Hermit Wizard

The Truth-Seeker of Silver Forest (5)

They were swept away by her long hair. I heard the sound of the bodies being crushed to the bone.

-Creak!

The heads of the Ashpims were shattered and lost their function as a weapon. However, having released both hands, the Kirin didn’t stop spinning and turned with her tail stretched while maintaining centrifugal force.

“Hahahahahaha! Hahahahahahahaha!”

Her long tail struck the giants with the sound of the howling wind. The giants approaching were cut down by the Kirin’s tail and died instantly.

“Khooaaaaaaa!”

There were many such giants that it may be possible to surround and besiege her, but it could never happen in reality. She was far too vicious to be besieged. In the distance, her huge body was seen. The giants who believed in their number and approached her were dying and falling. There was no time for her to be cornered by the group of Ashpim Giants. Watching the bold dance of violence, Ghur slowly deduced who she was.

“What the hell is that? Oh, My God. I can’t believe it even when I see it with both eyes. I don’t think it’s a deity, but…”

“I don’t know because I haven’t asked for the sake of her dignity…but isn’t she a true Demi-god?”

I was ashamed of myself, who was suspected of being a Demi-god by Elder Kapal. A minute or two had passed since she jumped into that group, but already dozens of Ashpim bodies were rolling over at her feet. But what was scary was that she didn’t seem to suffer any damage despite the giant’s attacks. And that too without any protective magic!

“It’s a terrifying body.”

When a Kirin, which was said to be reluctant to harm life and not even step on the grass, opened its eyes to slaughter and violence while maintaining its power, it seemed to become such an atrocity. According to what was passed down in Parvache’s dimension, there seemed to have been a case of a fallen Kirin stained with evil. Still, as I watched her battle, I couldn’t resist the thought of dismissing the fallen part about her. Wouldn’t it be acceptable that it was an evolution to develop such a fierce combat power?

“Kwaaaaaaaaa!”

Although Ashpims poured out vibrations with all their might, the Kirin didn’t frown even once.

“I think you’ll realize it at this point, but it’s a shame.”

Her hoofed feet penetrated the giant’s face.

Puck!

Her feet, having smashed the giant’s forehead, came out again through the flesh. The trembling of the giant’s body, which emitted vibrations, stopped instantly and collapsed to the ground. She rubbed her hooves against the ground, wiped them off, and rushed to the next giant.

Slap!

Under formidable pressure, the giant’s eyes popped out of the face like a firecracker! The brain that had been piled up in a protective membrane had managed to escape destruction. But the giant, who hadn’t died, fell to the floor. Both its eyes were hanging from the eye socket and twitching with the optic nerve still attached. It must have been an unbearable pain, where death would have been better than enduring such misery.

The Kirin stood in front of the collapsed giant with a suspicious smile. Taking advantage of the opportunity, five or six giants pushed their attacks onto the Kirin at once. But the giant’s nails didn’t leave a single scratch on her. The Kirin was standing upright, undisturbed. The giants, whose attack was nullified, panicked. And without giving a single glance to them, she picked up the neck of the giant, who lost both eyes, with one hand.

Then, putting its head back, she roared with a rumbling voice.

“Die! Useless worms whom I can’t eat! Just die!”

And as it was, she head-butted it.

Pang!

The horn on the Kirin’s forehead struck the giant’s mouth like an awl. It came out through the back of the head, resulting in instant death. Originally, a Kirin’s horn was said to have a blunt shape not to harm living things, and its flesh covered the bones, but the Black Kirin’s hard-skinned horn shone brighter than most swords and blades could. As the Kirin’s hand released the giant’s body, she turned and swung her horn.

Fuss! Wheik!

The giants surrounding her were cut down, leaving a neat cross-section. Even before the bodies fell to the ground, she swept the giants beyond them like a storm. Horrible traces remained in every place where the Kirin moved.

“Khaaaaaaaaaa!”

As she began to rampage violently, the screams of the giants continued. How long could such a one-sided slaughter last? Realizing that they couldn’t stand against her, the wizards of Ashpim eventually ordered a retreat. The wizards hiding under cover of the crowd exchanged shouts with each other, and the giants quickly pulled back and started to retreat: no magic, no ability, no physical attacks.

