The first thing to greet the monsters bursting through the door was Sairun’s arrow.
Shweeeek—thwack!
Keheng!
The arrow, loosed at close range, struck true, and the dog-headed chimera at the front toppled over on the spot.
A mixture of blood and saliva splattered across the floor, and the monster’s body twitched once as if convulsing.
“One.”
Sairun, hidden behind a desk, muttered briefly, and Baldik immediately rushed forward.
“Two left!”
Baldik shouted shortly as he charged ahead.
Blocking his path was a monster with a pig’s head, its body looking twice Baldik’s size.
Grrrkkk…
The monster exhaled a low, heavy breath, then hurled itself straight at him.
As that massive bulk came barreling in like a gale, Baldik instinctively knew he couldn’t withstand it head-on.
Thud!
Rolling to the side as if falling, Baldik dodged and planted a hand on the floor, gasping for breath.
His clothes were torn, and blood showed on the hand splattered with mud.
“Hah… what stupid strength.”
Without even a moment to catch his breath, the monster came crashing at him again.
This time, it raised one foreleg high, preparing to bring it down and crush him.
Bang!
Baldik lowered his body and slipped into the opening.
Clutching a short dagger, he aimed for the monster’s flank.
Shweck!
The blade scraped across the monster’s hide, barely slicing through the flesh.
Blood burst out, but the wound wasn’t deep.
“It won’t go in? You crazy bastard…!”
Baldik gritted his teeth and drew a second knife from his waist.
With his left hand, he seized the monster’s fur, and with his right, he drove the dagger down.
Thuk!
This time, near the tendon in its leg.
The monster’s hind leg buckled sharply, and its entire body swayed.
Not missing the opening, Baldik leapt to the side.
Shweeeek—thwack!
Sairun’s arrow, timed perfectly, pierced the monster’s shoulder.
Unable to keep its balance, the monster finally sank to one knee.
“Now!”
Baldik charged forward almost as if crawling along the ground, attempting one final strike at its neck.
The dog-headed chimera that had fallen began slowly rising to its feet, the arrow still embedded in its head.
The pig chimera was the same. Though it could no longer use its leg, it once again shrieked and thrashed.
“…Shit.”
“So that’s not enough to kill them…”
Just as Sairun gritted his teeth and reached for another arrow—
Thud… thud… thud…
Beyond the barricade, through the gap in the door, the shadow of something enormous fell across the room.
At first, it seemed as if the wall itself was collapsing.
That was how huge it was.
Its body was larger than the doorway, so it had to bend at the waist and force its upper body down.
In that grotesquely bent posture, the monster was pushing only its “face” through the gap.
Pruuurr—
It was a horse-headed chimera.
Long horns, stretched out like a goat’s, lay back from its head, and in both hands it gripped a bloodstained rusty axe.
Over the scars on its shoulders ran stitch marks, as if someone had sewn it together, and bloody foam flowed endlessly from the corners of its mouth.
“In… sane…”
“…That’s a real monster.”
Like the other monsters, this one also had a humanoid body that walked on two legs.
But what stood out at a glance was its greenish skin and its massive frame, impossible to see as human.
Its arms, its legs—thick and misshapen, as if carved out of logs.
The moment I saw it, I knew.
Ah. That’s the bastard that smashed the door.
Ping—
Shweeeek—thwack!
Before anyone could even come to their senses, Sairun drew his bow first.
His arrow lodged precisely into the green-skinned, horse-headed monster.
The arrow embedded in its thick nape trembled and quivered, but—
Thud… thud… thud…
As if bitten by a mosquito, the monster walked in without the slightest concern, one step, then another.
Sairun’s brows slowly sank.
“…It’s not working at all.”
Crack, craaack!
The monster, wedged tightly in the narrow gap of the door, finally began to twist its body.
The doorframe creaked and spread apart, and it slowly forced its way inside, cramming in its shoulders and elbows.
Chunks of flesh were torn off by the door, and fluid seeped from between the stitches, but the creature paid it no mind.
It forced that enormous body into the room like an encroaching pressure.
In the meantime, Sairun fired without pause.
Ping! Thwack! Ping! Thwack!
The arrows struck true into the monster’s shoulder, neck, even near its face, but the monster did not so much as turn its head.
Between the arrowheads quivering where they were embedded, the flesh slowly split open and blood dripped down.
“Die, die already!”
Sairun shouted in a voice thick with fury and drew yet another arrow.
Even as Sairun gritted his teeth and pulled out the next arrow, the monster advanced, staring into the room with expressionless eyes—no, with eyes that seemed to contain no emotion whatsoever.
Craash! Thud!
And at last, the doorframe shattered.
Splintered pieces of wood flew in every direction, and through them, the monster’s huge foot took its first step into the inn.
The horse-headed monster was no longer beyond the door. It now stood right before their eyes.
From the beginning, its presence was oppressively different.
Especially the sight of arrows embedded in clusters all over its head heightened its grotesqueness and unreality even further.
