Overlord (Light Novel)
Chapter 144.3: Volume 16: Chapter 5: Kill Steal (3)

Why did it look like Decem believed his (the enemy’s) words without a doubt?

Did he really not have any abilities that could see through invisibility? If he had any, it should have crossed his mind that Ainz suddenly appearing was not because he was summoned, but because he was hiding using something like [Invisibility].

If he really didn’t, then he was probably a specialized druid like Mare.

Or, in case this was all an act and he knew I was already here—a bluff in a sense—what is he aiming for?

He wanted to simulate what he would do if he was in that guy’s place, but spending too much time pondering on it would look suspicious.

“Then why don’t we fight one-on-one, fair-and-square? That should make it easier for my masters to understand who is stronger, you or them, right?”

Decem widened his eyes and laughed like he just heard an interesting joke. Meanwhile, Ainz used the silent metamagic to send a [Message] to Mare.

—Mare. That was a big lie just now. If it looks like I am in a bad situation, cooperate with me to absolutely kill that guy. Pass that along secretly to Aura as well.

Obviously, he had no intentions of handing the twins over to the guy. Also, fighting one-on-one, fair and square in a fight with one’s life on the line was an act of utmost stupidity. Some battles were fine to lose, but not those where people were trying to take each other’s lives.

But—

Ainz felt like he had made a mistake.

He wanted to spend a little more time buffing himself, but there was no way he would let a pervert like that touch Aura. The elf also could have had skills to force teleportation that Ainz didn’t know about, which would have been dangerous if he had let him touch her.

“The sight now—the sight of you two commanding an undead made me sure that you are my grandchildren.”

Then, the floor moved.

Like waves receding back from the beach, the soil roiled towards Decem.

Ignoring it, Ainz took out a scroll from under his clothes with deliberate movement and activated it.

It was extremely wasteful, but he had no other choice. Until he knew how much the opponent knew, he couldn’t let the enemy get cautious.

The activated magic was the Eighth-Tier spell, [Dimensional Lock].

This spell had the same effect as the special ability used by extra-dimensional beings like devils and angels. It blocked beings from teleporting out of a specific range with instant teleportation magic.

While he was doing this, the earthen lump that coalesced before Decem turned into something huge.

It was in the form of an elemental that Ainz knew.

He could hear a gasp of surprise from Mare, but Ainz was surprised as well.

A Primal Elemental!?

Upon seeing the elemental that couldn’t be summoned by normal means before him, Ainz instantly raised his level of caution.

Unlike Mare, Ainz suppressed his sound of surprise from leaking out. One of the fundamental teachings of “PKing for Dummies” was that you couldn’t let others find out that you knew.

Mare’s surprise could be misunderstood as a kid’s terror at seeing the elemental, but in Ainz’s case, it would make it clear that he had knowledge about it.

So Ainz lowered his shoulders in an exaggerated manner.

“—hnn. So what? You created a big lump of soil called an earth elemental? Are you going to make it fight me instead of fighting by yourself? Aren’t you underestimating me?”

“Hohoo. So you know what this is?”

Decem smiled haughtily.

Good!

“—Of course. That’s just an earth elemental, right? I destroyed one that was summoned against me in the past. Well, that wasn’t nearly as large as the one here, so you should be quite strong to be able to control one so large. Size is one of the marks of strength after all, but size is not everything.”

“Yes. You are correct. Dragon Lords who only have their large bodies to speak of can be defeated by Elves after all—But I am surprised. Your knowledge is not incorrect. You were right that this is an earth elemental. Hahaha. Your discerning eye—no, memory? I would bow to it.” Decem’s clearly scornful grin deepened further.

“—This is a rare chance, so why don’t you take a blow with your body? A blow from an elemental you called trivial”

The Primal Elemental slowly raised its fist.

...It should move faster if it was a Primal Earth Elemental. Was this intentional? Well, I am thankful for it.

Its behavior, like a cat playing with its prey, was a welcome thing for Ainz.

Isn’t this the best?

While hiding his smile—of course, his face won’t move in the first place—Ainz tried to recollect Primal Earth Elemental’s abilities.

The Primal Earth Elemental that was over level 80 played the tank role among the Primal Elementals of the same level. No, fundamentally, all earth elementals filled the same role.

Its attacks were considered to have nearly all of the metallic attributes under its level to be included in them.

For example, if beings like Lupusregina who had a weakness against silver got hit by it, it would trigger that weakness.

