Knight: from Apprentice to the Almighty

"Hmm?"

Roland stared at the fireball dancing on his fingertip, a slight arch in his brow.

’Is it just my imagination?’

’The process of gathering Magic Elements seems... smoother than usual?’

This smoothness didn’t come from Pikachu Tress’s blessing, but from within himself.

It was as if an invisible yet resilient Power had quietly emerged from the depths of his consciousness.

Like an unseen framework, it subtly stabilized the convergence of the Fire Element, making the flow of his Magic Power more precise, even a fraction faster.

The sensation was incredibly faint, like a pebble dropped into a deep pool, its ripples vanishing before they could even spread.

Had his Spirit not been so highly focused at this moment, he would have barely noticed it.

Roland gently shook his head, dispelling the strange feeling, then held his breath and focused his attention.

His sharp gaze locked onto the densest cluster of Slime Toads in the swamp below. The corners of his mouth lifted into a cold smirk.

The bog, covered in duckweed and bubbling with gas, exuded not only a rotten stench but also a faint, suffocating, and acrid odor—a mix of sulfur and decay.

It was highly concentrated swamp gas, a deadly trap hidden beneath the dead marsh.

’Once it meets a flame...’

The thought flashed through his mind. The restless fireball shot out like a precisely aimed stone projectile, tearing through the thick fog and plummeting into the heart of the bog.

BOOM!

The moment the fireball touched the bog, it detonated the dormant, terrifying power, just as Roland had predicted.

The narrow passage was like a great drum thrown into a furnace; it violently imploded and expanded, immediately erupting in a cataclysmic explosion far exceeding the power of a typical Flaming Arrow.

Crimson tongues of flame, mixed with thick smoke and scalding mud, shot skyward, forming a brief but terrifying pillar of fire.

The shockwave slammed into the jagged rock walls on either side, shaking loose a cascade of rubble.

At the explosion’s core, the dark green duckweed was instantly vaporized. The murky water boiled and evaporated under the intense heat, exposing the churning, black ooze below.

But as the churning flames and thick smoke began to clear, Roland’s pupils suddenly constricted.

The scene he had expected—of the monsters reduced to cinders—did not appear.

The explosion’s shockwave had indeed sent a dozen or so Slime Toads flying, slamming them into the rock walls or back into the mud, creating a chaotic scene.

Their bodies were scorched black, their viscous skin covered in burn blisters as they let out pained and furious hisses.

But that was all.

Not a single one had been reduced to ash in the inferno.

Even the monsters that had been sent flying struggled back to their feet. They staggered or hopped forward despite their burns, their eyes glinting with a chaotic and vicious light. Their tolerance for fire far exceeded Roland’s expectations.

’They can even withstand a swamp gas explosion? It seems... these Demons called Slime Toads have an extremely high resistance to fire...’

Witnessing this, Roland’s brow furrowed deeply.

Down below, the swarm of Slime Toads had been thoroughly enraged.

They screeched chaotically and began blindly spewing acid toward the site of the explosion and up at the rock wall.

The acid splattered against the rocks, making a harsh SIZZLING sound of corrosion as plumes of acrid white smoke rose into the air.

’Trouble...’

Roland let out a soft breath, quickly assessing the battlefield.

The ineffectiveness of the fire was unexpected, but it also confirmed the necessity of his vigilance against these unknown Demons.

’Their physical Power might not be top-tier, but...’ 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Roland’s gaze swept over the unknown pus oozing from the monsters’ viscous skin and the rocks around them, now pitted and scarred by acid.

’Engaging these Demons, which are naturally carriers of plague and poison, in close combat?’

’That would be no different from willingly embracing death.’

Unless it was absolutely necessary, he would never let them get within ten feet of him.

Fortunately, he was not entirely unprepared.

Roland’s hand shot behind him, pulling three Arrows from his Quiver.

These Arrows were forged entirely from Fine Iron, their shafts engraved with dense and intricate patterns.

They were single-use consumables he had forged at the Blacksmith Guild, combining his basic knowledge of Enchantment with the limited materials he had: Enchanted Arrows.

’Since Flame is ineffective, let’s try a pure Elemental Shock,’

A glint of cold resolve flashed in Roland’s eyes.

His movements were incomparably fluid. The heavy, custom-made Hunting Bow strained in his hands, letting out a faint groan.

He targeted a burly Slime Toad that had just struggled to its feet and was frantically spewing acid at the rock wall, as well as the small patch of relatively solid, dry ground behind it.

The Bowstring sang!

TWANG!

The Enchanted Arrow became a dim streak of light, its speed far surpassing that of a normal Arrow as it shot precisely toward its target.

The arrowhead sank into the Slime Toad’s viscous back with a dull SQUELCH, dealing negligible physical damage.

But the instant the Arrow hit, the Spell Patterns carved upon it erupted in a blinding flash of light.

BOOM!

A deafening blast—deeper and more penetrating than the previous Flaming Arrow’s explosion—suddenly erupted.

This time, the core of the explosion wasn’t the expansion of Flame, but pure, rampaging Magic Elements.

A discolored, visible ring of a shockwave instantly spread out from the Arrow’s point of impact.

The Slime Toad that was hit directly didn’t even have time to scream. Its sturdy body exploded violently, like a wad of mud struck by a sledgehammer.

Viscous green flesh, shattered bones, and organs, mixed with the turbulent maelstrom of Magic Elements, sprayed outwards in a radial pattern.

The shockwave mercilessly swept over its nearby companions.

The few Slime Toads closest to the blast were torn to shreds and sent flying, like insects swatted by an invisible giant hand.

Those farther away were slammed into the jagged rock walls by the violent blast wave, accompanied by a sickening crunch of bone, before they slumped to the ground.

Even the patch of relatively solid ground was blasted into a shallow crater, churning up black earth.

The effect was immediate and dramatic.

Roland felt a bit more at ease, but his actions didn’t pause for a moment.

His fingers flew, and several more Enchanted Arrows left the Bowstring in quick succession!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

A series of deafening explosions echoed wildly through the narrow passage, shaking more rubble loose from the walls.

Each explosion landed precisely where the toads were most densely clustered or near critical pathways.

The hissing from below was instantly drowned out by the roar of the explosions and the death cries of the monsters.

As far as he could see, the number of surviving Slime Toads had plummeted. The few that remained were terrified into a state of brief Chaos and fear by the sudden, incomprehensible explosions. They stopped spewing acid blindly and instinctively retreated to hide in the deeper parts of the bog or in the Shadows.

Roland slowly lowered his Hunting Bow. Only a handful of the single-use Enchanted Arrows were left in his Quiver.

His cold gaze swept over the carnage below—a battlefield littered with severed limbs and scorch marks—as he confirmed the results.

Though he had lost nearly all of his Enchanted Arrows, his objective had been achieved.

He had eliminated the deadly threat blocking his path with minimal risk to himself.

However, Roland’s vigilance did not relax in the slightest.

After all, Witch Vanessa had previously said that there was an even more powerful entity within this Slime Toad-infested swamp.

With this in mind, he did not act rashly. He remained crouched on the cliff, his eyes narrowed like an experienced hunter, patiently observing every movement in the swamp below.

Time passed in dead silence.

An unknown amount of time went by. Even after the last of the severely wounded, dying Slime Toads had stopped twitching, nothing unusual happened in the swamp.

Seeing this, Roland slowly furrowed his brow.

He cautiously scanned his surroundings, his gaze finally settling on the edge of the swamp.

There, a deep hole in the ground, revealed by the collapse caused by the recent violent explosions, was faintly visible in the dim light.