[178] 3. Forest of the Profane (3)
Arin cast the power of darkness. Now that the giant was wounded, this was the chance to see whether her abilities would work.
The darkness Arin used spread out like plant tendrils. Branches of shadow burrowed into the giant's shadow and snaked up like vines to seize its ankles.
Arin cast Mental Shock, a spell of psychic trauma.
If telepathy is a thief, Mental Shock is a mugger. It couldn't inflict full-blown trauma, but it could deliver shocks on the level of phobias.
The true strength of Mental Shock was that it could lead into mind control.
Mind control, a specialty of the arcane, manipulates an opponent's body—but it's difficult to pull off.
To approach a one-hundred-percent success rate, you need concentration equal to twenty times the opponent's mental strength.
In short, you can't dominate someone stronger than you.
Still, depending on tactics and circumstance, it could happen. That was precisely the case when Mental Shock succeeded.
If they could dominate the giant with mind control, the forest would be no problem. Canis, aware of that, held back and watched the outcome.
Mental Shock failed.
The giant, its face aflame, lunged at the party with even wilder motions.
Arin bit her lip. Telepathy, Mental Shock, mind control—three major psychic arts—and none of them worked on the giant.
For her, inexperienced as she was, it was the first time she'd felt such helplessness. Fragile emotions flared.
Why? Why wasn't it working? It's just a big human-sized thing, isn't it?
"Arin! Dodge!"
Canis stepped in and cast Shadow Wall.
The moment the shadow rose, the giant's fist slammed into it. The wall's darkness shattered like powder; the impact exceeded its capacity to absorb magic.
Still, the giant seemed drained and could no longer push forward.
A Harvester climbed the giant's forearm and sliced at a spot where veins would be with its claws.
If it had mastered the schema, the assumption that its body would be similar to a human's paid off.
Cutting the fold at the elbow opened a fountain of blood. The wound healed quickly, however. Perhaps stimulated by the pain, it began to rage even more wildly.
It's really strong. To think creatures like this exist.
Shirone teleported to bait the giant, and Rian cut at its heel with the precision of a butcher's slice.
Canis used the power of darkness. The toothed shadow was specialized for attack, but even while wrapped around the ankle it couldn't sever muscle.
"All it does is hold it in place. Everyone, hurry!"
Amy's Flame Strike bombarded the giant's face. But adding fire to an already burning field didn't help much. The wind attribute added some force, but in pure physical terms it was weaker than the photon cannon.
Shirone compressed photons. Unlike what everyone expected of a photon cannon, it took longer to activate.
Seeing the light globule warp and sag, Canis snapped in irritation.
"Damn it! What are you doing? Focus!"
"No, that's not it."
Arin said, "I'm changing the form of the photons."
If you can't fell it with brute force, convert to cutting power. If heat and shock won't work, make it sharp.
In the present situation, it was the right decision.
Canis doubted it could actually be done. Altering the form of light defied common sense.
Shirone felt it too. Artificially suppressing the light you were about to release was difficult. He thought it might be possible by changing the direction of the compressive force on the photons, but the mental cost was enormous.
A groan escaped between his teeth. Tightening his wavering mind like unbreakable steel and increasing the intensity of his focus, the photons flattened.
The photon cannon, now a disk, surged toward the giant.
The giant twisted its waist to snap the darkness away. When the blade of light cut its flank, the gash opened a span wide and blood poured like a waterfall.
In any case, it was a fatal strike.
Realizing that, the party—swordsmen and mages alike—barreled in with eyes wide.
They stabbed with sabers, hammered with the greatsword, burned with flame, and sawed with the shadow-toothed blade. The giant toppled backward.
Their continued strikes felt like trying to dismantle a dragon with only hand knives. A single bundle of muscle fiber had the strength of steel.
Amy panted, "Haa, haa. It's dead, right? It's dead, yes? Right?"
"I don't know. Probably. Want to do it again if you're worried?"
Tess shuddered. "No, I can't anymore. There's cruel, and then there's this."
"I tried to cut its throat with darkness and it really wouldn't sever. Why don't we just skin it?"
Canis's suggestion landed like a finishing blow; everyone paled and stepped back. In any case, the giant showed no sign of movement and Shirone's wound wasn't regenerating, so leaving it was the sensible choice.
Tess gave Shirone a thumbs-up. "That was awesome, Shirone. Another new spell?"
"It was luck. If the giant had evaded, we wouldn't have had a second chance. Just imagining that is terrifying."
Canis was displeased. The photon cannon was a shock-based spell—transforming it into cutting by changing its form? The idea was brilliant, but he couldn't help feeling like his turf as a dark mage had been stolen.
