WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Alyo

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◈ Surviving as a Warrior in a TRPG World ◈

Chapter 29: Secret (2)

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"Spectrum meum... Pallacia corporis..."

The mage hid behind the wall again and began chanting. Knowing that once the mad mage finished casting his defensive spells, magic would come flying at them, the party gritted their teeth and desperately attacked the Rat Men.

But despite their efforts, they only managed to kill a little over ten Rat Men.

Wooooong!!

An eerie sound that should not exist in reality rang out, and blue smoke like a smokescreen erupted around the mage.

A moment later, the party saw four clones identical to the mage take up positions around the area.

"The preparations are complete! I'll kill you all!!"

Having prepared to defend himself with clones and floating shield spells, the mage even used the Rat Men as meat shields.

When the mage began casting a spell at them, Bruno ordered the rear line to fire.

"Huff... Huff...!!"

Perhaps because he had been swinging his sword so fiercely under the terrifying pressure of battle, Gerik tasted something sweet in his mouth.

But he had no idea what catastrophe would follow once the mage finished casting. Gerik clenched his teeth and desperately tried to kill even one more Rat Man.

"Ten! We only need to kill ten more!! Just interrupt his spell until then!"

Amazingly, the party managed to kill or wound around fifteen Rat Men with superhuman effort, forcing them out of the fight.

Bruno called out their situation to encourage his exhausted allies. Meanwhile, the two archers in the rear desperately tried to snipe the mage for the frontliners' sake.

Thud!! Thud, thud!!

Screeech!!

The six Rat Men standing before the mage protected the mage without flinching, even as arrows pierced their torsos.

Sometimes an arrow got lucky and struck the mage, but it had apparently hit a clone. The arrow passed right through and missed.

"Watch carefully...!! Second from the left!! Second from the left!!"

After wasting several quarrels on clones, Jensen finally managed to identify the mage's real body. Hearing him, Tarian began firing arrows at the same target.

Clang!! Clang!!

This time, however, shields circling the mage deflected the arrows. They appeared to be one-use barriers, vanishing after blocking an arrow.

"Terror anima... Corrumpe mentis... Go!!"

At last, the mage who had been chanting with a raised staff for so long finished casting. At the same time, a dark crimson, ominous sphere formed at its tip and shot toward the party.

Kyaaaaaaah!!!

When the sphere struck the party, a chilling light and horrible noise spread in every direction. Gerik felt overwhelming terror wash over him, his emotions completely beyond his control.

"Guh...!!"

Gerik felt as if he had returned to the moment in his past life when he screamed for morphine, crushed by unbearable pain and the terror of death just before cancer took him.

His breathing grew ragged. Unable to overcome the maddening fear, his mind began to collapse.

『...Ygsar... ooth'ma... krel'vash...』

Then a bizarre whisper reached Gerik's ears. It sounded like the gentle voice of a woman, yet the more he listened, the more ominous it felt, as though he were falling into an abyss.

『One Who Crossed the Line of Death....』

"!!!"

Only at the very end did Gerik barely begin to understand the whisper's meaning. At the same time, the fear vanished, and his mind became unbelievably clear.

"Uaaah!!!!!"

Gerik looked over the battlefield, now in complete chaos. The first thing he saw was Jensen and Tarian howling as they ran wildly in every direction, trying to escape.

Bruno seemed to want to flee like them, but heavy armor and the Rat Men surrounding him kept him pinned down. He hid behind his tower shield and trembled as they gnawed at his chainmail.

"Uwooo!!"

Other than Gerik, who had barely escaped his panic through the passive skill One Who Crossed the Line of Death, Kagosh the Half-orc was the only one in the party who still had his sanity.

It seemed the Orc's Savage Blood was protecting his mind.

"Get ahold of yourselves!! Kraaagh!!"

Six or seven Rat Men swarmed the only clear-headed Kagosh and began tearing into him.

Kagosh desperately held on, using walls and obstacles to protect his back while swinging his sword. Then the mage pointed a staff at him and shouted.

"Magic Missile!!"

Just as Gerik grasped the situation and tried to support Kagosh, four red spheres of energy shot toward Kagosh from the mage's direction.

Thud, thud, thud, thud!!

"Guhk!!"

The Magic Missiles struck Kagosh directly in the head as he held on, making him flinch in agony.

When the shock stopped him from swinging his sword, the Rat Men latched onto him as if they had been waiting for it, scratching at him with their sharp incisors.

"Kuaagh!! Kuaaah!!"

A terrible groan burst from the Half-orc Warrior's mouth.

Watching Kagosh get bitten alive and bleed from all over his body, Gerik rushed in to save him and sent the heads of two Rat Men flying with Slash.

Kyaak!!

Yet Gerik's action only drew the attention of the Rat Men that had been biting Kagosh.

Unlike before, Gerik no longer had a reliable frontliner, so he could not swing his sword without worry.

Realizing that if he faced them like this, he could become a second Kagosh, Gerik retreated toward Bruno and shouted.

"Get ahold of yourselves!! We'll all die at this rate!!"

Fortunately, aside from the two that followed him, the other three focused on finishing Kagosh off. Thanks to that, Gerik avoided the worst-case scenario of being surrounded.

