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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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Initially, the current leadership of the Empire, including the Crown Princess and Elena, as well as Eileen who had stubbornly insisted on coming along as an escort on a task that could have been sufficiently handled by the knights under their command, had expected this verification process to take at least two weeks.
The Nord Mountains were a place almost untouched by human feet, and the Empire barely understood its true nature, with only highly skilled rangers occasionally passing through for reconnaissance.
More accurately, it wasn’t that they hadn’t tried to understand it, but that they truly couldn’t.
In any case, everyone agreed that the number of monsters in the Nord Mountains would be beyond imagination, and they would consider it a great success if Rudrick could reduce their numbers by even 1/3.
Within the Empire’s territory, it would be difficult to see higher-ranking species like trolls or ogres unless one went deep into mountain valleys, so it was impossible from the start to expect him to deal with all of them.
However, Rudrick’s actions far exceeded these expectations.
“How about pouring poison here?” Rudrick suggested.
“…Poison?” Eileen asked, surprised.
“Yes, poison.”
As they ventured deeper into the mountains, the number of monsters, which hadn’t been very visible at the base of the range, increased dramatically.
After the ogres that were annihilated by Rudrick’s first spell, they encountered higher-ranking species with powerful regenerative abilities like trolls, as well as lower-ranking monsters at the bottom of the food chain like goblins and kobolds.
The number of monsters Rudrick had encountered and dealt with was now approaching three digits.
When they reached about halfway up the mountain, they came across a frozen lake.
There were cracks in the ice here and there and crucially, Rudrick had just incinerated a goblin that was sticking its face through a crack to drink with a lightning bolt.
This was the proposal he made immediately after.
Eileen asked with a confused expression at the sudden suggestion, but Rudrick calmly confirmed his words.
“It seems other monsters are drinking from here too. If we just pour poison in, wouldn’t it be simpler to deal with them without having to hunt them down?”
“That’s true. But I’m not sure if we can pour enough poison to kill the monsters when they drink from this entire vast lake, not just a small puddle or well…”
“That’s not a problem. We have magic.”
Rudrick replied as if it were no big deal and surveyed the surroundings.
Already, as they had climbed this far up the mountain range, it was difficult to find any animals even if they looked carefully.
The ecosystem of this mountain range was primarily divided between omnivorous lower-ranking monsters that mainly ate berries and small insects, and higher-ranking monsters that preyed on these lower-ranking monsters or barbarians who came to gather firewood or medicinal herbs.
There was no need to worry about indiscriminate poisoning affecting animals other than the targeted monsters.
While poisoning the entire lake might seem like an extreme method, Rudrick was still capable of making that level of judgment.
Though the means might not be sophisticated, it was a method that was sure to be effective and simple.
Supporting this assumption, only footprints of humanoid monsters were visible in the snow around the lake, while it was difficult to find tracks of animals that used this lake as a water source.
“Is such a thing possible with magic?”
Eileen asked cautiously.
“You just need to think about it simply,”
Rudrick replied, extending his hand towards the crack in the ice.
“The essence of magic is transforming one thing, mana, into another thing, a spell.”
As soon as he finished speaking, a magic circle formed in the air and began pouring a glowing green poison into the cracks in the ice.
It would be diluted throughout the entire lake, and it was impossible to even guess how much poison would be needed to contaminate such a large body of water.
This was a method that would have been difficult to even attempt without magic.
In reality, there wasn’t much difference between dealing with visible monsters using magic and poisoning the entire lake that the monsters used as a water source.
However, Rudrick’s current appearance seemed as if he were thinking of something else, looking like a person without a soul, and this aspect troubled Eileen’s heart.
Perhaps because all her attention was focused on Rudrick, Eileen didn’t have the leisure to notice the gaze watching them from afar.
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“For a human, he’s using his head quite well. I didn’t expect the human empire to be concerned enough to send such a capable mage.”
