Midterm Evaluation (13)
At this very moment, deep in the heart of the forest, the black wolf — Birang, the Consort Wolf — was in an exceedingly fine mood.
He didn't know why he existed in this place, but the land around him overflowed with low-rank demonic beasts, and mana was hardly in short supply either.
Nor did he know the reason, but the place was crawling with children of gentle, well-bred mana. Which meant, in effect, that they were his dining table. From then on, naturally, one sweet meal followed another, and he was able to fill his long-starved belly.
And so now, as he lorded it over countless demonic beasts and basked in the feeling of kingship, something registered in his senses. Five mana signatures that looked absolutely, absolutely delicious — and five more that, if not quite their equal, still looked mouthwatering. He had a feeling that no meal he had ever eaten could measure up to these, and drool began to run from his jaws of its own accord.
Having thought that far, he could hold back no longer. In his mind's eye he was already tearing into their brains to lap up their mana, gorging himself on their flesh like a starved beast — and by the time the wolf came back to himself, he had already barked the order at his underlings to seize them. All that remained to him afterward was to ponder how best to eat them.
"T-There are way too many coming, aren't there?"
"Doesn't matter. As long as everyone does exactly as I said."
Albert coldly ran right over Lianna's worried protest and carried on as though it were nothing — but her worry was not excessive. And no wonder, with demonic beasts swarming before my very eyes even now. Tentacled things, insects, birds, mammals — beasts of every shape there was.
"Run!!"
Shaking off the sinister auras that crept up our skin at the mere sight of them, we broke into a run. We shoved past the small beasts leaping out all over the forest, dodged the mid-sized ones thundering after us, and kept running, straining to stay upright each time we nearly pitched over. It was true that we had entered this forest to lure the beasts out, but I hadn't expected them to respond this eagerly. Whatever had happened to them, so long as we could draw them along, the odds were still squarely in our favor.
"Couldn't we just hide instead?"
"Then the beasts' numbers would thin out."
"All this running is getting boring, though.."
How long did we run like that? At last, the sight we'd been waiting for began to come into view. The moment the hill appeared, the ground started sloping upward, and there on the rise we could see the others waving us on.
"Roll them!!!!"
At Albert's thunderous bellow, Brihen and Huven threw their own bodies into it, while Isabella and the Imperial Princess used magic to shove the logs and boulders. Boulders and timber came rumbling down in droves — on the beasts trailing us and on us alike — but there was no need to worry.
BOOM──
CRACK─
Because right in front of us stood a shield we could trust without reservation. The aura blooming from Albert's body beat back every falling object, and we, running hard at his heels, took not a single hit.
A demonic beast's body is made of mana, so under normal circumstances logs and boulders like these shouldn't have so much as scratched them. But—
'Brihen, layer your mana over the logs and boulders.'
'..Mind if I ask why?'
'Because anything that carries mana will get through to them — at least for now.'
Logs and boulders laced with Brihen's conducted mana were not turned away by the beasts' mana-woven bodies — they struck home, and the beasts took the full force of every impact and crumpled. Under the ceaseless rain of falling debris, the beasts slowed bit by bit and could no longer push forward with ease, while we, by contrast, kept making headway.
By the time we had run a long stretch and finally reached the end of the slope, the debris we had laid in beforehand was all spent, and plenty of beasts were still racing up the incline.
"W-What do we do now..!"
"Caerlin, was it? Hold the ones charging up ahead of us — just for a moment."
"Y-Yes?!"
"You said raw mana works too. With your ability, it should be easy."
"I-I've... never tried it before.."
"Do it. No — you must."
The moment the words left his mouth, the eyes of the utterly unconfident Caerlin turned a flaunting crimson — and in their wake, the bodies of the beasts leading the charge wavered for a breath before stopping dead. Perhaps because they were all demonic beasts, the frozen ones could not pass through, and they slammed into the pack still surging up behind them; a single line of resistance formed across the hill.
"I-I did it!!"
"Good. Jenison?"
"..Quit hovering."
Caerlin was so overjoyed at her success she looked ready to leap for the sky, while Albert promptly swung an unrelenting gaze my way. Ignoring that pestering look, I set about my own task.
'Jenison, let me ask you just one thing.'
