Somehow, Living Life in Another World is Wrong, as I Expected Ch. 10.4

There are many types of magic in this world. Fire, water, earth, wind, yin and yang. Four main elemental magics, and two extras. Add on some more Spirit-based magic, and you now have the makings of a basic, easy to digest isekai fantasy system.

Of course, because this was the case, there would always be ‘forbidden’ magics.

In normal isekai stories, these types would fall into the hands of the protagonist, who would go on to not realize the sheer power that they held in their hands. They would go about, using these ‘forbidden’ magics to do whatever the hero does.

And when someone points out the rarity of such magic? They just go ‘Oh, teehee~ I did something like that?’

Annoying.

Those types of characters can go explode. Better yet, people like Zaimokuza who get off on reading absolute power fantasies can go explode with them. I don’t want to see your cringe, you hear me?! Get the hell away from me with your shitty chunni fantasies!

Anyway, I’ve come to realize that ‘forbidden’ magics aren’t all that common here. Shocking? Actually, yes. See, it comes down to the idea that if you tell a toddler not to stick a fork in an electrical socket, you know that you’re going to have to deal with them crying about it later. People are just like that toddler. When you tell them something is ‘forbidden’, then they’d be more inclined to learn more about it.

Maybe because they think that it would give them an edge over everyone else. Maybe they think that the powers that be wanted to keep those things to themselves. A lot of maybes that would only be valid in the eyes of those that wanted those ‘forbidden’ magics in the first place.

It’s to the point where I didn’t even bother collecting most information about this type of magic.

Don’t get me wrong, more information is great. Quite literally, beyond my blacksmithing, information is my lifeblood. It is what gets food on the table when the demand for smithing services slows down.

However, it must be said that too much information is a bad thing as well.

Cognitohazards. The idea that the mere knowledge of information could be a detriment to one’s health and safety. Classified information is usually like this. Haven’t you heard of people knowing too much mysteriously falling from the roof of a building? Or maybe you recognize those bodies in the water?

Forbidden magics are themselves cognitohazards. Those that don’t want you knowing about them will try and silence you. Those that want to learn about them would chase you down and interrogate you. There are no safe spaces when it comes to knowing about something forbidden.

That didn’t stop me from knowing about one specific case, though.

The Sacrament of the Immortal King.

A piece of magic that could, when performed fully and correctly, bring back a person from death. Supposedly, it was made by some witch in the past, though I’ve never managed to verify that. I doubt anyone could verify that. Regardless, such a power was not to be taken lightly, and anyone that could cast it was bound to be scrutinized.

Biehn Argyle, the head of the Argyle’s just over a year ago, was one such man capable of casting it.

Of course, his spell was vastly incomplete, and did not match up to the legends I had heard.

I still remember that day, when Karsten sent me a message, confirming what the rumor mill - and my own network - told me. That she had been kidnapped by the head, and that her knight had been the one to free her. She hadn’t actually told me about the Sacrament, but whispers from the other knights that had fought on the frontlines at the Argyle estate grew rampant.

It was only a matter of time before I found out that corpse soldiers - zombies in other words - were used to fend off the knights coming to rescue Karsten. And it was only with a bit more conjecture that it was obvious why Argyle himself, being discriminated against as a demi-human, had  willingly gone back to his ‘home’.

As the most powerful healer this country had ever seen, it wouldn’t be farfetched to have the idea that the catboy would be the missing link between ‘incomplete spell’ to ‘true resurrection’.

Seeing as I hadn’t heard of anything else beyond that, I figured that the spell had still failed, in the end.

That didn’t mean that nobody else knew how to cast it, though.

And really, that was what worried me. Fighting against the Witch Cult was very much a different story to fighting the Witch Cult that also had access to a possible infinite army of unfeeling zombies at their beck and call.

That’ll have to wait, though. I needed to live through this if I wanted to think about it later.

…

There’s a moment before a fight starts where everyone pretends it won’t. You look at the floorboards, the scorched wallpaper, the trembling candlelight - anything except the eyes set on you - and hope the stalemate holds. Then someone blinks wrong.

I think it was me.

Granhiert’s smile sharpened.

Karsten stepped forward with that controlled, aristocratic calm that always feels like a warning siren to anyone with survival instincts. Steel came half out of its sheath with a hush.

To my left, the Fingers clustered. Thin, hungry shadows, but when Romanée-Conti looked back, they steadied. The bastard fed on mana and had lived a long time on it. His people moved when he looked at them. That was enough for now.

“Meili,” Granhiert called, sing-song, almost sweet. It made bile touch my tongue, “Keep your pets away from the gentleman with the doors, won’t you?”

"The others are fine, though?" The kid sounded way too innocent. Already, she had shed the tears that had formed earlier. That innocence, it clashed with the sheer amount of mabeasts that were now gathering around the outside of the mansion. With a raised arm, the swarm surged forward.

Not happening.

Two portals flicked open. One pointed at the mass of mabeasts, and the other in front of Karsten. The duchess didn't even pause, slashing forward with that blade of hers, wind magic exploding outwards and cleaving through everything in its path. Dozens, if not hundreds of corpses in less than a moment.

It wasn't enough to even make a dent.

Shit, where the hell are the others? If they're outside, I don't know how long they'll last against that swarm without help. The village as well, I don't know if they'd be safe even from this distance...or if these three hadn't already laid waste to it before coming here.

