Chapter 59

: Has the War Ended? A Naive Thought
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Benjamin knew that the first thing a mage should do when engaged in a battle was to create a distance between him and the enemy.
He definitely should not let the ten Cleaners come within his vicinity.
However, Benjamin felt that his mental strength was almost depleted as waves of headache hit him because he had been using so much spells continuously. It was too late for him to run away in order to distance himself from the enemies.
That was because the Cleaners charged towards him at an incredible speed!
Luckily for Benjamin, Michelle did not stand by and do nothing when he was blocking the swords of the holy light.
As she chanted a lengthy and complicated spell, she stretched her hands and targeted the ground in front of the Cleaners. The ground became a quagmire out of nowhere and the Cleaner’s speed was halved as they stepped into the quagmire.

Quagmire Spell?

Benjamin saw this spell on the
Introduction to Magic
. It was an intermediate level spell that could turn a solid ground into a quagmire. This spell definitely had its difficulty as it also explained the lack of response from Michelle when he was being attacked. She was trying to cast the spell the whole time.
This spell worked wonders when used in this scenario. The Cleaners’ pace was reduced and Benjamin finally found space to catch his breath.
He managed to create a distance from the Cleaners by running against their direction. At the same time he was also controlling the water ball, which still had the holy light fragments encapsulated within it. He threw the water ball at the Cleaners.
The holy light and water ball were no threat to the Cleaners. However they did cause some troubles to them as the shards of the holy light broke through from the slowly disappearing swirl.
It completely stopped their charging pace.
The true potential of the Quagmire Spell started to reveal itself at this moment. The Cleaners were slowly sinking into the ground when they were dealing with the water ball and the shards of holy light. Some of them were already knee deep into the ground.
Michelle then cast another elementary level spell — Freezing Spell.
Although it was just a basic attack spell, its potential was greater than of the intermediate level spell when was used in this situation.
The soggy quagmire was frozen and it became rock solid. With the water from the water ball spell frozen, the Cleaners’ legs were stuck in the ground as the water had slipped into their armor before it was frozen.
The Cleaners were now completely immobile with just a few simple spells which complemented each other.
Benjamin gave a sigh of relief at this sight.
This was how mages battle. Once you were under the spell’s control, the following spells would restrain you even more. The enemy could no longer battle.
At last, Benjamin finally secured his victory.
The Cleaners realized the severity of their situation and tried their best to struggle their way out. However, they could not break free as these spells worked so well together and they had those heavy armors on them which restricted their motion.

Why did you do this, Christine? I can’t believe you’d become the devil’s minion!
One of the Cleaners shouted at Michelle disappointingly.

Holy Knight Christine died a long time ago
Michelle answered cold heartedly.
Now, I am Michelle the mage.

Even though the Cleaners had encountered so many misfortune events today, they could not hide their shocked expression at Michell’s response.

Michelle…. You are that fallen one. No wonder… no wonder you know us so well.
The Cleaner appeared gravely displeased.
None of us expected the most evil fallen one that we have been trying to capture has been hiding among us all this while.

Michelle humphed and disdainfully said,
That’s because you and your kind are too dumb. You never pay any attention to your surrounding at all.

The Cleaners fell into silence as they felt the highest form of betrayal upon finding out their comrade was actually Michelle.
Benjamin stood at one side and did nothing. Although he was curious about the past relationship between Michelle and the Church, he did not have the luxury to converse as the enemies were still right in front of them.
He took a short rest to recover his mental strength and started casting spells again.
After casting the Icebreaking Spell consecutively for eight times, Benjamin summoned about one hundred ice arrows. He elevated the arrows and directed them towards the helpless Cleaners.
Although he was reluctant to kill so many people, he had no choice but to do so as none of the Cleaners must be kept alive.
This was the kind of battle it was, where either side of the parties must be completely annihilated.
Michelle cast an ice arrow spell and summoned about ten ice arrows to attack the Cleaners as well.
The Cleaners did not give up even under their unfortunate circumstance. They faced the sky filled with ice arrows by holding their swords up high and chanted together in deep voice.

