Chapter 31
#Chapter 31: Newbie Adventurer Bern (29) - Embrace
“Ah....”
Blanca realized that if there were too many things she wanted to say, she would end up unable to say anything at all.
She had to ask what had happened after the space transfer, and how she had ended up looking so ragged.
She had to explain the Lich's magical nature, and that it had revived even after she'd clearly beaten it once, too.
And yet no words came from Blanca's mouth.
Just then, when tears were beginning to gather at the corners of her eyes,
“Please get up, Miss Blanca.”
Softly, as if to be considerate of her.
But with a voice carrying even greater resolve, Bern said,
“The fight isn't over. Miss Blanca still has something to do.”
So get up.
Pick up your sword.
The red-haired adventurer was telling her to cry and lament later.
That wasn't comfort.
Rather, it was closer to a stern reprimand.
Bern didn't soothe any of her frustration, despair, or discouragement.
“This is 'our' adventure, after all.”
But if you asked whether that made Blanca despondent—the answer was no.
She was not a helpless, pitiable princess, and Bern was not a knight from a storybook.
They were adventurers.
Comrades who had vowed to turn that fantasy-like tale of the Lich hunt into reality.
The one who hadn't laughed at her goal when everyone else had was saying this to her now.
Fight together.
Now was the time to achieve their dream.
Blanca once again grabbed the sword that had been flung onto the ground.
The keepsake that her mother had carefully maintained while she was alive—probably left behind by her father—shone with a sharp light, as if responding to its owner's will.
With eyes that had cast off all weakness, Blanca stood shoulder to shoulder with Bern.
“I'll go just as we practiced. That's fine, right?”
“Anything else I should know?”
“There are at least four death knights. One of them is the Guild Master. We don't know when they'll jump in, so be careful. The mist is infused with all kinds of negative spells, so it's best not to let it touch you at all, and it also has an effect that restricts the senses.”
Bern nodded, then raised his voice.
“Renya! I won't give any separate orders, so manage your side as you see fit!!”
“Yes, yes, yessir! Boss!! Good luck! Please smash that damned skeleton bastard to pieces!!”
At Renya's profanity, the Lich's annoyed gaze turned in that direction.
Renya quickly clapped a hand over his mouth with a gasp and shrank back, but no one called him out for looking unsightly.
Why would anyone complain about the ultimate aggro-type support who handles drawing the enemy's attention all by himself?
The moment the Lich's attention shifted elsewhere, Bern and Blanca both kicked off the ground at once.
Clang!
Two death knights in black armor stepped in front of them to protect the Lich.
Murky, oil-like sword energy burst from the death knights' blades.
That sword energy, further strengthened by the Lich's spell, was as close to true aura as it could get.
A blade capable of going toe-to-toe with a Tier 5 warrior and overwhelming anyone below that was swung down to cut Bern and Blanca apart.
And Bern blocked both sword energies at once.
Clang!
It was a sight like magic.
Bern's sword barely touched one of the death knights' blades and twisted its trajectory in a bizarre direction, causing Death Knight A's warped blade to collide with Death Knight B's.
Blanca seized the opening and slammed an intermediate fire spell into the death knights whose weapons had become entangled.
Bern had already widened the distance again, as if it were only natural.
KWA-AAAANG!
The overflowing heat and shockwave spectacularly blew away the purple mist that had been creeping back in.
Blanca charged straight toward the Lich, and Bern swung his sword at the death knight that emerged from the blast.
The death knight tried to counter with its sword, but Bern shoved it aside far too easily and severed its arm.
Another death knight thrust its sword toward Bern's back, but Bern spun around in a wide arc as if dancing and used that momentum to pierce its chest.
The death knights staggered, each badly wounded.
Bern tried to finish them off without missing the opening, but at that moment two blades rushed toward him.
Shhk!
One of Bern's shoulders was sliced open, and the blood splashed on the ground slowly turned to light and evaporated.
The enemy reinforcements were two.
Before he knew it, the death knights had become four.
And one of them was even spewing aura from its sword, making Bern click his tongue inwardly.
He tried to keep up the offensive so they wouldn't seize the initiative, but then the purple mist surged back in and thickened.
Then the death knights, instead of charging straight at Bern, concealed themselves within the purple mist.
Bern focused mana into his eyes and tried to see through the mist, but the layers upon layers of fog refused to reveal what was inside.
It was an obvious lure, but Bern couldn't refuse the bait.
He knew that if he hesitated here because he didn't want to dive into the mist, those death knights would simply head straight for Blanca.
The moment Bern plunged into the mist, three black sword strikes came for him as if they had been waiting.
Each attack aimed for his neck, abdomen, and leg.
Bern's eyes flashed bright.
Sshk!
He dodged the sword aimed at his neck, blocked the one aimed at his abdomen, and stomped down the one aimed at his leg.
His chest was lightly cut by the fourth attack, which came in deliberately a beat late, but in exchange one death knight's head flew into the air.
At first glance, it looked like he had succeeded in reducing the enemy count, but the death knight whose head had been severed casually picked up its own head with its left hand and tried to keep fighting.
Bern let out a small sigh.
'This isn't going to be easy.'
Just being inside the mist like this was already making his condition worsen by the moment.
On this side, the enemy had to come within barely 1m before Bern could finally make out their shape and hear their voice, while the other side could watch him from whatever distance they liked.
There were three enemies at base Tier 4, further enhanced by spells, and mixed in with them was a fresh Tier 5. On top of that, they simply ignored injuries that would be fatal to a human.
No matter that Bern was officially only Tier 4 and his actual skill was far above that, it was impossible to slaughter the enemies all at once in this situation.
…Of course, the very fact that he was worrying not about winning or losing here, but about something like not being able to wrap things up quickly, showed that he was far from normal.
