Chapter 234: The Tin Knight and the Witch of Transformation (4)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 234: The Tin Knight and the Witch of Transformation (4)
For a patient suffering from the grave illness of an overinflated ego, the most unbearable thing is not criticism or insult.
This is because a wondrous internal translation mechanism exists within them, one that completely ignores whether the condemnation directed at them is justified or not, allowing them to reach the transcendent conclusion of, ‘They’re angry at me! That means I’m superior to them!’
Even if the mages from the Tower of Protection had erupted in anger, calling him a coward or despicable, Valdeus would not have cared. Of course, being the petty man he was, he would have simply browbeaten them further.
That was why this situation, where he was being utterly ignored as things proceeded without him, was so difficult for Valdeus to tolerate.
He grabbed the Tower Head in his arms by the collar, lifting him up as if for show, and shouted.
“What do you think you’re doing?! Don’t you care what happens to your Tower Head! If so, I’ll crush his skull this instant!”
“W-Wait, please wait!”
“Then stop them right now!”
“They are not under our command! Even if we wanted to stop them, we can’t even speak to them in this situation!”
“Nonsense! You’ve been cooperating just fine until now, and you expect me to believe that!”
“It’s not a lie! After you captured the Tower Head, we lost all contact with them a short while ago!”
“Tch…”
As if revealing his complex inner turmoil, Valdeus’s movements slowed.
*
「As long as the enemy has a hostage, they will try to use it in some way.」
「There are many ways. They might use them as a disposable card from the start to test us or break our morale, or they might use them to tie our hands at a critical moment.」
「When that happens, we must not show that we are being swayed. To be more precise, we shouldn't even engage them in conversation in the first place. For those who try to gain the upper hand through dialogue, the most frustrating opponent is the type who, like Sir Tin, just starts swinging first.」
「But we can’t just abandon the hostage, either. We aren’t just fighting to bring down the Tower of Control; our goal is to reveal the truth of this incident and restore the honor of the Friedel domain. For that, we need Lady Hermina’s help, and even if we can’t get her back, we must not become complete enemies with the Tower of Protection.」
「Therefore, we must force them into a state of confusion. If our side rampages as if we don’t care about the hostage’s safety, while the main force of the Tower of Protection acts as if there’s room for negotiation, the enemy will be forced to hesitate. It becomes impossible for them to manipulate us as they’d planned, but the hostage’s value doesn’t completely disappear either. They’ll have no choice but to overthink their next move.」
「—That hesitation is the opening we must aim for.」
*
Click. The sound of a heeled shoe.
Gale, having teleported behind Valdeus, swung his staff and struck him on the back of the head.
CRACK!
The single blow shattered all the defensive magic and luxurious protective artifacts he had unconsciously activated.
“Keuk!”
Valdeus was undoubtedly a skilled mage, but there was little he could do when he was caught off guard by a surprise attack from Gale, a superior mage, while his mind was elsewhere.
A moment too late, the other mages nearby tried to react, but Gale was faster, grabbing Valdeus and using him as a shield.
“If you don’t behave, I can’t guarantee the hostage’s safety. You were about to do the same thing, so you understand, don’t you?”
The mages were frozen by Gale’s question, delivered with a polite demeanor that was simultaneously laced with humor and mischief.
While they hesitated, Gale activated his magic.
『Binding』 『Protection』 『Acceleration』
The character for Binding became a rope that tied up Valdeus, the character for Protection enveloped the group, and the character for Acceleration aided Gale’s movements.
In the blink of an eye, Gale moved to the Tower of Protection’s formation and handed over the two people he had brought with him.
Most wore dumbfounded expressions, wondering what on earth was happening, but the few who had been briefed on the plan showed looks of pure elation.
“Well done! You really did it!”
“Now we can fight them without holding back!”
The mages opened the leather pouch Valdeus was carrying and began to analyze its contents. As outstanding magic tool creators, they understood its structure in an instant.
When they infused mana into the bizarrely shaped root, the mages who had been turned into plants began to revert to their human forms one by one.
