Title: Chapter 213. Life is Cruel (8)

CRASH!

The thunder heard right in front of my nose wasn't as massive as I'd expected.

No, maybe it was just so loud that my eardrums had burst, making it feel that way.

'…This is.'

My body, which had just been slashing down lava men, slipped out of my control, trembling violently as I fell to my knees. My vision flashed wildly with white light, and my ears were completely muffled. BEEEEEP. The tinnitus was now on the verge of making me dizzy.

In FPS games, when a flashbang goes off right in front of you, there's a reason they blur your vision and chop up the frame rate.

'…Damn it, get up!'

"Cough."

But I didn't have the time to waste like this. There were still enemies in front of me.

'That bastard, when did he get Leviathan's power...!'

I barely managed to open my eyes using the hangnail of reason I had left. My eyeballs burned as if they were cooked, and the blood crawling under my skin felt like lava, but I tenaciously pushed through it.

It was the same for my heart, which I couldn't even hear beating. I could feel the mana, which had been acting out of line for a while now, gathering at my heart on its own.

'This is dangerous.'

THUMP!

With a sensation like a hammer striking my heart, my fragmented reason pieced itself back together. I snapped back to my senses.

'Can I win?'

GRIP.

At the same time, I forcibly regained control of my arm and pushed off the ground, rolling my body. The arm of the lava man that was aiming for me smashed into the empty space.

SMASH!

Immediately following up, I kicked away the mob with my foot.

The enemy was pushed back, and the recoil sent my upper body, which had just risen, falling backward again.

My body, which was already leaning a bit to the side as I fell, leaned even more until I was face down. My hands planted against the ground.

"Urgh."

I threw up black blood. I couldn't tell if the lack of oxygen had turned it that color, or if the electric current that swept through my body had cooked my blood.

My whole body stung and felt dizzy.

[How surprising. I didn't think you could withstand his lightning.]

Yeah. I'm actually surprised too. I've heard that the chances of surviving a lightning strike are higher than expected, but I didn't think I'd be the one experiencing it.

And damn it, I didn't know a demon who only seemed to handle lava could also control lightning!

"Haa."

With a dazed mind, I somehow forced my body up and let out a hot breath.

A burning wind came out, as if my lungs had been cooked all the way through. Perhaps because of the Sea Dragon Orb, I didn't feel hot, yet I still felt hot. It felt like shit.

[More importantly, is the snake still not here?]

SWISH.

Even so, I had to fight. Because the enemy was still alive. Because there was still fighting left to do.

... Because that's what I have to do.

[Anyway, just as expected of a guy who wears a turtle's shell, he's so damn slow.]

SCREECH.

The sound of metal quietly cried out in a range I couldn't hear.

CLACK.

I bent over to dodge a volcanic bomb and grabbed my Zweihander, which I had dropped at some point.

It seemed my strength was slowly returning, as control over my body was coming back. Although the feeling in my fingertips and toes was still numb.

SLASH!

Still, the mob that had been slashed diagonally and kicked by my foot had a chunk cut off and collapsed backward.

Given the soggy, mudflat-like texture, it would regenerate soon, but it would take at least 10 seconds.

[…Ah, right. Thinking about other things while you're here would be rude, wouldn't it?]

'Damn it, throw the sword up and coat yourself in mana.'

Then, for a moment. I instinctively tilted my body to one side. Since I couldn't put any strength into my toes, all I could do was fall sideways.

WHOOSH.

With that, my Zweihander being tossed upward and rising into the air looked unusually clear. The same went for the mana enveloping my body in a single layer.

CRASH!

And the light shining through the mana pierced my eyes. The flash I observed from a distance was by no means the warm kind like afternoon sunlight.

A sensation similar to earlier washed over my entire body.

Now, it didn't even hurt. All my senses faded distantly away.

'Hah, catching on to things like this so perfectly...'

"Cough."

I didn't know if it was because I had the Zweihander as a buffer in the middle, or because I protected my body by surrounding it with mana. Or maybe, having experienced it once, I had already gotten used to it.

I pushed strength into my legs while racking my brain to remember how many times I had been beaten up like this in the middle of a fight.

Of course, I kept my eyes closed. The flashbang from earlier was too severe. Physiological tears streamed down my face.

Well, maybe that wasn't the only reason.

'Contract, fuck, the contract sure picked the right person. Didn't it?'

SHING.

Instead, I drew the sword at my waist.

