DAR Vol. 6 Chapter 25 Part 3

The Lesser Leviathan, utterly unaware of the exchange aboard the ship, swam through the sea and thought.

There was an obstacle in these waters.

Just as Uncle Gry had surmised, the Lesser Leviathan was an upper species of Sea Serpent.

However, unlike upper species of magic wolves such as Fenrir, Skoll, and Hati, it was not especially intelligent. Whether that was due to its nature as a fish-type magic beast or because of the way it had come into being was unclear.

Magic wolves accumulated magic power over the years, heightened their intelligence, and rose into upper species.

The Lesser Leviathan was different.

It had become an upper species by cannibalizing Sea Serpents of its own kind and absorbing magic power that was particularly compatible with itself.

For a Lesser Leviathan that had risen through cannibalism, the supreme food was Sea Serpent flesh.

It liked whales as well, but even more than that, it preferred devouring the Sea Serpents that swarmed over whales. For that purpose, coming into somewhat cramped shallows posed no problem whatsoever.

The moment it smelled whale blood, the scent of Cursed Blood, the Lesser Leviathan had rushed here at full speed to devour the Sea Serpents gathering around it.

Fundamentally, the Lesser Leviathan moved according to instinct.

Foremost among those instincts was hunger.

Naturally, it also possessed the desire to survive, to go on living, but its body, brimming with magic power and rich in regenerative ability, healed minor wounds almost immediately. And with such an enormous body, it had very few enemies to begin with. There were only a limited number of beings capable of injuring it.

As a result, after living so long, it had grown indifferent to mortal danger.

For the same reason, its sexual desire had faded as well.

If its own life was not under threat, then the instinct to leave offspring naturally dulled. Fish in particular did not experience sexual desire as pleasure, so it was only natural for that urge to diminish.

Thus, for the Lesser Leviathan, hunger had become almost the sole reason for its continued existence.

Its instinct to leave offspring had weakened as well, so it placed no special value on its own kind. Even outside a frenzy, it no longer regarded cannibalism as taboo in the slightest.

For a Lesser Leviathan that had become the very incarnation of appetite, an obstacle was simply anything that disturbed its feeding ground.

Annoying…

That was what the Lesser Leviathan felt.

Still, even that annoyance remained within tolerable bounds.

It was no more unpleasant than biting into its food and finding a hard little pebble mixed in.

If something was unpleasant, then all it had to do was remove it.

A short while ago, it had sensed a strange magical presence and tried to eliminate the nuisance, but then something like a pointed thorn had suddenly shot out and pricked the inside of its mouth.

The pain had lasted only an instant, and since there had been no lingering impairment to its body afterward, the Lesser Leviathan had simply forgotten that fleeting pain and decided to ignore the obstacle as well.

There were plenty of creatures in the sea that stabbed with thorns.

Sea urchins and starfish were everywhere, and shellfish and fish also stabbed with spines. Many of them even carried poison.

The most troublesome of all were probably the jellyfish magic beasts. There were even jellyfish magic beasts larger than the Lesser Leviathan, and their stingers carried vicious toxins.

By both experience and instinct, the Lesser Leviathan knew it was better not to involve itself with thorned creatures. Even a tiny puncture could carry poison that caused the body to swell or rot away.

There was no point in trying to eliminate an obstacle in a feeding ground only to be poisoned in return and left unable to feed for a while.

So the Lesser Leviathan ignored the obstacle and departed the feeding ground where it had been moments before. It was not yet full, but that posed no problem.

There was another feeding ground nearby.

Many Sea Serpents were gathered close to the beach. Compared to the earlier place, they were all small Sea Serpents, but if there were enough of them, they should still fill its belly.

However, this place too carried the same sort of obstructive presence as before.

Should it suppress its hunger and leave again…?

After thinking for just a moment, the Lesser Leviathan reached its conclusion.

It would simply kill the obstacle before it could stab.

A few nearby prey creatures would get caught up in it as well, but that could not be helped. It was only a small sacrifice in exchange for eating a great many more.

Carefully approaching so the obstacle would not notice it, the Lesser Leviathan burst out onto the beach in one great bound.

