Time of Massacre
Time of Massacre
[Mage. As I've told you before, I cannot assist you lightly. Teaching you magical theory is free of charge, but for everything else, you must pay a price.]
"All I'm asking is for you to answer a question. I just want to know who your old master was. The old man who passed you on to me."
[That is exceptionally sensitive information among mages. News of my former master could cause great upheaval just by reaching the wrong ears. It could mean the collapse of the delicate balance maintained between the Magic Tower, Nain Gard, and the other magical societies.]
So the old man's identity was that special?
It wasn't like pressing a nuclear button or something, yet just knowing who he was could apparently cause major shockwaves.
Once again, I spoke to Rumi, who kept going on about a price.
"So let's at least hear what this price is. What do I have to offer you to learn about the old man?"
[The price is the souls of Jotuns. If you can claim exactly one thousand Jotun heads, the price will be considered paid.]
Jotun was the word for giants. They were formidable foes I'd struggled against like hell with Rebecca just to take down a single one back in my novice mage days.
But a thousand Jotuns? That wasn't like folding a thousand paper cranes. That was way too brutal.
"Instead of offering souls, could I fold you some paper cranes? I'm pretty good at origami."
[Absolutely not.]
"Then forget it. I'd die trying to drive the giants to extinction. I am curious, but I'll just give up on finding out."
My plan to learn the old man's identity from Rumi had completely fallen apart.
I let out a sigh as I walked along the road.
[Mage. If it's information about Odin, I might be able to teach you one thing.]
"What is it?"
Seeing me looking dejected, Rumi couldn't stand it anymore and spoke up again.
Seems even this AI-like Rumi has a tiny shred of affection.
[I'll only say this once, so remember it clearly.]
"Just tell me."
[The progenitor of magic, Lord Odin, has never experienced death. Contrary to the legends passed down, he is still alive.]
What?
Odin has never experienced death?
What is he, fucking Tassadar?
This was a bombshell that would blindside the entire continent!
If Rumi's words were true, then I hadn't actually been desecrating the dead back in Odin's temple.
Getting cursed out by his followers for nothing felt pretty damn unfair.
"Seriously?"
[It is the truth. The remains of Lord Odin kept in the Papal Office are also fakes, fabricated with magic. I will say no more than this.]
This Odin fellow really had a peculiar personality.
Countless believers mourn his death, and yet he's perfectly alive, wandering the continent. On top of that, he even went as far as using magic to create fake remains. If I were a follower of Odin, I'd be furious to discover I'd been deceived.
But I'm not a follower, so I couldn't care less.
'If I go blabbing that Odin's alive, I'll just get cursed out again, won't I?'
I decided to keep Odin's survival to myself.
If I told the people of this continent anyway, they'd just treat me like a madman committing blasphemy. Better to keep my mouth shut and move on.
After finishing my conversation with Rumi, I quickened my pace toward the port city.
*
Walking along the road, I inspected Nistrond's functions.
The pure white quarterstaff weighed a full 2 kilograms. If you think of it like a dumbbell, it might seem light, but this was a magic staff I had to carry everywhere. After walking for hours, the strain on my arm slowly built up.
'So Rune Mages have to lug around heavy staves like this all the time? No wonder they all have bulging arm muscles.'
Of course, being such heavy equipment, its performance was absolutely top-notch.
Just carrying Nistrond boosted my combat power by a good 200%. My quarterstaff had two major magical functions.
[Blizzard]
[Rapid Freeze]
The first function was spreading artificial snow around the wielder.
It was a blizzard that swirled at tremendous speed, capable of burying a target in snow in mere moments. A single adult man could be turned into a snowman in just ten seconds.
But that alone lacked lethal power.
What I was really focused on was [Rapid Freeze].
'The function that flash-freezes anything that touches the quarterstaff.'
[Rapid Freeze] was practically a vicious function that turned Nistrond into a murder weapon. It robbed heat from anything indiscriminately, freezing it solid in an instant. Just testing it out a few times had left me thoroughly satisfied.
"Hagalaz! Freeze!"
Whoosh!
I chanted the incantation and swung Nistrond through the air.