There was nothing they could do. That much was evident. However, the Kirin, who was excited to the fullest, didn’t stop. She crushed the giants that had entered her range one by one. Eventually, the battle ended in less than ten minutes after she jumped into their ranks. The number of giants running away seemed to be less than half of what we had originally seen. Ghur and I had no choice but to cancel our spells in vain, as each of us was preparing a spell to deal with the giants that came our way.

“…It’s incredibly terrifying.”

“She has a certain combat prowess…”

Ghur, who was scratching his furry arms to say he was getting goosebumps, spoke.

“You summoned her for a purpose, didn’t you? You certainly looked like you know each other.”

“Yes, she’s already helped me several times.”

The giant shook his head as if he didn’t understand.

“You’re saying that the Seed’s Channel wasn’t calling out any entity in random? You’re saying that you were connecting a channel to that monster’s world and then calling it out, right?”

“Well, she’s not of a low-class to be called a monster…anyway; everything you said is correct.”

“I haven’t seen or heard magic like this. The Elders strictly forbid summoning magic because we do not know what kind of disaster it will cause…”

Ghur’s tribe seemed to have banned the summoning magic-using seeds. Usually, most cases of such blatant taboos had a history of summoning something that they couldn’t handle. This civilization must have had a big problem with the Channel, perhaps.

“Can you teach me how to do it? If we can summon such an entity at will, it isn’t impossible to drive out all the Ashpims around here.”

Seeing the Ashpims being wiped out helplessly by a single Black Kirin, greed seemed to have arisen, but I shook my head.

“To do this…first, there should be a dimensional map in your head, but this isn’t the level of information that an ordinary organism’s brain capacity can handle. I did it specially.”

In my case, Parvache engulfed my spirit and then forced the map to be engraved. In other words, the attempt can be made only when a spirit body that is close to dimensional information is kept, like Parvache.

“Furthermore…to induce the Channel to the coordinates of a specific dimension, the consumption of Mana is multiplied by several times. In my case, my body itself is somewhat synchronized with the Channel, so Mana consumption is reduced, but if it isn’t…”

“How much Mana would you need?”

I hesitated for a moment because I wasn’t sure how to compare.

“Approximately…I would need enough Mana to eradicate all the Ashpims in this neighborhood.”

If a volcanic eruption were concentrated in a specific area, wouldn’t it be wiped out? It meant that you need Mana to trigger at least that much magic.

“In the end, it meant nothing.”

If they could mobilize that amount of Mana in the first place, they could grab and kill the Ashpims on their own instead of leaning on summoning magic. It seemed that my intention was well conveyed. Still, the lingering feeling hadn’t fully left gone, so Ghur smacked his lips.

“I’ve never seen anything like that since I was born.”

His gaze was fixed on the Kirin. She ended the slaughter instead of chasing them when most giants ran away and began to turn around and walk towards us. Every time she took one step closer, her body became smaller as it returned to her slender, nude appearance.

“Did you see the Truth-Seeker today? In comparison, the Truth-Seeker would still be more powerful…”

The Truth-Seeker was the one who had approached the most deity-like status among mortals. No matter how powerful a Kirin was, it was nowhere close to the power of a Truth-Seeker. Ghur replied with a bitter smile.

“The story of the Truth-Seeker has been told by the elders since I was a child…I know how great it is. But I never imagined that there would be a creature with such a powerful might that wasn’t a Truth-Seeker.”

After he said that, the giant pondered for a moment. Then he broke the silence again and muttered vaguely.

“…You must be getting fed up with it, so I’ll ask you one last time. What the hell are you doing?”

Instead of answering, I laughed quietly. Well, what was I doing?

For the past ten years, I had recognized myself as a desperate fugitive who was building a high wall to hide from a Truth-Seeker. But now that I realized that building that wall was in vain, I didn’t even know what I was anymore. One thing was for sure. I don’t feel 100% happy right now. Before long, the Kirin approached Ghur and me, who were at a loss for words.

“Sigh~.”

She was humming in front of us. The Kirin, who slaughtered more than three or four hundred giants in the time it took to boil and eat ramen. She looked strangely happy. Although it was unknown why, was it because the Kirin ran wild after a long time, or because she got seeds of the Enchanted Wood tree?

It was the opposite of me.

She ridiculed the giant looking at her and said, looking at me, quietly raised both thumbs.

“What are you doing? Open the door.”