Book Eater

Chapter 42: Return Home After Five Years (3)

The driver was staring wildly around him as Theo and Sylvia leaped out of the carriage. It was the first time he had encountered a situation like this in his long career as a carriage driver.

He called out to Theo, “Hey, Magicians! What’s going on?!”

Theo replied, “Mister, please stay inside the carriage. We will take care of this.”

The driver scrambled into the carriage, shrilly replying, “Please do! Take care!”

With the driver inside the carriage, Theo didn’t need to worry about his safety or the carriage itself. He turned his attention to the undead slowly shambling toward him.

Goblins, kobolds, and orcs… I don’t see any large monsters. Is there a warlock lurking in these woods?

At its core, necromancy was a field of magic that emphasized control. If the undead weren’t controlled, they would be drawn to attack any living creature they could sense. The crown would usually dispatch a team of knights, magicians, and mercenaries to suppress the infestation and its creator. Thus, most warlocks usually stayed in hiding, since they wouldn’t be able to handle the kind of heat a kingdom could bring down on them.

However, Theo couldn’t find any sign of a warlock nearby.

He sighed. “... It can’t be helped.”

If the warlock was nowhere to be found, the only solution left was to crush everything before him.

Thrumm!

Four circles’ worth of magic power started to pulse in his body. A small spark appeared in the air, which quickly transformed into an arrow. As Theo poured more magic power into the air around him, a hundred fire arrows took shape in the air above him. Theo had replicated Sylvia’s feat with ice arrows in their match.

The undead were weak to divine power, light, and fire. The sudden heat from the fire arrows made the undead pause for a moment. A body that was devoid of moisture was simply firewood. Theo pitied them, but he wasn’t about to allow even a single undead to threaten his home.

“Fire.” The fire arrows arced through the air, raining down on the undead.

Pyu, pyu, pyu, pyuuong...

The undead were in crisis. The fire arrows easily penetrated their rotten bodies, and exploded.

Peng! Pepeng! Peng! Pepepeng!

Heads flew into the air, as various limbs exploded. The goblin undead were decimated, while the orc undead were now quadriplegics. Some of the undead kept crawling after losing all their limbs, while others just crumpled after sustaining damage.

It was a scary sight, but Theo remained calm.

Their physical ability is still low, and they aren’t wielding weapons. We can easily keep this up until they’re all destroyed.

An undead was ranked according to the presence of three factors: first, their ability to reproduce; second, their ability to utilize the techniques their bodies contained; and third, intelligence. If they possessed one, they would be an inferior rank undead; two, an intermediate rank; and three, an advanced undead.

These undead were clearly of the inferior rank. Theo could deal with a thousand of these inferior rank undead by himself. He created another hundred fire arrows as the first volley of fire arrows turned the front ranks of the undead horde into charcoal. Undead feet ruthlessly crushed the bodies of the fallen beneath them as they advanced like an inevitable tide.

Kuoooh~!

A terrible roar emerged from their rotting lungs. Theo’s attention was caught by a sudden movement from the bushes deeper in the forest. An undead monster had risen above the rest to stumble forward. Maggots wriggled in its rotten flesh, and its black eye sockets pulsed with dark magic. Theo took a second to place the creature it had once been. He had only seen them once, when he was on his way to Manavil with Gordon and Vince.

He cursed, “Troll”

Kuoooh-!

The troll howled as it leaped forward with startling agility.

Pukwaaaack!

The troll’s wild swings with its club destroyed a few unfortunate undead, but the undead troll still seemed as strong as it had been in life. Although it had lost its natural regenerative ability, it was still a troublesome foe. It could almost be said that a few of the troll’s natural weaknesses had been made up by becoming an undead.

Damn, Magic Bullet isn’t good against the undead...

These monsters would continue fighting even when their heads were blown off. There were some exceptions like dullahans, but most undead and ghouls would continue to function until their core was destroyed. Magic Bullet was no more threat to them than a needle. Theo would need something like Blaze Shell to burn the entire body, but he didn’t feel comfortable unleashing 4th Circle spells when the warlock hadn’t made his appearance.

Theo needed a way to defeat them without using a lot of magic.

Shaaaah-!

A water snake suddenly slithered past him and struck the undead like a mobile battering ram.

“Liquid Snake?” Theo muttered.

It was the water attribute spell Sylvia had used in their match. The water snake coiled around the troll undead’s leg and started to constrict. The troll tried to move forward, but its bones broke with an audible snap, toppling it. The water snake made short work of the troll zombie as it continued to coil around the undead’s body and crush it into oblivion.

Theo glanced toward Sylvia’s battlefield. He was curious what she had done to clean up her end so quickly. When he realized what she had done, Theo couldn’t help but admire her.

Of course… she had that option.

Sylvia’s battlefield was a muddy mess that was covered with the tracks of a massive water snake. Theo realized that overwhelming mass was a weapon in and of itself. Sylvia’s Liquid Snake had wiped out the undead through sheer physical power.

Theo couldn’t help but respect her quick thinking. “Liquid Snake is a 4th Circle magic, but it’s pretty fuel efficient. It would certainly be useful when dealing with cases like this.”

