(TLN:Nice title.)
Poetry magic.
It was magic that was exercised by putting it on verses. Any adventurer who used poetry magic was certified as a Bard, a class of magician.
The effects of poetry magic were limited to the range of the singing voice (and possibly the accompaniment), and the magician had to keep singing in order to sustain the effect.
Compared to general magic, it was quite cumbersome, and few people choose the path of song magic because of magic talent. In fact, it could be said to lack versatility.
However, there was a good reason why it has not fallen into disuse and had remained alive as a fighting technique.
It was the outstanding performance of the buffs that set it apart from the rest.
The lyre, which was automatically played, sounded even louder as it was infused with magic power.
Not only the solo performance of the lyre, but even a heroic orchestral performance was hallucinated. It was the aftermath of the power that accompanied the exercise of poetry magic. It was the outpouring of power.
With the moon on his back, Oswald began to sing cheerfully.
“My love, on the land of silver and white, the fierce winds are rising up, breaking our fear, and lighting our darkness.”
“Forward!”
“Forward!”
“Forward!”
“Blessed by the God of War!!”
The other three members also sang their own parts.
Poetry magic was not tied to a specific tune. In the extreme, it was also possible to use a battle-enhancing buff on an “Elephant”, but in order to get the most out of it, it was considered that a song appropriate to the occasion should be chosen.
René remembered hearing this song somewhere. It was one of the battle songs sung by knights and soldiers.
Oswald’s specialty was to inspire his allies with poetic magic. Although Oswald was not very good at fighting on his own, the soldiers who heard him sing had a reputation of performing as good as two or three men.
Iris, the girl adventurer who René once possessed, knew of Oswald’s power, and René, too, had predicted that Oswald would use his Poetry Magic.
However, she did not expect the family to come together as a chorus. Like ritual magic, where several people work together to exercise great magic, the more the number of heads, the more powerful the poetry magic would be.
Hadley and Steve, the vanguard, hung over the narrow walkway with their respective prey and approached René.
–“Charming Evil Eye” isn’t working …
There was no change in the three men, even though they were clearly supposed to be making eye contact.
Since it was already known that René used “Charm”, they must have taken countermeasures, but the question was what they were using to counteract the effects of the “Charm”. Normally, only one “Resistance Accessory” was worn in order to avoid interference. If they had the accessory slot allocated for the charm countermeasure, the rest of the accessories would have gaps, but she had the feeling that the Poetry Magic was more suspicious.
“Deryaaaaaaa!!”
Steve, the adventurer-looking man, was Oswald’s third son, and was said to be an adventurer in the Federation.
He looked halfway between an adventurer and a bandit as he slammed his machete-like sword down on René. The blade’s glint was disconcerting to René, as it appeared that it had [Holy] applied to it, rather than the usual «Consecration».
The moment the blade swung down and cut into René’s shoulder; René’s body dissipated into mist.
“Hmm!? Disappeared…”
The blade that cut through the air scratched the mist, and René felt a burning pain.
But she was not frightened, and immediately after, she reconstituted her body behind Steve’s back.
Taking his back, René grabbed her own head with her left hand and pierced Steve with the cursed red blade she created in her right hand. Dullahan form.
The thrust, which pierced through the armor like a piece of paper, was stopped by Steve’s body.
The feeling of being pierced and the unscathed body.
–This is a holy beast’s replacement for the damage …!? But where is the holy beast?
She wondered if it was the special ability of the Holy Beast as was reported, but the Watchers in the dogfight in the sky did not come crashing down.
The hesitation was less than a moment. But Hadley reacted to this in an unusual way.
He turned on his heel in a fluid motion and thrusted his sword at René, who was behind him.
“Kyaa!”
A beautifully decorated knight’s sword passed over René’s chest as she ducked and avoided a thrust. If she had had loli big b**bs, she would have been in danger.
Hadley was super reactive, like he had been stabbed himself. Moreover, he accurately aimed at René behind him from a distance, almost like he was watching from a wide vantage point.
In rapid succession, Hadley unleashed a series of checking attacks, and René retreated, catching them with her red blade. Meanwhile, Steve regained his stance.
Thrust, step, scoop up, dispel, and strike. The attacks were sharp, buffed by the enhancement of poetry magic.
The two swords attacked René without pause, firing at each other with the red blade, sending sparks flying. She didn’t know how much it cost, but it seemed that they applied a high-quality magical effect to a high-quality sword, and even when she cut with the red blade, it didn’t break easily, only to the extent that the blade was nicked.
Without words or even eye contact, the two attacked with a more than perfect combination.
The movement of emotions was strange. Like heat being transmitted, like paints mixing together, the “hostility” in the attacks was being transmitted between the two of them.
