Ch.417Chapter 417 – Warrior’s Sacred Ground (1)

Previously, Noah and Sonya had talked about it.

About how the monsters of the snow fields immediately cooperate to form an encirclement when prey appears.

I thought it would be annoying then, but…

“This is even more annoying than I thought!”

I shouted as I swung my halberd to split the jaw of a white wolf that appeared from behind.

It wasn’t just the white wolves.

In the air, ravens that looked as if they were made of ice itself, and on the ground, giant wolves with white fur were jumping around everywhere.

And as if commanding them, a wyvern circled higher in the sky.

Except for its scales that were both white and somewhat blue—likely adapted to the snow-covered terrain where blizzards frequently rage—it looked similar to the ones I had seen before in Sestas.

White wolves, ice birds, and a dragon.

Somehow, it was exactly the composition Noah had mentioned as an example.

With enemies positioned in all directions and even in the sky targeting us, the pressure and confusion were extraordinary.

Normally in this situation, magic would be necessary.

But Beatrice couldn’t properly cast magic against the surrounding minions.

“This is driving me crazy! When I try to cast a spell, they deliberately block it with their bodies…!”

“Calm down!”

Sia responded as she swung her sword while Beatrice expressed her frustration, swinging her chain.

When Beatrice tried to cast magic to blast away a large number of enemies, the nearby monsters would charge with all their might as if they had been waiting for it.

Obviously, they were trying to preemptively prevent Beatrice from fully casting her magic.

Of course, a veteran like Beatrice wouldn’t fail to cast magic because of such minor interference.

But the monsters had their own methods.

If they failed to stop the magic, they would use their own bodies to take the hit first.

They would deliberately get hit by the magic as it left Beatrice’s hands, delaying the casting even slightly or reducing its power. While the monster that volunteered as a meat shield was dying, the others would try to escape the magic’s range as much as possible.

As a result, magical attacks weren’t causing as much damage as expected.

These monsters had clearly learned their own ways to deal with magic.

‘At least it’s not completely ineffective.’

Still, magic was magic.

Even if its power was diminished by the meat shields, it was still taking out multiple enemies at once, so it wasn’t entirely ineffective.

Thanks to that, our battle line was holding.

Beatrice mainly covered the enemies targeting us from the air, while Sia covered enemies from directions different from mine.

Since we were far stronger than the monsters, the attacking monsters were actually the ones being defeated, and because of that, the encirclement wasn’t tightening around the three of us.

But no matter how hard we tried, if we ended up at a numerical disadvantage, gaps would inevitably form.

A wolf that seemed to have used about four of its kind as meat shields broke through past Sia and Beatrice and leaped toward our carriage.

Chris immediately swung her staff to block the wolf, shouting:

“‘Protect the young lambs!'”

A golden shield appeared in the wolf’s path.

The wolf collided with the shield and, having leaped with what it thought would be a decisive strike, began to slide awkwardly.

Then Ive pierced the wolf with her sword and shouted:

“Miss Sera! This isn’t working! Let’s blast them away!”

At Ive’s cry, Sera, who had been disrupting enemies with magic, nodded and reached into her pocket.

Then Sera shouted:

“Everyone, fall back!”

As if on cue, Sia, Beatrice, and I all retreated toward the carriage.

Then a small ball thrown by Sera landed in the direction where I had just been.

The ball that hit the ground began to roll rather anticlimactically, unlike the commotion we had been making.

The monsters, after being wary of the ball for a moment, immediately tried to charge at us again.

Meanwhile, Sera pulled out what looked like castanets from her pocket and lightly clicked them together.

-Click!

A crisp sound imbued with magical power spread out.

And using that as a signal, the ball began to swell.

Soon it transformed into a storm of flames.

-Kyaang?!

-Kiiiii?!!

The monsters had learned to respond to magic, but they apparently hadn’t learned that tools could do this—they began to burn.

The fiery vortex grew larger and larger, starting to burn the monsters from the center and methodically spreading to enemies outside the vortex.

The dragon flew higher in surprise, the bird-like creatures melted and fell to the ground, and the wolves ran around with their bodies on fire.

Some monsters, burning and in pain but not immediately dying, somehow managed to escape the storm and barely save their lives, while others, driven mad by pain, charged toward us.

