Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Vol. 8

by Hiro Ainana

Now then, time to be a hero.

  In total, seventy-six of the ten thousand jellyfish had turned red. The number seemed to be increasing, but it was still a pretty tiny percentage.

  Besides, over 70 percent of the jellyfish were already trapped in Aaze’s Dimension Jails. There were only 2,765 jellyfish that could still move freely.

  A few dozen of them were trying to attack the multi-legged golems and their riders, so I used Remote Stun to knock them out from a distance.

  Among the loose jellyfish, I could only shoot 933 of them.

  Since most of the jellyfish were clinging tightly to the tree with their tentacles, I couldn’t use Remote Stun to knock them off the branches.

  That was why I’d planned this roundabout Operation Curry in the first place…

  But that was only because I was trying to make a plan in which the elves could dispose of the jellyfish entirely on their own.

  The elves lived far longer than I would, so if they were to encounter a similar situation in the distant future, they might not have an irregularity like me to help them deal with it. I wanted to make sure they’d be all right.

  But maybe that was a little too overcautious of me.

  “Well then, guess I’ll get started…”

  I took out a void golem from the large Fairy Pack.

  It was a simple golem that could carry out actions like jet propulsion and biaxial rotation as directed by my Signal spell.

  As a result, it was sturdy and had a low production cost. This time, I’d covered most of it with rubber for extra protection.

  “There you go.”

  In order to give the golem some initial acceleration through the void, I threw it by hand with the help of a “Skyrunning” foothold. This was faster than its regular acceleration system.

  As I repeated this process, more of the golems disappeared into the void, the reflective pane on their backs glittering by a few flashes of the World Tree’s lightning.

  I stored these lightning bolts in Storage, too.

  It’d be nice if it would learn soon that its electric attacks wouldn’t work, though maybe that was too much to expect of a tree.

  I activated the Light Magic spell Condense several times from the magic menu.

  Next, I prepared the Laser spell, using the 3-D map display to figure out its trajectory.

  This was a similar combo to the one I’d used to defeat the seven giant monster fish Tobkezerra when they appeared in the sky above the old capital.

  However, I wasn’t going to be firing a focused Laser this time.

  Even an ordinary laser could cause the World Tree’s branches to break just by passing near them, so a focused one was out of the question.

  Putting that thought aside, I turned to the map again.

  Two circles appeared around one of the dots, indicating a jellyfish on my map.

  Beside the circles were the words Locked On. More of these indicators appeared one after another until nearly half the jellyfish on my map had been marked.

  However, the majority of them were sheltered behind branches.

  > Reflector One, placement completed.

  > Reflector Four, placement completed.

  > Reflector Twelve, placement completed.

  The Signal spell from the void golems informed me that they’d arrived at their positions.

  As each golem reached its place, target marks appeared on more and more of the jellyfish on my map that hadn’t been locked on before.

  Just to be safe, I checked that there weren’t any elves nearby who might get hurt.

  “All right. Checkmate.”

  In my mind, I pulled the trigger.

  A flood of light filled the empty void.

  The hundred Lasers I’d fired were scattered by the Condense spell, increasing their number.

  All of them were doubled over and over until eventually 3,200 bright lines were bouncing around the void.

  That was a little more than necessary, but it shouldn’t be a problem.

  Tiny glimmers danced across the branches of the World Tree.

  It was the Lasers piercing the jellyfish, bouncing off their transparent remains and creating a diffused reflection.

  However, the jellyfish I couldn’t directly target were still intact.

  At this rate, they would go into rampage mode and multiply—but I already had a countermeasure for that.

  Some of the thin little Lasers reached certain points and bounced at an angle.

  Reflected off the void golems, they changed direction a few times until they hit the jellyfish hidden behind the World Tree’s branches.

  That’s right: I was imitating the anime technique Arisa had used back at the mountain stream.

  I hadn’t managed to find a material that could reflect my focused Lasers, but if I used Condense to scatter them into weaker Lasers, most reflective surfaces would work.

  Thus, the stubborn red lights above the World Tree disappeared as if they’d been wiped away with a cloth.

  “Satou! The cages!”

  Aaze cried out from the light ship.

  Looking up and over my shoulder, I saw that the jellyfish were on the verge of breaking out of the Dimension Jails.

  Their eyes were burning red, having watched so many of their fellows be destroyed.

  There were several times more of them than the number I’d just destroyed.

  “Run, Satou!”

  Aaze’s desperate voice pained my heart.

  It’s all right.

  I already declared checkmate, remember?

  A merciless flower began to bloom in the void…

  Explosion.

  The most powerful attack spell of all the intermediate Explosion Magic spells.

  The vibrations shook the aether in the otherwise soundless space.

  Since we were out here in the void, I didn’t have to hold back out of fear of destroying the surrounding environment.

  A few jellyfish survived, but I burned them away with another round of Lasers.

  “Well, that wraps up this operation.”

  With a sigh, I used Magic Hand to start cleaning up the jellyfish debris.

  Then my “Sense Danger” skill reacted to something.

  A terrible premonition ran through the back of my mind as I cleaned.

