It was a blood-soaked era, when both land and sky were stained a crimson red.
The philosophy of the Great Demon, embodiment of darkness itself, was a simple one: Size equals power. It was an undeniable truth. But no matter how close the demon had gotten to approaching this ideal, he could only be described as a fool after creating something like this.
“I knew he was a moron, but this is so absurd it’s actually comical,” the witch spat with utter displeasure, a frown on her typically alluring face.
“This is making me nauseous...” The knight was clutching at his stomach through his armor.
“Bwa ha ha! That’s one hell of a sound! He had to be wasted when he came up with that!” The swordsman laughed so hard he was almost rolling on the ground as he took a drink from his bottle of booze.
“You have to admit, though, he had the right idea.” The half naked monk crossed his arms as he stared up at the object approaching from afar.
A loud thud echoed around them.
“I’ve finished my assessment of the enemy’s plans. They’ve attached legs to a mountain and intend to use it to crush the army and city behind us.” The priestess, who’d been innocently observing the enemy, announced the obvious with some gravitas.
Yes, she had said “a mountain.” The source of the earlier thud was a thing of nightmares: a massive mountain with four insectile legs attached to it. This was not a figure of speech; their adversaries had remodeled a literal mountain into a mobile fortress. Whoever was responsible for this had probably concluded that they could use the mountain to crush all of their enemies’ forces, cities, and bases. It was an absolutely ridiculous strategy, but once it was actually executed, the result was straightforward, astronomical destruction. Who in the world could stand against a moving mountain?
“So, what’s our strategy?” the monk asked.
“Our only option is to climb onto it and destroy the magic furnace that’s powering it. I don’t know if they implemented this specifically to counter me, but the exterior of that thing has been warded against magical attacks to an almost paranoid level. Attacking from the outside is impossible,” the witch replied. However, this was futile. No ordinary human could possibly scale a moving mountain that made the very earth shake, then defeat whoever was likely lying in wait there.
“All right, let’s go with that, then!” Even though the suggested plan was akin to suicide, their young leader childishly accepted the challenge. “Charge!”
“So it’s just the same ol’ plan,” the swordsman said with a cynical expression.
“The simplest path is often the most effective. That holds true for both us and our opponent,” the monk added, nodding in approval.
The leader rushed ahead with his sword raised high, followed by the other two.
“I wish this was a little easier,” the witch said. She’d become fed up with their opponents, whose actions had left the party no choice but resort to force.
“It’s the most efficient method, so I figured this would be the easiest way,” the priestess added, tilting her head in confusion.
“Yeah, no, there’s nothing easy about climbing those massive legs,” the knight retorted as he ran forward.
All six of these heroes were now moving with unbelievable speed, but what was the point of a group of mere humans running up to a moving mountain? They were nothing more than ants to it; their actions were practically pointless.
Another loud thud echoed, but it wasn’t the sound of the mountain’s footsteps this time.
“Ugh! You have to be kidding me!” the knight shouted.
Countless boulders rocketed into the sky from the mountain, resulting in an assault of such wide coverage that it was impossible for them to fully dodge. It was honestly ridiculous. Common sense would suggest that a mountain had no need to go out of its way to do that; it could resolve everything by simply crushing them underfoot. Was there really a need for it to actually carry out an attack?
“The construct’s defenses are first-class, yet it only attacks by launching boulders. Looks like they couldn’t give it everything.” The witch fired off a storm of colors—red, yellow, blue—unleashing a wave of destruction. The boulders, which were an attack of nothing but pure physical mass, were swallowed up by the magical volley and disappeared.
“Let’s keep going! Get straight up to it!” Despite the witch’s efforts, however, a seemingly inexhaustible supply of boulders continued raining down from the mountain, so the young man at the front just kept running.
Wow, this thing really is pretty massive from up close. The closer the young man got, the more the mountain grew in front of him, now too enormous for him to even fully make out. He furrowed his brow.
With every step the mountain took, it created tremendous vibrations and sent clouds of dust billowing, engulfing them all. A hit from even a fragment of the boulders flying around inside the cloud would kill an ordinary person. However, all of the heroes leaped triumphantly out of the cloud and began hopping up the mountainside by the strength of their legs alone, using small footholds in the rock as leverage.
“What the hell are those things hanging over us?!” the leader shouted.
“They seem to be an enhanced variety of tree-dwelling, monkey-type monsters. They must intend to cling to us and make us fall,” the monk explained.
“Gotcha,” the swordsman replied casually.
With their red eyes glaring at the party, the long-armed, pitch-black monkey monsters waited at the foot of the mountain. The monkeys spread their arms wide and jumped down, aiming to grab on to the young man and the rest and force them to the ground. Of course, this strategy required them to still have their arms, and above all, their heads. With a sharp sound, fifty monkey heads fell to the ground, the twisted expressions on their faces still lingering. It had happened so quickly, the monkeys hadn’t even had the chance to register what had happened.
“I’ll handle the one coming from the sky on the right, so I’m leaving the left one to you,” the witch said as she looked up.
“Understood!” the knight replied.
The witch used her magical attacks to deal with the massive monster that was attacking from above, which looked to be something in between a bird and a dragonfly.
“Agh, dammit! It keeps swapping between being fully resistant to magical and physical attacks!” the knight cursed. He launched out of another foothold and jumped up, climbing onto the back of a winged snake—a beast as long as about four houses standing side by side. If what he’d just said was true, the enemy monster possessed a terrifying ability.
“All right, let’s do this!” Meanwhile, the young man swiftly ran across the mountain’s moving legs. He charged bullishly ahead, as though the large army of monsters that seemed to fill the mountain’s entire surface were no hindrance.
“Leave the troublesome ones to me,” the monk said. Some of the powerful monsters had somehow managed to block the young man’s way, but the monk used all his limbs to kick and punch through them, smashing through carapaces that not even swords could slice. He twisted off their tentacles and broke their large horns. The monk’s body itself was a lethal weapon. He could pulverize, subjugate, and destroy anything and everything.
“That one must be their leader!” The young man continued forward and pursued a grotesque monstrosity farther in the back. Its body was made up of over a thousand pieces of armor joined together, and its countless gauntlets and greaves wriggled.
“You damn freeeeeaks!” the armor monstrosity shouted. No one bothered to point out the hypocrisy of its words because its judgment wasn’t incorrect.
“Light, come forth!” the young man cried.
“Light, come forth,” the priestess echoed.
Light started emanating from their bodies. The great light of life shone out into a world that was full of death and destruction, lamentation and sorrow, and covered by a bloodred sky.
But that is a tale from long ago. Those battles have long since ended.
And the young man, the priestess, the swordsman, the witch, the monk, and the knight...have now all grown old.