#263
The King of Madness (2)
The Steel Citadel, located at the northernmost edge of Aonia County in the Kingdom of Tulke.
This was the kingdom’s foremost fortress, built to stop the demonic beasts that crossed over from the infamous northern mountain range.
Ordinarily, it served as a base for those entering the mountains to gather rare materials or hunt, and also as a reconnaissance outpost that kept track of abnormalities in real time through regular patrols.
Especially after the monsters’ activity had grown fiercer due to the madness incident, and after it had even suffered a large-scale invasion of demonic beasts, additional reinforcements had been sent in, making its defenses no different from an impregnable fortress…
“Gaaah! My leg… my leg!”
“Hah, hah…”
“Move, move! The injured come first!”
Now, that place had become a living hell.
The wounded lay strewn everywhere, groaning in pain, and there were no small number of severed limbs and horribly crushed corpses that had lost their owners.
Rumble—
One section of the wall, which had been reinforced to be higher and sturdier in preparation for the monsters’ rampage, collapsed pitifully, and the scene of destruction continued unbroken all the way into the fortress’s inner city.
“Commander! Are you all right? Hurry, a potion!”
“This way! Bring the commander quickly!”
And the one struck by calamity was none other than the person in charge of overseeing the defense of the Steel Citadel.
The greatest knight of the county, said to be on the verge of reaching the Master level, and the commander of Aonia’s First Knight Order.
Yet the state he was in when pulled out from beneath the rubble of the collapsed wall was so wretched it did not befit his reputation in the slightest.
The middle-aged man, his entire body mangled and one arm lost, received emergency treatment from his subordinates and was swiftly transported for follow-up care.
“Ugh… the bastard…?”
“Ah! Commander, you’re awake?”
In the midst of that.
Perhaps because of the powerful vitality he had trained as a knight, and because he had received emergency treatment with a potion, he regained consciousness along the way and muttered with difficulty.
But as he slowly opened his eyes, he had no choice but to squeeze them shut again at the sight of the chaos around him.
Even without hearing an answer, he could tell how things had unfolded after he had lost consciousness.
‘The white giant…’
He had heard the rumors about that creature well enough.
After all, it was one of the main culprits, alongside the Army of the Undying, that had plunged the entire continent into fear. There was no way he, a knight commander, would not know of it.
‘But it was different from what I’d heard. Its size was far larger, and the seven orifices of its face weren’t sealed. And…’
Above all—its strength was on a level incomparable to what the rumors had described.
He had thought that, if they held out with the walls strengthened by all manner of magical barriers, they would at least be able to buy some time.
It had been a truly absurd delusion.
The walls, built high and thick with giant demonic beasts in mind, only reached the creature’s chest, and neither he, the knight commander, nor the knights under his command had been able to put up any meaningful resistance against it.
‘And it was at that level even though it didn’t look to be in a normal state. Just how much of a monster was it originally?’
The giant had been covered in wounds from the moment it appeared.
Yet the might it displayed had been so overwhelming that he considered it a miracle he was alive right now.
“We have already relayed the situation by express dispatch. Commander, please rest now.”
“Ghh—how pathetic… Not only did we allow that thing to break through, I couldn’t do anything and now I’m lying here like this…”
“That was a disaster. How many people could stop a monster like that in the first place? Unless it’s the famous Saint…”
“…What about the temple?”
“We contacted them immediately as well.”
“…Hoo, please, let the damage not be too great…”
No matter how he thought about it, that thing was not a monster the kingdom could deal with on its own.
In the end, it meant they had no choice but to borrow the Order’s hand.
Now the key was how much damage they could endure before the punitive force led by the Saint arrived.
“O Lord God…”
With those final words, the knight commander, who had been forcing himself to hold on, soon lost consciousness and went limp.
While the Steel Citadel, having suffered such a sudden disaster, was plunged into chaos…
The culprit that had reduced it to that state was moving south at an astonishing speed.
To a place only a single day away, even by carriage.
To Tarak, the great city of the north.
***
Ominous.
Her heart pounded at that thought that suddenly came over her.
A sense of crisis surged up, as though something might happen at any moment, and before she knew it, she was growing restless with anxiety.
“Lady Diana? Are you all right?”
“Ah?”
The girl, Diana, who had been unconsciously biting her fingernail, flinched at the sudden voice and answered while forcing her expression under control.
“…Yes, I’m sorry. Then please handle that matter that way.”
“Yes, understood.”
Forcing herself to focus, she finished giving the rest of her work instructions.
At that, the employees bowed their heads and busily scattered.
“Lady Diana seems to be unwell today.”
“More importantly, the soldiers’ movements have seemed unusual since earlier. Could something have happened…?”
