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Chapter 139 – Day 31 of the Strategy Life
The next morning, a thick fog had rolled in.
The cries of monsters could be heard.
Gyoeeeeee!
I recognize those as imps.
Kiiieeeee!
Guoooo!
Agyagyagyagya!
There were quite a few monsters fighting in the thick fog. The croaking of frogs could no longer be heard.
“Has it been like this since midnight?”
“Th-Th-That’s right.”
Sylvia replied, carving the staff.
“Look at that cup.”
Hel, who was sorting branches, pointed to a stump with an ice-magic drawn cup on it. No one had touched it, yet the droplets on its surface were frozen.
“Is magic floating around?”
“This fog might be magic. Do you know of any monsters like that?”
“No, wait. Maybe it was in P.J.’s notebook.”
As I flipped through the pages, I found a description of a large shell monster that created fog to confuse sailors. Since the monster didn’t have a name, P.J. might not have discovered it himself but heard about it in folklore.
“I’ve heard that there’s a monster called a hamaguri that’s born from a snake and a pheasant. It creates fog and shows illusions.” [T/N: Hamaguri means clam, specifically the common orient clam or Venus clam.]
Ka-Ryu, who was sorting branches like Hel, explained.
“I see. I wish we could see the illusions. Have you been to the swamp?”
“No. Sometimes monsters run up the hill to escape, but I haven’t caught any.”
“Th-There were some big ones, like Lamia and the Haze Turtle, escaping, so I thought it was dangerous…”
“There’s no need to force yourself into danger.”
“Gwood mowning.”
Chel woke up and greeted us with a yawn.
“What’s this?”
“It looks like a monster is creating fog. Chel, can you clear it?”
“I’ll try!”
She took off her magic-sealing bracelet and swung her arm with a whoosh.
The surrounding mist was sucked away, leaving water droplets clinging to her arm.
The slope that had been covered in mist became visible a little further ahead.
“Can we go?”
“Let’s go check it out. Sorry, Sylvia and Hel. Can you prepare breakfast?”
“O-Okay.”
“I told you not to do anything reckless, but I guess there’s nothing we can do now. Just don’t go too far.”
As Sylvia and Hel watched us off, we cleared the fog and made our way down the slope, Chel still half asleep.
We could hear the intermittent cries of monsters.
A large haze turtle shook its head as it entered the swamp and lay on its back. It seemed to be in a state of confusion.
“It’s impossible to tell if the fog has been mixed with poison.”
Chel and I covered our mouths with the cloth we had brought to wash our faces and used it as masks.
Thud.
We heard a sound like something large falling to the ground in the nearby forest.
When we entered the forest, we found a giant ape monster lying on the ground. It had some wounds from when it fell, but it wasn’t seriously injured. It had a pulse, was breathing, and seemed to be asleep from poison or magic.
“I feel someone watching us.”
“Yeah.”
As we examined the monster, we felt piercing gazes coming from various directions. They were the same kind of gazes that monsters give when their prey is taken away.
The one creating the fog or using poison to confuse the other monsters must be nearby.
“Should we do it?”
I channeled magic into my legs and arms as I said that. Chel shook off the water clinging to her and channeled magic into both hands.
“Let’s go.”
“Okay…”
As I responded, thicker fog suddenly appeared all around us. It was Chel’s magic. She gathered the fog into a ball of water and sent it into the sky.
The fog cleared, and we could see far into the distance.
The source of the gaze was a swarm of golden bats perched in the trees. Their eyes were red, and their fangs were so large that they couldn’t close their mouths. They looked unusual. Their fur also seemed to glow faintly. Locusts change color during mass swarms. Do golden bats do the same?
Before they could react, I closed the distance and pierced their abdomens with magic cubes.
Thud, thud, thud.
Three golden bats, each about the size of a person, had cubes of meat removed from their bodies.
The bats perched in the trees were also skewered by flaming spears.
Kyoeee!
The bats let out an alarm call that echoed throughout the area.
Once again, the fog began to appear from somewhere. Chel manipulated the water ball to clear the fog.
“It’s to the east!”
We decided to scatter the golden bats for the time being and focus on destroying the source of the fog.
We ran through the forest, headed for the crocodile ranch, crossed the hill, and passed the giant magical beast’s footprints when the fog suddenly cleared.
“We went too far. Let’s go back.”
“I think the center of the fog is around the hill.”
As Chel said, the fog was thick around the hill. Even after Chel gathered it with her water ball, more fog appeared.
A gibier deer ran past me, trying to escape the Golden Bat that was attacking it.
I jumped up and landed on the Golden Bat’s back. I looked around. There were no monsters that could create fog. According to P.J., there shouldn’t be any large shells in the inland area.
I twisted the Golden Bat’s neck and jumped off.
As Chel cleared the fog, monsters emerged from the swamp and headed toward us.
