Chapter 523 - First contact (7) |
—Swash.
He didn't make any particularly grand gestures, yet the golem, its senses synchronized with him, began to act thunderously.
—Boom!
I operated the elongated machine beast known as the dragon to face the enemy forces.
'Oh my.'
However, barely a few seconds passed before their focus shifted entirely to me.
[Catch him!]
[Catch and kill]
[Is it okay if we don't capture him alive?]
[Why are you standing there so confidently when you're just handling machine subordinates?]
If a rampaging golem is troublesome, the first priority is simply to kill its operator.
—Flash.
As expected, the opponent's tactics changed immediately. Popping out in Beta-star bodies suited for interstellar travel, they suddenly and blatantly targeted me in my human form.
—Crackle-crackle.
The pouring attacks were as intense as falling meteors. Thus, I moved my body busily so as not to even get grazed by them.
'They aren't using magic that's impossible to understand yet...'
What followed was a situation I had anticipated even less.
'Huh?'
Of course, even in the depths of such a dungeon, there was only exactly one advanced entity that had received higher education. Still, they had 3,000 years to practice magic theory. By now, I expected they might spray toxic substances like a mist to hinder berthing, or at least reveal somewhat more complex tactics, but...
'Wait? Suddenly engaging in hand-to-hand combat here?'
It was different from what I expected. They suddenly approached barehanded, like masters of close combat whose tribe had long since vanished in the past. And from this simple change in attitude alone, I partially understood their society.
'Due to the privitivity of their cells, they can't use high-difficulty magic, and since their internal mana reserves are as small as a mouse's tail, their fallback option is (Physical Enhancement)?'
Come to think of it, knights running rampant in Alphaun's Middle Ages followed roughly the same flow.
'They absolutely refuse to bring out golems over there, so maybe the skin for Earth invasion is too cumbersome to handle, making additional material manipulation difficult!'
Evolution of the physical body is limited, and in trying to squeeze efficiency out of it, their methods of warfare eventually regressed.
Crunch!
New Generation Alphaurins running with their legs enhanced to the limit. Some entities kicked off the black ground, taking the lead to eliminate the golem operator. So, I hurriedly showcased a new technique to maintain preparation distance for magical shooting, but...
—Whoosh!
Things didn't go smoothly.
'Ugh. But I suppose there is a difference, being scholars from a society 3,000 years ahead.'
I hadn't noticed a huge difference until just now, but as the fight intensified, a new change immediately became apparent.
'Their defensive power is far superior.'
Did they become stronger while enduring the expansion of the binary stars? Or did they enhance related magic for other reasons? First of all, those pale, bloodless invaders surprisingly possessed far better defensive capabilities than I did.
'Is their military power this chaos even down to the shallow floors where the engineer entered...'
But would creatures that set up mana barriers so well neglect their offensive power?
—Schewing.
Soon, brutal spells revealed themselves before my eyes.
'Ah, I should have just tossed the dragon to the engineer and brought the [Behemoth]. I chose the wrong model.'
The destructive power of their transformed bodies looked immense enough to cause massive damage even with a slight grazing touch. If I were to interpret that technique in an Earth style, it would probably be called defense-ignoring, severing, or something along those lines...
[Leave the head]
[The head]
Well then, I truly have no other choice either.
'Close-quarters combat isn't my main specialty.'
I failed to block the invaders' advance beforehand.
'But that doesn't mean I ever said I can't do close combat.'
If I allowed them to get this close, there was a high possibility that Kim Giryeo's precious body would be severely injured, so I pulled out another means at this point.
—Swoosh.
On the outside, it was just a plain brown staff. But looking closely, it possessed a bizarre vitality, as if countless thread snakes were intricately intertwined.
[Crude Black Staff]
Ahhhhhh—
For reference, this armament... Cost 20 million won in South Korean currency in magic materials every single time it was swung. Historically, warfare has always been an endeavor that consumes a considerable amount of 'money', regardless of time and place.
'I wonder if I'll have any assets left in my name after this battle is over.'
My hands are already shaking, but one must generally endure a certain amount of cost for the sake of national defense in life. I gripped the item with the simple name 'Black Staff' firmly and looked ahead.
At this moment, from the front, asymmetrical invaders with modified bodies were rushing in like wild beasts.
