CH 36

Oriana came back from behind the trees carrying the unconscious Lady Cruel and said to Mist.

“Mist, the barrier has been broken! Oh no, the monsters are coming this way!”

“Oi! Oi!, are you serious…?”

(More importantly, when Master Absolute is not here… And what kind of a monster could break the barriers of the Bowser family?)

The Browser family’s unique magic “Barrier generation” can create barriers with all kinds of effects. The barriers created this time to avoid monsters were made very strong on the outside to prevent monsters from entering.

Mist could not hide his shock at the fact that there were enough monsters to break through the barriers he had placed his trust in.

“Oriana, is lady all right? She seems to be unconscious. And tell me more about what happened.”

“I couldn’t see much from afar, but I saw a humanoid monster throw something that looked like a rock at us from outside the barrier and destroyed it?  Lady-chan and I managed to avoid it, but Lady-chan lost her balance and hit her head.”

I see… the situation is very bad. If  lady is unconscious, there will be no one to release magic into the sky. We can’t call Absolute-sama or the teacher for help…

“Oriana, I want you to listen to me. Absolute-sama is out right now and won’t be back for about 15 minutes. So we have to do something on our own.”

“Eh?… how can that be?”

Oriana’s face turns blue with despair as she listens to Mist’s words.

They felt something approaching from deep in the forest.

Looking in the direction of the sign, a huge black-skinned humanoid monster over two meters in height appears from the direction Oriana had just passed. While Mist and the others were checking the situation, the monster followed Oriana and came to Mist and the others. The monster was so intimidating that they wanted to run away from it, and they could feel the difference in power between the two. The monster took a glance at Mist and the others with red eyes as if underestimating them.

Feeling the same kind of pressure that they felt when they were under Absolute’s pressure, Mist and the others instantly turned around to face the monster, weapons at the ready.

“What is that monster?”

Princess Leone replies to Mist’s muttering.

“It’s an ogre…a ‘higher’ kind…. I’m certain of it because I’ve seen one that was defeated in the kingdom of Suiroku some years ago.”

Hearing that it was a “higher species” of ogre, Mist and Oriana gulped.

The closer humanoid monsters are to humans, the more intelligent they are, the more they feed on other monsters to become stronger. In this process, a “higher species” is born. The appearance of the “higher species” mutates from that of a normal ogre, and their abilities increase dramatically.

The strength of a normal ogre is equivalent to that of a knight of the Land of Rainana. It’s not difficult to imagine the strength of a “higher species” of ogre.

“Princess Leone, please take the lady away from here. Oriana, please go get Maria.”

There’s no way to escape from the ogre in this situation. The other party is a monster and will surely come after them. So, Mist thought it was a good idea to buy time for Maria to come. Maria is a powerful person whom Absolute brought to guard the princess. Mist himself has had several mock battles with Maria in the past and understands her abilities. She should be able to beat even the higher level monsters.

(She should be able to at least buy time…she was trained by Absolute-sama for times like this.)

The reason why Princess Leone was placed in the back was because he thought that if something happened to her, it would become Absolute’s responsibility.

Mist asked Princess Leone to stay in the rear, but she drew her sword in defiance.

“No, I won’t let you fight alone. I’ll leave her to my maid, don’t worry.”

“If anything happens to you, it will be Absolute-sama’s responsibility.”

“Don’t worry, I will protect you if something happens. And it is taught that in times of emergency, the Suiroku royal family will put their bodies on the line to protect their people. You may not be my people, but you are my friends who fought with me today, and I will not let you fight alone.”

Mist has been watching Princess Leone’s battle as part of the same group all day. To be fair, she would certainly be stronger than him.

Mist scratches his head and comes to a conclusion.

“Ahhh! Please put your own life first. Your life is the heaviest of all. Fine! Let us take care of the monster until Maria-san arrives. Oriana, please go get Maria-san.”

“I understand.”

“I’ll keep that in the corner of my mind. And, Bowser-san, don’t say anything about stalling, you’ll die if you don’t go in with the intention of defeating it!”

Mist and Princess Leone faced the ogre, and Oriana rushed out to call Maria with those two in the background.

Princess Leone was the first to move. She ran toward the ogre and tried to kill it. She slashes the ogre’s body from the side with her sword and focuses her attention on it.

The red eyes of the ogre catch Princess Leone. The next moment, the ogre closes the distance to Princess Leone and swings down with his strong arm.

“Aah!”

Princess Leone instantly evades by kicking the ground. The Ogre’s arm swings down to the ground, and the tremendous impact is transmitted through the air to Mist, who is at a distance.

“Princess Leone, are you all right?”