The leather grip had been scorched dry and was harboring embers, roasting my leather gloves all over again.

'Damn it... This is bad. At this rate...'

However, the drawn blade crumbled into pieces and fell away. Even when I stealthily checked with my blurry, red-tinted vision, it was the same.

'Fuck.'

It must have shattered from the lightning strike. The situation was getting crazier by the second, and there was absolutely nothing helpful around. A hollow laugh escaped me.

CLANG!

Still, I guess I could use it for throwing.

I dunked it straight into the magma—since the mob's body was made of magma, too, right?

It was already broken anyway. After using my brain a bit, I realized that holding onto it would make me nothing more or less than a walking lightning rod.

The same went for the daggers filling the inside of my clothes. There was no Inquisitor here to make a ceiling for me like during the Moby Dick raid.

I carelessly shoved all my iron items into my inventory. Thank goodness there was some spare room left.

BANG!

The volcanic bomb, its trajectory altered by my kick, team-killed a mob and splattered magma.

[Now then, let's keep going.]

It was then that one of the six hands of the demon holding onto its riches lifted a handful of pearls.

The lava spread across the ground boiled up in an instant, rapidly forming spikes, and the clouds began to roar once again.

[I'm genuinely curious whether his abilities were just weak, or if you're actually strong.]

'…Damn it! Dodge!'

CRASH!

And immediately as the lightning struck the ground, one of the pearls the demon was holding vanished. There were roughly a hundred pearls left now. Or perhaps more.

WHOOSH.

The sound of water began to be heard from somewhere.

* * *

CRASH!

When the third lightning bolt struck, the Lord snapped back to his senses. His body shuddered violently in a realm of instinct that could not be explained by reason.

"Hero."

But this was not the time. Right now, without a signal flare for backup having been fired, the place he needed to focus on was not over there, but right here.

"We possess weapons capable of attacking that beast. However, their numbers are few, and since they take time to activate, we may need your help, Hero."

"... Ah, yes. Yes."

The somewhat dazed-looking Hero's eyes regained their light. His moving lips seemed to want to say something, but he never actually spat out his true thoughts.

"Furthermore... I am not certain whether it will show a clear effect or not. Therefore... on the assumption that it is hostile, if by some chance it proves ineffective..."

Still, it didn't matter. The Lord was a man who cared more about saving his city and his soldiers than the Hero's personal circumstances.

It wasn't because he was a selfish person, but because it was the greatest responsibility he bore, so it couldn't be helped.

"U-Uwaaah!"

Just then, a soldier positioned above let out a strange noise. Naturally, those who heard it, and those who had the luxury to focus on it, waited for the soldier's next reaction.

CLICK-CLACK.

A light sent some sort of signal. People from other cities wouldn't recognize it, but it was a signal the Lord knew all too well.

To get a clearer look, he urgently used his observation item. The one he had gotten back from the Meister illuminated his vision.

"... Hah, so even if it isn't a demon, it's still an enemy!"

He could see the giant turtle beast lifting its body and then slamming it straight down. It was explicitly an action to generate a wave, and an act of hostility toward their city.

"The floodgates..."

The Lord ground his teeth and thought of a countermeasure. Unfortunately, there was only one method he knew of.

"Lord?"

"We need to open the floodgates..."

In times like this, they had to open the floodgates. It was the only way. The water here had to drain for the impending wave to be even slightly lowered.

However...

He looked behind him.

The west and south, where the fire giant wasn't rampaging. There, shining dots undulated like waves. They were all the torches of the people leaving the city following the evacuation order.

In such a situation, open the remaining floodgates from numbers 1 to 4? Although the number of Mermen had decreased significantly, there would definitely be some that slipped through.

If this were a normal situation where guards could be deployed to hunt down any intruding Mermen, it might be fine, but as things stood, the people would be in danger.

"Do not open the floodgates! Hold your ground! We are the ones with the strength to fight, but if we open the floodgates, those without even the strength to fight will be forced to face the Mermen! Willingly meet your deaths for the citizens!!"

"YES!!!"

He clenched his teeth and made the decision.

After that, he looked at the Hero. If possible, he had wanted the Hero to speak up first, but there was no time left now. That wave had to be stopped.

"Hero!"

"... Yes!"

Responding to the intense call, the Hero completely shook off his distracting thoughts. In an instant, a golden barrier pushed away the demons once again, clearing the sea.