In that moment, moisture in the atmosphere froze, and shards of ice rained down. Combined with the water magic I specialized in, this function would become a weapon of mass slaughter.
"Liquid Ring!"
I summoned a wave of magic and swept it over the road.
The moment I touched Nistrond to the now waterlogged road—
Crack-crack-craaack!
Ice shot out from the tip of the staff and instantly engulfed the road. It took exactly ten seconds to turn a ten-meter stretch of road into a sheet of ice.
If I pressed this staff against a person, they'd become a frozen human popsicle.
It was truly a deathstick for the ages.
"Get hit by my staff, and you're done for!"
Since I could thaw the ice by infusing it with my magic power, I didn't have to worry about the aftermath. I melted the frozen road back to its original state.
After freezing my surroundings to my heart's content, a chill ran through my body.
Unlike Universal Magic, Ancient Magic had a backlash on the caster.
In my case, I suffered the backlash of my body temperature dropping from the cold.
Of course, there was no need to worry much.
'Alcohol.'
Because the Dream Demon Clan could freely regulate their body temperature by drinking liquor.
When I left the temple, I had grabbed a few bottles of Vootka liquor.
I pulled a bottle from my backpack and took a swig.
"Kkhh...."
Thanks to the alcohol, my fallen body temperature recovered in the blink of an eye.
Some say alcohol is harmful, but for me, it was a tonic.
"Khhhguk! Khhk, khhk!"
Of course, like any proper tonic, it was fucking bitter and burned my stomach, but I had to put up with it.
That was when I was grimacing.
From up ahead on the road, the war cries of strangers rang out.
"Churrrrrrr!! Advance!!"
"The Great Chief wants us!!"
They were the warcries of fishmen.
That unpleasant churring breath sound—only the fishy bastards on this continent made it. Wondering what was going on, I ran forward.
Soon, I saw dozens of fishmen charging toward the port city.
'What are they doing here? Starting a war or something?'
From the moment I first spotted the fishmen, the hairs on my body stood on end. Their level of armament was on a wholly different dimension from the ferryman fishmen I'd met by the river. Unlike the ones I'd encountered so far, these fishmen looked like trained soldiers.
Iron helmets, studded leather armor.
In their hands, they held tridents.
There were only twenty of them, but they weren't to be underestimated.
The trident-wielding fishmen quickly spotted me tailing them.
"Churrr! A Dream Demon!"
"Captain! He's not a human, what do we do?"
"Just kill him! We must exterminate all non-fishmen races! That is the Great Chief's command!"
A peaceful resolution through dialogue was impossible.
Not that I had any intention of chatting with fishy-smelling bastards anyway.
And on top of that, they were racist fish. That just made it perfect!
I wanted to wipe the fishmen off this continent.
"Great Chief? Who's that?"
"Churrr-! You don't need to know! Die!"
Gripping their tridents, the fishmen charged at me in a mass rush. If I clashed head-on with those spear-tips pointed my way, I'd be turned into a pincushion. I decided to test Nistrond's performance right here.
"Hagalaz! Unleash the blizzard!"
I thrust Nistrond forward and spoke the incantation. The moment a fierce blizzard erupted from the tip of the staff, my body was pushed backward. At maximum output, the blizzard was like a storm, blasting away everything before my eyes.
Fwhooooooosh!!
The fishmen who had closed in on me were blown back by the absurd wind pressure. The endlessly swirling blizzard obscured their vision and dulled their movements.
"Ugh, uwaaaaaagh!"
"A mage! The mage is firing snow! Ke-hek!"
In the extreme cold, even opening your mouth was a struggle. The twenty fishmen were slowly buried in snow.
Just like the enemies in that classic masterpiece game, Snow Bros., I was turning them all into snowmen.
"When someone asks a question, you answer, you fishy bastards! Who is this Great Chief you're talking about?"
"W-we cannot tell yooou...!"
The fishmen endured the cold through willpower alone, but their voices trembled.
I strode up to the snow-covered fishmen.
"Churyaaak! You let your guard down, mage! We fishmen can withstand the cold!"
