Chapter 97
The story continues off the page
The Last Dance Before Midnight
A masked dragon asks the lanternwright for one slow dance
Two men watched the village from a distance, standing far apart.
“So that is Hestia Village.”
“Yes.”
“Can a place really change this much in just a few months?”
The large man expressed his amazement.
The Far East, where no one ever set foot.
Seeing a proper village built on land so close to the border was a remarkable experience.
“Didn't they say that, until a few years ago, it was impossible for a new village to take root in this land?”
“It was impossible. That is how poor the perception of the Far East was.”
“How is that possible?”
“You can only call it skill. With the full support of the Pascal Trading Company, Iorga's declaration of alliance, and even the southern Halim region added to the mix, wouldn't you call it alchemy?”
“Alchemy…… Well, it is a place where money is gathering, so alchemy would not be an inappropriate description.”
Transforming such a barren wasteland into a place piled high with untapped riches was beyond astonishing.
“And all of it was accomplished under the name of Ferda Waldrova.”
“He is a dangerous man. If he continues expanding his power at this rate, our plans will be in trouble.”
“Hmm……”
The man gazed down in silence.
Watching him from behind, the large man made a suggestion.
“How about revealing ourselves now?”
“No. That does not fit our plans.”
He answered coldly, with razor-sharp judgment.
“What we need in the first place is Waldrova's isolation. What would happen if we openly stepped forward and destroyed Hestia Village?”
“Wouldn't he lose his rallying point?”
“No, they would unite. Just as they did during the Dragon-Demon War.”
The Dragon-Demon War.
The man who heard those words also lost his excitement and quieted down.
There was no event more humiliating to the demons than that one.
“A cause is a terrifying thing in the hands of humans. Humanity once gathered under the banner of eradicating demons. Even now, with only remnants left, they are still trying to eradicate those remnants.”
“That's true.”
“So we must leave them alone. We must let their descendants lose their sense of vigilance toward demons.”
The man murmured as though reciting some elegant verse.
“Peace makes swords rust, peace makes fortress walls crumble, and peace dulls the hearts of men.”
The large man also agreed with that plan.
But he could do nothing about the anxiety settling in his chest, so he finally asked the man a question.
“Even so, won't their power continue to grow if we leave them alone?”
“Of course. That is something we cannot overlook either.”
Destroying it would ruin the grand design, while remaining hidden would only strengthen their rallying point.
Everything had begun when Ferda Waldrova accepted the engagement.
“Then perhaps it would not hurt to scatter a few seeds?”
The man revealed a finger hidden within his robe.
His finger was extremely thin and white.
That finger drew a vertical line through the air.
A brilliantly colored rift opened before him, shimmering with various hues.
A wolf emerged from it.
-Grrrr……
No, they were monsters shaped like wolves.
They came out of the rift one by one and stood in a line.
All of them had eyes devoid of reason, yet they were obedient.
They waited like puppies serving the robed man as their master.
The man gave an order in a polite tone.
“Sweep them away.”
-Woof! Woof!
The monsters burst forward the instant they heard the man's command.
Filled with nothing but the malice to destroy, the creatures charged toward Hestia Village.
* * *
“War footing! Assemble all soldiers and inform the adventurers! I repeat. We are now in a state of war! All civil servants are to evacuate the residents, and all soldiers capable of fighting are to assemble!”
Isabella shouted, wielding the authority of a commander in an emergency.
“How many are approaching?”
“Fifteen.”
“Fifteen……”
Isabella was busy sending out telepathic messages to call everyone together.
Meanwhile, Erica kept her mouth shut and stared down at the ground.
‘Something is strange.’
She stepped farther back and looked at the situation as a whole.
‘A sudden monster appearance. And fifteen of them at once.’
She considered the recent incidents and circumstances.
Then she searched for the answer that best fit this situation, unafraid even to make somewhat forced or far-reaching guesses.
‘Perhaps……’
Erica looked at Isabella and spoke.
“Bella! You'll be all right without me, won't you?”
“Will you not be joining the battle?”
“There must be someone behind this monster invasion. I intend to find that person.”
Five telepathic messages were constantly pouring into Isabella's ears.
She answered with a deeply furrowed brow and a fierce glare.
