36. The Gardener (4)
36. The Gardener (4)
Kung-kung-kung!!
"Shit—!!"
Kwakwakwang—!!
The mountain spirit.
Its clumsy-looking, massive body charged at an unbelievable speed, and the mercenary group sent by a southern noble barely managed to hold it back.
In exchange for materializing in the physical world to wield its colossal mass, the spirit was forced to endure the ballistae embedded all over its body.
- Kkuiaak!!
It thrashed violently in rage, but to pull out the ballistae already lodged in its flesh, it had no choice but to temporarily release its materialization.
And that demanded intense concentration.
"Well done!"
Shwaaak!
In that moment, while the mountain was momentarily caught by the ankle, Lincia's curved shot seized the opening. The trait Rita would have called 'Hawk's Claw' shone brilliantly.
The arrow rose into the empty air, then gently turned its head back toward the ground and accelerated. The magically empowered shot precisely struck the mountain spirit's mutated third eye.
Kwak!!
- Kuwaaak!!!
"It's done!!"
"Fall back! Fall back! Don't overdo it! If you die, your pay is mine!"
"Boss! What kind of bullshit is that!"
"That's why I said stay alive!"
The mountain spirit writhed in agony.
As its rocky body, standing over 10 meters tall, began to rampage, its movements became attacks in themselves—devastating the surroundings.
Anyone who failed to stay calm would obviously be turned to pulp by those kicks and punches, so the mercenary captain pulled his men back.
- Kaaak!!
"You're damn noisy!"
- What we lay at the great hero's feet is our world!
While the mercenary group swiftly retreated, securing a safe distance and whittling down the mountain spirit, higher up in the air, Alexis Julka, gripping a single sword, was drawing the attention of the dark spirit and Serica with the support of Jin-kyung and the mages.
Shukaak!
Hwareureuk!
Sometimes with a slash, sometimes with flame magic.
His handling of both magic and the sword was so dazzling and swift that it frequently drew the eyes of the humans on the battlefield.
"You lowly humans...! Don't run!"
"Hey there, miss. You're so slow, can you even catch a bug? When this is over, I'll be plenty affectionate with you!"
The vampire's gaze and emotions, too.
"Hu... man...!!!"
Pachit!
"Huh?"
In the midst of her battle with the human magic swordsman, the vampire felt a sense of unease brush against the back of her head and momentarily stopped in place, turning her head.
A feeling was coming from 'home'.
Pacheut! Pachik!
"... These despicable humans...!"
Once could have been dismissed as a mistake, but the signal was not just once.
Only then did Serica realize what was happening, and her beautiful, fine-featured face contorted. So hideously that anyone who saw it might have recalled the Earth slang term 'Kaogei'.
The 'Garden' was under attack.
Out of all the rooms in the dungeon, the one left after eliminating all but two.
"W-Whoa... did you see that?"
- Focus.
"Whoa, you wouldn't be saying that if you got a good look at it."
As Alexis hesitated for a moment after seeing that face, the vampire began to unleash the full power she had been hiding even in this chaos.
「You dare touch my—Garden—!!!」
If her mana was a temporary force, the 'Garden' was one of the two elements that served as the base and root of the power she possessed.
The other of the two was the dungeon core.
If she even lost the garden, she would fall into ruin without any chance for further opportunity.
Her fury was a natural progression.
Kureureureung...!!
- Kuwaaak!!
- Kaaak!!
Embracing her fury and the mana drawn from it, the two spirits grew even larger and began to rampage even more fiercely.
"Become fertilizer for my territory—!!!"
She herself unfurled giant wings made of blood and beat them once.
Puhwaak—!!
"Kheuak!!"
"Ugh...!"
While countless casualties occurred among adventurers and soldiers who hadn't prepared for the wide-area attack from above, Alexis, having returned to the ground, cast a puzzled glance.
There was something in the vampire's words he couldn't understand.
"What's she talking about? Garden?"
- One of us must have been looking for an opportunity.