Given some breathing room, the soldiers screamed as they threw their spears, and the thrown items exploded or froze the surface of the water.

"The giant beast has just created a wave. Do you happen to have a way to stop it?"

"... Yes, it should be possible!"

The Lord had asked while keeping his expectations somewhat tempered. However, luckily for him, the Inquisitor had a track record of once stopping a crashing blue wave.

"Then may I ask you to—"

"That is my calling, Lord! Thus, there is no need for you to ask!"

At the mention of an approaching wave, the Inquisitor fixed her gaze toward the sea and blinked her wavering eyes.

"Devoting this body to save people is my calling, and did I not conserve my strength until now for this very situation in the first place! So it is fine. No matter what difficult demands you make, as long as there is a righteous cause, I will never back down!"

Her wavering gaze was by no means due to wanting to avoid this task because she knew it would be difficult, nor because she was disappointed that the entity had ultimately turned out to be an enemy.

Ah, maybe there was a little bit of the latter? Still, that feeling wasn't enough to cause her this much concern. That wasn't the cause.

"So please do not worry, and focus on the battle."

And yet, the reason she kept losing her focus.

The place she couldn't help but care about since earlier was...

"We must end this battle as quickly as possible."

The slacker placed a hand on her shoulder. "Softie." The Inquisitor didn't answer that call. Her wide eyes breathed heavily, like someone cornered on a cliff.

"Make room!"

Right then, someone shouted with a cracked voice. A voice that wouldn't rise above a certain pitch no matter how much they raised it. It was the Meister.

"I said move!"

He had brought a massive device along with his craftsmen. It was an object with two thick iron rods attached side-by-side in an '11' shape on the front, and some sort of formulas densely engraved on the exterior.

It was so huge that just hoisting it atop the castle wall seemed like a chore in itself.

"Do we just need to move it?"

"I'll help too, sir."

"That would be it, but..."

However, there was a person here who could effortlessly lift even the fully armored Inquisitor. And there was also a young man who was surprisingly strong, albeit by ordinary standards.

Ber... no, the Weapon Master and the Deathbringer temporarily stopped killing Mermen with their spears and lent their strength to move the device.

Of course, seeing as it was a weight that even they—especially the Weapon Master—found difficult to lift and move, they used a cart to drag it over.

"It's quite heavy."

"That's not something someone who moved it without even catching their breath should say."

THUD!

The machine, hoisted atop the wall, was set up so that the rod sections protruded over the battlements.

The Meister, who had answered cynically, immediately prepared to secure the device firmly.

"Meister!"

"Yes."

"Shoot! Kill it!"

"Ah... so I guess it's an enemy after a—Shield! I'm pretty sure I said to put up a shield first!"

The Meister, who hadn't shown a hint of disappointment at the Lord's request, agreed immediately, only to lash out in anger right after.

At that, the person next to him flinched and quickly cast a protective shield. It seemed he had dragged a Mage along as well.

Moreover, the others besides the one who created the shield—they also appeared to be Mages—placed their hands on the device.

Judging by the flow of energy, it seemed they were infusing mana into it.

Though he only just learned that it was a device requiring as many as three Mages to stick to it and pump in mana.

The formulas engraved on the device shed a blue glow, then gathered the light into the two rods.

"What is this thing?"

"A failure, a money pit, a disposable item."

"... Pardon?"

"More importantly, Hero, I know you're conserving your strength in preparation for that turtle, but shouldn't you be saving it while keeping an eye on the situation? Can't you see the wave and the Mermen swarming in?"

Right on cue, the Mermen began to swarm in this direction all at once. It was similar to how dozens of them would jump to intercept the full brunt of a spell by themselves whenever magic was cast.

The creatures somehow perfectly sensed that something huge was coming, and they rushed in droves to interfere.

Behind them, the temporarily lowered sea level was surging back along with a massive wave.

"Uwaaah, it's coming!"

"Hmm. It's quite bothersome since we're underwater."

"The Mermen are swarming! Intercept them!"

"Come on, everyone, give it some effort. The moment this thing breaks, 30 million gal of investment melts right along with it."

"30 million... Gasp."

The Meister, hooking chains to the battlements, tossed out a remark under the guise of encouragement. It seemed he had wanted to fire people up, but...

Aside from the Inquisitor, whose eyes widened at the unimaginable sum, the Lord, who had been rallying the soldiers, suddenly felt his stomach churn.

People tossed around figures like 100 million gal, but the total investment cost for the anti-giant-monster weaponry easily surpassed 1 billion gal.

