A mysterious blue crystal.

With the nara having appeared nearby, and with our team fully healed... we had no choice. We had to help.

Leonel: Where is the nara? I asked the guard.

Guard: They are near the leatherworker's shop.

Leonel: Take me there!

Faylinn: We are going too!

Leonel: Are you okay now?

Faylinn: Yes, I'm back to full health, don't worry!

I followed the guard to the place where the nara appeared.
Faylinn and Astra were right behind me.

What we saw was not unusual at all.
Four nara just outside the leatherworker's shop.
They were tiny, humanoid-shaped nara. They were carrying shovels and pickaxes.
The usual dark fog surrounding their bodies was present, as well as hundreds of simultaneous whispers that could be heard coming from their bodies.

Astra: Judging by their size, their "weapons," and their lack of noticeable muscles, these are not dwarves. They are probably kobolds.

Faylinn: They are not strong, but they are fast. Be careful.

Astra stepped forward. It was more like she leaped forward.
She didn't have any fighting skills, but that was fine because it soon became obvious that she wasn't going to fight them.

The nara attacked her from all angles. They were quite fast, but Astra was blocking all of their attacks with her arms, which were almost fully covered in scales, and with her tail, which she was swinging around to repel the enemies.

She was acting as a decoy and these nara weren't even scratching her.

This made it easier for us.
Faylinn quickly grabbed one of them and punched it so hard it flew away toward a wall.
I grabbed my magic dagger and used it to stab one of the creatures in the eye.

Even when the nara's bodies are covered in a dark fog, their shiny eyes were easy to spot even through the fog, making them an easy target.

But... even with a dagger going through its eye, this nara was not screaming in pain; it was just producing the usual hundreds of simultaneous whispers. These creatures really resemble zombies. They do not feel pain and attack anything within their reach.

Faylinn then kicked the nara I had stabbed, and I heard a lot of cracking noises. She probably destroyed a bunch of its bones in one hit.

Only two nara were left.

Astra, still acting as a decoy, grabbed one of them with her arms, while using her tail to grab the other one.

Astra: Get rid of these creatures now.

Faylinn quickly solved the problem by doing the same thing she did with the nara dwarves not long ago.
The two nara were burnt from the inside.

I felt useless as usual.
The most I could do was stab a tiny creature in the eye.

As soon as we finished, I spotted a kid hiding behind a wooden barrel a few meters away from us.

Astra walked toward the kid, probably to calm him down.
She then turned around and made a hand gesture as if telling us to come closer to her.

Leonel: What's going on, Astra?

Astra: Hey kid. Can you tell these people what you just told me?

Kid: Uhm... I saw the nara appear in front of the leatherworker's shop after a blue crystal broke into a million pieces.

Leonel: A blue crystal? Did the nara somehow come out of this crystal?

Kid: They didn't come out. They just appeared when the crystal broke.

Faylinn: Did you see who left the crystal on the ground?

Kid: An old man wearing a black robe threw the crystal away when he was running through here.

Leonel: What!??? Are you sure!???

Kid: Y-y-yes... I saw him... The kid was nervous.

Leonel: Did you see where he went!?

Kid: I lost sight of him after he went behind the leatherworker's building.

Astra: Kid, you did a great job. Thanks for telling us everything. Here, this is yours now.

Astra gave the kid some honey candies we got from the Golden Honeypot's inn.

Kid: Thanks, old lady! the kid said in a cheerful voice. He was happy after receiving some candies.

Astra: O-o-old... lady...? Astra now had the facial expression of a zombie. The psychological damage must have been huge...

Faylinn: Hehehe. Good kids never lie. Faylinn was definitely enjoying this...

Leonel: Girls, we have a new problem now. If this guy can somehow summon the nara wherever he wants, that's an additional problem to deal with. As if the revolver he had wasn't enough of an issue..

Faylinn: Revolver? Is that the thing he used to attack me?

Leonel: Yes, it's a weapon from my world. But I was told by the blacksmith of Rida that making projectiles for such weapons was almost impossible, and making the weapon itself was almost as hard. He probably brought it with him when he was summoned to this world.

Astra: Is there a way to defend ourselves from it?

Leonel: No.

Faylinn: So... we are back to the same strategy: we need to strike first.

Astra: That won't be easy with his ranged weapon...

Leonel: And now we have to assume that even if we somehow gained an advantage over him, he would probably summon the nara right in front of us.

Astra: Most nara aren't really dangerous to us, but they might be able to hurt Leo. And there are all kinds of nara; even beasts can be nara. We don't know what he might summon next.

Faylinn: It seems we need to adjust our plans.

Leonel: We might be able to get help from my classmates. If Alejandro is back to his senses, I might be able to include his magic skill in our plans.

Astra: We will also need to come up with a way to protect your other classmates while we are fighting the bald man.

Leonel: The easiest way to protect them is to... not protect them at all. If we have them all join the battle with us, then the bald bastard won't be able to sneak behind us like he did with Mateo. We must stick together.

This was easier said than done.
My classmates were terrified, depressed, and probably had little willpower left.
And I was about to tell them to join the fight against the murderer that ended Mateo's life and took his soul...