Chapter 78 - Wolf Monster

With Ferda's strike, the wolf monster became a corpse.

The people watching the sight could not hide their astonishment.

"A monster in one blow..."

Even though they had heard that mages were effective against monsters, few had actually seen the effects themselves.

Taking down a monster in one blow was a rare feat even for a mage.

Ferda looked at the man wearing a dumbfounded expression and spoke.

"What are you dawdling for?"

"Huh?"

"The crack is still open."

It was just as he said.

Even though the wolf monster was dead, the crack did not close.

Which meant there were still monsters left inside.

"Everyone who can draw a sword, prepare for battle! Protect the citizens!"

"Request reinforcements! Call the guards!"

"Forget the guards, call the mages! Call for mages who can blast them with magic!"

They were shouting all over the place in total chaos, but since a chain of command was somewhat forming, Ferda didn't pay it any mind.

The slumped corpse twitched at the boundary.

"I-It moved!"

"Is it not dead yet?"

Someone said.

However, that wolf monster was dead.

But the fact that it was moving like that meant another one was preparing to come out.

Ferda immediately prepared his next magic spell.

Soon, something revealed itself from beyond the space where heat haze was rising.

It was an identical wolf monster.

It tried to pop out, but Ferda was one step faster.

"Lightning Spear."

Ferda threw the chanted magic spell toward the monster popping out of the crack.

The spear of lightning struck the wolf monster as it was coming out.

Grrrk!

Lightning Spear, one of the 4th-tier magic spells.

It possessed excellent penetrating power, allowing it to inflict fatal damage as long as it could target a vital spot.

However, if it failed to accurately hit a vital spot, it wouldn't kill the target.

Just like the one right in front of his eyes.

'Still, not bad.'

The creature trying to come out panicked and tried to retreat back inside.

But it wasn't able to.

The heads of other wolf monsters could be seen shoving their way out through the gap in the crack.

There were at least four more of them.

Thanks to its panic, he was able to temporarily stop them from pouring out.

In the meantime, the people capable of joining the battle got into a state of readiness.

The knights drew their swords, and the few mages present prepared to chant their magic.

Mages were the most effective at dealing with monsters.

Everyone knew that, but how many mages had actually faced a monster before?

The society of mages was one where, as their Circle increased, they became closer to politics than magic.

There was no chance of winning with this level of combat power.

"What should we do? Do we evacuate?"

Zed asked.

Since this was Halim's problem, there was no need for them to risk their lives.

"No, we're joining the battle too."

The only useful mage here was himself, Ferda.

However, there was no need to risk his life, and the odds of winning were also high.

'Fighting here is more profitable than running away.'

Having made his judgment, Ferda searched for what he needed.

'What I need is mana.'

What Ferda needed were mana reserves to fill in his own lack of mana.

In other words, mages who would serve as his foundation.

For that plan, he called out a name.

"Malcolm!"

"Yes, Regent!"

Malcolm replied briskly.

Contrary to his prompt reply, his body language showed he had no idea what to do.

"Bring all the mages to me. It doesn't matter even if they can only conjure a Mana Shot, just gather them all here for now."

"W-What if they say they don't want to?"

Was that even a question?

"Then kidnap them and drag them here."

"Y-Yes, sir! I will follow your orders!"

Malcolm ran off, flailing his arms.

"Should I go fetch them too? I'm pretty confident in my persuasion skills."

Zed asked slyly.

"You need to work as a knight."

"Damn it."

Zed let out a sigh and drew his dagger.

Grrr!

In the meantime, the wolf's panic subsided.

The wolf squeezed its body and popped out, and the waiting wolves poured out like a tidal wave as well.

The crack sealed shut again, as if all the wolf monsters inside had poured out.

'Are there seven of them in total?'

While even one was too much for ordinary knights to handle, seven had invaded the building.

'I can handle about two. If I have to face the remaining five...'

Ferda quickly checked their combat power and weighed the odds.

'It's impossible.'

The beasts would engage in a one-sided hunt, and that hunt would lead to annihilation.

