There Is Something In Rebound That Can’t Be Explained By Numbers

“You, you, you. Say that again!”

Aetas, unlike usual, pressed Mors in a very flustered voice.

Was she acting strange? Mors took a step back and answered in a muttering voice.

“The talent ‘Immortality’… doesn’t work on undead.”

“Ick!! Hey, you crazy bitch!!”

Crash—!! Kuuung—

Objects shattered all around and the garden ground sank. Amid the chaos, only the two beauties remained oddly unharmed.

Mors leapt back as if Aetas, who suddenly lost her temper, was strange, and shouted back.

“Why are you suddenly freaking out!! You’ve been watching the fire from across the river this whole time!! Are you on your period or something?”

“I, Ick! What period are you talking about for a god! You perverted lolicon bitch! Why did you make the talent like that!”

“What are you talking about! Then should I make the talent like a divine power? That’s too much—just how much the bitch Amor and the bitch Serpens complained about it! You were there too!”

Between the two women bickering fiercely, two shadows flickered and then a beautiful woman appeared.

As soon as they appeared, the two women stopped Aetas and Mors, who looked ready to use divine power.

“Please stop it. Why are you like this?”

“Yeah. Enough already!!”

After huffing for a while, Aetas asked Mors in a voice still not cooled by anger.

“So why on earth is it like that?”

“Tch. The talent ‘Immortality’ literally means not dying. It’s a technique that recovers by stealing the vitality contained in the opponent’s soul while in a state on the brink of death. In that process, it randomly absorbs ‘something’ from the being that granted death and the being that shared vitality. While receiving vitality.”

“So….”

“So what do you mean ‘so’? The reason you can’t die to the same opponent a second time is exactly this. You can’t steal vitality from a soul twice. Then the opponent dies or there’s a problem. That’s why ‘Immortality’ doesn’t activate twice on the same target. You still don’t get it after hearing that far? Do you really think an undead soul would have something like vitality!”

Aetas plopped down on the ground.

This was not the usual Aetas. The other goddesses couldn’t easily speak to her after seeing this entirely different side of her.

“…Why are you acting like this?”

When Mors asked curtly, Aetas slowly lifted her head and looked at the three goddesses with unfocused eyes.

“W-what do I do?”

“I said why! Why are you like this!!”

“Kim Han… what do I do?”

Aetas, murmuring with a face as if a beloved lover had left her, was not normal.

Mors, unsettled by Aetas’s appearance, asked pressing her.

“…What did you do?”

Yonga was more formidable than expected. Meo and Mishel produced results beyond expectations, truly beyond what had been hoped for. Certainly.

Their breakthrough power pierced the undead legion, showing an effect beyond that of a knight order.

Piercing through a legion of ten thousand with fewer than ten people is, by common sense, absurd. Yet Yonga was doing it.

However, the number ten thousand itself is a force just by its volume. It’s enough people that even if you packed them tightly across a typical school playground, you still couldn’t fit all ten thousand.

The mage’s opening strike and Yonga’s charge were excellent, but undead are not human. If it had been an army made of people, they would have felt fear by now and their spear tips would have trembled, but undead have nothing like that.

Screeching strangely, they ignored Yonga, a thorn-like presence burrowing into flesh, and began charging toward where the Rebound members were waiting.

A black tidal wave? No, it was a chilling sight like swarms of black cockroaches surging over them. A black wave packed tightly together, writhing and closing in quickly.

“Ugh. Hate it, hate it.”

Arun, who had already recovered his energy, rubbed both arms and shuddered.

I agree. For a moment, I almost lashed out without meaning to.

It felt like watching a thronging, teeming swarm of cockroaches fly.

But the problem was that those things that looked like cockroaches were not merely disgusting; they included undead who could at minimum handle weapons skillfully, and beings who could handle even great force at maximum.

Thwoong—tung—

It began lightly. A light sound rang out, like bouncing a diet exercise ball filled with air off the ground.

That brisk sound came one after another, then changed into heavy, dull thuds.

Then the shield blocking the front in a straight line slowly began to move. It formed an apex in the middle and gradually started to incline, taking shape as a triangle with a gentle slope.

Accordingly, the horde that had been charging as if to swallow the party slowly flowed sideways.

It was not by their own will. They had no choice but to move that way under the force of comrades pushing from behind. Like flowing water bending around a rock.

Waiting for the undead as they began sliding forward were weapons brimming with the divine power of melee-type warriors.

