-Chimera
As we exited the ramp, each of us was extending our detection.
We were still some distance from the scene, so the magical circuits weren’t being detected clearly yet.
Then Gil, who had been quiet, asked,
“Mr. Mage, what do they say that strange life-form is? What kind of creature is it?”
“Hard to say. Maybe they haven’t properly identified it yet, because everyone’s saying something different. Some say it’s a lizard, some say it’s a dinosaur, and some say it’s a chimera. Most people are just calling it a monster.”
I answered according to what people were saying online.
“A chimera?”
“A synthetic creature made by combining different living beings.”
“Ah……!”
“Why? Do you sense something?”
Now that we were close to the scene, Gil seemed to be feeling something from the strange life-form.
Was he communicating with it?
“Yes. I do. But it’s extremely chaotic. It feels like the energies are all mixed together, and it feels terribly ferocious.”
“Ferocious? It’s a monster released for terrorism, so I suppose that’s only natural.”
“But the tentacle monster didn’t contain this kind of savage energy. It was just big. The jellyfish felt very noisy, but they weren’t this chaotic.”
“So you think it’s a chimera?”
“Maybe.”
When I looked back, Gil’s expression was dark.
Seeing his face, I had the thought that the strange life-forms that had appeared this time would be more harmful and more vicious than the ones before.
Perhaps people’s fear was that great, because surprisingly, there were almost no videos of the strange life-form online.
It meant they had been too busy running to even think of filming, or that those who had gotten close enough to take a video had already been harmed.
“You’re right. The energy is extremely violent and unpleasant. It’s somehow creepy.”
Cheon Danbi added a word as well.
The gray energy I detected was unusually dense too. It didn’t feel good.
“Anyway, now that we’re down here, the roads are jammed again, huh?”
Cheon Danbi said, looking around.
Once we entered Incheon, the congestion on the expressway had eased and it had been fine, but the moment we came down the ramp and entered the ordinary roads, everything was packed tight.
This was probably because of the chaos in the city, so there was no helping it.
“Let’s turn off somewhere suitable, park the car, and walk.”
I said, looking over the navigation.
At that, Cheon Danbi also moved the map on the navigation this way and that.
“We’ll have to. I wonder if there’s a forest or something around here. I need purifying energy……”
As a druid, she looked for nature first.
It seemed she intended to purify the savage and violent energy, charge herself with clean energy, and add strength to her magic.
“There’s some greenery around Munhak Stadium over this way. There’s a park nearby too.”
“Oh! Good. Let’s head over there first.”
After checking the surrounding terrain on the navigation, we moved the car toward the green of nature.
It wasn’t easy. After barely slipping out of the congested area and making some progress, Cheon Danbi immediately turned the wheel.
“We’d better get out around here. Let’s walk from here.”
She said after turning into a random alley and parking the car.
“Yeah. Let’s do that.”
“All right, today as well, everyone have a bottle of Cheon Danbi’s special potion first!”
Cheon Danbi took potions out of her bag and handed them to Gil and me.
As always, the bag was bulging. It looked like she had packed all sorts of things again.
“Thanks.”
“Thank you, noona.”
“I think I should drink one today too. I need to awaken the life force inside me.”
And so, including Cheon Danbi herself, we all drank our potions and were just about to get out of the car.
“Huh? A crow? Ah! I think Ren transformed into a crow again!”
At Gil’s words, I looked back at the rear seat, but neither a crow nor a cat was visible.
Then the crow hopped up onto the seat.
It had probably gone down under the seat and transformed without even us noticing.
Caw!
The crow spoke once. It probably meant, “It’s me, Ren.”
“A crow will be better than a cat from here on out. In any case, be careful, and don’t get too close to the scene.”
When I said that, Ren answered with another caw! I took it to mean that he would.
“Then everyone’s ready, right? Let’s go to the scene now.”
The humans walked and Ren flew, and we set off toward Incheon Terminal.
Even with her bulging bag on her back, Cheon Danbi moved lightly. As we went, whenever she found greenery nearby, she spread out her hand and absorbed the energy of nature.
Gil extended his magic concentric circles and walked while surveying the surroundings.
I also stretched my detection far ahead.
Dense gray energy was detected from the terminal and beyond it. As Gil had said, the energy and waves were extremely chaotic.
It was the kind of energy that would make it unsurprising if a chimera really did appear.
Just what kind of creature was waiting for us?
As I walked, I raised my mana and lightly spread a barrier around myself and the two others.
“It’s quieter than I expected.”
Cheon Danbi muttered.
The roads were packed with cars, but there were few people on the streets.
The area around Incheon Terminal was a busy district, but the side we were walking on was a comparatively quiet road.
Even so, it was a silence that somehow felt abnormal.
‘Have people already all evacuated? Well, it would’ve been on the news while we were coming to Incheon.’
I wanted to think positively.
But no matter how I looked at it, this didn’t feel like a well-controlled, safe street.
