Chapter 408: The Rebels
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 408: The Rebels
Tyrant of the skies, reaper in the clouds, merciless hunter.
These were all nicknames for wyverns among high-rank hunters.
Wyverns were one of the most infamous magical beasts, their ranks varying from B to A-grade depending on the individual.
It wasn't uncommon for them to appear as gate bosses.
A colossal body, breath that could scorch the earth, and resistance to both physical and magical attacks.
According to records from an era when research on magical beasts was still in its infancy, people at the time often confused wyverns with dragons.
Considering that the largest wyvern ever discovered reached nearly fifty meters in length, it was no surprise that people of the past made such a mistake.
“It’s descending! Reform the ranks!”
Garret, battalion commander of the Orion Division's 2nd Regiment, 4th Battalion, and a knight under Baron Jerus, shouted at the wyvern as it swooped down to snatch more soldiers.
He had been crossing the Luden Mountains under the orders of his lord, Baron Jerus, who was also the commander of the 2nd Regiment, when they were suddenly ambushed by the wyvern.
“Kuaaaack!!!”
“N-No! Please, save meeee!!!”
As if mocking their solid defensive formation, the wyvern snatched several soldiers in an instant and soared back into the sky.
The faces of the soldiers turned pale as they heard their comrades' screams from above and felt the occasional drops of blood.
Their morale didn't just falter; it shattered.
Signs of terrified soldiers breaking rank and fleeing appeared everywhere.
At this rate, annihilation was inevitable.
Dammit, if only I were alone...!
Garret gritted his teeth.
He was a high-level Aura Expert. While not strong enough to face a wyvern alone, he could at least escape.
But he was the commander of a battalion.
If he fled by himself, the higher-ups would undoubtedly hold him responsible for losing his unit and send him to a penal unit.
For a knight who valued honor as much as his life, this was tantamount to a death sentence.
If only the ballista were still intact!
Wyverns were intelligent magical beasts.
With intelligence comparable to an upper-elementary school student, they knew to target the ballistae—the greatest threat to them—first.
Things might have been different if there had been a mage in their unit, but mages were a precious resource within the duchy.
There was no way one would be assigned to a mission that required crossing treacherous mountains where magical beasts frequently appeared.
“C-Commander...!!”
The moment Garret looked up at his adjutant's call, the wyvern's throat began to swell dramatically.
An immense heat spread in all directions, and the air in the vicinity instantly grew hot.
Despite the cold weather, with snow occasionally falling, the soldiers were sweating as they stared blankly at the sky.
Compared to a dragon, it was little more than a flying lizard, but a wyvern was still undeniably dragonfolk (龍族).
It was capable of spewing flames through a special organ in its body.
Fwoooosh!!
A massive torrent of fire engulfed the sky.
“S-Scatter!”
“Uwaaaah!”
“Get out of the way!”
“S-Save meee!”
The 4th Battalion scattered in a panic, but Garret remained frozen in place, sensing it instinctively.
It was already too late to dodge.
He pushed his body's durability to its limit by squeezing out every last bit of his aura.
But realizing it was nowhere near enough to block the wyvern's breath, he turned to flee.
And in that instant—
BOOOOM!!!
With a tremendous explosion, the wyvern's breath collided with a massive, invisible barrier and simply vanished.
The shockwave sent the helpless soldiers tumbling and flying across the ground.
Amid the chaos, where the searing heat parched his throat, Garret stared blankly up at the man standing in mid-air.
“A... a mage...?”
There was no doubt.
He swallowed dryly without realizing it.
Although he didn't know much about mages, he knew instinctively that the man before him was strong enough to kill him at any moment.
While Garret was still trying to grasp the situation, Kang Hyun-woo dispelled the barrier.
The staff felt unfamiliar in his hand, probably because it had been a while.
But the fact that it aided in calculating and deploying magic remained unchanged.
Crackle!!
The moment Kang Hyun-woo raised his staff, dozens of spears made of lightning filled the air.
