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Last Embryo Volume 4 Chapter 4 Part 8

Translator: DarkHeartedAlchemist

In total, seven shadows have jumped out of hiding when Pritt commanded her vines to start attacking the surroundings. That is even more than they have anticipated. However these number were too few and far between to even think about stopping the vines of the linden tree, which continued to grow, expand and run amok endlessly as they pursued those who were pursuing them just a few minutes ago, cutting off all of their escape routes.

Rather than impaling them with the vines and making human skewers out of them, Pritt’s intention was to have them entwine around their limbs and capture them alive, but whenever they were about to do that, the mysterious figures were swinging their swords at them, cutting them off from the main roots before they could get close to them.

「Ohh?」

(That is a surprisingly good call in this situation, I have to hand it to them. Those moves were also not half bad.)

Despite the situation they were in, Izayoi and Pritt were both impressed. Even though they were facing against a surprise attack of an abnormal phenomena created by a literal Buddhist god, they still did not show any signs of wavering or stepping down, which probably meant that these guys were no simple indigenous people. And that was where the problems with Pritt’s current approach were beginning.

If she was set on killing those guys from the start then it would have been the simplest thing in the world to do, but when it came to capturing targets alive, the biggest issue was always adjusting the strength of the vines when they were coiling around the targets so that they would not end up being killed accidentally.

In addition to that, she had to constantly chase after them, because now that they all spread out, they employed a tactic of sticking to the edge of the areas that did not have their trees destroyed yet and attacking Pritt from a distance with their blowguns, which were presumably equipped with poison darts. When one of them hit her by accident, she realized that it was not your typical poison, but rather a paralysis one, meaning that they probably wanted to catch her alive as well. It is a good thing that thanks to her godly status, most of the typical poisons and paralysis agents did not have any kind of effect on her. But that does not mean that she was not feeling any of it.

Other than her abnormally high resistance to poisons and the like, she was still the same as any regular human. Painful things still caused her to feel pain, and unpleasant things still made her feel unpleasant. Yet despite that, Pritt still tried to catch their pursuers while remaining as gentle and non-lethal as possible, but she slowly realized that this method was not as effective as she thought it was going to be, and that it is taking more time than she would have liked.

While Pritt was busy trying to catch the seven attackers, Izayoi was looking at the encounter closely, trying to get as much information out of it as he possibly could. The first thing that caught his attention were the masks that these natives have been wearing.

(Cow head masks?)

Just like he noticed, they were all wearing the masks shaped like the head of a cow made from cow’s bones and horns. Could it be because in Greek mythology cows were one of the animals which were being worshipped as sacred by the populace of the ancient Greece?

(That belief stands in direct opposition to the one that is predominant in the region of Eastern Asia, where cows are not considered as sacred, but rather as synonymous with monsters like the Demon Bull King form 「Journey to the West」. Putting that information into account, the only region that worshipped cattle and focused on its cultivation around the same time that the Lost Continent of Atlantis was still around is the part of the world west of the Middle East, meaning that I can finally pinpoint the exact place where Atlantis existed before Zeus sunk it to the bottom of the sea!)

Using that information as a base, Izayoi drew a mental map in his mind. If Kuro Usagi was here with them, she would have definitely smacked him upside the head with her harisen, screaming that the middle of a fight was not the right time to be figuring out geographical riddles, but first thing’s first she is not here right now, and second, he is not doing this to kill time out of boredom, but in order to make sure that everything will go exactly the way he wanted it to go.

Spreading his mental map of the world, Izayoi went over all of the key points that he had to consider.

Agricultural ruins that bore the signs of using irrigational technology, which was not all that widespread in the world of ancient Greece. . . . . . . . .

Warm climate that made it possible for the tropical plants and ecosystems to be present. . . . . . . . . .

Decorations and ornaments from the regions that used cows as the main motif, most likely because cows and cattle were believed to be sacred there. . . . . .

These were all the things that did not belong to one civilization in particular, but rather to a number of different ones, and since such a mixture was present here, then it is more than likely that Atlantis existed at the intersection of many civilizations. There were not many areas that fit that criterium, so that was already a huge hint. Cattle has been worshipped in Greece, and agricultural structures utilizing irrigational technology were present in ancient Egypt. And if we are talking about the area in the ancient Greek world where many cultures and civilizations overlapped, then the first thing that would come to mind would be. . .

(The Aegean Sea in Greece, which was the biggest hub of marine trade in the world of ancient Greece. So if we put all the clues together, then it would suggest that Atlantis must have been located somewhere near the island of Crete, where the legend of the Minotaur has been born. . . wait a minute. . . !!!)

Even Izayoi himself felt speechless at the thought that just popped into his mind. If he takes just the meaning of the keywords he managed to gather alone. . .  if his guess about it is correct, then that would mean that the one in possession of the winning hand. . .  would be Homura.

In that case, it really would be best for them to secure to cooperation of the locals, but seeing how their situation was not proceeding very well, the peaceful option might no longer be possible, in which case their only choice would be to rough them up a little to secure domination and then request them to aid them in their endeavors if they know what is good for them, and since it has come to that, then it was obvious that Izayoi was the perfect man for that job, so he tried to come forward in order to bring this matter to a close in an instant . . . but before he was even able to do that, the entire forest has been shook with the sound of rumbling earth.

「An earthquake?!」

Pritt, who managed to capture five out of seven enemies also stopped giving commands to her linden tree vines when she heard the sound and felt the earth moving under her feet. An earthquake of this scale and magnitude definitely could not have been a natural occurance, but at the same time it also did not feel like something bade by the use of a spell, a Gift or an ability. It felt much more genuine, much more natural, like. . .  like the footsteps of a giant creature.  And those footsteps have been gradually encroaching upon their location. That is how it sounded to Izayoi: as if something enormous was dragging the weight of its entire body along as it was coming closer. And as he stood there, wondering exactly what kind of monster was going to make its appearance anytime now, one of the masked man that Pritt managed to catch screamed at her:

「H-Hey, what are you standing around for you bitch?! Do you not see that the giants are coming?!」

「Who in the hell are you even?! These clothes that you are wearing. . .  you are not from this continent, are you?!」