Sea Serpents were gigantic fish-type magic beasts, but as their name suggested, they had long, serpentine bodies. By writhing those bodies, they could move not only through shallows but even, for short stretches, up out of the water and across rocky ground or sandy beach.

It swiftly closed in before the obstacle and opened its mouth wide.

It had to finish the nuisance off before it got stabbed by those thorns again.

The Lesser Leviathan prepared to unleash the only magic it could use instinctively.

Inside its gaping mouth, an enormous sphere of water formed.

In an instant, it became a raging torrent, overflowing from the Lesser Leviathan’s jaws. The rushing water gathered into a single flow and surged toward the obstacle.

Water Jet.

Just as the name implied, it was a magic that expelled water under immense pressure.

And erupting from the Lesser Leviathan’s massive jaws, it was broad and thick like the flow of a river. It could likely even shatter a great rocky hill.

The instant the Water Jet struck the obstacle exactly as intended, the Lesser Leviathan narrowed its eyes in satisfaction at having accomplished its purpose.

𑁋

At that moment, Roa had let his guard down.

“Hah!”

Just before the disturbance erupted in the shallows, Roa had been wholly absorbed in delivering finishing blows to the Sea Serpents that Roo and Phi had reeled in. His focus was fixed on the enemy right in front of him.

Uncle Gry was overhead in the sky. The twin magic wolves, Roo and Phi, were always close to Roa, and Kristoff was with him too.

The Sword Saint was also a short distance away, though perhaps Sea Serpents were too unsatisfying for him, since he had not been participating much in the actual extermination.

Surrounded by people more capable than himself, both in skill and in vigilance, Roa had probably relaxed without realizing it. He had scarcely been paying attention to his surroundings at all.

The twins relied primarily on scent to detect things. They were slow to notice something moving beneath the sea.

Kristoff had been saddled with unreasonable demands by the twins and could not concentrate on detecting threats.

More than anything, the Lesser Leviathan was highly adept at concealing its presence, to the point that even the Sword Saint could not perceive it immediately.

The moment those present became aware of its existence was the instant its enormous head broke through the surface.

“!!?”

The Lesser Leviathan appeared directly in front of Roa.

As it emerged with a thunderous splash, Roa recoiled and froze. A gigantic mass like a hill had suddenly appeared before him. It would have been stranger not to be startled.

But that hesitation was fatal.

He could not even flee.

He had gone rigid where he stood.

Magic water had already gathered in the Lesser Leviathan’s mouth and was on the verge of being fired.

Clearly, it had prepared that attack with Roa as its target from the very start. There had not even been enough time for anyone to grasp the situation and rush to him.

Caught in the suddenness of it, Roa’s thoughts would not settle. The only thing he managed to do was instinctively cover his head with both arms and shut his eyes. Of course, that could never protect him in a situation like this.

At this critical moment, Roa’s lack of experience betrayed him.

An adventurer who had been properly trained would never have taken their eyes off the enemy until the last possible instant. Without thinking, they would have moved on reflex, with motions ingrained into their body, either to defend themselves or to escape. At the very least, they would not have ended up like Roa, incapable of doing anything at all.

“Roa!”

The instant he thought he heard Kristoff’s voice, a deafening roar swallowed it.

The sound of a vast flood of water surging forward.

That alone filled the world around Roa. Nothing but the roar of water rang out, while nothing but dread poisoned his thoughts.

Vaguely, he thought that he was going to die.

That he would lose his life here without accomplishing anything, all because he had neglected even a shred of caution. Roa regretted it bitterly.

“…Huh?”

After an instant that felt longer than eternity, Roa realized that he still had not been swept away by the water.

Slowly, he opened the eyes he had clenched shut in fear.

There was something very close to him.

Someone’s back…?

“Kh… I can’t hold this much longer…”

“…………Who?”

It was the back of a man Roa did not know. There should only have been Roa, Kristoff, the Sword Saint, and the twins here, yet someone he did not recognize was shielding him.

His name was Karlheinz. He was a prince of the Kingdom of Nereus.

Queen Scarlet’s adopted son, and her spy.

And also the man whose neck had been marked with a Lackey Mark by Roo and Phi several days earlier.

Though he had concealed himself, he had in fact been guarding Roa ever since Roa arrived in this kingdom.

