Ch.116116. The Great Shit Extermination (2)

Senia’s eyes could identify something special, unlike others.

This power played the most significant role in why magical beasts had repeatedly fallen before her without landing a single attack.

Mana Vision.

She could clearly see the flow of mana as solid lines and read their trajectories precisely.

It was a power perfectly suited for Senia, who analyzed her opponents with sharp and keen precision.

This unique ability might have been largely useless to someone else, but because Senia was its wielder, Tembris, unlike other teams, could thoroughly gather information about their enemies before engaging them.

“Senia, I don’t quite understand… So you’re saying the magical beast deliberately caused an explosion?”

“Yes. And not just any explosion—it was specifically designed to spread that fluid, exactly why they’re named Scourge.”

“Then what about me creating an ice wall? That should be possible, right? And Michelle’s flame barrier would help too.”

Charlotte questioned Senia.

Just now, Senia had told only Erika to create a barrier, but others could also block that fluid.

However, Senia shook her head again.

“No, Charlotte. If you had done that, it would have broken through your ice wall. The same would have happened with Michelle’s flame barrier.”

“What…?”

Everyone tilted their heads in confusion at the idea that mere fluid could penetrate walls made of magic.

“You said earlier that these Scourge raise their offspring in blood. So what do you think they eat?”

“Um… I don’t know? Grains, maybe…?”

“Or since rats are omnivores, they might eat whatever leftovers they can find.”

It’s true that rats typically eat grains and, being omnivorous, will consume almost anything humans can eat.

But that applies to ordinary rats, not these magical beasts called Scourge.

All animal species are the same in this regard.

Consuming food, absorbing nutrients, and raising offspring are instinctual behaviors.

However, these Scourge had a major contradiction.

“They don’t have digestive systems. It seems they haven’t developed such organs, possibly due to their self-destructive nature.”

“Huh…”

“Hmm…”

“That’s right… self-destruction…”

While the others seemed to understand, Senia knew there was a flaw in her explanation.

The absence of a digestive system for consuming and breaking down nutrients was a massive contradiction for any living being.

This created several other contradictions as well.

No digestive system, offspring raised in the bloodstream. So how do they create offspring?

What do these offspring eat to grow and become adults like these?

No, that’s impossible.

Even for magical beasts, this defies the basic principles of living organisms.

As living creatures and animals, even Scourge cannot bypass these fundamental laws.

‘Wait, come to think of it, there were quite a few other corpses around here too?’

The corpses of Canorlatls and Osopteras she had seen earlier.

While Scourge were overwhelmingly more numerous, other species were occasionally visible as part of this ecosystem.

Then there was only one answer.

They only needed body tissues designed to consume “that,” making digestive organs unnecessary.

Senia continued with conviction:

“In the end, they too must eat something to increase their numbers. If they didn’t need to eat anything, they couldn’t be called living beings, let alone magical beasts.”

“Senia?”

“What they eat is only mana. Not grains or meat.”

“What?!”

Clearly, they too needed an energy source.

The mistake was assuming it had to be some visible, material substance.

“Remember the Canorlatl and Osoptera corpses we saw on our way here? Do you recall what they looked like?”

“They had holes punched through them. As if they’d been stabbed by some kind of spear.”

“No, Cain. Canorlatls and Osopteras wouldn’t die easily from being stabbed in a weak point by an ordinary skewer. Besides, even if they were stabbed, would the wounds really look like that?”

“Come to think of it… rather than being stabbed from outside, it looked more like something…”

Had burst out from within. That was the key point.

The entire team finally realized.

“Are you saying they devoured all the mana in the blood and then burst out?”

“So that’s why those Canorlatls launched a full-scale attack on Lemtert village…”

“The same goes for the Osopteras. They were fleeing, unable to withstand the attacks from these parasitic rats. After consuming enough mana from another creature’s blood, the rats use that consumed mana to grow their bodies to produce offspring. That’s their reproductive method.”

Once they burrow into the bloodstream, they consume mana until their host dies, then bore a hole to finish off the host.

