Midnight in Valentine (16)

“Keuak…”

Cardinando, pinned to the ground with his Adam’s apple pressed by a heavy blunt weapon, let out a gurgling groan.

“Heup, huu…”

Delphina, who was roughly exhaling white breaths, mouthed something and then turned her head to spit out phlegm mixed with blood with a “tui” sound.

“It’s all over, Your Highness.”

“…Damned woman, how dare you.”

“If I may venture to say, wasn’t it a mistake to try to involve the Princess in the first place?”

“What would someone like you know,”

“I know enough not to recklessly join hands with a Demon King’s Army executive.”

Delphina quietly rebuked. Behind her, Gilbert, who had been slowly catching his breath, sighed and shook his head.

“There are few idiots who would delude themselves into thinking they could make an equal contract with a monster that easily brainwashes a nation’s leader, subdues core defense personnel as easily as twisting a baby’s arm, and takes control of the national system without any noise.”

“…I had leverage over them.”

Cardinando growled, tightly clenching his right hand, which was being stepped on by Delphina’s left foot.

“I had an equal relationship with them,”

“Leverage, you say?”

Delphina let out a derisive laugh.

“Did you really never once think that even that might be bait to make you lower your guard? Or did you unconsciously refuse to consider it? Because the bait in front of you looked too sweet?”

Cardinando closed his mouth.

“Leverage, how ridiculous. After everything was over, they could just dispose of Your Highness, and that would be the end of it.”

Delphina shook her head and put weight on the hand holding the hammer pressed under Cardinando’s chin.

“Keuheok.”

“You were blinded by the crown. What is power, really?”

Delphina murmured in a complex voice and took her eyes off Cardinando.

At the edge of her vision, she could see Scabbard rushing toward Aslaksha.

“…Keuhak, keuheuheuheu.”

At that moment, Cardinando, who was beneath her, laughed with a choked voice as if he had lost his mind.

“…Are you laughing because you’ve noticed that your soldiers have arrived?”

Delphina asked incredulously. At her question, Cardinando abruptly stopped laughing and looked up at her.

“Did you think we wouldn’t know that? Really?”

“…You knew?”

“Of course. Do you think I earned my knighthood through a duel?”

Delphina sighed and looked down at Cardinando’s right hand that she was stepping on.

A hand that was oversized like a beast’s front paw, covered with tough hide, and with sharp claws protruding at the tips.

“…Partial magical beast transformation without side effects. Is this another one of the things you obtained by selling your soul to the Demon King’s Army?”

“Who knows?”

Cardinando cackled as if amused, forcibly moving the fingers of his half-shattered and distorted right hand.

-Ddak.

Cardinando’s transformed beast-like paw snapped its fingers, and simultaneously, a faint wave of magical power spread widely.

“…What did you do?”

“Nothing much. I just pulled a trigger remotely.”

Delphina’s expression hardened, and Cardinando giggled.

From far away, the sound of wolves howling could be heard.

“…”

Aslaksha murmured quietly and extended her hand.

“Already…!”

Oscar shouted in surprise. He had certainly thought she would be out of strength, but mana was already gathering at her fingertips like waves once again.

“Oh no…!”

Evangeline gritted her teeth and tried to rise.

“…Ugh.”

However, her body, frozen by the cold, would not move as she wished. Feeling the mana that should be flowing throughout her body through her blood vessels moving sluggishly like a worm, Evangeline fell face-first onto the ground ungracefully.

“Don’t push yourself.”

Scabbard said quietly to her. By the time Evangeline raised her head toward him, he had already reached Aslaksha’s eyes.

“What the…!”

Scabbard extended his left hand and grabbed Aslaksha’s face, which was struck with astonishment.

-Kkwaaang!!

And without a hint of mercy, he slammed the back of her head into the frozen ground.

“Kahak…”

Looking down at Aslaksha, who exhaled a single breath, Scabbard muttered.

“Not a prime-condition avatar, are you?”

“…Needlessly perceptive, aren’t you.”

“What’s there to perceive, it’s obvious. The total amount of power I sense is ridiculously small.”

“If it weren’t for that Evangeline, I would have…”

“Even taking that into account.”

Scabbard retorted.

