Those Who Are Right 4 (1/2)

“But- But- But- It huuuuuurts!”

Castelia was desperately clutching the right side of her face and head while she was curled up on the ground with her head in Keira’s lap. The young dryad’s features were charred black and gave off a faint stream of smoke. One could easily see the dull red embers on her cheeks, which ran all the way down to her shoulder.

“Shhhh. I know, sweetie,” whispered the catgirl while stroking her as grass-like hair as gently as possible, “but you have to try and bear it.”

“*Sniff sniff* But it huuurts! Moooommyyyyy!”

What a pain, thought Boxxy. Still, I’m glad we’re not in her tree.

The place Keira and the other dryads had occupied was nestled within the crown of Lilly’s tree, who was on the northwestern end of the front. While it was also on the side facing the enemy, Castelia was the one who ended up shouldering the biggest burden.

“Torenia, be a dear and help Castelia out. Lilly too.”

“Do we have to?” replied the two in unison.

“Your sister is in pain. You would want help if you were in pain, right?”

“Yes… Okay! We’ll help right away, mommy!”

The two of them got closer to their scorched sister and put their hands on her back. Although a seemingly plain action, the fact they could do that so casually was quite extraordinary in and of itself.

It wasn’t just Castelia and Torenia, but all 5 of these Hylt trees were unnaturally close to each other considering their age. Ambrosia had said her kind’s near-infinite vitality was quite demanding when it came to their food, and those needs only grew as the tree aged. As a direct result, they would naturally choke the life out of other trees - including their own kind - in an increasingly larger area around them. That was why typically only simpler and more resilient plants such as weeds, grasses and shrubs could manage to thrive anywhere near a Hylt tree, such as Cyrilla to the south. Even Azurvale’s original 12 were packed relatively densely, despite there being literal kilometers between them. They were an exception, though, as the soil underneath the elven capital was extremely abundant in both nutrients and natural mana, so their roots didn’t need to spread too far to obtain the sustenance they needed.

Of course, none of the dryads’ lording over natural resources was done maliciously or even consciously. Survival of the strongest was just the way nature worked. Plants were not exempt from this rule, and if any plant deserved to be called ‘king,’ it would undoubtedly be the Hylt. Which was why Fort Yimin was so peculiar. Ambrosia had said it wouldn’t be weird if only two, maybe three of them survived under those conditions, yet there were five of them. Not only that, but they were rather underdeveloped for their age.. In the first place, the idea they looked completely identical and were so completely in sync with each other was downright bizarre.

As it turned out, the root cause for all of these oddities was just that - their roots. This grove’s roots had apparently mingled and melded together to the point that they had unified into one gigantic system. Even if they were doing it subconsciously, these dryads had been sharing their food for centuries. This link between them was how they could so casually enter each other’s trunks in the first place. It was more accurate to think of them as a single, five-headed organism rather than completely separate beings.

This was also why Castelia’s ‘wounds’ were healing at an incredibly rapid pace. The young dryad’s charred skin had stopped smoldering, and was gradually being replaced by her natural, healthy green. On the outside, it would probably look like the burning Hylt tree had gone out on its own, and was rapidly regrowing its lost limbs and leaves.

“Not too much now,” cautioned Keira. “Wouldn’t want you girls getting too tired before the big surprise.”

Torenia and Lilly took their hands off their kin at those words. The right half of the burn victim’s face and hair were still somewhat blackened, but at the very least she had stopped whining, so she probably wasn't in pain any longer.

“But-”

“No buts, Castelia. Your sisters were kind enough to share their food with you, so you be sure to pay them back later.”

“... Okay, mommy.”

“... And?”

“... And uh- Thanks Torenia. Thanks Lilly.”

“You’re welcome, sis!”

Truthfully speaking, Castelia would have probably been fine on her own. However, Boxxy needed these excitable ladies as calm and collected as possible before the time came. Speaking of which, there should still be 6 or 7 more minutes before the effects of that Berserker’s Tempest of Rage would dissipate. The Republic forces were currently causing terrible casualties to the Empire’s troops, but that would only last as long as that dwarf’s Ultimate was giving them an edge and would pull back as soon as it ended. As such, the Mimic very much wanted to get in on that harvest.

“Now then, mommy needs to step out for a while,” said Keira. “I promise I’ll be back in time for the big surprise or if someone hurts you again, so stay put and be good until then, okay?”

The dryads seemed horribly disappointed, but still nodded their heads in affirmation. Keira gave them all a peck on their foreheads to cheer them up a bit, and then set out to get her fair share of human flesh.

Down on the ground, Kora was still fighting the human troops that rushed her after she gave Hilda a lift. However, even if she was a Berserker herself, she was nowhere near that dwarf’s level. Not only were the various Skills and effects of her secondary Job far less pronounced, but her fists’ range was nowhere near as wide as that dwarf’s inhumane axe. As such, they had been constantly accumulating damage on her. She was bleeding all over the place with a body that was covered in gashes and riddled with arrows, half her face was melted off by magic, someone had drilled a hole clean through her chest and she had even lost one of her left arms somewhere along the way. And yet the fact that neither her bloodlust nor her grin diminished despite all that made her quite terrifying in her own right.

“C’mere, cupcake!”

