The Rising of the Shield Hero Vol 16

by Aneko Yusagi

  “What?” Surprised by this unexpected counterattack, Takt raised the shield he had stolen from me and tightened his defenses. With a thud, my fist hammered into Takt.

  “You think this attack—guwah?!” My life force and magic exploded inside Takt’s body. Spewing blood, he was thrown behind the throne.

  “Takt!?” All the gun-toting women shouted his name, watching him out of worry for him and creating a massive opening.

  An opening that Ren, Itsuki, and Motoyasu were not going to miss.

  “Now! Flashing Sword!” Ren shouted.

  “Flash Arrow!” Itsuki joined in.

  “Shining Lance!” Motoyasu finished. All three had used skills with a blinding effect, stunning the women as they attempted to open fire again.

  Raphtalia and S’yne looked at each other, grabbed me as I collapsed, and ran for it. The two of them, seeing our disadvantage, made the choice to retreat.

  “What are you doing? Shoot them all dead!” Witch shouted, but Ren and the others were already kicking down the doors in order to escape.

  “Transport Sword . . . It’s no good. It won’t work,” Ren said.

  “All Drifa Heal!” I’d been put up on Filo’s back, and in my dazed state . . . I managed to cast healing magic across all of my injured allies, and then my voice gave out.

  These wounds—I couldn’t use healing magic on them.

  We dashed through the castle, trying to find a way out. Ren and Motoyasu were in the lead, with the old lady and Raphtalia watching the rear. Everyone was injured to some extent. The queen and I had been hit the hardest. Our clothing was dark with blood. Neither of us could last much longer without treatment. The pain made my head swim. It was a miracle I’d been able to stand up back there.

  “Mirellia! Just hold on!” Trash called to the queen, carrying her on his back as he ran behind me.

  “Mr. Naofumi!” Raphtalia said. I was leaning so heavily on Filo’s back I could barely move my body at all . . .

  “Naofumi, you understand the situation? I appreciate your anger, but we have to retreat,” Itsuki confirmed with me. He was right. If we stood our ground and fought here, where an ambush could be lying in wait in any corner, any number of the other heroes might lose their weapons.

  “Itsuki?” Rishia asked.

  “I know. Let’s get out of here as quickly as we can. Ren, is there any chance at all you can at least teleport the queen and Naofumi to a safe place?” he asked.

  “No chance at all. Transport Sword won’t work. It’s being blocked somehow,” he replied.

  “Kwaa!” Gaelion confidently cast some magic. It was Dragon Sanctuary. It was apparently effective against interference with teleportation. The likely cause of that interference was these new enemies using a barrier of similar magic. When Filo and Gaelion had been fighting over territory a while back, their spells had clashed and nullified each other.

  “Kwaa!” Gaelion gave a cry as something flashed past.

  “You aren’t getting away!” The voice came from down the corridor behind us. “Dragon Sanctuary!” Gah. That lizard woman was a dragon after all. Considering the conversation I’d heard between Gaelion and her, there was a high probability she was a Dragon Emperor herself.

  “Raph . . . talia, use . . . Scroll of Return,” I said.

  “O-okay!” she replied. Raphtalia had a teleportation skill from another world. Even with the interference, there was still a good chance she could use it.

  And yet . . .

  “I can’t use it?! The dragon hourglass is locked!” I thought it was impossible to block skills from other worlds!

  “Sakura Destiny Sphere?” I asked.

  “It takes all sorts of time and hassle to activate. It also weakens the power of the holy weapons, and seven star weapons—the vassal weapons—and would totally rule out teleportation skills. If they are using your shield, Mr. Naofumi, it will only have the opposite of the desired effect,” she explained.

  Gah! It seemed like this was a complete dead-end.

  S’yne clicked her tongue. She was touching my hand, and I could tell she was trying to activate a skill. But her weapon did not respond.

  “I’m sorry . . . The weapon has degraded too severely,” her doll explained. I shook my head, telling her not to worry about it. Then I looked at Filo.

  I desperately managed to speak, giving orders to Filo.

