The morning sunlight was warm, and the cold wind had unusually calmed down, making it a pretty warm day for winter.
Dew glimmered like jewels on the grass—
“Females, flee with the young—!”
Startled by the shout, the little ones scattered into pieces.
The Lizardmen each grabbed their weapons.
The males charged forward with well-groomed weapons, while the females rushed with their children to the shelter set up on the hills behind the Lizardden.
The attack that began in the morning announced its arrival with a breathless swarm of Mermaids.
With a trident in hand, a Mermaid shattered the notion of being creatures of the water as she awkwardly ran on two legs towards the Lizardden.
There was only one entrance to the Lizardden.
To be precise, there was just one way connecting to the outside, and the spot the Mermaids were attacking was none other than the path leading to the sanctuary.
Under normal circumstances, deploying a barrier at the entrance would have been sufficient, but a raid on the sanctuary wasn’t something they had anticipated.
Just then, Yona, who had been out for a stroll, inadvertently mixed in with them.
She had only seen a Mermaid for the first time yesterday, but then again, a monster was a monster, and her role didn’t change at all, so she quickly regained her composure.
“A-are you going to help again this time!?”
“…Y-yeah.”
Yona nodded.
Not knowing who it was, she thought maybe it was one of the Lizardmen who had helped her yesterday. She nodded and looked around.
If the village was making this much noise, Alex must have noticed and was probably on his way here— she thought, and sure enough, she spotted a particularly shiny head in the distance.
“Alex! Over here, here—! Alleeex—!!”
Yona raised her hand high, shaking it madly.
Seeing that, Alex pushed through the crowd of Lizardmen and made his way to Yona.
“Yona, what are you doing here?”
“What do you mean, it’s an attack! Didn’t you see it?”
Yona shot back at Alex, as if it was the most obvious question.
Alex quietly nodded at her words, then turned his back.
“First, let’s find Kaiyak. That seems urgent.”
Yona naturally placed her hand on Alex’s shoulder.
It was truly a long-awaited sensation.
Alex’s shoulder felt just right in her hand.
Her heart felt at peace.
Giving in to that indescribable tranquility, Yona moved in step with Alex, searching for Kaiyak.
By the time they were looking for Kaiyak, the Lizardmen at the front lines were facing the Mermaids valiantly without faltering.
The Mermaids, each bigger than the Lizardmen, pushed forward with their fork-like tridents shrieking, but the Lizardmen did not retreat and stood their ground.
The Lizardmen’s bodies were packed with muscles to match their size, overflowing with the dignity of a warrior. The explosive speed that burst from those muscles, along with their strength, made it difficult even for a Mermaid to easily go against them.
It’s tough.
– Kaaang!
The trident launched by the mermaid collided head-on with the Lizardman’s spear.
With a sharp screech, sparks flew, and the Lizardman cleverly twisted the thrust of his spear, easily deflecting the trident aside.
Seizing the opportunity of the mermaid’s unsteady posture, another Lizardman lunged forward and pierced her throat with his spear.
As the black blood gushed out, the mermaid staggered and dropped her trident, but the Lizardman, not missing his chance, lunged in again and grabbed her throat with one hand.
“Die, you filthy beast—!”
With a savage roar, the Lizardman began to saw off the mermaid’s head with a hunting saw.
Unable to even scream due to her already pierced throat, the mermaid flailed desperately to shake off the Lizardman, but with her strength nearly depleted, her efforts were in vain as her head finally fell, collapsing like a rotting tree trunk.
The Lizardmen were working in pairs of three or four against the mermaids.
Though the mermaids had physical advantages, they were relatively simplistic and lacked strategy.
Moreover, for some reason, the mermaid had grown legs, enabling this ambush, but the sensation of moving with legs was nothing like swimming, making her movements clumsy and less fluid.
“Don’t back down! They’re just worthless scum!”
Kaiyak roared, raising his spear high.
Watching him, Yona and Alex felt oddly embarrassed, now realizing their earlier rush to join the fray was quite unnecessary.
“…Kaiyak isn’t strong for no reason, huh?”
“Lizardmen are already a tough species. But wow, they are really strong.”
While Yona and Alex were sharing this conversation, the number of mermaids, previously over twenty, dwindled drastically.
In fact, they were forced to retreat from the sanctum without making any meaningful progress, failing to inflict any real damage against the Lizardmen’s resistance.
“We might not even need to get involved.”
“Looks that way.”
Finally, Yona removed her hand from Alex’s shoulder and stretched.
As she stretched out, her tense muscles loosened with a series of popping sounds from her bones.
While looking up at the sky, Yona suddenly noticed something strange.
“…Alex, do you see that?”
“Huh?”
The moment Alex looked where Yona was pointing, what had been a mere speck in the sky began to grow larger and take shape before their eyes.
It was a size far beyond the mermaids the Lizardmen were currently handling.
With six arms and countless tails.
And—
Legs.
“M-mermaid… a whole bunch of them.”
As Yona murmured, what dropped from the sky finally—
– KWAANG!
Smashing down onto the ground, it flattened several Lizardmen standing nearby.
It was, indeed, the very same mermaid the Lizardmen had fought in the sanctum just yesterday.
