Irreverence
Irreverence
Just as I hadn't missed the double-axe-wielding bastard's blasphemous rant even atop the wyvern thanks to my heavily strengthened physical abilities, I likewise hadn't missed the words the mage bastard spewed, so I felt my blood boiling in reverse.
He was on a completely different level from Water Buffalo Horn. His response, his words, the reaction he showed the instant he spotted me—all the evidence interlocked and screamed that he was one of the bastards who had wrecked our village.
The moment I realized that, I felt a very small measure of relief.
Because even without consciously trying, the rationality that I had to capture the bastard alive and extract information surged ahead of my vengeful fury.
No matter how much I tried to hold only those directly responsible accountable, emotions didn't move at my bidding, so there'd been a bit of unease, but the one who insulted my master, Epaga, was even more damnable.
"Punish the apostate!"
Following the Saintess's shout, the heresy inquisitors surged forward once again, and I too charged in, hurling the Holy Art I'd been holding right in front of the bastards.
Though it looked like a spear, when I abruptly drove it into the ground right in front of their noses, confusion and bewilderment filled their faces. But perhaps because they intended to respond immediately if it turned out to be an attack that shook the ground like the one the Saintess had just demonstrated, not a single one of them took their eyes off the Holy Art I had thrown, even while deeply suspicious.
"Flash!"
Using my shout as a signal, we alone blocked our vision with shields and prepared for the deafening roar with protective Holy Arts.
To protect even shieldless me, the Saintess stepped forward and raised her shield; no sooner had she done so than a flash and roar erupted, bleaching the world white.
-BOOM!
"Aaaagh!!"
"Ghk?!"
This wasn't a world that lacked the concept of blinding someone with a bright light. Even the most basic light-source magic alone could briefly emit light akin to the sun to obscure vision.
But it was a world that hadn't yet conceived of aggressively amplifying light quantity to the extreme and detonating it with a thunderous boom to simultaneously block sight and hearing. Even the Saintess herself hadn't been able to recover her senses when hit with a weaker version initially, right?
The effect of my Holy Art, possibly the first flashbang in the continent's history, was tremendous.
Because my allies could wrap themselves in divine protection, I'd detonated it at close range without any worry of dragging them in, so none of the Demon King's Army escaped the flashbang's radius, and those who had fully raised their Magic Power for battle suffered double the optical blinding and auditory terror.
I saw the Demon King's Army staggering and instinctively shrinking back to shield their faces from the light, and I rushed forward thinking we could win without even needing the forest traps, but no sooner had I lunged than Magic Power came roaring in from behind them.
I reflexively tried to swing my sword, but the Magic Power the bastard was drawing on was solely what was around him, so I couldn't even attempt it.
Magic Power swirling around the mage as if he were the eye of a typhoon was a method of spellcasting I had never once seen before. The spell, which had rapidly yet stably absorbed the surrounding Magic Power, began to take shape in an instant, and while I hesitated at this unexpected variable, the bastard aimed the completed spell at us.
"That power is not yours!"
The wording made it patently clear he was targeting me and not us, but whatever the case, what he used was a wide-area spell. His spell, clearly intended to immobilize the enemy through strong wind and electric shocks while protecting allies, spread out, kicking up the snow on the ground and engulfing us.
Thankfully, we suffered no real damage thanks to the Order's members' Holy Arts, but the resistance was as fierce as facing a gale, and I couldn't deny that we missed a golden opportunity to unilaterally carve them up.
"Guess he knows he's not going to die peacefully, so he's being a pain in the damn ass!"
Amid the blizzard-like conditions that instantly obscured my vision, I swung my weapon toward where the Demon King's Army had been standing moments ago, but I felt no satisfying impact.
Whether they dodged by throwing themselves backwards or whatever, it meant they didn't pull the dumbass stunt of just standing there in place like a seasoned soldier wouldn't. With nothing to gain from the blizzard growing fiercer, I pulled out all my needles, recalled the mage's position, and fired them in as wide a spread as possible.
Those who openly chant incantations that sound like technique names and cast easily recognizable spells are third-rate.
Those who cast spells quickly are second-rate.
My master had taught me that if you can only figure out what spell was used after it's cast, and you can't even gauge whether it was fast or slow, the caster is first-rate... but I hadn't expected to experience that particular shitshow here, since I'd been too busy running around battlefields to encounter it directly.
Even though one of his feet had been blown off by my not-so-surprise attack, he was definitely accustomed to combat. Still, the needles I'd launched with intent weren't entirely useless, as the flow of the spell he was casting broke, and the blizzard died down as if it were a lie.
"What shall we do?"