May God bless me.

Holy light radiated from their bodies and its intensity was no weaker than that of the sword of the holy light. Their armor looked like it was alive under the holy light. Shadows of shields appeared on each of their bodies right before the ice arrow rained upon them.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Loud clashes were heard and there was a storm of white mist generated from the flying ice shards. The whole sewer was chilled with cold air in a blink of an eye.
Benjamin felt proud of himself for being able to perform a magic of this feat. He was able to produce such an attack even though he only learnt magic recently. Although his attack became much stronger with the help of the Water Elemental Crystal, his improvements were the result of his own hard work!
To be able to kill a team of Cleaners, be it by combining multiple types of ambush tactics and and a little bit of luck, Benjamin thought that would be enough to classify himself a first class mage.

You’re very cruel. How could you freeze these innocent people to death?
The System appeared suddenly and disapproved of his actions.
Benjamin unexpectedly responded to the System.

What’s the point of showing mercy? It’s just an act of the victor. Will someone stand up against them and protest their cruelty when they kill the mages? We are just playing our roles as the prey and predator, that’s all.

The System was at first at a loss for words and then said,
Why did you not scold me when I usually pour cold water on you?


…

This System definitely had a virus.
As the dust settled down, Benjamin realized it was too soon to let his guard down.
Although the Cleaners looked a bit roughed up with their magnificent armor filed with holes, none of them died in this rain of ice arrows. In fact, none of them sustained any heavy injury at all.
Why the heck were they so indestructible?
Benjamin felt like he had underestimated the Cleaners even though they were stuck in the frozen quagmire.
However, Benjamin was not worried at all. Although they had great defence, defending persistently would be of no use. They were just target dummies as long as they could not break free.
The Cleaners’ armor started to freeze as they struggled with shielding away from the rain of iced arrows. The quagmire underneath their leg was as hard as cement after further freezing.
This made it harder for them to struggle.
Michelle looked at them as if they were corpses during this encounter in the sewer. After resting a little, she started chanting again and immediately summoned a new batch of ice arrows.
Benjamin did the same thing after he recovered water particles from his space of consciousness. The ice arrows were formed batch by batch in the middle of the air.
The ice arrows were cast wave by wave.
The sewer’s ambient temperature dropped and the polluted water started to freeze from the influence of these consecutive magic attacks. Even Benjamin’s breath started to condense as he was about to shiver from the surrounding temperature.
One could not help but to wonder how many ice arrows have they summoned during this process.

These people looked miserable. They should have just died from the ambush at the very beginning.
The System sighed.

… Indeed, this looks very cruel.
Even Benjamin agreed.
After about five minutes of being rained upon by thousands of ice arrows, these ten Cleaners finally died in this dark and dirty sewer.

They are…… All dead.

After confirming there were no survivors remaining, Benjamin finally gave a big sigh of relief as if he had finally put down a tonne of stone from his shoulder.
He finally succeeded.
Benjamin felt shocked deeply after this whole incident. He killed a team of Cleaners. He really …… killed a team of Cleaners.
Never in his mind that he thought he could have done this in the past.
Regardless of whether it was intentional or resulted from various factors …
He became stronger.
Of course he was still not strong enough. Benjamin could have been in a worse situation or even die here if not for Michelle’s sudden appearance.
Michelle… was still Michelle.

Never in my mind I would have thought that you would rescue me……
He thought while looking at Michelle who was at the other end of the sewer.
Suddenly, he stretched out his right hand from his back to reveal his silver gun which was loaded with blessed bullets. He aimed his gun at Michelle.
He was about to showcase his fast shooting skill.
Michelle looked at Benjamin and smiled.
Benjamin suddenly felt his heart sank.
He did not manage to fire his gun in time before the familiar pain emerged from within his stomach and spread throughout his body. Benjamin dropped his gun and fell onto the ground due to the immense pain.
Damn…
Michelle had anticipated Benjamin’s ambush and started chanting the curse.