Chapter 76
Chapter 76
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 76
Chapter Title: The Mysterious Voice
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[Chapter 75 - Dark Forest]
The owls soaring through the sky were ferocious beyond measure.
Their bodies were about the size of a human, and with wings spanning several meters, it was only natural.
Their curved talons were needle-sharp, enough to end a life with the slightest lapse in vigilance.
Fortunately, the mages had spotted them first thanks to someone's shout and launched the initial attack.
Staves raised, they unleashed bolts of lightning, sending several airborne owls shuddering and plummeting to the ground.
But plenty more owls still circled overhead, eyeing them hungrily.
“Stay by the mages with your shields up! Formation!”
At Lenoc’s command, the soldiers moved to their assigned mages’ sides, shields at the ready.
They shuddered at the disgust radiating from the mages, but the dire situation and their drilled discipline steeled them as they focused on the enemy.
“Raaargh!”
Bazkal roared fiercely and charged the tree magic beast on his mount. Swinging his massive greatsword, he sheared off one of its branch-like arms with hardly any resistance.
“Brother! This thing’s not so tough after all...!”
Bazkal’s triumphant shout twisted into a grimace.
The tree magic beast he’d struck paid no mind to its severed arm and swung its remaining one right back.
His tiger mount deftly leaped aside, but the wind from that several-meter arm was threat enough.
Incredibly, the severed arm began regenerating slowly.
“Take this!”
Unlike before, Maroon shouted energetically as he loosed an arrow.
The moment it embedded in the creature’s face, flames erupted explosively. Arsen couldn’t help but cry out in shock.
“Wait!”
He’d only half-jokingly suggested it to Eloise—he hadn’t actually meant to set the place ablaze.
Trapped with no way out, if the whole forest went up in flames, they’d all burn together.
But his worries proved unfounded. The fire clinging to the tree magic beast’s trunk neither spread nor blazed spectacularly.
The surrounding darkness gathered around the flames, dousing them like water until they fizzled out lamely.
“No way...”
As Maroon gaped in horror, Anun spurred his mount forward and bellowed at the top of his lungs.
“Lord Allfather, witness me—!”
His roar, brimming with fury and exhilaration, propelled his lance straight through the tree magic beast’s trunk, shattering it halfway.
Cheers erupted around them.
“Sir Anun smashed the tree!”
Anun grinned proudly, but his smile didn’t last.
Despite a wound that should have spilled guts from any living thing, the tree stood defiant, as if declaring it hadn’t been hurt at all, and lashed out with its arms.
Worse, the arm Bazkal had severed was nearly fully regenerated.
Meanwhile, the battle against the diving owls wasn’t going smoothly either.
With keen instincts, the owls sensed they couldn’t easily harm knights or shielded soldiers, so they targeted the more vulnerable mages.
Among them, Eloise—cloaked in robes and the one felling the most owls—was their top priority.
“Protect the lady!”
Eloise blasted lightning from both hands like a thunder god, massacring owls. Arsen, Maroon, and two soldiers encircled her protectively.
It was far tighter security than the single soldier guarding other mages, but even that couldn’t stem the horde gunning for her.
From above, the front, the sides, behind.
Maroon stowed his bow and swung his halberd. His technique was still clumsy, but better than most soldiers’.
[Your mana holding up?]
[For now!]
Too pressed to elaborate, Eloise unleashed another bolt of lightning.
Unlike the other mages downing one each, she felled over half a dozen.
Beside her, Arsen wielded his sword in one hand while bashing an owl with his shield in the other.
Even with his superior physical prowess, grounded as he was, his reach was limited to arms plus weapons. Against dozens diving from the sky, all he could manage was this defensive struggle.
Then, a voice gleeful with ecstasy rang out from somewhere.
“Got it! Die, you feathered bastard!”
Bazkal’s smug tone drew Arsen’s glance. One tree magic beast lay utterly demolished, its trunk hacked into three or four chunks, arms sprawled—indisputably a corpse.
Joy was short-lived. A soldier shouted.
“It’s rising again!”
Sure enough, a second tree—half-rotted and slumped—began to stir.
This one had drooping, melancholic eyes instead of anger, and it was larger than the first.
Then a third with a grinning face.
A fourth frowning.
A fifth expressionless rose.
“What the hell is this!?”
A soldier’s despairing wail echoed.
Now four strong, the tree magic beasts lumbered toward the huddled soldiers’ formation, dodging owl attacks.
Slow enough for a running human to evade, but not while maintaining a shield-wall formation blocking every direction.
At this rate, the packed soldiers would be crushed wholesale.
“Break formation! Two-man teams!”
At Arsen’s order, soldiers scattered with their assigned mages.
Mobility soared in pairs, but they grew far more vulnerable to owl strikes.
Soon, casualties mounted.
