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Chapter 9 – Yvel
“Kuhahahaa, don’t get carried away, you punks!”
“…What now?”
Did he finally go crazy from all these or something?
The first prince—Heelis, continued to speak even as we turned our attention to him.
“Sorry to say this, but you’re all doomed—’Full Release’!”
After his cry, I heard what sounded like a heartbeat with my enhanced hearing.
And the next moment
“Aa, aaaah, aaaaahhhhhh!”
Heelis’s magic power went out of control…or rather, seemed more like a deliberate outburst?
At the same time, the magic power of the other young royals nearby also went out of control.
The bodies of Heelis and the others gradually changed in size and became more ominous.
Then Heelis and the others transformed into deformed-looking beings.
The muscles covered with dark skin swelled up and became even bigger than an ogre’s. The most noteworthy thing was the enormous amount of magic power overflowing from their entire bodies.
“IT’S STILL IN THE prototype stage, BUT IT SEEMS TO BE a success. I’M OVERFLOWING with POWER”
Heelis’ words were in such a broken language.
“…What the hell is that?”
With a triumphant look on his face, the monster that had been Heelis replied.
“A compulsive enhancement potion—’Yvel’. It is a potion that increases BOTH muscle strength AND magic power to an inhuman LEVEL to become ‘Yvel’. The ONLY drawback is that you may LOSE your reason when you transform, AND YOU MAY NOT be able to return your body BACK TO its original form. ANYONE WHO takes THIS potion will transform AT MY signal. Regardless of WHETHER OR NOT they hear my voice OR IN FACT unconscious. I’m sure that MY men who particiPATED in the attack on the ELVEN Village are RAMPAGING through the capital right now. KuhahahaA”
Oh, so he is the ringleader of the soldiers who attacked the elven village.
Besides, the effects of the potion seem to be real, and it appears to have made him much stronger.
“Well you certainly look nothing like a human right now! Would you like a quick look in the mirror?”
Heelis was unfazed by my provocation. The surrounding former human royalty also stared at me and did not move. They all seem to be able to keep their wits about them.
When I looked at the king, he was smiling fearlessly, as if he knew about this.
Does this mean that the king approved the research?
Then, Tendo with his hood still on, looked at the demonized people and asked.
“Haruto, what do we do?”
“The ones already out of control will probably continue to run amok until they die. The king’s children over there are able to keep their wits about them for now, but if they’re cornered, they’ll also lose themselves and do the same…in which case, there’s only one thing to do”
“…Are you going to kill them?”
I can’t believe he’s still hung up on that at this point in time…but, maybe that’s one of the good things about Tendo.
“If we don’t, the damage will be too great. They’ll kill us, and they might even kill the king and the others over there”
“…All right”
Tendo and the other heroes, including Suzuno, nodded quietly.
Heelis, on the other hand, was listening to our conversation with an eerie smile on his face.
“Kukuku, so WHAT DO YOU plan to do? ARE YOU GOING to fight? OR escape? WELL, I’M NOT GOING TO chase you IF YOU decide to MAKE a BREAK for it. But, I AM GOING TO let loose, THOUGH”
Heelis’ face twisted into a vicious expression as he said that.
Checking the entire royal capital on the map, it seems that these out of control freaks were already running rampant all over the city.
Naturally, running away was not an option.
If we didn’t kill them quickly, they would only cause more fatalities among the people.
“Is there no other way than to kill them…?”
“Tendo, how long are you going to keep that up? And you still call yourself a hero! Isn’t a hero supposed to help people who are in trouble, people who are in need of help, rather than being at the mercy of a country?”
I said briefly, being careful not to be heard by Mariana and the others.
At my words, Tendo and the others huffed and looked at each other.
“Don’t hesitate to do so!  …Of course, you guys are hesitant because you haven’t killed anyone yet. If you don’t want to do this, leave the killing to us and protect the civilians”
However, Tendo denied my words with a strong voice, which was a complete change from earlier.
With a determined look on his face, he held his weapon.
“No, I’m ready now. It’s a bridge I’ll have to cross eventually. It just happens to be today that’s all”
“…I see”
One of them, who had transformed into the so-called Yvel, attacked us as if he had lost patience with our leisurely conversation.
Its movement was faster than I had imagined it would be.
The king, Mariana and the others were roughly evacuated by the elves to the wall. As if to say, they would not let them die until they were punished.