“The children of Great Iorga are watching our backs. Do not worry.”
“Thank you.”
Erica calmly assessed the situation and spread out a magic circle.
Unlike ordinary humans, who drew a single magic circle, five circles revolved around her.
That was the power of Erica, the renowned blue-eyed tower master and leader of the Blue Dragonspawn.
Multicasting.
She could cast two spells at once and prepare five spells simultaneously.
Erica activated the first magic circle.
“Go. Become my eyes.”
The mana condensed within the magic circle scattered in all directions as dozens of blue sparrows.
Imbued with movement-detection and mana-detection magic, they tracked anyone behaving suspiciously.
True to her title, the Blue Eyes who watched over all magic, no one could escape their pursuit.
The sparrows' vision spread in an instant beyond the village and into the dense forest, where it caught sight of something.
“Found you.”
Erica immediately spread one of the magic circles she had prepared across the ground.
It was a teleportation spell.
She set the coordinates in an instant and dropped down above the blue sparrow caught by the detection magic.
What had been visible only as a form of mana began to become clearly visible to the naked eye.
Erica did not hesitate.
She had decided to treat anyone who released monsters as a demon without exception.
She immediately cast the prepared magic circle at the visible target.
“Bending Time.”
A high-level spell that made time at a designated point infinitely slow.
A mage of Erica's caliber could even bring it to a complete halt.
Everything affected by the spell stopped where it stood.
Two spells remained.
She fused the two magic circles, forming a new geometric shape.
It was a strange magic only Erica could wield.
Elemental Demolition.
It was a destructive and savage spell that used the repulsion between two opposing elements to blast away everything in the area.
The destruction was excessive to the point of seeming unreasonable, but Erica did not care in the least.
It was more than enough for demons who had once tried to rule the continent, and it expressed her resolve to leave no opening for their remnants.
However, Erica's sixth sense sharpened as she prepared the spell.
The enhanced five senses of a dragonspawn.
Something within her field of vision reacted sensitively.
‘Impossible.’
Time had literally stopped.
Nothing within the area could move.
Yet she did not blindly trust her rational judgment.
That was the correct choice.
Something had flown toward her through the space where time should not have been flowing because of Bending Time.
A large black object with a ferocious face stretched out a hand as large as a cauldron lid.
The moment Erica saw that hand, she knew instinctively.
The instant that hand caught her, she would die helplessly.
The vicious hand seized her leg.
No, it seized the spot where her afterimage remained.
She had already escaped the danger with teleportation magic.
Erica descended to the ground and corrected her stance.
Before thinking about preparing another magic circle, she had to analyze what had just happened.
‘Was the time-stop spell nullified?’
The trembling leaves and crawling insects had all lost their color and stopped in place.
The spell was still working.
Yet there was one thing moving within that space.
A man cloaked in gray robes.
He alone ignored everything and stared at Erica.
‘How is that possible?’
The usual way to stop Bending Time was to cast a resistance spell.
Yet nothing had resisted it, even until the moment it activated.
Everything had stopped, leaving them defenseless.
That was why Erica had tried to land a finishing blow.
How could he move alone within a frozen space?
“You seem quite surprised.”
The man's voice rang clearly in her ears.
“As a descendant of Great Iorga and the Wisdom of the Twelve-Man Expedition, this is not your first time facing demons.”
The man's voice carried a mocking note.
Erica came to her senses and composed herself.
“Indeed. It is surprising that I can still be surprised.”
“That is good news. It seems we have not regressed.”
A moment later, the large man who had flown into the sky landed on the ground.
Boom!
The reverberation of the ground ran deep, matching his heavy mass.
The man knelt behind the robed man.
Without turning around, the robed man asked him,
“Did you fail to catch her off guard?”
“She assessed the situation faster than expected.”
“Naturally. Our opponent is one of the Twelve-Man Expedition and the master of the Blue Eyes Tower. It would be strange for her to be caught helplessly.”
The eyes of the man hidden within the robe became briefly visible.
Black irises that gleamed like obsidian, and red pupils.
The composure and contempt within them stirred Erica's deep anger.
‘I ought to kill them both……’
But reality was not so simple as her desires.
The price of failing while casting a high-level spell was too great.
