Forsaken Priest of the Hero's Party-Chapter 61: In the Name of Vengeance

Unlike humans, the terrestrial race, they were a race that freely roamed the skies from the beginning of time.

They could command and disperse the wind and clouds, manipulate the weather, and summon rain and storms at will.

The masters of magic and the race that bestowed it upon the terrestrial races.

Dragons were the true masters of magic.  Every action of theirs was magic.

Even breathing was magic, and even more so when they spread their wings.

Of course, that was the privilege of dragons. To teach magic to the terrestrial races, they had to devise new methods, as what was natural for dragons was not natural for them.

Thus, the idea of forming mana cores was developed for this very reason.

“Hmm...”

Now, having erased the castle known as the Cidatel, which had since become a land of commoners, the woman named Parnell, who had nothing left but her name, inspected the 16 mana cores embedded within her body and flicked her staff.

The more mana cores a mage possessed, the greater the variety of spells they could cast, the more diverse their magic became, and the faster their calculation speed.

Of course, mana recovery speed also increases. Not only is the performance of the mana core important, but the number of mana cores was also crucial, but whether to focus on single or multiple cores was the mage’s choice.

In that sense, Parnell could be described as a mage who had caught both rabbits. She could perform complex spells simultaneously and was highly proficient in high-power magic.

Auxiliary cores are functioning normally.

What made Parnell an even more exceptional mage was the vision that had been passed down through the Kingdom of Cidatel.

In most mages, even those with multiple mana cores, there was no special interaction between the cores. All of the cores were essentially identical.

However, Parnell’s 16 mana cores were divided into 8 main cores and 8 auxiliary ones, allowing her to flexibly distribute and use mana according to the situation. The efficiency of this setup was theorized in the Citadel and far higher than that of other mages.

Big cores. Dormant without issues.

When low-calculation, low-power magic is needed, she activates the auxiliary cores. When high-calculation, high-power magic is required, she awakens the dormant main cores.

Parnell’s ability to use mana sparingly was almost ghost-like in its efficiency. Unlike most mages who become a burden once their mana is exhausted, this level of skill was vital for someone who had to accompany a hero’s party that was constantly facing numerically superior enemies.

“Yurinel. We should prepare for a breakthrough.”

The blue-haired mage called the hero. Her auxiliary cores consumed very little mana, almost negligible, yet they could still cover up to medium-power magic.

This is why Parnell never grew tired, even as she laid detection magic all around her. No matter how stealthy an army of tens of thousands tried to be, their sheer size made it impossible to remain hidden.

Just walking itself was noisy and they couldn’t hide their movements at all. For such an army to be stealthy enough to deceive a mage of Parnell’s caliber? That would require an army of ghosts, not people.

And it would be foolish to expect such meticulousness from an undead army that already considered breaking their own limbs a trivial matter.

The hero’s party had long seen through their movements.

“Roughly twenty to thirty thousand in scale? Should we run? Or... do you want to fight?”

Master-level powerhouses who could continuously recover and fight with mana were no longer beings that can be pressured by numbers. Yurinel was among the strongest of them and Lucia had also entered the ranks of masters.

Parnell could also engage in ultra-long battles by focusing some of her 16 mana cores on mana recovery. This was a fact overlooked by Flesh Underground Castle and it was also the strength of living beings that they ignored.

“The level of these corpse soldiers is pathetic. They’re even worse than a militia trained in supply magic. Even if there are thirty thousand, it’s just a matter of how long it will take. However, this is enemy territory, so it’s better to avoid them.”

Unlike the undead, which have clear limits to their growth, all living things can become infinitely stronger.

Moreover, Aridel, the saintess who is practically worshipped by the entire continent as the daughter of one of the three Major Goddesses, was with them. Although the twenty thousand troops of the Flesh Castle might seem like a formidable army, for the hero’s party, it was a level they could easily repel. The only problem was that doing so would slow them down.

It wasn’t good to cause such a commotion in this demon realm, which had become the domain of the Demon King, Harmael. Just like the continent, there were many powerful individuals in the demon realm. While they may not match up to the hero’s party, they could certainly inflict significant damage.