The light-emitting stones embedded in various parts of the cave walls emitted a faint light, which then flickered as if the lighting was unstable and the blue-haired beauty who had been watching the scene through magic synchronization with her dragon’s eye until just now, exclaimed in admiration.
For her, that level of magic was something she could easily perform even in a half-asleep state, but in her view, Rudrick’s capabilities as a mage were admirable.
She quickly recognized that among humans, he was a talent that might only appear once every few centuries.
After dispelling her magic, she muttered to herself while looking at the light-emitting stones giving off a faint glow.
“Five hundred years is a long time to use them. It’s about time to replace the light-emitting stones… Now what should I do? I didn’t expect such interference.”
In the dragon’s lair, the scene of the cave was similar to what Rudrick had once seen when he visited Sylphia’s lair.
Whether dragons as a species shared the same aesthetic sense, the design, which a human architect would have criticized as low-quality, was identical.
And Abel, the blue dragon who had made this vast Nord Mountain range her home for thousands of years, since before the establishment of the Esgelant Empire, was in a troublesome situation.
“I was just about to enjoy an interesting amusement… It’s inconvenient when such interference occurs.”
Abel continued her monologue in a chilling voice, making a disgruntled expression.
Using dragon-eye soldiers created with magical power to drive the monsters in the mountain range down to the base was part of her plan.
The goal was to drive the monsters within range into the plains, threatening the barbarians.
Naturally, the barbarians, threatened with survival, would desperately try to cross the barrier and enter the empire’s territory to escape the monsters attacking from behind.
But it would be unlikely for the poorly armed barbarians to cross the heavily fortified barrier, and their descent into despair was a predetermined outcome.
“…I was planning to appear at that moment and proceed with this amusement in the concept of being the leader of the barbarians.”
Abel grumbled.
In oral history, there was a legend of a great chieftain who united the barbarians and founded a barbarian nation by crossing the cursed great barrier and for Abel, who had lived in the Nord Mountains since the unrecorded distant past, this was a history she had witnessed with her own eyes.
It was a story from over a thousand years ago, but for Abel, who had been living quietly without engaging in amusement for several hundred years, it was a kind of entertainment that appealed to her.
That was why she had been carefully planning for ten years and was just about to reap the results of her efforts.
Yes, that was certainly the plan, but…
“…Suddenly, I’m in a bad mood. Should I kill him?”
The pupils of Abel, who was in her polymorph human form, slowly dilated.
Between her vertically slit pupils, reminiscent of a reptile’s eyes, an undisguisable killing intent was swirling.
The humans of the empire weren’t fools either.
Judging from the fact that they had grasped the cause of the situation and dispatched such a capable mage to resolve it, their response was textbook and clean and even in Abel’s view, the method Rudrick was using to deal with the monsters was a good idea.
It was obvious that pouring poison into the entire lake that the monsters used as a water source would, whether Rudrick intended it or not, have a steady long-term effect in reducing the monster population.
As long as they had intelligence, they would probably figure out that something was wrong with the lake water, but the extreme poison created by magic would certainly be more effective than any attack spell from a great mage.
Naturally, this was not good for Abel’s plans.
The critical interference that came just as she was about to reap the results was enough to test Abel’s patience.
‘If I kill him here… surely no one would know the culprit…?’
The Nord Mountains were a place where no human presence could be found even if one looked carefully.
Even if Abel suddenly appeared in her true form and killed Rudrick, it would be impossible to find the culprit.
It was enough interference to break her patience.
Rather than changing course and starting a new amusement, Abel was tempted by the easy option of simply eliminating Rudrick here and now.
Just as she was contemplating whether to act on this impulse,
“…I see you’re still plotting such nefarious schemes.”
“Hm? Who’s there?”
Abel turned her head curiously at the voice coming from outside the cave.
And from outside the cave, Sylphia, wearing a pointed hat deeply pulled down like those commonly worn by human mages, was walking in steadily while speaking.
“Cancel your plan. If you try to force it, things will escalate considerably.”
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[This battle gonna be lit af]
