Ch.52Chapter 52

The warlord fled, sweating profusely without looking back.

At first, when he realized Wendigo’s true identity was a doppelganger, he had a tiny bit of fighting spirit left.

But that spirit was extinguished the moment he faced the howling Wendigo and the freezing winds and snow fog that began to swirl around them.

He realized this was an opponent he couldn’t face.

“Horse that runs a hundred miles! Grant me tireless stamina and speed like the wind!”

True to his nature as the most vile and wicked summoner among those involved in the plan, the warlord fled without the slightest shame, abandoning his companions.

The other summoners were shocked as they watched his retreating back, never expecting that the warlord would be the first to run away.

This disaster had unfolded because of his own plan. How could someone be so irresponsible!

In this desperate situation, a young summoner called out to his companions.

“Let’s combine our powers and escape together! If we unite our strength…”

“You idiot. Have you seen how many of those doppelgangers there are and still say such things?”

The young summoner’s proposal was met with mockery from the others. Though they were shocked by the warlord’s cowardice, they were no less vile themselves.

Rather, as if seizing an opportunity, one summoner spat at him while chanting a spell.

“What are you doing!?”

“You have no talent anyway. Sacrifice yourself for me!”

The madman’s curse embedded in the spit traveled up through the young summoner’s marrow, burning away his sanity.

The young summoner trembled and let out a terrible roar. His body turned red, his eyes clouded, and his mind forgot fear.

“KRAAAGH!!!”

“Go. Go and pour out everything you can before you die!”

The young summoner, or rather the madman, charged toward Wendigo’s doppelgangers with a monstrous cry.

Wendigo reassessed the summoners at this surprising sight. He had thought them trash from the beginning, but he hadn’t expected them to exceed his expectations to such a degree.

‘My nose really does excellent work.’

Such men deserved a harsh death.

Wendigo observed the summoners with owl eyes while commanding his doppelgangers.

“■■■■■!!!”

“KRAAAGH!!!”

The doppelgangers shrouded in snow fog charged forward with roars. Naturally, not all doppelgangers needed to engage the madman.

The madman instinctively tried to cast a spell using the tattoos on his body and the lightning-imbued mace…

The doppelganger didn’t wait for the madman to cast his spell. Its frost-laden claws swung fiercely toward the madman.

The claws tore the madman’s chest to shreds. Frost fragments and wooden thorns embedded in the wounds writhed, amplifying his agony.

“KYAAAAAAAH!!!”

As he screamed, the doppelganger, without the slightest hesitation, brought its fist down on the madman’s head.

Perhaps because his body had hardened due to the spell’s influence?

The madman’s head didn’t shatter under the doppelganger’s punch. This was unfortunate for the madman.

He would need to endure several more punches before being released from his pain.

CRACK!

“Holy shit!”

The summoner who had planted the curse turned pale and shouted. He had expected the madman wouldn’t last long against the Djin, but he hadn’t anticipated such a pathetic showing.

Perhaps the young summoner’s death by having his head crushed made a strong impression on them.

The summoners hurried their pace with grim faces, trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Wendigo.

‘Not that they can escape this forest.’

The owl that had taken to the sky tracked the enemies, and Wendigo directly controlled two of his doppelgangers to create ice harpoons.

As root-like ropes grew from the base of the harpoons, the doppelgangers threw them.

The harpoons tore through the air and impaled one of the summoners.

“Ugh, AAAAHH!!!”

The summoner, who never expected a harpoon to fly out from beyond the snow fog, screamed and clutched his shoulder.

The arm pierced by the harpoon instantly froze, gnawing away at the summoner’s life.

In this situation, death was unavoidable.

‘I need to cut off my arm!’

Just as the summoner drew his sword to amputate his arm…

His body was dragged into the fog by an irresistible force.

The warlord, running through the forest, turned his head to witness this. The dragged summoner’s screams echoed throughout the forest.

‘What… what have I gotten myself into?’

Realizing that something had gone terribly wrong, the warlord moved his trembling legs with difficulty.

To escape this forest as quickly as possible.

* * *

The warlord fled more desperately than ever before, but he couldn’t escape the forest.

It wasn’t due to a lack of ability. With his magic, he should have been able to leave the forest long ago, but…

“Y-you’d go this far? Why?!”

“Warlord! The trees are moving!”

The trees were writhing as if alive, blocking their path.

The warlord nervously swung his whip. The whip spewed flames, trying to burn the trees, but to little effect.

From between the tree bark torn by the whip, cold air burst forth and devoured the flames.

When Pedrick saw that the warlord’s whip was useless, he pulled out his trump card.

“Stand aside. I’ll carve a path with this stone sword!”

