◈ 479. [Auto Play] Omen (前兆) (4)
Temple entrance.
“… hmm?”
Torquell gave a puzzled voice.
He was afflicted with leprosy, bandages all over his body, and a helmet covering his face, driving a wagon.
He had just returned from an errand for medicine to the eastern port city. However, the atmosphere before leaving and now is very different.
‘What’s going on… … ?’
Blinding in the helmet, Torkel stopped the wagon and entered the temple.
The inside of the temple was empty, and the remaining people were busily packing their belongings and escaping outside. Torquell was confused because he did not know the English language.
“What is this… .”
“Ah Thorkel! You’re back!”
At that moment, Zenith came out from inside the temple waving her hand.
He looked like he hadn’t washed properly for days, with his oily hair and black beard growing out.
Torkel asked, pointing around.
“I just went, but… What is it anyway?”
“Oh, didn’t you hear? A monster is coming, but they say it’s a very dangerous monster. That’s why the temple is also evacuating all but the minimum number of people out of the city.”
“No, if you’re going to evacuate, send them all away. Why do you leave the minimum manpower in the temple?”
“Lily-sama is giving birth.”
Thorkell opened his mouth. A few days after he had been away, Lily’s birth had begun.
“Then, Lily-sama, evacuate… ?”
“I can’t go. It’s still the most difficult birth ever… … Hey, can you see me? I’m like this, helping Lily, what about Lily-sama?”
Janice waved her hands.
“It’s in a super-death state. I can’t even dream of evacuating.”
“… If an evacuation order had been issued, it would mean that it was not an ordinary monster attacking. Will you stay here, Chief Priest?”
“Then the mother is here, should the priest leave it? Say something that makes sense.”
The goofy Janice nodded.
“What about Thorkel?”
“of course… I will stay.”
Thorkel clenched his fists and looked around the temple.
“I will make sure no monsters ever come to this temple again.”
“… .”
“Because I’m the last one on the front line here.”
Thorkel’s voice was deeply remorseful.
Janice, who had been listening quietly, gestured towards the barracks.
“Come to think of it, Sir Lucas is looking for it, so go see it. It seems like they were holding a strategy meeting for this defense battle.”
“yes. then.”
Torkell bowed his head, glanced anxiously inside the temple, then turned and ran toward the barracks.
“… Alright then.”
Looking that way, Zenith swept back her sweaty hair, stretched, and then turned to the temple.
“Should this side also continue this war… … !”
***
Lucas stood at the entrance to the central conference room when Thorkell arrived at the barracks.
“Sir Lucas!”
“Ah Thorkel.”
A blush flashed across Lucas’ face when he saw Thorkel.
“It’s just fine. I was just about to start the strategy meeting. Come this way.”
When Thorkel entered the conference room, all the remaining heroes of the monster front were gathered there.
Heroes who have fought together in a few battles in the meantime. New heroes who are clearly nervous after being organized.
and… .
“… ?”
Five thugs who don’t look like good people no matter how you look at them, sitting in a corner and laughing wickedly.
The five members of the blacklist who had been running around at the Crossroads Hotel Casino were also in the meeting room.
Those who recovered all the weapons that were taken from the pawnshop were very vicious.
“How many gold coins can I get if I participate in the Kikik Battle once… ?”
“Besides, if you cut off the monster’s head, it’s ten times that gold coin, right?”
“With that much capital, I can rob the casino here!”
“Is it just whisking? Just let us take over!”
“Whoa, whoa, I want to waste the money I risked my life on like garbage… ! hurry… !”
Torquell unwittingly sat down at a distance away from these nerds. They were the type of people I didn’t want to be close to at all.
“Everyone has gathered.”
Standing in front of the conference room table, Lucas opened his mouth.
“This is Lucas McGregor, Acting Commander of the Southern Front. The strategy meeting begins now.”
After a while, Lucas immediately tapped his wand on the blackboard.
“In the next half day, tomorrow morning… In this defense battle, the opponent’s monster army reaches the castle wall. Some of you may have heard about it beforehand, but this monster corps is a small elite consisting of three high-ranking monsters.”
The atmosphere in the meeting hall cooled down at Lucas’s words.
“The three Gorgon sisters.”
One of the blacklist heroes who had been absent-mindedly laughed.
“Puhahaha! Gorgon? A monster from a traditional fairy tale that turns everything into stone if it meets its eyes?”
“… .”
“A monster from such a legend invades this place? Make jokes too!”
“Does this sound like a joke?”
Lucas growled.
“All the citizens of the city are evacuated and all the soldiers go into war mode and stand by the walls… Does this situation feel like a joke, where even trash like you are hired because they need it more than anything?”
The hero, who started to hiccup involuntarily at Lucas’ bloody spirit, stuttered and asked,
“Am I really the Three Gorgon Sisters? in that legend?”
“Yes.”
“The petrified monster who reigned for hundreds of years in the Sunken Ship Islands?”
“There are many related stories. The target you refer to seems to be the same.”
The silence in the conference room grew deeper and more uncomfortable.
Realizing that the situation was no joke, the gangsters from the blacklist hurriedly rose from their seats.
“… i’m going to fall I’m going to fall!”
“I came to earn gold coins, not to commit suicide… !”
“How the hell are you going to deal with a mythical monster like a gorgon?!”
It was then.
Sreung!
