Chapter 281. The Legend’s Arrangement (9)

Soon after, a monster appeared from each direction.

“It’s been a while since a new prey came.” One had branches and leaves instead of hair.

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“I’m telling you beforehand, but these guys are mine. I found them in my domain.” One was a giant flower with her face sticking out from the pistil.

𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

“…” And the third one was a big bush covered in spikes like those of a hedgehog. There were three monsters in total.

“There are eight of them,” the giant flower monster with a strong scent opened her mouth and said. “As promised, four are mine. You don’t have any complaints, right?” She said as she pointed at the expedition members with her stem.

Stroking his chin with a branch, the tree monster fluttered his leaves and said, “Then two are mine.”

All three monsters had parts that looked like arms and legs, and they spoke like human beings.

“They have eaten people before.” As Lakshasha said, the monsters in front of them had killed and eaten at least one human or a Cassiubia League member.

“There are many beautiful flowers here.” The giant flower monster smiled as she looked back at the expedition members. “I’m curious. What kind of pretty scream will you make when I break you?”

Evelyn and Apoline, who were stared at the longest, frowned. It was eight against three. The expedition members had superior numbers. This was their first time encountering proper foes since entering the Hala Forest. Moreover, considering that the mushroom monster talked about a queen earlier, they couldn’t let their guards down, but…

“I want to take care of that tree,” Emmanuel said as he put his hand on the hilt of his sword and showed his eagerness to fight. It seemed he wanted to check the authenticity of the rumors surrounding the Hala Forest. Chi-Woo looked back at Lakshasha for his opinion.

“…I see no reason why he shouldn’t,” Lakshasha stopped pulling his bow and said. “We’re still near the entry. If he struggles here, it’s better for him to go back early.” If the expedition members couldn’t even handle monsters of this level, they should forget about the king candidates. After hearing from Dalgil, Lakshasha had quickly joined Chi-Woo’s expedition team, but he thought this was a good opportunity for him to directly check their level of strength.

Chi-Woo said to Emmanuel, “I won’t stop you, but please be careful just in case.”

After Chi-Woo granted his permission, Yeriel Mariaju then stepped forward. “Okay! Then I’ll take that flower. The way that flower looked at me just now made me want to beat it up.” She volunteered, seemingly just as curious about the monsters’ power.

“Then sir, I’ll take the only one left.” Ru Amuh turned to the thornbush monster, and like this, a three-way confrontation was established.

“With whose permission?” A burst of fire suddenly appeared, splitting into three streams and hitting each of the monsters squarely.

“What are you doing?” Emmanuel, who couldn’t wait to fight, looked back at Apoline and raised his voice.

“Oh my. Why are you getting so angry? Wasn’t it first come, first served?” Apoline laughed gracefully, but her laugh didn’t last long.

“Hehehe. It’s hot. It’s perfect to warm up.”

The expedition members doubted their eyes when they saw the tree monster. The burning part turned into solid stone, and the fire was quickly extinguished.

“I really hate you people.” It wasn’t just the tree monster. “You cut us down whenever you need to, pull us out if we look pretty, and throw us away after getting tired of us…” The part where the giant flower monster burned turned into sand, and grains fell to the ground. “Now, it’s our turn. You should get a taste of your own medicine.” The giant flower moved her petals and dusted off her scorched stem. Then the embers on the burnt area soon died down as if it was extinguished by water.

“…I see, I guess this is what you meant.” Emmanuel laughed dryly at the tree monster, whose whole body was now as hard as stone.

It was a long-standing truth that the weakness of plants was fire. However, the Hala Forest was an extraordinary space that did not follow the usual rules. If they thought common sense worked here, they were in for a rude awakening. Four pairs of branches began to grow from the tree monster’s sides. Then he used them as legs to lay horizontally.

“Oh, did you also eat a spider?” Swish. Emmanuel muttered and pulled out a thin fleuret, which looked like an elongated needle.

“I ate everything I could.” The tree monster opened his mouth and revealed his sharp teeth. “And I’ll eat you too!” The battle between Emmanuel and the tree monster began when the tree monster poured purple sap from his body.

