that had its batteries taken out.

Helgei quickly reduced the Summon to light bubbles with a swing of his weapon.

Snap! Snaaap!

In that time, Allen ripped apart his restraints with his brute strength. The ropes that he had been tied up with meant nothing to him given his current Attack stat.

Helgei whirled around, his eyes wide with surprise. Before the man could gather himself however, a giant bear appeared in front of him out of nowhere.

"Wh-What the fuck is going on?!"

"RROOAARRRR!"

Teddy charged forward and used Crush, but Helgei calmed down just in the nick of time and stepped aside, even slashing the beast as it pounded past.

Although that was not enough to finish the bear off, Helgei had proved that he was much faster. None of Beast D's following attacks landed either.

Conversely, the bear disappeared into light bubbles after taking three slashes.

"Die, you monster!"

While everyone present was transfixed by the battle, Allen sneaked around to Marcus's side. Beast D had been a diversion; this had been his true aim. He unleashed a blow with all the strength he could muster precisely where the man had just been wounded by Dagrah.

"Augh...you fucking...brat..." Marcus groaned before crashing to the floor headfirst, knocked unconscious by the pain. He lay twitching like a dead frog.

'Taking out the weakened one first is just common sense. Now there's only one left.'

The sole remaining kidnapper, Helgei, calmly brought his sword up to a middle stance, asking loudly, "Marcus, you alright?"

While taking out his short sword from Dogora, Allen threw an iron ball at Helgei. However, because he had come from the front, the swordsman had no trouble knocking it down.

"You puny little shit!"

'Hmm, this is my first time pointing a real sword at a human, but surprisingly, I don't feel any hesitation at all. Oh wait, no, I'd done the same when these guys attacked the mansion. A bit late to be having such thoughts, I guess.'

"Does this puny little shit scare you?" Allen asked, provoking the man.

"That's it! You're dead!" Helgei roared, unleashing a swing.

'Brons, now! Hold him down!'

Two Stone Ds materialized abruptly before and behind Helgei, sandwiching him before promptly activating Defend.

"What the hell is this?!"

'So far, so good. He needed to attack Teddy three times to kill it, so this should be enough to make him skip a few turns, so to speak.'

Even while finishing Marcus off, Allen had been monitoring the fight between Helgei and Beast D through the eyes of the Bird G that he was still Shared with. He determined that it would take Helgei a while to take care of Stone Ds with their Ability activated.

Now that he had some breathing room, Allen Summoned a Fish D and had it use Splash.

'Next, Suckers, sap his strength! Spidey, use Spider Silk!'

Two Insect Gs attached themselves to the trapped man as an Insect D started spewing him with sticky threads, further restraining his movements.

'Nice, Insect G's Ability is affecting him. So the debuffs from Insect Summons do affect humans too. And just now, Cecil didn't glow when Fish D cast its buff. Is she not recognized as my ally because she's not actually fighting?'

Allen found a lot to analyze about his first-ever battle with a human enemy.

'The hit man's around too, so I should quickly finish this person off.'

Neither Fish D's buff nor Insect E's debuff had affected Cecil. Further testing was needed to figure out the exact conditions for determining allies or enemies, but this was hardly the time for it. Including the currently absent Dagrah, there were a total of four people who meant Cecil and Allen harm. As such, finishing off the third enemy, Helgei, was of the utmost urgency.

Allen brought his sword down as hard as he could on the shoulder of the man pressed between the two Stone Ds.

"RAH! This goddamn brat!"

'He's so tough—or maybe I'm just too weak. And this sword isn't good enough for fights of this level. Should I raise my Attack and try to push through? On second thought, it probably suits me better to use Agility to whittle him down with the number of attacks.'

Helgei's class was likely Swordsman or some other related variation. Due to this, his Endurance was so high that Allen could not deal any significant damage to him even with 750 Attack.

Even if he managed to stab the man with his sword, it would not be lethal. In this world, a person's physical parameters were quantified, so when someone with high Endurance was stabbed, a mysterious force prevented them from dying. It was Allen's first time experiencing this strange phenomenon.

Even so, Allen was absolutely overwhelming Helgei. With his Agility-based build, he was raining attacks on the man who was not only held in place by the Stone Ds, but was also too tall to properly strike down where Allen was. Consequently, Allen was now basically hacking away at the man one-sidedly.

"Guh!"

As a finishing move, Allen kicked the man in the stomach, sending him slamming against the wall of the storeroom. Helgei's head drooped as he finally lost consciousness. At that exact moment, an announcement came over the speakers.

[Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for riding with us. Our magic ship, the Bahona, will be arriving in Carnel City shortly. We have begun our descent, so kindly please remain in your seats.]

