Chapter 135: The Tin Knight and the Golden Alchemist (5)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 135: The Tin Knight and the Golden Alchemist (5)
Werewolves boasting coarse, black fur roared.
Their sharp teeth and claws were more than enough to tear a person’s fragile body to shreds.
Splat!
Centaur-like creatures, with the upper body of a human and the lower body of a horse, galloped across the plains.
Their powerful limbs granted them incredible speed, and their precise archery seemed capable of hunting any beast.
Crunch!
Green goblins with wretched faces and small frames moved in packs.
Though not powerful, their cunning and cruelty made them formidable foes you’d regret underestimating.
Crack!
And now, these terrifying monsters were achieving a grand harmony.
Before the golden carriage that was not just galloping but rampaging across the plains, they were all turned into a uniform pulp, a heartwarming sight to behold.
It went beyond simple handshakes and hugs; their bones, muscles, entrails, and brains intertwined in harmony, making for what could only be called a truly proactive intercultural exchange.
The Tin Knight shouted with a cheerful heart.
[The 'Tin Knight' leaves a good rating for this bumper car experience!]
“Is this really happening?! Are we really doing this?!”
“Just shut up and turn! There’s something huge up ahead!”
Though he could hear the two witches in the carriage screaming their heads off, the Tin Knight paid them no mind.
Besides, thrilling rides were always more fun when you shouted a few curses.
Smash! Thump! CRUNCH!
Small monsters were trampled, medium-sized ones were sent flying, and for the large ones, the carriage simply changed its trajectory just before impact.
Franka’s driving was truly a work of art.
Of course, the enemies didn’t just take it lying down.
Golden Monkeys rained down mana-infused javelins from the sky, and countless monsters threw themselves at the carriage without a care for their own bodies.
Most were flung away in vain or ground to bits under the wheels, but a few managed to climb aboard.
“Grrrrrrr!”
Just as a burly werewolf shoved its maw into the carriage.
“Kishaaaaak!”
With the distinctive, shrill cry of a monkey, the Insect-Winged Golden Monkey slammed its fist into the werewolf’s head.
A giant snake bit the monkey’s arm, but its golden, glowing fur didn’t even show a scratch.
Thwack! Crack! Crunch!
While the gap in their power had widened immensely after its restoration procedure in Tik-Tok, this was the same monkey that had once fought fiercely on par with the Tin Knight.
Since the Tin Knight was handling the power source, pressing the pedals was meaningless anyway, so the monkey could devote all its strength to protecting its master.
“Ook-eek!”
It was the same for the Bat-Winged Golden Monkey that had taken to the sky.
It was smaller than the witches of the west’s monkeys, but that made it all the more agile. It weaved through their ranks, disrupting their javelin throws.
A direct confrontation would be another story, but it seemed more than capable of simply running interference.
Vwoom!
A black wave swept across the plain.
The corpses touched by the black mana radiating from the carriage rose to their feet as if granted new life.
It was Dorothea’s necromancy.
However, before the resurrected undead could make a move, the Golden Monkeys’ javelins rained down upon their heads.
Struck by the spears imbued with golden mana, the undead exploded before they even had a chance to fight.
“Tsk.”
Dorothea clicked her tongue.
The number of corpses on the battlefield was certainly increasing, and she was turning them into undead immediately, but they weren’t very effective.
Part of the reason was that the monkeys in the sky were smashing them on sight, but more importantly, there were simply too few corpses.
Dorothea’s eyes scanned the battlefield outside the carriage.
She saw other monsters ravenously tearing into the corpse of a mutant centaur that had been run over by the carriage.
Though they were monsters, they weren't entirely devoid of reason, yet they showed no hesitation in devouring the corpses.
A closer look revealed a sinister gleam in their eyes.
It was a ferocious gluttony. Whether it was the effect of a drug or magic, the Wicked Witch of the West had clearly done something.
Dorothea sneered unconsciously.
“Rather than let me take them, you’d dispose of them yourself? What fiery possessiveness.”
Franka’s expression was also grim.
Her gaze was fixed on a Golden Monkey that had fallen to the ground—one of the kills her own familiar had made in the sky.
Watching the werewolves greedily tear apart the monkey’s corpse, Franka spoke in a tone laced with contempt and fury.
“I could care less about mere monsters, but to use homunculi as disposable pawns like this…”
“Unlike you, she has a lot of them, so maybe she doesn’t care about each one?”
“That’s not the point! No matter how many children a parent has, there’s no way they’d feed their corpse to the dogs!”
“Well, there’s one right here.”
Having shut Franka up with her casual remark, Dorothea fell silent in thought.
Even she couldn’t turn a corpse that was already in another’s stomach into an undead.
Well, if she poured all her mana and concentration into it, it might be possible, but not while moving at high speed and simply sending out waves of power from a distance.
But stopping the carriage was not an option.
Getting bogged down and surrounded by that insane horde was a problem, but even if they could withstand it, the Wicked Witch of the West had yet to show herself.
There was no guarantee that Franka’s estimate of the ballista’s effective range was correct, and even if the ballista was unusable, there was no telling what other bizarre weapons the witch might bring out.
‘Should we just charge straight through?’
The carriage slowed down from time to time as enemies clung to it, but thanks to the phenomenal output of the Tin Knight’s booster, it never came to a complete stop.
They had already crossed more than half the plain. Instead of trying to defeat this entire horde, charging straight for the witch’s castle was a viable option.
