Ending Maker Chapter 44
Ending Maker Chapter 44
Chapter 11 - Frost Anvil #2
"They just keep coming!"
"Paragot!"
"Aagh! Save me!"
The screams of the combatants rang out through the cold, savage gusts of Frost Anvil.
The Demonic Human Paragot let out a ragged breath and glared straight ahead.
With demonization already active, his eyes glowed red, allowing him to see the truth hidden within the raging blizzard.
'Too many.'
Hundreds—no, perhaps over a thousand.
The variety was just as great. They could not be sorted into a few species. Among them were even monsters of a kind Paragot had never seen in his life.
"Paragot!"
Another scream rang out. This time from behind, not the front.
Winter harpies—flying-type monsters—had broken through the line behind Paragot, who stood at the front.
"You vermin!"
As Paragot roared and thrust out his right fist, a terrifying shockwave erupted and swept over the winter harpies in the air.
The force was so tremendous that, for an instant, both the blizzard and the gale vanished from the surrounding area.
Boom!
The winter harpies caught in the shockwave scattered as a spray of blood, and the few survivors fled in terror.
But only for a moment.
Soon the blizzard raged again, and the monsters surged in once more.
"Damn it all!"
It had not been like this from the start.
It had begun with the appearance of only a few snow goblins.
That had not been strange.
The Frost Anvil region was a snow-covered field, and snow goblins lived in snowfields.
But as time passed, it grew strange.
The snow goblins kept increasing in number as if migrating in a pack, and later even winter bears, the predators of snow goblins, appeared.
And now, several hours later.
"Paragot! We can't hold out any longer!"
The combatant's desperate cry was no exaggeration.
But that did not mean they could abandon this position.
'We can't break out!'
There were too many monsters.
They surged in endlessly like a tidal wave, leaving no way to escape.
"Paragot! Vilkeil—!"
Smashing the skull of a winter bear lunging at his back, Paragot turned his gaze.
Far away, surrounded by countless monsters, Vilkeil was rising with her wings spread. Her red eyes blazed as she unleashed terrifying demonic power.
BOOM!
A fierce red wave of energy swept over Vilkeil and her surroundings. In an instant, a vast clearing easily twenty meters across appeared, and within it the ground was drenched in monster blood.
"Ghk!"
But Vilkeil was not unharmed either.
Having consumed too much demonic power in succession, she collapsed to the ground and vomited dark red blood.
"Vilkeil!"
Paragot kicked off the ground violently.
The monsters charged at Vilkeil again as though their very sense of fear had been numbed.
"Para...... got......."
The horns sprouting through Vilkeil's red hair gradually shrank.
Her demonization had come undone after she expended too much power.
"Raaagh!"
Paragot swatted away the monsters charging at Vilkeil with one massive fist, then swiftly wrapped his left arm around her waist.
"We have to get out."
Holding this position any longer was impossible. They had to flee somehow.
"Release Sisiot's seal completely."
"Then......."
"It'll rampage as it pleases. It'll buy us time."
Even the Devil's Hand could not perfectly control the demons they summoned.
Most cases involved building cooperative relationships through contracts, but in the end, the other party was still a demon.
There were also plenty of demons who tried to use Devil's Hand for their own ends.
Sisiot was a demon belonging to the latter category.
For that reason, the leader had used the power received from Asmodeus to partially seal Sisiot's abilities and turn the creature into a slave of the Devil's Hand.
"First, we have to survive."
"If Sisiot goes berserk, the first ones it'll kill are us."
That was true. Paragot drove his fist into the ground to create another shockwave, then looked at the combatants desperately holding out in front of the Great Gate.
They had brought nearly a hundred, yet barely thirty remained.
"We can't flee outside."
Monsters kept pouring in without end.
With more monsters than he had ever imagined, even Paragot would be swept away by the tide and killed.
Paragot knew that too. Panting hard, he said,
"We go inside."
Inside the Great Gate.
They would enter, seal the door, and release Sisiot's seal.
"The door?"
Vilkeil asked in alarm.
The Great Gate was firmly sealed.
It was because of the massive seal newly installed by the Count Hraesvelgr Household to prevent grave robbers from invading Frost Anvil.
"I'll open it. If I muster all my remaining strength, I should be able to break the seal and open the door."
They would go inside, close the door, and release Sisiot's seal.
After making Sisiot face the monsters, they would rest inside the door and recover their strength.
They had left the seal alone because they worried that if they removed something so conspicuous, Cordelia would sense that something was wrong and stay away. But now was not the time to worry about that.
"After we recover, we can seal Sisiot again. That thing will be exhausted from fighting the monsters too."
"Fine, you're right."
Vilkeil nodded as well. She gathered what little demonic power remained while catching her breath, and Paragot kicked off the ground violently.
"I'm opening the door! Evacuate inside!"
Shouting loudly, he first hurled Vilkeil through the air toward the combatants.
The moment the combatants frantically caught Vilkeil, he pulled back his fist and focused all his power into a single point.
There was no technique name.
It was simply the manifestation of pure power.
The instant he thrust his fist forward, a red flash slammed into the Great Gate.
The entire Great Gate, easily twenty meters tall, shuddered violently, and the golden magic seal of the Count Hraesvelgr Household spread across its face shattered in a single blow.
"Raaagh!"
Paragot did not stop. He shoved his hand into the gap of the Great Gate, which had opened slightly from the impact, and pushed the door open with all his might.
"Grrraah!"
The Great Gate was enormously heavy, befitting its immense size.
Even with all his strength, creating a gap wide enough for two or three people to enter was his limit.
"Hurry!"
