Chapter 156: Liliera Fights a Demon!

The battle with Venom Beat, which I thought would unfold as a fierce battle, was settled unexpectedly easily.

“To think it could be defeated this easily…”

I felt let down by the sheer lack of resistance.

But then I realized a certain possibility.

“No, could it be that seal was meant to weaken the power of a Venom Beat born from mutation!”

I see, I wondered why they went out of their way to take the trouble of sealing it even though its toxicity was high, but so that was it!

“It means that guy was so strong it couldn’t be weakened unless they went that far.”

The people involved at the time must have been very worried about leaving a seed of anxiety for the future.

But thanks to that, we were able to defeat it!

“…I wonder why. I feel like something inside me is screaming, ‘No, no, that’s not it, is it?'”

Oh? Is there something on Liliera‘s mind?

“Anyway, more importantly, we have to dispose of Venom Beat’s corpse. If we don’t do something about that, the land will just get contaminated again even if we purify it.”

“HIGH AREA PURIFICATION!”

Activating wide-area purification magic, I approach Venom Beat while deflecting the newly emerging poisonous air using wind magic just in case.

“Ei!”

And I stored Venom Beat’s corpse in the magic bag.

“With this, we’ve eliminated the source of the land’s contamination.”

Now, if we just repurify the surrounding land that got contaminated again, the people in the surrounding lands won’t have to suffer from the Rotten Earth either.

It was at that moment.

A violent explosion occurs in midair.

“Looks like it’s about climax over there too.”

◆ Liliera ◆

While I was dealing with the Demon, Rex easily defeated Venom Beat.

Honestly, I thought it would take more time, but he defeated it faster than expected.

Well, it’s natural since it’s Rex, but he was pondering the reason he could defeat Venom Beat so easily and convincing himself of something.

Yeah, I feel like he’s definitely misunderstanding something.

“U-Uooooooo! How dare you do that to my Venom Beaaaaat!”

While I was exasperated by Rex‘s outrageousness, the Demon, who had been absentminded because Venom Beat was easily defeated, recovered.

Crap, I should have attacked while the opponent was dazed from shock.

I accidentally ended up playing the straight man too.

“Unforgivable! Unforgivable, you traaaaash! You won’t get away with this! I will kill you after making you suffer and suffer to the very eeeeeend!”

The Demon is infuriated at the subjugation of Venom Beat, the cornerstone of their plan.

Well certainly, a giant magic beast scattering poison that endangers even the lives of Demons is something that could normally destroy the world.

But how did they intend to control such a thing?

“First is youuuuu! I’ll show your comrade’s head to that braaaaat!”

The Demon thrusts a spear made of magic power at me, who was right in front of him.

He looks like he’s lost himself in anger, but there is no hesitation in his spear handling.

The Demon aims for my shoulder and unleashes the spear.

The basics in times like this is to aim for the legs to dull movements, but since both of us can fly, injuring a leg wouldn’t affect evasion.

The Demon knows that too, so it seems he aimed for the arm holding the weapon.

“But I have no intention of letting it hit me!”

Landing an attack in a high-speed flying battle is not easy.

Even though we can fly freely, it’s hard to do without the ground to plant our feet on to attack.

According to Rex, it’s easier to brace yourself if you create a foothold with magic power on the soles of your feet for just an instant when attacking, but I just can’t get used to it.

Therefore, my aerial combat style basically focuses on evasion and attacking when I find an opening.

No really, slicing enemies supasupa in midair like Rex isn’t just on the level of ‘difficult’!

I dodge the Demon‘s attacks by as much of a hair’s breadth as possible.

It was at that moment, when I dodged an attack, the Demon slightly raised the corner of his mouth.

“!”

A chill ran down my spine, and my instinct warned me of danger, telling me to dodge.

While backing away diagonally backward with all my might, the moment I bent my body backward following the voice of instinct saying it still wasn’t enough, the tip of the spear in the Demon‘s hand burst.

Impossibly, the tip extended straight sideways, piercing the place where my head was just a moment ago.

“Tch, missed.”

“…Come to think of it, that spear is made of magic power. I never thought you could freely change its shape.”

“Hmph, can humans not even do something of this level?”

Provoking me, aren’t you.

But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s troublesome.

If the opponent can freely change the shape of the spear, close combat is dangerous.

“But I can’t stay a burden forever either! ICE RUSH!”

I continuously unleash blocks of ice created with magic to attack the Demon, but the Demon comes at me without minding them.

“Fuhahahahaha! What are these toys! Is this supposed to be attack magic too?”

But you see, I knew that from the start!

“WATER BLAST!”

“Uoh!?”

Depriving the Demon‘s vision with a barrage of ice, and changing my position in that opening, I hurl a large mass of water at the Demon.

“I said it won’t work…”

And I unleash my main attack.

“BLIZZARD BREATH!”

