Chapter 47
Chapter 47
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 47
Chapter Title: Magic Genius with Korean Patch
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"Are we really, really going to lure the goblins here?"
After Jeon departed early in the morning.
The people of Queta Village were also moving about extremely busily.
Jeon's departure meant the operation had begun, so they too had started their preparations to synchronize the timing.
However, even with what they considered thorough preparations, a sense of unease still lingered among the villagers.
"I don't know either. But as that person said, dragging things out any longer wouldn't have yielded any answers, right?"
Of course, that didn't mean they had any other options left.
In any case, as time passed and their supplies dwindled, they would be the ones at an increasing disadvantage.
Trying something—anything—while there was even a slim possibility was the only way to marginally raise their chances of survival.
"Will it go well... according to the plan?"
"We can only hope so."
Dylan comforted one of the anxious villagers and gave the preparations a once-over.
The first thing to catch his eye was the long line of barricades and the village layout.
'It should be... okay, right?'
They had pulled two straight nights preparing it, yet the anxiety remained.
He had just reassured that villager, but the memory of the goblins' first assault was still vivid.
An unavoidable unease clung to Dylan as well.
'This place is about to become a battlefield.'
For the sake of this operation, part of Queta Village inevitably had to turn into a warzone.
The chosen area was the densest cluster of buildings in the village.
From the outskirts inward along the main road, barricades erected by the villagers stood in place.
These barricades were also positioned between alleys, forming a U-shape. To create barricades on this scale, every scrap from the abandoned houses had been mobilized.
'But... will this really work?'
What the villagers had built was a trap akin to a makeshift prison, designed to temporarily contain the goblins if they swarmed in.
However, against a massive horde—especially one including hobgoblins—these barricades clearly wouldn't hold for long.
Of course, they weren't without countermeasures for that.
The problem was that the beginning and end of it all hinged on a single person.
'Jeon, was it?'
Dylan had heard the rumors and knew that he had single-handedly felled the hobgoblins that raided the caravan.
But what lingered deeper in Dylan's mind was the goblin mage's overwhelming might, which had mercilessly swept away the village militia and mercenaries.
"You look worried."
As if reading Dylan's inner thoughts.
Bolton had approached before he knew it and clapped a hand on his shoulder.
"Honestly speaking... yeah."
"I get it."
"Aren't you... worried?"
Dylan asked Bolton, who appeared remarkably composed without a hint of concern.
"I'm tense, sure... but worried? Not quite."
"You must have a lot of trust in that boy Jeon, then."
"Something like that."
At Dylan's words, Bolton recalled the recent incident.
The time when Jeon had gone alone to the Pentagram Guild—where they had tried to attack him—and laid Jack flat.
'Come to think of it, the situations are somewhat similar.'
The scale of this event was far larger than before.
But if he looked only at the circumstances, there were similarities.
And above all, both then and now, Jeon had stepped forward with unwavering confidence.
"Don't worry too much. It'll go according to plan."
"Sigh... yeah, it has to."
Bolton reassured Dylan once more and headed to his assigned position.
While Dylan was stationed at the most meticulously built barricade along the village's main street, Bolton's spot was on one side of the road where the barricades were just beginning.
Due to material shortages, it was a crudely made section that the caravan's mercenaries would have to hold with manpower alone—arguably the closest to the front line.
And shortly after Bolton arrived.
"Th-there! The goblins are coming!"
The horde of goblins swarming in from outside the village toward Bolton's position came into view.
"I thought I'd thinned them out quite a bit, but there's still so many."
Glancing back while mounted on Silver, the horde of goblins madly chasing him filled his view.
-Yeah, even goblins with their breeding rates don't usually gather in numbers like this.
As Silver said.
Even after Jeon's magic had culled a significant number, the pursuing goblins still numbered at least a few hundred.
Of course, Jeon had deliberately adjusted his speed and zigzagged through detours to gather as many as possible.
But now that it was done, the sheer volume of goblins trailing behind felt staggering anew.
'How the hell are there this many?'
Jeon had picked up general knowledge about goblins here and there, so he couldn't help but question the suspiciously large numbers.
-Anyone would think the goblins were banding together to found their own nation.
Silver's words were half in jest.
But Jeon wondered if that might actually be the goblin mage's true intent.
'If we'd left them alone, they would've grown even more.'
If no external force like himself had intervened, and the goblins had simply devoured Queta Village whole.
Using that as a base to proliferate further, they might've swelled to the size of a decent city, if not quite a nation.
"...No way."
Still, it was just a hypothesis in the end.
Jeon lightly shook his head, dismissing the thought.
Whatever the true motive, what mattered now was capturing every last one of those goblins.
-Jeon, entering the barricade zone now!
"Good."
Silver, still galloping onward, had already entered the prepared barricade area.
"Keeek! Kieeeek!"
"Kieeeek!"
Behind them, the highly agitated goblins surged after Jeon in a chaotic mass.
As hundreds of goblins crashed in like a tidal wave, the people guarding the barricades couldn't help but freak out.
"H-heek!"
"There were this many goblins!?"
"Everyone, hold your positions!"
"Don't let them break through!"
However, with Bolton, Dylan, and the more experienced mercenaries calming the others and manning their posts, they managed—somehow—to prevent the goblins from slipping through the barricades.
Moreover, most of the goblins were still fixated on chasing Jeon, who had toyed with them by darting all over the place until now.
Thus, the hundreds of goblins safely reached the barricades lining the main street.
And the moment Jeon and Silver, who had arrived a step ahead, leaped over the barricade.
"Everyone, start!"
In response to Jeon's shout, the people began hurling the items they had prepared in advance.
"Die, you bastards!"
