Wyvern Knights

The best undead material is old bones. Better yet if they’re packed with deathly aura.

Of course, most old bones are packed with deathly aura. If they’ve only been exposed to deathly aura for a long time, it’s fine even if someone else has handled them. Heh.

Next is a freshly dead corpse. In that case, the stronger it was, the better. The advantage is that you can shape it however you want.

The worst kind? Something recently handled by someone else. What do you mean, what am I talking about? You bastard! You should be able to catch on at a glance. I mean fresh bones that some other bastard already turned undead however he pleased!

—From a lesson by the Black Tower elder.

Wyvern Knight Order.

In the history of the ancient empire, the founding of the Wyvern Knight Order brought about the strengthening of imperial power.

The reason it could stand as a single empire lay precisely with this Wyvern Knight Order.

Even at the far edge of the continent, a wyvern’s powerful wingbeats made travel safer than magic—and, for example, a local lord who once led an ancient rebellion would first check the teleportation magic circle—so they could reach the scene and handle it faster than expected.

The condition for becoming such a Wyvern Knight is neither talent nor martial strength.

Loyalty to the emperor even greater than that of a fanatic.

Only that is needed.

They turned such a Wyvern Knight Order into undead.

And by the tyrant who was both the last emperor and the worst emperor.

But that undead Wyvern Knight Order is trembling like an aspen tree.

‘Ja-ryong is amazing.’

And that’s not flattery; it really is incredible.

Using aura to make that undead Wyvern Knight Order tremble in fear is as difficult as converting a fanatic.

“Kraaaaaa!!”

After unleashing aura again, Ja-ryong did not rush in at once, but drew a deep breath.

The breath that followed.

It now feels like a kind of combo technique.

The instant the pure-white breath burst forth, the Wyvern Knight Order all flinched as if waking from a dream, then carried out evasive maneuvers.

Fast-moving wyverns.

Their movements are all different.

One shoots straight up into the sky, one drops like it’s falling, one quickly retreats sideways, one backs away…….

Their response was clearly excellent.

If it had been the same breath as when facing the Bone Dragon, it wouldn’t have dealt much damage.

The problem, if it was a problem, was that Ja-ryong’s breath this time was not the penetrating kind it had been before.

Like a water balloon thrown with a soft thud, the breath fell in a parabola into the middle of the knights and spread rapidly.

When the undead wyvern beats its wings, the breath gets sucked into the wind pressure those wingbeats create, wrapping around the wyvern in an instant.

‘So that’s what pushisik means.’

After the battle ended before, I asked Ja-ryong all sorts of things about breath while he was recovering.

To summarize Ja-ryong’s words,

First, breaths of the same attribute cannot be used consecutively.

Second, the effects caused by attribute countering are greater than the breath’s own attack power.

Third, breath can be divided into ‘piyung,’ ‘pushisik,’ and ‘hwareureuk.’

I had guessed as much at the time, but now I’m sure.

And what burst out of me was laughter.

Should I call it a very Ja-ryong-like expression?

Putting my thoughts aside and looking back up, more than half had already been affected by the divine breath and were falling in agony.

The half left in the air was not in normal condition either.

At those knights, Ja-ryong swooped in like a hawk after prey.

He kept up the close-quarters fight as if venting his frustration over what happened with the Bone Dragon before.

Like watching a flashy fighter-jet dogfight.

Circling and spinning, climbing and diving, he attacked, dodged, and kept defending.

Once the death knights mounted on wyverns began hurling spears, the Wyvern Knight Order focused on long-range attacks and pestered Ja-ryong.

But unlike when facing the Bone Dragon, Ja-ryong dodged the incoming spears like the hero of an aerobatics film and steadily neutralized the wyverns.

Then the number of wyverns and death knights falling to Ja-ryong’s attacks kept increasing.

While Ja-ryong’s exploits continued in the sky, on the ground the Rebound members rushed at the fallen Wyvern Knight Order like sasaeng fans spotting a boy group.

Most of them were melee-type warriors.

“Woooooo!!”

“Kill them! Kill them!!”

The warriors repeated ‘kill’ over and over as they pounced furiously.

