Paladin Of The End Vol 3.2 Chapter 1

Paladin Of The End Volume 3.2 Chapter 1

Autumn was in full swing. It was that time of year where every day was slightly colder than the last. With the wind in its sail and a sky of thin cloud above, our boat seemed to glide across the gently rolling surface of the lake. To the north, I could see the splendor of the mountain range surrounded by cloud. Those were the Rust Mountains.

“So we just have to go down this branch of the river to the west?”

“If the map is correct. If there are signs that the landscape’s changed, we’ll turn back for now.” I nodded to Menel, who was looking back at us from the foredeck. He started calling to the elementals again.

We were sailing our boat across the lake in order to circle around to the west side of the Rust Mountains.

Menel looked very natural calling to the fairies and summoning the wind to steer the boat. Elementalists and sorcerers who reached the point of being able to read and control the wind were always in demand by the coast, where ships came and went, and would never struggle for food or somewhere to sleep. Menel had probably lived off jobs like that at one point in the past.

“This rope, you do this.”

“Right!”

Toward the stern, Reystov was teaching Al about ropework and how to manage the sail. Not only did Reystov have many years of experience as an adventurer, he also had a good memory and more hobbies than most. On this kind of journey, he was as consistently useful as Menel. Al didn’t have that kind of experience, but through training with Menel and me and going on this journey, he was quickly developing the qualities of an adventurer, even if he wasn’t yet very polished.

“Alright, so, about where we’re going. Ghelreis, do you have any idea what we can expect?”

The scar-faced dwarf of few words shook his head. “I’m afraid I know of nothing after the Great Collapse.”

Gus and my parents had been bound to the city, so they also didn’t know about anything beyond its boundaries. From here on, we would be heading into a “dark region”—territory not marked on any map, where no one had set foot.

“Except,” Ghelreis said quietly, “before the Great Collapse, there was a forest of elves to the west of the Iron Country. It was called Lothdor.”

“Lothdor... the land of flowers?”

“You understand Elvish, then?”

“Gus schooled me in it, so yes, I know the basics.”

Gus didn’t know much about the very minor languages like the one the giants used, so I was a little patchy on those, but otherwise, I knew how to use quite a few languages. Elvish especially had little linguistic change because its speakers lived long lives. Because it hadn’t changed much from the Elvish Gus knew two hundred years ago, it was one of the languages I was particularly good at.

“Lothdor... I’ve heard of it before,” Menel said from the foredeck as he looked out over the luxuriant forest along the shore. Then, he started reciting softly in Elvish. “Slip past the Iron Country, where the dwarves live in caves / Cross the radiant Rainbow Bridge, and arrive yourself in Lothdor / On silver harps and golden flutes the Remmirath play and sing.”

It was a flowery Elvish song.

“That is?”

“A song about a journey. Passed down in my old home.”

“A nostalgic song. Yes, and quite correct.”

Lothdor was a garden of many colors beyond the Rainbow Bridge, where petals from the trees scattered over chalk houses, and the babbling of the river harmonized with the sound of elven music.

Ghelreis muttered, “The elves of Lothdor didn’t get on well with the Iron Country.”

“Ahh... Because of how much they were cutting down?”

“You’re well-informed.”

“Nah, I never heard about that. Just, we had the same kind of problem where I used to live.”

Menel explained that this was a common cause of arguments between elves and dwarves. Elves, who lived in the forests, built their lifestyles around hunting, gathering, and forest farming, and they gained a multitude of blessings by living in harmony with the fae. Meanwhile, dwarves, who lived in the mountains, chopped down trees and used fire to make charcoal, refined iron, and produced a multitude of tools. Elves preferred the trees and large open spaces in the forest, where light filtered in, while the dwarves preferred the darkness of deep caves.

“We fight all the time. Our lifestyles and cultures are too different.”

“Mm...”

This was probably a topic they both had a lot of opinions on as a half-elf and a dwarf.

“As you say, Sir Meneldor, there was fierce contention between us at times, and plenty of hatred as well. If I had a copper coin for every insult that was traded, every bitter word spoken, I would be rich. Still, they were our neighbors. We bought the grain, leather, and salt produced in the forest of elves, and we sold them mithril, iron tools, and other crafted items.”

The boat entered the wide branch of the river. To our left and right were thick expanses of forest. We let the current take us gently down the water’s path.

