Ch.173Chapter 173

“Н̸̨̠̓̈́͡е̸͍̪̏̓̕͜л̷̨͈̣̪̒͠е̸̭̞̉͜͝п̸͕͔̰̈́͋͜͞ы̶̢̙̩҇̂е̷̢͙͔͊̿̏̕ в̸͙̘̞̃͢͞ы̶̫̠̙̓͗͢͠!̴̞̠̗̈́͑͑͜͠”

A bizarre sound that scrambles the mind, followed by a tremendous roar that strikes the ears, engulfs the battlefield.

The source of that sound was the vocal cords of the Dragonslayer, summoned by Tanthyn.

The Dragonslayer’s gaze was directed at Tanthyn.

No, to be precise, it was directed at the Outer Gods trying to chase Tanthyn.

The Dragonslayer was attempting to stop the Outer Gods who were trying to pursue Tanthyn, who had departed ahead to intercept the Princess as quickly as possible.

The Dragonslayer’s mouth opens wide.

And into that mouth, red energy began to gather.

Watching the absurdly large fireball forming instantly in the Dragonslayer’s mouth, Vice-Captain Marenne felt a sense of overwhelming awe.

“What is that sound?!”

Just then, a woman’s voice came from behind.

It was White Mask.

“What kind of creature would… Huh.”

White Mask, who had stepped forward to assess the situation, witnessed the same scene Marenne was looking at and realized that her expression had become no different from Marenne’s.

A fireball overwhelmingly larger than even the flames burning in a furnace.

It was fired at the Outer Gods that were crawling en masse toward Tanthyn.

────!!!

“Argh!”

“Ugh!”

The first thing that occurred was a gust of wind from the shockwave.

Because of it, Marenne and White Mask felt threatened as if they might be swept away at any moment, but they managed to endure by driving their weapons into the ground and supporting their bodies against them.

Just as they barely withstood this, an overwhelming boom even louder than the Dragonslayer’s roar erupted.

The sound was so loud that White Mask and the Vice-Captain instinctively curled their bodies.

When the aftermath subsided, they raised themselves and simultaneously shifted their gaze to where the Dragonslayer’s fireball had exploded.

And both of them, as if shocked, had their pupils contract.

While Marenne was very surprised by this sight, White Mask felt a sense of emptiness as well.

“…So when it fought me, it was holding back.”

A massive crater, as if a meteorite had fallen.

At its center, a huge fire was blazing.

Just before the Snow Mountain expedition incident, the Vice-Captain had been told by the Princess that the Outer God she had dealt with alongside the Knight Commander had been close to a Greater Outer God.

Of course, one had to consider that it had been difficult because there were overwhelmingly many minions, but even so, that Outer God didn’t give the same feeling as the Dragonslayer now.

Outer Gods crumbling before overwhelming power.

According to the mysticism Tanthyn had explained, the Dragonslayer was a being just below the level of the Chronicler.

Against such beings, have we humans continued to survive?

At this point, perhaps we’ve been played with all along.

“Snap out of it, Vice-Captain!”

Just then, White Mask’s shout was heard.

Coming to her senses, Marenne saw that a massive number of Outer Gods had already surrounded them, just like before.

“Damn it, I was spacing out. What about the other knights?”

“Fortunately, they’re not surrounded. We only need to worry about our own lives.”

White Mask said.

The Vice-Captain, forgetting the overwhelming feeling she had felt from the Dragonslayer, slowly raised her greatsword.

Victory couldn’t be guaranteed.

There were too many.

It would be good if other Greater Outer Gods helped, but from what she had seen earlier, the number of Outer Gods they were facing was overwhelming, so expecting reinforcements would be unreasonable…

“Р̷̛͙̐͢а҉̯̲̇͊̀͜͡а҈͉̯͖̂̌̀͜͡а̵̨̛͕̞̋!̵̦̓͢͠”

Suddenly, something in the shape of a wolf appeared from somewhere and leaped into the midst of numerous Outer Gods.

Even the Outer Gods seemed caught off guard by the sudden situation, as all their gazes turned toward the wolf.

The wolf, not even caring about their killing intent, quickly swung its front paws.

Though the movement seemed light, with that single motion, numerous Outer Gods fell like autumn leaves.

Eventually, the wolf caught the last remaining Outer God in its mouth, and as if eating food, violently shook its head, tearing it to pieces.

Then, as if nothing had happened, it tilted its head and made a faint “heh, heh” sound.

“И̸̡̥̠͙̐͋̕ ч҈̰͈͛̀̽͢͠е̶̧̝̾͡м̶̡̭̫̟҇́͋ т̵̧̤̳̀͝е҈̡͕̇͞п҈̡̥̑͠е̶̳̱̓͗́͜͡р̷̢̛̲̃̈̈́ь̸̨̛̗̐̍́ з̶̛͓̮̥̆͂̏͢а̶̢͇̖҇̀̋͗н҉̝̠́̏͢͞я̷̢͚̓̆̑͞т̷̧̙̍͞ь̴̧̪͎͊̀̾͝с̵̧̛͔̘͌̂̈́я҉̧͙͋͡?҈̧̩͔̿̕”

The Watcher spewed out such bizarre sounds and then leaped to another location.

