Chapter 48
"Callius! Are you trying to die together here! You idiot!"
"That wouldn't be so bad either. Since my knights and I have no way to deal with your Ames."
The performance of the Explosive Spear, practically a cheat, is something Callius cannot handle right now.
Naturally, it meant none of the knights stationed there had a way to face Luteon either.
That was why Callius chose to fall together.
'The orcs and earth dragons have also been halved. Having lost their supplies, the blow to the orc forces will be no joke.'
They had won on the battlefield.
"How did a selfish bastard who only cared about himself come to cherish the North so much!"
While kicking off the falling cliff.
Luteon's spear, as he shouted, emitted a red light once again.
In response, Callius also wrapped his Predatory Sword in sword aura.
Kwaaang!!
Callius, who blocked the Explosive Spear, was bounced back by the recoil of the explosion.
Spinning around, Callius did a mid-air somersault while falling, kicked off the opposite cliff, and charged towards Luteon once again.
"Haaaaaaah!"
In the endlessly falling abyss.
Callius's sword spat out a silver sword aura, and the swift sword shaking in the darkness created an exquisite variation.
"Now you're swinging your sword at thin air!"
Luteon, who was about to thrust his spear with a sneer, suddenly frowned.
He thought it was like a moth flying into a flame, but soon, something of an exquisite form appeared behind his back.
'That, in mid-air?'
The Silver Flower Shattering Sword he had seen before, White Cat.
He had drawn that in mid-air.
White Cat's technique was a sword formation that reversed the sword aura emitted underground and surged forward.
Since he created that in mid-air, Luteon couldn't help but be nervous.
No matter how much better his spear was, his Silver Flower Shattering Sword was once... her swordsmanship that the Empire feared.
Kuuuuuu!!
A vicious sword aura surged from behind Callius.
Kwaaang!
Luteon clenched his teeth and swung the Explosive Spear, Ames, to shatter the flying sword auras one by one.
It was a sword aura that surged madly at a speed invisible to the eye, but unlike from the unseen underground, the White Cat used in mid-air was much easier to block.
Bang!
As the explosion smoke cleared, the figures of the falling Luteon and Callius were revealed.
The moment they collided there once again.
Before he knew it, Luteon's surroundings were overrun with silver flower petals.
'Ah, crap.'
He had been so engrossed in blocking White Cat and deflecting Callius's sword.
Soon, Callius took off Vivi's bracelet and emitted an enormous amount of divine power.
'His Silver Flower Shattering Sword shaves off sword aura and makes it his own.'
And he poured it all out at once like a swelling wave.
The Holy Maiden's swordsmanship.
Silver Flower Shattering Sword, Shattered Flower Path.
A path of vicious sword aura fragments surged as if to tear Luteon apart.
"Callius! Don't think you're the only one who gained something during this time!"
Luteon's spear spun fiercely in mid-air and was caught in his hand.
Soon, an intense red light, unlike anything seen before, imbued the Explosive Spear.
The blinding light of divine power.
When it gathered at a single point.
"Oh, God!"
As Luteon's spear pierced a single point through the surging Shattered Flower Path.
The single point that split the waves exploded.
Kwaaaaaaang!!
Along with a tremendous explosion.
The two figures vanished into the darkness.
* * *
Huuung.
Like heavy smoke settling and piling up on the ground, memories that were not mine slowly settled in my mind.
'Callius. Does God really exist?'
The boy who had voiced the doubt that resided in a corner of his heart.
'If God exists, why did He create spears and swords? In the end, they only create war and death...'
Even knowing it was blasphemous, he couldn't endure without spitting it out in words; he was a boy who never let go of questions and doubts about God's existence.
Luteon, the youngest son of the great southern noble family, the Luidren family, did not have devout faith, but he enjoyed learning various things.
The talented child, possessing both wisdom and martial prowess, became a young man as time passed.
And the young man appeared as a full-fledged man. Unlike before.
With a spear in one hand.
'Why. Why did you with her......'
Luteon's pale white face.
And the woman turned away in his embrace. The blurry memories fray like ink dropped in water.
Then, I suddenly opened my eyes.
What I saw was darkness.
Hwooooong-!
And it was the abyss.
"Ugh... Did I lose consciousness for a moment?"
Callius, who regained consciousness in the endlessly falling abyss, immediately gripped Loas in his hand with a reverse grip.
"Heup!"
And thrust it into the cliff beside him.
Kugugugugugugugugu! The crumbling rock face and the arm muscles that felt like they would tear dizzyingly held onto his fading consciousness.
But that was only for a moment.
Thud, thud.
Stopped, relying on a single sword, Callius's breath created white puffs of air.
"Haa, did I survive?"
He couldn't see an inch ahead, but the chilling pain radiating from his back and shoulders told him he was alive.
Perhaps due to various bruises and minor burns, his whole body creaked and stung.
It was only thanks to the Cloak of Twilight that it was just this much; otherwise, he would have been severely injured.
Since the cloak was an artifact, it blocked some of the explosion. As proof, the cloak was only slightly singed, not torn anywhere.
It was worth spending a lot of money on.
Anyway.
"Was that a dream just now?"
It was probably Callius's past.
In his memories, Luteon was a boy and a young man.
The very end.
The last day he left to become a pilgrim.
Luteon's eyes were not those of a curious boy, but rather eyes that had lost their spirit, as if he had put everything down, except for that.
'Luteon......'
He is a being with quite a tumultuous fate.
A traitor who defected to the Empire and came to serve Lactus, despite being one of the four great noble families of Carpe. I also know why he defected.
