One of the six beasts roaming together as a pack had trampled over a Plant Undead.
AWOOOOOOOOOO——!!
As an Outer Wolf howled in response to the Plant Undead’s shriek, the howls of the others rang out as though resonating with it.
It was the precursor to a frenzy.
Their once-yellow eyes began turning red, and their already enormous bodies swelled until they were large enough to be called monsters in the truest sense.
“Damn it…….”
As if his luck could possibly get any worse, he had run into two consecutive random encounters.
‘Is [Luck] completely useless?’
He had casually spent his remaining skill points on it because it increased item drop rates, but apparently, it did nothing in situations like this.
‘Is this another consequence of the failed subjugation?’
Dozens of mercenaries had been decapitated by the goblins.
How far must the scent of that much blood have spread?
Every beast-type monster in the Black Forest was probably converging on the area.
“Aiden! How long can you hold them off?”
“……I don’t think I can last more than a minute!”
That was the most Aiden could manage.
Jun grinned.
“A minute? Good. Then I’m counting on you until then!”
A Low-Rank Mercenary defeating even a single Outer Wolf was considered nearly miraculous.
Being able to hold off six of them for an entire minute was beyond common sense.
Mana once again surged around Jun.
At the same time, Aiden charged toward the Outer Wolves, which had now entered a complete frenzy.
If there was one small mercy amid all this misfortune, it was that despite the enormous surge of Mana behind him, the frenzied wolves still went for Aiden first.
‘They’re faster. Is that because of the frenzy?’
Aiden might not have known the peculiarities of the Black Forest, but he did know about Outer Wolves.
An ordinary wolf’s only real weapon was its sharp teeth.
Outer Wolves, however, also used their claws like tigers.
A claw enlarged and sharpened further by the frenzy swept past Aiden’s head.
‘This sword won’t survive blocking more than two of those.’
In that case, he would abandon any thought of reducing their numbers himself.
Having reached that conclusion, Aiden moved swiftly.
He circled wide, evading the attacks that followed while putting as much distance as possible between Jun and the beasts.
And that decision completely shattered the Outer Wolves’ formation.
Normally, they attacked in coordinated sequence, but the frenzied Outer Wolves no longer cared about one another’s paths and simply charged in recklessly.
In the process, they crashed into one another and even injured members of their own pack.
“Urgh……!”
That did not mean the situation had improved.
The beasts had completely lost their reason and attacked without giving him even a moment to rest.
One of them opened its jaws and lunged for Aiden’s throat.
It looked ready to bite off his entire head in one mouthful.
Worse still, the attack came at the exact moment he could not use his sword because he was deflecting another beast’s strike.
“Get lost!”
Yet Aiden recovered his sword with speed far beyond what should have been possible and drove the blade through the lunging beast’s jaw.
GRAAARGH—!
Without even looking back at the beast that died instantly, Aiden abandoned his sword and leapt backward.
Two more wolves charged in succession, tearing through the place where he had just been standing.
“Phew…….”
It was good that he had calmly taken down one of them, but unfortunately, he had lost his sword in the process.
Even so, Aiden’s expression only grew calmer.
“Exactly one minute.”
“Good work.”
Jun’s reply came from behind him, where he had continued gathering Mana.
At the same moment, all the Mana that had been converging around him spread outward at once.
[Detecting Target(Detecting Target)]
Part of the dispersed Mana formed into circles and locked onto the Outer Wolves charging toward Aiden.
It was support magic that increased the accuracy of spells.
Then another spell manifested.
[Rock Hold(Rock hold)]
————!!
The ground trembled as though an earthquake had struck.
Enormous trees swayed, and birds shot into the sky as though fleeing a disaster.
The charging Outer Wolves lost their balance and collapsed.
RUMBLE——
Then the earth overturned.
At least, that was how it looked to Aiden as he witnessed the scene.
“What in the world…….”
Rock Hold.
It was an advanced form of the 2nd-Circle spell Hold and belonged to the 3rd Circle.
A spell that manipulated the earth to restrain an enemy.
But could what he was seeing truly be called restraint?
The earth itself seemed to become a monstrous maw, opening wide and swallowing the maddened beasts whole.
YELP——!!
The only sounds that followed were the cries of beasts being crushed to death beneath the lightless earth.
“Phew…….”
A short while later, Jun, who had wrought the miracle, stared at the place where the Outer Wolves had been with a slightly weary expression.
The earth had already returned to normal as though nothing had happened, quietly holding the nourishment buried within its belly.
GULP.
Aiden swallowed dryly and stared at Jun in disbelief.
