The Druid Who Devoured the Great Nature

“It’s a shame.”

It was not a regretful expression at all. A calm voice, as if what was to come had come. Well, it probably wasn’t the first or second time he had experienced it. A liquid named holy blood in the profession of a cult missionary. It was a combination that couldn’t help but be suspicious, so who would believe it and follow obediently?

It was a dangerous item that couldn’t even be compared to the health foods sold by market vendors. It could be a deadly poison, a reagent of black magic, or a brainwashing drug that bleached the brain.

It wasn’t a matter of gangsters, it was a condition that no normal person would accept.

“But it’s okay. It is the duty of a missionary like me to enlighten the unbelievers and lead them to the right path.”

“How? If you beat them up and force them to drink the holy blood, will they be reborn as your faithful believers?”

“That’s right.”

To the sarcastic remark, a response of admiration and affirmation, as if asking how I knew, came back.

“We do not offer a heinous item like a black mage putting a curse on his disciple. We just embody the miracle that our faith exists.”

“You sound like a drug dealer.”

That was their logic. They said that the mental high through drugs was the path to the heavenly world and proved God’s blessing. It was no different from what Bruno had just said.

“Please do not treat us the same as those criminals.”

Not only his tone, but his eyebrows also gathered in the middle, forming a deep furrow, so he seemed quite angry. It was the first dramatic change in expression I had seen.

“They who believe in a non-existent illusion and we who revere an existing god. This holy blood is the proof.”

“I don’t know if you know this, but that sounds even more suspicious.”

“It’s difficult to talk to an unbeliever. It must be because of a lack of faith. And that lack of faith can be filled by this holy blood, so any more conversation is a waste of time.”

As he spoke, he took something out from the wreckage of the bombing. It was a club larger than his own height.

Basically, gangs use firearms such as pistols or rifles, but when they get close, they also use such blunt weapons. In the world of superhumans, you might think that such a thing wouldn’t work, but if a high-voltage current was passed through that club, it would transform into a weapon with sufficient killing power.

Weren’t the illegal modified three-stage batons that the goblin guys used like that? However, his weapon seemed different from such a three-stage baton. A huge club made of a single piece of metal.

Just by looking at the traces of the corpses around, I could roughly guess his fighting style. A type that crushes with brute force rather than skill. Considering that he had used a corpse to block bullets, he probably hadn’t trained his body to the extreme.

There might be something more hidden, but a simple martial artist with great strength was not a good match for me. The fact that he was not resistant to gunfire was also the same.

I took out my gun from its holster and aimed it at him. A world where there are monsters who can dodge flying bullets, whether by instinct or with monstrous eyesight. In such a world, the basic skill of a gunman is lightning-fast hand movements.

The idea was that if the enemy reacted after seeing it, you could just shoot quickly so that they couldn’t react. In FP, it was a gunman’s skill implemented as a skill called ‘Rapid Fire’.

It was a skill I didn’t have, but I trusted the automatic aiming correction of the M2 Maximum and pulled the trigger as quickly as possible.

Flash!

The moment his gaze shone, I saw his gaze following the muzzle of the gun. I had thought he wouldn’t be able to react to the gunfire, but it seemed he thought he could dodge in a one-on-one situation, not a chaotic battle.

He put strength into the tips of his toes. He was planning to dodge the first shot and then rush at me. A very standard fighting method against a gunman. In other words, it was a wrong judgment against me, who was not a gunman.

“This…!”

The ground rippled and stretched out from the tips of my toes like a wave. The shimmering earth. The tree roots that had spread on the ground advanced, turning the ground upside down.

The moment his body lost its balance and staggered, I pulled the trigger at the same time.

Red blood bloomed on his white clothes. Even in that situation, he had avoided the vital points. Unlike me, who was disappointed, the smile on his face disappeared completely.

“Now you look a little better.”

The sense of unease, like an unpleasant doll imitating a person, disappeared. That was probably his true form.

The still-squirming earth did not give him a chance to pull himself together. Nevertheless, I could see him gradually adapting. It was clear that he had not learned martial arts. Simply an inhuman sense of balance.

I quickly changed the magazine. Would I have time to fire one more shot, just barely? But his response was swift and extraordinary.

As the club hit the floor, a huge shockwave and a cloud of stone fragments and sand shot up. The aftermath of the destruction spread throughout the spacious auditorium. It was a tremendous brute force.

Was he trying to fight fire with fire? He had even blocked my vision, so it was a fatal response for a gunman.

“My senses are bad.”

That was only for a gunman. Besides, I could see through the dust with my hawk’s eye.

A prison of thorns.

A huge stem shot up from the floor like a spearhead. It was a heinous vine with sharp thorns on each stem.

“Kkeueuk!”

With a groan, a guy in tattered clothes jumped into the air. The stems were embedded one after another behind the guy who was running on the ceiling. It was clear that among the enemies I had met so far, his physical ability was one of the best.

The eyes, glittering with killing intent, quickly scanned the dust and met my gaze.

He kicked off the ceiling and shot forward like a bullet. At the same time, he turned his body and brought down the metal club on my head.

A heinous sound of something tearing and being crushed. But he did not regain his smile. The sensation of crushing a person would be different from the feel of his hand.

