Chapter 824 - Salamander
Is it similar to a malevolent spirit? A malevolent spirit was the general term for things that steel could not harm, that did not use physical attacks but instead stirred a person's inner self or tried to possess their body.
'As long as we're careful of the fire-breathing.'
The majority of the unit members had a similar thought. They were men who dealt with monsters in the mountain range all day long.
For them, this was their daily routine.
The experience they had accumulated was not yet enough to become a textbook, but they had developed an eye to see things intuitively.
The attack patterns of monsters like that were usually all similar.
"Hey, clench your jaws. If you stumble even once, it's three rounds of Captain Rem's mental fortitude training."
One of the unit members said as if muttering.
At that one remark, everyone tensed up.
Their jaw muscles tightened, revealing the imprints of their molars, and thick veins popped out on the backs of their hands.
Rem's mental fortitude training was getting beaten to the brink of fainting.
As they say, the one who knows how to fight when pushed to an extreme situation is the real deal, right?
It was said to be to the brink of fainting, but anyone who had done it even once would be at a loss for words.
A man with overwhelmingly superior skills, a bastard whose keen eye was second to none, wouldn't even let you faint as you pleased.
The words he had said as he had made a red line on their necks with his axe when they were about to collapse were still vivid in their memory.
"Want me to just kill you? If you collapse there, you die."
They knew better than anyone that Captain Rem was a man who would, and could, do just that—that is, kill them.
How did they know?
He would use the blade of his axe to push their necks and make them stand up, so how could they not believe it?
In a situation where if they stayed still, their necks would be cut and they would die.
"I'll help you up. Where else would you get such kind treatment? Huh?"
He acts like that.
So how could they not be tensed up?
There was not a single unit member among them who hadn't received that mental fortitude training.
Because that was the minimum condition to become a member of Rem's personal guard.
While they were clenching their jaws and getting fired up, the monster made of flames struck a tree with its foreleg.
CRASH!
A living tree exploded, and splinters flew.
With the wood fragments embedding themselves in the ground with a patter, the tree, which a grown man could not wrap his arms around alone, swayed.
"...This is a bit of a cheat."
Were the commander's words.
If its body was one that steel passed through, it should be consistent and also be unable to touch objects.
Its foreleg swings once and a thick log tilts to the side?
If it had hit a little more accurately, it would have broken the tree.
In terms of strength alone, it meant it was a monster on par with a giant.
But would they just take it?
Rem was a harsh captain, but if you endured here, you also gained something for it.
And that something included not just combat power, but also tangible rewards.
Like magic weapons, for instance.
Dwarves were magicians who handled steel, and they knew how to make the prototypes for magic weapons.
And one of the skilled ones among those dwarves was dedicating himself to the Border Guard.
On top of that, there was a witch in this unit, and there was also a magic unit that the witch had raised.
They had skillfully engraved spells onto the iron the dwarves had smelted.
That was the reason why all twenty of them possessed so-called spell weapons.
Technically speaking, an enchanter would have to exist to be able to make them, but Esther was a genius.
When it came to magic, she knew how to do it all, regardless of the field.
However, there was no effect of a wind rising or a rain of fire falling just by swinging them.
The weapons they wielded were simple.
They could cut and hit amorphous, malevolent spirits.
They all drew and gripped their axes, which were imbued with a blue light.
The length of the handles varied, but the light emanating from the blades was similar.
"That should be enough, right?"
Rem said upon seeing that.
Of course, it was enough.
The flame monster only breathed a fire the length of a forearm.
Though the power when it swung its forelegs was extraordinary.
'It's better than a bear.'
A ferocious wild bear or a bear beast would be more dangerous.
If you don't have a weapon to cut that body, it's the worst opponent, but if it's the opposite, it's easy.
Two drew its attention, and three circled behind.
The rest formed a loose circle and surrounded it.
And so, they began the monster hunt.
When they struck the charging creature's hand with an axe, a pow sound erupted and flames rose.
The unit member who had swung the axe jumped back as soon as he hit it and dodged the flames.
"Hey, if your hair gets all burnt up, your already hideous face will look twice as scary."
"You're one to talk."
Jokes were also exchanged.
They were not people who fought while shrunken with tension.
The unit member whose face had almost become twice as scary had grown his hair out nicely but had pockmarked skin, and the friend who had spoken after was a friend with a clean and clear scalp, not a hint of hair.
At his words, spoken as he presented his hairless head, a few of the surrounding members chuckled.
