Chapter 267: 141. A Protective Shield -2 (Part One)

Translated by A Passing Wanderer

Edited by RED

Loud shockwaves came from the white shield.

I stared at Charlotte.

It must’ve been difficult for her, because she was gritting her teeth while trying hard to maintain the shield’s balance.

She had broken past the physical limitations of a human being and attained a transcendental body. Even then, she was still not quite strong enough to block off just one small spike from the mud giant.

“Euh-euhk…” A quiet little moan escaped her lips.

Her metal armour began creaking noisily, and on top of that, I thought I could even hear faint cracking noises coming from the muscles and bones in her arms.

“Charlotte!” I cried out to her, and she reacted to my call. But that was all she could do.

If this kept up, then she wouldn’t last for long. In that case…

‘…Cut that thing down!’

It felt like her thoughts got transmitted to me somehow.

I placed my hand on her shoulder and drove my divinity in to heal her body. At the same time, Charlotte pulled back the shield gripped in her left hand as if she was yanking it away.

Her left hand was viciously knocked to the right side with a frightening amount of force. It served as a stark reminder of how powerful the mud spike had been.

Charlotte rapidly yanked her sword out with her right hand and sliced the incoming spike apart.

“Your Highness, you must escape…!” Charlotte cried out urgently.

“No, that’s gonna be way too difficult.” While replying to her, I glared at the mud giant called Mist Calf.

The massive creature was frowning rather deeply. I figured that that thing’s pride was wounded after its attack didn’t work on us.

-You mere insects dare to?-

Mist Calf raised its torso up completely. It clenched its super-large fist and cocked its torso back.

-You dare to oppose me, the one personally created by the king of the giants?!-

The creature’s stone eyes were glaring murderously at us. From the look of things, it seemed to be planning to pummel us to death with its fist.

Even Charlotte wouldn’t be able to defend against that!

“…I shall try to buy you time, Your Highness.”

Wait, what?

She kicked the ground. Her metal boots dug deep into the ground and her body flew up like a tightly-wound spring being released.

She was now airborne. Mist Calf’s glare turned to lock on her, instead.

The incoming fist changed direction and flew towards her instead, and I quickly summoned Amon’s skull.

Charlotte faced the giant’s fist flying in. Her eyes narrowed to slits, and both her body and sword spun around in the air.

Her divine sword deflected the fist covered in bedrock, and using the force behind the attack, she jumped up even higher. Her figure staggered precariously, but still managed to evade the fist by a gap narrower than a hair’s breadth.

Seeing how she was wobbling like that, she must’ve suffered some serious damage just now. She then tried to thrust her sword into the back of the fist in order to injure the creature, but she only managed to inflict a little knick.

‘It’s just too big.’

Her thoughts were transmitted to me once more.

While watching her struggle, I put on the mountain goat’s skull.

“I am the legion.”

Mist Calf’s other hand slammed down on its own back of the hand, as if he was trying to squash an annoying bug flat. Charlotte rapidly dodged it, moving from the giant’s hand to its wrist. She was still wobbling from the force of the impact, however.

It all looked far too dangerous.

“And I am…”

When I got to that part of the activation phrase, Mist Calf finally caught onto what I was doing.

The giant shifted its eyes in my direction, and yet another mud spike fired out from its body.

“…Gaia’s inheritor.”

**

(TL: In 3rd person POV.)

Charlotte rapidly dashed forward, even as she snuck a glance behind her.

If she had been one step too late, then she would’ve lost her life, crushed under the giant’s palm. She swallowed back her dry saliva.

‘No, there’s no reason to be scared,’ she calmed herself down.

She took complete control over her emotions, then gripped her sword and shield tightly.

It was right at that moment that she heard a loud gunshot. She quickly shifted her gaze down to the ground below.

She spotted Allen down there, currently kitted out in Amon’s skull and the bone armour.

‘…Your Highness?’

He was even holding Amon’s staff in his right hand, while his left held Amon’s grimoire.

Greyish smoke wafted out from the muzzles of twelve muskets held in the bone hands sprouting from his back.

