241. Giant (4)
241. Giant (4)
Clatter, clatter, clatter—
The plains I returned to after a week.
Even though so little time had passed, a dark energy now wound through Raitel Castle.
But the atmosphere wasn't the only thing different from before.
Skeletons!
Pure-white skeletons wielding weapons surrounded the entire castle, clattering without pause.
It looked as if the armies of hell itself had manifested.
"Wh-what is this......?"
Im Ga-eul's voice came out flustered.
"Like a swarm of termites."
Ichika added flatly.
"See, it really isn't all that many."
"At the end of the day...... they're just bones."
In the face of that skeletal legion, only Jin Yu-ha and the giant remained unruffled.
"N-not that many? Th-that whole thing......!?"
Im Ga-eul whipped her head around, stunned.
Right now, the only thing filling her field of vision was an ocean of stark-white skeletons, and he called that not that many?
Could her hoobae be looking at a different landscape from the one she was seeing?
"Last time, during the war, when I cleared out the minions of the demon I'd been infiltrating, well, it looks like they could only summon about one-tenth of the number."
"......What? O-one-tenth!?"
They were seeing the same landscape after all.
The scale was simply different.
Gulp.
Im Ga-eul turned back toward the skeletal army and swallowed dryly.
'So those skeletons that were supposed to be here originally, there were ten times as many? What is that, that's just hell......!'
Ten times the skeletal army that stood here.
The moment she tried to picture that scene in her head, goosebumps broke out across Im Ga-eul's whole body.
Could anyone survive a battlefield like that?
Honestly, she had no confidence even now.
"Insane—what, what even is that......?"
"The Raitel wretches have sold their souls, that much is certain!"
"They lost the war and this is the madness they resort to......?"
"Urrrgh, c-can we make it back alive?"
"Get a hold of yourselves! Our guardian deity and our queen stand with us!"
Even the soldiers, summoned here still reeling from the aftermath of the last war, were trembling at the sight of that skeletal legion, weren't they?
The only reason they hadn't fled was because of this giant standing before them.
"Hoobae...... are we gonna lose?"
"We're gonna win."
Jin Yu-ha grinned as he answered.
"Well...... I get that the visuals are overwhelming and you're worried, but...... it's fine. We've got an uncursed giant. Ichika. And Ga-eul sunbae."
"......Wait, m-me!?"
Im Ga-eul pointed at her own face, bewildered.
The giant and Ichika, sure—but her, too?
This was the recognition and expectation from Jin Yu-ha she'd wanted so badly, but at this moment Im Ga-eul couldn't take it as a good thing at all.
Just what on earth was she supposed to do against those numbers?
The crown of queen was just something she'd stumbled into by luck after entering the book!
She was nothing more than a Magic Stone launchpad!
Without Magic Stones, she was just a talking potato, a useless female!
While she was tangled in confusion.
"Ichika."
Jin Yu-ha called to Ichika, who stood beside him.
"Yeah."
At Jin Yu-ha's call, Ichika calmly extended her hand.
Whooosh—
A desolate wind blew across the wasteland.
Shrrrk—
One by one, black shadows began to rise from the ground.
But the shadows she could summon now were, at best, in the hundreds.
A paltry number compared to the clattering white bones arrayed in formation over there.
'How the hell are we supposed to win with just that......?'
Just as her face was filling with worry.
"Ga-eul sunbae."
Jin Yu-ha called her.
"Huh......?"
"Area Acceleration. You can use it now, right?"
"......A-Area Acceleration?"
"Yeah, the thing you did before. When you cast a wide-area slow on the soldiers. Cast that on Ichika's shadows instead."
'Oh, that......?'
So, back in the last war, when the soldiers were about to chase down the Raitel Kingdom troops.
The thing she'd done by shouting to stop them?
It seemed her hoobae had somehow caught that even while fleeing.
'Is that what they call Area Slow and Area Acceleration? But I've only done it once, and I don't really remember how to—......'
As she made a troubled face.
Jin Yu-ha's expression flickered with a hint of disappointment.
"......Ah, you can't do it? Well, then I guess it can't be help—"
"No! I-I can do it!"
Im Ga-eul hastily cut off Jin Yu-ha's sentence and shouted.
No matter what, when her hoobae was counting on her, the last thing she wanted was to show him a pathetic side.
'Yeah, I did it once before. I can do this.......'
Im Ga-eul bit down hard on her lip.
First off, she had plenty of Magic Stones.
Since they'd heard this was the final chapter, she'd swept up every last Magic Stone left in Lilliput's royal palace.