Also, as long as both the opponent and itself stood on earth, it would have a bonus to all of its stats, even though meager. But, that shouldn’t work now as the original floor that was exposed after all of the soil had collected near Decem was made from plant material. It also supposedly had the ability to hide in soil, but that couldn’t be used here either. All things considered, he could say that this was not a good battlefield for the Primal Earth Elemental.

What he should be on guard for were the punches from those fists. It was a simple way of attacking, but it was highly destructive. They were not exactly fast or precise, but it was hard for a backliner like Ainz to evade them. Furthermore, it does bludgeoning damage, which was particularly effective against Ainz.

It could also extend its arms like whips and do long-range attacks, but in that case, its power would go down a lot.

Just like its attacks, its defense was also supposed to have metal attributes imbued. It also had [Weapon Resistance V] against all weapons and physical damage reduction on top of that. Considering all of the above, it was the ideal tank and was troublesome to deal with using only physical attacks.

That said, it also had some weak points, naturally.

For example, it didn’t have any dangerous trump cards—that is, it had no special skills. That meant that it had no attack that could turn the tide in a battle.

The other weak point was that everything that worked against metallic attributes worked the same on the elemental.

...Herohero-san could probably take it down easily.

It was weak to acids and—there was one more element it was weak against.

Ainz made preparations to take out the staff from his inventory when needed. He wouldn’t be taking it out yet though.

Since the opponent was assuming that he was just a simple undead, he should play along and not display any skills that would put him on guard.

The question was whether or not he should take the incoming hit or not.

It would make for a good act if he made it look like that single attack was what made the undead being realize that this was no simple earth elemental. The demerit in this scenario would be that the enemy would turn cautious after seeing that one serious blow wasn’t enough to kill Ainz.

...Right. There’s no doubt that he is specialized in summoning. The earth elemental’s attack will be more powerful than usual. It will be disadvantageous for the fight hereafter if I receive damage for no reason. In that case, what I should be doing here is—

“[Wall of Skeleton]”

Ainz created a huge wall made of bones in front of him at the same time the elemental brought its fist down. The wall was instantly destroyed and disappeared into thin air.

As I expected...did his mana just go down?

“—W-what is this!” Ainz exclaimed in a voice loud enough for the elf to hear. “Why, why can it destroy my wall in a single hit!!”

“Hahaha. To think it was broken in a single hit from a simple earth elemental, isn’t your wall too brittle?”

Taking advantage of Decem’s good spirits, Ainz immediately shot a spell at him.

“[Lopsided Duel].”

This was a Third-Tier spell that made the caster teleport to the same place as the person he cast it on if they tried to escape by teleportation. Furthermore, even if the opponent was protected by [Delay Teleportation], it would still ignore it and instantly teleport the caster at the same time.

Still, this obviously had a fatal weakness. If the opponent teleported right into the middle of his comrades, the caster who followed them would also teleport to the same place and would end up as their punching bag. That was why, even though it looked like an extremely useful spell at first glance, it was relegated to the Third-Tier. Before it was patched, it could be cast on allies to teleport along with them. After it was patched out, the spell could only be cast on enemies.

So, Ainz should be prepared to escape if there were people on the same level as Decem waiting at the place he would teleport to. Luckily, [Lopsided Duel] had the small mercy of not taking the enemy along with the caster if it was the caster who used teleportation instead, so it would not be that difficult to escape.

“—What did you do?”

“...I cast an instant death spell. I see, so you already have measures against instant death?”

“...Well, it looks like you are somewhat intelligent, so you tried to deal with me after seeing that you can’t win against Behemoth. But, do you really think that I am weaker than the elemental?”

Summoners being weaker than their summons is impossible in YGGDRASIL, but you are probably the lower-leveled one here. Keeping that aside, why didn’t he answer my question even though he is looking down on me as a weakling? Is it because he really had no anti-instant death measures? And, what is this “Behemoth?”

Decem jerked his chin, making the Primal Earth Elemental lift its fists again. It was far quicker compared to the last time. He could also hear Decem cast a spell at the same time.

“[Mercy of Shorea Robusta].”

Tch. His use of Tenth-Tier magic was within my predictions, but that’s a really troublesome spell. Now I will have to use twinned metamagic to kill him.

[Mercy of Shorea Robusta] was a Tenth-Tier spell, and its mana consumption was one of the highest among them, on the level of [Reality Slash].

This spell had three effects.

First, for a limited period of time, it would gradually recover HP. However, the recovery rate was trivial and so it was hard to call it useful for people at this level range.

