-Ambush
* * *
The first thing Thor and his party saw when they arrived at Incheon Airport was the black cloud billowing from the control tower.
A dense, ash-gray aura was spreading out like storm clouds.
As if answering that ashen energy, giant tentacle monsters and enormous man-eating plants writhed up from every direction as though surging from the ground.
“Yikes. This looks like a scene straight out of hell.”
“So the black mage is up on the control tower right now?”
“Seems that way, doesn’t it? It’s hard to see with all that ashen energy so thick around it, though.”
“What do we do? Should we charge in there?”
“First, let’s see how our side is doing.”
Even if the black mage was on the control tower right now, they could not bring themselves to storm it immediately.
That was how powerful the ashen energy felt.
The group stopped and looked over the entire airport.
Without a car, Thor’s party had taken a taxi as close as they could, then walked from the perimeter set up by the soldiers, stealthily approaching in the direction of the runway.
Behind the runway and the terminals, airplanes were piled in layers, crumpled like rusted scrap metal. Giant tentacle monsters writhed and crawled among them.
The terminal building was hardly recognizable.
Stems and leaves from man-eating plants had burst through the floors and walls, covering the entire structure.
They were unbelievably huge plants. It was too dark to see clearly, but green leaves, brightly colored flowers, and enormous pouches were visible.
“Wait, where did the airport terminal building go?”
“It’s right there. That thing. A very lovely building all wrapped up in overgrown man-eating plants.”
“Eco-style, huh.”
Balder and Heimdall exchanged jokes.
At first glance, it might have looked like a building beautifully decorated in an eco-style theme, but when the plants were that size, the impression was completely different.
Besides, they were man-eating plants.
“Hurry up and find the mages. They said there were mages attacking it on-site.”
“Okay!”
“Ah! Over there. The mages are over there!”
Heimdall shouted, pointing to one side of the runway.
It was relatively far from the control tower, near the cargo terminal.
Behind several aircraft that had been overturned and crumpled at random, mages could be seen moving cautiously.
In front of them, a tentacle monster was swaying as if dancing.
“Let’s hurry over!”
The party hid themselves in the darkness and ran toward the mages.
All civilians had already been evacuated from the airport, and the military personnel in charge of the evacuation had also withdrawn to a distance.
Only the mages from the government and the Hall remained, attacking the site.
Before arriving, Thor had heard that they had cleared about half of it, but seeing it now, that did not seem to be the case at all.
The tentacle monster that had been swaying like it was dancing stretched one tentacle long over the crumpled aircraft.
Then fire magic shot out from the mages’ side.
Lumps of flame poured forth in rapid bursts, but the tentacle quickly dodged the fire and lashed at the spot where the mages were.
“Aaagh!”
“Everyone, dodge!”
“Careful!”
Screams erupted. It seemed there were casualties.
Thor stopped running for a moment and raised his hammer high.
“Blade of Lightning!”
The air flashed, and blue lightning fell toward the tentacle. A blade-like current of sharpened electricity sliced the tentacle clean off.
The tentacle monster thrashed and withdrew the tentacle it had extended.
“Shield of light, spread your wings!”
Balder deployed a shield at just the right moment, protecting the mages.
At last, Thor’s party reached the mages behind the aircraft.
The mages were gathered around the wounded. Three or four people had collapsed on the ground.
“Are you all right?”
“We have more injured. Everyone’s exhausted, and our mana is depleted…”
The man who turned around as he answered was none other than Han Dosu.
Thor quickly approached his side and said,
“Oh! Mage Han Dosu. So you were here? I’m glad you’re safe. We just finished clearing Chinatown and came straight here.”
“Thor, thank you for coming to help. I’m all right, but many mages have already died. If you hadn’t helped just now, there would have been even more wounded.”
“What happened? I heard you were about halfway through clearing it.”
“Until a little while ago, we were having decent success against the tentacle monsters. But then ashen energy suddenly poured down from the control tower, and the tentacle monsters’ strength rose again.”
Han Dosu’s face was quite dark.
There were about twelve mages gathered there, and all of them looked utterly exhausted. It was no wonder, after fighting all day.
Not only mages, but also many civilians and soldiers had died. Many had been killed in the early stages before the evacuation, and even during the evacuation, it had not been easy to reduce the damage.
“You’ve been through a lot. Now we’ll add our strength.”
“You finished clearing Chinatown? But wasn’t Oudin there?”
“He was. Oudin will come this way soon too. He said he’d stop by somewhere first.”
At Thor’s words, Han Dosu’s expression brightened a little.
It seemed he had been desperately hoping Oudin would come.
“Really? Mage Oudin is coming here?”
“Ah, what a relief. We’ll finally be able to breathe a little.”
Han Dosu was not the only one who had hoped Oudin would come. The other mages felt the same way.