  It was coming from the World Tree.

  “Wh-what’s this?”

  The trunk beneath the observatory had been ripped open by a huge jellyfish tentacle bursting forth.

  “One of them got into the World Tree?!”

  The tentacle reached toward the observatory.

  Crap!

  There were a lot of elves in the observatory who weren’t wearing void suits.

  I definitely couldn’t fire Laser, never mind Explosion.

  Besides, I was too far away. No ordinary magic would reach.

  I used “Warp” and “Skyrunning” to move as fast as I could, but I would never make it in time.

  The thick tentacle smashed the dome of the observatory, and several elves were sucked into the void along with the crushed mucous wall.

  I recognized those faces—it was Mia’s parents and Goya.

  I jumped forward with enough force to shatter the “Skyrunning” foothold.

  HURRYYYYYYYYY!

  My heart burned so fiercely that I could almost feel time slowing down.

  It was a similar feeling to when I’d tried to save Sara from becoming a sacrifice for the demon lord.

  Right. That time…

  > Skill Acquired: “Flashrunning”

  Just as I felt a sensation in my mind like a puzzle piece falling into place, I arrived directly in front of the tentacle.

  The instant I realized it was about to strike the dome again, I pulled back as hard as I could to unleash a powerful punch against the building-size tentacle.

  Then, as the broken tentacle plummeted toward the trunk of the World Tree, I quickly used Magic Hand to return Mia’s parents and Goya to the observatory.

 
; “You’ve got some nerve, avoiding my map search,” I muttered at the jellyfish tentacle as I activated my new “Flashrunning” skill.

  It seemed to be an advanced combination of “Skyrunning” and “Warp.”

  More jellyfish tentacles emerged from other parts of the tree.

  How in the world did my map search miss them?

  A series of images flashed across my mind…

  The broken eggs and the mismatched amount of larvae.

  The mysteriously polluted sap.

  Removing the clogged sap near the jellyfish made them react the same way as if you’d destroyed an egg.

  I already had the answer.

  As the images fell into place, I turned them into words.

  The jellyfish that had hatched from the eggs hid in the sap, going through a pupa state in the guise of crystallized, polluted sap, and then transformed into actual jellyfish.

  And since we’d removed all the jellyfish at once, the ones that were hiding inside the World Tree as polluted sap all grew at once and merged to form a giant one.

  I could even see that the sap flowing through the trunk was turning into small jellyfish.

  Now that I understood the situation, it was time to get rid of the infection.

  I had no mercy for pests.

  Evading the lightning of the World Tree and the tentacle attacks of the jellyfish, I put Spellblade on the ends of my fingertips and beyond, using it to slash up the jellyfish and put them away in Storage.

  Sap from the World Tree began to leak from the huge hole that had been opened in its trunk.

  I temporarily put the leaking sap away in Storage and used Liquid Control to stop the leakage.

  Finally, I entered the World Tree through the hole and used the intermediate Water Magic spell Healing: Water to close it up.

  Now I was trapped inside, but that worked out just fine for me: I could follow the flow of the sap through the tubes and destroy the rogue jellyfish from the inside.

  While I did this, I also collected the polluted sap that hadn’t transformed yet into Storage along with the corpses.

  I picked up the sap immediately surrounding the contaminated areas, too, just to be safe.

  Infectious diseases like this one tend to hide in strange places, after all.

  “Satou’s signal is gone…”

  Aaze was lying on the floor of the observatory, despondent.

  “Well, that’s a shame,” I responded wryly as I approached.

  “Lua! How can you be so cruel?! Satou saved the World Tree, you know! Why would you say a thing like that?!”

  Mistaking my reply for Lua’s, Aaze cried out in a rare moment of anger.

  Even angry, she was as beautiful as ever.

  I stepped in front of Aaze to show her that I was safe. I’d already put my void suit away in Storage, of course. No need to be wearing unnecessary equipment during our emotional reunion.

  “I’m back, Miss Aaze.”

  Her blankly confused expression was pretty good, too.

  Since I’d been deep inside the trunk of the World Tree, returning the normal way would have been a pain, so I just used Return to teleport back.

  That must have cut off Aaze’s tracking signal, worrying her.

  I’d felt like I was being watched for a while, so she must have been watching me with Clairvoyance, too.

  “You’re back…”

  Aaze stared at me in a daze.

  “You’re back.”

  Why did she say that twice?

  “Welcome back, Satou.”

  Aaze wrapped her arms around my neck, so I returned the embrace. If Arisa or Mia had been there, they’d probably be saying “Guilty” right about then.

  “Thanks, Miss Aaze.”

  I lovingly stroked the high elf’s hair as she sobbed with relief.

  Confession

  Satou here. I’ve always been strangely popular with younger girls, but I’ve never successfully confessed to an older woman. The girlfriend I had for a while was around my same age. Am I fated to be unappealing to older women or what?

  “I’m back…”

  “Welcome home. Are you hurt? Take your coat off and lie down.”

  Obediently, I handed Arisa my robe and threw myself onto the living room sofa.

