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Stones came flying one after another toward the cult leader.
“Pathetic.”
But the cult leader, who had already been watching, calmly extended his left hand.
“[Purification].”
Silver light spread outward, wrapping the stones and turning them to powder in an instant.
The cult leader then thrust out his right hand and scattered the silver-speckled dust.
- Cough, cough.
Curtis, who had been heading toward Shrakhim but ended up swallowing a faceful of glittering lime dust, broke into a fit of coughing.
The invisibility effect still had not ended, but the sparkling powder had plainly outlined his body against the darkness.
“Distract my eyes with slings and stones, then rescue that pig while I’m blinded... Isn’t that far too obvious?”
Even as Curtis coughed violently, he reached for the dagger that had fallen to the ground, but...
“How many times do you intend to try the same trick?”
He looked up in despair as the dagger rose into the air.
“You want to catch it?”
“Ghk!”
The blade sliced through the desperate hand he had thrust out.
“I gave it to you to catch, and you still can’t manage that.”
The dagger hanging in the air slashed Curtis again and again without restraint.
As the invisibility finally wore off, droplets of blood sprayed through the chamber.
“Cur...kugh!”
Curtis clutched his throat and collapsed.
“Did I cut your throat? It would be troublesome if you died this soon.”
With a detached expression, the cult leader extended his left hand and healed Curtis.
“Cough. Wh-why are you healing me?”
Only now recovering his senses, Curtis spat out blood and asked,
“Is it because of your promise with the Border Count?”
“Heal you? You? I? You’re mistaken about something. I’m not keeping you alive. I’m simply making your death last longer.”
The cult leader snorted and lifted the dagger again. This time the motion changed from slashing to stabbing.
It seemed he meant to avoid accidentally dealing a fatal wound like before.
“Ghk!”
The blade stabbed and withdrew, stabbed and withdrew, tearing Curtis’s body apart bit by bit.
“You seem to think yourself some important hostage, but you’re worth nothing.”
“Agh...! Then kill me!”
“You’d rather die? Then try killing yourself. Though resurrection would be troublesome, wouldn’t it?”
Even after Curtis collapsed in despair, the butchery did not stop. Not until the milky lime water pooled on the floor had turned red as strawberries.
The dagger torture only ceased when the elf Zabong, who had been knocked down by a blow to the back of his head, finally managed to stagger to his feet.
“U-ugh... I-I beg your pardon, Archangel.”
The cult leader extended his left hand and wrapped Zabong’s body in silver light.
“Oh... to think you would heal me after I was made so unsightly. Your grace seems to cover the whole continent, Archangel.”
“Think nothing of it.”
Zabong, who had feared he would be scolded for being beaten by a human of all things, was moved to tears.
In truth, from the cult leader’s perspective, Zabong had served as an early warning system by taking Curtis’s blow, which let him avoid a surprise attack. There was no reason to blame him at all.
- Crack.
While the elves had their attention diverted, a cluster of stalactites that had been hanging precariously from the ceiling finally broke loose.
- KOOGOOONG!
The thinner stalactites shattered and burst into a cloud of pale dust. The thick, hard core sank straight through the ground and lodged itself there.
“S-Shrakhim, sir!”
Recovering from the shock of the impact and the roar, Curtis shouted desperately.
“Zabong, purify the dust and check whether the pig is alive. Then make sure he pays back what that bastard did to you, several times over.”
“At once.”
The haze of stone dust slowly cleared. Blood had been splattered around where the stalactite had fallen.
“There’s blood, but no body. It looks like he’s been reduced to minced meat.”
Did we get him?
“What did you say just now? ‘Looks like’ he’s been reduced to minced meat?”
At Zabong’s words, the cult leader’s gaze sharpened.
“Huh? Yes, that’s right. I think the bastard may have been completely crushed-”
“Who told you to speculate? I ordered you to confirm!”
“S-sorry. I’ll look more carefully!”
“Forget it. Step aside. I’ll do it... Hrk?”
Just as the cult leader tried to lift the massive stalactite, he swayed in midair.
“A-are you all right, Archangel?”
Zabong cried out when he saw the cult leader’s face had gone pale.