The magical backlash had not merely drained her mana; it had also scattered the mana within Erica's body.
‘It cannot be helped.’
She would set human magic aside for the moment.
Erica cautiously reached a hand behind her.
Toward the canteen fastened to her belt.
She was trying to open the mouth of the canteen.
Pop!
The instant it opened, the contents inside flowed along her finger.
The water filled to the brim formed a ring around her.
One of the large man's eyebrows shot upward.
“What's with the ring of water?”
“Iorga is an authority on both magic and water.”
“Hmph. What can you do with mere water?”
When the large man sneered, Erica held out her hand.
Part of the ring of water became a droplet and floated above Erica's palm.
“I can do this.”
The instant she snapped her finger, the droplet became a bullet and shot forward in a straight line.
The large man thrust out his hand to block the water bullet.
“Ngh?!”
The water-pressure bullet pierced him cleanly and bored into his heart.
“Gah!”
It pierced through his chest and back, then flew on to pierce the young man standing behind him.
However, it could not penetrate the magical protection surrounding his body and bounced away.
“Grrr…… What was that? It was just a drop of water……”
“Didn't I tell you? Iorga is an authority on water and magic. And this is magic wielded by its master, so of course it can pierce your skin.”
“You should have said that sooner.”
“Didn't you prefer learning things firsthand?”
The large man wore a face of utter astonishment.
But Erica was even more astonished to see the two of them casually conversing.
‘I fired that intending to kill them both……’
Her water droplets boasted lethal power.
When one pierced a heart, the rotational force and water pressure should have twisted it apart.
Even a demon several times stronger than a human could not avoid a fatal wound.
Yet the demon who had been pierced treated it like a minor injury, as though he had merely been stabbed somewhere, and sprang to his feet.
‘And it couldn't even pierce the demon behind him.’
The magical protection wrapped simply around his body was that powerful.
‘They are merely remnants of the demons, yet they are this powerful.’
At least Noblesse-class.
A Noblesse-class close to the Emperor level at that.
Now that both Bending Time and Elemental Demolition had failed, Erica had nothing left that could be called a weapon.
‘I can only retreat for now and come back prepared.’
She spread a teleportation magic circle.
The magic circle activated and enveloped Erica's body.
However, her body did not teleport.
“Cough!”
Instead, blood gushed from her mouth.
She staggered in pain, coughing up blood without knowing why.
‘My organs…… it feels as though they've been twisted.’
She knew what the side effect was.
It was what happened when one used an imperfect teleportation spell.
‘Did I manifest the magic circle incorrectly?’
That was impossible.
Erica had lived for more than a thousand years and had used teleportation magic hundreds of thousands of times.
She had mastered it to the point that she could draw a teleportation magic circle in her sleep and move somewhere else.
‘Then that means that man tampered with it.’
She had been caught like a fool.
Erica looked at the robed man with a furious expression.
“Did you think you would be able to leave as freely as you entered?”
His voice carried a deep smile.
She ought to have responded with anger or indifference, but all she could do was bend forward and groan.
“Since the tower master has greeted me so enthusiastically, I ought to return the courtesy.”
He raised a finger from within his robe.
His hand was not black, but pure white.
That finger pointed before him and drew a vertical line.
A brilliantly colored rift opened and spewed out what lay within it.
-Krrk.
-Krrk.
They were monsters modeled after wyverns.
They flapped their wings and rose into the air.
There were more than twenty of them, even by a conservative estimate.
For Erica, driven into a corner, the situation was utterly hopeless.
The man's finger pointed at Erica.
“Take her life.”
-Kieet!
The wyverns all flew toward Erica at once.
That was when it happened.
A heavy gust of wind swept toward them.
An object large enough to block Erica's vision became a barrier between them.
The wyvern monsters that had flown in were killed in a single blow.
Boom!
As it slammed into the ground, a cloud of dust shot upward.
Erica opened her eyes and looked at the object.
It was an axe.
A war axe with a blade so large it looked as though it had been made for a giant.
Erica knew who owned that axe.
Despite wielding such a vicious axe, she had a petite frame.
Yet she was a silver-haired girl with martial prowess worthy of the title Nightmare of the Frost Giants.
“Greetings, Lady Erica.”