“Kirin!” Caim launched a spiraling mana shock wave, destroying several skeletons in front of him. However, the gap was quickly filled by new ones. “Jeez, we’re not gonna make any progress like this. We’re wasting our time.”
“Then I should—”
“No, wait,” Caim interrupted Millicia before she could use a wide-scale Sacred Art spell. Despite not being able to cover the entire town, she could purify all the skeletons in view—but Caim didn’t let her do that. “I think the objective is to exhaust you here, so don’t use your mana carelessly!” The Bone-Eating General was likely planning to flood them with small fry in order to force Millicia to use her Sacred Arts and deplete her mana, so using a large spell would just be playing right into his hands. “We’re gonna jump. Hold on tight!”
Caim grabbed Millicia, earning a yelp from her, and leaped forward, stepping on a skeleton’s skull in the process. Then he landed on the roof of a nearby building. The instant he did, however, they were attacked by skeleton birds. Because Caim was carrying Millicia in his arms, he couldn’t use his hands—but it wasn’t a problem.
“Hebi.” Caim produced a whip made of compressed mana from his back and struck the birds. While Hebi was a counter technique usually paired with Genbu, it could also be used on its own like he just had. “From what Rozbeth told us, the Bone-Eating General is very haughty and loves to show off, so I think he must be at the center of the town. I’m gonna rush directly there, so hold on tight!”
“Yes!” Millicia tightly clung to his neck.
Despite carrying someone, Caim effortlessly leaped from rooftop to rooftop—sometimes using mana footholds in midair—as though unburdened by gravity, until finally arriving at their destination.
The plaza at the center of the town was filled with hundreds of skeletons crowded together. It was like a glimpse into the depths of hell.
“How repulsive... And this was all done by a single man?!” Millicia cried in outrage, still in Caim’s arms. “Just how many people did he sacrifice to create so many skeletons?!” It was very rare for Millicia, who was usually gentle and refined, to become so angry. “You shall pay for this, Bone-Eating General!”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to kill him. But first... Where is he?” There were so many skeletons in the plaza that Caim couldn’t find the assassin. At first glance, it seemed that neither the old man nor the hostages were present. “I’d love nothing more than to defeat him and be done with this already, but going down there would be suicide...” It wouldn’t be a problem for Caim, but with so many skeletons, he wouldn’t be able to protect Millicia. “Well, there’s no living people around, so I guess I can go all out!”
“What are you planning to do?”
“Just watch.” Caim leaped and stood on a mana foothold in midair. He switched to carrying Millicia with a single arm, then manipulated his poisonous mana and sprayed a gas down toward the plaza. “Having no hostages present makes things easier. Purple Poison Magic—Poison Flare!”
Using toxic gas on already dead skeletons was useless, but that wasn’t the point of his attack—Caim snapped his fingers to produce a spark that ignited the combustible gas. The next instant, a large explosion occurred, engulfing the entire plaza in bright red flames.
Millicia screamed and clung tightly to Caim’s neck.
“Whoa... I didn’t expect the explosion to be so big. I didn’t think I made it that powerful, though...”
“Um... Caim? Do you not think you went too far?” Millicia asked.
“Ah, well... Should be fine, no? Sure, it was stronger than planned, but it only blew up the plaza...I think.”
Unfortunately for Caim, he was wrong. Several buildings around the plaza had been caught in the explosion and had collapsed. Still, he convinced himself that it was a small price to pay to save the town.
“Anyway, where is the old geezer?” Caim surveyed the plaza, now free of skeletons. There were scattered bone fragments and remnants of flames flickering here and there, but no signs of life. Just where could the Bone-Eating General be?
“Curse you!” a deep, angry voice shouted suddenly.
“Huh?”
“How dare you, brat?!” The eerie voice was filled with inhuman spite and malice.
“It feels as though it’s coming from the bowels of the earth...” Caim commented—and he was right. A large crevice had opened in the plaza’s ground and something crawled out of it along with a cloud of dust.
“No way...!”
“Whoa, it’s huge.”
Millicia’s expression was full of dread, while Caim’s had a hint of tension.
