Chapter 152
Just after the mages' bombardment died down.
The Second Knight Order, to which I belonged, charged forward over the defensive line at the command.
A warm glow briefly gathered around my body, and strength surged through me.
‘Wow! A buff!’
The mysterious enhancement magic bestowed by mages or priests.
It was the same buff I'd once fought against when the Imperial Knight Order had been cloaked in it while I was escaping Renoa.
How do you like the effects of the enhancement magic that beat you senseless?
It seemed to be asking me that.
‘Very nice.’
They say the one who's been hit knows best; thanks to it, I should be able to put it to good use.
A horde of magical beasts surged into view, filling my vision.
Though magic had reduced their numbers as much as possible, there were still mountains of beasts left to cut down.
“Hey, Leon!”
Rosanna, running alongside me, called out.
“What is it?”
“Want to bet on who can kill more?”
“At a time like this?”
“Precisely because it’s a time like this. When else will you ever see this many magical beasts? What, scared?”
Rosanna didn't stop at making a proposal; she even provoked me.
I'd sensed it from the start, but this woman was definitely no ordinary person.
“What do you want?”
“There’s a scene I imagine, but I can’t quite express it. If I win, you write it out for me.”
In other words, it was a commission.
This was my first time accepting a personal commission.
I wasn't confident since I wasn't an author, but as long as it wasn't something like furry gay content, I might be able to manage.
“What will you do if I win?”
“If you win, you’ll kill lots of magical beasts, earn merit, and come out ahead.”
“……What?”
“You said you needed merit. If you win, you’ll earn merit, so that’s good for you. What more do you need?”
“What kind of absurd reasoning is that…….”
“Then I’ll take that as a yes! Begin!”
-Thwack!
Rosanna suddenly accelerated.
She sprang ahead, breaking formation.
She cut down the orc horde charging straight at us in a single stroke.
“Four!”
Four orcs were sliced in half at the waist by her sword strike.
Their severed upper bodies spun through the air a moment later, while the remaining legs ran a few more steps before collapsing.
What an impatient woman.
She made up the starting signal, and even if I won, this was an unfair contract that offered me no real benefit.
As a slave, I was thoroughly familiar with such arrangements.
She’d torment me terribly if I lost. To protect my own well-being, I had no choice but to win.
I kicked off the ground hard and chased after Rosanna.
Beyond the plain swept by the blast wave of the three-stage bombardment.
The massive body of the magical-beast army emerged, swallowing up the remains of the vanguard.
The magical beasts surged forward with enough force to bring the entire earth crashing down, as if goblins and orcs had merely been there to fill out the ranks.
-Fwoooosh.
Golden mana flowed along the blade.
Perhaps thanks to the magic imbued in my body, my movements felt much lighter than before.
-Kraaah!
A pack of gnoll raiders shook their hyena-like heads and swung crude maces.
I slipped beneath one of them and swept my blade upward at an angle.
-Slice.
The blade biting through hide and bone cleanly severed the back of its neck.
Before the black blood could even spray through the air, I launched myself up and drove my sword into the crown of the next one's head.
Using the limp body as a stepping stone, I leaped into the middle of their formation.
The instant I landed, I swung my sword in a wide horizontal arc.
Five or six gnolls lost their legs and toppled face-first into the muddy ground.
Above their screams, a pack of goblins wielding poison-coated daggers rushed in like a swarm of wild dogs.
Their small, nimble bodies obscured my vision from every direction, but my senses caught their movements precisely.
I omitted every unnecessary motion.
-Tap, tap-tap.
With a light flick of only my wrist, I stabbed their vital points.
Every time I inhaled and exhaled once, magical beasts crumpled one after another.
“Fourteen.”
It had been barely a few seconds since the battle began.
I glanced at Rosanna.
“Ghk…!”
Had she sensed a threat?
Rosanna gritted her teeth, adjusted her grip on her sword, and sped up so as not to lose.
The magical beasts around her were flung in every direction by her merciless sword strikes as if caught in an explosion.
‘What on earth is she planning to have me write?’
I couldn’t afford to lose either, so I leaped at another magical beast.
The slaughter of magical beasts disguised as a competition continued without pause.
Insect-type magical beasts that spat venomous stingers. Liquid monsters that sprayed acidic slime.
Every time my sword flashed, they crumpled helplessly without putting up the slightest resistance.
I never stopped even once.
I cut through magical beasts without a hitch, as smoothly as flowing water.
“One hundred twenty-two.”
I had broken through into three-digit territory in an instant.
The path I had taken was carpeted with magical-beast corpses.
It was becoming harder to count how many I had killed than to cut down the beasts themselves.
‘How many has Rosanna killed?’
She might inflate her tally with a lie later. I needed to kill enough more that she wouldn’t even dare try any tricks.
It was just as I was about to charge out again with that thought.
A shadow fell beneath my feet.
I looked up and saw a house-sized boulder falling toward my head.
I was already in the middle of the magical-beast horde, with no allies nearby. I dodged without hesitation.