And hadn't the retainers coughed up every last one they'd hidden away, claiming they'd repay it with the spoils from the Raitel Kingdom war?
Yeah, it just meant she'd be not a Magic Stone launchpad.
She'd be a Magic Stone artillery battery.
Im Ga-eul laid her hand atop the large pouch of Magic Stones the giant had brought over.
Haaaaah—
She closed her eyes and let out a long breath.
A moment later.
Flash!
Her eyes snapped open, blazing with sapphire light.
"Area Acceleration——!!!"
She unleashed the energy drawn from the Magic Stones toward the shadows.
Hummmmm—
Her Mana began to drift down over the shadows like snowflakes.
As if in answer, her hoobae Yu-ha opened his mouth.
"Like I said—bringing Ga-eul sunbae along this time was the best choice I ever made."
"......!"
Seeing Jin Yu-ha's smile, Im Ga-eul let her mouth fall open. Ah.
"......What about me?"
"Need you even ask? Ichika. Show them. What kind of person you are. And why I brought you here."
Ichika, receiving Jin Yu-ha's encouragement, issued her command to the shadows.
'Sweep all those skeletons away.'
At that.
WHOOOOSH—
Ichika's shadows lifted their bodies into the air and flew toward the skeletons.
* * *
The shadows Ichika controlled were useful enough on their own.
She'd mainly used them as footholds, but.
From the start, her role classification was Special.
She shines in one-against-many situations.
Her shadows already boasted speed that rivaled anything, and they possessed the freeform mobility to fly through the air.
And now Im Ga-eul's acceleration was stacked on top.
Sure, Ichika's shadows had the weakness of low attack power and endurance, but.
'Guys made up of nothing but bone like that? They're more than enough to handle.'
Crunch—!
Crack!
Crrk!
Crrrrack—!
A pitch-black wind swept past, and the chilling sound of bones shattering rang out.
I curled the corner of my mouth into a grin.
Tens of thousands of skeletal soldiers were being swept aside helplessly by merely a few hundred shadows.
Bone fragments flew everywhere as if they'd been struck by a gigantic truck.
No matter how hard the enemy tried to press with overwhelming numbers, they couldn't capture Ichika's shadows, which attacked while shifting between physical and spectral states.
"Th-this is the Minister of Magic for the Raitel Kingdom......!"
"N-no! I heard she was originally from our Lilliput Kingdom to begin with! That she was undercover as a spy and just came back this time!"
"......Ah, ah, yes, that's right!"
As Ichika single-handedly demonstrated the might of a hundred warriors, I could feel the soldiers who'd been cowering in fear behind us begin to regain their spirit.
"......Warrior. So when do we step in? At this rate, it looks like these shadows alone might end the war."
Just then, the giant spoke in a tone of slight concern.
"Wait a moment. We'll get our turn soon. By now, the other side must realize those skeleton soldiers they readied are useless."
I was watching the pale-faced man draped in a black robe standing atop the castle wall.
Dikrain.
Sure enough, he obviously hadn't expected things to go this way either. The chagrin was plain on his face.
'Will my Detection reach all the way there?'
I activated the Detection trait to hear the bastard's voice.
'Oh, it reaches?'
That Fire Dragon Elixir I'd taken last time must've had better effects than I thought.
Or maybe it's because I went up to 3-Star.
"Damn it all—everything, everything has gone wrong! Where in the hell did it all start going wrong!? And what in the name of all that is holy are those shadows!!"
He stomped the floor with a bang, throwing a fit.
He had every right to be pissed off.
Not one thing had gone smoothly; absolutely everything had been tangled up from the very beginning.
'I didn't expect it to go this far either. Well, not that I'm sorry.'
Watching him carry on, I let out a soft snort.
"This is bullshit......."
He covered his face with both hands and his body trembled violently.
"If it's come to this! Hrrrrgh....... Then there's no helping it, is there......."
Then, the bastard suddenly flung his robe wide and stretched both hands upward.
"O King of Hell, first of the lords, Baal who reigns over terror!! Your servant calls upon you here!!!"
And then, I saw darkness begin to fall across the sky above Dikrain's head, as if pitch-black ink had been released.
The moment I confirmed it, I climbed straight onto the giant's shoulder.
"Giant. Now. Let's go."
"Understood! At last......! The time has come to fight that demon bastard!"
As if the giant had been waiting for nothing but those words, he kicked off the ground.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Dust clouds rose along with the vibrations.
Waaaaaaah!!!!
And Lilliput's soldiers, too, let out a war cry and followed behind the giant.
At last, the final battle of Gulliver's Travels was about to begin.