Volume 10, Chapter 40 – Hydra and Lightsaber

“Hydra?”

Searching the map briefly, Yisi discovered a monster called the Hydra. Surprisingly, this monster’s level was between 30 and 40, much stronger than she had imagined, making it very suitable prey for her companions. Although their numbers were a bit low, having some was better than none. If it wasn’t that dangerous of a monster, she would just lead her companions to hunt Hydras specifically. She needed to confirm this with her own eyes.

The fox-eared woman, whose attention had been drawn by the man bursting into the guild, turned her head back with a gloomy expression after hearing the word “Hydra,” clenching her fists.

“More people are going to die, aren’t they… The Hydras have been coming more and more frequently lately. Those damned beasts.”

“Are they hard to deal with?”

While keeping an eye on the now-bustling Adventurers’ Guild, Yisi listened to the fox-eared woman’s explanation. For some reason, after hearing “Hydra,” all the adventurers who had been engrossed in their conversations stood up. Their breathing grew ragged, as if they were looking at their parents’ murderers, and their eyes gradually filled with killing intent. Even the beast-eared girls and elven women dancing on the second floor stopped. The entire guild was filled with a grim, murderous atmosphere.

“Hard to deal with? They’re the nemesis of humanity. Hydras prefer to attack land creatures over fish. But unlike other sea monsters, they don’t bite humans to pieces and swallow them right away. They take them back to their lairs on the reefs and keep them captive, feeding on their limbs. Plus, their innate magic includes healing spells. Humans who are captured can only live like livestock, enduring the repeated torment of being eaten and then healed. A party of Orichalcum-rank adventurers once stumbled upon a Hydra lair and rescued the people inside, but without exception, every captive had gone insane, their bodies emaciated beyond human recognition. For them, living was more painful than death. After the city lord at the time gave permission, the garrison ended the lives of those poor souls.”

“Is that so…”

From the adventurers’ conversations, Yisi could also tell that many of them had companions or relatives who had been ravaged by Hydras, which was why they were so enraged. Some of them had even given up their lives as fishermen to become adventurers specifically to seek revenge on Hydras.

Truly an evil species that must be exterminated.

“…My wife, Auro, was taken by a Hydra. Her whereabouts are still unknown.”

The fox-eared woman dropped a bombshell.

Although Yisi really wanted to quip, “Wife? Aren’t you a woman?” it was far too inappropriate. After a search for the name ‘Auro’ on the Omniscient Map yielded no results, Yisi could only remain silent.

“Where is the Hydra!”

“I’m gonna skin it alive!”

“Whoever slays the Hydra, I’ll sleep with him for a month!”

Not just the adventurers, but the beast-eared girls and elven women on the second floor also raised the stakes in their own way.

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This trade city is so open…

It was probably due to the influence of the elves; there were far more elves in Wilfred City than in other places. Yisi felt the urge to press a hand to her forehead. Thank goodness she hadn’t brought Mary and the others here, or it would have definitely been a bad influence on the children.

After talking with the fox-eared woman for a while longer, Yisi, wanting to gauge the Hydra’s strength, mingled with the enraged crowd of adventurers and left the guild. For convenience, she didn’t stick with them, but followed for a short time before leaving on her own, using [Short-Distance Teleportation] to appear above the sea.

Her vision instantly opened up. The blue sky and sea merged into a single arc in the distance. The air was much more humid and salty. The sea breeze was so strong that Yisi had to hold down her hair to keep her silver pigtails from being blown in front of her face.

“Hoh, Adonis is here too?”

Her eyes widening slightly, Yisi looked toward a part of the sea further away from her. Besides the Hydras in the waters below her, Adonis’s merchant ship, several kilometers from the harbor, was also besieged by Hydras. It was just that because the planet this world was on was a sphere, one couldn’t see Adonis in the distance by just observing from sea level, not without flying higher. That was why the adventurers hadn’t noticed there were actually two groups of Hydras.

Of course, it was also possible the adventurers had noticed but had no time to spare. The place where Adonis was located was simply too far from the harbor. Compared to rescuing a besieged ship in the distance, it was more important to deal with the Hydras charging into the harbor first.

Gaining a little altitude, Yisi switched to her [Third Form Awakening], using her enhanced vision to gaze at the scene where Adonis was.

“Although she’s under siege, there’s no need to worry for now.”

It was less of a siege and more like a group of three-headed plesiosaurs gnawing on a giant turtle. Yisi didn’t know if Adonis was borrowing the power of the Tower of Alexia or if the ship itself was inscribed with a powerful barrier, but every time a Hydra’s head was about to strike the ship, a bowl-shaped, golden-orange barrier would appear. The Hydras’ attacks did nothing more than make the ship rock slightly.