And the money spent solely on developing that specific unit was exactly around 30 million gal.

"... It cost 30 million gal, but it's a disposable item?"

"Yeah."

Even so, that thing was nothing more than a failure that would break after firing just once.

The core concept of that device was having the dense mana concentrated in the two rods cause a repulsion, utilizing that aftereffect to shoot out the ammunition in the middle—as fast as light—but the problem was that a material capable of withstanding that repulsion did not yet exist in the world.

More accurately, it could be made, but it cost a tremendous amount of money. Truly, really, exorbitantly.

To the point that upon hearing the price, he had no choice but to say, 'Let's give up on the launcher and just make the ammunition like that...'

The Lord's complexion turned dark just reminiscing about that time. "Shake them off!" Rushing the soldiers even in that moment was practically an instinct born of duty.

BANG, KABOOM!

The swarming soldiers swung their spears as if their lives depended on it. Mermen threw themselves desperately against the additional barrier the Inquisitor hurriedly cast.

"It's coming!"

"Duck so you don't all get swept—!"

CRAAASH!

However, the Inquisitor's still-vigorous shield never collapsed.

The golden barrier completely blocked even the massive wave and redirected it all back. Those who had been clinging to the wall to avoid being swept away lifted their heads in bewilderment.

"God, grant me the strength to protect everyone!!"

The golden barrier toppled forward like a domino, pushing back the water that had engulfed the entire wall. The Mermen were swept away by the current, leaving the battlefield temporarily quiet.

At the miraculous display, everyone stared blankly at the Inquisitor.

"Hero..."

More than blessing the castle wall, more than healing dozens of people at once, more than pushing away a portion of the Mermen hanging on the wall, it was an even more definitive engraving in their minds.

"What are you doing! Tie it down!"

GRIP.

But the Meister, who possessed a 'middle fingers to the gods' mindset, was different. He paid not a shred of attention to the Inquisitor's miracle, focusing entirely on the device.

His touch was as delicate as could be as he pressed down and secured the vibrating device with the tools he had brought, bound it with multiple layers of iron chains, and even covered it with a metal net to root it in place.

"T-This is shaking, you know?"

"It won't blow up yet, so tie it down!"

RATTLE.

No matter how you looked at it, this vibration wasn't ordinary, was it? The Deathbringer added his hands with a dismayed face. They bound it so tightly that if it were a person, one would think they'd suffocate to death rather than just be secured.

"They're swarming again!!"

"Reform the formation, attack!"

In the meantime, the enemies the Inquisitor had forced back returned.

Whether it was to stop the device, the sight of them swarming exceptionally heavily in this area was now worthy of being described as 'more Mermen than water.'

"Kill them all!"

BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG.

The machine shooting massive arrows continued to turn, and the Weapon Master, who had borrowed a soldier's spear, singled out only the warrior commanders and smashed their heads in.

"Magic is coming!"

CRASH!

"Nice!"

On top of that, magical support that arrived just in time knowing the situation pierced through the interference of the jumping Mermen and fried dozens of the demons to a crisp.

It gave the soldiers a brief moment to catch their breath.

"It's ready!"

THUD.

And by the time the rattling device, having gone through that process, even emitted a blinding light.

The turtle came within a few hundred meters. RUMBLE. A sound of collapsing ground was heard, as if it had stepped on the levee the city had built.

"Hero, can you create a shield around the device, on both sides, above, and behind it?!"

"It is possible."

"Then drop the entire shield and make it the moment I give the signal. You guys, step back!"

It wasn't a major issue. The Meister, whether the turtle was approaching or not, pulled the people back after receiving the Inquisitor's confirmation.

The Mages who had been infusing mana backed off first, and the soldiers dealing with the Mermen retreated with expressions mixing half fear and half relief at the Lord's shout.

"Now! Make it!"

"Yes!"

Furthermore, following his instructions, the Inquisitor's shield covered the device in the shape of a cube, leaving only the front and bottom sections open.

ROAAAR!

It was at that exact moment that the approaching turtle let out a long cry. It stretched its face out, opening its maw wide as it roared.

However, it was already too late to cancel the attack out of wariness. The moment it cried out, a sound even louder than thunder rang out.

BOOOOM!

The device blew apart just like that, causing an explosion inside the golden barrier the Inquisitor had made.

The explosion launched the pointed ammunition forward, as if bouncing it out.