Sensing the unusual mana, the wyvern narrowed its eyes and glared at him.
Immediately after—
“KRRRRRAAAAK!!!”
The 'Fear' unique to high-level magical beasts spread in all directions.
The soldiers foamed at the mouth and collapsed.
“Keuk?!”
Garret, who had instinctively raised his aura to defend himself, also suffered internal injuries and slumped to the ground.
He didn't know it, but the wyvern before him was the magical beast that reigned as the ruler of the Lugen Mountains.
It was a monster that could have easily appeared as the boss of an A-rank gate, yet Kang Hyun-woo didn't even blink.
“Be quiet.”
In that instant, dozens of lightning spears shot toward the wyvern.
The wyvern flew through the sky at a speed that defied its massive size, dodging the spears.
But that was only the beginning.
Rumble—
Dark clouds gathered in the sky, and an immense amount of lightning energy began to concentrate in one spot.
By the time the wyvern noticed the change, it was too late.
[Lightning Strike]
KRA-BOOOOM!!!
“Kaaaaack!!!”
Struck squarely by the lightning, the wyvern writhed in pain, but the scales of dragonfolk possessed strong magic resistance.
Though the power was abnormal, it was impossible to shoot down a wyvern with a mere 3rd-Circle spell.
And Kang Hyun-woo knew that well.
In the first place, that last spell was merely a means to gather the storm clouds.
“Fall.”
With a gesture of his hand, a streak of light shot down from the sky toward the ground.
It was an overwhelming strike that a mere flying lizard could never hope to evade.
[Electro Vortex]
—!!!!!!!!
*
Lightning, an element derived from fire, was a dangerous and destructive power that could even injure the mage who wielded it.
The result of combining that lightning element with Kang Hyun-woo's immense mana was truly tremendous.
Garret stood dumbfounded, his mouth agape at the scene unfolding before him.
Sizzzzzle—
Steam rose from the wyvern's thoroughly cooked carcass.
A smell similar to grilled snake meat wafted past his nose.
That massive wyvern... in a single blow...
Even after witnessing it from start to finish, he couldn't believe it.
This wasn't some poorly trained conscript army; it was a monster that had toyed with the regular soldiers of the Orion Division.
A single mage had defeated such a beast without any help from a vanguard?
While Garret and the other survivors of the 4th Battalion stared blankly at the wyvern's carcass, Kang Hyun-woo was lost in serious thought.
...Should I not have used magic to kill it?
Even if it was a subspecies, dragonfolk were still dragonfolk.
A wyvern's carcass could be sold for a high price.
But cooked through and through like this, most of its organs would be unusable, making it difficult to get a decent price.
Sigh... I should have just cut it down. Why did I have to go and act like a mage...
Kang Hyun-woo regretted his actions.
Of course, he wasn't struggling financially, but he wasn't the type to see a winning lottery ticket on the street and pretend he hadn't.
Tsk, no use regretting it now. I guess I'll have to sell it to the Association for cheap.
Kang Hyun-woo silently recited a Buddhist scripture.
Perhaps thanks to the effects of the Formless Vajra Art, simply reciting the scriptures had a calming effect on his mind and body.
“Excuse me... Sir Mage...?”
“Hm?”
Kang Hyun-woo turned his head at the voice from behind.
Garret stood there, a bright smile on his face.
He looked like someone overjoyed to have survived, but in reality, cold sweat was trickling down his spine.
Everyone knew that most mages had unpredictable personalities.
“Thank you for your grace, Sir Mage!! Thanks to you, we were able to survive!!”
“Are you the commander?”
“I am Garret, commander of the Orion Division's 2nd Regiment, 4th Battalion, and a knight of Baron Jerus!”
Kang Hyun-woo spoke to him informally, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
He knew very well how people in this world viewed mages.
Besides, to determine whether the man before him was part of the rebel army, it would be easier if he projected an air of authority.
“Ah, I've heard much of Count Orion's fame. He is a fine man, an exemplar of the nobility.”
