#217
Lycanthrope (2)
These were bastards who carried out schemes on this scale.
Naturally, their strike force couldn’t be limited to this one group.
There might be even more of them spread throughout the Elven Kingdom, or perhaps all across the continent.
‘I don’t have the capacity to handle the entire continent, but…’
Maybe he could at least deal with the ones within the Elven Kingdom’s territory before they made their move.
Originally, he had intended to report the anomaly and return immediately, but he had changed his mind.
[This is Harris. In the northern mountains of the Elven Kingdom, I discovered a pack of lycanthropes in the process of creating an Abyssal Rift…]
After finishing cleanup at the scene, he focused his mind and conveyed the situation here to the other high elves through the “Star’s Observer.”
[…Additional problems may arise because of this, so I will continue searching the outskirts.]
While lying sprawled on Pascal’s air bed, now that he had become a highest-grade spirit, and moving wherever his senses led him.
[Whew… Thank you for your hard work. We’ll have to declare a state of emergency immediately and strengthen our defenses. Just in case, I’ll contact the neighboring countries as well.]
Along with the elf queen’s troubled sigh after receiving the message, the high elves connected to the World Tree network in Drasha each began adding a word or two.
[Hahaha! To be honest, I thought you’d just kill time somewhere and come back, but to think you’d take the initiative like this. As expected, when you do something, you do it properly! This is reassuring.]
[Lord Horut? No matter how much of an elder you are, even if you have retired, Lord Harris is also one chosen by the World Tree. Please use honorifics.]
[…Ahem. Um, then should we also go out and search the outskirts?]
Though in the end, including the queen and Cecily, there were only four of them.
[For this to happen while three of you are away, of all times… More than anything else, the World Tree’s safety comes first. We cannot rashly leave this place. Let us entrust the additional search of the outskirts to others.]
The current number of high elves belonging to the Elven Kingdom was eight in total.
Until Cecily and Harris had opened their eyes, there had been only six, and even among them, one had already retired from external affairs.
On top of that, not only Lafori and Lydia, but one more had left for the Ion Continent because of the temple construction, so they did not have much manpower remaining.
‘We were caught off guard because we let our guard down, thinking the Enamel Continent was safe.’
Of course, that did not mean it was such a grave problem.
Even excluding the four high elves in Drasha, the Elven Kingdom did not lack powerful individuals.
Even if the gap in potential could not be helped, ordinary elves who had not become high elves could grow as strong as they wished through individual training.
“Hwaaam—.”
Afterward, having finished coordinating opinions through the World Tree network and cut the connection, Harris sank into the air bed.
A soft, comfortable, and fast personal means of transport.
Feeling the gentle wind wrap around his entire body, he quietly closed his eyes.
‘Then, shall I start searching again…’
Solving the problem right in front of him, receiving support from the World Tree, and earning prestige in elven society.
At this level, it wasn’t such a bad trip abroad.
…Though, as expected, it was rather terribly bothersome.
***
Crunch— crunch—
Harley, who had been diligently chewing and swallowing whatever had entered his mouth, nodded in satisfaction.
Genetic information that felt unfamiliar to his body and yet somehow familiar, and extremely satisfying, was being engraved into him.
‘Is it because there was a general-class one mixed in? I haven’t had much chance to come across anything useful lately, but this is better than I expected! It’s extremely compatible with me.’
The lycanthrope crystals Harris had sent him.
Unlike other heterogeneous races, they were half monsters, so inside their hearts were crystals similar to magic stones…
And those crystals did not stop at raising his physical abilities and skills such as “Body Mutation.” They were engraving something beyond that into each and every one of Harley’s cells.
‘Maybe it’s because they’re similar to me. It feels kind of ticklish. …And I think I also understand what I’ve been lacking until now.’
A being that was half monster, that grew by eating the hearts of its prey, and that possessed not only extreme physical abilities but also the power of mutation.
Lycanthropes were a race with many things in common with him.
‘No matter who looks at it, I seem like the superior version.’
It certainly wasn’t wrong.
Except for the fact he had only realized after facing a wall for quite some time… that there was a limit he could never cross.
That was precisely why, despite stealing the genetic information of all sorts of monsters including dragons, and despite slaughtering countless giants and filling his belly with madness, he had stagnated and been unable to progress further.
Unlike ordinary beings, he was a chimera Hans had created based on the research materials of various scholars.
As a living creature, he had a fatal design flaw.