Half-orc Ostum’s greatsword became thicker and longer. That was because he had requested that as his strength increased, the greatsword be made longer and heavier too.

As you can see from the status window, he had moved beyond the innate traits of a half-orc, but he was still ‘brutish.’

Not ignorance, meaning ignorant of knowledge, but, meaning relentlessly and stubbornly moving without rest.

“Uha! Uhu! Ha!”

With a strange battle cry, Ostum’s greatsword squeezed through the gaps between shields of divine power and crushed zombies and death knights alike.

No thrusting, no slashing. Only downward strikes. As if he had learned nothing but downward strikes, Ostum’s greatsword drew bold straight lines and kept falling in a straight path.

Zombies and death knights were smashed and sent rolling so badly that the flow of undead passing through Ostum’s assigned area slowed.

In the case of the high zombies, their bodies were crushed vertically and piled up as corpses, while the death knights had their armor smashed or dented and likewise blocked the way for other undead on one side.

No matter how the situation changed, Ostum’s downward strikes never stopped. He was drawing on the traits of a half-orc as they were, displaying overflowing stamina, outstanding recovery, and monstrous strength.

In the area Ostum was assigned, a wall of corpses was being built, though not intentionally.

On the opposite slope, a halberd danced in the air.

Hippoly, who had a combat style in complete contrast to Ostum.

The halberd wielded by Hippoly, with her sensual figure and a slightly tall stature for a woman, danced through the air stitching various flowers as if it were a supple straight sword.

“Hng. Hah! Uhng!”

With a battle cry that sounded almost like a moan, her halberd beheaded high zombies and death knights.

The moment it drew a graceful curve through the air, a head was certain to fall. No matter what it was.

Above all, Hippoly’s unique technique of changing the path in midair with only wrist strength was awe-inspiring.

So much so that Bioss said that if one looked only at the technical aspects of the spear—since a halberd is a ‘spear + axe’ form—he would have to ask her to teach him.

The strength stat, which did not suit her thin, delicate arms, let her swing the halberd like a light branch, and the talents ‘Transformation’ and ‘Illusion,’ along with the skill ‘Maple Spear Technique,’ added the technical skill that allowed the halberd to dance.

Each time the splendid spear moved, corpses also piled up before Hippoly’s assigned section, creating a barricade in the same result, though by a different method from Ostum.

While they were holding their own thanks to the efforts of the warrior-types Ostum and Hippoly, two women staying with the mages in the inner ranks were warming up.

The shrine maiden of spirits, Soria, and the Amazon, Liru. The two women also began moving in earnest.

Soria took out and grasped the ‘Orb of Nature,’ a weapon made by Kim Han and her number one treasure. The cold touch and the pleasant spirit power flowing within calmed her mood.

“Friends.”

Five spirits appeared at Soria’s call.

Noes of earth, Silairon of wind, Selaim of fire, Endairon of water, and Lioner of lightning. They were all high spirits.

“Long time no see.”

―In human time, is it a long time? Before that, we should briefly greet ‘that one’….

Since this happened often, Soria nodded without feeling offended.

The five spirits glanced briefly toward Kim Han in the back, then turned and took positions around Soria.

“What I want is… the extermination of the enemy.”

―Everything as you wish.

“Don’t overdo it. Our comrades are strong too. Noes, protect the comrade who has gone far out there. I’m asking you.”

―Trust us.

If Kim Han’s spirit art tends to lead relationships through overwhelming affinity and an enormous amount of divine power, Soria, as with elven spirit art, asks, helps, and receives help in return.

It would be nice if she had abilities like Kim Han’s, but she possessed an affinity that even elves find hard to have.

To put Kim Han’s treatment of spirits simply, it was like a dragon living on equal terms with a high- or top-tier spirit of the same attribute, as friends.

So the spirits belonging to Kim Han would voluntarily come out and protect Kim Han when he was in danger.

In any case, even if she was not as good as Kim Han, Soria had high spirit affinity, and moreover, the weapon she held was extraordinary, so Soria’s spirit art was also incomparably superior to that of other representatives or the elves of the continent.

Even now, weren’t the spirits actively sensing what she wanted and moving accordingly?

[Orb of Nature (The Orb of Nature) [Unique]]

An orb exquisitely crafted from Spirit, water, fire, earth, and wind crystals, then joined together with World Tree leaves and the sap of Jeonghwasu (井華樹) Ber.