“How dare you destroy my servants, you damned youngsters!” screamed the voice.
A skeleton far bigger than a wyvern—at least twenty meters tall—had emerged from the ground.
“It looks like one of those giants from legends... Is that one of the modified skeletons Rozbeth mentioned?”
“Don’t think I’ll let you live after angering me like this! I’m going to suck the marrow straight from your bones!” The wrathful voice of an old man—the Bone-Eating General—rang out from within the giant skeleton. He was controlling it from the inside, wearing it like armor.
Just how had he created the giant skeleton? Had he combined countless human bones together, or had he found the bones of a titan—a race from the age of myth—and used his necromancy on them?
“Diiiieeeee!” The Bone-Eating General shouted, making the gigantic, heavy skeleton swing its fist at Caim and Millicia.
With a frown, Caim kicked the mana foothold and leaped into the sky, still carrying Millicia, to avoid the incoming strike.
✦ ✦ ✦
〇 〇 〇
While Caim and Millicia were facing the Bone-Eating General, Tea, Lenka, and Rozbeth were infiltrating the town by climbing its defensive wall.
“Grrraow. This place seems fine.” Tea had gone in first and now called her comrades to rejoin her.
“No enemy in sight. The plan is working.”
“I’m worried about my lady, however...”
Rozbeth and Lenka both spoke as they climbed over the wall. The former was as cool as a cucumber, but the latter was very anxious about being absent from her master’s side while she was in danger.
“It’s going to be all right. Master Caim is protecting her.” Tea patted Lenka’s shoulder to comfort her. “She’s safer with Master Caim than she would be with us—and he said he would carry her and run away if needed.”
“...Yeah, I should trust Sir Caim.” Lenka nodded and slapped her cheeks to motivate herself before turning toward the town. “Let’s go save the hostages!”
They knew where to go. The men had explained with pained expressions where the women—their wives, lovers, daughters, or sisters—were confined.
“My lady is far too kind...” Lenka said. “If the hostages are used against her, she won’t be able to do anything...”
That was why they needed to rescue the hostages first, no matter what. Their opponent, the Bone-Eating General, was a veteran assassin who had been doing his job for more than a century. He would likely stop at nothing to kill his target—or failing that, to survive.
“Grrraow. I can smell several people that way.” Tea took the lead as they ran through the deserted town toward their destination—the guardhouse.
“The perfect place to imprison people.”
“And of course, there are lookouts...”
Rozbeth and Lenka scowled at the guardhouse from behind a building. Several skeletons stood guard, and they weren’t normal ones. One had six arms, another had a lizard’s skull and a humanoid body, and the last one had long legs that made it more than three meters tall. No living beings had skeletal structures like that.
“They’re modified skeletons,” Rozbeth said. “They’re far stronger than the normal ones.”
“There are three of them, so one for each of us.” Tea took a three-section staff out from under the skirt of her maid uniform. “Master Caim will be free to act as he wishes once we have rescued the hostages. Let’s finish this quickly.”
“Yeah!” Lenka placed her hand on the hilt of her sword, determination clear in her eyes. “I won’t fail like I did the other day. This time I’ll put up a fight befitting of a kni—”
“Found. You.”
A chill ran down the trio’s spines as they heard an inhuman voice from above them. They hurriedly looked up only to find a fourth skeleton—one with three skulls that clung to the wall like a lizard.
“Found. You! Found. You!”
“Right. There!”
“Living. People... Women!”
“This is bad...!” Lenka said.
“I’m taking care of it!” Rozbeth quickly threw a knife at the skeleton, causing it to drop to the ground with a triple cry, and then Tea immediately smashed its skulls with her three-section staff.
“Enemy. Detected!”
“Must. Capture!”
The other modified skeletons had heard the three-headed one scream and were now aware of the girls’ presence.
“They’re coming our way!” Tea warned.
“Let’s do this! Be careful, everyone!” Lenka said.
They all readied their weapons—Tea her three-section staff, Lenka her sword, and Rozbeth her knives—before leaping out from their hiding spot.
Thus began their fight against these twisted skeletons born from dark magic.