Chapter 352
Chapter 352
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 352
>Chapter Title: I Think We Need to Have a Talk
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……Something was wrong.
An alarm rang in the king's mind.
His reaction was swift.
Peeing—!
Kwaduk!
A massive spear plummeting from the sky and slamming into the ground. It was magic the king had prepared in advance.
“……Huh!”
Aster dodged the magic while taking in the sight of the king.
What in the world?
“A monster…… using magic?”
The king let out a roar right then.
Grooooar—!
The massive roar vibrated the air, and the mercenaries at the development site hurriedly plugged their ears.
“Kuht!”
“Krgh!”
It wasn’t an ordinary roar.
It could have been dangerous, but fortunately, the fear-laden roar from the king didn’t discriminate between friend and foe.
Kiek!
Kiik!
Overwhelmed by terror, the wyverns rolled their eyes back and lost consciousness.
“Wha-what!”
“D-dodge!”
The unconscious wyverns plummeted powerlessly to the ground.
“What…….”
Aster let out an exclamation at the absurd sight, then snapped his fingers.
It was because the falling wyverns would cause significant damage, but by the time the king moved, Aster had already slowed their descent and set them down on the ground.
Pang—!
A sonic boom echoed through the air.
Flap! Flap!
Having shattered the Demon Prison and regained its freedom, the king beat its enormous wings and soared into the sky.
Its eyes were filled with unmistakable terror.
[How…….]
It had long known that a ‘colossal being’ existed here.
But the entity before it couldn’t be described merely as ‘huge.’
The king’s senses, honed sharper than those of a mage who had polished magic for decades, could clearly see it.
How terrifying that colossal being truly was.
The moment it grasped the situation……
‘……Run.’
The king turned and fled.
It had realized there was no chance of victory.
With something like that around, it thought it could seize ‘power’?
That it would be fine for just a moment?
What arrogant delusion!
The king swallowed its self-loathing from just a dozen minutes ago and crossed the blue sky.
But why?
“What’s that?”
A voice came from above its head.
The king shuddered.
The impact followed immediately.
……Boom!
Kieeeek!
The brutal shock rattled its skull, forcing an undignified screech from the king.
Its body lost balance and began to plummet.
But the pain didn’t end there.
Kwaduk!
A scorching pain dug into its scales.
A brutish hand gripped its hide like a handle, and soon a dull impact struck its skull.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
At this point, the king couldn’t collect its thoughts at all.
What in the world was happening?
With each impact, its consciousness flickered.
The only fragmented thoughts it could manage were ‘It hurts,’ ‘Stop,’ ‘Why?’
If it were an ordinary monster, it would have crashed into the ground and met its end.
But the king wasn’t an ordinary monster.
Its instinctual will to escape the situation interfered with the mana, and magic bloomed in the air.
At that sight, Aster let out a ‘Huh!’
“Wha-what…….”
Pizzipizzipizzip!
Dozens of spells manifested in an instant and surged forward.
They weren’t as massive as the ones seen at the development site earlier.
Just over a meter-long skewers.
But the imagery contained within…… was vicious.
Even Aster couldn’t take them bare-handed, but there was no need to.
He just blocked them with a force field.
Kwaduduk!
Aster blocked the dozens of spells with his force field and looked at the black wyvern with appalled eyes.
What kind of creature was this?
[St-stop…….]
Speaking was no longer surprising.
If it could use magic, of course it could talk.
A prickling curiosity.
But the situation allowed no leisure.
Grooooar!
The thing roared again.
“Kuht!”
The pressure from this cry made the earlier one at the development site seem laughable.
And that wasn’t all.
Pazijik!
As if deciding it couldn’t push back with magic alone, the black wyvern suddenly generated a force field.
The force field rose from its skin and shoved Aster away, and soon……
Bang—!
It expanded explosively, flinging Aster from its body.
“Huh…….”
Aster, flung into the air, regained his balance and stepped on empty air.
Meanwhile, the king continued plummeting, but it regained its balance soon after.
However.
Thud.
It landed as if stepping on a platform in midair.
Aster watched the creature silently.
“I thought it was a mistake.”
It was certain.
The spear made of water…… it resembled Senior Ahnar’s.
And not just that?
The force field it had just raised was similar to his own, and so was the magic allowing it to stand on air.
“Does this make any sense?”
It mimicked magic.
No, if it were merely mimicking, Aster wouldn’t be this shocked.
The key point was this.
The black wyvern’s magic and fear……
Transcendence.
On a level that could shake even an archmage.
What kind of monster was this?
Grooooar—!
Aster plugged his ears against the roar. At the same time, the black wyvern kicked off the air and flapped its wings.
Aster watched it flee toward the Arapurkin Mountains, then let out a hollow laugh.
But the shock was fleeting.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Shock was shock.
The fact that the pest had damaged the development site’s assets remained unchanged.
So, what to do?
‘Catch it and give it a beating.’
Bang—!
Aster kicked off the air and leaped upward.