The turn of events happened in the blink of an eye.
The mermaid that appeared by crushing her mermaid and Lizardman subordinates—
Probably the leader, as soon as she showed up, she thumped her chest and let out a long roar.
– Kuru-ru-ruuuuuhhh—!!
At that roar, not only the Lizardmen, but even Yona and Alex instinctively covered their ears.
“Everyone, back away!”
The first to regain their senses was Kaiyak.
At that shout, the Lizardmen near the mermaid tried to quickly retreat, but at that moment, fins spread out behind the mermaid.
– Pyop-pyo-pyo-pyo-pyo-poh!
With a somewhat ridiculous sound, something shot up from the fins.
That thing flew in a parabola like an arrow towards the nearby Lizardmen.
“Graaah!”
“Guhh!”
“Ugh…!”
Finally, it became clear.
Each was a sharp spine.
Those spines were as big as arrows meant for longbows, and they were plunging down on the Lizardmen.
And another one, which flew towards Kaiyak, had now embedded itself into Alex’s shield, trembling and showcasing its presence.
“Alex!”
“Kaiyak, what the heck is that?!”
“I don’t know! It’s a monster that appeared from the sanctuary!”
“Dammit…”
Ignoring Alex’s swearing, Yona dashed towards the Lizardmen.
The Lizardmen, in sheer chaos, turned to face the mermaid while others were moving away their pierced comrades.
‘This is…’
Black ichor was seeping out from the spines.
From the wounds where the spines were pulled out, instead of red blood, black ichor was flowing, and no matter how much Yona poured her holy power into those wounds, they wouldn’t heal.
‘What on earth…’
Wounds that did not respond to divine power.
This was a first for her.
“Get back, get back!”
One Lizardman shoved Yona with all his might.
And just as Yona tumbled backwards, the Lizardman who pushed her down looked down at the hand of his kind piercing his own neck with an expression of disbelief, slowly crumbling down.
“What is this…?”
The injured Lizardmen that had been pierced by the spines were slowly getting back up.
Black ichor oozed from their mouths, and their eyes were rolled back, showing no signs of reason.
‘Corrupted…?’
The black ichor flowing from the Lizardman’s wounds.
And now, the black ichor flowing from that Lizardman’s mouth.
The corrupted Lizardman approached the fallen Yona.
With a raised hand, what used to be a blunt hand now had sharp claws glimmering in the morning sunlight— it was aimed right at her.
“Waaaah…!”
Yona quickly rolled to evade.
Bouncing from the roll, Yona stood up, and thanks to her years of being an adventurer, she wasn’t just going to sit there and take it. She pulled out the hunting knife strapped to her left thigh.
The standoff between Yona, knife in hand, and the Lizardman didn’t last long.
The standoff between Yona and the Lizardman didn’t last long.
As the Lizardman charged at her with a monstrous scream, someone else rushed in from the side.
“Crazy bastard!”
Alex charged at him and delivered a swift uppercut with his shield.
As the Lizardman lost his balance, Alex seized his neck and, just as the Lizardman sharpened his claws, he raised a hammer with his other hand and repeatedly smashed it down on the Lizardman’s head.
“Yona, are you okay?”
“Uh, uh… yeah.”
Yona nodded, having drawn her hunting knife, but without being able to use it, she sheathed it again.
“This is strange; the healing isn’t working at all.”
“Nothing strange about it. I’ve got the general idea of the situation. But over there, that’s more urgent.”
Where Alex pointed, a fierce battle was already underway.
Led by Kaiyak, the Lizardmen were aggressively attacking the Mermaids, throwing oil-filled bottles and thick oiled ropes at them.
Once the ropes tangled, they quickly set them on fire.
The flames spread where the oil hit, roaring fiercely, but surprisingly, they weren’t causing any significant damage to the Mermaids.
– Krruluuuaaaak!
The Mermaid wielded her six arms skillfully, pushing the Lizardmen back.
With every swing, one or two Lizardmen screamed as they were sent flying, shattering upon impact.
Yona couldn’t bear to watch that scene and turned away.
“What do we do?”
“We have no choice but to fight. What do you expect us to do?”
It wasn’t about the reward now.
That was a concern for when you were venturing out for a hunt; right now, they were the ones being ambushed, and before discussing rewards, they had to survive.
“Are there no more oil bottles?!”
At Kaiyak’s shout, the other Lizardmen shook their heads.
Most of the stored oil had already been used up.
The Mermaid seemed unbothered by the flames, which were typically the monsters’ weakness.
– Krruluuuur!
As the Mermaid slammed down her arm, one Lizardman rolled to the side to dodge.
But just as he dodged, the Mermaid’s tail slammed down upon him.
Where the tail struck, flesh was torn, and blood spread out.
The Lizardman who couldn’t avoid the tail crashed into a nearby wall.
With frantic struggles to escape the grip, blood began to ooze from his slashed skin.
The Lizardman who got hit by the spikes collapsed only to rise again, coughing up black ichor and then attacking his own kind.
As the Lizardman seemed to have joined the Mermaid’s ranks, the numbers were shifting against the Lizardmen.
An overwhelming difference in individual strength was pressing down upon the Lizardmen.
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