Unruly Summon Chapter 41: Myth

It took far too long for me to locate Christine's body under the mountain of monsters. If not for my vision spells and the sensory enhancements from body strengthening, I probably never would have. Thankfully, I did have those things, so I trudged up the road alone with Wendy's corpse over one shoulder and Christine's over the other. One in perfect condition, the other torn to shreds.

I didn't have to travel far up the road before I came across bags and containers, obviously thrown from the carriage in an attempt to lighten the load. A little further was one of the seats, apparently broken off by raw strength, followed by other bits of the interior.

Having run out of easily removable bits of structure, the next thing I found was Minoru. The humans had thrown the demon from the carriage, presumably to improve their own chances. Had all four of them agreed? I could imagine Johanna doing it, but she'd been driving. The actual act must have been carried out by one of the others.

As expected, Minoru was dead.

That they'd done such a thing pissed me off. If only I knew which of the priests were responsible, I might have thrown them out instead, but I didn't, so for now there wasn't anything I could do. The callous act hadn't even bought the priests anything; the carriage had only made it another hundred yards up the road before my spell had hit. The horse was lying on its side, tangled in the harness. Johanna was dead in the driver's seat, the others all dead inside. It was a few minutes' work to add Wendy, Christine and Minoru to the pile and cut the horse free, running up the dirt track pulling the skeletal carriage myself.

The city gates were closed, nervous soldiers standing along the walls, sparsely enough that 'lining' the walls felt like a gross exaggeration. With the bulk of the army up north, this was likely the best defence they could manage.

"Open the gate!" I called.

"The city is sealed by royal decree," shouted back someone from the wall. From the fancy plume sticking out of his helmet, he was either a commanding officer, or else had a rather interesting fashion sense. "If you want to flee the monsters, go around."

"There are no monsters," I answered. "The flood is over, so open up."

"I find that doubtful, but even if true, I have my orders. Until I'm ordered otherwise, the gate remains shut."

"Oh, for goodness' sake," I muttered. "Maius Terra Columna!"

In a testament to its construction, the gate did not open, despite the pillars of earth that erupted beneath it. Enchantments flickered but held, and the gates and walls groaned but did not bend or break.

A dozen archers took aim. Perhaps I'd been a little hasty, there—surely it wouldn't take that long to confirm they weren't actually under attack and reopen the city—but to say I was in a bit of a bad mood would be like saying the sea was a bit damp. My patience would be best measured in femtoseconds.

The archers fired. "Maius Scutum," I answered, and they all bounced off. "Please stop making me waste mana, or I'll get angry, and then you'll see first-hand the difference between how I treat people whose names I know and those I've never seen before."

A burst of mana up on the wall suggested the soldiers had found a mage. I glanced up and began preparing a fireball of my own.

The mana on the wall cut out.

"Thomas?" yelled down the mage.

"Oh? Do I know you?"

I peered up, but the face didn't seem particularly familiar. I wasn't acquainted with any soldiers, as far as I knew.

"Yes! From the castle? You got me fired from my cushy court mage job!"

"Oh, you were the fourth mage! Sorry, I didn't recognise you without the robe."

"What the hell are you doing, talking to the enemy?!" yelled the leader of the guard. "Attack!"

"Yeah, but no. That's the damn hero. I've seen him angry, and frankly, I'd rather eat my boots than attack him."

The wall fell silent. A dozen bows suddenly found themselves pointed in different directions.

"This discussion is nice and all, but I'm in a hurry. Open the gate, or I'll open it for you."

"I don't know what sort of hero you're supposed to be, but that doesn't give you the right to order us around," replied the captain, reminding me that my existence was still partially a secret.

"Fine, I'll do it myself," I muttered, peering at the gate. I could just punch it, but given that it had withstood an enhanced earth pillar, I didn't fancy my chances no matter how much mana I poured into body strengthening. Likewise, while I probably could smash it down with magic, I needed to conserve my mana for my big resurrection attempt.

When I'd first arrived, looking out of the castle window for the first time, I'd marvelled at the height of the walls. Now, they somehow didn't seem quite so impressive. A touch of body strengthening, and I could leap them.

I couldn't carry the carriage, though, so I still needed to get the damn gate open. Thankfully, the winch was pretty damn obvious, and the defence was laughably weak. A few soldiers tried to stab me, but battle aura let me simply grab their spears by the heads, yank them forward, and then punch the men in the face.

"This... this is an act of war!" yelled the red-faced captain.

"Yeah, yeah. Cry me a river," I muttered, grabbing the carriage and pulling it through the open gate. "Feel free to close it again once I'm through, if it makes you feel any better."

Thankfully, none of the guards pursued me, although I had a suspicion I'd face the consequence of forcing my way through later. I simply found it hard to care.

The streets of the capital were deserted, nor did my mana sight detect anyone cowering in their homes. The city may not have been up to much by Earth standards, but I was still impressed the entire place had been emptied so quickly. Where had everyone gone? If the evacuation was complete, why was it still defended?

... Nah, that one was obvious. If it wasn't defended at all, the monsters would quickly catch up with the evacuees. They must have planned to use the convenient big walls to hold the flood here. Although even then, doubtless enough of the monsters would simply go around to continue being a threat.

