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Chapter 60 – Irz in Flames (2)
The gate towards the north-west highway was currently filled with the highest amount of people since the establishment of Irz Village.
In front of the overwhelming numbers of Crusaders, there’s only a limit to how much time 50-some vigilantes could buy for them.
There hasn’t been much time since the gate was destroyed, nevertheless, the most any vigilante could do was just keep on standing somehow.
People who were alive, that is Shione, Grint, and his son Claydor and some more vigilantes were fighting while protecting each other’s blind spot. But, there was no way something like that could stop the Crusaders from entering the village. And steadily, many Crusaders had already reached the centre of the village.
Already, most of the village was on fire but the ones fighting here did not even have the time to even notice that.
“Oi, how long are you going to take to take care of that demon?”
“——ha, I’m truly sorry.”
In front of Corvus who had just answered, a goblin, who had been cut together with his leather armor from the shoulder, had fallen.
As Corvus stood on the frontlines while fighting, he also gave out orders to avoid as many casualties of his soldiers as possible.
Whenever a soldier got injured or fatigued, he instantly made him switch with another one in the back. That way, he had reduced the number of casualties greatly even against the physically stronger demons.
Of course, for the vigilantes, it was situation where they felt that none of their attacks were working and the enemy soldiers were unhurt.
If the battle continues for 10 more minutes, sooner or later, a casualty will arise and then it’ll become easier to annihilate them.
“No, that’s enough.”(Kievan)
But, not even wanting to wait for that little time, Kievan decided to remove this resistance with his own hands.
“Get back.”(Kievan)
The moment Kievan said that, the soldiers that were clashing swords, instantly retreated, and the circle of soldiers surrounding the villagers grew bigger.
“Evil demons, receive God’s judgement under my holy radiance.”(Kievan)
He spoke some pompous and exaggerated words but he is seriously thinking of killing the evil demons in place of God.
The Elf, Lizardman, and people of other beastmen races that were continuing to resist in front of him, just what kind of difference did they have from humans? What was supposed to be their sin?
But the believers of the church believed, that any other race other than humans was nothing but a sin in front of their God.
“محامية مبكرة سريعة وعيه كلمة — Concentration enhancement – Conses Boost.”
“كيكو هيروشي تلبية العديد من عناصر قوية — elemental enhancement – Element Boost.”
The magicians serving Kievan invoked enhancement magics. Under the effect concentration enhancement, the chant was shortened and more amount of magical energy could be compressed. And element enhancement turned the ‘light’ of the magic about to be activated much stronger.
“مشرق حريق يدمر الابيض انتشار النار”
After just of a few seconds of chanting, the ‘holy light’ was finally released.
“Giant flash cannon – Lux Force Blast!”
Under the current Model Magic classified as an advanced level magic, it was a ranged attack magic of the light primary colour magical energy.
A magic that could have normally killed even a rank 3 monster, under the effects of the enhancements, became an even stronger torrent of light and attacked the vigilante corps.
“منعت كيكو دوامات الرياح هيروشي الجماهير جدار كبير – strong wind protective wall – Air Wall Defence!!”
The village head mobilised the magical energy that had started to wither away, and deployed a shield covering everyone to protect them from the deadly light magic.
But she knew that it was impossible to defend against a advance level magic with an intermediate level magic. In the first place, a shield of air was at disadvantage against a light based attack magic in terms of elemental affinity as well.
As a result, the village head’s shield, and the reflexive action to defend themselves taken by the vigilante corps members, was not even able to half the damage released by Kievan’s magic.
“”GYAAAAAAAHHHHHHAAAA—-“”
Kievan had already turned away as the cries of death rose and without a change in emotions asked.
“Oi, there seems to be another place where resistance is taking place, right?”(Kievan)
Having burned the vigilante corps to cinders with a single attack, he had already forgotten about them and moved to the next problem that required his attention.
The soldiers around him also seemed either happy or relieved that the demons’ resistance had been ended.
“Corvus, it seems some adventurers are cooped up in the guild to defend themselves. Let’s go and quickly crush them.”
“YES!”
On Kievan’s words, Corvus finally looked away from the corpse of the lizardman he had been fighting till now. He was the only one that was still thinking about the deaths of the demons.
(“Why did that lizardman warrior tried to protect that other lizardman? Do mere demons even have the will to abandon themselves to protect another?”)
The figure of the burnt corpse that lied on each other had been etched in his mind. But Corvus had no way of knowing that those two had been actually father and son.
“Don’t f*cking joke with me! As if I’ll accept something like surrendering to them!”
Nino’s angry voice resounded inside the Guild.
“You’re the one who is joking around, look at your surroundings—–“
Currently, the guild’s building had been completely surrounded by the Crusaders.
“—-Even being thrown inside a goblin’s nest naked would have been much better.
So, how are we supposed to fight against them?!”
Another adventurer who was in the guild shouted back.
In the guild, adventurers that belonged to Irz village and those who just happened to be here were currently of different opinions.
The former were ready to resist till they die and the latter were insisting on surrendering.
Nino and the others who had a skirmish with the vanguard of the Crusaders had been suppressed through numbers making them retreat back inside the guild and then encircled them to trap them there.
Thus, a little time to argue had been given to them.
“You bastards can go fight with your life on the line because this your home village, but it’s not the same for us, we have no obligation to get ourselves killed here!”
“What the hell did you just say!!?”
“Pl, Please stop!!”
Nino who had grabbed the human adventurer was stopped by Nyarko.
Soon other adventurers also moved in to pull them apart.
