319 - - Those who take risks-the five who take risks-the five who take risks.

The battle began early in the morning before dawn.

The first to rush in were hordes of blue-skinned ogres.

Although they were not as sturdy and regenerative as the trolls, their larger size, strength that could tear steel to shreds, and aggressiveness were unmatched among the subhumans.

Wielding sharp claws and fangs, the bipedal beasts attacked with deafening roars.

The adventurers, in contrast, first check them with their bows, then use their electric bands and magnetic warnings to slow them down, while the flame wielders each fire as much firepower as they can muster.

After reducing their numbers, the shieldmen led by the former hero Mugargo move to the front to engage in melee combat.

Here, it was the retired ex-Gold class (A rank) and silver class (B rank) members who were in high spirits.

It is in melee battles that the length of experience counts the most.

Although the turnout was a little slow due to the fact that they had been away from the field for a long time, they were all fierce fighters who had been fighting on the frontlines for many years.

They easily stopped hundreds of augers rushing toward them and surrounded them, chopping off their heads precisely.

The expeditionary force easily survived the first wave of attacks, but it seems that they were just testing the waters.

A more powerful group led by an ogre general appeared next.

Riding on vicious fire-breathing lizards, the ogre warriors closed the distance in no time, trampling the corpses of their comrades.

A corner of the defense is broken by a scorching breath, and the spiked clubs of the ogre begin to lay waste one after another.

The plight that fills the land is a fitting stage to vent my chagrin. Let's go!

"Rampage to your heart's content, my prince. --

Black shadows swayed and darted among the ogres.

Two swords danced and danced, and a cloud of blood rose high in the air.

The fire-breathing lizards opened their jaws in unison, ready to strike down the swordsman who had leapt into the fray.

But the man, who has been exposed to such intense fire that he is charred to black in an instant, smiles unconcernedly.

His jet-black armor took on a beautiful silvery-white glow.

"Scorch them all!　--."

The sword in Straccia's twin hands erupts in a roaring red flame.

The blazing blade seared through scales and flesh as it swept through the hordes of ogres and lizards.

In the void created, Ninessa shoots a stream of swirling fire.

In no time at all, the two of them have righted the disarray in the formation and are closing in on the ogre general riding the giant black scorpion.

The ogre general swings a large iron ball with thorns attached to a chain at his approaching prey.

In the blink of an eye, Straccia ducks the iron ball that is right in front of her.

The swordsman takes one look at his eye patch, which is shredded by the wind pressure, and leaps to the scorpion with a single glance, seeing the distance between the circling iron ball.

From a curve to a straight line.

Not the usual circular swordplay, but a gait that closes the shortest distance in an instant.

The twin sword slashes that followed cut off both of the ogre general's wrists, sliced across its ribs, and then severed its neck from both sides in a brilliant motion.

It was, oddly enough, a movement similar to that of the brothers.

When necessary, he would use the most appropriate sword stroke. A man with natural talent can only do so much.

Stratchia shakes off the blood on his blade as the monster falls on its back.

An axe is suddenly thrown from behind, aimed at the swordsman's head.

The one-handed axe comes flying down, just barely grazing the helmets, and it hits the tail of the scorpion that is about to pierce Straccia from the blind spot.

A moment later, a flaming bullet hit the tail and spewed sparks of fire.

The swordman's blade flashed as he jumped back, and the scorpion fell to the ground, its head cut off.

"You are as dependable as ever, Master Lili."

"You owe me that one. You'll pay me back later."

As the girl picked up the one-handed axe, Straccia raised her sword to signal her approval.

Ninessa rushes over to her and shouts in surprise.　

"Oh, my God!　Lili?"

The red-haired beauty stared at the purple-eyed girl with her arms crossed and her eyes bloodshot as she pounced on her.

She hugged the girl tightly and kissed her soft skin.

"She's so cute!　Hey, hey, are you free after this?　Do you want to have dinner with your sister or something?"

"You're still disgusting. Rollo!

"Oh, you wanted to see me?"

Kikiriri undid Ninessa's arm and jumped on Rorolf, who came running up to her with a thud and quickly straddled her shoulders.

Ninilas, with his sister Nenemimi on his shoulders, followed behind the two as they drove off on their shoulders.

As Ninissa looks on with regret, the flame wielder with a short mustache speaks to her, breathing on her shoulder.

Hahaha. That was a bit of a close call, my prince. We have a long way to go, and if we start off too fast and he should fall, it would be a blow to our morale. Please take care of yourself a little longer. Huh huh?

"Don't say it, Barukhonia. My heart is boiling with smoldering shame. That's why I cannot be stopped now. Nor will I let you stop me."

"Hmmm, how did it go back home?　Lady Ninessa."

"The number of oases we have been able to protect is only the fingers of one hand. Eventually, that too will be ......."

