Papapat!
The tentacles moved like mad, but Hanna’s arrows struck them every time.
Thuk. Thuk. Thuk.
They were tough tentacles, capable of piercing earth and stone, but the entire tentacle was not equally hard.
The arrows lodged precisely in the middle of the tentacles, and the embedded shafts kept hindering their movement.
Thanks to that, I was able to slip out of danger easily and buy more time.
I didn’t like that Hanna had ignored my orders, but I couldn’t get angry at someone who had saved me.
When I tried to use the electric ability that had suddenly manifested again, it wouldn’t budge.
‘Wasn’t it magic?’
Maybe it hadn’t been magic, but energy that had been strangely transformed.
I’d have to ask Soph about it later.
Snapping myself back to attention, I moved quickly between the clay dolls.
Dodge the tentacles, gouge the wound with my spear.
How many times had I avoided attacks like that?
Bang! Bang!
The arrows that had been flying in stopped.
She had run out of arrows.
Hanna gripped her empty bow and tried to step forward.
Seeing that, I shouted loudly.
“Fall back!”
Even I was barely dodging with the help of my senses and the clay dolls.
There was no way Hanna could avoid the tentacles.
Fortunately, she listened this time.
Hanna bit her lip and stepped back, and I once again burrowed beneath the monster.
I thrust my spear with all my strength toward the wound.
Thuk.
The spear tore through the wound once more.
I frowned as I pulled the spear free.
It wasn’t easy to pull out.
‘Its recovery is no joke, either.’
I could see the wound healing with my own eyes.
It wasn’t regenerating instantly like the clay dolls.
Even so, no living creature should have been able to recover this quickly.
If the wound healed, things would get troublesome.
Without the wound, my spear wouldn’t even sink in.
If that happened, stalling for time would become impossible.
And that wasn’t the only problem.
The pain was getting worse and worse.
It was the aftereffect of receiving enhancement magic one more time.
Once the enhancement magic ended, even if I saw the tentacle coming, I wouldn’t be able to dodge it.
Of course, it wasn’t that simple a problem.
Considering the pain that kept growing, I couldn’t even guess how severe the aftereffects would be when the enhancement magic wore off.
“Ugh.”
And then, the moment I had expected arrived.
The moment when I saw the tentacle and still couldn’t dodge.
‘Move!’
My muscles, stiffened by pain, refused to obey me.
The tentacle came flying like a massive tree trunk.
“Oppa!”
I heard Hanna scream, and just as I was about to explode my energy—
A spear came flying in.
Splat!
The tentacle flying toward me was torn off midway.
Thud.
The spear ripped through the tentacle and embedded itself in front of me.
It was Soph’s staff.
[I was not too late.]
The magician who had appeared by the skin of his teeth showed off right in front of me.
I wanted to retort, but unfortunately, I was in no condition to do so.
I forced my unmoving body to move.
My body barely listened.
But I couldn’t fight like before.
[You held out well. I’ll take it from here.]
A strong light flowed out from the spearhead buried in the ground.
It was the light coming from the black stone.
Even though it was half-buried in the ground, the light was dazzling.
At a glance, I could tell that an immense amount of energy was contained within the black stone.
[It wasn’t easy charging it with energy to the limit. Still, I filled it as much as I could.]
With those words, all the clay dolls collapsed.
Fwaaah!
The tentacles stabbed through empty air, and the earth created as the dolls crumbled gathered in one place.
The place where the earth gathered was where the spear was embedded.
[It’s a shame to use up all this black stone, but if it’s to show you the true Guardian of this facility, then I suppose it can’t be helped.]
Crack!
Along with Soph’s words, the black stone that had been scattering light shattered.
The light flowing out of the broken black stone began to form a pattern on the floor.
Wooooong.
[There are many parts I can’t remember, so it’s a bit patchwork, but even so, this is a properly made golem—a true Guardian!]
Then an incantation that could not be translated continued to pour out.
[#!@!$#$%@#%@]
Along with that incantation, the gathered earth wrapped around the spear and began to take on a single form.
