Chapter 20

*Clang, clang, clang, clang!*

The alarm, barely an hour installed, blared raucously through the downpour, slicing through the night over the encampment.

Soldiers, mouths full of hastily rationed bread, bolted from their tents, and the platoon leader, planted firmly in the camp’s center, began to explain the situation in a booming voice.

“Taurus horde inbound! Approximately 200 meters! An alpha has been identified!”

Under a sky thick with storm clouds, neither starlight nor moonlight dared to peek through. Consequently, in the inky blackness gripping the forest, only the sounds of soldiers hurriedly donning armor, and the patter of raindrops on that same armor, echoed.

“An alpha, you say? Any estimate on their numbers?”

“Recon reported difficulty in acquiring accurate figures due to limited visibility! But with an alpha present, we can expect a considerable force!”

The alpha.

While variance existed from specimen to specimen, most monsters roamed aimlessly in packs of 30 to 40, driven solely by the instinct to attack and devour any wild animal or human that strayed into their path.

But a horde led by an alpha was a different beast entirely.

Unlike their brethren who were entirely enslaved by instinct, alphas possessed intelligence bordering on human, capable even of rudimentary communication.

They directed their underlings, orchestrating their hunts; a monster pack driven by pure impulse could transform in an instant into a strategic, organized army.

Furthermore, a horde under an alpha’s command boasted numbers that dwarfed those of ordinary packs.

Typically, they numbered from 300 to 400, and instances of monster gatherings exceeding 1000 were not uncommon.

“Damn it… This is bad.”

It was no wonder that groans of dismay escaped the soldiers’ lips.

“Everyone, battle preparations complete in one minute! Move it!”

Most of the soldiers had already taken off their thick armor, settling in for sleep in the cramped barracks. Now, desperate to prepare for combat, they fumbled around, searching for their armor hanging outside.

“Lantern… Hey, Private! Bring a lantern from inside the barracks!”

“You think a torch will light, you idiot?! With rain like this pouring down, what are you doing? Get your head in the game!”

“Hey, hey! That helmet’s mine! The size is different, you blockhead!”

Without electricity, under a moon and starlight swallowed by storm clouds, the night was darker than I could have imagined.

Truly pitch black. In this forest, devoid of any source of light, the soldiers frantically searched for lanterns, clumsily struggling into their armor.

“Orbe.”

Amidst the chaos and fear gripping the dark encampment, Alter murmured a low incantation.

In that instant, as if a blinding white flare had been launched into the sky, light flooded the world.

For a moment, the soldiers stared blankly at the pure white sphere that had shot upward, before snapping back to attention and hastily gathering their armor and weapons.

Only then did the soldiers regain their usual discipline, moving with practiced efficiency as they prepared for battle.

“…I’m just relying on you again and again. Forgive me for showing you such a shameful display.”

The platoon leader sighed at the soldiers’ fumbling and offered Alter his thanks.

“Taurus head spotted approximately 50 meters ahead! Numbers estimated between 500 and 600!”

Before Alter could brush it off with a lighthearted remark, the scout cried out.

The thunderous sound of the Taurus herd’s hooves pounded through the rain, vibrating in my chest.

The hoofbeats grew closer, then began to spread in all directions. The Taurus herd was forming an encirclement, with the encampment as its center.

Careful not to lose their footing in the muddy ground, the soldiers silently raised their blades, and then, those grotesque creatures with their massive arms emerged from the trees.

“……”

The beast, a monstrosity with a lower body like a colossal horse and an upper torso resembling a hulking orc, was clad in the armor of elite soldiers – armor he’d somehow seized.

“So, it’s you lot who’ve been killing my men.”

The leader, a spear tip stained with blood and edged with rust leveled towards Alter, shouted from beneath the brilliance of the Light.

…What’s he suddenly on about? Killing men? Alter? When?

“Well, this seems a decent enough opportunity. Veen, please watch closely.”

Alter, turning his back on the bull-man leader who had a spear aimed right at him, spoke to me.

“From now, I’ll demonstrate three versions of magic. First, the version where I don’t even bother to memorize the incantation. Second, the version where I only memorize the name of the spell. Third, the version where I memorize both the incantation and the name of the spell.”

To him, a horde of monsters like this – be it four hundred or four thousand – seemed to pose no threat at all.

Well, considering the difference in their levels, it was only natural.

“Kill them!”

The bull-man leader, realizing Alter was ignoring him, roared, consumed by rage and humiliation.

The moment the leader’s command rang out, a unified thunder of hooves echoed from all around us.