"The way out is now dead. But that does not mean that we should overlook recklessness. As long as we, the hungry people of the sand, survive, Zuma will never perish. Remember that.

"They're coming!　Prince."

Cutting off the conversation, Rassel's warning echoes, long sword at the ready.

The swordsman gazes out across the plain, where the sun is just beginning to rise, at a muddy red river.

Sharks with sharp dorsal fins and vicious fangs come from the surface of the river to the shore one after another.

Their huge bodies, dripping red drops of blood, are supported by four legs protruding from their abdomens.

The quadrupedal land sharks move faster than expected, shaking the earth.

And that's not all.

On the backs of the sharks straddle monsters that resemble the shape of human beings.

Its face is a mass of tentacles, and what appears to be its head is attached to the tips of its outstretched arms.

The two faces on the tips of the hands are lifted up, and their mouths are twisted in a strange way.

Instantly, one of the shieldmen screams and sprawls out.

The man, bent over, spits up blood and easily passes out.

He is not the only one.

The tentacle-heads held out their arms one after another, and the adventurers on the front line clawed their heads and screamed.

They fell to the ground, blood dripping from their noses, eyes, and ears.

"Watch out, it's a dark technique!"

With a shout, the men who raised their shields released their fighting spirit in unison.

--

The shieldmen, who have turned not only their bodies but also their minds to iron, will not be able to use their mind-destroying dark techniques.

Flames and arrows are released, and several tentacle faces tumble to the ground.

But the progress of the sharks does not stop.

The iron men line up their shields against the oncoming hordes of monsters.

The vanguard hides behind them, hiding for breath, waiting for the moment of impact.

Each face is still filled with a strong fighting spirit.

But there was more to the four-legged sharks controlled by the creepy tentacle faces.

Strangely enough, thick chains were wrapped around the dorsal and tail fins of the land sharks that emerged one after another from the river.

Whenever a group of land sharks walked, red droplets of water splashed down with the deafening sound of creaking chains.

Suddenly, the surface of the water broke apart.

At first, partly because of the line of protrusions, it seemed to be a floating island or something.

However, the adventurers waiting for it gradually lost their voices at the sheer size of it, which shook the surface of the river endlessly and uninterruptedly.

The sheer size of the boat would have made it impossible to discern what it was had it not been for the distance.

Pulled by the sharks, something emerged from the bottom of the water.

It was a huge turtle.

The width of its carapace was, if I were to estimate lightly, almost as wide as the width of a border town.

Furthermore, its surface is covered with countless spines, the length of which alone exceeds the height of a man by a long shot.

The mountainous tortoise slowly lowers its paws to the ground, dragged by the chains attached to each thorn.

Although the distance between us is still quite long, I can feel a strong tremor on the ground beneath my feet.

The adventurers, their eyes wide open in surprise, bated their breath, but none of them would turn their backs.

Mugargo, the leader of the shieldmen, nodded his head in satisfaction.

The adventurers are highly skilled individually and in coordination with others, but because they are nothing more than a hodgepodge of individuals, they do not follow their commander's orders as absolutely as an army does.

Therefore, it was expected that they would be able to escape easily in an emergency because of their fighting style that prioritized survival above all else.

But the adventurers did not move.

They simply stare at the monsters that cover the area in front of them with glaring eyes.

"You guys are really into this! All right, young man."

Mugargo, who himself is no more than 30 years old, does not seem to be bothered by the fact that he is not a young man and picks out Straccia.

"You wanted to see me, steadfast shield?"

"I bet that big thing sends thorns flying. We'll crush it before it comes at us. Can you do it?

"In the fire of my magic, it's nothing."

"I don't know, but I'll leave it to you. Hey, only those who want to die should follow me."

Then I will lead the way. Scatter and bewilder, leaves of the flame tree!

Chanting a prayer in high tones, Ninessa pours out her magical power.

As the giant brown-horned man ran, his figure blurred in multiple directions, creating countless illusions.

While the sharks' movements are disrupted as they try to bite the phantoms, the suicide attackers rush through the center.

However, the sharks seemed to be ineffective against the mounted demons, perhaps due to their lack of eyeballs.

One after another, their eerie arms are aimed at Ninessa, who has released a large amount of magical power, and her beautiful face is distorted.

The red-haired flame wielder stops dead in her tracks due to the terrible pain that seems to be cutting into her head, and both sides of her lips are lifted wide.

When the city of her birth was attacked by a swarm of ghouls, the young Ninessa was unable to control herself and turned the surrounding area into a sea of fire.

As a result, she herself was saved, but her relatives and sisters were reduced to ashes.

From then on, Ninessa willingly accepted the pain.

The pain that tears at you is forgiveness, and the only thing left for you to do is to turn it into anger and destroy the monsters.

Ninessa let out a scream, blood dripping from her eyes and nose.

Burn, burn, burn, burn, burn, burn everything!　--

Crimson petals bloom in the middle of the battlefield.

