Ch.56Meeting Only to Say Goodbye

Six arrows per second, sharp and relentless, poured down endlessly.

The silver arrowheads gleamed in the moonlight, sweeping through the garden like a waterfall.

“Silver arrows, take cover!”

“Gugh!”

The werebeasts scattered in panic at the sudden rain of arrows.

“Kyaaaak!”

Silver arrows embedded themselves deeply into Yelena’s half-transformed body, as her reaction was delayed by the wound in her side.

The hyena werebeast spat blood as she tumbled to the ground.

“Yelena!”

Aleksei, the lion werebeast, overturned the ground with his axe.

With a thunderous boom, the ground exploded and rising rock formations created a shield against the arrows.

“Now!”

Frider van Faelrun charged toward one of the scattered werebeasts, saw in hand.

Olga, was it? The gray female wolf wielding a massive halberd.

His strike aimed at her abdomen was blocked by the halberd.

The saw blade roughly scraped against the long shaft, producing a sharp cracking sound and sparks.

A harpoon dagger aimed at her lower jaw was caught by sharp teeth and shattered into pieces.

The mace he swung next collided with the halberd and bounced off.

Frider’s left arm was thrown wide.

The halberd thrust forward, seizing the opening.

Its sharp point shot toward Frider’s heart.

“You beast!”

Frider deflected the spear with the flat of his saw, redirecting it as he spun to the side.

A dull scream and a bright stream of blood painted the air.

—-

“Haaaaa!”

I also immediately charged at one of the werebeasts.

The brown bear werebeast. Toward the man called Kamenev, who had been fist-fighting with me.

“Grrraaah!”

I dodged his log-like kick with a sliding motion and raised my longsword to slash.

Blood spurted as Kamenev’s calf was half severed.

The bear’s front paw that came crashing down struck the ground in front of me, not me directly.

An eardrum-shattering explosion erupted.

“Kuk!”

Shattered rock fragments flew like cannonballs.

I reflexively raised both arms to shield my face.

*Thud!*

With a heavy impact, I was thrown backward.

Sharp pain surged through my abdomen where a rock had struck me.

“Die, Aishan-Gioro!”

Other werebeasts seized the opportunity to charge at me.

No, they tried to.

*Tudadadada!*

“Damn it!”

Another storm of arrows swept around me.

The werebeasts rushing toward me hastily retreated.

Was it Asha? Yes, only she could do something like this.

I wondered what she was doing, but it seems she was building some kind of silver arrow machine gun.

It was a stroke of luck.

Thanks to her cover fire, I could avoid concentrated attacks and face just one opponent.

“You fools, block the archer first! Volkov, Dmitri! Take Yelena and get inside the building! Tear apart anyone in there!”

Boris shouted, unable to bear the sight.

“Where are you looking!”

Nigel’s spear blade slashed across Boris’s shoulder, seizing the opening.

The leather pauldron split with a crack as blood sprayed upward.

“Kuk! You female…!”

Boris roared and swung his greatsword violently.

Nigel blocked it but was thrown back.

“Kamenev, Aleksei! Take care of Olga!”

The wolf werebeast and coyote werebeast grabbed the female hyena and rushed through the special building’s main entrance.

I needed to stop them.

But both Frider and I were blocked by other werebeasts and had no choice but to let them go.

“Kuk, Asha!”

This is dangerous. Yelena might already be half-dead from her serious injuries, but the other two werebeasts were still in good condition.

There’s no way Asha could win against two and a half werebeasts alone.

The rain of arrows stopped.

I desperately charged at the werebeasts in front of me.

Kamenev bleeding from his calf.

Olga with her thigh torn by Frider’s saw.

And Aleksei, still unharmed.

Frider and I needed to deal with these three as quickly as possible.

========[Asha]========

“Three of them. That’s dangerous…?”

Asha muttered as she spoke to the metal object standing next to the window.

No answer came. Of course, it was just an automaton.

Smoke poured from the Gatling gun attached to the automaton’s right arm.

Hastily modified to shoot arrows instead of bullets, its durability wasn’t very good.

‘If I’d known this would happen, I should have made silver bullets in advance.’

Asha thought to herself as she gathered her equipment.

She had no intention of fighting directly.

The automaton was only meant for long-range support.

And even that was starting to malfunction in one arm.

Fighting three werebeasts in that state would be impossible.

Besides, there was a much better option.

Asha left the room and ran up to the third floor.

To the room of the only bystander on the third floor, Perneisia.

‘If that fairy insists on being a bystander, why not make her a participant?’

*Crash!*

Asha smashed through Perneisia’s door and burst in.

Sure enough, a drunken fairy was leaning against the window frame, watching the fight in the garden.

I knew it. Fairies are all like this.