The heavily injured fiend reached out with one of her hands and gripped onto a human soldier’s head with enough force to cause both his skull and helmet to creak ominously. He screamed in pain and desperately swung his axe at her arm, but it only bounced helplessly off her gauntlets. Kora then lifted the poor man off his feet and began swinging him about wildly like a ragdoll as she pushed his comrades away with his body. He had gone completely limp by this point, but whether it was because he passed out or passed away was irrelevant, as what was left of him was flung into the path of an oncoming Icy Comet Spell. The two projectiles collided with each other, and the result was something that could only be described as ‘dirty fireworks.’

In the next instant, her torso was pierced from behind by three separate spears that went almost halfway through her. The fiend grit her teeth and bent over forward with all her might while delivering a headbutt to the guy directly in front of her. The soldiers behind her found themselves flung forward while the one in front wound up on the floor with a dent in his helmet.

“War Stomp!”

The fiend’s Martial Art smashed what was left of his head into a pulp, while also cracking the ground around her. The sudden tremors made some of the Empire’s troops lose their footing and stumble. Kora picked one such off-balanced target at random and swung both her rights at him. The man managed to put up his shield just in time, but the impact from the double-handed punch still lifted him off his feet and threw him several meters into the air. He fell back to the ground, reeling from the pain in his entire body. His kite shield had two distinct fist-shaped imprints on them, his arm was definitely broken and he had dropped his weapon during lift-off, but he was most assuredly alive.

Even if the fiend’s ridiculous strength and heavy weight meant she could send people flying with a single punch, that didn’t necessarily mean they were done for. In fact, she had only killed about 30, maybe 35 people in this entire battle. She hated to admit it, but the quality of these guys was noticeably higher from that night raid from a week ago. That, and most of her victims fell back to get treated while their comrades covered for them. The nature of her attacks meant she could keep the enemy at bay, but made it difficult to finish people off if they didn’t die on the first hit.

‘That’s why you shouldn’t send them flying, but bury them into the ground instead.’

Her master’s words of wisdom flashed through her head. She knew that would-be-box was right, but since it was advice rather than order, she didn’t really listen to it. There was just something immensely satisfying about literally blowing people away, even if it wasn’t necessarily fatal. And if there’s one thing Kora valued above all else, it was her own enjoyment. Therefore, she pushed away those thoughts of efficiency and charged at her next victim. She curled her biceps to strike, but her master had quite literally beaten her to the punch.

A gigantic, barrel-chested figure landed suddenly on the man in front of her. Well, it landed on a few of them that were bunched up together, but that was besides the point. After using the Empire’s soldiers to cushion his fall, he stood up at a height that was almost equal to Kora’s. His head was covered by a facewrap that left only his yellow eyes visible, while a heavy cloak concealed his body. His allegiance was obviously not in question. Not only did he blatantly attack and kill Imperial troops, but his clothes were entirely silver in color apart from the large image of a black, swooping eagle on his back.

The Sandman was quite literally draped in the Ishigar Republic’s flag.

“True Darkness!”

His tinny voice rang out in the next instant, and a huge dome of blackness that was a little over 20 meters in diameter covered the field around him. The human soldiers near the edge instinctively retreated out of it. Although True Darkness merely robbed the area around a Warlock of all visible light, that didn’t mean it actually did any damage. However, their decision was definitely the right one, as the shrill screams and unpleasant crunching noises heard from within that world of darkness signified it was not a safe place to be.

And then, after several seconds, the lightless bubble went deathly silent. One of the higher ranking humans around gave an order to brace for attack, and the soldiers rapidly established a shield wall perimeter some 4 or 5 meters around it. The Republic’s troops were still holding the line immediately in front of the breached wall, some 100 meters south of their location. Whoever or whatever that terrifying figure they caught a glimpse of was, it was completely cut off from any hope of reinforcements.

Of course, they didn’t know it yet, but they were the ones about to be begging for backup.

A multitude of figures burst out of the darkness before it had a chance to dissipate. Leading the charge as per usual was Kora, whose wounds and missing arm had fully regenerated thanks to a Rejuvenation Potion Boxxy had ‘borrowed’ from the elves. Well, it wasn’t like it paid for it or anything, and it was better in the short-term than spending over half its MP re-summoning her, so it had no qualms about using it on her.

The fiend stretched her arms out to the side and then swung them forward with all her might.

“Thunderclap!”

Her two pairs of closed palms met each other with explosive force, producing a powerful, ear-splitting shock wave that swept over the human forces in front of her. The ones closest to her were knocked down to the ground from the sheer force of it, while those around and behind them keeled over while clutching their ears. As expected of a Berserker’s Martial Art, it was extremely effective on those weaker than the user. The fiend’s unnatural physique only further amplified its power.

“GRRAAARGH!”

The one that leapt out alongside her was a horse-sized, lizard-like creature made of molten rock, that charged head-first into the Empire’s perimeter. Although they might have been able to body-block it under normal conditions, the soldiers were all reeling from Kora’s Thunderclap. The cone-shaped shock wave had either thrown their sense of balance out of whack, or had outright ruptured their eardrums. Since they were like that, the Molten Guardian was able to trample over them, literally blazing a trail through their ranks.

The magical construct’s owner flew out of the wall of blackness a moment after the first two. Xera’s usual fetishistic outfit was transformed into a beautiful silver-colored gown so as to mark her very temporary allegiance. The purely decorative garment was backless, strapless and, as the slit skirt that fluttered teasingly between her legs revealed, also underwearless. The succubus had silently entered the area covered by True Darkness under cover of Invisibility after her beloved Master’s grand entrance, and was already sharing the flames of her passion with the Empire’s troops. Or, to put it another, she cackled like a maniac as she burned people alive with a barrage of Fireballs, Flamethrowers and Inferno Spells.