What is this? For a moment, it felt like my mana was draining away.
Wincing at the strange sensation in his body, the cult leader’s expression twisted.
He had certainly spent a great deal of mana moving one huge object after another, but compared to the total amount of power surging through him like a tide, it should have been no more than a cupful.
“...I told you to step back! Once the rock’s moved, confirm it properly.”
“Y-yes, understood.”
The cult leader gathered his mana and lifted the rock, revealing a large hole.
And from behind the rock, Shrakhim suddenly sprang out.
“What?!”
When the cult leader’s attention had shifted to Curtis, Shrakhim had gulped down a healing potion and dodged the falling debris.
“Th-that bastard?!”
Before Zabong could do anything, Shrakhim rolled head over heels into the hole.
And so he managed to flee downward through the sinkhole to the lower level.
“What are you standing around for! Hurry up and go after him!”
“Y-yes, sir!”
At the cult leader’s furious shout, Zabong also dived into the hole.
“Kuhh?!”
The cult leader felt an even sharper loss of mana than before.
- Crack-crack-crack.
His concentration broke, and the cult leader who had been holding the stalactite let it fall. He nearly dropped himself to the ground as well.
“What in the world is this!”
Only after barely regaining his composure did the cult leader explode in anger. More than half his mana had vanished.
* * *
Zabong barely escaped being crushed in the nick of time.
“That pig bastard rolled right in as if he’d been waiting for it. Truly disgusting.”
He seemed to have forgotten that he himself had also rolled to avoid being squashed.
Still, he had managed a fine landing on the way down.
“Acting like a worm while wriggl-”
“Hraaaaaah!”
His throat was cut by the Shrakhim who had been waiting for him.
“Hah... Hah...”
As if taking the severed head rolling across the floor as his signal, Shrakhim dashed off.
* * *
Meanwhile, Axle was being interrogated.
“Where’s the other one?”
“Ugh... I told you I don’t know, you idiot pointy-eared bastard.”
“Ha. Then I’ll make sure he learns where you are.”
Valepin twisted the spear lodged in Axle’s thigh.
“Aaaagh!”
“Wait! Stop.”
The one who stopped the torture was Lucy.
“The Archangel has sent an urgent message. A man named Shrakhim has killed Zabong and is fleeing through the lower level, so capture him.”
As the elves reacted in shock, she quickly issued her orders.
“Magic priests, come with me at once and descend to the underground. Warrior priests, go escort the Archangel! Valepin, you will guard this place.”
“As you command!”
But Valepin objected with a dissatisfied expression.
“I would be better suited to the pursuit.”
“What? Why?”
Lucy’s face hardened in turn.
“Didn’t the angels nearly let this man slip away just now after being fooled by him? If I hadn’t blocked him, he’d be wriggling around the underground like a rat by now and making everything a nuisance.”
“You insolent...! What are the priests doing? Time is running out, so search immediately!”
“Enough! The man named Shrakhim may also have an invisibility potion, so the magic priests are the ones who must stay here.”
While Valepin and Lucy argued, the other elves only looked around in confusion, uncertain what to do.
“Guiding Light of Twilight, wouldn’t it be best to expose the floor again first? That would let us find the one fleeing below more easily.”
The mage Bekirin raised a reasonable point.
“Hah... yes. That would be best.”
With those words, Lucy steadied herself and raised her staff.
The elves searched the now-revealed floor carefully, but there was no sign of Shrakhim anywhere.
“Where is he?!”
“Did that pig bastard drink an invisibility potion too?”
As the commotion made Lucy increasingly uneasy, she shouted sharply,
“Whether he’s hiding or invisible, a pig like that is not the issue! Warrior priests, hurry and go escort the Archangel! If anything happens to him, none of you will get away unscathed.”
Her bloodshot eyes showed both fanatical devotion and fear toward the cult leader.
“Valepin, if you keep obstructing me, I will purify you.”
At that hellfire glare, Valepin flinched and took a step back.
“...Understood. I’ll guard this place alone. Everyone else, follow the command of the western angel. Siwo and Utzuang, attend the Archangel.”
Seeing that Valepin had even sent his aides to guard the cult leader, Lucy said no more.