-KABOOOOOM!
The earth let out a crude scream.
The lesser magical beasts positioned at the impact site were crushed beneath it without so much as a squeak, let alone any resistance.
I turned my head toward the direction from which the boulder had flown.
A body as immense as a fortress bastion.
Instead of flesh and bone, massive rocks were crudely linked together to form its joints,
while dark-blue moss and vines hung haphazardly across the rocky surface.
‘Why are you here?’
One of the named bosses in [Lady Maker].
Vargav, the Forest Colossus born when nature mana condensed and clumped together over countless years.
A creature like that was charging at us like an ordinary trash mob.
-Kuuuuuuooh!
Vargav roared savagely toward the sky.
Along with an eardrum-shattering wave, the forest's mana churned like a storm.
“Keeeeugh!”
With a single roar, the knights who had been charging forward with such vigor froze like stone.
It happened immediately afterward.
-Vwoom!
Dark-blue mana began to surge violently backward through the vines entwined around Vargav’s massive body.
The nature mana that had coursed through its entire body condensed all at once in none other than its eyes.
In the blink of an eye, its two eyes flashed ominously, seeming to sing of frenzy.
-Keeeeeeng!
A high-frequency shriek that pierced the eardrums tore indiscriminately across the entire battlefield.
“Everyone……!”
It was before Rosanna could even finish her urgent warning.
-Fwoosh!
Two green rays of light shot forward.
It happened in an instant—before there was even time to blink.
Those standing in the rays’ path could neither dodge nor raise their shields in time.
The blessing magic might have pushed their physical strength to its limits, but a beam of heat compressed to that density was another matter.
If they faced it head-on, flesh and bone would evaporate, shields or no shields, and a huge hole would inevitably be bored through their abdomens.
The battlefield stood at a critical juncture where its entire course could be reversed in an instant.
I had sensed the danger before everyone else and acted without delay.
-Whoosh!
My opposite hand, the one not holding my sword.
I raised my index and middle fingers and lightly flicked upward from below.
The Intangible Sword, leaping across space, struck upward beneath Vargav’s chin.
-Clang!
The colossus’s head snapped vertically upward.
With its gaze forcibly twisted, the green rays from its eyes shot straight into the sky.
-KABOOOOOOM!
A flash of divine retribution shot in a straight line into the firmament.
It surged upward, instantly evaporating the dust cloud that had blanketed the battlefield.
A massive hole was punched through the sky.
Sunlight settled through the opening.
Before that light could even reach me, my body had already kicked off the earth and soared into the air.
Between the rocky hide covered in vines and moss, I caught sight of a core where blue light throbbed violently.
The colossus’s core, in which the forest’s mana was condensed.
The golden mana wrapped around my sword shrieked keenly.
I closed the distance in a single leap, as if stepping on empty air, and thrust my sword straight in.
-Crack!
The tip of my sword pierced through the center of the churning blue core embedded in the rock.
I twisted the sword in place.
Like a gigantic window shattering, spiderweb cracks spread across the rock’s surface in an instant.
Then, before long.
-Rumble-rumble-rumble!
Thousands of vines supporting its joints crumbled away in an instant.
Massive boulders collapsed like a waterfall, unable to withstand their own weight.
The colossus once called the guardian of the forest was transformed into an unrecognizable heap of rocks.
Urgent footsteps approached through the thickly billowing dust.
Rosanna emerged, pushing through the residual heat of mana pouring from the colossus’s remains.
“Leon! Are you unharmed?”
“Yes, as you can see.”
“Well done. If you’d been even a little later, it could have ended terribly before we had a chance to do anything. You did really well.”
Even Rosanna seemed quite shaken by what had just happened.
Her eyes as she looked at me were a jumbled mixture of worry and relief.
I leisurely brushed the dust from my shoulder.
“More importantly, Lady Rosanna.”
“Huh?”
“Does Vargav count as one? Considering his size, I think he should count for at least thirty.”
Rosanna stared at me blankly, as if she had heard something nonsensical.
Soon, she gave a dry chuckle.
“Forget it. I lost. Count the bet as yours.”
“Phew.”
Thank goodness.
I patted my chest in relief.
“How is the battle going?”
“Not too bad. The subjugation is proceeding without any significant casualties. At this rate, we should be able to finish it without much trouble.”
“I see.”
“Why do you look so dispirited? Don’t tell me you’re already tired?”
“Of course not. We’ve only just started.”
“Right? Let’s keep up the good work.”
Rosanna let out a booming battle cry and threw herself into the horde of magical beasts.
‘We should be able to finish the subjugation without much trouble…….’
If I only looked at the battle situation right in front of me, that might indeed be true.
But every sensation throughout my body was drawn taut like a strung bow.
The breeze brushing my nape was strangely cold.
As if desperately trying to warn me of the omen of despair that would soon descend.
I raised my head and looked toward the western sky, where the magical beasts were surging in.
Beyond the distant horizon.
Dark clouds creeping toward us as they slowly covered the sky.
Something bad was coming.