Chapter 175: Start of Battle
Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Danna
Every Holy War would reset the balance of power between the various races. Not only would the power balance be reset among mortals, it almost always included the True Gods as well.
Nobody was truly immortal. Not only humans, even beings as powerful as the True Gods had their own mortal enemies and insurmountable obstacles. They were fated to fall one day as well, although they would take many lives with them when they fell.
With the fires of the Holy War stoked, order almost completely collapsed, and the suppressed feelings of anger and revenge finally exploded. There were those that hoped to benefit from the war, or those that cursed their enemies and swore revenge. When these “divine” existences began encouraging their own forces, it was only natural that chaos would reign.
The Wind Elemental God Camdian was one of them. He was currently rather frustrated. Even if the Four Ancient Elemental Gods weren’t the main Gods of Chaos, they were the direct subordinates of the Chaos Goddess and weren’t far from being the main Gods themselves.
“Your mission is to cooperate with the Blackwing Tribe and create chaos, understand?”
He was finally released from his seal, and not even mentioning the fact that people were different from how they were, those insignificant ones that should have been below him were actually above him! This was unacceptable for someone as prideful and arrogant as he was.
As the most ambitious of the Four Ancient Elemental Gods, he was highly unsatisfied with his current situation.
“Damn it, that damned Bodwin, even a mere Centaur guardian dares to be so disrespectful! I, Camdian, am the highest existence, how dare these insignificant existences give me orders.”
Even after being unsealed, the position of the Elemental Gods was still rather precarious. As the direct subordinates of the Chaos Goddess, they should have been on the level of the Main Gods, but that was nowhere close to the truth, as even the guardian of such a weak race didn’t respect them.
Unlike the other Elemental Gods that simply became allied to the mortal residents of the land, the powerful Camdian used some tricks and caused the Winged Tribes that had lost their ability to fly to completely subordinate themselves to him. With the ancient floating airship and floating castle within his possession, Camdian had his own ambitions. When he gradually discovered the lack of respect given to his own position, he began having his own ideas about the situation.
“Giving someone as divine as me the order to be the leader of some bandits? If I actually do that, I’ll make enemies out of every country along our path, and as the war drags on, I’ll become nothing more than cannon fodder sooner or later in this Holy War.”
When the hooded stranger came to visit him and gave him an opportunity, his cautious personality made him continue to observe the situation. Roshe’s message was what finally gave him his determination.
“I’ve already received Ayer and Wumianzhe’s promises. Perhaps there will be a new system of Gods born in the Northlands, that’s all I have to say, do as you see fit. But no matter what, the Northlands’ elves belong to me, don’t you dare touch them!”
This twisted and confusing short message still managed to help the Wind Elemental God understand the conflicting feelings in his fellow ancient God that was also experiencing dejection.
“Even if I fail, at the very most I’ll just be sealed and have a nap again, which won’t be any worse than currently. But if I succeed, I can have my revenge on that disgustingly big piece of dirt, and also help the Winged Tribes obtain some territory, which will also help me on the path to becoming a Guardian, gathering belief that can help me raise my rank to a True God, such a great deal… I’ll gamble on it!”
And with the Thunder Lord’s ferocious anger, the ancient battle between elementals restarted in the modern age. The earth elementals that had been in the midst of constructing the dimensional bridge met with their old opponents once more. The thunder and tornadoes that descended from the sky intended to rip apart the earth.
“Boom! Boom!”
The first to open fire was actually the wind elementals’ subordinate Winged Tribes. Cannon fire from the black floating airship set fire to everything before it, and the floating castle in the sky became the Wind Tribe’s fortress and center of command.
While the castle descended, countless black-winged “angels” flew out from within and slid down together with an armada of floating ships as they followed their hunting instincts and joyously roared as they attacked. They chucked their thunder-infused spears that transformed into countless bolts of deadly thunder.
The Wind Tribe’s first attack didn’t have much of a result, as the highly durable earth elemental army emerged from within the ground’s cracks and fought back with their giant stone hammers.