***
This was the point where the Archmage stood in the center of the battle. The enemy had invaded using the unimaginable method of close combat to save mana. The guardian of Earth brought out an emergency weapon that was practically hastily made to counter them.
But around the time the situation began to escalate, Kim Giryeo started to harbor a brief question in his mind.
'Come to think of it, why did Earthlings mostly think of magic wands as tools exclusively for long-range combat...'
Even on Earth, [Magic and Wisdom] were considered highly correlated.
'I was once surprised that a world where magic theory hadn't developed came up with the same image as us.'
Despite being aliens to each other, they thought identically about the essence of certain concepts. But from the perspective of Earthlings, wisdom usually comes with age. In the various media of mammals, elderly mages with long white beards inevitably appeared frequently. And when designing their weapons on top of the established stereotype of a human who uses magic, naturally, a tool with almost no movement would result...
'If you just walk around leaning on it quietly on the floor, what's the difference between this and a hiking stick?'
A magic wand. Why were the ideas of Earthlings and Alphaurins so starkly different even regarding such a simple magic tool? Kim Giryeo, as a stranger, didn't neglect his efforts to resolve his doubts. And now, having nearly completed his personal staff, his understanding of Earthlings had deepened further.
—Squeeze.
That was why he could show such movement. To the Archmage, Earthlings were no longer just 'disgusting' animals. With a little attention, he could easily understand the actions of all humanity, so even while wearing an opaque and unfamiliar skin, the level of his mimicry was completely different.
—Crack!
Clench.
He swung the staff with such force that his forearm muscles bulged along their fibers. And as the tip of this fully swung stick soon touched the enemy's body, a mysterious phenomenon occurred.
—Pop!
The Beta-star body before his eyes completely lost its form, melting into mush.
[Huh?]
The personnel present on this second floor, which was not a desert, were actually in a special state with more modified techniques? Once those luxurious bodies, whose defenses were more thorough than most military facilities on Earth, suddenly melted away in unison.
—Whoosh.
Moreover, escaping the melee attack initiated by the Archmage wasn't easy. The figure known as Lemming had an old soul, much like the stereotypical mage Earthlings imagined. However, right now, he had acquired a fresh body that was set once, this form is commonly found in all magic tools, it he aggressively began to strike down those who approached aiming for him.
[H-h-huh?]
Flustered, the New Generation Alphaurins immediately attempted to analyze the Archmage's new weapon. But what on earth was this situation?
[What is this?]
It was bewildering. Because it couldn't be analyzed. The alien creatures boarding the white aberrant bodies began to break out in cold sweat internally. The tip of the ominous staff Kim Giryeo wielded had a pitch-black orb attached to it. Of course, thanks to the mana that was flowing in all magic tools, it seemed obvious that the black orb was some kind of power source...
'I can't see what kind of magic he's starting!'
For some reason, the spell firmly locked onto the orb was difficult to interpret and break. It definitely seemed like something authentically activated whenever the caster trickled a little internal mana into it. However, as if to make one doubt whether a human had done it, the formulas—one hundred, two hundred, and perhaps nearly a thousand—were so filthily overlapped—
[This is why I said I hate infer melee combat]
[Is our vanguard doomed?]
They couldn't peek at the core blueprint hidden beneath those complex layers. The New Generation Alphaurins were momentarily flustered by a magic composition they were truly seeing for the first time.
At this moment, the sound of another fellow kin being dismantled rang in their sensitive hearing.
—Bang!
It was incomprehensible cruelty. Why was the enemy going out of his way to spread the Beta-star bodies out like water and kill them?
—Could this be revenge against those who felt no guilt while experimenting on Earthlings?
One of the New Generation Alphaurins had this thought at this point. However, they couldn't afford the luxury of having a leisurely conversation in a combat situation, so they quickly changed their strategy.
[Fall back!]
The invaders thought. The unblockable spell used by that blond man seemed to have very severe range limitations.
[Oh, as expected.]
As proof of this, when the enemies moved far away, the opponent stopped swinging his staff. So, from now on, how about maintaining an appropriate distance and drying the opponent out through mana depletion?
[Look at that!]
Just a few seconds later. The New Generation Alphaurins realized a new fact. They finally realized that the atmosphere could get even worse from a point they had already thought was the worst.
—Boom, boom, boom...
