Chapter 133: The Tin Knight and The Golden Alchemist (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 133: The Tin Knight and The Golden Alchemist (3)
Though there were dozens of schools of magic, if you get down to the details, the most prominent were as follows:
Wizard.
Necromancer.
Alchemist.
Enchantress.
It wasn't that these schools themselves were exceptionally superior or powerful.
If that had been the standard, the other three might have made the cut, but the Necromancers wouldn't have even been in the running.
The reason these four schools were considered the most representative was simple: they were the schools of the Four Great Witches.
This was also why practitioners of Enchantment were called Enchantresses; the head of their school was a woman.
And among these four schools existed a peculiar rock-paper-scissors relationship.
Wizards were strong against Necromancers.
Before a Wizard, unparalleled in wide-area destruction, the undead legions summoned by a Necromancer were nothing more than kindling.
Necromancers were strong against Alchemists.
The moment a homunculus controlled by an Alchemist died, its strength was transferred wholesale to the Necromancer, becoming a threat to its former master.
Alchemists were strong against Enchantresses.
For an Enchantress, whose means of physical destruction were extremely limited, an Alchemist who could easily produce powerful, high-quality barriers was a tricky opponent.
Enchantresses were strong against Wizards.
With their abundance of self-enhancement abilities, Enchantresses were rare among mages for their strength in close combat, making them a foe that Wizards, who preferred long-range area attacks, would rather avoid.
In that sense, the battle between the Wicked Witch of the West and Dorothea should have theoretically been advantageous for Dorothea, but…
“Those bastards, they have no intention of coming down from the sky!”
Of course, there’s always a gap between theory and practice.
Dorothea ground her teeth as she watched the golden monkeys, who merely looked down on them from the blue sky, not daring to approach the ground.
No matter how she might be able to steal their homunculi, that was only possible after killing the opponent. It was impossible to hijack control from a perfectly living adversary.
One might say it was a good thing if the enemy avoided a fight, but that wasn't the case this time.
—Screech!
One monkey, hugging a pouch that looked like a greatly enlarged quiver, held it forward. The surrounding monkeys then pulled out the throwing spears from within.
And then, they hurled them with all their might toward Dorothea’s party.
Swoosh!
A chilling sound of slicing air echoed.
Perhaps because the carriage (boat) was moving at high speed, the attack missed, but just seeing it streak past was enough to tell its power was extraordinary.
The problem was that this was only the beginning.
The number of monkeys holding spear pouches was a quarter of the total.
The spears thrown by the remaining three-quarters began to rain down.
“Franka!”
“I know, I know!”
Franka, replying irritably, stomped her foot, and the carriage, which had been moving in a straight line, veered to the side.
Immediately after, spears rained down on the path the carriage had just been about to take.
A few spears managed to hit their location, but they only managed to scratch the outer wall in the central part of the carriage, failing to injure the party inside.
Fwoom!
In retaliation, the ballista at the front of the carriage fired.
Though shaped like an arrow, its size was even larger than the throwing spears. The massive bolt mercilessly shot down one of the monkeys flying in the sky.
Normally, reloading a ballista was a time-consuming task, but there was no such worry with this vessel.
This was because as the Bat-Winged Golden Monkey placed a new bolt on the ballista, the ballista itself was reconstructed into a ‘fully drawn’ state.
—Ooki!
Thanks to this, the Bat-Winged Golden Monkey only had to aim the already-loaded ballista and fire, while the Insect-Winged Golden Monkey diligently pumped the pedals, providing power to the carriage.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ is impressed by her skill!]
Dorothea agreed with the Tin Knight’s assessment.
At a glance, it seemed Franka was just stomping her foot, but in reality, she was simultaneously performing various tasks like steering the boat and reconstructing the ballista.
The fact that she had established a system allowing them to fight without external help offered a glimpse that Franka wasn't just relying on Dorothea's party.
However.
‘There are too many of them.’
No matter how fast they reloaded, a single ballista couldn't win against dozens of hands.
Worse, due to the twofold hardship of a high-altitude target and high-speed movement, their own attacks didn't have a very high accuracy rate.
Dorothea shouted.
“Can’t you make another ballista?!”
“I told you, it's not something I can change that quickly! Besides, we don't have that many bolts to begin with!”
Franka’s alchemy only changed the form or structure of existing matter; it couldn't create something from nothing.
If they had been on land, she could have used the earth or stones as materials for alchemy, but out on the sea with no way to replenish her materials, their supplies were simply dwindling.
Dorothea’s concern deepened.
The number of monkeys, drawn by the battle, was increasing rather than decreasing, and the number of spears hitting the carriage was also rising.
Moreover, the spears thrown by the monkeys were filled with mana, and their power was formidable.
Because the carriage was made of Franka's favorite custom metal, it was somehow holding on despite getting dented. If it had been made of ordinary iron or wood, it wouldn't have been strange for it to have been shattered long ago.
As Dorothea pondered, the Tin Knight suddenly leaped onto the roof of the carriage.
