One spider monster that had been slowly wandering behind the wolves suddenly leapt up and clung to the wall. In the blink of an eye, the giant spider shot up one floor like an arrow, and before I could say anything, it had already smashed through the terrace window.
“Aaaaaah!”
Eight hairy legs thicker than a child’s torso.
The large window shattered with a crash, and people wrapped in fear fled in a panic. When I barely managed to assess the situation beyond the people who had suddenly surged this way, the ash-haired man had already been seized by the spider.
The monster, tightly wrapped around the terrace railing, was turning the ash-haired man this way and that with its hideous front legs. Among its eight eyes, the five cloudy eyes that remained intact glinted cruelly. The man’s eyes were rolled back, his soul lost to terror.
The moment the spider monster opened its vertically split pincered maw, Miss Sana’s body, which had been running, shot up.
Miss Sana, who had leapt up elastically like a briefly shot arrow, drove her sword down with all her might into one side of the spider monster’s head.
Black blood spurted.
The drawing room floor covered with splendid velvet carpet became stained. People’s exclamations, screaming sounds were heard, and the spider slowly lost its strength. Thud, the captured man fell. The eight legs that had been supporting the huge body collapsed.
Miss Sana pulled out her sword and landed soundlessly on the floor.
I was still in a dazed state, too shocked. “Today… I really feel like I’m using up all the shock of a lifetime.” Mikhail muttered vacantly beside me.
I took out a handkerchief and handed it to Miss Sana as she returned.
“Thank you.”
She accepted it readily but only put it inside her lightly armed armor without using it.
Miss Sana swung her sword with a whoosh, shaking off the blood. She, whose breathing wasn’t disturbed at all as if she’d just been catching flies, briefly explained to the nobles.
“Spider-type monsters climb walls.”
At her curt words, the mage who had belatedly regained his senses added an explanation. Perhaps shocked by seeing the spider monster, he rambled for a moment.
“Strategically, it seems they’re prioritizing dealing with spider-type monsters right now… Ah, judging by the monster corpses on the ground, previously they seem to have prioritized dealing with flying-type monsters first… Looking at the count family’s knights guarding the mansion entrance, I’m confident this is an operation that puts your safety, our safety, as the top priority.”
Miss Sana nodded briefly to show agreement.
The ash-haired man was still fallen unconscious in front of the spider’s corpse.
No matter that it had been dealt with, even the dead monster’s appearance was so hideously terrifying that no one dared approach.
Among the breathing sounds of people still gasping, overwhelmed by fear, someone pointed outside the window.
“But that… what is that monster?”
People’s gazes turned again to the center of the forest, to the source of the problem.
The procession of ominous monsters that had been endlessly crawling out like a spring had stopped.
However, at some point, something was standing tall at the cracked entrance like a scar in the earth.
It looked like a person.
Very tall. Wearing a black hood, with a long mage’s robe hanging down to the feet.
However, even from a distance, the hand holding the staff could be seen to have exposed bones. The opposite hand was the same, and there it held a huge scythe embedded with gems soaked in deep red blood.
It was a lich.
A cursed mage.
A necromancer. A soul that commands corpses.
The most wretched undead in a world beyond salvation.
A cursed monster that had been human, that had wrapped itself in the curse of immortality, that had literally forsaken being human.
The thing that had briefly revealed itself seemed to notice the gaze and stared at this place for a moment, then melted into the darkness and hid its form.
“As expected…”
The mage whispered in a drained voice.
The worst situation he had anticipated earlier was unfolding before their eyes.
“If it’s a lich’s undead army, this scale of monsters makes sense.”
The drawing room, which had barely calmed down, was once again wrapped in intense fear.
“Then will that thing really appear too?”
Marquis Heisilt asked unsteadily, his lips trembling.
“There’s also a probability that there’s only the lich.”
The mage had a gloomy face for a moment but eventually answered.
“The Quina family’s monster corpses would have been good provisions for the lich. There’s no way it won’t appear. I should go down and report the situation to His Highness the Prince.”
“It seems he already knows.”
Miss Sana answered.
Everyone looked down at the garden again. We pressed closely against the window of the intact terrace, far from the spider corpse.
Like soldiers receiving orders from their commander, the monsters were retreating all at once.
In the garden stained with rain and black corpses, only Benedict and the knights remained. Though it seemed like the safest situation so far, everyone held their breath in foreboding.
Benedict was gazing at the entrance to the forest submerged in silence, as if waiting for something.
At that moment,
A long, sticky cry was heard.
It sounded like huge mud boiling, and also like the howl of a madman on the verge of death.
