Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu

While Roland was still in confusion over the state of his personal affairs, the adventuring team in the ruins met with great danger.

Although the team had almost reached their destination, the Sky Tower’s core control area, meaning that victory should have been right before them… endless demons suddenly poured out from the level below. There were all sorts of demons, from the weakest level of Tiny Demon all the way to powerful warriors like Berserker Demons.

At first, everyone had thought that S1 had merely summoned one wave of reinforcements. But as everyone fought on, the number of demons only kept increasing and becoming stronger. When Inferno Demons could be heard roaring from the level below, even the idiots among the mercenaries realized that something was wrong with the situation.

Sly and vicious Assassin Demons were considered the weakest among the high-level demons. Still, Assassin Demons were already Gold rank in power. No ordinary human mercenary could deal with Gold rank demons. When these Assassin Demons walked out of the shadows, their first sneak attack brought injury and death to the human party.

Timlad realized that something major must have happened, for he sensed the floor constantly shaking as if some gigantic creature was slowly approaching. He decided instantly to begin retreating and request reinforcements from Roland.

Against everyone else’s objections, Timlad unhesitatingly set explosives on the stairs leading to the next floor down, collapsing the entire pathway with an explosion in order to stall the demons and solidify their defenses to wait for reinforcements.

Of course, part of why he could do this was because he had already learned from Roland that wood spirit reinforcements had arrived in Starwood City. Since Timlad was counting on assistance from the powerful wood spirits, he rejected Barton’s proposal for a final all-or-nothing attack.

“Our reinforcements have already arrived. Trust me. They’re quite powerful. At the very least, it’s far more meaningful to defend here and wait for reinforcements rather than go down for a suicidal attack.”

Not only that, Timlad soon detected magical waves belonging to Sophocles the Deceiver, making him feel truly fortunate that he had escaped certain death by not going down to the next level, and confirming in his mind even more that his decision to destroy the stairwell and remain on the defense was correct.

Everyone had now retreated to the training facility that they had left not long ago. The four spirit images had remained behind as their bodies were unable to leave this specialized location. But since the spirit images had come to an accord with everyone previously, the spirit images would now fight to protect everyone here.

Naturally, the demons were able to soon open up a path to the training facility. But, they were stopped by the four Sword Saint spirit images. Since the spirit images knew that they had antagonized S1 already by betraying him, helping the outsiders was now their only hope at freedom and survival.

More robots from the upper levels also began to attack the training facility level. Suffering from a pincer attack with demons from below and robots from above, the adventuring team was forced into a crisis with the training facility as their final base.

Since the training facility was now the main battlefield, Roland constantly heard the sound of sword energy during Timlad’s transmission and plea for assistance.

Roland’s being able to make such an accurate judgement about the wood spirit reinforcements coming before they even arrived was because Timlad had already learned previously that the wood spirits would be sending out their most elite troops and powerful airships all in order to capture their escaped “father.” These wood spirit fighting forces would be more than strong enough to declare war against an entire country.

The wood spirits’ strongest airship, the “Mother”, contained countless weapons meant only for war. The thousands of wood spirits crewing the ship were another scary fighting force by themselves as they represented thousands of royal guards, who were all Gold rank at the very weakest.

The wood spirits were no longer anything like seven years ago, when they were still a newly created species. As a rare Silver Species in the world of Eich, the wood spirits had matured swiftly through warfare. The souls of their strongest warriors who died while fighting against the undead had actually become a catalyst to help them grow even stronger.

And due to, ahem, certain reasons, many heroic spirits also chose to reincarnate as wood spirits. The current wood spirits were no longer only wood spirits, as many powerful individuals had also now reincarnated as wood spirits. It could be said that the wood spirits had plentiful top-level strength in their race. Plus, the wood spirits had their own unique specialties and technologies. The frightening potential of a Silver Species helped the wood spirits to become one of the most powerful new factions in the mortal plane, on par with any human mega empire.

And now, Amelia, the Creator Goddess of this new species, was personally leading the most elite of the wood spirit forces. She even brought the strongest airship at her disposal, all in order to capture a man who had run out from a promised wedding with her. It was likely that the fairies’ magazines’ gossip section would be filled with this news for an entire month… But for a certain traitor, he was absolutely certain that his choice had been correct, judging from the results.

“Amelia actually took the wood spirits’ most powerful airship to get here as fast as she possibly could. If I had been idiotic enough to hide Roland’s presence from her…”

Timlad sighed while also being secretly quite proud of himself.

Alright then, it was now time to reveal a certain truth… Timlad was actually the person who had betrayed Roland’s current location to Amelia and all the other women.

What actually happened was that not long after Roland did his disappearing act after the battle of Hell, Timlad had been contacted by Amelia, Reyne, and all of Roland’s women. Timlad was warned that if he was contacted by Roland and didn’t immediately notify the “Roland capture squad” about it, he would be seriously punished afterwards.

