CH 168

Subjugation

***---***

I didn't remember it very well, but after I got drunk and returned to the boarding house in Lastock, it seemed that Meisa-chan, who had just fallen asleep, woke up, and I was lectured by Amanda-san at the breakfast table.

"Kent, I know that you have a relationship with adults that is unthinkable for a child of your age. But, getting drunk of all things, it's bad to drink alcohol and cause people trouble. What you're doing looks like a middle-aged man in the thirties."

"I'm sorry. I'm reflecting on it."

"That's right, but what are you going to do, Meisa?"

"It can't be helped ... I'll forgive you this time, but if you do it next time, I'll kick you out of the room."

"Yes, I'm sorry. Or rather, Meisa-chan, over there is my room ..."

"I, I know that. This house belongs to us, so the room Kent is using belongs to us! Stop grinning!"

"Yes, that's right. I'm sorry."

The angry puffed up Meisa-chan looked like a kitten with bristling fur, so it's a little cute.

Even though I'm being scolded, I'm almost grinning.

"Seriously ... you're so impertinent despite being just Kent ..."

"Umm, so, I, what did I do wrong?"

"No way! Don't you remember?"

"After finishing drinking in Lastock, when I stood up from my chair, my feet felt 'Gunya gunya', and then ... I feel like it was strangely fun ..."

"You came hugging me while smelling like alcohol, stroking my head, and 'Muni muni'ing my cheeks ... you even ki, kissed me."

"Eeehhh ... No wayyy ... Did I really do that?"

I had a faint memory of 'Guri guri' to her head and 'Muni muni' to her cheeks, but I wonder if I really kissed her ...

"Are you saying that I'm lying?"

"No, that kind of thing ... I'm sorry for the inconvenience."

"Ah, I guess you have to take Meisa as your wife as well ..."

"Eeehhh ... That is ..."

"Wait, mother, you always say that marrying someone like Kent would be difficult!"

"Eeehhh ... I, are you really saying that?"

"Ahahaha, that's right, even though there are three such cute and well-made wives, Meisa won't be able to compete."

"I see, that's right ..."

"I can't believe it! Kiiiii, even I will become a 'boin boin' beauty in five years. I'll be out of Kent's league!"

"Amanda-san, it seems that the shop is safe."

"That's right, you don't have to be all 'boin boin' or a beautiful woman, so if you can do arithmetic a little more and stop wetting the bed, that's enough."

"Ah, that one might be more difficult."

"Kiiiii, I don't wet the bed! Arithmetic ... I hate iiiiit!"

I had a good laugh with Amanda.

It's a little noisy, but if I spend a warm and fun time, I'll have to do my best to protect this happiness.

"Kent, are you going to fight the Griffon again today?"

"Yes, today I'll give it a proper finish."

"Kent ... Will you be okay?"

"It's okay, even if I lose, I'll come back safely."

When I stroked the worried Meisa-chan's head, she narrowed her eyes like a cat and tightly hugged me.

"If you don't come home safely, I won't sleep with you."

"Yes, yes, I will return safely so as not to make Meisa-chan who loves me sad."

"No, that's not it. If Kent gets hurt, mofumofu will get hurt too ..."

"Yes, yes, then, I'm heading out."

"Aiyo, do your best and come back to report when you're done."

"Kent ... come back soon."

"Yes, I'm going!"

Amanda-san and Meisa-chan sent me off, and I passed through the shield of darkness and headed for the Devil's Forest training ground.

Actually, it was to finish the Griffon countermeasures that were supposed to be done last night.

First, I'll replenish the javelins that Zae and the others used yesterday.

I've made about 25 pieces so far, so I'm used to working with them, but this time I'll change the shape a little.

I cut a cross in the tip of the spear.

[ Kent-sama, what is the notch for? ]

"This is because the tip explodes along with the notch when it hits, causing great damage to the enemy."

[ Hohou, you deliberately create a weak part and break the tip on purpose. ]

"Yeah, if it's Zae-tachi's throwing ability, I think this one will be more powerful."

It's the principle of the so-called Dum Dum bullet, but even with the javelins up until now, the power of Zae and the others was superior, and the same effect was occurring, but I thought that by making it work intentionally, it would increase the power even more.(TN:Dum Dum bullets are also called exploding bullets.)

When Zae actually tried it, the trunk of the tree it hit was gouged out.