“The Remmirath folk were skilled in poetry and fairy techniques, and were both proud and hard to please. Just like us, in fact.” Ghelreis was being unusually talkative. “We had respect for them—and they for us, I imagine.”

As I listened to his story of elves and dwarves, I imagined what it was like two hundred years ago, during the age in which Blood and Mary lived. “And what happened to them in the Great Collapse?” I asked.

“I know at least that they remained holed up in the forest and stubbornly resisted. They never gave up. As the demons’ assault intensified, the Western Gate was closed, and the Rainbow Bridge was sealed.” Then, the unusually talkative Ghelreis spoke in a murmur. “It’s possible... It’s possible that they survived.” His words sounded like a prayer. “Elves live long lives. It’s possible that—”

He stopped abruptly. I followed his line of sight, and I too went silent. He let out a small groan.

The garden of many colors beyond the Rainbow Bridge, where petals from the trees scattered over chalk houses and the babbling of the river harmonized with the sound of elven music, wasn’t there. Ahead of our boat, the water was dark, stagnant, and turbid, and there were rows of pitifully withered trees.

◆

For a while, no one spoke.

“Is... no one left? No one?” The words fell weakly from Ghelreis’s lips. He opened his mouth as if to shout something, then closed it tight without a sound. After spending a little while like that taking it in, he said, “It’s hard to let go.”

“Ghelreis...” Al sounded concerned for him.

But Ghelreis shook his head. “Don’t mind me, young master.”

Silence fell on the boat for a while, and an awkward atmosphere developed.

Reystov changed the subject. “Hmm. Looks like the river’s path changed over the last two hundred years.” The river was flowing through and around the large, withered trees that used to be a forest.

“Hold on,” Menel said, scrunching his face up. “I’ve seen this kind of thing before.”

After he said it, I realized as well. The dying trees, the stagnant water—this was—

“A Taboo Word...”

“Yeah,” Menel said hatefully. “If an elven lineage with a Branch name gets serious about holing themselves up in their home forest, no enemy can touch them. The enemy’s numbers or weapons don’t even matter. They’ll be misled, divided, surrounded, and picked off again and again.”

Even Blood had said to avoid fighting with an elf in the forest. That was why—

“They must’ve brought out a Taboo Word, gathered together high-level Word users, and done a ritual to rot the whole fig forest, those no-moral demon shits.”

People often think that people or groups who take an “anything goes” attitude toward fighting are strong. Some even claim that if nothing is off-limits to you when you fight, you can beat virtually anyone. In one aspect, that’s correct, and in another, it’s wrong. An “anything goes” approach to fighting is very strong in the short term, but in the long term, it’s weak. Once you use a banned move, the ban on that move is also lifted for your opponent, and their response will be ferocious. And once others perceive you as someone who will ignore both morality and good faith for the sake of your objective, you won’t even be able to form alliances with them. In fact, it can even provide them with a good excuse to join forces against you. Used improperly, “anything goes” is weak, resulting in victory and glory that is short-lived and downfall that is inevitable.

High-level goblins and high-level undead understood this logic, and despite being minions of evil gods (those gods being Illtreat—who ruled over tyranny—and Stagnate, respectively), they even had a kind of morality. That was because, when it came down to it, they lived in the same world as the rest of us.

However, this logic didn’t work on the demons, who were the minions of Dyrhygma, god of dimensions. Maybe their minds worked differently, or maybe they had different goals; whatever the case, they saw no benefit in abiding by these moral principles. They were simply monsters from another world who aimed to invade and control.

As I looked at the withered forest of the elves, I thought: This can’t stand. We can’t let beings who think nothing of doing something like this run rampant any longer.

“We have to destroy them.”

“Heh. What’s this now? You sound fired up.”

“What about you? Your face is like ‘now it’s on.’”

“You bet. Can’t let ’em live.” He grinned fiercely like a wild animal. It caused Al to clench a fist, and Reystov and Ghelreis to smirk slightly.

“But before that—”

“Ya.” Menel responded at once, and Reystov and Ghelreis nodded, too.

Al tilted his head to the side and looked around, puzzled. The boat was advancing through the stagnant water between withered trees. It didn’t look as though there was anything unusual at a glance.

I took Pale Moon in my hand.

“There.”

