Chapter 106
Chapter 106
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 106
Chapter Title: The Hands of Talajin
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-Whoooong...
There was a vibration that resonated through the air.
It was more like an auditory hallucination than the air actually trembling.
Every creature in the sea area where the battle was raging heard the tremor.
It felt as if a colossal being was writhing in displeasure, letting out a groan.
Even the soldiers swinging swords and spears at each other paused for a moment, turning toward the bow of the ship where magic was manifesting.
And for a brief time, nothing happened.
Yabun spoke up.
"Ha, just as I thought! It failed!"
Basen Rak Orazen slowly put distance between himself and the monster at the bow while clashing with Yabun.
Yabun looked at Basen and said,
"You don't know much about magic, do you? Magic fails easily. If even a single stroke of the magic circle's pattern is off, or if the incantation is stumbled over even slightly, it fails. There's no way it could succeed in a battlefield like this..."
-Kraaaaaah...!
In that instant, Basen clutched his ears against the enormous roar.
But the sound wasn't coming from his ears—it echoed from inside his head.
Basen leaned against the railing to keep from falling, but many soldiers on deck collapsed, screaming in agony.
Fortunately, Basen wasn't the only one startled.
Yabun hurriedly backpedaled as well, and even Mazdari, the one who had cast the magic, staggered with a poor expression on his face.
Yet the monster that was supposed to be felled by the magic appeared unscathed.
If there was any silver lining, it wasn't moving from its position jammed at the bow and was instead warily scanning its surroundings.
Basen looked at Mazdari with a pathetic expression.
"What the hell did you do, Garuda? At this rate, we can't fight—not just the enemy, but us either."
Mazdari gave an awkward smile.
"Wait. It hasn't even started yet."
-Boom!
An explosion erupted in front of the magic circle on the Pirate's Shame, opposite Basen.
And a pitch-black shadow pillar rose up.
'No, not a shadow.'
It was an arm.
It was hard to tell it belonged to any specific race.
At the end of an enormous forearm that could embrace three or four people was a hand.
The manifested hand drummed and groped along the bow, searching for something.
"What... is that? Looks like a giant's hand."
Mazdari replied,
"Good eye. That's summoning magic."
"Summoning magic?"
"Magic circles can serve as signals to induce change, but they can also open gates between worlds. I opened a gate for a being from another world called Talajin, named in ancient times."
Talajin's hand roughly pounded the bow, then seized a Deep One.
"Let go of me!"
But the Deep One's resistance didn't last long.
With a crunch, the Deep One was crushed whole in Talajin's hand.
Talajin tossed the Deep One's corpse into the sea and began groping for its next target.
Soon after, second and third Talajin hands appeared from other bows.
Soldiers' screams continued.
Basen said while watching the hands,
"Seems like it's searching for something. ...What is it looking for?"
Mazdari laughed.
"They're looking for me."
"You?"
"This 'Hand of Talajin' magic angers Talajin. Imagine it, Basen."
Basen looked at Mazdari's eyes glowing from the magic circle.
"You're napping on a hillside bathed in autumn sunlight. The warmth is pleasant, and when it gets too hot, a gentle breeze cools you. Then an ant rustles past your ear, waking you. You feel annoyed. In this vast hillside, did this tiny ant have to pass right by my ear?"
Mazdari pointed to the fourth magic circle drawn on the Deep Ones' ship.
"So you spot an anthill right next to you and shove your finger in."
From the magic circle, the fourth Talajin hand rose.
This fourth hand snapped the mast tip the moment it emerged and crushed the Deep One lookout firing arrows. Blood and entrails poured from the Deep One's mouth.
Basen said,
"Then... isn't that dangerous?"
"All magic is dangerous."
"...Hmm."
"But there are countermeasures to some extent. Magic sets rules. One, those Talajin hands only recognize 'Deep Ones' among the people here right now."
Basen looked around the deck and could see it was true.
Occasionally, there were mishaps where people were flung aside by Talajin's hands, but those gripped and squashed in anger were all Deep Ones.
"Two, Talajin recognizes that monster as me."
One of the hands groping from each bow climbed over the railing.
The Sea Serpent was extremely wary of that hand.
"What are you doing! Bite that hand off!"
Basen turned toward the voice to see Yabun had already fled to a safe distance far beyond the hand's reach.
The moment Talajin's hand reached for the Sea Serpent, it twisted its body and bit the hand's wrist with its massive jaws.
"Yes! That's it!"
But Yabun's moment of glee was fleeting.
As soon as the first wrist was bitten, the other hands pinpointed the Sea Serpent's location.
One Talajin hand seized the Sea Serpent's head, eliciting a scream.
-Kuaaaaah!
Talajin's hand was enormous, but it barely encompassed the Sea Serpent's head.
Yet its strength seemed unrelated to relative size.
Talajin's hand tore off the Sea Serpent's scalp.
-Krooo...!
Skin, flesh, and blood sprayed out like a sudden downpour.
The Talajin hand bitten by the Sea Serpent's mouth and another pried open its jaws.
As the Sea Serpent screamed in pain, the gruesome sounds of its jawbone cracking and ligaments tearing followed.
The Sea Serpent's torn jaw was hurled toward the Deep Ones.
-Grooo...
The fourth hand burrowed into the Sea Serpent's throat and began rummaging inside.
Meanwhile, the other hands stripped its skin while it still lived.
Basen, who had briefly watched from behind cover, said,
"Magic is dangerous."
"Exactly. That's why you don't draw the magic circle too large."
"Why?"
Mazdari patted his own shoulder.
"Or else what comes after the hand and arm might emerge too. Then you couldn't handle it."