“Everyone! Protecting the mages is your utmost priority!”

Mages possessed devastating firepower and wide-area attacks, but their survivability was often lacking.

Most mages lacked the strength to parry enemy blows with a shield, nor did they possess the agility to evade attacks.

Therefore, on most battlefields, soldiers also had to take on the role of protectors of mages.

However, here, right beneath the Light and wearing a kind smile, stood a High Mage who had reached the lofty heights of the Eighth Circle.

The word ‘ordinary’ simply did not apply to someone so blatantly beyond the accepted parameters.

“aaagh!”

From every direction, shouts of fury erupted as soldiers swung their blades at the stampeding bull-men. With a single-minded determination to protect me, Alter, and Lier, they braced themselves, shields meeting the monsters’ spears.

Alter stood motionless, feeling the heavy raindrops falling from the sky.

In the heart of the now-clamorous battlefield, he slowly raised a finger…

*Whoosh—*

And summoned a streak of stark-blue light to the field.

“That was a Bolt, cast without even uttering the spell’s name.”

The falling rain dissolved into mist. Damp trees burst into flame, and a hole was torn in the encirclement of hundreds of Tauros.

“…Ah.”

The Tauros leader, belatedly realizing the gravity of the situation, pawed the ground and began to shrink back.

“Bolt.”

Alter, as if unwilling to grant his opponent even a moment to grasp the full extent of his predicament, unleashed a massive sphere of crackling energy from his fingertip.

*KRA-KOOM!*

A colossal mass of energy, ripping the air itself, blasted a gaping hole in the back of the encirclement.

The explosion reduced over sixty Tauros to ash in an instant.

The Tauros surrounding the ash piles were quickly electrocuted by the spreading energy, their lives extinguished in a flash.

With merely two Bolts, over a hundred Tauros had vanished.

“…Retreat! Retreat now!”

Finally understanding they had chosen the wrong prey, the leader bellowed at his subordinates, immediately turning and pounding the earth with its hooves.

The Tauros horde, barely beginning their assault, followed their leader without protest, obeying the sudden order to retreat.

“That was merely chanting the spell’s name. And now…”

The sound of hooves, that had been swirling from all directions, began to converge. Alter raised his finger towards the concentrated sound and slowly spoke.

“A point. Deficiency. Union and compression.”

*Fsssk…!*

Currents surged around him, the falling raindrops beginning to boil.

“Bolt.”

With a thunderous roar, a sphere of electricity, compressed into a single point, extended from Alter’s wrinkled fingers.

Light.

A light, an immense light that dwarfed the small sphere hovering overhead, embraced the rain-soaked forest. A scorching heat radiated from all directions, the rain turning to mist that settled over the battlefield.

Where Alter’s fingertip had pointed, nothing remained.

“As I explained earlier, reciting an incantation lengthens the casting time of a spell, but the power increases exponentially as a result.”

The pack of Tauros fleeing with their leader at their head, along with the trees densely filling the forest, and even the earth their roots gripped, turned into a handful of ash before the vast amount of electricity.

“Like so.”

I uttered a quiet admiration, gazing at the battlefield where everything had disappeared and the mist filling the void.

I never dreamt that ‘Bolt’ could unleash such power.

‘…If I knew it could be like this, I should have become a Bolt mage.’

A pointless regret flickered through my mind.

Of course, one must not forget that Alter was an Eighth Circle high-level mage, and that the Tauros herd was made up of monsters in their 20s and 30s, far below his level.

Nevertheless, the power of the Bolt he had just demonstrated was enough to captivate me.

“So, by chance, do you know any incantations for Bloom? I understand that spells are something you have to develop yourself, but still, I think referencing them would help with development.”

If I use an incantation when using Bloom, its power would be much stronger. I stared at Alter with sparkling eyes, seeing an opportunity for a power-up I hadn’t even considered.

“I am sorry, but Bloom is a spell that has been largely abandoned by the mages of our school for quite some time. By searching through ancient texts, you may be able to find out what incantations our predecessors recited, but…”

Alter, smoothing down his static-charged beard, continued to speak.

For him, that earlier horde of Tauros seemed less than a light snack.

“As you know, it’s best to develop spells yourself. Not all humans possess the same thought processes and computational structures, you see. Perhaps, not being influenced by another’s spells is an advantage. The very spell I just cast, I developed it myself when I was twenty-one…”

“Ha…!”

“We’ve been running around with mages too good for their own good, it seems.”

“A completely effortless expedition, from start to finish.”

“They’re all dead, right?”

