Chapter 78
The story continues off the page
The Last Dance Before Midnight
A masked dragon asks the lanternwright for one slow dance
Ferda's strike turned the wolf monster into a corpse.
The people watching the scene could not hide their astonishment.
“The monster was killed in one blow….”
Although they had heard that monsters were vulnerable to mages, few people had actually witnessed the effect.
Even for a mage, killing a monster in one blow was uncommon.
Ferda looked at the man wearing a foolish expression and said,
“What are you waiting for?”
“Pardon?”
“The rift is still open.”
He was right.
The rift did not close even after the wolf monster died.
That meant there were still monsters inside.
“Everyone who can draw a sword, prepare for battle! Protect the civilians!”
“Request reinforcements! Call the guards!”
“Forget the guards and call for mages! Call every mage who can blast them with magic!”
People were shouting in all directions in utter confusion, but it had become a command structure of sorts, so Ferda paid it no mind.
The limp corpse at the boundary twitched.
“I-it moved!”
“Is it not dead yet?”
Someone said that.
But the wolf monster was dead.
However, the fact that it was moving meant another one was preparing to emerge.
Ferda immediately prepared his next spell.
Soon, something began to appear beyond the space where the haze was rising.
It was another identical wolf monster.
It tried to leap out, but Ferda was one step ahead.
“Lightning Spear.”
Ferda cast the spell at the monster emerging from the rift.
The spear of lightning struck the wolf monster as it came out.
-Crk!
Lightning Spear was one of the fourth-tier spells.
It possessed excellent penetrating power and could inflict fatal damage if it struck a vital point.
However, if it failed to hit a vital point properly, it could not kill the target.
Just like the one before him now.
‘Still, not bad.’
The monster that had been trying to emerge was startled and attempted to retreat.
But it could not do so.
The heads of other wolf monsters were visible as they shoved their heads through the gap in the rift.
There were at least four of them.
Thanks to their panic, he had temporarily prevented them from pouring out all at once.
In the meantime, everyone who could participate in the battle had prepared themselves.
The knights drew their swords, and the few mages prepared to chant their spells.
Mages were effective against monsters.
Everyone knew that, but how many mages had actually fought a monster before?
As mages advanced through the circles, their society became closer to politics than magic.
There was no chance of victory with these forces.
“What should we do? Should we evacuate?”
Jed asked.
This was Halim's affair, so there was no need to risk their lives.
“No. We will join the battle too.”
Ferda was the only useful mage here.
However, there was no need to risk his life, and the odds of victory were high.
‘It is more profitable to fight than to run from this.’
After making his decision, Ferda searched for what he needed.
‘What I need is mana.’
What Ferda needed were mana batteries to replenish the mana he lacked.
In other words, he needed mages who could serve as fuel.
For that plan, he called out a name.
“Malcolm!”
“Yes, Regent!”
Malcolm answered briskly.
Despite his answer, his body was fidgeting helplessly.
“Bring every mage to me. Even if all they can do is create Mana Shots, gather every one of them and bring them here.”
“W-what should I do if they say they do not want to?”
Was that even a question?
“Then kidnap them and drag them here.”
“Y-yes, sir! I will carry out your order!”
Malcolm ran off, flailing his arms.
“May I go fetch them too? I am confident in my powers of persuasion.”
Jed asked discreetly.
“You should be working as a knight.”
“Damn it.”
Jed let out a groan and drew his dagger.
-Grrrr!
In the meantime, the wolves' panic subsided.
One wolf forced its way out, and the others waiting behind it poured out like a flood.
Once all the wolf monsters inside had emerged, the rift sealed itself again.
‘Are there seven in total?’
Seven monsters had invaded the building, even though a single one was more than an ordinary knight could handle.
‘I can handle about two. If the others have to face the remaining five….’
Ferda quickly assessed their forces and compared them with the monsters.
‘Impossible.’
The monsters would hunt them unilaterally, and that hunt would end in their annihilation.
Like dominoes that had already begun to fall, they would not stop.