“Tendo, Suzuno, Mogami, Asakura, and Shinonome. It’s up to each of you to decide what to do from here. Now go be a hero—and save lives”
I cut off the head of one of the attackers—or rather one of them, with my sword drawn at lightning speed.
The head fell off easily, and the rest of the body fell down with blood splashing out.
But the next moment, the rolling head turned to dust and the fallen body stood up. Before I knew it, the head had regenerated as well.
“…What’s going on?”
I muttered, to which Heelis replied with a laugh.
“THE enormous amount of magic power HAS enabled us WITH A powerful regenerative ability”
I see. So the overflowing magic power automatically regenerates missing parts huh? But …
I swung my sword at the Yvel that attacked me again.
“IT’s no USE”
Heelis scoffed at me, but as soon as I put the sword back to its sheath—
The Yvel shredded and crumbled, then disappeared into dust without regenerating.
I see, it looks like it won’t regenerate if it’s cut into pieces like this.
Heelis shouted in surprise as one of the monsters was defeated in an instant.
“WHAT THE…DAMMIT, so our POWER IS USELESS on you huh. In THAT CASE, we’LL JUST kill as many of YOUR FRIENDS AS THEY COME! KUKUKU, moreover, WITH YOU SITTING DUCK HERE, IT’S impossible to STOP all of the YVELs running ALL OVER THE CAPITAL!”
I sighed at Heelis’ prickly remark.
“Sigh…I guess you’re trash through and through uh…”
I turned around in disgust and made a declaration to the elves.
“Boys, this time it’s total annihilation. Don’t let even a single one of those Yvel shits scattered all over the capital escape. The outcome will likely be 50/50 if you take ‘em one-on-one, so make sure you take on each of them in groups. And remember, never let your guard down!”
As the elves nodded, I continued.
“Leave Ephyr’s protection to me. When you’re done clearing out the capital, return to this place. I won’t permit any of you to die, and that’s an order! Don’t make Ephyr cry any more, got it!”
The elves replied in unison, “Roger!” and disappeared like ninjas.
The only ones left were us, the king and other royalty, and the Yvel scums.
“There’s no WAY some MEASLY ELVES can even hope to DEFEAT them”
“You think? But I trained those elves myself. And there’s no way they will lose to some third-rate monsters”
◆◆◆
Aegan and the first group had left the royal castle and were running over the rooftops of the city.
The second group headed inside the buildings of the castle, and the third group was going to head to the city center after neutralizing the Yvel freaks within the walls of the castle.
The city was already rampaging with soldiers who had been turned into Yvels, and screams can be heard from all over the place.
The guards were also putting up a fight, but some of the guards and knights had been transformed into Yvels in the first place, so the royal capital is in chaos due to the sudden appearance of these monsters.
“Disperse in pairs. Eliminate those who have turned into Yvel!”
Aegan ordered the elves as he looked around.
And on his way, he spotted a Yvel about to swing its huge arm at a little girl.
The girl was too terrified to move, and her mother rushed to save her, but it was obvious she wouldn’t quite make it in time.
The Yvel then swung its huge arm down on the girl.
“Isley!”
A cloud of dust rises as the mother’s heartbroken cry echoes.
Feeling pretty stoked, the Yvel pulled out its fist, which had sunk into the ground—but there was no sign of the girl, not even a drop of blood.
While the Yvel thought it had obliterated the girl completely without a trace, and even her despairing mother looked puzzled, a man’s voice rang out.
“How dare you attack even a child with no regard…”
A figure in black appeared next to the mother with the girl in his arms—Aegan.
“This time, make sure you don’t let go of her hands”
“Y, yes, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you so much!”
The mother bowed to Aegan again and again.
“You’d better get out of here fast”
“Okay. Um, your name, if I may…”
“My name is of no consequence”
That was all Aegan said, and he raised his weapon.
The mother bowed to Aegan once more and walked away, taking her unconscious daughter with her.
“—Now then, let the hunt begin. Here we go”
“Yes, sir”
Aegan and another elf launched an attack on the Yvel.
The Yvel fought back with a wide swing of its arms to keep them at bay, but Aegan and his partner saw nothing but openings being dumbly created.
As one of them ran to draw its attention to himself, Aegan moved behind the Yvel in an instant and chopped off its head.
The fallen head turned to dust and the huge body fell to the ground.
“Well, if this freak is the same as the one from the castle—”
In front of Aegan and the other elf who said this, the Yvel regenerated its head and stood up.
“—I knew it. Ready your weapon, we’re going to hack at it until it can’t regenerate anymore!”
“Yes sir!”
