Iceworm Subjugation (1)
Most of those who had joined the subjugation force were natives of Iceland, and so without a word spoken they could already guess what the others were thinking.
The first snow was a harbinger of winter.
Time was running short for the subjugation force.
At least the first snowfall had already stopped, which was something of a mercy. Even so, winter being what it was, there was no telling when the snow might start again.
"Whew. Good. Now all that's left is to wait."
From the high ground formed by the piled snow, Catherine looked down over the field and caught the sigh Zoric let out like a complaint.
"We didn't have much time, but somehow we managed to get everything ready this far."
"It's nothing more than the usual preparations for a large-scale subjugation."
"Is that so."
Catherine did not agree.
After the subjugation force reached Drywood, set up camp, and rested from the march, the time it had taken Commander Zoric to drag his adjutants out to survey the surroundings, draft a plan, and put it into action was a mere three days.
Unless he had planned everything in advance, that meant the moment he heard Catherine's report he had already built the entire rough roadmap in his head.
In Catherine's estimation, that was simply the humility of a man who had become a knight yet still could not shed the attitude of his former life. Had he been born a noble, he would have been busy flaunting his own ability.
"For someone trying to play it down with humility, you handle people remarkably well."
"In Iceland, large-scale subjugations are a daily occurrence. Not every knight, but a great many of them have experience commanding one."
If he still spoke that way even after being told as much, perhaps it was simply his nature.
Thinking so, Catherine looked down from the snow hill they had piled up for use as a command post.
Soldiers and hippo-knights encircled the fence with shields and long spears. Behind them, hunters and adventurers waited in their respective squads. Off to the side of the snow hill, the cavalry stood ready for a charge—and for the possibility that the subjugation force might have to fall back.
And at the center of every gaze—
Baa-aa-aa-aah! Baa-aaah!
Baaaaaak! Aaaaaaak!!!
Inside the fence, sheep whose wool had been completely shorn and whose hides had been marked with magic circles wandered about, trembling in the cold.
"Fortunately, the magic circles seem to be working properly."
"We're quite a distance away. You can see that?"
"You see that faint greenish glow over there?"
"I can see it clearly."
"That means they're still active. Of course, I could sense it even without the light."
Catherine and Zoric conversed as calmly as if they were discussing the weather, but most of the subjugation force stared fixedly at the shivering sheep, taut with nerves.
Vibration—and anything louder than a certain level of noise.
Those were the precautions Zoric had drilled into the entire force. In their anxiety to avoid both, everyone had, as if of one mind, sealed their lips.
Excessive tension invited mistakes. Fortunately, the sight of people whispering soundlessly, jabbing one another in quiet play, or conversing in gestures suggested there was no need to worry on that score.
Meanwhile the sun climbed overhead.
Even tension, held too long, grew dull. Boredom—the greatest enemy and weakness of any living creature—began to seep through the ranks, and people who had relaxed a little started chatting in low voices instead of gestures.
Baaaaaak! Aaaaaaak!!!
Baa-aa-aa-aah~ Baa-aa-aa-aah~
"Haaaawn. It's taking longer than I expected."
For Catherine, who lived far longer than most, boredom was pure poison. On top of that, she had stayed up all night engraving the magic circles onto the sheep, so her eyelids felt as heavy as if anvils had been hung from them.
The adjutants, pages, and messengers at the command post were not quite as bad as Catherine, but they were in much the same state. At the yawn that carried her drowsiness, Zoric folded his arms as well.
"Well. For now, let's wait a little longer… Hmm?"
"Sir Zoric?"
"A moment."
He turned his head toward the fence—no, toward the forest beyond it.
A faint but rhythmic vibration. It felt nothing like a natural earthquake; it was the sensation of many legs moving, like a herd of galloping horses.
Zoric was not the only one at the command post who felt it. Some of the soldiers and adventurers surrounding the fence, and most of the hunters and knights, shared the same perception. They had deliberately set this trap out in the open. If a vibration like that was coming, there was only one answer.
Those who noticed first prodded the ones whose tension had slipped.
Thud-thud-thud-thud—thud-thud—!
While the subjugation force silently re-formed its ranks, the vibration grew until it was audible even without concentration. The unmistakable tremor rising from underground was the same.
Baaaaaak! Baaaaaaaaak!
Unlike those who had been briefed, the sheep that had been dragged here without warning understood by instinct that this was a crisis and thrashed desperately to escape the fence. The source of the vibration, unwilling to let its prey flee, moved even faster, and the shaking grew more violent still.
Then, abruptly, the vibration stopped. It was so quiet that the sound of the person beside them swallowing was audible. Only the early-winter gale scraping across the snow and through Antler Forest could be heard.
"Fortunately, the bait worked."
"Then this is where it truly begins."