The stone sword Pedrick drew was a relic of a warrior once known as the ‘Warrior of Stone.’

This stone sword, originally a treasure inscribed with magic, had grown even stronger by absorbing the hero’s fame and stories.

Smearing his own blood on the blade, Pedrick chanted a spell.

“I command the stone sword, companion to the unbreakable hero, son of the great mountain and warrior of stone. Those trees…”

Flinch.

Pedrick’s eyes widened as he turned around, alerted by his danger-sensing amulet.

What entered his vision was a harpoon flying fiercely toward him.

With the harpoon about to pierce him at any moment, Pedrick reflexively screamed.

“…no, block that harpoon!!”

The magic in the stone sword awakened, leaving Pedrick’s hand to collide with the harpoon.

As expected of a hero’s relic, the stone sword destroyed the harpoon and returned to Pedrick’s side without a scratch.

The warlord and Pedrick aimed their weapons at the fog, and from it emerged the doppelgangers.

One of the doppelgangers—the one Wendigo was possessing—stepped forward and spoke.

“You’ve fled quite far. I might have lost you if I wasn’t careful.”

“Why are you doing this? What have we done so wrong?!”

“?”

When the warlord shouted with resentful eyes, Wendigo closed his mouth in astonishment.

Wasn’t it the warlord who had first planned to attack the village? If anything, Wendigo was acting in self-defense.

As Wendigo stared blankly in disbelief, the warlord racked his brain to find a reason for this situation.

Logically, no one would go this far just because someone tried to raid a village.

Such an outrageous act couldn’t be justified unless they were hiding some mystical secret.

The warlord’s eyes flashed as if he had realized something.

“I see… I understand now. You must be gathering forest people to prepare for a massive ritual.”

“What nonsense—”

“Of course. I was wondering why you were throwing meaningless questions as if testing me. Were you trying to hide your secret?”

Before Wendigo could burst out with expletives in disbelief, Pedrick exclaimed in shock. There was certainly a possibility.

The doppelgangers created with mystical power, the watchful eyes spread throughout the forest, and even the attempt to control the forest!

As Pedrick agreed with the warlord, the warlord nodded as if confirming this theory.

Wendigo was so dumbfounded that he had to respond. Though he intended to kill them anyway, he couldn’t help but speak up at the absurdity.

“Your thought process is pitiful. Think logically. Have you forgotten what brought you to this forest in the first place? If I had intended to hide something, there would have been no reason to let Issac live, would there?”

“You’ve become quite talkative. Has your pride been wounded now that the truth is out? The reason you let Issac go is easy to guess. You intended to lure in summoners!”

Initially, the warlord had thought Issac had encountered a coincidence, but now he was certain.

The ice crystal Issac brought was something any summoner would covet, and the news of his improved abilities would naturally pique a summoner’s curiosity.

There could be no better bait to entice summoners!

“I don’t know what kind of ritual it is, but it’s clearly an evil one that requires summoners as sacrifices.”

“Anyone listening would think I’m the villain here. Who was it that tried to poison the village and cause havoc?”

“…That seems irrelevant to our current discussion.”

Perhaps because his life hadn’t been particularly honorable, the warlord swallowed his shame and rebelled.

When backed into a corner, everyone resists.

Cloaks, shoes, belts, and amulets.

The warlord and Pedrick awakened all the magic they possessed.

Wendigo was quite impressed by the mystical power they emitted. Though their character was like that of hungry wolves, their talent was quite decent.

‘If only their character wasn’t so twisted, I might have hired them.’

“Even if I die, I won’t let you get what you want!”

The warlord roared as he swung his whip.

Indeed, as reckless as he was, the magic imbued in his whip blazed fiercely, using mystical power as fuel to spew flames.

Wendigo watched the two while sending his doppelgangers charging forward.

When the warlord’s whip wrapped around a doppelganger’s neck, the doppelganger grabbed it intending to tear it apart, but it wasn’t a good choice.

CRACK!

“Let’s see if you can still move after your head flies off!”

The whip tightened around the doppelganger’s neck with a tearing scream, threatening to sever it. As it spewed karmic fire, the doppelganger’s upper body burned beyond recognition.

The warlord, intending to finish it off, stomped the ground and swung his club.

The club, embedded with ogre bone fragments, shimmered with heat haze and recreated an ogre’s strike, smashing the doppelganger’s upper body in one blow.

CRASH!

“Hahaha! What use is putting mystical power into a doppelganger? In the end, it’s just a doppelganger!”

The doppelganger’s upper body was torn apart and flew away, and the mystical power that lost its vessel dispersed into the air.

The warlord wasn’t the only one gaining the upper hand.

