Chapter 12
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 12
Chapter Title: Tivela's Champion
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The reason Kyle's attack was faster than Luon's wasn't because his reactions were quicker or calmer. Kyle had already been charging toward the tall woman before Luon even threw his dagger. That insane rush, combined with the woman's shock at her companion's death, had transformed into a brilliant surprise attack.
“Diiiie!”
The hammer came crashing down, looking quite threatening even to Luon. But the woman leaped back with light footwork, dodging the attack. The motion caused her hood to fall back, revealing her pointed ears.
An elf, then. Seeing her ears, Luon understood her exceptional agility.
“Where do you think you’re going!”
Kyle swung his hammer again. Holding the end of the handle to maximize the rotational force was a good move, but the elf, who had already regained her posture, drew a thin sword from her waist and split the hammer's handle in two.
“Ugh!”
A subsequent kick to the chest sent Kyle sprawling. He’d collapsed in a heap, unable to even break his fall properly. The elf swordswoman could have rushed over and stabbed him to death, but she didn't. Instead, she turned her head to meet Luon’s gaze.
“Are you just going to stand there and watch?”
She seemed wary of the dagger that had put her companion down in a single blow. Luon smirked and drew his sacred sword.
“If you insist, I’ll play along.”
Casually rolling his wrist, Luon stepped forward. The elf swordswoman, seemingly less worried about facing Luon, smiled and approached as well.
There were no more words. They rushed at each other at almost the same instant. The elf closed the distance first, lunging forward with her slender blade. It was a thrust of incredible speed.
Luon parried the thrust with an upward flick of his sacred sword, intending to counterattack immediately, but his opponent's deflected blade came back at him faster than he could strike. The speed and angle were completely different from the first attack.
Luon quickly brought his sword back to block the thrust once more. Despite her attacks being foiled twice, his opponent showed no sign of disappointment. On the contrary, her feet moved faster and faster, kicking up clouds of dust from the ground.
The elf swordswoman’s attacks, her distance controlled by peculiar footwork, were so wildly variable in speed and direction that they could mesmerize any observer.
Luon didn't try to immediately counter her unorthodox assault. He lowered his stance to limit her range of attack and focused on calmly swinging the sword held firmly in both hands, neutralizing the barrage of strikes one by one.
The attacks aimed at his eyes, throat, and solar plexus were all swift and precise, but none could penetrate Luon's ironclad defense.
As the exchange lengthened, the tide began to turn in Luon's favor. The elf swordswoman, feeling a mix of desperation and fear at being unable to find a single opening despite using all her skill and technique, momentarily retreated. Into that fleeting gap, the sacred sword plunged.
A simple, powerful thrust, far from any fancy trickery, pierced the elf swordswoman’s chest in an instant.
“Gah.”
Coughing up blood mixed with air, the elf swordswoman staggered back and collapsed to the ground. As she struggled for breath, Luon approached and pulled his sword out without hesitation. Just then, Kyle ran over.
“Why! Why did you kill the villagers! Answer me!”
The elf swordswoman answered Kyle's frantic shouts. In truth, it was less of an answer and more the rambling of a dying person.
“...Bilto said his magic waves... this damned monument... was interfering. He said there must be something... said we should break it... I shouldn’t have... listened.”
The life rapidly faded from the woman’s eyes. Her last breath exhaled a hollow promise.
“...The Waning Moon... will not forget... its revenge.”
That was the end. After her final words, the elf swordswoman became as still as a statue.
“Fuck! So what! What the hell is this stupid monument!”
Kyle scrambled to his feet, grabbed the fallen hammer, and began to beat the monument like a madman.
Luon didn't try to stop his frenzied actions. Revenge was revenge. The anger coiled in his chest would remain. For now, it seemed better to let him vent his fury than to offer clumsy words of comfort.
The experience I gained was nothing to scoff at, though.
Luon smiled faintly, feeling the significant jump in his experience. The short man, being a rather low-level mage, hadn't given much, but the dead elf had gifted him several times that amount. It was a noticeable leap in growth, the first in a while.
Her last words were a little concerning, but Luon didn't care. He didn't know what the Waning Moon was, but if they came looking for a fight, he had no intention of avoiding it.
“Wh-what?”
Kyle’s stuttering, bewildered voice broke the silence.