The muskets rose up and unleashed their loads on the giant’s arm.

The holy bullets travelled through the air and collided with the giant’s ‘flesh’. The bedrock surrounding the arm exploded, and was shoved back.

What happened next was that even the mud underneath blew apart and the bits glooped down like thick viscous liquid. An open wound gaped there now.

Charlotte’s eyes took in that sight, and were suddenly filled with the light of understanding.

It’d be hard to damage the rocky skin, but that wasn’t necessarily true for the mud underneath!

“Fuu-heuph…!” Charlotte sucked in a deep breath. She relaxed her muscles and got into her stance. She then stabbed her divine sword into the mud below before seemingly letting it hang loose.

She then covered the front of her body with the shield in her left hand.

‘Forward…!’

Her next move was to dash along the giant’s arm.

Her sword gripped ‘loosely’ behind her followed along and began splitting the mud apart. As she dashed forward, mud spewed out like splattering blood from the massive gap she was slicing open.

-Ku-oooooooooh!!!- Mist Calf howled out monstrously, and tried to smack her away with its other hand, but Allen provided timely fire support whenever that happened.

‘Forward…!’

Spikes shot out from the mud and flew out viciously, trying to impale her. She held her shield at an angle to either deflect them away, or yanked the sword out from the mud to slice apart the incoming spikes.

‘Go beyond, and…!’ She dashed past the giant’s arm and reached its shoulder before leaping up with all her power.

The shield covering her body was slung to her back, and she raised her sword high.

The giant’s face was making a freaked-out expression, and it completely filled her view.

The creature’s eyes seemed to be shaking, displaying how stunned it was. Its previous arrogant demeanour was nowhere to be found. Right now it was very flustered and feeling the rare and heady sensation of fear.

This giant was filled with nothing but hot air, it seemed!

And that’s why…

“…!”

…it would lose to humans today!

Charlotte roared out a battle cry. Her sword, now one with the pure-white aura of divinity, flew in directly at the mud giant’s eyeball.

CLANG-!!!

The tip of her blade collided with the hard surface of the eyeball. Her hand shook from the impact.

The blade began sinking into the mud giant’s eyeball, melting through its surface. Eventually, it fully impaled the eye.

Staaaab-

-Kuaaaaaaaaaah!-

More mud burst out from the wound in the creature’s eye. A typhoon of dust exploded out from the giant’s mouth at the same time.

‘I did it…!’

Elation filled Charlotte’s face. But that only lasted for a second or two. Her eyes met the giant’s remaining eye just then.

The glare in that gigantic frowning eye was stained deeply with hatred and rage.

Charlotte’s expression froze at that sight.

Her attack was too weak. Even if she had successfully stabbed deep into the creature’s eye, her size in comparison to the mud giant meant that it’d be about the same as pricking the creature with a mere needle!

“Charlotte-!”

The Imperial Prince’s loud cry came to her. At the same time, a huge shadow loomed right next to her position.

When she turned her head, she saw a huge palm descending on her.

“Ah…”

Her eyes naturally lowered to the ground where Allen was. He was raising his head up to stare back at her.

“Your Hi-”

Ka-boom!

**

(TL: In 1st person POV.)

Even I became momentarily dazed.

I didn’t have enough time to summon either the Skeleton King or the Bone Dragon.

Charlotte’s body was flung away, only to rapidly descend to the ground.

I kicked the ground hard to leap up and hurriedly caught her falling body before bringing her head closer. Our bodies crashed into the cold, hard ground.

I didn’t bother with the dust kicked up by our crash landing, and instead hurriedly checked her condition first. Blood was streaming down from her head. She was still holding onto her shield and sword, but then, her hands let go and her armaments tumbled from her grip.

She wasn’t breathing.

Son of a b*tch!

An uncontrollable rage began taking over my rationale.

No, hang on. I must not. If I lose my rationale now, I’ll really end up losing her here.

Don’t f*cking making me laugh, goddammit! I won’t let you die like this!