A Nightmare Spilling from the West
A Nightmare Spilling from the West
If someone asked me what I could confidently claim I was better at than others in this world, or at least as good as, excluding my innate Magic Power and the body I'd built with it, there were exactly two things.
Swordsmanship, and jumping off wyverns. My swordsmanship was usually in the upper ranks, and when it came to jumping off wyverns, I was unquestionably the unrivaled number one across the entire continent.
But jumping off wyverns had a critical problem—you couldn't even attempt it without mounting a wyvern first. Since an opportunity like this had finally come along, I figured I'd solve that problem today.
-Skree! Screek! Skreeek!
Still, maybe because they had 'dragon' in the name, wyverns were surprisingly sturdy. Their hide was thick, their muscles tough, and while I couldn't vouch for the rest of their bones, their skulls were quite hard. I'd felt it firsthand when I dove to catch Delt. Thanks to that, I had a rough sense of how much force I could use without shattering a wyvern's skull.
Of course, even a wyvern subjected to unprovoked violence had survival instinct, so the moment it took that first punch and hit the ground, it thrashed to flee. But the struggles of a pitiful monster with a long neck were easily neutralized by simply mounting it and putting it in a chokehold.
"Are you really insane?! What the hell are you doing in a situation like this!"
Ranje, who had been witnessing my very rationally motivated vehicle-jacking, snapped. When I turned my head, I saw Ranje crushing the foot of a third wyvern with a single strike just as it tried to descend and dig its claws in.
With a sound that shouldn't come from inside a living body, the wyvern screamed and plummeted. She then cleanly full-swung into its chest, and without sparing a glance at the dead wyvern or the Demonfolk crushed beneath it, she glared at me and shouted.
"Ah, really! Just kill it! What the hell is that even supposed to be!"
"Wait a moment. Something a wyvern pilot told me—wyverns can be tamed sufficiently through violence."
"For heaven's sake, how can such an ignorant method even make—...huh? Or is it? Now that you mention it, I think I've heard something like that..."
Of course you've heard it. That was what a royally-recognized wyvern pilot had told me.
Fortunately, as two wyverns quickly crossed to the netherworld and one was pinned helpless, the remaining wyverns that had been charging fiercely came to an abrupt halt in midair, circling. That let me attempt to discipline (physical) the wyvern at my leisure, and after exactly six more punches, the shrieking, thrashing wyvern's reaction changed.
-Kirrrrr! Kirrr!
"Mad world..."
Ranje's dumbfounded response followed from behind, but I didn't care about that in the slightest.
After all, the sight of the wyvern stopping its thrashing and flattening itself against the ground while making a sound somewhat akin to dogs whining—what that meant was way too obvious.
"Sit."
When I stopped punching and gave the command, the wyvern, still caught by the neck, squirmed but somehow managed a sitting position. As I thought—when raising an animal, inputting the basic commands first doesn't discriminate between dimensions and species.
Thoroughly satisfied, I retrieved my axe using Magic Power and shifted from the neck onto its torso.
Now it was time to test the results of that crash-course training...
"...What the hell is that?"
With my Magic Sight activated in preparation for any situation, I saw an abnormal flow of Magic Power from the corpse of a dead Demon King's Army soldier.
I dismounted the wyvern and searched the body. Something oddly familiar popped out.
"Ah, fuck."
"Why, sir?"
Ranje approached, still bewildered by the wyvern behaving itself while I had let go, but I was so flabbergasted I could barely answer.
"If I'd half-heartedly aimed for the body, I would've been screwed."
What came out of their possession was an object that emitted an aura similar to the Magic Power bomb I'd detonated at the abandoned dungeon gate.
◈
It was a bizarre sight.
Anyone who saw a man suddenly punching a wyvern on the main thoroughfare of the outer fortress, which had become a battlefield, would think the same. Simply put, it was truly ridiculous, and one might assume it was some idiot swept up in the battlefield frenzy and running wild...
But if that person was 'that' Eldmia, who had broken through the defensive forces, crawled inside, and blown a massive hole in the defense, the story couldn't help but change a little.
In an instant, three wyverns were incapacitated. The wyvern unit commander, deciding it was better to change targets and deal with the Human Race army approaching from outside rather than making reckless moves, quickly gave orders to his subordinates.
"Damnation! Focus on checking the Human Race army first! Fire signal flares and alert the inner fortress!"
"But stopping that man should—"
"A waste of firepower! Leave him to the ground forces!"