Then they grow again to raise offspring and sacrifice themselves to find the next host.

A reproductive method that doesn’t even fear death. It sends chills down the spine. By this logic, any human who became a Scourge host would surely face mortality.

“Then we shouldn’t just stand here. We need to go back and tell the others…”

“How?”

Senia immediately stopped Aris as she tried to leave.

“What do you mean ‘how’… Well…”

“Even if we go back and belatedly inform them, they might already be infected. Should we just return like this?”

“…”

As Senia said, the milk was already spilled.

Even if they knew this fact belatedly, there was no guarantee the others weren’t already infected.

To minimize damage now, the best solution was to eliminate the root cause here.

“This is just my speculation, but such magical beasts couldn’t have occurred naturally. It’s a fundamental issue.”

“A fundamental issue?”

“You saw it on our way here. Something like a rope being dragged along. No one brought such a rope. In fact, no one has set foot here before. So what could it be?”

“A mother… you mean there’s a mother entity.”

“So that’s what you meant when you mentioned unusually large footprints… I didn’t realize.”

“Then we need to deal with that first.”

Target the mother. Their path was now set—to break through the Scourge and prioritize this ultimate goal.

“So they eat mana. That’s why you told only Erika to create a barrier, because ice walls or flame barriers would be consumed by them and they’d charge through?”

“Correct. Holy power that’s already been converted isn’t mana anymore, so they can’t consume it.”

“This is tricky. So how do we fight them? It’s difficult to have Erika create barriers every time.”

Indeed it was.

Fighting this way—killing the Scourge to prevent self-destruction, then creating barriers to block explosions—was magically inefficient.

Plus, there were hundreds of times more Scourge than this.

If they fought this way every time they encountered them, their mana would quickly be depleted. It wasn’t ideal that offensive powerhouses like Michelle and Aris couldn’t fight freely, and having only Erika’s mana depleted would disrupt the team’s balance.

After hesitating briefly, Senia provided the answer.

“Even binding or hindering magic would result in self-destruction, so we need to resolve this physically. Or use methods that suppress their mana circuits from functioning.”

Of course, there was one more method, but she couldn’t mention it.

She dared not bring up anything related to the Sirens here.

***

The water had already been spilled, and no cloth was prepared to wipe it up.

Despite the water soaking into the empire, no countermeasures had been devised.

It was following the same course as before the regression.

“…Why are you trembling like that?”

“They might not come this far, right?”

“Since they’ve deployed all remaining forces to start a complete extermination, I guess not?”

“Sigh. The professor said it: who will protect the residents if we tremble? Pull yourselves together!”

This was northern Schütt Province.

Although academy students had stepped up, they weren’t at the very front lines joining the extermination force.

Even though they were near the battlefield, they were clearly a forward unit that would only depart when the situation called for their support.

Unless support was requested, they weren’t ordered to move out.

But those creatures would surely pass through here.

I didn’t see this situation because I was with the Tembris members at the time, but when we returned, Levrant was already on the verge of being breached.

So we will inevitably meet the Scourge. I suspect their overwhelming numbers simply cannot be suppressed by the vanguard forces alone.

If there’s any consolation, it’s that we won’t be pushed that far this time.

At least, with sufficient numbers of frontline students, the damage shouldn’t escalate further.

We just need to hold out here until Tembris arrives.

Until they completely subdue the Plague Shanbereshu, the mother entity, and arrive here.

‘But… they’re taking quite a long time for that.’

The vanguard forces are supposedly blasting magic to exterminate the Scourge up ahead, but it’s not that far away.

“Has the detection team sent any other reports?”

“No, nothing special.”

“Hmm… really?”

No news isn’t necessarily bad news. It means those rat swarms aren’t visible yet.

Yet, strangely, this silence feels increasingly bitter.

The hungry rat swarms would surely smell prey and rush this way, but they seemed oddly delayed.

If we could defend like an iron wall, why couldn’t we do so before the regression?