“Nuh!”

The unleashed magic blizzard assaults the Demon.

“Hmph! It’s slightly better compared to the water play from earlier, but either way, to me… What!?”

Reaching this point, the Demon finally notices the phenomenon occurring to his body.

“M-My body is freezing…!? Don’t tell me the previous attacks were for this!?”

“Too slow to notice!”

Yes, both the initial ice and the following water weren’t just blinders. They were foreshadowing to heighten the effect of this blizzard magic!

“I learned that combining magic of the same system can increase power! If you receive a blizzard where a large amount of ice and water were continuously unleashed without incantation, naturally the speed your body freezes will become faster, right!”

With this, even I, who am not a professional mage, can exhibit power comparable to Mina!

…That being said, the reference Rex showed me was something that looked like only Rex could do no matter how you look at it, so I reproduced it in a way I could do.

That’s why it only goes this well with ice attribute magic, which I have an aptitude for.

“Y-You basteeeerd!!”

The Demon struggles to escape the ice, but his body rapidly freezes over, rendering him unable to move.

“Eei! Annoying!”

The Demon unleashes flames from both hands and begins melting the ice.

“Fuhahahaha! Human magic is only of this level after all!”

“Yes, that level is sufficient.”

“What!?”

If it creates an opening to dive into your chest, that is!

While the Demon was struggling to melt the ice, I had closed in right before his eyes.

“While you’re emitting those flames, you can’t use that spear, can you.”

“Cra!?”

Yes, that red-black spear is, so to speak, a spear made of magic.

If so, while using other magic, he cannot use that spear.

“Take this!”

The spear clad in ice through attribute enhancement pierced the Demon‘s chest.

“Guha!?”

The ice magic power freezes the Demon from the inside as well.

“Fuh!”

When I sweep the spear sideways with muscle strength enhanced by Body Enhancement, the spear pulls out while shattering the Demon‘s frozen body.

And just like that, the Demon‘s body falls to the ground.

“Phew, feels like I managed somehow.”

I descend to the ground to deal the finishing blow to the Demon.

“Good work, Liliera!”

When I descended to the ground, Rex welcomed me.

“Thank you, Rex. But I haven’t dealt the finishing blow yet.”

If I let my guard down here and take a counterattack from the Demon, it would defeat the whole purpose.

Since I declared I would take him on, I have to be thorough until the end.

“U-Uu…”

However, the Demon showed no sign of counterattacking, just groaning while lying face down on the ground.

Since he fell without even being able to fly properly, it seems the damage was real.

“At least I’ll deal the finishing blow so you don’t suffer any longer.”

I don’t have a hobby of tormenting opponents, either.

“Ku, kukuku…”

However, the Demon laughed for some reason.

Even while suffering from pain, the Demon definitely laughed.

“You must be very amused defeating me… but do not think everything ends with this!”

Buying time? No, it doesn’t feel like that either.

It’s somewhat eerie.

“Certainly, I was defeated by you… a-and Venom Beat was also subjugated by that brat over there… I do not want to admit it, but I must.”

Surprisingly, the Demon seemed to have honestly accepted his defeat to us.

“But, this is not the end! Yes, the disaster of Venom Beat begins for real from now on!”

“Wh-What do you mean!?”

“The eggs.”

“Eggs…?”

“Exactly. Before being sealed in this land, Venom Beat laid a massive amount of eggs in the Rotten Earth! And the eggs grew fat using the myriad of lives that died in the vast poison swamp as their own nourishment, waiting for the moment to be born!”

“Wh-What did you say!?”

Countless Venom Beat eggs!? If such things hatch, it will be a disaster!

“The eggs, having stored sufficient nutrition, will awaken shortly in response to Venom Beat’s resurrection! Witness the moment countless poisonous insects that will destroy the world are unleashed!”

“Wh-What should we do, Rex!?”

“Calm down, Liliera. I will search for the reactions of the hatched Venom Beat children with detection magic!”

“B-But the Rotten Earth is vast! If it laid eggs there, there’s no telling how wide an area they were laid over!?”

“Exactly! And no matter how much you can subjugate Venom Beat, it’s impossible to subjugate all the Venom Beat children hatched in this vast Rotten Earth! The Venom Beat children that escape while you are fighting will surely create new Rotten Earths!”

This is bad! Too bad! I never expected such an outrageous thing to happen at the very end!

At this rate, the surrounding towns and villages will suffer damage from Venom Beat!

“…Huh?”

However, for some reason, the voice Rex let out was not panicked, but if anything, bewildered.

“What’s wrong, Rex?”

“No, well, I tried searching within a 100-kilometer radius with detection magic for now, but there are no reactions of monsters with powerful strength.”

“Eh? What does that mean?”

“Hmm, there are reactions on the level of the Giant Poison Centipedes we fought before, but there are no reactions that seem to be Venom Beat’s children.”