When both sides’ elemental warriors exchanged blows, the battlefield sunk into utter chaos. Countless numbers of earth and wind elementals began close-combat fighting, with tall rock giants grappling against whirlwind tornado giants, and the gigantic children of earth tossing huge stones at the children of the sky in response to the thunder that kept crashing down even though there were no clouds in the sky.
Just at the combat was reaching its apex, a horrendous scream was heard by everything living as they all instinctively looked to the northern sky where a humongous fiery meteor was slowly falling.
“A God has died! A True God has died!”
All the living creatures instinctively knew that the death of a True God had occurred. As for the northern Elf Kingdom, the Elf Warriors who were still battling with their utmost looked on in shock at the sight before them, as they couldn’t believe how the Forest Guardian Clareladin that they believed in was actually defeated by the Evil God Roshe.
There was nothing but scorched earth remaining now at the places where the battling was the fiercest. Nothing mortal could possibly withstand such a destructive battle.
But at this location, people saw gigantic black spiders that would later give them nightmares. These spiders were feeding together with their children, and they were devouring a rainbow-colored half human and half deer Semigod. Judging by the remnants of the trees being devoured by them, even the SemiGod descendant accompanied the fall of the Semigod.
And so, the Forest Guardian Clareladin became the first True God to fall in this Holy War, and Roshe used her successful battle achievement to send out a convincing blood invitation to various existences.
“Coo coo!”
One of the strongest-appearing spiders absorbed enough energy as it transformed into a dark shadow that covered the skies while laughing abnormally, before finally transforming into a human-shaped figure that turned out to be a male Dark Elf.
“Heavens! It absorbed the Dendroid God’s divine power and right to be a God!”
Right in front of the unbelieving Elves’ eyes, the Dark Elves’ new Poison God Felix was born, and the northern Elf Kingdom was about to face their destined nightmare.
From a certain standpoint, even though they were both Queens of their own countries in the Northlands, Glina and Reyne were complete opposites.
Reyne was supremely self-aware of her own status as a Mist descendant. She took her job and responsibilities quite seriously, and always worked her hardest. However, she was limited by her natural talent and abilities, and her growth never reached the goals she set for herself, so sometimes she worked herself way too hard and tried too much, which also gave difficulties to the people around her and made them worry.
And the fact that Glina was a master engineer at such a young age already made many things rather clear. This job was no golden combat job, a non-combat oriented job like engineer needed knowledge and wisdom instead, which doubtlessly meant that her talent and ability were both top-notch.
Also, judging by Clint’s occasional shocking ideas before, Glina was even talented in combat strategy and plotting which Reyne was a complete loss at.
But the current Glina still gave me an odd feeling. Even though I didn’t have too much contact with her every day, she never said anything unless she had to, and when she didn’t have to do anything, her personality would naturally curl up into a ball. It always reminded me of hikkikomoris that were afraid to see the sunlight.
“Ah, the sun is so blinding! Ahh, there’s too many people, it’s really annoying! Ahhh, I’ll be defeated if I go to work! Let me go back into hiding, just ten minutes will be enough!”
“You’ll come back out after ten minutes?”
“Nope, I’ll fall asleep within ten minutes, and lock the door. No matter how you shout for me, I won’t be coming outside. Don’t even think about making me work.”
Fine then, after hearing such a sentence in this game world, I began to suspect if she was another transmigrator from my world who happened to be a complete worthless NEET and otaku.
Even though she was talented to the point where she could memorize her lines after looking them over just one time, the fact that she put no effort into anything whatsoever still took up a large amount of my time and energy.
And currently, right after she finished her performance, it was obvious that she had no motivation or self-awareness whatsoever as a queen, with her old problematic habits acting up again.
“Hey, I already completed your request, hurry up and let me go back into hiding!”
Right after the speech and as the battle horn was being blown, Glina was already requesting to go hide back in her shell.
“Hey hey, you’re going overboard. All the citizens are still watching you. Even if you’re just acting, you’re still the person that they trust in and swear loyalty to, so just bear with it a little.”