But neither their fangs nor the fiery storm would reach us.

“‘Protect us from countless evils.'”

With Chris’s second incantation, a golden barrier appeared, protecting us.

The attacks from the burning monsters disappeared futilely before the barrier, and while the storm battered against it, it couldn’t reach us.

“This is the second time, and honestly, it’s really spectacular!”

“Beatrice, get ready.”

After about three seconds, the fiery vortex disappeared as if it had fulfilled its purpose.

The snow field that had been ablaze began to rapidly cool down, and the monsters, realizing our attack had ended, slowly began to approach us again.

Soon the monsters seemed to notice something, looking around searchingly.

“The helmet isn’t here.”

Beatrice grinned and pointed at me floating in the air.

“He went to catch your boss.”

As if understanding Beatrice’s words, the monsters all looked up at the sky at once.

And the wyvern flying in the sky had just noticed my approach.

Of course, what I was doing was more accurately described as being launched rather than flying.

Beatrice had literally shot me toward the dragon using gravity magic.

Slicing through the air, I quickly positioned myself above the dragon.

I changed my halberd into a sword and pressed another ball that Sera had given me against it.

“You know, this is surprisingly uncommon despite being so simple.”

I burst the side of the ball against the blade of my sword, coating it with an oil-like substance.

When I pulled it hard, fire erupted from the sword.

Only then did the dragon realize what I was trying to do and attempted to escape, but with its huge body, there was no way it could change direction quickly enough to prevent me from mounting it.

“While your friends down there are tasting fire, you should too.”

I clung to the dragon and thrust my flaming sword into the wyvern’s neck.

The smell of burning flesh filled the air as the dragon let out a pain-filled scream.

The flames slowly began to burn the wyvern from the inside, spreading the heat throughout its body.

Eventually, unable to endure, the wyvern stopped flapping its wings and began to fall.

Its position was right in the center of the wolves that were moving to surround us again.

Thinking this was extremely lucky, I pulled out my flaming sword and kicked off from the wyvern’s back.

Then, a chain from the ground wrapped around my body and began to lower me down.

‘That must be Beatrice.’

She must have caught me immediately after I jumped.

While I was grateful for the help with landing, I looked down.

A massive projectile named wyvern was crashing down on the wolves, and I could see them screaming and fleeing in all directions.

One wolf that had frozen in panic was flattened by the mass projectile right before my eyes as I successfully landed on the ground.

I stabbed my sword into the ground and carefully pulled it out.

The flames on the sword disappeared, seemingly having run their course, as I quietly looked around.

“We’ve fended off today’s third attack.”

I said quietly while checking the corpses of the monsters that had attacked us.

+

The snow fields were teeming with monsters.

From the first day we set foot here until now.

They attempted ambushes multiple times a day, even at night.

We managed to repel them each time, but honestly, if we had come without any preparation, we would likely have collapsed from exhaustion.

Even today, there was an attack early in the morning, then a large-scale assault like just now, and several more monster attacks after that.

“The snow fields seem like a paradise for monsters.”

“And a hell for humans.”

I quietly replied to Chris, who was wiping sweat from her face.

Honestly, I could understand why Sonya had overreacted.

Traversing this place with just your body, without the aid of tools or magic, would be something no one would want to do, even if they could.

Ironically, she had complained that we were traveling too comfortably through a place that she and her former companions had struggled through.

“I’m thirsty…”

“Here you go, Chris.”

Hearing Chris’s words, Sera, who was holding several water flasks, handed one to her and said:

“It seems like not using tools indiscriminately from the beginning was the right choice.”

“Yes.”

I nodded to Sera and held out my hand, and she passed me one of the water flasks she was holding.

“Except for using tools disproportionately for show at the very beginning, we’ve used them appropriately for the scale of threats.”

“Couldn’t you have saved more? You could have used magic instead.”

Beatrice said as she returned her water flask to Sera.

Sera smiled and replied:

“It’s better to save magic as a trump card.”

“But isn’t it burdensome?”

“They’re just tools, so it’s fine. What I’ve made has less destructive power and duration compared to magic, so it makes sense to use magic when we encounter enemies that these tools can’t handle.”

