Chapter 23
The Forest’s Minion (2)
Kaspar stared at the minion.
It was a gigantic wolf—a pitch-black wolf whose shoulders stood nearly as high as the palisade.
Beneath its thick fur, its flesh had half-rotted away and hung in decomposing strips.
White bones and internal organs were visible within, making its appearance even more grotesque.
The places where its eyes should have been were deeply sunken, and blue ghostly flames flickered inside the empty sockets.
“My God.”
Someone let out a short groan.
Pure-white tentacles sprouted from the minion’s back, swaying like sea anemones.
Patterns resembling human faces had emerged across the tentacles’ surfaces, every one of them twisted into an expression of agony.
Overwhelming hostility.
Kaspar shuddered beneath the pressure enveloping his entire body.
He could vividly sense that the creature intended to massacre everyone present.
But why aren’t they attacking?
The arrows should have been raining down by now.
Kaspar glanced beside him and saw the mercenaries’ vacant expressions.
What’s going on? Have they been bewitched?
Even Rude was drooling.
[Kaspar, its eyes.]
Kaspar’s gaze fixed upon the ghostly flames inside the minion’s eye sockets.
He traced a spell pattern.
Wild Claw.
Magic erupted from Kaspar’s hand.
A green claw radiating savage energy slashed down toward the minion’s tentacles, which were emitting a strange pulsation.
Crunch!
Despite its tremendous size, the minion evaded the green claw with unbelievable agility.
“Wow.”
A gasp of pure admiration escaped Kaspar’s lips.
Such agility from a creature that enormous.
The minion stared at Kaspar for a moment. Its gaze seemed to ask, Why isn’t that one bewitched?
Meanwhile, awareness began returning to the others’ eyes.
“Ugh… What happened?”
“Why was I… just standing there?”
“Huh?”
“What?”
“Don’t look into its eyes. They have the power to bewitch people.”
The lieutenant, having regained his senses, nodded and shouted.
“Fire! Avoid looking at its eyes and unleash everything you have!”
The mercenaries hurriedly raised their bows.
A moment later, flaming arrows poured from the palisade toward the minion.
Whirrr—
Before the arrows could reach its body, they scattered and fell to the ground.
The minion had knocked them away by moving its tentacles at tremendous speed.
The mercenaries were stunned.
The hands that should have immediately prepared their next attack fumbled awkwardly.
It was only a momentary opening, but the minion did not miss it.
Its colossal body shuddered once.
Mist spread outward from beneath its feet.
The entrance was engulfed in an instant, transforming into an eerie scene resembling a ghost village.
Shapes began rising within the gray mist.
Grrrrr—
They were wolves identical to the minion.
The wolves shook their thick-furred, rotting bodies and bared their teeth in grins.
They were not particularly large—only the size of hunting dogs.
But everyone who saw them instinctively realized something.
They were more dangerous than the creatures Sael had created.
“Skreeee!”
Emitting grotesque shrieks, the wolves leaped into Huntingville.
They were small and swift, clearing the palisade before the mercenaries could even nock their arrows.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Allen’s clear voice rang out from inside the village.
The Aezk Mercenary Company drew their swords against the wolves that had landed.
The Silver Wolf Mercenary Company did the same. Shouting battle cries, they drew their weapons against the wolves that continued leaping in from outside.
Battles between wolves and mercenaries erupted throughout the village.
“Damn it! Attack!”
Kaspar’s eyes gleamed.
The mist presented an opportunity.
Ignite.
Kaspar freely scattered incineration magic over the clones that landed atop the palisade.
Rude fell into confusion when he witnessed it.
Did he encounter a Flame Magic Tower mage as well?
Meanwhile—
“Oh!”
“As expected!”
“What incredible flames!”
The mercenaries exclaimed in admiration.
Every fire spell Rude used scorched a broad area.
Just moments ago, the explosion that destroyed one clone had swept across its surroundings. The mercenaries had protested after nearly being roasted by their own mage.
Why are they reacting like that?
Kaspar found it strange.
They had already seen Rude’s magic, so their astonishment seemed unusually exaggerated.
Even the lieutenant appeared genuinely impressed.
However, after witnessing Rude’s next spell, Kaspar nodded in understanding.
“Pole Fireball!”
“Aaaargh!”
“Damn it, Rude! Be careful!”
“I’m avoiding you as much as possible!”
“Urgh!”
“If something feels dangerous, dodge it yourself.”
Rude was utterly unapologetic.
That was why Kaspar’s flames—which precisely incinerated only their targets before disappearing—seemed like an entirely new world to the mercenaries.
Fire magic they did not have to worry about getting caught in!
A wolf that had just bitten a mercenary’s wrist was consumed by Ignite.
The flames did not spread anywhere else. Once the target had been incinerated, they simply vanished.
“Wow! Again!”
The mercenaries cheered.
The Aezk Mercenary Company was now suffering the same burden previously borne by the mercenaries atop the palisade.
Two fireballs created by Rude struck the wolves directly.
Boom! Boom!
“Damn it, watch it!”
Ellasen had been exchanging blows with the wolves when an explosion erupted beside him. He recoiled in horror.