“The mana capacity itself is different. Compared to when you were tearing open space and dropping meteors, the deficiency is clearly visible.”

“…Don’t bluff too much. You claim to have noticed something that even well-trained mages can’t perceive without really trying?”

“And your personality seems a bit different too. Are personalities different for each avatar?”

Scabbard asked smoothly while stroking his rough beard. Aslaksha frowned but kept her mouth shut, and Scabbard shrugged.

“Well, it doesn’t matter.”

Then, twisting his right hand to draw the sword at his waist again, he said.

“I’ll kill you here…”

“Lord Scabbard!”

At that moment, someone shouted toward Scabbard from afar.

“We must retreat from here immediately!”

“Hmm?”

Scabbard raised his head.

“Lady Delphina? What’s this all of a sudden?”

“This damned bastard did it!”

Delphina shouted urgently while gripping Cardinando’s collar.

“He confessed to transforming all his private soldiers into magical beasts using technology obtained from the Demon King’s Army! If hundreds or thousands of magical beasts come rushing in at once…”

“I never gave such technology?”

Aslaksha, pinned under Scabbard’s grasp, retorted.

Just as Delphina turned her head to say something in response to her glib remark, an eerie wolf howl echoed from far away.

In the night plain, an unusual cloud of dust rose.

“…It’s real.”

Oscar murmured. Magical beasts wearing armor engraved with the Empire’s emblem were advancing indiscriminately, recognizing Cardinando.

Wolves, horses, bulls, bats, and even some completely unfamiliar forms of magical beasts.

Some jumped over the walls surrounding Evangeline’s group, some climbed up the walls, some spread wings and flew, and some broke through wooden doors.

The transformed beast army, in various forms, blinked their bright red eyes.

 

“Damn it all…!”

Delphina shook her head and readjusted her grip on her hammer.

The combat power of each individual was clearly inferior to fully transformed Cornelio, not to mention partially transformed Cardinando.

But the violence of numbers was never something to be ignored. Even for a knight of Delphina’s caliber, handling three at once was the best she could do.

And they were coming in organized military units.

“Oh no…!”

Scabbard muttered in a flustered voice. At the instant his attention was directed to the incoming horde of magical beasts, Aslaksha raised her remaining hand and struggled violently.

“Lord Scabbard!!”

Oscar, who was the first to sense the mana gathering at her fingertips, shouted urgently, but the mana already gathered at Aslaksha’s fingertips was unstably fluctuating.

An intentional mana explosion.

Scabbard reflexively pulled his body back, and Aslaksha took the opportunity to fly up into the sky.

“You senile old dragon, being strong alone isn’t enough…!”

Grinding her teeth and spewing curses, Aslaksha stretched out her palm and gathered mana with all her might.

In an instant, a huge magic circle adorned the night sky, and just as the massive amount of concentrated mana was writhing.

-Kwadeuk!!

A greatsword that flew through the void deeply embedded itself in Aslaksha’s shoulder.

“…!!!”

Aslaksha let out a silent scream, and the magic circle that had been neatly adorning the void began to distort, unable to handle the fluctuating mana.

-Jjeong!!

With the clear sound of mana colliding, a blue flash of light split the fluctuating magic circle in half.

Through Evangeline’s prosthetic hand, which had developed cracks in the joints due to rapidly thawing after being frozen solid, blue mana leaked out like smoke.

“You goddamn…!”

“Tsk.”

Aslaksha, who had thrown off her respectful tone, bared her teeth and spewed curses. After clicking her tongue once lightly, Evangeline firmly gripped the greatsword that had pierced through Aslaksha’s shoulder.

“With that prosthetic, did it become ten times harder to use magic without hands?”

Instead of answering, Aslaksha rolled her eyes wildly.

“Well, that’s better than leaving it intact.”

Evangeline shrugged lightly and then pushed the embedded greatsword downward.

-Kwaaaang!!!

With the impact of being slammed to the ground, Aslaksha’s forearm was completely crushed and torn off.

The torn part was more than 90% of the arm. Between the forearm that was essentially dangling with only skin attached, blood spurted up like a fountain.

Clenching and unclenching her creaking left hand, Evangeline muttered grumpily.

“Because of you, I have to readjust my expensive prosthetic again.”