/
Necromancer
*This is from Esta’s POV*
After parting from Chris-san and Ralf, I cautiously continued onwards on the left path towards Elphas.
Surprisingly enough, I didn’t feel very nervous at all. In fact, all I felt was excitement over being able to have an all out duel against Elphas, an elite that would surely become a famed one alongside the hero.
Before I met Chris-san, I would have never even thought of things like this, and would have been too busy stealing just to survive—–a life as the lowest of low among humans. And yet Chris-san had pulled me up to this level. All I felt towards him was nothing but gratitude.
And this was my biggest, and perhaps last chance to show my gratitude to him. This moment is what I had been training all this time for.
“Awoo!”
As my fist clenched tighter and tighter, Snow howled which finally made me look up and forwards again…….
Suddenly, I was in a massive open space, like the arena itself.
But this wasn’t actually the main arena, and the ground was made up of earth and soil that’d be easy to move around in, and a bunch of wooden dummies had been set up around the area.
It was an extremely dreary looking area but, considering the open space and general structure of the room, this was probably like a training area for the competitors of the arena.
Also, in the centre of it all stood a single woman.(T/N:wtf Elphas was a woman!? Damn this language and their non-gendered pronouns! Anyway, fixed from now I guess.)
I had prepared a decent set of equipment for myself as well but, hers seemed like at least 2 levels above my own. It was splendorous looking robe, red in colour with gold decorations.
In her hands was a long staff that seemed to be made with a bunch of branches intertwined with each other, and the tip of the staff was a strange object that looked sort of like an hourglass.
Considering the rarity of the equipment she wore, this woman was probably Elphas.
Even as I took a step further and fully entered the area, Elphas showed no signs of moving.
Coming close enough and finally scrutinizing her face, it turned out to be quite contrary to her equipment in truth.
Unlike my dull red hair, she had vivd rosy red hair but, half of it had turned white it seemed.
It didn’t seem like she had dyed it that way either, and it felt more like it had naturally gone white for whatever reason.
She was from a respectable noble household so she was certainly good looking yet she seemed to have no expression on her face, making it impossible to read any emotion from her.
Her complexion looked deathly pale, and there were deep dark circles under her eye that would honestly make one worry for her health.
Honestly, I was worried that she wasn’t in any state to be fighting but——-Elphas silently, without speaking a single word, simply aimed her staff towards me without even showing any change in expression.
“Not even interested in having a chat first, and straight to battle?”
“………What’s the point? You will die soon. [Animate Dead Abyss].”
She muttered with a thin voice, and activated her magic instantly.
The ground of the area began to tremble as three different looking undeads rose up from the ground slowly.
“Snow, can I leave these——-“
Just as Chris-san had ordered me, I was planning to let Snow handle the undeads and attack Elphas directly myself but…….
The moment I saw the undeads that rose from underground, I knew instantly that that plan was not going to work.
The first one was a winged, four footed monster, three times the size of Snow——Undead Melanchimaera.
The second was the absolute worst kind of undead, said to have destroyed a country many years ago in the ancient past——Noble Lich.
And the third one………unlike the first 2, it was one that I didn’t recognize and was just a normal human looking undead but, I could feel an overwhelming sense of danger from it.
I was sure that one was the most dangerous of all the undead, and if I let Snow face it alone, Snow will certainly die.——that was the kind of overwhelming pressure it was releasing.
While racking my brains over how to deal with this situation, Elphas seemed to care naught about my predicament of course as she continued to summon more undead soon after.
This time it was mostly mid tier undeads that we had fought a bunch of on the way here but, with three extremely dangerous undeads already here, even just this kind of increase in their number spelled trouble for me.
“Snow, Snow, can you defeat those two but not the humanoid looking one for me?”
“Aurf!!”
For now, I ordered Snow to take on the two strong undeads except the especially dangerous looking one.
When alive, a Melanchimaera was considered Mithril rank.
Noble Lich was diamond rank normally but, I’m confident if it’s Snow, it can defeat even that.
And the one I must face is the most dangerous humanoid undead as well as the mid tier scrubs.
While carefully assessing the situation, I would have loved to slowly analyze their strength before fighting them but, of course, I didn’t have such leeway right now.
Chris-san who’d always protect me is not here, and neither is Ralf.
Snow will be fighting other monsters, so I need to face this all by myself.
While rapidly running my brains to figure out the best way to deal with them, first I decided to start by firing a powerful magic at the strong human undead.
It’s body was entirely covered in black and you really couldn’t see anything, and all you could see was the armour and sword it was equipped with.
The armour looked very old, and parts of it seemed to be falling apart but, I could feel the same kind of strength from it as Ralf’s [EidosKarna].
The sword on the other hand seemed pretty normal but, regardless, it was clear that this human was once definitely a top class swordsman in his life.
If I let it get close, I’d have no chance of winning so I need to keep pushing it back with high power magic until it’s defeated.
“[Meteor Flame].”
A compound magic made of fire and earth element, [Meteor Flame].
A magic where you launch of rock ball enveloped in flames at the enemy that deals both heavy impact as well as elemental damage. It was truly an efficient spell but—–
The human undead simply smashed the fast approaching burning rock with his bare fist and stopped it just like that.
It didn’t even seem to take damage from the flames either, and the fist that had smashed the rock seemed to be undamaged as well.
It didn’t seem to look in a hurry either, as it slowly and casually began to walk towards me. But that only made it look even more fearsome.
Seeing that I was instantly reminded of Chris-san’s words, “Klaus and his party have been apparently digging up graves of old heroes and reviving their bodies as undead.”
Probably, this human undead was once a hero too.
Elemental damage didn’t effect undeads much, and the physical impact was nullified very easily as well. I just didn’t see how I was going to win this fight anymore.
Should I give up on the former hero undead, and focus on directly defeating Elphas instead?
For a moment, I also considered simply running around to try and dodge it as well but, I knew that I would still end up dying before I could take down Elphas even if I tried that.
If it has ended up like this………I have no choice but to use my trump card.