I prepared 3 sets of 15 throwing javelins with this Dum Dum bullet structure, and if it still couldn't kill it, they could throw in the remaining 2 sets of 10 javelins.

After replenishing Zae-tachi's javelins, I confirmed the operation procedure with all my genus and then moved to the castle gate.

At the castle gate, there were already members of the garrison and adventurers who had been summoned to the guild.

I could also see Marianne-san and Donovan-san, who were coordinating the two organizations.

"Good morning. Donovan-san, Marianne-san."

"Kent, you're here ..."

"Good morning, Kent-san, my best regards today."

"To you too, my best regards."

Marianne-san, who was wearing the uniform of the garrison, combined with the bunny ears that stood up, made me think that it was a cosplay at first glance.

However, once she appeared on the battlefield, she was a veteran who burned down her enemies with her powerful fire-attribute magic, and was also the commander-in-chief of the garrison.

"Today, will Marianne-san also join the attack?"

"Kent-san, that's wrong ..."

"Eh, about the attack ... Ah, I'm sorry. Will Mother-in-Law also join the attack?"

"Yes, that's right. Since the opponent is a Griffon, I plan to concentrate all the firepower of the garrison."

"Kent, I heard that you will prepare a decoy, but please tell me the procedure again."

"Yes, our Kobold will move from the Devil's Forest to the castle gate as a decoy."

I confirmed the operation procedure with Marianne-san and Donovan-san.

When the Griffon appeared, Art and Irt would act as decoys and trot from the edge of the forest toward the castle gate.

When the Griffon attacked, use the shield of darkness to block the view, and carry out a strategy of crashing into a huge rock.

If the collision went well, the subsequent steps would likely proceed as expected, but if the plan went awry, then there would be no choice but to flexibly proceed with subsequent developments.

Even if it was avoided, it should slow it down, so use the shield of darkness to hinder its path and time the Slavery Bolas.

In the worst case, if we couldn't use the Slavery Bolas, I planned to devote myself to chasing it off today as well.

Of course, being able to subjugate it would be best, but I prioritized avoiding casualties.

"Then, our attack will be right after your genus' attacks have passed and the damage has been done."

"Yes, anyway, if we don't do something about the wind-attribute magic that the Griffon is wearing, no matter how much we attack it, it won't be effective, so I don't think we can bring it to subjugation."

"Certainly, that's right. Does that Slavery Bola work well?"

"It works fine for humans, but I honestly don't know if it works for Griffons until I try it."

"Really, well, if it's no good, we have no choice but to think about it when it's actually no good."

"Then, I will move to my post soon."

Before diving into the shadows, I checked the position of the attack formation, and the garrison had prepared five crossbows in addition to longbows, and about 100 magicians were deployed.

The guild side also had adventurers with strong magical powers and archers, and among them were the three Flame Hounds.

Also, isn't that also Takayama over there.

"Eh, Takayama wasn't called up because he's an E-rank, right?"

"I'm allowed to participate in the storming. I can be useful from a well-protected place, and above all, I want to protect the city where I live with my own hands."

"Hmm ... Don't say things like when this operation is over ..."

"Idiot, don't try to raise a strange flag. From now on, I'll be in Volzard ..."

"What are you going to do with the flags from what you're saying!"

"Ah ... That's right."

After laughing with Takayama for a while, I dove into the shadow space.

It was sunny in the morning, but clouds began to appear as the time for the Griffon to appear for hunting drew near.

At first there were only thin clouds, but as time passed, they thickened and even blocked out the sun.

Even so, it wasn't raining, and when the clouds broke, the sun shone in.

Thick clouds hid the appearance of the Griffon, so it wasn't a very good condition.

[ Kent-sama, please prepare yourself in the case that we are caught off guard. ]

"I understand. I'll consider it to be hiding behind the clouds and approaching."

[ I'll tell everyone to stay alert. ]

"Let the decoys, Art and Irt, go outside already."

[ Understood. ]

The decoys, Art and Irt, wore conspicuous red and yellow cloths, respectively.

WIth that appearance, it seemed as if they were stuffed with grass, and moved from the forest to the castle gate.(TN:Not sure what this is supposed to mean, 草詰み kusatsumi. 'Stuffed with grass' is what it came up with. Kusa is referring to grass/weeds or ninjas, while tsumi has to do with being checkmated or reaching the limits of something. Maybe it means they look like super out of place ninjas or something, I dunno.)

