episode_0055

One, two, three, four…

I count the number of undead wandering in the gorge.

Roughly a little over twenty.

The ground was littered with the decaying corpses of monsters from the previous battle.

Broken rocks scattered everywhere, making the already narrow passageway even narrower.

“Such eerie monsters…”

I frowned as I watched the approaching undead.

I had seen resurrected monsters before, but the undead were different from skeletons or zombies as they retained their appearance from when they were alive, making them even more unsettling.

Apart from their burning empty eye sockets, they still had intact flesh and equipment.

However, any injuries they sustained before becoming undead remained unhealed.

The most terrifying aspect was that their faces were recognizable, with features unchanged from when they were alive.

Though I didn’t know their names, I could still recognize their faces.

Even if they had only briefly been part of the extermination team, their familiar faces made them stand out.

The size of the monster unit led by Bloodstain in the Horn Canyon was much larger than what the kingdom had estimated.

Therefore, sacrifices from the extermination team were inevitable.

But as I watched the restless undead unable to find peace before my eyes, I felt a sense of responsibility creeping in.

Having been in charge of commanding the battle behind Milaia, I wondered if quicker decisions on my part could have reduced the number of casualties.

Moments later, one of the undead raised its sword and charged towards me.

Facing this type of monster for the first time, I decided to cautiously gauge its strength first.

Clang!

I blocked the undead’s sword with my magic-infused blade.

The sharp sound of metal rang in my ears.

The force of the undead’s sword struck my arm as I deflected the blow.

Hmm, this is the feeling, for now.

Surprisingly, the undead’s attacks weren’t as fierce as I had expected.

As the next strike came, I swiftly dodged to the side.

Thud!

The undead’s sword sliced through a rock behind me.

Despite the rock being quite large, it was cut cleanly as if it were a tree.

“What? That destructive power…”

As I witnessed the rock being cut, I felt a cold sweat running down my back.

The attack I had just blocked with my sword didn’t feel as powerful as the destruction I had just witnessed.

Rather than feeling difficult to block, I had thought it was easy to fend off, but apparently, that wasn’t the case.

“Yunoa was taken aback by the stark difference between his perceived strength and his actual strength.

The disparity was so great that the scale for comparing strengths had broken.”

Suddenly, the narrator spoke to me.

What did it mean by the significant difference between perceived strength and actual strength?

“Ah!”

As the undead aimed for my waist with its next strike, I quickly moved back.

Other undead around me started to gather towards me.

“Strength was relative.

Despite gaining some mastery over magic, Yunoa’s inflated ego still clouded his judgment.

There was no need to feel intimidated by the visible strength of the opponent’s attacks.

The dullness of not realizing even after experiencing the attack firsthand.

What good was it to wield a sword to slay dragons if one didn’t use it for that purpose?”

The narrator continued with its biting commentary.

Relative strength.

A powerful strike that could cut through rocks, but when directly faced, the attack didn’t feel as strong as it seemed.

Then there was only one answer.

The Fire Immortal attacking me weakly?

Of course not.

If I had come to such a conclusion, the narration would have probably cursed me, as if waiting for me to make a fool of myself, but I wasn’t that foolish.

The reason I could easily withstand the Fire Immortal’s attack was not because his attack was weak, but because my defense was much stronger.

The unique magic I obtained from the Aynblad’s Magic Prison seemed to have a remarkable effect.

If the old me had taken that blow from the Fire Immortal, I would never have been able to withstand it unscathed.

But now, it was possible.

And quite easily at that.

To confirm the conclusion I had made in my mind, this time, I decided not to dodge the attack.

The Fire Immortal’s sword came flying towards my neck this time.

Clang!

I raised my sword to block the attack.

If the Fire Immortal was inheriting his abilities from his past life, his sword would surely be filled with magic.

But the magic in my sword far surpassed his, neutralizing the destructive power of his attack, leaving me standing with only a slight shock.

“Next is…”

The Fire Immortals were closing in.

It was time to tidy up.

I took a step back and assumed a sideways stance.

If simply filling my body and sword with magic could provide this level of defense, what about my attack?

Focusing my mind on the magic in my sword, I swung it horizontally.

Timing it with the wide trajectory of the sword, I released the magic in the air strongly.

It was the first technique I learned as an adventurer, the sword energy.

Swish!

The sword energy created along the trajectory of the sword pierced through the waists of the Fire Immortals.

The color of the sword energy was no longer blue but a strange shade close to crimson.

Some Fire Immortals raised their weapons to protect themselves from the flying sword energy.

Those behind even created magical shields.

But the swiftly flying crimson sword energy pierced through everything.

Boom!

It was a power beyond expectation.

After piercing through the Fire Immortals, the sword energy continued to fly and collided with a rock wall, disappearing with a loud noise.

A deep mark over 10 meters was engraved on the massive rock wall.

The Fire Immortals hit by the sword energy collapsed to the ground with their waists or legs severed.

“W-what… is this?”

My hands trembled with the unfamiliar power.

I knew the peculiar magic I obtained from Aynblad would have an effect, but I never expected it to be this powerful.

While it was true that the magic I could handle had become stronger, I was having trouble adapting to it myself.

Dealing with these Fire Immortals now became an easy task.

But when I released the sword energy, I felt like I had put too much force into it due to not properly adapting to my newfound power.

Could it be because I now possessed an alien magic that my body had never absorbed before?

This could be a surprisingly troublesome issue.

Right now, it was not a problem since I was alone, with only the Fire Immortals to deal with.

But a failure in magic control in a situation where allies and enemies were mixed could be fatal.

If the end of the sword energy’s trajectory had not been a rock wall but allies?

Just the thought of it was dreadful.

“Yunoa finally realized a new problem that had arisen for him.

The magic wielded by the Pureblood Queen, Ludmilla, and the magic wielded by humans were drastically different in nature.

The magic he had absorbed was so powerful that it could even change the nature of the magic he had accumulated through magic conversion.

The narration added certainty to my thoughts.

When I was trapped in the magic prison, the magic that felt red was something I couldn’t control no matter how much I focused.

So, I passed the blue magic I could control through the magic prison and fused the nature of the two magics.

The power of magic had certainly increased, but the combination of it seemed to have its downsides as well.

“I guess I need a lot more practice….”

I gripped my sword and looked at the remaining fire spirits.

From now on, one at a time, I’ll try to deal with the fire spirits using restrained magic.

“Hoo….”

Taking a deep breath, I focused my mind again and filled my sword with magic.

This time, instead of sending out a blade of energy, I plunged forward and directly cut the fire spirit.

Swoosh!

The fire spirit’s body was easily sliced diagonally like cheese.

There was no danger of losing control and accidentally cutting myself in strange places with the force of swinging the sword, as I had feared.

My body’s center was solid, and the sensation of swinging the sword was as usual.

The cutting power was on a whole new level compared to before.

Alright, it seems that the issue of controlling magic only arises in technical aspects.

This time, I tried converting the magic on the blade into flames.

If it worked like before, the magic flames on the blade would burn, creating a state where I could use it like a flame sword.

Fwoosh!

Purple flames fiercely erupted from the blade, extending several meters longer than the blade itself.

As the flames swirled and engulfed the fire spirit in front of me, I was taken aback and let go of the sword.

The sword fell to the ground, and the flames that were wildly extending from the blade dispersed into the air and disappeared.

“Th-that was unexpected….”

This is a real problem.

I can’t control it at all.

Thinking that I needed to find a way to control this immense magic technically, I picked up the sword again and rushed towards the remaining fire spirits.