“This guy, too?!” Menel spat out, infuriated.
“Menel, stand back and stand by.”
“Got it.”
Poison didn’t work on me. I’d been raised on Mary’s holy bread, and I had the stigmata of Mater on my arms. So—
“I’ll beat him down now.”
Although I’d used this magic spear, Pale Moon, for a long time and felt very comfortable with it, I hadn’t had great results with it against stronger enemies. I thought that it would probably like some glory of its own soon. I held my spear tight by my side and ran toward the chimera once more.
It struck at me with a ferocious swing of its front leg. I ducked under it and swung my spear upwards. The lion neck bent and avoided it. Its right foreleg swiped towards me, trailing miasma. I’d seen it coming; I dodged with a back step. As its right foreleg completed its swing, its demidragon neck stretched towards me. It was about to breathe fire.
Back when I fought the wyvern, I’d avoided this by choking it just before it got the chance. But this time, I’d only moments ago leaped backwards. With my center of gravity tilted back, I couldn’t just leap forward like I had before. Moreover, its lion head was still alive. If I attempted a strangulation move, I would be snapped up in its jaws.
So I held my shield firm and pressed my feet into the ground. As the fire belched out, I prepared myself for what was coming. It was possible that I would be burned all over in an instant or my eyeballs would boil. Yeah, it was possible—but surely just an instant of fire would be fine! I was using defensive blessings! That fire was probably only just a little warm anyway, appearances can be deceiving! Don’t hesitate, I told myself, charge in!
Telling myself anything that came to mind to muster up my courage, I held my shield up in front of my face and charged forward. I closed the distance in less than a second and slammed my shield into the demidragon head’s wide-open mouth.
I felt the all-too-real sensation of slamming into flesh. Several fangs broke off in different directions, and the fire breath stopped. The chimera stiffened for a moment. Maybe it hadn’t expected me to come straight at it through the flames.
“‘Gnomes, gnomes, form a fist! Clench your hands and strike the foe!’” Menel cast Stone Fist. There were a lot of small stones scattered all over the ground. They leaped up like a rising fist, and pounded into the chimera’s vast belly.
The chimera let out a cry of intense anguish. As it writhed in agony, I thrust my spear through its demidragon neck, finishing off its second head. As soon as I felt the spear sink in, I immediately pulled it back into my hands. I stepped in closer, spinning the spear as I did, and flicked the heavy metal end upward, cracking it into the lion head’s jaw.
The chimera flailed and threw its front legs around me, trying to grab me. My way forward was completely blocked by the lion head, and left and right were closed off by the wide reach of its front legs as they closed in. There was nowhere for me to escape.
“Acceleratio!”
Except up.
I leaped almost directly upwards. The Word of Acceleration was one of my favorites, but I hadn’t used it even once in this chimera battle until now. The ground was just too unsuited for it. If I tripped on one of those stones after speeding myself up, it was very possible the momentum would carry me face-first into rock.
Unlike Menel, who had completely ignored the problem by using his elemental powers to run everywhere, I hadn’t been using any particularly fast maneuvers this entire time. So this move was one the chimera had no knowledge of.
It lost sight of me for an instant and then, realizing what had happened, it looked up—and was momentarily blinded by the light of the sun.
“‘Gnomes, gnomes, take his feet! Harden, bind, and nail him down!’” Simultaneously, Menel cast Hold, with perfect timing.
I roared, and with the sun at my back and Pale Moon in my hands, I let my fall give me momentum, and drove the spear down into its lion head.
I felt it sink through skin, muscle, and bone, and then the impact of my landing. I immediately tried to pull the spear out and leap away, but it was stuck. I had an instant of panic, and I released the spear and leaped back without it. Then I realized. The chimera had already expired.
It was no wonder I couldn’t pull out Pale Moon; it had sunk all the way through the chimera’s lion head, and was stuck in the ground on the other side.
I turned around to see that the beast extermination was almost over as well. Most of the beasts were already sprawled on the ground, and even those that were still running about looked badly wounded. It didn’t look like the others needed any help.
“We won!”
“Nice!”
Menel and I high-fived. It made a satisfying sound.
This hadn’t been the kind of magnificent victory I’d scored against the god of undeath. It wasn’t a triumph of the underdog against the obvious favorite; it was an ordinary, routine win. But even so, I thought that was fine. If grueling battles like the one I’d fought against the god of undeath were a regular occurrence, that would be unbearable. And besides—we still had enemies ahead of us.
“Moving on!”
“Ya!”
Wary of traps, we stepped inside the ruins of the monastery.
The inside was being kept illuminated by magic, which had probably come from the demons. The place had been stripped of its former stillness and holiness and transformed into a place of hideous rituals and research. We ran down long corridors, passing room after wide-open room, taking side glances at their contents: blood, meat, guts, beastlings preserved in strange fluid, magic circles in ghastly colors of paint.
They had to already know about our assault. It was possible that the demons who were controlling this base would choose to flee, and if that happened, the same thing might repeat somewhere else. We had to finish them off here, and both I and Menel were determined to do whatever it took to make it happen.
We burst out of the corridor. Our view opened up.
We were in the monastery’s chapel.
It was a very spacious place where sculptures of the gods were enshrined, and reminded me of the temple in the city of the dead that had once been my home.
But the several statues of the gods lined up at the back of the chapel had the details of their faces scraped off, just like the ones I’d seen previously in that village. The text honoring the gods, which should have been on the wall, had been scraped away. In its place were Words of praise for the god of dimensions, written large in darkened blood in a unearthly style that was nauseating to look at. And there was Dyrhygma’s crest, featuring arms grasping the eternal cycle.
It was a demonic ritual site.
“Took you long enough.”
A quiet voice echoed about the chapel.
When Menel and I heard that voice, our eyes bulged. There was a bearded man there looking at us, wearing a scratched-up cloak and holding a sword. And on his face he was wearing a grin the likes of which I’d never seen.
No way...
“Rey...stov...?”
“Yeah.”
Unbelievable.
How on earth—
How—
His grin widened as he watched me try to make sense of this.
“You owe me ten gold coins,” he said cheerily, and pointed to the body of a large demon lying dead on the ground.