Chapter 148

The taste of dirt filled my mouth. This storm ship magic is definitely useful in such situations, but the only downside is that it doesn’t consider the landing.

Anyway, I almost died. If I hadn’t used the “Storm Ship” magic from Enok to lift myself, I would’ve been dead instantly. Manipulating mountains like limbs? What kind of bullshit magic is that? And according to Lorcha, he can do it without chanting… Only weak and insignificant magics can be used without chanting.

“Survivors, raise your hands!”

Fortunately, Airi and Glacia were unharmed. If they got hurt, I’d be done for too. By the way, less than half survived… It’s practically annihilation.

“First, retreat and regroup.”

If we fight like this, total annihilation is certain. Even if I get punished for losing so many soldiers, I still have a duty to save the remaining ones. I never thought Tristan’s magic would be this powerful.

I tried to mount my horse and flee back to the capital. But why the hell is the sky dark… Oh, fuck.

“Lord Werner!!! There’s a giant hand-shaped rock floating in the sky!!!”

I’m not blind. I can see that much. I thought it was going to crush us. But that wasn’t the case. The method he chose was…

“Evade!!!”

A rain of giant rocks. It was the first time in my life I’d been hit by a rock shower.

“Master, that horse…”

Airi’s words were cut off as a falling rock smashed her head, killing her instantly.

“Can’t be helped. Get on quickly.”

I quickly had Airi climb behind me and hold on tight. I could feel the softness of her chest against my back, but now wasn’t the time to care about that. All I could hope for was that my beloved horse, Rocinante, would run fast.

“Lady Glacia, are you okay?!”

“Yes, Lord Werner, I’m fine. Please don’t worry too much.”

Unlike me, she seemed quite comfortable riding a horse.

Anyway, we barely made it through that damn rock shower, but can we even escape? There’s no way those bastards would just let us go… Fuck no.

“Lord Werner! Bandits have appeared ahead! Roughly 3,000 of them!”

I can see that too, damn it.

“Turn the horses around and take a detour!”

I turned the horses around and fled in the opposite direction. My mind was already a mess, and now this…

Of course, me, Airi, and Glacia could survive. But I couldn’t just abandon the other soldiers. If I were someone like Ricardo, specialized in mounted combat, it might be different, but casting magic on horseback is unstable and has many limitations. Casting magic on horseback is as difficult as shooting arrows or threading a needle on horseback.

No, there was a time when I thought that too, damn it.

“Lord Werner! Bandits have appeared behind us too! Roughly 2,000 of them!”

Fuck, we’re surrounded from both sides. And with all these rocks around, it’s hard to move. It seems we’ve fallen right into Tristan’s trap. That bastard planned everything. He even predicted I’d use wind magic to escape.

“Lady Glacia, can you handle the 2,000 on your side…?”

This isn’t some hack-and-slash game; facing thousands is no ordinary task, even for Glacia.

“Don’t worry. And we don’t need additional troops. The soldiers I brought will be enough.”

“Thank you.”

I decided to take on the 3,000 with the remaining troops. Well, to be precise, I sent the other soldiers to escape through the flanks, leaving only the knights Ricardo assigned to me. We need someone to deliver this information, no matter what.

I dismounted and focused my magical energy.

“O serpent of thunder, entwined with lightning━━━”

Come a little closer. I’ll fry you all with a wide-range lightning strike.

That’s when it happened. A heavy impact pierced through my shoulder. Warm blood flowed down my chilled body.

“Master!”

Airi also dismounted and checked my shoulder.

“There’s a hole in your shoulder…”

“What the hell…”

“It seems like this…”

Airi picked up a small, blood-stained pebble from the ground and showed it to me. No doubt, it’s that bastard Tristan. And he sniped me from a distance where my wide-range magic would barely reach? Plus, he fired a projectile at a speed I couldn’t even track with my eyes? And it pierced my shoulder so easily?

That speed and power… It’s more threatening than most sniper rifles. And I didn’t even sense any magical chanting. Even at this distance, mages can feel the flow of each other’s spells.

“This is impossible…”

And he’s definitely on horseback right now. He can pull off such precise sniping while riding? Casting magic on horseback is hard enough, but this?