A wolf approaching from the side had been struck directly by Rude’s magic.
Its body sagged. The stench of burning fat filled the air, and with its throat scorched shut, a flute-like whine escaped through the narrow opening.
“Check whether anyone’s nearby before you fire! I nearly got burned alive!”
Ellasen grumbled as he extinguished an ember that had caught on the edge of his clothes.
“Stay focused, Ellasen. Normally, the mercenary is expected to adjust to the mage.”
Zrek spoke calmly as he knocked aside the wolves beside him.
“Still, this never happened when we were with Kaspar. At the very least, he would’ve cast a Shield on us.”
“Don’t become too accustomed to comfort. What will you do when things become inconvenient later?”
Ellasen chuckled.
“Come on, Kaspar is a member of our company. Where could he possibly go?”
“…I sincerely hope you’re right.”
Crunch!
Zrek stomped on a fallen wolf.
He raised his head and looked toward Allen.
Allen was dancing at the forefront.
A deadly sword dance dismantled the wolves around him. While the others had barely managed to kill one or two each, there was no telling how many he had already cut down.
“…The same goes for both of them.”
At the palisade—
The tentacles swaying from the minion’s back suddenly rose in unison.
They stiffened, their surfaces gleaming with razor-sharp edges.
With piercing sounds as they tore through the air, the tentacles crossed like enormous scissors and swept across the mercenaries atop the palisade.
The pattern for Shield formed at Kaspar’s fingertips.
A newly created protective barrier expanded outward.
But he could not save everyone.
“Huh?”
A cold sensation passed beneath the mercenaries’ stomachs.
They stared in bewilderment as the palisade and their comrades suddenly seemed to soar into the sky.
No.
They were the ones falling.
Their lower bodies had been severed.
The attack had been unimaginably fast.
Kaspar clenched his teeth. Had he been even slightly slower, he would have suffered the same fate.
“Attack! Keep attacking! Don’t stop!”
The lieutenant screamed until his voice nearly broke.
The mercenaries nocked arrows without pause.
Kaspar could tell what the lieutenant was thinking. He was thinking the same thing.
We can’t allow the minion to attack.
They could not carelessly judge it by its enormous size. It was capable of moving at unimaginable speeds. Kaspar had nearly been cut in half moments ago.
Defending against it was not easy either. With everyone’s location obscured by the mist, protecting them all with Shield was virtually impossible.
In that case, our only option is to break through with a continuous offensive.
Rude activated his flame magic.
Pole Fireball.
An incredibly compressed fireball penetrated the minion’s body and caused explosions to erupt throughout it.
“Whew… Flame Orb.”
A floating sphere that spewed intense flames in every direction added its power to the explosions.
“Urgh… Spark Whip.”
Unleashing spells at intervals of mere seconds destabilized the flow of mana.
Nevertheless, Rude clenched his teeth, controlled his convergence points, and lashed the minion with a flashing whip of magic.
As Rude’s spells poured down—
Kaspar traced his next spell.
Dust Eruption.
Fine metallic powder sprayed from Kaspar’s fingertips, glittering in the air. A moment later, dazzling explosions flashed repeatedly within the mist.
Grrrr—
The minion hunched its body.
Its reaction differed from how it had responded to Pole Fireball.
Perhaps sensing at a glance that the explosions were dangerous, it leaped high into the sky.
Flaming arrows pursued it.
The mercenaries aimed at the enormous target and prepared their next arrows with triumphant smiles.
There was nowhere to dodge in midair.
However—
The lieutenant clenched his teeth.
Even in the air, where movement should have been restricted, the creature knocked aside every arrow.
Its defiance of common sense left him speechless.
Whirrr—
Kaspar silently prepared his next spell.
Everyone’s vision blurred again. This time, with the moonlight’s assistance, they clearly saw what happened.
The minion’s tentacles whipped through the air, knocking down every flaming arrow.
Their vision had blurred because of the afterimages produced by the tentacles’ high-speed movements.
“Insane.”
“My God.”
Horrified groans sounded from all around.
“Arrows… really are completely useless.”
Swamp Fireball.
Kaspar poured enough mana into the spell to heat it to an extreme temperature, preventing the minion from batting it away with its tentacles.
Magmalite.
A crimson lava stone embodying the flames of the earth rose above Kaspar’s shoulder.
The green and red fireballs radiated heat so intense that they distorted the surrounding view.
Crackle!
The wooden palisade beneath Kaspar’s feet could not withstand it. It began to char and burst into flames.
But that was not the end.
Kaspar pointed toward the airborne minion.
Ferrous Stream.
A torrent of metal spiraled around Kaspar like a waterspout.
“My God.”
The mercenaries below the palisade spoke in strangled voices.
Even those who knew nothing about magic could vividly feel the terrifying power of Kaspar’s spells.
Rude, who did understand magic, laughed.
“…Hahaha. What the fuck?”
It was a mage’s intuition.
Those were absolutely not insignificant spells.
Every one of them possessed enough power to serve as a primary attack.