Protection of the Forest. A pile of leaves had spread out like a barrier above my head. Behind it was the bark of the lignification, and the guardian totem that had spread its bluish mana like a chain. It was a three-layered iron wall shield.

“I’d be disappointed if brute force was all you had.”

It was a bland attack, so much so that my thorough defense was embarrassing. Was he a half-wit who couldn’t even use mana? It was amazing that he could perform this much with just his physical ability, without even learning any martial arts.

But as long as mana was not added, there was a limit. Compared to the enemies I had faced so far, he was not at a level that could make me nervous.

“I admit that it’s a very strange ability.”

He rubbed the club against the pile of leaves. Of course, it was not a barrier that could be broken just by putting more strength into his arm. It was the same as not being able to crush a rubber band by pressing it with force. That was the reason I had focused on elasticity rather than hardness for the first barrier.

“Aren’t you being too relaxed?”

A blast of hot air, enough to cook my flesh, rushed in. The club, engulfed in a fierce flame, burned the leaves and the bark and came at me.

The flames poured out head-on, melting the wall and breaking the door. The flames poured out through the gaping hole, and then a fierce current of air swirled.

「The World Tree vigorously shakes the smoldering leaves to extinguish them.」

The flames still soared and billowed up to my waist along the trajectory of the club. The flooring melted with a sizzling sound, emitting a pungent smoke.

It wasn’t just a matter of compatibility, like ‘plants are weak to fire’. No matter how I looked at it, it was a heterogeneous flame. This was the second time I had faced an enemy who handled flames.

Jordan Crank. A mage and a modified human, he had implanted a flamethrower in his body and had handled the flames with magic.

This guy was different. It wasn’t magic, and it wasn’t a machine.

“This flame is the proof of a miracle. It is divine power.”

He muttered ecstatically, as if drunk on his own excitement. The flames that burned brightly in the empty air without any medium or magic being cast were so heterogeneous that they could be mistaken for a miracle at first glance.

But my knowledge was not so short as to be deceived by it.

“You guys must call psychic powers divine power, right? You cultists.”

A race that manifested supernatural abilities without any system or rules. In the world of FP, they were called psychics.

“It’s a rare ability, but not particularly special.”

Their abilities were manifested through innate talent rather than acquired development, so their numbers were small.

“I’ll admit that the power is quite good.”

Since there was no one to call a master, and they handled their abilities entirely by their own senses, a proper psychic was a rarer species than a combat mage.

A mage can control magic with the control that comes with their level, but psychic powers are different. It’s a common imagination for a psychic who handles fire to run around with fire on his body. In reality, it was a difficult thing.

A normal person’s body cannot withstand the flames. The same goes for a psychic. Since there was no proper curriculum, the process of practicing to handle their abilities was a series of dangers close to self-harm.

It was natural that a psychic who handled elemental abilities like him and had outstanding power was rare.

“Those who do not believe are deluded by the common sense of the world even when a miracle is right in front of them. It is a very unfortunate thing.”

“Do you think that psychic power is proof that you were chosen by God? Rather than that flawed ability, magic would be more sophisticated.”

“No, I said it was divine power, not psychic power.”

Flames blazed from his body. The furniture in the hall began to ignite on its own one by one. It seemed he was just randomly emitting power without any delicate control.

With this much heat, he, the medium, should also be affected.

“Even in this hellfire, I do not burn. It is because He cherishes me.”

But he was perfectly fine. Not only did the flames not leave a burn on his skin, but even his clothes were intact.

A delicate control that was not like a psychic? No, he was not properly controlling his ability.

“He who does not believe cannot see. It is unfortunate. It is most unfortunate. Can you still not believe even after seeing the love of God that envelops my body? He gave me this flame because He loves me!”

It was a meaningful statement. He had received the flame? Did it mean he was not an innate psychic? Had they developed a supernatural ability, which was lumped into the category of ‘psychic power’ because proper research was impossible, to the point where they could give it to others?

And even that much output? But to deny it as a fraud when the evidence was right in front of me was also a shabby thing to do. Of course, the word ‘miracle’ was nonsense, but if it was really a power received from others, it was a great thing, enough for him to worship blindly.

“Repent. The love of God will dwell in those who repent. It is not too late. If you also repent and accept the holy blood, His love will come upon you.”

“You mean that thing called holy blood made you like that?”

“Yes, that’s right. Not only me, but many brothers and sisters have been saved.”

The fact that many criminals in District 17 had accepted the new ruler, the Guardians of the Dawn. Unlike the missionary Bruno, who had not hidden the identity of his organization, they had concealed the information. Bruno had explained it as self-interest.

If what he said was true, it was an understandable action.

“Of course, not everyone who accepts the holy blood can be blessed as much as I am. Some impious unbelievers become idiots. But if you have faith, you will be saved. There is nothing to worry about.”

In this world where the logic of power works, it was a very attractive proposal. At least in District 17, where mediocre guys formed a community, there would be no one to refuse.

“If what you say is true, then there’s one more reason why I have to take that thing called holy blood.”

Not me. For me, who had the World Tree, the power of psychic abilities was meaningless, no matter how great it was. In the first place, I didn’t like the fact that it spewed fire. So I was more interested in something else.

“As it happens, I’m also investigating divinity.”

Divine power. For me, who was chasing the fragment of divinity, it was a very interesting clue.

(End of Chapter)