"Hmph. We won, so fine, but it was a gamble. Once we operate as a team, individual mental power converges into the party's mental strength. If it had failed, we'd have been out of commission. A mage's body can have to act as a shield; leaving the line is dangerous."
"I know. I was surprised, too—didn't expect it to be that inefficient."
Canis snorted and turned away. Though he snapped at him, the insight to change course in that situation was undeniably talent.
Arin seemed to agree. Watching Shirone rest as a newcomer, she said, "I've felt it before—he really has a free way of thinking."
It was a gamble, but one with high odds.
The insight to choose what to sacrifice and what not to in order to reach victory. If even one or two choices out of ten had been wrong, they wouldn't have gotten this result.
"Tch. He always had good reflexes anyway."
Canis added, begrudging acceptance. They were a team now; denying what was due would only be petty.
A gurgle from the giant drew a cold drop in the party's chests. It showed no sign of rising, but its fingers twitched.
Without exchanging opinions they dashed into the forest.
Heaven, whatever that place turned out to be, they'd learned enough: they never wanted to fight a giant again.
@
With Amy's keen eyesight, Tess's perception, and Arin's ability to tell natural from unnatural, they navigated without much trouble.
They arrived at a rocky cliff area.
Canis and Arin liked the abundance of shadows. Shirone's magic wasn't affected by environment, but dark magic was amplified by darkness.
"We can relax here. If needed we can move via Dark Port," Canis said.
"But Dark Port can't move multiple people at once, right?"
There was no theory in dark magic for transferring effects like in photonization spells. Only dark mages could move along shadows.
Canis shrugged as if it didn't matter. "At least it's tactically useful. From here I can lure enemies alone if necessary."
Tess took the water skin passed around in turn and said, "Giants using schema—this place is dangerous, isn't it? And Arin's psychic spells being useless is worrying, too."
"Sorry. I couldn't help much."
Arin bowed her head; Tess waved her hands. "No, you did fine. The giant was more than I could handle, too. What matters is we won together. By the way, heaven's nothing special, hohoho!"
Tess tried to lighten the mood, but the mages only darkened further.
Unlike adaptable swordsmen, mages hate unpredictable situations. They need to control all variables to feel secure.
A spell to alter the form of photons wasn't something their party's strategy had accounted for.
Knowing that stacked variables led to annihilation, they didn't feel pleased that victory came from one person's sudden idea.
"Just now we didn't perfectly control the situation. Maybe it's premature to say this upon arrival, but we should consider returning. What do the others think?"
Shirone opened the discussion; Amy responded.
"For a first run, it wasn't bad. We shouldn't overlook the fact we won. In other words, Shirone found a solution, and that solution might be adaptable to other situations. So even if we meet that type of enemy again, we might avoid this scenario."
Amy's point had merit.
Canis, of course, wasn't for returning. But he wasn't foolish enough to give a dishonest, greedy opinion.
"It's not that simple. Shirone probably won't reuse that strategy. Right?"
"Right. Too risky. The time to compress photons and the inefficiency—he probably won't attempt it except in extreme circumstances."
"The concept had merit. If you could give photons mass, light would behave more like matter and its form could be changed, that sort of idea."
Canis could read Shirone's thinking because the approach he'd tried was within the purview of dark magic.
"But it's a misjudgment. Crafting the mind is incompatible with you. It's the nature of dark magic. Dark magic lacks shock power but exerts mechanical force through form manipulation. I use teeth; Arin uses vines."
Arin demonstrated the power of darkness. The shadow rising from the ground took on the refined shape of an apple tree. She adjusted its size, and it displayed a sculptural three-dimensionality.
Shirone admired it; Arin smiled and explained, "Mages use formulas, but dark magic specializes in mental crafting, so we don't need separate formulas. We call this modeling. Stable elements like ice or darkness are easy to sculpt, while fire and light are so active that modeling them is difficult."
Amy agreed. "Now that you mention it, I can't shape the form of my flames either. That's why I mix in air attributes when I cast."
"Right. But light is even harder than flame. In theory, modeling light is impossible. You can add light's characteristics to another attribute, but you can't give other attributes to light. Shirone managed it with god particles, but that was a special case. He achieved some level of modeling, but even that is impractical for combat."
Shirone sighed. "Then how should we fight giants from now on? Lasers might work, but given how fast those things move, I don't think it'll be easy."
Lasers could destroy matter regardless of durability, but they required time to accumulate energy, so they were ineffective against fast-moving targets.
It was fortunate such magic didn't exist elsewhere; if the Harvester had known lasers' traits in advance, they wouldn't have been so easily caught last time.
"The problem is we've only encountered one giant. How strong are giants in this world? If we could find out, it would help with exploration."