“Sir Jed.”
“Yes.”
“You will have to step up. Can you keep about two of them occupied for a while?”
“Two of them?”
Jed swallowed hard.
They looked like wolves, but their mouths and claws were not their only means of attack.
Sharp, protruding tentacles hung threateningly from their tails.
He was supposed to keep two of those things occupied?
“Can you do it?”
After thinking and thinking, Jed answered.
“The fee is going to be rather steep.”
“Have I ever failed to pay you?”
“No, you have not. Then…!”
Jed adjusted his grip on his dagger and moved away.
He approached Penelope.
In a situation like this, there was only one thing she could do.
“Waaaaah! I do not want to dieee!”
“Hey, Pepe! Get a grip, you idiot!”
Smack!
“Ugh!”
“Stop bawling and do your job. You can use magic too!”
“W-what am I supposed to do? How can I fight something like that?!”
“You do not have to fight. Just help me. Somehow make my body lighter, you know, that thing, that thing!!”
“That thing? Tsk, just a moment. Haste!”
Penelope's magic covered Jed's body.
Jed felt himself grow even faster and loosened up his body.
“Yes, that is the feeling.”
Jed grinned and muttered as he looked at the wolf monsters.
“I will go for a little walk, then.”
Jed moved to draw the attention of the two monsters.
With this, Ferda would handle two, and the others would handle three.
Ferda turned and picked out the most experienced-looking man among those who had drawn their swords.
“You there!”
“Yes!”
“You have good spirit. We will take on four of them, so try to face three with the people around you. Can you do it?”
“H-how?”
“Tell them to move as defensively as possible. Form a shield wall.”
He put it that way, but it did not matter whether they fought defensively or offensively.
As long as they did not lose their will to fight and run away, that was enough.
That was all Ferda expected from him.
“Regeeent!”
Malcolm, who had been given his orders, came running back in a hurry.
Ferda was about to ask why he had returned, but the sight of what he was carrying left him speechless.
Two robed men were draped over his shoulders.
“Here they are, the mages!”
“You really did kidnap them.”
“I am not confident in my powers of persuasion…!”
Ferda stared intently at Malcolm, who was panting heavily.
“You are smarter than I expected.”
“Pardon? Am I smart?”
“Knowing yourself is not easy. Keep doing just that.”
“Understood!”
Malcolm went off to kidnap more fresh mana batteries.
The men who had been brought there without knowing why stood frozen.
They had been escaping just fine, only to be dropped into the middle of a battlefield without warning.
Ferda did not give them time to think.
“Can you use Mana Bombs?”
“Pardon? Ah, yes….”
“Prepare a Mana Bomb. When I give the signal, throw it toward me. And you?”
“I-I have not learned that yet….”
“Then prepare a Mana Shot. Prepare it, and when I give the signal, throw it to me. That much is easy, right?”
“Yes, sir!”
“And if that kidnapper brings more mages, give them the same instructions. I do not want to explain it twice. Understood?”
“Ah, understood!”
Given the urgency of the situation, there was no way they had understood all of it.
Ferda did not expect much and prepared for battle.
‘I must restrain my use of black magic as much as possible.’
Black magic would tarnish the grand design he was drawing with a fatal stigma.
Although he knew that Erdes was already using black magic, what the public saw was an entirely different matter.
He had to avoid it as much as possible.
‘But I cannot refrain from using it altogether.’
He would use it quietly and discreetly, without letting others notice.
That was why he had learned Barbatos's shadow arts.
At Ferda's feet, the shape of a shadow moved.
It stealthily reached the wolf's feet.
Ferda chanted a spell.
“Bind.”
A hidden hand reached out from Ferda's shadow.
-Grrr!?
It seized the wolf's ankle tightly.
It was a fourth-tier binding spell from Barbatos's shadow arts.
Its original name was Shadow Bind, but Ferda had omitted the word “Shadow.”
It had not even needed a chant in the first place.
That alone was enough, and it had an effect that looked similar to Bind.
