Ch.99Chimera (6)

Pietro threw away his tattered golem armor and fled, but he didn’t actually desert the battlefield.

In truth, if his original cowardice had prevailed, Pietro would have abandoned his comrades and escaped alone, shouting that his already terrible reputation could be washed clean with a new identity anyway.

However, the current situation didn’t exactly make such a choice easy for him.

His sponsor ‘Bell’ could casually provide such substantial support. Anyone who could deploy forces of that caliber likely had powerful backers, so Pietro couldn’t dismiss the possibility of being caught and held accountable if he fled.

Therefore, whether he liked it or not, he needed to follow “the plan” to capture the village and take hostages as leverage against Camille de Alzar, who might somehow defeat those three chimeras.

‘Hehehe… they wouldn’t have expected this…!!’

With a vile smile, Pietro mounted a horse he had prepared and circled around the village. He easily jumped over the palisade in an area without sentries—as they were all engaged in battle—and entered the village.

He was about to employ his usual tactic when at a disadvantage: taking hostages.

Now was the perfect moment, as the only mid-tier fighter left in the village was busy battling those two tattered (in his opinion) golem armors. With no one available to guard areas away from the battlefield, he had successfully infiltrated.

His target was none other than the priestess he had glimpsed treating the wounded atop the palisade.

Of course, he could also capture children or the elderly in the village, or even attempt a pincer attack to facilitate an easy conquest of the village.

But as he sneaked into the village, a flower of doubt bloomed in Pietro’s mind.

‘…Is this even possible?’

It seemed excessive to preemptively conquer a village with a mid-tier fighter just to prepare for taking hostages in case a single knight somehow survived against three chimeras and elite hunters.

Logically, since the original objective was Camille’s capture, wouldn’t it make more sense to focus all resources on capturing Camille alive?

Of course, as the recipient of such generous support, he had to follow his client’s requests, but this mission was filled with inexplicable elements.

‘…Could this involve some cult?’

He wondered if some cultist conspiracy might be at play, but having accepted the advance payment and support, he had to complete the job regardless of who was behind it.

So, while inwardly grumbling, Pietro crept toward the center of the quiet village when…

‘…Huh?’

In this situation where most villagers were undoubtedly using all their strength to fend off his subordinates’ attack, he spotted a wolf beastkin girl alone in the village center, looking restless.

She wore a rather luxurious purple-dyed fur robe and held only a short staff in her hand. She was small in stature.

His mid-tier perception confirmed she had reached the mid-tier realm, but he sensed no special power or aura from her.

‘…A mage.’

Identifying the wolf beastkin girl—likely a werewolf—as a mage or magic user, Pietro was certain from her appearance that she was related to the werewolf warrior from earlier.

With this assessment complete, a vile and cowardly scheme naturally formed in his mind.

The simple plan was to ambush and subdue the young mage, then take her hostage.

Ordinary knights or mid-tier warriors ignorant about magic would be terrified at the prospect of facing a magic user.

But Pietro, despite his mediocre combat abilities, was a warrior who had survived in the underworld.

He knew that while mid-tier mages could be powerful, they couldn’t defeat mid-tier warriors in close combat. If he could just succeed with a surprise attack, he believed he could easily overpower the mage.

Though some exceptional mages were strong in close combat, the girl before his eyes didn’t appear to be one of them.

She wasn’t particularly large, and her body visible between her robe and cloak showed almost no traces of muscle.

Of course, being a mid-tier werewolf meant she had physical abilities far superior to ordinary people, but Pietro was confident she couldn’t defeat him, as he had never neglected physical training despite being lax in martial arts.

Thus convinced, Pietro carefully prepared for his ambush.

Knowing a magic user’s ability to create unexpected variables, he understood that ending the fight with a surprise attack was the safest approach.

He readjusted his special equipment and activated the enhancement magic stored in his ring to empower his body as he targeted “her.”

‘…Hmph.’

He would only get one chance. Suppressing his lewd thoughts about the “side benefits” of capturing a female mage, Pietro tried to maintain a “professional” demeanor as he checked the acceleration ability of his boots when—

“I-I knew you’d come here…!!”

“What—”

Just as his target suddenly turned to face him, before he could even react, dozens of fireballs that had been concealing their presence around her suddenly revealed themselves.

Surrounding him from all directions, as if they had been waiting for this exact moment, each fireball the size of a human head flew toward Pietro.

“Son of a—!!”

All Pietro could do was swallow the curses rising from within him as he tried to block the incoming fireballs.

The one fortunate thing in his situation was that Pietro was a mid-tier warrior who possessed the power of “Aura.”

Among the various benefits an Aura awakener gains by enveloping their body in Aura, there is not only superhuman strength but also “magic resistance.”

Humans as a race naturally have almost zero defense or immunity against magic, but once they awaken their Aura, their magical resistance skyrockets to levels comparable to other races.

—WHOOOOSH!!!

Thanks to this, despite being hit by dozens of fireballs that created a pillar of flame, Pietro managed to minimize the damage to losing his armor and suffering burns all over his body.

…Let’s ignore the fact that without the heat-resistant magic enchanted on his breastplate—which had cost him a fortune—he wouldn’t have survived even with his Aura.

Anyway, having barely survived this lethal attack, Pietro glared at her—Gretel—with hatred flashing in his eyes.

While he couldn’t have avoided the surprise attack that had scorched his entire body, firing such powerful magic repeatedly was nearly impossible even for a mid-tier mage.

Convinced of this through his “common sense,” Pietro approached Gretel, intending to finish her off now that she had used up her prepared magic…

“…P-pathetic person.”

“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!!!”

Despite her stuttering speech, her expression and voice were so cold and contemptuous that Pietro lost all reason in his rage and threw his axe at Gretel.

—Whoosh—Thud!

Of course, whether it would actually hit was another matter.

The axe passed through where Gretel had been and embedded itself in the ground with a blurred form. Only then did Pietro realize it had been some kind of illusion magic. His face turned pale as he frantically looked around.

Having realized that what he had been targeting was actually a false image made of mist from the beginning, he tried to find the real Gretel before something went wrong…

[…Tee-hee.]

After a magical laughter suddenly penetrated his ears and invaded his mind, Pietro—who had consumed almost all his Aura blocking the fire magic earlier—was struck by a powerful curse he couldn’t possibly resist.

“Haha, hahaha, hahahahahahaha—!!!”

“Clown’s Laughter.” Afflicted by this curse that forces one to laugh endlessly until all strength is depleted, he found himself laughing with all his might until exhaustion would eventually make him collapse, regardless of his own will.

And amid this burst of laughter…

‘Hehehe… E-everything went according to plan…!!’

Holding a crystal ball for predictive astrology in one hand and somehow reading the results of everything that had happened so far, she had been coordinating the situation.

Gretel, who had been holed up in her workshop where she had evacuated the village’s elderly and children, without taking a single step outside from the beginning, looked with contempt at “him” who was now laughing repeatedly until exhaustion would make him collapse, pleased that her plan had been successfully completed.

She intended to petrify him using a processed product of the “Eye” she had prepared in advance, once he collapsed from exhaustion.

※ ※ ※

And, at exactly the same time.

[[[■■■■■■■—!!!]]]

—KWAAAANG!!!

Somewhere in the forest, four mid-tier beings were engaged in a fierce, life-or-death battle.