-It Wasn't Alone
“It’s no use. Fall back!”
Even though I shouted and even gestured for him to retreat, Gil was hesitating at my side, edging forward instead.
“But…”
“I said fall back!”
In the end, I raised wind magic and pushed Gil and Cheon Danbi back.
Of course, it wasn’t a powerful wind. It was only strong enough to nudge the two of them back a little.
Even that left Gil looking shocked, though. Not from the physical impact, but from the psychological one.
The reason I had chosen blue flame to attack the chimera was not because of some instinctive human reaction to burn a grotesque, horrifying monster to death the moment I saw it.
Nor had I fired the blue flame immediately because I was flustered or heartless, without even thinking of saving the driver who had been caught by the chimera.
It was simply the result of judging the situation.
The black liquid spewed from the mouth of the chimera’s lizardman was filled with the aura of disease. An extremely severe aura of disease, at that.
It was something one must not approach or touch.
The driver who had been drenched in the black liquid was already a dead man, and even his corpse was in danger of becoming a host for disease.
Unless it was burned away with extremely high-temperature flames.
“It was the aura of disease, wasn’t it?”
Cheon Danbi asked.
When Gil cast his shield, she had added life force to it in an attempt to save the driver, but it seemed Cheon Danbi had already known as well.
That there had been no way to save him.
“Huh? The aura of disease?”
I answered Gil, who was still confused and unable to understand.
“The black liquid the chimera spewed out contained an extremely severe aura of disease. The driver was already as good as dead.”
“Ah…!”
“So don’t ever get close to the chimera.”
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
All of us turned our gazes back to the chimera.
The chimera, now a massive lump of blue flame, was slowly rolling toward us.
“Kieek!”
“Guaaah!”
Screams burst from the mouths of the zombies and lizardmen attached to the chimera’s body.
Limbs and tails, burned black and reduced almost to white ash, dropped off one after another.
Even so, the chimera did not die easily.
“Guaaak! Shhh!”
The lizardman’s mouth even spewed black liquid again.
It seemed that because multiple zombies had been used as materials for the synthesis, its regenerative ability was taking effect.
Through the blue flames surrounding the chimera, I caught glimpses of even the crocodile heads and lizard tails that had burned away into ash regenerating once more.
The zombies and lizardmen were screaming, but the chimera’s main body seemed almost entirely undamaged.
‘Just what kind of black magic is this…!’
I could not help but admit it was impressive.
Even zombies born with regenerative abilities usually burned to death when exposed to magical flame.
And yet that chimera was not burning to death even in blue flames, which were far hotter and more powerful than red flames.
‘But no matter how great its regeneration is, it won’t be eternal.’
I drew up my mana and continued firing blue flames at the chimera. I intended to destroy it faster than it could regenerate.
The mass of blue flame surrounding the chimera grew larger and larger, and the screams grew louder as well.
“Gil! Support me with mana from behind! Don’t come to the front.”
“Yes!”
Gil sent me his mana, and I converted it into blue flame, hurling it at the chimera without pause.
The huge mass of blue flame approached us.
Then the lizardman’s mouth suddenly spat black liquid.
Did it think the best defense was offense?
But I had already spread a thick barrier in front of us, so the black liquid could not reach us.
Splat! Splat!
When the black liquid was blocked by the barrier and fell to the ground, the chimera suddenly charged forward as if enraged.
Burned limbs and tails scattered beneath the mass of blue flame as it moved.
On top of that, perhaps because it had invoked some new black magic, a whirlwind rose around the chimera, spreading a viscous gray aura in every direction.
“Kieek!”
“Guaaah!”
“Kieeeek!”
“Guaak!”
The zombies and lizardmen making up the chimera were screaming in agony, but they still did not die.
In places that had fallen away as white ash, new crocodile heads appeared, and from places charred black like coal and broken off, lizard tails shot out.
Its body kept regenerating.
While maintaining the blue flame magic, I observed the chimera more closely with my golden vision.
I pierced through the blazing blue flames enveloping the chimera and saw into its interior.
Since it had been synthesized from multiple living creatures, it naturally had multiple hearts.
But that was not all. At the very center of the chimera sat a core that connected the hearts to one another.
It was a core of black magic, with gray aura condensed to a high concentration.
Now I understood.
‘I have to destroy that.’
To stop it from regenerating any further, I had to sever the core.
The moment I realized that, I raised both arms and activated a new spell.
‘Spears of ice, pierce the hearts!’
In an instant, the aura of freezing cold whirled through the area, and the air became frosty, cold, and sharp.
The waves of mana extending from my fingertips pierced through the blue flames.
Long, sharp spears of ice fired by freezing magic stabbed into the chimera’s body from every direction.
Each one aimed at a heart. The icy spearheads pierced through the hearts and drove deeper, finally meeting one another at the core.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
“Kieeeek!”
“Guaaah!”