The hunt was not long.
The flame beast was quickly beaten down.
With six axe blows, its body was split apart, scattered, and disappeared.
"You've never seen something like this, have you?"
"Yeah, no matter how much of a treasure trove of monsters and beasts the mountain range is, this is a bit much."
The Pen-Hanil Mountains were a place where monsters and beasts endlessly popped out; its nickname was the Treasure Trove of Monsters.
They immediately set off to make a report.
And besides them, there were other people in the mountain range.
To be precise, it was the Border Guard's standing army, carrying out a request that had come through Krais's lover, Nurat.
The soldier-for-hire system was still a good way to earn Krona, and Krais encouraged it.
They too had encountered a similar opponent.
This time, it was a monster made of fire, but with a long neck.
"Anyone with a magic weapon?"
If Vengeance was the captain of the security force, the leader of the scouting party that patrolled the mountain range was Finn.
She had once done a scouting mission with Enkrid, and through ceaseless training since then, she was now a woman who had proudly become the captain of the Rangers.
At her question, four soldiers who had hand-span-long arrows attached to their wrists stepped forward.
This side had a one-time-use spell contained in the arrowheads.
This was Anne's handiwork.
The arrowheads, soaked in a chemical, were exclusively for exterminating malevolent-spirit-type monsters.
"Fire."
Fwoosh.
The body made of flames exploded, scattering sparks in all directions.
'That's considerable.'
Finn couldn't even think of a similar monster.
She maintained her distance and subdued the monster with only ranged attacks.
The creature, which had held on until the end, got five throwing daggers stuck in its head, went limp, and then disappeared, leaving only a scorched mark on the surrounding grass and ground.
"A forest fire's starting. Put out the fire."
At Finn's words, several unit members stomped out the embers with their feet and poured water.
At the same time, they worked to eliminate anything flammable before the flames could spread.
They were mountain rangers because they were used to this kind of work.
It was a proficient response.
After the situation was concluded, Finn spoke.
"We can't go any further in."
"I can't ask you to go any further in either."
The client, the one being escorted, also shook his head.
The client asked, showing a fed-up expression.
"Didn't you say the number of monsters in the mountain range has decreased recently?"
"It had."
"Had?"
"It seems not anymore."
It was something Finn couldn't know.
The client had a wide range of knowledge.
He knew that the monster they had just dealt with was no ordinary, tricky being.
His name was Garet Guyro, a former battalion commander of the Green Pearl reserve force who dreamed of being a bard.
He had recently been feeling the limits of his creative talent and had taken this risk, saying he would try to get some inspiration.
"You're going into a mountain range full of monsters just to compose a song?"
Someone who didn't know might say this, but who could know the anguish of an artist?
If only he could compose a good song, he would even be willing to sell a small part of his soul.
Of course, Garet had trusted the Border Guard's standing army here.
It meant he hadn't been risking his life.
He had just been trying to get a suitable amount of inspiration from a suitable amount of danger.
In any case, Garet had a profession that roamed the continent and was a man engrossed in stories.
"A monster that breathes fire."
Garrett muttered, lost in thought.
There had once been such a monster that had burned the continent.
The calamity summoned by the Demon Realm Holy Land Cult, the worst natural disaster summoned by man.
Garet muttered to himself again.
"Salamander?"
The name of a lizard monster made of flames.
Its size was over ten times that of a person, and it was a monster that was immune to most magic weapons.
So all they could do was endure until the creature got tired and disappeared.
What Garet knew was all just stories he had heard.
No, there were also things he had read in books, but in any case, it was all from oral tradition or history books.
Those Demon Realm Holy Land Cult bastards had been a headache back then, too.
A bard was also a person who passed on stories, so digging into and finding out about this and that was Garet's hobby and specialty.
He judged that he had seen a trace of it in the monster that had just died.
No way, maybe, nah, it can't be.
Was it a matter he could just ignore, lost in such thoughts?
Complacency is not a good trait for a soldier.
And Garet was a bard, but he had been a good soldier.
He knew to choose annoyance over complacency and was wise enough to choose to be nagged at instead.
"...Can we go further in?"
Garet asked.
Finn contemplated whether she should break the leg of the former battalion commander and mad-artist-disease-ridden man.
He seemed like the type to only think, 'Ah, I was wrong,' after getting hurt.
"It's not about inspiration or anything, it just feels ominous."
Garet was serious.
Instead of kicking his ankle, Finn gave an order to two soldiers.