Their weapons, heavily imbued with divine power, cleanly severed the necks of wyverns too stunned by the fall to recover.

Like a headsman’s blade cutting off a condemned prisoner’s neck.

And then came the warriors’ bizarre behavior.

They packed every neatly severed wyvern head into magic pouches, without missing a single one.

Maybe because it was my order, but seeing it with my own eyes made it feel bizarre and strange.

I felt awkward for no reason.

But do warriors, male or female, all have a macho streak?

Even while cutting off wyvern heads and stuffing them into magic pouches, their hearty laughter never stopped.

Especially Hippoly and Kitas, who wasn’t usually the type to act pretty but always faced the members with a prim expression, was no different in letting out a sharp, high laugh.

I casually tossed a remark to the members who were blankly watching the undead fall to Ja-ryong’s breath.

“What are you doing? Want me to finish them off too?”

“Oh! Kill them!!”

I only said, behind the backs of the members who were rushing off, ‘Wyvern bones are good material.’

Some broke off on their own to collect only wyvern bones, while the rest started ‘dealing with’ the surviving death knights.

Was it because the Wyvern Knight Order’s weakness was the moment they were separated from their wyverns?

Or was the impact of Ja-ryong’s divine breath simply that great?

For a high-grade undead, the death knight met its end far too emptily, its body split in half as it spewed black smoke.

Even Kitas was surprised that the armor was so easily cut by a dagger, not even a heavy weapon.

More than anything, their attack ability was so slow and absurd that it made me tilt my head, but whatever the reason, the members quickly finished off the enemies.

With only Ja-ryong stepping in, the battle had become this easy.

The warriors, having sorted out the situation before I knew it, were just staring up at the sky like people waiting for persimmons to fall from a persimmon tree.

Then, whenever Ja-ryong brought one down, they rushed in like mad, cut off the wyvern’s neck, stuffed it into a magic pouch, and chopped the death knight into five or six pieces.

The mages, now a little more relaxed, finally did their part for the first time since the battle began.

They protected the area around Ja-ryong with every kind of defensive magic, and kept covering him by constantly attacking the remaining undead with low-level spells.

With the mages joining in, the situation became overwhelmingly unfavorable, and the roughly seventy or eighty remaining undead all scattered in every direction and began to flee.

“Huh?”

“Gyaa??”

Because it happened in an instant, Ja-ryong let out a bewildered exclamation like Arun’s.

At that moment, when everyone was flustered, a cold voice sounded, rousing the group.

“Time Stop. Limit Manifestation. Limited… Bestowal.”

The bold voice came out strained after those two words, during a very brief passing instant.

It was Lee Hyo-ju’s voice.

Blue Dragon scales, presumed to have been launched from her hand, flew out and pierced the death knights and wyverns showing their backs.

And at the same time, Lee Hyo-ju collapsed to the ground.

“…Huff, Arun, huff, huff, binding magic……”

Arun, who had been shocked, hurriedly began chanting spells, and the mage followed right after.

Priests rushed over, cast healing spells on Lee Hyo-ju, and made her drink potions, but perhaps because of mental fatigue, there was no sign of easy recovery.

She was still breaking out in a cold sweat, and her complexion was pale.

“Web!”

“Binding!”

“Grasping Hand!”

Various kinds of binding magic snared the undead that were falling from the air or already fallen.

The warriors charged out at the same time.

Maybe because the sight was funny, Lee Hyo-ju let out a breathy ‘pff!’

Before I knew it, Ja-ryong had come down from the air and turned back into the tiny, cute Ja-ryong, snoring softly on my head.

The battlefield was cleared, and it was a great victory with no members seriously injured.

Most of the members were in a cheerful mood.

“Companion!”

At Hazel’s shout, the members’ noisy atmosphere settled down and their attention focused on me.

What expectations did they have?

Most of their eyes were sparkling.

“I’m disappointed.”

Was it unexpected?

The atmosphere sank as if cold water had been poured over it.

And most of them were staring wide-eyed in surprise.

“Arun, why didn’t you use gravity magic?”

“What? That is……”

Arun couldn’t easily continue speaking.

And the mages.