“Come to think of it, I stopped by the wall a little while ago, and even there…”
The merchants chatted among themselves as they went about their respective tasks.
But Diana, who had come out to inspect the warehouse district on the outskirts of the city, was in no state to pay attention to such trivial things.
She took another deep breath and placed one hand over her chest.
Thump— thump— thump—
Her heart was still pounding more violently than ever before, and even her breathing was becoming labored.
Even though nothing in particular had happened just yet.
‘Why am I suddenly like this? This is just like…’
It was similar to when, in the past, she had smelled something “incredibly dangerous” in her hometown of Ajantu.
An object she had kept avoiding for a while, then had later gone searching for for Mister’s sake.
No, in truth, it was even worse than that.
Unlike back then, right now it felt as though her life was being threatened in real time by something that truly existed.
‘The vampire guards Mister assigned to me are definitely hiding nearby, and this warehouse district is packed with mercenaries belonging to our trading company. This is a place where I don’t need to worry about safety… mmph?’
Just as she was frowning and analyzing the cause…
Diana unconsciously clamped a hand over her nose at a certain scent that suddenly struck her.
“Ugh, what is this?”
A smell so dangerous it made her head spin began to throb from every direction.
As a merchant, she had often handled monster byproducts and had grown fairly accustomed to the odors they gave off, but what she sensed now was on an entirely different level from such things.
‘…Where did it suddenly come from?’
Her gaze turned in one direction of its own accord.
The smell was too thick for her to pinpoint the exact location, but she could clearly tell the general direction.
A place quite far even from here on the city outskirts.
Diana’s head turned north.
And only then did she realize one more thing.
Cold sweat beaded on her forehead.
That unidentified smell was…
Gradually.
Approaching at a tremendous speed.
Right toward this very place where she was.
Waaaaaang——
Clang, clang, clang, clang—!
Right on cue, a blaring alarm rang out across the entire city.
It seemed something unusual really was happening after all.
‘Let’s go back first. As quickly as possible.’
At that, she hurriedly began moving while leading the trading company’s people.
Kwaaaaang—!
A sudden impact shook everything around them, and she staggered, only managing to stand upright when a guard caught her.
“What the hell, all of a sudden!”
“The defensive barrier on the wall activated! It’s an external attack!”
“Escort Lady Diana first! Straight to the company headquarters…!”
Shouts erupted everywhere at the sudden abnormality.
It wasn’t only the Hubert Trading Company’s group; everyone else nearby had been thrown into confusion as well.
However, the situation did not end there.
Kooong—! Kwaang—! Kwadeudeuk—!
Along with a series of successive shockwaves…
Stones flying from the direction of the wall collided with the warehouse buildings packed around them, producing thunderous roars.
Rumble—
The outer district was laid to waste.
Buildings collapsed.
And beyond them was—.
“Th-the wall collapsed!”
“W-wait. What… what is that?”
“Uh, that, it’s… no way. A g-giant…?”
A gigantic being that defied perspective, even though it was still a considerable distance away.
A single white giant radiating an overwhelming pressure was staring at this place.
With a grotesque smile on its lips.
“Ah, ah.”
“Uuuh…”
Merchants, workers, mercenaries, soldiers—everyone who met that being’s eyes froze stiffly in place.
Like pitiful lambs before an overwhelming predator.
“Kk-kkeuk-kkeuk, found you—!”
The giant’s words were filled with ecstasy.
And immediately after that.
Kwaaaaang—!
A massive impact engulfed the outskirts of Tarak.
***
Her thoughts kept cutting out.
Her mind was tangled, and she couldn’t continue thinking properly.
What had she been doing?
As usual, she had left home and gone to work at the trading company, eaten lunch, and gone out to inspect the outer warehouses.
Then, while giving work instructions… she had sensed something.
‘Ah! And then…’
An enormous, pure-white giant had appeared.
Everyone had frozen beneath its gaze, and then, shocked by the voice that followed, she had lost consciousness.
And she…
‘What… happened to me…?’
Right after she wondered that.
Only then did Diana become conscious of a certain scent and twitch her nose.
An incredibly warm and familiar fragrance.
Perhaps because of that, her consciousness began to return rapidly, and she snapped her eyes open.
“Ugh!”
At the fierce wind striking her face, she squeezed her eyes shut again and turned her head.
Into the arms of the person holding her.
“Have you come to your senses now?”
Then an extremely familiar voice, calm as ever, flowed into her ear.
“Master? What is going on…”
Calmed in turn by that composed voice, Diana carefully opened her mouth.
Then she gently opened her eyes and slowly looked around—
“Ah?”