If they’re not even detected at this time now, why was Levrant nearly breached back then?

Something’s wrong.

Something is clearly wrong.

The fact that the Scourge are arriving so much later than they should suggests something has gone awry.

But just as I was about to request a wide-area detection spell to shake off this uneasiness:

-Scourge swarm spotted in sectors 2 and 3! The numbers are…

‘No way…’

-Too many to count!

They’ve come. Those creatures.

***

-Squeak! Squeak squeak!

The discordant sounds of rats in the forest made my ears ring.

Because of this, it was impossible to pinpoint exactly where the Scourge would ambush from, inevitably slowing our movements.

“Junon!”

-Crack.

“Don’t worry, I handled it. Let’s keep moving.”

“Amazing… with his bare hands…”

The rats that died with a cracking sound didn’t explode. Meanwhile, someone asked him:

“Junon, this is all well and good, but do we just have to parry like this?”

“Why? Want to cut them down yourself? Earlier I thought we’d be lucky if you didn’t just run away.”

“No… I was just really tense then… But it’s strange that you keep telling us to deflect and not cut.”

“You told me to conserve mana too, but I don’t know how long I need to save it.”

Having weapons and magical armor, they could easily slice through the rats.

The same goes for the support wizards following behind. They could help by hindering or suppressing the Scourge’s movements without conserving mana.

In a pinch, even with weaker firepower, they could easily handle rats of this size.

But Junon told them not to.

As the questions persisted, he explained once more:

“Try to gauge how many rat voices you hear in the forest. It’s not good to expend energy when we don’t know how many we’ll face.”

“Well, that’s true.”

“Alright, I’ll just push them away with my staff as you said.”

His explanation sounded plausible, but the issue wasn’t about conserving energy. On the contrary, Junon was using his strength alone, with no teamwork at all.

But he had his reasons.

These rats self-destruct to spread plague. They consume mana and charge in prepared to die.

They must be stopped before mana rushes to their hearts and explodes, and situations where blood splatters from cutting or stabbing must be avoided.

To minimize casualties.

That’s why Junon stepped forward himself.

With Anti-Cast, he could knock out Scourge, and his martial training allowed him to cleanly break their necks for instant death without blood splatter, which is why no one in this unit had been infected yet.

“…!”

“Hey… what kind of footprint…”

My throat involuntarily tightened. Now I understood why I had that uneasy feeling and why they were so delayed.

‘So this is why Levrant was nearly breached…!’

With the vanguard forces deployed, they probably expected not to face such large numbers.

But the numbers suggest otherwise.

Unlike the trickle of one rat at a time until now, almost the entire main force had arrived here, requiring full deployment to handle.

Currently spread out due to concerns about civilian casualties, but facing this volume, what would happen to them?

Divide and conquer.

Nothing else comes to mind.

Levrant ended up in that situation because, despite the frontline units’ efforts, this overwhelming force approached the front lines.

“How much further?”

“We’re almost there! Right ahead!”

After passing through the forest, we saw Units 2 and 3 struggling to block the path to northern Schütt Province.

Unable to handle this volume, they seemed to be trying to hold out like during the Osoptera incident, which was a good idea in principle but precarious in practice.

Already pushed to their limits and nearly surrounded.

There, one rat slipped through a gap and lunged toward a female student.

It was too far to reach by hand. Even if we broke through the charging Scourge, that rat would have already infected the girl.

I thought she was doomed, but then:

-Thwack!

“What is… that? A metal rod…?”

“Keep holding on!”

The rat, struck by the metal rod, was knocked unconscious with a large bruise but without shedding a drop of blood.

‘Somehow it worked…!’

His biggest weakness was that while he could block at range, he couldn’t attack from a distance.

Using tools to compensate for this major weakness was only natural.

What appeared to be an ordinary metal rod was actually a throwing weapon infused with mana.

Junon, knowing his Anti-Cast and mana couldn’t be consumed by the Scourge, had prepared this.

“Junon! We’re here!”

Reinforcements arrived just in time.

Now it was time to counterattack.