  After my emotional reunion with Miss Aaze, I’d used “Flashrunning” to zip around the entire planet and help the other clans with their jellyfish extermination.

  Despite defeating a grand total of over seventy thousand jellyfish, my level hadn’t gone up from 310.

  My EXP gauge did squeak up a little, but after all that, it was no more than 5 percent higher than before.

  As far as I could tell, the cryptid category the jellyfish belonged to was worth less EXP than the monster category, so two thousand of them yielded about the same amount of experience as a single giant monster fish.

  The jellyfish didn’t even have cores.

  All of the clans’ high elves had summoned massively powerful pseudo-spirits to do battle with the jellyfish.

  They probably could have handled things without me, albeit with more damage to the World Trees and possible injuries to the elves.

  Images of the pseudo-spirits like the Beliunan clan’s golden Garuda and the Biloanan clan’s fiery Ifrit floated through my mind as I drifted off to sleep.

  Something about traveling around the entire world on foot really took it out of a person.

  “Are you all ready?”

  “Yes. This is a bit embarrassing, though.”

  At the shrine maiden Lua’s behest, I was aboard a palanquin for a parade.

  It had been five days since the extermination of the jellies, and I was the guest of honor at the elves’ festival to celebrate our success.

  I’d initially refused the parade, but I gave in to Aaze’s pleading request.

  “Heeerooo, we’re liiifting the paaalanquiiin.”

  “Sure, thanks.”

  The palanquin was being carried by trolls, who were around the size of small giants with bluish-black skin. They had a bit of a drawl, though not as much as the forest giants.

  “So cool!”

  “You look very amazing, sir!”

  “Yes, that is quite a handsome look, master.”

  “Master, you look wonderful, I commend. Requesting matching armor.”

  I waved at the beastfolk girls and Nana as they gazed at me with sparkling eyes.

  For the parade, I was wearing blue Holy Armor, said to have been left behind by the hero Daisaku.

  Without the Hero title, it was just heavy. Once I switched to the right title, though, it moved automatically to match my movements, making it feel so light that it was like I was wearing nothing at all.

  “I dunno. I think a white robe suits him more than armor.”

  “Do you? What about his adorable apron look, though?”

  I rolled my eyes and ignored Arisa and Lulu’s slightly off-topic discussion, then looked around at the other people who were assembling in the plaza.

  Just about every elf in the Bolenan Forest was here today—aside from the ones asleep in sleep tanks, of course.

  On top of that, there was the usual array of brownies and winged fairies, plus spriggans, leprechauns, silky, trolls, and all kinds of other fairies. The chieftains of a few beastfolk villages hidden along the border of the Bolenan Forest were also present. To celebrate the festival, everyone was dressed to the nines.

  Many of the winged fairies were drifting around above the parade, tossing flower petals down on my head.

  “Satou!”

  Turning around, I saw Goya standing next to the palanquin.

  “Thanks!”

  I guess he wanted to thank me for saving his life out in the void.

  “Approval!”

  Of what?

  I tilted my head, and Goya gave me one of his classic Are you an idiot? looks.

  How am I supposed to understand if you only use one or two words at a time?

  “M
ia. Engagement. Consent!” Goya shouted.

  No, no. We’re not actually engaged; that’s just Mia’s little joke… I wanted to explain this misunderstanding, but he had already disappeared into the crowd. I’d have to resolve this later.

  Finally, I saw Aaze standing on a stage in the center of the plaza.

  Instead of her usual shrine maiden garb, she was wearing a fancy dress with a high collar that made her look like the queen of the fairies.

  Her composed expression was beautiful, too. Maybe she would take a photo with me later.

  “Children of Bolenan, please listen. Though I kept it a secret from you all, I can now tell you that our mother the World Tree was under attack by creatures known as Evil Jellies. But as of yesterday, we have finished exterminating them.”

  Aaze spoke in a clear voice as she explained the situation to the elves in the plaza. It sounded like she might have scripted this speech.

  “…And the human who saved the World Tree is none other than Nanashi the Hero! Please give him a round of applause!”

  I was so busy admiring Aaze that I almost missed my introduction. A little belatedly, I waved at the crowd as they clapped.

  Once the applause died down, seven pillars of light appeared on the platform.

  “Wh-what?!”

  Judging by Aaze’s shocked reaction, this wasn’t part of the plan.

  Eventually, the pillars of light resolved into the forms of the high elves from the other clans, the ones we’d spoken with during the Holytree Council meetings.

  They appeared to be in the flesh this time, not just projections.

  “The Holytrees left their own World Trees…?” My “Keen Hearing” skill picked up a murmur of disbelief from Lua. This seemed to be a rare occasion even for the long-lived elves.

  The chatter in the plaza fell silent, and most of the other races besides the elves dropped to their knees. While the elves didn’t prostrate themselves in the same way, they did sit in careful postures.

  “Apologies, Aaze. It was rude of us to visit without informing you first.”

  Miss Luze of the Baleonan clan seemed to be representing the high elves today.

  There had been male high elves in the council meetings, but today it was all women.