It was mind-boggling, but precisely because two wyverns had fallen to that mind-boggling bastard, they couldn't even mock him. So while the subordinate's suggestion to just shoot magic at him was perfectly understandable, right now they lacked the luxury to indulge in that.
The Demon King's Army's wyvern unit was essentially a flying tank unit.
Of course, it wasn't exactly the same. A sufficiently skilled rider could operate solo, but typically a rider and an attacker worked together in tandem. These riders were treated as 'somewhat' experienced veterans, but the fact that they rode two to a wyvern was proof that both their riding skills and magic levels were lacking.
Those who could ride wyverns solo vastly outstripped them in every aspect. That was only natural, considering the unit had been formed specifically to counter such enemies.
And those vastly superior troops—except for the commander, the three who had held the most elite positions, akin to senior sergeants, had attempted to charge in with physical attacks to sow confusion and break out, but had all died before they could even properly lift a finger.
Now they couldn't waste a single spell recklessly. Neither could they use the magic tools meant to counter the army's spell interference, so moving forward was the only correct choice.
"Yes, understood! Break through the outer fortress! All wyverns, launch! I'll send the signal!"
It was a painfully costly mistake, but right now the priority was to delay the breached gate, the half-collapsed wall, and the surging enemies even a little more. The wyvern unit commander drove his wyvern, praying desperately that his judgment would not be wrong, and his subordinates fell in behind him into combat stance.
To be precise, they 'tried' to fall into combat stance.
-Krrrrrrrk!!
If only that wyvern cry hadn't suddenly drawn closer from below right after they crossed the wall.
"Commander! Th-that bastard mounted a wyvern!"
"What?!"
The bastard who had caused horrific results on the ground was now piloting a wyvern?
For a moment, the commander felt faint before he knew it. When he turned his head, Eldmia really was ascending rapidly on the very wyvern he'd just been beating moments ago. Of course, it was common to whip wyverns that were overly disobedient to correct them, but no matter what, taming one just by punching it for a short while?!
His gut twisted at the sheer unfairness, but separate from that, his decision was cold and swift.
"Anyway, he's no more than crude, clumsy riding! The army is the priority now! The moment we reach above the enemy, drop the Magic Power bombs and pour out magic!"
An extremely rational and sound judgment. Even if Eldmia properly rode that wyvern and caught up to them, how could he possibly attack? At best he could cause collisions between wyverns. They couldn't afford to be tied down dealing with him, or else they'd be unable to counter the spells cast by the mages on the ground and would be the ones getting slaughtered.
It was a commonsense line of thought that anyone would nod at...
The problem was that the opponent was a human far removed from common sense.
"Aaaagh!"
The commander didn't see how it started. By the time he turned his head, the rider at the very rear was already dead, and the massive double-handed axe was already embedded in the attacker's back.
He didn't even know how Eldmia had killed the rider. The only certainties were that Eldmia was flying toward them without slowing down at all, and that the double-handed axe that fell free from the attacker's corpse plummeting toward the ground returned to its owner's grip as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"Damn it! Attack! Attack him! He's capable of ranged attacks! Rear guard, stop Eldmia!"
Just how many wrong decisions was Eldmia going to force him into?
Barely suppressing the urge to fly out personally, the commander gave the order, and four wyverns banked to move at Eldmia. But right before they could split left and right, Eldmia, who had flown in at a speed that would have caused a collision even if he'd kept going straight, pulled something from his chest and hurled it.
"Magic Power bomb?!"
A consumable magic tool created because they couldn't break through spell interference as skillfully as Human Race wyvern knights or pour out magic from outside the interference zone. Despite being an object that couldn't be used unless operated in a specific manner for security, Eldmia showed not the slightest hesitation in his movements, as if he knew exactly what it was.
-Piiiiiing!
Right after that action, the only things the wyvern unit commander could see were the Magic Power bomb suddenly forming a hole in midair and the magical barrier that unfolded around Eldmia.
-BOOM!!
The ensuing flash and explosion swallowed his vision, so he couldn't see the sight of the four wyverns and their riders being helplessly caught up in the blast and flames from the destroyed Magic Power bomb, meeting their deaths. The visual shock as well as the psychological shock from the sudden situation kept him from regaining his senses, but that didn't last long either.
Because before the heat and smoke from the Magic Power bomb's explosion could even subside, Eldmia burst through them and flung his axe.