Chapter 53: Retreat
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 53: Retreat
"Th-..."
A crimson, smoke-like aura erupted from Swordsman Hijikata's body like a flame.
The skill 'Frenzy.'
"You son of a biiitch!"
Hijikata raised his sword, about to charge the Lich, but Aimus quickly grabbed him.
Good catch, Aimus!
"Calm down!"
"Let me go! I'm going to kill that bastard!"
"Snap out of it!"
I joined Aimus in restraining Hijikata.
"We can't beat him right now!"
"He's alone! I'll kill him now!"
It was true that Frenzy severely clouded one's judgment.
Hijikata, you idiot.
How is he alone?
"Ice Pick."
Suddenly, an ice pick flew in from behind, aimed at the back of the rampaging Hijikata's head.
"......!"
That Hijikata was able to react to such an unexpected attack was a testament to his skill.
And because his senses were heightened by his frenzied state.
Clang!
The ice pick shattered against Hijikata's two-handed sword.
"What the fuck..."
But even he had never faced a situation like this.
From beneath the massive snowdrift, several Frost Hunters and wolves were clawing their way out, howling.
"The Lich reanimated them as undead."
Most of the monsters had been swept down the mountainside by the avalanche, but some had remained at the summit, crushed to death by the immense weight of the snow.
But now, they were reawakening as undead.
"This is no time to stand around gawking! We have to run!"
"Grrrrrr!"
The snow wolves could sprint across the snowfield as if it were flat ground. The beasts had already dug themselves halfway out of the snowdrift.
Undead monsters behind us. The Lich Antonelli in front.
Fortunately, there was a third ridge leading down from the summit...
"Femur Wall."
Antonelli cast a necromancy spell right on it.
Thousands of femurs suddenly piled up like bricks, forming a wall that blocked our path.
"Kikikik! Kikik!"
The Lich cackled with glee as he floated gently into the air.
"No one escapes!"
And just as he was about to chant a new spell...
"Death Symph—"
"Look here, you bastard!"
I pulled one of Antonelli's belongings from my bag and held it high.
It was the item I'd looted when I first killed him in front of the stair gate.
"......!"
The Lich's eyes widened.
Of course they would.
To any necromancer, a soul jar was second in value only to their own life.
It was an auxiliary weapon for storing the souls harvested through Soul Reaping.
It was probably useless to him now that he'd become a Lich.
"My soul jar!"
Right. Still, he couldn't help but be obsessed. There goes your precious jar.
I hurled the soul jar down the mountainside.
"Aaaargh!"
Antonelli shrieked and flew frantically toward the slope.
"Now!"
I led the party and started running down the path the Lich had been blocking. Behind us...
Bark! Bark!
The reanimated undead began their pursuit.
Now, along with the wolves, came the Frost Hunters.
"Ice Pick!"
Clang!
Aimus, who was covering our rear, deflected the projectile with his iron staff.
We fought back.
"Lightning Shock!"
Lightning erupted from my wand, daggers flew from Back Attack's hands, and Yernil fired a three-round burst.
Hijikata, who remained at the very back with Aimus, sliced through the wolves with his greatsword.
Spit.
The Fox Spirit took out the fox marble she had hidden in her mouth.
It was their 'Memory Book.'
"Illusory Foxfire!"
Hot flames shot out from the marble, surging toward the monsters, while daggers flew from the Kappa's hands as well.
"We can't afford to fight! We have to retreat!"
This was not a winnable battle.
Though most of the monsters had been swept away, dozens were still buried near the stele, and they were steadily reawakening. The second wave would arrive any minute.
Antonelli would be back soon, too. We had to get as far away as possible...
Sliiiip!
My foot slipped.
Shit.
*
Was it insane from the start for me to try running down a snow-covered, rocky mountain?
Maybe it was fine for people like Yernil or Back Attack, but my agility was absolute trash.
From a few meters above where I had fallen...
"Caleb!"
Yernil screamed.
"I'm fine!"
Fortunately, the fall wasn't fatal.
My butt and back ached from the impact, but the snow had acted as a cushion, and the flat slope of the ground brought me to a quick stop.
"Caleb! Watch out!"
I said I'm fine...
...or not.
"Kuaaargh!"
To my right, from three meters above my head, a crazy wolf was diving toward me like a professional swimmer.
Thwack!
