The Return of Lilietta - Chapter 234

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 234

People’s gazes were drawn to the small Black Dragon clinging to Lillieta’s shoulder.

Everyone present seemed to imagine the scene where the Black Dragon would reveal its massive form and breathe black flames that even magic couldn’t stop, burning the entire Mushroom Swamp to ashes.

Jurlene pointed out with an anxious expression.

“Hey, Knight, you do know this is a forest, right? If the fire spreads wrong, it could be a disaster. We might end up having to fight hordes of monsters from the Black Forest that come running out in panic!”

“I won’t use fire, so don’t worry.”

Rita answered lightly and walked ahead, holding her arcane gun.

People saw small swarms of butterflies emerging from the strange-shaped silver staff the Knight was carrying.

Elision recognized those butterflies as the beings that had led him to the Black Dragon. He unconsciously lowered his voice and asked.

“Knight, those butterflies are…”

“They are spirits that help me.”

Since artificial spirits were still spirits, it wasn’t a lie. That explanation just made the scene before their eyes twice as mystical as it actually was.

In the forest dark as night, yellow glittering butterflies bloomed endlessly from the blonde woman and flew ahead to light the path.

The Knight walked as if following the swarm of butterflies she had sent out. With each step, something like golden fireflies emerged around her. They connected like stars, forming rings that swirled around her.

In reality, Rita was simply creating and floating Oath bullets in advance for rapid fire, but to those who knew nothing about Matan, it looked like golden stars were being born one by one and orbiting around her.

Jurlene stared mesmerized at the rings of light rippling around the Knight, then opened her mouth in a daze.

“Kn-Knight, what are these firefly-like things…”

“Shh.”

Rita raised her finger to signal, then added in a low voice.

“Enemies are near.”

Jurlene reflexively raised her hand to cover her mouth. When Lillieta saw this and smiled softly, her face turned bright red.

The Knight looked back at the rest of the group.

“Form up from now on.”

The Captain of the Guard, who had been in a daze, snapped to attention at those words and stepped forward, drawing his sword. Sion and the Captain of the Self-Defense Force took positions beside him, while the mages Jurlene and Allen, and Priest Dorin took their places behind them.

It was a textbook formation and a quick response. It was fitting for those who had shared hardships in the Black Forest where monsters appeared as commonly as sparrows.

Rita felt much more at ease seeing their more stable formation than expected and pointed ahead.

“The Mushroom Swamp is a bag-like terrain gorge with only one entrance, and that hill connects to the outer wall of the gorge. Climb up the hill until you can look down at the mushroom caps, then keep watch below. The poisonous spores won’t reach that height either.”

At her words, people’s gazes naturally turned to Jurlene.

It was the result of an unconscious judgment that Jurlene, the ‘Witch of the Black Forest,’ would know the terrain of the Black Forest better than the Knight who was an outsider. They intended to confirm whether her words were true through Jurlene’s reaction.

At that moment, Rita felt a subtle sense of alienation in the gazes and attitudes of the people looking at Jurlene.

The Captain of the Guard from the kingdom’s refugees looked at Jurlene openly with a businesslike expression. His attitude was like checking the operation of a machine or magical device.

The Captain of the Self-Defense Force from the cave residents observed Jurlene’s complexion with a difficult and cautious demeanor.

Mage Allen glanced at her secretly with a frightened expression, while Priest Dorin started to look at Jurlene but hesitated and deliberately turned his gaze away.

Only Sion looked back at Jurlene naturally with a comfortable expression, as if curious about his friend’s opinion.

And Jurlene only made eye contact with Sion among them and answered toward him.

“The Knight is right. The Mushroom Swamp is a gorge terrain that’s closed in a circle inside, and if you climb higher than the mushroom caps, you won’t get caught in the poison.”

With the Witch’s confirmation added, people climbed the low hill one by one.

Then Sion suddenly looked back. Rita had stopped in place and wasn’t following them.

“Aren’t you coming with us, Knight?”

“I’m going to enter through the entrance.”

“…Excuse me?”