Part of that was because he had originally received orders from the queen, but Karlheinz himself had also taken an interest in Roa, who had the twin magic wolves under his command, and so he had been observing him from close by under the pretense of guarding him.

Because he had constantly kept Roa’s movements under watch from nearby, he had been able to respond even to the sudden attack from the Lesser Leviathan.

In front of Prince Karlheinz stood a wall of stone.

That wall was blocking the Lesser Leviathan’s water magic, Water Jet.

But only for an instant.

Prince Karlheinz had made a split-second decision and used all of his magic power to create the stone wall, but even that did not seem enough to withstand the Lesser Leviathan’s attack. He possessed abundant magic power, but his specialty fundamentally lay in concealing himself and moving swiftly.

Cracks spread across the stone wall.

Water burst through those fissures.

This time, the end really was near.

The instant Prince Karlheinz turned and threw himself over Roa to shield him, the stone wall shattered.

“‼”

Held tightly in Prince Karlheinz’s arms, Roa was finally certain that this was death.

“…I’m sorry…”

The words slipped from Roa’s mouth before he knew it.

That apology was meant for the familiars who cared for him, for the members of Nostalgia who had treated him kindly, and for the mysterious man, Karlheinz, whom he had dragged into this.

Even those words of apology were drowned out by the roar of water and reached no one…

Then, after a little while…

<Wow, pretty!!>

<A rainbow!!>

Roa heard the strangely cheerful voices of the twin magic wolves, Roo and Phi.

For a moment, he wondered if he was hearing things in the final moments before death, but something felt wrong.

“…Uh…”

Peering around through the gap in Prince Karlheinz’s body as he still shielded him, Roa saw that the water was not flowing at all.

More than that, there was not even a single spray of mist.

<ーKarlheinz passes!>

<He tried to protect Roa! We acknowledge him as a lackey!!>

The twins’ remarks were absurdly patronizing, but this was hardly the time to worry about that. From what they were saying, the twins had apparently been aware of Prince Karlheinz’s existence from the very beginning.

Perhaps Karlheinz had noticed their voices as well, because the weight of his body lifted from Roa. Feeling that, Roa slipped out from his arms.

“…A rainbow?”

The first thing that entered Roa’s vision was the rainbow hanging in the sky.

It was being created by the enormous spray of water erupting upward.

Seeing that, Roa realized that the Water Jet magic fired at him had been stopped by something several meters in front of him.

As if some transparent wall existed there, the Water Jet had been blocked, and was scattering vast quantities of spray in every direction.

The sunlight shining through that spray was casting a rainbow across the sky. The huge rainbow arching overhead was beautiful, yet uncanny.

“…Uncle Gry?”

<Wrong.>

Roa muttered, wondering if Uncle Gry had cast some kind of defensive magic, but the denial came at once.

<Well, broadly speaking, it is thanks to me! No, let us just say it is thanks to me! Brat, be grateful to me!!>

“…”

Roa had no idea what that was supposed to mean. Hearing that carefree voice loosened the tension in him so completely that he sat down right there, as though his legs had given out, and looked up at the rainbow.

“Roa! Are you all right?”

Kristoff came running over.

Apparently the transparent wall had been spread out over a considerable area, because none of the spray curved around and reached them. Even though Kristoff ran straight to Roa, he did not get wet.

“I’m okay.”

“This situation is…?”

“It sounds like Uncle Gry did something. I think it’s some kind of defensive magic, but…”

To the eye, it looked as though sheets of transparent glass had been spread all around them.

But surely that was not all there was to it.

“Roo, Phi, do you know anything?”

Unaffected by this bizarre phenomenon, the twins were running around in excitement while staring at the rainbow, and Roa called out to them.

<The guard Uncle set on you!>

<He’s been here the whole time!!>

“The whole time?”

<Umm, since around the trip back after we played with the Gryphons!>

<From the tower place!!>

<That mash-up of the thing you beat with Dietrich!>

<But even stronger!!>

“What?”

That explained nothing.

Judging from the twins’ words, Uncle Gry had apparently assigned Roa a bodyguard. “The trip back after we played with the Gryphons” and “the tower place” must have referred to their journey investigating the Citadel Dungeon. If it had been there since then, that meant it had been beside Roa for months ever since.

