The Butcher Emerges From the Waterway
"Block them! Block them however you can!"
"Joseph's down too!"
"Get him out of there! He's wearing his uniform—he won't die!"
The western wall was pure chaos.
Of all things, the Guardian had to come leaping over the wall, splitting the students' attention—and in that instant of distraction, other Mimickers pried open the gaps and swarmed up onto the ramparts.
"This is getting tiresome."
Fitzgerald brought his two arms, raised like flags, together at the center. The six-armed Siren chimera beside him mirrored the motion exactly, unfurling a magic circle.
Six distinct spells burst forth, burning, cleaving, and freezing the Mimickers.
The Siren chimera was doing the work of six mages on her own—but it wasn't enough anymore.
Damn it, I'm running dry.
Just as Fitzgerald was weighing whether to keep the operation going or preserve his own life—
Krank-krah-krah-krahk!
With a cacophonous cry, an enormous worm-like monster burst out of the ground.
Fitzgerald pushed up his glasses.
Toto's Death Worm! Which means—
A black puppet stretched out from the Death Worm's maw and climbed the wall. At the same moment, space peeled open into a massive sub-dimension.
<Blade Storm>
Shaaaaaaak!
Four spiraling vortexes shot out, racing along the top of the wall and shredding every monster they touched.
"You okay, Fitzgerald?"
"Ah, yes. That was impeccable timing."
His legs gave out beneath him, and Fitzgerald dropped to the ground in a heap.
Simon grinned playfully.
"Never thought your section would get breached."
"We started the defense short one person, so the strain piled up. The other one got hit and passed out too."
"Who didn't show?"
"Serne Eindark."
"Ah..."
A bead of sweat ran down Simon's temple.
"I—I definitely sent her."
"She probably got distracted and wandered off again. Still, thanks to that, I'm alive."
"Right."
Simon nodded, then turned to look behind him with a vaguely uneasy expression. Fitzgerald noticed.
"What is it?"
"Nothing—it's just, when I was riding the Death Worm up, I felt some kind of suspicious tremor from underground."
Fitzgerald pushed up his glasses again.
"If it bothers you, why not go check?"
"Yeah. The wall seems more or less under control, so—"
Kuuuuuguuuugu!
But then.
A thunderous roar and tremor shook the very foundations of the earth. Simon's face twisted.
I was one step too late!
"The south wall!"
Kwakwakwakwakwak!
The ground caved in, and the wall standing atop it came crashing down with it. The students who finally turned to look at the sight fell open-mouthed.
"The wall...!"
"It's down!"
A wall that had been perfectly intact could never have collapsed that easily.
While Simon desperately racked his brain, Fitzgerald, standing beside him, was tracing calculations through the air with his fingers.
"That direction. No doubt about it."
"Did you figure something out?"
"That's where the fortress's underground aqueduct runs."
Simon whipped his head around.
"There's an aqueduct?"
"A fortress this size would naturally have one. As I understand it, a small detachment of Gahal warriors guards it. However."
"However?"
"It's impossible that the Mimickers made the tactical judgment on their own to infiltrate the fortress interior through the aqueduct."
Fitzgerald's expression hardened like frost as he added:
"And even more impossible that they planted a mana bomb in the waterway and detonated it."
Simon snatched up his communication crystal in a hurry.
"Toto! I'm heading to the site right now! Get me over there on the Death Worm!"
—S-Sorry, Simon!
Toto's flustered voice crackled through.
—The mental link with the Death Worm got severed!
What?
Simon froze for a moment—then kicked off the wall and ran.
Haah, how did everything spiral like this?
For the students who had been holding the wall so well, this was a bolt from the blue.
The bricks supporting their feet crumbled away, and the air filled with thick clouds of acrid gray dust.
...Ugh!
A girl who had barely managed to grab a jutting brick at the wall's edge just before falling grimaced and looked down.
Beyond the dust clouds, Mimickers were swarming in, eyes glinting.
I-I have to climb back up—...huh?
With a soft pop.
The brick she was gripping slid free of its mortar. Dismay flooded her pupils as her body plummeted along with the brick.
Crack!
The girl, eyes squeezed shut, opened them again.
A crimson skeleton stood before her. The skeleton wrapped her in a suit of Bone Armor and, holding her close, launched itself into the air.
Snap! Thud!
All around, red skeletons flew through the sky the same way, rescuing the falling students one by one.
"?!"
The rescued students looked up.
From the airborne battleship of bone overhead, countless red skeletons were raining down.
"It's Professor Aaron's reinforcements!"
"We're saved!"
Twang! Whk!
The skeletons spread out like fire ants around the collapsed wall and raised their bows.
—Krrrrrrgh!
—Keeeh!
The Mimickers surged toward the breach.
The skeletons loosed their strings. With a vicious shriek of splitting air, a deluge of red streaks poured down, and the oncoming wave of monsters buckled hard.
Crrrack! Crack!
Then, the skeletons pouring out of Aaron's undead warship broke apart into component pieces and began filling the gaps in the ruined wall.
"What's the Professor doing?"
"A fence! He's connecting the bones to build a fence!"
In the blink of an eye, a makeshift rampart had been assembled from skeleton bones. The archers wheeled back and delivered another volley, and the monsters' wave sagged once more.
It was a flawless, airtight response—as if they'd known in advance that the wall would fall.
—It's a temporary measure. It won't hold for long.
Aaron's voice rang out from the students' communication crystals. Monsters that had slipped through the arrow storm clung to the bone fence.
