35. The Gardener (3)
35. The Gardener (3)
- 1 -
The battle between Copherin's senior knights and the Abominations grew fiercer with every passing moment.
Though the knights were pushing the zombies back overall, their side had already taken considerable casualties.
"Die—!!"
- Meeokitgaam!!!
"Kuaaaak!!"
Due to their smaller physiques, they were inherently disadvantaged in a straight one-on-one fight against the Abominations. The casualties were mounting because they had to compensate for that difference through coordinated teamwork among subordinate knights, or by throwing themselves into defensive roles.
A loss of about one knight for every arm they severed.
Considering that every knight was either an elite or, even at formal rank, well-trained, this alone constituted a staggering loss for the city.
But the bigger problem was that these zombie giants still refused to fall easily.
Seuseuseu...
"It's coming."
And then, beyond those giant zombies, above them—a fog was rolling in from behind.
A crimson fog, as if the air itself had been transmuted from evaporated blood.
Its true nature was twofold: the product of a vampire sparing no mana to push the 'Demon Realm' that should only exist inside her dungeon to its uttermost limits, and simultaneously, her own Blood Magic manifesting as a mist that spread far and wide.
Simultaneously.
- Fertilizer...
It was the signal, heralding the appearance of Dungeon Lord Serica.
"That's...!"
"Another enemy!"
It didn't take the people long to notice the red fog painting the sky like a twilight glow.
It would have been strange not to notice it, given the vastness of the area it blanketed.
- I need fertilizer.
"A mage...?"
"A girl? Where from...?"
"No! It's the Dungeon Lord! Get a grip, all of you!!"
The revealed appearance of Dungeon Lord Serica was, in a way, similar to mine.
The dress she'd chosen for her outing—a quieter design with fewer frills—and her petite stature gave her the feel of a young girl at first glance.
And she was a powerful demonic beast: a mage who commanded the undead.
Lastly...
"The Lady is prettier."
- Ddak!
"I wasn't thinking that, but thanks, Shue. Eve. Ahem."
Hmm.
According to Evangeline and Shue, she was less pretty than me but still beautiful, and her appearance, which closely resembled a human's, somehow radiated an inhuman feeling.
If there was one difference, it was that I was dark, while that being was incredibly flamboyant.
- Here. So many children who will become good fertilizer. And many children who will become good bonsai, too.
Golden twintails and crimson eyes.
A look that seemed to have literally jumped off the pages of a cartoon.
There was an irony to it: I, the dark one, lurked just before the dawn broke, while that flashy child greeted the twilight.
"Mages, assemble—!!!"
"Bring down the Dungeon Lord!!"
The humans' goal was to make that flamboyant star set completely.
"What shall we do, Master?"
"There's no need to move hastily. Still, we can disappear from this battlefield soon enough."
The commission entrusted to me was to somehow give that fading sun, which conjured the twilight, a chance to greet a different dawn.
Of course, there was also the option of simply waiting until that crumbling star went down completely, then chewing and swallowing it like a fruit, or just handing the corpse over to the commissioning family...
"The hardship is bitter, but its fruit is sweet."
I intended to take the difficult path.
To mature more fruit, more sweetly.
- 2 -
"Everyone. Make yourselves into components for my garden."
The Dungeon Lord appeared, and the moment she gave her single, almost imperious, command.
All the demon beasts began rampaging even more fiercely. No, they didn't just rampage more fiercely—they actually became stronger.
- Kyaaaak—!
A red glow settled over the zombies' bodies. Soon, the bloodshot veins in their eyes burst, dyeing the entire whites a deep, dark crimson.
Some even wept tears of blood, their blood pressure surging so violently that veins bulged red and blue all over their bodies. The heat of that pressure created shimmering heat hazes above their skin.
- Kkirroroyooot—!!!
For the Greenskins, wild creatures struck by the disaster of a rampaging Lord, the change was even more drastic. Their green skin was instantly stained a murky black.