The ones Mombi had captured were all senior members who had contributed to the Tower of Protection for a long time, so the remaining leaders welcomed them with joy.
In other words.
The people gathered here were the very core of the Tower, the ones who absolutely could not be lost.
Tower Head Hermina’s eyes glinted coldly, and her fingers sharpened into blades.
Like the hands of a clock turning, she spun her body, swinging the blades in a wide arc.
The mages within the radius of the spinning blades were instantly turned into countless chunks of meat.
Kaaaaang!
It was a surprise attack that might have ended the war itself in a single moment had it completed a full rotation.
But the deathly clock hand stopped its movement a quarter of the way, between twelve and three o’clock.
The White Knight.
The latest and greatest magic doll of the era, in terms of pure specs, had forcibly halted her attack.
“It’s a fake in disguise! Fall back!”
The mages here were also highly skilled, so they were quick to grasp the situation.
They forcibly grabbed their dazed or slow-moving comrades and quickly retreated outside the blades’ rotational radius.
The Tower Head of Protection, Hermina.
“Tsk, what a shame, what a shame. If it had gone well, it could have ended so easily.”
No, it was the witch Mombi, who had transformed into her likeness, clicking her tongue in disappointment.
Valdeus, bound by ropes and rolling on the floor, dazedly lifted his head and stared at Mombi.
“G-Great Teacher…?”
“Yes, son of Lotbart. It was quite amusing to watch. Even clowning becomes an art form when it crosses a certain line.”
Her words and gestures seemed to be praising him with affection and, at the same time, mocking him with ridicule.
Perhaps, to the witch Mombi, both were one and the same.
Only then did Valdeus realize.
The person he called Great Teacher had never once called him by his name.
Valdeus’s head dropped.
Shaak!
Immediately after, the White Knight’s spearhead surged toward Mombi’s head.
The White Knight’s attack, enhanced by Gale’s enchantment, possessed the power to pierce even a steel wall, but Mombi blocked it simply by raising one hand.
Her body, reconstructed through transformation magic, had the appearance of a human, but its contents were far from ordinary.
On top of that, she possessed the powerful protection magic inherited from Orin.
Seeing her effortless defense, Gale’s expression hardened.
The fact that the White Knight, whom he had ordered to respond immediately if anything happened, had failed to completely block the surprise attack and allowed casualties, coupled with the overwhelming defensive power she was now displaying, clearly indicated that her specs had risen since their first battle.
Gale, a first-rate technician as well as a mage, immediately saw through the mechanism.
‘She’s using the tower as a relay point to handle the surrounding mana as if it’s her own.’
Enhancing one’s basic abilities using ley lines was a very simple and fundamental function of a mage’s workshop.
Because Dorothea’s party had moved so quickly, Mombi hadn’t had time to decorate a new workshop to her own taste and had likely focused only on the basics. The problem was that her opponent was strong enough to be more than a match for them with just those basics.
“Gale. You have no qualms about attacking your master’s body. Don’t you know that if I die, your master dies with me?”
“For someone sharing a body with my master, you seem to know very little. She’s the kind of person who would be more heartbroken by a single mage shedding tears over your villainy than by having her own fingers cut off.”
“Hmm. Then aren’t you curious where the real Tower Head of Protection is? If you kneel and lick my shoes right now, I might just tell you.”
“Knowing her personality, if she found out we couldn’t fight properly and messed everything up because of her, everyone here would probably have to kneel and listen to a sermon for a week straight, so I’ll pass.”
“Tsk, such a charmless disciple.”
Mombi shook her head.
There should have been some hesitation or anguish to gently poke and play with, but with him putting up such a solid wall, there was no opening to exploit.
Moreover, she could see that even the mages from the Tower of Protection, who had been hesitant before, were now steeling their resolve after seeing the corpses of their comrades killed by Mombi’s attack and hearing Gale’s words.
“Well, it doesn’t matter.”
But Mombi didn’t dwell on it.
She was a whimsical witch, after all.
If her scheme failed, she would simply crush them with force.
Mombi’s hand-blade and the White Knight’s spear clashed once more.