Perhaps it was the power of the optional [Mental Resonance] that Oswald had added to his poetry magic.
And one more.
“≪Holy Arrow≫!”
Priscilla, who was waiting at a distance with Oswald, released holy magic.
The bundle of light emitted from the tip of the staff branched off in mid-air and flew in a geometric trajectory as many strips of light.
They were singing together earlier, but it seemed to be no hindrance to the use of holy magic. It was Oswald who was maintaining the poetry magic, and the other three seemed to be merely assisting him.
René stooped down and thrusted her hand.
She transformed into a vampire, and at the same time, used “Wolf Transformation”.
Silver fur covered her sharp-clawed hands. Shrinking her small body even further, René became a silver wolf about the size of a Shiba Inu.
“Oh, she shrunk!?”
René ran on the walkway, passing between Steve’s legs, who was startled. The «Holy Arrow» landed one after another and exploded behind René.
–The smell of the blood of the holy beast … is particularly strong…
René, who had taken the form of a wolf, was surrounded by numerous smells.
Carrion of the undead. Human sweat. Iron. Stone. Flames burning somewhere. Snow. Water in a moat. The smell of a beast’s body. And the smell of blood, which was not very appetizing (i.e., non-human).
The smell of blood and organs tickled René’s nose.
The smells that drifted softly in the wind were wafting from the slit windows “narrow space” for shooting arrows and magic in the tower-like building that was part of the wall…
The place that was supposed to be the entrance was unnaturally filled in, as though it had been plastered over.
René had learned the lesson of having touched Morgana’s heart, so she had narrowed down the scope of her emotional detection considerably instead of extending it unnecessarily. Apparently, Morgana had been taken into custody and transported to Wesala, but there was no guarantee that there would not be others who had been similarly marked.
Therefore, emotional detection was deployed only to the extent that it could probe the attack timing of the persons in immediate vicinity, but even so, it could detect the emotional reactions stirring in the side guard towers if it got this close. A mechanical, flat, AI-like emotional response.
–What’s the point of cramming holy beast into this thing!?
These walls, as usual, absorbed magic power from the ground veins and used it as a magical defense. The same was true of the side defense towers that were part of it. Geometric lines of bluish-white light occasionally pulsate along the walls.
If confined within the walls, it was safe for the time being. The extent of the damage-shifting effect was unknown, but if the holy beast was not considered a force to be reckoned with, but just an extra life, this would be the best place to hide.
“We who fight, for whom we stand, trample our fate.”
“””The time has come, and the flame of life burns brightly in the pages of the history books.”””
Hadley and Steve chased after René, who had moved out of range. Priscilla followed further behind.
Oswald arrived with musical steps, singing cheerfully. Although he knew that this was to avoid disrupting the song, it was a bit surrealistic in a battlefield.
Before they could catch up with her, René reverted back to Dullahan form.
She didn’t produce the red blade. Instead, René took out a sword that she had stored using the magic “Storage Bag”.
The blade, which was as beautiful as a silvery mountain ridge, emitted its own azure silver light.
“That is!”
“The Magic Sword Terra Ayur!?”
A knight of Ciel-Terra … or one born in a knight’s house would not mistake the sword.
The greatest treasure of Ciel-Terra, lent by the royal family to the best knight of the age. The Magic Sword Terra Ayur.
The sword used by the First Knight Commander Lawrence Reinhardt and now in the hands of René.
This sword boasted a foolproof cutting edge and a foolproof sturdiness. If she put her innate swordsmanship and physical ability as Dullahan on top of it.
“Aaahhhh!”
René stepped forward with her (light) weight, and with all her might, she swung full force with Terra Ayur.
Leaving a blue-silver light in its wake, the swung blade cut a square slice through the entrance to the side guard tower, which had been blocked by the rushed construction.
” That’s absurd!”
A startled voice came from behind.
“Yeah!”
René’s kicked forward at the wall she had cut out, and it blew up into the building and hit something.
It was only a moment before she realized that eerie men in masks and priest’s robes were shooting arrows out of the slit windows.
A moment later, what had been a human figure transformed into a golden tiger and leapt at René, spewing nausea-inducing holy energy. The Disjector, a tiger-shaped holy beast.
There were originally four of them, but one of them was lying in a pool of blood, looking eerily halfway between a man and a beast.
Golden claws like cuirasses loomed. Golden fangs loomed like part of a mask.
Three tigers. In René’s hand was a blue and silver magic sword.
A horizontal cleave. The fangs broke and the mouth split open.
Vertical slash. Head smashed in.
Two slashes in a row. Arm shredded and flying.
Spinning kick in passing. Deeply cuts both sides of the torso.
The three Disjectors that jumped at René turned into mere lumps of flesh soaked in holy energy in the split second that they passed her, and they rolled around, spraying blood.
