The battle began.
What approached were mutant beasts parasitized by plants.
However, they couldn't recklessly cut them down. The real enemies were the parasitic plants using their bodies as hosts.
'The moment they lose their host, they'll look for another one.'
He had already seen similar scenes twice.
The final moments of the two guards who had moved with them felt as cruel and unrealistic as in a B-grade movie.
'So I'll cut them all down at once.'
The power of starlight made that possible.
The tremendous energy current could, if desired, scorch things with the energy itself rather than cutting them. If not that, subduing them with moonlight would work too.
Just as Osian was thinking this, Alania acted first."I'm going to shoot!"
Alania shouted in a cheerful voice and pulled the grenade launcher's trigger.
There was a whooshing sound cutting through the air. The projectile, spewing white smoke, flew in a parabolic arc.
Looking closely, it was a glass tube containing countless particles.
The projectile exploded as it passed over the mutants' heads and black particles scattered everywhere, hitting the mutants.
Creatures controlled by parasitic plants wouldn't stop at such an attack.
However, the mutants that had been charging forward stopped and trembled.
Looking carefully, vines had sprouted from the particles embedded in their bodies, restraining them.
'Is she using the launcher to shoot out plants?'
The plants that had parasitized the mutants and the plants Alania had shot began wrestling with each other.
The mutant beasts that had become hosts couldn't move either way.
"Now's our chance!"
Taking advantage of the moment when Alania had bound the mutants, Mist moved.
The mist that spurted from both his arms enveloped the mutants.
That ability made of ether water differed from normal mist in density, energy, and even properties.
The massive physical force of the mist itself crushed the mutants' bodies like dried fish.
Osian wasn't just standing around either.
He gripped his moonlight blade and cut down all the immobilized mutants.
Frost settled on the cut wounds as cold spread throughout their bodies. The parasitic plants met the same fate as their hosts.
"More coming from behind!"
At that moment, Special Forces member James issued a warning.
As soon as the fight started, he had sent out his necromancy familiar to track enemy movements.
And now, new mutant hosts were gathering, drawn by the commotion of this fight.
"I'll handle this one!"
Alania pulled out a new projectile from her waist and loaded it into the chamber.
Looking closely at her launcher, there were two additional chambers on the left and right.
Alania loaded the right chamber and pushed it sideways to align with the barrel.
Harmonica gun.
It got its name because the way the left and right chambers were manually alternated looked like playing a harmonica.
Completing the loading, Alania pulled the trigger again.
This time, a different projectile was fired. If the previous one scattered seeds like buckshot, this was the opposite.
With a cracking sound, a giant tree shot up where the projectile landed.
The approaching mutants were crushed by the tree's massive bulk.
The tree moved its roots, grabbing other mutants and squeezing them.
After rampaging for about a minute, the rapidly grown tree withered as if time was reversing.
Only traces of destruction covered in bloodstains remained where the tree had been.
"That's impressive."
The black mage James spoke with an admiring voice.
The sight Alania showed was remarkable even to him, a Special Forces member.
"Are all elves like this these days?"
Osian asked while sheathing his sword at his waist.
Alania laughed with a "hehe."
"I'm particularly exceptional, actually. I'm also the youngest druid, believe it or not."
"A druid, huh."
While druid wasn't a playable character class, it was still a notable class.
It was so rare that only an extremely small number of humans could learn it. But that wasn't the case in elven society.
With their high affinity for nature, they generally had a high proportion of druids.
But even Osian had never heard of druids fighting like this before.
'It's funny enough that a druid is carrying a grenade launcher in the first place.'
Even so, shooting plant seeds and seedlings as projectiles was so far outside common sense that he didn't even feel like pointing it out.
Come to think of it, weren't the party members all abnormal too?
A black mage employed as a city official.
A fixer who drinks and uses ether water.
Adding an elf druid who shoots grenades didn't really change anything.
"Let's go deeper inside."
*
"More coming from the front!"
Eldin warned while swinging her hammer.
Hot flames scattered along the hammer's trajectory, burning all the mutant hosts.
The parasitic plants eating away at their bodies couldn't withstand the flames and perished.
"Tsk. They just keep coming."
New mutants could be seen approaching from beyond.
The fight's beginning was dragging on differently than expected.
Far from finding the plant's main body, they kept encountering more mutant hosts under its control.
A giant centipede mutant charged through the flames Eldin had created.
Compared to the others, its chitinous shell had quite strong resistance to fire.
"Hey elf! Get out of the way!"
A warning from the dwarf Special Forces member rang out from behind.
Eldin immediately moved sideways at the warning.
Right after, with a sound of space being torn, the centipede's head charging at Eldin exploded.
What flew in was a massive ballista bolt.
Its power was so strong that it not only blew off the centipede's head but also pierced through to its last segment and continued on without losing speed.
Only after killing several more mutants beyond did the arrow finally stop.
"Phew. That's some killer effect. Hey mister, aren't you using an amazing weapon?"
To Eldin's words, the dwarf who had been in a prone firing position lifted the massive crossbow with both hands.
"It takes too much time to prepare, so it's not something I can use easily. It was only possible thanks to you buying time."
The dwarf Special Forces member, Dagran, curled his beard with a grin.