“Don’t worry about me, worry about yourself!”

Princess Leone shouted back at Mist.

“You could have died from just one blow. Let’s just keep grinding steadily for now! I’ll distract it this time, and you can attack while it’s distracted.”

Mist closed the distance to draw the attention of the ogre and slashed at its legs with his knife, and Princess Leone, as if to support him, took the ogre’s blind spot and slashed repeatedly with her swords skill, which she is proud of, to surely inflict damage on the ogre.

(The princess is far stronger than I am, and I’m jealous of her. But still, this guy never moves just when I attack him? It’s as if it doesn’t care about me at all…. It doesn’t seem like a monster at all.)

The ogre moved. The ogre sets his sights on Princess Leone without even glancing at Mist who just cut him.

“Princess Leone! This thing is targeting you.”

Mist repeatedly slashed at it from behind in an attempt to somehow change its target to him, but its hard skin made it difficult to do any damage. The ogre continues to move straight ahead, showing no sign of stopping.

“It’s okay, I’m going to activate the ‘enhancement’.”

Princess Leone fights using her physical abilities enhanced by the magic of the Suiroku royal family and her swordsmanship honed through her efforts. Although her power is inferior to that of the augmented ogre, she can still compete with it if she uses her enhancements.

Princess Leone, whose body has been strengthened with her own magic, rushes out to intercept the ogre and slashes at it from an upper stance, swinging down. Blood spurts out from the body of the sliced ogre. Princess Leone herself felt the sting of the attack and thought it was over, but the ogre wasn’t dead yet. The ogre reared up against Princess Leone with its stiff arm.

“Gghh…”

The Ogre’s attack hits her body, and Princess Leone is sent flying away.

“Princess Leone⁈”

“It’s all right… you need to worry about yourself.”

Princess Leone manages to stand up with the support of her sword.

She had strengthened her body, so she doesn’t appear to be badly injured. However, she is still unable to move sufficiently because of the damage she has sustained.

Mist observes the wounds Princess Leone has inflicted on the ogre. It is a very deep cut, not shallow at all.

(With that kind of wound, she could have decided it all at once.)

Mist decides that this is the moment to win, so he gets between Princess Leone and the ogre, and plunges his knife deep into the wound Princess Leone has inflicted. Unlike before, he could certainly feel that he was inflicting damage.

(I can do it! I can defeat the ogre! If I keep going like this…)

The Ogre doesn’t recognize Mist as an enemy, but it swings its fist down repeatedly toward Mist in an attempt to eliminate him, who stands in front of Princess Leone.

Mist, just barely avoiding the ogre’s attacks, risks his life by repeatedly thrusting his knife at it. However, the ogre was still alive even after being mortally wounded many times.

The knife was caught in the fibers of the ogre’s muscle and it took a moment to pull it out. In the meantime, the ogre swung its fist at Mist.

(Oh, I can’t avoid it… I’m dead…)

The ogre’s attack appears to be slow, but its body doesn’t move. Mist was just waiting for his death.

“Dangerous!!”

The moment the Ogre’s attack was about to hit Mist, Princess Leone pushed him away to protect him.

But instead of Mist, Princess Leone took the brunt of the Ogre’s attack.

Mist rushed to Princess Leone and carried her body to distance themselves from the ogre.

Princess Leone was vomiting blood from her mouth, as if her internal organs had been damaged, but she had used a strengthening spell, so there was no need to worry about her life. However, she was unable to stand up because she had been hit so hard in the lower back, so she was in a position where she had to surrender her body to the ground.

“Princess Leone⁈ Why? why are you protecting me? I told you to put your life first!”

Princess Leone laughs weakly at Mist.

“Bowser-san, please don’t be so down on yourself. You are a kind person who sincerely wishes for Ark’s happiness…you are not evil.”

Mist is pained by Princess Leone’s words.

(No, I’m not such a good person…It’s not worth helping a dirty person like me who only disposes of corpses…)

The ogre stands in front of the two wounded people and tries to put a stop to them.

It is not an opponent who he can win against while protecting the injured Princess Leone. The ogre swings his fist down, and just as Mist and the Princess surrendered themselves to their fate, the ogre’s body is suddenly cut in two and it dies.

Mist and the princess, unable to keep up with the sudden turn of events, are called out to.

“I’m sorry it took so long. Oriana told me what happened.”

The voice was Maria. After a delay, he also sees Oriana’s figure. He was surprised for a moment to see that her entire body was covered in blood, but when he recognized the voice as Maria, he was so relieved that he felt his body relax.

“Thank you very much, you have saved our lives. Maria, are you all right? You are covered in blood.”

