Chapter 78
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 78
Chapter Title: Raguel and Ariel
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Spirit's Protection.
A top-tier, overpowered spell that suited any build, whether you were a standard mage, a one-shot mage, or even a melee tank orc mage who had dumped all their stats into strength and vitality.
This spell, which deployed a barrier that absorbed all attacks for one second the moment a mage was hit, boasted performance on a completely different level from other flimsy barriers like ‘Arcane Shield’ or ‘Mana Shield’.
The first of its greatest advantages was that it consumed no mana to cast. This was only natural, given that the concept behind the spell was a spirit deploying a protective barrier on my behalf.
The second was that it wasn't an 'active' spell that had to be timed perfectly with an incoming attack. The spell deployed automatically whenever the mage was attacked. For me, with my abysmal reaction speed from having only 1 point in agility, it was hard to imagine a better spell.
But if you were to ask if this spell was a truly flawless, absolute defense… well, that wasn't quite the case.
As soon as I returned from the Akilliptus Forest Zone, I conducted various experiments on the spell 'Spirit's Protection' with Rex's help.
Thanks to that, I was able to discover two major drawbacks to this seemingly perfect defensive spell.
First and foremost, Spirit's Protection has a short 15-second cooldown. This made it difficult to deal effectively with enemies who used rapid, low-damage attacks, and I realized it was highly likely to expose a fatal opening against assassins like dagger-wielding rogues.
Second, the threshold for its activation condition—'the moment a mage is attacked'—was remarkably low.
A lightly thrown stone could be treated as an 'attack', causing the barrier to activate on its own. Even a comrade reaching out to me could be recognized as an 'attack' if their hand exceeded a certain speed and force, triggering the spell.
In the game, the developers would have precisely defined and coded the concept of 'an attack on a mage' by setting up each situation one by one… but no such coding applied to reality.
…I hadn't experienced it yet, but I was certain that if it ever started to hail, a barrier would pop up around my body every fifteen seconds, turning me into something of a disco ball.
In any case, it was still an attractive spell that automatically deployed a barrier nullifying all attacks for one second, but I learned that it wasn't without its shortcomings.
The spell called Spirit's Protection was… yes, it felt like a direct symbol of the transcendent being, Dajin.
A spell that was powerful, sturdy, and exceptional, but felt like it had a screw loose somewhere.
"Please be careful from now on. It goes without saying, but it's best to avoid activating the barrier needlessly."
Naturally, Rex and the soldiers assigned to guard me were aware of this fact.
That's why Rex was on high alert, scanning our surroundings with utmost concentration. A stray stone or a piece of flesh, which he would normally ignore, now posed a risk of triggering 'Spirit's Protection' if it happened to roll too close.
In a battle of this scale, fifteen seconds was more than enough time to turn the tide.
"Overlord spotted, twelve o'clock! It's Raguel!"
The wings of a demon with striking white skin and massive horns emerged from the clouds, silhouetted against the light. That Overlord, a specialist in flight and disruption, must have been observing the battle from his hiding place among the clouds all this time.
"Let's begin."
Raguel, whose skin was as pale and lumpy as a corpse's, pulled on his own tail as he spoke. The attached spinal column was ripped right out of Raguel's body. For a moment, his torso went limp as if he were an invertebrate, but he soon raised his head, a new spine already regenerated.
Raguel wrapped his severed tail around his hand and raised his own spine like a blade. A mere scratch from that sharp, poison-drenched bone meant death.
Faced with a weapon more gruesome than any I had seen before, I took a moment to steady my breath.
*Fwoosh—!*
While my eyes, along with Rex's and the old mage's, were drawn to Raguel's appearance on the battlefield, I heard something tear through the air.
I quickly turned my head toward the sound and saw a large arrowhead, unlike any I had seen before.
The arrowhead was already right before my eyes, its terrifying momentum threatening to pierce my skull at any moment.
For someone with my abysmal reaction speed to even perceive the attack meant it was already far too late to dodge. The arrow had flown hundreds of meters, and now only two meters remained before it would pierce my neck.
Two meters was far too short a distance for me to dodge an arrow that had covered hundreds of meters in less than a second.
*Fsssh…!*
With only a meter to go before the arrow pierced my neck, 'Spirit's Protection' activated once again.
The arrow, flying with terrifying force, disintegrated with a flash of lightning the instant it touched the rapidly deployed barrier.
The compressed air around the arrowhead exploded, lifting my bangs. A hot, unpleasant wind struck my face.
A sonic boom erupted from the arrow that had flown faster than the speed of sound. As the sudden explosion echoed across the tense battlefield, the soldiers all clenched their jaws and tightened their grips on their weapons.
"…Tch!"
Rex clicked his tongue as he saw the arrow that had flown from somewhere and struck my barrier, then apologized in a loud voice.
"My apologies! I couldn't even react!"
