◈ Episode 517. Natural Enemy and Vocation (1)
Elder Mage Yugweed.
No matter the situation, you never showed your emotions easily. Even when I, who could be called the successor of earth magic, failed to live up to your expectations.
—“Your earth simply isn’t ready to bloom yet.”
Even to the most basic questions.
—“Wouldn’t a change in perspective be necessary there?”
Even before an enemy.
—“Is that struggling resistance? You have my respect.”
You never acted in a way that betrayed your epithet, the Gentle Giant. But even someone like you had people who made it impossible to suppress your anger.
“……
The Shadow Mercenary Corps.”
Yes, it was them. ‘You never told me until the very end, but…….’ After Yugweed left the Magic Tower, Maia had scoured all manner of books and come to guess at the story tangled between Yugweed and the Shadow Mercenary Corps. It was not a particularly special story.
Only stories of killing and being killed.
“Filthy bastards.”
Wherever the Shadow Mercenary Corps passed,
slaughter followed.
It was a common occurrence.
Elder Yugweed had no blood kin.
Even if every mage of the Magic Tower was said to sever ties with their family and the outside world the moment they set foot inside it, in Yugweed’s case, that held a slightly greater meaning. ‘It wasn’t some light estrangement.’ The information she had found in an old history book in the Emerald Hall. 『The Massacre of Linas, City of Dawn』 For she was the sole survivor of her hometown.
—“I, who came from Linas, entered the Magic Tower in order to live.”
Yugweed’s gentle voice brushed past her ear.
Only then did Maia stop reminiscing.
She focused on the scene unfolding before her eyes.
Perhaps that was why.
“By what right do you bastards.”
Did you think to cross the earth Elder Yugweed laid down and come over to the adventurers’ world? Did you set foot in this place where demons run rampant? And furthermore, how did you earn the trust of that prickly Chief Lee?
Maia could not understand it. ‘I will not tolerate you.’ Dazzling my eyes with those dangling clothes of yours.
It meant there was no point trying to hide your disgrace.
It was the moment Maia steeled her resolve.
“I-It’s coming!!”
An apprentice mage, one of the players, shouted.
The player’s vision.
Jesse calmly explained what had appeared there. [The Fourth Legion Commander of the Golden Realm, ‘Copper,’ is appearing.]
“It seems one of Paimon’s direct subordinates will appear soon!”
“Prepare yourselves.”
Maia and Curtain.
The two senior mages immediately prepared to manifest magic. Their gazes were fixed not on the blood-drawn rift covering Jeju Island, nor on the magic circle, but on the curse of the Demon World.
Jesse muttered softly.
“Can a curse collapse too? Or perhaps it already has……”
At the general assembly of the Holy War Alliance.
Even there, talk had passed regarding the demons’ “curse.”
A curse was the demons’ final struggle.
Therefore, they had to remain wary of it.
Chief Lee had certainly said as much.
Though he had been reduced to a brain inside a hat,
the Tower Master’s insight had not dulled.
The pointed hat answered.
—No, it likely has not collapsed yet.
“……
Is that so?”
—I have not perfectly grasped the structure of the curse, but for a manifestation of this scale, a price equal to it is required. If it were to collapse without going through the proper process, the caster as well would suffer tremendous internal damage.
Jesse nodded.
“In that case, it really is a structure similar to a rift. It may be that its collapse rate rises gradually, but it can’t suddenly crumble! Then the monster that appeared just now is……”
Could it be nothing more than a warning?
“My patience ends here.”
Maia endured no longer.
Because between the Shadow Mercenary Corps and the demons, her patience had reached its limit.
Maia raised up the burning earth.
Rumble, rumble, rumble. ‘I am different from the other seniors.’ Because I had the greatest teacher, Elder Yugweed.
—Oh? The senior brat’s quite capable, isn’t she?
Even the Tower Master inside the pointed hat,
who was stingy beyond measure even with his one and only disciple,
praised her.
There was no flaw in Maia’s manifestation.
High-tier earth magic. 『Reverse Earthquake』 It compressed the destructive force of a spreading earthquake in reverse into a single point. Thus, its destructive power was difficult to even dare guess at. Since the enemy was in the middle of appearing and thus defenseless, it should certainly have delivered a fatal blow.
But nothing happened.
No message appeared in the players’ vision.
Maia, too, felt no sensation of having struck true. ‘If I had to compare that sensation just now…….’ Maia looked at her trembling fingertips.
“……
It was like striking a boulder with an egg.”
