Skeleton Knight, in Another World Volume 5 Chapter 23

Translator: Silver Editor: Namorax

「Tajiento’s Collapse」Part 2

If I had to describe it, I would say that the misshapen lump had a relatively scorpion-like form.

However, it was definitely not a scorpion.

Its pale body was ten meters long and composed of a flabby substance. Innumerable human faces covered the creature’s entire body and they wailed in agony despite the condition they were in.

Countless pale bodies supported the creature’s long form as well. The human feet grew out of the creature's body, just like cilia, somehow allowing its ten-meter tall body to slither across the ground with strange and winding movements.

There was a frog-like head elevated above the others and that seemed to be where the creature’s voice had come from.

Behind the frog-like head were multiple, gigantic arms composed of numerous human arms that each held an iron ball and chain, large hatchets and other heavy weaponry.

This was the definition of a nightmare.

The next moment, countless arms with weapons in their hands were growing out of the creepy scorpion's back, all rus.h.i.+ng towards one of the giants.

The very same giants whose hard fur prevented normal weapons from easily damaging them.

However, when the countless weapons struck the giant, it was instantly reduced to a mound of flesh, despite its desperate attempts to defend itself.

When the creature approached the dead giants it opened its large amount, which was lined with countless teeth, and began to devour it.

The size of the giant wasn’t an issue as the creature’s mouth was like that of a crocodile’s, and it was long before I started hearing the gruesome chewing sounds.

For a moment I believed this creature had been summoned by a summoner like myself to protect the humans, but this world wasn’t that nice.

In a somewhat sluggish manner, the deformed creature dragged itself towards the frightened people and proceeded to devour them.

Instead of an angel, a true monstrosity which was literally capable of swallowing giants had appeared from the church. The irrationality of the situation finally set in after witnessing that.

It could be said that panic was the appropriate response to all of this.

As the humans began to scatter, the deformed monstrosity spoke in a leisurely voice.

『This body gets hungry quickly〜』

While spewing such easygoing words, the deformed monstrosity began dragging people into its mouth like a whale consumed krill.

It was an eat-what-you-caught situation.

Meanwhile, the remaining giants attacked the monstrosity one after another, but just like the humans that had escaped into the church, they ended up in its gut.

It seemed like the agonized faces on the monstrosity’s body had increased……

The pale lump of meat eerily squirmed along while eating the humans and giants, the frog-like head chuckling the entire time.

“Kyu〜h”

My mind finally rebooted when Ponta’s worried cry caused me to looked down at her.

“Sorry, Ponta.”

A group of armored skeletons, which had chased after the fleeing people, appeared in the plaza only to be trampled immediately the deformed monstrosity.

For the time being, I've seen enough of this monstrosity.

Even the tiger tribesmen wouldn’t be able to oppose it.

I had to seize the opportunity before it became aware of me.

I raised the 『Holy Thunder Sword』 as pale lights began to gather around the blade and swung it down.

「【Sword of Judgement】!」

The monstrosity’s attention was focused elsewhere, so I thought I could kill it in one blow.

Even though I put enough power into the attack to penetrate the monstrosity’s body, the monstrosity managed to quickly scuttle away when the large magic formation appeared underneath it .

Without a target, the sword of light simply shot into the sky.

So that large body was capable of such movements.

It moved as if someone had put its body on an electric wheelchair and stuck a frog-like head on top of it .

……It moved like an out of control go-cart.

While cursing in my heart, I tried to launch my next attack, but the monstrosity detected me faster than expected.

The huge figure quickly turned around in place.

『Everyone interferes with my peace! Everyone! I’ll break everyone!!』

While the strange voice whined like an upset child, it’s innumerable feet moved in a wriggling wave as it ran towards me. I’ve been found out.

The numerous arms stretched out from the monstrosity's back in an attempt to smash me.

“【Holy s.h.i.+eld of Light】!”

I held my s.h.i.+eld up and activated a defensive skill.

The monstrosity’s weapons reached me at that exact moment.

While defending with my s.h.i.+eld, I began cutting off arms with my sword.

Since the monstrosity’s body was composed of pale lumps of flesh, it lacked the resistance of the giants’ hides, so regular attacks worked just fine.

