Chapter 190 : Woodrock (9)
Woodrock (9)
'What the hell? That guy... Is he alive?'
Kaid definitely heard Louis's voice. It was a sound that could only come from someone alive.
'How on earth? How did he survive?'
Due to the earlier shockwave, dust still hung thickly around.
Although it was clear that Louis was alive, Kaid had no idea how he had survived.
'I want to know.'
Giving in to his curiosity, Kaid slowly approached where Louis was.
Naturally, he knew it was dangerous there.
He had just watched with his own eyes a crazy physical phenomenon that split the Ice Continent in half—there was no way he wouldn't realize the risk.
Anyone else would have frozen in fear, despairing at the disaster.
In fact, most of the passengers on the ship were praying desperately to God to spare their lives.
That's why Kaid knew well that he was no different from a shrimp getting involved in a whale fight.
'But so what.'
Yet, Kaid didn't care at all and approached anyway.
He simply moved under the spell of a compulsion, acting purely on instinct, like a man possessed.
For the first time in a dull and uninspiring life, he felt the emotion of urgency.
He was out of his mind.
Since it was the first time he had ever felt the desire to figure out something by himself, it was impossible to dissuade him through conversation.
Thanks to that, Kaid didn't even notice a Devilgator's tentacle flying toward him from the side.
"Hey, you crazy bastard!"
Ka-boom!―
At that moment, Louis threw himself and knocked Kaid aside.
Taking the tentacle's brunt with his whole body, Louis held firm, then hurled it away with brute force.
A tentacle the size of a skyscraper flew like a ball under Louis's strength.
"This idiot's lost his mind! Why the hell are you walking over here like that?"
"Huh?"
Only after hearing Louis's loud scolding did Kaid snap out of it.
He had a look on his face like, 'What have I been doing?' but Louis just kept on berating him.
"Are you crazy? How could you think of barging in here after seeing firepower like that?"
What Louis wanted to know was simple, but the answer was so ridiculous he was left speechless.
"I just wanted to know..."
"What?"
"How you survived getting hit like that... I just wanted to know..."
In that moment, Kaid glanced over Louis's body from head to toe.
Having had sharp kinetic vision since birth, Kaid was able to assess his entire physique in an instant.
'What the...?'
He got a baffling result.
'No matter how I look, he's just a person.'
He didn't seem to have any particularly unusual features.
He didn't look like someone with a modified body, or a monster disguised as a human.
There wasn't a single such trace.
"What's this guy babbling about?"
Just as Louis pulled a half-crazed face, Rio rushed over this way.
"Young master! Are you alright?"
Rio, who had run over, worried that Louis would have been killed by the earlier water pressure, was relieved to see him unharmed.
"You ran over here in a panic, thinking I was dead from that thing?"
"Yep."
"......"
True to form, Rio had no filter and said whatever she wanted directly.
Some things were absurd, but because of that, conversation flowed smoothly.
"Good timing. Drag this bastard away right now!"
"Huh? Isn't he the one we saved on the deck?"
"That's him all right. Haul him back to the ship and tie him up tight."
"Okay, got it."
Having heard Louis's order, Rio promptly hoisted Kaid up.
Kaid, still in a daze, put up no resistance as Rio lifted him with one hand and dragged him away.
"You're the one whose clothes I ruined when I puked earlier, right? I'm sorry about that. But you almost made a huge blunder this time."
Rio spoke as she carried Kaid.
"If you'd barged in even a little, you'd have died—not to the monster's hand, but to the young master's."
"......"
Whether he heard or not, Kaid said not a word as he was dragged away.
Rio, having brought him to the deck, pondered where to tie him up.
"Hmm... Here should be good, right?"
Rio tied Kaid to the mast where the sail was attached.
"If you're here, you'll be too scared to do anything."
Resolving things with a simple solution, Rio went back down to resume subjugating the monsters.
Thanks to being tied up quite high up, Kaid could see the battle between Louis and the high-rank monster.
Strictly speaking, he couldn't make out the fighters themselves, but he could see the aftermath of their battle.
Though he couldn't see the opponents, he could easily see the explosions and shockwaves they caused.
Ka-booom!!―
Rumble-rumble-rumble!!―
At times, there were hot explosions, and at others, earthquakes that shook the ground.
From a distance, the Devilgator's water jet shot skyward again.
The continent of ice swayed, split open, and the clouds that blocked out the sky parted just as they were.
Whooom!―
At that moment, something huge flew this way from there.
The giant tentacle attached to the Devilgator's head hurtled toward the side of the ship and stuck into the ice, causing a huge shock.
It was a battle more akin to beast against beast than person versus monster.
Passengers trembled in fear as the ship shook from the impact, but Kaid just stared in one direction.
Kuwaaaahhh!!―
With a loud explosion, the ice cracked. About 10 seconds later, a silence fell.
Kaid definitely saw it—a small something slamming down on the giant crocodilian monster's head.
As the calm continued, a silhouette stepped out from the dust kicked up by the explosion.
"Haven't had a workout like this in ages."
Louis, with a few wounds on his body, stretched and walked toward the ship.
Kiiiieeek!!―
At that moment, the monsters on the ice suddenly lost all will to fight and started scattering in every direction.
Like rabble that had lost their master, they tried desperately to escape.
"Where do you think you're running off to?"
But as soon as Louis grabbed one, the bodies of the monsters began exploding one by one.
