Noiro turned off the augmented reality displayed on his gas mask.
“Dimedes’ traces disappeared?”
“No. It was exactly the opposite.”
The bizarre rocks embedded in the plain were primarily painted in red, sometimes smeared with green, yellow, or black liquid.
From a distance, it might resemble a piece of avant-garde art. The wildly drawn chaotic lines evoked thoughts of abstraction.
Noiro’s magic uncovered traces of Dimedes and the magical beasts he commanded all over this scene.
Everyone who was here. That means most of the human scum, including the Bacchus Cult and criminals, would have become the paint of the picture.
The frown inside Noiro’s gas mask deepened. It wasn’t shock at the horrific sight.
He had seen countless murder scenes that were somewhat smaller in scale but essentially similar. It’s just how the Beast Hunter’s job worked.
What disturbed Noiro’s mood was simply about the “scale.”
“With this much blood and bodily fluids spilled, one should assume they attempted to kill every resident here.”
The magical beasts that Dimedes commands usually don’t commit such indiscriminate murder. To be precise, they don’t do it in front of others.
Only under Dimedes’ command do they devour without leaving evidence.
That’s why, although Noiro consistently sought opportunities to eliminate Dimedes in Etna City, he never declared an all-out war.
“Devour…”
This was also an important clue. Typically, magical beasts consume their prey unless their master stops them. However, there were no signs of meals in this blood-soaked scene.
“No corpses, only bodily fluids left?”
It was strange. Leaving only bodily fluids without any remnants like bones or flesh that would usually remain after sucking even the marrow dry.
Considering the nature of magical beasts that typically consume everything, this was clearly a scene orchestrated by someone controlling them.
“But what for?”
“Hmm. Director Noiro.”
Orthes, who had been looking around, approached Noiro. Sometimes he seemed to see something with his somewhat closed eye, but…
“Do you happen to have drones? The flying type.”
Noiro nodded. He did leave his cyborg-style hunting support drone for maintenance of biological parts, but he had about four ordinary mechanical drones equipped with automatic turrets.
However, since this location was a danger zone, he didn’t want to draw attention with unnecessary noise and had not considered using drones until now.
Activating the drones might reveal their position to whoever created this scene. Surely Orthes knew that…
Huh.
At that moment, Noiro realized Orthes’ intentions. The bizarre rocks were painted with multicolored bodily fluids everywhere.
Metaphysical designs drawn in the blood of sacrificial offerings over a wide area.
Could this be a magic circle!
To accurately grasp the structure of the magic circle, high-altitude observation was essential. You couldn’t deduce the whole picture by looking at just parts.
As the realization washed over him, goosebumps rose on Noiro’s skin. Orthes was subtly giving him a hint; it was a kindness.
“If I couldn’t even figure this much out, it would mean I don’t deserve to be on the board.”
Clearly, faithfully following Dimedes’ pursuit had made a good impression. Noiro hurriedly launched the drone into the sky.
“What about the potential assailants?”
Glancing at Orthes, Noiro noticed a high-frequency blade resembling a long black plank was somehow in his hand.
“Is it a matter of prioritizing identifying the origin of the problem, even if it means facing danger? The difference between me, who values safety, and that guy, who values the boss’s wishes.”
But Noiro himself hadn’t come to this spot merely as a hunter. He was dispatched as a director of Hydra Corporation, possessing the skills of a hunter.
Then, considering the onsite leader’s intent, he had to do his best in his duty.
“I have four drones. It should take around ten minutes to survey the entire field even if I deploy all of them. If an assailant appears, I’ll leave it to you.”
*
What is this old man saying?
The ground is so filthy that there’s nowhere to sit, so he wants me to use the drone to find a clean spot.
Maybe it was because he just opened his eyes after a long time and had been traveling too much, but his whole body ached.
To be fair, most of it was because of the opening of his eyes. The burden accumulated in his brain during the time he kept them shut erupted as pain throughout his body.
Once you open your eyes, it didn’t just leave behind headaches; it felt like your whole body was thoroughly tightened.
