Dark Fantasy’s Extra – Chapter 79

Author: Dawn

There were about 30 failed experiments charging at us.

The pressure was immense as these bizarre, eerie beings swarmed in from the front and sides with no gaps between them.

I took them out one by one with sniper shots, starting from the ones furthest away.

The reason for not targeting the closest ones was simple.

Those nearby would be swept away all at once anyway.

When Sephira swung the holy sword Robera, a pure white arc of blade energy spread wide, slicing through all the failed experiments in its range.

Just repeating that was enough to cleanly cut down everything approaching us.

These failed experiments were just humans who had partially transformed into Beasts.

As Sephira said, they didn’t even reach mid-tier Beast level and weren’t difficult enemies even in Blue Paper Moon.

It was just psychologically intimidating to have so many attack at once with their grotesque appearance.

For a higher-ranked hunter like Sephira, even 100 times this number wouldn’t be difficult to sweep away.

However…

Just as I was about to shoot the head of the furthest failed experiment, I elbowed Oscar who was hesitating.

“Huh, what?”

“You take care of that one.”

I nodded toward it.

“But…”

“But what?”

It was just crouching in a corner trembling, showing no sign of approaching us.

Tears streamed down from its eye sockets where a red glow emanated.

“What’s wrong?”

Sephira asked after finishing her cleanup and sheathing her sword.

Now only that one remained in the corner.

“I was teaching Oscar.”

“…”

Sephira glanced at the last failed experiment in the corner and seemed to understand the situation as she stepped back.

“Those things can talk, right? Plus that one at the entrance… it seemed to want to die…”

“So what about that? Don’t tell me you want to say they’re human?”

“I just…”

“Beasts were all originally human. Then are all hunters murderers? Hm?”

“Ah, no. That’s not what I meant…”

“I’m not trying to give you a moral lecture. I don’t want to persuade you either. Just kill it quickly.”

Oscar is still young.

As someone who was a modern person in my past life, I was always concerned about human rights issues like child soldiers.

Due to memories from my past life, I often saw problems in things others took for granted, and always felt the lack of human rights and technology.

But in this world, there’s no room to hold onto ideals.

Until now, Oscar had only dealt with things that were practically creatures, but from now on he’ll frequently encounter beings where the boundary between human and creature is ambiguous.

And sadly, Beasts with intelligence and self-awareness tend to be more powerful and cruel.

It’s better to get used to it by killing a weak one here.

After hesitating, Oscar created a small blade in his hand.

It was an attack spell called ‘magical power blade’.

A very simple magic that sends a guided blade flying at the target.

But even that is a high-level technique difficult for ordinary people and even most hunters to imitate.

“This… this just feels wrong.”

“War never makes sense. But it’s reality.”

“…!”

Oscar flinched greatly at those words.

Ozwald probably said similar things to him too.

The reason he’s called Great Mage isn’t just for academic achievements.

It’s because he created many spells for surviving battlefields and killed countless powerful Beasts himself.

Ozwald knows.

I know, Sephira knows.

Anyone who fights Beasts knows.

And now Oscar needs to know too.

He raised a trembling hand toward the failed experiment huddled in the corner crying.

The magical power blade flew and pierced its side.

“Aaaagh!?”

Attacks using magical power are extremely effective against most enemies.

The reason mages are valued in Beast hunting is that even Beasts immune to silver bullets are often helpless against magical power attacks.

That spell could have killed the failed experiment in one hit.

“It hurts! It hurts! Please save me!”

But being stabbed in the side wasn’t enough for instant death.

“Ah, ugh…”

Oscar stumbled backward and collapsed sitting.

I shot the writhing failed experiment in the head, and thankfully was able to kill it instantly this time.

“…Well done.”

I couldn’t bring myself to tell him to aim for vital points properly next time.

We left the bloodstone lab briefly and rested on the stairs again.

Oscar in his current state would just be a clear hindrance if we continued forward together.

“No, no. I’m fine…”

Oscar said.

“I was just… a bit surprised. I’ll do better next time…”

Since Sephira is here there’s no major safety concerns anyway, and though not as much as Hilde, it’s also important to let Oscar gain experience as he’ll be an important talent in the future.

That’s also why Ozwald sent him here in the first place.

After resting a bit longer for Oscar’s sake, we continued forward.

The next room was a corridor the same size as where the failed experiments were.

Similarly, iron-barred doors lined both sides, and they all opened at once when we entered.

“Huff… huff…”

What emerged from there had a clearly different appearance from the failed experiments.