It was as if the color of the blood within their skin had entirely changed.
- Kkihihit—!!
- Kreuraak!!
Both zombies and Greenskins grew faster, and their strength swelled. The berserker-like charge they already possessed was fueled further by that power, burning even hotter.
"Arise. Corrupted spirits."
It didn't end there.
- Geueuaak...
As mana poured out without restraint, beings whose fates had been twisted into corruption by Blood Magic began to rise.
Beings of fate that had been sealed and slumbering by the vampire's power.
Corrupted spirits of earth and darkness, summoned thanks to the natural affinity for earth and shadow common among these wicked races.
- Bone... to stone... Flesh... to dirt... Blood... to steel...
The earth spirit that governed this mountain.
To describe its shape, it was a wild boar with short hind legs and long front legs that could also serve as hands. Resembling a staple prey animal among the continent's hunters, this being opened the eye on its forehead—which it normally kept closed—its dark body now dyed a brilliant, corrupted red.
An eye torn long horizontally, then vertically, with teeth filling every gap.
Kieeing—!!
"Kuaaaak!!"
What shot from that eye was a beam of light.
Fortunately, most people managed to dodge or block it, but one unfortunate elite adventurer was struck.
The effect was brutally simple.
"Save m—!"
"No, Kailz!!"
"He turned to stone!!"
"That's the mountain spirit? That thing?"
It was petrification.
The third eye that once judged those who defied the mountain's providence—now that its owner was corrupted—began to exert its power to turn all life into raw materials for the mountain.
- Do... you see me...?
What arose alongside the mountain spirit was the spirit that once governed night and darkness, tending to all the caves of the mountain and the rest of its creatures.
Had druids or fortune-tellers with powers close to fate witnessed her current form, the stronger their talents, the more horrified they would have been.
For her current form had been distorted far more severely than the mountain spirit's.
Her nature being closer to the vampire's essence, she had been further corrupted into a bizarre shape.
- Fate... gazes... upon you...
The great wings, once spoken of in legend for their power to blanket the sky and usher in the night, had differentiated into tentacles that now pressed against the ground.
The motherly eyes of all ages, which had always watched benevolently over the dreams and lives of slumbering young things, had become compound eyes torn into ten segments, selecting the lives to be sacrificed to fate.
- You will... sleep.
Saaaak...!
"Sehera...? Herr? You're joking, right?"
The shade that once was cast for comfort now became a veil of eternal rest, reaping lives.
If those caught in her grasp could not be rescued in time, countless people would vanish into nothingness right then and there.
"You'll make good fertilizer..."
- ...
Thus, hovering in the sky and casting a grim power down upon the land, were one living being and two spirits, generally called elite-class.
Naturally, the Copherin side had also readied its next move.
"..."
"Ah... fuck this. When I should be rolling around in bed..."
"Shut your mouth and move."
A mature, silent female mage, a foul-mouthed male swordsman, and a similarly rough-mouthed, somewhat young female archer—three people in total.
Jin-kyung, Alexis, Lincia.
These three were the most renowned elite adventurers currently making a name for themselves in Copherin.
Considering that most adventurers above elite rank operated at the border with the Demon Realm, they were the strongest adventurers available in the city right now.
Because of that, they had been the first adventurers the city's request reached, and also because of that, they couldn't refuse the request.
Fleeing a city's crisis was essentially the same as discarding all the fame they had built up until then.
"Ah... fuck. Is this right? No matter how I look at it, those rotten pigs seem way easier..."
"..."
"That's true."
These three were not colleagues.
If they'd had personalities any worse than this, they would have recruited and raised party members below elite rank who could accommodate them, planning to head near the Demon Realm later, instead of forming a party with people who couldn't adjust to each other.
Though if one had to say, two of them needed someone to accommodate their personalities, while the remaining one needed someone to attend to her every whim.
"I should be spanking my darlings' butts..."
"..."
