Wandering Mercenary in an Open World

By this point, the witches realized that the situation was going awry. They had been chanting spells to finish off the stubborn party, but their formation was disrupted when a warrior suddenly appeared and slashed their comrades.

Crash-!

A lightning bolt that exploited the gap struck Nadia, the leader of the witches, on the head, and the crack widened.

“Stop that bastard first! Stop him!”

“Finish off the bastards below!”

The witches, who had never coordinated before, clashed in their opinions and created confusion. Ruon did not miss the opportunity. He advanced relentlessly like a drill digging through the mud and swung his sword at the witch in front of him.

“Get lost!”

The opponent stretched out her arm and emitted an intangible force, but Ruon resisted it with just the strength of his legs and swung his ego sword with his right hand.

The witch, who had expected the opponent to bounce off and was chanting a new spell, belatedly made an expression of dismay and raised her hand to her creepy neck. But there was nothing there.

The witch, who was flailing to find her severed head, collapsed with a thud, and Ruon was already kicking the ground and running.

The witches tried to counterattack in panic, but they were no match for Ruon’s destructive onslaught, who had already taken complete control of the surrounding space.

The surviving witches were flustered.

This wasn’t the plan!

If they had estimated Ruon’s power roughly, they would never have done such a foolish thing as fighting in such a limited space.

They would have hidden their main body deep in the tower, and focused on driving them crazy with all kinds of sorcery, curses, and corpses. Not exposing their body like this!

But as if to say that it was too late to regret, Ruon crushed the witches who blocked his way and advanced.

That wasn’t all.

Caw-ack!

The party, who had caught their breath from the loosened attack thanks to Ruon’s feat, started to push back the corpses.

Igor and Tarwen, who had been struggling to fend off the endless onslaught of curses and spells, poured out their holy power and spells to the front as soon as they had some leeway.

The wave of corpses that had been pushing in densely collapsed and a huge beast broke into the empty space. On the back of the beast that swung its huge front paw, there was a champion of Tivella with a bloodstained hammer.

“Move!”

The hammer wrapped in lightning struck the head of a sizzling corpse.

It squeaked, but it worked well.

Ruon watched the party fight over the railing for a moment and then turned his head.

“Now only you are left.”

The emotionless, flat voice was enough to bring up the fear that the listener had forgotten.

“···They said that the priest of Tivella was the most helpful in killing Belducius···”

Nadia, whose half of her face had melted, answered with a muffled pronunciation to the grumbling of a witch.

“Are you still ashamed to believe that?”

She lifted her head and glared at Ruon. The gums that showed beyond the burning lips were grotesquely ugly.

“Just one question. Did you kill the Rotting Madness by yourself?”

Ruon raised one eyebrow.

“No, I had some help.”

“If you think you can humiliate us by lowering yourself, that’s a big mistake. You slaughtered the witches of the cradle by yourself, and you think we’ll believe you if you say that?”

Then why did you ask?

Ruon snorted in disbelief.

He had no reason to explain Julio in detail, so he spun the sword in his hand.

“Is that your last words?”

Ruon hesitated for a moment with unnecessary words, unlike his usual self. It was an act that stemmed from the desire to leave the last of the six witches to Tarwen.

And Nadia did not miss that golden opportunity. A red line appeared vertically on her face, and then it split open and a bunch of disgusting tentacles poured out.

“Fuck! What are you doing-”

“Keh-hek!”

Surprisingly, the tentacles aimed not at Ruon, but at the witches around him. The slimy tentacles that burrowed into their noses and mouths sucked out their contents and threw away the dried corpses.

“Phel-hitras-ashento!”

A sharp spell burst out from behind the sticky legs of the arthropod.

Then the floor that Ruon was stepping on caved in, and his upper body bent forward slightly. It was a pressure that felt like he had piled up huge rocks on his shoulders.

The monster shouted.

“This is a spell enhanced by the souls of five witches! Crush and die!”

The force that pressed down on Ruon was beyond imagination. The artificially enhanced gravity burst the capillaries of his skin, weakened the blood flow to the nerves, and made his mind faint.

It was a powerful spell that would have made an ordinary person, or even a strong warrior, lose consciousness and shrivel up like a rat.

Yeah, it could have been dangerous.

In the midst of the overwhelming pressure that squeezed his whole body, Ruon thought. If he had been himself before he got Ruin, or the holy sword, he might have been crushed and met his end as Nadia said.

However, that was a story from long ago. Considering the levels he had gained and the power he had risen to since then, it seemed even more distant.

Thud!

The creature startled at the heavy footsteps, its stiff tentacles betraying its shock.

“What in the world is that…?”

Thud! Thud!

As the warrior approached, leaving deep footprints in the solid ground, the creature bellowed in terror.

“Are you some kind of god? Damn you! There’s a limit to this madness!”

Ruon swung his arm towards the bundle of tentacles flying at him. His arm, heavy as a rock, didn’t leave the blurry afterimage it usually did, but it was still fast. In fact, it seemed faster because it was visible.

Slash!

Nadia watched in despair as her tentacles were severed. It was astonishing enough that she maintained a human form, but to see the warrior walk towards her unscathed, slicing through her tentacles and the spells within, she felt utterly powerless to kill him.

In the meantime, Ruon, who had drawn closer, adjusted his blazing sword to a reverse grip.

She wouldn’t go down alone!