The mages from the Tower of Control, who had been observing the situation, began to unleash a barrage of fire, and the mages from the Tower of Protection quickly assumed a counter-attack posture.
Blood and flames blossomed, raising the curtain on a full-scale clash.
*
A mage grows stronger in their own workshop.
This was even more true for a joint workshop, intentionally created by over a thousand mages, that used the massive ley lines of an entire domain as its fuel.
Layers upon layers of overlapping barriers. Dozens of guardians of each type—evil spirits, ghosts, spirits, golems, and more—ready to greet their enemies.
The traps, normally left inactive, were all activated to face the emergency. With every step they took, intruders had to endure all sorts of traps—incineration, thrown spears, lightning strikes, spatial transfers—while simultaneously dealing with the hit-and-run attacks of the mages.
It was an overwhelming defense and interception system that would annihilate the regular army of a decent-sized domain before they could even clear the first floor.
The Tin Knight’s party broke through it all without hesitation.
When the enemy’s offensive surged, the Tin Knight swept them away. Dorothea countered the magic, Sophia absorbed the dangerous traps with her body, and when their path was physically blocked, Adelaide smashed it open.
Their prowess was so overwhelming that Cap’n Bill, who had been recruited as a collaborator through a contract, clicked his tongue in disbelief.
“A real pack of monsters, ain’t ya! And what you’re doin’ looks mighty familiar. You lot aren’t bigger villains than I am, are ya?”
[The ‘Tin Knight’ insists that judging Dorothea by her attire alone is prejudice!]
“Will you two cut the crap!? You’ve got way too much time on your hands!” Dorothea shouted in annoyance, panting heavily.
She had been prepared for it to some extent, but the tower’s defenses were truly deserving of the word ‘brutal.’
When she had first attempted the mass undead attack, she had saved mana by using hollow balloon undead that were all for show, thinking the same trick wouldn’t work twice. If she hadn’t, she might have already collapsed from mana exhaustion.
It was also a great help that most of Cap’n Bill’s crew had remained on the first floor to cut off external support.
Trot, who was accompanying them as a sort of anchor to keep Cap’n Bill and the other officers from being automatically resummoned to the ship if they were away for too long, kicked a fire-breathing dog squarely in the snout and screamed.
“I feel like we’ve been climbing forever! What floor are we on right now?!”
“The building’s structure and magic have twisted things around, so it’s hard to tell, but we’re probably about halfway through. Anyway, our target, the old man, should be on the top floor, so—”
Dorothea’s words, urging them to hurry, were cut short.
A small skull she was carrying raised its voice.
The skull, engraved with Gale’s unique magic characters, spoke fluently.
《Witch sighted! Witch sighted! Outside! Outside!》
“…Tch!”
Dorothea’s expression soured.
Given that Mombi, who specialized in transformation and surprise attacks, hadn’t ambushed them during their climb, she had expected this. It seemed her target was indeed outside.
Inside and outside the tower.
They had agreed that if one group found Mombi, the other would join them to fight immediately. That meant Dorothea’s party had to leave the tower now and head for Gale.
The problem was, that wasn’t the only message.
《Witch! Her defensive magic is continuously auto-repairing! Subjugation impossible at this rate! To defeat her, you must destroy the tower’s core that supplies her with mana!》
《Will focus on buying time! Conquer the tower as fast as possible and come for support!》
As if reflecting Gale’s less-than-leisurely situation, the skull’s tone was strangely urgent.
Dorothea frowned and looked at the Tin Knight.
The Tin Knight seemed to understand her intent and replied.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ says that to properly face that witch, it will take at least the four of them: himself, the White Knight, Dorothea, and Gale!]
[The ‘Tin Knight’ advises that if their side is defeated before they get there, things will get quite complicated!]
“But we don’t have a choice. We have to do something about the barrier. We just have to move as fast as we can.”
“No. The two of you, please go back.”
Cutting her off, Adelaide stepped forward.
She looked up at the sky, as if staring at something at the very top of the tower.
“—I’ll finish things here.”