An arrow from Yernil was already lodged in its side.
So she wasn't telling me to watch my step, but to watch out for this.
The hourglass was still on cooldown.
But...
"Superconductivity."
I, too, had long since shed the frailty of a modern person. In just one month, I'd been through hell and back.
Even without the hourglass, I could handle one of them...
CRACKLE!
The wolf, electrocuted by the spell that triggered like a conditioned reflex, tumbled past me.
Rumble!
It then slid down with a mass of frozen ice and snow, plummeting dozens of meters below.
"Hah..."
To be honest, that was right where I had been about to step.
Every single moment really is a brush with death.
[Turn-Based Hourglass Cooldown: 4 seconds]
I habitually checked the hourglass. Four seconds remaining.
"Caleb!"
Yernil reached her hand down to me from the three-meter cliff.
And just as I grabbed her hand and tried to climb up...
WHAM!
Suddenly, another wolf slammed its body into Yernil.
Yernil tumbled from the cliff, and since I was holding her hand, I was dragged down with her.
"Shit."
Together, we plummeted down the cliff.
"Caleb and Yernil fell!"
"Boss!"
I could hear the shouts of my party members from above.
"I'm going!"
Back Attack yelled.
Yernil hugged me tightly.
I could feel her fingers trembling with terror.
Yernil squeezed her eyes shut.
The drop was over ten meters. Not enough to be instantly fatal, but...
'Wait, it's all rock below.'
The snow from the avalanche hadn't fallen straight down due to the angle of the slope; it had cascaded diagonally, leaving a gap.
So, directly beneath our vertical fall, there was no snow to cushion us.
All I could see was solid bedrock.
A direct impact would probably injure Yernil and me severely.
And there would be more monsters down there.
'Can we survive below if we're injured?'
I aimed my wand downward.
The four seconds had just barely passed.
My vision was partially obscured, with half my face buried in Yernil's chest.
[Your turn. Time remaining: 60 seconds.]
[Action Points: ■■■■]
*
Near the rocks lay the corpse of a snow wolf.
The one with Yernil's arrow in its side, the one that had been stunned by Superconductivity and died in the fall.
It was about three meters to the side of our projected landing spot. Let's try moving it.
"Move."
Psychokinesis was physically weak, its use limited to things like untying a hairband, moving an ossuary, or pulling my bag free when the spiderwebs burned.
Lifting and moving a heavy, 300-kilogram wolf was absolutely impossible.
But I didn't need to.
I just had to prevent our bodies from colliding head-on with the rock.
We would use the thick fur and hide of the snow wolf, which lived in this harsh cold, as a cushion.
We just needed to slide down it like a sled. It would still hurt, but we could avoid serious injury.
Just enough to be able to move immediately after.
That's all I needed to accomplish.
[Your turn. Time remaining: 52 seconds.]
[Action Points: ■■■□]
I grabbed the wolf's tail with psychokinesis and gently pulled it, aligning it with our fall trajectory.
At the same time, I replayed the events so far in my mind.
Was my escape strategy the best it could have been?
I already knew an avalanche would be triggered by the stele, since the Labyrinth's setting was a snowy mountain.
If we had fled recklessly, we would have been swept away and wiped out.
Even if not, the monsters would have caught up to us and annihilated us.
Waiting out the avalanche next to the stele was the correct choice.
[Your turn. Time remaining: 42 seconds.]
[Action Points: ■■□□]
Antonelli arrived much faster than I had anticipated. The party was nearly crushed, but I threw the soul jar to distract him.
That was also the best move.
But did we really have to flee in such a chaotic, every-man-for-himself manner?
Was there a better way to retreat?
Well...
If I had to find fault, it wasn't in my on-the-spot tactical decisions, but in my preparation.
'I should have brought anti-gravity magic scrolls.'
Scrolls were expensive, and getting enough for the whole party would have cost a fortune, but I still should have brought them.
Then we could have all torn the scrolls and simply jumped off the cliff.
We wouldn't have had to go through this mess.
[Your turn. Time remaining: 17 seconds.]
[Action Points: ■□□□]
No.
On second thought, there was an even better option.
'Solving the stele's cipher from the start.'
Then I could have used the Tier 10 magic contained within the stele, Mass Annihilation, to wipe out the monster wave, and we could have just ganged up on Antonelli and killed him.