Like dominoes already falling, it wouldn't stop.

"Sir Zed."

"Yes."

"I'm going to need you to step up. Do you think you can stall about two of them?"

"Two of them, you say?"

Zed gulped.

They looked like wolves, but their means of attack weren't limited to just snouts and claws.

Their spiky tail tentacles floated menacingly in the air.

Stall two things like that?

"Can you do it?"

After deliberating over and over, Zed answered.

"My fee is going to be a bit steep."

"When have I ever stiffed you on your pay?"

"You haven't. In that case...!"

Zed adjusted his grip on his dagger and moved somewhere.

He approached Penelope.

In this kind of situation, there was only one thing she could do.

"Waaahhh! I don't want to dieee!"

"Hey, Pepe! Pull yourself together, punk!"

SMACK!

"Gah!"

"Stop bawling and do your job. You can use magic too!"

"W-What do I have to do? How am I supposed to fight those things?!"

"You don't have to fight, just help me out. Just make my body lighter somehow, you know, that thing, that thing!!"

"That thing? Sniff, hold on a sec. Hasteee!"

Penelope's magic enveloped Zed's body.

Zed felt himself become even faster and limbered up his body.

"Yeah, this is the feeling."

Zed grinned and muttered as he looked at the monster wolves.

"Well then, I'm going for a little walk."

With that, Zed moved to draw the attention of two of them.

With this, Ferda would handle two, and the rest would handle three.

Ferda turned his head and picked out the most experienced-looking man among those who had drawn their swords.

"You there!"

"Yes!"

"Good spirit. We'll try to handle four of them, so work with the people around you and figure out a way to handle three. Can you do it?"

"H-How are we supposed to do that?"

"Instruct them to move as defensively as possible. Form a square."

He said that, but it didn't matter whether they defended or attacked.

It was fine as long as they didn't lose their will to fight and run away.

That was all Ferda wanted from him.

"Regeeeent!"

Malcolm, who had received his orders, came running back in a hurry.

Ferda was about to ask why he had returned, but lost his words at what he brought.

Over both his shoulders were two men dressed in robes.

"Here are the mages!"

"You really did kidnap them."

"Because I'm not confident in my persuasion skills...!"

Ferda stared quietly at the panting Malcolm.

"You're smarter than I thought."

"Huh? I'm smart?"

"Knowing oneself is not an easy thing to do. Just keep doing exactly that."

"Understood!"

Malcolm moved off to kidnap more fresh mana reserves.

The men, who had been captured without knowing why, were frozen in place.

They had been busy running away when they were suddenly dropped into the middle of a battlefield.

Ferda made it so they couldn't think.

"You, do you know how to use Mana Bomb?"

"Huh? Ah, yes..."

"Then prepare a Mana Bomb. When I give the order, throw it at me. What about you?"

"I-I still..."

"Then prepare a Mana Shot. Prepare it and throw it at me when I give the signal. That much is easy, right?"

"Y-Yes!"

"And when that kidnapper brings more mages, instruct them to do the same. I don't want to explain it twice. Understood?"

"U-Understood!"

Given the urgent situation, there was no way they had absorbed all of that.

Ferda didn't expect much as he prepared for battle.

'I must refrain from using dark magic as much as possible.'

Dark magic would attach a fatal stigma to the grand picture he was painting overall.

He knew Erdes was already aware that he used dark magic, but having the public see it was a different story entirely.

He had to avoid it as much as possible.

'But that doesn't mean I can't use it at all either.'

He would use it secretly and quietly so others wouldn't notice.

That was exactly why he had learned Barbatos's Shadow Art.

Beneath Ferda's feet, the shape of a shadow moved.

It stealthily reached beneath the wolf's feet.

Ferda chanted his spell.

"Bind."

A hidden hand reached out from within Ferda's shadow.

Grrr!?

It forcefully grabbed the wolf's ankle.

A binding magic corresponding to the 4th-tier of Barbatos's Shadow Art.

Its original name was Shadow Bind, but Ferda didn't attach the word 'Shadow'.