This time I asked Lee Hyo-ju, who was still not back on her feet on the ground.

“Lee Hyo-ju, why did you attack? I know the power well, since I created ‘Strong Wind Blue Dragon Line.’ But if Hazel had done it, she would surely have dealt greater damage, wouldn’t she?”

“I thought if Hazel got exhausted, there would be a hole in our defense.”

“Yes, that could be the case. But if it were Hazel, she could have isolated and compressed the space they were in.”

At my words, Lee Hyo-ju looked at Hazel in surprise.

Her eyes were asking whether that was true.

Hazel gave a slight nod.

And Lee Hyo-ju lowered her head.

“It’s a cliché, but knowing the enemy is important, and knowing yourself is important too. And the attacks that followed Lee Hyo-ju’s attack were truly stupid. If there had been organic follow-up attacks after Lee Hyo-ju’s attack, wouldn’t it have been enough even without Ja-ryong stepping in?”

“…….”

“There were several chances, but the big ones were the opening, then after Lee Hyo-ju’s attack, and finally after Ja-ryong’s breath. At least, by making good use of the period after Ja-ryong stepped in, I think we ended up facing each other without any major damage.”

My tone was casual.

But personally, this battle had yielded no gain at all beyond seeing Ja-ryong’s exceptional talent.

A frustrating flow of battle, formations that didn’t fit the situation, and general confusion.

In a word, it was the worst.

And it wasn’t only Lee Hyo-ju’s fault.

The reason, as I said a moment ago, that the mages didn’t use gravity magic to bring down the wyverns.

It was because, since entering the Land of Death, the mages had mainly played the role of ‘dealers’ who attacked.

The mages handled offense, while the warriors handled defense and support, so they probably assumed it would proceed that way again this time.

It may be a stretch, but the mage members may have thought they were exceptional.

So even though an enemy of a type they’d never seen before appeared, the mages launched attacks, and as a result the warriors and the members of other classes had ‘no choice but’ to support them.

The battle ended successfully with a victory and I recovered the sweet loot I wanted, but the members all looked deeply twisted up or full of thoughts.

Leaving the now-quiet members behind, I called Juel and Shumiks aside.

Juel and Shumiks couldn’t lift their heads.

Especially Shumiks was in a very discouraged state because of Spirit Untying Ritual’s failure.

But in fact, she had dealt with more undead than anyone except Ja-ryong.

When Spirit Untying Ritual failed, she showed plenty of activity, using talismans to deal damage to the Wyvern Knight Order.

“You two, did you do something wrong?”

“What?!”

“Ah, no.”

A huge amount of undead wyvern bones taking up three inventory slots.

I took them all out and laid them out in front of the two of them.

Their eyes changed at once.

“You know what this is, right?”

“Yes……”

“…….”

The two of them looked just like explorers who had discovered an artifact made of gold.

Greed and scholarly curiosity glittered in their eyes at the same time.

“Split it exactly in half and take it.

Needless to say, undead bones that have been handled by others are best not used.

Even so, the reason I’m giving you these wyvern bones is because, if the record is true, they’re tens of thousands of years old.

They may even be far more valuable than the Bone Dragon you wanted.”

“T-tens of thousands of years?!”

“Tens of thousands of years…….”

“Yes.”

Violentia faction representatives number over 3,000.

I know Benialis has over 10,000.

By contrast, we have only 75.

These two are the ones who can make up for Rebound’s lack of manpower.

Of course, because representatives grow stronger as the years pass, comparing them to undead in the first place is a stretch.

But if they were undead made from materials soaked in deathly aura for tens of thousands of years, wouldn’t they be enough to stand up to that shabby lot?

At the very least, even if they only served as meat shields in front of the mages, that would be enough.

The two of them, eyes sparkling, began scooping up the pile of wyvern bone shards stacked like a small hill, without even waiting to see who did it first.

Their hand speed had the force of a middle-aged woman who’d just hit a five-minute flash sale.

Just as we were roughly wrapping up the battle and about to move on, divine power surged like a whirlwind from the battlefield.

Everyone quickly grabbed their weapons.

Then the whirlwind vanished, and in its place appeared a figure with a robe pulled low over the head.