Chapter 12 - Calamity (1/2)
Chapter 12: Calamity
Eldrin was sitting on his bank on the porch, carving a piece of wood Slowly shaving the edges away, he progressively revealed the the forh talent to take up orking as a profession, he didn’t have the need to, and only enjoyedsive them as souvenirs to friends and people close to hi alone he had thrown the only objects he had ever carved in the blazing flames of the hearth
In spite of that, he had thought of a new design this day, soether with the little black and red dragon during the long rainstorm
No clouds were obstructing the delectable sunlight any knife as well as a se, visualized the final form of his creation and started his work
As Eldrin was enjoying the warht about the little ani in the lobby The elf chuckled upon re eyes the creature had made after it had been told that theprey
The talk about ranks was somewhat too h all the details, but the perspective of a fight against alizard and it had left to chase so, which should keep it busy for some time
Eldrin continued to work on the figurine until the wood took the foreneral outline, he paused for aon to the delicate details like the scales and limbs
At this
Under the assault of the deafening hohich contained berserk flame aura, Eldrin’s control over the [Water Screen] was slowly reducing to nothingness , as his ainst the sudden assault Alarmed by the abrupt development, the elf swiftly folded the knife and put it back into his pocket together with the statuette
He then picked up the staff leaning besides the bench he was resting on Circulating his mana around his body to the wand, Eldrin realized with a bitter sicalwith the inspiration source of the figurine resting in his pocket
The enemy revealed itself shortly afterwards in the appearance of the young noble who had already tried to seize Little Flae should have belonged to this teah to believe that they had good intentions regarding a beast rare enough to be worth a kingdom
However, seeing the new addition to their party , he couldn’t help but frown He had expected the noble to report the events back to his house, and the news of a wild dragon e was so important that it would ate personally
Eldrin was sure that his words as a royal court ht to dissuade any of those leaders froon under his protection
Contrary to his predictions, this juvenile ed to obtain a ht him evenly for the scaled beast’s ownershi+p
Based on his experience, the being’s aura was that of an A class monster, probably around the seventh rank
Walking on four legs the ani rey scales with a burning flame on its tip The head was crowned by that sa feeling completed by red eyes and a maw filled with bloody canines
According to the elf’s memory, this kind of demon was part of the hellhound race and quite vicious at that
While the elf was exaest threat, the noble youth had walked half the distance between himself and Eldrin
“You didn’t think I’d be back, did you old man? I don’t care who you are, you actually dared to disrespect on from you and make him my slave!”
Without giving Eldrin a chance to answer, the arrogant youngster continued his speech
“You called race to all nobles ! So what if I sacrifice a few commoners, they should be honored to be of use to on for yourself, you’re not one bit better than me!
Even worse, you were born a peasant too, you had to marry into nobility Filthy elven scum, no one will ever knohat had happened to you on this day!”
The boy was talking hier at Eldrin while shouting accusations with a scarlet face, disregarding all logic and basic caution Though it was true that Eldrin had ious fah a life of hardshi+ps and trials he had been able to acknowledge the harsh life co theer in respect of their efforts, instead of further exploiting the Little Flame, how could he ever enslave and imprison such a beautiful creature?
None of the charges the youngany sense to the elf, but the infuriated youth would e his mind, or even understand any word, as he was already completely frenzied and had started to mumble the incantation of a spell
His two knights positioned thesword Eldrin had already seen, and the other earing a dark leather armor instead of the plate armor from the last time
Although they didn’t pose a large menace to Eldrin, he was still thankful that they did not attack hie to inflict hies who couldn’t keep up with the aura cultivation of -ranged attacks wasn’t an uncoy in adventurer’s team
Luckily Little Flaht up in thehis pitiful amount of aura in his lithened thein He didn’t have ainst the co fire froive up
Pouring more mana into the enchant around his figure, deemed to shi+eld hi up, Eldrin walked a short distance away froe
As for the enee, he didn’t idle around
“Attack!”
With that single short command, the hellhound burst intohis back and his paws in a layer of rey flames
The seven s around Eldrin probably didn’t appear as an obstacle to theas fast as he could in his designated target’s direction
Unwilling to get hit even a single ti on his earth aura to shi+ft just slightly away fro to rip out a chunk of his flesh Stu a little from the sudden acceleration, he casted a set of [Water Arrows] locked on the monster, a rather weak spell of the third rank, to test the defenses of the hellhound against water ic
To his dis a [Fire Torrent] targeting him Already in motion, Eldrin was unable to avoid the spell He had to trust the ical protection he had su to deflect the incoher rank, yet he still frowned after seeing one of the water ring floating around hinificantly due to the absorption of the offensive spell of an opposite ele his own arrows
In a one on one confrontation, the noble of the third rank would have had no chance of injuring a person 4 ranks higher than him ; but with the assistance of the hellhound, Eldrin would have a long and arduous fight before bringing down theene a feounds
At least his burden was soothed when he witnessed his own spell hit its target and threw the rey fla a pained moan from the hurt fiend
Unfortunately the er than Eldrin initially thought : the inferno ignited back straight away, and its intensity increased, expanding towards other parts of his fur Turning around, the hellhound uttered an angry growl and rushed to the elvenin its eyes
Cold sweat broke out on Eldrin’s forehead as he realized that the fierce dog was retaining an innate ability within its monster core, h the abandon of one’s sanity, and granted great strength and speed to the user, increasing steadily over the course of the battle
Of course there was a backlash to the powerful technique, the caster would incur injuries proportionally to the duration of the activation time and from the strain put on the body If the maximum span was exceeded, the accu pered sword
Eldrin easily assumed the flames on the hellhound’s body to represent the duration of the innate abilities use, and it would seely reach its limits as soon as his whole body would be wrapped in flames
This second charge broke through the already weakened outer the elf fro Eldrin’s defenses to six charges He swiftly retaliated with the highest ranked attack e] and smaller [Ice Tridents] of the same rank, which consumed less mana
A slight worry began to creep into the old elf’sof his defensive spell while dodging the hellhound’s inco assaults, but his reserves of uessed that the situation would turn this dire when he had ushered the young noble to scrarets
His body had trouble keeping up with the assailant teaes, and that h at himself Ten years before he would have been able to carry on fighting for days, yet a short battle today had hi for his life
The whole reason behind his departure from the city and his choice to live on his oas to peacefully pass away, yet when he was close to fulfill his wish, he exerted himself as hard as he could to survive
Under the irony of this situation a laugh must have escaped his lips, as the rowl, unsure on how to take the ae skeptically stared at him too
“What’s so funny old man? You’re about to die!”
The childish outburst of so of hilarity the elf was experiencing, and he had to use the short ceasefire to draw a deep breath