Pedrick, a summoner skilled with the stone sword, blocked Wendigo’s ice sword with solid defense and controlled his stone sword to collapse a doppelganger’s chest.

The warlord charged at another doppelganger and shouted triumphantly.

“Lost your composure? Go ahead and provoke me again! I’m curious how much mystical power you have left!”

“How about letting us go? No matter how great a Djin you are, it would be difficult to subdue us without loss!”

Pedrick shouted as he drove his stone sword into a doppelganger’s chest.

For any sensible Djin, if they resisted this much, it wouldn’t be strange to release them with a contract of secrecy.

…But Wendigo was a being beyond their common sense.

“Indeed, your skills are impressive. I didn’t expect the doppelgangers to be subdued so easily.”

“Then let us go—”

“However, that doesn’t give me a reason to let black-hearted fellows like you go.”

Pedrick frowned and clicked his tongue. It seemed Wendigo wouldn’t negotiate easily.

That was an incorrect assumption.

…Wendigo had no intention of negotiating with them at all.

“If that’s how you want it, fine. Let’s see if you can handle us destroying all your doppelgangers…”

Just as Pedrick was about to pull out his stone sword fiercely.

The doppelganger with the stone sword embedded in it grabbed the sword’s handle.

Pedrick twitched his eyebrows and strongly controlled his magic.

He thought the stone sword’s power would easily cut through the doppelganger’s arm and free itself…

“I’ve always thought that summoners tend to rely too heavily on their tools.”

As the mystical power controlling the doppelganger surged strongly, vines grew from the doppelganger and wrapped around the stone sword.

The doppelganger returned to being a wooden puppet after expelling its mystical power, but Pedrick couldn’t help but be shocked.

How could the stone sword, which should obey his control, be immobilized by mere plant vines!

Pedrick quickly opened his spiritual vision to check the stone sword’s condition. The magic on the stone sword was still working.

The problem was that the vines binding the sword were continuously regenerating their broken parts by receiving mystical power through the ground.

Pedrick was horrified by this crude countermeasure.

“What kind of insane act is this!?”

“Insane? Using quantity to overcome quality is a kind of orthodox approach, isn’t it?”

Pedrick wanted to curse at the insane Djin’s nonsensical words, but he quickly threw himself backward.

As if unwilling to give him even a moment’s rest, one doppelganger was charging fiercely toward him.

Pedrick urgently called to the warlord for help.

“Warlord, help me quickly!”

“Shut up! I’m in deep trouble myself!”

Of course, the warlord’s situation wasn’t good either.

His prized whip and club had also become useless!

‘What kind of mystical power is used in such a crude way?!’

The moment he wrapped his whip around a doppelganger and swung his club, cold air burst from the doppelganger’s body, freezing the whip and club and destroying their magic.

Naturally, with the magic gone, the whip and club were nothing more than useless trash.

All the warlord and Pedrick could do was run around trying not to get caught by the doppelgangers…

“Kuhek!?”

“Caught one.”

Pedrick resisted briefly using his hardened body as a weapon, but eventually died with his chest pierced by a doppelganger’s claws.

The warlord took out an axe from his waist and struck the doppelganger’s head. He glared at the dead Pedrick and at Wendigo who was staring blankly from behind, as he spat blood.

“I curse you. Even if I die and become a ghost, I will curse you!”

“Your fighting spirit is impressive.”

Seeing Wendigo’s relaxed demeanor, the warlord was ready to charge at him, disregarding his life.

However, he hesitated when he noticed something strange. The doppelganger that had killed Pedrick was approaching Wendigo with the corpse.

‘Is he planning to take the corpse back?’

Of course not. What would Wendigo know about using corpses for wicked magic?

Wendigo created a seed in his hand.

PLOP!

Wendigo stuffed the seed into Pedrick’s corpse. The corpse began to twitch and move.

Wendigo looked at it and said calmly.

“I hope this one grows into something suitable as a warning sign.”

“What do you mean…!?”

The warlord stepped back in horror. The twitching corpse fell to the ground, and sprouts emerged, gradually growing into a tree.

The muscular legs became sturdy roots, and the arms became branches with lush leaves.

Pedrick had become a tree. Moreover, a tree with his agonized expression from the moment of death still preserved.

The warlord unconsciously dropped his axe at this horrific sight.

“You madman… YOU MADMAN!!!”

“Don’t worry. I’m not tormenting his soul or anything like that.”

Don’t worry? How could anyone believe that!

Perhaps it was the terrifying future of having both his soul(?) and corpse desecrated?

Terrified, the warlord turned his back, knowing there was nowhere to escape. Naturally, he never left the forest.

Shortly after.

With a desperate scream, another human-faced tree grew.