He didn't even need to chant it in the first place.

That much was enough, and outwardly, it possessed an effect similar to Bind.

It floundered, unable to lift its foot, as if it had fallen into a swamp of sticky glue.

'Take one out quickly first.'

He swiftly drew the magic circle he had stored in his mind into his hand and chanted the spell.

"Lightning Spear."

The spear of lightning left his hand.

Hitting its heart when its body couldn't move was a piece of cake.

BZZZT!

The spear of lightning flew swiftly and pierced through the hide.

The spot where the heart used to be only spewed out mangled green blood, and the wolf collapsed lifelessly.

"My god, one blow again..."

Exclamations burst out once more.

Grrr!

The other restrained one sensed the death of its kin and bared its teeth.

The creature violently thrashed and resisted, then used a momentary opening to bite the black shape with its snout.

"Ugh."

A groan of pain slipped from Ferda's lips.

At the exact moment the wolf bit down, Ferda felt a severing sensation near his right pinky finger.

The shadow was used as if it were a part of Ferda's body.

Therefore, when the shadow was severed, he felt the pain of his own flesh being severed.

'That is the condition.'

If he wasn't careful, he would be consumed by the pain and forced to live the rest of his life agonizing over phantom pain.

Ferda skillfully severed his mental connection, escaping the phantom pain.

The moment he severed his mind from the shadow, its power weakened.

The wolf monster broke free.

"Regent! Where should I throw the Mana Bomb...!"

The timing was decent.

"Throw it at me!"

The mage threw the large blue sphere at Ferda.

Ferda didn't look back.

Instead, a portion of a black finger appeared from Ferda's back, spraying strings of mana onto the Mana Bomb and snatching it away.

To others, it looked as though the sphere naturally slipped into his grasp the moment it entered Ferda's radius.

"Gasp!"

"Magic Intercept...!"

They doubted their eyes at the difficult technique wielded only by highly skilled mages.

Whether they did or not, Ferda had no time to care.

His mind was fully poured into his target.

He threw the Mana Shot and Mana Bomb at the wolf's face.

BA-BOOM!

A 100% hit rate.

The explosion of magic power smashed into the wolf's face.

The moment these entities of paradox, which lived by spewing junk mana, collided with the natural order, their regeneration slowed down.

And the moment its regenerative power completely halted, the wolf monster staggered like a panting dog in the middle of summer.

"Lightning Spear."

Just like that, Ferda took care of the two monster wolves he faced.

Without a moment to catch his breath, he surveyed the battlefield.

'The knights and soldiers' side.'

The side where the knights and soldiers were holding out looked overwhelmed.

They had terrified faces.

On the other hand, Zed was diverting the attention of two wolf monsters without a single scratch.

The attacks of the two wolf monsters were literally ravaging a wide radius as if throwing their entire bodies.

Surprisingly, Zed was moving faster than the monsters' attack speed and dodging everything.

'I need to help Zed's side.'

Even though he looked relaxed, he was the most urgent.

"Zed!"

"What is it!?"

Zed replied irritably.

"Lure them toward where my shadow is."

"Understood!"

Doing a somersault, Zed's eyes quickly confirmed the location of Ferda's shadow.

He then moved with acrobatic agility and sprinted in Ferda's direction.

Bark! Bark!

The two highly agitated wolf monsters charged at Zed.

The moment they tried to cross over Ferda's shadow, hands shot up and grabbed the wolves' ankles.

Yelp!?

Caught by the sudden obstacle, the wolf monsters' bodies tumbled over.

"Bind."

Ferda restrained the two of them once more with his prepared Shadow Bind.

"Throw them!"

Following his orders, the supplied mages threw the Mana Bombs they had created at Ferda one by one.

They worried they were basically attacking the Regent.

However, Ferda expertly wound them up in threads of mana and turned them into his own magic.

BA-BOOM!

Mana seeped inside the bodies of the two monsters.

As intended, both of them staggered.

'My mana reserves are... cutting it close.'

Because his Red Circle wasn't spinning intensely, it was difficult to secure an additional supply.

