The Cruel Earth Mage (6)
—Whirrrrrrr!
The rune mana inside me stirred awake. What I was about to unleash wasn’t some grand spell or secret technique. It was closer to a cheap trick. As I’ve said many times before, the rune magic humans wield is basically just support-level stuff.
—The role of language is to speak, to listen, to write, and to convey. Bicorn’s words came to mind. And honestly, she hadn’t been wrong about a single thing. At its root, rune speech was still language. It could be used for magical purposes, but when you broke it down, it was just another form of lettering—like an alphabet.
Manifest it. The first syllable of the rune characters.
It was the very first rune, the one that meant “mouth.” Because sound produced from the mouth represented language in its most primitive form, this character was also used to mean “to convey meaning.”
—A letter symbolizing the wit of a bard and the wisdom of a magician.
—The rune of poetry, legend, and prophecy.
Its name was—
"──ᚨ(Ansuz)."
I recited the very first rune character, the one that carried the most meanings.
The rune of ᚨ(Ansuz) carved into the ground had the power to comfort wandering spirits who could not depart for the afterlife. If that horned bastard’s talk about a “soul power engine” was truly black magic that used souls, there should be some kind of reaction.
And—
My sloppy, half-assed reasoning turned out to be spot on.
—Ooooooo…….
—It hurts…….
I saw it. From the pile of shattered golems that Nefertiti had smashed to pieces, something like white, translucent smoke began to leak out. They were shapeless ghosts murmuring in ancient Britannian!
—Cold earth…….
—Is this the curse that binds me……?
—Even beneath the sunlight, it feels like I’m freezing…….
—O holy sun…… judge us…….
Like earthbound spirits chained to the golems, they longed for the sky. Unable to be freed, they staggered and lamented bitterly.
‘Can the other adventurers not see them?’
Even though these horrifying souls had risen, no one reacted. That was simply how souls were. Even in this other world where an afterlife seemed to exist, the souls of the living could only be seen, touched, and handled by those who had honed their spiritual senses through spells and rituals.
—Thump!!
I clutched my chest. My heart was pounding so violently it felt like it would burst! Had the rune magic gone wrong? No. That wasn’t it! This sensation came from my magic succeeding far beyond my expectations!
—Salvation…….
—Rest…….
Their sorrow and pain came through to me vividly. The black mage must have scraped them up from ruins and graveyards all over the world, because the souls had wildly different appearances and eras. That bastard had been using the souls of the dead as both artificial intelligence and power sources for his golems!
—Whoosh!
I looked at the giant golem. A white energy was condensing in the belly of the thirty-meter-tall construct! That was the power engine driving the giant golem!
《──The souls of these worthless trash?! How?!》
The black mage who had been laughing maniacally while attacking Nefertiti finally noticed the movement of the abandoned souls in the wilderness. His face hardened instantly.
《It’s you!!》
The black mage, realizing I was the culprit, immediately sent the giant golem charging straight toward me!
“What the actual fuck?!”
How the hell did that lunatic know I was behind this?! Well, thinking about it, the bastard was far more experienced with souls than I was. It would’ve been weirder if he hadn’t noticed!
“KyaAAAAAHH!! The golem’s coming!! R-run!!”
“Ugh?! Why suddenly?!”
The thirty-meter golem was sprinting at terrifying speed! Its already massive stride combined with a black magic speed buff made it look like a dirt tsunami!
“Goddamn it!!”
I had no choice. I broke away from the party and ran!
“Wait, Senior!! Where are you going?!”
Larilura tried to grab me in a panic. I deliberately dodged her hand. My sudden flash of insight had skipped straight past logic and reasoning to reach the correct answer.
‘My magic is a threat to that bastard!’
The only reason he was ignoring even Nefertiti to target me had to be that!
‘So I can’t show any movement that suggests I’m worried about my party members!’
That horned son of a bitch had a conscience as rotten and bloated as a raccoon left out for three days! If he realized how much I cared about Franc, he would turn the golem toward her! Then even if he didn’t chase me, I’d have no choice but to run under the golem’s feet to save her!
—Tap tap tap!!
That was why I ran toward where the souls were. The expert aggro techniques I had honed as an internet keyboard warrior had given me the correct answer!
‘You dirt-eating idiot! No matter how much you try to act tough, you’re nothing but a pathetic coward!’
When he fought Nefertiti, he set traps to keep the guild masters away and prioritized killing the mages! My years of experience mentally breaking countless keyboard warriors and kids through a monitor had allowed me to see right through that bastard’s true nature! A pathetic acquired psychopath who loved trampling on others’ dignity while foaming at the mouth and biting anything that threatened him!
A Mithril-class black mage? That was just the result! Compared to the power he possessed, his vessel was ridiculously narrow-minded! He was nothing more than a global-level basement dweller who had somehow gotten his hands on immense power after learning about the internet only an hour ago and was now running wild!
And among such petty villains—there wasn’t a single one who wasn’t a coward!
