Book 7 Chapter 3

Episode 152

The Baelrisor (Lungs of Flame) Great River region was famous for having a vast economic sphere stretching from its upper to lower reaches.

- This river, which greatly curves from side to side in the southern part of the Akrad Continent towards the sea, connects the Northern Republic as one waterway.

Friede, the Priestess of the Fire Dragon, had explained it that way once.

She said that riverboats carried mountain products to the sea, and seagoing vessels brought marine products up to the mountains, making the Baelrisor Great River region always bustling and prosperous.

<Oltaris> was a fishing village located upstream, where such a riverine economic zone began, and even in the early morning, it was extremely noisy from the village entrance.

"……."

But immediately after entering the village, no, even before entering, I felt a strange sense of unease, as if my stomach was unpleasantly twisting.

Unease?

No, déjà vu?

But what kind of déjà vu? The moment I crossed the stone bridge following Miria to go to <Oltaris>'s guild branch, that unpleasant sense of unease revealed its true nature.

"Hmph."

It began with a man who brushed past me so closely that our clothes brushed, giving an oddly peculiar smile.

Did my heart beat twice?

Instinctively, I stopped walking as soon as I crossed the stone bridge.

He also stopped walking about twenty paces away, at the other end of the bridge. Simultaneously, the world slowly began to stop.

"Come, come, cheap……."

"Hey, hey……."

"Mom, so……."

The voices of fishermen haggling over fish prices in the fish market, the shouts of children running rudely through the alleyways, the harmonious whispers of a mother and daughter.

One, by one, by one.

Everything stopped one by one as if it were a manipulated illusion, and the village was enveloped in an eerily silent stillness.

"Why are you standing there?"

Only Miria's voice, who had been walking ahead explaining various things about the village to Akki, and had turned back, echoed in this world where the second hand had stopped.

Akki, sensing something strange, trembled and then hugged Miria tightly, baring his fangs.

Roughly 5 seconds had passed by this point, and just as cold sweat beaded on my forehead and dripped down my nose, he chuckled.

"Hoohoohooh, how commendable of you to remember this great senior's magic."

Then, from the alleyway on his right, a woman in a dark blue robe walked out.

She was sensually caressing a living, wriggling whip, wearing a playful smile. Among her comrades, she was known as Number 4.

"Oh my~ your face is cuter than I thought. It's too precious to kill."

As if to cut off our retreat, a black witch appeared from behind, her robe excessively large for her physique.

Her attire was designed to be donned and doffed in mere seconds, and the number she received from the great Turaina was 5.

"This is during a mission, Bellita. Stop thinking of doing anything strange."

"I know~ I'm just saying, you know."

From that point, everything felt as if it happened in an instant, exploding.

Witches in red pointed hats burst through the veil of dawn, surrounding us and threateningly pointing their brooms.

If that had been all, I wouldn't have been surprised. The fisherman who had just been slicing fish walked staggeringly with his cleaver, and the children who had been running through the alleyways approached, holding sharp stones.

"Thank you, Goblin Slayer. For bringing this guy as per the contract. I'll pay double. If you want to play with me in bed, triple."

He winked one eye past my shoulder, at Miria.

I didn't look back.

Miria was silent for a moment, as if trying to grasp the current situation, then tilted her head and replied coldly.

"What are you talking about? Who are you?"

"No, why are you acting like this all of a sudden? Between us."

"Hey, you might not believe me, but I never made a contract with a guy like that. What I talked about was—"

While Miria desperately protested, I didn't question him about the inside story of this incident. Instead, I merely glanced back over my shoulder and snorted a laugh.

Once.

Just as Rista had done for me a very long time ago.

"—I know everything. Don't worry."

And before those words even finished, I concentrated magic into my two eyes. The world, dimly lit by dawn, lost its color and transformed into a sequence of numbers.

The negative spiritual power, which ordinary eyes could not see, clearly manifested as tentacles, not true tentacles, wrapping around people's brains and souls. A 3-star possession spirit, then.

Before, perhaps even annihilating twenty would have been overwhelming, but now, even blowing away a hundred simultaneously, my magic power overflows.

"Bel Quireas."

The space centered around me subtly trembled, and a red wave exploded. From that wave, silent screams erupted from all directions.

The possession spirits, who had been shoving tentacles covered in disgusting mucus and membranes into eye sockets, nostrils, and mouths, were instantly engulfed in the flames of transcendence and sobbed.

As soon as they touched the wave of those flames, people fell one by one onto the stone ground like marionettes with their strings cut.

'Seven instances of possession magic…?'

'At once?'

As soon as Number 5 tore off her robe, her body swelled enormously, and fur and claws sprouted, drooling from a horrifying maw.

"I'll stop this one, go!"

When Miria shouted that, drawing her sword, the boy rushed forward and simultaneously reached out a hand into the air.

A staff of primordial flames, burning the darkness of the dimension, was constructed. The target was one: Number 7, the master of the possession spirits.

The distance closed in an instant, and I was about to crush his head, combining the rebound inertia from stomping on the ground with all my core and arm strength.

Wheeeeeee!

A sound of something sharply cutting through the air was heard, and suddenly something wrapped around my neck.

"Where are you looking away?!"

A ominous sound came from my cervical spine due to the force that seized me and pulled me towards the outer wall, stifling my breath.

I might have died right there.

If I hadn't lowered my head in that instant and twisted the spiritual power that scattered eerie light from the whip with Bel Quireas.