  “You can count on me!” she said as she ran along and started to incant magic. “Sanctuary!”

  “I won’t allow that. Griffon Sanctuary!” That had to be the griffon-like enemy. Every nullification we tried was in turn nullified—one step forward, one step back.

  After we got the portal open, we’d have to choose whom to send through. That alone would cause a minor time lag, and having the magic reversed in that moment made this so difficult. Concerning sounds rang out from both in front and behind. There were soldiers waiting for us up ahead.

  “Moto . . . yasu,” I rasped.

  “What do you need?” he replied.

  “This is an emergency. I give you permission to unleash . . . your love and your jealousy,” I told him. Takt was surrounded by women. This definitely sounded like an applicable situation.

  “But Filo forbid me from using that,” Motoyasu replied.

  “Fi . . . lo,” I told her.

  “Yes, okay,” she said to me. “Spear guy, please do it,” she said to Motoyasu.

  “Raph!” said Raph-chan, and “Dafu!” said Raph-chan II, moving to place their paws on those most susceptible to status effects. Motoyasu heard Filo’s request and gave a shout.

  “Very well, I say! Temptation and Ressentiment it is!” The curse skills Motoyasu unleashed caused me a jolt of physical pain as he fired them off. I felt the barrier break with a crack . . . but then a similar feeling came right back at us, as though it was mocking our every attempt.

  “No mistaking it. More nullification using the same skill!” he informed me.

  “Shit . . .” I muttered.

  “I can’t try again right away, father-in-law. My apologies for not being of greater aid,” Motoyasu said. Goddammit! I wondered just how many skills Takt was armed up with.

  “Gravity Sword!” Ren shouted.

  “Brionac!” Motoyasu got back into the fray.

  “Piercing Shot!” Itsuki yelled. The efforts of the three other heroes were keeping things under control, for now. The soldiers up ahead also weren’t that strong. Takt probably only had a limited number of underlings who had broken the level cap. It would be dangerous to dismiss the soldiers completely, however. They were still soldiers from a major nation. Likely a similar level to Ren, and good at their job—but still maybe level 100 at best. It had to only be those women in the chamber who had been blessed with breaking the cap. Based on that fact, the bullets flying at us from behind were far more dangerous.

  “Hi-yah!” shouted the old lady. Raphtalia and Fohl joined her with similar martial-artist kinds of shouts, smashing our female foes with compressed life force using the Point of Focus technique. It was working but would also be difficult to maintain.

  “Again.” Wyndia was up on Gaelion and started to support their incanting.

  “I’ll help too,” said Sadeena, lending a hand. They’d need all the backup they could get if Takt unleashed everything he had. The reason he didn’t . . . was either because he was on cooldown or he didn’t want to do any further damage to this castle of his.

  “Has the teleportation nullification been removed yet?!” Ren asked.

  “I’m still working on it!” Filo said, flustered.

  “Ren, don’t worry about us!” Eclair said. “If you can stop these villains from getting their hands on any more of the legendary weapons, just run for it!”

  “I can’t do that!” Ren angrily replied. Shit! I’d gotten so used to being able to teleport that it was stifling to have it taken away. In my incapacitated state, I could barely hold onto even that thought.

  “If we could only get
outside, we could escape on Gaelion,” Wyndia said.

  “And probably get shot down,” Ren replied. Even as we fled, soldiers blocked our every turn, pushing us into a dead end.

  “Shooting Star Sword!” Ren smashed down the wall in our way, and we proceeded into the corridor beyond. Ren’s quick thinking was worthy of praise.

  “We’ll follow up the rear. You heroes hurry and get out of here!” the old lady shouted.

  “Mr. Naofumi, you can count on us!” Raphtalia added. Joined by Fohl and Eclair, the four of them moved to stop the enemies closing in from behind. That should have been my role.

  However, the aotatsu woman was already one step ahead of us.

  “Just like Master Takt said, here you are,” she jibed. We turned to see the whole crowd from the throne room in attendance. We were surrounded.

  “Kwaa!” Gaelion deployed a second sanctuary.