Lucas drew his blade of light and aimed it at their throats.
“You have already signed a contract to participate in this defense.”
Lucas declared coldly with a cold face.
“In other words, it means that you are soldiers on the southern front here until the end of this defensive war, and it also means that the right to live and die is in my hands as the commander’s agent.”
“… .”
“The crime of desertion is punishable by death under Imperial Military Law. So sit down, mercenary.”
All five mercenaries on the blacklist were proud to be on the same page, but the momentum Lucas exuded was on a different level.
The spirit of Lucas, who has grown by fighting and killing mythical monsters on the limbs for the past two years… … It was not something that these scoundrels, who had wasted their lives addicted to gambling, could not overcome.
“sit down!”
“Kuh… !”
The ordering was completed only with momentum.
The five heroes of the blacklist forced themselves to sit down while grinding their teeth.
After arranging the situation with force, Lucas immediately put his sword in and changed his tone to a milder one.
“And don’t worry too much. To compete head-to-head with the Gorgons… … I have no intention of sending you on a suicide mission like that.”
“what?”
“With our current strength, it is too risky to defeat them head-on. It would be better to devise another plan.”
“then… ?”
Nodding, Lucas raised his wand and pointed at the blackboard.
“The strategy we will use in this defense is… .”
Then, he spoke the contents of the strategy that Ash had left behind.
“It’s ‘tag’.”
***
“Ha ha ha ugh… .”
Lying on the bed with a pale complexion, Lily chewed on her already tattered lips.
Even though the lower part of her body had been disabled for a long time, the colic spread relentlessly. Tearing at her bloody collar, Lily spat out in a hoarse voice.
“… don’t die.”
Despite going through death and dying several times, Lily’s eyes still held strong will.
“I made a promise to that person.”
loved
But remembering the face of the man who never came back.
“I will live.”
Lily took a deep breath and looked down at her stomach.
“Mom will definitely live… … .”
Her haggard face trembled, and Lily tried to smile.
“Don’t give up either, baby… .”
The priests and midwives who remained in the temple to help Lily, despite the monster’s approach every moment, helped Lily give birth through the night.
and… .
After a long night, the sun brightened indifferently.
***
Early winter morning with dry sunlight.
thud… . thud… . thud… .
With heavy footsteps, the Gorgon sisters entered the vast plain.
Among the three Gorgon sisters, Euryale can fly, but cannot maintain it for a long time.
That’s why I started walking again before the enemy fortress… … Now it has arrived at the courtyard of humans.
Finally, the southern wall of the Cross Road began to be seen in the distance.
The first Steno and the second Euryale, who were standing in front, still looked blank and unreasonable, but a smile passed across Medusa’s face.
“It’s been a long walk. sisters. But we’re all here.”
The walls looked strong, but that’s all.
Medusa was confident that she and her two sisters’ strength would eventually subdue her enemies, no matter how long it took.
«Break down that defense line, and go back to that lich in the fucking midnight sun… Let’s ask how to lift the sisters’ curse.”
Medusa shook the chains around the necks of the two sisters with a shudder and smiled bitterly.
《… It doesn’t matter if there is no salvation.”
Medusa wiped the lips of the two drooling sisters with their wide open mouths.
“It’s okay even if what Gogi White said is a lie. After that, it’s enough for us to shut ourselves up in our hiding place and hibernate again.”
Yes, that’s fine.
What is the use of salvation? Why is it so necessary for the older sisters to regain Iji?
Living together is more precious… … .
It was when Medusa thought so.
《Huh?》
Whee-ae-aeek-!
I heard something flying in the distance. Medusa looked that way.
I thought the sky was getting dark—something fell this way, covering the sky densely.
shell.
It was a fire net fired from the human side of the castle wall. The overwhelming number of cannonballs created shadows, covering even the sunlight for an instant.
《… Hot.”
Looking up at the group of shells, Medusa sneered at the corner of her long, torn mouth.
《Even though times change and places are different, why do humans always do the same thing?》
Kiyiying!
Medusa’s eyes emitted an eerie yellow flash.
“And always being this stupid… !]
The bright yellow magic light exploded and sent out waves of intense magic power in front.
Whoaaaaagh!
And – turned to stone.
All the shells that poured down filling the sky turned to stone.
《Now, it’s the older sisters’ turn.》
Next, Medusa grabbed the two older sisters’ collars and delivered a command to the two older sisters with magical energy. Then
Kiyik!
Kyaaaa-!
Steno and Euryale spewed sound waves from their mouths and shot them at the stones falling towards them.
thud! Kugu Palace… … !
All the petrified shells pouring down like a shower were pushed back or shattered by the sound waves, and they couldn’t even get close to the three sisters and fell to the poor floor and shattered.
In the rain on the rock, Medusa suddenly sang a song in her native language.
Φρίξον ήλιε στέναξον γη
The sun burns and the earth mourns
Εάλω ή πόλη!
The city has been taken!
Εάλω η πόλη!
The city has been taken!
After the short song, the monster’s face was filled with wicked joy.
《Go Steno sister! Euryale sister!]
Taat-!
Kicking the ground under the pouring sunlight.
Like children playing in the fields, naturally.
《Let’s go wild for the first time in a while! Just like the old days when we were young!》
To kill all the people close to us, just like we have been doing throughout our lives.
The three Gorgon sisters started running toward the crossroads’ walls.