“Hmm~” Yeriel fiddled with her hands in front of the giant flower monster. Every time she moved her tightly clenched hands, a clattering sound could be heard. “If fire doesn’t work…then…”

“Where do you want me to break?”

“What?”

While Yeriel was pondering, the giant flower asked with a bright smile, “Shall I break your neck? Your waist? Or—” The giant flower’s thick stem slowly rose from what would be considered her waist to form a S-shape like a snake. Then she continued, “Or that skinny calf of yours?” The giant flower looked down on Yeriel and urged her to quickly pick a part.

“Well~” Then Yeriel blinked and looked up at the flower with a bright smile. “Your mom?”

The giant flower monster’s face became blank for a moment, and soon, a deafening scream broke out, and the battle began for them as well. Chi-Woo was standing still and watching everything play out. The situation turned out so that some of the members were fighting, while others stood aside as mere spectators. There was hardly any point being part of an expedition like this, but Lakshasha’s words made sense. This was a good opportunity to gauge the strength of his enemies as well as his allies.

The tree monster’s fighting ability was certainly astonishing. He wielded dozens of branches like sickles, preventing his opponent from getting close while attacking by shooting out a series of nets that seemed to have been woven with sap. In addition, his body was as hard as stone, and he had several legs, so he moved quickly for his size.

However, Emmanuel was also a formidable opponent. He didn’t recklessly move closer and instead analyzed the tree monster, but at the same time, he avoided the enemy’s attack with his swift movements and aimed for an opportunity to strike. In the past, Chi-Woo would have just stared in amazement, but after achieving unity, the way he saw people’s movements changed.

“Mr. Lakshasha.” Watching the battle between the two, Chi-Woo quickly reached a conclusion on who’d win and asked, “There’s no king candidate among those three, right?”

Lakshasha turned around in surprise and nodded, “Yes, there isn’t.” As he looked back at the tree monster fiercely chasing after Emmanuel, Lakshasha continued, “They all seemed like they’ve eaten people, but it’s probably just one or two at most. Or they’ve only eaten weak ones.”

“How will they rank in the Hala Forest’s food chain?”

“I won’t say they’re at the bottom, but I’ll put them at the top of the lower level at best,” Lakshasha spoke clearly. “You can tell just by seeing how they’re acting like local bosses at the entry area. They were probably pushed out of the competition near the center.”

“I see.” Chi-Woo nodded. “Then we don’t need to waste more time on them because they’re nothing special.”

“I agree. Still…they don’t seem like they’re struggling, but—” Lakshasha looked at Emmanuel, who wasn’t able to make a single successful attack so far, and smacked his lips. Then—

Bam! They heard an explosive noise from one side. Startled, Lakshasha gaped with disbelief.

“What—what—” It was the same for the giant flower. “Just now—?” The flower was suffering while twisting her whole body and falling down. Closer inspection revealed that the giant flower’s pistils and petals were wet, and judging by how she kept rubbing her face, her face seemed to hurt the most. “Is it poison?”

“Not a chance.” Yeriel snorted. “It’s burning water.”

“?” “Since fire doesn’t work, I used water. It’s simple, right? Well, I’ve also mixed in various things, but you don’t have to know about that.”

Even while the giant flower hurriedly withdrew, she looked doubtful. Water? This was not fire, but water?

“Let me tell you what sorcery is,” Yeriel muttered as she moved towards the giant flower monster. “We pursued the path of using pure mana freely to its limits while ignoring laws and rules. As a metaphor, it’s like a horse running wild.” Then she suddenly stopped walking and said, “Don’t you think some people are really~ idiotic? Like your father and mother.” Yeril smiled brightly at the slowly retreating giant flower monster.

“What exists in this world that can’t be controlled?”

“W-What, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Magic is like that in the first place, isn’t it? To implement mana under certain laws and rules.”

When Yeriel continued to ignore her, the giant flower monster got angry and shouted, “You—!”

Then the stem on her neck lengthened and aimed for Yeriel in the air.