The second one was absolute immunity against instant death. There were far better spells in the Third-Tier if one only wanted to acquire resistance against instant death, but there was a reason why a lot of druids learned this spell despite that.

That reason was the third effect, which automatically resurrected the target when their HP reached 0 and died. This would not cause a drop in levels from resurrection. The trigger condition of HP going to 0 made it useless against deaths that weren’t caused by damage like those by drowning, but it was still a very useful spell. Priests had resurrection spells that wouldn’t cause level loss if they were cast right after death, druids also had spells like [Phoenix Flame], but many use this spell to cover for any careless mistakes. That said, they would be at low health upon resurrection, so they were very likely to die anyway after a few hits. Still, there were a lot of cases where people were saved by this spell.

Incidentally, it could avoid death from Ainz’s ultimate skill, [The Goal of All Life is Death] as this spell was considered resurrection magic. In that case, however, the spell would end even if there was still some active time left. It was because the spell was dispelled after it activated the resurrection portion.

He is probably guarding against my bluff about using an instant death skill...I made a mistake. My bluff should have been about some magic I can’t use. Let’s do that next time.

“[Triplet Magic - Wall of Skeleton].”

As he expected, the first wall was destroyed with a single attack and the second wall soon followed. While the third wall was obstructing Decem’s view, Ainz slightly changed his position, took out a scroll, and activated it.

[Piercing Cacophonous].

It was a buffing spell that he didn’t really need right now, but he used it just to be sure.

Primal Earth Elemental attacked again.

The [Wall of Skeleton] shattered and—

“—[Triplet Magic - Wall of Skeleton].”

At the same time the first of the three new walls he created was being destroyed, he heard Decem chant a spell.

“[Aspect of Elemental].”

It’s an Eighth-Tier druid spell that gave resistances similar to the elementals. It gave immunity towards bad statuses like poison and disease. Other than that, it also nullified critical hits and attacks with similar effects.

There was also a similar spell in the Ninth-Tier named [Elemental Form].

The areas Ainz specialized in were being mitigated one-by-one, which was troublesome.

That said—

—how much of his mana can I exhaust.

[Triplet Silent Magic - Greater Magic Seal]

Ainz changed his position a little more. With this, he had moved ninety degrees from his initial position with Decem as the center, he was now closer to the stairs.

The Primal Earth Elemental destroyed one more wall. Unfortunately, he couldn’t make new walls of bone right now.

[Triplet Maximize Boosted Silent Magic - Magic Arrow]

His mana went down by a lot instantly.

Naturally, even a low-tier spell would consume a lot of mana after being strengthened by four metamagics.

If this Primal Earth Elemental was a summon, all it needed was a single successful [Greater Rejection] and he wouldn’t need to prepare all these spells. However, if Decem really was specialized in summoner classes as he assumed, it probably wouldn’t succeed in dispelling the summon even with their large level difference.

Plus, [Greater Rejection] could only dispel summons, not creations.

Could it be an Elemental Adjutant? If it was created by sacrificing experience, it could be maintained nearly forever. But, it looks like he was consuming mana to maintain it so that shouldn’t be the case...I can’t really gamble on it though.

Then, he should also be prepared for that possibility.

“Fina—” Decem stopped speaking, looked at the twins, and then looked at Ainz’s position with a puzzled expression. “—Why did you move over there? Are you planning to escape while calling yourself their guardian?”

“Tch!”

“Hahaha! Then let me lend you a hand.”

The Primal Earth Elemental landed a punch on Ainz’s defenseless back as he ran towards the stairs. The knockback caused by its gigantic fist blew Ainz away.

“Hooo? To think you weren’t smashed in a single blow, it stands to reason why you would talk big. Well, your resistance was futile in the end anyway.”

Ainz was sent flying away, but he managed to keep his posture with [Fly] and took his position before the stairs.

“But seeing that you are running away, can I assume that you are going to leave your masters behind with me?”

“There’s no way I would do that.”

Ainz created another [Wall of Skeleton].

“That again? How do you even expect to win without damaging my elemental? That is an idiotic plan you got there.”

Upon hearing Decem’s exasperation-filled voice, Ainz returned a sneer from behind his wall.

“Hahaha! I know that humans are assaulting this country right now. Hey, Elf King, don’t you think time is on my side?”

“...I see. So that’s how it is. Aren’t you clever? But, that’s meaningless. Your plan’s impossible.”