“I had several battles with the black ogres I fought before I got here, and I’m sorry for my unsightly appearance.”

(How many of the top species did you fight so hard against? You’re not half bad, are you, Maria?)

“I’m fine…but Princess Leone was injured protecting me. I’m sorry.”

Mist felt like he was going to be crushed with guilt when he saw Princess Leone who was injured protecting him.

Maria rushed to the fallen Princess Leone to check her wounds.

“It looks like she has a back injury, but it doesn’t seem to be life-threatening. Under the circumstances, she is lucky to be alive. Let’s get out of here as soon as possible. A horde of monsters is heading this way.”

“What horde of monsters?”

“I had many battles with monsters before I came here. It seems that was the first group of monsters and that horde over there is the second group. So many of them appeared out of nowhere…without any warning, just like the black ogre.”

Mist and Maria felt a sense of discomfort at the appearance of the horde of monsters and the appearance of the higher species, which appeared without any signs.

(It’s hard to believe that there were several higher-level monsters in this forest. And the timing of this chase… it’s too contrived.)

“Let’s retreat quickly…we can’t protect ourselves with that number of monsters.”

Mist uses the tallest tree nearby to look down from the top of the tree to see what is going on. Then Mist’s eyes widened slightly and his eyes shook with astonishment.

“There’s a great number of monsters gathered here. If that many of them attacked us all at once, there would be not a moment to spare.”

Mist’s field of vision shows a swarm of more than several hundred monsters. After checking, he hurriedly climbed down from the tree.

“Even I can’t handle this number while protecting the wounded. I will serve as your leader, so all of you must retreat.”

Maria tells Mist and the others, sweat beading on her forehead.

(Princess Leone must be returned alive, and Maria’s power is necessary for that, so we can’t just leave everything to her.)

Mist was determined and took action.

“Barrier generation.”

The horde of monsters and Mist are driven inside the barrier, while Maria and the others are driven outside.

“This barrier is to trap the prey with the activator in the center… I’ll use the barrier to keep the horde of monsters at bay. Maria, please take Princess Leone and the others and retreat to the headquarters. Fortunately, the headquarters is not far from here, so I should be able to buy enough time.”

“Mist! You can’t take on this number by yourself! You are going to die!”

Oriana shouts at Mist.

“I have no intention of dying, but the damage will be much worse if someone doesn’t take the role of Leader. If that is the case, I am the most suitable person among us who can confine the monsters with a barrier. Maria, who is the strongest, has to guard Princess Leone, and Oriana has to be with Cruel-san, right? If Princess Leone dies, it will be Absolute-sama’s responsibility, so please send her back safely.”

“Bowser-san… please stop. Let’s all run away together…”

Princess Leone tries to hold him back.

“It’s tough to run away from that many monsters. And since you saved me earlier, I have to return the favor. I’m sure Absolute-sama will be back in 10 minutes, so I think I have a good chance of winning. But…if something happens to me, please tell everyone that Mist was cool.”

She sacrifices the friend she fought with. Princess Leone was frustrated by her own helplessness.

“I can’t tell everyone that you were cool, Mist. I can’t lie…so make sure you come back alive.”

Oriana leaves the scene, carrying the unconscious lady Cruel on her back, leaving him with a light word.

“The master will come for sure, Mist-san. But if you are in danger, don’t hesitate to run away…good luck. Let’s go, ladies and gentlemen! Princess Leone! Do not let Mist’s devotion go to waste.”

Maria, who is still convinced that Absolute is coming, carries Princess Leone and leaves the scene.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

While being carried by Maria, Princess Leone apologizes again and again as if squeezing out her tears.

Princess Leone’s voice faded into the depths of the forest with the sound of their footsteps.

After confirming that Princess Leone and the others had safely left the area, Mist turned to the group of monsters that were coming toward him.

There is no higher species like the one just described, but it feels somewhat consolidated.

“I didn’t think I might die here, but I had no choice. Will I be able to last for 10 minutes? In the words of Absolute-sama, “Don’t think that evil can choose where to die.”

(I can’t destroy them like Absolute, but at least I can buy some time for the others.)

“Activate the skill “Fog”.

Mist uses his skill “Fog” to generate a thick fog within the barrier. The skill is not very useful and Mist only uses it to dazzle, so he doesn’t use it very often.

“Now, let’s get back on our feet.”

One against hundreds, Mist’s lonely battle has begun.

Mist Bowser

15 years old

Skills

Fog Generation v5…

Unique magic

Barrier Generation…

Status

Level: 25

Physical Ability : 50

Magic power : 24

Brain ：45

Magic learned

Wind

Skills

Concealment, evidence destruction, knife skills, swordsmanship