Originally, running several kilometers across the swamp would have been an arduous, exhausting task.
But with the help of magic, I was able to run far faster than I could on flat ground.
Skimming over the lightly frozen water, I reached the ruins in no time.
A half-ruined building abandoned in the middle of the swamp.
The area in front of the warehouse ruins was no longer as quiet as before.
Boom! Rat-tat, bang!
Figures staggered through the swamp, bullets flew toward them, and limbs were blown away amid explosions.
A battle was taking place before the ruins.
It was a battle of bullets and grenades cutting through the air, something I had never seen on this planet.
Bang, bang.
Each time a gun fired, a person walking through the swamp collapsed.
Boom! Boom! Kaboom!
When a grenade landed in the swamp, mud and limbs were sent flying together.
What fell to the guns and was blown away by the grenades were not people. They were humanoid monsters.
No, those things were different from the humanoid monsters I knew.
They looked like mud dolls that had been rolling around in the muck for days.
The way they moved was strange, too.
Before, they had at least moved like people, but now they were like zombies from a movie.
“It’s hard to believe, but they look like the ones we saw before.”
They felt different to my senses, but by appearance, they were definitely the ones I had seen before.
I had seen the one with its arm cut off, and the one crawling with its legs severed.
I had cut off that arm and those legs myself.
The ones walking like zombies over there were the ones I had struck down here before.
[Those are indeed the ones you killed. They’re being moved by magic.]
Only after hearing Soph’s words was I able to collect myself from the shock.
“You can move corpses with magic?”
[Moving the dead is forbidden magic.]
There was no way those monsters would refuse to use forbidden magic.
Looking at the monsters approaching like zombies, I reflected on what I had done so carelessly before.
I had never imagined leaving the corpses behind would come back like this.
Fortunately, the monsters did not seem able to move the way they had when alive.
The revived humanoid monsters walked toward an earth wall a little ways from the ruins, only to keep falling under the bullets and grenades pouring from behind it.
That earth wall the monsters were trying to approach was one I had made not long ago.
The team members were behind it.
Sergeant Woo, Tom, and even Margreta.
Sergeant Woo and Tom were firing their guns and grenade launchers with all their might, while Margreta held her whip and watched the ruins.
When I arrived behind them, Margreta, who had been watching the ruins, shouted.
“The one inside the ruins looks like it’s about to use magic!”
At her words, Tom swung his grenade launcher around.
“Again? You think I’m going to miss that?”
Tom aimed at the ruins and pulled the trigger.
Thump!
A grenade flew in an arc.
Boom!
The grenade struck the wall of the ruins and exploded.
The wall of the ruins, which had endured for tens of thousands of years, withstood Earth’s grenade.
Along with the flames, the wall was scorched black.
There were other scorched spots on the wall as well.
After the first spell, every time the monster tried to cast magic outward, the team members had stopped it by firing bullets and grenades.
When I reached the earth wall, I first told the team members they had done well.
“You’ve worked hard. You held them off well.”
At my words, Sergeant Woo and Tom shook their heads.
“It wasn’t particularly difficult.”
“As expected, Earthlings should use Earth-made weapons.”
Perhaps because it had been a while since both of them had held firearms, their expressions were bright.
Margreta also waved at me when she saw me.
“I enjoyed the fireworks.”
“You all worked hard too. It would’ve been trouble if the magic had kept coming.”
The operation in which I ran to the main unit to inform them of the situation while the team members remained here to obstruct the monster’s attacks had gone well so far.
“Is the main unit all right?”
“There will probably be casualties, but it looked like they could take down the scout monsters on their own.”
“...Then that’s fine.”
Even at the mention of casualties, Margreta nodded.
She, too, believed people needed a shock if they were going to realize reality.
Besides, we could not afford to help them right now.
It was more important to deal with the monster hiding inside those ruins.
Even now, I had no time to talk further with Margreta.
Margreta tightened her grip on the whip.
The end of the whip she held was not here.
The other end of the whip had slipped around the side of the earth wall, moved like a snake through the muddy swamp water, and entered through a broken window in the ruins.
Even before Soph had bestowed new magic on the whip, she had grown considerably.
Just as Hanna’s ability to see light had been strengthened, Margreta’s ability to handle her whip had grown stronger by the day.
She had gone beyond wielding the whip as if it were part of her own body and had become able to obtain information about her surroundings through it.
Even now, she was grasping the situation inside the ruins through the vibrations of the whip.
“Its movements have changed. I think it’s preparing something else.”
At her words, I looked toward the ruins.
The monster was not visible.
But even if I could not see it, it was surely doing something.
The Akzar monsters were not beasts that charged in without thought.
“Since it’s been interrupted continuously, it must be looking for another way.”
As I spoke to her, I examined the ruins with my senses.
Contrary to my expectations, I could not sense the monster inside the ruins.
When I frowned, Soph spoke.
[It’s because of the magic I mentioned before, the one that hides the body. It seems even your sensory ability can’t do anything about it.]
Soph had also said he had failed to notice the monster because of that magic.
If so, there was nothing strange about my being unable to find the monster with my senses.
I had received a great deal of help from my extrasensory perception, but I did not think this sense would always work.
Nor had I ever thought my senses were more impressive than Soph’s magic.
However, my senses were not magic.
