Monster Wave, Toward Is End (1)

Perhaps Encia felt proud to be recognized. The handsome boy who looked like a representative puffed out his chest, ready to introduce himself.

“Yes, I am…”

“Registration card!!”

“No… not a registration card! I’m Arun of the Rebound Legion!”

“Right, registration card!”

“…I rushed over to lend a hand.”

“Oh, really?”

“You’re with Rebound too?”

Ver shoved the dazed Encia aside and demanded of Arun.

Arun ignored Ver’s threatening aura and grim expression; he simply nodded with a bright smile.

Ver froze again at Arun, who seemed to absorb his pressure—he judged another powerful one had appeared.

In truth, it wasn’t just that Arun had grown stronger; compared to the constant scolding and disdain he received for his clumsy acts, Ver’s intimidation amounted to nothing.

Of course Arun wasn’t weak, but merely declaring his strength didn’t feel like Arun.

After greeting Encia, Arun climbed the battlement railing and drew up mana.

As he began, the mages spaced out at regular intervals and started tapping the mana hovering beyond the ramparts.

Elders and the tower master from the magic tower, plus representatives of the Rebound Legion—altogether fewer than a hundred mages—joined in.

With just their mana flow, the sky above the Black Oak began to churn.

The eyes of the mages, Ver and Encia, widened as far as they could.

But there was more to astonish them.

First, the being summoned beside Arun: a high-grade water elemental.

Then the sequence of spells and the mana array that followed left the two transcendent mages horrified.

“Encia?!”

“You crazy bastard. This much?”

Arun assumed his stance first, but it was the tower master and the elders who manifested their spells before him.

“Water Breath!”

“Water Breath!”

“Water Breath!”

Were they obsessed with water magic? Strangely, the representatives who followed manifested entirely water-type spells as well.

Then Arun, who had been concentrating with his eyes unusually closed, opened them and spoke in a grave voice that didn’t suit him.

“…Area designation. Water Breath—Transmute, Load. Tsunami!”

Potential energy from height converts to kinetic energy when an object falls. The Water Breath poured from the battlements, combined with weight magic, and became a gigantic tsunami.

A tsunami summoned in the middle of the battlefield.

A tsunami whose water carried far more weight than ordinary water.

A tsunami storing the potential energy of a great height.

Like opening a massive dam, the wave curved down from the high battlements and smashed into the ground below, exploding in a roar—dozens of bombs detonating at once.

Watching the tsunami sweep over the Black Oak, one could feel the grandeur and cruelty of nature.

Arun’s magical control and mana stat had increased, but above all, the reason he could cast such large-scale magic was the high-grade water elemental at his side.

On the day Hazel summoned the high-grade elementals, Arun couldn’t hide his excitement when he realized all the summoned elementals were female.

After relatively little effort—he already had elemental affinity—he managed to summon a high-grade water elemental.

With the elemental, his water magic grew stronger, letting him perform large-scale transmutation on water with far less strain.

Everyone should have been pleased, but such massive magic posed a problem for the Rebound Legion members still fighting below the walls.

Fortunately, perhaps after talking with Hazel, members who could briefly remain suspended by her restored power avoided the tsunami in various ways.

Most delayed their hover time, projected divine power into the flowing water to ride the reaction, or moved quickly to walk on the water—yet one behaved unusually.

It was the warrior leader, Naruan.

Naruan laid her broad blade “True Flame” flat and placed her dainty feet on it. As soon as Hazel’s prepared space vanished, she poured force into the blade through her feet.

When hot fire meets water, a rapid energy exchange occurs from the temperature difference.

Naruan rode the wave like a surfer and quickly closed in on Kim Han with the tsunami.

“Kya hahaha—! This is exciting! Great selffff!!”

Of course Kim Han, being a mage, remained suspended in the air even after Hazel’s power ended—he kept telling himself it wasn’t because he was embarrassed by Naruan.

After the tsunami—akin to a natural disaster—subsided, ordinary Black Oak, except those clinging to the battlements, were all swept away by the immense wave.

Those who got back up could be counted on one hand.

The survivors were Black Oak warriors stationed in the rear and beings stronger than them—comparable to the knight class in humans. Fewer in number than ordinary Black Oak, they were stronger.

Elite Black Oak warriors were monsters capable of manifesting sword energy.

In short, these were monsters that could use divine power seriously—abilities not typical for monsters.

Though stunned by Lee Hyo-ju’s skill and Arun’s tsunami, they were not the sort to simply cut throats and advance as before.

When more than ten warriors charged together, some of our forces were forced solely into defense.

But the Rebound Legion did not rely on warriors alone. It had a force capable of matching orcs in numbers: the necromancer Jule.

“You can’t eat orcs, so hmm. Good, rise!”

Jule, who looked perfectly ordinary—so much so that one might mistake him for a priest—wielded necromancy powerful enough to make the transcendants shake their heads.