It was when an adventurer who mistook them for real people and started making a fuss, and Donovan-san yelled at them and calmed them down.

Won! Wonwonwon! Wonwon!

"Operation start!"

While shouting loudly, I deployed a five-layer shield of darkness with a wide gap.

The bottom shield was less than 10 meters away from the ground.

From that shield, a huge stone began to fall towards the ground.

Art and Irt quickly disappeared into the shadows and hid themselves.

The gigantic rock appeared, and the Griffon broke through the first shield at the same time as the people gathered on the ramparts roared.

The Griffon showed no sign of slowing down at all, and when it broke through the second, third, and fourth shields, the huge stone fell and a tremendous earth tremor occurred.

The distance between the Griffon that broke through the fifth shield and the giant rock should not have been 5 meters.

The moment I made a fist pump that it worked, the Griffon opened its wings all the way.

Gyaaaauuuu!

A strong gust of wind blew from its wings, and the Griffon suddenly decelerated as if it had been fired backwards from a rocket, but as expected, it couldn't slow down and kicked with its stiff limbs and crashed into the huge stone.

"Alright! Hooray ... Eeehhh ..."

The Griffon smashed the rock with its extremities enchanted with wind-attribute magic, and when it landed almost undamaged, it opened its wings again and tried to aim for the sky.

"I won't let you!"

I quickly deployed a shield of darkness in front of the Griffon to block its path, but the Griffon didn't care and flapped its wings and rushed towards the shield.

From the Griffon's point of view, it probably thought that one shield of darkness would be easily broken.

"Here, you can't pass, nya!"

Nero's neko punch exploded as a counter when the Griffon tried to break through the shield of darkness.

With its neck twisted, the Griffon lost its balance and fell to the ground.

"Now!"

Three shields of darkness were deployed around the fallen Griffon, and from the shields Reinhardt, Basten, and Fred had prepared the Slavery Bolas.

One was knocked away by its rampaging wings, but the other two were tightly wrapped around its neck and hind legs.

"Throwing javelins!"

This time, five shields of darkness were deployed around the Griffon, and Zae and the others, who had prepared in the shadow space, threw their special javelins at close range.

Gyaaaauuuu!

The Griffon let out an anguished cry, and not only feathers, but also pieces of flesh and blood splattered.

It seemed that the Slavery Bolas were demonstrating their power, and the javelins seemed to hit directly.

"Second shot!"

After changing the position and deploying the five shields of darkness again, Zae and the others' second shots were fired.

Gaaeeeeeee!

Along with a cry of agony, a large amount of feathers and blood splashed again, and the Griffon was convulsing.

"Fred, drop its wings!"

[ Leave it to me ... ](TN:For some reason here, it's "" instead of [] in raws, but it's a typo, Fred can't 'talk'.)

Jumping out of the shield of darkness, Fred swung his jet-black twin swords and slashed off the Griffon's wings.

"You bastards, do it!"

When Donovan-san's angry roar resounded, a simultaneous attack began from the ramparts towards the Griffon.

The fire-attribute attack magic that increased in power by mixing with the wind-attribute attacks, and arrows were shot down like rain.

In order not to hinder the attacks of the garrison members and the adventurers, I had Zae and the others throw all the remaining javelins from the shield of darkness deployed under the ramparts.

When it was wearing wind-attribute magic, it was like wearing a strong armor, but after becoming just a living body and even having its wings cut off, the Griffon was reduced to a monster with a slightly large body. There was no way to resist the concentrated attack.

Gyiiiiii ... Gyii ... Gyi ...

The Griffon struggled while becoming a fire daruma, but it gradually stopped moving and only twitched and convulsed, and eventually it stopped.

Even with that, the attacks on the Griffon didn't stop, and water-attribute attack magic rained down, causing the Griffon to look like it was collapsing in the huge steam that spewed up.

"Stop the attack!"

At Donovan-san's voice to stop attacking, the area was enveloped in silence.

The Griffon, which was the important thing, couldn't be seen due to the steam that was wafting in the air.

The air calmed down for a while, and a commotion began to mix in.

"Hey, what happened."

"Did we do it?"

"You idiot, don't say unnecessary things."

"It's not moving."

"If we can't beat it with that, how can we beat it."