I thrust it into the water. At the same time, the water’s surface swelled and burst. The shining blade of my spear had pierced straight through the head of a giant serpent.

◆

“A water serpent?!” Al cried out in surprise.

“Get over it, there’s more coming!” As Menel shouted at him, another large serpent burst out of the water on our port side. Almost simultaneously, Reystov’s sword ran through the air like a bolt of lightning. But the water heaved, and the boat lurched. It was enough for even Reystov the Penetrator to marginally miss his mark. He failed to deliver a lethal blow—

There was an almighty grunt. Ghelreis’s mace shattered the serpent’s head.

“Not good,” Menel muttered, looking around. I watched Al do the same—then draw a sharp intake of breath. Several—no, dozens of long, thick shapes were wavering on the surface of the murky water around us.

“Menel! Full speed!”

“On it!”

No sooner had I given the instruction than Menel was calling to the elementals to summon a powerful current and strong tailwind to move the boat. However—

“Feck, not much reply! The fairies are weak here!”

It was probably the result of this entire piece of land being cursed by the Taboo Word. The spirits of nature seemed to be slow to respond. If this was how things were, there was a good chance that Menel’s spells for use around water, like Waterwalk and Waterbreathing, wouldn’t work very well, either. If our boat sank or we were knocked off it, we’d be in danger.

“Keep your focus on the spells! Reystov and Ghelreis, port side! Al, back Menel up!” I shouted out orders as I struck out with Pale Moon, then swept it sideways into another one of the serpents that had burst out of the water to starboard.

This wasn’t a great situation to be in. The serpents were bleeding into the water. It was possible that the blood would draw even more of them here, and maybe other aquatic monsters as well. There was no time to hesitate. It was risky, but I decided to turn to an attack Word. I would make the blast go off underwater and take them all out in one fell swoop by the same principle as blast fishing. With my course of action decided, I chose the shortest and most powerful attack Word in my arsenal.

“Vasta—”

At that instant, the boat shook violently. My Word was disrupted. I was forced to shift my concentration to a desperate attempt to control the Word and prevent it from exploding.

The moment I did, one of the largest water serpents burst out of the water and sunk its teeth into my side.

I grunted in surprise and confusion. The boat lurched. I lost my balance. Digging my feet in didn’t work. I was pulled forward. The murky surface of the water suddenly got a lot closer.

“Will?!”

There was a huge splash and I was pulled under the stagnant water.

◆

The instant before I fell into the water, I took a deep breath and filled my lungs with air. Many people in this world couldn’t swim, but fortunately, I’d been taught the basics of swimming both in this world and my previous one.

The serpent that had bitten into my side twisted in confusion. Its curved fangs didn’t have the power to puncture my mithril mail; nor did its jaw have the bite force to pressure my abdominal muscles and crush my internal organs. Muscles win again. That said, of course, if the serpent squeezed me tight and dragged me into the depths, I would definitely drown.

Bubbles rose toward the surface. In the stagnant water, opening my eyes only resulted in its muddiness filling my vision. I couldn’t see. Of course, I couldn’t utter any Words, either. So as I tensed up my stomach to prevent myself from being crushed, I prayed instead.

What I pictured in my mind was light and purity. In the next moment, there was a flash, and the murkiness vanished about sixty meters in every direction, transforming into water that was pure and clear.

It was the Prayer of Purification.

Having secured a usable view, I opened my eyes. The water was teeming with giant serpents, and I could see them all clearly as they swam. Several of them were gunning right for me now that I’d fallen into the water. As one aimed for my foot, I drew in my leg to dodge it and swung my arm at another trying to wrap itself around my chest, knocking it away.

It was difficult to move, like the water itself was constricting me. If I continued fighting in the water like this, sooner or later, I was going to lose. But I had already seen a way out.

As one of the snakes darted straight at me, aiming for my throat, I grabbed both its top and bottom jaws and used brute strength to tear both flesh and skin away. The giant serpent threw itself around in my hands, and its blood flowed into the purified water.

With one hand, I grabbed the one attached to my mail and held it still, drew my dagger from my belt, and sliced open its neck. More and more blood poured out into the water, turning it a cloudy red.

Then, the other serpents started to sink their teeth into the two that were shedding blood. These were not beasts; they were merely large water snakes. In other words, they were attacking me not because of the overaggressive nature characteristic of beasts and other monsters, but purely because they were predators and I was their prey. In which case, I didn’t need to fight them to the death; I just needed to provide them weaker prey, prey that was easier to attack.

