Chapter 198

A huge snake is spreading poison on the battlefield and running rampant.

It was very similar in shape to the snake I had encountered in the forest of Lingle, but its size was too different. It was as big or bigger than the evil dragon.

The giant creature, more than 15 metres long, was rampaging incessantly, tormenting the knights.

“It’s painful …….”

“Ugh, aaah……!”

“If you need immediate treatment, go to me! For the rest of you, please leave them with the black clothes!”

Even away from the giant snake, damage has been done.

Not far from the place where I captured Hannah, I was treating people who had been poisoned by the snake.

“Usato-dono, take him!”

“Yes!”

A lot of people are suffering from the snake’s venom, inhaling it and scratching their throats, while others are writhing in pain as they hold the spot where the venom touched them. At that point, the black clothes can take them to the base and have them treated by healing magicians, but if they have been exposed to a lot of poison, they need to be treated as soon as possible.

“System strengthening ……!”

He activates the systemic enhancement at his fingertips and applies it to one of the knights suffering from the poison.

A dark green light covers the knight’s body and immediately his expression becomes calm.

The fingertips are strengthened with a minimal amount of magic, so that only the “enhanced resilience” of the healing magic system is used.

This allows me to heal the fatal wound with less magic and leave it with the black clothes. …… I can’t afford to let it heal completely now.

“…… It’s like the poison of an evil dragon.”

“Yes, it is. It brings back bad memories. ……”

As someone who once ate the poison of an evil dragon, I find it hard to believe that the snake spreading this poison has nothing to do with evil dragons.

This is the downwind side of the city, and there is a small amount of poisonous miasma in the air.

I’m sure it’s not a problem at this distance, but not for the people who are fighting there.

“……”

I feel extremely tired, probably because my magic power is running low.

I have plenty of physical strength to spare, but I can’t do anything about my magical power.

“Usato……”

“Let’s go. We can’t just stand here.”

The situation keeps changing.

When you leave this place to the black clothes and try to head to the place where the giant snake is rampaging–

“Grrr!”

“Oh!”

Uzaza! A blue bear in sooty silver armour, a bulrush, slid in front of me with a cloud of dust in his eyes.

I stepped back in surprise and he turned his back to me.

“What? Bluerin?”

“Gua!”

“Looks like you’re asking me to get on …….”

“Bluerin, you ……”

I’ve always carried you on my back, but now I’m going to have to carry you on mine.

Where we’re going, it might be helpful to have Bluerin.

Maybe he knows that and wants to go with you. …… No, he doesn’t have to think about it.

“It’s reassuring to know you’re here!”

“Grrrr!”

I jumped on the back of the brook and grabbed the belt.

Then, with a reliable yell, Bluerin kicked the ground forcefully and started to run.

As he dodged the knights on his side, he increased his speed and quickly reached the front line. There are many demons in the vicinity of the giant snake’s rampage.

“Bluerin, can you make it?”

“Grrr!”

He shouted and increased his speed.

—No matter how much armour they wear, they will not be unscathed if they break through such numbers.

“Ferum, can you put magic power on Bluerin!”

“Yes, as long as you touch him!”

“Please!”

With that voice, black magic flows from my legs into the silver armour of Bluerin and covers the upper part of his body.

His head and body are protected by a heavy black armour and an oval shield that prevents attacks from the sides.

Wearing armour designed to allow him to simply push forward, Bluerin is not surprised by the change in him, but raises his voice even more valiantly and strikes the demon that is approaching him.

“Get out of the way if you don’t want to get hurt, demons! Hahahaha! Bluerin! That’s a great combination!”

“Grrrr!”

“What, reinforcements from ……?”

“The demons are fleeing: ……”

“Usato-dono, every time I see you, you’re doing something crazy: ……”

I don’t care what my allies say at the moment.

As you drive away the fleeing demons, you find the corpse of a giant snake not far away.

“That’s …….”

“That’s a big snake that’s been skewered……”

It’s the same individual snake that senpai and Kazuki defeated in the last battle with the Demon King’s Army.

If you look closely, you can see that the snake’s head and body are pierced by a large cone-shaped thorn-like object sticking out of the ground, which appears to have killed it.

“Attacked from the ground…… Hyde-san, huh!”

So that means he might be the one fighting the giant individual now.

