As the monstrous beast drew closer, Leje tightened her grip on her sword.
The pressure was on a whole new level compared to the chimera she had faced before.
[GoOOOoo!!]
With a deep, echoing roar, the beast stomped through everything in its path, like a natural disaster beyond what any human could handle.
But even so, she did not stop her steps.
Just like for Rudell, Weinstein County was a precious place for Leje as well.
The most valuable place in the world.
The hometown of her only friend and where her childhood memories with him were stored.
A place where she had let go of the title of Duke’s House’s duchess and built memories as a boy and a girl.
Seeing such a place being trampled mercilessly was enough to stir an indescribable anger within her.
“How dare you…”
As Leje closed the distance, she gritted her teeth with a crunch and moved towards the nearby collapsed ruins.
The wreckage of a building so destroyed it was unrecognizable.
Standing before it, she drew her magic and reached out to lift a massive piece of debris.
Though it was many hundreds of kilograms, it felt hardly heavy at all to her, now charged with magic.
“Hoo…”
Watching the rampaging beast, she took a short sigh and collected her breath.
Her physical abilities were on a completely different level compared to ordinary people.
A blessing, yet also a curse.
Being different from others.
That alone made her feel considerable loneliness in her childhood.
Because she excelled at everything, she seldom found interest in most things, and on top of that, due to her position as a duchess, no one saw her as just Leje.
Everything felt dull, so she filled that loneliness with all sorts of tricks.
During that time, she met Rudell.
A strange guy.
When she first saw Rudell, that’s what she thought.
But, before she knew it, he had become the most precious being to her.
Her abilities, status, appearance, family…
None of that mattered to him.
Just a friend of Leje El Lagrind.
Seeing Rudell’s contentment with that was a joy greater than anything for Leje.
And now, at this moment. The territory of that precious friend was being trampled by a suddenly appeared beast.
“How dare you…”
As she gripped the debris in her hand, it creaked with a crack.
After taking a short sigh, she gauged the distance and hurled the wreckage.
-KWAAANG!!
[GoOOOoo!!]
The debris flew at tremendous speed, colliding with the beast in an explosion-like sound, causing it to stagger with a painful roar.
[GoOOO…]
As if trying to assess the situation, the beast turned its gaze towards Leje standing far away…
[Oooooo!!]
And then let out a growl of malice as it charged toward her.
With every step, the ground shook as if an earthquake had struck, toppling everything in its path.
Yet, Leje remained unmoving.
Soon, the beast loomed right in front of her, raising its massive foreleg to slam down on her…
“Get the hell out of here!!”
She yelled as she swung her sword.
*
In a makeshift command post far from where Leje and the beast were clashing.
“Woaah…”
Rudell breathed a low sound as he watched the grand battle unfold from afar.
He had always known she possessed tremendous strength, but witnessing it firsthand was entirely different.
“That’s incredible. Is she really human?”
“100% human. And please, don’t mention this to Leje.”
As he looked at Kurt, who spoke in disbelief, Rudell let out an awkward chuckle.
Given Kurt’s habit of stating exactly what he thought, it was wise to give a warning ahead of time.
“Uh, it’s incredible…”
Meanwhile, Carlos and the soldiers of the Count’s House were watching the duel between Leje and the beast with disbelief.
Even though they were quite far away, the air around quivered with each collision of their attacks, making their reaction completely understandable.
But now wasn’t the time for that.
“Father.”
“Ah, sorry about that. I got carried away.”
Rudell turned to Carlos, who had been staring blankly, and Carlos jerked his head towards him with a hot.
This is probably the typical reaction of ordinary people witnessing her powers…
Thinking that, Rudell looked at the map on the table.
It was the latest map, detailing the Count’s Domain, including even the areas recently developed.
“What are you planning to do now?”
“First, we need to get that thing to a less populated area. The candidate locations are here, here, and here.”
He marked three undeveloped sites on the outer edges of the Count’s Domain on the map.
“That sounds right. And then?”
“That’s the tricky part. We can’t be sure if we can kill that thing with our abilities…”
With a combination of rocks and turtles as its defense, the beast was unbelievably tough.
In reality, even with Leje’s attacks, only a bit of debris was knocked off its tough exterior without inflicting any serious damage.
If Leje and the beast kept exchanging blows, this central area of the Count’s Domain would end up a wasteland.
From Rudell’s perspective, he needed to figure out a means before it came to that.
“There must be a good way…”
With a throbbing sensation in his head, Rudell desperately brainstormed for a solution.
‘If only I could use Shadow Magic…’
Shadow Magic had the ability to create a pocket dimension to store objects within.
Normally, it’d be a challenge for him to fit a beast of that size, but right now, he had the bracelet gifted by Kahlan.
The bracelet made from the beast’s fangs possessed magic power at least double that of Rudell’s own.
If he poured all of his magic into it, combined with the bracelet’s power, he might be able to store the beast in that pocket dimension for a short time.
But…
‘Using it here would…’
Shadow Magic aesthetically resembled dark magic or the blood magic of vampires, making it visually gruesome.
Moreover, nobody knew of its existence at this time, and he couldn’t predict what might happen afterward.
In a worst-case scenario, rumors could reach the Church, and inquisitors could come after him.
‘Not yet…’
Using Shadow Magic should be a last resort to save for the direst situation.
Shaking his head, he continued desperately thinking of the next move.
But no matter how much he pondered, no good ideas surfaced.
In the face of an entity akin to a natural disaster, there’s not much a mere human could do.
“Kurt, do you have any good ideas?”
After thinking for a while, Rudell turned to Kurt and asked.
In times like this, asking an expert was the best bet.
The Nord tribe had a close relationship with beasts, so perhaps he might just have a good plan.
“I’ve never seen a beast like that. To catch something like that, we’d have to knock down a mountain.”
“Right… that makes sense…”
But could Kurt really come up with a solution?
If a tribe was powerful enough to tackle a beast of that size alone, the Winter Great Tribe wouldn’t have been pushed to the outskirts of the eternal winter plains.
As Rudell sighed briefly at Kurt’s words, suddenly, he had a thought.
“Wait… knocking down a mountain?”
“Why?”
Muttering that line that brushed his mind, Leje pondered, looking at Kurt who tilted his head.
At that moment, pieces of a puzzle began to fit together in Rudell’s mind, and his gaze turned towards the massive mountain range towering at the outskirts of the Count’s Domain.
The Bladehook Mountain Range.
“That’s it!! Kurt, you’re a genius!!”
“Did you think of a good idea?”
“Father! Gather every projectile in the territory right now!”
As Rudell shouted this, Carlos asked what was happening, and Rudell replied to him with determination.
Let’s see if you can remain unfazed by this one, you beast.
With such thoughts, Rudell stared intently at the beast currently battling Leje.