“Impertinence! Impertinence!! Impertinennnnece!!”

As the monstrosity continued to shout in that strange tone, its irritation growing, it began closing in on me as if it wanted to crush me.

The monstrosity lost sight of me when I used my transfer magic to dodge him, and its body shook while it looked for me.

…… His sight seemed to be fixed and it couldn’t look around unless it turned its body.

Realizing that I could slip into the gaps in its vision and attack it from behind, I launched another attack at the monstrosity's back.

I raised my sword again and invoked another skill…… a fast and short-ranged technique.

“【Holy Light Slash】!”

Raising my light-clad sword over my head, I slashed downwards and a beam of light flew in a straight line at the monstrosity, blowing off some of the feet that were supporting the monstrosity's body. A pained wail echoed through the area followed.

Unfortunately, it recovered immediately and turned around to face me.

…… Its movements were unpleasant every time I saw it.

The monstrosity cursed repeatedly as it readied its numerous arms, apparently not wanting to give me a chance to act.

『Bad! Bad!! So annoying!!! Who are you!!?』

While the frog-like head ranted and raved, it shoot its numerous arms towards me.

I dodged the a.s.sault and fired the 【Destructive Holy Sword】 again but only managed to destroy a few of its feet as the monstrosity dodged the attack.

Worst of all, the damaged flesh started to bubble up and before long new feet grow in place of the lost ones.

While it’s regeneration wasn’t fast, it wasn’t that slow either.

In the game, enemies that had abilities like this monster usually required a party to deal with: some members would stop it from regenerating while others continue to attack and daze the enemy, but I was by myself.

It was like challenging an end game dungeon boss on your own.

There was a simple solution though, I just needed to constantly attack this guy and overwhelm its regeneration with pure damage……

I avoided the monstrosity's arms while I pondered just how i could accomplish that.

I’d cut off several arms already, but their numbers didn’t seem to decrease at all.

…… This wasn’t going well, maybe I should retreat and prepare another strategy?

I looked around the area as I desperately tried to think of something.

Darkness had already covered the area as dusk gave way to night, limiting the effectiveness of transfer magic.

There was no helping it, though I didn’t want to do this often, I had to use an overwhelming a.s.sult……

I used transfer magic to put enough distance between us.

“Ponta! Sorry, but you’re gonna have to fly away for a while!”

“Kyun? Kyun!”

Ponta was momentarily confused by my command, but she still unwrapped herself from around my neck and flew into the air with her wind magic. This was for the best.

After looking up at her, I turned towards the monstrosity.

Having prepared myself,  I used a certain summon for the first time after arriving in this world.

“Come forth, keeper of eternity! 【Aion】!!”

A huge magic formation made from turning, mechanical clockwork began to s.h.i.+ne in front of my feet.

A giant snake with the head of a lion began to emerge from the magic formation.

The lion-headed snake slowly coiled itself around my legs and started to crawl up my body.

When the lion head reached my shoulder it opened its mouth to reveal a sharp set of fangs and proceeded to bite into my neck.

At the same time, the serpentine body turned into a strange pattern that fused into my armor, wrapping my body in a cascade of different colored lights.

【Aion】 was one of the highest tier summons a summoner could acquire.

Its rather unique and special ability allowed it to freeze a player's current state for three minutes the moment it was summoned.

The three-minute-state-freeze was difficult to explain… simply put, my current condition would remain unchanged no matter what happened to me in the next three minutes.

In other words, my health wouldn't decrease no matter how many attacks. .h.i.t me and my mana wouldn’t drop not matter how many spells I used, making me effectively invincible.

However, this didn't mean it was actually as useful as it sounded.

First, a summoner had to reach a considerably high level before they could even acquire the summon. Even after going through all kinds of hards.h.i.+p to acquire it, it was difficult for the summoner to actually make use of this summon.

The main problem was that a summoner could only have one active summoned beast at any time.

Even if you became invincible and could use other magic, a summoner couldn’t bring out a combat-orientated summon. Furthermore, the mana costs to summon 【Aion】was incredibly high. Even if one had an intermediate magic-using cla.s.s as their secondary cla.s.s, their mana would be depleted once the three minutes pa.s.sed.

