The Red-haired Sorceress waiting for Shade at the wellhead turned to look at the burning mansion. Though she saw the fire, she had promised to wait for Shade here and had no intention of going to put it out.
Suddenly, a fiery red streak shot from the rooftop into the night sky. Miss Danist, who had long been prepared, raised her hand and slashed out a beam of moonlight:
"Moonlight Slash!"
Crimson moonlight collided head-on with the fiery streak in the night sky. Amid a muted explosion, the figure within the fire veered and fell toward the north of Hoy Manor.
"Go after it. It seems that thing ignited this fire."
The Red-haired Sorceress spoke to Shade behind her, and the two chased after the falling streak together.
Hoy Manor was already at the northernmost edge of the city. Continuing north after leaving the manor would take one directly out of the urban area and into the forest. But tracking the falling fire was not difficult, because it left a faint red trail across the night sky.
The fire crashed into the woods with a thunderous boom, and before the two reached the impact site, a raging blaze had already erupted in the forest. Autumn woods caught fire easily. From above, with the landing point as its center, the sea of flames was rapidly spreading outward.
The center of the fire had already been blasted flat by the impact, and fallen trees were quickly burning away. As fiery red claws dug into the ground and pulled themselves out of the crater at the center of the clearing, moonlight split apart the flames, and Shade and Miss Danist arrived as well.
"This is the Demon?"
The thing crawling out of the crater was a hideous monster roughly humanoid in shape, but