Nadia, like a condemned prisoner facing execution, made a final desperate attempt. She intentionally collapsed her magical system. As her body swelled with the runaway power and white light began to seep out, she heard a voice.

“Is self-destruction really your last resort?”

Nadia felt the power that was about to burst through her body wither away in vain, and her eyes widened in her final moments.

Before she could scream in rage and confusion, Ruon brought down his sword.

Thwack!

The creature, cleaved in two by the heavy blow, melted into the ground with a gurgling sound.

“Not bad for experience points.”

Ruon muttered to himself, rotating his sore wrist. His companions approached him.

Tarwen was the first to arrive.

“…You really killed them all by yourself.”

“I would have left some for you if things had gone as planned.”

“It’s okay. Revenge doesn’t have to be by my own hands.”

She stepped over the corpse of what was once Nadia, stomping on it.

“I told you, you’d die a hideous death like your friend.”

Ruon turned away from the sight.

“Are you alright?”

“Of course! Igor healed me.”

Strabo, now back in his dwarf form, patted his chest with his palm.

“Strabo, you mustn’t overdo it. Even if it looks like a simple burn, remember that it originated from a curse combined with a spell,” Igor said with concern.

“I’ll be careful.”

Kail set down the hammer he had been carrying on his shoulder and mumbled.

“Should I offer a prayer for Imrek? I’m not sure if I should be wielding such a precious artifact.”

Strabo shook his head, indicating that wasn’t necessary.

“Prayers are good, but take care of your body first. My father told me that powerful relics tend to draw on the user’s strength, and using them recklessly can shorten your lifespan. Of course, if it’s just a magic-imbued item, that won’t happen… but this hammer stayed intact even when used with the Spellbreaker. It might be a holy relic.”

Kail’s eyes widened at Strabo’s fluent explanation.

“Is that so?”

“Haha! It looks scholarly, right? The things you learn while getting beaten tend to stick!”

Tarwen, who had been silent, spoke up.

“…Once we kill Fleur, it’s all over.”

“You don’t look happy about it.”

At Ruon’s words, she chewed her plump lips.

“It’s all so clumsy. If the plan was to crush us with full force from the start, it doesn’t make sense that Fleur isn’t here.”

She murmured as she looked at the witches’ bodies strewn across the floor.

“…What was the reason for putting witches who never properly coordinated in the front line?”

Strabo scratched his nose.

“Did they just hope they’d all die?”

“What?”

That’s when it happened.

Rumble rumble rumble-

The entire tower began to shake.

As the ground quaked as if an earthquake had struck, the companions braced themselves against the walls.

What’s happening?

Ruon’s sharp senses detected the massive wave of power coursing through the tower. Looking down at his arm, he saw goosebumps rising on his skin.

-Run, Ruon!-

As Ruin’s urgent warning echoed in his mind, Kail pointed somewhere and shouted.

I hope this meets your expectations for a web novel narrative! If you need further revisions or another section edited, feel free to let me know.

“Look!”

He pointed his finger at the lobby below. On the floor covered with hundreds of corpses, a huge magic circle was emitting a sinister purple light.

Rumble-

The tower shook again. The group staggered from the vibration that was much bigger than before. Ruon, the only one who didn’t lose his balance, grabbed the wrist of the swaying fairy and said.

“Surely Fleur isn’t trying to bring down the tower…”

He had to swallow the words he was about to say. A wicked darkness was seeping out of the body of Tarwen, who had lost consciousness. More precisely, from the tattoos that densely covered her body!

Ruon quickly hoisted the limp Tarwen over his shoulder. At that moment, a disgusting liquid gushed out of the lobby floor.

“What a mess.”

In the blink of an eye, the liquid that swallowed the corpses rose with an explosive momentum. The group ran down the stairs of the spire without waiting for anyone.

“What the hell is that! Damn it!”

Kyle swung his hammer at the black wave that chased him from behind.

Clang!

The lightning that slashed the air in a zigzag disappeared into the liquid in an instant, as if ashamed of its fierce momentum.

Instead of any effective results, the water level rose even faster. Igor shouted in panic.

“What are you doing!”

“It was obvious that the water was defying the laws of nature, considering that the group had smashed the entrance of the spire and entered. The speed of the water rising didn’t make sense, given the width of the tower.

“Ru…on…”

Ruon listened to the panting voice over his shoulder and answered.

“Are you awake?”

At his question, Tarwen licked her lips weakly with a half-opened, dazed gaze.

“From the beginning… originally… from the beginning…”

“What?”

“Fleur… this tower… a medium… of consciousness…”

Ruon intuitively grasped the situation from the disjointed words.

“So you’re saying she planned to become the demon lord by herself from the start.”

Then, someone’s voice came from above.

“Too late. It doesn’t matter if you realize it now. Your fate was in my hands from the moment you set foot in the cradle.”

Ruon looked up. His superhuman eyesight pierced through the darkness and found the owner of the faint voice.

The witch Fleur, who had a large stature, smiled creepily, revealing her teeth. She said.

“Nice to meet you, Ruon. And goodbye.”

At that moment, a loud explosion rang in their ears, and the stairs they were walking on were shattered. Ruon managed to jump to the other side with an amazing leap, but the three who followed him were swallowed by the water in an instant.

Ruon’s heart was hit by an invisible force as he saw his friends disappear into the dark abyss. It was a power that was incomparable to the previous witch.

Crash!

He lost his center and fell backwards, holding the fairy in his arms tightly. Soon, the sticky darkness devoured him.