“Gah!”
A soldier collapsed, blood spraying from his throat.
Even in full plate from Exekia, the talons pierced through.
His mage quickly zapped the owl away, but the dead stayed dead.
‘What a nightmare combo...’
Trees alone or owls alone would’ve been manageable.
For trees, scatter and dismantle patiently while dodging.
For owls, hunker in formation and let mages blast them.
But formations drew trees, scattering invited owl swarms.
“Die! Die already!”
“Oooh—! To the gods’ realm!”
Despite Bazkal and Anun each tackling a tree, the other two roamed freely, menacing soldiers.
Just now, a mage too slow to dodge flew off from a tree’s blow, spine snapped—dead on impact.
Two soldiers and three mages down so far.
“Sir Maroon, I’m counting on you!”
“Y-Yes?”
With those brief words, Arsen left Eloise’s guard and charged the nearest tree magic beast.
Sensing the threat atop Jin, it whirled and thrust out a long arm.
Sluggish as it was, Arsen clenched his teeth to steady himself, commanding Jin to leap onto the incoming arm and vault skyward.
Sailing past what passed for a shoulder, he slashed horizontally with mana-charged sword, landing opposite.
The thick trunk was nearly bisected.
‘Good, once more!’
Then the gaping mouth-like hole twisted in a silent roar—too high-pitched for human ears.
Undeterred, Arsen spun on landing and leaped again.
Sword raised to widen the gash, something lunged at him.
“Urk!”
An owl dive-bombed him.
Four or five plunged self-sacrificially at his face.
He could slice charging owls easily, but their mass forced him to abandon the strike and retreat.
Then countless more swarmed him exclusively, abandoning other targets.
“Brother!”
“Captain!”
Their cries drowned in the wingbeats; the gray tide was immense.
Tough armor or not, a mass assault like this spelled doom.
Hundreds of accelerated talons would overwhelm even black starsteel.
In this dire pinch, Arsen accelerated his thoughts.
“Hup—!”
First, explosive exertion: he drew a deep breath, oxygen flooding his body.
Hyper-accelerated cognition clocked incoming owls’ speeds, sequenced them, and mechanically swung sword and shield.
One, two, three, four.
Owls split or ricocheted on impact.
Using Jin’s forepaws and tail too, he parried, bashed, and slashed from all sides.
Twenty, thirty—lost count, entering a trance, weapons whirling.
When Arsen snapped back, the onslaught was over.
Just dozens of seconds, but overexertion left his arms aching, breath ragged.
Corpses littered the ground—dozens? Hundreds?
“My god.”
“How’d he take down that many?”
Awe and praise mingled, but Arsen felt no joy.
He’d endured hits amid the frenzy. Armor dented, flesh torn.
Owl blood masked it.
Then an eerie voice echoed.
-You’ve come again.
Ageless, genderless, sourceless—near or far?
“Who’s there? Show yourself, coward!”
Anun bellowed furiously, but the voice pressed on unperturbed.
-At least I’ll let you sleep painlessly.
With that, astonishingly, the trees and owls vanished.
Like shadows in sunlight, feathers, corpses, branches—all gone.
But it didn’t end there. Green smoke clouds rolled in.
Whatever it was, hardly beneficial.
“Wind!”
Maroon yelled, pulling out the shockwave staff from the ruins.
It boomed, scattering and repelling the advancing clouds.
Arsen caught on.
“Mages! Push it back with wind spells!”
Regaining wits, mages thrust left arms, channeling wind via relic bracelets.
Eloise joined. She’d learned from a wind-capable mage; basic gusts were within her.
Her superior mana made her push overwhelming.
Spotting the biggest obstacle, the voice singled her out.
-Not bad skills, little mage girl.
Instantly, a tree burst from the earth, snatching Eloise and skyrocketing upward.
“Kyaaah!”
“Ellie!”
“Lady!”
Before anyone reacted, she dangled dozens of meters up in its grip.
The voice pronounced on her.
-I’ll send you first. Farewell.
Resolute, the tree squeezed to pulp her frail form.
Some, imagining mangled girl-flesh, averted eyes.
Thus they saw first: Eloise slumped on the ground, catching her breath.
“Hah, ha...”
In her right hand: a snapped stick, palm-length, curled end with blue gem.
Luden’s one-use teleport relic.
Teleported groundward instants from crushing.
Arsen spurred Jin, scooped her up protectively.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, not hurt.”
Unknown, despairingly powerful foe.
Shield-arm cradling Eloise, Arsen scanned warily, sword poised.
Whatever came, he’d cleave it.
The voice returned at him.
Incredibly, emotion tinged it for the first time.
-That just now... No, but... identical. Even the gem.
Baffled tone.
Before reply, a question.
-The relic you used—where’d you get it? What’s your tie to its maker?