What the earth was creating resembled the giant I had seen before.
As the earth gathered and something began to form, the tentacles rushed in.
Splat! Splat!
The tentacles kept attacking the earth that had begun to take shape.
But the tentacles could not stop the magic from being completed.
The tentacles swung and stabbed wildly, but only the spots they attacked broke apart.
Like the clay dolls restoring themselves, the damaged parts were immediately repaired.
As expected, interrupting a combination sequence only happened in cartoons.
The magician had prepared for it from the start.
At some point, the tentacles’ attacks stopped abruptly.
Because the tentacles were caught in a huge hand.
The one gripping the tentacles was a gigantic knight over four meters tall.
It was not a clay doll or some clay giant.
The giant knight was also wearing armor painted brown, but the material of that armor was definitely not earth.
It was a hard metal I had never seen before.
Kyaaaaaa.
The monster that had only been flinging its tentacles moved its body at the knight’s appearance.
With its tentacles still caught, the monster charged at the giant knight.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The giant knight began to move as well.
The giant knight in brown armor and the black tentacled monster collided in the middle of the lobby.
Kwaaaang!
The instant the two collided, a shock powerful enough to shake the building spread outward.
“Eek!”
Hanna, who had retreated, fell over, and even I had trouble keeping my balance.
The monster and the knight stopped, locked against each other.
They were similar in height, but the monster lying on the ground was several times bulkier than the knight.
But the knight did not take a single step back.
The knight tore off the tentacles in its hand and drove its fist into the monster’s body.
Thud.
The monster’s body caved in.
The wound that had been healing split open, and white blood gushed out.
The monster didn’t stay still either.
More tentacles burst out from its body.
Several tentacles battered the knight.
Slaaash! Crack!
They wrapped around its head, stabbed like spears, and lashed the armor like whips.
The armor broke, and earth poured out from the cracks.
The more earth poured out, the more the knight’s body shrank.
The knight was a Guardian created by shattering the black stone, so it could not recover.
A monster that recovered, however slowly, and a giant knight that could not recover.
At this rate, the giant knight had no choice but to lose.
But the knight did not stop attacking.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Even as its armor broke and earth spilled down, the knight kept swinging its fists.
Kwaang!
In the end, a hole was punched through the monster’s body.
Fwaaaah.
It wasn’t a large hole, but along with white blood, something else flowed out from it.
A powerful flow of energy.
It was the aura of a black stone.
Soph, who was controlling the knight, shouted.
[Now! I can see the black stone!]
I had been waiting for those words.
This was the moment I had endured the pain for.
‘Move!’
Fortunately, this time my muscles obeyed.
I threw myself forward with all my strength.
Papapapak.
Each time I ran, my joints creaked, and each time I moved, it felt as if awls were stabbing through my entire body.
But I could endure it.
I was used to pain. As long as my body could move, I could bear the pain.
The torture I had endured during operations had hurt far more than this.
I ran toward the monster held in the knight’s grip.
Right now, the monster had forgotten about me.
At this moment, with the giant knight creating a wound and prying it open—
This was the only chance.
I passed between the knight’s legs.
Though the knight had shrunk compared to the beginning, it was still not difficult to pass between its legs.
Pushing through the falling cloud of dirt, I hurled myself toward the hole before my eyes.
The hole the knight held open to the very end was a direct tunnel leading to the black stone.
Even a powerful enemy like an Akjar had a weakness.
That was the black stone inside its body.
Having a black stone inside the body was no different between native creatures and Akjar, but there was one difference.
Unlike native creatures, Akjar were completely dependent on their black stones.
The Akjar’s tenacious vitality and immense power all came from the black stone.
That was why the mages of the past had thought of Akjar not as living creatures, but as magical machines.
I didn’t care what kind of existence the Akjar was.
All that mattered was that it had a weakness, and that the weakness could be attacked.
The weakness of this Akjar scout was the black stone.
Everything in our plan until now had been to find the monster’s black stone.
The final piece of the plan was something I had to solve myself.