“Those rule-following magicians always fight among themselves about the correct method and process and whatnot, but—” Yeriel took out a metal bead and cast it upward, “It’s all meaningless if you see my family.”

When the giant flower monster opened her mouth wide and was about to bite Yeriel’s neck, the metal bead radiated light and changed into metallic liquid before covering her neck.

Clang! Rather than soft flesh, the giant flower bit into a hard piece of metal.

“Do you know why?” Yeriel continued with a chilling voice.

The giant flower glanced at her while trembling.

“They’re all things I can control with science anyways!”

Faced with a cold sneer, the giant flower monster suddenly felt an unknown chill pass through her body. “Hic—hick—!” The giant flower monster hurriedly withdrew and slammed her face into the ground. She tried to run away by digging downward as fast as she could. Then the ashy-gray bead flying towards the giant flower monster let out a bluish glow. A clicking sound immediately followed, and the bead opened up in the middle and dropped into the hole that the giant flower monster made.

Soon after. Bzzzzzzz! The sound of a chainsaw turning on rang in the air.

Kyaaaah! Kyaaaaackkkk! A blood-curdling howl soon followed. The stems and roots that hadn’t yet entered the hole frantically struggled, and then—

“The end,” Yeriel said.

The giant flower stopped moving, and her screaming stopped.

“It’s funny to talk about evolution in front of my family that specializes in mana engineering.” She smirked at the drooping stem and turned towards Emmanuel with a bright smile. “How long are you going to continue fighting? I’m already finished.”

Following her gaze, Lakshasha frowned. Emmanuel, who had been only getting pushed back so far, began to fight back. He replied to Yeriel, “Then I should also finish this.”

Emmanuel began to strike back against dozens of simultaneous attacks.

“You punk! You rascal!” The tree monster indiscriminately attacked, but all of his strikes were blocked or parried.

The speed at which Emmanuel’s arms moved was so great that they couldn’t even be seen. At the next moment, Emmanuel let out a loud cry and widely swung his sword. Lakshasha was startled when the fleuret’s blade suddenly split into several branches as if it multiplied. The myriad of blades swept the tree monster’s attacking branches all at once. And they crumbled all at the same time. However, this only lasted for a while. The tree monster regenerated his branches in an instant and surrounded Emmanuel again.

The tree monster shouted, “Hahaha! More! Do more! Show me more of what you got!” He laughed boisterously and was about to shoot poisonous sap again when—

“Forehead!” Hawa, who had been quietly observing, shouted, “You should aim for the forehead!”

Emmanuel glanced at Hawa and instinctively scanned the tree monster’s forehead. Then Emmanuel discovered something shiny there, and his eyes narrowed. He pushed his sword back and got into a stance as if he was unsheathing his sword and curled up. Then he kicked the ground as hard as he could and rushed forward with his body spread towards the tree monster, who was trying to cover his forehead in surprise.

Pop! With the sound of air bursting, the following scene made even Chi-Woo widen his eyes. As if he was threading a string through a bead, Emmanuel passed through the countless branches and raised his arms in one swift movement. The fleuret failed to penetrate the tree monster’s forehead, but managed to barely touch it.

“Hehe…he…” The frightened tree monster laughed and breathed a sigh of relief.

“That’s amazing,” Ru Amuh said.

“Yes,” Chi-Woo replied.

Ru Amuh and Chi-Woo couldn’t help but be amazed. While Emmanuel’s sword hadn’t pierced through the tree monster’s forehead, it managed to touch it. And it was the latter that was important.

Thud!

“You punk…?” It was then the tree monster finally felt it. He first felt a crack in his forehead, and then his body began to fracture and crumble into ashes. “No-no!” The tree monster opened his mouth wide and frantically tried to reattach his body somehow with his branches, but could not stop it from breaking into pieces from the bottom.

“This monster really was nothing. It was a waste for me to even show the power of my family.” Emmanuel lowered his fleuret and snorted after seeing the tree monster turning into a pile of firewood.

Dazed, Lakshasha suddenly remembered that there was one more monster besides the giant flower and tree monster.

Ru Amuh said, “It was an amazing sight. His fighting style follows the standard, but it feels very sophisticated rather than simple and tactless.”