Though their speed was greater than expected, Louis once more froze the ground to bind their ankles.
If the monsters were let go, they'd surely target another nearby region as they had this ship.
Therefore, they had to be thoroughly dealt with right here and now.
"Blood Sword Technique."
Rio's red sword ki sliced off hundreds of monsters' heads, their ankles frozen in place.
"Shall I try absorbing this one's strength now?"
Victor, discovering the corpse of the Devilgator Louis had subjugated, gulped down its flesh.
Immediately, he spewed a black acidic fluid from his mouth, dissolving the monsters' bodies.
Elsewhere, Simon's swift assassinations and Rozen's hail of black arrows wiped out the fleeing monsters.
In the end, not a single monster escaped extermination by the special task force.
"Young master! Can I drop the barrier now?"
"Yes! Yes!"
With all the monsters gone, Pram no longer needed to maintain the barrier.
Pram, lifting the barrier, gave a sigh of relief, feeling like she could finally breathe.
"Haah~ That was tough."
"What do you mean, tough? You didn't move a step from here, so what was tough about it?"
"What! If it weren't for me, all these passengers would have sunk with this ship!"
"Yeah right. You just want points with the young master for putting up a barrier."
"Fine, think whatever you like. Not like you want to score points with him less than I do."
"Pram, if you don't want to die, you'd better watch what you say."
As the tense exchange between Rio and Pram continued, Silia indicated the ground with an awkward expression.
"What do we do about this?"
"Is there some kind of problem?"
"Of course there is! How's the ship supposed to move like this?"
Silia spoke as she stepped on the frozen ice.
"Ah..."
Only then did Louis realize the problem, exclaiming in understanding.
The sea the ship was meant to sail across had been entirely frozen by Louis, making navigation impossible.
"So, what now?"
"What else."
But the solution turned out to be surprisingly simple. Louis told all the team members and the others to get on the ship.
Left alone on the ice, Louis placed his hand on the frozen ground he himself had created.
'If I output the opposite attribute of cold with the same power...'
Louis drew on heat, the Chaos Dragon's very first attribute.
Just like he had frozen the ice at that output, Louis poured the same strength into the flame attribute.
As soon as he did, the ground immediately melted.
Ssshhhhh!―
The ice not only melted but boiled. The temperature shot up, but the ocean—once frozen by Louis—quickly returned to its original state.
"What was that?"
"Is it over now?"
"Whew... I thought I was done for."
The passengers, who'd been hiding below deck, came out to hear the monsters were gone.
Mistakenly believing the mercenaries had subjugated all the monsters, they thanked them profusely.
But none of the surviving mercenaries accepted the thanks.
Moreover, even the ship's captain bowed not to a mercenary, but to someone else.
"Thank you so much! I never imagined you were the Imperial Court's special task force. If there's anything you want..."
"It's fine, please raise your head. Just getting us safely to our destination will be enough."
The captain was expressing his heartfelt gratitude to Silia.
Although Louis was the task force's centerpiece, Silia was the official commander.
And the reactions of those who had witnessed the special task force's battle firsthand were indescribable.
'How could such unbelievable monsters exist?'
Kaid continued to watch the special task force—especially Louis—the entire voyage.
****
At last, the ship arrived at the harbor, and the special task force disembarked with their luggage.
After confirming all the baggage, they moved under Silia's direction.
"I don't see a single Holy Nation person around, huh?"
There was no sign of the people they were supposed to meet right after arriving at the harbor.
It seemed as if they hadn't kept to the expected schedule, but based on Louis's senses, that wasn't the case.
"There's still that distinct fragrant scent left behind by the Holy Nation's people. They can't have gone far."
What's more, there was the characteristic dank stench of the demon realm.
This was evidence that Holy Nation knights currently serving with the 7th Legion were present.
"By the way, about those monsters just now. Don't you wonder which area they came out of?"
A sudden question popped into Pram's mind.
Ships carrying people were attractive enough food for monsters, but in this case, the passenger count was comparatively small for the monsters to bother with.
Normally, they'd target places with a population in the tens of thousands.
Yet strangely, the monsters had thrown all their forces at a single ship.
"Something's really off here."
"Also, the high-rank monster the young master fought back there—wasn't it way stronger than any other high-rank monsters? Didn't you feel it too, young master?"
Louis didn't deny it. Of all the high-rank monsters he had fought so far, the Devilgator was the strongest.
"I absorbed the guy's strength, so now I know. Someone must have strengthened them."
"Who in the world would do that?"
Could someone capable of that even exist?
Then, Louis glanced at one of the alleys between buildings and spoke.
"Maybe the guy hiding there knows?"
To Louis, with his extrasensory perception, tailing was pointless. He already knew exactly who was hiding there.
"So, what brings you chasing after us this time?"
The figures emerging nervously from the alley were Kaid and Yugwang.
"Young master! I told you it was dangerous!"
"......"
Yugwang shouted, but Kaid said nothing as he approached Louis.
"So, what do you want all of a sudden?"
Louis sensed no malice from Kaid.
Frankly, after saving his life so many times, bearing a grudge would be an unforgivable offense.
Fortunately, that wasn't the case, but what Kaid said next was still an unexpected headache.
"Please take me as your disciple!! I'm begging you!!"
For a few seconds after that cry rang out, silence filled the air.
"Really?"
Louis broke the silence, raising a finger.
"In that case, here—eat this."
It was his middle finger.