The human adventurer then looked at Nyarko and said.
“Oi, the guild leader here is already dead isn’t he? Then there’s no order for a compulsory quest either so we have no obligation to fight.
Well even if there was an order, rather than fighting such a battle, I would pay 100 gold or even 1000 gold to cancel it though.”
“uu…..ye.., yes………”
Nyarko had gone towards the guild leader’s house as per Nino’s instruction before the bell for evacuation had rung.
But in the middle of bringing the guild leader here, they were found by the Crusaders who had already started appearing here and there, and only Nyarko, who was fast due to being from a beast race, could safely make it back to the guild.
Although it couldn’t be helped considering the situation, Nyarko had been lamenting the fact that she had abandoned the guild leader in between.
“Do you understand? We don’t have a reason to fight, don’t try and stop us.”
“…….Shit.”
Nino was also an adventurer. He could understand the man’s logic.
“Then go, I’ll stay here and fight.”
“No need for you to tell me, I’ll go.”
The human adventurer threw his sword on the table since he was about to surrender.
Along with him, almost half of the adventurers in the guild threw away their weapons and moved towards the entrance of the guild.
“Wait.”(nino)
“What, still got any problem?”
“…..take Nyarko with you.”(nino)
Nyarko was about to say something but was stopped by Nino’s gaze.
“We’re the only ones that need to fight and die.”(nino)
“Nino-san….”(nyarko)
“It’ll be fine. If you obediently surrender, they won’t kill you. Also, even if you are caught, Kurono’ll probably come to save you.”
That’s not the place where you take the name of another man—Aten, who was standing beside him, thought but did not actually speak.
But, if it was Kurono, he’d probably fight together with us, she thought.
“Re, really, all of us should surrender together—-“
To Nyarko’s appeal, Nino smiled wryly and answered.
“Ah, I’ve already killed 10 of their men, they won’t let me live anyway.”
When she looked towards Aten and Harry she again received wry smiles.
“Bu, but—-“
“Come on, hurry up and get going, you don’t know when the enemy will burst in!”
This situation will obviously not continue forever. If the group outside decided to start their assault, they will lose their chance to surrender as well.
“See ya, Nyarko.”
“…….yes, Nino-san, everyone,…….may the fortunes of war be with you.”
With big tears flowing from those eyes, Nyarko left with that group of adventurers.
And, Nino will soon realize and regret that this was the worst decision ever.
Kievan moved through the group of white soldiers as if going through a white colored wave.
In front of him was the biggest building in this village, the adventurer guild.
“What happened, why are you not attacking it already?”
Kievan asked the commanding officer of the troops standing in front of the entrance with a slight irritation in his voice.
“Yes, the enemy has multiple magicians who can use mid level magic and there were many soldiers with high skill as well, so attacking with just soldiers would be reckless and danger—–“
“Basically, you got scared, is it?”(Kievan)
On being glared from above, the commanding officer hanged his head with a – “I’m extremely sorry.”
“Well whatever. The adventurers of the demons are strong people who possess brutal strength that they can hunt monsters with only a few people, or so I have heard—“
As he remembered the figure of the elf or the lizardman that he had sent to oblivion, he understood that if that sturdy body of the demons was further supplemented by strong magic, they could show abilities stronger than humans.
“Well even I want to avoid useless deaths in my army. I’ll value your decision to wait for the reinforcement of magicians.”
Thank you very much – as he said that the commanding officer finally breathed a sigh in relief thankful that he had avoided the anger of a Priest. But soon he saw Kievan’s look filled with anger again as he(Kievan) noticed something.
“What is that?”(Kievan)
In his line of sight were a few people that were slightly armoured but without weapons and were raising their hands and shouting something.
They were currently standing exactly in the middle of the space between the Crusaders and the entrance of the guild.
Kievan was had asked, but even without listening the answer, he was well aware of what it meant.
“Yes, they are ones that just came out of the guild saying that they are surrendering——“
“You fool! I can see that as well!! Why haven’t you killed them yet?!”(Kievan)
“Th, th, that’s …….because among them there are a few that look like humans so.”
“Kill them.”
“bu, but, the headquarters had ordered to take humans as prisoners.”
“Shut up! They are demons! And heretics that live along with demons! Their existence itself is blasphemy towards god! They must be dealt with immediately!!”
For Kievan, the very fact that there was a human mixed with them was unforgivable.
The humans living in Pandora and the humans living in Arc continent, he might have claimed them to be another type to demons if they had looked different just like Asians looked different from Western people in Kurono’s world.
But in truth there was no difference in the appearance of humans in this world. One could tell that someone was a human in a single glance.
Therefore, humans who were the supreme creation of god, to have lived along with demons, that fact alone was discomforting for Kievan.
As the commanding officer had said, if he were to follow the orders of HQ, the humans who had surrendered were to be taken as at least prisoners of war.
But, for Kievan it was more important to adhere to the teachings of his god rather than follow the orders of HQ. Thus, he took the decision without even a single hesitation.
“Ready your aim—-“
Kievan moved even further as he gave the order.
Under the orders of the highest position in this place, the soldiers quickly took action.
Bowmen nocked their arrows, magicians started chants for attack magics.
And in front of the Crusaders who were clearly taking offensive measures, the group that had left the guild to surrender were overcome with fright.
“O, Oi!? Please wait—-“
The adventurer spoke which sounded more like screaming but, Kievan only wanted to kill these defenceless people instantly. He would never listen to their pleas.
“Fire.”
Many thanks for this awesome chapter and the awesome novel!
I died a little inside just now