More than that, I don't know if we'd survive even with all the firepower that we could muster. There's something to be said for trading quantity over quality, and it showed.

Karsten’s gust may have shredded the mabeasts by quite a bit, but more bodies poured through the hole like the mansion owed them rent. Granhiert laughed.

I flipped a portal sideways and skimmed the floor in front of the leading pack. The nearest mabeasts tumbled feet-first into nothing, hit the twin exit I’d parked outside. Instant paste as their momentum and sheer weight carried them into the ground.

I couldn’t do more as the third one separated from Meili and charged. A wall of stone erupted to intercept it, courtesy of Romanée-Conti, allowing me just a moment of time to move to the side as the wall cracked. It shattered just as I finished my dive. By my estimate, that was around sixty centimeters of compacted earth. Compacted earth that was immediately destroyed by this guy’s bare fist.

Too damn strong.

The zombie didn’t even pause to hit me after it passed. It went straight for the cleaver it had thrown earlier, ripping it up from the ground without so much as a mote of resistance. If this thing had a semblance of emotion, I would have said it did so calmly.

“You!” It was Granhiert that snapped out. The Fingers had been trailing their arms at her the entire time, preparing spells in case she did anything, “Don’t you dare lay a hand on Hachiman!”

The corpse froze in place, and, despite not giving any indication it was listening to Granhiert, shifted its focus towards Romanée-Conti instead. How did I know this?

Simple. It just charged once more, towards Romanée-Conti this time.

The Cultist brought his forearms up, rock rapidly coating it. Each blow from the zombie displaced air from how strong they were. Each blow carved out a chunk of rock from Romanée-Conti’s makeshift vambraces. And every time, Romanée-Conti would put up even more rock to replace the damage.

As much as I hated to admit it, it was impressive.

Impressive, that is, to last that long.

Even to my relatively untrained eyes, I could tell that Romanée-Conti was outmatched. He was struggling to keep up the adamant defence he was putting up, and he wasn’t nearly as fast as that zombie. Karsten understood this, and immediately went to help Romanée-Conti, only for the corpse bastard to pull out another cleaver from somewhere in his cloak.

Where the hell was he hiding it? Moreover, who the fuck said that zombies were slow anyway? Whoever made that trope, I hope you realize that that was entirely wrong!

It was at this moment that Granhiert took her opportunity. The Fingers, seeing their leader being assaulted, had taken their focus off of the Bowel Hunter. Not that that did anything anyway - the Fingers were still weaker due to their imprisonment.

The only warning I received was Meili’s cheerful voice ringing out, “I’ll leave the Hachiman-onii-chan to you, Elsa!”

“Be safe, Meili!”

I ripped a portal beneath myself and dropped like a rock. Blade met the flesh on my chest, scratching it slightly as it easily tore through my strengthened shirt. Lucky. That was meant for my intestines. Any later and I may already be dead.

I knew what I was going against, I knew the craftsmanship that I had done when I made that kukri. It was one of the finer weapons I had made, even if under duress.

It didn’t stop me from being disgusted at the one using it.

The exit portal opened up directly above my position. Looking down, Granhiert’s arm was still extended after slashing at me. Just as well, I could see the infinite kaleidoscope of the top of my head peering down into the portal I was entering.

There’s a reason I don’t like doing this! It hurts my damned eyes!

And if it hurts my eyes, the same person who's been using these portals this entire time, what the hell would it do to someone like Granhiert?

I kicked Granhiert down into the portal, right at the back of her head. Her attempt at me had lifted her feet off the ground, giving her no chance to change her direction mid-air. In the same motion, I used that kick as a stepping stone to move out of the way. I didn’t want to be caught in this, since it would be incredibly difficult to get out of.

I widened the portals, just to make sure that she didn’t have anything to grab onto. I could feel my reserves immediately buckle as I did so.

Unlike that corpse soldier before, Granhiert fell into the portal.

And she fell.

And fell.

And fell some more.

An infinite loop, where she would enter the bottom portal, and exit directly on top of it. She would keep building velocity, and, if this world operated on normal physics, she would eventually die from the g-forces being exerted by reaching terminal velocity.

This wasn’t such a world.

People routinely go faster than a jet and still survive without any trouble. Therefore, if I want to kill her, I’d have to eventually stop my portals and do it myself. Nevermind that keeping these open, as big as they are, is draining my energy at a rapid pace.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait too long, not by my rough estimates. Estimates being that I can see that Granhiert’s body is starting to become a blur from how fast she was falling.

Tell me, do you know that saying? Falling from a great height isn’t what kills you; it’s the impact.

I closed the bottom portal.

A thunderous crack as Granhiert’s body practically drilled itself into the floor. With a grimace, I remembered that we weren’t on the ground floor of the Mathers estate, and that the sound of crashing was likely some furniture. I’ll deal with that later.

For now, one down, two to go.

…

A/N: I’ll just leave this description of Elsa’s abilities from the wiki:

Regeneration: Elsa had the ability to rapidly recreate lost or damaged cells. She could instantly recover from major lacerations and was able to regrow severed body parts. She was able to regenerate after having her entire body crystalized and shattered by Beatrice and even survived an attack from the Sword Saint himself.