Chapter 74 - Imperial Prince is Enjoying the Hunt -1 (Part Two)
She sensed another wave of divinity just then.
Not too long after that, projectiles made out of divinity were fired one by one.
Rays of pure light began penetrating straight through the zombified animals. And then, divinity rapidly spread throughout the penetrated undeads’ surroundings.
The other still-intact undead backed away to a certain distance and hesitated as if this divinity was too uncomfortable for them to handle.
Projectiles made out of divinity, then sniping from an incredible distance away.
Alice recalled the incidents from Ronia she heard about back in the imperial palace.
– His highness the Seventh Imperial Prince sniped the Vampire Count.
“Could it be… His highness?!”
Alice’s shocked eyes were directed back towards the steeple.
**
(TL: In 1st person POV.)
“Excellent!”
I was genuinely surprised.
So, this is a musket rifle made by the dwarves!
Each and every shot felt weighty; even the divinity consumption was far lower than the old rifle I used.
Even if I deliberately decreased the power output in order to increase the number of rounds I could fire, it was now possible for me to snipe targets from five hundred metres away when my previous range was only about four hundred metres during the Vampire Count incident.
Of course, the firepower was still considerable and the recoil was pretty huge since I was sniping at a great distance.
Normally, I’d have already fallen on my butt after firing a shot every single time. But by reinforcing my body with divinity, there was almost no recoil to worry about.
I let out a breath into the musket with the lengthy barrel, and then injected divinity into my eyes to widen my field of vision.
[Divine Aura has been used.]
[The weapon will temporarily be enhanced.]
[Your accuracy will rise. The skill ‘Penetration’ will be granted.]
Now those were some nice notifications.
This thing called [Divine Aura] presented me with skills that I previously didn’t have. Which was really great!
The zombified animals might have been fast, but even regular soldiers could deal with them. The real problem at the moment were the lycans scattered around.
As long as those things were subjugated, there shouldn’t be any further issues.
Because they were hiding among the gaps of the buildings, it wasn’t all that easy to aim at them.
But if I spied just a little bit of an opening…
I squeezed the trigger without hesitation.
The head of a lycan peeking around the corner exploded into a bloody mess.
I used their scent of death and determined the locations of these bastards. As soon as I found an opening through my divinity-reinforced eyesight, I unhesitantly sniped them.
As long as there was no obstruction within the five hundred metre-range, all of these undead would be nothing more than some simple games to hunt down for me.
“Big bro was right, I guess. This is quite fun.”
Indeed, Luan was right. The sensation of continuously hitting beasts during a hunting spree felt much better than I thought.
Every time my shot landed on the target, their heads would nastily explode, or their bodies would be cleanly penetrated through. Seeing it happen first-hand gave me this feeling of all my accumulated stress finally being released.
Not to forget, my worries over finding a suitable weapon had been sorted out by now so the only thing remaining for me to do was to vent some steam here.
Those undead must’ve felt threatened since they began gathering around. Their aim was most likely me up on the steeple.
The lycans used the buildings as cover while rapidly closing in on my location.
“Hiya~, I’m more popular than I thought. Don’t you think so?”
Anyone would’ve thought that my question was quite brazen under the circumstances.
A Crimson Cross knight wearing a creepy bird mask responded to my question. “If it’s you, your highness, even the god of death would fall head over heels.”
“It’s actually not that great if a god’s love for you goes overboard, you know?”
I smacked my lips during my retort. Honestly, it kind of felt like we were irreconcilable enemies sometimes.
The same Crimson Cross member asked me. “Won’t this be dangerous, your highness?”
“Of course it will be. And that’s why you’re here to protect me, right?”
The Crimson Cross member bowed deeply at my comment. “If it’s your command, then…”
At the same time, the eyes hidden behind the masks of the Crimson Cross knights standing on or below the steeple’s roof began gleaming sharply.
“…We shall sacrifice even our souls to protect you, your highness.”
“Excellent!”
I put away the long-distance musket inside the item window, and then extracted another one.
These rifles were truly great weapons. However, their cooldown before I could inject more divinity tended to be too long depending on their performance.
These musket rifles were different from the ones found back in my previous world. Well, that was obvious since these things operated with magic, after all. They weren’t the types that fired single shots of metal balls, but were magical rifles found only in this fantasy otherworld that needed magical energy to function.
They were the ultimate weapons of magic that didn’t require a physical projectile or gunpowder, but only needed my divinity and the images I could cook up in my head.
“Buy me some time. Two minutes should suffice.”
“We shall obey!”
The Crimson Cross knights by the ground raised their assortment of colourful weapons which included the likes of spears, scythes, shovels, maces, and many others.
The ones in the front raised their shields and created a defensive wall, while the others lent assistance from behind.
– Kuwaaaahk!