For those reasons, the only way to use 【Aion】 effectively was to use it in combination with a cla.s.s that had powerful skills…… In other words, you had no choice but to have a cla.s.s of the highest tier in tandem with the summoner cla.s.s.

Unfortunately, the game didn’t allow you to use the skill of all the cla.s.ses that a player had obtained at once. With the summoner cla.s.s required as the main or secondary cla.s.s, one need to have an offensive character build to utilize these particular summon to its fullest.

You could call it the summon of abolishment.

“I’ll finish you off quickly!! There won’t a speck of dust left behind!!”

I raised my sword and s.h.i.+eld as the monstrosity’s numerous feet dragged itself towards me.

Even though 【Aion】was supposed to prevent me taking damage, I didn’t know how that’d work in reality.

While being overconfident was prohibited, ignoring some lesser attacks was a sound strategy.

So I let some of the monstrosity’s arms pa.s.s through my defenses.

I only felt the small shock of the weapons the arms held hitting me as the blow connected…… so the summon was working without a problem.

However, I didn’t know how exactly much time had pa.s.sed since I summoned it, so I didn’t have the entire three minutes to use.

It would be bad if I was still weathering the brunt of the enemy’s onslaught when the effect ran out.

“【Evil Sealing Holy Sword】!!”。

Even so, I could chip away as much of my enemy’s health as possible until then.

With that in mind, I activated one of the Holy Knight skills which caused my sword to glow.

I swung my sword while still weathering the monstrosity’s onslaught.

A streak of light trailed behind the sword’s blade as it evaporated a section of the monstrosity’s body.

『Aghaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!』

While the skill I used had the greatest effect on undead, it seems to be effective on the monstrosity as well.

Since this was multiple times more effective than normal attacks, repeatedly using magic attacks was the best strategy.

Essentially, that was the strategy a player would use while having 【Aion】 summoned, but I had something a bit different in mind.

The monstrosity stepped backed in an attempt to protect itself, but I launched my next attack without giving it that chance.

“Face your destruction! 【Smite the Wicked】!!”

When I invoked one of the Pope cla.s.s’s areas of effect skills, a large s.h.i.+ning magic formation appeared in the sky above the monstrosity, like Jacob’s ladder, before a cross-shaped beam of light fell upon it.

“Aghaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!”

The monstrosity began to scream as its entire body started to evaporate.

Unable to withstand the pain, the monstrosity fell on his back like a brick, killing several giants that had approach the area from that direction.

One of the church’s wall collapsed when the monstrosity’s body collided with it.

However, I didn’t let up my a.s.sault there.

I hammed the monstrosity’s body with 【Evil Sealing Holy Sword】until 【Smite the Wicked】 cool down pa.s.sed and I could cast it again.

By the time the lion-headed snake pattern disappeared from my armor, the monstrosity had been reduced to a lump of melted flesh.

With the majority of its body deteriorated, what remained was a cl.u.s.ter of countless corpses fused together.

“Kyun!”

“Hah, that was tiring.”

Ponta landed on my head just as I averted my gaze from the monstrosity’s remains and surveyed the area.

The church had been heavily damaged by the battle.

But the monstrosity was mostly to blame for that, seeing as it recklessly moved about. It was unavoidable.

While making excuses for myself, I looked back at the monstrosity’s corpse.

Although I’d defeated it, just what in the world was that thing?

In any case, finding Ariane and Chiome was more important than any of my unanswered questions right now.

As I left the premises, I felt the eyes of the citizens staring at me from the shadows.

Now that the immediate threat has been taken care of, I should join back up with my companions.

After looking up at the night sky, I put my sword over my shoulder and continued to walk.

Silver Note:

Aion: a h.e.l.lenistic deity of eternity, specifically unbound time, which is removed from the regular flow of time. He’s a.s.sociated with a single serpent warping around a staff or the ouroboros.

Causality: The natural or worldly agency or efficacy that connects one process with another process or state, where the first is partly responsible for the second. Basically, since the dawn of time causality has been the basis for all understandings of how the world works.

Arc’s summon basically b.i.t.c.h slaps causality and makes him onto a G.o.d. For three minutes his everything proof, even to his own actions.