The sinister energy of the green fireball, the heat of the crimson lava stone, and above all, the overwhelming might of the metallic torrent that made one forget both of the others—even Rude, standing nearby, broke out in a cold sweat.
Yet the surrounding mana flow remained completely undisturbed, and Kaspar’s convergence points were perfectly stable?
What the hell is this…?
If Rude had been as ignorant as the others, he could simply have exclaimed how incredible it was and left it at that.
But because he understood magic, he appreciated all the more just how absurd the sight before him was.
“And he calls himself a Book Mage?”
From now on, Rude resolved to treat every Book Mage he encountered with kindness.
As the seeds of courtesy sprouted within him, the deadly spells flew over his shoulder and rained down upon the minion beyond the palisade.
No. It’s becoming even denser.
Thud.
The minion collapsed.
Its body, burning from Swamp Fireball and Magmalite, convulsed intermittently.
The foreleg struck by Ferrous Stream had been ground away by the metallic torrent, leaving no trace behind.
Did we win?
The surrounding mercenaries erupted in cheers.
Praise poured out for the mage who had single-handedly destroyed the minion.
But Kaspar did not celebrate.
He prepared another attack, instinctively sensing that it was not over.
There would still be time to rejoice after they had extinguished the life of the minion radiating such intense bloodlust.
Judging by the absence of any patterns when it uses its abilities, they don’t appear to be magic anyway.
Kaspar had no intention of prolonging the battle.
There was no hesitation in his heart as he prepared to attack.
Narrowing his eyes, he examined the minion.
To put it harshly, the creature resembled a shredded rag. Even a minion should not have been able to survive in such a state.
Then why—
At that moment—
—Not bad.
Why had the bloodlust that made his body tingle not disappeared?
A voice had suddenly spoken.
…A voice?
A chill ran through him.
The voice carried a strange echo.
Was it the Fallen Throne?
Kaspar turned his gaze.
The Fallen Throne was atop the village bell tower, gathering the abundant vitality from every direction.
With so many monster corpses scattered around, the concentration of vitality rising from them was so dense that it was almost indistinguishable from the mist.
One thing was certain.
The voice had not belonged to the Fallen Throne.
Then who was it?
Sizzle!
The sound of something burning pulled Kaspar’s attention back to the battlefield.
The surrounding vegetation was blackening outward from the minion.
No—it was closer to withering.
As the radius of withering expanded, the minion’s body began regenerating.
Its pulverized foreleg grew back.
It’s restoring its body with the surrounding vegetation’s life force?
“Draw your swords! Attack that wolf!”
Realizing that the situation was taking a dangerous turn, the lieutenant shouted until his voice cracked.
The mercenaries leaped from the palisade.
Thud!
Ignoring the pain shooting through their ankles, they charged at the minion.
They could not allow it to recover.
Kaspar pointed at the minion.
Ignite.
The single-target incineration spell created by Alfred of the Imperial Magic Tower ignited within the minion’s body.
It writhed in agony beneath the intense flames.
The endlessly burning fire had only one final destination.
Fwoosh!
Its heart—the source of its life—began to burn.
The charging mercenaries’ faces brightened.
But only for a moment.
What happened next surpassed everyone’s imagination.
Crunch!
The minion drove its own forepaw into its chest and tore out its heart.
Blood gushed from the empty cavity like a waterfall.
Confusion surged through everyone’s minds.
What? Did it just kill itself?
Impossible.
The torrent of blood pouring from the hole gradually diminished.
Then the cavity closed, returning to its original shape, and the bleeding stopped completely.
Silence descended.
Everyone stared in a daze.
Even Kaspar let out a disbelieving laugh.
Ignite had never once failed to kill its target.
Against a single target, it was the most lethal spell he possessed.
He had ignited the heart, the very source of life.
The spell had succeeded.
Yet it had failed to kill the creature.
Because the minion had responded in a way he could never have imagined.
Having fully restored its body, the minion rose.
It stood upright on two legs like a human.
—Very impressive.
The owner of the voice was finally revealed.
—I thought I might amuse myself with you vermin.
Its voice overflowed with murderous intent.
The grass surrounding the minion rapidly withered.
—But I’ve changed my mind.
The minion turned toward Kaspar.
The ghostly flames within its eye sockets blazed fiercely with rage.
—You first.
The dark night sky and the interior of Huntingville alternated endlessly before Kaspar’s eyes.
The minion had charged him in an instant.
React?
He had not even perceived it.
Kaspar was sent flying with his Shield, soaring across the village before crashing into a tree in the center of the square.
Bang!
Kaspar grimaced at the sharp pain stabbing through his back.
“…?”
Boom!
Another powerful impact shook the entire Shield.
Kaspar’s vision flashed.
The ground beneath him suddenly vanished, and his surroundings spun wildly.
The previous impact had left cracks throughout the protective barrier.
This much damage from a single strike…
Kaspar clicked his tongue inwardly.
Had his Shield been even slightly weaker, he would undoubtedly have died instantly.
Then—
“Lieutenant!”
The mercenaries’ horrified screams rang out.
Kaspar raised his head.
The minion had landed atop the palisade.
It was already holding the lieutenant’s severed head, cackling to itself.