She remembered Adonis had used this same method to counter the rebel cannon fire from outside the city.

As expected of an emperor. Her life-saving measures were so powerful they were beyond an ordinary person’s imagination. Yisi couldn’t help but click her tongue—although the trigger-activated magic items Mary and the others had weren’t that far off.

“I’ll clean up the Hydras the adventurers are fighting first.”

Although Adonis’s situation was urgent, with her ship surrounded and unable to move, and fated to be a fish on the chopping block once the barrier’s magic power ran out, it was still better than the adventurers below, who were fighting Hydras with fishing harpoons from fishing boats. The Hydras were over ten meters long—this was commendable; the bigger the body, the more rubber slime feed it would make. A casual slap from one could easily capsize a boat, or even shatter a wooden boat to pieces. Added to the fact that the sea was not stable ground, it was extremely difficult for the adventurers to fight. The Hydras were dealing with the adventurers like a farmer reaping wheat with a scythe.

“Don’t use fire magic! Magic casters, focus ice magic on its eyes! Those who are good swimmers, hold it off at the front! If we let the Hydra enter the port, the people in the city are finished!”

An officer on a large ship shouted, directing the adventurers. He was probably using a sound-amplifying magic, as his voice could reach every adventurer’s ear despite the fierce battle.

“Dammit, this beast’s hide is too tough! Even my Blade of Fatality can’t cut its flesh.”

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“Even the magic casters’ spells can’t pierce its scales. How could your iron sword possibly cut it?”

“A Hydra’s hide can be used as the iron plating on the city gate. Even a Mithril-grade longsword would take several strikes. For us adventurers, we just need to stall the Hydra for the army’s magic casters. As long as I can see that bastard die, I’ll do anything.”

“Hey, don’t just sit on the boat chatting! It’s our second wave’s turn to relieve them!”

“First round of volleys, prepare——fire!”

At the shout from the soldier in an officer’s uniform, the magic casters lined up on the large ship fired finger-length [Ice Spikes], which sped uniformly toward the five Hydras’ eyes. Unfortunately, affected by the rocking of the ship, most of the ice spikes were wasted on the Hydras’ thick scales. Only the ice spikes from a few high-level magic casters managed to graze the corners of the Hydras’ eyes and pierce them.

“Is there a barrier on their skin that nullifies magic attacks?”

From her perspective, when the [Ice Spikes] hit the Hydras, a translucent film appeared on the surface of their scales, neutralizing the spell. Only physical attacks, like the swing of a longsword, could truly strike the scales. Unfortunately, the scales themselves had considerable defense, and ordinary weapons could hardly penetrate them. If her companions were here, probably only Pepe’s and Camilla’s attacks could harm them.

“I’d like to observe a little longer, but circumstances don’t allow it…”

Due to the magic casters’ ice spike attacks, the Hydras flew into a rage.

KRAAAAAAAA——

The two Hydras whose eyes had been pierced shrieked in pain. As their eyeballs instantly filled with blood, surging magic power gathered in their mouths. Influenced by these two, the other three Hydras also opened their nine mouths, spraying magic cannons as thick as water buckets in different directions.

“C-Captain, behind you! Behind you! The Hydras are enraged!”

“Fall back, don’t get near them when they’re using magic!”

“Jump into the water!”

“There’s no time, AAAAAHHH!!!”

Ignoring the adventurers’ shouts, Yisi deactivated her [Third Form Awakening] and, as Yisi Enya, dived toward the nearest Hydra. Before it could react, she slashed her monocle-modified lightsaber across its neck. Like a hot knife through butter, she decapitated the Hydra without any resistance. Furthermore, to create an opening for the adventurers below to dodge, Yisi covertly shot out [Stone Bullets], striking the remaining fourteen Hydra heads one by one, causing their magic cannons to veer off course.

“Does a lightsaber count as a magic attack?”

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Regaining altitude, Yisi glanced at her modified lightsaber. When it cut into the Hydra’s body, the thin defensive film had appeared on its scales again. However, the lightsaber’s intensity was clearly higher than the Hydra’s magic defense. She felt almost no resistance as the neck was severed, leaving clear scorch marks on the stump.

“Well, as long as it works. As expected of a weapon that can drain Enos’s magic in an instant.”

Modifying the monocle into a lightsaber hadn’t been difficult. It just required shaping a metal with excellent magic conductivity into a hilt and hiding the lens inside. Without magic infused, it was just a bare hilt. Once magic was infused, the lightsaber would instantly project from the lens hidden within.

Interestingly, before making the lightsaber, Yisi just thought it was cool and had no intention of using it in actual combat. But after successfully making it, she found it was much stronger than she had imagined.

