Black (12): The Monster from Below
The students, faced with the endless waves of enemy forces, ground their teeth and grumbled that they were sick of it. Yet if the Ivestan soldiers standing in their way had overheard that complaint, they would have been struck speechless.
Sick of it? Tired? How could those words even leave their mouths at a time like this?
When the order first came down from above, the two things the Ivestans feared most were failing to arrive in time and letting the target slip away, or making a grand entrance only for another unit to finish the job before they could contribute anything meaningful. The more thoughtful ones worried about collateral damage during the chase, but even then their main concern was the possibility of an ambush while distracted—not the target’s resistance itself.
After all, the enemy numbered fewer than ten.
The situation had developed so suddenly that only a fraction of the nearby troops had arrived, yet they still mustered roughly eight hundred men. It should have been an overwhelmingly superior force that need not worry about a direct confrontation… or so they had believed.
So what in the world was this?
Violent gales tore the landscape apart. Bone-chilling cold froze everything in its path. Every time blades flashed with greedy hunger for blood, soldiers toppled like dry straw. After several small-scale clashes, the number of fallen targets remained zero. Their own side, however, had already suffered casualties exceeding one-tenth of the total force.
Even that reduced count existed only because the enemy avoided head-on fights and focused on breaking the encirclement to escape. Had they chosen annihilation as their goal, the damage would have been far worse.
“Are those people even human…?”
The Ivestan side was not without magic users, but individuals of that caliber were extremely rare. No—beyond rare. They fought like them—
“Snap out of it, all of you! They’re at their limit too! Look how few of them are actually fighting!”
One commander’s thunderous shout, meant to reach every ear, made the soldiers who had been sinking into dark imaginings blink and refocus. The blonde with the unpleasant expression was relentlessly hurling spells. The brown-haired girl rampaged so savagely it seemed impossible she was made of mere flesh and blood. Only those two still fought at full strength.
The well-dressed man and woman who appeared to be siblings had long since stopped counterattacking and were fully occupied with evasion and repositioning. The long-haired greatsword wielder and the fierce-looking dual-blade fighter swung only their weapons, unable to call upon flame slashes or white barriers any longer.
Yes. Just as their own side had taken losses, the enemy could not fight without cost. Moreover, these people had already brawled at the Ivestan base before rushing straight into this consecutive battle without rest. No matter how monstrous their strength, stamina and mana were not infinite. A limit had to exist.
The soldiers currently blocking Chrome’s party had no leisure to analyze the situation coolly. Even if they had, with their own necks on the chopping block, news that the enemy was exhausted or had spent their mana hardly felt real. Still, for most of the pursuit force, it was welcome information.
While their allies literally threw away their lives to pin down the enemy, the Ivestan mage who had swiftly secured the high ground quietly steadied his breathing.
His target was the blonde who had been spamming spells since the beginning. At this stage, with most of the enemy’s mana depleted, neutralizing her would leave no one capable of area attacks. Since the reason their overwhelming numbers had been useless was precisely those area spells, everything after that would be simple.
No matter how wildly the brown-haired girl rampaged, her weapon was still a melee tool. There was a limit to how many soldiers she could drop at once. If two rushed in while one fell, and ten closed the distance while two fell—what could she possibly do?
Even so, what pathetic skill. Such rich mana is wasted on her.
Of course, it was only fair to consider how difficult it must be to cast calmly while being chased by so many. Still, the blonde’s ability was undeniably low. Her spell completion was sloppy, mana leaked everywhere, accuracy was abysmal, and she only used mana spheres. Dealing with her was easy.
That said, a mid-tier spell was still a mid-tier spell. Its power was high enough that advancing while blocking with shields was impossible, making her a nuisance. If only he possessed that much mana, he wouldn’t be rolling around in the dirt—he could stand in a far higher place.
For the briefest moment—less than two seconds in real time—the mage entertained that thought before wiping it from his mind. The sniping spell was already complete. Given the opponent’s level, evasion was impossible. Just five more meters. Once she closed that distance, he could end her for certain.
That was the exact moment he felt a sudden chill.