Spirit, affinity with the four major attributes +50%.

(When summoning spirits) Spirit consumption -20%.

The high earth spirit Noes was already positioned beside Apher, the leader of Yonga, steadily protecting the members from blind attacks. And with minimal force, too.

The high fire spirit Selaim and the high wind spirit Silairon moved around together, burning the high zombies around the party without leaving a trace.

Endairon, the high water spirit, and Lioner, the spirit of lightning, attacked the death knights that approached the party with spirit water and lightning, reducing the death knights’ power to less than half.

The combined attack of spirit water, which had an effect similar to holy water, and lightning imbued with the energy of purification was enough to wear down the death knights’ power.

Soria’s spirits led the battle efficiently, moving as if they had studied for a long time, in a way that placed as little burden as possible on their contractor, Soria, who had called them here.

Above all, in her previous life, she had summoned five top-tier spirits even in poor conditions.

With training conditions that were not just sufficient but overflowing, Soria’s growth also had to be watched closely.

The joining of five spirits commanded by an excellent spirit mage clearly reduced the burden on Ostum and Hippoly and gave the mages some peace of mind.

Moreover, Soria had not yet fought with full power. Her eyes, surveying the battlefield as if ready to step in whenever the situation became dire, were radiating a clear light.

On Liru’s face, seated beside Soria, blue lines had been painted instead of red.

As tradition in her Amazon tribe dictated, this was the mark granted to skilled Amazons in the order of red, blue, green, and white.

Shortly after the start of the fifth year, after speaking briefly with Kim Han, Liru drew a vivid blue line on her face.

Liru exhaled lightly and raised her bow.

Liru, who had been gazing somewhere far away for a while, nocked an arrow, murmured softly, and lightly released the fully drawn bowstring.

And unlike Rapid Fire, she repeated drawing and releasing the string at neither a fast nor a slow pace.

The arrow leaving Liru’s hand—a plain iron arrow—was soaked with Force and pierced the heads of high-ranking undead regardless of type. There were no exceptions.

Even undead have areas that take a long time to recover if damaged. Areas like the head or heart.

The commanding death knights and liches who controlled the undead from the rear would collapse with arrows lodged one by one in their heads, then rise again after a long while.

Above all, Liru’s talent ‘Song of the Forest’ increased the value of Liru, who as an archer might have had poor compatibility with undead.

This talent, which imbued the energy of the forest into weapons like divine power, dealt extra damage to undead that moved on the basis of tainted divine power, as if striking them with holiness.

“Thanks to the Mother of the Forest….”

The arrow touched by her breath glowed for a moment with a very pale green light, then flew through the air with blue Force layered over it, buried itself in a high undead’s head. And then exploded.

Perhaps because it was not a highly concentrated divinity. The corrupted divine power sleeping inside the undead erupted under Liru’s forest energy and caused an explosion within the undead.

Godlike sniping. Liru’s form looked like a rare feat of one-by-one sniping with an assault rifle rather than a sniper rifle.

Looking only at the early battle situation, the Rebound Legion definitely had the upper hand.

The members assigned the role of Yonga were still busily tearing through the undead horde. The main force, which was defending, had such high offensive power that it was hard to tell whether they were defending or forming up to attack effectively.

As the battle went on, and after the high zombies were annihilated and the number of undead was reduced by about half, the flow of the battlefield began to change. It was so stealthy and gradual that only a few members noticed.

Nana, who had shown no sign of strain since joining the expedition to the land of death, was pale for the first time and began to break out in a cold sweat.

Wigo, who approached Nana, briefly patted her shoulder a couple of times and then gestured for her to fall back.

Wigo, with a hardened face, raised his shield and infused divine power into it. The movement of Force rippling together with the flow of divine power unique to Wigo’s technique.

Wigo’s shield blocked the front of the party like a giant castle wall. The cry of iron served as both defense and attack.

The elf Cecil sent arrows flying again and again, her silver hair rippling.

Spirit power dwelled in her arrows, and those struck by the arrows she fired met their end engulfed in flames as if swallowed by a fire spirit.

Simon’s destructive magic boasted the highest efficiency in the current environment, where there was more meat than water, and Jules, whose specialty was necromancy, was summoning undead or casting corpse explosion on zombies that had become corpses, as if the land of death were a space made for corpse magic.

However, the flow that had held the advantage in the early battle maintained a deadlock in the middle, and the battle continued in a strange rhythm.