When Timlad received this letter, he had mulled over it for a short few seconds, wondering whether to take Amelia’s side or to take Roland’s side… and then he unhesitatingly chose to take Amelia’s side.

“If I reveal Roland’s location to Amelia and the others because of his personal affairs, he’ll only complain a little about it or punish me a little with those ridiculous pranks of his and then forgive me. But if I antagonize any of those women…”

Sometimes, men were just making excuses when they said that women were being unreasonable. However, there truly wasn’t a single “reasonable” woman amongst all of “Roland’s women.” Simultaneously antagonizing Reyne, the Queen of the Mist Kingdom, and Amelia, the Creator Goddess of the wood spirits, would be the equivalent of simultaneously antagonizing two super powerful factions, not to mention these two factions would have previously been his two greatest supporters… Just thinking about it all gave Timlad a headache.

“A ‘serious punishment’ from them will truly kill me. None of his women will actually dare to kill Roland, but they truly would dare to kill anyone willing to hide him. That’s why, I apologize, Roland. It’s better that you suffer rather than all of us die.”

After Timlad informed the “Roland capture squad” recently that Roland had contacted him, Timlad received a large amount of rewards which were promised to him. Timlad had come over to Starwood City not only to be Roland’s reinforcements, but even more to act as a spy and informant for all of Roland’s women.

Even now, Roland still hadn’t realized that he was preparing to save a “traitor…” But once all of this was finished, he was more than smart enough to realize what must have happened.

And right now, even in such a dangerous situation of being stuck between demons and robots, Timlad still wasn’t worried. He actually had one more secret trump card up his sleeve: a “reward” that a certain person had given him. And now, all of the conditions had been met to use this “reward.”

The ground of the training facility was now covered in runes painted from fresh blood. The mercenaries were drawing magical runes as Timlad specified. However, not everyone understood what Timlad was doing right now.

“These are wretched runes from the lower planes. These runes are clearly emanating an evil aura, and so much sulfur was required to draw these runes. Could he be intending on summoning a demon? Or is he actually a demon himself?”

Perhaps this was poor timing to be suspicious of an ally, but since everyone was now fighting against demons, Timlad’s actions naturally attracted a lot of attention. Barton secretly gripped his spear and warhammer tighter, mentally preparing himself for the worst possible outcome that all of this was an evil demon’s scheme.

Mary, the magical swordman from the Northlands, also didn’t understand what Timlad was doing until she had a sudden realization.

“Are you intending on summoning that person?”

For some strange reason, Mary was pointing at the spirit image Roland as she said this.

“Yep, she gave me the blueprint on how to summon her. Calculating Time and Space, she shouldn’t be far away from us right now, and we can afford the blood sacrifice required with all the dead demons…”

“If you summon her but she can’t find her target, she’ll probably go berserk.”

In a way, ever since Roland became a famous figure on the most wanted posters, all his past dirt was completely dug up by the fairies. Gossip about a boss’s scandals would forever be a favorite topic for subordinates to discuss about. Mary naturally knew about Roland’s difficulties with women.

Timlad also knew that this situation wasn’t exactly what that person had in mind when she gave him the instructions on how to summon her. She had given this magical rune formation to Timlad with the express instructions to summon her at any price necessary if Roland was trying to run away. This way, she would be able to overcome any spatial limitations in hunting him down even if she was currently far away. Using this rune summoning here was definitely going against her intentions.

And right now, it was likely that she was already close to Starwood City. If Timlad summoned her here and she didn’t see Roland, or Roland ended up escaping somehow… Timlad could already imagine an entire year of “serious punishments” before him.

“There’s no helping it. It’s still better than dying to the demons here. Look, the spirit images are already beginning to slack off. Too much exertion will use up all their energy and lead to their deaths. We can’t count on the spirit images for everything.”

Soon, the blood sacrifice and the runes were all prepared. Timlad had the mercenaries toss large amounts of demon corpses into the rune formation. Then, a powerful red light whirled within the rune formation as a powerful will faintly began to descend upon this location.

“Your Majesty, you should be able to sense Roland’s soul wavelengths. He’s about to escape. Please come here to catch him.”

“ROLAND!”

Red demonic energy powered a furious roar as even more powerful energy materialized. The demons’ corpses as the blood sacrifice vaporized into dust at a speed that the naked eye could see. A pitch-black dimensional crevice opened up as a certain powerful existence was summoned while ignoring spatial limitations.

This scene definitely seemed like an evil betrayal by Timlad as it was absolutely clear now that he was summoning a demon. Katerina, Barton, and the others were all stunned as they watched what happened next, when the face of the powerful existence that appeared happened to resemble Roland so greatly…