The Lizardman Heroes

by Kugane Maruyama

  He was bothered by how shallow his thinking had been. There was a way to turn this around, but it wasn’t a good one. Using that method was practically a synonym for defeat.

  But could he really report to his master that they had lost? Cocytus grabbed a Message scroll. The one to call in this situation was…

  “IS THIS DEMIURGE?”

  “Yes, my friend. What in the world happened that you would send me a Message?”

  Demiurge’s deep, calm voice echoed in Cocytus’s head. As one of Nazarick’s top minds, Demiurge would surely have a good idea.

  It was frustrating to go for help to someone who, in a way, was a rival, but he had to avoid defeat at all costs. The army of the Great Tomb of Nazarick? Lose?! To avoid that fate, he would bow his head as low as it took.

  “ACTUALLY…”

  Demiurge listened silently to Cocytus’s explanation about his present situation that used up a whole scroll, and he heaved an annoyed sigh. “And what do you want me to do about that?”

  “I WANT YOU TO LEND ME YOUR WISDOM. AT THIS RATE, WE’LL BE DEFEATED. IF IT WERE JUST ME LOSING, I WOULD ACCEPT IT, BUT I CAN’T DISGRACE THE GREAT TOMB OF NAZARICK AND THE SUPREME ONES.”

  “…Does Lord Ainz even want you to win?”

  “HUH? WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?”

  “Why did he build an army of such low-tier minions?”

  Cocytus had been wondering the same thing. He didn’t see any reason to build an army out of the weakest minions the Great Tomb of Nazarick had to offer.

  “HE MUST HAVE HAD SOME IDEA, BUT WHAT IN THE WORLD WAS HE TRYING TO DO?”

  “I have a few guesses.”

  I KNEW YOU WOULD. Cocytus didn’t say it aloud, but he definitely had quite a bit of respect for the demon.

  “So…Cocytus. You’ve been there for some days. Before attacking, you should have gathered some intelligence on the lizardmen, right?”

  That should have been a given. However…

  “BUT LORD AINZ ORDERED ME TO TAKE THEM OUT WITH THE ARMY HE PROVIDED IN A HEAD-ON FIGHT.”

  “Yeah, but I want you to think for a minute, Cocytus. Isn’t the most important thing the results you’ll offer to Lord Ainz? If your main objective was to obliterate the village, shouldn’t you have searched for the best way to do that?”

  Cocytus had no words to reply with. Demiurge’s comments were right on the money.

  “He must have had that in mind when giving you those minions.”

  “…HE GAVE ME A FORCE THAT COULDN’T WIN ON PURPOSE?”

  “There’s certainly a very good chance. If you had collected intelligence, you might have realized that you didn’t have sufficient force to take out the village. Then you would have been able to report back and say, ‘Lord Ainz, annihilating them will be difficult with these troops. I need stronger troops.’ Perhaps that was his aim?”

  In other words, he should have verified his master’s true intent—not just followed orders but adjusted the operation at his discretion and then acted. That’s what Demiurge was saying.

  “It was probably to make you more conscious of these things. I’m sure he had other aims as well, but…”

  “OTHER AIMS?” Cocytus asked, flustered. He’d already made one error. He didn’t want to make any more.

  “He sent a messenger to the villages, but he never mentioned Nazarick’s name. And he told you not to show yourself. That means—”

  Cocytus swallowed hard, hanging on Demiurge’s every word. But the next ones didn’t come.

  “Ngh! Sorry, Cocytus. Something urgent’s come up. Sorry, but that’s all. I’m hoping for your victory!” Demiurge cut the conversation short, and the Message spell disappeared.

  With some idea of what would make level-headed Demiurge panic, Cocytus shifted his gaze to the other person in the room. Entoma was carelessly removing a beat-up talisman from her forehead.

  For a talisman wielder to use one now meant…everything was too late.

  It was time to unleash the monster he’d been told to save as a last resort. But was that really what his master wanted him to do?