“What? Impossible, you say?”

“Yes. Did you perhaps think that something like humans could take me down? Me, the one who controls this elemental?”

I was exasperated at similar words I had heard from the guy who summoned an angel in the past, but the Primal Earth Elemental is truly a top-class being. ...Is the Theocracy attacking while knowing Decem’s strength? If that’s the case, it means that they have a method to defeat him. Yet, this guy looks like he hadn’t even thought of that possibility yet. Either the Theocracy is ignorant, or this guy is. But, if the Theocracy really knew Decem’s strength, would that person at that time really have called that the highest angel?

It’s unsure what he thought about Ainz contemplating silently, but Decem spoke in an utterly fed-up voice.

“You should have probably understood it if you thought about it a little bit, right? You really are such a shallow person. Well, maybe it can’t be helped. You are an undead after all. All you have is air for brains.”

I don’t know. If they are prepared for a fight with the Elves, it stands to reason that there’s someone in the Theocracy’s camp on the same level as this guy at the very least. In that case, time really isn’t my ally here. I want to avoid consecutive battles but...

How much of his opponent’s energy could he exhaust?

While thinking about that, Ainz cast another [Wall of Skeleton].

As he said to Mare in a [Message] previously, fighting one-on-one is an idiotic thing to do when one really wanted to win, but he had to continue doing so this time unless he felt like he was in danger of losing. This battle also had one more irritating factor.

He had to fight with a hand tied behind his back.

Ainz already concluded that Decem couldn’t see through [Perfect Unknowable]. He could easily win if he used that.

But that wasn’t an option.

Why?

What was the most likely development if he started to have an overwhelming advantage using [Perfect Unknowable]?

Or, say, what would happen if he used a high-tier spell like [Time Stop] and outed himself as a strong opponent?

Decem would likely run upon realizing that he couldn’t win. Luckily, he wouldn’t direct his attacks at the twins—well, he couldn’t be certain of that, but it was very unlikely. That guy’s aim was to capture Aura—and then, Mare. It was reasonable to think that he would not cause them fatal harm.

Ainz didn’t want to let him escape without finding how Decem teleported here. He appeared suddenly, so he could probably disappear suddenly as well. No—in fact, he should imagine the worst and assume that he had the ability to do just that.

If he let this guy escape, this pervert could continue to aim for Aura and Mare forever.

That was one thing he certainly couldn’t let happen.

The twins could be standing at a dangerous precipice depending on Decem’s true strength, which he was yet to be certain about.

That was why he was putting into practice what he said to them with the [Message].

—He would be sure to kill Decem here, and not give him a chance to escape.

That was why Ainz didn’t ask the twins to help.

Difference in numbers was one of the main factors that decided victory. The first thing Ainz would do if he were to encounter a group of opponents of unknown strength that outnumbered his group would be to escape. He should assume that Decem would do the same.

It was better not to make the enemy realize his disadvantageous situation before he could create an opportunity to take them out. So, not only did he not ask for the twin’s help, but he didn’t even summon any undead.

His great lie about Decem being allowed to take the twins if he was defeated was also for the same reason.

By restricting his opponent’s actions, Ainz led his opponent into not wanting to leave the battlefield and gradually made him not able to leave it even if he wanted to.

Su, su...what was it again? Yeah, the sankyuu-cost effect. The important thing is whether or not I can make him accumulate enough of it...I hope that he doesn’t see through it...Let’s just pray that he doesn’t have much battle experience...I should break his will at the very least.

(T/N: Ainz is trying to remember “sunk-cost fallacy” and mistook ‘sunk’ with ‘sankyuu’ (how ‘thank you’ is pronounced in Japanese))

♦ ♦ ♦

“「S-scary」”

Upon hearing Mare’s trembling voice echoing through the necklace, Aura immediately concurred.

“「Un. Scary.」”

“「So Ainz-sama can be this scary.」”

Aura and Mare understood well why their master was intentionally fighting like that.

To gauge his opponent—that was probably one of his aims, but that was not the only one.

He was aiming for one other major objective.

He was slowly dragging the opponent down like quicksand to stop him from escaping and would then go in for the kill.

When should someone choose to escape in a situation where they couldn’t get a read on the other party’s health? There were various opinions on this topic, but excluding cases like their attacks being completely ineffective on the opponent, it would be when their own health went below a certain threshold.

Then, what if their health mostly remained the same, but it was their mana that was getting worn down?

What if they already used a lot of their mana up till that point?

