Chapter 370 - Episode Sixteen - A Certain Story of the Doom Tribe's Past (1)
Sixteen years ago, in a village of the Doom tribe in a secluded region of the Dinrat Kingdom.
On the very same day that the wife of the Doom Chief, Melzef, was beginning to show signs of giving birth, there was an attack by a swarm of spirit beasts, a mass of pale light that resembled the outline of a beast.
A spirit beast is a collection of spirits, just like a demon.
The boundary between them and demons is vague, and they are generally used to refer to demons that do not understand language and can barely handle magic.
It is not uncommon for them to be referred to simply as lower demons or lower spirits.
The name “spirit beast” is derived from the fact that spirit beasts tend to take the form of simple beasts, while demons naturally take the form of strange shapes, humanoids, and deformed monsters.
The village was in an uproar.
Those who could fight were divided into two groups, fighting back and guarding the women and children, running around the village.
There were so many of them that even if they were protected, there would be no shelter for them.
The number of people who had entered the village was well over a hundred.
“Guoooooooo!”
“Guh …… What the hell caused this to happen ……”
The middle-aged man from the Doom tribe, Defne, let out a weak cry as he heard the distinctive roar of the spirit beast.
Dafne thrusts his spear out to check the enemy in front of him, while also keeping an eye out in other directions.
The Doom tribe has a much higher average physical ability and average magical power than the Norcs.
The more they train, the more magic power they consume in their bodies to produce a unique metal, which replaces their muscles with a strong, rigid and elastic material.
There is an organ in his body that is like a furnace that automatically performs alchemy.
This puts a tremendous burden on the body, but the returns are worth it.
In addition, because they are born with powerful magic power, they have a habit of releasing excess magic power from their foreheads and letting it escape from their bodies to prevent their babies from running out of control while their bodies are still forming in their mothers’ wombs.
The released magical energy becomes a blue crystal on the forehead and remains as a part of the Doom’s body.
Such an unusual physical mechanism does not exist in any other human species.
These characteristics also support the lore passed down only among the Doom tribe, that the Sky God once created Moebius, the founder of the Doom tribe, to win the war in the mythical age.
“Hmph!”
Dafne quickly thrust out his spear twice and slaughtered the spirit beasts in front of him and diagonally in front of him at the same time.
The bodies of the two spirit beasts were severely damaged, as if they were torn, and they flew through the air and rolled, slamming their bodies into the ground.
The art of using magic to strengthen the body has been systematized as a combat technique in countries all over the world, but because of its power and danger, it is all kept secret from the public.
Even among the groups that share the secret techniques, there are not a few who have spent their entire lives failing to master the rudiments, or who have lost parts of their bodies due to uncontrollable failures.
However, in the Doom tribe, all those who remember being taught to hunt by their parents, almost without exception, have naturally acquired the art of using magic to strengthen their bodies.
In general, the art of using magic to strengthen the body is a subterfuge that opens up parts of the body that were not originally intended to be opened up to exert power.
However, in the case of the Doom tribe, in order to move their special muscles without any inconvenience, it is essential to use magical power to assist them, and if they train their bodies, they will naturally learn to use their senses.
In addition to muscles and organs, nails, skin, horns, and hair also have high magical conductivity and are more than enough to replace weapons when they are lost.
Dafne let out a gasp as he watched the spirit beast disappear.
He looked at the tip of his own spear and confirmed that there was nothing attached to it.
Unlike magic beasts, spirit beasts and demons do not leave anything behind after they die.
“I’ve never seen a spirit animal before. I’m glad …… that the spear really does pierces.”
There was a moment of slackness.
A haze of light gathered behind Dafne, forming the outline of a beast.
“Guoooo ……”
“Woah ……!”
Dafne hurriedly jumped forward and turned around.
At the same time, a disk about four meters in diameter, emitting black flames, flew towards the Spirit Beast and vaporized it in a moment.
The black-flamed disk was flung up with its bottom to the ground and returned to its original trajectory.
Dafne follows the disk with his eyes.
A tall Doom tribesman caught the burning disk with his bare hands and readjusting his stance.
What appeared to be a disk was a spear in high-speed rotational motion.