The wolf struggled helplessly, unable to lift its foot, as though it had fallen into a swamp of sticky glue.
‘The first one, quickly.’
He swiftly drew the magic circle he had memorized in midair and chanted the spell.
“Lightning Spear.”
The spear of lightning left his hand.
Hitting its heart while its body could not move was as easy as pie.
Crackle!
The spear of lightning flew swiftly and pierced through its hide.
The place where its heart had been spewed only green blood reduced to mush, and the wolf collapsed limply.
“Good heavens, he killed that thing in one blow….”
Another exclamation of admiration erupted.
-Grrrr!
The other bound monster sensed the death of its kind and bared its teeth.
It struggled violently, then used the momentarily widened gap to bite the black shape with its snout.
“Ugh.”
A cry of pain escaped Ferda's lips.
The instant the wolf bit down, Ferda felt something tear near his right pinky finger.
The shadow was treated and used as part of Ferda's body.
That was why he felt the pain of flesh being severed whenever the shadow was cut.
‘That is the condition.’
If he was not careful, he could be consumed by the pain and suffer from phantom pain for the rest of his life.
Ferda skillfully severed his mental connection and escaped the phantom pain.
The moment he severed the connection between the shadow and his mind, its power weakened.
The wolf monster broke free.
“Regent! Where should I throw the Mana Bomb…!”
The timing was good.
“Throw it toward me!”
The mage threw a large blue sphere at Ferda.
Ferda did not look back.
Instead, part of a black finger emerged from Ferda's back and shot a thread of mana at the Mana Bomb, snatching it away.
To anyone watching, it looked as though the sphere had naturally slipped into Ferda's grasp the instant it entered his radius.
“Gasp!”
“Magic Intercept…!”
They could hardly believe their eyes at the difficult technique wielded by skilled mages.
Ferda had no time to care about that.
His mind was focused entirely on his target.
He threw the Mana Shot and Mana Bomb at the wolf's face.
Boom-boom-boom—!
A one-hundred-percent hit rate.
The explosion of magical power slammed into the wolf's face.
When beings of inversion that lived by spewing junk mana collided with the natural order, their regeneration slowed.
And once their regenerative power stopped completely, the wolf monster staggered like a dog in the middle of summer.
“Lightning Spear.”
With that, Ferda dealt with the two wolf monsters in front of him.
He surveyed the battlefield without even having time to catch his breath.
‘The knights and soldiers.’
The side where the knights and soldiers were holding out looked overwhelmed.
Their faces were filled with fear.
Meanwhile, Jed was drawing the attention of the two wolf monsters without a single injury.
The two monsters were rampaging across a wide area, attacking as though they were throwing their entire bodies into it.
Astonishingly, Jed moved faster than the monsters could attack and dodged every blow.
‘I need to help Jed.’
Even though he looked like he had room to spare, he was the one in the most urgent danger.
“Jed!”
“What is it!?”
Jed answered irritably.
“Lure them toward the place where my shadow is.”
“Understood!”
As Jed somersaulted through the air, his eyes swiftly located Ferda's shadow.
Then he moved with acrobatic agility and ran toward Ferda.
-Woof! Woof!
The two enraged wolf monsters charged toward Jed.
The instant they tried to cross over Ferda's shadow, hands sprang up and seized their ankles.
-Yelp!?
The bodies of the wolf monsters tripped over the sudden obstacle and rolled.
“Bind.”
Ferda used the Shadow Bind he had prepared to bind the two of them once more.
“Throw them!”
Following his instructions, the mages Malcolm had gathered threw the Mana Bombs they had created at Ferda one after another.
They were worried that it would look as though they were attacking the Regent.
But Ferda skillfully wrapped them in threads of mana and turned them into his own spells.
Boom-boom-boom!
Mana seeped into the bodies of the two monsters.
As intended, both of them staggered.
‘My mana… is borderline.’
Because the Red Circle was not spinning at full capacity, it was difficult to obtain additional mana.
‘I have enough mana for about three more Lightning Spears.’
