Chapter 298
The two giant Hell Beasts were defeated almost simultaneously by Jigorou and Genzuro. From this distance, we couldn't clearly tell how they had done it, but it was a relief that they had taken out many Hell Beasts with them. Thanks to that, we were able to prevent our forces on the surface from being needlessly reduced.
"Those two are still ridiculously strong!"
"They really are too strong, huh?"
Eiji and Uru excitedly pointed at Jigorou and Genzuro as they exclaimed over their strength. I agreed with them. They must have been drawing out the full potential of their monster avatars with the techniques they had honed.
Only the two victors stood amid the remnants of the fierce battle. The scattered Hell Beasts were in such a sorry state that they could no longer be called a horde, and although they attacked the two monsters individually... every one of them was killed in seconds.
"Oh, something's coming up from the hole... is...!?"
"You've got to be kidding! Aren't they all those giants from before!?"
When we saw the next Hell Beasts emerge from the vertical shaft, we were stunned. They were five of the grotesque giants Genzuro had defeated just moments earlier. Looking closely, there were differences in places such as their fur and scale colors, but their combat power could safely be called equivalent.
In the end, Genzuro had defeated that grotesque giant without much trouble, but having five of them changed everything. One of them was a head taller than the others, and unless my eyes were deceiving me, wasn't it holding a staff rather than a club?
If so, it meant that it fought primarily with magic. A party of four warriors and one mage would be troublesome in the extreme.
"Grrrrrrrr... Gwoooooooh!"
"Gwoooooooh!"
The mage raised its staff and roared as though issuing an order, and the other four followed suit. While we wondered what was happening, the scales covering their lower halves began flaking off. As we watched with bated breath, arms and legs sprouted from the fallen scales!
There seemed to be roughly three hundred of them. They walked on two legs that had grown from scales resembling those of fish, charging at us while waving hands tipped with sharp claws.
"Hey, it can produce more of itself too? What a ridiculous Hell Beast."
"Is it because they were born from scales? Poison gas isn't affecting them at all!?"
"More importantly, what about the giants? The aerial enemies are gone, so we're firing down at them, but that means we're not hitting the smaller ones much."
"Ah—the Centaurs are charging."
When Uru told me to look down, I saw the Centaurs charging into the flanks of the scale... offshoots, or whatever they should be called. Regdus led the charge, while right behind him was Kanna, astride Raga.
They would surely trample their way through. Thinking how dependable they were, I reorganized our disrupted formation and made thorough preparations for battle.
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Raga galloped alongside the Centaurs. Mindful of making it easier for Kanna, who was riding on his back, to fight, he moved his body according to her instructions. Raga couldn't help giving a wry chuckle to himself at how accustomed he had become to moving like a warhorse. When he had first started playing the game, he had never imagined he would be able to move this well as a horse.
"In the face of our Centaur valor, strange monsters are nothing! Forward! Charge!"
"Uoooooooooooooh!!!"
The Hell Beasts that had appeared could only be described as five grotesque giants. The scales spilling from their lower bodies had turned into countless scale offshoots. The Centaurs had chosen the latter as their next targets.
No one had imagined that five of the Hell Beasts Genzuro had defeated would appear, and everyone was so shocked that they had become flustered. Regdus cut them off with a sharp reprimand and told them that their enemies being strange creatures was nothing new.
The Centaurs calmed down when they heard him, realizing he was right. Impressed by the sight, Raga concluded that this must be what charisma was.
"You're not thinking about something else, are you?"
"Yeah, sorry. I'll concentrate."
Kanna had noticed that Raga was thinking about something unrelated to the battle in front of him. Wondering how she had known without even looking at his face, Raga nevertheless apologized honestly.
Together with the Centaurs, the two charged as one, but the offshoots born from the scales were more fragile than expected, and they were surprisingly easy to trample. The Centaurs' powerful lower bodies and forcefully wielded weapons sent them scattering.
Raga's hooves trampled them to pieces, while Kanna's halberd sent several of them flying with a single sweep. The Centaurs were dumbfounded by how easily they had broken through, but the true terror of the scale offshoots was only beginning.
"Gaaah!?"
"I-it hurts!? What the hell is this!?"
When a scale offshoot was destroyed, its fragments strangely remained on the ground. This was because the grotesque giant—the Hell Beast serving as its main body—was still alive, but the moment the fragments fell to the ground, they turned into sharp spikes.
The surface had become a caltrop field made from the scale fragments, and those following the vanguard cried out after stepping on the remains left behind by those who had gone ahead. Iris had enhanced their equipment, but the Centaurs wore no shoes, only greaves, because shoes felt too awkward when running. Thus, caltrops were in a sense the worst possible attack for them.
Regdus gritted his teeth at this unexpected development, but if they did not break through here, their losses would only grow worse. He raised his voice so that even those in the rear could hear him.
"We'll run straight through! Follow me!"