If these forces engaged in a war of attrition and the transcendents of the demon realm, led by Harmael, arrived to launch a joint attack, even the hero’s party would face a great threat. Yurinel pondered for a moment after hearing Lucia’s words.

Her goal had actually been somewhat achieved already, so the journey could stop here and it would be enough to focus solely on retreat.

She had earned enough merit and built up enough skill. Even if she retreated to the Holy Kingdom now, she would gain enormous power.

But would that be enough to satisfy her?

The Holy Sword.

Undoubtedly the strongest holy artifact, jointly created by the three Major Goddesses.

Yurinel, grasping this legendary item that had passed through countless heroes, pondered deeply. This Holy Sword didn’t belong to her but to the hero. If she stopped working as a hero, it must be passed on to the next hero, regardless of her wishes.

The Holy Sword had its own will and only followed the chosen hero.

It won’t lend its power if the owner is no longer recognized as a hero. It was on a different level from Duchess Shmira’s Blood-Drinking Spear, which granted ownership rights to anyone as long as it was given blood, without any loyalty.

How strong would I be without you?

With the Holy Sword, she feared no one on the continent, but without it in her hand, she was no longer special.

Of course, even then, Yurinel would remain a master, and there weren’t many master-level powerhouses on the continent.

She would naturally receive the treatment befitting such a status. Welcoming signs would be hung wherever she went under the name of the former hero, and fame and wealth would follow her. She had already achieved great merit, so the Holy Kingdom would accept her retirement and make other preparations to deal with the Demon King.

Perhaps the Holy Kingdom wouldn’t immediately reclaim the Holy Sword.

They would still need her for the war against the Demon King, but even that would be temporary.

Eventually, she would have to let go of the Holy Sword and return to being just Yurinel.

Without you, how far can I go?

For Yurinel, who had grown stronger by gradually absorbing the power emitted by the Holy Sword, the idea of parting with it was not very appealing. To do so, she needed achievements to prove that she was playing an active role.

Flesh Underground Castle.

If she could root out one of the Holy Kingdom’s most hated adversaries in this opportunity, it would be a great achievement. Moreover, the presence of Aridel, the saint of the Nemi Church, also greatly influenced her judgment.

We’ve brought the saint all this way, but haven’t shown much so far.

At best, their tasks amounted to rear-guard disruption of demon forces, assassinations of important figures, and destruction of routes likely to be used as supply lines during the war.

While Archbishop Renheim was quite satisfied with their activities, Yurinel wanted to show more to both the saint and the archbishop. She wanted to prove that the hero could still play an active role.

“That’s what I think. We’ve brought the saint all this way, but we haven’t had a proper battle yet.”

“If we could completely destroy the Flesh Castle on this occasion, it wouldn’t be bad, but in my opinion, there’s no need to take unnecessary risks.”

Lucia, who had tamed a black hawk for aerial reconnaissance, muttered as she watched the approaching army of corpses. The undead were also a target for the Western family.

If they had to fight, she would fight too, but honestly, she didn’t really want to. After the battle with Grimudo, she had lost interest in everything. Meanwhile, Parnell seemed to agree.

“Because we keep avoiding them like this, all sorts of riffraff keep trying to poke at us, thinking they might have a chance. This is exactly when we should strike hard. If we subjugate the Flesh Castle and root out the necromancers, who would listen to Harmael’s orders?’”

“You mean we need to instill fear in those chasing us?”

Lucia reluctantly nodded. There was nothing wrong with that statement.

Indeed, it was time to show something new. It was time to prove to both the demon realm and the Holy Kingdom that the hero’s party hadn’t been running away out of fear, but had been avoiding trouble because they didn’t want to cause problems.

“Twenty to thirty thousand... Can the five of us really handle that many troops?”

After the three decided, they asked Aridel for her opinion. When Aridel sought the opinion of Archbishop Renheim, a trusted adult, the archbishop confirmed it. The power of one master cannot be measured by the number of soldiers and there are four with such strength here.

“Saint, although you are the youngest among the three saints, you have by far the greatest potential out of all of them. You saw how strong Arseria, the Saint of Light who serves Elysia, was last time, didn’t you?”