As he backed away, Gerik swung his longsword wildly at the Rat Men following him, keeping them at bay.

His desperate shout may have gotten through. Bruno's body twitched behind his tower shield, where he had been cowering with his head lowered.

"Bruno!!"

Gerik circled around Bruno, using him almost like an obstacle, and lured the Rat Men following him into attacking Bruno instead.

It was a cold-blooded move, but Gerik thought using Bruno's heavy armor that way was their only chance.

Crunch!! Crunch!!

When Bruno appeared before the Rat Men pursuing Gerik, they joined the Rat Men already biting him and began gnawing at his helmet and chainmail.

The steel armor was tough enough to hold for now, but the Rat Men's sharp teeth were no joke. The chainmail was gradually breaking, and they were beginning to reach Bruno's gambeson.

"Bruno! You'll die like this! Aren't you going to snap out of it?!"

Gerik called to him, then moved behind the Rat Men frantically gnawing at the armor and shield and cut them down.

By now, only nine Rat Men remained on the battlefield, including the mage's four guards.

"Hic... Ngh...?!"

Fortunately, perhaps because the spell's effects were beginning to fade, the party members trapped in severe confusion gradually began to come to their senses.

Tarian recovered the fastest of all. Her Elven blood gave her greater resistance to magic than a human.

"You... bastard..."

Tarian was soaked in sweat. She was the second most lightly equipped member of the party after Gerik, but because she had sprinted around the square in a frenzy, screaming madly, she had unexpectedly avoided the Rat Men's attacks.

Her hands were shaking from fear and tension, but once she came to her senses, she picked up her longbow again and tried to fire at the mage.

"Vitriol sagittam... Caro liquescit..."

The mage had also come to see Tarian as a threat after being struck by her arrows several times. With a mocking smile, the mage cast a spell at Tarian as she aimed her bow.

"Kyaaaah!!!! Kuaaah!!"

An arrow made of green liquid struck Tarian directly in the face. Her face began to melt away with the terrible smell of burning flesh.

The unimaginable pain of acid melting her face made Tarian drop her longbow and fall to her knees, screaming.

"Finish that bitch!!"

At the mage's command, the Rat Men that had been madly gnawing at Bruno's chainmail and tower shield turned and sprinted toward Tarian as if they had never cared about Bruno at all.

"No!!!!"

Seeing the Rat Men charge at her in a frenzy, Gerik let out a savage cry and rushed to stop them.

Even though Gerik charged in from behind, raised his longsword, and cut one of them down in an instant, the Rat Men paid him no attention. They ran to Tarian and began biting her.

"Kehk!! Keh...!!"

Tarian's neck and stomach were bitten in an instant, leaving her unable to even scream properly.

Because she was lightly equipped, the Rat Men needed only a moment to kill her.

"You goddamn spellcasting bastard!! I'll split your head open myself!!"

After regaining his senses, Bruno saw two companions who had been with him for so long lying dead in a gruesome state, and he completely lost it.

Gripping his mace, he charged at the Rat Men biting Tarian with a feral roar.

The three Rat Men stopped biting Tarian and tried to confront Bruno as he charged at them.

But three Rat Men could not properly fight back against Bruno, an experienced heavy infantryman. In the end, one of them had its head split open by his mace and died instantly.

Crack!! Crack!!

As Bruno beat the Rat Men with his mace like a man beating dogs to death, Magic Missiles flew from behind him and pounded into his back.

Thud, thud, thud, thud!!!

"Guhk...!!"

It felt as if four heavy rocks had slammed into his entire body. Bruno groaned in pain and dropped to one knee.

Unlike Kagosh, he had not been struck in the face. The missiles hit his heavily armored chainmail directly, so Bruno suffered only the impact and was not seriously injured.

Kyaaaak!!

When Bruno stiffened after taking the Magic Missiles head-on, the two remaining Rat Men shrieked fiercely and bared their sharp incisors.

Just as they rushed to bite into Bruno's neck while he flinched in pain, a sharp whistling sound rang out nearby.

Fweee! Thud!!

A quarrel flew in with the distinct whistle of a crossbow and embedded itself in a Rat Man's head. The quarrel lodged between its hideous nose and eyes, causing one of the Rat Men about to attack Bruno to thrash around and hinder its companion.

'Slash...!!'

Gerik did not miss the opening. He rushed in and swung his longsword at the uninjured Rat Man, sending its head flying.

At the same time, Bruno desperately endured the pain, raised his mace with difficulty, and smashed it into the head of the Rat Man thrashing around with a quarrel stuck in it.

"Everyone, behind me!!"

Blinded by the deaths of his companions, Bruno did not seem to be thinking about retreating at all.

With an expression that said he would absolutely split open that damned spellcaster's head, he positioned his two remaining companions behind him.

"Now it's just four rat bastards and you left, you sly little spellcasting shit...!! I swear I'll grind all four of your limbs to pulp with my mace today!! Look forward to it!!"

Bruno's chainmail and gambeson had been torn to rags from countless Rat Man bites, but he seemed not to care about his own condition at all.

Even in that state, the warrior's cry that he would kill the mage seemed threatening enough to unsettle the mage, who had been arrogant from beginning to end.

Footnotes:

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