Chapter 99
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 99
Ar spoke in a soft, gentle tone.
“Since things have come to this, it might be better to accelerate our plans and achieve what we want.”
The magic scholar listening to her narrowed his eyes.
With her chin resting on her interlaced fingers, Ar concluded, her voice heavy with purpose.
“We begin at once.”
* * *
“Ah…”
Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling, and she accidentally dropped her staff.
The staff hit the ground with a clear, ringing clatter.
A sigh escaped Melju’s lips, a mixture of awe and bewilderment. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
It was over.
It had ended in the blink of an eye.
That was the only possible conclusion. Anyone who had seen the spell's trajectory would agree.
Normally, the spell Frozen Spear had no particular merits, aside from being simple to cast for a mid-tier spell.
Furthermore, it focused more on the ‘spear’ aspect than the ‘frozen’ aspect, so it was difficult to expect any frost damage without a direct hit.
To make matters worse, like most projectiles, its power diminished with distance.
The caster also had to aim it manually.
In short, it was hardly a 'high-performance spell' favored by mages.
Used normally, it would have produced mediocre results.
“…”
Perhaps tired of being surprised, Melju simply kept her mouth shut.
—Everything in the spear's path had been frozen solid.
The frozen path was easily over five meters wide—the sheer extent of the frost radiating from the spear.
And not even Marmolia, who had withstood high-tier magic head-on, was an exception to its chill.
Marmolia was frozen mid-dash, her posture perfectly preserved in ice.
The side of her torso, where the projectile had grazed her, was completely gone.
Even though the spell had been cast unstably and had only grazed her, the result was devastating.
Melju, who had been standing in a daze, stared at Marmolia for a long time before finally moving.
Gripping her fallen staff tightly, she approached Marmolia with extreme caution.
She first checked for any signs of life with detection magic, then stepped closer and brushed a hand against the frozen flesh.
There was no trick. It was exactly as it seemed.
She wasn't dead yet, but her faint life force was fading fast.
In short, she was as good as dead.
[Mel… ju… die…]
As she drew closer, a telepathic message echoed in her mind.
Melju listened to the final words, but the message cut off before the thought could be completed.
She would never know if Marmolia had meant to kill her or if she was asking to be killed.
“…”
Silence descended.
An eternal silence.
“…It’s finally over.”
Only after confirming Marmolia’s death did Melju take a few steps back and collapse to the ground.
As the tension drained from her body, a small tremor ran through her. Her strength vanished so suddenly she felt she might faint from exhaustion.
‘That was dangerous.’
She had somehow managed to complete the casting, but in the brief moment before the magic was released, she had brushed against death several times.
The foreign mana was like gunpowder, flowing so wildly it felt as if it would explode at the slightest touch.
With her body filled with the stuff, it was a miracle she hadn't blown herself to pieces.
‘I was only able to be so reckless because it was my first time… If I were ever in a similar situation again…’
Could she complete the casting safely then?
…No way.
The moment she hesitated, even for an instant, the entire casting would have gone awry. Now that she knew its terror, there was no way she could use it calmly again.
If she tried to handle mana like that again, she would surely die in the explosion.
—A power that could only be wielded at the cost of one's life.
“…”
Just in case, Melju closed her eyes and read the flow of mana within her body.
She must be recovering, because her depleted mana was slowly—very slowly—refilling.
When Melju channeled a tiny bit of mana to her index finger, a small flame the size of a knuckle flickered to life.
‘When I only use my surplus mana, it's no different from usual.’
This confirmed her theory. The phenomenon was possible because the foreign mana pooled beneath her own.
“…Then.”
Steeling herself, Melju took a deep breath and carefully tried to draw up the mana from the very bottom.
Instantly, something surged from within, and she clutched her mouth.
‘Ugh.’
It was only for a moment, but she felt it clearly. At her current level, she couldn't even manage to draw up that foreign mana.
One wrong move and she would die.
For a second, it felt as if the black substance was about to seize control of every nerve in her body.
‘I expected as much, but is it really impossible for now?’
After dry-heaving a few times, Melju finally managed to calm herself and get to her feet.
‘I should head back.’
Now that she had a rough grasp of the foreign mana, there was no reason to linger.
She had told Swallow she would 'check on the situation,' so he was surely waiting for her.
Melju brushed the last traces of Marmolia from her dress and turned to leave.
She didn't know the state of the rest of Knecht.
However, judging by what she'd seen on her way here, the monsters in most areas had likely been cleared out.
In that case, flying over the city with magic would only draw unwanted attention from the humans.
Flight magic was not a good way to return.
Melju decided to walk for a bit before using consecutive teleportation spells to leave Knecht in one go.
Crack.
As she trudged away, a sound came from behind her.
Unless she was mistaken, it was the sound of ice breaking.
“…!”
The moment she heard it, Melju spun around, panic flashing across her face as her eyes frantically scanned the area.
The bodies of the subjugation squad members were still strewn across the ground.
The identical monster corpses were untouched, and Marmolia's frozen body… was exactly where she'd left it.
Nothing had changed.
‘…Of course.’
Marmolia was still dead.
‘I’m just being paranoid.’
Only after confirming once again that Marmolia's heart had stopped did Melju let out a sigh of relief.
Yes, unlike the first time when she had been careless, the woman was definitely dead.
Marmolia was finished.
She turned away again, making a small promise to herself not to look back, no matter what she heard. She took a few more steps.
Crack.
The sound came again.
This time, she didn't turn. She just froze, straining her ears.