“Let’s hurry.”
The magic priests led by Lucy had just started down the stairs when they nearly stumbled.
“A-angel, look over there!”
“What, that bastard is there?!”
Shrakhim had been hiding inside the stone wall where the magic circle was located.
“Thanks for making me a passage to come and go!”
After confirming that a group of elves had come searching for him, Shrakhim quickly shut the stone-wall door.
The only ridiculous thing here is your stupid plan. Even goblins know to install window screens. Why in the world would we elves prepare a hole for bugs to enter and leave through?
“Th-that insect bastard!”
Lucy trembled with humiliation and leveled her staff at him, but...
“W-what is this? My mana...!”
Because her mana was draining away so rapidly, she could not use magic, and in that brief opening Shrakhim climbed onto the magic circle.
* * *
“So I’m stuck playing jailer... Damn you, Perhela, you old fox.”
After binding the unconscious Axle together with the others, Valepin muttered to himself.
“How utterly pathetic. All this chaos over one half-baked knight... What the—?!”
Grumbling as he headed back toward the exit, Valepin suddenly snapped his eyes open and charged forward. In the center of the cavern, Shrakhim had appeared out of nowhere.
“Damn it! There was one more left.”
Shrakhim, too, spat out a curse and ran. He had thought he’d shaken them all, but of all people, the strongest-looking elf had been left behind.
“I’ll never let you get away, insect!”
“What?! That lanky bastard, how is he so fast?”
Even though Valepin was huge and tall, Shrakhim nearly leapt in alarm at the sight of him tearing toward him like an arrow.
“Tch. Pig bastard, you’re quicker than you look.”
But Shrakhim was also moving at a fair clip. He had fully recovered after drinking the potion, and his grueling lower-body training had finally paid off.
Most importantly, Shrakhim had started from the cavern’s center. There was a considerable distance between him and Valepin, who had launched himself from the far end.
“Heeeyaaah!”
Thinking he would never close the distance in time, Valepin hurled his spear with all his strength.
“Yikes!”
Hearing the battle cry, Shrakhim glanced back and sprang upward to dodge it.
“Hah-hah-hah. You stupid pointy-eared bastard. If you’re an elf, then act like one and shoot arrows instead of throwing spears with that clumsy hand of yours!”
Even after Shrakhim’s taunt, Valepin stopped and snorted.
“What? Already giving up... wha-augh?!”
Just as Shrakhim thought the reaction was odd and kept running, he landed hard on his backside.
“Do you like it? A net fit for a pig.”
The cold that had streamed out from the ice spear followed the trickle of water on the floor and formed a massive wall of ice in front of Shrakhim.
The ice wall stretched all the way across the cavern and rose higher than a man’s height.
There was no way around it.
“You won’t get out.”
“Then I’ll smash it! Hryaah!”
Shrakhim swung his sword, but the wall didn’t even twitch. As the chill slid through the blade and into his arm, he bitterly regretted leaving his dandanium shield behind.
“Go on, struggle all you like.”
Valepin walked toward him slowly. On the surface he seemed leisurely, as if merely mocking Shrakhim, but in truth he was so exhausted he could hardly walk.
Strange. Why am I so tired? I did burn through a great deal of mana, but still, this...
In his haste, he had been unable to control the ice spear’s power carefully and had poured in all his strength, making the wall of ice too sturdy.
“Aaaah!”
Shrakhim backed up, then charged and threw his whole body into it, but the result was no different.
“Hahaha. Desperate, aren’t you?”
But Shrakhim refused to give up and took several steps back again.
“Hah... Hah... There he is.”
At that moment, Lucy and the magic priests came up through the passage near Valepin. Seeing them, Valepin smiled as though he had expected this all along.
“Guiding Light of Twilight, I’m glad I obeyed your order. Because I was guarding this place, I caught the man you all missed.”
But Lucy ignored his taunt and shouted sharply,
“Valepin, kill him immediately!”
“What? And not torment him a little longer to drag out his despair? That’s unlike the western angel-”
“Something’s wrong. Our mana is being drained right now. Don’t you realize it?!”
“What?!”
Only then did Valepin notice that his own mana was being depleted.