Hyde-san, warrior chief, Nirvarna Kingdom Warriors.

He is a man who has taught me a lot, even though we had a brief hand-to-hand meeting at the Lukvis meeting.

He would not back down from that snake.

“Usato, the snake skewered there is probably a demon made by a man called Mandibuzz.”

“Isn’t that a natural creature?”

“No wonder it looks so strange. ……”

Ferum’s words startled me and Nair.

It’s a man-made demon, Mandibuzz.

I don’t know how that kind of existence came about, but I never thought it was possible.

If that’s the case, then the big one is an enhanced version of Mandibuzz.

“Guh!”

“Oh, you can see it now!”

When I looked forward to the sound of Bluerin’s voice, I could see the large Bardinak approaching clearly.

If you look closely, you can see that the warriors of the Nirvarna Kingdom Warriors are attacking the rampaging Mandibuzz.

Among them is Hyde-san, who himself is commanding the troops while unleashing his magic.

“Surround this big guy! Watch out for the poison! If you eat it, you’ll be slowed down!”

“Geez!”

“Oops! They’re coming for us!”

To Hyde-san, who was giving instructions, Mandibuzz swung his tail as if to relieve him.

In response, Hyde-san thrust a spear filled with magic power into the ground, and multiple walls of earth protruded from the ground to catch Mandibuzz’s attack.

In the meantime, he escaped from the range of the attack, but I did not miss the moment when Mandibuzz twisted his mouth into a cheek.

I’ll never forget that face.

His size may have changed, but his cruelty and cunning have not. ……!

“Sorry, Bluerin! I’m going first!”

“Guaaa!”

I deactivated my armour and headed towards Hyde-san at full speed.

In the meantime, Mandibuzz opens his big mouth and shoots a kind of poison from the fangs protruding from his upper jaw.

I can’t interrupt it and get to the healing bursting palm …… in time!

Then!

The healing magic bullet created in the palm is thrown with a magical outburst ……!

“Healing, accelerated bullet!”

“What?”

“””Chief warrior!””””

As soon as Hyde-san notices the poison and looks up, a healing acceleration bullet strikes him in the side.

He erupts from the sudden impact, but is blown five metres to the side.

The next moment, the place where Hyde-san was was sprayed with a poisonous colored liquid, and the ground made a disgusting sound as if it was melting.

“Furthermore, healing blindness!”

The magic bullet generated in his palm is then applied to Mandibuzz’s eyes, temporarily depriving him of his vision.

“Giisyaaa?”

After confirming Mandibuzz’s body hitting the ground with an unexpected blow and the Nirvarna warriors moving to attack at once, I rush towards Hyde-san, who has been blown to pieces by a magic bullet to the best of his ability, even though it was an irresistible force.

Her second-in-command, Helena-san, approaches us while instructing her subordinates nearby to attack Mandibuzz.

“Excuse me! I hit him with a magic bullet out of necessity!”

“No, I know that you saved me from that attack! I’ll take the warrior chief to …….”

As he and Helena approached the still prone Hyde-san, he was smiling bitterly as he held the area where the healing acceleration bullet had hit him.

“Helena, you’ll be fine without me now. Just stick to the plan and finish him off. ……”

“Um, warrior chief?”

“I’m done here…… It’s strange that I feel so light on my deathbed. ……”

“”……””

Hyde-san meditates with a look of satisfaction on his face, and Helena and I involuntarily look at each other.

The hit was a magic bullet of healing magic, so there is no way he could have been injured.

The blood colour is good and there is no blood on the side that is being held down.

“This is something that looks like Usato …….”

“Yeah, it really is Usato like ……”

Hey, what’s with the nuance that it’s a disgrace to be rated the same as me?

I fearfully call out to Hyde-san, my cheeks twitching at the owl on my shoulder and the muttering of the demon girl.

“It’s not that you’re going to die, Hyde-san. It was my healing magic that hit you.”

“Chief warrior, Usato-kun saved me. Please get up now.”

“……”

After a short silence, Hyde-san stood up quickly and touched his own body to check.

Helena and Nea look at me with an embarrassed look and a “what the hell is this ……” kind of look.

After a few seconds, Hyde-san looked back at us, his voice rising.

“Well, it looks like you’ve saved my life! Ha-ha-ha!”