The crossbow he used was a specially modified weapon that fired ballista-sized arrows.
And they weren't just normal arrows. Since they used compressed steam as propulsion, they were essentially firing pointed rockets.
Tarka personally cleared out the remaining smaller mutants.
Every time his hand swung, mutants were torn to pieces.
'The world really has changed.'
In the old days, elves shot arrows from the back while dwarves stood on the front lines swinging axes.
But now it was different. She, an elf, stood at the front swinging a hammer, while a dwarf provided covering fire from behind with a modified crossbow.
As the world changed, existing role divisions had completely shifted.
And cases of elves and dwarves working together like this were rare too.
'Well, what we're fighting now isn't exactly normal either.'
A contaminated zone formed from accumulated urban pollutants.
A purification plant whose genes were modified by elf druids to purify such places.
When it met pollutants mixed with ether residue, some biological reaction occurred causing mutation.
While its origin was a plant, its current behavior wasn't plant-like at all.
"These guys. Looks like they're deliberately trying to wear us down?"
That subtle sense of discomfort she'd been feeling.
While the dwarf Dagran seemed uncertain, Tarka nodded in agreement with Eldin's words.
"Yeah. It clearly plans to hunt us after depleting our strength. That's the stink I'm getting."
Tarka’s nose twitched. With his superior sense of smell, he seemed to have picked up something.
"It's suspicious that it's using mutant beasts as hosts instead of consuming them right away. The fact that it knows how to 'utilize' other creatures like this means it already has enough intelligence."
Eldin felt regret. She couldn't shake the feeling that their first encounter with its main body had been the best chance to take it down.
"Sadly, we don't have time to rest. Give it more time and who knows what outrageous thing it might do next."
This was a battle against time.
If they wasted time like this, there was no telling what unimaginable thing it might do.
Maybe it was already happening.
Just as Eldin finished preparing to move, a new enemy appeared from the front.
"...Something else is coming."
This time it wasn't a mutant creature. Just looking at the silhouette from afar, it appeared close to human form.
"I'll handle that one. You two rest."
Dagran, having finished reloading, raised his ballista and aimed at the enemy in front.
Just as the propelled arrow, cutting through space like a beam of light, was about to pierce the enemy.
-Clang!
It swung its arm and deflected Dagran's arrow.
"..."
As the arrow fell to the ground with a clatter, a strange silence lingered.
The power of Dagran's propelled arrows was incredibly destructive, as seen when dealing with the mutant centipede earlier.
Yet, that thing had casually deflected it.
It was a wooden doll modeled after human form.
The being, made of countless intertwined branches and stems in human shape, had a flower bud blooming on its head.
In the center of the flower bud, split into five parts, a yellow flame burned like a sphere.
"...Everyone prepare for battle."
Even without Eldin's words, Dagran and Tarka were already prepared.
But Eldin still felt uneasy.
"Everyone should be careful. I'm not joking when I say we could really die if we fight carelessly."
The plant in human form with a flower head slowly approached Eldin's group.
Similar situations were happening to all other team members as well.
"What is that?"
No one answered Alania's question.
Neither the black mage James, the fixer Mist, nor the knight Osian had ever seen anything like it.
"A flower? Human body? It's like a mannequin made of wood."
But there was something notable, namely the yellow flame burning where its face should be.
While he might not know everything else, Osian could definitely recognize what that was.
‘Sun Ring.'
That plant was using the power of the Sun Ring symbolizing the sun.
'It's weaker than what the main body used, but that's definitely Sun Ring power.'
That meant this plant-human blocking their path now should be considered a special entity created by the ethereal plant.
'And it's even taken human form.'
Osian signaled to Alania with his eyes.
Alania nodded and fired the grenade she had prepared.
This time it wasn't any special round, but an incendiary meant to purely burn the enemy with flames.
He didn't bother asking why she was using such a dangerous thing when she said she only used special rounds.
Before the rapidly approaching incendiary could make contact, the plant moved.
Its arm became blurry, and with a clang, the round was split in half.
The round, cut with a clean cross-section, scattered left and right causing explosions and flames.
"D-did it just, cut that down with a sword?"
"It appears so."
In the burning flames, it had taken a certain stance and a sword had somehow appeared in its right hand.
Seeing this, Osian's gaze grew deeply serious.
Not only taking human form, but wielding a sword?
Moreover, seeing how it cut down the incoming round, this wasn't mere imitation.
"That thing."
An unbelievable truth came from Osian's lips.
"It learned from us."
"W-what do you mean? That thing is a plant, right? There's no way it could learn from humans..."
"Don't you recognize anything seeing those movements and postures?"
Instead of the flustered Alania, Mist answered.
"Those movements and stances. It's copying you."
Mist had enough discernment to recognize this and Osian nodded.
"It's clearly imitating the people it encountered that day. And probably not just me."
He knew this wouldn't be as simple as weeding out plants but this was beyond imagination.
He knew it had intelligence, but not to this extent.
"Yes. This is much better than watching it handle such power without knowing anything."
Osian took his stance.
The opponent took the exact same stance, as if looking in a mirror.
The Sun Ring power burning in the center of the flower on its head blazed like the sun.
The sun hunt had begun.