Standing still was already making his legs cramp, so he was using the newly received sword as a cane. Noiro, who caught a glimpse of him holding the sword, looked oddly somber.
Whatever you think, that was not my intention.
“Wait—”
Bwooosh!
Before he could say anything, the four drones assembled from the heavy metal case Noiro had been carrying on his back flew into the sky.
“Magical beasts have a mana scent… Ah. That’s a hunter’s term. They are sensitive to the shape of individual mana waves.”
This was a well-known fact. The mana waves of each human were like fingerprints; they could be similar but never identical.
Maybe it was different for someone like him who completely lacked mana.
There should be more people without mana, but so far, he hadn’t seen anyone else.
“You likely know this, but the magical beasts attracted by the mana scent from the drone’s battery and my mana scent will come.”
“I don’t know…”
“I’ll quickly combine the visual data of this entire plain to determine what kind of magic circle this is. As soon as I finish, I’ll draw my bow, so until then, please.”
What on earth that old man was thinking, he couldn’t even guess. The magical beasts were coming, and he was asked to hold on with a sword, so he might as well give it a try.
With a sigh, he murmured.
“Let’s give it a shot.”
How many magical beasts did Dimedes bring?
*
“Let’s give it a shot.”
That was how Orthes described Dimedes’ magical beasts.
Dimedes and his subordinates brought along 120 magical beasts. If enough manpower was mobilized, it was not an insurmountable number.
Conversely, this also meant that it was not a level of enemies that could be annihilated solo.
As Noiro recalled the underworld of Etna City before Orthes and Carisia arrived.
Dimedes had challenged the Lernian school multiple times with the aim of the Mage Tower Core but had been repelled each time, ultimately avoiding collision.
The Lernian school didn’t bother to pursue and kill him in the back alleys, but the power balance was clear. The Lernian school was stronger.
And Orthes was the one who, along with Carisia, annihilated the school single-handedly.
“Indeed…”
From his perspective, merely 120 magical beasts was a trivial matter.
Just as Noiro’s reminiscence concluded, a wolf lunged at him. Its unusually developed right front leg had enough power to tear a person apart, easily capable of turning them into mincemeat.
Rustle!
It charged with its protruding right front leg first, and then its neck, unable to maintain its momentum, was severed in an arc.
“Please, as fast as possible?”
With a sly grin, Orthes aimed his blade at the swarm of magical beasts.
*
It was a scene of one-sided slaughter. Every time he swung the sword, a magical beast’s head would fall without fail.
No, it should be called butchery instead. The trajectory of the high-frequency blade was drawn with more precision and ruthlessness than the hands of a machine designed for slaughtering livestock.
Among Dimedes’ magical beasts, there were also airborne creatures. However, the bizarre birds circling in the sky didn’t easily chase after the source of the mana emitted by the drone.
Their vision and will had been subjugated to another being.
The old man, witnessing the slaughter through the eyes of the bizarre birds, was left speechless.
Stronger than he had anticipated…
“Did you send them from your organization?”
Behind the man stood Dimedes.
In a form beyond what Dimedes had tried so hard to conceal, resembling a Chimera.
In truth, he was more distorted than his original form.
His upper body, which was completely covered by a lion’s mane, was now shrouded in shell-like armor resembling a scorpion or crab, and his arms had elongated grotesquely.
Even his fingers were no exception; the tips of his stretched fingers bore fangs like a serpent.
His face was unnaturally adorned with a myriad of eye sockets, watching the world like a giant with a hundred eyes from ancient mythology. The irises of those eyes were not human-shaped but rather square pupils like a goat’s.
Behind Dimedes stood monsters with similar appearances lined up.
“Are you really saying you are an ‘executive’ of the organization? How? That skill reminds me of the hateful murderers of the Ten Towers…”
The old man fell silent. Just mentioning that name felt like blasphemy.
Instead of recalling unpleasant memories, he thought of ways to elevate the completeness of the ritual.
“The blood of someone so strong.”
How much stronger of a sacrifice would it be, how sweet the drink would become?
“I must make that person the last drop of the ritual. Go, you tattered remnants of life. Bring me that blood sack!”
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