I continued burrowing into the hole the knight had opened.
This hole was the same one I had been digging into with my spear all along.
On top of that, Soph had widened it, and now I could crawl inside the wound.
I kept pushing toward the place where I could feel the immense energy.
White blood soaked my entire body, and writhing muscles rubbed against me.
Under normal circumstances, the horror of it would have made my skin crawl, but now I had no room to feel such things.
As I endured the pain and burrowed in like a madman, I finally saw the black stone buried in the flesh.
No light entered, but I could make out its shape by the purple light radiating from the black stone.
The black stone before my eyes was both similar to and different from the black stones I had seen so far.
This, too, was a translucent black jewel, but this black stone seemed like a delicately cut gem.
On top of that, purple light was flowing out of it.
It was exceptionally beautiful, but my admiration for the black stone’s appearance lasted only a moment.
I seized the black stone with both hands.
Fortunately, the black stone was small enough to fit between my hands.
Now all I had to do was pull it out.
I pulled with all my strength.
Tug.
The black stone didn’t move at all.
I gathered my energy and pulled again.
Tug.
But it was no use.
With my strength, I couldn’t pull out the black stone.
“Fuck!”
The curse slipped out on its own.
To be blocked at the very end.
If I’d had enough time, I would have looked for another way, but right now, there was no time.
The hole was narrowing.
The wound was healing.
Seeing it from the inside, it felt like I was being swallowed whole by the monster.
I desperately pulled at the black stone.
The black stone did not budge.
Maybe because I was inside the monster’s stomach, I couldn’t contact Soph either.
If I had known this would happen, I should have received enhancement magic one more time.
Soph would have absolutely opposed it, but it would have been better than dying here right now.
However, regrets like that were useless now.
What I needed now was a way to pull out the black stone before the wound healed.
That was when it happened.
Soph’s voice came faintly.
[...Something to sever the connection... give it a magical shock...]
Soph’s words were so quiet I could barely hear them.
But I was able to catch the important part.
Soph was telling me to give the black stone a powerful shock.
Not just any shock, but a magical force.
It was excellent advice, but there was one problem.
The small problem that I couldn’t use magic.
If Soph had been with me, it wouldn’t have been an issue...
Then again, if Soph had been here, he wouldn’t have been able to get this far inside in the first place.
As I let out a sigh at that thought, one idea suddenly came to me.
I looked at the hands gripping the black stone.
And then I recalled what had happened a little while ago.
How I had nearly been killed by the monster, only for Hanna to save me.
It had happened because I had used magic.
Of course, I had succeeded only once.
After that, I hadn’t succeeded even once, but now it was do or die.
I recalled that moment and once again moved the energy inside my body.
The flow of energy that had moved when Soph used magic.
And the patterns and incomprehensible formulas that had been drawn in my head.
Memories surfaced one by one.
I pulled those memories toward me.
Fwaaaah.
The pattern began to draw itself again inside my head.
The formulas unfolded again as well, and it felt as if I could hear Soph’s incantation.
The dark energy moved rapidly.
Just as Soph had done, the transformed energy traveled through my hands and gathered into the black stone.
Pajijijik!
Sparks flew from the black stone.
Unlike before, it was like a small bolt of lightning striking.
‘Now!’
At the same time the lightning struck, I pulled the black stone with all my strength.
Splat!
“Got it!”
The black stone moved.
The black stone that hadn’t budged even if my life depended on it had been pulled free.
Kaaaaaaa!
The monster’s scream rang out, and its flesh and muscles heaved.
The muscles that had wrapped around my body rapidly withdrew.
The sinews shrank, and the blood grew murky.
At the same time, I was flung out of the wound.
Covered head to toe in white blood, I tumbled across the floor.
The giant knight was nowhere to be seen.
All that remained was a half-collapsed mound of earth and the staff embedded atop it.
Soph was safe.
However, Soph’s voice was not fine.
In a trembling voice, he asked me.
[Don’t tell me... Did you use magic?]
I lifted the black stone and grinned, then my body shuddered.
I fainted on the spot.