First, it was extremely deceptive. No matter how much magic power she poured in, the beam projected from the lens could extend for a very long distance. However, most of the time, the part of the lightsaber that could be used for combat was much shorter than this beam. To put it in numbers, whenever she infused magic, the lightsaber would shoot out a beam over a hundred meters long, but the part that could actually cut things was only the one-meter length closest to the hilt. It was extremely strong for tactical deception. Added to that, the lightsaber had the characteristic of growing longer the more magic was infused. In battle, she could use this to suddenly change the blade’s length, achieving a surprise effect. It could be said that, if used properly, her opponent would never know how long this sword truly was.

Of course, the lightsaber was not without its flaws. The most prominent was its intensity. No matter how much magic she infused, the lightsaber wouldn’t get any sharper. Second, if it encountered strong magic interference, the blade would dissipate directly.

Also, for some reason, based on her experiments, the lightsaber wasn’t a “light beam” in the truest sense. If it hit something it couldn’t cut, like the Twilight of Eternal Frost or Sylph’s Bow, it wouldn’t simply pass through the weapon to the other side. Instead, it would be blocked, as if it were a physical sword. In other words, she could use the lightsaber to block attacks. Its strength was probably somewhere between a [Weak Electric] iron sword and the Sword of Ruin, Laevatainn.

As a side note, Yisi had tried channeling five hundred magic points per second into the lightsaber, and the lens had almost been destroyed by the overload. After careful experimentation, Yisi determined the lightsaber’s maximum length—about one hundred and twenty meters. At its peak, the lightsaber would emit an ominous hum, as if it might explode at any moment with a swing. Therefore, Yisi planned to limit its use to a maximum of one hundred meters, although she didn’t think a situation would ever arise where she needed to pull out a hundred-meter lightsaber.

“What was that!”

“How did the Hydra’s head just disappear?”

“Look, in the sky!”

“A woman? Her weapon is so strange.”

“A weapon that glows blue… never heard of it. But if it can cut off a Hydra’s head in one blow, it’s gotta be at least Orichalcum-rank. Is it His Majesty’s guard, General Carl? But I heard General Carl is a man.”

“Probably some adventurer.”

“Dammit, it must be because of that sword! If I had a sword like that, I could definitely cut off a Hydra’s head in one blow too!”

“Stop talking nonsense. Didn’t you see she’s flying? She’s gotta be a powerhouse of at least level thirty.”

Although she knew she would be watched by the adventurers, she hadn’t expected to become the center of their discussion. Yisi sighed softly. Yisi Enya’s public-facing strength was around level 50, and the power she was displaying now wasn’t outside that range.

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“I’d rather you all watch out for yourselves than stare at me.”

She had only cut off one of the Hydra’s heads. Although the remaining fourteen heads had been knocked aside by her [Stone Bullets], and their magic cannons hadn’t hit the crowd, the waves stirred up by the cannons still caused the adventurers considerable trouble. Most of them had fallen into the sea.

I should just hurry and finish off the remaining Hydras. They’ve passed the test as future leveling targets for my companions. The only thing left is to find their lair. As for the corpses, with such a massive size, they should be good for feeding the rubber slimes.

Just as Yisi raised her lightsaber again, preparing to slay the remaining Hydras, the officer-like commander shouted up at her.

“Your Excellency, if you have strength to spare, please go southwest and support His Majesty Gloria! His Majesty’s situation is more dire than ours! The empire will reward you handsomely after this is over!”

“Will you be alright?”

“As long as the harbor’s coastal defense cannons are activated, we will repel the Hydras. You don’t need to worry about us, Your Excellency!”

The coastal defense cannons the officer mentioned seemed to be the magic cannons set up not far away. Yisi glanced at the Omniscient Map; it would take about five minutes for the magic cannons to fill with magic power. If she went to Adonis, there would definitely be casualties here.

Although I really want to collect these Hydra corpses for feed, he said he doesn’t need me. If I linger, it’ll seem like an insult to their dignity. After a moment’s thought, Yisi deliberately made the motion of sheathing her lightsaber and taking out her staff. Feigning an incantation, twenty-eight golden arrows appeared in the sky. While the Hydra had a defense against low-level magic, that was limited to its body. Its eyes were as fragile as any living creature’s.

“Go.”

The twenty-eight golden arrows shot toward the Hydras’ eyes, one for each. With a sickening squelching sound, the arrows pierced all the Hydras’ eyeballs.

As long as they lose their sight, they can no longer cause trouble.

Although she heard the commander and some high-level magic casters exclaim the magic’s name, ‘Rain of Punishing Light,’ she had only used the first-tier magic [Light Arrow] to avoid showing too much of her strength.

Was it still too conspicuous?

“Probably not…”

Shaking her head, Yisi left the adventurers behind and headed straight for the place with more feed—no, to rescue Adonis.