Gluttony Demon King with the Swampman ~A Man with No Magic Power Who Dreamed of Magic, Wielding Knowledge from His Past Life Through Steady Research and Hard Work to Become the Most Vicious Final Boss~ - Chapter 8: The Influence of Magic Power's Morphological Characteristics on the Land

Chapter 8: The Influence of Magic Power’s Morphological Characteristics on the Land

“…It’s withered.”

I noticed suddenly and crouched down along the path.

Zaria said, “What, what is it,” and crouched down with me, and Noiche, who had been walking ahead, also stopped and turned back to look this way.

What I meant by withered was the plants.

The low shrubs and moss that should have been growing all over this area had all wilted away in a row.

“Maybe… the reason the wolves were so skinny was this?”

I nodded at Zaria’s words.

That was probably it. If the plants that could be eaten decreased, the number of herbivorous animals would decrease, and the carnivorous animals that preyed on them would suffer from hunger too.

The biggest problem was what had caused the plants to wither… but when I scraped the ground’s soil, I felt a sense of wrongness in that texture.

“It’s gritty, and cold…?”

It felt angular in places, and on top of that, cold.

It was a chill entirely different from the air temperature or ground temperature, felt from the core of the sand grains.

Of course plants could not grow in soil like this.

It was clearly an abnormal situation, but I had an idea about it.

The sisters seemed to have the same thought, and Zaria raised her voice.

“Ah! It’s ‘The Influence of Magic Power’s Morphological Characteristics on the Land’!”

“Yes, correct.”

The so-called alteration of land by magic power.

Especially when “land that had no abnormalities until now suddenly begins to alter,” the causes are limited.

That would be, for example, a situation like “a monster with strong magic power came from elsewhere and settled here.”

Come to think of it, the wolves’ behavior had been strange.

It made sense that they came down the mountain out of hunger, but that did not explain why they, being nocturnal, would move around while it was still daylight.

They had probably f-l-e-d here.

The monster that had settled in this mountain for many years—

Terrified by that one with magic power strong enough to alter the land, the other monsters were repeatedly driven out of the mountain.

But with nowhere else to go, they would aim for when it was away, return to the mountain, and get driven out again when it came back.

And then, a limit came to that kind of life.

Because the land’s properties began to change due to the magic power, and gradually, the things to eat decreased.

Thanks to that, I had been burdened with dealing with the monsters that had come all the way down to the town out of necessity for a while now.

As for a monster powerful enough to cause such a situation—

“Haro, Zaria. Something is coming.”

—Noiche said, interrupting my thoughts.

Did she detect it with magic? No, that was not it.

We had just been too focused; once I paid attention, I could immediately sense it.

The ground rumbling, the footsteps of several beasts.

They were rushing down from the summit toward us.

“H-Haro! Let’s hide!”

“This way.”

With Noiche and Zaria pulling my hands, we hid in the shadow of a rock.

I shrank down small, pressed from front and back by their soft bodies.

The footsteps came down in an instant and soon passed by our side.

What I saw in the corner of my vision was a beast’s foot.

Without noticing us under the stealth magic, the herd of skinny feet desperately went down the mountain—no, fled.

That meant that right now, the “master” had returned to the mountain.

“Something cold.”

Noiche said.

It was indeed cold.

I felt a chill from somewhere.

Not from the ground or the surroundings, it was coming down from above.

The moment I looked up, I heard a faint sound of wingbeats.

“—A dragon?”

My vision darkened.

Something huge was flying overhead.

It spread large wing membranes, scattering an aura like glittering snow crystals—

A dragon was flying.

*

Going back a bit in time, Otto Moscaneira was worrying.

The source of his worry was his younger brother.

His defective younger brother—no, the younger brother Haro whom he had t-h-o-u-g-h-t was defective, and his magic research.

In the end, Otto had plagiarized Haro’s research.

When Otto first sneaked into Haro’s research building, he thought, “He’s desperate.”

Haro, who had no magic power, could not inherit the house, and probably could not even get married, was doing magic research to somehow survive.

Desperate, but careful in his desperation.

For Otto, who was bad at patient long-term experiments like this, in this recent period when his father was urging him to study magic, it was convenient content to present as the results of his half-hearted studies.

So he stole it.

He put it together into a half-hearted report and gave it to his father.

Up to that point, it was fine, but the problem came after that.

His father, deeply moved by the report’s content, went so far as to send it to the magic association.

It received great acclaim even among the association and the nobles, and now letters with questions arrived every day from various places.

He broke out in a cold sweat.

After all, Otto did not understand anything. Most of the paper was just copied from Haro’s memo sheets.

Why did everyone evaluate it so highly?

Was the experiment his younger brother was doing really that noble?

Otto, who was only half-baked, could not discern its true value.

“Hey, Otto. It really is okay, right?”

His father said, glaring at him intimidatingly.

In his father’s study, where he had been summoned in the middle of the day, Otto grew irritated in front of his father, who sat in the chair with his legs crossed and stared straight at him.

“The Luluu family, the Zera family, and the Dollman family are still waiting for replies. They are all esteemed people, and we cannot keep them waiting too long—”

“I-I know. It’s fine, Father.”

While clenching his back teeth with a grind, Otto forced a smile.

But in reality, there was no way it was fine.

The contents of the letters coming from all over were very difficult.

Unknown specialized terms flew around everywhere, and Otto could not even properly comprehend them.

What kind of research did you do, Otto thought, resenting Haro in reverse.

In any case, if that was all the talk—he tried to leave the room, and his father let out a big sigh at that.

But at that moment, a large bell sound rang from the town.

“What…?”

His father looked puzzled. The bell sounds continued.

It rang over and over, without stopping. Even for a time signal, it was an awkward time of day.

The moment the two of them sensed something bad, the mansion’s servant entered the room without knocking.

“Master!”

“W-What is it? Without even knocking—”

“A herd of monsters! They came down from the mountain!”

“…What did you say?”

Otto also directed a doubtful gaze at the servant, just like his father.

“Th-there’s the monster-repelling barrier, right!?”

“Yes, young master. That is correct. The barrier should certainly not have broken, but…”

The flustered parent and child were pushed out of the room forcefully by the servant.

The possibility of monsters reaching the mansion was low, but just in case, they were to evacuate to the basement. Otto and the others followed that for the time being.

—The monster-repelling barrier.

That magic, with effects just as its name implied, kept monsters away by giving them a vague sense of fear toward the surroundings.

A small town without even walls could function as a town thanks to the invention of this magic.

On the other hand, due to its mechanism of repelling monsters with fear—

This magic did not work on monsters driven by f-e-a-r b-e-y-o-n-d t-h-a-t.

Otto and the others did not know.

That for quite some time already, the monsters had been coming down to this town out of fear of the “master” that had settled in the mountain—

And that Haro had dealt with all those monsters one by one as experimental subjects.

While running to the basement, Otto saw it from the corridor window.

“That is… could it be, a dragon?”

It was flying high in the sky.

The flying dragon, flapping its glittering silvery wings, headed toward the mountain at tremendous speed.