Chapter 100
Monster
William did everything he could, even if it meant overextending himself, to keep morale from collapsing.
Whether because of his efforts or not, the defensive formation held, and the spear shafts were aimed even more firmly at the monsters.
—Chief of Security, what is your situation?
Isabella's voice came through the communication spell.
William shouted back,
“We've engaged three monsters! The security force alone isn't enough! We need reinforcements!”
—Understood. Two of Lord Iorga's descendants are on their way. Hold out just a little longer.
Moments later, something with wings descended from the sky.
Landing gracefully, they confronted the monsters.
“You filthy beasts. Your master has already gone to the afterlife, yet you still cling so stubbornly to this world.”
“Return to your master's side.”
The descendants of Iorga opened the caps of their canteens.
The clear water inside responded to the movement of their fingers, transforming into whips split into ten separate strands.
Whoosh!
As they cracked the whips, the ten strands lashed forward toward their targets.
Like extensions of their own limbs, they wrapped precisely around the monsters' bodies.
In an instant, all three monsters were restrained.
“Chief of Security. Finish them.”
“Yes!”
William's sword, wreathed in crimson sword aura, struck one vital point after another on the bound monsters.
“Die!”
The spearmen refused to remain mere spectators.
Their courage rekindled, they surged forward.
As the saying went, no one could withstand being mobbed.
Pinned down and unable to move, the monsters were inevitably pierced by a rain of spears.
William finished off two of them.
The spearmen killed the third.
Only minutes earlier they had been struggling desperately.
None of them had imagined victory would come so easily.
“Th-thank you... Mages.”
The descendants of Iorga merely glanced at William before looking away.
With their task complete, they spread their wings and flew off once more.
Proud Dragon Spawn did not casually associate with humans of lower status.
So to them... I'm not even worth speaking to.
The thought stung, but William accepted it without resentment.
If only I were stronger... if I had greater charisma... perhaps this battle would have gone differently.
He acknowledged his current limitations, but instead of dwelling on them, he resolved to use them as motivation.
I need to become stronger.
This was a village under the rule of the Red Dragon.
He would become strong enough to be worthy of protecting it.
***
“The knight of the Principality of Valdrova has departed.”
—Understood. Please secure the northern sector.
Two mounts emerged from Valdrova Castle.
Or rather, only one of them was a horse.
The other was a donkey.
The man riding the donkey wore a thoroughly bewildered expression.
“S-Sir Zed! I don't think I'll be any help! W-what should I do?!”
The one who answered was Penelope, perched behind him.
“What else? Go eat some popcorn.”
“S-Should I really?”
“Of course. Just make enough popcorn for my share too—Gah!”
“Oh, for heaven's sake. Every time you open your mouth, you say something that makes me sigh.”
“Ghk! I surrender! I surrender!”
Zed tightened his grip around Penelope's neck while she slapped at his muscular arm.
“If you want to be useful, then at least act as bait! If wolf demons show up, distract them!”
“Y-Yes!”
“I'll head that way! You take the road over there!”
“Understood!”
As Malcolm rode off on the donkey, Penelope spoke again.
“You're seriously telling him to be bait? Isn't that a little heartless?”
“If things get bad, he'll run.”
“He didn't exactly look smart enough for that.”
“He's still smarter than you.”
“What was that?!”
Penelope reached for his hair in outrage—
Then they both saw a massive figure ahead.
A wolf monster.
Their bickering ceased immediately.
“Enemy spotted. Looks just like the ones from before.”
“Yeah.”
“Same size. Same shape. We barely escaped last time. Are you sure you'll be okay now?”
“More than okay.”
Zed smiled.
Hadn't he endured all that pain for this very moment?
“There are few things as satisfying as getting your revenge.”
Now it was time to reap what he had sown.
He drew the short sword at his waist.
Blue sword aura flared along its blade.
The blindfolded horse charged bravely before coming to a sudden stop.
Using the momentum, Zed launched himself into the air.
“Pepe! Now!”
“Haste!”
The pink-haired demon cast an acceleration spell on the airborne Zed.
By now, the two worked together with practiced coordination.
Landing with even greater speed and agility, Zed disappeared from sight the instant his feet touched the ground.
“Grr?!”
The wolf monster panicked.
It tried to follow his movements.
But the snake heads attached to its body could only chase after fading afterimages.
This was nothing like the desperate retreat of before.
The blue sword aura traced brilliant arcs through the lingering afterimages.
Slash! Slash! Slash!
The glowing trails carved through the wolf monster's body.
Every snake head was severed.
Its strength was cut away, leaving it helpless.
The moment the crippled monster focused on regeneration—
That was the opening Zed had been waiting for.
He drove his short sword straight into its heart.
Unlike when he had fought to protect Ferda, this time the battle ended effortlessly.
“Whoa! That was awesome!”
Penelope bounced excitedly.
“Zed! What the heck have you been doing over there?”
“Do you think I was taking a vacation?”
“You actually look kind of sexy.”
“You're the first man who's ever looked this... seductive.”
