Chapter 73: A Chance to Shine
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 73: A Chance to Shine
The monster’s arm shot toward Yohan. Its speed was far too great for its size. The only thing he could do in response to its swiftness was to guard his vital spots.
Shielding his face with his arms and his abdomen with his legs, Yohan leaped backward, bracing for the coming impact. Guarding his vitals was only to prevent instant death, not to avoid injury altogether.
But when the impact never came, Yohan quickly opened his eyes and looked ahead. A battered knight, torn to shreds, was standing in front of him.
“Yohan! Are you okay!?”
Beatrice, who had sent her doll flying, shouted his name. Only then did Yohan realize she had saved his life. He nodded and scrambled away from the spot.
Almost at the same instant he moved, the enraged monster’s strike tore through the ground.
─Killeeeeeeew!!
It was a shriek devoid of any reason, but Yohan was surprised that the creature could speak at all. Ever since meeting Fenrir, Evangeline’s familiar, he had never encountered another monster that could talk.
A sliver of fear rose in him at the thought that this thing was on the same level as Fenrir—and that it had even defeated Beatrice and made Evangeline bleed.
No, I can’t. I can’t think like this…
Remembering Hekaterina’s example, Yohan shook his head, trying to dispel the fear he felt from the monster. There was a chance it was a creature that fed on fear, just like the Witch of Terror.
Of course, that alone didn’t explain how it had managed to make Evangeline bleed—but Yohan decided to step back as far as he could so as not to interfere with the witches, and watched the fight.
“O, light!”
Evangeline, having healed her injuries, drew the sunlight from the sky into a single point and slammed it down on the monster’s head.
But the moment the attack reached the monster, it flowed around its body as if repelled by a magnet.
An invisible barrier was deflecting all attacks. Seeing this, Margaret unleashed a slash that cut through space itself, attempting to bisect the monster.
─St, oooop!!
“It deflected even this?”
None of the witches’ attacks, which Yohan had always considered the strongest, were working. Still, he watched them continue their assault without giving up, licking his lips as he stared at the monster.
…Is this my chance to shine?
“Light, sound, air, magic power, and time.”
Evangeline raised her magic power to its peak, making everything possible repel the monster. She stole its sight, took its hearing, denied it the freedom to breathe, stripped away the magic power suffusing the air, and even seized the very flow of time that belonged only to it.
As the monster stood frozen, deprived of everything, Margaret, who had been waiting for an opening, unleashed a grand spell.
“Eat this and—dieeeee!”
A kind of black hole, created by compressing space into a single point over and over, flew toward the monster. Robbed of the energy of its own timeline, the monster had no way to evade it.
The witches, thinking they could finally annihilate the creature, let out a hollow laugh when even this attack was deflected and flowed away.
“What is this thing?”
“I don’t know. A legendary dragon, maybe? Looking like that?”
The monster’s incredible magic resistance reminded them of the dragons of legend, the progenitors of magic. The two continued to search for a way to defeat it.
Now that they knew the monster’s attacks could distort and penetrate their own barriers, getting close to land a hit was not a good option.
Unlike the witches, who were ultimately human without their magic, that monster was a creature of heaven-shaking, earth-shattering size even without its spells.
What in the world do we do…
As Evangeline wracked her brain, the magic holding the monster in place vanished. Freed, the monster stared silently at the two of them.
A black liquid dripped from its pitch-black, emotionless eyes. No one there could have known that these were the tears of a monster that felt betrayed by the witches.
They simply covered their mouths, assuming the monster was up to something else.
─Uwoooooooooh!!
The monster grew enraged at the sight. It unleashed the magic of distortion, which had until now only enveloped its body, in every direction. It distorted space, distorted the air, and mixed the earth, magic power, and nature together.
The distorted spaces merged, creating a scene that was naturally impossible, and the monster charged forward, trampling over the twisted landscape.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
A large hole opened up in front of the monster, which had closed the distance in an instant. Margaret, having figured out that it could deflect direct attacks but couldn’t evade magic it ran into itself, had torn open the rift.
After confirming the monster had plunged into the hole, Margaret sealed the spatial tear. Not even she knew where the other side led.
“Did we get it?”
“Where did you send it?”
“No idea. It’s somewhere, I guess.”
Now that she had found a way to deal with it, Margaret figured she could just send it to the bottom of the deep sea or into outer space next time. She smiled leisurely and walked toward Yohan.
“Disciple! Your awesome big sister took care of everything, so let’s go ba—”
“Behind you!”
Yohan shouted. Margaret tilted her head and looked back. There, standing proudly, was the monster, having returned by distorting space.
