"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"
The repeated impacts grew fiercer each time, and the alloy door leading out of the medical room began to warp inch by inch.
"Screech!"
Amid a teeth-grating metallic tremor, a pitch-black mechanical claw gleaming with cold metal light slowly pried apart the distorted alloy door, widening the passage.
"This is bad! They're getting in! Get back!"
Seeing that the warped door was about to give way, Mashu, the pink-haired Chaldea receptionist, went pale. She sprang up from the medical bed and urgently summoned a large black cross shield, swinging it forward in an attempt to block the gap.
But at the same time, a monstrous head resembling a hunting hound, its body gleaming with strange metallic luster and painted blue and black, growled as it forced its way through the crack, thrusting its pair of sharp horns upward.
In an instant, the two collided.
"Bang!"
The sharp clang of metal reverberated through the enclosed medical room, stabbing painfully at their eardrums.
Under the violent impact, Mashu, already at the end of her strength, was sent flying. The cross shield in her hand and the black light armor adorned with purple floral patterns dissolved into golden motes of light due to insufficient mana.
Fortunately, her petite body fell into a sturdy embrace, sparing her from secondary injuries from the impact.
"Clang!"
The monster outside kept ramming the door, and its horns, gleaming with cold metallic light, had already bored through the thick alloy.
Seeing that vicious mechanical hound head force its way in again, along with the faint ghostly lights flickering throughout the corridor, Mashu pressed her lips together as despair gathered in her heart.
"Are you still willing to fight, Mashu?"
A deep voice reached her, and a concerned face came into view.
The girl's eyes