They act nice, but they’re actually individualists who don’t care at all about others’ affairs.

“What is thiiiis… the dwarf junior… did I, say you could, come in…?”

Perneisia looked toward Asha at the noise behind her.

Though her eyes were half-closed from the heat of alcohol, they clearly conveyed her emotions.

Annoyance and irritation.

It was the typical expression of a ‘lofty’ fairy who seemed to live in her own world.

“Perneisia, was it? You shouldn’t be having fun all by yourself. Right?”

“Youuu… are impertinent…”

Perneisia’s brow furrowed. Though staggering, her body turned toward Asha.

Asha swallowed hard.

Haschal seemed to somewhat underestimate Perneisia due to her small appearance, but Asha knew.

High elves who had lived for hundreds of years were essentially living weapons.

“Are those guys going to have all the fun?”

Asha pointed behind her, trying to maintain a nonchalant smile.

Three werebeasts were rushing toward her.

“Haaah… you should know you’re lucky… three hundred years ago… I would have pulled out your limbs and eyeballs, and tied you up in the underground plaza.”

Perneisia sighed. Her pronunciation became gradually clearer.

Her staggering body regained its balance.

Cold sweat soaked Asha’s back.

She knew that wasn’t a threat or a lie.

Asha had only heard stories from the elders of her tribe, but.

Three hundred years ago, when Himmel and Alvheim were still at war, this was something they actually did.

They gathered female dwarf prisoners, more than hundreds of them, tied them up like that… and released monsters to watch their screams.

And they stored those atrocities with magic, sending them to Himmel as “gifts.”

Himmel, upon receiving the gift, melted all fairy prisoners in a furnace, combined them into one, and fired them from a cannon toward Alvheim.

It was a crazy era.

But since both countries suffered crushing defeats by the Empire, things had become relatively peaceful, so surely she wouldn’t try to kill her now.

Asha cautiously walked into the room.

Soon after, the three werebeasts arrived at the doorway.

“A dwarf and a fairy, dogs who bowed to the Empire. Is it just you two? We couldn’t find the others.”

“Dogs are you canids… no, one of you is a hedgehog…?”

Perneisia looked at the werebeasts.

It was an emotionless gaze, completely different from her usual relaxed demeanor, like looking at livestock.

The werebeasts bared their teeth and raised their weapons.

Perneisia irritably brushed back her hair.

“Hah… why don’t you all just go back? You’re pitiful animals too. If you leave now, I’ll let you go.”

“Nonsense, disgusting traitors…!”

The werebeasts smashed through the wall to enter.

A shelf on the wall collapsed, and the bottles of alcohol on it fell to the floor, shattering.

The strong scent of spilled alcohol filled the room.

Perneisia stared at the remains of the bottles for a moment, then let out a deep sigh.

“Then I have no choice… Undine, come out.”

Droplets of water appeared in the air.

Dozens of water droplets bubbled up, merging together to form a water mass the size of a fist.

“A low-level spirit? What can you do with—”

“Undine. Extract the alcohol.”

With a quiet command, Perneisia swallowed the water mass whole.

Soon, water droplets began to form on her left hand, returning to their original size.

A terrible smell of alcohol emanated from the mass.

Perneisia’s complexion, which had been flushed with alcohol, instantly returned to normal.

Perneisia carelessly threw away the water mass, now an alcohol mass.

The Undine, weakened by the alcohol’s toxicity, collided with the wall, burst, and vanished.

“No, what is that…”

The werebeasts groaned in bewilderment at what they had just witnessed.

They had heard that fairies commanded spirits.

Though they hadn’t encountered any since being driven to the northern snowfields, stories about them remained.

But was this how it worked?

This was worse treatment than slavery.

“Salamandra, five, come out.”

Instead of the water mass from before, five fire masses appeared in the air this time.

Was it just imagination, or did the flickering flames seem to be trembling in fear?

Perneisia clenched her right hand.

The spirits’ screams echoed wretchedly.

The five spirits were crushed and mangled, changing their form into five fire arrows.

The individual consciousness of each spirit had already died from the pain.

Perneisia picked up the bow leaning against the desk and drew the string.

The fire arrows flew in unison and attached to the bowstring.

Immense mana enveloped her body.

The werebeasts, shocked by the spirits’ miserable death throes, finally seemed to come to their senses and desperately charged forward.

Perneisia released the bowstring.

Five streams of firestorm raged.

Without even time to scream, the three werebeasts were engulfed and turned to ash.

The flames that filled the entire corridor subsided at Perneisia’s gesture.

She turned to look at Asha as she blew away the ashes.

Asha had collapsed, her legs giving way beneath her.

“Uh… uh…”

Perneisia smiled slightly at the sight.

“Behave yourself. Understood? Dwarf junior.”

Asha nodded frantically.