“Wh-what’s happening to it?”
Luon looked up to see cracks spreading from the spot where the hammer had struck. The monument swayed precariously before slowly beginning to topple forward. What the?
Caught in the unexpected situation, Kyle fled without a backward glance, and Luon, too, quickly retreated.
*CRU-U-U-UMBLE!*
The monument collapsed in an instant, swallowing the corpses of Bilto and the elf swordswoman. Watching from a distance, Kyle muttered stupidly.
“Holy shit.”
A moment later, the thick cloud of dust settled, revealing a clearing littered with a pile of rubble. Amid the chaotic heap of stones, something was asserting its presence. Luon immediately walked toward it.
It was a large, round shield. With a silver rim on a black background, the shield was plain, bearing no decorations or family crests. Other than being light for its size, there seemed to be nothing special about it.
Luon turned his head and asked.
“Does anything come to mind? Any village legends about a monument and a shield.”
Kyle shook his head.
“No. All I’ve ever heard is that this monument has been here for a very long time...”
Luon gently pressed the scattered remains of the monument with the tip of his boot. It crumbled into powder with a soft hiss.
“This isn’t stone.”
To be precise, only the area around where the shield had been was made of a relatively weak material. It seemed someone had filled a portion of the monument with something else to hide or store the shield.
Luon concluded that when Kyle, in his mad frenzy, had struck that part, the monument could no longer support its own weight and had toppled forward.
Was this shield the reason the magic didn't work?
Luon recalled the mage’s frantic rampage and the elf swordswoman’s dying words.
Though he was a layman when it came to magical abilities, piecing together the events so far, it wasn't hard to guess that this shield had the power to block magic.
After staring at the shield for a moment, Luon offered it to Kyle.
“Here.”
Kyle, who took the shield in a daze, widened his eyes.
“Why are you giving this to me?”
“Because you’re the one who found it.”
Regardless of his intentions, Kyle had found the shield, and he was the village’s sole survivor. There was no room for some clumsy greed for a magic-blocking shield to get in the way.
Besides, for Luon, who prioritized mobility, such a large shield was more of a hindrance. There was no trace of regret on his face as he handed it over.
It was Kyle whose expression grew complicated. His eyes, staring silently down at the shield, shimmered with sorrow and emptiness.
“Just yesterday, around this time, everyone would have been preparing dinner. White smoke would be rising from the chimneys, and the delicious smell would have spread far and wide. I would have been heading home, happy, smelling that scent.”
Kyle bit his lip hard enough to draw blood.
“But all of that was shattered because of this one shield.”
Gritting his teeth, Kyle threw the shield to the ground.
“Fuck, what the hell is this stupid shield worth...”
Kyle's eyes grew red. Without giving the shield another glance, he began to gather the corpses on the ground. Luon helped him.
The two men moved all the bodies into the largest house in the village and stood before it. The sun had set. Ominous, dark clouds drifted across the black sky. Luon asked.
“Are you sure about this?”
Kyle nodded. He was holding a lit piece of firewood.
“We can’t bury everyone individually. They’ll all understand.”
With that, Kyle tossed the firewood through a window. The flame that had been consuming the wood devoured the oil they had sprinkled beforehand and swelled in size.
Staring blankly at the house as it was instantly swallowed by flames, Kyle eventually turned to look at Luon.
“Thank you.”
Bowing deeply, he held out a leather pouch from his tunic.
“It’s not much, but please take it.”
Despite his words, the pouch was quite heavy. Luon took it and asked.
“What will you do now?”
“...I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
Luon had nothing more to add, so he just scratched his head. His eyes fell on the round shield lying on the ground.
“Are you just going to leave that there?”
Kyle gave a weak smile.
“No. I’ll take it. With everyone dead, it’s the only thing I have left.”
Kyle staggered toward the shield. Though light for its size, it was still quite heavy for an ordinary person, yet he lifted it easily with one hand.
It actually suits him.
As Luon smiled faintly at the thought, he felt a gaze from behind and turned his head. About ten paces away stood a woman in a blue robe.
The woman spoke.
“I’ve finally found you.”
“Who are you?”
As Luon instinctively gripped the hilt of his sacred sword, the woman gave him a bright smile.
“You don’t have to be so guarded, Tivela’s Champion.”