“Thank you very much for your help, Melzef-sama. But you have come out. Um …… Is it all right if you are not with your wife? I heard that she’s about to give birth ……”
“What’s the point? It’s not necessary, I haven’t been to check on Nelea since the commotion, but I’m sure the guards will be there in time. I can’t afford to be distracted by such things in this critical time.”
Melzef, the chief of the Doom tribe, replied nonchalantly.
Melzef is young for a chief, just entering his thirties.
However, he was the most intelligent and skilled of the chieftain’s lineage.
He had taken the lead in interpreting the lore and deciphering the ancient texts to find a solution to the problems the Doom tribe is facing, and this was the key to his becoming the chief.
Since becoming a chief, he has also refined his martial arts skills, and is said to be a genius among the Doom tribe once in a few hundred years.
His lack of emotions and lack of facial expression make him a bit of a creep to some, but even so, no one opposed Melzef becoming the new chief.
“In this situation, you have not confirmed the safety of your wife or your son Darrell-sama? Wha-, huh ……”
“If I didn’t make a move, the damage must have increased.”
“That may be, but ……”
“There’s no time to talk nonsense, let’s go. It’s hard to believe that a spirit beast of this magnitude could have accidentally appeared and attacked us by accident. Compared to demons, spirit Beasts are less self-aware and more like a phenomenon than a living being. Therefore, it is not so difficult to guide or manipulate them to some extent. There may be a mastermind behind this attack. Perhaps there is some connection to the Moon Festival Dinmei.”
The Moon Festival Dinmei refers to the day once every five hundred years when the Moon Din comes very close to the earth.
In the Doom tribe, there is a custom of divining the government of the family through astrology, and for this reason, they have been observing and recording the stars for a long time.
As it turned out, the Moon Festival Dinmei, which was to occur sixteen years later, was predicted to be one of the closest in thousands of years.
There is a tradition among the Doom tribe that when the Moon Festival approaches, an abomination called “Red Stone” is born, and when it straddles the day of the Moon Festival, it turns into a monster.
To make matters worse, it is said that the monster who celebrates the Moon Festival Dinmei gains magic to control the entire Doom tribe.
It is recorded that 500 years ago, during the Moon Festival Dinmei, the Doom tribe led a reckless coup d’etat in the Dinrat Kingdom with Red Stone as its leader.
It is also said that the barbaric act was brought to an end surprisingly easily when Red Stone was killed by a Marren sorcerer by surprise.
At the conclusion of the incident, a number of Doom tribesmen were put in jail, and it was agreed that the Doom tribes’ dwellings would be under the watchful eye of the Marren tribe, and that the Doom tribe would be forbidden to go anywhere.
After that, the Marren tribe came to check on the Doom tribe every ten years, but by the thirtieth year, the Marren tribe ceased to do so.
The chief of the generation left a record of his complaint, saying that they were extremely uncommunicative and shy, and that they probably came to investigate the red stones reluctantly at the behest of the royal family, but that they were put on the back burner and the matter was left unresolved.
In fact, after the first fifty years of the Doom tribe’s existence, they invited a few traveling adventurers, and some of them left the village with dreams of becoming knights, but they were never punished for it.
The problem that the Doom tribe is facing is the fear that the Red Stone will soon be born and will manipulate the Doom tribe again, leading them into a reckless war.
Especially this time, the Moon Festival Dinmei is a once-in-a-thousand-years event.
I wouldn’t be surprised if something much worse happened. What will happen is completely unpredictable.
If the “Red Stone” was involved in this disturbance, it was certain to be the beginning of a nightmare for the Doom tribe.
“It’s a bad omen for the birth of Melzef-sama’s second child. I hope nothing bad will happen ……”
The three spirit beasts came running towards the muttering Dafne.
Dafne kicked the ground and approached the spirit beasts, mows down the closest one and sending it flying, then leaping at the second one and piercing it with the tip.
Fortunately, Dafne’s body was in the air, and the third one ducked underneath him and tried to bite his leg.
He kicked the spirit beast in the face with his foot and spun around to land on his feet.
“…… I only can say that we have to take care of this mess, for now.”