'...?'
'Can you make explosives too?'
Homemade bombs, built on the spot. I'd used them before — even with the Imperial Princess — so for me it was laughably easy. Every now and then a beast would slip the line and lunge at me, but the lowliest of low-rank demonic beasts had no hope of simply ignoring Albert's Rigid Body or the rest of the party's magic.
"Not done yet?!"
"Faster!!"
"..."
And so, without the slightest interference, I went on producing explosives one after another, and each one I finished went straight into the beasts, bursting on impact.
BOOM──
KRA-KOOM─
"Eek!"
"Kwahahaha! Now that's satisfying!!"
One, two — then past them into the dozens. I wrung my mana dry to the very last drop I could squeeze out, and the count of explosions rose to match.
"Isabella!! Empty out every spell you can cast!!"
"Ngh.. doing exactly that!"
"..I'll help too."
Spears of flame, ice storms, arrows of wind — every last one a spell that looked as though it would leave not even a shape behind when it landed. And these were the spells of the Imperial Princess and Isabella, whose magical skill was said to give practicing professional mages a run for their money. Pile my explosives on top of spells like those, and what followed was explosion, explosion, and more explosion.
BOOM──
KWA-KWA-BOOM─
WHUMM─
Smoke rolled without pause as though a wildfire had broken out, and the screams of the demonic beasts shot upward as if to smother the sky. The beasts that survived the blasts and lunged anyway were all stopped cold by the wall Lianna raised and finished off by the daggers of Albert and Shino. We kept pouring out spell after spell like that, until a fierce wind from somewhere swept the smoke away in a single breath.
The ridgeline that had been carpeted in grass at the start was gouged from end to end; burst boulders and toppled trees choked the area, and pitch-black remains twitched feebly across the ground. Mana stones left behind by the dying beasts covered the earth, and a few beasts still clung to life — but everywhere you looked was ruin. Of course, we, having burned through every last drop of mana, were hardly a pretty sight ourselves. Everyone's clothes and hair had been blackened by the blasts; cuts and scrapes large and small marked every body; and the rearguard who had covered our backs looked as though their entire kit had been through a shredder.
Even so, we were in no state to be denied the joy of victory — and the first to let out a whoop was Caerlin.
"Haah.. haah.. W-Waaahhh!!"
"Kwahahaha. We pulled it off!!"
"Whew.. honestly, I never expected it to go this smoothly."
"With the bonus points alone, we can definitely aim for a top score.."
Impressions followed one after another, delight and exhilaration soaking every voice — even the Saintess, tending our wounds, kept letting little smiles slip through. But no smile came to Albert's mouth, or mine.
Because nowhere in that whole field of carnage was there a single beast that looked like him.
"..Jenison."
"..."
"Where do you think that thing is?"
"..."
Albert and I searched for any sign that the thing might have collapsed somewhere, but the wreckage of the explosions held not even a trace of it.
Grrrr─
It happened in an instant. An ominous sound drove itself into my skull like a hammer blow, and by the time I gathered myself, every one of us had already finished readying for battle.
"Wh-What.. is that..!"
"..Heh. Taking that thing on wouldn't even be fun."
"..I think we're in serious trouble."
From within that impossibly deep, black forest, its shape soon began to emerge — and with it, the faint of heart among us found their bodies tipping backward of their own accord. Just as I'd heard from Albert, its eyes were far, far too red, and the haughty way it planted each forepaw made it look every inch the king of wolves. The black fur rippling around it drifted through the air like leaves scattered on the wind, and even at its small cries our legs shook uncontrollably, as though we'd been struck by some ultra-low frequency.
The demonic beasts that had survived nearby gathered around it and bowed their heads as if presenting arms, then fell in behind the wolf and stood stock-still, like puppets, not moving an inch. Wherever the wolf set down a paw, the ground sank a little, as though something had ground its foot into the earth with all its weight — and from that alone we could gauge just how massive the creature was.
The wolf, ambling toward us, abruptly halted mid-stride — and in the next breath, its figure had vanished from every eye among us.
"It's gone!!"
"It's coming! Brace for the impact!!"
Remembering the wolf as it had seemed one heartbeat from pouncing, we threw up our defenses in haste — but the assault we braced for never came.
