Chapter 80: The Tin Knight and The Land of Deep Green (10)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 80: The Tin Knight and The Land of Deep Green (10)
In truth, Adel hadn't played a major role since they entered the Garden.
She could hold her own against ordinary wild animals and magic beasts, but she couldn't defeat the creatures that the Tin Knight (and Dorothea, who had been influenced by him) deemed 'boss-level'.
The reason was simple: she lacked attack power.
Against humans, a simple stab with a sword was usually an effective blow, so a lack of attack power was never an issue. However, many of the Garden's stronger inhabitants considered a mere slash to be nothing more than a scratch.
Her exceptional evasion and agility hadn't gone anywhere, so she wasn't easily defeated. But since Adel also lacked the ability to land a decisive blow, the best she could do was drag out the fight.
And the monsters born from the fruits this time were each as strong as a boss, or just slightly weaker.
Frankly, they were enemies Adel couldn't handle.
That is…
Fwoosh!
…until a white energy enveloped Adel's sword.
-■■■!
With a monstrous roar that was impossible to describe in words, a wolf dripping green fluid from its mouth charged.
Pivoting on her left foot, Adel spun and swiftly brushed past the wolf's side.
The momentum of her spin and the arc of her sword aligned, and a white flash of light from the blade sliced diagonally across the wolf's flank.
Spurt! Blood flew as the wolf's body was split apart.
It was a terrifying power that severed not only fur and flesh, but bone as well.
More than anyone, it was Adel herself who was shocked by its ghastly sharpness.
‘Whoa, whoa, whoa!’
Adel marveled.
Normally, she would have had to go through all sorts of trouble, aiming for its eyes or stabbing into its mouth, just to stand a chance. But now, without any of that, a simple, casual slash cut through it cleanly. It was a whole new world.
It was the joy of a newbie who, after being forced into unintentional challenge runs day after day, was finally freed from her constraints.
Had the Tin Knight known, he would have lamented, "She shouldn't get a taste for gear and buffs so soon!" But since he himself was completely absorbed in the battle before him, his complaint wouldn't have held much weight.
Transformed from an evasion tank to an evasion dealer, Adel tore across the battlefield with gusto, leaving a trail of blood in her wake.
Behind her.
The wolf Adel had first cut down twitched and trembled.
Though the wound was nearly fatal, the wolf did not die.
No, far from dying, new sprouts bloomed from its wounds, weaving together as if trying to restore the injury.
“You think I'm just going to stand by and watch?”
But unfortunately for the wolf, a vile and wicked witch was present.
Dorothea took a small glass bottle from her pouch and sprinkled its liquid contents onto the wolf.
The liquid, barely a mouthful of water, fed on Dorothea's mana and swelled in volume, drenching the wolf's entire body.
The reaction was dramatic. The wolf's body melted where the mysterious liquid touched it, and in an instant, only its bones remained.
When Dorothea struck the ground with her staff, the wolf's bones reassembled in mid-air, transforming into a skeleton wolf. The liquid turned into a mist that began to fill the surrounding area.
It was a mist composed of a curse filled with the grudges of the dead and an extreme poison created from ingredients gathered in this forest.
A deer's legs trembled as the mist touched them. A snake, startled, burrowed into the ground to escape, but the toxic vapor seeped into the earth, corrupting it. Even the grass quickly withered or melted away into liquid.
The creatures in the vicinity all screamed as one, beginning to writhe in instinctual terror.
Thanks to the mana and plant-based power within their bodies, few of them died outright, but once Adel struck them down, even that resistance became meaningless.
Enemies who suffered a fatal blow from Adel and were then touched by the mist were soon reduced to bone, rising as new undead under Dorothea's command.
Little by little, the overwhelming difference in numbers began to close.
Sophia said in awe.
“How terrifying. I think I can understand why your teacher, Miss Dorothea, was so feared.”
“You'd best not judge my teacher based on me. She's a real monster. Besides, this stuff isn't that easy to use.”
Dorothea grumbled while issuing commands to the undead.
“For one, it doesn't distinguish between friend or foe. The tin can doesn't have a living body to begin with, and it doesn't really affect me since I'm the source of the mana, but otherwise, it would sweep up our allies, too. …Normally, that is.”
Her blue eyes stared at Adel.
Despite fighting within a mist thick with poison and curses, Adel showed no signs of distress.
A white haze emanated from the sword Adel held.
The holy power, like a halo of light or a white flame, was protecting her from the toxic vapor.
The fact that holy power and necromancy repelled each other was usually an inconvenience, but right now, that very trait was proving helpful.
The irony was that Sophia, who had been taking damage from her own holy power, actually felt better after being enveloped in Dorothea's black mist, perhaps due to her species.