Unlike magic, which only produced one of two outcomes—finding an enemy or failing to find one—this sense could detect something off even from a hidden enemy.
An artificial roughness different from the natural flow of the surroundings.
I was able to catch hold of that sensation inside the warehouse ruins.
As Margreta had said, the creature was standing at one side of the ruins, drawing something on the floor.
[If it’s drawing a magic circle, you must stop it before it’s completed!]
Even without Soph telling me, I had to bring it down.
I took an ammunition can and a grenade box out of the crate, set them on the ground, and said to the team members,
“Please provide support.”
There were still humanoid monsters crawling through the swamp in their shattered states, but those monsters were no longer a threat.
Seeing Tom and Sergeant Woo raise their thumbs, and Margreta nod, I leapt out from behind the earth wall.
Rat-tat-tat-tat!
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Sergeant Woo fired in bursts toward the ruins, and Tom kept shooting his grenade launcher.
Bullets ricocheted off the wall, and exploding grenades covered the ruins’ wall in smoke.
I charged out like lightning.
Passing beside the floundering zombie monsters, leaving not even a footprint in the swamp, I arrived in front of the ruins.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.
Bullets flew past on both sides.
Boom!
A grenade exploded nearby.
The support was more thrilling than I had expected, and goosebumps rose on my skin.
Swoosh!
I pierced through the smoke and entered the ruins.
The inside of the ruins was not much different from before.
There was a magic circle almost fully drawn on the floor, but other than that, nothing had changed.
When I looked toward the place where I felt the sense of incongruity, I saw a white fossil.
It was the scout fossil I had seen before.
The monster was nowhere to be seen.
Only a part of the fossil wavered slightly, as if there were something in my eyes.
I was startled.
I had heard about it from Soph, but I had not expected it to be completely invisible.
That monster was not as good as Soph, but it was a far superior mage to me, who could only barely hide my body by using the terrain.
But I had no worries. I had my extrasensory perception.
I threw my spear toward the place where I felt the incongruity.
Shwaaak!
The spear flew accurately toward the monster.
But the monster dodged it.
Whether it had used magic or not, I lost track of the monster’s movement even with my senses.
Thud.
The spear embedded itself in the fossil.
I tried to raise my hand to call the spear back, but Soph spoke first.
[Hurry! It’s trying to complete the magic circle!]
The monster was already in the center of the lobby.
Though I could not see it, it stood there in a wavering form, trying to complete the magic circle.
Startled, I tried to run toward the monster, but something reached it before me.
Swish, swish, swish.
A snake—no, the whip—was winding around the monster’s legs and climbing upward.
Though the monster itself could not be seen, the whip wrapped around something and rose like a snake.
The monster immediately tried to shake off the whip, but Margreta was faster.
Crackle!
Electric current flowed through the whip.
Sparks burst across the transparent body.
The monster flailed and tore the whip away, but it was too late.
The magic had been broken. The monster’s body began to appear.
I had heard about it from Soph, but the monster’s appearance was horrific.
A black body covered in tentacles; the monster’s body looked like a smaller version of the scout monster.
Right now, the monster was using its tentacles like legs.
A human upper body was attached to the monster’s torso.
No, a humanoid monster was attached to it.
It was a humanoid monster that looked like a mage.
It was like looking at a giant black spider whose upper body was a human mage.
Had I not known, I might have been shocked, but even after seeing the monster’s appearance, I was able to keep moving.
The monster tried once more to complete the magic circle, but I reached its front first.
I thrust out my fist.
My fist, wreathed in flames, struck the monster’s body.
Thud!
The monster staggered backward. It seemed startled by the unexpected attack.
I kept attacking.
Clinging close to the monster, I moved rapidly and continued pounding its body.
I froze its tentacles and burst the monster’s body apart.
I kept attacking in the same way I had when I brought down the scout monster, but the monster did not fall.
That was because this monster was a mage.
The monster neutralized all my magic.
My heat magic cooled before it could boil the monster’s blood, and scattered before it could freeze the tentacles.
It was different from what I had expected. It was a mistake born of never having fought a monster that used magic before.
But I did not stop attacking.
The opponent, too, was facing an unfamiliar enemy.
The monster also seemed to have never imagined it would fight an enemy who used magic with his fists.
The damage was not great, but it, too, kept panicking and dodging every time I attacked.
Boom! Kaboom!
The monster and I continued exchanging offense and defense.
A monster mage and a close-combat mage continued the fight with tentacles and fists.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
As time passed, the monster grew accustomed to my attacks.
Dodging my strikes, the monster began preparing magic.
The arms of its upper body moved, and a magic circle was formed.
I, too, had grown better at dealing with its tentacles, but I had no way to attack the monster.
If not for Soph, that is.
[Good work. It’s done.]
Soph’s voice came from the spear embedded in the fossil.
At the same time, light began to flow from the magic circle drawn on the floor.
The magic circle had begun to activate.
The reason Soph had been quiet all this time was that he had been taking over the magic circle the monster had created.
While I fought, Soph seized control of the magic circle and modified it.
[It stole this quite well. Since it stole human magic, modifying it was easy. I’ve changed the target, so let the one who made it feel its power firsthand.]
Along with Soph’s words, light burst from the magic circle.
The spell was cast.
Great Magic War (2)