Chapter 288
Chapter 288
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 288
Chapter Title: He Who Tries to Understand (4)
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The Lady of Flames, having absorbed every blaze that had erupted in the forest.
She had completed all her preparations and was on the verge of launching her attack when she suddenly vanished, slipping away like a matchstick extinguishing.
Upon seeing Oliver.
"......"
"......"
"......"
"......"
Everyone fell silent.
Oliver included, even the druid who had summoned the Lady of Flames.
It was only natural, given the utterly incomprehensible action.
And there was one more thing that defied understanding.
Why the fire spirit had not only flinched upon seeing Oliver but also harbored fear and awe toward him.
Hmm... Come to think of it, the salamander reacted the same way.
Oliver recalled a past incident he had briefly forgotten.
The time he first met Kevin during a mission outside the city. They had nearly died multiple times, but the final attack using the salamander had been especially perilous.
Its range was relatively narrow, but its firepower more than made up for it.
I couldn't even mount a proper defense back then. And yet I survived by striking back during that moment when the spirit felt fear, just like now... Why did it take me this long to notice?
Now that he thought about it, it was quite strange. Why hadn't he paid it any mind before?
Well, it wasn't that important, so he didn't dwell on it long.
I'll ask the old master about it later.
Oliver put the matter aside and turned his gaze to the druids opposite him.
There were six in total. Like him, they were baffled by the current situation.
No, more than baffled—they seemed utterly shocked.
As if grappling with something unbelievable and unacceptable, a profound absurdity.
It was, in a way, a perfectly natural reaction.
Druids were beings who had trained from childhood solely to commune with nature.
They had forsaken their precious youth—likely irreplaceable—and all worldly ties in exchange for that power.
Thanks to it, they embodied the mighty forces of nature, wielded them, and communed with spirits and the World Tree.
Yet the spirit they summoned after all that effort had unilaterally severed communication and fled at the sight of some black magician?
This was no mere misfire of a bullet or a failed spell. It was on another level entirely.
This was betrayal.
A betrayal of their cherished childhood efforts, perhaps of their very lives.
Thus, the druids harbored enmity and hatred toward Oliver that went far beyond mere enmity for an enemy.
"You bastard...! What the hell did you do?!"
The druids who had failed to summon their spirit reinforced their bodies with nature's power, gripped massive wooden hammers and spears, and charged at Oliver.
Their momentum was ferocious.
Oliver looked at them and said,
"Hunger... if you would."
At Oliver's request, a massive, grotesque man made of flames emerged from the forest, incinerating trees and shattering them as it appeared.
Having devoured no small number of people, Hunger had grown even larger, but it moved with a nimbleness belying its bloated size. It snatched a druid, hurled them into the air, and swallowed them whole with its enormous maw torn up to its ears.
"Aaaah...!! Aaaaah...! ...!!"
The druid, roasted golden all over in Hunger's grip, lost even the freedom to scream once inside its mouth and became living kindling in its belly.
"Uwaaaaaah!!!"
The druids, witnessing their comrade's gruesome death right before their eyes, flew into a rage and bellowed.
Their hearts cornered by the repeated shocks.
The druids pooled their power to raise a massive wooden pillar from the ground, smashing it into Hunger.
Thud—!!!
The same technique Hunger had suffered when it first charged.
The difference was that while Hunger had been knocked flat then, it wasn't this time.
Hunger's gaunt chest astonishingly withstood the wooden pillar crafted by the druids.
It had grown stronger. Oliver soon understood why.
So Hunger gets stronger by devouring people.
Not certain, but Oliver drew a tentative conclusion.
The only variable right now was whether it had eaten people like the druids or not.
Withstanding the combined assault, Hunger seized the pillar with both hands and strained.
Creeeeak...!
The nature-infused wooden pillar weakened as it burned in Hunger's flames and soon crumbled to dust.
Hunger followed up, swinging its long, emaciated arms at the druids.
"Kyakyakyakya hahahahaha—!!"
Hunger rampaged wildly, flailing its arms and legs.
It was mere beastly thrashing, but combined with its colossal size and malevolent heat, it was threat enough.
As Oliver prepared to assist Hunger against the druids, something barreled toward them at incredible speed from deeper in the forest, exuding an eerie aura.
A feeling both alien and familiar. It was someone from the Anti-Development Committee.
Shweeeek...! Tatatata! Tadak... Boom!!
The man, wrapped head to toe in bandages and a robe, leaped between trees at eye-defying speed, charging straight at Hunger.
At the house-sized living fireball, no less.
"Huh...?"
Hunger faltered for a moment but quickly recovered, gaping its maw wide at the incoming bandaged man.
Intending to swallow him.
Bang—!!
Astonishingly, the suddenly appeared bandaged man swung a quarterstaff made like a hunk of meat, piercing Hunger's mouth straight through with a shockwave.
It was impressive.
To overpower Hunger—which could battle multiple druids—single-handedly.
Hunger, its mouth run clean through from front to back, writhed in agony, spilling lava-like blood.
But that wasn't the end.
The bandaged man, unscathed by Hunger's flames, twirled his quarterstaff with dazzling skill before charging again. He shattered both ankles, then bisected its waist in a divine feat.
A technique even Randa's top superhumans couldn't replicate.
The successive shockwaves tore Hunger to pieces, and the bandaged man, quarterstaff in hand, turned to the stunned druids and said,
"Your boss is calling."