What if they felt like they could win with just one more push?

It was in everyone’s nature to be reluctant to cut their losses even when they knew that was the right thing to do. That was why everyone made their own rules from their own painful experiences and the information they had gained from others.

That meant that when one’s battle experience was meager and the information they had on their opponent was nearly non-existent, they would have trouble deciding on the right moment to cut their losses.

Their master saw through that very point.

Especially since the opponent was a king, someone haughty and inexperienced at battling others whose strength was on par with himself. He was pushing him to a point where he couldn’t easily cut his losses and escape.

“「All of those shameful utterances were a bluff. Although it’s rude to call him a monster, Ainz-sama really is one when it comes to a battle of wits isn’t he... 」”

Aura’s body slightly trembled.

“「It’s understandable why Demiurge-san said that he is someone above even him...」”

Mare also trembled in sync.

“「It’s also awesome how he is deliberately showing the guy that he is using the scrolls」”

“「All because he is trying to hide his own strength.」”

They couldn’t help but feel fear at the deliberate actions he had taken. They also learned a lot at the same time.

Both of them felt how blessed they were to have one such as him standing above them.

♦ ♦ ♦

A new wall appeared the very instant the previous one was smashed apart.

Decem hid his irritation behind a smile, realizing that the opponent was uselessly stalling for time.

He wondered how many times they had repeated this. Though he didn’t count because it was tiresome, it should be at least 20 times by now.

The walls were weak enough to break apart in a single hit, but the opponent was deploying multiple at a time to avoid Behemoth’s blows.

Mooks will use their brains in their own way...no, it’s different. Maybe I should say that they need to be so desperate because they can only use such weak magic.

It was probably incorrect to call him a mook, but that undead was certainly weaker than his Behemoth. What Decem saw till now in this fight showed that he was right.

If that undead was stronger than Behemoth, he would have proactively attacked them. However, all he did was fumble around while doing his best to defend against Behemoth with spells. It was like he was relying on some third party to do the real work. Sure, Behemoth was taking damage every time he broke one of the walls, but that was trivial. It was unlikely that the undead was stupid enough to think that he could take down Behemoth with that alone.

His attempt to damage Behemoth bit-by-bit was probably a ploy to help the humans who he’s expecting to come here later...brings tears to my eyes really. Behemoth’s got far more health than you think, you know? Won’t your mana run out first?

Another wall was smashed and he can see the next one behind it.

Decem sighed.

Continuing with this farce any longer would be tiresome.

Maybe that was his aim all along. To make me just leave them alone because it felt tiresome—how do I quickly deal with him?

He already understood that it was not wise to deal with those walls one by one, but Behemoth unfortunately didn’t have any special skills. If he wanted to ignore the walls, the only other choice was to walk around them. If he did that though, the enemy would just make another wall.

It would end up being a game of cat and mouse.

Decem could control and order elementals stronger than him. Generally, it would be impossible to summon or control those stronger than yourself, but due to one of the jobs Decem learned, he could ignore that restriction. However, it came with the price that his mana would be gradually consumed while the summon was fighting.

It was not like he had to concentrate while using Behemoth, so Decem could use magic at the same time. Although, doing that would reduce the time he could keep Behemoth active.

It can’t be helped. Should I just use an attack spell? Behemoth and Me. He shouldn’t have any leeway to create new walls while taking on both of our attacks.

Decem could use Tenth-Tier magic.

A realm that the magic casters of this world could never reach even with all of their efforts—a tier only allowed for the chosen few.

That said, he could only barely use it because he had specialized in summoning. He was certainly not good at it, though it should be enough to deal with something like that undead easily. But—was it fine to use his precious mana like that? He hesitated, wondering if he should save it for Behemoth instead.

I have to somehow make that undead understand that humans can’t do anything to me. That would probably make him stop trying to buy time...

He already said as much, but it didn’t look like the other side believed him.

No, even he could understand that it was only natural that they wouldn’t believe him.

One does not simply believe the enemy’s words, but it’s not like Decem was lying either. No one was able to beat Behemoth till now, even the ancient dragons weren’t a match. Though they used Second-Tier magic to strengthen their bodies, they were still beaten into a pulp by Behemoth in the end.

Even Decem himself would inevitably die if he turned Behemoth into his opponent.

His father was probably the only one who could defeat Behemoth, but he was already dead. That meant that there was no one left who could.

He’s probably thinking that he can win if I exhaust my mana, but that’s wrong too...