There, she felt more holy energy.
“Woops.”
A dragon with a face like a golden mask was about to plunge its muzzle through the hole René had cut out.
A pale light shining at the back of its throat. A breath of holy energy. Into this closed side-guard tower.
–A place like this should allow magic to pass from the inside to the outside! ≪Short Teleport≫!
Aiming at the dark sky that appeared narrow beyond the chasm, René teleported.
A sense of levitation. Immediately after that.
“Gaaaaaaaaaahh!”
The Illuminator released its breath.
It blew out like steam from a boiling kettle from the narrow space between the sides of the tower and illuminated the night sky in white.
René saw it from outside the tower, and before she fell, she teleported again and landed on the roof of the tower where she had been just a few moments before.
“There’s a gap!”
Rene threw the “Wedge of Fallen Heaven” at the Illuminator, whose head was still stuck in the hole.
The small throwing knife deployed a magic circle as soon as it touched the golden-ornamented white dragon. The special weapon that ripped the Incarnate Holy Beast from its body and forcibly extradited it…
It did no damage.
“Eh?”
“≪Holy Arrow≫! “
A holy arrow was shot like a meteor toward René’s eyes, who had exposed herself on the roof.
Priscilla, who claimed to be in training, is probably below average in her skills as a magician. However, she seemed to have received a buff by the poetry magic, which considerably increased her power.
“Blood will flow like fire, and my cry will become a storm.”
“Stepping over your brethren.” “No retreat.” “Unyielding.”
As Oswald sang, René became a silvery shiba again and jumped down with Terra Ayur in her arms.
A magic bullet of holy energy hit the roof of the side guard tower and made it sticky.
Rising from the side guard tower just below was the smell of the blood of a beast burned by a breath of holy energy.
The smell of human blood, different from that, which stimulated the vampire’s appetite, was rising from somewhere and drifting in the air.
–Is some other holy beast taking on the effects of the “Wedge of Fallen Heaven”?
Looking around, she noticed a number of side guard towers grown on the walls of the castle.
“… You don’t mean to tell me that all of these walled side defense towers are zoos, do you …?”
She didn’t like to think about it too much, but it was possible.
René jumped down into the walkway, Hadley and Steve ahead of her.
“Come!”
Only Steve swung his sword at the falling René.
René misted up just in front of him and landed two steps away.
Hadley, aiming to take advantage of the landing, slashed at her, and René avoides him to the left with «Short Teleportation».
The next moment, René was again in Dullahan form. However, her head was still on her severed neck. While holding Terra Ayur, she created the cursed red blade and simultaneously blocked Hadley and Steve, who were slashing at her from both sides, with her two blades.
At the first strike, René realized that she was at a disadvantage. Although she was equal or even stronger than Hadley and Steve, both of them had swordsmanship skills as well. At least in terms of swordsmanship, they were no match for each other in a two-on-one fight.
Hadley and Steve slashed at her from the left and right, with an exquisite time difference between them. René slided the two swords in her hands as they struck each other, then half-turned her body and swapped swords.
“Woa!”
She lightly kicked and lifted her head as she rolled off the ground.
There, René felt a chill that made the hairs on her (severed) neck stand up.
–Breath…!
Ahead of the head’s view in mid-air, an Illuminator lingered in the air, flapping its wings of skin membrane. A blue-white light was at the back of its throat.
The red blade was dissipated, and with her free hand, René grabbed the falling head. After a moment of ≪Short Teleport≫, a breath of holy energy cleaved over the wall, involving Hadley and Steve as well.
The two, who were human beings in the first place, were not damaged much by the powerful strengthening buff, and even that was taken care of by the holy beast.
“We are one sword!”
“””O, be sharp, my sword!”””
“Though my body rot, I shall triumph!”
René ran as soon as she teleported.
The radiant breath gradually changed its angle of elevation as it followed René. She ran away from the breath that was approaching behind her, and set her sights on the next tower.
A huge white shadow stood in the way, blocking her way.
It was another Illuminator that had climbed up the castle wall. Illuminator B, which had taken up a position clinging to the side guard tower, swung its muscular arm with sharp golden claws and inhaled heavily while keeping René in check.
–It’s a little tough to get away with teleportation…
Throwing herself out of the walkway into the air, René ducked under Illuminator B’s breath and sprang into the air and sprouted wings.
René flapped her wings. She spread her wings, which could wrap around her body three times, and flew across the night sky.
Vampire wings had the great advantage of being able to fly without relying on magic, which meant that she could use magic while flying.
René cast a spell as she made a sharp turn to dodge the blasting holy energy breath.