"In that case, I'll leave it to you as we discussed."
At Zoric's words, Catherine immediately stirred her mana and deployed a formula.
Krrrrrr—KONG—!
Fwoooooosh!
A vibration several times greater than what had come before slammed through the ground all at once, and from the center of the fence pure white snow erupted as if exploding.
A long shadow fell across the snow-fog raised by pure force. As the snow settled a little, the target they had been waiting for revealed itself.
Through the haze stretched a body long enough to link several carriages, armored in deep-blue carapace. From the gaps grew countless hook-like spines that covered it all the way to its pointed snout. Between the four-way split of that snout, hide glowing pale green, blood, and shredded fragments of what had once been sheep meat were crushed and held in its jaws.
The Iceworm that had burst up from underground had, in the chaos, allowed a few lucky sheep to scramble over the fence and escape. No one moved to catch them.
They had been waiting for this moment.
"Now! Throw!"
The squad leaders and knights of the subjugation force shouted as one.
The hunters and adventurers who had endured tension and boredom loosed their javelins all together. Dozens of spears, modified on the spot for the sole purpose of piercing deep and locking firm, cut through the cold air.
Some were stopped by the carapace or lacked the force and bounced away. The rest fulfilled their modified purpose perfectly.
Kiiiiiiiiiiiiik—!!!
Pain hammering its entire body from directions it had never imagined. Explosive noise erupting from every side. The sensation of prey still in its four-way maw. Instinctively the Iceworm tried to lower its long body and burrow back into the earth.
It never finished the motion.
KONG—! Paaaaaang—!
Ropes were bound to the harpoon-like tips of the spears driven deep into its body, and people hauled on the ends with everything they had.
"It's trying to dig underground!"
"Pull with everything you've got—even the strength you used as a nursing infant!"
"Hyaaaaaaah!!!"
The Iceworm's true home was underground to begin with. To minimize damage, they had to finish it on the surface. Yet the ropes began to be dragged steadily toward the Iceworm.
"Duke Atanitas. The situation is getting precarious. Are you not finished yet?"
"This is perfect timing, actually."
Catherine, who had been continuously releasing freezing cold from her entire body simply by looking and circulating her mana, gathered all of that chill into both hands. Her eyes began to shine a vivid blue.
All at once the snow between the subjugation force and the Iceworm stirred as if it possessed a will of its own.
"What the—?!"
Whether the troops panicked or not, the thick blanket of snow covering the plain gathered, packed hard, and became countless ice hands, tentacles, and chains that seized and bound the Iceworm.
"Stay calm! They're on our side!"
"Do not let go of those ropes no matter what!"
They had been told in advance, but the moment the magic actually took form their minds blanked for a second; the knights snapped them back to attention.
"What are you staring at?! Attack!"
Those who recovered first shouted, and the subjugation force began to roar and charge the Iceworm one after another. As the unknown voices had said, now was the time to strike.
While she kept the Iceworm from escaping, Catherine's hands moved busily.
"Whew. I was told it had resistance to ice magic, but this is considerable."
"You don't look particularly strained."
"Resistance or not, it can't do much about pure physical force."
Indeed, Catherine could understand Zoric's earlier warning that it possessed resistance to ice magic. The spell had been improvised on the spot, true, yet it was still the work of a mage who had approached the rank of sage. Even so, the moment the countless binding constructs of ice magic touched the Iceworm, their mana began to scatter.
A mage who used magic only a few times a day would have needed a whole wagonload of power. An ice specialist of her own caliber would have found it impossible to hunt even with several people. But a mage who had reached her level was a different story.
Resistance to ice magic? Overwhelm it with sheer quantity. Trying to smash the bindings with raw strength? Again—crush it with numbers.
Of course, actually attacking the creature with ice magic was out of the question. Resistance was still resistance, even if half-rotted. But Catherine had already finished her preparations against that as well. The all-nighter had been for exactly this purpose.
If I keep the restraints going while shifting the attribute like this… then the medium would be… wait?
Come to think of it, where did I put that bag?
A sudden wave of unease made Catherine's eyes race around the command post. Nowhere. No matter where she looked, it was not there.
…No. Thoughts later.
Zoric had clearly sensed the shift in her mood. Catherine decided to handle the immediate problem first.
"Duke Atanitas. Is something the matter?"
"Ahem, ahem. Sir Zoric. I believe I shall stop here."
"Hm?"
"Well, the cavalry should have their chance to earn merit as well, shouldn't they? Knights and the like."
"Ah. Will you be all right?"
Of course she had to be all right. Otherwise the mortifying fact that she had forgotten her own materials would come out, wouldn't it? Right?
She could not say that aloud.
"Of course I'll be fine."
Catherine desperately hid every flicker of emotion.