—We need a high-output necromancer to defend the collapsed wall.
—I alone will suffice.
Whip!
An enormous shadow fell across the battlefield.
A jet-black corpse dragon stared ahead with bulging, unblinking eyes.
<Dragon's Breath>
Fwoooooosh!
Hector, transformed into a dragon, opened his maw and spewed out a torrent of flame.
The Mimickers clinging to the fence melted away in the searing heat before anyone could blink.
The entrance to the underground aqueduct.
"Ðⴘⴇ!"
"ⳖØⴋⴠⴇ?"
The Gahal guards were talking, faces full of alarm.
Huge concussions had been rumbling through this place as well, but they had no idea what was unfolding outside. All they could do was guess that somewhere along the aqueduct, the structure had given way.
"Hello there, friends of the Gahal."
Just then.
A man's voice drifted out of the darkness of the waterway. The guards flinched and raised their spears.
Sheeng!
Light flashed in a straight line—and a man stood behind them, two enormous kitchen knives crossed.
"You're too slow."
The guards' heads flew high into the air. Their torsos, robbed of the strength to stand, crumpled to the ground like puppets with severed strings.
"Ah, I said too slow! Come on, hurry it up, will you? At this rate the war'll be over before we even arrive!"
The Butcher rested his giant cleaver on his shoulder and barked in irritation.
Through the aqueduct, his partner, the One-Eyed Gentleman, came running—and behind him trailed a pack of assassins transformed into Mimickers.
"It has never once occurred to you that you might be the fast one, has it?"
The One-Eyed Gentleman smoothed the brim of his tall hat and continued.
"Bear this in mind. We came to quietly secure Simon Polentia amid the chaos—not to carry out a massacre. Do not kill the students any more than necessary. It could foul this operation beyond repair."
"I've heard that speech three hundred times already!"
The Butcher picked at his ear.
"Alright, let's move out!"
"Wait—...!"
Splash! Splash!
The Butcher stamped through the water pooled on the floor, work apron flapping, and charged ahead. And the first sight that greeted him the moment he emerged from the waterway was—
"Huh?"
Gahal warriors frantically hauling arrows and weapons somewhere. It seemed he'd surfaced inside a storeroom of some kind.
At the sudden appearance of a man rising out of the aqueduct, they leveled their weapons.
"Ðⴘⴇ!"
"ⴃⴟⴶⴀⴋ!"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
The corners of the Butcher's mouth stretched into a long, splitting grin.
Sheeng!
The heads of the two spear-wielding Gahal warriors shot skyward in an instant.
"Nobody said anything about not slicing up Gahal, did they?"
Dropping his stance into an eerily low crouch, the Butcher spun his torso.
Shwaang!
Shwa-shwaang!
The giant cleavers danced, flashing reflected light, and Gahal heads went flying or torsos came apart at the waist.
"Kuh-hap!"
He caught a cleaver as it soared through the air and hewed downward with brutal force. A Gahal warrior who had charged in was bisected clean through, his body falling open to either side.
"Ðⴆŀº!"
Warriors outside the storeroom heard the commotion and came running.
They snatched up their bows at once, drew, loaded mana into their arrows, and fired at the Butcher.
"Oh."
The Butcher lowered himself, cleavers crossed. The two incoming arrows slid along the angled faces of his blades—and the Butcher shook his arms with a sharp cry.
The arrows' trajectories bent sharply and buried themselves in the torsos of two warriors sneaking up behind him.
"Did you think I wouldn't notice you playing dead!"
The Butcher cackled and dove in.
"ⴘⴋÐⴘ!"
A burly warrior leapt forward and hurled a mana-laden greatspear. The Butcher smirked and moved his blade.
Shalaralalalak!
The tip of the cleaver flicked up and down with surgical precision, and the incoming greatspear was carved into neat little bundles, like a carrot run through a slicer.
The Butcher spun his whole body around, seized the uniformly sliced greatspear with the flat of his opposite blade, and swung with everything he had.
Thwack! Crack! Bang!
The spear fragments blasted outward in every direction, shattering against the walls and driving into the warriors' faces and the backs of their skulls. They collapsed, vomiting blood.
"Whew."
The Butcher gave his cleaver a twirl, re-gripped it, and rested it on his shoulder out of habit.
His gaze turned toward the window.
Beyond the shattered wall, an enormous living creature was spewing fire, incinerating the monsters.
"Whoa, is that a dragon? Those Kizen bastards don't do anything by half!"
"You've already stirred up all of this commotion?"
The One-Eyed Gentleman appeared, leaning on his cane.
"Let me say it once more—"
"Secure the blue hair and shoot the platinum blonde dead! I know!"
He charged off.
"That means I can play until I find them, right?"
Watching the Butcher vanish into the distance in seconds, the One-Eyed Gentleman heaved a long sigh.
"It was a mistake to bring that man along after all."
Muttering thus, he traced his cane through the air. Unfurling one fiendishly complex magic circle after another, he lowered the cane and began to chant.
Vuuuum!
Space tore open in the air, and from within, the Mimickers waiting outside the fortress began pouring through like a flood.
"At this point, there's no choice but to make it big. You all go as well."
The assassins disguised as Mimickers mixed into the horde and charged out with them.
The moment monsters erupted from their own stronghold, the astonished voices of the students and Gahal warriors outside rang out.
"Now catastrophe can no longer be avoided."
He, too, raised his cane.
The One-Eyed Gentleman's body sank into a pool of jet-black, leaving only ripples behind as it surged onward.