CH 52

“Guh! Orah!”

With an axe in hand, Litna stopped a charging sky salmon and flung it into the air.

As the person responsible for the food storeroom, himself and his subordinates guarded it and all the non-combatants taking shelter in it.

“Commander Litna! I’ll go forward and act as bait!”

Yelled a bald man while punching with brass knuckles in both hands.

“No! Don’t break the circular formation, Heartness! And I’m not a commander anymore. Dahsha!”

Litna answered while swinging his axe at another sky salmon. It hit him square in the nose, but did not pierce it. The sky salmon shook its head and flew away.

“Good grief, those things are hard.”

“What do we do commander? At this rate they’re just going to keep pushing us back.”

Said Heartness.

“I said I’m not a commander…”

Litna responded in this casual manner precisely because he knew their situation was not looking good.

But then something came flying in, weaving through the tents.

“What’s that…?”

“A big fur ball?”

“A plant? Is that a new monster!?”

“No, wait! Is it eating the sky salmon!?”

The strange sight left everyone baffled, causing a tear in the circle formation. The sky salmon did not let this opportunity get away.

“D-don’t slack off! They’re coming!”

Shouted Litna. His subordinates rushed to put themselves in position, but some were tackled and thrown to the ground. The formation was broken, and the path to the food storeroom was open.

“Kuh!”

Litna threw himself in front of the charging sky salmon to block their path. With his axe ready to be swung, he braced for impact.

But this impact never came, and as he lowered his axe, he saw all the sky salmon in front of him being caught by rose vines.

The sharp thorns of the vines cut into and ripped the bodies of the sky salmon as they were dragged to the root.

Everyone’s eyes followed the vines, and they finally realized what was happening.

“Are they coming from a scroll…? A scroll! So that’s Master Rust’s doing…”

“T-those sky salmon were ripped apart in a second. Even the commander’s axe wasn’t working…”

Said Heartness with an amazed expression on his face, while still sitting on the ground after being knocked back.

After seeing he was not hurt, Litna helped him up.

“Seriously, what’s with this? And we were having so much trouble too. These master rank alchemists really are above monsters. What’s even that thorny vine anyway.”

“C-commander…”

“How many times do I have to say I’m not…”

“Look.”

Heartness pointed up with his shaking hand.

Litna turned to look, and so did everyone around them. What they saw were eight scrolls flying around, each with vines coming out of them, and all slaughtering the sky salmon that were covering the sky and dragging them into the scrolls.