Those struck by Annihilation can't be reanimated as undead, so we would have been able to win.
'This all happened because I couldn't solve the cipher.'
What the hell was that code?
Reading it vertically yielded no hints, and reading it diagonally revealed nothing.
Reading only the letters in multiples of two, or multiples of three.
No matter what I tried, no coherent words emerged.
It was difficult.
Honestly, it was hard.
It was a cipher that even a professor like Dalstream couldn't solve after all that time.
Perhaps it was arrogant of me to think I could solve it in a few hours.
But I still should have done it.
I believe I'm in a position that carries that kind of responsibility.
[All Action Points have been consumed.]
[Ending turn.]
[The hourglass has been flipped again. Time remaining: 60 seconds.]
*
CRASH!
SKRRRRAPE!
Clinging to each other, Yernil and I used the massive, furry hide of the snow wolf as a cushion and slid down.
We ended up buried in the enormous pile of snow left by the avalanche.
My side and back throbbed with pain.
But we hadn't suffered critical injuries from a direct impact with the rock.
"We're... a..."
Yernil finally opened her eyes.
"We're alive!"
She looked up the mountain with a somewhat bewildered expression.
"How did we manage to land perfectly on a dead wolf?"
I did that, Yernil.
Ever heard of a psychokinetic teleporter?
"But this is no time to celebrate."
By now, the entire mountain was a monster-infested field. The Frost Hunters had climbed the ridges, but he would have stationed wolves in places like this.
"......!"
Suddenly, Yernil flinched and raised her bow.
'They're here already.'
A dozen snow wolves were appearing one by one from beyond the snowfield.
"Grrrrrrrrr."
"We need to buy time, Yernil. Think of this as the final battle and..."
"Kuaaack!"
"Lightning Shock!"
Arrows and magic erupted simultaneously toward the charging beasts.
Three arrows flew in succession from Yernil's grasp, each one finding a wolf.
"Dust Explosion!"
Unfortunately, no new auxiliary hourglass was created.
'Once per battle.'
The special ability, 'Momentum of Slaughter,' only grants an auxiliary hourglass under that condition.
Was the system considering everything from the six consecutive Heat Waves at the summit until now as a 'single battle'?
The hourglass is powerful, but it isn't generous.
"Lightning Shock!"
I chanted every spell I had, but the distance to the wolves closed in an instant.
"K-kang!"
Finally, one of them managed to leap right in front of me.
Its massive fangs were about to tear into my forearm.
"Superconductivity."
I electrocuted it with the only close-quarters counter-magic I had and retreated.
"Kyaaaack!"
Two more wolves charged.
Dammit.
'It's no use.'
I was going to get bitten. I had to be ready to use a potion and accept the damage. It would still be a while before Back Attack could get down here...
Fwoosh!
It was at that very moment.
Suddenly, Yernil's body shot into the air and transformed into a shimmering light.
"......!"
The wolves' gazes were drawn to it as if mesmerized. Even the ones about to bite me.
I was the same.
'What...'
Sentry Redeployment.
'What are you doing?'
My mind went blank.
A shocking scene followed.
The light shot forward.
Straight into the middle of the wolves.
"Yernil..."
Are you crazy?
*
What kind of archer in their right mind uses Sentry Redeployment to jump deep into enemy lines?
Of course, the two of us had no front line.
So even if she had used it to retreat, it would have only bought us a tiny bit of time.
If you had fallen back, I would have been bitten.
I know that.
But you still should have retreated.
You should have used me as a shield and fallen back!
"Caleb!"
Instead, Yernil, now a dozen meters inside the wolf pack, raised her bow.
Aiming at me.
"Don't die..."
I had seen that terrified look in her eyes before.
In the Venomous Spider's exit room.
When she told me to leave with Birtanen's party.
Her eyes looked exactly the same then.
Thwump!
An arrow lodged itself in my chest.
It didn't hurt.
It was a magic arrowhead.
When a scroll is wrapped around a magic arrowhead and fired, it becomes a special arrow.
A way to forcibly activate a scroll from a distance.
'A Stair Scroll.'
The one I got when I first killed Antonelli.
I never should have taught her about it.
That it was normally used for escaping.
"At least you have to survive, Caleb."
I quickly aimed my wand at her.
Chanting one last spell.
"Conflagration."
I was teleported in front of the 4th-floor stairs.