The Tin Knight

Chapter 80: The Tin Knight and The Land of Deep Green (10)

In fact, since entering the Garden, Adelaide hadn’t shown much of a performance.

She could fight reasonably well against ordinary wild animals or magic beasts, but she couldn’t defeat individuals that the Tin Knight—and Dorothea, who was influenced by him—evaluated as “boss-level”.

The reason was simple.

It was because her attack power was insufficient.

When dealing with people, most attacks with a sword would be effective, so there was no need to struggle with lack of attack power, but among the strong in the Garden, there were many who considered slashes no more than scratches.

Her exceptional evasion ability and agility didn’t disappear, so she didn’t lose easily, but Adelaide also lacked the ability to deliver a decisive blow, so stalling her opponent was her limit.

And this time, the monsters born from the fruits each possessed strength at or just below boss level.

Honestly, they were enemies Adelaide couldn’t handle.

So.

Whoosh!

That was, until white energy settled on Adelaide’s sword.

[■■■!]

With an indescribable roar, a wolf dripping green fluid from its mouth pounced.

Adelaide, using her left foot as an axis, rotated her body and quickly brushed past the wolf’s side.

As the momentum of the rotation aligned with the trajectory of the sword, a white sword light diagonally slashed the wolf’s flank.

Splurt!

Blood erupted from the wound and the wolf’s body split.

It was a terrifying power that cut through not only fur and flesh, but even bone.

The one most surprised by this chilling sharpness was none other than Adelaide herself.

Wow, wow, wow!

Adelaide marveled.

Originally, she would have had to aim for the eyes or stab at the mouth to barely manage, but now she could just casually slash and cut through as she pleased, opening up a whole new world.

It was also the joy of a newbie liberated from unintended restrictions after being forced into them day after day.

If the Tin Knight had known, he might have lamented, “You shouldn’t get hooked on equipment and buffs so soon!” but he himself was in a state of battle frenzy, so it wouldn’t be very convincing.

Adelaide, transformed from an evasion-type tank to an evasion-type dealer, sprinted across the battlefield as if in high spirits, and her trajectory was strewn with blood.

Behind her.

The wolf first cut by Adelaide twitched its body.

Although it was already a fatal wound, the wolf didn’t lose its life.

No, far from losing its life, sprouts blooming from various parts of the wolf’s wounds intertwined, showing signs of trying to restore the injury.

“You think I’ll just watch that?”

But unfortunately for the wolf, there was a vicious and ruthless witch here.

Dorothea took out a small glass bottle from her pouch and sprinkled the liquid inside on the wolf.

This liquid, which was barely a mouthful of water in amount, absorbed Dorothea’s mana and rapidly increased in volume, thoroughly soaking the wolf’s entire body.

The reaction was dramatic.

The wolf’s body—touched by the mysterious liquid—simply melted away, instantly leaving only bones.

As Dorothea struck the ground with her staff, the wolf’s bones reassembled in mid-air to become a skeletal wolf, and the liquid turned into mist, beginning to fill the surrounding area.

It was a mist composed of a curse full of resentment from dead creatures and extreme poison made from materials gathered in this forest.

The legs of a deer touched by the mist trembled. A snake, startled, burrowed into the ground to avoid the mist, but the poisonous energy seeped into the ground, polluting it. Even the grass quickly withered and twisted or simply melted into liquid.

All the creatures in the surrounding area began to writhe in instinctive fear, screaming.

Perhaps thanks to the mana and plant power they contained, few individuals died, but once Adelaide knocked them down, even that resistance became meaningless.

Enemies who suffered fatal wounds from Adelaide and then touched the mist soon became just bones, becoming new undead under Dorothea’s command.

Little by little, the overwhelming difference in numbers began to be filled.

Sophia marveled, “It’s terrifying. I think I can understand why Dorothea’s teacher was so feared.”

“You’d better stop judging my teacher based on me. That person is a real monster. Besides, this isn’t that easy to use.”

While giving instructions to the undead, Dorothea grumbled, “First of all, I can’t distinguish between friend and foe. The tin can isn’t a living body to begin with, and it doesn’t affect me much as the source of mana, but other than that, it involves all allies, too... At least, that’s how it originally was supposed to be.”

She gazed at Adelaide with her blue eyes.

Even while fighting in the mist full of poison and curses, Adelaide didn’t show signs of suffering.

The white haze emanating from the sword Adelaide was holding.

Holy power that looked like a light cluster or white flame was protecting Adelaide from the poisonous energy.

Usually, there were many inconveniences due to the repulsion between holy power and necromancy, but now this characteristic was actually helping.

Ironically, Sophia, who took damage from the holy power she used herself, seemed to improve her condition after being enveloped in Dorothea’s black mist, perhaps due to her race.

It was a party where it was impossible to tell whether their combinations synergized or not.

