Chapter 56 - The Beast King's Roar
As I’ve felt before.
The wolf-kin friends conduct their fights quite inefficiently, or romantically.
They separated one side of the battlefield, designating a separate area for the leaders to fight, growling and pulling each other’s hair.
To borrow a familiar expression, a one-on-one duel!
In that aspect, there was a romantic element, doesn’t it mean they place great importance on the fight between the leaders?
Of course, that doesn’t mean the subordinates are just twiddling their thumbs, so outside the dueling area, they were fighting and scuffling as usual.
Logically, it would make sense to put Enya at the forefront, but.
“The first time is a bit hard, you know? But as you drink, you get used to it? Now you can just down beer in one shot, gulp, ahh~ You can do it. Cheer up!”
SD Ari flew around Enya, giving encouragement that wasn’t really encouragement while wearing a meaningful smile.
Our Ari.
You’ve grown so much.
She used to hate it so much that I usually gifted her not the lowest grade, but efficient low or medium grade potions for Ari’s share.
It seems I can feed her the lowest grade from now on.
With a fond smile on my lips.
“Ha, you’re just a lowly woman from Darang. Come at me.”
“I’ll pull out those arrogant fangs of yours.”
We deployed Renatel as our ace card.
Since she’s a wolf-kin, there’s justification story-wise, and performance-wise she should be reliable, and a sword vs sword match should be interesting to watch.
Then naturally, the rest of our members have to fight against the wolf-kin troops.
The difference in numbers alone is easily ten times, no, twenty times as much.
“Everyone be careful. If it seems dangerous, retreat immediately.”
I took out Saha’s new weapon, an iron rod, from the inventory and handed it to her while giving words of caution.
Lumi just needs to loosen her fists a bit, Tinya deals mental magic damage anyway so she doesn’t need any special preparation.
Saha’s hammer is a weapon in itself (obviously).
If she swings the hammer, it would completely smash them, but with the iron rod, it should stop at just breaking bones.
If the duel is WWE, this is a UFC scene.
Moreover, they’re swinging real swords, while we’re at a disadvantage having to maintain a non-lethal route as much as possible.
Tension naturally filled the air.
“Everyone, attack meow!”
“Awoo!”
“Awoo!”
As the cat-kin beast-kin who was annoyingly staying back meowed.
The wolf-kin friends, with ominous colors in their eyes, started to rush in all at once.
Checking the status of Enya, who’s being treated as a temporary party member, she’s still level 27.
Level 27 when the average level of the enemies has shot up to the mid-40s? It’s barely enough specs to go toe-to-toe with Mob A.
For now, she’s out of our fighting force.
At this point, let’s check the victory conditions.
[★☆☆ : Subdue all enemies.]
[★★☆ : Complete the mission without harming the wolf-kin.]
[★★★ : Capture the cat-kin shaman ‘Mio’.]
“Lumi?”
“Meong!”
Perhaps disappointed that she couldn’t directly beat up the queen candidate, Lumi’s ears were slightly drooping as I called her.
“There, we must catch the cat. It’s a job only Lumi can do.”
“A job only Lumi can do…! Woof! Master, I’ll do my best woof!”
Ears perking up, tail wagging.
Lumi, who expresses her emotions clearly.
Lick.
“…Even here?”
“Hehe, Master is good woof!”
She suddenly leaned her face towards me and licked my cheek again.
It’s not like she’s marking her food by licking it in advance or anything.
Renatel.
And tension filled the air between the queen candidate who hadn’t yet gone through the formal succession process (Arthus).
Of course, Renatel wasn’t particularly tense.
Although she had been killed several times by the dog-kin, suffered the humiliation of having her eyes turned into night eyes, and was utterly defeated by Enya.
But that was the Renatel of the past.
After enduring the terrible torture of having liquid poured down her throat and stomach for several dozens of minutes.
Now, Renatel could observe her opponent with a clearer mind and stronger power than ever before.
Just a quick glance was enough.
That one’s an amateur.
I’m a master.
It was a very clean estimate.
“Eek, why are you smiling like that?”
The queen candidate, who didn’t like the smile on Renatel’s lips, growled in displeasure, but.
“Are we going to fight with words?”
Renatel immediately countered with a provocation.
And then.
One round.
Clang──!
Renatel’s sword and the queen candidate’s sword clashed.
“Kyawoo…!”