If the first Monster Wave summoned only skeletons and zombies, now, with more experience, a significant number of skeleton warriors wearing bone armor appeared.

Moreover, undead turned into skeletons followed the skeleton warriors, carrying or dragging orc corpses on their heads toward the Black Oak.

The bizarre sight of single or paired carriers hurling corpses at the Black Oak made even the monsters tilt their heads in puzzlement.

But there is a spell you must never forget when facing a necromancer.

“Hehehehe, I really wanted to try this… Corpse Explosion! Burst! You burst! You too! You too! Hahaha!”

Though he looked harmless, Jule’s cries and mana flow—an outright force of evil—made the Black Oak lines recall grenades of bone and flesh bursting into iron shards.

Now, with holes sparsely punched in their lines, the mercenaries atop the walls began to cheer.

The cheers grew as representatives waiting at the northern wall arrived one after another.

Arun and the mages’ combined spells and Jule’s necromancy had, in effect, bought time.

The arriving representatives deftly coordinated with Rebound Legion members from their positions.

Benialis’s idiotic action, which could have caused serious consequences, was fortunately handled by the timely response of the water guild’s Kim Han.

The Black Oak reshaped their lines and retreated swiftly.

Unlike previous Monster Waves, they weren’t annihilated but withdrew to regroup, so the problem wasn’t fully resolved.

That evening, Fabrice, the commander of the guard who had finished fighting the southern wall, hurried over.

As soon as Fabrice saw me, his words were as expected.

“You…! What about the north?”

“The northern wall’s Monster Wave is over.”

“What…? How do you know that?”

I sighed and explained what I’d been doing for the past few days.

When I mentioned a Latens Cube at the edge of the Monster Belt, the guard commander grew grave.

“The Latens Cube… you said it was an error?”

Fabrice’s words sounded strange; he seemed more shocked that the Latens Cube could be an error than by its appearance.

“Indeed, this Monster Wave has been strange.”

Fabrice muttered another odd remark.

Among the six mercenary captains—transcendents—some were surprised by the term Latens Cube, while others looked dumbfounded.

“What’s a Latens Cube?”

One burly captain, his aura radiating strong divine power, looked completely unfamiliar with the Latens Cube.

“Latens Cube! Are you crazy, you don’t know that? Even if your brain is muscle, you’ve heard of it. The filthy tools of the gods.”

“Huh? That’s that?”

“Yeah.”

Now everyone wore shocked expressions.

All six transcendants—seven including Fabrice—fell into thought and said nothing.

Then the door to the eastern guard captain’s office, where we had gathered to deal with Benialis’s madness, opened and two people entered.

Everyone there had formidable fame and strength, so they could have scolded the intruders, but they remained silent and rose to politely welcome them.

They were Talis of Destruction and Deicide Bioss—two transcendants among transcendants.

“Have you arrived?”

“Anyway, you idiots. No wonder your bodies suffer. You don’t even ask what you should have asked first.”

Bioss’s scathing rebuke continued as soon as they entered.

The seven transcendants fell silent, their faces blank as if honey had sealed their lips.

But as Bioss’s words continued, their expressions shifted to shock and admiration.

“You idiots are overlooking that our disciple handled the gods’ toolbox. What would you have done if someone brought down the Latent Box system?”

“…You mean he took care of it…? Kim Han, you don’t still have that, do you?”

“If you’re referring to the Latens Cube, yes, I have it.”

The two masters looked proud, and the other transcendants regarded me with eager, astonished faces.

“Your looks… somehow make me feel uneasy.”

“Damn, I knew he was a monster but not to this degree. Encia! So who spread that rumor?”

While a transcendent in a mage’s robe grumbled, Talis and the other mages inspected what remained of a heavily crushed object presumed to be a Latens Cube on the table.

Fabrice, who had seriously discussed things with Talis and the others, grew even more grave.

Had he and Talis noticed something different from the others?

His stern face would not relax until he made up his mind—proof he was deeply uncomfortable and displeased.

“First, Kim Han, hold off the Monster Wave tomorrow. Can Rebound, who handled the northern wall, take the east?”

“Hmm… We’ll discuss reward later, but let’s do that. If Exorsus is occupied before the representatives, we’ll suffer too.”

“Right. Then you withdraw and come to the southern wall.”

With three transcendants agreeing, Fabrice finally looked at Talis and Bioss.

The two masters wore indifferent faces, but Fabrice did not relent and stared steadily.

At last Talis exploded.

“You bastard! Have you forgotten what our disciple was fiddling with and brought back? What more do you want! We weren’t even involved in the Monster Wave to begin with, what nonsense! We’ll be with the fight-obsessed bastard in the library, so consider it that way.”

“…Yes.”

Fabrice at least gave a small reply to Talis’s remark that they’d be in the library of the fight-obsessed warrior, Shio, and retreated—apparently taking it to mean he wouldn’t be entirely ignored.

Preparing for the upcoming Day 59, we moved from the northern wall to the eastern wall.