A few more of them came at me separately. I killed them as well.

I’d been moving around underwater for a while, and the need to breathe was becoming hard to ignore. I endured it, hanging on until the serpents’ attention had turned from me to their weakened brothers, and then I started to swim for the surface. My clothes had absorbed water and clung to me, feeling incredibly heavy. I desperately thrashed upward.

Finally, my head broke the surface next to the boat. I gasped loudly for air. How many minutes had I been fighting underwater? The air tasted so good.

“Sir Will!” Al immediately threw me a rope.

I grabbed onto it and somehow made it back onto the boat, water dripping from every part of me. I breathed hard with both my hands flat against the deck. My entire body craved oxygen.

“Will!”

“You okay?”

I managed a nod back at everyone calling to me. I spotted Pale Moon, which I’d let go of just before falling in. As I thought about how glad I was that I hadn’t dropped it into the water, I got my breathing together, faced the water, and—

“Vastare.” I blasted an attack spell into it with all my might.

This time, my aim was true. A vortex of destruction formed under the highly conductive water. The blast swept through it and slammed into the serpents, turning their flesh to mush and crushing their bones. The boat rocked badly.

I let out a puff of air. “That should do it.”

Not a moment later, the remains of many serpents floated to the surface.

“God. No mercy from you,” Menel muttered, astounded.

Well, sure, I thought. I can’t exactly leave enemies that are actively attacking our boat alive.

“Menel, let’s move out of here. Also, I think we’ve mostly gotten rid of them, but everyone be on your guard.”

“Got it.”

“Understood.”

“U-Um... The water turned very clean all of a sudden.”

“Huh? It’s just the Prayer of Purification.”

“Huh?” Al looked as if he was totally confused, and so was I. “Umm, the Prayer of Purification is normally for one bottle of water or a pond at most...”

“Oh...” So the power was the problem.

Menel slapped Al on the shoulder as the latter looked at me, bewildered. “It’s just brute force. Get used to it.”

“Wha?”

“It’s his standard battle tactic: do everything with a barbaric level of force. He doesn’t even think anything of it. Better get used to it.”

Al hesitated.

“That’s what I did,” Menel added with an expression as if he’d attained some higher understanding.

“A barbaric level of force?” I said. “Come on, that’s a bit mean.”

“What do you call it, then?”

“I have more power and moves than a barbarian, so it’s more than a barbaric level of force.” I gave him a smug grin. Menel shook his head without a word, and Al nodded at him with a complicated expression. “J-... What’s that face supposed to be?!”

“Disbelief, Sir Even Barbarianer.”

As we joked around with each other like that—

“This change in landscape’s the problem.” Reystov’s muttered words cut our idle chatter short.

◆

He was right—this area was very different from our map and the information we had, both of which were two centuries out of date. The stagnant river had changed its course and completely swallowed up the forest that used to be here. The river banks were now sopping wetlands, and I couldn’t see a single place where it would be easy to land our boat. On top of that, this place was home to many dangerous creatures, like those water serpents. It provided a stark reminder why these were dark regions that mankind hadn’t ventured into for the past two hundred years.

“Ghelreis, do you see anything you recognize here?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “This is all just too...”

“Oh!” Al suddenly exclaimed. “What about those, Ghelreis?”

Everyone looked in the direction Al was pointing: down at the water made clear by the Prayer of Purification. I looked down, and under the shimmering surface I could see the remnants of a line of buildings.

“Hmm.” Ghelreis looked at those ruins and started to think.

“What do you think?” Al prompted after a pause.

“The architecture of these buildings...” Ghelreis said slowly. “They’re of elven construction. I’m sure of it.”

“Ohh, nice, brother!”

“Good eye.”

“Yeah. Good going, Al.”

“I really didn’t do anything,” Al said with some embarrassment as we all praised him.

“Which would that be on the map, then?”

“Probably this...”

While allowing our boat to drift slowly away from the serpent carcasses, we all investigated the map together. Once we’d pinned down our rough location, we started moving again.