And yet Roa had no memory whatsoever of any such thing.

“…Is someone still nearby now?”

<Yep!>

<There isーー!>

At the twins’ reply, Roa looked around.

Once he started looking on the assumption that something was there, he noticed a patch of strangeness.

“…Something’s… there?”

A few meters away from Roa.

There, he could see something like shimmering heat haze. As though he were looking through unevenly thick glass, that one section of the scenery appeared faintly distorted.

When he narrowed his eyes and looked closely, he had the vague sense that there was something round there, like an egg.

“Something’s there…”

“Roa, what is that?”

Prince Karlheinz and Kristoff must have noticed it too, because they were staring at the same spot Roa was.

<Tch. To think the brat and those fools could see through it. Can it not even properly control a mere two spells at once? Though it is an ancient magic tool, it is still nothing more than a magic tool.>

Uncle Gry’s displeased voice rang out.

Since he had apparently known that whatever Roa and the others were now staring at would protect him, that meant Uncle Gry had knowingly left the Lesser Leviathan alone despite being aware it was about to attack Roa.

Then he should have said so beforehand. Roa had practically resigned himself to death and now felt ridiculous…

But he did not say that aloud.

The reason he had been driven to accept death so readily was because he had been relying too much on Uncle Gry and the others.

If he had properly used his own detection magic and kept watch on his surroundings, he probably would have noticed it sooner and been able to dodge. It would not have been reasonable to get angry and blame someone else for that.

“It’s coming into focus now.”

Prince Karlheinz murmured.

His earlier panic was gone, and his voice had become calm again. He seemed remarkably adaptable.

Just as he said, the something there was gradually becoming visible, albeit still faintly.

<It is having to devote magic power to the reflection, so the illusion effect is fading. What a bore, to have it exposed. I had hoped to keep it secret a bit longer and watch you all scurry in confusion…>

“You’ve got a rotten personality, you know that?!”

Kristoff could not help looking up into the sky and shouting at Uncle Gry’s remark.

At the same time, however, his mind was focused on something entirely different. Reflection and illusion…

Those words made the identity of the thing before them clear.

It was only natural that Kristoff would be the first to realize what it was.

After all, only a few months ago, he and the members of Nostalgia had struggled to defeat this very type of foe with the help of the twin magic wolves, Roo and Phi.

After a short while, it finally became fully visible.

An egg-shaped stone statue.

It was perhaps about half of Roa’s height. Its smooth surface bore a matching pair of wing-like reliefs on either side.

Its outward appearance had changed considerably, but in one respect it was still the same.

It was a stone statue.

And above all, the aura it gave off was the same.

Kristoff was certain of it.

“A Gargoyle… So one of those things has been close by the whole time?”

<If it is to remain hidden while serving as the brat’s guard, then of course it must be excellent. There was no reason not to use it.>

Uncle Gry’s smug voice answered Kristoff’s mutter.

The Gargoyle was the foe Roa and the others had fought inside the tower of the Citadel Dungeon.

Illusion magic that threw every one of a human’s or a magic beast’s five senses, as well as their magical perception, into chaos and confusion.

Reflect Magic, which reflected both magic and physical attacks, defending and counterattacking at the same time.

The Gargoyles of the Citadel Dungeon had used those two magics. Both had been troublesome enough that, without the cooperation of Uncle Gry and the twins, Nostalgia would have been helpless and slaughtered.

Remembering that, Kristoff unconsciously took a slight step back from the Gargoyle before him.

There was only a single Gargoyle here.

In the Citadel Dungeon, each Gargoyle had used a different magic, but this one seemed capable of using both on its own.

It was even more vicious and malicious than the Gargoyles that Nostalgia had fought.

For now, it appeared to be under Uncle Gry’s command, but when Kristoff imagined what would happen if it started moving of its own accord against Uncle Gry’s will, an indescribable chill ran through him.

Gargoyles were treated much like magic beasts, but strictly speaking, they were magic tools.

Defense weapons from ancient ruins.

As long as they were supplied with magic essence, they would continue to move, killing any who entered the designated area. Their forms and abilities varied, but stone statues that moved were collectively called Gargoyles.

Because they were magic tools, they should never be able to betray the master designated for them, but that did not necessarily mean Uncle Gry had not done something slapdash.

