Chapter 8
Chapter 8
Beatrice felt as if time itself had stopped, drowned out by the sound of her own pounding heart.
The skeleton in front of her was simply looking down at the ground where Cassian’s severed arm had decayed and fallen apart. But if she took her eyes off it, she felt like she would never see this world again.
“Contaminated.”
It muttered those words and casually shrugged again.
That indifferent attitude, as if they weren’t even worth fighting, irritated Beatrice—but it wasn’t wrong.
‘Cassian went down in one strike…’
Even within the Imperial Holy Knight Order, Cassian’s agility was well known. She was the kind of fighter who could pierce a falling petal with a dagger or reach an enemy’s back faster than the wind. But right now, that very speed had become her downfall.
It was instantaneous. The moment the skeleton grabbed Cassian’s sword, black smoke devoured her arm.
Thud. Thud. What fell to the ground were the remnants of a decayed limb, blood seeping into the soil and staining it a dark, filthy red.
“…ki, kik…”
Cassian was laughing—more eerily than ever before.
It was not a light injury. Far from it.
Beatrice gritted her teeth. They had to escape immediately.
Beatrice slowly pulled out her transfer stone, and Grad, who had been watching her, did the same.
But Cassian showed no intention of retreating.
“So this is it…! Now we’re talking! You’re pretty good for a bag of bones!!!”
Even as her arm rotted away, she smiled grotesquely, blood dripping from her lips.
Flesh melted away, revealing white bone underneath, yet the killing intent in Cassian’s eyes did not die. With her remaining left hand, she drew a dagger from her waist.
‘That stupid woman…’
Beatrice cursed inwardly—words unbecoming of a nun. Cassian was not someone she liked. Not even a little.
A battle addict who lived for blood and slaughter. The kind of person Beatrice despised most.
If she hadn’t been assigned as team leader, Beatrice would have left Cassian behind and returned already.
“Cassian! Are you insane?! Fall back immediately!”
If they escaped using the transfer stone now, Cassian would surely die here.
That could not happen.
So Beatrice raised her holy relic instead of the transfer stone and began the “Great Healing Prayer.”
A radiant divine light swirled around them, lifting dust from the ground.
Cassian, still excited, should have calmed down under the soothing effect of the healing prayer. She was crazy, yes—but not stupid. If she regained her senses, she would understand the gap in power and retreat.
But that expectation was cruelly betrayed.
“You’re mixing impurities in.”
The skeleton waved its hand as if swatting away flies.
It was absurd.
With that single motion, Beatrice’s divine power—gathered with all her strength—scattered like an illusion.
“…The holy spell has been erased…”
Beatrice was stunned.
Dispelling a spell was not impossible. But to do so required overwhelming superiority in power.
How could an undead like that even negate the “Great Healing Prayer”?
‘Can we even escape this?’
She bit her lip hard. Inside the skeleton’s hollow eye sockets, multiple Blood Peppers writhed and twisted like burning red pupils.
Those countless eyes turned toward them at once.
It felt as if they had wandered into the stomach of a predator.
The skeleton remained unmoved, casually observing the ruined soil as if mourning something.
That calm indifference was more terrifying than any executioner Beatrice had ever seen.
Meanwhile
Igripa felt a deep sense of trouble.
This was… inconvenient.
With every step the woman with the severed arm took back, drops of dark blood stained the soil I had carefully leveled for three days.
Just a few drops of blood might not sound like much—but reality was different.
It was like a single black bean dropped into a bowl of perfectly white rice.
No matter how small it was in proportion, who could still call it clean rice after that?
‘Sigh… can’t they go outside to do this?’
To make matters worse, the nun behind her kept unleashing blinding holy energy everywhere.
She was probably trying to heal the woman’s arm, but why did she have to do it here, scattering my soil everywhere?
It was like pouring charcoal dust into a clean rice container and shaking it.
“That’s why I said it—don’t mix impurities.”
I waved my hand like I was shooing away flies and erased the disturbing light.
People don’t die just because they lose an arm. It’s not like the end of the world—you just buy a potion on the way home and fix it.
So why are they making such a mess in my field?
‘Honestly, those people from the Holy Empire are all the same…’
Back when I was human, I was constantly chased by their inquisitors.
Everything was heresy to them. Breathe wrong and you were a heretic.
Their magic was… at least interesting.
It was layered like hundreds of equations stacked on top of each other, complicated enough that you couldn’t decode it at first glance.
But this nun’s spell?
‘Trash.’
Structure was loose, mana distribution was a mess. One tap and it would collapse.
No wonder it was messing up my soil.
I forced myself to calm down.
The soil being ruined was annoying, but I wasn’t a fighter. I was a farmer who could use magic—not a battlefield mage.
So I didn’t need to fight.
But then—
“Dieeeee!!! You bag of bones!!!”
The woman with the severed arm lunged again, gripping her dagger with her remaining hand.
Blood sprayed through the air in a line as she moved.
There was no reason left in her anymore. Only pure killing intent.
To me, she just looked like a stubborn calf trying to break through a fence.
I flicked my finger.
“Return beyond the horizon.”
It was an original spell I had created long ago.
Space twisted like paper being crumpled.
“No, this is impossible—AAAGHH!!”
Before her scream could even finish, she vanished in a spiral of distorted space, shot far away with the others.
Good riddance. Don’t come back.
Afterward
I poked the soil lightly with my finger.
Blood and mana residue had already seeped deep inside, sticking like grime.
‘Yeah… it’s already mixed.’
I let out a hollow laugh and drove my shovel deeper into the ground.
“…Igripa-nim?”
The Silverwood Queen had approached me with Bark without me noticing.
“W-what was that power just now… the ability to tear space itself?”
Bark asked with sparkling eyes.
Oh? Is he interested?
“Oh, that? It’s called ‘Return Beyond the Horizon.’”
“Beyond… the horizon?”
“Yeah. My original spell. No fixed coordinates needed. I can even keep the gate open permanently—also—”
I explained enthusiastically, genuinely happy that my magic was finally being appreciated.
But the Queen and Bark only stared blankly at each other.
“….”
No reaction.
…
Was it bad?
After 30 minutes of explanation and still no response, it seemed Bark’s question was just polite curiosity after all.
‘Sigh… I got excited alone again.’
If it had been something worth recognizing, I wouldn’t have spent 50 of my 70 years as a homeless man.
I would’ve been a court mage by now. Or at least invited to a magic tower.
‘Whatever. Let’s just farm.’
A rice plant just needs rice fields to survive.
And right now, farming mattered more than magic.
My hand tightened slightly around the shovel.