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“What… is this thing…?”

In Cestlavie’s line of sight, a large ogre wearing a bizarre mask was swinging a massive scythe.

Each time it did, the barrier surrounding the church sparked, fending off the attack, but…

“This won’t last long…”

Cestlavie glanced at the burning smell in the air, and saw that several of the barrier stakes, which were arranged in precise intervals around the church, were almost entirely deteriorated and on the verge of breaking.

The stakes were placed according to a calculated alignment with the cardinal directions, so simply replacing them wasn’t an option. If these failed, the barrier would lose most of its effectiveness.

In that case, the best option would be to repel the monster in front of them before the barrier is completely breached—

“The ballista is ready, stand back!”

At that moment, a ballista, which had been brought along just in case, despite not being deemed necessary, was assembled by the adventurer guards and brought into position.

“Prepare to fire!”

A massive bolt, almost the size of a spear, was aimed at the large ogre just a stone’s throw away. Several people cranked the mechanism, pulling the string to its limit. The ballista wasn’t built for precision shooting, but at this range, missing would be impossible.

“—Fire!”

With a thundering boom, the bolt was released, striking the ogre dead center—right through its heart, sending its massive body flying.

“We got it!!”

Cheers erupted around them, but Cestlavie’s expression remained grim. While the others had been standing by, he had been using his talisman techniques to launch attacks through the barrier, but the responses from the creature had been strange.

And as if to confirm his unease—

“This thing… it’s still moving…!”
“No way, it’s still alive!?”

The giant ogre, which should have had a fatal wound, stood up as if nothing had happened. A wave of dread and fear, different from before, spread through the crowd.

Amidst this nightmarish scene, “This is… impossible! We can’t do anything against it!!” Someone shouted in despair, forgetting to reload the ballista.

♦♢♦

“The wind is trembling…”

Luke, standing alone atop the highest bell tower of the church, whispered softly as he listened to the sound of the wind passing through the darkness. He was trying to track Jill and the others by listening to the wind as closely as possible, but they were nowhere to be found within a ten-kilomertes radius.

“…Either they’re inside some kind of barrier, or they’ve moved far away.”

While Luke was worried about their safety, he didn’t entertain the pessimistic thought that they might already be dead. The mere thought of that girl filled his heart with a bittersweet, burning sensation that never seemed to fade.

“That’s why I trust that you’re safe, and I’ll do everything I can right now. Please wait for me, Jill.”

With this resolve, Luke drew the Dragonfang Dagger he held in his hand. Jill had once given it to him, and it was said to be crafted from the fang of a wind dragon, making it highly compatible with wind spirits.

As he silently called out to the wind spirits around him, Luke raised the Dragonfang Dagger high. He recalled the feeling from before when he had summoned the wind in sync with Ashimi’s melody.

“Here I go! Wind, become a wall to protect this land!”

In response to the boy’s heartfelt plea, the treetops surrounding the church began to rustle.

“—Nya.”

At that moment, Sechs, the winged cat perched on Luke’s shoulder, sniffed the air as if catching a scent and let out a short meow.

♦♢♦

Coppelia suggested that we change locations for the explanation, so we started walking again. The area we entered further in seemed to be a storage space for more or less completed specimens. As we glanced around, we saw a massive creature, about 2.5 mertes tall, crouched inside a transparent “alchemist’s jar” over 5 mertes in height.

“An ogre?”

I couldn’t help but phrase it as a question because the ogre was wearing a strange mask.

“Specimen 206 from the Immortality Experiment. It’s an ogre designed with the concept of having Hydra-like regenerative abilities… but it was a failure. Unless it receives a constant infusion of external magic, it quickly runs out of energy and dies from exhaustion.”

Coppelia turned to look at me, pausing like a student showing off a poorly done homework assignment.

“External infusion…? Ah, I see. So that strange mask serves as an antenna to gather magic from the air.”
“Exactly.”

That’s a fairly common weakness. You think you’re dealing with an immortal monster, but the mask or the doll on its shoulder turns out to be the actual core.

“…It’s not very practical, is it?”
“No, it’s not. I kept this one as a sample, but I disposed of the rest.”

Coppelia lowered her head in embarrassment.

Disposed isn’t the best term to use for living creatures, but I suppose there wasn’t much choice since they couldn’t just be left unattended.

“What’s with that tree growing out of the large bear over there?”

Eren asked curiously, pointing to a massive section occupied by what seemed to be the corpse of a bear over 5 mertes in length, with a tree about 20 mertes tall growing from it.

Ignoring the scale, it resembled a winter caterpillar fungus.

“This was another failed experiment to fuse animal and plant life. The idea was to use plants to compensate for the missing parts of the animal, but the balance was off, resulting in this. The seeds from the plant part can grant temporary immortality, but it’s far from ideal.”

Coppelia dismissed it easily, but could it be that this bear was the legendary man-eating beast, the Storm Bear I saw at the souvenir shop earlier, and that ogre was the prototype of the killer ogre that emerges from Lake Quartz?

If that’s the case, then this place is practically a secret base for evil.

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