The Death Mage that doesn't want a fourth time

79 Fanning the flames in the underground graveyard

"GAAAAH..." groaned the final monster, a Rank 7 Poison Zombie Giant that was a combination of multiple Poison Zombies.

Heinz, the man wielding the magic sword enveloped in blue flames that had cut the monster open, sighed as he confirmed that there were no more enemies.

The monster, whose core had consisted of a middle-aged female Zombie, had been conspicuously more powerful than the other monsters.

"It seems that the monsters' rampage has ended. Is everyone alright?" Heinz asked.

"Yeah, no problems here. I am tired though."

"I'm not hurt, either... but I'm tired, too."

Heinz's party was severely exhausted. Most of the monsters that had appeared were Rank 4 or 5, and the only Rank 7 monster was the Poison Zombie Giant that had been finished off a few moments ago. There had been just over a thousand of them, a smaller number than the average monster rampage.

They hadn't been enemies that the Five-colored Blades, an A-class adventurer party, would have had trouble with. In fact, they were small fry that would simply be scattered aside in a one-sided fashion. Even if there were over a thousand of them.

That was the power of an A-class adventurer party.

However, the monsters that had closed in on the city of Niarki were not ordinary monsters.

Seventy percent of the swarm of monsters had been Undead, while the other thirty percent consisted of plant-type and insectoid monsters. And the monsters that possessed the body parts required for speech had been repeatedly groaning, "Kill Heinz," as if these words were some kind of incantation.

A group of monsters led by a mighty commander with the title of King would move like a single creature, but this was a completely abnormal situation.

With that said, this could actually be considered fortunate. The monsters hadn't been fixated on entering the city of Niarki. The guards, knights and adventurers had hastily formed a defensive force and risen to meet the monsters in battle, but the monsters had ignored the city and charged at Heinz, who had been standing at the forefront of the defense.

Despite wounded, immobilized knights and completely exhausted adventurers being within their reach, they had continued aiming for Heinz.

But all of the monsters had been more individually powerful than their Ranks would have suggested, and no matter how many times they were defeated, they kept attacking endlessly.

Defeated insectoid monsters had turned Undead, mold and fungi had grown on the remains of defeated Undead to spawn plant-type monsters such as Poison Mushrooms and Venom Molds, and the remains of plant-type monsters had spawned insects which turned into monsters.

Thanks to this endless monster chain, Heinz and his companions had actually been forced to fight against over ten thousand monsters.

"Still... they seem to have hated you quite a lot. What have you done?" asked Jennifer, the unarmed human fighter.

"Us adventurers have defeated a countless number of monsters, so there could be any number of reasons as to why we could be hated," said Diana, an Elf priestess of Mill, the Goddess of Slumber. "But that was completely out of the ordinary, wasn't it?"

The two of them had joined Heinz's party after they moved to work in the Orbaume Kingdom.

Before responding to either of them, Heinz turned to look in the direction of the city of Niarki.

Because the monsters had only been aiming for the Five-colored Blades, for Heinz, the city's outer walls were unharmed and although there were some among the defense force who were severely wounded, only a few truly unlucky individuals had perished.