Unlike lycanthropes, a race made through the direct intervention of a “god.”
As long as he could not overcome that…
He could never reach transcendence.
‘Until just now, that is!’
After devouring every last lycanthrope crystal, Harley smacked his lips and chuckled with a vicious grin.
Of course he would.
He had just stolen a glimpse of that “god’s” blueprint, so how could he not laugh?
With this, the final deficiency needed to become more complete, to reach the ultimate, had been filled!
‘Hehehe, at times like this, it’s a meat party!’
While Harley, steeped in satisfaction, was holding his own private celebration with a heap of meat he had taken out…
“As expected… this giant doesn’t seem to be merely a minion of madness.”
At the voice from a little distance away, he slightly turned his head and looked at Saintess Riesta.
It seemed the matter she had been waiting on since earlier had finally ended.
“Since the medium of summoning was madness, it must have had no choice but to come out with only that. As for becoming stronger by absorbing other negative energies… if I had to put it into words, it would be the process of recovering its original power.”
Standing before the giant that had already been subjugated and was crumbling away, she was examining its core from various angles while thickly wrapping her hand in divine power.
“…Haa, when the madness already spread throughout the world is troubling enough. At this rate, there really may be more countries that end up destroyed.”
The concentration of madness already spread across the continent was at a serious level.
Now, if a person was simple-minded and hot-blooded, even a human could be affected by it.
The amount of madness first spread across the continent had a limit, but it entered monsters’ bodies, constantly stimulated its hosts, and slowly increased in size.
That increased madness, even if its host died, merely spread back into the atmosphere or entered the body of a stronger predator. Naturally, the situation could only continue to worsen.
“Hmph! If you’re done looking at it, can I eat it now? If I don’t eat it quickly, that’ll disperse too!”
“…Here you go. But it really is all right, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is! How many do you think I’ve eaten until now? Wahahaha!”
And in the middle of all that, had the variable called Harley, who could directly devour and control madness, not appeared out of nowhere?
Since his existence might perhaps be the key to ending the madness crisis, in the end, despite feeling uneasy, she had no choice but to force herself to accept it.
Just as Riesta was watching him with narrowed eyes as he swiftly tossed the orb into his mouth…
Flinch!
Suddenly sensing something, she turned to look in a certain direction with a startled expression.
…As expected, a large number of giants were rising along the boundary of the abyss.
But…?
“Saintess?”
After remaining frozen for a while, only when Heinrich beside her carefully called to her several times did she come back to her senses and slowly open her mouth.
“Giants have appeared. Quite a lot of them, too. …Five? No… perhaps even more.”
At that matter, more serious than expected, Isea, Zios, and Lydia, who had been resting quietly, looked at her with stiff expressions.
A giant was a calamity capable of making a weak nation stagger with just a single individual.
But if there were five or more such monsters at once, that was a crisis even the empire would have to immediately devote all its forces to.
If they could not hurry and eliminate them before they grew stronger, a country really could be destroyed.
“Saintess! Please share the coordinates of the most vulnerable location first! We need to clean that place up as quickly as possible…!”
Even in such an urgent situation, Riesta remained focused on something, and Isea urged her repeatedly.
Since preparing spatial movement took no small amount of time, they had no room to hesitate if they wanted to move as quickly as possible.
But despite that urging, Riesta quietly shook her head, grasped the holy emblem hanging from her neck, closed her eyes, and spoke with a sigh.
“…This time, I don’t think it will be easy for us to step in. Even for you, Lady Isea, immediately crossing the continent would be difficult, wouldn’t it?”
“Pardon? Well, yes, but… surely?”
“Whew. First, I’ll have to contact the Great Temple and pass on the news through Lord Lafori. Why is something like this happening again…”
White giants had begun appearing on the Enamel Continent, which had remained one step removed from all the turmoil until now.
And from the very beginning, it was a simultaneous invasion by five or more individuals.
If they failed to respond in time, the damage would snowball in an instant.
-Harris: Ah, what in the world is this now…
Unfortunately, because the distance was too great, even Riesta could not know the exact coordinates of their appearance. Still, merely being able to grasp the situation quickly would be of no small help.
And while Harris, who had been flying along the outskirts of the Elven Kingdom, was once again hurriedly spreading the news to the high elves…
“Urgh— My stomach feels awfully bloated.”
Right after swallowing the giant’s core, Harley, somewhat detached from the party’s grave atmosphere, frowned and gently rubbed his stomach.