However, because this whole area was polluted by the Taboo Word, steering with the spell Tailwind wasn’t working out very well. Even if I used the Prayer of Purification to clean the air and water surrounding us, it wasn’t as if that would immediately do something about the weakened fae. Some improvement could be expected if I factored in Menel’s skills as an elementalist and his power as a future Lord of the Woods; however, Reystov correctly pointed out that if we made large changes, there was a chance that the demons would notice.

Because of that, we decided to turn to more primitive methods. We stopped relying on the sail and decided to drop oars and row. Menel stood at the boat’s stern, gripping the tiller and calling out to us. We fell into rhythm with his voice and rowed forward as two teams on the port and starboard sides.

The water was dark and stagnant. There were lines of trees withered white, all large and hundreds of years old, and they made me think of the corridors of columns called stoas within ancient temples. It was a forest where even sound had died, except for the occasional unsettling noise from aquatic creatures. At some point a thin white haze had covered the area. We could only see a vague outline of the Rust Mountains.

The boat continued forward amid the sounds of oars creaking and pushing through the water. There was some conversation at first, but even that lessened as time went on. Around the time that the dismal atmosphere of our surroundings finally caused us all to go silent, I sensed something in the water to starboard.

When I looked, I saw bubbles forming, and then several hands appeared, followed by horribly pale arms, extending out of the stagnated water. Some had rotted, while others were all bone. The arms began to struggle and cling to the boat. The vessel groaned.

◆

As our boat wobbled, Reystov and Ghelreis each brought out their weapons. They were magical weapons, newly acquired in the city of the dead, and would probably work well against undead.

“Enemies?” Menel was especially cool-headed. He took the time to ask me, even as he stood ready to draw his weapon.

“No.” I shook my head. “They’re just suffering.” I extended my hand to one of the arms grasping the boat. The arm had become bloated with water and stank of a raw, fishy smell. As I took its hand, I heard Al’s breath catch. “It’s okay,” I said, hoping that my intent would get through to the undead. “It’s okay now.”

You don’t have to suffer anymore. You don’t have to keep resenting. You don’t have to keep trying.

“You won’t wish misfortune on anyone anymore. You won’t curse them, and you won’t make them suffer.” I felt the strength leaving the arm I was holding onto and all the other arms around the boat. “I’ll handle everything somehow.”

It’ll be okay now, even if you don’t keep on trying.

It’ll be okay, even if you don’t keep on protecting.

It’ll be okay, even if you don’t fight.

It’ll be okay, even if you don’t bear the burden.

You can let it go. So—

“Please, rest long and easy.” I spoke each word slowly and prayed. “Gracefeel, god of the flame. Repose and guidance.”

Divine Torch lit up in the cloudy sky. The miraculous floating flame began to guide the wandering souls back to the eternal cycle. Several pale-blue specters appeared, fading softly into vision. They had beautiful braided hair, pointed ears that reminded one of bamboo leaves, and handsome features.

“————”

They faced us in silence and gave us a proud and elegant bow.

“Ohh...” Ghelreis’s voice trembled. This must have been exactly what the elves of Remmirath Branch had looked like in bygone days.

“————”

They tried to speak; perhaps they had something they wanted to tell us. But it wasn’t to be. Their slumber at the bottom of the river had stolen the language from their throats. It was a hard sight to witness, but they were graceful in spite of this. They gave a beautiful shrug, then pointed in a direction with a slender finger. Spinning the finger in a circle—perhaps that meant “as fast as you can?”

“We should go that way? As swiftly as possible?”

A nod came back. Then, the one standing at the front raised two fingers, made a fist, and held it in front of his heart. The motion was seamless.

“Will, that’s...”

“Don’t worry, I know what it means.” I returned them the same gesture. It was a friendly gesture of parting. “May the blessing of the flame be with you,” I said. Then, with gentle smiles, the ancient elves of Remmirath faded and disappeared.

As Al, Ghelreis, and Reystov stood in silence, Menel spoke suddenly. “Let’s go. Full speed in that direction. Now. Hurry!”

“Huh?”

“Don’t trust an elf’s sense of time!” Sounding slightly panicked, Menel called to the elementals with a quite forceful tone and used the Tailwind spell once more. Then, as he applied the Waterwalk technique on himself extra thoroughly, he shouted, “You know those stories you hear? About when elves say, ‘Wait a bit,’ it means, ‘In a year or so’? Those are true!” The boat rocketed forward at incredible speed, cutting through the stagnant water and advancing through the mist. “Those guys with their chill sense of time just told you ‘as fast as possible,’ brother! You better—”

A scream reached us from somewhere deep in the mist.