  Cocytus, for perhaps the first time, thought carefully about what intentions might have been hidden in the orders he was given. But in the end, there was only one conclusion to draw.

  Cocytus cast Message. “AN ORDER FOR YOU, ELDER LICH COMMANDER: MOVE OUT. SHOW THE LIZARDMEN YOUR POWER.”

  His body of skin and bones was wrapped in a splendid but old robe, and in one hand, he clutched a gnarled staff. His rotting face, with just a bit of skin stretched over the bones, spoke of dark wisdom. Negative energy rose off his body and hung around him like a mist. This undead caster was an elder lich.

  He received the order from Cocytus and glanced at the marsh. Then he gave an order to the flabby, red-skinned undead immediately behind him—bloodmeat hulks who had been created in the same way he had.

  “Slay those three lizardmen.”

  Following the order, two hulks began walking toward the three lizardmen who had wiped out the riders. They were low-tier undead who could use their muscular strength only to punch, but they had regeneration abilities, so it would take a while for an opponent in the same level range to beat them with simple physical attacks.

  The elder lich decided they’d be able to buy him enough time.

  Certainly, this was a poor plan. As a caster, the elder lich wasn’t terribly strong in a close-quarters fight. Having the bloodmeat hulks attend to him would have been the smart strategy.

  But he couldn’t do that.

  The order he was given was to show his power. That meant he needed to use his overwhelming might to devastate the lizardman base on his own.

  As he walked, the elder lich crumpled his horrifying face in a chuckle.

  It was so simple.

  As an elder lich created by the Supreme Being Ainz Ooal Gown, he was far stronger than Nazarick’s auto-spawning elder liches. All he had to do was display that power.

  He swore on the name given him by his master that he would be victorious. “I, Iguvua, will bring victory to the Supreme One.”

  4

  The lizardmen, shoulders slumping in fatigue, heaved a sigh of relief after finishing off the undead beasts. Despite hearts pained with sorrow, they wore faint smiles.

  It was true that more than a few of them had been injured or killed, but they were lucky that was all. If the swamp elementals hadn’t joined the battle—no, if they had even showed up a little bit later—their line would have broken and everything probably would have fallen apart.

  “Let’s go.” It was the voice of one of the head warriors announcing the next round.

  Everyone’s bodies were heavy with exhaustion. They could barely hold their weapons and swinging them was a chore, but the fight wasn’t over yet.

  The zombies were a ways away, but the warriors still had to mop them up, and they had to stay on the lookout after that.

  “Okay, carry the heavily injured to the village. Everyone else, follow—” His command was interrupted by a blaze of hellfire.

  The heat wave pummeled the area, and at the center of the flames, the two elementals reeled. The flames vanished as if they had never existed, and the elementals were in shambles. With just one attack, they were half-destroyed. The second round of flames leaped up before the lizardmen had time to cry out in shock. Unable to withstand it, the bodies of the elementals collapsed and melted away inside the fire.

  The lizardmen were unable to wrap their heads around the sudden annihilation of elementals that had been so effective against the undead beasts.

  What happened?

  Despite acknowledging that the swamp elementals had been wiped out, they desperately refused to understand it. This meant that something even more powerful than two swamp elementals had arrived.

  The lizardmen scanned the area with naked confusion and fear. The moment they laid eyes on the lone undead in the distance, it loosed another magical attack from its hand.

  The fireball,
about as big as a human’s head, followed a straight path through the air and crashed into the lizardmen on the front lines.

  Usually, throwing water on fire would put it out. But phenomena brought about by the laws of magic, even such everyday phenomena, were different. The moment the fireball hit the water, the area went up in flames as if the swamp were a hard floor.

  The expanding conflagration engulfed several lizardmen and disappeared.

  An illusion—the flames vanished abruptly enough to make them doubt their sight. But the smell of burned flesh hanging in the air and the crumpled forms of lizardmen on the ground were no illusions.

  The undead advanced slowly. His manner was so elegant that it seemed to overflow with arrogance. It was the gait of one who was confident in his power.