'Do I have enough mana left for about three Lightning Spears?'

If he blasted the two of them, his mana for dealing with the rest would become too tight.

How should he handle this?

"Regent!"

Zed called out to Ferda.

His eyes were filled with the will to fight.

Looking at those eyes, Ferda thought.

'Useless.'

It might work for knights armed with willpower, but it was useless to Ferda.

However, he saw the dagger gleaming with a cold light.

It was aura.

'Now that is useful.'

Grasping his intention, Ferda nodded.

In a brief exchange of about 1.5 seconds, they designated each other's targets.

"Lightning Spear."

Ferda's arrow of light pierced through one beast's forehead and blew up its heart.

"Go take a long walk in Hell, you bastard!"

Zed's dagger pierced through the monster's belly hide.

The tough hide sank in like jelly, and the dagger dug straight into the inside of its ribs.

SNAP!

With the sound of thick, hard muscles snapping, the wolf's corpse went limp.

The two that Zed had been dragging around died just like that.

That left exactly three.

The ones drawing the attention of those three was a ragtag army.

"Ack! That guy shot me!"

"Don't fall back! Maintain formation!"

However, thanks to the commander's charisma anchoring their feet, the three wolf monsters couldn't do much either and were just looking for a gap in the army.

Ferda aimed for that gap.

Ferda shouted toward the mages.

"Mana Bombs!"

There were ten mages supplied by Malcolm in total.

A total of 12 generated spheres flew toward Ferda all at once.

Ferda's shadow fingers snatched up every single one of those spheres and made them his own. He aimed for the wolf monsters' openings.

BA-BOOM!

The mana slammed into their torsos.

The density was high enough to pierce their outer skin and enter their bodies.

The wolf monster that took a direct hit staggered, and the two that had been moving aggressively also took significant damage and retreated.

"Now's the time, knock 'em down!"

"Waaaaaah!"

With a war cry, they launched a counterattack, thrusting their swords into the staggering beast.

The wolf monster resisted, but just like a dying old man, it could only continue with feeble swings.

Bark! Bark!

The two wolves locked their eyes on Ferda.

Their wild instincts had figured out who the core of this human group was.

Their eyes rolled back in fury as they lunged at Ferda.

"They're heading for the Regent! Protect the Regent!"

In a situation where it was hard enough to take care of their own bodies, there was no way the soldiers could react immediately.

'Two of them.'

Ferda didn't have the physical agility to dodge flashily like Zed.

Ferda had been preparing his magic even before feeling their killing intent.

"Lightning Spear."

The spear of lightning pierced through the torso of one of them.

Its heart wasn't pierced, but he succeeded in stopping it.

The remaining one charged toward Ferda without fear.

"Regent!"

Zed stepped in front of Ferda to protect him.

"Gah!"

He might have beaten the wolf monster in agility, but in a head-on collision, he collapsed like a scarecrow planted in soft dirt.

Using the opening Zed created, Ferda deployed a magic circle to at least jam a Lightning Bolt into it.

"Lightning-"

He couldn't even finish chanting it.

The wolf monster pinned down Ferda's shoulders and mounted him.

ROAR!!

The creature opened its maw.

It looked like a wolf, but the inside of its mouth didn't belong to a wolf.

Sharper teeth and a tongue tentacle split into dozens of strands.

Its sharp teeth dug into Ferda's neck.

He sensed his impending death.

BANG!

A piercing sound that shook the heavens and earth.

At the same time, something small and fast flew in, causing the wolf monster's body to jolt violently.

The teeth that had dug halfway into his neck lost their power, and the beast collapsed just like that.

Narrowly escaping death, Ferda checked why the monster had died.

*'A small, fast, and powerful magic...'

He felt a sense of déjà vu.

Ferda looked to see who the benefactor that saved his life was.

The direction it flew from was the stage.

The one standing on that stage was none other than Burnel.

In his hands, as he panted heavily, something was held.

It was the magical engineering rifle that was scheduled to be introduced after Chancellor Bernard.

The long pipe he was holding was emitting pure white smoke.