"Fucking dungeon and treasure! They're aiming for that?! In the middle of all this?!"
"Is this the first or second day adventurers have done something like that?"
"If we catch whatever son of a bitch did it, I'll kill them for sure! I'll throw them to the dogs!"
At Lincia and Jin-kyung's words, Alexis smacked his own head, enraged himself, then conjured a flame in one hand and soared back up.
The treasure was for later; the vampire rampaging was the immediate reality.
The regular army was essentially a rival and client. If the vampire rampaged and too many of them died, the fame the adventurers could gain would also dwindle.
"These bastards have finally completely lost it! Fall back and catch them slowly!!"
Even so, the tide of battle had become much more favorable for the humans.
The Dungeon Lord's rage affected every entity, breaking the balance between frenzy and combat strength.
"Monster bastard...! To cause this much trouble!"
Kwak!!
"Move quickly! Brave sons of Copherin! We'll catch the other one too, and head for the dungeon while the adventurers deal with the vampire!!"
"Oh—!!"
In the midst of that, Odelin, one of the two senior knights who had finally succeeded in crushing the head of one of the abominations—the one that had been spewing green plague—with a hammer, shouted out.
The knights responded and charged forward.
Kwajik!!
"This one was killed by me! Zent Klemma!!"
"Catch the zombies!!"
"It's not over yet!"
A moment later, the other abomination, which had been vomiting purple liquid, was also successfully destroyed.
Jent, having impaled the abomination's core on the tip of his axe and lifted it up, roared, and the knight order, recognizing the war was not yet over, turned their eyes to the small fry.
"Push them! Push!"
- Kyaaaak!!
"Don't breathe the steam! It's still poisonous! Mages and priests, focus on purification rather than pushing them back!"
A swift victory elates people.
The forces of the Copherin army pushed up toward the dungeon, their momentum surging. Now, the monsters' frenzy alone could not stop that momentum, could not stop this tide of battle.
"Fuck, they're saying that while we're listening."
"Knights really are boneheads. Should we try to circle around too?"
"Should we? Looks like we've won."
The adventurers and mercenaries, too, grew certain of their victory, checking corners to slip away and eyeing opportunities.
Zombies and greenskins were falling one by one, or in droves, and a path was gradually being made.
"Is that all you've got!? Miss! Put some more strength into it! You've got to dance, dance!"
"Shut!! Up!!!"
"What a foul mouth!"
- Let there be light. So that the darkness retreats! Let the mountain burn. O flame!
Shwaaak!!
- Kuwaak!!
- Kaaak!!
In the middle of it all, the three elite adventurers, clad in all manner of buffs, pressed the vampire's main body and spirits, pushing them to the brink of defeat.
Now, the only one relatively intact on this battlefield was the vampire alone.
"... Do you think I'll lose like this?"
Realizing this, the vampire's eyes, beyond the whites, stained the skin around them a deep crimson red.
A red aura flickered across her entire body, sparks flying—an ominous sign clear to anyone. The humans' preparation for it was inevitable.
- Prepare yourselves!! A mighty force that even death cannot invade!
"「Defensive Barrier」!"
"「Lead us not into the wicked test!」"
At her appearance, looking ready to charge and explode with power at any moment, the mages who heard Jin-kyung's warning and saw the vampire's state spread barriers all around in preparation.
Puk! Puuk!
"That's...!"
"Fuck. She's absorbing them! Block it!!"
In the meantime, the vampire shot out two tentacles and buried them into the back of the corrupted spirits' heads.
Veterans who realized what that meant broke from the shields and flew in as fast as possible, but while injection might take some time, forced retrieval did not require such a long time.
"To think I'd be put in a predicament because of the filthy acts of humans who even abandon their own comrades to seek profit...! 「Higanbana」—!!!"
Laughing hollowly as if dumbfounded, Serica summoned a giant crimson sphere in the air, drawing on the power she had scraped together once more.
This was a completely different method of magic from the tough way she had only used Blood Magic until now.