“I feckin’ knew it!” Menel cursed, and then yelling loudly, he sprinted into the mist with the quickness of a skipping stone.

Menel didn’t normally speak when he was fighting. Shouting a war cry brought out your power and helped to negate fear, but that was a warrior’s way of fighting, not a hunter’s. Menel moved in silence and killed in silence. There were probably two reasons he was raising his voice now despite that: to communicate his presence to the screamer and to allow us to follow him without losing track of where he was. Leaving his voice as our guide, he led the way farther and farther into the mist.

“Row! Hurry!”

Due to the timing of when we heard the scream, the Waterwalk spell hadn’t been cast on anyone except Menel. He probably wasn’t able to cast it on everyone with a single spell in this place where the fairies’ boon was weak. Since the situation was already difficult, it was only natural that Menel, who had the most precise grasp of what was going on, should take the lead.

We pushed harder against the oars and rowed faster. The bank approached rapidly. It was wetland with sparse patches of weak-looking plants growing here and there, and there was no clear water’s edge separating it from the river.

“Easy! Watch your blades in the mud!” I called out and lifted my oar. We all knew what we were meant to do. We quickly jumped out of the boat, submersing ourselves up to the thighs in stagnant water, and pushed the boat up onto the bank.

Immediately grabbing our weapons, we started sprinting one after another. My feet kept sinking into the mire. I forced them up as I ran. The ground was terrible. If a battle unfolded, my ability to move around might be heavily restricted. As I worried about this, we all pushed forward as a group.

Before long, we heard an aggressive yell, then the dull sound of flesh and bone being cut through. On the other side of the mist, Menel had used his longsword to behead a giant, eyeless serpent that had burst out of the lake of mud to attack him. The snake’s head spun and splatted into the mire.

On the ground beside Menel was the figure of a person I didn’t know. She had long, blonde hair that had frayed and spread—perhaps her hair had been braided and come undone—and long, pointed ears. It was an elf. Did one of them survive?!

“Menel, is she oka—”

“Not yet!” Menel shouted quickly. The next moment, several serpents burst out of the mud on either side of him. He dodged them as they bit at him, his tied silver hair flowing as he moved. In concert with that movement, he swung his sword at one of the serpents, but the blade failed to cut all the way through its body. It dug in and stuck there, and then, the next moment, something astonishing happened. The first serpent, made headless by Menel’s sword, lunged at his legs in an attempt to coil itself around them.

Cursing under his breath, Menel was forced to let go of his sword. He kicked away the headless serpent trying to entangle itself around his legs and leaped away from his attackers. With the Waterwalk technique cast upon him, his movements were graceful even in this bog.

“It’s coming! Get ready!” He helped the golden-haired elf to her feet and retreated in our direction. The serpents followed hot on his heels. And from the way they moved, finally, the complete picture became clear to me. It wasn’t serpents. Under the mud, all those eyeless serpentine necks, each thicker than a man’s torso, were connected to the body of an even larger serpent. The many-headed giant serpent bared its yellowed teeth and repeatedly lashed out its red tongues, threatening us.

“What the?!”

“The ruler of the bog...”

“A hydra.”

Once everyone grasped the nature of their opponent, their cautiousness of that enormous, bizarre body was plain to see. Then, the wound where one of its necks had been severed by Menel began to bubble and foam. Slowly, a new head began to form.

“Sagitta Flammeum!” Instinctively, I cast a Word. The flaming arrow, constructed by Words and born from mana, landed a direct hit on the neck trying to regenerate. There was a violent explosion, and the hydra twisted in pain. Then it howled. The air quivered with the sheer force of the noise.

“Whoa!” Menel and the elf he had rescued, the pair with the most sensitive hearing, covered their ears. I didn’t have the time to pay attention to them. My eyes darted back to the head. It had been burned, and the scorched tissue had stopped regenerating.

“Fire works! Al, Ghelreis, Reystov! To the front!”

The enraged hydra bore down on us. Everyone drew their weapons, readied their shields, and advanced.

“Menel, take her and retreat!”

“Got it!” Menel pulled back, swapping places with the advancing front.

I couldn’t be there with them. Since I had to keep an eye on all the serpent heads spreading out in all directions and prevent them from regenerating as they were chopped off, I had to stand well back for a good view.