The undead was likely counting on taking down a magic caster whose mana was exhausted easily. That was probably a prediction made from his own experience as a magic caster.

Decem deigned to recognize that a part of its reasoning was correct.

If Decem—someone who specialized in summoning—used up all of his mana and was unable to use Behemoth anymore, his battle strength would drastically drop. However, that didn’t mean that he himself was weak. As someone who stood at the pinnacle of druids, his body was stronger than most living beings.

The brittle human body would split into two with just a single blow from his fist. If he kicked someone who wore armor, it would leave a footprint on it while turning the soft meat inside into pulp from the impact.

He was confident that he could wipe out a human army of thousands, nay, tens of thousands with just his bodily strength alone.

Yet, if he was asked if it was alright to exhaust his mana, he couldn’t be so sure.

He was a bit uneasy about it as he entrusted most of his battles to Behemoth till now. Killing a few thousand soldiers would mean that he would need to swing his fists thousands of times as well. He wouldn’t know if his stamina would hold unless he tried, and most of all—

To fight directly by myself—to do an act as barbaric as dirtying this body with human blood is unthinkable.

As someone proud of his nature as an elemental user, to swing a weapon at his opponent personally was nothing but savagery to him. He wanted to avoid that kind of battle at all costs.

What should he do then?

I already consumed a lot of mana. I can still fight but...that doesn’t mean I can do it for long using Behemoth. I will have to kill humans while keeping the grandchildren bound with magic. Taking that into account, I really don’t have much leeway with my mana.

He couldn’t spend any more mana on that undead.

Should I just ignore him and leave with the grandchildren? But he will probably just be summoned again...

Then they would end up going through a similar fight again.

That’s not the way he wanted to do this at all.

He wanted to break their will by showing them who was the stronger one. He wanted to win the battle here and imprint on them that he was their superior.

Those two would continue to rebel against him if he didn’t do that.

So that undead had to be destroyed completely.

It all comes back to this, but how should I eliminate him?

All of his opponents till now were no more than brittle branches that broke with a single punch from Behemoth. He never imagined a battle where he had to chase after the opponent who scurried here and there, trying to stall for time.

Hnnn—this was a good experience. I should practice by killing those escaping worms as well the next time around. First, I should deal with—that.

Decem glared at the wall standing in Behemoth’s way. Or, to be more precise, he was staring at the undead behind it.

As I thought, there’s no way around it. I should quickly kill him even if I have to use a large amount of mana. It’s extremely, yes, extremely inelegant that an elemental user like me has to use attack magic but...it can’t be helped. I don’t want to fight physically so let’s just bear with it.

After resolving himself to it, Decem selected a spell and activated it.

[Shining Burst].

The Seventh-Tier spell caused an eruption of heat and light which manifested like the sun. The wall made of bones was blown away the instant the hemisphere of white light touched it, but the walls behind it stood undamaged.

I see, so even a wide-area spell can’t break through the inner walls.

It would have been better for him if all the walls were dealt with at once, but finding out one of its characteristics was good enough. He would just have to choose a different spell next time with that information in mind.

Even wide-area spells differed slightly; some scattered and some exploded, while others radiated outwards.

Behemoth’s huge right fist of stone smashed through another wall and without a pause, his left fist also brought the last wall down. He finally caught the sight of the undead who looked flustered.

He will just make another wall, won’t he?

Then all he had to do was cast a more suitable spell based on the now known information.

But what happened next was unexpected.

The undead started to walk away in an attempt to create some distance from Behemoth, and took an item out from under his robe. It was probably another scroll.

The Elves used the bark from a special kind of tree to make scrolls and could only inscribe druid spells up to the third tier on them. That undead’s magic was not druidic, so Decem thought that was probably how scrolls looked for spells from a different system of magic.

A low-tier spell? Is he mocking me? Does he think he can defend with just that? ...Or do the scrolls he uses contain higher-tier spells? ...But when did he even get them? A special type of summon?

The undead burned the scroll, activating the spell stored.

“Wha!?”

A dense fog spread out with the undead at its center, covering Decem’s entire field of vision, reducing his visibility to only a few meters. The fog was so milky thick that he could only look ahead by maybe five meters at most.

More irritating magic from his opponent.

He was about to cast an attack spell, but it wouldn’t be effective unless he had a clear line of sight; It was the same for wide-area magic. That undead used the scroll while walking, so he should be moving right now. It was possible that the target was not in range even if he attacked the spot he last saw him.