The Crown Prince Who Raises Alt Characters

#Chapter 282 Mercenary Owen (10) - Land of Silence. Exploration begins. Among the humans living on the current continent, those who have directly seen spirits with their own two eyes are extremely few. Even the sword aura that knights emit or the magic of mages is something ordinary people rarely get to see, but compared to witnessing spirits, these could still be said to have relatively lenient difficulty. Spirits avoid human civilization. They don't easily show themselves in buildings and cities that people have built, only occasionally appearing in remote mountains and wilderness - that's the reason. Because of this, one of the common misconceptions people make is thinking that spirits have 'fled' to avoid humans. Just like herbivorous animals flee to avoid carnivorous animals, they think spirits too felt threatened by humans and ran away. But from the perspective of those with abundant knowledge about spirits, this was an absurd misconception. Precisely speaking, spirits did hide themselves to avoid civilization, but if we had to compare it, it's closer to how people keep their distance from smelly toilets. They avoid it because it's dirty and smelly, not because they're afraid. Ophelia too knew through knowledge just how powerful beings spirits were. However. There was a difference as vast as heaven and earth between learning through books and experiencing it directly before one's eyes. ─Shaaaaaaark!! Two water serpents raise their bodies upright above the lake. Mana far more pure, primitive, and violent than what humans handle ran wild, tearing through the surroundings like a rampage. As if responding to that energy, ripples formed on the calm lake and eventually even began to surge like waves. Even Ophelia, whose mana detection wasn't particularly outstanding, unconsciously got goosebumps from that overflowing energy. The lake's water was sucked around the water serpents' bodies, then soon transformed into dozens of spheres the size of huge fists and floated in the air. They were transparent and beautiful spheres like jewels, but the results they produced were far from peaceful. Whoosh! The compressed water pressure gathered to one point and shot out like a beam. The tree that took a direct hit from the water stream - no, an attack more appropriately described as a water cannon - was pierced through instantly. The tree that couldn't even let out a scream while showing its hollow interior seemed to belatedly realize its pain and collapsed sideways, unable to bear its own weight. Two emotions appeared on Ophelia's face. One was fear of the devastatingly deadly power, and the other was relief that the tree had been pierced instead of Owen, who was the original target. Owen, who had avoided the water cannon that nearly pierced his torso by bending his waist, became like a gust of wind and shot forward. Tap, tap-tap! Owen's feet reached the lake, but his body didn't sink into the water. Displaying the technique called water-walking from the eastern Liu Empire, Owen reached right in front of the water serpent's nose and thrust his spear without the slightest hesitation. Puff! As if a giant catapult had come flying and struck that part, the area around the water serpent's body that contacted the spear burst out with a huge splash. The long water serpent's body split vertically, and the water serpent's head was slammed into the water surface. It was an injury that wouldn't be strange to call instant death for an ordinary creature, but when the lake's water filled the gap that formed in its body, the water serpent revived as if nothing happened and let out a roar. Faced with the water cannons that the two water serpents were firing like machine guns, Owen leaped greatly to the side and avoided the attacks. Impatience filled Ophelia's eyes as she watched that scene. 'The compatibility is bad.' Of course, she knew of Owen's strength. Though it was said to be a surprise attack targeting a gap while fighting a former tower master, wasn't he the monster who had driven a lance charge into a dragon's back and knocked it down? But unlike the dragon which had a clear physical form, those water serpents now were just in the shape of snakes - fundamentally they were nothing more than a mass of water clumped together. There's no way water would be injured by being cut with a sword or stabbed with a spear, isn't there? Owen surely couldn't be unaware of this either, so why was he stubbornly continuing his attacks instead of choosing to flee? He avoided or deflected the water cannons that the two water serpents fired without rest, and swung his spear to burst the water serpents' bodies. Ophelia, who was getting anxious wondering what on earth he was thinking, suddenly noticed something strange. '...The regeneration has slowed down?' The lake's water was still abundantly overflowing. But the water serpents' regeneration speed was gradually slowing down as time passed. What had initially returned in the blink of an eye even when their bodies were split in two, now wouldn't finish regenerating even after enough time had passed for a deep breath. In contrast, Owen seemed not to tire at all, and rather than his attack speed slowing down, he even gave the impression that his momentum had increased from the beginning. -Kieeeeeek! Finally unable to endure any longer, the two water serpents attempted to flee by diving into the lake's interior. If they, whose bodies were made of water, entered the lake's interior, further pursuit would become impossible. Thud! -Kiek? -Gurgle? The water serpents who had struck their heads against the lake's surface showed bewildered expressions. The lake that should have gently splashed and received them had somehow become like hard ground, refusing their intrusion. "Tsk, where are you trying to run? There's nothing more annoying in the world than monsters that need to be caught trying to flee." Owen, who threatened them with a quite displeased expression, swung