My house was untouched, but contained neither Glenda nor Mary. It wasn't them I was here for, anyway; it was the artefact I'd been loaned by the archbishop. How was I even supposed to use it? Was wearing it sufficient, or did I need to do something more complicated to activate it?

Nothing for it but to try.

With the tiara atop my head, body reinforcement switched on and battle aura applied to my throat, a mana potion in hand and the seven corpses laid out in front of me, I was as prepared as I could possibly be. The first time I'd cast Miraculum, I'd focused the entire thing on Mary, without purging any miasma at all. Now I wanted to do something similar.

"Maius Miraculum."

The first syllable was enough to remind me that Wendy had demanded I cast this spell outside the city. She hadn't been wrong. The force of the spell was literally explosive, not merely demolishing my house but sending lumps of wood and stone flying high into the air.

I didn't much care. Yes, the neighbouring properties didn't survive unscathed, but I knew they'd been evacuated. There was no-one around to put in any danger. More important was the effect of my spell on the dead. Despite my desires, I could tell that great waves of mana had rolled out in all directions, away from my chosen targets.

Nothing seemed to change. The horrific wounds Christine had sustained from the monsters remained. All seven were still pale.

"Hey!" I yelled, running to Wendy first and looking for any signs of life. "Can you hear me?"

She didn't respond, but despite her pallor, I could see that she was breathing shallowly.

Minoru gave one of her usual half purr, half snores as she curled up into a ball.

The tension that had led me to force my way into the city departed in an instant. It turned out that tension was also all that was keeping me upright. Like a snapped rubber band, I collapsed, joining the people I'd just saved on the shattered wooden floor.

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"Maius Miraculum."

"What the hell?" asked King George, as the mythical spell washed over the train of refugees a considerable distance from Odimere.

"Master! That was Master's voice!" excitedly exclaimed Mary, who was riding a horse as part of the king's group. A knight sat behind her holding the reins, while her mother was on another horse alongside. The king had put together a well-guarded high-priority party—naturally including himself—all of whom were on horses and who had travelled miles ahead of the rest of the train of refugees.

The fact that a spell cast by the hero was audible to the group was therefore rather surprising.

"The hero has joined the evacuation?" he asked, turning to a mage on another nearby horse. "I thought you said he was fighting the horde south of the city?"

"He was, when last I looked, but I can't scry while we're travelling at this speed," replied the mage.

"There's no sign of pursuit and no alerts from the rearguard," said an older knight, the leader of the royal guard, Siegfried Kingsblade. "It's safe to slow down briefly."

The order rippled out, the group slowing to a trot so that the scrier could concentrate on his magic without needing to worry about his kidneys being jolted into his lungs.

"Well?" asked King George some minutes later, growing impatient.

"My apologies, your majesty. I... can't find them."

"What do you mean, you can't find them?"

"I mean, I can't find the horde. It's... gone."

"How can it be gone?! You said there were tens of thousands of monsters!"

"Remember that it was apparently hidden from us to begin with," said Siegfried. "Perhaps something about this horde renders them invisible to us beyond a certain distance."

"Perhaps," replied the mage, his eyes still blank as they focused on visions of far away. "No, wait. What's this?"

"What? What do you see?" demanded the king.

"The horde. I've found them, right where they were the last time."

"Then why did it take so long? But no matter. Now that you've found them, what's going on?"

"Even if they've remained where they were, we've travelled a substantial distance," pointed out the mage, still staring at nothing. "But the reason I missed them is that they aren't moving."

"So, they still haven't reached Odimere? Good. The entire evacuation should be a success, then."

"No, you misunderstand. I didn't say they aren't advancing. I said they aren't moving."

"What are you implying?" asked Siegfried.

The mage peered for a few moments more. "... I'm pretty sure they're all dead."

"How?!" exclaimed the king, radiating disbelief. "Are you saying the hero slew them all?"

"It's hard to see from this distance. I don't see any activity at all."

"Call a halt!" shouted Siegfried, and the party moved from a trot to a full stop. "Order the rearguard to despatch scouts to Odimere and the location of the flood."

"This isn't possible," said King George. "The hero never finished his training. How could he possibly have defeated a horde of that size?"

"The positioning is strange," replied the mage, his vision having grown a little clearer now that the party had stopped moving. "They aren't clustered around one point, as I would expect had a single person been fighting them. I don't see any widespread damage to the landscape, either. That's not what I'd expect from a violent battle of that magnitude. It's more like the entire horde simply died mid-charge."

"Is there a spell that can do that?"

"No, of course not, or else we'd..." started the mage, before pausing, having remembered the existence of Miraculum. Had someone asked a week earlier if a spell existed that purged miasma, he'd have instantly answered no to that, too. "... or perhaps there is," he continued, shuddering. "If Thomas can cast Miraculum, perhaps he can also cast Pereo."

"What now?" sighed the king, having spotted the shudder.

"Sorry, it's just that given the nature of the myth in which Pereo is mentioned, it's hard not to imagine the effect of him casting it in the middle of Odimere."