Sprinkling sparks of fire, the burning petals danced high in the sky.

The raining fireballs engulf the shark's epidermis, turning it into black charcoal in an instant.

The radiantly dispersing burning blossoms, one after another in a chain, erupt in a heaven-shattering fire.

Mugargo and the others run through the center of the shark swarm, which is filled with the smell of burning smoke, without looking back.

The ground shook again and again, and little by little the mountain-like giant tortoises approached.

After slashing and pushing through the monsters that stood in their way, the suicide squad finally breaks through the final enclosure.

Just as the towering carapace nears, the sun is suddenly interrupted and a shadow falls at their feet.

The adventurers look up and are rendered speechless as their entire field of vision is painted black.

It was the sole of a giant tortoise that was about to fall like a hammer.

Mugargo let out a roar at the tremendous mass that was approaching.

"I won't let you do it!

.

This technique, a branch fighting technique of the immovable mass that unites with the earth, gathers the surrounding soil to cover the body like armor.

And when it comes to the fighting techniques of the former heroes who have cultivated their branches to the maximum...

A mass of earth more than ten paces in diameter suddenly rises vertically from under Mgalgo's feet.

It quickly grew in height, rising into a gigantic tower.

The giant man pushed up by the earth collided head-on with the foot of the giant tortoise that was about to crush him.

The ground and the air trembled, and a heavy thud echoed in the depths of my ears.

The tortoise's weight must have been several hundred times greater than his own.

However, the giant man with the diamond-shaped shield, which was bigger than his height, was bearing the weight with all the muscles in his body.

No, he did not stop there.

After a short silence, the shield was lifted up little by little, as if resisting the weight above its head.

At the same time, the earthen towers are also extended further toward the sky.

As everyone stares in silence, the giant tortoise finally gives in.

Lifted high on its front legs, the huge body loses its balance and falls sideways in a heap.

The adventurers, who had been gasping for breath at the triumph of the supposedly tiny human, let out a loud cry that was almost as loud as the roaring of the earth.

"Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!

"Just immovable!"

"They've done it!"

Straccia and the others quickly close in on the turtle's head as it comes down to the ground.

"Come on, Lili!"

"Let the eternal fire burn and destroy everything in sight!

"Hmph, heavens ...... scorch ...... tree of radiance. Hahahaha, now is the time to ...... bloom to your heart's content.　

Extreme flames that distort the atmosphere are generated, and purple flashes run in all directions.

The giant tortoise, his forehead cracked open by countless ax blows and his defenseless eyeballs melted by a burning sword, opened his jaws frantically in agony.

Then, nearly a hundred petals of flame were mercilessly poured into his jaws.

The monster, belching out a thick plume of black smoke, tries to escape into its sturdy shell, the only thing that can protect it.

But the swordsman who has been waiting for it makes the first move.　

"Taste my inner fire!

Razzel's sword had already turned into a white pillar of flame that shot up to the sky.

With a powerful step, the great sword was thrust into the neck of the giant tortoise.

The tortoise's neck stopped moving as it was deeply pierced.

The head of the monster, which had lost its escape route, easily reached its limit.

The head of the monster, having lost its power, falls to the ground, covered in spurts of blood, fire, and smoke.

But the giant tortoise that had survived for so long was also a monster.

Just before he expired, he released the spines of his carapace.

Because it had been overturned, half of the thorns that were shot out bit into the ground.

However, hundreds of spines still leaped high into the air.

Moreover, the sharks were still chained to the thorns.

Naturally, the four-legged sharks, pulled by the thorns, also leap into the air.

It is like a storm of thorns and sharks.

If all of them fall, we will be wiped out.

"It's good of you to cut it in half, Mgalgo."

A woman from the Midoriha tribe, who was watching the transition in the back, muttered to herself in front of the strange scene of thorns and sharks swimming in the air.

The wind wielder quickly raised her staff adorned with a storm crystal stone and unleashed her overflowing magical power.

"Gather, winds! --

At that moment, the atmosphere rumbled.

Countless gusts of wind suddenly arose, rushing across the sky with terrifying force.

Storm upon storm.

A roaring, backwinding storm battered the falling thorns and sharks sideways.

The tornado that had been brewing in the mid-air then engulfed everything in its path.

The thorns are snapped and the bodies of the sharks are torn to shreds as they are tossed about by the raging gale.

And then the storm, rising high into the sky, unleashed its power all at once.

The thorns and sharks are scattered far and wide.

After that, only a clear sky spreads out as if nothing had happened.

The expeditionary force finished watching the events that unfolded for a few seconds right above them with their mouths open in a dumbfounded manner.

Mugargo, who was breathing heavily and covered in blood on top of the earthen tower, glared around him and muttered happily.

"Well, Sier's storm isn't getting any slower. Oh, the next one is already here!

What followed from the other side of the river was a dense forest of trees.