“Then does that mean the eggs were laid much further away?”

Then there’s no telling where the eggs are!

“No, I don’t think that’s the case.”

“Eh? Really? Why?”

“Because Venom Beat laid eggs a long time ago, I think the Rotten Earth was much narrower back then. Actually, the story goes that the church’s priests were suppressing the erosion of the Rotten Earth, after all.”

“Ah.”

Now that he mentions it, that’s true.

Certainly, as Rex says, it’s more natural to think the Rotten Earth was narrower at the time it was sealed.

“But then where are Venom Beat’s children?”

“Since it’s a mutant species, they might be hiding underground. Let’s try digging up the ground a bit with magic and investigate.”

“Digging up the ground?”

Before I could even ask ‘How?’, Rex activates magic.

“HIGH AREA EARTHQUAKE!!”

The next moment, the ground began to shake with tremendous force.

“Kya!?”

“Uoh!?”

When I hurriedly rose into the air with flight magic, I saw a sight of the ground undulating as if it were a living creature.

“Are you doing all this with your magic, Rex!?”

“Ah, there’s something.”

“Eh?”

“Look, over there.”

Looking in the direction Rex pointed, a massive amount of white, round things were springing up in a place distant from where we were.

“Shall we go look?”

Rex cancels the magic and descends toward the round masses that appeared on the ground.

“Ooh, they’re quite large.”

“Really, about the same size as us.”

“Apparently these are Venom Beat’s eggs.”

As Rex said, what sprang up on the ground were large eggs.

When I timidly poked one with my spear, it was soft enough that the tip of the spear slowly sank in. They seemed to be soft eggs like insect or fish eggs rather than bird or reptile eggs.

“But weren’t the eggs supposed to hatch immediately? Will they be born now? Ah, if so, it’s better to destroy the eggs quickly!”

“No, that doesn’t seem necessary. Because these eggs are dead.”

“Eh?”

When I hurriedly tried to destroy the eggs, Rex stopped me saying so.

“What do you mean they’re dead?”

“Detection magic isn’t sensing life force from these eggs.”

“Really?”

“Yes, if the Demon‘s story is certain, there should be Venom Beat children about to be born inside these eggs. But the magic isn’t sensing either the life force or magic power of such Venom Beat children.”

“So they’re dead?”

“Yes.”

Rex clearly asserts.

“Nonsense! It’s impossible for them to be dead! A massive amount of corpses sank into the Rotten Earth, and the nutrients flowing out from them nourished the eggs! It’s impossible for them to die without natural enemies!”

The dying Demon raises a voice of protest saying it’s impossible.

“Then shall we verify a bit?”

As soon as he said that, Rex runs a blade through a Venom Beat egg.

And in the blink of an eye, he split the eggshell in half and revealed the contents.

“Ah-, as expected, it’s dead.”

Looking, inside the egg was a small—though more than large enough from our perspective—Venom Beat.

However, it had its legs curled up just like its parent.

“It certainly is dead.”

I don’t know the reason, but it seems Venom Beat’s children were already dead.

“But why did they die? If the Demon‘s story is true, they shouldn’t die so easily, right? Were they attacked by a natural enemy or something?”

“Impossible! Venom Beat’s eggs were sunken at the bottom of the Rotten Earth! There’s no way there are daredevils aiming for eggs protected by poison!”

Though there seems to be someone who aimed for the parent and easily defeated it.

“Ah… maybe because I purified it with wide-area purification magic, I might have even purified the poisoned nutrients.”

“Eh? What’s that?”

“Wh-What do you mean!?”

“Umm, probably, I think Venom Beat’s eggs were ingesting nutrients from the moisture contained in the Rotten Earth‘s poisonous mud. Because the poison protected the eggs, there was probably no need to go out of the way to harden the shells. Instead, I think they have a mechanism to efficiently absorb nutrients from the mud’s moisture.”

However, Rex announces as if finding it hard to say.

“But because the surrounding mud was purified by purification magic and returned to normal soil, the poisonous mud containing nutrients disappeared, and I think they became unable to absorb nutrients. Normal creatures have the necessary nutrients stored inside the egg or the shell itself serves as food, but for a creature as large as Venom Beat, that probably wasn’t enough nutrients.”

Rex explains that to maintain a giant body beyond a certain degree from the time of birth, its ecology probably constantly required nutrients.

“Umm, in short, because the soil was purified, they became unable to obtain nutrients, and the eggs starved to death?”

“That’s how it is.”

“St-Starved to death, you saaaaaaaay!?”

Never expecting that Venom Beat’s eggs dried up from malnutrition, the Demon screams.

“D-Don’t screw with me! There’s no way Venom Beat’s eggs would die for such a stupid reason… Ugh.”

But perhaps his strength ran out there, the Demon collapsed with a thud.

…How should I put it, you had the wrong opponent.