“Haha. Back off. Don't even think about trying to drain my vitality.”
“Oh, come on. It's been a whole week since you've been with a woman...”
Rubbing her empty stomach, Penelope gave him a seductive look.
At least, she intended it to be seductive.
To Zed, it only inspired disgust—and the urge to smack her.
Just then, Isabella's voice sounded through communication magic.
—Sir Zed.
“Go ahead.”
—Sir Malcolm is drawing the monsters toward you. Please provide support.
Zed answered immediately.
“Where is he?”
—He's heading your way. Look toward the alley.
There was no need to search.
The noisy commotion was already approaching.
The first thing Zed saw was the donkey's face.
Then came Malcolm, screaming at the top of his lungs.
“AAAAAH! I'm gonna die! I'm gonna die!”
The donkey galloped toward them with Malcolm clinging on for dear life, tears and snot streaming down his face.
Two wolf monsters appeared close behind.
Seeing the scene, Zed stared in disbelief.
How is that idiot still alive?
Malcolm possessed no remarkable physical ability.
No martial arts.
Nothing but a single donkey beneath him.
Granted, riding the donkey helped.
But the donkey itself seemed entirely ordinary.
The wolves were faster.
More agile.
By every measure, Malcolm should have been easy prey.
Yet somehow...
The wolves still hadn't caught him.
More accurately, every time they tried to attack Malcolm and the donkey, they got in each other's way and stumbled over one another.
Whether they were simply stupid...
Or Malcolm possessed absurd luck...
It didn't matter.
Killing the monsters came first.
“Hey! Donkey man! Over here!”
“Aaaah! Aaaah! AAAAAH!”
Instead of answering, Malcolm only screamed louder.
That useless fool.
Just as Zed wondered whether he would have to adjust his own timing—
The donkey seemed to understand him.
It abruptly changed direction and charged straight toward him.
Enraged, the two wolf monsters pursued with renewed determination.
Either way, everything was proceeding exactly as intended.
Malcolm made excellent bait.
It would take him another three hours before his soul finally returned to his body.
The donkey rushed past Zed.
He counted down silently.
Three...
Two...
One...
Zero.
The wolf monster's body entered his reach.
Zed exploded forward with his accelerated speed and drove his blade straight into the heart of the crazed beast.
“Yelp!”
One of the wolf monsters died.
The other realized that it was no longer the time to chase the donkey and turned toward Zed.
But a lone wolf was little more than prey to him.
The short sword held in a reverse grip claimed the heart of the remaining monster as well.
Zed had thought fighting two at once might prove difficult, so even he found the result hard to believe.
‘Now that was an excellent decoy.’
He briefly wondered whether this was why Ferda kept Malcolm around.
In any case, Zed decided to praise Malcolm, if only to foster some sense of camaraderie.
“Wow, you really were the perfect bait. Good work, old man—”
“Uegh! Ugh! I’m dying. I’m going to die…”
***
Before the monsters attacked, Valdrova stood in the alley she had been assigned to defend.
‘A monster is coming.’
The repeated thought awakened all five of her senses.
The events unfolding in every direction became mapped out in her mind, as vivid as though she could see and hear them directly.
Her perception stretched beyond the village and even past the forest surrounding it.
Nothing could escape her senses.
That was precisely why Valdrova suppressed them.
‘What I need to do is…’
Kill the wolf monster coming through this alley.
That was all.
Everything else could be considered later.
A short while afterward, the approaching enemy’s presence made her open her eyes.
“Grrrr…”
The wolf monster opened its jaws and growled.
Instead of an animal’s yellowed fangs, its mouth revealed green teeth.
“Woof!”
It charged at Valdrova.
The attack was as threatening as a cannonball hurtling through the air.
Any ordinary human would have been terrified and forced to prepare with everything they had.
But to Valdrova, it was nothing more than a worthless insect.
Moving faster and with far greater strength, she seized the monster by the muzzle and lifted it into the air.
Unable to resist, the wolf monster was dragged upward.
Valdrova drove her left hand into its body.
Thud!
Her hand tore through the monster’s hide like water-soaked paper.
She ripped out its heart and crushed it.
Squelch!
The entire process took only a tenth of a second.
Valdrova had killed more monsters than anyone else.
To her, it was as simple and efficient as a routine procedure.
“Ghk…”
The wolf monster died instantly, unable even to whimper.
After confirming its death, Valdrova withdrew her hand.
Then she threw the corpse to the ground as though discarding garbage.
She did not look at it.
No.
She could not.
‘I must not look.’
The moment her gaze settled upon it, something stirred and rose within her heart.
Valdrova knew this emotion.
Hatred.
Whenever she faced monsters, she felt a vivid hatred.
She had used that hatred as fuel and burned through countless enemies.
In that way, she had slaughtered the many monsters that attempted to march out of the Demonic Lands.
Yet the emotion she felt now was slightly different from the familiar hatred she had always known.
There was fear mixed within it.
‘Why…?’
The answer was simple.
The situation was different now.
Back then, she had protected the continent as a dragon.
Now, she had to protect a village as a single knight.