his spear diligently again as if the next words could wait until after the battle was over. The water serpents attempted to flee several times, but for some reason the hardened surface of the lake wouldn't accept them, and even when they tried to flee entirely to the forest outside the lake, Owen would circle to the opposite side and strike the water serpents, driving them back toward the lake's interior. The water serpents now went beyond just slower regeneration speed - their body size itself began to shrink, and later they gave up not only resistance but even escape, just crying pitifully while getting beaten. Seeing that sight, Ophelia felt some inexplicable sympathy─ 'Hmm, this feels refreshing inside.' ─she did not feel. When you think about it, weren't those the ones who had ambushed and tried to kill her earlier? Though she had grown up in a greenhouse flower garden environment, her mind was far from being a flower garden, and her brain wasn't so fluffy as to forgive even those who had tried to kill her. "About finished. It took longer than I thought." How much time had passed? Gripping the two water serpents that had shrunk to about 1 meter in body length, one in each hand, Owen approached Ophelia's side. Looking at the water serpents that hung limp like laundry on a clothesline, Ophelia asked with a subtle expression. "...You struck them with a spear, but how did you damage spirits made of water?" "Oh, that? I thoroughly shook the mana contained in the water each time my attacks hit. Would it be easier to understand if I said I whittled down their mana gauge rather than their stamina? Actually, it would be faster to see through and pierce their cores directly, but then they'd vanish and you couldn't make contracts, right? So I controlled it." "...How did you block the spirits that were trying to return to the lake?" "I caused vibrations with mana. When you give water certain vibrations, it becomes like a hard solid against external shocks. Actually, it's a bit tricky with pure water, but since there are many impurities inside the lake, it was easier." At Owen's explanation as if it were perfectly natural, Ophelia thought. Hmm, I have no idea what he's talking about. But since she was a woman who valued practicality, instead of unnecessarily demanding additional explanations from Owen, she focused her attention on the spirits caught in his hands. "They've become so weak they can barely maintain their existence." "Isn't this the perfect state for making contracts?" It was true. If you offered a piece of bread to someone who was well-fed and comfortable, telling them you'd work them all day, you'd get a response to stop talking nonsense, but someone on the verge of starving to death would gladly accept. Ophelia spoke again to the drooping water spirits. "￡¶¶♪″′′°％￠＄＄" If expressed in human words, it was quite a polite and moderate proposal. Considering it was a situation where the other party had no choice but to accept even if she proposed the contract with a high-handed attitude, it was merciful conditions to the point of wondering if it might be too soft. But, for some reason. Even though they were dying and barely breathing, the spirits did not respond to the contract. Ophelia's brow furrowed. "That's strange. I proposed the contract according to what I learned beforehand, and the Hydrain bloodline originally has high spirit contractor aptitude, so contracts should be easily possible without going this far." "Is there nothing you can guess as a cause?" "I did learn that spirits who are already under contract react this way." Owen glanced toward the lake. "Come to think of it, I did sense strange mana from below the lake. Let me check for a moment." The lake's depth was at a level where an ordinary person would have difficulty reaching the bottom without equipment, but this didn't apply to a superhuman like Owen. Having discovered the culprit emitting ominous mana from the lake's center, he brought it outside and held it out to Ophelia. "...It's a stake. And it contains quite unpleasant mana." She hadn't realized it when it was hidden deep in the lake, but examining it up close, Ophelia too could sense the ominous mana the stake contained. Especially when she confirmed that something like strange characters were carved in relief on the stake's surface, she frowned greatly. "It's spirit language. And it's the type that greatly incites hostility or hatred toward humans. This is why the contract wasn't working." Indeed, when the stake came near, the water spirits that had been drooping immediately showed red gleams in their eyes again and revealed hostility toward the two people. If their strength hadn't been drained beforehand, it wouldn't be strange if they immediately attempted an attack. "Then, would it work if we just destroy this stake?" "No, judging by the carved inscription, this isn't the type that exerts power alone. It's the type that's placed at regular intervals in multiple numbers to exert wide-ranging effects." Owen nodded at Ophelia's explanation that while destroying one stake would somewhat alleviate the effect, it would be far from a fundamental solution unless the remaining stakes were also dealt with. "Then we just need to find them one by one and destroy them all. We need to find top-grade spirits anyway, so we can do both at the same time, right?" "How do you know where the stakes are?" Though Ophelia was well-versed in theory, she wasn't particularly outstanding at mana detection. Owen too, though somewhat better than Ophelia, was fundamentally a warrior type, so searching would be difficult unless he concentrated at close range. To her question, Owen answered simply. "These stakes guide spirits to be violent and hostile toward people, right?" "So?" "Then if we just go around stirring up this area, won't the spirits come at us on their own? Then we just need to search around those spirits." "......" "The basics of capture have always been running around on your own two feet."