《You filthy human!!!》
The black mage went into a frenzy like a shut-in who had just heard that the celebrity he had flamed was suing him! The moment a knife was put to his throat, his true nature came pouring out!
—Thud!
I activated the full output of Beast Regression and arrived in front of the souls before the giant golem could. Roughly two seconds until the giant golem reached me! Good. That was plenty!
Two seconds was more than enough time for a top-tier bastard like me to act two or three times!
‘……So what exactly am I supposed to do now?’
I was screwed. It was great that I had made it this far, but I had nothing I could actually do! I had just charged out because I had no other options—I wasn’t hiding some secret ultimate move!!
‘I was just going to roughly tell them where the power engine was!!’
Finding the enemy golem’s vital point! That was the only way I had come up with to turn the situation around. I had simply thought that if Nefertiti knew the giant golem’s weakness, the fight would become much more favorable.
Honestly, in a battle between masters who were three or four levels above me, what more could I possibly do?! Just telling them the weakness was already doing my part as a support, wasn’t it?
—BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!
But there was no time to beg for my life with such excuses! The giant golem was charging right at me! Was I really about to be flattened into a pancake in this other world?!
“──Opening.”
—Whip!
Thud!!
At that moment, Nefertiti extended her whip and attacked. The long aura whip wrapped around the golem’s torso and stopped it cold.
—Kuuuung!!
—Creeeeaaak!!
Oh god of the sky. She had stopped a thirty-meter dirt golem with pure physical strength. If that person slapped me across the face, the top of my skull would probably turn into a brain-and-blood smoothie.
‘Anyway, I’m alive!’
I had almost pissed myself, but now I clenched my butt cheeks tight. I was about to tell them where the giant golem’s soul power engine was and then dodge—
—Oooooooo……!!
Ooooooo……!! It’s warm……!!
—How long has it been since I last felt human body heat……!!
—O savior, please save us……!!
But before I could even open my mouth, the ghosts moved first. They clung to my body and embraced me like mountain climbers stranded on Everest crowding around a fire.
“What the fuck is this?!”
When the startled me tried to shake them off, my heart began pounding violently again. Thump…! Thump…!
It felt like someone was pumping blood directly into my veins from the outside! I realized what was happening and was stunned.
‘This is── mana succession?’
Shwaaaaaaaa─!!
The mana flowing in from the ghosts was being filtered inside my body and converted into rune mana. Power surged through me. The mana overflowing from my vessel spread like blood from my heart, filling every extremity of my body.
—Aah…….
Rest is coming…….
—Finally, I too can go to the land of the gods, Mag Mell…….
—Anywhere is fine. As long as I’m with this warmth…….
Fwoooooosh─!!
They lost their human shapes and transformed into will-o’-the-wisp-like lights. White flames wrapped around my body. Perhaps the power of the runes had strengthened our connection. All sorts of emotions surged from my chest without any reason. Their feelings were being transmitted to me without words.
Because language was a means of conversation—and conversation was the act of conveying one’s heart.
“……Thank you.”
I expressed my gratitude to the liberated souls. Because their hearts were reaching me, I could tell. After wandering the nine heavens for so long, they no longer held any desire for revenge or struggle. And yet they had chosen to remain in this world a little longer.
To lend me their strength.
《Bastard!! A weak human like you dares interfere with me!!》
The black mage, whose feet were bound along with the golem, spewed hatred. His face—except for the horn on his forehead—turned bright red with rage.
《What could possibly change just because you borrow the power of trash?! I’ll kill you too!! I’ll kill you and use you as the golem’s power source!!》
He glared at me as if he wanted to kill me, but he didn’t descend from the golem’s back. It seemed he didn’t want to get beaten to death by Nefertiti the moment he touched the ground.
《How unsightly.》
I looked at the black mage’s pathetic behavior with disdain. Was it because I had gained confidence by borrowing the souls’ power? No, that wasn’t it. The souls sacrificed by this black mage no longer held any feelings toward him. He had acted like a king commanding an army of golems, but from beginning to end, he had always been alone. Abidus knew how to use powerful magic, but he didn’t know how to open his heart and truly talk with others. For someone like that, both pity and hatred were luxuries.
—Swish.
I formed a gun shape with my index finger. Bicorn had said that humans could only use rune magic by carving it into objects. In other words, that meant the original rune magic had other ways of being used besides writing and reading.
Besides carving into a medium, runes also had a “way of conveying meaning.” And this was the true original usage of the ᚨ(Ansuz) rune that the bastard had feared.
I declared it in the language of Narmer-Nile.
《──Return to where you belong.》
—Fwoosh.
The soul power engine inside the giant golem’s belly burst into flames. The souls that had been used as its power source began to respond to my words and attain Buddhahood. Until now they had moved as the black mage’s subordinates, but the soul inside that golem was also someone’s spirit that had been stripped of its ego and used as a part. A soul that had been enslaved like a slave practicing black magic in cold earth! He had regained his senses at my words and was burning his mana to free himself from the prison of his soul!