"Return to the unit and report the situation."
If she judged it to be dangerous, securing a retreat route wouldn't be too difficult.
Finn, too, had run around the mountain range as if it were her own home.
Of course, if she really thought of it as her home and lay down to rest, she would be reborn as a monster's excrement.
'I can go in a little further.'
Finn knew her limits well.
She didn't dream of becoming a knight or anything like that.
Then what could she do?
She had found the answer to that question in the mountains.
She had used her specialty to memorize the terrain and had learned everything necessary.
The former saintess, Seiki, had been a highlander who ate, slept, and lived in the mountains, and Finn had followed that child around and experienced the life of a mountain person.
That was the Pen-Hanil Rangers of today.
The words that she would go further in now meant it was a judgment made from the time and experience she had accumulated.
"Your intention?"
Her words became shorter.
It is a fool who steps into a place where danger is foreseen.
And yet, if one must go, there must be a good reason.
Garet judged Finn to be a skilled ranger, so he answered without hesitation even though her words were a bit short.
"I hope it's just a groundless fear, but do you know where that Salamander last disappeared?"
Before Green Pearl was called Green Pearl, a great fire had risen on that land and burned everything.
The meadow where new grass had grown on that burnt land—that was Green Pearl.
It was content that appeared in the history books.
Until it was called the Green Pearl, this land had been called Ash Field, the field of ash, where gray ash had settled.
"There are many hypotheses about its appearance, but everyone agrees on where it disappeared. Among them, some scholars have even put forth the speculation that it might just be sleeping like a hibernating bear."
The place all scholars pointed to was the peak of the Pen-Hanil Mountains.
Inside it was a basin full of rocks hardened from black and gray ash.
It was known to be inhabited only by monsters called Drakes, also known as lesser dragons.
A short explanation followed, and Finn nodded.
"Yes, I understand."
It meant that a suspicion of 'what if, no way, nah, it can't be' had arisen and that confirmation was needed.
Finn understood and set off.
They had entered just as the sun had risen, and it was morning when they had dealt with the flame monster.
Less than three hours later, Finn turned back.
She had discovered a trace of someone having dug up the ground with a thick blade.
The problem was that its depth couldn't be gauged by eye, and its length, even roughly estimated, was as long as a large fallen tree.
It also reeked of something burnt.
More than anything, she also perceived that the surrounding temperature had risen sharply.
"A trace that no ordinary monster could imitate."
Garet was more serious than ever before.
The number of people who had died from the appearance of the Salamander back then is not estimated.
No, it cannot be estimated.
It was at a level where a nearby city had been burned down in its entirety.
On top of that.
"Captain."
A unit member with good eyes and good senses called her and pointed to one side.
'There's more.'
A monster with its whole body made of flames.
In the distance, there were three of them, raising their heads and emitting a shimmering heat.
Their build was larger than Audin's.
It meant they were about the size of a decent bear.
Because of the distance, they hadn't detected them side yet.
"We're returning."
Finn avoided a combat situation, returned to the unit and reported the situation, and that was delivered directly to Enkrid.
And at that, Enkrid's blue eyes sparkled.
"Battalion Commander Garet?"
"It would be more correct to just call me Garet now, Sir Enkrid."
"What did you say came out?"
"Nothing is certain. A Salamander."
The explanation he had given Finn was relayed in an even more abbreviated form.
Enkrid spoke with sparkling eyes.
"Just tell them that I was here and left first."
"...Hm? What? Me?"
Garrett was flustered.
"To every one of them that comes."
Enkrid roughly wiped the sweat from his brow, put on his gear, and then set off.
"Where are you going?"
His old way of speaking came out in his fluster.
However, there was no need to ask.
"A stroll."
What did he mean, a stroll.
Seeing him leave in full gear, it was clear he was charging toward the Salamander.
"Captain, they said flame monsters are appearing all over the place."
Finn said, following behind him.
It was what she had heard on her way.
She had met Rem's assault squad, and had also gone down to the safe road outpost near the mountain range.
"Go to Krais and tell him."
Enkrid didn't pay it much mind.
There were two reasons.
One was that he had that much leeway.
The soldiers were trained well.
They would be able to handle monsters of that level.
Two was because he knew what Krais, engulfed in anxiety, had done.
Right now, among the special units and commanders within the Border Guard's standing army, it was rare to find someone without a magic weapon.
They were at a stage where they were carrying at least a scroll.
There was no way they would be taken down by a mere ball of fire.
***
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