–If damage doesn’t reduce the head count of the force …, how about stacking a weakening debuff to neutralize it!? If I stack a weakening debuff that has a lasting effect, I can…
Below, the army of undead was free as the Illuminators came after René and hung ladder after ladder on the walls. Hadley and Steve ran across the walkway, cleaving the climbing undead and kicking down the ladders.
René took aim at Steve.
“…≪Weak Extend≫!”
An energy wave like a cast net was released from the tip of the thrusting Terra Ayur and caught Steve. It was a weakening debuff magic that weakened and atrophied any power exerted by the physical body.
And then it was repelled.
Something small, like a decorative tack, shattered at Steve’s waist belt.
–An anti-weakening accessory…!
It was a “Resistance Accessory”. A magic item that protected the equipped person from so-called state abnormalities and certain attributes.
It broke at a certain rate when it took effect, but Hadley immediately put one back on, pulling out a replacement from somewhere.
–I see, they are planning their strategy well.
René was impressed as if she was uninvolved.
If it came down to a battle of resources, René would ultimately win. But René had no intention of prolonging the battle. The longer the battle dragged on, the more damage René’s side would suffer. She could replenish as many miscellaneous soldiers as she wanted, using citizens as appropriate materials, but the number of higher-level undead materials (i.e., knights and strong soldiers) was limited, and she did not want to lose too many of them considering the future.
-If I want to break up the formation on the opposite side, I should still aim for…
René changed direction in mid-air and accelerated rapidly, kicking against the void.
–The leader!
Aiming at Oswald, who was standing in the back.
“We are one sword!”
Priscilla beside him was reaping the undead climbing up the walkway with holy magic, but when Oswald noticed René’s approach, she pointed her staff in René’s direction.
“≪Holy Arrow≫!”
Geometrically branching bullets of holy energy spread out like a scattershot and intercepted René.
However, René was now flying with her wings, not with a «Fly» spell. In other words, she could use magic freely.
“≪Countermagic Field≫!”
The magic power that blew out from René enveloped her like a soap bubble.
The arrows of light shot at René did not reach her, but were cancelled out by the magic power and disappeared. Then René plunged head-on into the storm of holy energy.
“””Ah, be noble, my sword!”””
There, ‘hostility’.
In Oswald’s mind, the “hostility” that was the precursor of the attack flared up.
“I offer myself as a protector of the Vajra!”
Oswald sang valiantly as he held up a strange weapon.
It was a thick, tubular object with a handle attached.
If anything, it looked like it could fire a ping pong ball.
It fired. Something. Toward René. Spherical. Irregular. Transparent.
In other words, some kind of liquid or fluid.
René, who had deployed the «Countermagic Field», was slow to react. She could not use ≪Short Teleport≫. René turned into mist. Her body dispersed.
The “liquid” scattered. It became flames.
“Oh, aah!?”
Flames tangled in the mist.
Hot.
Hot!
Not just heat. It was the power of the holy energy that scorched the undead René’s very existence.
Unable to remain a mist, René reverted to human form and became a fireball.
The idea was similar to a flamethrower.
It was like a magic item that would shoot out fuel, ignite it in mid-air, and then shower the target with flames.
However, the oil loaded into it was different.
It was “holy oil”, oil that had been blessed in a temple and was imbued with holy energy. Inevitably, the flames produced from it would become a “holy fire” that would destroy evil.
René stalled and lost control of her flight.
Barely flapping her wings, she veered off the walls and crashed headlong into the moat, spewing sparks of fire.
René plunged into the frigid waters of the moat, where the magic of the liches had created several icy paths.
The fire was extinguished with a puff of smoke, and René sank into the bubbling water.
Beyond the shimmering, turbulent surface of the water, the cold moon was visible.
The residue of the holy energy still ate away at René’s body, but the cold water felt good against her burned body.
–I know the enemy’s battle strategy.
Her body became lighter.
The burnt flesh disappeared like melting, leaving only bones.
Remnants of clothing that had been scorched and clinging to the body floated away and scattered.
In her hand was a cursed magic staff that looked like it had been carved out of a crimson jewel.
–How about … this, then?
“≪Ascending Sea Wave≫”
The skeleton’s mouth emitted the words with bubbles, and the water current pulled René’s body along with it.
The water rose. The ice bridging the moat broke through, cracked and shattered.
Like a spiral, the water in the moat rose up, sucked up by something unseen. René was carried along by the current.
René ascended as it glided along the side of the wall, and then the view opened up.
Shrouded in water that floated without regard to gravity, René was even higher than the castle walls. The large amount of water sucked up from the moat gathered like a coiled snake and accumulated in the air.
Finally, the moat was empty. René’s body, reduced to nothing but bones, was floating in a giant ball of water.
Oswald and the others could only stare up in shock.
“That’s it for the live show. Rain or shine, it’s cancelled. … [Performance Deviation: Substance Diversion] «Laundry»!”
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