Crunch─
Chomp─smack─
Instead, from a spot a little apart from us came the sound of something being gnawed and torn — and that spot was where the paralyzed, dead beasts lay. The wolf was chewing through the corpses of its own kind, and with every carcass it devoured, its enormous frame grew larger and its crimson eyes burned redder.
We stared, dazed, at the wolf so ravenously devouring its own kind — but only for a moment. Realizing that a fight was beyond us in our current state, we withdrew slowly and turned to treating our wounds first. The instant we judged we had put enough distance between ourselves and it, its figure vanished once more. The only difference from before was that this time, it was coming straight for us.
"Look out..!"
"Gwahk!!"
BAM─WHAM─
The giant crimson eyes arrived right in front of us. Albert reacted in a flash and shouted the warning, but Brihen, too slow to respond, took the forepaw head-on and went bouncing every which way.
"Please treat him, Saintess!"
"Ah.. right away!"
"We'll pin that thing down however we can!!"
The Saintess rushed to him and kindled her Holy Power on the spot, while Albert and the others dove in to bar the wolf's path — if only the wolf had not vanished one more time.
In that instant, the black shape charged. The crimson points linked into a line, then vanished. The darkness needed hardly any time at all to reach the Saintess, and in the next breath, white fangs came hurtling for her throat.
CRUNCH──
"Grrr..r?"
"...Huh?"
Except that what it had bitten was not the Saintess's throat. Because I had not gone charging off anywhere. Because what mattered more to me than Brihen was the Saintess's safety. And because this creature had appeared at precisely the right moment, as though it had been observing us all along. The instant I laid eyes on that wolf, I had assumed it carried intelligence on par with a human; thinking through what its next move would be, having watched the Saintess's power, I had never once left her side.
A fraction of an instant. Into the maw lunging for her throat, I was able to shove my right shoulder — and my shoulder flushed red, as though autumn's crimson maple had bloomed across it.
"..Wh-Wha—?!"
"..Run. Quickly. Before you die."
The instant the beast realized it had bitten me and not the Saintess, and began to ease the pressure of its jaws, I pressed my hands down on its upper and lower lips — forcing its teeth to sink into my shoulder harder still.
Squelch─
Spurt──
Its teeth punched through my shoulder blade and carved it to pieces, and the blood of my whole body came surging up as though it were all draining toward that shoulder. It felt as though my shoulder were being torn away whole. It felt like steel bars being driven into my body, one after another. Like the cords of an old torture rack twisted into my shoulder, the steel writhed this way and that, sinking deeper and deeper.
My shoulder hung so loose that the slightest pull would have taken it clean off, white bone laid bare; blood burst out and clouded my sight — and still the creature's gaze stayed fixed not on me but on the Saintess. And I hated that, furiously.
I pulled the left hand gripping its jaw away, formed a dagger, and drove it into the bastard's right eye — the one still glued to the Saintess.
"KUWAAARGH!!!"
"..So it does hurt, finally."
I twisted and gouged a few more times, and it thrashed in agony, slamming me straight into the ground.
WHAM──
"Kgh.."
My body bounced across the ground once, twice before the impact let go, and only after I had come to a complete stop could I survey what was left of me. The shoulder that had been dangling was already gone, and the blood seeping out of me had soaked every blade of grass around — but the blood leaking from its right eye was much the same.
Only after losing its right eye did the beast deign to look my way. It bared its teeth, naked killing intent radiating from every inch of its body.
I tried to pin my hopes on the others rushing up behind me, but the low-rank beasts, sensing their moment, flew into a frenzy and cut them off. For my part, so long as the Saintess was safe, nothing else mattered — the problem was the thing in front of me. This was the beast that had grasped before anyone else that the Saintess had to die, the kind of creature that could vanish in a heartbeat the moment you took your eyes off it. And in this very moment, it was grinding its fangs once more and charging straight at me. The thing that coveted God's proxy and meant to turn my dearest wish to foam. The King of Wolves — a leftover shard of mana, a warp in the world from the very beginning.
"..I've never once fought a beast, though."
Calling up the self I had been long, long ago — one of the Empire's Moons — I charged once more at the wolf that sought to devour the Moon.