For some reason, I couldn’t see the police or the military either. The atmosphere was as if everyone had simply vanished somewhere wholesale.
That silence did not last long.
After we walked a little farther, along with a commotion of disordered movement, sharp screams that pierced the ears burst out.
“It’s a monster!”
“S-save me!”
“Aaagh!”
Unfortunately, it seemed there were people who had failed to evacuate in time.
We hurriedly ran toward the direction the screams had come from.
It was behind the terminal. A place where express buses were parked in rows.
Had there been a bus operating as usual without knowing the situation here?
People were fleeing from a bus that looked as if it had just arrived at the terminal.
“Run! It’s a monster!”
“Get out of the way!”
When they saw us running that way, some people advised us to flee, while others shoved past us wildly.
We pushed through the people and advanced toward the bus.
Behind the bus, a huge, pitch-black shadow came into view. It was roughly half the size of the bus.
Then, when the strange life-form walked out to the front of the bus and revealed itself, cold sweat ran down my spine.
Even though I had expected it might be a chimera, when I actually faced the grotesquely shaped chimera right before my eyes, the human body reacted on its own.
The reaction of anxiety and fear that emerged when confronting an unknown being.
That was how far outside common sense the strange life-form’s appearance was.
“Uwaa! Th-that’s what they call a chimera, right?”
“My goodness! Whatever black mage made this mixed it together in the most horrifying way.”
Beside me, Gil and Cheon Danbi each let out a breath and said something.
They were deliberately speaking in order to calm their anxiety and fear.
“Step back a little. Put up a solid barrier.”
I said to the two of them and stood in front of them as if blocking the way.
Then I observed the chimera. Fortunately, the chimera was not moving quickly, but slowly walking out.
Perhaps several zombies had been attached to it, because the chimera had numerous zombie arms and legs. I could also see the blank face of a zombie.
But zombies were not the only things used as material for the synthesis. It had the head of a lizardman as well, and I could see the tail of a giant lizard.
Not only that, I could see a crocodile head and a back covered in tough crocodile hide. From its side, a large, hard horn that looked like a rhinoceros horn jutted out.
No. Honestly, it was hard to tell whether that was its side or its thigh. It was difficult to even say where was up and where was down.
Perhaps it would be more accurate to say it was rolling rather than walking.
Its body was almost spherical, with heads, limbs, and tails jutting out in all directions.
The chimera, which looked like a gigantic, disgusting cell, was approaching as it moved as if rolling.
The light, soundless steps were those of a lizardman, but occasionally a zombie leg would tread on the ground and a crocodile tail would slap the floor, producing an irregular dissonance.
“Kieeeek!”
A bizarre scream burst from a zombie’s mouth. A stench surged over us like a wave.
“Hiss, hiss!”
The lizardman kept rhythm with a hissing sound.
It seemed that zombies and lizardmen, demi-humans possessing intelligence on par with humankind, had been reduced to mere materials in the chimera’s body.
They had completely lost all reason.
At that moment, a man suddenly burst out from between the buses and ran in front of the chimera. It looked like he had been hiding but could no longer endure it and had rushed out.
“S-save me!”
The man was an express bus driver.
Perhaps because he had been evacuating the passengers first, he seemed to have missed his timing to escape.
The driver ran toward me, pleading for me to save him, and I hurriedly raised my mana and prepared my magic.
“Hiss, hiss! Hiss!”
Then, along with hissing sounds from the mouth of the chimera’s lizardman, black liquid poured out.
Even at a glance, it was an extremely ominous liquid.
It was a viscous, thick black liquid, as if made by clumping together a mass of gray energy.
Sure enough, waves of powerful gray energy were spreading from it.
‘That’s……?’
The black liquid splashed down onto the back of the driver, who was running right in front of the chimera.
“Aaagh! Save me!”
The black liquid clung stickily, stretched for a moment, then contracted, yanking the driver straight toward the chimera.
As if it had been waiting, the chimera’s crocodile head snapped down and bit into the driver’s leg.
“Aaaagh!”
A piercing scream shook the air.
Only then did I finish my judgment and execute my magic.
‘Blue flames, burn the chimera!’
Bright blue flames that flared up from my fingertips shot toward the chimera like a rocket. They were blue flames of a far higher temperature than red fire.
The blue flames surrounded the chimera in an instant. Even the driver being held in the crocodile head’s jaws was swallowed by the flames.
“Ah! Wait!”
Gil shouted in surprise and sent a shield flying toward the driver.
He was trying to save the driver, fearing he would burn to death in the blue flames. Cheon Danbi seemed to have had the same thought, because she filled Gil’s shield with life force and added it to it.
But it was useless.
The driver, engulfed in the blue flames, was blazing together with the chimera.
The chimera began writhing and thrashing with its entire body.
But the driver was already no longer moving at all.
“Mr. Mage, why on earth?”
Gil looked at me with a confused expression.