Then Lakshasha gasped when he saw Ru Amuh openly admiring Emmanuel’s skills without fighting. If he recalled correctly, Ru Amuh had stepped forward to deal with the remaining monster.

Lakshasha looked at Ru Amuh and said, “No, wait a minute?”

“What is it, sir?”

“You—” Lakshasha was about to ask what had happened, but then he looked back and became speechless. The thornbush monster was nowhere in sight. However, the bent thorns scattered all over the place told him indirectly what had transpired.

Ru Amuh said with nonchalance, “It wasn’t an easy fight. It felt like I was cutting water every time I cut the monster.”

“W-Well, so what did you do?”

“I scattered him—with wind.” Ru Amuh placed his hand on the hilt of his sword; it was the magic sword he got from the Narsha Haram expedition that generated wind. “After I decomposed him into molecules, he wasn’t able to fight back anymore.”

Lakshasha clutched his forehead in shock while Ru Amuh laughed. He wanted to tell Ru Amuh to stop lying, but he had no choice but to believe it after seeing the evidence. In the end, Lakshasha shook his head in acceptance.“…Your team is much better than mine. But…” Then he sighed with drooping shoulders and turned around. “It seems we’re surrounded.”

As if in response to Lakshasha’s statement, noises began to come from all directions. The number of monsters who appeared through the bushes were well over a hundred.

“Thank you very much.” Among them, a grassroot-looking monster trudged out and stepped forward. “I didn’t like those three acting like bosses, so I was planning to kill them. You saved us the trouble.”

“…Blasted scoundrels. They’ve been hiding and waiting for an opportunity.” When Lakshasha ground his teeth, the grassroot monster grinned.

“Well, we don’t want to go too rough on you considering what you’ve done for us.”

“Get to the point.”

The grassroot monster looked at the corpses of the three monsters and said, “I’m telling you to just go on your way. But you have to leave these behind.” He wanted them to hand over food in exchange for letting them go. Since this was equivalent to recreating the enemies they’ve already killed, Lakshasha found the grassroot monster’s offer ridiculous.

Lakshasha said, “And if we don’t want to?”

“Then I guess it can’t be helped.” The grassroot monster shrugged. “Those who survive the fight with you will get a feast.” He spoke with confidence as he looked at his comrades on standby; he seemed to firmly believe that they could win with numbers no matter how strong the expedition members were.

Lakshasha clicked his tongue and glanced at Chi-Woo, meaning that the final decision should be left to the expedition leader.

“Good. I haven’t properly warmed up yet.” Emmanuel showed his willingness to fight by holding his fleuret.

“No.” However, Chi-Woo shook his head and ordered Emmanuel to sheathe his sword and withdraw. “We’re busy.”

The expedition members, excluding Lakshasha, doubted their ears. Of course, Lakshasha needed to move as fast as possible for his captured comrade, but was there a need for them to also move quickly?

“Then sir, are you going to accept their offer?”

When Emmanuel asked with a disappointed voice, Chi-Woo shook his head again. “Rather than that…I want to save our energy as much as possible.”

What did Chi-Woo mean by this? If he didn’t accept the grassroot monster’s offer, they were going to fight. But why did Chi-Woo tell him to sheathe his sword and withdraw? Was he planning to fight by himself? That was also incomprehensible. They were able to easily defeat the monsters just now because they were superior in numbers, but this time, they were at a significant disadvantage. Moreover, regardless of how weak the monsters were, there might be some strange, unknown ones in the mix. No matter how hard Emmanuel thought about it, it was only right for them to fight together—unless Chi-Woo knew a way to wipe out all of them in one shot.

“Just in case something happens.” Chi-Woo finished his sentence and took one step forward.

“Yeah, good. Very good. You made a very wise decision…?” The grassroot monster, who thought his opponent would have no choice but to accept his offer, smiled contently. However, his face soon stiffened when he felt a mysterious sense of foreboding. “What? Why are you approaching me?”

Chi-Woo didn’t reply. He simply stretched out his left arm as if he didn’t want to waste any more time.