Aridel nodded. How could she forget that?

The sight of Arseria smashing the skulls of heretics with hammers of light, created by holy power in both hands, was unforgettable.

Aridel had the potential for such strength. Among the three Goddesses, the Earth Goddess Nemi received the most faith and that power was directly passed down to Aridel.

“You too will be able to wield such power someday, but for that, you need to learn how to stand your ground, even against enemies that charge at you like wildfire.”

The saint simply lacked the large-scale practical experience to awaken her full potential.

If the opponent was the undead army of the Flesh Castle—already dead and devoid of life—the saint could gain the necessary experience without the burden of guilt for taking lives.

So there was no reason for Renheim to oppose the hero party’s plan. In fact, he was so tempted by the idea that he almost wanted to request it himself.

“Then I agree too. I trust the archbishop and the hero.”

With Aridel’s agreement, the hero party’s decision was made.

They didn’t attempt to break through the encirclement by marching at high speed. Instead, they stopped in place, lit a bonfire, and set up camp, almost daring the enemy to approach. There was no need to search for them. If they waited like this, the enemy would come on their own, allowing the hero party to conserve their strength and unleash it when the time came for battle.

Hueek!

Heuk.

Rather than an orderly march, it looked more like living corpses stumbling through the forest.

Some tripped over stones, crawling and wobbling. The Flesh Castle hadn’t mobilized their main force for this battle.

In fact, they had no true main force to mobilize.

Despite witnessing this pathetic display, Albatross remained confident.

“We may have sworn allegiance to Harmael, but that doesn’t mean we have to tear off our roof and offer it to her, does it?”

Therefore, they did not mobilize the Death Knights, the pinnacle of combat-type undead.

In truth, all the Death Knights had perished after witnessing the Beacon of Sanctuary, leaving none available to mobilize.

Instead, they only prepared a token force of liches. The rest were all corpse soldiers, expendable with enough time and effort. However, some of these soldiers played a very important role. The corpse soldiers of werewolves, a distinct race from the wolf beastkin like Roka, carried hydra poison in their stomachs.

“We just need to provide the troops and poison the Hero’s Party. The Demon King will handle the rest. I’m not sure how many troops she’ll bring.”

However, Harmael had no intention of bringing any of her elite forces either.

She planned to summon a being more formidable than tens of thousands of soldiers combined. She was already nearing their location and since she had traveled alone, her movement speed was incredibly swift.

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“I’m not sure if Grimudo will act according to my plans.”

Although they had prepared fifty thousand soldiers, the intention was not to directly confront the hero party with them. Instead, these were considered a reserve force, meant to encircle the hero party and engage in a war of attrition if things went awry. The true elite demon army, which hadn’t even arrived yet, was the real threat.

Because the Ancient Demon King was such an unpredictable figure, preparations had been made, but they hoped to not have to mobilize these forces if possible. Demons, after all, had a small population.

Although it appeared that Harmael commanded the demon race, the number of troops truly loyal to her was not as vast as it seemed. They were not heroes, but rather those intended to play a crucial role in the war against the Empire.

Even if they somehow managed to capture the hero, depleting these troops would create an immeasurable problem. Harmael’s authority was still unstable and in this situation, she couldn’t afford to send a large army into battle.

If the Empire had any sense, they might launch a preemptive strike against the demon forces at this very moment, but with the Emperor nearing death and the nobles distracted by their own agendas, such a move seemed unlikely.

Everyone was fixated on the idea of seizing the throne by taking various royal family members as leaders, eagerly engaging in a struggle for power. As a result, they quietly pushed back the emergence of the Demon Empire, pretending not to notice it.

This was partly because they knew that if the demon race were to truly attack humanity, the Church and the Temple would not stand idly by.

Unification of the continent.

Harmael knew this belief was unfounded.

This made her cautious. Despite appearing to have suddenly seized a commanding position in the world, her authority was fundamentally unstable. Even a single misstep could unravel her entire plan.

Therefore, she had to succeed—without fail.

The hero’s party must not escape alive.