Chapter 76
Chapter 76
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 76
Chapter Title: Size is the Problem
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"Whatever that is, this distance doesn't seem safe either. Let's go farther."
'If I kill the Rhinodon first, the fight will get easier. But that big one is just as hard to kill as its size.'
She could kill it with a high probability by severing its neck, but Ruby didn't have a weapon capable of slicing the neck of something as huge as a Rhinodon right now. It would be nice if she had something like the Umparu tonfa club she used before to bash it with, but she didn't have anything similar at the moment.
'Is there anything heavy around? Ah, there is!'
In this forest right now, the only thing as heavy as the Rhinodon was the Rhinodon itself. So Ruby decided to attack it using its own body weight.
It took a bit of technique for Ruby to hurl the Rhinodon away. There were too many obstacles in the way to just throw it with brute force.
So Ruby tied a chain around the Rhinodon's horn, then began spinning around it like a pinwheel with the horn as the axis. The Rhinodon, caught in the chain, was dragged along, snapping trees as it went, and the monsters between it and Ruby were swept away by the chain.
Ruby herself spun around like a windmill blade with the Rhinodon as the hub, then suddenly stopped, using that momentum to fling it into the sky.
The force of the fall dealt massive damage to the Rhinodon's body. It wouldn't kill it, but it probably wouldn't wake up for a few days.
Ruby turned her gaze toward the remnants of the demon army. Amid the shattered tree fragments, countless monsters lay on the ground groaning. Still, on the other side of the forest where she couldn't see, she sensed an enormous number of movements.
'I took down quite a few, but it's probably not even ten percent of this army. If I keep going like this, it'll never end.'
Ruby walked toward the small rhinoceros Rhinod.
Its body was split in two. The lower half was wriggling in search of the upper half, but the upper half was pinned under a massive tree trunk and couldn't move.
"Hmm, when did it get cut? I only threw it."
Looking at the position of the sword embedded in the ground, it seemed one of the monsters' weapons had ricocheted and unluckily bisected its body.
'I trusted Saf's luck and fought carefree, but in a battle this large-scale, I need to worry more about my companions' safety. A conclusion like "Thanks to luck, it lost an arm instead of its head" isn't good for me.'
Ruby reflected a little.
'I've done enough here, so it might be best to grab those two and head to a safe place. Without me covering for their slow running, they probably couldn't have gotten far...
Ruby left the bisected Rhinod behind and turned away.
"Praise him, praise him, praise him. The Cow King is eternal, and his army is eternal too."
The Rhinod muttered in a tone that could have been singing or raging, while coughing.
Ruby glanced back at the small rhinoceros.
Black blood erupted from the Rhinod's mouth, splattering across her face. It tried to wipe the blood from its face with its hand but couldn't. Its hand wouldn't move as it willed. Even so, it didn't stop singing.
"We are Heldra, apostles of Heldra, we advance, we advance in glory.
The Cow King's glory and power shall burn hot like hellfire. The Cow King's wrath and vengeance shall burn hot like hellfire..." The Rhinod vomited blood again and failed to finish the song.
Thud!
Thud!
From around the time the song ended, the ground began to shake with booming footsteps.
They must have been there all along, but she'd missed them amid the fighting. Each step snapped four or five trees and vibrated the earth.
"What is that?"
Ruby's gaze, initially fixed on its legs, climbed higher and higher. Even after craning her neck, she still only saw its body; the head was out of sight.
Its head protruded above the treetops that blotted the sky, making it hard to gauge exactly how tall it was.
Its steps were slow, but its stride was so vast that it matched the speed of a horse at full gallop. And it was heading straight for Ruby.
"Goddess of Cruelty Heldra!"
The Rhinod resumed its song with a scream.
Ruby thought the head's shape, glimpsed through the trees, kept changing. But on second look, it had multiple heads.
"Our glory Heldra. Flames of glory shall blaze through hell..."
The Rhinod let out a high note, exerting all its strength, then vomited blood once more and died.
"Heldra?"
From below in the forest, only its lower body was visible through the leaves. To get a full view of Heldra, Ruby leaped up into the trees.
The trees in the Dark Forest were at least fifty paces tall for the smallest, and a hundred for the largest.
Ruby climbed the tallest one like a monkey.
Only from this overhead angle could she finally see its head.
"Uwaa! Flower rice! Flower field! It's huge."
Ruby let out an exclamation close to a scream.
Heldra was basically a four-legged beast with a scaly lizard-like lower body, and five heads attached to its torso. With the lower body obscured by trees and only the upper body protruding, it looked like five different animals fused together, swimming over a sea of waving leaves.
One was a lion's head with a mane.
Another was a goat's head with curved horns, an eagle's head with a sharp beak swiveling around, a head of some unknown animal reduced to just a skull, and finally, a snake's head with a long neck coiling protectively around the other four.
The snake head spotted Ruby first. With a hiss, it sprayed yellow liquid from its fangs. It flew nearly a hundred paces.
Ruby dodged by jumping to the adjacent tree.
The sticky yellow liquid hit the tree, emitting white smoke as the branches withered to brown.