“So I’m at the back...”

I’d always been the kind to rush forward shouting. I’d managed to get through all my battles that way. Fighting from this position was something I hardly ever did. Now wasn’t the time to get sentimental about it, but it felt like a surprisingly fresh experience.

“I’ll burn them as you cut them off! The front’s up to you!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Understood!”

“No sweat.”

They all responded. And so the battle began.

◆

The flash of a blade, swift yet concealing tremendous power, took off one of the hydra heads. That slash belonged to Reystov. He had severed a mass of flesh and bone that was as wide as a trunk and thrashing around wildly. It couldn’t be accomplished with any ordinary level of training or skill. In fact, even Menel, who had reached an impressive level of skill himself, had already failed once and had his sword taken. But Reystov continued dropping heads one after another, making it look easy. I continued to cast Sagitta Flammeum after him.

His frightening level of skill didn’t seem to have dulled in the least. And he wasn’t done. A brief but energetic grunt accompanied his next slash, and one of the heads that the hydra had raised high into the air far out of the reach of his sword split vertically down its length. This had to be the effect of the new Word that Gus had engraved into Reystov’s beloved blade. Judging by what it had done, it was most likely a Word of Gus’s own making based on Extension and Sharpness. My senses as a user of magic told me that a sharp blade, formed out of mana for just an instant, had cut beyond the length of Reystov’s sword to split the hydra’s skin.

Gus really had good judgment. That upgrade was a very good match for Reystov. Given that the user was already at a high and stable level, simply giving them a sharper sword with a longer reach was a far better idea than trying to increase their power or giving them the ability to shoot fire or lightning.

It made it hard to judge the sword’s range from an outside perspective, making it a nuisance for enemies and incredibly useful for allies.

“Sagitta Flammeum!” Another head fell, and I followed it with another fire arrow. As long as there was no unusual change in circumstances, I was planning to go with this single strategy for the rest of this battle.

On the face of it, using a whole variety of Words according to the fine details of the enemy’s situation moment by moment might appear to be a wise approach and good support. But in actual fact, following the full four steps of “see, think, decide, use” in sequence would make you slow to act. It was better to choose a reasonably effective, short magic and follow just the two steps “see, then use” over and over. The front guard would also feel more at ease knowing exactly what was about to come flying over their heads.

A poor player overthinks the wrong decisions. And at least in a situation like battle, where things change constantly, being stubbornly simple about everything has fewer ways to fail.

I cast Sagitta Flammeum multiple times in succession. Double casting as Gus had taught me, I drew Signs with my right hand, guiding the magic to make sure I wouldn’t hit the front guard by mistake.

I was just repeating the same words and the same characters in a routine fashion, so there was no delay or hesitation between each one. On the contrary, the more I repeated this, the faster I became.

Several arrows hit in succession. The hydra’s remaining heads screeched loudly in anger. One of the outside heads swept towards the three at the front like a whip, trying to knock them away. It was Ghelreis that braced for it with his large shield. With his short yet sturdy, barrel-like body, he held the shield at an angle. Viewed from the side, his body and the shield formed a shape like an upside-down letter “y.”

Sparks scattered everywhere as the hydra’s sharp, hard scales scraped across the huge shield. Ghelreis wasn’t blocking it; he was deflecting it upwards. The other two crouched down behind him, and the hydra’s swipe sliced through air.

Ghelreis roared. A powerful strike from his mace slammed into the hydra’s open body. Hydras had a strong ability to regenerate, but their internal organs couldn’t handle powerful impacts. The hydra recoiled, and attempted to fight back with several of its heads, but Ghelreis refused to move from the spot, as if he were rooted to the earth. In addition to his dwarven physique, his Sword-smasher armor set probably had some kind of magical effect to help him hold his ground.

“Now, young master!”

“Right!”

As the hydra’s attention was on Ghelreis, Al charged forward. He held his halberd of immense strength behind him, then swung it diagonally upwards, crashing it into one of the hydra’s heads. There was a sickeningly loud sound of shattering bone and scattering flesh. The result was less a slash wound and more a violent rupture. The head bent dramatically backwards, half-torn off.

Al yelled out as he pulled the long handle of his weapon back towards him and unleashed another strike. This time, the head was torn away completely. Unlike Reystov’s clean severing, the cross section left by Al’s attack was a mess, as if a giant had used all his strength to rip the hydra’s head away from its body.