When Marenne counted internally, it had all happened in about 5 seconds.

At that empty scene, the Vice-Captain and White Mask looked at each other and shrugged.

“Did something happen to us?”

“…Who knows.”

“They look like they’re struggling, let’s go help them.”

“Understood.”

Marenne was following White Mask who ran ahead, when she turned her head at another sound of something breaking.

There, she could see the Gardener literally crushing the Outer Gods pouring in while controlling numerous human corpses.

…Marenne sometimes wondered.

If she had made a slightly worse slip of the tongue when she first met Tanthyn, what would have happened?

Marenne shook her head and ran to where White Mask was.

She didn’t want to imagine the terrible things that hadn’t happened yet.

#

Moving forward through the snowfall pouring down like thunder.

In the end, Aghartha was flying separately.

Despite speaking so playfully, Aghartha also seemed to want this world to become peaceful again, as she didn’t force her own desires.

The surface of the protective gear provided by the Princess was now frozen solid, making it feel creaky as it required strong force to move each time.

Fortunately, the dragon wings, perhaps because they were Zmiya’s power, seemed to have some immunity from the Princess’s power.

Either way, the speed had become much faster than before, to the point where I felt my face being pressed by the strong air pressure.

“We seem to be almost there now.”

The Huntsman, who had been quiet, muttered.

The figure of the Princess gradually began to appear ahead, which had been completely invisible due to the heavy snowfall.

Even saying that, it still seemed like we had to fly much further.

The Princess’s sigh was heard.

Perhaps she felt anxious at the thought of now facing her sister, who had been something of a trauma for her.

It would be nice if we could just continue straight and directly confront the Princess.

But life, it seems, is not so accommodating.

“Hey, why is he going ahead like that!”

“Stop him!”

As luck would have it, several divine beings who knew how to fly through the sky had spotted me and were rapidly flying toward us.

If I just tried to evade them and move forward, there was a high probability that problems would arise when we reached the Princess.

The number of divine beings rushing at me would likely pile up like a snowman.

With Asti gone at this point, the only combatant was the Huntsman.

If we continued fighting in the air, it was clear we would be at a disadvantage due to the Princess’s presence.

We had no choice but to go to the ground.

“I’m landing.”

Without the leisure to hear their responses, I went down to the ground first.

I could see Aghartha following my flight trajectory down as well.

After landing on the ground in an instant, I put down the Huntsman and the Princess and looked around.

Frozen knights.

All of them wore expressions filled with pain.

“Let’s quickly deal with these together and move forward.”

“Deal with them together, huh.”

I muttered that while watching the Outer Gods gradually converging toward us, but the Huntsman was repeating a strange part of what I said.

Wondering what her intention was, I tried to look back at the Huntsman.

“…Huh?”

The Princess and I were flying through the air.

As soon as I recognized reality, I looked in the direction of the Huntsman, and her extended arm proved that she had thrown us.

As soon as we flew away, the Outer Gods all rushed toward the Huntsman at once.

The Huntsman put something to her mouth, pulled it out, and threw it to the ground.

It was a cute bomb with a skull drawn on it.

“Huntsman!!!”

Bang!

Unlike its savage explosion, a cute sound reached my ears.

The divine beings caught in the explosion were falling to the ground.

I quickly moved my wings to catch the Princess who was flying.

Fortunately, she hadn’t hit anything.

“What is the Huntsman…”

Even the Princess seemed surprised by the Huntsman’s actions, covering her mouth with both hands and wearing an astonished expression.

The smoke billowing from the center of the explosion gave me a gloomy feeling.

It was a moment when reality wasn’t quickly registering.

Whoosh!

Something quickly jumped high into the sky from within that smoke.

Quickly tracking it with my gaze.

“Huntsman!”

There was the Huntsman, perfectly fine, running across the roof of a building.

“Cooperation can sometimes be very inefficient. It’s also a strategic action to entrust your back to a reliable ally and move forward.”

The Huntsman said that and gave me a thumbs up.

“Finish it to the end. And survive. I have something to tell you.”

The Huntsman said that and then threw herself toward where the divine beings were.

With a heavy double-barrel shotgun in hand.

I was a bit concerned about her saying she had something to tell me at the end.

“Tanthyn! The Huntsman…”

“Let’s go.”

“What?!”

The Princess said in a very surprised voice, but I didn’t mind.

I had momentarily been confused because I’d forgotten the most important thing.

“For the Huntsman to block that number alone…!”

“She’ll manage well.”

I smiled at the Princess.

“She’s strong, after all.”

I had forgotten something important.

Originally, the protagonist of Snow Castle was the Huntsman.

No matter how harsh the world might be.

There’s no game world that kills its protagonist.