"Oh? The actual spell just disappeared?"

Bel Quireas annihilates spiritual power but cannot interfere with physical objects. So the object that had grabbed me by the wall to break my neck remained.

"Pi, Pi… Pippie────!"

The moment I painstakingly uttered a sound, the sun parrot guarding Akki on the other side spread its wings of flame and swooped down towards the whip's owner.

"What is this bird?!"

Perhaps surprised by Pippie's counterattack, the whip's restraint loosened slightly.

That gap.

That fleeting moment of a gap.

As soon as I broke the magic circle on my palm while escaping the whip, whoosh, flames chased the whip like a snake, targeting the owner holding the handle.

"──!"

Form 2, Wolf.

A stance preparing for impact.

I lowered the tip of the staff, then stomped off the ground, smacked away the whip that flew back at me, and immediately broke the magic circle on my palm.

The flames of annihilation deployed like a prison at the specified coordinates, leaving no room for escape.

The instant he tried to chant a spell in response, the staff I powerfully thrust pierced his neck and slammed him against the outer wall.

The last tremor of life transmitted harshly up the staff into my palm, then snapped.

"What a pathetic junior. Trying to save useless idiots when you're in deep trouble yourself?"

At that moment, from Number 7's two palms, four magic circles were woven together in an instant, faster than anything I had ever seen in my life.

"If you had swept the area with those flames, you could have finished us all off."

I doubted my eyes.

Using 4-star magic with double casting? That quickly?

"You don't deserve it even an iota. Someone like you, swayed by shallow emotions, doesn't deserve to use those eyes."

The moment the magic circles broke with a viscous, dull sound, a grotesque, wriggling, slimy substance bound my limbs and choked my breath, while a bizarrely foul-smelling sphere flew towards me.

"What's important for a mage, is a cold, rational mind, to the point of being selfish!"

Each time liquid dripped from that sphere, the stone road hissed with eerie steam and melted.

Was it an intensely corrosive liquid that could melt a human body in an instant?

Just as I thought my breathing was recovering, my breath was choked again, and because blood wasn't supplying my head, I couldn't penetrate the two spells with Bel Quireas…

In that case, there was only one method.

It might be a desperate measure, but it was the only option I could use in a fleeting moment that wasn't even a second.

Magic power deployment.

The sensation of widely deploying magic power outside the body… the sensation of drawing out the infinite power surging from within, the raging source of transcendence, beyond the body.

Just as Shar'kas had done before, I overlaid the exact same image onto reality. Without any technique or artistry, just the image of simply overwhelming with crushing power.

At that moment, the dimension centered around me seemed to writhe amidst countless shimmering heat hazes, and then primordial flames swirled into a storm, burning away the negative power that was about to engulf my body.

"Hm…?!"

The power that had made the area tremble turned into ashes as if by magic, and an enormous heat swirled. In that heat, Number 7's eyes, raising both arms in front of his face, narrowed.

"A firestorm…?"

That guy didn't use any magic just now. He couldn't have.

But what on earth is it?

Does that mean he deployed magic power as flames? That moment of confusion decided the outcome.

"───?!"

Jeseoswaeran-yeon. Chains of clear flame surged from the ground, piercing Number 7's soul. The runes inscribed on the chains bound all his spiritual power and strength.

"This is…."

That magic that clever junior used 300 years ago… Even though he died by my hand, thinking back, he was a regrettable fellow.

'Now that I think about it, everything from start to finish is somehow bizarre…'

Is this kid a follower of Rin?

Using staff techniques, and using this magic… but as far as I know, only Turaina should know how to use that magic?

And so Turaina only taught it to that upstart named Rivadin, whom she created through human alchemy…

Kaa-aang!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the bridge, where countless sparks flew and claws and blades clashed repeatedly, Number 5, whose body had transformed into a beast, narrowed her eyes.

With Number 4 dead and Number 7 neutralized… here, I have no choice but to prioritize the goal given by her.

After smashing the Goblin Slayer's sword with her claws, she stomped off the ground and lunged at the baby dragon, who was whimpering and crawling around. Miria had set it down at the start of the battle.

With the amplified leg strength from adopting a beast's body, one step would secure the baby dragon, and three more steps would be more than enough to escape the village.

The baby dragon couldn't resist, and neither the dragon's guardian nor the Goblin Slayer could react to this speed…?

Her face was slammed into the ground.

Miria had thrown an iron rope with a hook and pulled her back, which she couldn't understand. Could that Silver-rank adventurer overwhelm her strength in this state?

No, wait a minute.

It's strange. It's strange.

Her body, the flesh transformed by magic, had returned to human form at some point. Along with the agonizing pain of invisible, uncontrollable flames welling up from her lungs.

Then, the last thing she saw was an object shimmering with golden, red, and orange light in front of her eyes. Rain's forcefully thrown staff had crushed her skull, scattering her brains everywhere.

The staff then consumed the head in flames and simultaneously vanished, scattering red particles.

"Ah, ah, owowooh…!"

"Akki! It's okay, mmm, it's okay."

Only after seeing Miria embracing and comforting the crying Akki did I let out a sigh of relief.

One of my knees buckled among the continuous onslaught, but since everything had been sorted out, I had the leisure to look back at the guy whose soul was bound by chains.

I regulated my slightly ragged breathing and said,

"I have a few questions before I kill you."