***While the trio of Dorothea, Adelaide, and Sophia were engaged in an occupancy battle against the overwhelming numbers of enemies.

The Tin Knight was confronting the tree, which could be called the enemy’s main body.

Rumble!

A tree root thick enough to fit the Tin Knight whole if hollowed out charged forward, plowing the ground.

Following it, several smaller tree roots wriggled like worms, targeting the Tin Knight.

The Tin Knight avoided the thick tree root, then swung his sword to cut off the smaller roots.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ marvels at the enchant effect!]

In fact, unlike Adelaide, for the Tin Knight, who could skillfully handle mana, weapon enhancement by holy power wasn’t that essential.

Rather, its pure cutting power was inferior to sword energy.

But the enhancement by holy power had a big difference from sword energy, which was that it didn’t consume even a bit of the Tin Knight’s own mana.

And without having to pay careful attention, it always guaranteed a constant attack power.

In other words, it was possible to pour all the energy that would normally have been used for sword energy into other areas.

Boom!

With a heavy vibration, the Tin Knight avoided the roots coming down on him and climbed on top of them.

Then, with his sword stuck into the root, he began to climb the tree.

Slash slash slash!

The path created by the Tin Knight’s sword was one, but the sword wounds themselves were not singular.

Following the Tin Knight’s path of movement, countless sword energies scattered as if dozens of people had slashed, leaving deep wounds on the tree.

《────》

Spewing green fluid like blood, the tree emitted a wave.

It looked almost like a painful scream.

The tree tried to call out the magic beasts around it, but the magic beasts caught in the fight with Dorothea’s trio had no capacity to support the tree.

Even when it tried to call forth new magic beasts, the supply of “materials” to use as nutrients was insufficient.

All the “material” had fled due to Dorothea’s black mist neutralizing the hallucinogenic substance emitted by the tree.

A massive energy stirred inside the tree.

When no more nutrients could be absorbed from the outside, the tree used the nutrients inside its own body to give birth to new magic beasts.

The fruits that had been open at the top of the tree exploded, and the magic beasts inside pounced towards the Tin Knight.

Instead of pulling out his sword to fight them, the Tin Knight raised his shield.

Covering his body with the shield by extending his left arm forward. Around the Tin Knight, who hunched his shoulders and neck, a faint mana flow began to leak out.

As the Tin Knight accelerated further in that state, the silver mana drew a long tail.

Thud thud thud thud!!

The magic beasts blocking the Tin Knight’s path couldn’t pierce through the streamlined mana and were flung in all directions.

Or rather, they were flung away to put it nicely, but in reality, they looked as if they had been hit by a truck.

Like a large snake coiling around its prey, the Tin Knight ran diagonally up the side of the tree, literally grinding its surface.

The tree tried to regenerate its body somehow, but even that wasn’t easy.

The sword wounds left by the Tin Knight were surprisingly deep and sharp, and Sophia’s holy power burned the tree like real flames, gradually increasing in scale.

When it managed to calm the fire with the nutrients and mana left in its body, this time the black mist burrowed in as if seizing the gap where the two energies were exhausted, causing the tree to rot.

Adelaide’s movements, slaughtering the ground-based magic beasts, were getting faster and faster as if she had grasped the knack during the fight, the undead army controlled by Dorothea was growing in number, and Sophia was watching from the side as if she had done all she could.

Whoosh!

The Tin Knight, who had ground up the entire side of the tree, finally reached the top part.

The Tin Knight, who had barely pulled out his blade, poured mana into the sword imbued with holy power.

Sophia’s holy power and Dorothea’s mana.

The two energies showed an explosive reaction as if repelling each other. Unable to withstand the singularity of energy, cracks began to appear one by one in the sword held by the Tin Knight.

However, the Tin Knight cared not.

One step ahead of the sword breaking, he struck down hard on the top of the tree.

The part that would correspond to the crown of a person’s head.

Crack!

A slash combining black and white light swept through the tree.

“It seems to be over.”

Right after Sophia muttered those words.

Thud.

The bear-shaped magic beast confronting Adelaide collapsed.

No, not just that, but other magic beasts also lost strength one by one, sitting down or tilting to the side as they breathed their last.

Dorothea and Adelaide, with their swords and staff lowered, gazed in the direction Sophia was looking.

The tree, which had been emitting mana with an intense pressure, was now enveloped in silence.

The dizzying sweet scent and the faintly glowing radiance had all but disappeared.

And then.

Crack.

A crack appeared in the upper part of the tree.

At first, so small it couldn’t be seen with the eye.

After taking a breath, it was large enough to be seen if one concentrated.

By the time a voice of amazement was raised, it was clearly visible even from afar.

Half of the tree, which had been gradually tilting with creaking sounds, eventually collided with the ground with a tremendous noise.