A few of the fishmen clutched their spear shafts and swung them at me as I approached. But covered in snow, their movements were agonizingly slow. I easily dodged the attacks and swung Nistrond back at them.
Thwack!
I whacked the first charging fishman with my staff. The moment his belly was struck squarely, his entire body froze solid, starting from his navel.
"Freeze!"
The fishman, his body bent like the Korean letter 'Giyeok,' would never straighten his back again. His whole form was encased in thick ice, taxidermied on the spot. I advanced forward, striking down one after another in rapid succession.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
Freezing each one took about a single second. The scaled bodies of the fishmen were already soaked from being covered in snow. Once wet, any ordinary creature touching Nistrond had essentially received a death sentence.
"Ah, aaaaaah!"
I swung my staff exactly nineteen times.
The last surviving fishman pissed himself as he watched his kinsmen trapped in ice. Around the fishman who'd collapsed covered in snow, the revolting stench of urine mixed with a fishy odor wafted up.
"P-please spare me. I'll tell you anything."
I aimed my staff at the fishman's brow and spoke.
With every word I said, a puff of white breath escaped.
"Who is this Great Chief you bastards were talking about?"
But the Great Chief's identity wasn't what I was really thinking about. It was something else entirely.
Two years ago, I couldn't do a thing against these fishmen bastards.
I'd hold my breath against their shitty fish stench, and I'd keep my mouth shut when they badmouthed me, calling me a useless Dream Demon. Back when I hadn't learned magic, I had to endure everything.
But now it was different.
I was the threat, and the fishmen were groveling before me. Seeing these racist fish bastards bowing their heads made my whole body tingle, even in the cold.
I no longer had to endure anything in front of the fishmen.
"O-our Great Chief of the fishmen is Neptune!"
"Did I ask for his name? Spill everything. What he ordered you to do, what his goal is."
"I-I cannot say tha—!"
Ttok!
I deliberately tapped the tip of my staff against the fishman's brow.
I didn't activate [Rapid Freeze], so it was just a tap, but the effect was immediate.
"Churyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!!!!!!"
The fishman rolled around on the snow-covered road, his face a mask of terror. He must have thought touching the staff meant instant freezing, no matter what. Naturally, [Rapid Freeze] could be turned off.
Which meant it could also be used for intimidation, just like this.
"Fine! I'll talk, I'll talk! Please, have mercy! If you spare me, I'll do anything! What our Great Chief desires is...."
The fishman, having gotten to his feet, spilled everything about the Great Chief without hesitation.
Finally, the moment came when I'd extracted all the information I wanted.
"...That's everything. I've told you all I know. Sir Dream Demon, you'll let me live now, right?"
The last surviving fishman looked at me with a fawning smile.
Yeah, smiling was fine.
A man's gotta live with a smile on his face.
"I'd like to spare you, but you stink!"
"Huh?"
"Your mouth reeks of fish. You filthy fishman bastard."
But your breath was so goddamn awful, I just couldn't take it.
I took my stance and swung a full-powered swing at the fishman's head with my staff. Like a golfer swinging a club, the staff traced a perfect arc before striking his skull.
The impact echoed loudly.
BAAAAAANG!!!
"Pleaaase!"
BAAAAAANG!!!!
"Take a fucking bath, you fish bastards!! Just running into you in an inn hallway makes me want to puke from the stench!! It makes everything I've eaten come right back up, I'm telling you!!"
BAAAAAANG!!!!
I beat him senseless with the staff, Rapid Freeze fully active.
The bleeding fishman couldn't even scream before freezing solid. His entire body froze rigid, like a dinosaur caught in an ice age, becoming a statue.
I delivered the final blow to the fishman, shattering his frozen body into pieces.
Crash-krrrakle!!
The frozen fishman shattered completely, crumbling into shards of ice.
Pieces of the fishman's corpse were embedded within the dozens of ice fragments.
I stopped swinging my staff and wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand.
"Huff."
I felt refreshed.
But this was no time to relax.
Because the so-called Great Chief of the fishmen was more dangerous than I'd thought.
You could call him the Hitler of this world.
I had to beat the bastard to death with my staff.