“I’m moving according to divine revelation, so don’t worry.”

Elision showed an expression mixed with confusion and concern, but after glancing once at the Black Dragon on her shoulder, he obediently withdrew.

The group climbed the hill filled with confusion, anxiety, and strange anticipation.

The hill, perhaps part of the White Mountains, became steeper rapidly and turned into a gorge.

When they stopped as the slope became severe and looked down, they could see the interior of the gorge shaped like a round bag. The entrance to the Mushroom Swamp, covered by black mushroom caps like rooftops, stretched out narrow and long like the mouth of a bag.

At the starting point of that entrance, they could see a golden mass. It was the Knight wrapped in several layers of firefly-like rings.

“What is she trying to do down there? She’s not planning to fight three hundred Gremlins head-on, is she?”

Priest Dorin muttered worriedly. Before anyone could answer him, something began.

The first thing they saw was a streak of light. Light rising in a parabolic arc from the entrance of the Mushroom Swamp. Soon after, a trajectory shooting straight up followed that light.

The parabola and straight line intersected high above the rooftops made of mushroom caps. The position was about the middle of the gorge.

The two lights that collided at that point burst like fireworks. Fine golden light scattered, casting a huge umbrella over the sky above the gorge.

And before that temporary, momentary cluster of light created by sparks could fade.

Countless streaks of light shot up from the Knight at various angles. Lights pouring from below to above, leaving golden trajectories.

Countless shining lines formed on people’s retinas.

The people of 821 had no way of knowing that this was over a hundred Matan rounds fired in 3 seconds by an Arcane Gunner who could fire 12 rounds per second even with a body lacking Oath aptitude, using pre-made bullets and improved Oath aptitude.

To them, it was simply a meteor shower.

A golden meteor shower falling from earth to sky. A scene that looked more like stars scattered by a god than something born from human hands.

After the trajectories rose, thunder-like sounds echoed belatedly. As the roar shook the gorge, the first meteor touched the fireworks umbrella spread across the sky.

That light bounced off and deflected. The deflected trajectory touched the mushroom cap covering the Gremlin’s Nest. The light struck precisely at the edge, the outer part of the round, wide cap.

The impacted section bent greatly then returned to its original position. The mushroom cap, as large as a rooftop, was thick and elastic enough that it wasn’t pierced by the ricochet that had lost power from bouncing.

But because of that elasticity, the entire mushroom cap swayed and shook violently. Violently enough that all the poisonous spores held beneath the cap fell.

The same phenomenon occurred on most of the mushroom caps covering the gorge.

The meteor shower that touched the fireworks deflected at various angles, striking the edges of the mushroom caps. With trajectories impossible from the ground, striking down from the sky. Like hail, or like lightning.

The black mushroom caps struck by golden rain streaks shook. Bent. Rippled. Like ripples spreading and waves crashing on a night sea in the rain.

Soon after, screams echoed from beneath the surface made of mushroom caps. It was the cries of some three hundred monsters due to the poisonous spores falling like a disaster.

The 3 to 5 seconds it took for the cluster of light that burst like fireworks in the sky to fade.

It was all that happened in just that brief moment.

People were left speechless at the sight that was even more shocking than a dragon breathing fire.

* * *

Ricochet shooting using a barrier created with defense rounds.

It was a technique Rita had attempted to snipe the magical device on Pascal’s back while avoiding his tentacles.

While rotating the 3D map of the Gremlin’s Nest that the artificial spirit had created for her, she had conceived of applying that technique on a large scale.

By firing two defense rounds at different angles to collide in mid-air, she could create a large-scale barrier even in the void.

Using that generated barrier as a ceiling for ricochet shooting, she could strike the widely spread mushroom caps all at once.

No matter how resistant to poison Gremlins were, they couldn’t endure the poisonous spores that could melt even bedrock with their bare bodies. What they could endure was the accumulated spores, the toxic gases rising from the swamp, and the poison spread in the air – they couldn’t withstand the poisonous spores themselves.

Rita had figured this out through the structure of their nest and the behavioral patterns Minewg had observed.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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