  Should we make a decisive charge like we did against the skeleton archers? While the lizardmen mulled it over, another fireball went flying.

  It exploded, and the lives of the lizardmen in the area were snuffed out instantaneously.

  This was truly overwhelming power; it was as if everything up until now had been a game.

  “Yaaaagh!” A war cry went up, an attempt to shake off the fear. The moment several lizardmen prepared to charge, an icy voice echoed out impossibly close.

  “Fools!”

  Just a single word. The fireball burned up its victims before they could even cry out.

  The undead swayed, and the several hundred lizardmen took a step back, forced by the wall that was the difference between their own power and the truly powerful.

  “Let’s get out of here!” someone, one of the head warriors, shouted in a quavering voice. “This enemy’s different from the others! We don’t stand a chance!”

  Obviously. It was coming at them on its own. The lizardmen could feel the pressure, like an overwhelming wind, on their skin.

  “You guys go back and report to the chiefs and Zaryusu!”

  “We’ll buy you time!”

  The fireball burst, and a few lizardmen fell.

  “Run! And tell them!”

  The five head warriors let the others retreat to the village and judged the distance between them and the enemy, figuring in the area of effect of the exploding fireballs. Basically, they wanted at least one of them to reach the enemy. They would face death for this objective.

  They exchanged looks from their spaced-out positions and set off sprinting.

  The distance was around a hundred yards. A hundred despair-inducing yards, but they still advanced. Even if they were defeated on their way, at least they would leave behind some intelligence for Zaryusu and the chiefs who were surely watching behind them.

  The lizardmen who had pressed forward now ran home, scattering like baby spiders.

  Zaryusu watched calmly. No, he’d been paying attention ever since the immensely powerful enemy had appeared, the undead that sowed fiery death. Its movements were different from the unintelligent enemies they’d faced so far. This was probably the commander.

  When it had reached an estimated hundred yards from the lizardmen, it intercepted them with fireball area-of-effect attacks, and the head warriors who had attempted a five-pronged charge were all burned to death on their way.

  “It looks like we’re up.”

  Zaryusu nodded at Zenbel, and Crusch also indicated her agreement. Now they might be the ones to die, but they had to throw themselves into the fray.

  “Yeah, no doubt about it, this is where we come in. That kind of power… There’s a very good chance this is the Great One’s right-hand man, the commander of this army. Even if it’s not, it must be their trump card.”

  “Yeah. There’s no way they’d be able to control multiple undead of that strength. But how should we approach it? It’s too far away.”

  Zaryusu racked his brain to answer Crusch’s question. They weren’t fighting to die, so they needed a plan. Zaryusu and Zenbel couldn’t fight at a distance. They had to make it a close-quarters fight. The problem was that hundred yards.

  Certainly they were capable of withstanding a fireball or two. But it would be more than one or two by the time they reached the enemy, and the fight would begin in earnest only once they did. It wasn’t hard to see that if they faced that inferno head-on in their advance, they’d be overpowered in the end.

  “That distance is a real bummer.”

  “Yeah…it sure is. I never would have thought a hundred yards could feel so far…”

  They discussed how to reach the undead without any injuries, or at least without too many.

  “What if we swam under the water?”

  “Even with priest powers…it’d be pretty hard. If we could use Invisibility…”

  They could close the gap all at once if they could go invisible and use Fly, but druids weren’t able to acquire those spells.

  “Then how about making shields and holding those in front of us while we get closer?”

  “It will take too long to make shields.”

  “We could just break some houses, no?” Zenbel smiled wryly, knowing even as he suggested it that his idea was no good. These magical attacks resulted in blistering explosions. Even if they blocked one direction, the heat would find its way around. They didn’t have time to build shields that would cover their entire bodies.

  “Oh, hmm… That…we could do…”

  “What, Zaryusu?” Crusch asked timidly, recoiling slightly.