If he blasted both of them, he would have an uncertain amount of mana left for dealing with the rest.
How should he finish them off?
“Regent!”
Jed called out to Ferda.
His eyes were filled with fighting spirit.
Ferda looked into those eyes and thought,
‘Useless.’
That sort of fighting spirit might be useful to knights armed with nothing but mental fortitude, but it was useless to Ferda.
However, he noticed the dagger gleaming with a cold light.
It was aura.
‘That is useful.’
Understanding his intention, Ferda nodded.
In a brief exchange of opinions lasting about one and a half seconds, they each designated their target.
“Lightning Spear.”
Ferda's bolt of lightning pierced one monster between the eyes and burst through its heart.
“Take a long walk in hell, you bastard!”
Jed's dagger pierced the monster's belly.
Its tough hide sank in like jelly, and the dagger drove straight between its ribs.
Crack—!
The corpse of the wolf went limp with the sound of thick, hard muscle tearing.
The two monsters Jed had been dragging around died as well.
Only three remained.
A ragtag army was drawing the attention of those three.
“Argh! That thing shot me!”
“Do not retreat! Maintain formation!”
However, thanks to their commander's charisma keeping their feet planted, the three wolf monsters could do nothing but search for an opening in the army's ranks.
Ferda watched for that opening.
Ferda shouted toward the mages.
“Mana Bomb!”
Malcolm had gathered ten mages in total.
Twelve spheres were created, and they flew toward Ferda all at once.
Ferda's shadow fingers snatched every one of the spheres and made them his own. He targeted the opening in the wolf monsters' ranks.
Boom-boom-boom—!
Mana slammed into their torsos.
The concentration was high enough to pierce their outer shells and enter their bodies.
The wolf monster struck directly staggered, and the two that had been moving aggressively also suffered significant damage and retreated.
“Now! Knock them down!”
“Hyaaaah!”
With a roar, they counterattacked, driving their swords into the staggering monster.
The wolf monster resisted, but its limp swings were no different from those of an old man on the verge of death.
-Woof-woof!
The two wolves turned their gazes toward Ferda.
Their instincts had identified who was at the heart of this human group.
Their eyes rolled back fiercely, and they charged toward Ferda.
“They are heading for the Regent! Protect the Regent!”
With the soldiers struggling just to protect themselves, there was no way they could react immediately.
‘Two.’
Ferda did not possess the bodily agility to dodge spectacularly like Jed.
Ferda prepared his magic before he even sensed the killing intent.
“Lightning Spear.”
The spear of lightning pierced one monster's torso.
It did not pierce its heart, but it succeeded in stopping it.
The other charged fearlessly toward Ferda.
“Regent!”
Jed stepped in front of Ferda to protect him.
“Ghk!”
He might have outmatched the wolf monster in agility, but in a frontal confrontation, he collapsed like a scarecrow planted in soft earth.
Ferda used the opening Jed had created to spread a magic circle, intending to drive in even a Lightning Bolt.
“Lightning—.”
He did not even get to finish the word.
The wolf monster pressed down on both of Ferda's shoulders and climbed onto him.
-Graaah!!
It opened its jaws.
It looked like a wolf, but the inside of its mouth did not belong to a wolf.
Sharper teeth and a tongue composed of dozens of tendrils filled its mouth.
Its sharp teeth dug into Ferda's throat.
He sensed death.
BANG-!
A sound like the air splitting shook heaven and earth.
At the same time, something small and fast flew in, and the wolf monster's body jerked violently.
The teeth that had half-sunk into his neck lost their strength, and the monster collapsed.
Having narrowly escaped death, Ferda examined why the monster had died.
‘Small, fast, and powerful magic….’
He felt a sense of déjà vu.
Ferda looked around to see who had saved his life.
The shot had come from the direction of the stage.
The person standing on that stage was none other than Vernel.
Something was held in his hand as he breathed heavily.
It was the magitech rifle that had been scheduled to be introduced after President Bernard.
The long pipe he held was emitting pure white smoke.