Elemental Cats

The zombies rose for the fourth time, and Toz and the cats reorganized themselves a little.

Since Toz and the cats were pretending to be weaker than they actually were, they couldn't just reveal some of their full strength just because they wanted to try something out. In order to keep up their act, Toz and the cats were going to combine their weak selves' efforts.

It barely required any consideration for them to figure out that Mindle's and Toz's magic would be the most effective. Lucy could somehow make corpses disappear with his recently developed magic, but that was different and required Lucy to show off his mastery of darkness, something a weakling couldn't compare to.

Mindle moved her three flames, concentrating them on one buffalo while Toz ran over to the same buffalo. While they did that, the other three cats took on the rest of the zombies, keeping them from interfering.

Mindle's flames hovered around their designated target, slowly heating it. Its skin started drying and cracking, becoming charred at the edges. But the burn damage wasn't yet severe enough to interfere with the buffalo's movements, and it started running toward Toz with blackish blood dripping to the ground from its bursting skin.

Toz met its charge with a blazing sword. He sidestepped the buffalo before thrusting his weapon into its body. After that, he empowered the flames on his sword, scorching the buffalo's insides.

Fire spilled out of the buffalo's mouth, nose, and eyes before it completely caught fire.

After catching fire, the buffalo soon collapsed, leaving Toz and Mindle to focus on the remaining zombies. However, they didn't put out the flames on the buffalo. They let them continue burning while they moved on to the rest of the horde.

If they continued to concentrate their attention on the buffalo, they would eventually reveal their intentions to the robed figures. But if they quickly moved on, the robed figures would hopefully think that it was simply a change in tactic.

While the buffalo continued burning, Toz and the cats cleared away the rest of the zombies, temporarily putting them down again.

It took a while, but not much longer than the previous times, and before they knew it, another layer of dark grey or black blood covered the ground.

Toz wondered if they had been too conspicuous when they burned the buffalo to ash. Unfortunately, it was impossible to read the robed figures' thoughts and feelings. Since they took a little longer than the previous times before they sent the wave of death magic, Toz got a little worried. But the delay was barely noticeable, and there didn't seem to be any differences in the robed figures' movements as they continued watching Toz and the cats fight against the zombies a fifth time.

Toz and the cats were still pretending to be relatively weak, and although the zombies were weaker and dumber than they had been while still alive, it was about time for Toz and the cats to begin getting tired.

Toz and the cats had already agreed that the fifth time would be the last, and after the fourth, they had already started showing visible signs of exhaustion so that it wouldn't look like they suddenly gave up while fighting the zombies. They might act weak, but they didn't like it. They only did it because it was necessary.

Making it look like they gave up on top of that was something that none of Toz and the cats would agree to do. The last thing they could do before giving in was make it look like they were the kind that didn't know the meaning of giving up.

Toz and the cats fought the zombies, carefully controlling their strength so that it looked like they were barely running on fumes. Thankfully the zombies didn't have any intentions of landing any kind of serious blow on them.

The robed figures' promise of not using excessive force, even if Toz and the cats resisted, seemed to hold true as even when the zombies were about to strike them when they revealed an opening, their movements stopped.

After a while, it became clear that Toz and the cats would have already taken damage several times if the zombies hadn't halted their attacks. But even so, Toz and the cats kept fighting. Eventually, it became a challenge between them of who could hold on the longest while still putting on an act of utter desperation.

Scrael had the most experience fighting desperate battles, but it seemed like that experience didn't transfer, and she only barely managed to make it look realistic.

On the other hand, Lucy, despite focusing mainly on support, put on an act that made the others wonder if maybe Lucy was really in trouble. He called out desperately for his comrades as he continued slinging shadows around to hinder the buffalos' movements. He cried out when it looked like one of the others would take a blow and cried tears of joy when they survived.

However, the dedication to his acting distracted Lucy so much that he didn't notice the cover of darkness separating them and the robed figures from the outside world trembling. The robed figures noticed that and looked around. But before the one that brought out a tiny black ball could do anything about it, it was already too late.

It only took a few moments after the cover started trembling before it broke down. It cracked like glass before collapsing to the ground in a cloud of dust that transformed into a cloud of darkness before disappearing into the robed figure's black orb.

The zombies' movements stopped for a few moments before they transformed into a few streams of grey light that flew into the robed figure that had been in charge of repeatedly reanimating them.

Toz and the cats looked around in confusion and caution as they noticed the abrupt change.

They turned a questioning look to the two robed figures, but they were looking in another direction where four humans had appeared.