The two men held up their weapons and smiled ferociously — like beasts that had just found its prey.
The next moment, the two figures disappeared from their spots, and the Yvel’s right arm fell off.
The Yvel tried to regenerate, but its left arm instantly fell off.
Then, helplessly, its left leg, right leg, neck, and torso were sliced and diced.
It seemed to regenerate even with only the body trunk left, but when it took one last hit, it disappeared into the dust.
“All right, next”
“Copy, sir”
Aegan and his team reduced the number of Yvels by one or two more, but a large number had been turned into Yvels, and there were still a considerable number of them left.
In the midst of this, Aegan and his partner saw a group of boys and girls fighting.
Their movements were better than the adventurers who were fighting in various places.
“…Who are they?”
“Not sure, sir. Maybe they’re the so-called classmates of the boss or Tendo and the others?”
For some reason, some of the elves had started calling Haruto “boss” during this mission.
“Hmm. “It’s possible, but they seem to be having trouble defeating it, perhaps they don’t know how?”
As Aegan had said, the group of boys and girls were struggling.
“Very well. Let’s give them a hand”
“Got it”
With that, the two headed in that direction.
～
“Why does it keep regenerating? And where did this monster come from…”
“No point mulling over what we don’t understand! Let’s just figure out how to defeat it for now!”
“But no matter what we do, it’s just going to regenerate…”
As expected, what Aegan and his partner came upon were Haruto’s classmates—a group of heroes.
And sure enough, they were struggling to figure out how to defeat the Yvel.
The next moment, however, a pair of black-clad men appeared and cut the Yvel into small pieces.
“What, what just happened…?”
The words spilled out from the small woman, but then came to her senses and thanked the two people in front of her.
“Th.. thank you for coming to our rescue”
“No need to thank us”
One of the fellows in black—Aegan, replied brusquely.
“Do you know anything about that monster? —Oh, my name is Sayaka Usami. I and these kids here are heroes who were summoned to this country”
The heroes had just returned to the royal capital the other day after being summoned by the king. However, they had yet to prepare for their visit to the royal castle, and were staying at different inns where they got caught up in the commotion.
Aegan and his partner then nodded to each other, as if they were satisfied with what Usami had said.
“So these are the people the boss was talking about…”
“Looks like it”
In fact, Aegan and the others had heard from Haruto that there were other people who had been summoned as heroes just like Tendo and the others, and that they might be in the royal capital.
Thinking that simplifies things if that’s the case, Aegan told Usami what was going on in the royal capital while withholding information about Haruto.
He told her that they were elves and that they had come to this country with the help of someone to take revenge for the previous attack on the elven village. And that this monster is a soldier turned into a monster by a potion made by the royal family.
“Humans turning monsters…then that thing from earlier was…”
The one who muttered was Shoya Orihara, one of the students who had been acting together with Usami.
“A former ‘human’ I guess. A monster who lost his reason”
“And how about reverting them back to humans…”
Aegan shook his head at such words from Usami.
“It’s impossible. According to the prince, there’s no way to turn them back, and even if there was, they’d be nothing more than monsters, attacking people without regard”
But even with those words, Usami and the others were not ready to give up.
Seeing this, Aegan coldly said.
“—It’s useless. Give it up”
“But—?!”
Orihara tried to fight back, but stopped speaking when Aegan held a knife to his face.
In addition to the sheer intimidation, the fact that he could not see his movements at all made him realize the difference in their abilities.
“So pesky, nothing you do can make them human again. Oh, and they’ll die off on their own if we let them be just so you know. But if we wait, who knows how much damage they’ll cause”
“…Is that true?”
“That’s because the prince who made them take the potion said so. That scumbag of a prince should have been defeated by the boss by now, so nothing to worry about”
“Um, who is this boss?”
“If you want to know, come to the royal castle tomorrow with the other heroes”
This is also what Aegan and the others had been told by Haruto. If they should ever come across the heroes, they were told to ask them to come to the castle the next day.
“…I understand”
Orihara half-heartedly nodded his head. Then he stared straight at Aegan.
“If the only way to protect the people is to kill them, then we’d better steel ourselves. I want you to teach us how to defeat them”
“The only way to defeat them—the Yvel, is to cut them into small pieces like we did before. I don’t think you guys can handle them on your own, so cooperate with the elves scattered all over the royal capital”
“All right. Thank you”
Aegan and his partner nodded at Orihara’s courtesy and took their leaves.
—To defeat the many Yvel that still remained.