When the noise started to rise, a strong west wind blew, blowing the drifting steam away.

A lump of charred meat with javelins pierced like a mountain of swords appeared from behind the steam.

All of its feathers had been burnt off, and only the beak and sharp clawed feet remained of a Griffon.

[ Kent-sama, why don't you make it your genus now? ]

"That seems impossible."

[ Is it the number limit? ]

"No, I don't think so. I don't get a response even if I call out using dark magic."

[ Hohou, I wonder if the damage to the body is too severe after all. ]

"Or ... maybe the magic stone has broken."

Everyone I've made into my genus so far had only minor damage, and more importantly, their magic stones were undamaged.

And the magical passage felt like it was connected to the magic stone.

It seemed that the corpse could be moved without connecting the passage, but I felt that it would just move like a puppet instead of moving with intention like all my genus.

[ I thought that if it was added to the genus, it would become a great fighting force, but it's a shame. ]

"Well, I think it will be fine if we strengthen the current genus."

[ However, the presence or absence of the ability to fly would have made a big difference. ]

"Yeah, about that, but I feel like it couldn't fly just by making it my genus."

[ Hohou, why is that? ]

"Griffons don't fly with their wings, they fly with wind attribute magic."

[ I see, it might not have been possible to fly in the sky with only darkness attribute. ]

"If I could give wind attribute, even Nero feels like he can fly in the sky."

[ For that, Kent-sama needs to acquire the wind attribute. ]

"That's right. It's time to bring back the next person. My classmates' dissatisfaction is about to explode."

I put out a shield of darkness and went out to Marianne-san and Donovan-san.

"Thank you for your hard work, it looks like we were able to defeat it."

"Kent-san, you did a good job. It's quite an achievement this time, too."

"Umu, I think this is a relief, but let's check just in case."

Even if the archers fired arrows at Donovan-san's orders, the Griffon mass of flesh showed no reaction, and a loud cheer erupted from the walls.

At the same time, Kan, Kan, the bell announcing the release of the alert rang loudly.

"We won!"

"Come on, Griffon bastard, it's just a lump of meat."

"Thanks to my magic."

"You're just one of the people, don't be stupid."

"That's right, thanks to the crossbow I shot."

"Idiot, rather than a snotty brat like that, it was the Monster User's javelins. Whatever it is, it's too brutal."

"It's the same with the javelins, but that rock ... What is that, it's unfair ..."

"When the Orc maximum outbreak occurred last time, weren't rocks raining down from the sky?"

"Isn't he also controlling a Storm Cat? It's too dangerous ..."

The cheers gradually turned into a roar, and the eyes of the surroundings gathered on me.

For some reason, it's really uncomfortable ...

"Well, then I'll go report to Klaus-san."

"Fufuu, Kent, it's only natural for an S-rank adventurer to be looked at with awe. Be bold, be bold."

"That's right, Kent-san is the Hero who protected Volzard."

"Haa, it doesn't seem to click for some reason, but I guess that's what it is."

I didn't know what to do, so I lowered my head to the eyes of the surroundings and moved to Klaus-san's office.

Klaus-san sat in front of the desk with his arms crossed, while Beatriche stared at the window with the curtains open.

I put out a shield of darkness and stepped directly into the office.

"Klaus-san, we killed it. We won!"

"Alright! You did a great job!"

"Welcome back, Kent-sama."

I tightly hugged Beatriche who came running over, but for today Klaus-san was still smiling.

I gave a brief report on the process leading up to the subjugation.

"So, did the Griffon join your genus?"

"No, about that ..."

Klaus-san seemed a little disappointed when I told him how the affiliation didn't go well, but he agreed.

"Well, it's a monster that has killed four people, so even if it's your genus, the people in the city might have opposed it, so maybe it's fine."

"Yes, for the time being, I'm planning to obtain wind attribute magic and try to see if I can bestow it on Nero, the undead Storm Cat."

"If you can do that, it can fly in the sky, right?"

"I think it will feel like running rather than flying, but I wonder if it will go well ..."

"Anyway, thank you for killing the Griffon. I'd like to thank you again. Kent, I'm so glad you came to Volzard."

"Yes, I'm really glad I came to Volzard as well."

After I shook hands with Klaus-san, I decided to go inform the chairman and Manon that I was safe.

The city of Volzard was overflowing with people, and it seemed that a festive commotion had begun.