*
“Hey, you! What are you going to do if you fall!”
[The ‘Tin Knight’ says he’s fine, uttering a line with a notoriously high mortality rate!]
Ignoring Dorothea’s half-worried, half-complaining words, you inspected the condition of your footing—that is, the carriage roof.
It was dented here and there from being battered by mana-infused spears, but the base material itself was sturdy, so it didn't feel like it would break anytime soon.
Even for you, losing your balance and falling into the sea in this situation would be incredibly troublesome, so the stability of your footing was a crucial factor.
Swoosh!
A spear imbued with golden mana fell toward your head.
The timing was perfect, so you snatched it right out of the air.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ shouts that illegal dumping is a crime!]
And then, you hurled it right back at the monkey in the sky.
Thwack!
Just as the monkey, its head not just pierced but completely exploded, began to fall, another spear came flying toward the boat.
You caught that spear as well and returned it to the enemy.
Catch, throw, catch, throw.
There was no spear you couldn't catch, and no spear you threw ever missed.
The high-speed, swaying platform and the continuous barrage from the sky were insufficient to hinder your attacks.
After you downed ten of them in the blink of an eye, the monkeys' movements changed.
Spreading out to the left and right of the carriage, they lowered their altitude.
Throwing their spears from a position only slightly higher than the carriage, the spears now struck the sides of the carriage instead of the roof where you stood.
You thought for a moment.
It wouldn't be hard to go down and catch the spears, but if you did that, they would just change their angle and attack again.
You could use the ballista bolts instead, but seeing the ever-increasing swarm of monkeys, it seemed there would be a limit to that.
You needed to secure your own means of attack.
One, two, three.
Ding! Something popped into your head.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ asks Dorothea to make him a spear!]
Dorothea asked back, dumbfounded.
“What? A spear? How the hell am I supposed to make something like that!”
[The ‘Tin Knight’ says that something like a long bone will do!]
[The ‘Tin Knight’ requests that she replicate that thing she does, puffing up a body part with mana!]
That was right.
You had seen Dorothea use a small bone fragment or a speck of dried blood as a catalyst to create an undead dozens of times larger on multiple occasions.
She did it by supplementing the missing parts with her own mana.
Of course, the undead created that way had a shorter duration and consumed far more mana than those made from a complete corpse, but that didn't matter when creating consumables like this.
Dorothea’s expression changed as she, too, realized your intent.
“I'm telling you now, it won't last more than ten seconds.”
[The ‘Tin Knight’ says that’s more than enough!]
Dorothea took out a pouch of bone powder from her belt.
A minuscule amount of catalyst, just enough to be pinched between thumb and forefinger. And a heap of top-quality mana.
Taking the bone created from the witch’s impromptu recipe—a long femur that clearly didn't belong to a human—you slammed it against the edge of the roof with a clang.
The femur instantly transformed into a makeshift spear.
“Huh?”
“What… what did you do?”
Ooki? Ookeek?
The party expressed their confusion in various ways.
In truth, there was no great secret behind it.
The principle was simple: objects reinforced with mana are hard, while those without are relatively fragile. By reinforcing the bone in the shape of a spear and then applying the right impact, the unreinforced parts would break away, leaving only the reinforced section.
The object was already filled with Dorothea's mana, which made it a bit more difficult, but since you weren't trying to carve intricate details and just needed to create a rough spear-like shape, it wasn't impossible.
Instead of answering the party's questions, you took a throwing stance.
All the while, the spear's lifespan was ticking away.
Swoosh!
Thwack!
A few seconds after piercing a monkey's head, the spear crumbled, its lifespan expired.
The spear basket the monkey had been clutching also fell into the sea and sank.
The quality of the spear was, to put it mildly, poor, and the monkey, being a homunculus, seemed to boast a toughness that an ordinary blade couldn't even scratch. But that was just a matter of using more mana.
With Dorothea right next to you, there was no need to conserve mana.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ requests the next spear!]
[The ‘Tin Knight’ says that looking at the time, she could probably give him two or three at once!]
“Here!”
Thwack-thwack-thwack!
In an instant, three monkeys' heads exploded.
And this time, too, the spear baskets they held fell into the sea.
Franka muttered in a daze.
“No way. Is he deliberately aiming for those?”
[The ‘Tin Knight’ says that targeting the enemy's supply line is basic strategy!]
[The ‘Tin Knight’ says that if he can't recycle the enemy's spears anyway, there's no need to let them fire in the first place!]
The golden monkeys were swarming, but only a fraction of them were carrying the spear baskets.
By precisely targeting and sniping only that fraction, the golden monkeys were left with no more weapons to throw and grew flustered.
In contrast, you launched a counterattack the moment Dorothea tossed you a spear. Eventually, the monkeys could no longer hold out and retreated from the carriage.
It seemed they were leaving to resupply.
Dorothea spoke.
“Well, we’ve cleared the first hurdle.”
Landing operation, successful.