Sylvia, who was manipulating the Liquid Snake, nodded. “Yes, my grandfather said something like that too.”

Theo murmured, “Indeed, control type magic...”

.

Fire magic consumed a lot of magic power to create a sustained attack, while water magic only consumed magic power to condense magic and form the shape of the snake. It didn’t take much magic power to control and maintain the water snake. Although Theo couldn’t use water magic, and this couldn’t be directly applied to fire magic, he had another option.

Mitra, can you do it?

[Hoi!]

Mitra answered confidently as she jumped out of his arms. An earth elemental like Mitra could freely see through the ground as long as she was in it. Theo wondered if he could reproduce Liquid Snake with earth. He was brushing up against the 5th Circle in sheer magic power, so he had more than enough magic power to spare.

HIs lips curled upward as he thought of a name. “… Earth Worm!”

Soil rose up around Mitra.

Kurururung!

Mud, sand, and pebbles mixed into a ringed cylinder, forming a giant worm. The creature was very similar to Sylvia’s in terms of size, but it would certainly lose in terms of aesthetics. However, Theo didn’t care about such minor problems.

“Wow...” Sylvia’s mouth dropped open as the shadow of the Earth Worm fell across the undead. It was at least a few dozen meters long and towered over the undead.

As the undead fell silent, Sylvia smiled and asked, “By the way, can you control it?”

It was an important question. Most magicians would mock Theodore’s Earth Worm, since control magic’s difficulty increased in proportion to the construct’s size. Theo wasn’t brilliant enough to control something of this size without practice.

It was a valid concern… if this Earth Worm had been cast normally.

Mitra, can you hear me?

Wuuong~?

When Theo called out, the giant Earth Worm wriggled happily.

Sylvia’s eyes widened as she saw the familiar movement. “Ah, perhaps...!”

Theo grinned. “That’s right. I created it, but Mitra’s controlling it. This way, the size doesn’t matter!”

An ordinary elemental without self-consciousness would never be able to pull off a feat like this, but Mitra was an ancient elemental who reigned over earth. This special spell would only work when Theo and MItra worked together.

The Earth Worm barreled toward the undead.

Kukukung...! Kukukung...!

The earth shook as the Earth Worm charged through the undead. They were torn to shreds as the Earth Worm trampled through their ranks. Any undead caught in its path was annihilated by sheer momentum. As the Earth Worm ran wild through the forest, it left a trail of destruction that left no doubt of its strength.

Three minutes later, Theo was looking at a flattened forest littered with the remnants of undead bodies.

Sylvia was dumbstruck. “Amazing...”

Who could imagine that this was the work of a 4th Circle magician? Sylvia’s admiration for Theo only grew. The spell he had demonstrated was beyond common sense. Granted, it was a trick that wouldn’t be possible without some very specific conditions, but Theo still felt a little dazed by the sheer effectiveness of the spell.

Theo gasped, “Ack!”

At the same time, the body of the gigantic Earth Worm collapsed like a sand castle.

“Theo?” Sylvia hurriedly moved forward toward Theo.

Theo smiled bitterly as he realized he had nearly died from overdrawing his magic core. He had experienced something similar when he had first absorbed information from Gluttony, but he hadn’t expected it to happen at this moment. It seemed that even though he had Mitra’s help, he couldn’t entirely eliminate the burden of controlling Earth Worm.

However, instead of frowning, he made a pledge.

This first attempt was a success, so I’ll do it better next time. There are still many aspects that need refining, so I will improve it slowly.

His head was pounding, but he was feeling giddy from the unexpected success. Much like Syliva’s lack of social understanding, few people were as stubbornly persistent as Theodore Miller.

***

Once Sylvia and Theodore recovered and swept through the battlefield to ensure nothing had escaped, they returned to the carriage.

The trembling driver took a peek out before welcoming the two of them. “... Oh, Magicians! You took care of all those ugly enemies!”

Theo nodded. “For now. However, there could be more of them. We should leave as soon as possible.”

The driver paled. “Yes, I understand. I’ll start straight away!”

He quickly grabbed his whip and set the horses galloping. Although it was a bit dangerous to drive so quickly at night, the driver wanted nothing more than to be behind a set of sturdy walls, so he kept the horses running at a brisk pace.

Dakadak! Dakadak!

The carriage quickly left the ravaged battlefield behind.

“Huuuu...” Theo sighed as he watched the forest fly by.

The anxiety he had suppressed to deal with the undead had returned.

Calm down. They weren’t numerous enough to be active long. They probably only appeared recently. No matter how remote the Miller Barony is, I would’ve heard about a catastrophe.

He tried to reason it out, but logic never could cure anxiety. He realized he had unconsciously balled his fists tightly and relaxed. The joy from casting Earth Worm had receded as Theo watched the darkness flit past. His home was so close, but he didn’t know what he would see when he finally laid eyes on it.

In the end, he couldn’t stop himself from quietly cursing, “Damn.”

This straightforward trip was gradually becoming more complicated.