Finals are over. I took a week off and now I’m back!! …to school for summer quarter. Anyway…here’s a chapter!
2/5 chapters for this month. Expect the rest this week.
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Chapter 84 Odin"s Abilities (Part 2)
The mothers, first of all, took the 10 elves Odin has brought.
The young female elves took them away to their homes to rest and to give them food.
Odin and I went with the mothers to go to a quiet spot and have a conversation.
"First of all, using your own money to save our kind, we thank you once again for your kindness and goodwill."
"Please do not mention it. As a human too, I am ashamed of such cruelty."
"Did you say Count Odin of Ulpenburg? With a high position amongst the humans, I do not know the reason you would want a relationship with us when we are not affiliated at all. What benefit is that to you?"
"The world is becoming more and more chaotic, and protecting yourself on your own is becoming more difficult. I think the same can be said for you as well."
"Yes."
The eldest mother completely agreed.
Odin said.
"More so, we have a common enemy."
"A common enemy?"
"It is Baron Bastian. I have just finished preparations to go to war against Baron Bastian."
"Bastian is the human set up to the north of here."
"Yes, he is."
"You want our help in attacking him?"
Odin shook his head.
"Not so. I have no difficulty at all in dealing with Baron Bastian."
"You do look the part."
Derrick, who had been quiet, finally spoke.
"You are the strongest one of all the humans I have ever met."
"That is an honor.
Odin smiled.
The mothers and I were surprised.
Derrick was the longest living elf on the brown mountain.
And he said he is the strongest human he has ever seen.
Odin is an incredible examinee that has cleared all 20 of his exams thus far. I cannot fathom just how strong he is.
"Then why is it you want our alliance?"
"It is because I want to work together to handle the future dangers we cannot yet see."
Said Odin.
"Baron Bastian is not my match, but I do not know why he would fight me when he knows that. I think there is someone much bigger standing in the background."
At those words, the mothers gathered and started discussing.
I too was deep in thought.
Let"s think.
The current circ.u.mstances, the Silver clan lycanthropes and baron Bastian have made some kind of deal.
They probably see the elves as their joint target.
The ambitious Leon Silver is probably thinking of expanding his silver clan territory into the elves" brown mountain.
And Baron Bastian probably wants to capture all the elves and sell them as slaves and make a grand profit.
Then add the black magician who is controlling the undead, into this mix.
The Silver clan, baron Bastian, and the black magician, those three combined and attacking the elves, they can all get what they want that way.
"That"s it."
I organized my thoughts before I said.
"I have something I want to say."
"Go ahead, Kim."
"Yes, what Mr. Odin has said, the danger we don"t yet see, I think that is the black magician."
"Black magician?"
"Yes, I am pretty sure I know what the silver clan and baron Bastian want from targeting the elves. The silver clan wants territory, baron Bastian wants elf slaves."
"Cruel things."
"Shameless have joined forces."
The mothers were angry.
I continued to speak.
"The problem is what the black magician wants. And I think that"s the Tree of Life."
"The Tree of Life?"
"Yes, I heard the evil spell that makes the undead came about from research from immortality. In that case, the Tree of Life that is full of life force, wouldn"t it make the best research specimen for that?"
"It can be thought of that way, I see."
Odin nodded his head and agreed.
I continued.
"There is something I would like to ask. Before I came, the Tree of Life was getting sick, when did that begin?"
"Why do you ask that?"
The eldest mothers asked.
"I want to know if the Tree of Life getting sick was due to natural causes or if the black magician put some sort of curse or something of that sort."
The mothers were all in shock.
"It wasn"t a natural decline, was it?"
"I thought so too. I think that"s why we never believed that it was dying."
"It wasn"t a natural cause so of course we could not find the reason."
"Kim"s deductions are right."
The mothers were all chatting at the same time, it suddenly looked like a women"s a.s.sociation, and it fl.u.s.tered Odin.
"Is it always like this?"
"Yes, it"s always like this. You will have to get used to it."
"It is a fun ruling system."
"When you get used to it, it just makes you sigh."
The agony of man having to watch the women chatter…
After a long while of chatter, a decision was made.
"Our decision is that if the three of them have joined forces, then we too will need an alliance. Count Odin of Ulpenburg, we will form an alliance with you."
"It is a wise choice."
Odin shook hands with the eldest mother.
So, the two decided to join forces and then Odin said.
"I have one request, could I see these undead? I want to see how dangerous the undead are."
"Would you like to join us in the fight for one day?"
Asked Derrick.
Odin smiled and nodded his head.
"That sounds good. I haven"t had a good chance to practice my skills lately."
I decided to go too.
It"s a chance for me to see how good Odin"s skills are.
Together, we headed for the southwest cliff.
"There sure are plenty of them."
Those were Odin"s thoughts on the horde of zombies ambling up the cliff.
"Have you always fought such numbers?"
"Recently, they have increased a lot."
Replied Derrick.
The elves that were guarding the cliff were very interested about this newly appeared Odin.
Everyone was curious about his abilities.