The Saintess, who had been guarding me with a shield wall at my side, asked.
Do we lure them and finish them off as planned, or do we push through now?
By all common sense, since they'd taken a direct flashbang hit and weren't at full strength, and their mage was now a cripple, if we retreated we'd only give the Demon King's Army time to regroup, so pushing forward was the right call. In the first place, these bastards had flown here knowing full well they'd be facing the Saintess and heresy inquisitors. We might have seized the advantage with a surprise attack, but we couldn't underestimate them.
But as the blizzard subsided, the single shout the mage let out made me change my mind.
"Capture and kill Eldmia at all costs! He takes absolute priority over the saintess!"
"...We go as planned."
I couldn't know right now just how grand their plan was that they couldn't tolerate even a single survivor, but if they wanted to willingly dig their own grave, I planned to gratefully oblige for now.
◈
The captain, who had only belatedly regained his senses after thrashing about in the most shocking experience of his life, grimaced at the shout that pierced his still-unrecovered eardrums.
"Kadabal! They're retreating! Chase them!"
The captain, Kadabal, had lived his life making no effort whatsoever to exclude personal feelings during operations, but this time was different.
"Goddammit, it's not that fucking easy, you bastard...!"
He spat out profanities even as he reined in his emotions as best he could. If he didn't, he felt like he would hurl the hand axe he was holding not at Eldmia, but at that mage bastard.
Right now, it wasn't them who were at a disadvantage—it was us. Retreating just because a little snow had blown around in this situation? It was obviously a trap.
As he raised his head, ready to yell some sense into him, the mage—who had sealed the wound on his severed leg with a potion and levitated his body with magic—stared after the retreating Saintess and Eldmia's party with bloodshot eyes and shouted in rapid succession.
"There's no chance the ruins themselves were a plan to lure us in! Even if there are traps installed around here, they're nothing but hastily improvised! I'll block, so you just focus on chasing them down and capturing them!"
It was baffling how a bastard who could bellow that loudly had managed to keep his mouth shut until now, but with headquarters having been invoked, there were no other options.
It was a situation where either they all died, or the enemy all died. Nothing would end until one side was annihilated.
It was truly a dogshit situation, but there was no other choice. They had no choice but to advance.
"Maintain formation, but don't try to break through! The enemy is not just the Hero and the Saintess! Heresy inquisitors are more skilled at cracking apostates' and cultists' skulls than reading scripture, so get your heads on straight!"
Once the decision was made, the action was swift. Even those who had been wavering at the mage's shouting began to quickly reorganize as soon as Kadabal personally gave the order.
"Damage report!"
"One seriously wounded, three lightly wounded. All fit for duty!"
"Move!"
Even the seriously wounded man being fit meant it could be handled with a potion, so there was no hesitation in giving the order.
Yet, a part of him thought that since the enemy also intended to fight, there was no real need for their side to rush, but no sooner had the thought crossed his mind than offensive Holy Arts flew out from the forest, eliminating that option.
The enemy also knew it. That this was a battle where luring them in or not didn't really matter. Given how the Holy Arts rained down the moment they slowed their chase, it was better to just stick close.
The problem was, the enemy even knew that fact.
"Fuck!"
Even though the forest was nothing but bare branches, an arrow from an unknown source embedded itself in a subordinate's shoulder.
He had been running at full speed and lost his balance for a moment, flailing in the air; if his comrades beside him hadn't deflected the two arrows that came flying in during that brief opening, he would surely have died then and there. He barely saved his life and hid behind a massive tree nearby, shouting at the top of his lungs.
"Sniper!"
"Location unknown! Take cover!"
"Goddammit! More enemies! Take cover! Ta...urgh!"
Kadabal turned his head, thinking yet another man had been hit by an arrow, but what met his eyes was the sight of a subordinate whose abdomen had been pierced by a wooden trap, flailing as he was hurled against a tree.
It was a ridiculously crude trap—a stake tied to the end of a branch, pulled back and fixed, rigged to snap forward with elastic force when the string was cut.
But the fact that a Demonfolk soldier who could be called elite, even while wielding Magic Power, had taken damage to that extent meant that the visible crudeness wasn't the whole story.
"Elves!!"
Kadabal roared with the shitty rage boiling up from his gut, and the emotion he felt infected not only his subordinates but the mage as well.
"You fuckin' mage bastard!! Elves!!"
When the mage had said he'd block the traps, Kadabal hadn't doubted the mage's skill for a second. Because it would actually be possible.
But if it were traps set in the forest by elves aided by spirits, the story was different.
What had been an ordinary forest just moments before was now no different from a hell rigged with every kind of trigger-type trap magic in Kadabal's eyes.