The Tower Master, who had spoken praise, also flinched.
And before long, they could find the reason why.
Because it was slowly revealing itself.
Maia’s nemesis, Senior Mage Curtain, muttered.
“Maia, if it’s something like that, even I have to acknowledge it.”
As he stared at the enormous, black-dyed pupil.
“A-A dragon from the Dragon-Demon War……!!”
The king of all things, a dragon.
Until now, their whereabouts had been shrouded in mystery.
Even at the summit of the Zero Mountains, where they were originally supposed to be. Even on the Arcana Continent. Even when their blood kin, the elves, had gone searching, they had not shown so much as a trace.
But if it was reality, the Demon World, another realm apart from the Arcana Continent.
If the dragons truly had headed to the Demon World, then it explained how they had been able to vanish without anyone knowing. Having finished judging the situation from Curtain’s fuss, Maia shouted.
“Everyone, fall back!”
The lesson of the Dragon-Demon War.
Even the Magic Tower, the strongest armed group on the Arcana Continent, could not stand against the king of all things. The moment Maia was thinking of how to minimize the current damage. ‘If I move this island whole, as far away from the Magic Tower as possible…….’ Slowly, the dragon.
No, the evil dragon, devoured by malign fruit,
revealed itself. It must have been the influence of the Demon World. Its appearance seemed stained with an evil energy on an entirely different level from the evil dragons that had appeared on the Arcana Continent.
Curtain stammered.
“That does not look like something that can be purified?”
Maia gritted her teeth. ‘As expected, the whole island……!’ Curtain reacted to Maia’s surging mana.
“Senior Maia? That mana?! You, what are you trying to……!!”
If she manifested such magic,
beyond mana exhaustion, her incomplete circle would be shattered.
Just as he was about to hurriedly stop her.
Puk.
“……?!!”
Blood gushed from the dragon skin that even the high-tier magic Senior Mage Maia had manifested through an elder mage’s teachings could not so much as scratch. Soon after, a booming voice rang out.
“You bookworms over there, get out of the way!”
Maia’s eyebrows twitched reflexively.
Though they had covered their entire bodies except for their eyes with those dangling clothes, they were undoubtedly the Shadow Mercenary Corps. And yet the words that burst from their mouths were absurd.
“From here on, it’s the turn of us Akshan, the natural enemies of demons!”
“What……? Akshan……?”
*
The Nine Seats.
No, were they now all equal as Akshan hunters?
Dshev clicked his tongue.
“Rockkid, does that thing have no sense of shame?”
His body was as large as a mountain, and his cloak was fluttering like a bib spun backward. It was so embarrassing even I felt awkward watching him, seriously. Then he glanced down at his own outfit……
This, no matter how he looked at it, was impossible to get used to.
Tap.
Wolf placed a hand on the crown of Dshev’s head.
“You have to get used to it. What else can you do?”
“Wolf, even so, this is a bit……”
“More than anything, they said our Commander-in-Chief took the initiative himself, didn’t they?”
The Commander-in-Chief of the Holy War Alliance and the leader of Akshan, Lee Hoyeol.
—“Consider it an honor beyond your station.”
The dwarf blacksmith, Wallswail.
As he handed over the completed Akshan uniform, he added.
—“That cloak alone is identical to the Commander-in-Chief’s, down to the last thread.”
Dshev grumbled.
“This is all because we lived too much however we wanted in the Shadow Mercenary Corps, Wolf. To suddenly have to obey the stiff rules of Akshan demon hunters. Why is everything so extreme? In any case, what a hassle……”
Wolf lightly ruffled Dshev’s hair.
“It’s too late to complain now. Look.”
“At what?”
“Even our former captain is excited, isn’t she?”
It was none other than a dragon.
If they had been their former selves from their days in the Shadow Mercenary Corps, the king of all things before them would have been an existence they would not have dared to confront head-on. Yet in this moment, their hearts were endlessly calm.
Roooaaaaar— Even before Dragon Fear, said to make all things submit,
there was no retreat.
In truth, they had felt the change even before this. ‘From the Magic Tower’s portal.’ Beyond the portal lay Jeju Island, consumed by a curse.
Perhaps that was why the adventurers had not easily been able to take a step.
It must have been because of the ominous pressure felt from the rift.
Alkari approached, dragging his cloak along.
“Unlike in the past, when we were simply swayed by the Shadow God, it means our mental strength has fundamentally hardened. And what made such growth possible was, as expected……”
Wolf answered.
“The natural enemy relationship, I suppose.”