“No, no, that’s not true …….”

“To be honest, that caught me off guard, too. I didn’t expect you to spit out your poison just as the wall was disappearing. But then you came along!　It’s the luckiest thing that ever happened to me!”

He’s as cheerful as ever, I thought as I returned the gesture and turned my attention to Mandibuzz, who had just arrived and was under attack from the warriors with Bluerin.

“It’s …… a hell of a demon. How can it be both clever enough to always respond to a technique it has seen once and cunning enough to try to deceive people?”

“Respond to a technique you’ve seen once……?”

“Just a few minutes ago, I killed a smaller one by skewering it with my magic, and maybe because he saw it too, he started to avoid the attack before it came from the ground. Maybe he’s got some kind of magic-sensing organ.”

Is he that big and that smart?

So far, they have been unable to deliver effective blows, but they have been able to go on the offensive after being dealt an unexpected blow with the healing eye crusher.

“…… also ……”

…… The soldiers fighting are also pale.

Perhaps the miasma emanating from the poisonous fluid exhaled by Mandibuzz is slowly poisoning his body.

Some of them are vomiting blood and falling to their knees.

“You’ve all been poisoned, haven’t you? Even Helena-san.”

I put my hand on Helena’s shoulder and healed the poison.

It’s all right now, but if I stay here, I’ll get the symptoms of the poison again.

“Oh, thank you, thank you. Where’s the chief warrior?”

“No, I’m fine now. More importantly, Usato–“

“I’m going to treat the poison now!”

He turns his palm towards the warriors of Nirvarna and stretches out a sash for each of them.

Once the sashes are absorbed, healing magic is poured into them to cure the poison.

“……!”

I then place the person who was injured too much for me to heal on Bluerin’s back.

“Bluerin, take care of these people.”

“Grrr!”

“…… Yeah, good luck to you too.”

Bluerin, with the warriors on his back, nods and rushes off towards the base, making a cloud of dust.

After seeing them off, I line up next to Hyde-san, who is leading a general attack on Mandibuzz.

“Usato, you’d better not move now.”

“Huh?”

I try to jump forward to heal the warriors who are attacking with magic and weapons near Mandibuzz, but Hyde-san stops me.

“You are nearing the limit of your magic power, aren’t you?　You should rest your body, even for a short time.”

“But ……!”

I almost shouted out, but my vision wobbled due to lack of magical power.

Hyde-san, who supported my body while keeping his gaze on Mandibuzz, slightly distorted his expression.

“You look like you’re about to collapse. …… I’m well aware of your mission, but you need to put yourself first now.”

Having been told this in a slightly stronger tone of voice, I can only hold my tongue, unable to refute the statement.

Hyde-san is right, I am close to the limit of my magical power.

I have a surplus of physical strength, but I resent my half-hearted lack of magical power. ……

“Giiishyaaaaaaaa!”

Then I hear the Mandibuzz’s snatchy cry.

If you look, you can see that Mandibuzz’s body has been pierced by countless arrows and many magical wounds have been imprinted on it.

If it was an ordinary demon, it would have died out long ago, but because of its huge size, it is still moving.

“I’m not going to let you down!　In the event that you’ve got a lot of money, you’ll be able to use it for a lot of things.

“””Dutifully!!!””””

After checking that Mandibuzz was almost fully wounded, Mr Hyde raised his voice and sent instructions to several warriors who were waiting in their respective units.

The warriors, with their hands on the ground, shouted and poured water magic at the feet of Mandibuzz, while the warriors with earth magic manipulated the muddy ground to block Mandibuzz’s movement.

“All of you! Attack all at once! I’m not sure what to make of that.　I’m sure you’ll be able to figure out how to do it.

“””Ooohhh!”””

All the warriors of Nirvarna who were present turned their full force to attack Mandibuzz.

There is a cloud of dust, and the figure of Mandibuzz becomes vague, but he is there, and he is being attacked.

Hyde-san himself, having firmly confirmed this with his own eyes, also puts a large amount of magical power into his right hand.

“You’d eat me under these circumstances!”

Clenching his fists tightly, he raises them high to the sky and then slams them into the ground.

The next moment —– a thorn from the ground pierced the head of Mandibuzz, which was hidden by the dust cloud.