While feeling a little disturbed, I cast another fire arrow. I heard a sigh behind me from Menel. “Well, looks like I’m not gonna be needed anymore,” he grumbled. “Whatever. Didn’t want to waste arrows anyway.”

It was already clear which side had the edge.

◆

While protecting Al from the hydra’s attacks, Ghelreis dealt steady blows to the hydra to make things harder for it and weaken it a little. Al secured a position where he was well protected by Ghelreis and could afford to take large swings. He sent another of the hydra’s heads flying. And whenever there was a spare moment, there was a brilliant flash from Reystov’s sword out of nowhere. Reystov was so good at hopping in and out of range that I kind of wanted to watch and learn. As for me, my only job was to watch them and repeatedly shoot guided fire arrows.

“Hey, you alright?” Menel was giving encouragement to the elf, who seemed to have been wounded, as he kept watch over the area. It looked as if he was just kicking back while the rest of us fought, but deliberately not getting involved with the fight and keeping a look out was an important job in itself.

In a pressing situation like battle, it’s only natural to want to join in and help if you have the ability, but if too many people get involved at once, it increases the risk of friendly fire and collateral damage. It’s an valuable decision to choose to stand by so that your allies don’t have to be concerned about additional enemies joining the fray and can concentrate on the battle before them. I wanted to believe that nothing would be crazy enough to jump into the middle of a hydra battle, but this was a dark region where people had never ventured. There was no way of knowing what might be lurking here.

“Sagitta Flammeum!” The three at the front continued to deal severe blows to the hydra, and each time, I delivered a flaming arrow to the wound site to increase the damage.

It wasn’t long after that that all the hydra’s heads were severed. It sank into the bog without even giving up a final scream.

“D-Did we kill it?!”

“Remain on your guard. Hydra venom is so deadly that even most miracles cannot cure it.”

“Yeah. Snakes like this can struggle wildly even after all the heads are cut off sometimes.”

“E-Even once all the heads are cut off?”

“Yeah. Won’t help anyone to let it spite you just before it dies.”

After checking that the three at the front were on their guard, I turned to look at what was going on behind me. “Menel.”

“Will, need you right now. She’s bitten!”

I hurriedly ran through the bog over to them and had a look at the elf Menel was holding in his arms. Her frayed blonde hair was covered in mud, and her violet eyes were hazed over and unfocused. Although she was wearing plain travelers’ clothing that was covered in mud, she was clearly very beautiful. She had a well-defined nose bridge and slender jaw line, and looked to me like the perfect example of a female elf in every aspect. If we’d met under normal circumstances, I might have been a little stunned. If she wasn’t twitching and drooling from deadly poison like she was right now!

“Stay with me!” No wonder Menel hadn’t let her out of his arms! No wonder he hadn’t been fighting! Panicking, I started to pray for the Miracle of Antidote.

“There’s... no hope...” The elf extended a quivering hand to stop me. “It’s hydra... poison...”

I grumbled. This wasn’t good. Not just the Miracle of Antidote, but any prayer with the power to heal could fail to have an effect if the target rejected it. That was because the good gods didn’t want their healing to be used for torture or extending life when it wasn’t desired. There were many ways for an inventive person to put the ability to cure poison or heal wounds to evil use.

It had to be difficult for her to even speak right now, yet she still turned down treatment, preferring to die without fruitless attempts to cling onto life. Elves really were dignified.

As I was wondering how I could convince her, Menel took her hand and lowered it. “Don’t speak.”

“No... You must... North... village of... others...”

“Ugh! Dammit, accept the treatment, wood-kin!”

“Wood...kin...?” The elf’s eyes, which were starting to lose their focus, opened wide and took in Menel. She met the direct gaze of his jade eyes.

“This is no ordinary priest,” he said. “Friend of the forest, you will survive. Accept this miracle.” His tone was final. “Pray.”

The elf was barely conscious now, but as Menel spoke those words to her while holding her hand, I was certain, although it was very slight, that I saw her nod her head.

And so, I offered a prayer to my god.

God, if you may, please heal this noble elf.

The prayer became a miracle, and the miracle became a faint light that shone down upon her body. Very soon after, the unconscious elven woman’s breathing slowly started returning to normal.