After saying that, Sera sighed slightly and continued:

“However, if I had known there would be so many monsters, I might have tried to conserve more.”

Sera said regretfully as she held up one of the balls—clearly the one that created the fiery vortex on the ground.

“Are you running low on them?”

“We still have enough, but it would be better to use them sparingly.”

Sera said as she took out a new ball, different in color from the one she had just shown.

“I have some experimental ones too, but I’m not sure how effective they’ll be against the snow field monsters.”

“Still, if they have power comparable to magic, they should be fine.”

Sera had said they were less powerful, but honestly, they provided more than enough firepower against the monsters.

Though she said we should use them sparingly, so we probably couldn’t rely on them indefinitely.

“Besides, for a small number of enemies, there’s no need to use those.”

“And for slightly larger numbers, we can use enchant balls on weapons.”

Beatrice said, pointing at my sword.

She was referring to the tool that had set my sword on fire earlier.

“Torches can only intimidate, and it’s difficult to cast magic for enchantments each time. So normally, you keep separate tools stored and only use them when needed. Since you don’t need excessive destructive power for mere enchantments, it’s more efficient.”

“They’re not exactly easy to make, but I find them conceptually simple tools, so I wonder why the method of making them isn’t more widely known.”

Sera said with a smile.

Beatrice smirked at her and replied:

“Well, not many people use magic for alchemy. If they were to make something, they’d probably look for more profitable items.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. It probably wouldn’t even be cost-effective. I’m not sure how efficient it would be for an ordinary alchemist to seal intermediate-level magic into tools.”

Beatrice added that if someone could use magic, they would likely choose to become a tower mage.

Sera, who learned magic to use in alchemy, was rather the unusual case.

That’s why tools that Sera described as “conceptually simple” weren’t commercialized.

“Anyway, it’s good that powerful intermediate magic and enchantments can be reproduced through alchemy. They’re easy to use. If these tools were commercialized, mages would have a hard time making a living from combat.”

“As I mentioned earlier, achieving this level of power while maintaining stability wasn’t easy.”

“But you’ve done it, miss. I only have magic, and I feel like tools are gradually replacing my role.”

Beatrice said with a small laugh.

“Was that rude of me?”

“No. I was just being petty. A mage should know more than just overwhelming everything with magic.”

After saying that, Beatrice looked at me with a playful smile and said:

“If all else fails, I could look for another job. I do know how to do housework, after all.”

“…It sounds like you’re thinking of the same profession as me?”

“Maybe?”

Beatrice and Sera looked at each other for a moment.

Playful Beatrice and Sera with slightly narrowed eyes gazed at each other before breaking into light laughter.

“The monsters are certainly numerous, but with Sera’s tools used appropriately and my magic, we shouldn’t be overwhelmed by their numbers.”

“And we can protect Moo while traveling. It seems we can reach the holy site without much trouble.”

I nodded at Beatrice and Sera’s words.

Indeed, there had been many monsters on our journey so far, but we had managed to overcome them by using tools and magic at the right moments.

“Noah, how much further to the holy site?”

“We need to travel a few more hours. It’s dangerous, but if we continue moving even after dark, we could arrive today. What would you like to do?”

I hesitated slightly and looked at Ive.

She might have seen what would happen if we continued.

With such expectations, I looked at her, and Ive smiled brightly and nodded.

‘She thinks it’s fine.’

I nodded as well and spoke:

“Since the holy site is supposed to be a safe place where monsters don’t come, let’s continue moving even after dark to reach it.”

“Are you sure?”

“With Beatrice and Chris here, we’ll be fine.”

Though I said that, in my case, the conclusion came from trusting Ive.

If Ive hadn’t been able to foresee what lay ahead, I would have suggested discussing it first.

But she had nodded without hesitation.

Likely there won’t be any danger in reaching our destination from here on.

Just a little further to go.

Thinking this, I patted Moo, who was trying to nuzzle up beside me, and said:

“Just a little more effort pulling the carriage, Moo.”

-“Mooooo!”

The beast nodded vigorously.

Watching Ive, Sia, and Chris approach with smiles, I looked at the snow field ahead.

“Let’s go.”

The holy site was not far now.