And the result of that secret technique soon appeared.
Puhwaak—!!
The sphere burst open, scattering toward the ground as it followed the vampire's gestures.
"They're rising again...?!"
"No matter how tenacious vampires or necromancers are...!"
Then, at the spot her fingers pointed to, zombies and greenskins began to rise once more.
Having fallen and then raised their bodies again, these ones, in addition to having their entire bodies stained red, each bore a single red flower on their heads, resembling a dead spider flipped on its back.
"Regrettably, I won't be able to make any bonsai. I'll just kill you all. 「Rose」."
She had failed to properly resurrect the abominations or even the spirits.
Instead, Serica left one crimson clone before her, a red layered flower floating above its head like a halo, and tapped the flower.
Tok.
As a bright red rose vividly bloomed, the clone opened its entirely red eyes.
"I'm busy, you see."
- Kyaaak!!
Kwadeudeuk—!!
And so, while the clone stepped forward and blood bloomed in full, Serica turned her body and began to fly away.
In order to protect whatever remained before the garden containing her memories was completely destroyed.
"That, that thing is running away!!"
"Where do you think...!"
"「Flame Orb」!"
"「Owl's Eye」—!"
Lincia's sniping, Alexis's ranged slash, and the attacks of all manner of mages.
However, none of those attacks could stop Serica's flight. She dodged the large attacks and simply took the small ones with her body, flying recklessly onward.
Puuk!
"Keuk...!"
Of those countless attacks, only one.
Even after being hit by Lincia's somewhat fatal arrow attack, no one could stop the reckless flight of the elite-grade entity as she flew away unconditionally.
"Damn it!"
"Let's chase her!!"
"This is perfect! The remaining treasure in the dungeon and the Lord's corpse alone will be worth a fortune!"
And those who could chase after the elder vampire were the personnel capable of flight.
Now the situation had been reversed.
On the contrary, the knights had their feet tied up on the ground by the resurrected zombies, while the mages and adventurers capable of flying through the sky began pursuing the vampire.
"This kind of rabble...!"
"Sir Jent! Those abominations...!"
"What...!"
"Those persistent things...!"
Naturally, there was no way the knights would just stand by and watch that scene...
But the two could not move.
At the place Jent and Odelin turned back to look at upon their subordinate knights' calls, the loathsome things were beginning to move again.
- Deolgeodeok...!
- Kudeok...!
The two monsters that had spewed purple liquid and green steam.
The abominations were rising again.
This time, with all their skin and muscle shed, in bodies made of bone.
Although they would not be able to exert elite-grade strength like before, their physical toughness alone was that of high-grade entities, not inferior to the abominations.
As skeleton giant soldiers.
- Dalkak!
- Deolgeok...!
All around, corpses that had not even been revived by the vampire's magic shed their outer layers, rose up on the spot, and assembled their bodies.
That ability made them ordinary skeletons, not as strong as before, but intermingled among the zombies bearing Higanbana on their heads, they were enough to further bolster the numbers.
Of course, the zombies commanded to 'stop the humans' did not interfere with those skeletons.
In an instant, the path was blocked.
"Other things are rising too...!"
"She's even using necromancy!"
Given previous events, it was an incident that forced everyone to conclude the vampire possessed 'necromancy'.
It was to the extent that a few conscious individuals thought, 'It would be better if we discovered and subjugated this menace now.'
"Rise. Slaves of the vampiric species. It is time to use your bodies once more, to guard the path your master must take."
Of course, the one presiding over it was not a glamorous vampire lady, as they expected, but a lady cloaked in a far nobler dignity.
"Push them back—!! They're much weaker than before!!"
"We have to chase the vampire!!"
"..."
In the eyes of the expressionless lady gazing upon the humans causing chaos, filled with desire, there was not a shred of contempt for trampling the weak or the base satisfaction that came with it.
There was only the anticipation of a hunter who had nearly succeeded in her hunt, or that of a predator.