"It's fine. This was within our expectations."
Rex had a duty to protect me, and if necessary, to take an arrow or a spell in my place, but I had no intention of reprimanding him for failing to block that last attack.
It was because the skill of the sniper who fired that arrow was on another level.
"…So Ariel has appeared, too."
That last shot was, without a doubt, the work of the Mazoku Overlord, Ariel. The massive, cannonball-like arrowhead, the speed of the arrow far exceeding the sound barrier, and the resulting massive sonic boom—it was exactly as described in the game's setting book.
"…The shot came from roughly the two o'clock direction, but the enemy's exact position cannot be identified!"
An elven soldier, who had been carefully observing the battlefield from a step back, shouted loudly.
"Roughly?! Elf, do your damn job! Who here has better eyes than you, yet you can't pinpoint the sniper's location? Give us a precise location, not a general direction!"
"…Shut up. I'm concentrating."
The elf seemed irritated himself that he hadn't been able to locate the sniper in one go.
It wasn't surprising. An Overlord as cautious and specialized in sniping as Ariel would never have fired from a mere few hundred meters away. He was likely positioned at least several kilometers away, and the arrow's incredible speed would make it difficult to accurately observe its trajectory and trace it back.
Furthermore, Ariel's physical characteristics would be a major obstacle in pinpointing the sniper's location.
Ariel possessed a unique body structure that kept him shrouded in shadow, even if he were standing in a wide-open field with no cover whatsoever.
He had a very distinct appearance that was advantageous for a sniper, one whose exact form could never be discerned by ordinary eyes.
'Tracking the sniper's position by sight is practically impossible.'
"Rireu, are you ready?!"
"I know! Two o'clock, right?"
A sniper whose position couldn't be pinpointed, who fired with terrifying accuracy, and who launched massive arrows.
The moment they realized such a skilled sniper was lurking on the battlefield, most soldiers would have panicked, immediately diving into trenches or scrambling for cover.
However, my escort detail and I did not take a single step down from our position on the no-man's-land.
"Come down, sir! A sniper of this skill must be Ariel!"
"Dammit, General! It's Ariel and Raguel, two Overlords! We should fall back a step…!"
We had been aware that Ariel would appear on this battlefield for some time now.
A countermeasure for this ridiculously insane sniper—who was nearly impossible to observe by normal means, who fired cannonball-like arrows faster than the speed of sound, and who boasted 100 percent accuracy—had already been decided.
"Fall back?"
I said, turning to look behind me.
The eyes of the soldiers looking up at me from the trenches were filled with anxiety. I tried my best to force a relaxed smile to reassure them.
Truthfully, I was just as overwhelmed by this battlefield where Overlords popped up like common mobs, and I was just as afraid of death… but if I, the general, showed any fear or anxiety, the soldiers' morale would surely plummet.
If I was scared, they would be scared. If they were scared, no one would be willing to fight to protect me.
And if they didn't fight for me, I could do nothing. After all, a mage was an existence on the battlefield that absolutely required the help of others.
"Creatures like them aren't even worth my time."
To survive, I had no choice but to don a mask of composure and put on an absurd display of bravado.
"…Creatures like them? Let's see if you can still talk like that after I rip your head from your body!"
Raguel, who boasted particularly large wings among the Overlords, roared, his face turning beet red at my provocation.
"…"
Among the demons, for whom rationality and composure were basic virtues, Raguel was the only Overlord with a strongly emotional and impulsive personality.
There was no grand story behind why his personality was so different from his kin.
He was simply born from the Demon King's casual experiment, a thought along the lines of, 'Wouldn't the organization run more efficiently if there was at least one person who acted on emotion and impulse?'
Because of this, the number of high-ranking lords and demons under Raguel's command was only half that of the other Overlords.
To the Demon King, Raguel was nothing more than an experiment.
And he himself was well aware of that fact.
"Don't you dare look down on me, you defective product."
So if I was going to provoke someone, he would be the most effective target.
I looked up at the noisily flapping Raguel, frowned, and spoke.
"…Defective product."
The taunt seemed to have landed quite successfully. Veins bulged on his forehead, and green blood dripped from his clenched fists.
"I'll swap your guts with a pig's. I'll rip off your arms and legs and replace them with a beast's, and I'll make you feel the agony of being stabbed all over your body every single moment."
Raguel was an idiot. If he had just attacked in the time he spent spewing curses at me in his rage, things would have gotten considerably more complicated.
"Eye of stars, cloud of light, sea of scales and flower of salt."
Thanks to his foolish pride, Rireu was able to finish her incantation without any trouble.
The next moment, the dark clouds that had covered the sky began to churn. A bright light momentarily enveloped the heavens, and soon the sound of lightning tearing through the air shook the surroundings.
"Lightning Strike."
Rireu raised her small staff toward the sky and whispered softly.
The dark clouds covering the sky were now ours.