Various weapons slipped out from the gaps of the shields and hacked away; the Order of the Crimson Cross began their undead hunting in earnest.
These zombified animals didn’t present that many problems to them. The ones that actually did were the lycans. These undead beasts moved swiftly and began shoving the shields of the Crimson Cross back.
The Crimson Cross members created some distance and quickly hacked down the lycan’s arms and legs with their deft movements.
“Confine!”
“Judgement!”
And by relying on their coordinated attacks, they subdued a lycan and hacked it into tiny pieces.
But while they were doing this, more and more zombified animals were gathering around this location. Their numbers were overwhelming.
The animals alone were in the several hundreds, while there were dozens of lycans too.
No matter how good these Crimson Cross guys were at fighting, they wouldn’t be able to deal with all these monsters rushing in from all directions.
[Divine Aura has been used.]
[The equipment will be temporarily enhanced.]
[The equipment’s divinity ‘storage amount’ will be expanded.]
[The enhanced equipment is now granted with the skill ‘Burst Fire’.]
The message notifications rang around noisily inside my head.
“Oh, dear Gaia…”
I began offering my prayer afterwards while letting out a breath into the lengthy loading chamber.
“Grant me power to subjugate the undead.”
I busily rolled my eyeballs around and took in the sight of every single undead around. Then, I spotted and differentiated the members of the Crimson Cross mixed in among them.
Sure, it’d be hard to hit them all.
But, what did that matter anyway? I just needed to blow them all away, right?!
“Grant me your power to extend the hand of salvation to your faithful flock…”
I would be granting blessings to the living ones, while…
“And rain down your judgement on the heretics.”
…Curses would be bestowed upon these stinking undead.
I then pointed the muzzle at the lycans and the zombified animals.
My anticipation over the events about to come bubbled up and the corners of my lips curled up all on their own.
“Time to hunt some beasts.”
Then, I squeezed the trigger.
A powerful storm formed in front of the muzzle. Divinity exploded forth before splitting into many, many strands.
Explosion noises rang out.
The baptism of light bullets rained down on everything before me.
The projectiles didn’t differentiate allies from the enemies. They went right through the zombies and hit the ground. Even the members of the Crimson Cross got pierced right through the divinity bullets.
After the bullets went through their targets and hit the ground, they began emitting dense smoke. The previously-dark night was suddenly brightly illuminated by the bullets of light.
This cacophony of gunfire was loud enough to nearly burst my eardrums. I was getting this vague feeling of euphoria from the powerful resonance coming from my arms.
The dense smoke obscured my view and I couldn’t see anything. But that didn’t matter one jot, though. I just needed to fire away!
I laughed out loudly.
Alright then! All the stress accumulated through every hardship I had to suffer through? Let me vent it all out right here, right now!
Vampires? The Imperial Family? Gaia? The stuff I wish I could do to them but couldn’t, Imma unleash every bit of it on you, you stinking undead!
The screeches of the undead reverberated throughout the night sky.
They were howling out from pure agony.
However, their cries gradually died down along with the thinning stench of death.
The baptism of projectiles wrapped in divinity rained down mercilessly and purified all the undead in the vicinity.
Individual shots might not have been all that powerful, but lots of bullets were being fired nonstop.
Hundreds of bullets were fired, and eventually, all the divinity stored in the ‘magazine’ ran out.
I squeezed the trigger again, only to be greeted by the empty ‘clack’ sound.
Maybe me going overboard with divinity usage was to blame here, because I was already getting dizzy.
Hot steam expelled out from the muzzle of the rifle that went on a firing spree like a machine gun.
The dense smoke slowly cleared away.
The Crimson Cross knights who had been fighting against the undead by the foot of the steeple all flinched in surprise and hurriedly checked their own bodies.
They were probably shocked silly since the divinity projectiles penetrated cleanly through them. However, they shouldn’t be negatively affected.
Those bullets would heal the living while they acted like curses to the undead, after all.
The Crimson Cross members quickly shifted their gazes to their opponents.
The undead were now burning away into ashes. Some of them still managed to somehow crawl on the ground as their limbs continued burning away.
I began sensing the gazes of the Crimson Cross members guarding me from the side and the roof of the steeple, landing on me.
Even though I knew that, I still ended up losing my rationale.
While plopping down on my ass, I laughed out loudly in satisfaction.
“Ahahaha! This is the grace of the Goddess, you motherf*ckers!”
“…”
“Ah, hang on. All of you, you can tell this isn’t blasphemy, right?”
Since I wasn’t blaspheming here, it should be alright.
While thinking that, I continued laughing away in delight for a while.
The stench of death previously wafting around the city had mostly dissipated after this. As for the remainder, I figured the soldiers of Hilda fiefdom would do something about them.
I cackled on while looking down at the limbless groups of undead trying to crawl away as they continued to burn.
“This is the end of the hunt, you stinking bastards.”
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