"You fucking goblins! Fucking goblins!"
The first things visible were long wooden spears.
Hastily made, their quality wasn't great, but since the goblins were charging mindlessly, the front-runners couldn't dodge the spears protruding from the barricades and got impaled.
"Keeek! Kieek!"
"Kieeeek!"
As the lead goblins were halted by the wooden spears, the wave-like charge momentarily faltered.
Seizing that gap, people burst out from the rooftops of the houses atop the barricades and between them.
"Eat this!"
Splash!
They began dousing the goblins below with suspicious liquids in unison.
"Keeek? Kieek?"
Suddenly drenched from above, the goblins pawed at themselves in confusion.
But aside from the distinct oily smell assaulting their noses, there were no immediate visible effects from the liquid.
However, the people above didn't stop there.
After emptying their oil reserves, they started hurling small wooden javelins.
But their throwing skills left much to be desired, so hardly any actually injured the goblins.
Most just bounced off heads, only stoking their rage further.
"Kieeeek! Kieeeek!"
Aside from the initial wooden spears, there was virtually no real damage to the goblins.
But both the oil and the wooden javelins had effectively heightened the goblins' excitement.
"Kieeeek!"
The goblins, once blocked by the wooden spears, charged at the barricades again.
It was a barricade cobbled together from whatever was at hand.
Against the onslaught, it had its limits.
"Ugh! The barricade!"
"This side's in danger too!"
The renewed assault shook the barricades violently.
But by then, both the barricades and the people had fulfilled their roles adequately.
"Thank you all for doing your parts so well."
Jeon, who had returned atop the barricade alongside Silver before they knew it, unleashed magic simultaneously from the Elderlake in one hand and his other hand.
Whoosh! Roar!
The Silvermont Family's secret magic, infused with silver flames, plummeted into the midst of the goblins charging toward the barricade.
"Kieeeeek!"
"Keeek! Kieek! Kieeeek!"
Boom! Boom!
The goblins caught in the magic's explosion let out a round of screams.
But Jeon's magic didn't end there.
The silver flames, meeting the oil, didn't stop at the explosion—they grew even fiercer.
Moreover, the wooden javelins scattered among the goblins and the spears that had pierced the front lines were slathered in oil.
Roarrrrr!
Without casting many spells, a massive blaze erupted amid the goblin horde.
"Everyone, fall back!"
As the villagers confirmed the flames and quickly retreated from the barricades.
The fire then engulfed the barricades themselves, burning even more fiercely.
"Kieeeeeek!"
The intensified blaze didn't stop there, spreading rapidly into the goblin ranks as if possessing a will of its own.
Yet it never extended toward the barricade side where the villagers were.
"Whoa... I can't believe this actually worked."
"It's incredible."
The villagers, who had stepped back in advance, expressed their awe at the flames moving with apparent intent.
In truth, openly using fire tactics in a village like this bordered on madness.
Indeed, when Jeon first proposed it, the villagers had opposed, fearing they'd all burn alongside the goblins.
But after witnessing Jeon freely manipulate flames at his will, they had tentatively agreed.
To think the massive silver conflagration would minimize damage to the village while incinerating only the goblins.
The silver flames devouring the raiding goblins even appeared sacred at a glance.
Some villagers stood entranced, staring at the spectacle.
'That spell earlier was too large-scale... but this is manageable.'
Upon reaching the 3rd Circle, Jeon’s capacity to control mana had increased substantially.
So, as long as he didn't go for something as massively scaled as the spell he'd used to hammer the goblins earlier, maneuvering flames on this level wasn't particularly difficult.
"Ki, kieek!?"
The goblin mage Zarka, arriving a step behind the regular goblins, halted upon seeing the scene.
He hadn't anticipated humans setting a trap.
No, even if they did, he hadn't thought it would have any meaningful effect.
He had considered the possibility of humans desperately setting fires in a bid for mutual destruction, but that should have inflicted far greater losses on the humans than the goblins.
But if they could control the flames like this, it changed everything.
"Ki, kieeeek!"
Still, he couldn't just stand there gaping.
To block even a little of that fire and save the goblins, he needed to act fast.
Zarka swiftly halted the pursuing goblins and raised his staff and spellbook high, beginning his casting.
"Keeek!"
Humm!
Black mana extended from the staff's tip, coalescing into a black liquid form before flying toward Jeon's silver flames.
Sizzle!
The black liquid seemed to possess water-like properties, producing black steam upon contact and somewhat dampening the silver flames' momentum.
"...Didn't expect that."
Back when he'd first clashed with Zarka on the hill, he'd thought it was just launching black mana spears.
But now it seemed black mana could do quite a variety of things.
'What's written in that spellbook anyway?'
To freely alter the properties of gathered mana like that.
Jeon found himself increasingly curious about the contents of Zarka's spellbook.
"Silver, let's go."
With that, Jeon ended the power struggle with Zarka and sent the silver flames surging skyward.
The goblins engulfed in the silver flames were either dead or incapacitated anyway, so rather than forcing a clash with Zarka's magic, he opted for more efficient use.
-Got it.
In that interim, Silver bulked up and charged through, wrapping itself in the silver flames.
Much like at the Silvermont ruins, Silver—now in an offense-defense integrated state wreathed in silver flames—landed beside Jeon.
"Let's get serious now."
The goblin horde had suffered catastrophic losses, impossible to recover from in short order.
But as long as the goblin mage Zarka remained, it was clear the goblins would eventually regroup.
In other words, capturing Zarka was the only way to bring this all to an end.
"Now, let's take a peek at what's in that spellbook of yours."
With preparations complete, Jeon strode toward Zarka, step by step.