Whether they were people who usually doubted and cursed Oudin, or people who trusted and defended him, all of them acknowledged Oudin’s skill.
But they could not simply sit around waiting for Oudin to arrive.
Beyond the shield, the tentacle monster was thudding against it, and even the tentacle monsters farther away were now moving toward them, wreathed in ashen energy like clouds.
“First, we need to move the wounded to the rear, don’t we?”
“We do. But…”
Looking around, half of the twelve were injured.
They said it was not only the tentacle’s strike just now; some mages had already been injured before that.
Most of the wounded could not move on their own, and to carry them to the rear, twice as many people would be needed.
In the end, it was to the point that every mage on-site would have to pull back.
“This won’t do. Everyone, go to the rear and rest for a bit before coming back. We’ll fight in the meantime. Just give us any tips for taking them down.”
“Then I’ll be the only one staying here. As Thor said, all of you move the wounded together, get some rest, and then return.”
Han Dosu said this to the mages on-site.
Having commanded the scene until now, Han Dosu was trying to take responsibility to the end.
“Will you be all right?”
“Then we’ll be far too short on people…”
“How about everyone withdraws for a little while and returns once Mage Oudin arrives?”
The mages voiced their concerns.
But Han Dosu shook his head.
“We can’t leave Incheon Airport entirely as the black mage’s playground.”
“Wait! Are there no other mages in the airport besides the ones here?”
Thor asked, casting his gaze far out across the airport.
Most of the mages from the government and the Hall had been deployed to Incheon Airport.
If the remaining number was all there was, that meant they had been nearly wiped out.
“I don’t know for certain. There were mages fighting on the opposite runway too, and there were mages trapped inside the terminal, but we haven’t confirmed whether they’re still alive. It may simply be that communications were cut off.”
Judging by Han Dosu’s dark expression as he answered, it did not seem to be merely a matter of communications being cut.
It must have been an extremely difficult day to survive.
“Anyway, let’s give it a try.”
Thor replied briefly, then looked around at Balder and Heimdall.
“Good. We’ll do what we can.”
“We can’t let a black mage run wild. Let’s show them what we’re made of!”
In the end, only Thor’s party and Han Dosu remained, while the other mages supported the wounded and withdrew toward the rear through the cargo terminal.
Balder spread a shield of darkness, hiding and protecting them.
“The tentacle monsters have grown stronger, and we have few people on our side, so our approach will be hit-and-run ambushes, taking them down one by one.”
Han Dosu explained the strategy to Thor’s party, who remained on-site.
Until now, they had been killing the tentacle monsters by pouring fire and lightning into them all at once.
“What about the man-eating plants?”
“Never get close to the man-eating plants. You’ll be sucked in before you can blink. The flowers contain mind magic. If you look at the flowers up close, your whole body will be paralyzed. After that, there’s nothing you can do.”
“Yikes. That’s terrifying.”
“So for now, we attack only the tentacle monsters. Since they’re all swarming this way, we’ll first get away from here, then take down the ones in the back one by one.”
“Okay. Then let’s use stealth magic and get out of here first.”
The group covered themselves with stealth magic and left the spot.
They circled far around behind the tentacle monsters that had gathered wriggling in front of Balder’s shield, approaching one that was slightly apart from the group.
“We’ll approach quietly, and when I give the signal, we cast magic simultaneously.”
Han Dosu conveyed this with hand signals.
The tentacles of every monster, including the one right in front of them, were stretched toward the front.
Still under stealth magic, the party crept up from behind.
Even so, once they drew closer than a certain distance, the tentacle monster sensed them and snapped around. Its senses were sharp.
It extended several tentacles straight out around the party.
“This won’t work. I’ll try mind magic first!”
Heimdall signaled with his hands.
Then he immediately cast mind magic at the tentacle monster.
The tentacles stretching toward them abruptly stopped moving.
As if it had lost its memory, as if it had lost its purpose, the monster simply stood there, its tentacles halted, swaying in place.
At that moment, Thor’s lightning and the flames of Balder and Han Dosu poured forth.
Blue lightning rained down, striking the tentacle monster from above, and huge masses of flame set its entire body ablaze.
The tentacle monster was enormous and filled with ashen energy, but the mind magic rendered it powerless for a moment, and without missing that instant, their attacks landed densely and on time.
Its enormous body burned as it was engulfed in dark red flames.
The tentacle monster thrashed violently, but before long, its charred tentacles began falling off one after another.
“Oh! It worked!”
“The mind magic hit it perfectly!”
Balder and Heimdall cried out in joy before they could stop themselves.
At that moment, Thor shouted at the two of them.
“Fall back!”
Balder and Heimdall immediately leaped backward with propulsion magic.
They thought it was because of the tentacle monsters gathered in front, but that was not it.
The asphalt where the two had been standing just moments before split and tore open, and from the gap, the stem of a man-eating plant shot up.