Sometimes Uncle Gry was outrageously careless.

Kristoff could hardly be blamed for remaining wary.

“…We destroyed it, didn’t we?”

<It was originally something I destroyed, and those Gryphon chicks in the Citadel Dungeon merely repaired it and put it to use. Why would I be unable to repair it myself?>

As Uncle Gry had indeed said back then that he was the one who had originally broken the Gargoyle they defeated in the Citadel Dungeon, it was not strange that he could repair it if the Gryphons remaining in that tower had managed the same.

That said, repairing such a vicious ancient magic tool and assigning it as Roa’s bodyguard without telling not only Nostalgia but Roa himself was, as always, completely outrageous behavior from Uncle Gry.

Kristoff was impressed by Uncle Gry’s technical skill, but exasperated all the same.

“So this is a Gargoyle… an ancient magic weapon…”

Meanwhile, Prince Karlheinz was staring at the Gargoyle that had revealed itself before them with eyes glittering with fascination.

This was probably the first time he had ever seen a Gargoyle. His expression was like a child being handed a toy for the first time.

<The rainbow’s gone!>

<It stopped!!>

The twins’ voices rang out.

When Roa and the others lifted their eyes from the Gargoyle toward the sky, the violent spray of water had disappeared.

At the same time, space flickered.

Then, from the place where the invisible barrier that had received the Lesser Leviathan’s Water Jet had been, the water now burst back in reverse.

That was the true power of Reflect Magic.

Reflect Magic returned an attack exactly as it had received it.

<…The magic it received was too powerful, so the double-return function will not activate. How dull.>

Uncle Gry’s dissatisfied voice echoed down.

Normally, Reflect Magic simply returned an attack the instant it was received.

But this Gargoyle, modified by Uncle Gry, possessed a function he called double-return. The moment it received an attack, it stored it, added its own magic power to it, and returned it with twice the force.

Just as Uncle Gry had said, however, the Lesser Leviathan’s Water Jet was probably too powerful for that function to work properly.

“…Double-return… so that’s why my arm was broken…”

At some point, the Sword Saint had come to stand near Roa.

His eyes were dark and sunken.

When Roa and the Sword Saint had first met, the Sword Saint had attacked Roa as a threat and had ended up injuring his own arm instead. He had probably realized now that the cause of that injury had likewise been this Gargoyle and its Reflect Magic. He stared at the Gargoyle as if he wanted to bore holes through it.

The reflected Water Jet struck the Lesser Leviathan head-on. Caught by that unexpected counterattack, the Lesser Leviathan could do nothing and arched its massive body backward before crashing into the sea.

<Brat, finish it.>

As the Lesser Leviathan fell, a great pillar of water rose high from the sea.

Another huge rainbow appeared.

Roa ran.

As though the paralysis born of his fear of death had been a lie, his body moved with startling ease. Splashing up water as he rushed toward the Lesser Leviathan, he looked up at its colossal head.

The Lesser Leviathan was too huge. Even if Roa’s knife pierced it, it would not be a fatal wound.

So what should he do?

Roa thought for only an instant, then returned the knife to the sheath at his waist.

Then he placed his palm against the Lesser Leviathan’s slick head.

“Micro Wave!”

After drawing in a deep breath and steadying himself, Roa shouted.

“Micro Wave.” It was a spell only Roa could use, one that generated heat from within by repeatedly striking an object with tiny waves of magic.

Those waves, which could permeate anything no matter what it was, slipped through the Lesser Leviathan’s thick skull and effortlessly burned away the brain inside, bringing its life to a quiet end.

“Did I get it?”

Roa murmured the question, still half in doubt.

<Indeed. It has already breathed its last. And thanks to that giant brute’s rampage, the other snakes have fled these waters as well. It is over now. Well done!>

Uncle Gry’s words of praise were deeply comforting.

<Roa!>

<Roaaaaa!!>

The twins came running toward him, splashing water as they went.

Only then did Roa finally relax the stiffness in his cheeks that had been locked there by tension.

“It’s overーーー!!”

Overcome with emotion, Roa threw both hands into the air.

Droplets flew from his wet fingers, sparkling all around them.

(DAR Vol. 6 END)

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