“Ugh…?!”
The mage instinctively looked upward. Recognizing the enormous mass of flame plummeting from the distant sky, he canceled his prepared attack spell and frantically deployed a barrier.
A flash. An explosion so loud it nearly burst his eardrums.
When he finally opened his eyes, the mage stared in horror at the scene before him.
Pressing a burning torch against human skin produced horrific results, but against a building’s stone wall it would only leave soot. Thus, the common wisdom among mages was that flame spells offered excellent lethality but poor physical destructive power. He had believed that without question.
But this—
This was no longer a matter of broken trees or burning vegetation. A colossal crater had been gouged into the earth as if a giant had stomped down with all its might. The natural objects that once occupied the spot were now unrecognizable debris belching black smoke. If even the trees and ground had been reduced to this, what of the people who had stood there?
The mage was certain. The casualties from this single strike outnumbered the total losses from the entire pursuit battle so far.
Even high-tier spells, normally considered excessive against human targets, could not create such devastation. Only a supreme-tier spell—the pinnacle of magic, an ultimate strike that ordinary mages would never dare attempt—could accomplish this.
It was fortunate he had been relatively far from the impact point. A direct hit would have rendered his barrier meaningless. Even as terror and awe washed over him, the mage’s eyes gleamed with calculation.
There was no doubt the reinforcement who had launched that attack from the sky belonged to the enemy. But after expending a spell of that magnitude, they would need considerable time to recover. He had already reverse-calculated their position from the firing angle and mana flow. If he counterattacked immediately, he could claim an enormous prize.
…A prize?
“…Eh?”
As if mocking the mage’s common sense and plans, a second supreme-tier spell descended without hesitation. Some soldiers, having learned from the first strike, tried to defend or evade, but it was futile. By the time the third spell appeared, the battlefield was filled with nothing but fleeing men.
Hadn’t someone once said that true despair arrives only after hope has been dangled before your eyes?
Realizing the victory they thought they had glimpsed was merely an illusion, the soldiers abandoned the pursuit and fled in panic. The commanders who should have stopped them were in no better state.
“Impossible. There’s no way they possess that much mana—and even if they did, using it so casually is—”
Swoosh.
Even as the hunter’s arrow flying from afar pierced his skull, the mage could only stare blankly, denying reality until the very end.
“……If we had just brought her from the start, we wouldn’t have needed to run or fight at all, right?”
Crow’s voice was hollow. Eagle clicked his tongue in clear disdain.
“That’s what we call hindsight bias. This time the situation let us properly utilize Her Highness’s firepower, so it worked. In the first place, we had no idea how many enemies there were or what the situation was. How could we throw her in without preparation?”
On this point, I completely agreed with Eagle. What if the enemy’s strength had exceeded expectations? What if someone capable of countering Layla’s spells had been present? If the girl who must become the empire’s core for the sake of the future were to fall, no greater catastrophe could be imagined.
“Chrome! Are you injured anywhere?!”
The princess rushed over, eyes full of worry. I simply smiled without answering. She looked puzzled for a moment, then confirmed I had no serious wounds and breathed a sigh of relief.
I, too, felt relieved. Admitting I was so shocked by Lady Layla’s spell that I bit my tongue. It still hurts like hell would have been too embarrassing. I’d have to sneak a potion later.
Seeing the others gradually regrouping from afar, I finally felt the tension drain away. We had come this far. If some extra boss decided to pop out now, it could only mean the world itself bore me malice and was deliberately toying with me…
—Rumble rumble rumble!
Hey. Wait. This is not okay.
As if my protest meant nothing, the shaking only intensified. The vibration that felt strong enough to churn the earth grew louder instead of fading. Finally, right before our eyes, the ground split open and it burst forth.
How should I even describe it?
A super-giant earthworm formed from wood twisted and coiled in on itself, its head shaped like a drill. The reason I chose the word “drill” instead of cone or party hat was simple: that massive head was still spinning relentlessly even now.
The unidentified wooden drill worm stared at us for a brief moment—as much as directing a spinning drill in our direction could be called staring—then twisted its entire body and charged.