Chapter 39
Translator: True Detective
Chapter 39: Alice's Nightmare (4)
"Since we don't know what is happening inside, it is an area we cannot judge hastily. Even if the other teams were on the outskirts of Zone A, it is the same dangerous situation."
Javert furrowed her brow.
“Let's hurry as much as possible. It might be a situation inside where every moment is urgent.”
“We will do our best!”
Afterward, the sorcerers devoted themselves to the work, drawing magic circles.
Javert stood with cold sweat dripping down.
Her signature green eyes only glared at the curtain.
‘This is unusual.’
She had that intuition.
An intuition that something terrible was approaching.
“Phew...”
A deep breath.
As the person in charge of the scene, she couldn't let herself be shaken.
Javert steadied her heart and glanced down at the crystal ball.
Contact with the inside of the barrier had been cut off, a situation where only crackling noise could be heard.
The screen of the crystal ball contained the profile of the team she had been keeping an eye on.
[Student Hunting Ground Team 31]
- Viktor
- Alice
- Alice
- Lanne Kihano
One of the teams isolated inside.
Javert quietly clenched her fist.
While chewing it over inwardly, a faint hope dwells.
‘Please.’
Let them be unharmed.
Let this be just a passing accident.
The woman thought, facing the swarming curtain.
Without knowing how futile such a thought was.
***
Inside the barrier.
15 minutes elapsed since the situation occurred.
“Miss Lanne, please take the back!”
“I will block this side!”
Viktor and his team members were facing the mutants.
Tentacles swarming everywhere, air drenched in demonic energy.
A desperate defense continued.
“Heueup...!”
—Kihano Style Spearmanship 3rd Form—
‘Slash and Smash’
*Chwaaak—!*
Sharply extending aura blooms in all directions.
Immediately after, mutants sliced into hundreds of pieces.
Between the collapsing corpses, new mutants rush in.
—Nik-neu-ne-ka-ri-di-rid-di-nal
—Kkils-gwulk-kkils-gwulk-kkils-gwulk-kkils-gwulk?
Six wolf legs, one bear leg, ten monkey legs, and even swarming tentacles.
Innumerable legs sweep the floor, crawling like a centipede.
Perhaps because of the dripping demonic energy, every plant it touches melts down.
Dozens of attached mouths bark wildly.
—A-wulk! A-wulk! A-wulk! A-wulk! A-wulk!
—Kkwels-hwalg-swelk-dwelk-jwulk-kkwels-hwalg-swelk-dwelk-jwulk
—Jjukk-jjukk-jjukk-jjukk-jjukk-jjukk-jjukk-jjukk
Just as the massive body was about to pounce on Lanne, something dropped onto the mutant's head.
“Initiate. Hammer.”
*Kwaaaang—!*
Immediately after, a giant hammer struck the centipede.
“Initiate. Thorns.”
*Pububuk—!*
At the same time, awls surged from the centipede's entire body.
However, perhaps due to its tenacious vitality, the tentacles moved without dying.
The boy wearing a mask did not panic.
He just continued to recite spells.
“Initiate. Thorns.”
“Initiate. Thorns.”
“Initiate. Thorns.”
“Initiate. Thorns.”
*Chwaak! Pubuk, puhwaak—!*
Thorns deploying repeatedly.
Eventually, the centipede couldn't withstand the damage and burst.
The corpse, turned into mush piece by piece, sprawled on the floor.
“Haa, haa...”
The boy catching his breath.
However, no time to rest was given.
Because other mutants immediately swarmed in.
“Sir Viktor! This way!”
A flashing spear.
Brilliant divine power, as if to show the dignity of a knight.
—Kihano Style Spearmanship 7th Form—
‘Falling Star’
A dense flash struck like a wave.
A wave that soon smashed the mutants and burned the wicked energy.
Even while melting in the divine power, the mutants continued to cry out.
—At-at-at-at-at-at-at-at-at
—Chalh-chwolg-chwils-chilm-chwuks-chaels-chaels-gwirg
As if.
As if mocking the struggling children.
“......It's endless. Are you both okay?”
“Miss Alice and I are fine. What about you, Sir Viktor...”
“I am also still fine. However, I wonder when this wave offensive will end...”
The children hunted the mutants step by step.
However, the speed at which they swarmed in was faster than the hunting speed.
With mutants all around the forest, there was no retreat path either.
It was a disadvantageous situation.
“Miss Alice? Is there still no contact from the crystal ball?”
“Yes... a-at all, the signal to the outside won't connect...”
“This is troublesome. I don't know if we can just blindly hold out...”
A tearful Alice, a gradually tiring Lanne.
Viktor commanding the situation in front of them.
The balance of the party was only precariously hanging on.