In a moment of convulsions, Valdinak’s body relaxed.

The smell of burning and the smell of sand and smoke made me frown as I spoke to Hyde-san.

“Did you manage to kill it?”

“I’m sure it went through my head. That’s how hard it hit me. Even if it had survived, it would have died.”

It’s true, with that kind of magic, you can’t just walk away.

Gradually, the cloud of dust cleared. While everyone in the room is still holding their weapons, Mandibuzz’s figure is revealed.

“What?”

Whose voice was that questioning one: …….

After the smoke cleared, the figure of Mandibuzz emerged, clearly different from what we had imagined.

“Hey, no way. This is …….”

Skin that had turned bright white.

The head was hollowed out like a shell.

Shiny scales visible through the slightly torn skin.

“Is it moulting?

“What the hell is that? Goosebumps!

“You’re a bird you know……”

After tearing off the outer shell of his skin, Mandibuzz lets out a deafening yell.

“It’s foul, like having self-regeneration. …… And I think it’s getting slightly bigger.”

Not only has it recovered from the wounds inflicted by Hyde-san and his colleagues, but its huge body has grown even bigger, perhaps because it has moulted.

“There’s a hell of a monster out there ……!”

“What should we do, Hyde-san?”

“Get into position. Helena! Get everyone out of here while me and my men hold them off!”

Hyde-san, who had given the order to Helena, pulled the axe out of the ground.

As the warriors who still had some strength left in them took up their weapons as he did, the fully deflowered Bardinak began to move.

“Giiiishyaaaaaa!”

“H……!”

A stronger and more deafening yell than the previous one made me hold my ears.

After further growth and recovery, the Mandibuzz breaks through its moulted outer skin and fixes its gaze on us with its head.

“Guishyaaea……”

“! You’re going to come after us!”

With a lick of his tongue, Mandibuzz approaches us.

The warriors who had fought so valiantly just now were no match for him, who had made a full recovery. In the event that you’ve got a problem with your own personal computer, you’ll be able to use your own personal computer.

“Ferum, Nea! Let’s do what we can ……!”

“I can’t help it……!”

“Ahhh whatever!!”

I face Mandibuzz, making a black sword from my left arm.

The situation is really, really bad.

I don’t have much magic left, and the warriors present here have some strength left over, but they are hopelessly outgunned to deal with a fully recovered Mandibuzz.

“Sheaaa!”

Just as the large-mouthed Mandibuzz was about to pounce on us, something shone for a moment, and then a white spear-like object pierced soundlessly through the part of the Mandibuzz that rested against its cheek.

“……What?”

“That spear is …… no way …….”

The tip of the spear is a white spear with a clear, ice-like tip.

The first spear was followed by eight transparent spears, which pierced Mandibuzz’s body in rapid succession at a tremendous speed.

The impact caused Mandibuzz’s body to roll over and slam into the ground.

“Gee, gee……!”

The transparent spear that stabbed deep into the ground froze Mandibuzz’s body while emitting an intense cold air, quickly sealing off his movements.

“What’s going on ……?”

This is the first time I’ve ever seen such a thing.

There is only one person I know who can do this.

The first spear that was thrust into Mandibuzz moved by itself and flew towards us and landed in the hands of a knight in shining armour who was behind us.

“I don’t know why you’re so reckless.”

We look back at the disgusted, yet relieved voice.

—I know that knight.

I know that knight. He has silver armour that makes it easier to move, and blond hair that is pulled back into a single bun.

She came to this place carrying a white spear – Leona-san – and looked at me with a somewhat awkward gesture.

“I’m sorry. I’m late.”

“No, it couldn’t have come at a better time.”

Leona-san is a woman recognized by the armour of the hero, created by the divine dragon, Falga-sama, and is the pride of Mia Rak.

In the past, I fought with her to save Karon from being drowned by the power of the dragon, and she was my friend and benefactor who reminded me of what was important.

She let out a small smile at my words and stepped out to line up next to me.

“Leona, the hero of Mia Rak. It is at this time that I enter this battle.”

She declared this by pointing the tip of her spear at the frozen and motionless Barzinak.

Author’s Note:

Usato kicking the crap out of his enemies with his armour-clad bear (Bulrin).

Is it Kintaro or something ……?

And here comes Leona.