The queen candidate’s body slid backward.
Because even the force in Renatel’s sword was on a different level.
Renatel’s smile deepened a bit more, having confirmed her superiority with just that one move.
“How disappointing. To try to falsely claim the title of wolf-kin queen with just that level of skill.”
The queen candidate bit her lip in frustration, but.
Biting her lip doesn’t improve her lacking skills.
What followed was indiscriminate beating!
Whack!
“Kyau!”
As if it wasn’t even worth using a real sword.
At some point, Renatel’s sword had changed from a real sword to a wooden sword.
And that wooden sword mercilessly hit the queen candidate’s head for the third time, whack, whack!
“Ugh, it hurts…!”
“It should!”
Whack!
One more time!
The so-called hitting where it already hurts.
Moreover, it wasn’t even a special sword technique, but a very straightforward attack, yet the queen candidate couldn’t block it.
Because it was that fast.
If she couldn’t follow its trajectory with her eyes, it was a blow that she couldn’t help but be hit by.
Until just now, the queen candidate had been furious, saying “Are you ignoring me? Draw your real sword right now!” but.
With the intuition that if it had been a real sword, she would have already been turned into sixteen cubes of steak.
She didn’t dare to bring up such talk anymore.
Even though she should have surrendered long ago.
The reason the queen candidate was still holding on was only one.
‘Just a little, just a little more…!’
She was waiting for the effects of the elixir given by the great God Cat to kick in.
If it seems difficult, take this medicine meow. In five minutes, you’ll be filled with tiger-like strength meow!
At first, she didn’t take it, believing she could win without such medicine, which was the cause of her current defensive position.
Perhaps that cunning Darang woman had taken something similar in advance? That’s why there’s such a big difference in skill.
Whack!
“Kyaang…!”
Even while enduring the pain of her skull being split, she kept counting time in her heart. One more minute, no, fifty seconds. If she could just hold on for fifty more seconds…!
Of course, Renatel wasn’t foolish enough to not see through such a shallow trick.
But Renatel was foolish in a different sense.
“It seems you’re aiming for something? Go ahead and try. It’s not like you’ll be able to defeat me anyway.”
Instead, she was sneering and subtly provoking her.
Just like the princess of Saiyans’ careless mode, teasing the level 2 green bug monster while tacitly allowing its final awakening!
“Tch, let’s see how long you can keep that smile on your face…”
The queen candidate, who had been shown mercy, just gritted her teeth, grind grind.
Although her pride had taken a huge scratch, pride doesn’t guarantee victory.
Swallowing her humiliation, twenty more seconds, ten seconds…!
But.
The queen candidate never reached the great awakening due to drug doping.
“Kyaooooo───!”
A massive roar erupted from the center of the wolf-kin soldiers.
“Kugh?”
“Kiiing…!”
At first glance, it sounded similar to the roars that might commonly come from beast-kin immersed in battle.
But the resonance, the heavy pressure felt in that resonance, the authority, the intimidation that made you feel like you should kneel right now…
Renatel’s sword, which was about to playfully strike the queen candidate’s head for the sixth time, stopped.
The queen candidate’s movement, trying to raise her arm to block somehow, also stopped.
Her stiffened body, her whole body, started to vibrate slightly and then began to shake violently.
And then.
“Uweeeek…!”
Unable to withstand the sudden change in atmosphere, she ended up vomiting the medicine right before awakening.
The situation wasn’t good for Renatel either.
“Kughk…!”
Feeling that her limbs weren’t properly controlled due to the fear instinctively surging up.
Renatel forcibly turned her head, which didn’t want to move, to look at the source of the roar.
Clang, thud, flop.
The sound of weapons falling, the sound of losing strength in legs and sitting down.
The wolf-kin soldiers who had been standing fine and growling fiercely until just now all lost their will to fight at once.
And standing majestically at the center was.
“Lu… mi…”
The dog-kin hero.
It was Lumi.
Lumi’s gaze, which had been indifferently scanning the wolf-kin soldiers kneeling before her, eventually fixed on the rear of the soldiers.
“Cat! So you were hiding there woof!”
Looking at the cat-kin who was sitting down with weak legs and trembling.
Then hop, pitter-patter!
She rushed in as if flying and grabbed the cat-kin’s collar.
And then, lifting her high up.
“Master! I caught the cat woof!”
She shouted triumphantly.