‘That was supposed to be 3rd-Circle magic?’
Aiden had encountered several mages in the past.
Among them had even been a 4th-Circle Mage, yet not even that man’s magic had been this terrifying.
“Senior, what was that just now…….”
“Wait, Aiden.”
“Yes?”
Despite having just displayed combat prowess so overwhelming that even the word overwhelming seemed insufficient, the tension had not vanished from Jun’s face.
And before long, Aiden realized why.
The Outer Wolves had not been their only enemies.
A faint tremor once again passed through the earth that had only just grown still.
When they turned toward the source, the two of them saw—
“A golem……?!”
It stood nearly four meters tall.
An autonomous-type golem covered in green moss stared down at Jun and Aiden as a deep green glow blazed from its eyes.
“Aiden! Don’t take that thing’s attack head-on!”
At Jun’s shout, Aiden grabbed the nearby shield instead of the sword he had yet to recover.
At the same moment, the golem moved.
SKREEEEEEEECH——!!
The golem unleashed a roar resembling the shriek of sharp metal grinding against metal.
Its enormous fist came tearing through the air.
[Shield]
Jun hastily deployed a barrier in front of Aiden.
But [Shield] stopped the golem’s fist for only an instant before shattering like glass.
‘If I can’t block it head-on……!’
Then he had to deflect it.
Resolved to risk his life, Aiden raised the shield, which began glowing faintly red.
BOOOOOOM——!!
The moment the golem’s fist struck the shield, Aiden twisted it at an unnatural angle.
Even though he successfully deflected the attack, Aiden was still sent flying through the air before crashing into the ground.
“Urgh!”
After rolling across the ground several times, Aiden struggled to his feet amid the cloud of dust.
“What kind of strength is that……?!”
If he had not protected his body with Mana the instant the attack landed, both he and the shield would have been crushed.
And even that had not been enough.
‘Damn it. It’s broken!’
The arm that had held the shield refused to move, defying his will.
And that was not the only disastrous news.
‘Of all things, a golem…….’
There were several reasons Low-Rank Mages were looked down upon in Blackout.
Their Mana pools were too small to cast many spells, and their low Vitality forced them to rest frequently.
There were plenty of other weaknesses as well…… but one of the greatest reasons was monsters like that golem.
‘The Magic Resistance trait…….’
Golems, said to have been created in ancient times, possessed inherently high Magic Resistance.
They were the reason countless mages in Blackout had been forced to taste bitter defeat.
Golems.
Back when he had still been Lee Jeong-jun, they had been notorious on the Blackout community forums as the despair of Mage players.
-What the fuck is with this goddamn golem?
-You bastard developers! Please stop fucking hating mages!
-I spent over 100 million gold on equipment, Skill Books, and elixirs, and I still can’t kill one damn golem. This is supposed to be a game??
-Developer: Then don’t play a mage if you hate it.
-I was going to play a mage on my second playthrough, but this post changed my mind. Thank you.
-Hahaha. I’ll save up one billion gold by my third playthrough and then do it. I’ll endure until then!
┕ You have received 1 billion gold...
Thus, Mage players had exactly one option.
Recruit powerful Warrior NPCs into the party and pour every buff spell they had onto them.
After that, all they could do was pray that the warriors somehow won.
That prayer strategy had been the only viable option available to Mage players at the time.
‘If Aiden were in normal condition, we might have been able to exploit an opening somehow…….’
The problem was that neither Jun nor Aiden was in normal condition.
Not even a full day had passed since the battle against the goblins.
Aiden was still suffering from the aftereffects of the paralytic poison, while Jun himself was deeply exhausted after traveling at a punishing pace for so long.
“Phew…… Seriously. My luck is absolutely rotten.”
After confirming that Aiden had been partially incapacitated, the golem turned its gaze toward Jun.
“Good. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Muttering as though to reassure himself, Jun habitually placed a hand on the choker around his neck.
A thin thread of Mana flowed from his hand toward the choker.
Like someone weaving a string pattern between their fingers, the Mana threads traced a fixed sequence, forming a kind of language before sinking into the choker.
[Interpreting Word of Power…….]
[Interpretation complete.]
[Reducing the influence of the Word of Power, ‘Odyssey of the Lazy Pilgrim,’ by 10 percent.]
A wave of Mana incomparably greater than before flowed out around Jun.
If Mana possessed emotions, what emotion would this scene have represented?
Dense threads of Mana snapped through the air as though they had escaped all control, warping space whenever they lashed outward.
Countless strands of Mana poured from Jun’s neck and spread across the entire area.