Of course, since he could chew and digest even steel, it was not truly a problem like indigestion.
“Uuup! Buuuurp—!”
Along with the sound of a loud belch, thick steam billowed from his mouth like smoke from a chimney.
At the same time, an unmistakable change began to occur in him.
Thick steam billowed not only from his mouth and the rest of his seven openings, but also from the pores across his entire body. His body heated bright red like iron in a forge, and the surrounding air instantly grew hot from the scorching heat.
“Huh? Mr. Harley? Why are you suddenly…”
“Wait! Step back!”
《The entity has met the conditions and will grow. The special skills “Beast of Frenzy,” “Mad Dragon’s Heart,” and “Madness Control” combine and evolve into “Tyrant of Madness.”》
It was simply that something that should have happened someday had occurred sooner than expected.
Though he had never imagined that the thing he had chuckled to himself about only moments ago would come back this quickly.
Once the “deficiency” that had existed until now disappeared, the madness that had been unable to surpass its limit and had only been increasing in volume compressed and exceeded a certain concentration.
And at the same time the skills affected by it evolved, his physical abilities rose explosively—
At last, his flesh shattered the wall that had been limiting him and leapt one stage higher.
《The entity has met the conditions and will grow. The special skills “Mutant,” “Body Mutation,” and “Gigantification” combine and evolve into “Ultimate Evolved Lifeform.”》
Harley had no deep contemplation of martial arts, nor profound enlightenment of truth.
What he pursued was solely the contradictory goal of “the endpoint of a living creature” and “infinite evolution.”
《The special skill “Ultimate Evolved Lifeform” absorbs its subordinate abilities “Super Regeneration,” “Monstrous Strength,” and “Hyperesthesia,” and is further strengthened.》
But the information and possibilities of countless living creatures he had tenaciously gathered until now.
The analysis and coordination at the cellular level to use them in the most efficient way.
And the obsession-laden karma he had built up through that entire process…
Were sufficient to “transcend” his flesh beyond its limits.
“Step back! It’s dangerous to approach him now!”
“W-why is he suddenly like that? Maybe there really was something wrong with that giant’s core after all?”
The party hurriedly retreated from Harley, who was sucking in the surrounding energy, including madness, in an instant, and their expressions stiffened.
It was only natural, since from within the thick steam that even their eyes could not pierce through, there came the repeated, gruesome sounds of bones twisting.
Seeing them, Heinrich, who was grasping the internal situation in real time, smiled calmly and reassured his companions.
“No, it isn’t anything like that. That’s simply…”
But before he could finish speaking.
“Kahahahahaha——!”
A thunderous burst of laughter, as if shaking space itself, resounded in all directions.
***
Harley thought.
About the situation he was currently in.
‘Ah! I feel refreshed and good, but I’m also annoyed because I’m hungry! As expected, I should eat something first, right? But…’
Then, suddenly, the imprints engraved on his body entered his sight.
All sorts of mysterious patterns carved over beautiful muscles like works of art.
“Sss, this really doesn’t satisfy me.”
He was the greatest and strongest living creature.
Naturally, everything that expressed him had to be the greatest as well!
‘Come to think of it, what did that old hag say back then? Didn’t she say she’d do something incredible for me?’
He remembered.
If he resolved the issue with the Tribal Alliance, she had promised to engrave the imprint of the Fighting King on him.
But now, various problems had erupted across the entire continent, and at the same time, exchanges with the south had been cut off, so he could not recklessly head there and was in the middle of making separate plans.
When the Order was trying its best to appease them, if the Hero Party ignored that and charged in blindly, it would amount to nothing but declaring a fight.
‘…But why do I have to care about something like that?’
Couldn’t he just smash everything?
In any case, that former Great Chieftain was probably the cause, so if he just took that guy out, wouldn’t the severing of relations and everything else be resolved?
‘Right! Let’s go, right now!’
Admiring himself for being not only strong but also wise, Harley made up his mind and immediately sprang to his feet.
All while chewing on the large chunk of meat in his mouth.
And Heinrich, who was watching him from a short distance away, quietly pressed a hand to his forehead.
“…Saint? Are you all right?”
His companions, relieved to see Harley stand up perfectly fine while chewing meat as usual, spoke to him in puzzlement.
But he had no leisure to answer.
‘Ah, Lord God…’
Quite unintentionally, another lunatic had been added.