The main forces were about to depart, and according to the original plan, Queen Glina was supposed to visit and surveil the new armies, so how could I possibly allow her to escape at this time? I’m going to drag this deadbeat NEET under the sun to work!
“I can’t do it anymore! I’ve already been outside for too long; hurry up and allow me to return to Clint #1 already.”
She seemed like she was trying to suppress something, and her pale-white face was beginning to turn suspiciously red.
“Are you really that uncomfortable? Will you die if you’re in the sunlight? Are you a member of the Blood Tribe? Just what are you supposed to be?”
Just as I was hesitating, she kneeled down while clutching onto her right eye. There was a dark yellow glow leaking out from her eyepatch.
I noticed that something was wrong, and tore off her eyepatch. That familiar dark yellow glow instantly helped me to understand what was going on, so I immediately put the eyepatch back on her.
“Call for some priests and doctors… no, don’t call for priests, go find some alchemists and apothecaries, and might as well call for the guy who doesn’t want his soul anymore as well. Yep, I’m talking about that idiot Beifeng.”
Before long, people would be here to help treat Glina. Even though there was no final report ready yet, I already had an inkling of what had happened.
“Karwenz, you bastard! Making more trouble for me at such a time.”
While holding on to Glina’s petite body, I could detect that her demon’s blood was boiling, which obviously wasn’t a normal situation. There was only one explanation – the Demon Prince Karwenz was summoning his descendants!
However, the struggling girl stopped me from calling for any medical personnel to come treat her. While pulling on my hand, she requested me with a begging look in her eyes.
“Just put me in my armor; there’s mechanisms inside that can help suppress my demonic blood from acting up.”
“What a mess… sigh.”
Well, there weren’t any better ideas. There was no way that the public could be allowed to find out that Glina was a demonic descendant, so while feeling helpless about it, I opened up her Clint armor. Inside its finely crafted interior was a space that was just right for placing a petite child within.
Apart from the half-finished instant noodles and cookies inside it, what caught my attention the most were all the anti-magic chains and magic-sealing talismans on the driver’s seat.
Just as I placed Glina inside, the armor’s metallic shell automatically closed. This was followed by various clinks and clangs as she was locked up tightly, while the black heavy armor’s eyes showed a steady late accompanied by a large amount of steam coming out of the armor’s back. Finally, the metallic giant that was over two meters tall stood back up again.
“You even have a steam exhaust valve, which is such an obvious sign that Clint is actually a mecha. Why didn’t anyone ever discover the truth?”
“I witnessed it once before, but I thought it was just brought on by bad digestion… It’s something that most people would be embarrassed to ask about.”
“What about the light for the eyes? It’s clearly unnatural, they’re red light bulbs, right?”
“There’s more than one person with scary eyes in our team. Who knew what bloodline he came from? Since Clint always met people directly, it seemed normal that he was a halfblood. Sigh, not being a Blood Tribe or a Werewolf though caused me to lose so much money.”
“Oh, you also placed a bet? I bet on Half-Dwarf, and also lost all my money. Damn it, just who is this GL001, that actually bet on a blonde-haired loli and won all our money last night when the gamble concluded, my poor money.”
“GL001? Isn’t that Clint himself? Damn it, that guy cheated all of us by betting on himself!”
Fine then, let us ignore these unimportant mysterious ramblings. No matter what the fact that Clint had now revived before us was a good thing… probably.
“Clint #1, revived! Ahhhhh, I’m finally comfortable now, let’s have a blast to celebrate!”
The revived Clint instantly pulled out several Dwarven guns and shot an array of bullets into the sky as the Gentlemen Alliance members behind us commented.
“Ahaha, how could one round of blasts be enough, go for several thousand.”
The armor began transforming quickly as a swiveling gatling gun was assembled. In some regards, a human identity had always been a limiter on Clint’s true abilities.
“Pop pop pop!”
Together with the joyous sounds that Clint made while shooting everywhere, he began dancing a dance that nobody understood. And after he finished using up his bullets, he began cackling maniacally while using spare parts to assemble a new weapon.
“So scary, his entire personality has changed.”
“The armor must be the true body after all. Something like a quiet little girl? Just a hallucination.”