Their entire bodies were tightly wrapped in what looked like leather sacks with glass bottles containing unknown liquids embedded throughout.

Their faces were covered by gas mask-like devices with hoses attached.

The holes near the mouths on their masks only kept emitting noisy breathing sounds without speaking any words.

The moment the ‘spider family’ members emerged from the rooms, they saw us and their bodies writhed strangely all at once.

It looked like multiple people were rioting inside the leather sacks wrapped around their bodies.

Then arms that looked like a mix of insect and human parts burst out from inside, tearing through the leather.

Though their appearance was still disgusting and repulsive, they were still just oddly-shaped mobs before Sephira.

“The cutting resistance is still below mid-tier. But don’t let your guard down.”

Sephira said after cutting down three in one strike.

From the cut parts of the spider family members flowed not red blood but a sticky green liquid.

Oscar finally started attacking on his own now too.

Of course, the fact that the spider family couldn’t speak unlike the failed experiments must have also lessened his psychological burden.

By the time I had dealt with about four of them, the battle was already over.

Even with the spider family’s sticky blood, Sephira remained perfectly clean, still pure white.

Oscar stared at her blankly.

Just seeing such an unrealistically clean beautiful woman in this horrific battlefield inspires awe.

Especially the holy sword in her hand, which was white beyond white to the point it should be called colorless, was originally used by the Saintess.

It’s no wonder many hunters view Sephira as the Saintess’s avatar.

“Let’s go. We’ll leave the Beast corpses here again too. We need to conserve holy oil.”

Sephira lightly flicked and sheathed her sword again.

Oscar followed behind Sephira as if entranced.

Is he going to fall for Sephira instead of Hilde at this rate?

Or was he never a love interest and I just got ahead of myself?

Or perhaps the story is being twisted because of this unusual department, or rather what should be called a team.

While any possibility exists, I can’t confirm anything.

I shook off the stray thoughts and followed behind them.

After going down another long staircase, we arrived at the largest and widest room yet.

In the center of this space reminiscent of a soccer field stood a massive tree with red leaves.

It was ‘Blood Klifort’, one of the mid-bosses in Vile’s old laboratory.

Unlike Beast of Bone Fragments we saw in the juniper forest which had different insides and outsides, this tree itself was truly a Beast.

“Ugh…”

Seeing Blood Klifort, Sephira rarely frowned.

“That… that…”

Oscar walked toward the tree with a dazed expression.

“Snap out of it.”

I grabbed his nape and shook him.

“H-huh?”

Oscar stopped walking and looked at me.

“Do we… really have to destroy that?”

Oscar said.

“It’s so… beautiful…”

He still seemed unable to regain his senses, probably entranced by Blood Klifort’s extremely complex yet precise magical power composition.

I lightly struck Oscar’s head with my fist.

“This is no ordinary tree.”

White energy rose from Sephira’s sword.

It transformed into the giant skeletal form that had appeared when fighting Blanc.

“I sense strong curses and complex magical power systems. And something I’ve never felt before… it’s hard to explain. I’ll take the initiative.”

Sephira sent a white blade energy wave toward Blood Klifort.

Her blade energy left a large wound on the tree, but that alone wasn’t enough to fell it.

Rather, it was rapidly regenerating the wound.

“…It seems to be taking no damage.”

The skeletal form surrounding Sephira dispersed and returned to her sword.

Changes began in Klifort after receiving the attack.

The red leaves fell to the ground and melted like liquid, forming a large pool.

Then masses of blood with creature forms rose from inside that pool.

In Blue Paper Moon, Blood Klifort was a boss that was difficult to face head-on due to special gimmicks.

While nullifying all attacks, it would spawn mobs called ‘Flowing Blood Beasts’ in proportion to the damage blocked, and among these, randomly killing certain ones would damage the tree body.

On easy difficulty, those special ones would glow bright red and be labeled as ‘Deceivers’ instead of Blood Beasts for easy identification, but on hard difficulty there was no way to distinguish them from other mobs.

And here too there were no distinguishing characteristics.

I sniped one of the nearest Blood Beasts.

Though the Blood Beast with a silver bullet in its head thrashed, it didn’t stop charging toward us.

There was no change since it wasn’t a Deceiver that could damage the main body.

Fortunately their movements were sluggish so we still had time.

“Let’s fall back first and discuss what to…”

Oscar who had finally regained his senses said.

“Think while moving.”

“What do you think, Mr. Eugene?”

Sephira asked standing right beside me.

I knew what she was asking without her spelling it out.

“How about we deal with the small ones one by one while thinking? There must be some way.”