Chapter 45 (1/2)

Volume 1

Chapter 19 – The Hero will help a bit 3

The day has finally turned to night .

At this time of day, a remote farming village with a poor lifestyle that matched the sun should be engulfed in darkness, with only the sounds of the billowing wind and the cries of insects to be heard, but within the capital’s main street are bars situated all over here and there with their lights on .

Unlike during the daytime when the people were normally bustling about in the streets, the bars were now filled with noise from adventurers that were out hunting until dusk almost night and merchants striking deals . Waiting for an hour or two would be the best time to fade into the darkness .

And so, we headed a little to the east from the north gate to the other side of the slums near the walls . Now that we were in a place completely devoid of people, the two of us who had put on the black robes we’d bought at the rag shop so we wouldn’t stand out, finally poked our faces out of the hoods .

「Alright, we are here . 」

The night wind was gently grazing the rampart, robbing it of heat with its chilling cold . While being white just like marble, its surface was instead coarse, due to the glittering sand-like materials under the brilliant shine of the moonlight .

The glittering like sand was said to be of starlight stone, which had the property of absorbing mana from the air which was then used to maintain the various spells warding the rampart .

「Master? I don’t see anything resembling a hole…」

Minnalis seemed confused while examining the wall; because from her point of view, it didn’t even look worn out, let alone bearing a hole in it .

「No no, you can’t see the hole right away, we will make it . I said so, right? We will destroy the wall . 」

「Destroy the wall… that, I’m sorry but that is…」

For knowledgeable people, it was common sense that the town’s ramparts were absolutely sturdy .

There was a common folk story that was told to children regarding the ramparts of the capital, it goes like this: Even the tackle of an Earth Dragon, an A class dragon which was unable to fly but instead has powerful charging capabilities wouldn’t be able to make so much as a dent on those sturdy walls . There also remain records of attacks from rare encounters with powerful monsters that attacked the wall to no significant or visible impact .

The general idea is that there was no way that that could be done, much less by a single person .

The rampart being destroyed by a single individual, is the kind of thing that doesn’t appear even in the stories of drunken adventurers in the bars of any town .

Saying that such walls would fall is an earth-shattering event for human beings who live in the city, precisely because they thought that such a thing is impossible . This is the reason why people can sleep soundly even when they have knowledge that outside the walls are forests, grasslands, mountains, and snowy fields riddled with monsters .

If there was an existence able to do such a thing by itself, it would most likely be treated as an existence from fairy tales .

…he would be treated as a legend, or maybe a monster, I’m not sure, but I was treated as the latter .

「Minnalis, walls are basically only stacked up stones; so why do you think it can withstand the assault of upper-level monsters?」

「As for that, numerous spells had been applied to the walls…」

「Right . In the walls of any town 『Self-restoration』, 『Anti-degradation』, 『Strength Reinforcement』 are used . At the capital 『Shock Absorption』 and 『Magic Damping』 are added on top of those in normal towns . Because those magic spells are imbued with a large amount of mana, it maintains the highest level of strength . What provides that mana, are these particles of light; it’s the mana that these starlight stones absorb from the surrounding atmosphere . 」

Of course, those details are only known to the people in the so-called privileged class .

Rather, for the townspeople, it was only known as “the amazing wall that won’t be destroyed even if attacked by monsters or an enemy country . ”

「In other words, if the mana is insufficient, then the strength of this wall will also be reduced . This thing will just become a stone wall and if it is just a stone wall then it wouldn’t be indestructible, right? Besides…」

I said so with a faint laughter, instead of an ability, the Holy Sword of Beginning can be strengthened by imbuing it with mana .

「Because this guy isn’t the only thing that eats mana, you see . 」

「This is…」

Although, I knew that it would become fragile, the wall collapsed easier than I thought .

The stone that had separated from the wall fell to the ground, and mixed between the tattered rubble, red, brown, green, transparent and multicolored little maggots were lurking .

Wriggling covered in a transparent mucus, they were twisting themselves on the ground with the sparkling moonlight reflected on them .

Then, from the collapsed walls…

『Mugyamugyamugyamugyamugyamugyamugyamugyamugya

mugyamugyamugyamugyamygyamugyamugyamugyamugya

mugyamugyamugyamugyamugyamugyamugyamugyamugya . 』

…… . . almost covering the stone, were hundreds and thousands of maggots .

Unlike the common texture of the wall’s surface, the mucus excreted by the maggots changed the texture of stone walls giving it the feel of a wall of meat made from a living creature .

The stone that was afflicted by the mucus lost its whiteness, changing into the reddish-brown color of the ground .

「By eat, did you mean this?」

「Yeah, it’s a D-class subspecies of the magic eating demons called “Magic Eater” aka “Wall Eater . ” They breed and eat mana by dissolving magic minerals with a special mucus, once the food is exhausted they turn back to sand . Since it is a new species, they still don’t have a name, at least it shouldn’t . 」

The insides of the stone rampart were already in a tattered state . The maggots were eating the stone, filling it with holes like a sponge .

At an indiscernible rate, little by little over time, the strongest wall would transform into a wall of sand that crumbles when touched .

「It will become more fragile than a regular stone wall when that happens . So much so that making a hole becomes easy even in the hardest of surfaces . 」

I said so while I lightly pierced the soul sword towards the wall, the stone along with the Wall Eaters crumbled .

The deeper the hole was, the larger the density of Wall Eaters became . It was basically impossible to perceive whether it was a wall of stone, or of maggots .

「………」

While looking at it, Minnalis fell silent .

Even for a man like me, seeing the marble-like structure painted with red and green patterns, was as if looking through the insides of a gut-like organ with tens of thousands of maggots wriggling around; it is something I would refrain from experiencing again . Let alone a woman like Minnalis, she would definitely dislike a spectacle like this…

「Milord, don’t you think that pushing someone down into a hole filled with these maggots would be a good method of revenge?」

Minnalis said so while looking this way with an earnest face .

……somehow, my evaluation of Minnalis seemed to have gone up again, just how far will this accomplice of mine intend to raise her value?