“...Sir, the commander of the Orion Division is a marquis, not a count.”
“...”
A chilling silence fell.
Garret shot a glare at his tactless adjutant, as if he wanted to cut his head off on the spot.
“Haha, I must have been mistaken for a moment. Yes, His Excellency, Marquis Orion.”
“Ha, haha...! Please don't worry about it. To be honest, I often get them confused myself.”
“Haha, is that so?”
For a moment, amicable laughter blossomed between the two.
But it was short-lived.
“By the way, what are you doing here? And with an army, no less.”
“...I apologize, but that is a military secret, so I'm afraid I cannot say.”
Garret swallowed dryly, sweating.
Just that one question had made his face look considerably haggard.
“Military secrets, you say...”
As Kang Hyun-woo stroked his chin and looked at Garret, the company commanders gathered there all swallowed nervously, watching his expression.
Garret felt a pang of regret.
...I should have just told him.
But even if he didn't, Kang Hyun-woo had already reached a conclusion based on the information he had gathered.
“Well, if it's a military secret, I suppose it can't be helped.”
“Ah...! Th-Thank you for your understanding!!”
“Don't thank me. I was the one being inconsiderate. By the way, you said your name was Garret?”
“Yes? Yes, that's—”
Shhhk—
“......Huh?”
Garret's head flew through the air.
The eyes of the company commanders watching the scene went wide.
“You shouldn't reveal your affiliation so easily. You don't even know who I am.”
*
Currently, the Duchy of Orsia was in the midst of a war between the Duke Faction, loyal to the Grand Duke, and the Noble Faction, led by Marquis Kailix.
And Marquis Orion was one of the key figures leading the Noble Faction.
“A siege battle, huh...”
After wiping out the 4th Battalion, I absorbed the memories of the man named Garret and his company commanders to find out why they were crossing the Lugen Mountains.
They were a type of special detachment.
Pendria, the capital of the Duchy of Orsia, was situated in a terrain with mountains at its back and water at its front. The "mountains" in this case were the Lugen Mountains.
The Noble Faction intended to use the 4th Battalion as a joker card in the upcoming siege of the capital, which was why they had ordered them to cross the mountains.
Of course, no matter how lax the surveillance and defense of the rear were, it was common sense that a single battalion couldn't possibly breach the capital's walls.
But how wonderful would it be if the world always operated within the bounds of common sense?
I opened a small box I found on Garret.
Click—
Inside the box was a sphere smaller than a fist.
It resembled an Earth-made magic grenade, and it was clear that considerable effort had gone into sealing it.
“A weapon from the Mythical Era...”
The reason the Duchy of Orsia had long invested manpower and resources into exploring the Sutra Great Desert was simple.
They were searching for the ruins of nations that had built a super-ancient civilization, buried somewhere in the desert.
To be precise, they were after relics from the Mythical Era.
This object, which looked like a magic grenade, was also one of the strategic weapons from that era, possessing the ability to completely nullify all magic of the 7th Circle and below.
However, due to the passage of time, it took a long time to activate, had a short range, and was so fragile that it was prone to breaking from the slightest impact.
Moreover, there was only one, making it too variable for use on the battlefield.
This was especially true in a siege, where all sorts of magic and arrows would be flying about.
But if they could just activate it, it had the distinct advantage of being able to instantly neutralize the protective barrier on the capital's walls.
“...I probably shouldn't try to disassemble it, right?”
The ability to nullify magic.
It clearly operated on a different mechanism than reverse calculation.
But the situation wasn't right for that.
After pondering for a while, I finally put the box into my inventory along with the wyvern's carcass.
Even if I disassembled it later, there were a few people I wanted to show it to first.
Iris would be interested, but Hyena and Sister Lael would go crazy over this, right? Sister Yuna... she probably wouldn't care much.
Finally, after covering the soldiers' corpses with magic, I threw myself off the cliff.
I hadn't come with high expectations, but the haul was better than I thought.
For a mere battalion commander, he knew quite a lot.