It’s like riding a unicycle on a galloping horse while shooting a bow. If he keeps sniping like this, I’m 100% dead.

“Everyone, hide behind the rocks!”

Fortunately, thanks to Tristan’s rock shower, there are plenty of places to hide.

Airi and I had no choice but to press close together behind a large rock.

“It might smell bad and be uncomfortable, but bear with it, Airi. If we don’t, we’re dead.”

“No, it’s not uncomfortable. Actually…”

“Shh…”

I don’t care if I get hurt, but Airi getting hurt is unacceptable. Even if I get beaten by Zick, Werner’s subconscious is extremely averse to Airi getting hurt.

But I wanted to figure out the principle behind that magic. Plus, if we just wait here, we’ll get trampled by hooves. So I’ll try casting another wide-range magic. Even if something happens, the rocks should block it, so it shouldn’t be too dangerous.

“O thunder dragon clad in lightning scales, descend to the earth now━━━”

Another heavy impact pierced my left shoulder. Damn it, I was clearly hiding. At first, I didn’t understand, but I noticed slight scratches and dents on the surrounding rocks.

“Fuck, it’s ricocheting…”

He must’ve shot the rocks around us, making the pebbles bounce around like billiard balls to hit my shoulder. Not only is he a master of magic, but his sniping skills are top-notch too. No wonder he’s known as Tristan, the legendary archer, even in the world I came from.

But at least I figured out the principle. As I said earlier, I couldn’t sense his magical chanting. That’s because, as Lorcha said, he’s a bastard who uses magic without chanting.

But he can sense my magical flow, right? Using that, he detected my position and fired that pebble. It makes sense, though it’s theoretically possible only in the realm of divine skills.

So, if I get close, he swings his rock arm as Lorcha said. If I try to use magic from a distance, he snipes me with pebbles at bullet speed. If I hide behind cover, he uses ricochets. If I try to take on the army, he drops a rock shower…

“This is fucking hopeless.”

“Master…”

He’s overwhelmingly strong, even among the Black Round Table members I’ve faced so far. The others were strong, but not to this level of hopelessness.

There’s a way, but it’s almost like gambling.

I pulled out the magic book Enok again.

“Master, if you use magic again…”

“Page 133, unfold the chapter of the dark heavens.”

As the pages flipped on their own, I began chanting another spell.

“O thunder dragon clad in lightning scales, descend to the earth now━━━”

That’s when I heard a sharp *whoosh* cutting through the wind. And whatever was cutting through the wind kept hitting and bouncing off the rocks around me.

*Whoosh!*

A pebble traveling at supersonic speed struck the magic book Enok. The gamble worked.

“Slay the wicked with a sacred dance.”

A dry lightning bolt, no, a dragon-shaped lightning descended from the sky and swallowed the bandits whole.

It was a life-risking gamble. If he detects the flow of magical energy during chanting, then I used Enok to create a shell game, making him guess which one was real.

Of course, Enok contains such great magics and seals dangerous entities, so it must’ve emitted a stronger magical energy than mine. It was a risky gamble, but it paid off.

Knights or barbarians aside, there’s no way mere mages and bandits could survive such a wide-range attack. So now, I can go help Glacia…

“A bit stingy, huh?”

Standing before us was… a man in a cowboy outfit, standing on his saddle, wearing sunglasses.

“Hiding behind the rocks the enemy provided, not very ‘manly,’ is it?”

“Who the hell are you, damn it…”

I could instinctively tell from his magical energy, killing intent, and the threat he exuded that this bastard was Tristan of the Black Round Table. I don’t even know why I asked such a stupid question.

Then, he answered like this:

“Tristan of the Black Round Table, Tower Lord Gaius of Earth, King of Wolves, Leader of Bandits, one who denies the world and seeks to prove the truth, and…”

He grinned and continued.

” ‘A man.’ ”

Crazy bastard, are you on a random chat? Why the hell are you declaring your gender…

“Today, I’ll kill you and finish the proof. I’ll allow you to retaliate. If you’re a ‘man,’ you won’t refuse this challenge, right?”

These Black Round Table bastards are all insane.