  Zaryusu wondered if she had seen the ruthlessness of his plan on his face, but he couldn’t help it. His idea was one he wished he could reject.

  “No, I just…found a shield.”

  Iguvua nodded, content with the present circumstances.

  Things were going well. The two bloodmeat hulks were still fighting, but he was advancing on the village with no problems.

  The lizardmen had seemed ready to charge a couple of times, but once he showed them his power, they seemed to realize how futile their resistance was. The five-man charge had probably gotten the closest, but even then, fifty yards had been their limit.

  Iguvua walked silently forward as if he were crossing a deserted wasteland. He didn’t drop his guard against the lizardmen, even as he sneered at how weak they were.

  There wasn’t much distance left between him and the village that was his objective. Upon reaching it, he intended to burn down the buildings with a rapid barrage of flames as he killed all the lizardmen.

  But surely the enemy would rather he didn’t arrive. Then they need to start counterattacking soon. When he looked toward the village, he saw he was correct.

  “Ohh? I see.”

  He could see a single hydra. It began walking toward him.

  If that was their trump card, laying it low with his overwhelming abilities would probably rob the lizardmen of their remaining will to fight. Then it would be even easier for him to destroy the village.

  He checked his surroundings once, and up into the sky, to confirm there were no enemies, and then stopped and leisurely waited for the hydra to enter his space.

  Right on the verge of being in range, it began to run—yes, at Iguvua.

  “Fool. You think you can make it all the way over here with your slow feet? You’re nothing but an animal.” Sneering, he formed a fireball in his hand and shot it at the hydra.

  It flew in a straight line right for its target—a direct hit. Flames of crimson hellfire blazed up, licking the hydra’s entire body.

  However, though it staggered, its feet didn’t stop moving. It kept running, engulfed in flames. No, the flames extinguished after a moment, so that must have been an illusion. The hydra’s extraordinary willpower only made Iguvua feel like that was what he saw.

  Iguvua frowned in displeasure. The creature had withstood one of his attacks. That deeply hurt his pride.

  It did seem like the hydra had a defensive spell cast on its body to reduce energy damage, but it wasn’t a high-level spell that could completely nullify his magic. Hydras have quick-acting healing abilities, but it shouldn�
�t work against fire… Either way, if it’s a magical beast, it must be overflowing with life force, so I guess it makes sense it could withstand one attack? Iguvua decided, to comfort himself. Still, that didn’t completely extinguish the flames of his rage. Iguvua was specially created by the Supreme One, Ainz Ooal Gown. Taking his hit without dying was tantamount to insulting his master.

  Though inside he seethed with rage, Iguvua turned an ice-cold gaze on the hydra that was earnestly running toward him.

  “What a bother. Die.” He shot another fireball at the hydra.

  Hellfire roasted the hydra’s entire body, and even at this distance, Iguvua had the feeling he could smell burning flesh. He should have injured it enough that it would hesitate to keep coming, even if it didn’t die, but…

  “Why don’t you stop? Why are you still coming at me?”

  5

  Rororo ran. He was gigantic, and the terrain was marshy, but he could sprint almost as fast as the lizardmen. He made huge splashing noises as he went.

  His amber eyes were clouded from the heat, and two of his four heads were already limp.

  Still, he ran on.

  Another fireball came flying and hit him. The fuel inside flared up all at once, and the flames licked his body. He felt throbbing pain like he was being punched over and over, his eyes dried up, and the hot air burned his lungs.

  The ache from his full-body burns and the searing pain from earlier that still hadn’t abated warned him: He would die if he took another hit.

  Still, he ran.

  He ran.

  And ran.

  His feet never stopping, one in front of another. His scales peeled off in the heat, and blood erupted as the skin beneath crinkled and curled up. Even then, he didn’t stop.

  If he were a witless beast, he would have naturally turned tail and fled. But Rororo didn’t flee.

  Yes, Rororo was a magical beast, a hydra. Some magical beasts were smarter than humans, while some were no more intelligent than any other animal. Rororo was more like the latter.