“Who could survive a spell like that? No need to confirm, utter annihilation.”

Behind Alter, who was still explaining, bursts of hollow laughter erupted from the soldiers.

And rightfully so. The sheer power of the magic Alter had just displayed was beyond all common sense.

The sight of the Tauros horde utterly vanishing from existence with just a few simple words, the earth splitting, and the rain turning to mist, would forever be etched in their memories.

“…Unbelievable.”

The squad leader, too, stared blankly at the spot where Alter’s bolt had struck, wearing a similar expression to his men. He soon issued another order for rest, and the soldiers, as soon as the command was given, immediately dropped their swords and began removing their armor.

“…What are you doing? Are you all leaving work too early? Safety isn’t entirely secured yet, is it?”

Then, Alter Heindel, the 8th Circle high-ranking mage who had brought silence to the battlefield, spoke with a bewildered look to the soldiers who were removing their armor and starting to return to the barracks.

Relaxation and carelessness.

Normally, well-trained elite soldiers wouldn’t wrap up a battle so casually. Normally, they would have scouted the surroundings for any monsters the mage had missed, and secured the area completely.

But they didn’t.

Having witnessed such an absurd and powerful strike, they jumped to the hasty conclusion that all threats were eliminated.

And that was when it happened.

Clop.

It was the faint sound of hooves cutting through the rain that reached him.

“…Huh.”

The Tauros Chieftain had surely been reduced to white ash by Alter’s Bolt.

Alter’s fingers had been aimed squarely at the Chieftain’s back, after all.

That much was a definite outcome.

And the majority of Tauros summoned by that Chieftain would have met the same end, electrocuted by the immense lightning conjured by the Bolt.

But could it truly be that amongst so many monsters, not a single survivor existed?

Even if that ‘Bolt’ had been blindingly beautiful and intense.

Bolts were fundamentally spells designed for one-on-one situations.

Believing that even the most powerful could annihilate over 600 monsters in just three shots, leaving not a single one alive…

…bordered on wishful thinking.

“Manifest.”

As his thoughts reached that point, his mouth reacted on its own. Amber-crimson dust erupted through his skin, quickly forming the shape of a crystal near his shoulder blades.

Clop.

The faint sound of hooves echoed once more.

It was a tiny, almost imperceptible sound, so much so that he could almost delude himself into believing he was just hearing things, a product of overstimulated nerves.

Clop.

Clop!

That faint sound of hooves began to grow clearer and clearer.

“……!”

Only then did the Squad Leader seem to fully regain his senses, drawing the blade at his hip and rushing towards us.

“What are you all doing! The Chieftain is dead! Prepare for a counterattack!”

The Chieftain, in his dying breath, had commanded his subordinates to ‘retreat.’

But Alter’s bolt reduced the Chieftain to ash, and the colossal throng was left without its commander.

The monsters, now deprived of their leader, reverted into creatures driven purely by instinct. The ‘instinct’ that had been suppressed by ‘command’ now seized control of their bodies.

Their instinct always screamed at them to bare their fangs and lunge at humans.

Regardless of how strong the human might be, how skilled a mage, or how devastating a blow they might have previously delivered.

For the word ‘fear’ simply did not exist in the monsters’ lexicon.

Whoosh!

As if to prove my apprehension, the immense body of a Tauros crashed through the burning trees, revealing itself.

Unfortunately, most of the soldiers were returning to their barracks, in the process of removing their armor, and the formation was in disarray.

Nothing stood between that monster and our mages.

The creature, its entire body charred black, looked as though it were on the verge of collapse.

But seemingly oblivious to pain, the monster, with thundering hooves, charged straight for where Lir and I stood.

Seeing this, the infantry belatedly began sprinting towards us.

However, no matter how fast they ran, they could not match the speed of a Tauros, a creature with the lower body of a horse.

It was instantaneous.

The time it took for the Tauros to burst from the forest and thrust its blackened spearhead towards us.

The Tauros was targeting Lir.

Monsters without a leader chose their prey with utter randomness. It was simply Lir’s bad luck that she, alone, became the target of the last Tauros.

“…!”

Lir swiftly raised her palm, gathering electricity in her hand.

An elven-swift reaction, but the time it took for the mana within her to transform into current, for that current to reshape into magic and unleash its power, was far too short.

The giant monster’s spear was already at her throat.

In the eyes of Lir, the twenty-one-year-old prodigy mage who had reached the 4th Circle, the word “death” was etched that very moment.

*Click!*

The sound of gears meshing echoed from the ochre crystal sphere hovering above my shoulder.