It was a party whose synergy was impossible to gauge as either good or bad.
*
While the trio of Dorothea, Adel, and Sophia were fighting a battle of attrition against the enemy's overwhelming numbers…
The Tin Knight was facing the tree that could be called the enemy's main body.
Ruuuumble!
A tree root, thick enough to fit the Tin Knight inside if hollowed out, tore through the ground as it charged.
Following it, several smaller roots writhed like earthworms, aiming for the Tin Knight.
The Tin Knight dodged the thick root, then swung his sword to sever the smaller ones.
[The 'Tin Knight' marvels at the enchant effect!]
In truth, for the Tin Knight, who could handle mana much more skillfully than Adel, the weapon enhancement from the holy power wasn't strictly necessary.
If anything, its pure cutting power was inferior to that of his sword energy.
However, the holy enhancement had a major difference from sword energy: it didn't consume a single bit of the Tin Knight's own mana.
And it guaranteed a constant level of attack power without him having to pay close attention.
In other words, he could now pour all the energy he would normally have spent on his sword energy into other things.
Kwoong!
With a heavy stomp, the Tin Knight dodged a root lunging at him and leaped on top of it.
Plunging his sword into the root, he began to run up the tree.
Sh-sh-sh-shk!
The path the Tin Knight's sword carved was a single line, but the sword wound itself was not.
Following the path he traveled, countless streams of sword energy scattered as if dozens of people were hacking away at it, leaving deep gashes in the tree.
《────》
Spewing green fluid like blood, the tree emitted a pulse.
It looked like a pained scream.
The tree tried to summon the nearby magic beasts, but they were tied up fighting Dorothea's trio and had no capacity to support it.
Even when it tried to summon new beasts, the supply of 'ingredients' to use as nutrients was poor.
This was because the black mist Dorothea had created neutralized the hallucinogenic substance the tree was emitting, causing all the animals to flee.
A massive energy stirred inside the tree.
Unable to absorb any more nutrients from the outside, the tree used the nutrients within its own body as ingredients to birth new magic beasts.
The fruits growing on the upper part of the tree exploded, and the magic beasts inside lunged at the Tin Knight.
Instead of drawing his sword to fight them, the Tin Knight raised his shield.
He thrust his left arm forward, covering his body with the shield. Tucking in his shoulders and neck, a faint stream of mana began to leak from around the Tin Knight.
As the Tin Knight accelerated further in that state, his silver mana drew a long tail behind him.
Th-th-th-thud!!
The magic beasts blocking the Tin Knight's path failed to penetrate the streamlined mana and were sent flying.
No, to say they were sent flying was putting it nicely; they looked as if they'd been hit by a truck.
Like a great serpent coiling its body around its prey, the Tin Knight ran diagonally up the side of the tree, literally plowing through its surface.
The tree tried to regenerate its body somehow, but even that wasn't easy.
The sword scars left by the Tin Knight were astonishingly deep and sharp, and Sophia's holy power burned the tree like a real flame, growing in scale.
When it managed to quell the fire with its remaining nutrients and mana, the black mist would seep in as if targeting that moment of exhaustion, causing the tree to rot.
Adel, who seemed to have gotten the hang of it mid-battle, moved faster and faster as she slaughtered the beasts on the ground. The undead legion commanded by Dorothea continued to grow in number, and Sophia, as if her job was done, was watching from the side.
Taaat!
Having torn up the entire side of the tree, the Tin Knight finally reached the top.
Barely managing to pull his blade free, the Tin Knight poured his mana into the sword imbued with holy power.
Sophia's holy power and Dorothea's mana. The two energies reacted explosively, as if repelling one another, and as if unable to withstand the violent force, fine cracks began to appear on the Tin Knight's sword.
The Tin Knight paid it no mind.
A step ahead of the sword shattering, he brought it down with all his might on the treetop—the part that would be the crown of the head on a person.
CRACK!
A slash combining black and white light swept over the tree.
*
“I think it's over.”
Just after Sophia murmured those words.
Thud.
The bear-shaped magic beast facing Adel collapsed.
No, not just that one. The other magic beasts also began to lose their strength one by one, slumping down or tilting to the side as they breathed their last.
Dorothea and Adel let their sword and staff hang loosely, staring in the direction Sophia was looking.
The tree, which had been emitting an intense, oppressive mana, was now shrouded in silence.
The dizzyingly sweet fragrance and the faint, glowing light had all vanished.
And then.
Crrrack.
A fissure appeared on the upper part of the tree.
At first, it was too small to see.
After a breath, it was large enough to see if one focused.
By the time a voice cried out in awe, it was distinct enough to be seen even from a distance.
With a creaking sound, one half of the tilting tree finally crashed to the ground with a tremendous noise.