Chapter 89
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[Translator – Clara]
[Proofreader – Lucky]
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Chapter 89: The Illiad (5)
The Red and Black Mountains’ sword forests are terrifying.
Every leaf on every tree is a razor-sharp blade, and everything, from the thorny bark to the roots, is lethal.
And now, two men were fighting for their lives in the midst of this hellish jungle.
Aheuman and Vikir.
They stood facing each other, swords at their hips and bows on their backs.
A large crowd of onlookers formed a wide circle around them.
Despite the dense foliage and vines, ballak warriors with keen eyes and ears could see the fight from hundreds of meters away.
Aheuman clenched his teeth.
“......you’ve only been in business for two years.”
Vikir had only been down there for two years.
He, on the other hand, was accustomed to the terrain, having lived here for nearly 70 years.
Some of the younger hunters didn’t even come close.
“I’ll make you regret choosing the jungle for the Illiad instead of the plains.”
Aheuman made quick progress through the jungle.
He took cover behind a tree-root vine and nocked an arrow to his bow.
“Hooray. Here’s another good one.”
He knelt down and discovered something beneath the roots.
It looked like a large centipede with a red body and black legs.
He drew an arrow and aimed it at the centipede’s head.
The head of the centipede shattered, spilling its venomous brain matter onto the arrowhead.
Aheuman has also planted vines on the ground that are translucent and difficult to see, but strong enough to cut through.
If your opponent jumps on one, they’ll be cut and, if they’re lucky, their ankle will be amputated.
I also spread dry sand and fallen leaves over the muddy pit, where the ground is soft and you’re bound to get stuck, and I dropped a few honeycombs, where the fierce bees are sleeping, waiting to be woken up at any moment.
“Just wait and see.”
Aheuman gripped the poisoned arrow in his hand tightly, waiting for Vikir’s figure to emerge from the dense foliage.
Just then.
“......Who are you waiting for?”
The cold voice touches his ears and he freezes.
A shudder rippled through his body.
He turns his head, barely holding on to his falling heart, and sees Vikir’s expressionless face looming behind him.
“Uh, how!”
How did he get this far without making a sound?
But Aheuman can’t bring himself to ask the question out loud.
Vikir has sliced the awl in his hand to the side.
Hit.
Vikir sliced through all the ankle-cutting vines that Aheuman had set up.
He scrambled backward to get away from it, stepped in a puddle of mud he had hidden, and was up to his waist in water, dropping a few beehives in the process.
Weeeeeeeeeee-.
The homeless wasps vented their anger at Aheuman in the mud pit.
Vikir quietly backed away, while Aheuman flailed his hands in the mud, trying to swat the bees away.
Aheuman narrowly escapes death by diving into the mud for a long time.
But his body was already swollen with bee stings.
Meanwhile. Aheuman had just crawled out of the mud when Vikir climbed up a tree trunk and yawned.
“What the fuck!”
Aheuman hung the arrow in protest.
The centipede venom had been washed away when he fell into the mud, but the sharpness of the arrowhead was intimidating enough.
Boom.
The mud on the bowstring flies off in all directions.
Vikir walked out, his face expressionless.
“You coveted an ox bear’s genitals, and now you’ve earned it.”
Two years ago, Vikir had demanded a decoction of the genitals of his hunted prey.
Remembering it, he bit his lip until it bled.
“You’re playing with me!”
“I didn’t mean to, You’re not good enough to be my plaything.”
“Ugh...... Ugh!”
With that, Aheuman staggered to his feet, dropping the sword and bow in his hand.
“......!”
Vikir felt things take a turn for the worse.
The wind shifted.
Dark mana was gathering around them.
They crackled sinisterly, converging on a single point. The palms of Aheuman’s hands!
‘......Good. A shaman, I see.
Vikir had been expecting a trick up his sleeve.
The man drew a number with his blood-stained palms and chanted a strange incantation.
The next moment, a dark current swept through the area, extending from his hands.
Crackle, crackle, crackle!
Vikir jerked back as he felt several individuals reaching for his ankles.
To his surprise, several figures stood in his way.
They were orangutan carcasses with rotting flesh and exposed bones.
Aheuman had used witchcraft to resurrect the corpses of the orangutans he had shot with his arrows earlier.
“I see... Was Ahhemman from the Rococo tribe?”
Vikir remembered what Aiyen had told him before they had begun the Illiad.
Aheuman was essentially an outsider, but it turns out he was from the Rokoko, a tribe of shamans.
Known to the natives of Depht as witchcraft, and to the Empire as a form of black magic, this bizarre practice of resuscitating the dead is one of them.
It was also the specialty of the shamanic Rokoko people.
In his haste, Aheuman raised the freshly dead orangutan zombies and skeletons to escort him.
“Heh heh... heh heh heh heh, the Illiad is unorthodox combat, it doesn’t mean you have to fight with swords and bows!”
But in the physicality-oriented atmosphere of ballak, Aheuman’s behavior was frowned upon by many of the warriors.
It seemed that while all the warriors had little interest in spells, he had been diligently studying and mastering them on his own.
“Go! Go stop him! Buy me some time to heal myself!”
Aheuman called for the orangutans to block Vikir’s path.
Orangutans are almost as tall as humans and can weigh up to 100 kilograms, which should be enough to buy them some time as meat shields.
Aheuman thought so.
But.
“Hmmm. Not as good as I thought.”
Vikir stamped his foot, still sounding unimpressed.
“......?”
Aheuman opens his mouth, wanting something.
Something shut his mouth in an instant.
It’s a tremendous impact that knocks him off his feet and onto his back!
The impact ripped the skin off his back, broke his spine, and dislodged all of his internal organs.
Not surprisingly, the orangutan carcasses next to him were also reduced to a pool of blood and crushed to the ground in an instant.
Only Vikir stood back, not making a sound, not making a move.
“????”
Aheuman looked up, saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth. Aside from the pain, he is at a loss for words.
His vision flips, and a giant shadow looms over him.
[Grrrr......]
The hulking creature pricked up its ears to see if it could see.
An old female ox bear thrusts her massive forepaws at Aheuman.
[Translator – Clara]
[Proofreader – Lucky]