The cracking sounds grew more frequent, ringing out continuously.
Melju was certain.
This was, without a doubt, the sound of ice breaking away.
And there was only one thing here that could make such a racket as it shed its icy shell.
Marmolia.
‘How…?’
It was too soon for the ice to melt. Was it breaking because she was moving?
—But she should be dead.
Crack… squelch.
A new sound deepened her doubt, and Melju whipped her head around.
There was no need to look at anything else.
She stared directly at Marmolia's corpse.
“What in the world is…?”
Marmolia was definitely dead. That fact remained unchanged.
However, an unidentified organism was emerging from Marmolia's mouth, its body swelling rapidly.
The creature's body spread out like a thin membrane, wrapping around Marmolia's corpse.
Seeing this, Melju knew instantly what it was doing.
…It was going to swallow Marmolia's corpse whole.
By the time she thought to stop it, Marmolia's corpse had already been consumed, ice and all.
A sickening glug, glug sound reached her ears.
After swallowing Marmolia, the strange creature writhed.
Its membrane was so thin that she could see its contents clearly. It was decomposing Marmolia from the inside.
A fluid flowing through its body dissolved her muscle and skin, absorbing the mana that dwelled within.
Having decomposed and absorbed Marmolia in an instant, the creature continued to expand.
Melju instinctively took a few steps back.
The organism possessed a grotesqueness entirely different from Marmolia's.
First of all, it had no limbs. Instead, long, tentacle-like protrusions extended from various parts of its body.
“…Ha, I suppose you never get tired of this.”
Melju laughed bitterly. Faced with fighting a difficult monster for a third time, her exhaustion began to outweigh her fear.
At this point, she wouldn't be surprised no matter how many times it resurrected.
Judging the situation coldly, she knew she could never win in her current state.
With her remaining mana, she could cast one mid-tier spell and teleport twice, at most.
That was all she had to work with.
Naturally, her only move was survival.
There wasn't a shred of a chance of winning, so she didn't even consider it.
In fact, she didn't want to fight at all. Marmolia was dead. Her obligation was fulfilled.
‘I'll buy some time with a mid-tier spell, then put as much distance between us as possible with two teleportations…’
Having decided on the simplest, most efficient method, Melju raised her staff with both hands and glared at the creature.
If it had absorbed Marmolia's mana, it had likely gained her detection abilities as well.
She had to cast her spells and escape in the shortest time possible.
The monster's expansion suddenly stopped. Seizing the opening, Melju began to cast.
Mid-tier magic—“Ah?”
A sensation of something snapping.
The moment the magic circle unfolded, Melju screamed.
“Ah… Ah… Agh!”
The staff clattered to the ground again. The magic circle, its casting aborted, scattered into the air as raw mana.
She couldn't breathe.
It felt like her head was splitting open.
An agonizing pain assailed her, as if someone had placed a nail on her skull and was driving it in with a hammer.
Her mana boiled.
Pain erupted from the inside out.
The side effect of using the foreign mana.
Meanwhile, the creature, which had been maintaining a fluid form, extended a part of its body toward Melju.
Melju clutched her head, gasping, her eyes widening in terror.
As the attack drew near, she could clearly feel Marmolia's mana.
It hadn't weakened in the slightest.
If anything, the creature was even stronger than Marmolia had been.
She couldn't block an attack like that.
‘I'm really going to die—’
Before she could finish the thought, her body was lifted into the air.
Her vision blurred violently as she was swung through the air.
With her senses spinning, she couldn't grasp what was happening.
She only regained her senses when the brief upheaval ended.
“Ah.”
Only after being swung through the air and set back on the ground did she let out a confused sound.
She thought the creature had hit her, but she felt no pain.
Confirming she was unharmed, she realized she hadn't been hit by the creature at all.
“You can relax now.”
A familiar, gentle voice spoke from right beside her.
Dazed, Melju turned her head. Standing right there was Rene, winding the wires she used to wield her blades.
“I was worried when we didn't hear from you. So this is what was happening.”
“Sir Rene…! How are you here…?”
Instead of answering, Rene tilted her head upward. A large shadow loomed over Melju.
A familiar yawn reached her ears.
“Lord Swallow…”
“You’re late.”
“Y-Yes… well, you see.”
“Why is it that every time I visit a human city, nothing is ever intact?”
Swallow changed the subject, clearly not interested in interrogating her. Melju, who had been about to explain, lowered her head.
“Rene, that thing you did just now, pulling her in with your wires—can I do that too?”
“An unskilled person would just end up slicing their ally with the wire's edge. Still, I believe you could do it, Lord Swallow.”
“Sorry, but I'll pass.”
Even as they held this trivial conversation, their gazes remained fixed on the creature in the distance.
As if recognizing them, the creature began to swell even faster than before.
When it reached roughly the same size Marmolia had been, the creature shot a part of its body toward Swallow and Rene.
“I’ll handle it,” Rene said, her eyes locked on the rapidly approaching tendril.
Swallow, who was rubbing his eyes without even properly looking at the creature, replied, “No, I'll finish this quickly.”
No sooner had he spoken than the creature's attack was upon them.
“Yes, Lord Swallow,” Rene acknowledged, and her blades flashed out, lightly severing the creature’s flesh.
Swallow reached out his arm.
Even though it was an attack moving at a speed difficult to track with the naked eye, Swallow nonchalantly caught it and lifted his arm.
And then, he pulled.
The main body of the creature, which had been far away, was instantly yanked into the air—