If one had to name one of the many reasons Blackout had become popular, its intricately designed systems would rank alongside its difficulty.
Players first tasted despair, then considered why they had failed.
And the moment a player’s creativity combined with the clues hidden throughout the game, the problem that had stopped them would finally unravel.
‘That exhilaration was impossible to describe.’
Jun, who had once been a veteran of Blackout, had become completely engrossed in the game after experiencing that unforgettable thrill.
‘Golems were one of those monsters too.’
He had encountered a golem before, back when he had been deeply invested in raising a Mage character.
He still remembered the despair of pouring out spell after spell until his already-small Mana pool ran dry, only to discover that he had reduced the golem’s Vitality by a mere twenty percent.
Since that character had invested everything into firepower, the despair he had felt at the time had been impossible to describe.
‘Truthfully, even then I knew. This game couldn’t be solved through firepower alone.’
And so, Lee Jeong-jun had finally swallowed his stubbornness and learned utility magic for the first time.
“Phew…….”
A faint sense of liberation emanated from the choker around his neck.
The talent he had sealed away was partially returning to him for this brief moment.
As proof, the Mana throughout the surrounding area responded to the Mana within him, creating a faint vibration.
‘It’s been a while since I felt this.’
Fundamentally, every human in this world accumulated Mana within their body.
Swordsmen, mages, and hunters alike.
But [Mana Incarnate] was different.
Mana was him, and he was Mana.
Following that truth, all the Mana permeating the space of this world resonated with his own.
Upon seeing him like this, his master had once said—
-What an arrogant, irreverent, and boundless talent you possess.
At the time, Jun had not understood.
He had not known where the limits of his talent lay.
But now that he had lived in this world for a year, Jun acknowledged that his master had been right.
‘The fact that I came to the same conclusion as you disgusts me, but you were right nonetheless.’
Within his small domain, everything he could reach felt almost like part of his own body.
No matter how far away something was, he could reach it merely by extending a hand.
He could see it.
He could feel it.
He and the space around him were as one.
‘My skill is still too lacking to control it perfectly, though.’
Would he someday reach that realm that seemed close enough to touch and yet remained impossibly distant?
‘Before that, I need to deal with that thing.’
Seeing the golem in reality rather than through a game screen made its presence overwhelmingly oppressive.
The golem lowered its stance.
It was preparing one of the skills that brought despair to shield-wielding Warriors just as golems themselves brought despair to mages.
[Charge].
The golem’s enormous body compressed all its weight into its forward rush, and the skill carried the [Armor Crash] trait.
‘That attack neutralizes most defensive skills. Trying to block it head-on would be insane.’
An ordinary mage would cast Haste to evade the skill.
It was an invaluable spell that compensated for a mage’s poor mobility.
Jun, however, chose differently.
‘As long as I have [Mana Incarnate], there’s no need to dodge.’
Magic was a miracle that painted imagination onto reality.
Jun began his incantation.
What he imagined was an enormous boulder.
A boulder that remained firmly in place even against the unavoidable enemy known as time.
The wind clawed at it.
Sandstorms wore it away.
Yet the more it endured, the sturdier the boulder became, accepting everything that threatened it without yielding an inch.
‘I’ll give form to it. To my imagination.’
Magic was not a simple process of reciting an incantation and pouring in the appropriate amount of Mana.
The more precise the image within the caster’s mind, the more precisely Mana was drawn upon the magic circle that projected it into reality.
Like a sculptor attempting to imitate a woman fashioned by a god, delicate hands of Mana shaped the image within Jun’s mind into reality.
The completed [Shield] became a barrier of incomparable solidity to the one he had used earlier to support Aiden.
The instant the spell was completed, the golem charged.
And when the boulder shaped by a mage’s image of enduring time collided with the artificially created golem, a tremendous shock wave erupted.
“Urgh!”
Watching from behind, Aiden grimaced as a blast of dust-laden wind swept over him.
“He stopped it……?!”
The boulder that had endured the passage of time had stopped the golem’s charge.
At the same moment, the golem’s movements became visibly sluggish.
As the price for failing its charge, it had been afflicted with the status effect [Groggy(Stun)].
“Urgh……!”
Agonizing pain spread from Aiden’s arm and stabbed throughout his entire body, but he struggled desperately to rise.
The golem’s Groggy state would last only around ten seconds.
Aiden somehow forced his body to move and headed toward the corpse of an Outer Wolf that had been thrown aside by the shock wave.
He retrieved the sword still lodged in its body, then stared at the back of the golem’s head as it recovered from [Groggy(Stun)].
He could not afford to waste the opening Jun had created for him.