Unlike the other Anti-Development Committee members, his voice was natural.
The druids snapped to and fled en masse toward the forest center where Shamus was.
And they weren't the only ones retreating.
Oliver scanned the surroundings, focusing his black magic senses. The surviving druids had, for some reason, withdrawn toward Shamus's location deeper in the forest, and the Anti-Development Committee members were filling the void they left.
Astonishingly, even without the druids, the Anti-Development Committee was holding off the pursuing anti-Shamus coalition with their superior physical prowess.
-Tadak!!
Turning at the sound, Oliver saw the quarterstaff-wielding bandaged man moving again.
His target wasn't Oliver but the giantized zombies charging this way. The three zombies, their bodies honed to extremes and clad in scale armor, burst like water balloons under air-rending shockwaves.
Simple, overwhelming power.
And blisteringly fast to boot—he closed in on Oliver before he could react.
The bandaged man raised his quarterstaff high toward Oliver's head.
***
"Whew... That buys us a breather."
Shamus muttered as he ran his hands through his green hair.
Starting with the sudden black lightning strike, the tide had turned against them.
The rituals he had prepared since before the ABC's founding were half-destroyed, and monster-like zombie hordes alongside a fire-born beast had punched through their defenses with laughable ease.
Over a thousand troops encircling the forest had surged in like madmen in response.
No matter the protective rituals or the druids, there were limits to holding them off.
Yet the Anti-Development Committee, whom he had summoned to cover their retreat elsewhere, had volunteered their forces as shields.
He didn't know why, but it was pure luck.
Still, I don't like it. Unknown fortune and misfortune are essentially the same.
With no room to refuse, however, Shamus had followed the 'Elder''s suggestion, calling in reinforcements and gathering all the druids here.
Fortunately, the Anti-Development Committee is holding strong. Managing this well even without us.
Shamus thought as he surveyed the forest through the rituals he had placed everywhere.
The bandage-wrapped Anti-Development Committee members were blocking over a thousand city troops using superhuman strength, recovery, and bizarre tentacle-like traits.
It made sense why even Randa's toughest gangsters couldn't subdue them.
Worth every penny of the astronomical sum he had paid to hire them.
Not that it's much compared to what we've earned and will earn.
Shamus shoved aside complicated thoughts to focus on the pressing matter at hand.
The Anti-Development Committee's spatial transfer ritual, where bandage- and sackcloth-clad figures were piling fresh corpses onto an altar to conduct it.
It resembled the frequent cult rituals in Randa, but with a key difference: this one actually worked.
Proof was the mound of layered corpses fusing into a single mass of flesh, pulsing like new life.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
It emanated a power distinct from magic, black magic, nature's forces, or holy arts.
If anything, it resembled black magic or holy arts most closely.
"Ridiculous..."
Shamus chuckled. Similar to black magic yet also to holy arts? Even he, devoid of any faith, found it blasphemous.
But blasphemy aside, what did it matter?
Once the ritual finished, they could relocate to the safe haven Shamus desired.
The question is whether we can hold out that long. And transport that thing in time.
Shamus thought, eyeing the four druids surrounding the World Tree.
They had cast aside druidic pride, resorting to a magician's crude machinery to bind Eve forcibly and were trying to transfer her to a felled World Tree log in timber form.
Astonishingly, Eve refused to budge despite their efforts.
For a World Tree...
Shamus thought, glaring at Eve amid the chaos.
"How's it going?"
"I'm sorry, boss... We'll need more time."
A female druid with tree-branch tattoos on her face pleaded.
Her skill in handling World Trees rivaled Shamus's own.
"Feels like I heard that earlier."
"Truly sorry... For some reason, the resistance has intensified. We'll have to forcibly induce dormancy first."
Shamus monitored the forest's situation via his rituals.
The Anti-Development Committee was holding, but numbers mattered. Enemies were closing in. Time was short.
"Do whatever. Just get Eve onto that World Tree log no matter what. If push comes to shove, some damage is fine. Better damaged than lost."
Shamus pointed at the felled World Tree log and ordered. The female druid nodded.
She knew Eve's value as well as anyone, given her skill.
Meanwhile, the Anti-Development Committee's spatial transfer ritual reached its climax, and druids began returning one by one.
Dugan among them.
Dugan, who had gone to block Dave.
He had taken over ten fellow druids, yet only four returned.
Was Dave always this strong?
Shamus wondered. Common sense dictated facing two foes was harder than one.
Even among superhumans transcending normals, it held true.
Especially for superhumans, where one hit could be fatal.
Yet to drive multiple druids to near annihilation? Too suspicious.
"I-it doesn't make sense, boss."
Dugan said, visibly shaken at a glance.
"What doesn't?"
"D-Dave. That black magician's weird. The spirit fled the moment it saw him."
"The spirit fled? What nonsense is that?"
Shamus scowled and shot back.
Spirits were constituents of great nature. Fleeing from a mere human? Absurd.
It was betrayal, too.
Betrayal of we druids who devoted our lives to safeguarding nature.
As Dugan explained what happened, something else approached rapidly.
Enemy? Fortunately not.
It was the Anti-Development Committee's Elder, who had come to Shamus's aid.
He arrived in a flash at speeds astonishing even to druids.
Despite going to assist Dugan and eliminate Dave.
Shamus questioned him.
"Finished already?"
"No... The contract ends here."
The Anti-Development Committee's Elder declared unilaterally.