Following Regdus's lead, the Centaurs changed course and moved to avoid the horde of scale offshoots. However, even after forcibly changing direction, it was difficult to run through the area that had become a caltrop field, and their speed inevitably slowed. Someone would have to fight conspicuously as a rearguard and draw the enemy's attention.
"Let's go, dear!"
"Yeah. This is where we hold the line."
The ones who leaped forward to serve as the rearguard were Kanna and Raga. Raga's entire body was covered in scales, and, as a precaution, he had equipped thick horseshoes. Thanks to them, he was not only unharmed by the caltrops but crushed them beneath his hooves.
Kanna and Raga put on a spectacular display against the countless scale offshoots. They swept them away with the halberd, kicked them into the air with their hooves, impaled them with their horns, and struck them with the butt of the weapon. Their teamwork was truly the unity of human and horse; if anything, the upper and lower halves—Kanna and Raga—might have been even more synchronized than those of a Centaur.
Thanks to Kanna and Raga's efforts, Regdus and the others escaped, but the two isolated in the enemy ranks found it difficult to get out. Just when it seemed they were in danger, a rain of arrows fell upon the offshoots swarming around them.
"Graaah! Get out of my way!"
The one who charged in with a fiery battle cry was Sei, riding Phil. The arrows had been fired by the Centaur light cavalry, which Sei and the others had joined, and they had come to rescue them.
Phil had no protection for his legs like Raga's horseshoes, but he skillfully avoided the caltrops with his supple movements. Raga admired the display, thinking it was a movement he could never reproduce.
"Are you all right!? Let's get out of here, you two!"
"Yes, you saved us."
"Thanks. You picked the perfect time."
The two of them attempted to escape with Sei. They had the advantage in sheer speed, but they were still surrounded, so the scale offshoots leaped at them from every direction. Kanna's halberd sang, magic from Raga and Tes pierced the enemy ranks, and Phil's roar blew away the fragments Sei smashed with his staff.
Because they so often acted together, they ran while naturally covering each other's blind spots without either of them having to give instructions. Even so, there were still too many offshoots for them to deal with all of them.
"Tch! Momo! I'm counting on you!"
"Uki!"
When Sei shouted, the monkey-like monster riding on his back climbed onto his head. This little monkey was named Momo and was Sei's new familiar.
At first glance, Momo looked like a small brown monkey, but a closer look revealed that its coloring was clearly that of tree bark, not fur. Moreover, a still-green peach fruit grew at the tip of its long tail.
"Kiki!"
Momo held one hand out in front, and it rapidly swelled into a branch of a giant tree. The branch caught and constricted the offshoots along a convoluted path.
Momo then snapped the enlarged section off at the base with a series of loud cracks, separating it from its body. By holding back so many offshoots, they were able to escape without suffering any major damage.
Momo's Race was called Beast Tree Peach, a plant-type monster that could move around freely like an animal. It was not a wild monster tamed as a familiar, but a type of Chimera created through 【Alchemy】.
Following Izam's suggestion, Sei went to the 'Dark Forest of Temptation' and explored it, but he could not find a monster that seemed quite right. So he asked the Dark Elves for advice about familiars.
At that time, Radem, Kirils's grandfather and an elder, passed on some knowledge to him. It was an old form of 【Alchemy】 that had since fallen out of use among the Dark Elves: creating a familiar from a seed or fruit thoroughly imbued with one's own mana and a part of one's body.
The reason it had fallen out of use was the invention of herbicide. Apparently, it had once been prized as a companion for fighting plant-type monsters, but an item called herbicide, which was extremely effective against plant-type monsters, had been invented. Herbicide alone was enough to fight them, and because seeds and fruit were its ingredients, it also affected familiars. Its decline was only natural.
Sei had nearly given up, since seeds imbued with his own mana were not something he could simply prepare, but then he remembered the mysterious seed he had obtained during the battle on Heavenly Spirit Island. When he showed it to Radem, he was told that it could be used, so he took the opportunity to have a familiar created from that seed and his own body hair.
Thus, Momo was born as exactly the companion Sei had wanted. Momo boasted greater stamina and defense than its appearance suggested, and it could enlarge part of its body to create a thick shield. Even if that shield was destroyed, its powerful natural healing let it instantly create another. On top of that, it was small enough to ride on Sei's shoulder, leaving nothing more to be desired.
"Uki! Ukiii!"
"All right, all right! You did great!"
Perhaps because Momo had only just been born, or perhaps because part of Sei had been used as material, Momo was extremely attached to Sei. That alone would have been fine, but it constantly begged for affection. Even now, it was rubbing its head against Sei's cheek as though demanding praise. The other familiars wanted attention too and began acting spoiled, leaving Sei at a loss for how to respond.
Even now, Tes was flying conspicuously within Sei's field of vision, while Phil also seemed unable to settle down. No matter who won, the aftermath of this battle was going to be a lot to deal with, Sei thought, clutching his head as he rejoined the Centaurs.