Benedict raised his hand. The knights who had been assisting him retreated to a place close to the mansion and joined with the count family’s knights.
The rain had stopped but now wind was blowing. Under the dark clouds that hadn’t cleared, fierce strong winds blew.
The ominous cry had stopped but it still felt like an unpleasant tremor clung to the air. Everything was shrinking uneasily. Only the reddish-brown oak forest swayed here and there in the fierce wind.
And between them,
The largest beast so far raised its body. It walked out.
“M-Miss Sana.”
When I turned around to say shouldn’t we help, I couldn’t say anything.
Miss Sana, who had always been calm, was looking at that approaching monster with surprised eyes. I too unavoidably faced the most chilling beast in the world.
A fierce head. A maw that seemed to be smiling.
The monster’s head and front part had the form of a tawny carnivore. A dense brown mane surrounded the large and vicious face.
Front paws larger than boulders, iron claws curved like hooks. Below the waist it was gray, and on the hind legs were things like studs that looked like horseshoes. A black tail densely studded with scales like a viper’s stretched long behind the monster.
The most overwhelmingly impressive thing was the eyes.
Two eyes blazing like fireballs above the cruelly smiling maw. Fierce eyes from which murderous intent streamed out in threads.
The more that haphazardly assembled thing approached, the harder it became to breathe. My whole body felt paralyzed. Hiss, hiss, each time it exhaled, that boiling-like terrible crying sound gurgled out thinly. It was clear that if that thing stretched out its head fully, it could easily reach this place.
“Chimera…”
The name of the most sinister monster humans could create was heard.
In the garden strewn with dozens of corpses, only Benedict stood with his sword, waiting for the giant chimera.
And suddenly, the black tail whipped around.
Everyone swallowed their screams.
The serpent tail that missed its target swept creepily across the garden in a curve.
Benedict, who had leapt up, landed not far away. The corpses struck by the chimera’s tail flew here and there making squelching sounds.
It leapt up.
Letting out a roar like thunder, the chimera charged. Unbelievably fast for its huge build. In an instant, several exchanges followed. Benedict seemed to mostly dodge or deflect attacks, and seemed to clash directly a couple of times.
The ground was gouged and trees broke.
When the chimera seemed to turn its attention toward the entrance where the knights had gathered, Benedict finally attacked first. Clearly the sword and the beast’s hide clashed, but the clanging, crashing sound of steel grating rang out all the way here.
The monster’s bizarre epidermis was hard as iron.
Regretful sighs leaked out bit by bit from beside me. Benedict was confronting it without retreating at all, but in a situation where the chimera that wouldn’t budge looked so overwhelmingly powerful, everyone was at a loss for words.
“No!”
For a moment Benedict was obscured. The fierce body like a small rocky mountain covered him, and it seemed he had allowed an attack.
Once again a clanging metal sound was heard.
“…!”
Like the anchor of a large ship, the huge iron hook claws were tightly tangled with Benedict’s longsword.
I could see the chimera’s cruel claw tips coming down precariously close to his cheek. The tip of Benedict’s sword was trembling. It was almost grazing, and a shrill voice burst out from behind. I glared with my teeth clenched.
The chimera, which had pinned Benedict with its front paw, thrust its maw forward. Its huge mouth gaped open, and terrible teeth like they had grown wrong were fearfully revealed.
“We must block it!”
It was about to breathe fire, and people screamed. I almost jumped down below. But the next moment the chimera screamed and leapt back.
Kuaaaah!
“No way!”
Everyone was surprised, and I too turned to look at Mikhail, forgetting even the urgency of the situation.
My brother had the same dumbfounded face.
The chimera, which hadn’t been injured like a lump of metal at any moment, stomped thud, thud. It seemed like the earth was shaking and finally the thing that had been ramming here and there in the forest raised its enraged head.
I could see one of the chimera’s eyes was split open, revealing its red interior.
Even while facing the monster that looked sickeningly enraged just by looking at it, Benedict calmly shook off his sword. Red blood different from that of the undead scattered through the air.
And the cleaned blade blazed blue once more.
I muttered blankly.
“I… thought of course he was using aura.”
I only now realized that Benedict had truly been only wielding his sword until now.
“Me too…”
Mikhail also muttered in a daze.
The enraged chimera was now breathing fire indiscriminately. Whoosh, pillars of blazing fire swept past Benedict as he dodged here and there. He was inducing the attack in the direction opposite the mansion while consuming the blazing fireballs in midair.
The blood-soaked chimera’s eyes heated up. Its pupils narrowed vertically and a venomous gleam shot out. The monster opened its mouth wide once again and let out a roar filled with murderous intent.