'It looks like venom from the fangs, but probably not ordinary poison?'
Hanging from another tree, Ruby observed Heldra's advance direction and Jade's escape direction.
Coincidentally, they were the same.
"Why of all places..."
Ruby muttered, then quickly understood.
Jade and Saf were simply running in the opposite direction from the approaching enemy. So their paths naturally aligned.
"Then I need to steer them a bit. Something that huge is hard to take out easily anyway, so first evacuate Jade and Saf to safety, then come back later and figure out how to deal with it slowly."
Ruby climbed back to the top of the tallest tree and partially exposed herself in its view.
"Hey, you five-headed calf! Are you five mixed into one, or one with five heads?"
The snake head turned its gaze. Then the other four heads swiveled toward Ruby in unison.
"From the reaction, it's one body with five heads?"
As if responding to Ruby's words, all five heads opened their mouths toward her simultaneously.
Jade kept pressing forward, unsure how much farther they needed to go to be safe. He just focused on putting distance between them and that 'ridiculously enormous monster.'
"Demons don't die easily. Even Ruby can't handle that many, and ones that huge."
Saf still couldn't shake her worry for Ruby.
"Ruby has a plan. She enjoys fighting, but she's not reckless."
Jade said it, but he was really just hoping that was true. He still didn't know Ruby's true nature.
'Saf's right too. That monster's size is insane, and as a demon, it's hard to kill. It'll need my Light of Dissolution. But what can I do if I go back? If I hit something that big with it, my wrist might shatter.'
Jade didn't want to feel weak, so he didn't develop the thought further.
Saf lightly hopped over a rock at waist height, then casually turned and extended her hand to Jade.
"Saf, what the hell kind of training did you do at the convent?"
Jade asked as he grabbed her hand and climbed the rock.
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"You're running at an insane speed right now. And you're climbing this height like it's stairs."
"Well... probably because I'm still young. Kids are light, right?"
Saf said in an uncertain voice.
"I'm five years older than you, but this isn't an age thing."
"But the orphanage kids jump this well too."
"You can tell the difference with your senses, right? Even if kids jump well, they can't climb like you just did."
"Kids can hop over fences half their height easily. I'm just jumping half my height too."
Saf indicated around her waist with her hand.
Jade had no more to argue about Saf's athleticism.
"No, forget it. It's not important. I'm glad you're moving so energetically."
"More importantly, how big is that giant monster? It looks bigger than St. Vesta Cathedral."
Saf pointed at the five heads peeking through the leaves.
"No, at least three times that. Let's keep going. We need to get as far away as possible. Considering its size, it's still too close."
"If we get separated like this, can Ruby find us?"
"We have to hope so. Maybe your luck will help. Where do you want to go now?"
"I don't know. I'm so scared my head's all jumbled."
Saf instinctively tried to pull her hood over her head. But the hood was torn, so it wouldn't cover, and her hair fell loose.
Saf said in agitation.
"What do we do? I can't hide my horns."
Jade replied nonchalantly.
"It's fine. It's an elf forest—horns on the head might not be a big deal."
"If it's elves..."
Saf muttered as she walked ahead.
"Why are they letting a demon army rampage through their forest?"
"Now that you mention it."
Jade thought for a moment, then continued.
"Maybe there's an elf army waiting at the end of where that horde is heading? Then we'd naturally be heading toward the elves."
"But Ruby said this is a battlefield. Like a battle is happening 'right now.'"
"Yeah. That's how it sounded to me too."
Suddenly, Ruby and the Rhinod's conversation came to mind. Both Jade and Saf could understand it.
'I never thought the ancient language I learned would be used like this. It wasn't weird for demons in an elf forest to converse and sing in the elves' language, just like demons in Rome speaking the language of Rim.'
What bothered Jade was that Danell had taught him the elf language with perfect grammar and pronunciation.
'Okay, fine, it wasn't ancient language but elf tongue. That excuse would work to teach it without Lotica's notice. So when and how did Father Danell learn this language?'
A massive monster's scream echoed through the entire forest. It was unmistakably a cry of pain.
Saf turned back and shouted.
"Ruby must be winning!"
"You saw?"
Jade turned too, but saw only leaves.
"Not sure, but one of the five heads fell off."
"She cut down something that big?"
"I'm not sure about th—"
Saf trailed off and looked past Jade.
Jade turned to where she was staring. There stood a rhinoceros two heads taller than him, on its hind legs.
At first, he thought it was that Rhinod who'd ridden a huge rhinoceros earlier, trading barbs with Ruby while praising the Cow King.
But it only looked similar; the clothes and skin tone were slightly different. A different Rhinod.
Similar rhinoceroses began emerging from the underbrush one by one.
"Saf, fall back!"
Jade shouted and hastily retreated, but the rhinoceros caught up in two steps. It grabbed his collar, pulling him toward its face, and asked in elven.
"What is this?"
"A human."
The other rhinoceroses spotted Jade and Saf and said.
"Why's a human in the Dark Forest?"
"Who knows. Lost its way?"
Jade pulled a book from his robes.