《S-stop!!! Stop it!!! Knumut!! Stoppp!!!》
The black mage let out a shrill scream as the core of his strategy began to collapse. The giant golem started splitting apart from the inside.
“Ooooooooooooooooo──!!!!!!”
—Craaaack!!
The golem roared, emitting pure white light! The spell formula had collapsed and the black mana was vanishing!
“Beautiful support. Thanks.”
—Taat!!
Nefertiti brushed past me, leaving behind words of gratitude. Then she leaped high into the sky. The whip, now extended over ten meters, raised its head like a snake with a will of its own. Nefertiti brought it down without mercy.
《──Farewell, Abidus.》
《You damn bastards──!!!》
—Craaaaaaaaack!!!
A tremendous strike slammed directly into the giant golem’s chest, as if trying to erase the black mage’s scream. It was almost like watching a meteor fall from the sky.
BAAAAAANG──!!!
The explosion of the giant golem’s fragments and the resulting storm!
Why the hell are you flying this way too, you sons of bitches!!
“Vector—Shrimp Back Exploder──!!!”
I curled up my arms and legs, taking a falling technique as I flew!! A magnificent breakfall that made me look like a pill bug beneath a rock being blown away by a typhoon!! The Taekwondo I learned back in my elementary school days saved my life!!
“Gyaaaaaaaah!!”
—Thud—roll roll roll roll roll!!
If I had been prepared, I might have been able to endure it, but because I had been standing there like an idiot, I rolled across the ground like a pitiful autumn leaf. Nefertiti landed right in front of me.
“Ugh, kuh……”
—Thump!
Nefertiti couldn’t even manage her usual graceful landing and fell to one knee. Her right arm, clearly visible because of her sleeveless top, was visibly swollen. Was it an injury from battle? Or maybe muscle rupture from holding back that giant golem.
I ran over to the panting Nefertiti.
“Lady Nefertiti!! Are you alright?!”
“……Yeah. But I pushed myself a little.”
Nefertiti answered my question, yet her eyes never left the giant golem’s corpse where dust was still rising.
‘Wait a fucking second. Dust?’
A terribly ominous feeling gripped me, and my eyes locked onto the same spot. It was a national rule of Power Rangers—when you defeat a monster, it gets giant. That black mage bastard had brought out a giant monster from the start as if he had a brain, but was this the pattern where you defeat the boss but the annoying sidekick that was clinging to it isn’t actually dead?
But no matter how Mithril-class he was, that horned bastard was a mage. There was no way he could survive the golem’s corpse explosion (magical damage) and a thirty-meter fall. I wanted to believe that.
Shuuuuuu…….
Feeling the mana the souls had lent me disappear, I waited for the dust cloud to clear. And then I saw it.
《Kuhuhuhu…… What a shame. Isn’t it, Nefertiti?》
One arm holding the staff was broken, his legs were shattered, but the black mage was still breathing, still alive. Fuck! He really didn’t die!
My vision went dark.
《The ‘Boundary of the Virgin’ and the ‘Boundary of Sorcery’ were spells prepared solely for you!! To separate you from those annoying mage guild and adventurer bastards and kill you!!》
The black mage shouted while bleeding.
《By the true voice of Amenemhet, son of the sun god, through the revelation of truth, I declare (sA ra imn-m-Hat mAa-xrw Dd.fm wpt mAat)!!》
“Aaaagh!! Fuck, seriously!!!”
That again?! Realizing the black mage still intended to fight, I dashed forward at full speed. The barrier in the sky hadn’t been lifted yet! The only way was to strike while he was defenseless, chanting his spell!
《Rise as a god (Dd.f xa m nTr)!!》
—Shhhhhk!!
Golems began rising from the corpse of the giant golem! The black mage was firing off spells in rapid succession.
—Kwaaaaaaaaah!!
Black magic without incantation covered the ground. The bastard was finally using black magic with his own hands! I could see the horn on his forehead and half his face grotesquely rotting away as a side effect.
“Bear-like strength! Rise!”
I clenched my fist tightly and charged at him. A sword couldn’t pierce his physical resistance barrier! The black mage, knowing this, laughed with his rotting face!
《Foolish brat!! The ‘Boundary of Sorcery’ is not a barrier that barbarians like you can──》
《My stance is a conceptual jump!!》
—Crackle!!
My body pierced straight through the blue barrier from the front. The mana coating wrapped around me is also magic, you dumbass!
《I-impossible──?!》
“You giant golem super-propaganda bastard──!!”
I closed the two-meter distance in an instant, penetrating deep into the barrier. A piece of trash who hid alone in a safe place and only caused trouble for others!!
“Your social distancing is filled with nothing but selfishness!!”
—BAAAAAANG!!
I slammed my fist, packed with the full power of an Earth Hero, straight into his ugly face.
“Go outside once in a while, you bastard!!!”
《Gheeeek──!!!》