The chimera was skewered by the ice spears that had stabbed in from every direction, like meat on a spit.
No matter how it twisted its body, there was no way to avoid them.
Its body burned, its hearts were pierced by cold blades of ice, and its core was splitting apart.
There was no sign of recovery.
Now even the zombies’ regenerative ability could no longer function. The core had been destroyed.
Even so, I did not stop.
I continued firing waves of freezing mana.
Receiving the mana Gil sent from behind, I endlessly converted it into magic and strengthened the blue flames and the icy spearheads.
The chimera’s hearts froze solid, and the surface of its body burned black. Limbs, tails, and heads dropped off one after another.
The screams subsided. There were no mouths left to scream with anymore.
The massive lump of blue flame had now become a blackened sphere, bristling with ice spears like a hedgehog.
At last, the screams stopped completely.
Still, I did not stop the magic until its core was completely destroyed, until the chimera crossed over into eternal death.
Before long, the chimera died.
The way it died was strange.
The sphere filled with ice spears gradually shrank, and finally turned into a handful of gray aura.
The waves of my mana within the blue flames and ice spears wrapped around the gray aura and swirled about it.
In the end, even that handful of gray aura vanished without a trace.
With nothing left to burn, the blue flames went out on their own, and the ice spears melted into the air.
Nothing remained. Except for the drifting magic circuits.
“Phew… It’s finally over.”
Gil’s voice came from behind me. For some reason, it sounded hoarse.
Had it been that hard on him?
When I looked back, Gil gave an awkward smile.
“It was truly horrible. Seeing it not die even in blue flames and keep regenerating… my mind just went blank.”
“You did well. You sent me mana.”
“No. That was nothing. Honestly, your mana would have been more than enough, Master Mage.”
“Even so, it’s true that we fought together.”
What Gil said was not wrong.
It was not because I lacked mana that I had asked him to send me some.
But it was also true that it was important for the team to fight together.
“I learned a lot just by watching from behind. At first, I didn’t know what you were trying to do with the ice spears. But when I saw them pierce the hearts and then destroy the heart of the hearts, I understood. That was the headquarters of its regenerative ability, right?”
The heart of the hearts, the headquarters of regenerative ability.
I found Gil’s wording amusing and let out a small laugh.
“That’s right. At the center of the chimera was a black magic core connecting the hearts to one another.”
“Ah! A core…”
This was why it was important for the team to fight together.
From behind me, Gil was watching and learning how I operated magic, and through that learning, he was growing.
That meant next time, Gil would be able to properly fight alongside me.
Wait. But didn’t it feel like we were missing a team member?
“Where is Cheon Danbi?”
“Huh? Where is she?”
Until I asked, Gil apparently had not even noticed that Cheon Danbi was nowhere to be seen. He suddenly looked flustered and glanced around.
“Let’s look for her.”
“Yes.”
Since we were in a place where large buses were parked in rows, we could not see very far.
Gil and I split up, peering between the buses as we searched.
“Cheon Danbi!”
“Danbi noona!”
Just then, Cheon Danbi suddenly popped out in front of me.
“Were you looking for me?”
“Yeah. What were you doing?”
“Oh, I was purifying the places where the chimera’s black liquid had splattered.”
Cheon Danbi was holding something like a dry twig in her hand. White smoke drifted softly from the twig.
It seemed she had been purifying the surroundings with smoke from burning dried medicinal herbs.
One member of the team had been fulfilling her role perfectly on her own.
“You were careful not to touch the black liquid, right?”
“Of course. Look. I was working with a barrier wrapped tightly around me too. We can’t leave any aura of disease behind.”
“Right. Good job.”
“Did you finish off the chimera?”
“I completely annihilated it.”
“What about Gil?”
“He’s looking for you. We split up to search.”
“Ah…!”
This time, I set out to find Gil together with Cheon Danbi.
He was definitely nearby, so there was no need to shout for him.
As we walked, checking between the buses, I suddenly realized the surroundings were quiet.
Gil was not calling out for Danbi noona like before.
It was quiet. An ominous sort of quiet.
Thinking about it, there was something strange.
Even if it was a grotesque monster created by mixing multiple living creatures, the chimera was still only about half the size of a bus.
It was natural for ordinary people to lose their minds and flee just from seeing it, but mages should have been able to respond to it.
Its regenerative ability made it troublesome, and it might not have been easy to detect the core, but even so, where were all the mages?
Was the chaos around the terminal really because of just one chimera?
Suddenly, the thought flashed through my mind that there might not be only one chimera.
As if to prove my thought correct, I abruptly sensed a surge of gray aura from some distance away.
It was behind the parking lot. I quickly ran in that direction.
Gil was there.
In front of the road behind the parking lot.
“Gil!”
“Master Mage…!”
And in the park across the road, dozens of chimeras stood in a group, staring this way.
They were chimeras that looked even larger and more ferocious than the one before.