Unlike those guys who were merely enjoying the show, I knew that Glina was still resisting the summoning of her demonic blood. Thinking about how the inwardly resolute girl was currently tossing and turning in her pilot’s seat caused me to have a mysterious pain in my heart.
‘Had she always been tying herself up like that? At the same time as controlling that mecha, she even locked herself up with chains and injected herself with various magic-sealing needles. This isn’t even at the level of painful anymore, it’s basically torture.’
Not to mention, I knew that this wasn’t a good plan for the long-term. A crack in her defenses would appear someday no matter how much she denied her own demon blood, as human willpower was limited, while the demon’s summoning would never cease. Forcefully blocking it out would cause a problem sooner or later.
“…The only method is probably that one then.”
Beifeng who hurried over here as well, probably to check the situation, exchanged knowing glances with me that we must have arrived at the same conclusion.
“Is that really the only method left to us? Its success rate is quite low. But with how strong Glina’s willpower is, she should be able to endure it.”
Just as we were concerning ourselves with how to cure her, a familiar and nostalgic abnormally stimulating scent entered our nostrils.
“…Gunpowder?”
“Adopted father, what do you think of my new fireworks! I created this using the new formula you gave me, and I call it the ‘High-pressure Goblin Mine.”
The clinging and clanging sounds finally ended as a large High-pressure Goblin Mine with a lead wire coming from it appeared. Feeling the fearsome amount of energy emanating from underneath that iron shell, I started breaking out into a cold sweat.
“Hey there, are you planning on killing your own father already? I already said that it didn’t need to be for real, don’t take it so seriously.”
I thought that she was going to use it on me, but after witnessing her rubbing Clint’s iron face against that explosive’s outer shell, I knew that I had been mistaken. Rather than wanting to explode it on me, she was clearly bragging about her new invention.
“You’ve barely recovered slightly and you’re already so eager to make a new explosive? As expected of the Explosive Demon Clint.”
“Guru guru.”
A small black rolled over and crashed against my feet. I was no longer able to remain calm after I picked it up and saw what it was.
“…This seems like a safety pin.”
“That’s right! Ah, without this, it’ll explode immediately…”
“Boom.”
No need for any more details. I could only sigh as I watched Clint spiraling away through the air while also secretly being amazed at how strong the Clint armor’s anti-explosive properties were.
“As expected, this is just like Clint.”
Just as I finished my statement, everyone was already nodding in agreement.
“The armor is the true body, and the sound of explosives is only the accompaniment. A true man never turns around to watch his explosion. The legendary man that leaves together with the sound of his explosives is simply that cool and confident.”
Alright then, a certain idiot’s wistful comment received everyone’s praise once again, but I was rather astonished.
“Weren’t you occupied with battling that lion’s head? You gave up? That’s really not like you.”
“Sigh, don’t mention that, I truly lost this time, I give up, I admit defeat!”
There was actually an existence in this world that Beifeng was unable to conquer? I was no longer the only one shocked now, as everyone was looking at him with surprise written all over their faces. They were all unable to imagine that he would actually give up, since he was always using “true love would never be defeated” as his trademark phrase.
“It doesn’t matter how strong they are, or the age difference, since true love doesn’t have too much to do with outer appearances, but, but, he actually…”
Beifeng with tears in his eyes? This was my first time seeing such a sight; was a failure in love that depressing for him?
“…He actually turned into a Snow Girl, and even a humanoid, a humanoid. How are you supposed to have love with humanoids! This is the greatest failure and regret in Beifeng.Herault’s life! I actually fell in love with a humanoid! My love isn’t pure anymore!”
I clutched my head as I deeply regretted wasting my time on this bastard for the umpteenth time. If he could feel sadness at a normal type of failure in love, then he wouldn’t be the extraordinary gentleman known as Beifeng, with the sin known as “Sad Wind.”
“Well, we should have made him into the experimental test subject for that Goblin Mine. It’s not too late yet, let’s have a cannoneer, we have a brave warrior who’s volunteering to go out and scout the enemy’s situation.”