[The 'Tin Knight' says to hold on tight!]
Before Dorothea could even think, What?, the Tin Knight slammed the propeller in his hand into the ground.
The brutally abrupt stop lifted the carriage’s body high, sending it soaring a meter into the air.
“Aahk!”
“Ugh!”
Franka and Dorothea were thrown back.
If the Tin Knight and the monkey hadn’t caught them, they would have fallen right out of the carriage.
But they had no time to complain. The moment the carriage stopped, practically dangling from the thin propeller blade, something enormous erupted from the ground right in front of them.
A body like a worm, sharp teeth, and a size so immense it was overwhelming.
“A Sandworm!”
Someone, either Dorothea or Franka, shouted its name in a mix of awe and terror.
All that mattered was that if the carriage had kept going, it would have plunged straight into that cavernous mouth.
As if disappointed that its surprise attack had failed, the Sandworm turned its gaze toward the party.
Its massive body tensed, preparing for its next hunt.
“Hey!”
It was a single, unintelligible shout, but Franka knew exactly what to do.
The carriage’s form collapsed back into golden blocks, and the party, no longer contained, fell to the ground.
Again, by a hair's breadth, the Sandworm’s jaws snapped shut where the carriage had been.
The Tin Knight, who had landed with Dorothea in his arms, set her down and dashed forward the instant her feet touched the ground.
An incredible amount of sword energy erupted from his blade.
One horizontal slash, and one vertical.
The Sandworm’s body was instantly diced into four pieces.
It was an anticlimactic end, belying the majesty of its first appearance.
But that didn’t mean the threat was gone.
Splaaash!
Green bodily fluid sprayed everywhere.
The volume was bizarrely large, even for a creature of the Sandworm’s size.
It was as if over ninety percent of its body existed just to contain that fluid.
Dorothea’s staff hummed, creating a barrier.
The golden blocks that had formed the carriage reshaped into a shield, enveloping Franka and her monkey.
The Tin Knight felt a sense of satisfaction.
However, their preparations were a bit excessive.
The Tin Knight’s shield glowed with mana.
Three gems flashed intensely.
As the Tin Knight spun his body in mid-air, the mana stored in his shield was unleashed all at once.
BOOOOOM!
A shockwave rippled through the air, scattering the Sandworm’s fluids.
The witches’ defenses proved unnecessary; not a single drop splashed on them, while the surrounding monsters were caught in the deluge.
The monsters touched by the fluid, which could melt even metal, shrieked as they dissolved.
It was then that the satisfied Tin Knight sensed something strange.
Inside the now-empty, limp husk of the Sandworm, he felt a familiar red energy.
Muscles formed around a skeleton and skin grew over them, creating a human figure in an instant.
Seeing the woman, her hair disheveled like when they first met instead of its usual tied-up style, the Tin Knight spoke.
[The 'Tin Knight' greets a comrade he hasn't seen in a while!]
[The 'Tin Knight' comments that it seems a bit too intense for a hot spring bath!]
The two witches stared at him from behind as if he were insane (though for different reasons), but the Tin Knight was unfazed.
And his counterpart was just as composed.
“I know, right? The Witch of the West seems to have a rather… intense way of treating her guests.”
“Is this really the time for small talk?!”
Dorothea, shouting, started to take off her cloak… then shot a sharp glance at Franka.
Franka, seeming to understand, instantly wove a garment from the grass on the ground and handed it to Sophia.
The party looked behind them.
The Sandworm’s fluid had wiped out the nearby monsters in an instant, but the enemy’s numbers were still vast.
Just as Dorothea was about to raise the Sandworm’s corpse, a voice came from the sky.
《Hah, how absurd. To think you’d slaughter it in mere seconds?》
The voice was filled with disbelief.
The party’s heads snapped up.
The Wicked Witch of the West, Elphaba.
The master of this world was looking down on them from the sky, just as before.
《Dangerous, you are. Far more dangerous than I thought. Even so, I’d rather not destroy my own castle twice─》
Space itself seemed to creak.
The navy-blue gauntlet, as if responding to its master’s will, revealed its miracle to the world.
《─Here and now, I will end this for good.》
A rock of enormous size materialized in the air.
The extraordinary strike that had defeated them in their first battle was recreated.
Truly overwhelming, truly wondrous.
“You think we’d fall for the same trick twice?!”
“Don’t underestimate us!”
─And yet, it was an attack they had seen before. In response to the familiar assault, the two young witches answered.
The ground beneath Franka’s feet churned, mixing with the golden blocks.
The earth, rippling like paper, shot upwards, forming a ramp angled at sixty degrees.
Dorothea simultaneously pulled out four pouches of bone powder from her bag.
Pouring in every last drop of her mana, she summoned the souls of the dead from the plain, forming the shape of a giant Skeleton Soldier.
The giant undead, a chimera of man and beast, braced the ramp with its entire body.
KRRRUUUUUMBLE!
The massive rock made contact with the ramp.
Its mass and size were so overwhelming that destroying or parrying it was next to impossible.
But the principle of the attack was simple: a downward strike, driven by gravity.
Its appearance was a miracle, but once summoned, it was just a big rock.
If that was the case, deflecting it sideways was more than possible.
Especially for these two, if not for an ordinary mage.
KRA-KOOOOOOOOOOM!
The rock, sliding off the ramp, crashed into the ground.
The ramp and the giant skeleton, pushed to their absolute limits, crumbled, their purpose served.
The witch’s finishing blow had failed.