It wouldn't be strange if it broke at any time, nor would it be strange if someone collapsed.
“......”
Cold sweat flows.
The boy fingered his mask and spoke.
“For now... we just have to hold out. In a situation like this, the faculty members' side must have taken action too. The professors in charge are probably making a move.”
A hopeful briefing.
They were words to keep the other team members from despairing.
Beside him, Lanne gripped her spear, and Alice also held her sword tightly, as if trying to be of some help.
“Good.”
Viktor, having confirmed that.
After smiling once, he extended his scythe again.
“Then... we will link up like before. I ask for your support.”
“Y-yes, yes!”
“I will follow up immediately.”
*Ta-ak—.*
Viktor leaped towards the mutants like that.
It was then.
Something swaying on the ceiling.
For a moment, the children blankly looked up at it.
“......Uh?”
“Excuse me, something on the ceiling...?”
The next moment.
A bright red shape dropped from the ceiling.
It plunged into the floor without even time to dodge.
*Kwaaaaang—!*
A rupturing sound shook the heavens and the earth.
It happened in an instant.
Armor redder than blood, a height that seemed to be 10 meters.
Beyond the helmet, black tentacles swarmed.
““......””
In front of the children stood a knight.
A giant knight, clad in red armor.
In truth, it was unknown whether it was a giant or something else entirely...
“Ah...?”
That wasn't what was important right now.
The children's gazes headed toward the Red Knight's feet.
The ground relentlessly crushed, and fragments scattered haphazardly.
And.
“Sir Vik, tor...?”
“......?”
Beneath it, something was gruesomely crushed.
A lump of meat.
A shape that could only be described as such.
It was mutilated to the point where it was hard to believe it was once human.
Only a torn robe and a shattered mask revealed its identity.
“Lie, it's a lie...”
“......”
He died.
“Ah...”
Breath scattering blankly.
Shaking gazes climbed up the towering armor.
Only then did the existence in front of their eyes feel real.
““......””
They couldn't even breathe freely.
It felt as if the entire space was dominated by that giant.
Their muscles were rigid, unable to move, and only cold sweat flowed at the flesh-cutting sensation.
‘It can't be. This is definitely...’
Lanne muttered.
Because she had felt a sensation similar to this once before.
‘An Apostle of the Evil God.’
The Reader.
The ghost holding hundreds of grimoires.
It was the enemy that had driven Lanne to the brink of death.
If Viktor hadn't helped her, she really would have died back then.
‘It's the same.’
The existence in front of her eyes.
That red knight shared the same context.
Though clearly of a different race and different appearance, the girl felt they were the same.
[Name: The Red Knight]
- Race: ■■■, ■■
- Description: ■■ ■ ■■■ ■ ■■ ■■■.
- Race: ■■■, ■■
- Description: ■■ ■ ■■■ ■ ■■ ■■■.
A dizzying sense of fear made them stop breathing.
It hadn't shown much movement yet, but that alone was enough to overwhelm the area.
The Red Knight's pressure.
The bodies of the mutants scattered around began to burst one by one.
They couldn't withstand the demonic energy of the same frequency, the resonating power.
*Peo-eok, pang! Puhwaak—!*
A grotesque sight of flesh and internal organs splattering.
Even though the girls endured, nosebleeds were streaming down.
“Haa, haa...!”
“Ugh, uub...”
Panting breath.
Their eyes repeatedly looked up at the Red Knight, then down at Viktor, who had become minced meat.
“Eu, ah...”
Especially those two; they were among the few who knew Viktor's strength.
Lanne had personally witnessed him extinguishing 'The Reader' with a single branch.
Alice, through her ability, had peeked at him dismembering a dragon with a snap of his fingers.
And yet.
‘He was defeated...?’
Such a superman was defeated without even a chance to react.
An unbelievable reality.
The two were only continuing to be agitated.
When only a death-like silence flowed.
*Kkiiiiik—.*
The Red Knight, which had been standing still.
That existence began to move.
““......!””
The girls' pupils were dyed in despair.
Meanwhile.
I, who had slipped away with perfect timing, was sitting far away watching the situation.
The blonde and black-haired girls.
Standing before them was an Apostle of the Evil God.
I tapped my mask and muttered.
“Well then... shall we see how Alice reacts?”
Wonderland.
The nightmare settled deep within Alice's mind.
If the main body was pushed to its limits, it would surely react somehow.
“Once that thing pops out, I'll solve it all at once.”
The First Disaster, Pitch-black Night.
The Apostle of the Evil God, the Red Knight.
Even Alice's nightmare, Wonderland.
All the guys who would hinder future developments were gathered together.
“I'll beat you all up.”
And,
I intended to completely crush these bastards today.
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