─ķ̸̨͉̩̞̺͚̭̠̿̎̓͑̚͝k̶̛̺̣̲͓̜̹̬͍̮̓̿̓̏̎̓̋̎͑̕û̸̲̼̈̍̄ş̵̧̗̙̻̙͠ṱ̶̢̖͋̽͊̃̽̈́̚i̴̙̣͚̙̱̹̦͑͆̊̇̊̌͆̔͠͝ņ̸̡̛̪̻̦̳̈́͆̂̅̐̑́̑̕k̸̢̘͓̦͔͓͓̈́̓̈́̂͠
A chill ran down Margaret’s entire body. She reacted a moment too late as the monster thrust its hand toward her.
Squelch—! The instant the monster’s hand partially pierced her abdomen, Margaret opened a spatial tear behind her and made an emergency escape.
Appearing several meters away, Margaret was bleeding profusely from her torn abdomen as she collapsed, unconscious.
“Margaret!”
Thud— The monster stood in Yohan’s way.
Yohan glared at it.
One by one, they were bleeding.
One of them was now gravely injured.
She would die if she wasn’t treated quickly.
Margaret would die.
I have to do it.
This was no time to be thrilled about getting a chance to shine. Yohan tapped Evangeline, who stood before him, on the shoulder and stepped forward.
“Teacher.”
“Yohan? Why are you… Stay behind me. I’ll figure something out…”
“It’ll be too late.”
He had started this fight.
This fight happened because of him.
And because of that fight, someone was about to die.
Yohan couldn’t bear that fact. If someone’s life was on the line, he had to be willing to risk his own.
“I’m going, Teacher.”
With those words, Yohan charged forward. The monster, seeing the insignificant gnat rushing toward it, swung its arm. A strike with speed unbefitting its massive frame.
The blow, which tore through the very wall of air and bordered on the realm of sound, was about to connect with Yohan’s body.
At that same moment, the monster’s hand was sent flying back. The monster frowned, looking at Yohan. There had been no magic on him, yet in the 0.01 seconds before its hand made contact, in that fleeting instant, Evangeline’s magic had appeared.
If it had appeared any sooner, the monster would have tried to pierce through it with its power of distortion. But Evangeline’s frantic obsession with not letting Yohan die had brought about a miracle.
“I knew you would.”
With a grin, Yohan leaped into the monster’s embrace—though it was more like he just grabbed onto its leg.
The moment he touched the monster’s leg, the magic Yohan possessed activated. The magic that nullified all other magic. The distortion enveloping the monster’s body completely vanished.
─d̴͚̊̎̇͆̋̎́͗̿́̚Ő̶̧̢̨̻̩͔͍̰̪̺̐̎̌̈́̋̔̀̾͒̄̀̚̕͠Ȩ̵̢͓̱̟̩̰̩̟͖̭̞̱̈́̐͊̑̾͑͝ͅͅD̵̢̘̳̥̻͇̥̮̗̗͇͇̽̀̿͊̌̈͜͝͝Ḿ̸̭̻̫̠̜̪̱̑̓̓̑͒͒̏ẅ̸͖́́̿̀̊̿̉́̕͝͝！！
Of course, even without magic, a monster was still a monster. Killing Yohan, a human who knew a little magic, would be as easy as squashing a bug.
And it would have, if Evangeline hadn’t been there.
“—Be quiet.”
Enraged that her disciple had been put in danger, Evangeline began to twist her magic power into a spiral. A cannon of rotating magic power shot toward the monster, and its upper body began to crumple around the blast.
The monster’s power far surpassed human strength and common sense, but even it could not overcome a witch’s magic.
Soon, the monster’s upper body completely disappeared. It slumped to the ground, but Evangeline didn’t let her guard down, completely atomizing its remaining lower half.
Without a moment to marvel at the massive creature vanishing before his eyes, Yohan immediately ran to Margaret.
“Teacher!”
“I know.”
Stopping Yohan from picking up the intestines spilling onto the ground, Evangeline gestured to Beatrice, who was standing there in a daze.
After creating pure water to clean the dirt from the organs, Evangeline looked at Beatrice and asked.
“She needs to be stitched up. You know how to perform surgery, right?”
“Beatrice, she says you need to sew her up!”
“I-I don’t know how…”
“It’s just like sewing your dolls! Just do it the same way!”
It was her first time performing surgery on a human body. Beatrice trembled with fear—but then she felt Yohan’s hand cover the back of hers and slowly lifted her head.
“Beatrice, you can do it.”
“…But.”
“It’s okay. Trust me. Your dolls… I could barely tell them apart from real people.”
Hearing Yohan’s words, Beatrice slowly nodded and drew out a thread of magic power. Her hand, which had been shaking uncontrollably just moments before, was now steady.
Realizing Beatrice was ready, Evangeline immediately placed Margaret’s organs back inside her and used her magic.
As the organs returned to their proper places and the flesh began to knit itself together—Beatrice carefully sutured Margaret’s abdomen.
The surgery was a success.