When she had been a dragon, she flew into the Demonic Lands and tore apart and burned everything in her path.
Everything she needed to protect had been behind her.
She never had to consider it.
No matter how violently she unleashed her rage, no one else would be harmed.
The only body that could be injured was her own.
But now, everything she needed to protect stood in the middle of the battlefield.
‘If I lose control…’
Everyone would be hurt.
Hestia Village would burn, and its people would die.
That was why she feared this emotion.
‘Calm down.’
She tried to suppress the fury boiling within her.
But her senses were sharper than anyone else’s.
The stench of monster blood and the roars echoing through the village could not be shut out through willpower alone.
At last, a vicious wave of grief overturned her heart and swept everything else away.
What remained was a flame that refused to die.
A profound rage directed toward the demon race.
That flame, that anger, touched wounds that had never healed.
The pain of those wounds stirred her memories.
‘They are trying to take everything away again…’
Everything she had built.
Everything she loved.
Godwin’s malice still moved through the world, seeking to seize and violate all of it.
It forced that terrible will back into her mind.
“Ugh…”
The flame had been lit.
Her uncontrollable fury threatened to become an impulse.
‘I need to leave.’
She had to escape the village and return to her lair as quickly as possible.
There, she could rampage for a while and resolve everything.
She prayed that all would proceed smoothly until then.
That nothing else would happen.
“Ahhh!”
Valdrova raised her head.
Two girls who had failed to evacuate came into view.
A small child and the slightly older girl shielding her.
Valdrova knew them well.
They were the sisters she had rescued by paying three shillings.
A hideous monster loomed over them, preparing to swallow them both in a single bite.
“No.”
It opened its jaws to brutally devour the helpless girls.
The instant those jaws closed, both their bodies and lives would disappear.
‘No!’
At that moment, a voice rang clearly in Valdrova’s ears.
—Look, Valdrova.
It was Godwin’s voice.
The same words he had spoken while looking at her before the Dragon-Demon War began.
—This is what it looks like when everything you wish to protect disappears.
At that instant, all hesitation vanished from Valdrova’s mind.
Her body moved reflexively.
She bent her right leg, extended her left foot behind her, and assumed a stance.
Boom!
A massive shock wave erupted behind her heel.
She became a human cannonball and shot forward.
Valdrova thrust her fist toward the monster’s muzzle with all her strength.
Crack!
The wolf’s snout did not merely twist aside.
It tore apart completely, and the monster was hurled into a wall.
Its body rolled like a tilted barrel before bouncing out onto the main road.
“Ghrk… Grrrgh…!”
The wolf monster staggered in confusion, coughing up blood that had pooled in its lungs.
Its aggression, created solely for destruction, drove it toward Valdrova.
“Grrrr—woof!”
Its muzzle had been destroyed, yet its voice remained unaffected.
It had never truly been a wolf.
It was merely something imitating one.
A filthy, crude amalgamation fashioned in the shape of a wolf.
‘Do not hurt them.’
The rage within Valdrova burned hotter.
At the same time, teeth harder than steel bit into her shoulder plate.
But her armor was made from a rare mineral several times stronger than ordinary steel.
It was a masterpiece created by the Bronze Dragon, a being no different from a god of blacksmithing.
The wolf had wasted its attack.
Valdrova seized it in return and slammed its hideous body into the ground.
‘Do not touch them.’
Her fist burrowed through the wolf’s flesh and shattered its bones.
Crunch!
“Yelp!”
Only then did the wolf monster understand.
It should never have attacked this creature.
It should have fled.
But Valdrova’s hand, already buried inside its body, had no intention of releasing it.
‘You are the one who must disappear.’
She was the embodiment of strength.
That power now burned in her eyes as a crimson glow.
Valdrova tore out everything she had seized.
The spine hidden beneath its flesh and the ribs attached to it were ripped free with a grotesque sound.
Its internal organs were violently shaken, reducing everything inside to pulp.
“Not yet.”
Monsters did not die easily.
Valdrova reached in again, seized its heart, and crushed it.
The source of the monster’s life was destroyed, and the wolf-shaped body began to melt.
That was the complete death of a monster.
‘Not yet.’
Her fury still had not subsided.
She hated even the remains left behind.
The corpse seemed to continue mocking and taunting her.
Valdrova clenched her fist and aimed it at the monster’s face.
‘From this continent…’
Her fist descended, striking both the corpse and the ground beneath it.
‘Disappear forever!’
Boom!
A tremendous impact echoed through the village.
At the same time, green blood splattered inside her helmet and touched her skin.
Only then did she realize that she had lost control and come back to her senses.
“Ah.”
Ragged breaths escaped her mouth.
The ground before her was stained purple and green.
Her two hands were covered even more grotesquely.
She raised her head.
Valdrova stood at the bottom of a crater-like depression.
Everyone had come outside and was staring at her.
She turned her gaze toward the alley.
The two girls were there as well.
They were still trembling in fear.
Even though the monster that had tried to kill them was already dead.
Valdrova understood.
Their fear was directed at her.
She was the monster.