Dried blood clung to each arrowhead trembling between the flesh, and bloody foam still dribbled from the corners of its mouth.
Someone swallowed their breath.
“……”
“Hhk…”
No one dared continue speaking. No one even breathed properly.
Holding their breaths, everyone watched the monster walk.
The monster staggered slowly inside on creaking joints.
Thud… thud…
Every time that massive body took a step, the wooden floor groaned.
Then another being entered its field of vision first.
Woof! Woof!
It was the dog-headed chimera that still hadn’t managed to get out of the way.
It was wandering about in front of the door, tilting its head.
At that, the horse-headed monster raised its arm without the slightest hesitation.
In its hand was a rusty axe.
Whooong—slice!
It happened in an instant.
The axe cut through the air, and the dog-headed chimera’s upper body was sliced clean through, rolling limply to the floor.
A spray of blood splashed against the wall, and the remaining lower half collapsed with a thud.
Thud… thud… crunch!
Kweeeeeek!!
With its massive frame, it strode in and simply stepped on the pig chimera thrashing in front of it, crushing it.
Blood and innards burst out and spread across the floor, and a bizarre scream escaped from the flattened lump of flesh.
To that thing, there were no allies or anything of the sort.
What it saw before its eyes was merely an “obstacle.”
The enemy’s numbers had decreased, which should have been good news for us, but not a single person felt relieved while staring at the approaching bulk.
“…This is impossible.”
“No. That’s not just a monster.”
“Even arrows didn’t work! How are we supposed to stop—”
In an instant, fear began to spread through the inn.
Even the merchant who had kept his mouth shut pressed his back to the wall and curled up tightly.
Some slowly backed away, wanting to flee somewhere, while others tried to pick up weapons from the floor with trembling hands.
Confusion and terror mingled, and the interior became chaos in a single moment.
The monster, watching it all with both arms hanging slack, only then slowly raised its head.
The horse’s head, tilted to one side, moved with a cracking sound, and a breath mixed with bloody foam dropped from the tip of its nose.
Its bloodshot red eyes swept over each person in the room.
Those eyes were like a butcher’s, choosing whom to kill first.
The monster’s shoulders slowly rose and fell.
With the sound of stiff joints creaking loose, that enormous body leaned one step forward.
The pressure slicing through the air changed.
For an instant, the entire room seemed to harden in silence and electric tension.
Thud… thud…
Just as the monster was about to fall upon the group—
“Duck!”
I shouted shortly, and at the same time flicked out two Water Bombs I had already gathered to their absolute limit.
The blue spheres shot from the tip of my staff, curving through the air and flying straight toward the monster’s head.
Shoooaaak! Bang! Bang!!
In an instant, the two Water Bombs exploded against the monster’s head.
The compressed water pressure burst out at once and smashed into the monster’s skull, and the arrows embedded in its head were forced out from the inside, flying off and shattering the wall.
Blood and bone fragments scattered everywhere, and the enormous body lurched backward, then—
Boom—!!
With an impact that sounded as if it would bring down the inn wall, the monster was hurled back.
Part of the wall collapsed from the shock, exposing the outside.
Shaaaaaa—
Beyond the collapsed opening, cold night rain was pouring down.
Under the black sky, a muddy alley splashed with filth showed faintly, and the rain, falling quietly without even lightning, streamed thinly through the darkness.
Wind seeped into the room, and the damp air clung to the skin.
Silence.
“Did… did we do it?”
“It fell… It fell!”
Sairun lowered his bow slightly, and Baldik sank down as if collapsing, gasping for breath.
The merchant, who had been frozen as if unconscious, cautiously raised his head.
“We… we got it…?”
I said nothing.
Without lowering my staff, I stared quietly at the monster lying beneath the collapsed wall.
Amid the cold rain pouring down, steam rose in wisps from the monster’s warm body.
Not yet.
With that size, those unresponsive eyes… There’s no way that was enough to end it.
“Now we can finally breathe—”
Tat!
Before the words were even finished, something crawling across the floor sprang toward Baldik.
It was the dog-headed chimera, thought to be dead.
Woof!
With only its blood-soaked upper body remaining, it flailed its arms like a beast and lunged at Baldik’s nape with sharp fangs, as if wringing out the last of its strength.
“Uh—!”
“Baldik!!”
It was that moment.
Clink.
A thin metallic sound cut across the floor.
Charrrr! Clatter!
A chain that flew through the blood wrapped precisely around the arm of the monster leaping through the air.
Whoooosh! Crash!
The next instant, pulled with all the strength of someone behind it, the monster was slammed straight down from midair to the ground.
The monster struck its head on the floor and was dazed for a moment, and Baldik did not miss the opening as he threw himself forward.
“You bastard—!”
Thuk, thuk!
The short blade in his hand stabbed deep under the monster’s jaw.
After two or three powerful thrusts, the monster’s body trembled, then slowly lost strength and went limp.
“Haaah… haaah…”
Baldik, panting, looked back blankly.
There was only one person standing there.