“Maybe Joren Tamer has meddled with some trick again. The last time we faced him, he drained both my mana and divine power.”
Having been badly stung by the Dice of Adversity before, Lucy had become extremely cautious.
“We’d better kill that human Shrakhim quickly.”
“Understood. But I don’t see the need to hurry so much. Look at him. No matter how the pig struggles, he can’t break through and escape.”
Valepin walked forward, still laughing as though it were no concern of his.
“Wait, what’s that? That bastard has something in his mouth...”
“Aaaahhhhh!”
Having charged forward with all his strength, Shrakhim tore the paper clenched in his mouth.
“A-s-scroll?!”
It was the blinking spell scroll he had saved for last.
Leaping into the air, Shrakhim cleanly cleared the ice wall at the last possible moment.
“After him!”
The startled elves chased after Shrakhim, but the ice wall blocked their path and there was nothing they could do.
The wall of ice was so high and solid that even the elves could neither jump over it nor break it down.
“Valepin! Tear down the wall at once!”
“Tch! I don’t have enough mana right now to do anything about it...”
Valepin raised the ice spear and tried to focus, but the more he did, the worse the dizziness became.
“You damn idiots!”
While the elves were at a loss, the cult leader roared behind them.
“A-Archangel.”
“If you can’t use magic, then use divine power, can’t you!”
Even in the midst of the crisis, the elves still bowed in greeting, which only made the cult leader’s face twist with unprecedented fury.
“All of you, purify the ice wall!”
At last the elves tried using the power of purification to melt the wall of ice, but the ice was so thick that even that was not easy.
“KROOOOAAAH!”
Enraged, the cult leader thrust out his right hand and sent his subordinates flying up onto the ice wall.
“Go after him! Now!”
“Y-yes, sir!”
But he had thrown them so hard that instead of landing, the elves simply fell, and none of them were in good shape.
“Huff... huff!”
Meanwhile, Shrakhim, who had sprinted with all his might, finally landed on the magic circle.
“Aaaahhhhhh!”
The cult leader’s wrath shook the entire cavern as the ceiling opened overhead.
“I’m... alive.”
Escaping outside, Shrakhim wept as he basked in the blinding sunlight.
“I lived! Hah-hah-hah-hah...”
But sunlight was not the only thing waiting to greet him.
“How did you get out?”
“Hah-hah... huh?”
The elf Vailin, whom the cult leader had sent ahead, was waiting for him. She held a sword in both hands, its edge serrated like a saw - a Sword Breaker.
“Damn it!”
Shrakhim drew his sword and tried to face her, but it was no good.
“You’re just a strong wild boar.”
Vailin lightly caught Shrakhim’s sword with the blade in her left hand, then slammed the sword in her right hand down on his wrist.
“Huh!”
Shrakhim let go of the sword and jumped back.
“They say knights never let go of their swords even in death, yet you drop yours just because you don’t want your wrist cut off.”
With a blank expression, Vailin tossed Shrakhim’s sword down to the cliff base.
“Now then, what will you do? If you kneel and beg, the Archangel may spare your life. Even if your limbs are cut off like your companions’.”
“Tch... I’d rather die fighting than beg for my life from bastards like you!”
Vailin, who had been approaching Shrakhim slowly, suddenly toppled forward.
“Huh?!”
Behind her stood a knight holding the White Silver Hammer.
“Wow, that’s impressive. Rather die fighting than beg for your life... You’ve really grown. Is this really the same Rakhim who used to cry that he couldn’t die because he still hadn’t gotten married?!”
“B-Border Count!”
Seeing him, Shrakhim ran over and hugged him while sobbing.
“I-I’m sorry... I was the only one who managed to escape like a coward. I wanted to save everyone, but there was no way I could deal with that monster. Sob...”
“I know without you saying it.”
Ho-yeong patted his back.
“As a knight, it must be shameful to be the only one to survive. But you still lived, and you had to find some way to tell me what was happening here.”
“It certainly isn’t the kind of thing a knight should do.”
He whistled, and Vulcher descended to carry them.
“But it was something only a hero could have done.”
With Vailin, who had collapsed, clutched in his forelegs, Vulcher soared high into the sky.