Come to think of it, the long-range attacks they had been firing since earlier kept landing in strange places.
[The enemy.]
[Is standing still.]
[But only the trajectory of our magic—]
To reiterate, the New Generation Alphaurins were beings who had not yet become inscrutable. Because of this, the Archmage had already decided how to fight them.
'The efficiency of all their magic is different from mine, but it's not like they are using bizarre magic that has developed to the point of being unanalyzable!'
If the opponent had developed magic for 3,000 years, couldn't he just quickly keep pace and newly understand their talent in marine life. However, it even bizarre spells like [Gates] or [Dungeons] had eventually become subjects of analysis. Through this training thus far, the Magic Master had been able to extract and ascertain the time until a Dungeon B reak occurred, the dungeon's size, its difficulty, and more in advance from the Gate spell.
So, the horror currently unfolding was, in a way, foreseen from that moment.
—Bzzt.
—Crackle...
—Pow.
The long-range bombardments fired by the New Generation Alphaurins turned their heads away from the Archmage one by one. Kim Giryeo was clearly standing still in place, but the attacks simply couldn't reach where he stood.
[...]
[...f]
This happened because the blonde man observed the enemy attacks. He accurately identified and shook the parts within the formulas that affected the trajectory.
'—Is it because the distance is too great...?'
'—Even a slight error causes the landing spot to be completely off.'
Then, if the Archmage was twisting the direction of the spells, common sense dictated that a traditional countermeasure should appear at this point.
'Hmm?'
Kim Giryeo felt puzzled. The New Generation Alphaurins had been continuously falling for his interference since earlier. They weren't blocking the [Trajectory Modification] magic he was trickling out little by little. Nor were they voluntarily correcting the twisted angles on their end.
What was the point of this sluggish waste of mana?
'Don't tell me.'
In an urgent combat situation, the idea that the enemies would go easy on a person was unthinkable. Therefore, the Archmage immediately fell to another conclusion.
'Don't tell me there's a difference in the speed of technique interpretation between us, so the gap isn't closing...'
That was the correct answer. From the perspective of the New Generation Alphaurins, the Archmage on this side was a great figure of the past who was already dead. But he was only recorded as dead in an earlier era. The one riding in Kim Giryeo's body actually had no problems with his intelligence.
A dead great figure and a newborn baby. Such beings are absolutely not inferior to modern adults; they are simply in a state where they haven't learned the knowledge yet.
Additionally, although the parties involved hadn't exactly realized it yet, Kim Giryeo and a certain engineer fundamentally had one more superior aspect over the enemy. It was because they had not changed the external appearance of the bodies they occupied out of manners, consideration, and compassion.
Long, flowing hair. Opaque outer layer. These elements usually came across as very unpleasant to those originally from marine life. However, those luxurious bodies, which were more or less as unpleasant as possible. Because he protected that heterogeneous will, at some point, a few special scholars were naturally subjugated into the category of "Earth residents."
Unlike the invading forces that ground down all the bones of other creatures simply because controlling them was difficult, Kim Giryeo, who used reincarnation magic, ignored mana's immense response as long as he was properly lodged in the body. Thanks to the appearance of a planetary citizen, he, who was being protected, unintentionally shifted the tide of battle rapidly.
—Bang!
The entity known as the Archmage was around like crazy holding a one-hit-kill staff—
—Kaaaaaaaaaaah!
[What wrong with the golem now?]
[Uh.]
[I just used teleportation, so I'm short on mana right now!]
What was even more shocking was that the giant 'dragon' was active at the same time.
[Uwaagh!]
If a caster starts controlling a golem, generally, they fix their own body somewhere while manipulating that massive chunk of machinery. But Kim Giryeo, as if shattering prejudices, stepped forward and began hunting the New G en the body. Furthermore, the sleek golem entity under his command was crisscrossing the battlefield without rest.
[We can't confuse its target]
[Is this automatic navigation?]
[I don't think so]
Actually, the high-ranking Alphaurins present knew the magic to neutralize an automatically navigating golem. But the fact that the dragon's movements weren't twisted at all even when using that spell meant...
—Slither.
[There's only one brain, yet he moves the main body and the servant simultaneously!]
The eyeless dragon's head soon turned toward its target. And the mechanical beast completed by the engineer's hands wrapped around the enemy at high speed.