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1085: Battle of the Elderly
《The effect of Self-Evolution has been activated. Gained 100 self-evolution points.》
『Hooray! Self-evolution, finally!』
「Master, congrats!」
『Thanks!』
It took forever since the antidemons in Gordicia didn’t drop magic stones. Plus I had lost a ton of points due to using Potential Release.
I thought I still had a long way to go, but my self-evolution ended up being pretty quick thanks to this bonus stage.
And look at all these self-evolution points too. My last few ranks awarded reduced points since Fenrir-san needed to recover his lost power, so it’s been a while since I got such a payload. I wonder if all the accumulated points came in all at once or something.
『Now then, let’s annihilate the rest!』
「Nn!」
Eight magicite golems remained. They stood no chance against Fran and Urushi, so we quickly wiped the floor with them in less than three minutes.
『Man, what a great day!』
「Nn! Master, you look happy.」
『Of course, it’s been so long since my last self-evolution!』
Moreover, I gained so many magic stone points that my next self-evolution was only 1000 points away. It’s practically within arm’s reach already.
『Okay, let’s check out what’s going on on the other side.』
「There’s way less undead now.」
『Looks that way.』
There were almost 5000 undead to begin with, but their numbers had been reduced in half. Yet another 300 just got deleted in front of our eyes. These old guys really knew how to clean house.
Not to mention their skillful coordination.
Gamudo stood in the front, using his provocation skills to grab the attention of almost all the undead.
「Doryaaaah!」
Along with an ear-splitting shout, he brought down a hammer bigger than his own body to crush the undead, quite literally. His heavy armor allowed him to remain unscathed despite being in the middle of a horde. A fighting style very appropriate for a dwarf.
Diaz stood slightly behind him, seemingly in charge of guarding the two in the rear. He took out any undead that Gamudo missed, as well as invoked illusion magic to lure the remaining undead toward Gamudo.
Their plan was to gather all the undead in a single spot.
That’s when Eiworth’s magic came crashing down, an ice spell capable of freezing a wide area. The 200 undead swarming Gamudo froze solid.
Wait, he hit Gamudo with that too!
While I was stunned, Gamudo didn’t seem to mind at all. He continued crushing undead in the middle of the icy blizzard. We’ve seen Eiworth hitting his allies with spells in the royal capital, and this explains why!
If he constantly employed this kind of strategy, it would become a habit. No wonder he thinks it’s okay to hit your allies caught up as long as they survive.
This was followed by a flurry of Felmus’s threads. He activated the thread trap he set in advance, dicing apart undead caught in the vicinity. Another hundred or so fell to the ground.
That said, they should be able to eliminate the undead much faster if they got serious. Yet they decided to take them out slowly and surely.
Since they don’t know what might happen next, they must be trying to minimize their fatigue.
And their vigilance turned out to be correct.
『I’m sensing a huge mana reaction from the Shallus army!』
「There’s a light too.」
The Shallus army had remained in the rear without any attempt to aid the undead. Then suddenly, a huge pillar of light rose up from their ranks.
The light gradually transformed into a magic circle, radiating a huge amount of mana all the while.
We probably shouldn’t let them finish whatever they’re doing, huh? I fired a spell to interfere with the circle, and I wasn’t the only one on the job.
Eiworth and Felmus had also attacked at the same time. Eiworth with a combination of death poison and ice magic, and Felmus with a shower of threads to impale countless soldiers. Man, threads really can do everything if you use them right.
The soldiers fell to the ground in droves, and all of the survivors were frozen stiff. No actually, it seems something was magically stopping them from moving.
Finally, the magic circle shone with a bright flash.
After the flash, all that remained was thousands of soldiers lying on the ground, and a huge something rising up among them. A brown mass the size of a small mountain
?
『A dragon? That’s a dragon, right? Isn’t it kinda
 too big?』
The size wasn’t even comparable to the water dragons we saw earlier. I’d say it’s like ten times bigger at the very least. Despite being in a crouched state, it easily reached a height of 100 meters.
I also sensed the aggressive aura of mana radiated outwards. This was clearly no lower than Threat Level B, maybe even A.
「Whoa, what! That’s a mountain dragon, one of the higher ranked species!」
「Hohoho! It’s been so long since I’ve seen one. Judging from that color, it must be native to this continent.」
「Hmm, but it seems a bit small for a mountain dragon.」
「Perhaps the summoning shaved off a portion of its mana? The hue of those scales looks a little pale too, so I believe the meat quality will be degraded.」
Thanks to our dragon specialists, we easily found out the dragon’s identity! It seems mountain dragons are, as the name suggests, dragons that grow up to be as large as mountains. They varied from Threat Level C to A.
Apparently they can grow to a maximum size of nearly 300 meters, so this one was still on the smaller side.
「Hey missy, you don’t mind if we take the lead here?」
「Nn. What should I do?」
「We’ll have you deliver the finishing blow. Just focus up your strength until we give the signal.」
「Got it.」
Fran readily obeyed Gamudo’s orders. He was simultaneously a veteran adventurer, a guildmaster, and a specialist in fighting dragons. There was pretty much no reason not to listen to him.
「Hell yeah! It’s been so long since our last dragon hunt!」
「Hoho! Just when I was getting bored of reburying undead!」
「I wonder if the carcass will remain behind considering how it’s been summoned. I’ve been wanting a reverse scale for a while.」
「Mountain dragon tongue is a delicacy, so please leave it intact.」
The four old men stared at the gigantic mountain dragon as if it was mere prey.
Not only did we conveniently have the natural predator of magicite golems here, but also the natural predator of dragons. Funny coincidence. Maybe Raydoss is finally paying for all their bad karma.