“…”
The merchant’s servant.
The loosened chain slithered softly back along his wrist, like a snake returning to its nest.
It crawled up over his skin as if gliding, wrapped itself tightly, and then quietly stopped.
The servant looked down at his own left arm, hanging slack.
The arm was trembling faintly, dangling weakly as if unable to bear its own weight.
The servant quietly lowered his head and returned to the merchant’s side, standing there once more.
In those brief few seconds, no one said a word. No one made a sound.
Baldik gasped for breath and wiped the sweat-soaked forehead.
“…What is that man…?”
Sairun muttered.
But the servant gave no answer.
He simply let his left arm hang quietly and stood there again like a shadow.
‘If he has that kind of ability, why doesn’t he step forward?’
Before the tension could even fade—
Squelch.
With a bizarre sound like something stepping in mud, something large stirred beyond the collapsed wall.
…It was the monster.
Pushing aside the debris, the mass of crushed flesh slowly rose.
Among the fallen wreckage, that enormous frame revealed itself once more.
“That’s…”
Baldik muttered low.
On the shoulder where flesh hung in tatters, there was no longer anything left that could be called a “head.”
The skull had shattered into pieces and vanished, and what remained there was only crushed muscle and part of a split jaw dangling loose.
Only that distorted lump of flesh proved that a head had once existed there.
“……It’s getting up in that state?”
Sailun took an involuntary step backward.
The monster’s body was already halfway out of the inn.
Caught in the gap of the collapsed wall, its body had stopped there, only its upper half slowly raised upright.
But the monster that had lost its head no longer even had a sense of direction.
With its sight gone, it began groping toward empty air with both arms.
Squelch... squelch...
The heavy, rain-soaked mass of flesh writhed wetly in the downpour.
Its arms flailed this way and that through the air, and its body, dragging debris as it stumbled blindly, swayed as if it might collapse at any moment.
“Its sight... is completely gone. It can’t see anything.”
I murmured quietly.
Even so, the staff still did not leave my fingertips.
Shaaaaa—
The fallen monster staggered and barely managed to pull itself up, then stood there for a while, simply letting the rain pour down over it.
The sight was slow and eerie, like a giant that had yet to open its eyes.
Crack— Thud!
Part of the outer wall the monster had brought down when it fell could no longer resist gravity and caved in, the delayed shower of debris crashing into the mud.
Swoosh.
The monster’s headless upper body slowly turned toward it.
Despite having no head, it was as if it were “looking” at something.
Its enormous frame began to move sluggishly in the direction of the sound.
Thud... thud... Whoosh! Kwa-gwagwagwak!
The axe cleaved through empty air, and at the end of its arc, another remaining section of the inn’s outer wall collapsed.
Like a broken doll, the monster had no idea what it was attacking.
It simply reacted to the sounds and sensations it picked up, beginning to rampage as it smashed everything around it indiscriminately.
Kwaang! Kwaaang!
The axe split the rain.
Broken wood and mud flew up, then splashed back down into the mire.
Unable to see anything, the monster was swinging its body blindly.
“If we leave it like that... it’ll come crashing our way soon.”
Baldik said in a low voice.
He had already taken two steps back, gritting his teeth as he tightened his grip on the arrow in his hand.
But even the water bomb from moments ago had only managed to “knock it out.”
“Damn it, at this rate all our luggage is going to be blown away too.”
Baldik pressed a hand to his forehead and slowly rose.
Despite his body being heavy with exhaustion, he picked up his sword again.
“......We need bait.”
I spoke in a low voice.
At those words, Sailun and Baldik both turned their gazes toward me at the same time.
“It definitely reacted earlier when the building collapsed. If it moved even for a sound of that level, that means it’s relying on sound.”
The monster’s head had already been crushed and disappeared, and from the outside, it had no normal sensory organs remaining.
And yet, if it had reacted to the sound of the building collapsing...
“Then we should be able to lure it.”
“You’re saying we draw it away?”
“Who’s going to be the bait?”
Baldik’s gaze and mine very naturally shifted toward one single person.
“M-Me?”
Sailun asked back with a blank expression.
His face stiffened in an instant, and he took a step back.
“You want me to be the bait? Are you out of your mind right—”
I didn’t listen to the rest.
“Go.”
With that short word, I shoved Sailun by the shoulder.
“Uh, uhhh—! Hey, wait—!”
Just as Sailun lost his balance and was about to be flung forward, I angled my staff to the side.
Shwaaaak— Kwaang!!
A small water bomb burst in the muddy ground right beside Sailun.
The explosive water pressure, the spray, the brief vibration.
The monster’s twisted body flinched to a stop for an instant.
Whip.
Its headless upper body snapped around toward Sailun.
The axe in its hand lifted toward the air.
Sailun’s face turned deathly pale, and he froze on the spot.
“...You crazy bastard, have you seriously lost your mind—!”
“Sailun, behind you!”
“You insaaaaaane bastard!!”
As Sailun screamed and turned to run, the monster began chasing after him like mad.