"Fuck. Shut your dirty mouth, I said."
"Yeah yeah yeah."
In any case, they did actually have parties tailored perfectly for themselves.
They had only formed this temporary party amongst themselves now to face the rampaging elite-grade Dungeon Lord and to prevent the deaths of the party members they had deep bonds with.
Now that the city's knights had rushed out first to face the Abominations, they were the only ones left to stop the Dungeon Lord and the spirits.
- I'll go first.
"Hup...!"
The first to move wasn't the two who seemed impatient, but Jin-kyung, who had been silent the entire time.
Having conveyed her intent to the two beside her through message magic, she gathered her breath and, without waiting for a reply, unleashed it.
- From the land of eternal permafrost, come the wind that freezes even darkness, and the lightning that shatters everything—!!
The words poured out all at once, without a single pause for breath.
Anyone unaware of the situation might think this was some kind of farce, but the phenomenon that followed was not a short skit—it was a full opera.
A single play, staged upon the red sky presided over by the vampire, under the direction of the conductor called the mage, with all manner of natural phenomena and magical distortions as the actors of fate.
Kwadeudeudeuk...!!
Kwareureureung!!!
Upon that stage, the two actors of fate—a fierce storm of freezing and a tempest of lightning—raised their voices higher, amplifying their presence.
Each then lashed out at a single audience member with that voice.
- Kuuaaak!!!
- Kaaaak!!!
The mountain and darkness spirits, taking the forms of boar and raven, moved with a roar.
The mountain wrapped its body around the vampire, while the darkness unfurled its tentacles, once wings, casting a connecting veil between them. A veil that shielded not only themselves but also the vampire.
Chwararak...!
The darkness moved softly, absorbing the attack.
But true to that softness, it couldn't deflect the attack entirely.
Jjeojeojeok...!!
- Kaaa...!!
Kwakwang!!
The darkness froze and split, and the lightning tore it apart.
The follow-up fire launched by the adventurers afterward struck the spirit's main body visible beyond the shattering veil. As the darkness and the mountain staggered—
"This is it!"
Shuak!!
"Ha."
Shaaak!
Alexis and Lincia fired off a slash and an arrow, each imbued with their own mana.
The attacks were aimed at the vampire, who was momentarily exposed through the gap.
"You stupid, inferior human wretches...!"
The vampire had waited until then not because she was helpless.
It was sheer aristocratic arrogance.
"You dare shove your ugly faces at me—someone as cute and pretty as me?!"
Chwaaak!!
With that narcissistic shriek, her lengthening fingernails tore into her own sleeves and both arms in an act of self-harm. The blood that gushed out instantly coated both her arms, forming hideous reinforced gauntlets around them.
At the same time, the translucent wings that had been faintly spread across the sky moments before grew even denser as they drank deep of the blood.
Kwadeudeudeuk!!
Kwang!
She crushed the slash in her grip and swatted the arrow away with a backhand. A violent movement utterly at odds with her outward appearance.
"Whew! Tough one! Not sure who's uglier. Look at those bloodshot eyes!"
"Focus!"
"I am focusing!"
Alexis, Lincia, and Jin-kyung each exerted their power to lift their bodies into the air, closing in on the vampire.
The situation was evenly matched.
The three adventurers' raw output was comparatively low, but the spirits, despite having gained more power through corruption, were currently unable to fully demonstrate their abilities—a lingering effect of their long sealing.
"Do not retreat!! If you retreat here, you could all find yourselves out on the streets immediately!!"
Thus, on the ground, the two knights and the army pushed back the vampire's forces.
- Kyaoo!!
- Kkuuaaak!!
And in the sky, the fight continued between the massive corrupted spirits, the Dungeon Lord leading them, and the three adventurers with the mages supporting them.
In the midst of it all.
"Miss Anjelita...?"
None of them noticed.
Seureureuk.
A couple of black figures, slipping through the shadows and crossing the center of the battlefield.