Soon, an outrageous clash echoed through the space.
A deafening roar unfit for a clash between a transcendent mage and a monster.
* * *
The sudden appearance of the ‘king’ brought a chill silence over the development site.
The mercenaries stared, entranced, at the distant sky where the king had flown.
“Wha……what.”
What had they just witnessed?
No one could easily answer the question.
In terms of appearance, it matched a wyvern.
But its body was so enormous that ordinary wyverns looked puny.
And not just that?
Those black scales……
Occasionally, mutant white-scaled wyverns were found, but a black wyvern was unprecedented.
However, the truly astonishing part wasn’t the appearance.
- Grooooarrr!
That fear.
Monsters that reigned as predators naturally exuded some level of fear, weak or strong.
Freezing up at the sight of an ogre was due to that, but the ‘king’s’ fear wasn’t something to brush off so simply.
Look at it now.
Some nameless mercenary shuddered at the sweat soaking his hands.
He wasn’t a rookie…… To feel fear before a monster?
And that wasn’t all.
- Kwaduk!
The massive spear from the sky.
It was clearly magic.
Of course, no one thought the black wyvern had cast it based on that snippet.
Rather, it was due to the distant……
Pang—! Bang!
Kwaduduk!
Kwoong!
The magical spectacle blooming in the sky.
The sight was overwhelming.
Like a war between transcendents.
Of course, the ‘king’ was still far from transcendence. It was just the shock to the mercenaries that was that intense.
Perhaps that’s why.
Someone muttered.
“Dra……gon.”
The name from myths.
That quiet voice spread through the silence, rippling through the mercenaries’ hearts.
“Dragon……?”
“Dra……gon?”
Once the silence broke, voices erupted simultaneously.
It didn’t take long for the agitation to turn to fear.
A voice jolting them from their daze rang out right then.
“What are you lot doing!”
“……!”
“……!”
At the mana-infused voice, the mercenaries snapped to attention and looked toward it.
Standing there was an old mage, Ahnar. He scolded the bewildered mercenaries.
“The battle isn’t over yet. And you mercenaries are spacing out like this…….”
Ahnar shook his head in pity.
“Tsk, calling this lot mercenaries.”
He walked off as if they weren’t worth his time.
At his sight, the mercenaries returned to reality.
Right, the battle wasn’t over.
The wyverns had lost consciousness to the black wyvern’s roar, but who knew when they’d wake.
The first to grasp reality and act was Vark.
“Everyone, bind the wyverns!”
Binding instead of killing was simple.
Live wyverns fetched high prices from the wealthy.
Amid that.
“…….”
Ahnar, who had been watching, erased his anger as if it had never been and turned his gaze to the sky.
He had urged the mercenaries nonchalantly, but in truth, he was the most shocked there.
‘What…….’
The mercenaries had only seen the ‘phenomenon,’ but Ahnar had read the information contained within from the black wyvern.
What the spear that plunged from the sky originated from, and……
Far off.
Flash—!
How the battle was unfolding.
“…….”
Ahnar rubbed his arms at the chilling sensation. Glancing down, he saw goosebumps.
What he felt now was an unpleasant dread.
It couldn’t be helped.
In the battle Ahnar observed.
As expected, Aster overwhelmingly dominated, but the point of this fight for Ahnar wasn’t who would win.
Rather……
‘……Whether it can be killed or not.’
That was the issue.
Why?
……Because at this very moment, the black wyvern was growing in real time.
For every spell Aster cast, a similar one burst from the black wyvern almost immediately.
It wasn’t mere imitation.
The black wyvern’s spells were pushing back against Aster’s originals.
Ahnar thought.
‘If…….’
They let this black wyvern escape here, the continent would face a monster it couldn’t handle.
With that thought, Ahnar couldn’t stay still.
Tap!
Ahnar kicked off and flew toward the battle.
And fortunately?
By the time Ahnar nearly reached the site, the battle had ended.
Thud!
A massive bulk crashed to the ground, kicking up clouds of dust.
In his haste, Ahnar summoned wind magic to clear the dust and took in the scene ahead.
“You…….”
“It won’t die.”
Fortunately, the victor was Aster.
But contrary to his joking words, Aster didn’t look pristine.
His shoulder, apparently bitten, gaped open but was healing in real time. Seeing it, Ahnar couldn’t help but ask.
“……You okay?”
“Fit as a fiddle.”
He meant it.
He had struggled only because he was holding back to gauge the black wyvern’s learning ability; ultimately, it wasn’t his match.
However.
The job wasn’t done.
“Senior, mind helping out?”
“……With what?”
At Ahnar’s question, Aster patted the black wyvern’s head.
“I think we need to have a talk.”
“A talk……?”
“Yeah, a talk.”
Even a monster could be reasoned with if it could speak. And if it could be reasoned with……
‘……A lot of possibilities open up, right?’
He had some questions too.
Aster looked at the black wyvern with shining eyes.
A wyvern that could ‘speak’ and wield ‘magic’ was another possibility for Aster.