“It’s definitely the Golden Bat that’s confusing the monsters.”
When I looked in the direction Chel was pointing, I saw the Rock Crocodile from the Crocodile Ranch, which the Golden Bat had sucked dry, rampaging through the forest and flipping over.
The only injury was a bite mark. Even if there were bite marks on the giant ape, it would be impossible to tell without using sonar magic to examine its insides.
Slurp.
For a moment, I heard a sound like something being sucked in.
“Didn’t you hear a strange sound just now? Something like sucking…”
“I can’t hear anything because of the screams.”
There were many screams from the monsters, but I definitely heard the slurping sound.
Slurp.
“It happened again.”
“I heard it this time.”
Chel also seemed to have noticed the sound.
“Could it be underground?”
I place my hand on the ground and release my magic. From the magic that returns, I immediately understand what it is.
“It’s the hill. This hill is a clam monster, Hamaguri.”
“Huh?”
The tree-covered hill was a giant, clam-shaped monster. It generated mist and sucked in and devoured the escaping monsters.
In this demonic land, even the inland areas are home to gigantic clams. Doubting that is the real absurdity.
The clam was feeding on the monsters gathered by the frog outbreak.
“Golden bats and clams are also using the frog outbreak to survive.”
I climbed onto the clam and used my magic cube to pull out the shells visible on the ground. I obtained a cube with a white, cross-sectioned shell. Chel had frozen its contents with ice magic. All I had to do was break it with my fist.
The fog that had formed around us cleared, and the morning sun shone through.
In front of me, a field boar’s corpse drained of blood and mummified, fell.
A flock of golden bats flew in the sky. Even from atop the giant clam, I could see rock crocodiles and lamias fighting near the swamp while golden bats snatched their young.
The bats caused chaos, fighting and snatching the young while the monsters were distracted. Furthermore, if the fighting monsters flipped over, the bats ate them, too. It seemed the bats were taking advantage of the fog from the clams to do this.
Around the swamp, numerous corpses of large monsters had been flipped over and dried out from being drained of blood. Many golden bats were also swarming around the giant ape-like monsters.
“Even if it’s for adaptation, that’s pretty brutal.”
“Let’s burn them.”
Chel and I burned all the bats we could see.
Amidst the monsters’ screams and the Golden Bats’ warning cries, we calmly continued our work.
The area around the swamp was stained black by the charred remains of the bats.
When the flipped-over monsters stood up, and the smell of breakfast began to waft through the air, we stopped and returned home.
“It’s more like mental magic than just chaos.”
After reporting to everyone, Chel looked at the Golden Bat’s magic stone and said that.
“I-It excites them with a single bite, increases their aggression, and then eats them when they’re immobilized by the status effect. That’s like something a vampire would do.”
“I don’t want to eat bat meat for a while.”
“What should we do with the giant clam’s corpse?”
“If we crack the shell and expose the flesh, the monsters will eat it. Wait, who’s going to crack the shell?”
Everyone looked at me.
“Me? Everyone, help me clean up.”
“Should we collect the magic stones?”
“We should. But I don’t think we should make them into a staff.”
“In case someone attacks the demonic land again?”
“Yeah. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen.”
In the end, we spent the whole day cleaning up the bats.
We pulled out the magic stones and either burned them or fed them to the plants. Thanks to that, the plants around the swamp seem to be growing well.
I removed the soil and wood from the clam shells, broke them into small pieces, and fed them to the rock crocodiles at the crocodile ranch. Even though they were frozen, they smelled like the sea, as one would expect of creatures that originally lived in the ocean.
In the late afternoon, while I was washing in a small stream near the entrance, two startled elves approached me. They had been working in the hut.
“Margrave, are you okay?”
“Huh?”
“You look pretty tired…”
“Oh, is that so? Maybe I am. There’s been a monster outbreak lately, so I guess that’s why.”
“What?! Do you have enough food?”
They seemed concerned.
“We have enough food, but there are so many corpses to dispose of that it’s difficult. We don’t have enough people to use a human wave tactic. You two, please learn how to enter the demonic land as soon as possible.”
“Ugh… yes.”
“I’m not confident yet.”
They both looked apologetic. It seemed that the lower-class elves lacked confidence. Perhaps their status was very low in their homeland.
“We’ve started building roads, so we’re trying to set up training facilities. I think the military will send more people soon, so keep that in mind.”
“Understood.”
Even though the two of them had become hunters of the forest, they were still afraid of the demonic land.
“Pride and confidence… How did I do that?”
I reflected on my life in the demonic land. Most of the time, I was so desperate that I don’t think I ever felt pride or confidence. Even if I had, they would have been crushed immediately.
Today, my sense of common sense shattered again.
I kicked slimes aside, wiped my body, and returned home.
The evening breeze felt pleasant.
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