  “That won’t work.” The enemy dragon blocked it again. We were going to be running in circles forever—and yet the only way out of here was teleportation. The entirety of Faubrey castle was filled with enemies. Even if we got outside the castle gates, we had the army of this nation—and maybe even civilians—waiting to fight us. That’s what I’d do in this situation. I wasn’t sure how they’d frame it, but they would definitely come after us somehow. We were at a major disadvantage due to our injuries.

  “Sanctuary!” Filo tried.

  “Griffin Sanctuary!” came the response. Filo blew a raspberry and stamped her feet at how nothing was going according to plan.

  “As the source . . . of your power . . .” I tried to incant some magic myself, but I was unable to concentrate due to the wounds from Takt. That attack . . . The weapon itself had to be cursed. Magic couldn’t cure the wounds. It was like I was suffering under a status effect, unable to hold my awareness in my body.

  “Master!” Filo called to me as my magic failed. Then I heard Takt calling from behind us, where the old lady and the others were fighting.

  “Can’t you see it’s time for you to give up? You trash!” he asked.

  “No! Give up? Never! Not to you. Buying into Witch’s lies, messing up the battle with the Phoenix, and killing all the seven star heroes!” Ren turned and made this bold declaration.

  “Whatever you say, justice will never be on your side. Just give up and die!” Takt prepared his claw to attack again. In that same moment—

  “Dafu—!” With a snap, I felt the sanctuary that was preventing us from teleporting get stripped away. Cherry blossoms danced in the air. Maybe they were sakura lumina petals. The Raph-chans had been quiet, but now their tails fluffed up. In the same moment the magic activated, something else passed by; it wasn’t the Sakura Destiny Sphere, but something similar to Filo and the others’ sanctuary magic, canceling out the enemy interference.

  “What?!” Our foes were taken aback, which created an opening. Both Gaelion and Filo had used Sanctuary magic, so they had probably thought a double repeat casting would have covered it. However, with the Raph-chans using some unexpected magic, it had created an opening for us to use a teleportation skill.

  “Now!” I shouted. Ren, Motoyasu, and Itsuki each grasped their weapons tightly, then cast teleportation magic.

  “Transport Sword!”

  “Portal Spear!”

  “Transport Bow!”

  “You won’t escape!” Takt got his whip out. Then he swung it leisurely at our allies coming up the rear—the old lady, Raphtalia, Fohl, and Eclair.

  “Bind Whip!” The weapon rapidly snaked like a living creature, slicing forward to enwrap Fohl and Eclair.

  “I won’t allow that!” Raphtalia rushed in.

  “Student Raphtalia!” the old lady shouted, even as Raphtalia thrust her sword into the whip and then stamped it onto the ground, preventing the binding attack.

  “Big sister—” Fohl called first.

  “Raphtalia—” In my semi-conscious state, I managed to call her name myself.

  “If anything happens to me, please take care of Mr. Naofumi,” she said to Fohl—as though she knew very well that something was going to happen. Then she gave me, who could do nothing but look on, a warm smile.

  “Raph . . . talia . . .” When I spoke, my lungs made a horrible whistling sound. I had to move, or I was about to lose something precious to me again! Quickly! I had to move!

  “Get out of there! Student Raphtalia!” the old lady shouted.

  “If we miss this chance, we may not get to teleport again . . . but—” Ren wasn’t sure what to do. If we missed this chance, any opening to teleport was quickly going to be blocked again.

  “If you don’t escape here . . . we’ll be wiped out!” Raphtalia said.

  “But . . .” Ren was still hesitating.

  “If you don’t get Mr. Naofumi out of here, more people will die! Ren! Sword Hero! You finally reached an understanding of your purpose, thanks to Eclair. Is that going to end here?” Raphtalia raged.

  “Raphtalia! I still can’t just—” Ren stammered.

  “Eclair! You understand, right? Move!” Raphtalia changed tactics.

  “Ren. I’ll take responsibility. Get out of here!” Eclair said.