Paragot shouted as he leaped in first, and the combatants urgently followed behind him into the gate.
"Paragot!"
"Us too!"
"Aagh!"
The combatants at the very rear of the front line, who had been holding back the monsters, cried out, but Paragot ignored them.
While about ten combatants died in the desperate struggle, he used the last of his strength to close the Great Gate.
Thud!
The door closed with a dull sound. At the same time, Vilkeil formed a hand seal and completed the ritual of unsealing.
"Hah...... hah......."
Paragot let out ragged breaths and broke into a cold sweat. It was because he could feel the intense demonic energy of the unsealed Sisiot beyond the door.
"Para...... got......."
Vilkeil, drenched in sweat, called out to Paragot.
In her eyes, terror and fear mingled with the relief of having survived.
Paragot spoke.
"We go inside."
"Inside?"
"A little further in. Staying right in front of the door is dangerous."
Now that the seal was gone, anyone with enough strength could open the door.
Whether it was the monsters or the rampaging Sisiot, the danger was the same.
So they would go inside and hide.
They would light a fire to drive out the cold, and eat something to recover their stamina.
"You're right."
Vilkeil nodded, ordered the combatants to move forward, and then helped Paragot, who had slumped to the floor, to his feet.
"Cordelia must already be dead."
"Yeah, she must be."
There were that many monsters swarming the area.
She had probably been devoured by the monsters gathered near Frost Anvil.
"I can't understand what happened."
Why had the monsters suddenly swarmed in?
The Sunflower Herb was a kind of legend.
That was why word that monsters gathered when the Sunflower Herb bloomed had never spread properly among the public.
In the first place, no one lived near Frost Anvil.
"Anyway, let's go."
"Right, we need to recover our strength."
If they killed a few combatants and absorbed their souls and vitality, their stamina would return to some degree.
Paragot and Vilkeil were advancing with much the same thought when—
At some point.
To be precise, when they entered a certain point in the corridor.
Paragot sensed it.
Vilkeil did as well.
"What is this?"
Right after the words left his mouth.
Magical flames erupted from the ceiling, the walls, and the floor.
* * *
"Huh?"
"Hm?"
Yuder and Cordelia looked at each other.
Rings of pure white light had wrapped around both of them.
"Level up?"
"Ah, did monsters get caught in the traps?"
"Wow, the experience gain range reaches all the way here?"
"It's probably right at the edge of the limit. We're on the third floor now."
The magic circles spread throughout the first-floor corridor were something Yuder and Cordelia had created together, so naturally they shared the experience.
But Cordelia tilted her head again as if puzzled.
"Uh...... but isn't indirect hunting like this pretty bad for experience efficiency?"
But they had gained a whole level at once? When the two of them were already level 20?
"Maybe it's quantity making up for low returns. A ton of them must've gotten caught."
It was the moment he said that.
"Hm?"
"Huh?"
Once again, rings of light wrapped around the two of them.
Consecutive level-ups.
What was more, this time three appeared in a row.
At this point, even Yuder could not help looking bewildered.
"What's going on?"
"Maybe a big shot got caught?"
"I made them myself, but they're not magic circles strong enough to catch a big shot."
"Who knows? Maybe Silphy got hit by a magic circle and went 'Aagh!'"
At Cordelia's suggestion, Yuder's eyes widened. Then he clenched a fist and said,
"That's...... possible!"
"Hey, that's my line."
"These things need to be said by someone else once in a while."
"Anyway, leveling up is great. I've been short on magic power lately."
Witchification demanded a huge amount of magic power in exchange for its dramatic increase in combat ability.
For a magic-specialized character like Cordelia, whose magic power grew significantly with every level-up, the timing could not have been better.
Moreover, the effects of the level-up did not stop there.
The witch's magic book was structured so that the number of pages she could open increased at certain levels, and now if she raised just one more level, she would be able to open a new chapter.
As Cordelia grinned with delight, Yuder's expression unconsciously softened, but he soon spoke again in a serious tone.
"I'm happy too, but...... we should hurry a little. It means the monsters have entered the first floor."
"Got it, let's hurry."
Agreeing with Yuder, Cordelia started walking again.
"Ah, I think I know from here too. We go that way, right?"
"Yeah, right. If we go that way, there's a secret passage that cuts straight to the fifth floor."
Originally, on the way from the third floor to the fifth floor, they would have had to fight through the various monsters native to Frost Anvil, but the two had decided to skip all of it for now.
'We can get the weapon and then hunt them.'
It would be much easier to hunt them after obtaining a power weapon from the armory.
For two rotten fossils like them, passing by monsters—a treasure trove of experience—without hunting them was never an option.
"Pow~er weapon, doo roo roo roo~ cute~ doo roo roo roo~ in the anvil~ doo roo roo roo~ power weapon!"
"What are you doing."
"What do you mean, it's a song of joy."
In the original, they had obtained only one Power Spear to hunt the giant white serpent guarding the Sunflower Herb, but this time would be different.
What would be there?
What more could they take?
"Cute~ doo roo roo roo~ power weapon!"
Cordelia hummed as she took the lead, and Yuder smiled despite himself as he thought,
'She is cute, though.'
If he said it out loud, she would growl at him, so he should keep it to himself.
"What are you doing! Hurry up!"
"Yeah, yeah. Dooroo dooroo power weapon."
"Doo roo roo roo."
"Dooroorooroo?"
"Doo roo roo roo."
"Right, doo roo roo roo."
"Hmm, good."
For reasons she could not explain, Cordelia looked immensely satisfied and smiled brightly. Yuder chuckled again and followed.
And thirty minutes later.
The two arrived in front of the ancient dwarves' armory.