"Hmm. 'Can't handle it,' huh."
Basen was curious about the Talajin beyond the magic circle that hadn't revealed itself, but he thought some things were best left unknown forever.
Basen turned his head to look toward the stern where Yabun was.
"Since we've boarded the ship, it'd be best to catch him."
"Can't back out now. I need to supervise those hands for a while. They don't seem like they'll play for long, though."
"Later."
Basen glanced at the Sea Serpent, now a mangled mess of blood and shreds, then charged forward.
With the Sea Serpent stalled, the overall battle tide had turned in favor of Heukrin and the allied navy.
Pirate ships had closed in despite Heukrin's cannon fire, but their courage faltered as the Sea Serpent came under attack.
The allied navy was now dealing with Deep Ones aboard ships and following Heukrin.
"Damn it...!"
The knights borrowed from the Archbishop couldn't exert their full power, and the Sea Serpent—received as proof from Shimgwang when he became high priest—was felled by magic.
As defeat loomed, Yabun pondered where things had gone wrong.
'Was it a lack of strategy and tactics? Because of their new weapons? ...No. It's all because I was pushed out to the outer seas.'
Yabun sensed the fate of the weak.
The warrior to deliver his final judgment appeared before him.
"Pirate Yabun. By the will of Heukrin's king, Kyle Rak Orazen, I shall punish you."
Yabun crossed his axes and raised them.
"Don't make me laugh. Even if I die, it's Shimgwang's will. Your worthless king has nothing to do with it."
"Shimgwang?"
"Don't utter our god's name lightly!"
Yabun charged.
Basen wondered what he was supposed to do, but he didn't ignore the fact that Yabun's attacks were sharp and fierce.
'Not the pirate leader by coincidence. A veteran of countless battles. Stronger than me, more experienced. A formidable foe.'
Basen questioned if charging solo to kill Yabun had been a mistake.
'...No. If not now, I'll lose the chance to strike the pirate leader. He might flee to the distant southern continent, and we might have to give him chances to attack the southern islands repeatedly. Had to take the risk.'
From this internal debate, Basen realized he had an edge over Yabun.
Clashing blades with Yabun, Basen unleashed a big swing.
Yabun didn't miss the opening and tripped Basen's leg.
Basen agilely rolled backward.
But he dropped his sword, leaving him empty-handed.
"All that talk, and that's all you've got?!"
But Yabun couldn't charge straight at Basen.
Lizardmen were rushing in from behind Basen, killing Deep Ones.
'Damn, one more strike and I could kill him. But then I'd have to face the other Lizardmen.'
It wasn't impossible.
But the battle situation was unfavorable. If tied down here too long, he might stay aboard until the moment of defeat.
'Can't let that happen.'
The best move seemed to be transferring to another ship and biding time.
Basen watched Yabun's retreating back.
'Yabun, you're strong, but...'
Then he drew the dagger from his belt.
This was Basen's advantage over what he'd thought of Yabun.
Yabun had no secondary weapon.
'Coward.'
Basen threw the dagger.
It flew straight and stabbed Yabun's thigh.
Yabun turned with a pained scream.
"...You bastard! Cowardly...!"
"Then you shouldn't have shown your back."
Basen picked up his longsword and charged at Yabun.
Yabun's head flew into the air.
─┼
As Basen impaled Yabun's head on a spear shaft and raised it high, the pirate ships began to flee.
Heukrin escorted the Pirate's Shame and other ships, while the allied navy swiftly pursued the pirates.
"Did we win?"
Not perfectly yet.
Pirates were still fighting on deck.
Especially Deep Ones without railing cover seemed to fear being skewered by spears before they could jump into the sea when showing their backs.
Of course, Basen knew the Lizardman soldiers wouldn't let these Deep One pirates escape easily.
"...What about the magic?"
Basen handed the spear with Yabun's head to another soldier, slashed a Deep One pirate while heading back to the bow.
An odd sight greeted him at the bow.
The Sea Serpent's corpse was gone.
Only various physical organs composing the Sea Serpent were laid out on deck.
'Do these hands have intelligence?'
That seemed the only explanation.
He'd thought they tore the Sea Serpent apart with brute savagery, but the hands had arranged its various skins, entrails, and organs without overlap, following their own rules.
Madness emanated from that strange arrangement.
"...Garuda?"
Basen cautiously called for Mazdari.
But Mazdari was nowhere to be seen.
"Strange."
The hands' work wasn't finished; they bent at their positions, scribbling something.
'Intelligent things... scribbling?'
Basen pushed through between soldiers and pirates, cautiously approaching the bow.
"Where's Mazdari?"
But before finding Mazdari, Basen looked at what the Talajin hands were drawing.
He jolted in surprise.
"...!"
The hands, soaked in Sea Serpent blood and fluids, were drawing on the bow.
It was circular, made of unknown characters, and above all, emitted a faint glow.
A magic circle.
One Talajin hand raised its index finger and pressed the center of the magic circle.
'Too late!'
The moment Basen charged to sever that finger, someone grabbed his arm.
"No need for that."
It was Lady Ravina Muel.
"I discovered it first."
"But they're casting magic..."
"It's fine. Look."
Basen looked at the magic circle as Ravina said.
Nothing happened.
-Whoooong...
The Talajins let out disappointed groans.
Then, as if angry again, they smashed the magic circle.
The bow shattered along with it.
Basen asked,
"Did it fail?"
"Yes."
Ravina answered.
"Magic creates rules. And those rules are extremely delicate. As that pirate said, it requires very precise and meticulous technique. The slightest error causes the magic to fail before it even starts."
Ravina tapped her horn.
"And I can induce such tiny errors."