His reason for defecting was......
"Because of a woman?"
It was then.
I flinched.
Shaking off my thoughts, I surveyed my surroundings.
My eyes, accustomed to the darkness, soon realized that the surroundings were filled with bushes, like a place I had never seen before, and I gathered divine power to light a small fire.
What I saw soon was.
"I've come all the way down."
Right below where the sword thrust into the cliff had stopped was the end of the sinking forest.
It was the bottom called the abyss.
It was full of overgrown bushes, as if untouched by human hands for a long time.
"I thought it would be quite a while before I came down here..."
I knew I wouldn't die even if I fell somehow, but even so, it was a place I didn't want to reach if I could help it.
The bottom of the forest had established a brutal ecosystem, making the ground above swarming with orcs seem better.
For a long time.
Maintaining an independent ecosystem, this place, much like the deep sea, had creatures that had disappeared long ago.
Dragons, now passed down as legends, or things that were previously named monsters.
Trolls, cyclopes, goblins, and so on.
This was the very place where they established their own territories and lived.
A land abandoned by God.
The Forsaken Valley. Alata.
Since I fell right in the middle of such creatures, I had to be careful with every single footstep.
Otherwise...
Grrrr.
"They already smelled me."
Because they would come looking like this.
'Loupgarou.'
A deformed species born between wolves that live in packs and goblins.
A small, bizarre monster with the appearance of a hairless, bipedal wolf.
They smelled me and came.
Stronger power and bite force than goblins.
And with a sense of smell and hearing, they act in packs as highly intelligent hunters and scavengers of the Forsaken Valley.
Flashing eerie red eyes, they revealed themselves one by one in the darkness.
'The number is roughly around sixteen.'
Can I handle them in my current state? My whole body aches.
The wounds are not shallow.
I was caught in the explosions he created several times, and I forcefully used White Cat and Shattered Flower Path without even being able to take a proper stance in mid-air.
Thanks to that, my body condition is a mess.
However, I can still move better than I thought.
Callius looked at his sword.
Predatory Sword - Loas.
"Both when fighting that old man Bernard, and when facing Luteon, this..."
Is it an illusion that the damage I'm taking seems less than expected?
Predation.
Callius, who was about to ponder the meaning of that once more, erased the thought at the approaching killing intent and re-gripped his sword.
Rustle.
It was then.
A small footstep was heard from somewhere. The Loupgarous' gazes turned in a different direction.
The bushes shook, and a human silhouette began to appear.
A man holding a spear in one hand.
"Callius, you were alive."
"...So are you."
They clicked their tongues, looking at each other as if it was a shame.
I thought he might have died falling like that, but it seems that wasn't the case.
His lifeline is certainly long.
Luteon.
The bastard was still alive.
It was dark so I couldn't see well, but his condition didn't seem normal either.
It was a fortunate turn of events, but the situation wasn't good.
"Callius, did you tame these sons of bitches in the short time I didn't see you?"
He seemed to be saying that while looking at the Loupgarous positioned around.
His attitude of speaking so cockily was really unpleasant, but I couldn't yet be sure of his intentions.
"Luteon. There's no way you'd be doing such a thing leisurely when you're alive."
The Loupgarous bared their teeth, alternately looking at Luteon and me.
The Loupgarous positioned between him and me were caught in the middle.
Their movement to surround me originally had become neither here nor there when Luteon appeared.
Luteon's surroundings brightened up.
He was emitting divine power from his entire body.
A deep red divine power like twilight.
Kyaaaaah!
As it brightly illuminated the surroundings, the Loupgarous suffered, screaming as if they had seen light for the first time in their lives.
But I saw his condition.
"You're not in normal condition either."
One of his hands was twisted bizarrely, and blood was flowing from his forehead.
He was also injured in the fierce battle with me during the fall. His arm was probably broken because, unlike me, he failed to land properly.
Nevertheless, his fighting spirit pricked my skin like needles, so I couldn't help but commend him.
The bastard was still full of will to fight.
"Callius. I'm asking just in case, but you don't know a way out of here, right?"
"Do you think I'd tell you even if I knew?"
"That's a relief. It would have been a shame if you did know."
"Because you wouldn't be able to kill me?"
"Of course."
Smirk.
The bastard's smiling face reminded me exactly of the memories from when he was a monk in the past.
But it was then.
One of the Loupgarous, who didn't take kindly to the blinding light of divine power, rushed at Luteon.
"Get lost, you bald wolf bastards."
Thud, boom!
Creating a small explosion, he easily insta-killed a Loupgarou.
As one rushed in, the other Loupgarous also charged, screaming.
Luteon clicked his tongue and blew them up several times with his Explosive Spear.
"It'd be better to stop."
After brutally blowing up and killing four or five Loupgarous, they stepped back, seemingly frightened.
"Did the scoundrel of Zerban perhaps eat some fear? The you I knew had terrible swordsmanship, but you were never a coward who was afraid of someone."
"I just don't want to suffer needlessly. Don't be so noisy."
"What does that mean?"
Luteon frowned as if he didn't understand what I was saying.
"If you make that much noise... it will come."
The starving creatures of the Forsaken Valley appear.
Always hungry, always craving food—the gluttons of Alata.
Kugugung. Thump!! A massive existence appeared along with a huge vibration.
The remnants of the fallen Giant tribe.
[Sub Quest]
[The Giant Tribe's Bastard begins]
"Troll."
The forsaken king. It was the appearance of a Troll.