  “No. This one will rest on my shoulders. Even if Naofumi kills me for this, I don’t think this is the wrong choice! Transport Sword!” Ren completed activation of the skill. Raphtalia was headed in the opposite direction from us.

  “Big sister!” Fohl yelled again.

  “Raphtalia!” I managed myself, both of our shouts ringing out. Immediately afterward, I felt everything I was seeing shift and change, getting darker and sliding away.

  Ren’s teleportation had been successful. The same for Motoyasu and Itsuki. However, it was only after making the jump that we determined that Raphtalia hadn’t been included—that we had left her behind.

  Chapter Five: The Spirits

  My body felt so light and floaty. Flowing through me were all sorts of images of various people in various places that I thought I couldn’t possibly be.

  The queen and I, with our serious injuries, had been carried by portals created by Ren and the others to the largest medical facility in Melromarc.

  Both of us were badly hurt. So bad that even I thought it looked like we were done for.

  “This is serious. They have suffered a powerful curse. We must prepare ritual magic at once!” the head doctor declared, placing a summons for users of ritual magic from the Church of the Four Holy Heroes. We were clearly going to get the full treatment.

  “Hang in there,” someone shouted.

  “That’s right! Brother!” Fohl said.

  “Master!” Filo said.

  “Raph,” Raph-chan added. Ren, the other heroes, and Sadeena were taken to different rooms to have their own injuries treated. Luckily their wounds weren’t as bad as mine and the queen’s. It wouldn’t take long for them to be moving around again normally.

  “It’s time to start the treatment. Everyone else in the room, you can also be healed if you need it,” the doctor stated. Filo and Fohl continued to repeatedly call my name. Then I blacked out.

  The next thing I saw was the queen and Trash.

  The queen had been seriously injured. Enough for anyone to start thinking the worst. She gave a spluttering cough. Trash was at her side, holding her fingers in his own trembling hands, praying.

  “Concurrent with the application of the Elixir of Yggdrasil, the application of Drifa Heal and the use of high-concentration holy water, we also need to trigger the ritual magic—” The head doctor applied healing magic to the wounds while giving instructions to the other doctors. Being the queen of the nation, she was receiving the highest level of care—and yet none of the healing was working at all.

  “This curse is so powerful. Almost as bad as the one the Shield Hero suffered from,” one doctor said.

  “The Shield Hero had such vitality,” said another. “The queen, however . . .”

  “Mirellia,” said Trash. As though resp
onding to his words, the queen opened her eyes and looked at him.

  “I heard . . . what you said . . .” she managed.

  “Your majesty, please! You must not talk!” said the head doctor while continuing to apply healing. But the queen slowly shook her head.

  “I understand what’s happening. I can’t be saved,” she stated.

  “I-I’m sorry, your majesty . . .” the doctor started. Trash immediately glared at the stuttering healer and stood up.

  “What are you talking about? You are currently healing the queen of this nation! If you are truly the head doctor here, then you should give your very life to save her!” Trash roared.

  “You can’t . . . give such orders,” the queen admonished, her voice frail. It felt strange to understand how Trash was feeling, but in that moment, I did. It felt the same as when I lost Atla. The sadness at losing someone important. The despair at your own helplessness. Anger at the cause of it all. All of these things mixed together, pushing rational thought completely aside.

  “B-but . . .” Trash stuttered.

  “I think . . . this may be divine retribution. Punishment . . . for trying to save our country, save the world, no matter the cost . . .” the queen went on.

  “That’s not it! That can’t be it!” Trash said, vehemently denying the queen’s words.

  “Are you so sure? I can’t help feeling that this is all my fault. That my own failings led to our daughter—to Malty—growing up into that monster. I failed to make the hard decisions . . . and that led to all of this,” she said.

  “No . . . that was me. That is on me . . .” Trash managed, his voice trembling. Maybe he thought losing the queen was his fault. Then the queen continued.

  “I fear the Whip Hero—no, invaders—are going to attack our nation.” Trash made no reply. “Melromarc currently stands in such a precarious position. The only ray of light is Hero Iwatani, the other heroes, and their companions.”

  “But the Shield Hero—!” Trash started.