'It's going to take some time. I hope Miss Blanca can hold out as long as possible.'
***
“You foolish girl. Even without an escort, do you think someone like you can reach me?”
The purple mist spread around the Lich's body gathered and shot out, turning into several arrows.
Blanca swung her sword and knocked away one arrow flying at her face, but more than three others still sank into her body.
The mist that made up the arrows, along with the spells within it, tore through Blanca's body from the inside through the wounds.
Her limbs went numb, a chill like being doused with cold water washed over her, and a violent dizziness hit so hard it was difficult just to stand properly.
Yet Blanca grit her teeth and did not fall.
Relying on the effects of healing and enhancement magic, she kept her body standing and continued clinging to the Lich.
And, at a distance where they could almost touch if they stretched out a hand, Blanca fired a fireball.
『Wood-Burning Magic』
A low-tier fire spell. Even if the opponent were a small or medium-sized animal or a weak monster, it was far too weak to use against a formidable Lich.
“Pathetic, pathetic. Everything you do is pointless.”
The Lich neutralized her spell simply by gathering purple mist, as if it didn't even think it was worth lifting a finger.
Yet Blanca wasn't disappointed.
'Blocked' at least meant that it had some effect if it landed.
『Wood-Burning Magic』
『Wood-Burning Magic』
『Wood-Burning Magic』
She fired, and fired, and fired again.
Every attack was blocked, but each time the purple mist around the Lich shrank.
The Lich tried to shake Blanca off with attack magic, but if it used a powerful wide-area spell on Blanca when she was right in front of it, the Lich itself would get caught in it too.
So the only spells it could use were relatively weak ones like the curse arrows from before, spells that wouldn't risk backfiring on itself.
Blanca blocked or evaded those attacks with her sword, but even so she failed to respond perfectly and ended up injured.
It couldn't be helped. She wasn't a proper fighter to begin with, and even if Bern had trained her, the training period had never been long.
Yet it was enough to avoid fatal injuries.
If she could avoid fatal injuries, the rest could be endured with spells.
…At first glance, that was an absurdly unfair trade.
No matter how much Blanca hurled fire and swung her sword, she couldn't deal any damage to the Lich, while the spells the Lich used merely to irritate her steadily hurt Blanca.
Healing magic wasn't all-powerful, and wounds and ailments kept accumulating in Blanca's body.
Yet Blanca didn't care.
'I can fight.'
As a child, she could do nothing but cry.
But now, even if she was at a disadvantage, she was fighting properly.
'With the spells I learned from Mom.'
She was standing firm against the one who had taken away what mattered most to her, refusing to back down.
'With the tactics Bern taught me.'
That fact—the existence of a comrade who believed in her—was granting Blanca endless strength.
“You annoying little flies!”
Apparently Blanca clinging to him was so irritating that the Lich summoned the undead it had been using against the other adventurers.
It couldn't pull back the death knights dealing with Bern, but the other forces were still available.
Skeleton soldiers and monsters, obeying their master's command, went after Blanca's back.
『Stone-Burning Magic』
KWA-AAAAAAANG!
The fireball Blanca shot without even turning her head turned them to ash.
For a moment speechless, the Lich read Blanca's silent words in her eerily shining eyes.
-Go ahead, call as many as you want. I'll burn every last one of them.
“You bitch! How dare you, how dare you! You pathetic half-wit who isn't even a swordsman or a mage!!”
The Lich felt as if it were about to explode from the inside.
Normally, a girl like this should never have been able to cling to him.
His dungeon was packed with an enormous number of undead and traps, and he even had disciples scattered throughout the human world for contingencies, as well as powerful death knights made from corpses he'd obtained by exploiting the chaos in the Virka Kingdom.
Yet the undead and traps had been cleared by the adventurer party, the disciples had been rooted out, and the death knights were floundering because they couldn't even handle one red-haired adventurer.
No, worse—they were the ones getting beaten.
He needed to help the death knights and subdue that redhead as quickly as possible, but this half-wit in front of him kept getting in the way, and it was enough to drive him insane.
The Lich had shown grace and dignity when it had the overwhelming advantage, but as the real threat drew near, it exposed its shallow nature.
In the end, the Lich decided to bring out its hidden trump card.
It would use the sacrifices it had prepared to reach Tier 6 to get out of this crisis.
“You foolish humans, know that your arrogance has brought about the deaths of your own kind!”
With a grand declaration, the Lich activated the spell to turn the sacrifices' souls into its own power.
As expected, nothing happened.
“…?! Why, why is this? No, don't tell me!”
Only then did the Lich realize that the space Bern had been transferred to was the 'beyond the door' space connected to where it had stored the sacrifices.
Of course, the dungeon's structure was extremely complex to suit the Lich's tastes, and without knowing its detailed layout, even surviving the traps would still have left one wandering for ages. But Bern had a kind and courteous guide.
When the sacrifices that should have been locked in cages atop the magic circle were moved out of place by Bern, the spell the Lich had prepared also ended in failure.
Realizing that the ritual he had poured his heart into had completely failed, the last thread of reason the Lich had been holding onto finally snapped.
“You lowly wretches!!”
The purple mist that had been covering the surrounding area rushed all at once into a single point.
Sensing the tremendous surge of power gathering right in front of her, Blanca felt a chill.
She realized that the Lich, which had been acting cautiously and passively until now, was finally about to use a proper attack spell.
Blanca tried to stop the Lich somehow, but the Lich completed the spell without caring whether fire struck its body or a sword pierced it.
A huge black sphere came crashing down over her head.
The moment Blanca steeled herself for death.
Suddenly.
Someone pulled her into a tight embrace.
─KWA-AAAAAAANG!!