'I finally managed to take him out, but I'm running out of time. Gotta free Cecil right now.'

Allen could physically feel the magic ship's descent as it shook even harder than before. Once it docked, the two of them would have nowhere left to run. He hurried over to Cecil.

"Lady Cecil, I will untie you now."

"Mmmh..." Cecil, who had seen the fight from start to finish, was in a stunned daze. Allen pretended not to notice as he proceeded to tear her bindings apart.

"Come on now, what the fuck happened here? How'd a single brat get the jump on all of them? These babysitters the client hired sure are weak!"

Suddenly, Dagrah, the hit man hired by Viscount Carnel, walked in. He was startled at the large beasts all around, then eyed them warily. Without missing a beat, Allen immediately let go of Cecil's ropes and turned around while calling out a new Stone D.

"OOF!"

"MMMMPH!"

Before Allen had managed to do his Summoning, however, he already found himself slammed against the wall. He had been kicked in his side so hard that several of his ribs broke.

'Shit! This guy's so fast! Does he have a scouting build? It looked like he straight-up disappeared for a split second.'

Thanks to the vision provided by the Bird G remaining in the storeroom, Allen had known exactly where Dagrah had been even while he was facing Cecil. However, he could not perform Summoning through the eyes of a Shared Summon, so he still needed to turn around to look in person. It turned out that tiny window of time was more than enough for the hit man to close the distance. Within that split second, Allen had been kicked against the wall so fast even he himself had disappeared from Bird G's vision for a moment.

"What's with that look? Never got hit with a skill before? Those guys were seriously trash, getting taken out by a brat like this."

Continuing to maintain a wary distance from the Summons, Dagrah drew the rapier from his waist and slowly approached Allen.

'So that was a skill just now? No, no, I don't have time to think about that right now. Fighting here is not an option. That leaves me only one choice.'

Allen understood from that one blow that this opponent was far too strong for him to fight. He used a Leaf of Life to heal himself, then...

"Dagrah, what's taking you so damn long?!"

"Wha—?! Your Lordship, why are you here?!"

Dagrah whirled toward the corner of the storeroom where Viscount Carnel's voice had just sounded from.

Of course, this was due to Bird G using its Ability, Voice Mimic, to speak using the Viscount's voice. The instant Dagrah was caught off guard, Insect D wrapped him up with Spider Silk.

Allen threw his short sword into Storage, dashed over to grab Cecil, then darted past Dagrah and through the open door.

"ARGH!" the man groaned in annoyance. "What the fuck is this?!"

'Looks like Spider Silk isn't slowing him all that much. Brons, seal the passage behind us.'

Allen dashed down the corridor outside, but it took almost no time for Dagrah to break through the silky threads and give chase. While running, Allen turned around for a split second to Summon two Stone Ds.

As this corridor was only about two meters high and less than three meters across, the bronze statues made for very effective obstacles.

From the other side, the Insect Gs and other Rank D Summons that had remained out all this time surged toward the man as one unit, doing their best to slow him down. During that time, Allen tore up the stairs at his top speed.

'One Bron just got done in. I'm running out of time. Should I make my way to where the other passengers are? No, we'd still get caught eventually. That leaves...'

Currently, Allen and Cecil were in the passage with the door that led outside that Allen had found while scouting earlier. He could see the ground gradually drawing near through the glass window. Magic tools similar to searchlights illuminated the landing pad so that the vessel would not crash; this made it easy for Allen to accurately gauge exactly how high up they still were.

He gently set Cecil down, then wrestled the door open. A gale roared up, but he ignored it and stuck his head through the doorframe to look down—there were still more than a hundred meters to the ground.

"Lady Cecil, I'm sorry. We'll be jumping down, but please don't worry."

"MMMGH?!"

Cecil seemed to be saying something, but it only came out as meaningless grunts.

'Gotta change up my cards to raise my Endurance. Bron would be able to raise my HP too, but I don't have enough time.'

The Beast D cards in the card holders were quickly replaced with Insect Ds for their Endurance buff. Stone cards required multiple steps of Synthesizing, so Allen had to settle for Insect for now.

"It's fine, milady. I should have enough Endurance. Stat points don't lie!"

Honestly, at this point, even Allen was not sure what he was saying.

"MMMMMMNNPH!"

Cecil used every single part of her body to express her resistance.

However, even though she was moving even more violently than she had in the storeroom, Allen paid her no mind. He fetched his mantle from Storage and wrapped it around her just in case, then hugged her close so as to not drop her.

"So then, here goes! Allen, taking off!"

As Cecil desperately pleaded with him not to, tears spilling from her eyes, Allen stepped out from the magic ship into the beautiful starry night sky.