Perhaps he had caught on to that, Odin smiled and took out his sword from his hip sheath.
"I suppose it is time for my hazing."
"Whenever you are ready."
"Is it okay for the cliffside to break a little?"
At those words, I was completely surprised, and Derrick pointed with his chin to the other elves.
The elves receded from the cliffside.
"Go ahead."
"I shall."
Odin closed his eyes and seemed to focus himself on his sword.
Then… …
Paaaat!
A blue halo from his sword, like a heat shimmer, started to swell.
"That, what is that?"
"He is focusing aura into the weapon."
Replied Derrick.
"Is something like that possible?"
"That human can do more than that. Just watch."
The blue heat shimmer coming from the sword eventually became a solid ma.s.s.
"Aura sword. It has been a long time since I have seen that."
Said Derrick.
"Is an aura sword something incredible?"
"It is said that if your aura control skill is able to reach a dramatic extreme, that that is possible. I have only seen that once, a very long time ago. Amongst the humans that attacked us, there was one that could do that."
As soon as Derrick finished talking, Odin jumped down the cliff.
Odin went straight down towards the zombies and swung his sword around.
The aura sword sung in their direction, with a wide berth.
That after effect was shocking.
Kwa kwa kwa kwa kwa kw.a.n.g – !!
The aura"s storm swept up the zombies.
The strength of the hit broke a line of rocks and created a rockslide. The landslide took more zombies with it.
So with a single blow, Odin easily took care of over hundreds of zombies.
"Is that a human?"
I was astonished.
At that level, he"s practically a walking weapon. It is no different than if he were to be holding a missile on his belt instead of a sword!
"Whew, that was refreshing."
Odin came atop the cliff with a refreshed face.
"That was incredible."
"Thank you. Now, could I see your abilities?"
"I shall show you."
Derrick pulled out both his swords.
I worried a little bit.
Derrick"s technique is indeed impressive but compared to the enormous power that Odin just showed us, the impact might look shabby.
But that concern of mine was apparently needless.
"Kasa."
Derrick summoned a spirit.
His Kasa was a grand fire giant.
A huge fire spirit, at 5 meters tall!
The commanding figure was ablaze, it was like a demon beast from revelations.
"A superior level spirit."
Odin was shaking with excitement.
"That"s a superior spirit?"
For a moment, I remembered my own Kasa.
A Kasa whose body has grown and is wagging its ma.s.sive tail.
Kuk, no matter how much I think about it, it"s not as cool as Derrick!
Derrick then showed us something even cooler.
The fire giant and Derrick combined into one body.
Kasa"s flames seeped into Derrick"s body, they were drawn inside, and disappeared.
Instead, hot flames started to spew from all over Derrick. From his breath, came fire.
Derrick jumped below to the cliff.
"Ku haaab!"
With a strong shout, he wielded his dual swords.
Kwa kwa kw.a.n.g - kwa lu lu lung! Hwa lu lu luk – !
It made fireworks.
In all directions, hot flames abound. Are those waterfall flames?
Below the clifftop, flames flowed like a river.
"Kuahh!"
"Kulululu!"
"Kuaak!"
"Uhakkk!"
Zombies were melting. In an instant, hundreds of them become a heap of ashes and died.
After the firework celebration, there wasn"t a single zombie left clinging to the cliff.
"My goodness…"
That is the power of spirit summons?
I thought of spirit summons and weapons as discrete and separate. And up to now I thought Derrick"s skills were in his dual swords, not spirit summons.
But seeing the great impact of the dual swords and the spirit combined, I feel as if I have been introduced to a new world.
"Am I able to combine the guns and spirit summons/"
I must.
I thought of the Mosin-Nagant and double guns as support tools, and the spirit summons as a useful skill for lots of situations.
I thought of them as different tools for different things.
But I realized that if I kept thinking that way, I could never become like Derrick.
Build a well for one of the two things or use both as one thing.
I chose the latter as my future path.
"I"ve been thinking of the spirit summons too carelessly up to now. At least starting now, I should be experimenting with it more."
I deemed that to be my task for this 6th turn exam.
"It"s been a while since I"ve seen your skills."
When Derrick returned, he was flooded with compliments.
"That was great!"
"Definitely Derrick."
Derrick just smiled at it.
These guys, everything up to now was just some exercise.
Now that I think of it, all this time fighting, no one had used their spirit summons. They haven"t used their real skills.
"How was it?"
Derrick asks Odin.
"It"s the first time I"ve ever seen something that great. There isn"t that much known to the world about elves and spirit summons and it was hard to fathom."
That was true.
Derrick, on his own within the hour, could turn the silver clan into a sea of fire.
But they don"t know that which is why they were targeting the elves.
"But there is one weird thing, do this many undead attack every day this way?"
"Interestingly. They have increased lately."
"But to waste that many undead every day, one would need a lot of corpses. And realistically speaking, that is impossible."
When Odin said that, I wondered too.
Acquiring that number of corpses every day, there"s no way something like that can be done secretly.