CH 105

Chapter 105 – Conceptual Whack-A-Mole

After smashing through the wagons of the lined Transportation Corps, the legless dragon emerged its head above the ground.

Although we cannot see the full extent of how huge it is, it is more than 100 meters long just by being exposed to the ground.

Its cylindrical body was about 10 meters in diameter. Its pale pink body surface was coated with thick white mucus, and it was constantly wriggling.

It is rare to see a close-up of an invertebrate but, to be honest, it is quite grotesque.

“It’s just like the name says… it’s a complete worm, except for the size.”

“Yoshua, you’re going to get eaten if you don’t get away!”

“…Oh, I knew it?”

I don’t know where the sensory organs were, but the legless dragon shook its head in our direction and opened its tip. There, twisted like a bud, it opened up, and there were layers and layers of teeth like a lamprey eel.

What is that thing? That’s definitely not a creature that fertilizes the soil.

“I hear it produces a paralyzing poison from its fangs, so stay away from its mouth!”

“Oh, that’s not a mouth. It’s called prostomium.”

“This is no time for commentary! Let’s get out of here!”

Holding Myrril in my arms, I teleported to a location in the direction of the legless dragon. I tried to concentrate the fire on its head with an RPK, one of the AKM’s 30-round magazines. Then, as a finishing blow, I fired four shotgun rounds.

After all, they were bullets for humans. There was no damage, not even a reaction, against a monster several hundred meters in length.

“I don’t feel it’s working at all. The fact that it doesn’t get angry means it doesn’t have a sense of pain.”

“Yoshua, avoid…!”

The head swung without any preliminary movement, and the huge body bent like a whip was struck sideways. I barely made the teleportation carrying Myrril, but if I had been careless, I would have been blown away.

“Buhh…”

The fog-like mist that spurts out from the head after the swing is probably the paralyzing poison that Myrril was talking about. 

I moved around the area with a short-range teleport and fired several 7.62mm rounds at it.

“Is this… not going to do much?”

“Yes, I guess. The body fluids are gushing out, but we’re losing ground at this rate.”

The rain is getting heavier and heavier. The environment here seems to be more slippery on the feet while also making it easier for the legless dragon to move around.

If the rain intensifies, the winged tribe’s air support will be cut off. I searched my storage to see if I could get some RPGs into my hands now, but I didn’t have any more on hand. I had left all but one of the projectile tubes I had brought with me, just in case I wanted to use them in defense of Casemaian, I thought.

“I gave it away to them a while ago, so I guess it’s all there…”

“Evacuate, Your Majesty the Demon King!”

I heard Luvia-san’s shout from the sky, probably deciding that there was no time to go through the communicator.

As I fled, I looked up and saw Luvia-san and Owe-san pairing up and circling low in the sky. Their flight trajectory was a little wobbly, perhaps due to water in their wings from the pouring rain.

I used teleportation to move all the way up to the top of the ramparts. As soon as I confirmed that the line of fire was open, an RPG rained down on the legless dragon.

It exploded as it pierced deep into its throat through the prostomium. The slimy cylindrical body of the dragon swelled up and scattered pieces of mucus-mingled flesh all over the place.

Since it was relatively close to the city walls, many of the soldiers screamed as they were covered in the stringy white slime-like filth. It seemed to be harmless, but it looked very bad.

Me? I’m fine since I’ve already moved out of the way by teleporting. I don’t want to get Myrril-san covered in that filthy thing, let alone myself.

The winged girls descended and landed on the edge of the city walls. The feathers may be repelling water to some extent, but the surface is soaked and looks heavy.

“Thank you, Luvia-san and Owe-san. I appreciate your help. This one is no longer needed. There should be towels and a change of clothes in the back of the bus. After that, please stay in the car and escort the mother and daughter.”

“”Copy that.””

The situation was not so much of a struggle, and it seems that the magical beasts were defeated in relatively good order, but Myrril has not let her guard down.

“Is there still something out there?”

“I don’t know. But the only mage we defeated was the one who was on the ship. If a giant ogre, an orc, and a legless dragon came out after we killed him, …then there must be at least two magical beast users.”

“Can you find his presence?”

“I don’t know. The rain has drowned them out, and since the magical beast users don’t emit magic power, their presence is weak, to begin with.”

Looking down from the city walls, the soldiers of the southern noble territory army seem to be excited because they think that the battle is over. There should still be remnants of the national army soldiers left, though.

“No, wait. Where did the royalist national army soldiers go?”

“Until the monsters came out, they were encamped in the front part of the forest. They must have pulled their troops deeper into the forest.”

That may be so.

The question is, why did they do it? It was not to take shelter from the rain in the middle of a battle. If that is the case, it would be more natural to think that they were trying to avoid being caught up in some kind of offensive that was about to take place.

“If the enemy soldiers did not come out when they saw the death of the legless dragon, the magical beast user must still be coming up with something.”

“I thought we had defeated all the magical beasts that were sighted. Haven’t they already played their cards?”

“…No.”

The person who unexpectedly emerged from the forest was a mage-like figure wearing a hood and holding a magic wand. The distance is about 200 meters. He was walking toward us alone, but he didn’t appear to have any soldiers with him.

“Should I use the UZI to take him down?”

As I was about to nod to Myrril’s words, a spray of water went up all around the mage.

“…A legless dragon? No, it’s too small for that. That’s…”

The creature that emerged from the ground was a strange, eyeless, serpent-like creature that had lost its white pigmentation as if it were an albino.

At about four meters long, it was certainly smaller than a legless dragon, but the problem was its lame, erratic movements and the sheer number of them that filled the flat ground. At the very least, there must be at least a hundred of them.

“They are deep-dwelling salamanders. They’re dangerous. They’ll… curse you.”