And soon, she gaped and blinked repeatedly.
Whooooo—
Grasslands and trees rushed past at a dizzying speed.
They were flying through the sky.
To be precise, Hubert, who was holding Diana in both arms, was cutting through the air at an incredible speed.
While she stared blankly at her surroundings in the sudden situation…
Hubert, who glanced down at her, let out a sigh of relief inwardly.
‘That was quite close. He arrived at Tarak faster than expected.’
Even though he had started preparing and moving the moment the creature disappeared from the boundary, he had nearly been too late.
It had also played a part that, of all times, Diana had gone out on an external inspection just then.
The reason he had been able to quickly retrieve her and flee under such circumstances was all thanks to a single item.
The armor Howard had been in the middle of producing.
The “All-Purpose Full-Body Combat Suit Mk.1 (Prototype).”
Though right now, since it was still incomplete, it was only partial armor made by linking a few parts together.
“Um, Master. That armor is…?”
Diana, who had noticed it at just the right moment, cautiously voiced her question in a bewildered tone.
That was how alien the suit looked compared to ordinary armor.
A smooth and elegant exterior made of an unidentified metal, and complex circuits engraved across its surface.
Light radiating from the core at the heart flowed ceaselessly along the circuits as if running through blood vessels, and that light continued down to the soles of the feet and the back of the waist, where it transformed into fierce flames and was expelled outward.
“It is a magic tool I have been developing recently. It’s still a prototype, but thanks to it, I was able to avoid being too late.”
The current situation was that Hubert, having received the suit through “Avatar Cloud,” had used it to swiftly snatch up Diana, who had been in a hair-trigger situation, and flee.
‘Though I pushed it too hard in the process, and the lifespan of the materials has been shaved down so much that I’ll have to scrap it once this matter is over. …Well, if I think of it as having obtained live combat data, that much is cheap.’
Considering the price of the materials that had gone into it, it was an incredible waste to use it as a disposable item, but there had been no choice if he wanted to escape that giant’s attention, even for a moment.
“Ah! The giant, what happened to the giant?”
Perhaps that thought had just occurred to Diana as well, for she urgently threw out the question.
It seemed her mind was finally starting to settle properly, as life was gradually returning to her eyes.
“Ah, that giant.”
Immediately after Hubert fled with Diana, the creature lost all interest in the city and came straight after them.
Thanks to even overloading the highest-grade magic stone core he had obtained through the Karma Shop, they were able to break away from the giant for a time, but of course, that did not last very long.
The giant, closing in at a terrifying speed, was right behind them in barely a dozen seconds—
“We were lucky. Someone capable of dealing with him happened to be nearby.”
Immediately after, the one who stepped into his path held him back, causing him to lose them once again.
‘Still, you never know. Until this is settled for certain, I need to get Diana as far away as possible.’
Judging by the creature’s reaction, her existence seemed even more important than expected.
That was why Hubert continued flying, despite having gained a brief reprieve.
And at the same time.
The one who had bought them that reprieve was in the midst of a very busy moment.
***
Kwaaaang—!
Another explosion erupted in an area some distance away from Tarak.
“Grrr! What the hell! How are you here? You should have been in the south!”
The giant roared violently, venting his fury.
It was only natural for him to react that way, since one of the people who had ruined his plan was once again holding him back.
“Kahahaha! Now this is extra-large! No way I can let something like this slip by!”
Whether he did or not.
Unbothered by his opponent’s anger, Harley burst into wild laughter and charged at him again.
The reason he could be here was simple.
Did he not possess the 「Hero’s Footprints」, which allowed him to go anywhere he had once traveled?
At first, it had been a perk with a long cooldown and a rather limited range, but thanks to Heinrich continuing to walk the path of a hero, it had now grown to the point where he could go anywhere on the same continent.
‘I was a little late because I had to briefly explain the situation to Misty before coming.’
In any case, the current situation was not all that bad.
Perhaps the damage he had taken in his fight with Hans, as well as the additional strengthening effect in that space, had been greater than expected, because the creature’s momentum was clearly diminished compared to when they had clashed at the boundary of the abyss.
‘Seeing as he didn’t recognize me right away, that authority of his must have weakened too.’
Of course, he could only hold him back for now; no matter how one looked at it, this was not an opponent Harley could defeat on his own.
If things continued like this, he would probably end up losing in the end.
“Kahahaha—! Come on, let’s have some fun!”
“Fine! I’ll kill you first, barbarian!”
But he was not the least bit worried about that.
At that moment.
A Blood Gate (血門) opened at the residence of the vampires dispatched to Tarak.
At the same time, a sacred light poured forth from the temple gate.