Needless to say, the Shadow Mercenary Corps were not players, so they did not possess the skill, [Natural Enemy Relationship].
However, among the relics of Akshan that had returned to the rebuilt Akshan, there was one.
[The Bell of Temperance]
What led the revived Akshan was not Hoyeol’s command, but the will of an Akshan relic. The sound of [The Bell of Temperance] became a compass and guided the members’ steps to Jeju Island, while another relic took the place of the natural enemy relationship.
It was thanks to that.
“Being fast isn’t everything, Kichi! Swing harder!”
“Shut up, fatty.”
“What? This isn’t fat, it’s muscle!”
That they could show the bearing of demon hunters, of natural enemies, even before an evil dragon.
The Shadow Mercenary Corps already possessed outstanding martial prowess.
And skills beyond that.
Now that such people had been reborn as demon hunters,
as you could see,
they were the very disaster of demons.
An exclamation mark appeared in Jesse’s pupils.
“As expected, they’re incredible!”
The pointed hat let out a rare second compliment.
—Even rotten, they’re still mackerel, is that it? The Shadow Mercenary Corps……
“To think he even arranged this!” —……
What now? You were talking about Chief Lee again?
The pointed hat swallowed a hollow laugh.
—When has that man not been extraordinary?...
News also reached the Giant Alliance that had arrived at Jeju Island belatedly from the Arcana Continent. Nam Taemin’s beastlike eyes gleamed sharply.
“A build so huge that even that dangling cloak looks small……”
Only three people came to mind.
Me, Dmitri, and Rockkid.
Then the answer was obvious.
A smile spread across Nam Taemin’s lips.
“You people have finally started moving too, huh?”
“Damn, they’re fighting that monster just fine.”
“Taemin, Leoni. We still have a long way to go.”
The three had experienced one battle against the old dragon, Yunaxus.
Compared to then, they had grown enough to enter the realm of the strange and even be acknowledged as transcendent beings. But they had no confidence in driving a dragon that far into a corner, much less an evil dragon rampaging with killing intent.
Hisagi coolly judged the situation.
“But this will not be the end. As it said in the emergency update details, this is Paimon’s domain. In the end, the upper demon king Paimon will certainly appear.”
Thud.
Then he raised his magic spear.
“What we have to do is simple. Until the Commander-in-Chief arrives on Jeju Island, we will eliminate every monster that pours out on our end, and if possible, hold down Paimon as well.”
Shing.
Nam Taemin drew his greatsword and let out a sigh.
“That’s one hell of a goal…… I don’t think I’ll feel proud even if we pull it off.”
“You think you’re the only one whose stomach is churning?”
“What the hell, you? Why are you suddenly picking a fight?”
Leoni immediately presented a solution.
“Enough. At times like this, you just let out a nice stream of blood and your head clears up.”
“……
You really do say only crazy things like a berserker.”
Just as they were clicking their tongues at each other.
“Wait a moment, everyone.”
Hisagi grasped the state of the battle.
A one-sided hunt by natural enemies.
The Shadow Mercenary Corps had succeeded in driving the evil dragon into a corner.
“Judging by its movements, it looks like it will enter Phase Two.”
“Yeah? Then this is where we, the experts, again……”
“But something is strange.”
“Strange? What is?”
Tokyo’s Wise Serpent.
Hisagi was one who did not easily forget anything once he had seen it with those narrow eyes. And from a different perspective than Hisagi’s, analyst Nam Cheolmin had been watching the situation.
“The real one……”
At the same time, a voice reached the three.
—Taemin! The Fourth Legion Commander, where is that bastard right now?!
That was right.
The appearance message that had surfaced was not the evil dragon’s in the first place.
Leoni jabbed Nam Taemin’s side.
“Hey, hey…… What the hell is that bastard doing right now?”
The moment the evil dragon’s defeat began to show,
there was a figure mounted atop the dragon.
The Fourth Legion Commander, Copper.
He had fitted a golden bit into the evil dragon’s maw.
A mocking voice echoed through everyone’s minds.
“Copper of the Golden Realm offers you his gratitude. You have saved me the trouble.”
At the same time, the message updated. [The Fourth Legion Commander of the Golden Realm, ‘Evil Dragon Knight Copper,’ is appearing.]
Was this what an upper demon king raid was?
—Be careful! This is different from every raid until now. We can’t predict even a single pattern!
The weight of the Ten Thrones, of a different caliber, began to press in.
*
Flash. [Class Quest: Dragon Knight vs Evil Dragon Knight] ……
Blaze!