The Extra is a Genius!? Chapter 605: Roberto Moves

Past the rugged mountain chain where Noel had undergone his intense training for those final months, Roberto strolled leisurely, as though no urgent destination awaited him. The atmosphere grew chillier, more sparse, infused with the untamed mana that had forged the range's beasts over countless ages, but he traversed it with the ease of a traveler on a well-known path.

Trailing behind him, distant enough to fade into hazy outlines amid rocks and mist, a colossal entity stirred. Numerous entities, actually. Bulky forms. Slithering figures. Wings slicing through fractured moonlight. A horde, if one chose to label it so, yet its progression lacked any trace of humanity.

At Roberto's side, a stone golem matched his stride with ponderous, rumbling footfalls. Its frame was jagged and uneven, assembled from shadowy mountain boulders melded into a rough human-like form. It bore no discernible features, merely a bulky cranium with a faint glow nestled in fissures, but it occasionally angled toward Roberto as if attuned to his words.

Roberto exhaled softly and grinned to himself. “I’m nervous.” His tone stayed buoyant, nearly playful. “I haven’t felt this alive in ages. Not since I pierced Nicolas clean through.” He cocked his head a bit, gazing at the heavens amid the summits. “That marked the initial instance of it across every cycle as well. A refreshing twist, truly.”

The golem appeared to nod briefly. Roberto chuckled quietly and patted its back with fondness.

The creation disintegrated in an instant. Its chest erupted first, followed by the remainder crumbling into a cascade of shattered rocks that tumbled down the incline in hefty chunks. Roberto didn't pause. He continued onward, hands tucked away, navigating around the debris like it was mere commonplace.

“For better or worse, it concludes tomorrow.” His grin narrowed, yet persisted. “Either Noel triumphs and I meet my end at last, or Noctis perishes, Elarin honors his pledge, he claims Noel’s form, and I reclaim my liberty.”

Silence followed for a moment.

“Either suits me,” he murmured, gentler now. “But if I face the truth... I desire to live. A fulfilling existence. A serene one. I’ve yet to grasp its essence.” His gaze shifted to the remote horizon before them. “I yearn to experience it. Even once. I long to understand true freedom.”

As Roberto pressed on, his horde's form sharpened into view. It comprised no uniform breed. Far from it.

Enormous draconic forms soared in the elevated skies over the chain, some boasting wide spans and hides of somber metallic hues, others slimmer and ashen, their silhouettes tracing languid loops overhead like seekers of a signal to alight. Below on the terrain, beings resembling ogres in the loosest terms plodded in groups, though they varied wildly, some bulky and bloated with rocky hides, others gaunt and elongated with limbs that scraped the soil. Amid them marched bony silhouettes, not the pristine skeletons of basic undead, but distorted corpses clad in armor remnants, fractured antlers, tusks, or talons from their former lives, defying death's grasp.

Interwoven were wolves. Far too many. Towering mountain wolves trod alongside horrors that would typically shred them instantly. Dark-pelted shadow wolves glided almost soundlessly beneath their bulk, violet streaks subtly tracing their forms, eyes gleaming in the gloom like captured spite. Certain ones echoed Noir’s breed so closely that the likeness would unsettle amid the surrounding chaos.

Such a assembly defied logic. Beasts from clashing realms. Aerial predators from remote heights. Tomb-dwellers unfit for motion. Entities meant to savage one another ages before the range's border. Yet they refrained. They progressed with eerie composure, as if one overriding force throttled their natures and drove them as one.

Roberto cast a look skyward at a nearer dragon and offered a subtle smile. “Noel did well,” he whispered. “Setting up Thorne Territory proved the right move.” His hands stayed pocketed as he crossed a fractured outcrop. “It won’t suffice in the end, but I appreciate his effort.”

A bulkier form than the others approached from the flank. It borrowed from dragon and ogre alike, yet fit neither. Its stance loomed tall and stooped, encased in ebony organic plating, with enormous limbs and a crowned, skullish visage whose maw gaped excessively. Shackles trailed from a forearm, merged into sinew and bone, and its every tread embedded deeper into the rock than its companions. Even this beast advanced in subdued quiet.

That element chilled most.

As the fractured peaks yielded to the fringe wilderness en route to Thorne Territory, the horde's momentum ceased resembling travel. It resembled an encroaching tempest.

Finally, Roberto ascended an elevation granting sight of it. Thorne Territory sprawled afar under the darkening vault, stripped of its former tranquility, no mere noble estate anymore. From afar, wisps of sentry blazes rose, slender barriers of wards sliced across paths and fields, sporadic glimmers marked roaming guards and night labors of sorcerers.

Roberto halted and observed in muteness for a spell. The forces deployed wisely, avoiding foolish huddles near the estate. Perimeter zones cleared, landscape segmented into defenses, woodland borders pruned to avert ambushes. The planner grasped that combat at the core residence signaled defeat already.

A grin curved his lips. “Good,” he uttered quietly. “That’s much better.”

He spoke sincerely. A lopsided massacre would bore. Foreseeable. Hollow. This carried substance. Noel had heeded the alert and reshaped reality accordingly. Roberto admired that resolve.

In his wake, the aberrant legion amassed over inclines and shattered expanses, extending beyond easy sight. Dragons wheeled aloft. Shadow wolves wove through crags and foliage like creeping blemishes. The behemoths—ogre-ish colossi, bone-forged war horrors, malformed freaks defying classification—loomed in expectant hush.

The surrounding realm stirred in response. Lesser creatures bolted through undergrowth in raw terror. Avian calls had faded long ago. Saplings quivered where the earth's strain mounted, foliage rustling sans breeze. Overhead, the firmament weighed denser, as if dusk had congealed in foreboding.

Roberto lingered a beat more, stare locked on the fortified domain. Then he advanced a single pace.

At his back, the legion surged alongside.