'If this is right in the middle of a battlefield, there's no rule saying Rhinods are at the front. I thought just fleeing from that giant monster would do, but no. We were still in their territory.'
Hoping they were dark demons, Jade recited a dissolution verse.
The rhinoceros watched and said.
"What's this one doing with a book?"
Another rhinoceros joked.
"Probably praying before dying. Humans always pray."
"Then kill it as it wants."
As Jade read the dissolution verse, light emanated from the book and moved to his hand.
Without hesitation, Jade placed his hand on the back of the rhinoceros's hand gripping his collar.
"Argh!"
The rhinoceros flinched in shock and threw Jade aside.
The light had already burned away its hand, and the flames rapidly spread up its arm.
"Uwaa, what is this fire? Put it out! Put it out!"
It tried pounding its arm with its other hand to extinguish the light, but it was useless. The white light spread like fire on oil, swiftly incinerating up to its face. It knelt, then collapsed.
Moments later, only its armor and spear remained; its flesh had burned white to ash.
"A mage!"
"Light of Dissolution!"
The other rhinoceroses quickly backed away.
Jade, fallen on the ground, tried to rise slowly but groaned in pain. His entire body felt like it had been branded with a hot iron. Looking down, a coin-sized thick thorny tree root had pierced his back and gone through his side.
"Ah..."
Red blood gushed out through the wound in his side.
"Father!"
Saf screamed almost hysterically and ran over.
Then something black dropped from the sky between Saf and Jade. Saf collided face-first with it mid-run and fell back. But before she hit the ground, a black beast's hand grabbed her waist and hoisted her up.
Compared to Saf's slender waist, the hand gripping her looked like a furry log.
It had the face of a black bull. Red eyes, short horns stabbing forward from the forehead, and sharp fangs filling its mouth—far from herbivorous.
While other monsters clumsily mimicked humans with ill-fitting clothes or weapons, this one wore perfectly fitted attire. Shoulder pauldrons, wrist guards, leather armor, and various weapons on its belt were the complete gear of a master hunter.
Its size was half of Ramatus's, but its menace was several times greater.
The black bull-shaped monster said in a deep voice.
"A human using Light of Dissolution and a human with horns..."
It examined them, half-crushing Saf's waist as it turned her this way and that.
Saf flailed her legs and pushed at the hand with both arms, but the black bull didn't budge.
Jade, hand on the branch protruding from his side, painfully spoke in elven.
"Let that child go."
The black bull stared at Jade, then glanced at the rhinoceroses. They'd backed off a bit and now halted, awaiting orders.
"Kill it."
The black bull said.
"Yes! Lord Buffalord!"
The rhinoceroses replied in unison and approached Jade.
'Buffalord? Not an official demon name at first glance. Definitely a high-ranking demon with a name.'
Jade released his wound, gripped the book with bloodied fingers. The pages flipped on their own to the dark magic section.
'I can dissolve one or two before dying. But if I die, what about Saf?'
No time for long thoughts. Jade recited the dissolution verse and raised his glowing hand.
Seeing the Light of Dissolution, the rhinoceroses gripped their spears but didn't advance.
"W-what do we do?"
One whispered, and the one beside it said.
"Throw spears!"
It reversed its grip on the spear, preparing to hurl it.
'Damn, showed the light too soon. Should've waited till I could reach.'
Jade dropped his glowing hand.
Somewhere, a sharp whistle of wind rang out. The spear-throwing rhinoceros and the one next to it collapsed almost simultaneously. The others waiting behind were smashed to the ground like they'd been hit by invisible hammers.
"Uwaaak."
"Aaak!"
Over a dozen monsters writhed on the ground, noses planted in the dirt, screaming. On closer look, arrows were embedded in their heads or backs.
'Huh? Could that be...'
They looked just like the tyrant pinned by arrows earlier. Without the flames covering their bodies, they were like bugs impaled on pins, unable to move.
Buffalord was already gone.
Looking up at a sound from above, the black bull was on a tree branch clutching Saf. It glanced down at Jade, then leaped through the dense foliage and vanished.
Jade shouted.
"Saf!"
He tried to move but couldn't dislodge the branch still stuck in his side. Even if he could, he couldn't chase a demon leaping through the treetops.
'But what were those arrows just now? Forest guardians helping?'
Jade hurriedly scanned the surroundings.
He didn't need to search hard.
The figure revealed itself right in front of Jade.
Its build was about Buffalord's size. But it leaped down from high in the trees with barely a sound, and walked the grass without crunching dirt.
Jade groaned in pain and lifted his head toward the approaching figure. He'd hoped for an elf-like 'forest guardian' by the pond. But it was another monster.
'Guardian...? No?'
It had black skin, eyes sunken deep into its face, fangs protruding past its lips, short ears on a large face, shaggy green fur covering head and shoulders, and legs and arms wrapped in bulging muscles.
'No, this isn't a demon. I've seen it before.'
It was another non-human race Danell had taught him about: an orc.
There was no rule saying Dark Forest guardians were elves, and Jade had left room for other possibilities. But he'd never imagined an orc.
Before Jade could ask, it spoke first.
"Who are you?"