Didn't I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! Volume 4

by Funa

  Wence stood there in disbelief. Berdetice and Shelala’s eyes were wide with shock.

  Mile, however, was panicking. Just when she thought she could turn this battle around, one dragon became three. Her chances of victory were slim. Knowing she had no choice but to better her odds, she decided to fire an attack spell. Her aim: the first dragon to appear, the one who held so much malice for her and her friends. The other two seemed more diplomatic.

  Judging by the state of things, it would be bad to kill him. The fighting strength of the belligerent dragon was weak, and she should probably try to work out a way to talk with the biggest dragon. If that was impossible, the third dragon was small, at least. With one of each size, depending on the circumstances, she might be able to eke out a victory.

  So Mile thought as she fired a spell at Wence.

  “Phaser, fire!”

  The moment Mile attacked, the dragon known as Berdetice stepped out from behind Wence and put up a protection spell.

  Shunk!

  “Gaaaaaaah!”

  Wence cried out as this time, the beam struck deep into his right arm. Berdetice, meanwhile, panicked, seeing how the spell had gone right through his full power protective shield.

  “Shelala, get behind me! Calm down, Wence! We have to fight together!”

  Berdetice was truly flustered. He was facing the impossible: a being who could harm an elder dragon.

  Even though the chances were one in a million, he couldn’t allow harm to come to Shelala. Wounds could be mended with magic, but the idea of Shelala being hurt at all was unpleasant. He recoiled at the thought of what the chief and the elders, who were ever so fond of Shelala, would do to him if they found out he had exposed her to harm or let her know pain.

  Knowing that Berdetice was on his side, Wence collected himself. The wound stung badly, but he knew he could count on Shelala and her special healing magic to put him back together once they were through. Now, above all else, their greatest priority was to remove this dangerous, uncertain element.

  “Breath, release!”

  At Berdetice’s signal, the three elder dragons fired their breath attacks toward Mile.

  What of the “Inferior Life-forms Protection Act” Berdetice had mentioned?

  That only applied to helpless creatures—a sort of warrior’s hypocrisy. When it came to situations of true danger, however, such rules were easily ignored.

  No matter how much she reinforced it, Mile’s protection spell wasn’t impressive enough to completely shield her from a breath attack from three elder dragons. With a sharp ka-shing!, the lattice power barrier shattered easily, the course of the attack averted only slightly. Mile’s left arm was engulfed.

  “Ngah!!”

  Putting the searing pain aside, she forewent healing magic to fire another attack spell. “Phaser, fiiiiiiire!!!”

  Shing!

  However, with the strength of the dragons combined, their shield easily reflected Mile’s counterattack. And then, the dragons fired a combined breath attack once again.

  Mile, her face contorted in pain, immediately put up another full-strength barrier. While it shattered again, it at least sufficiently repelled most of the breath’s power. The remainder of it still struck, however, and Mile was once again blown backward, sent flying into the stone walls of the ruins.

  “Guh-haah!!”

  Once more, Mile collapsed to the ground.

  I can’t win.

  Of course, I can’t. There’s no way I could win against three elder dragons.

  But that’s not a reason to give up! My life and the lives of everyone else. That’s what’s on the line.

  Mile clenched her teeth hard.

  Okay then. It’s time to really do this. There’s three of them, so I need to summon up the strength of three, don’t I?

  There’s Kurihara Misato, the girl who died at eighteen.

  There’s Adele von Ascham, the young noble girl, whose consciousness was combined with mine at ten.

  And then, there’s the girl I am now: Mile of the Crimson Vow, the C-rank hunter who fights alongside her friends, who’s achieved all I dreamed of in my past life.

  All three of my lives, all three of their dreams. Their hopes and their feelings. If the enemies are three-fold, then I have to summon three-fold strength as well, don’t I?

  And so, once more, Mile stood, staring the three dragons down all the while.

  “Oho, still standing, are you? You should know there’s no way you can beat us. If you humbly admit defeat, and tell us everything, we’ll spare your friends’ lives and yours,” said the elder dragon, Berdetice.

  To which, Mile replied, “You’re the ones who have no chance of winning. If you humbly admit defeat, and tell me everything, I’ll spare your friends’ lives and yours…”

  “Hm…?”

  “Bwa ha ha, what a funny little one! Humans are such precious things.”

  Ignoring the elder dragons’ responses, Mile incanted her spell:

  “Nanomachines!”

  At the loudly shouted word, there was crackling all around, as though the air was freezing over.

  “NANOMACHINES! JE VOUS COMMANDE…” So the elder dragons wouldn’t understand her spell, Mile commanded the nanomachines in a language found in her past life. Even if the nanomachines were unable to understand Terran languages, as long as they received her thought pulse, there would be no miscommunication. Plus, she got the feeling God had trained them in at least that much, on her behalf.

  The next command she gave in Japanese.

  “Kurihara Misato, Adele von Ascham, soshite Mile ga meizuru. Waga meirei wo, saiyuusen de judaku seyo…”

  (“Kurihara Misato, Adele von Ascham, and Mile command you. Accept our commands above all others…”)

  “No matter how many times you try, it’s useless. There’s no way you can pass through a shield formed by three elder drag—”

  Ka-shnk, boom!

  “Wh…”

  The three elder dragons were dumbstruck as their protective shield was shattered in a single hit.

  “N-no way… That’s impossible! The shield we three elder dragons have formed was shattered by some puny human’s Fire Lance…?”

  Hearing this, Mile grinned. Yes, the time had come for her to say one of the lines she had hoped to speak at least once in her lifetime. She couldn’t hold back her joy.

  “That wasn’t even my amazing Fire Lance. That was only a little Fire Ball…”

  At Mile’s words, the dragons’ eyes widened in fear. Their jaws went slack.

  However, that had been a Fire Lance fired at full power. It was important to bluff a little now and then in battle, after all.

  Why was it that Mile’s magical power had suddenly increased so immensely?

  It was just as the nanomachines had explained in their very first conversation, when the first water spell Mile had used after her awakening had gone so explosively:

  YOU ISSUED A DIRECT COMMAND TO WE NANOMACHINES, SO THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE SPELL WAS INCREASED 3.27 TIMES OVER.

  Given that, what would happen if Mile, with her level five authorization, issued an even more precise, clearer command than before?

  Indeed, the result would be what you just saw.

  “I-Impossible… This cannot be… W-we must attack at full power!”

  Boom!

  The three swells of breath were deflected and dispersed just before they struck Mile.

  “H-how, how could this…”

  “Thunder Bolt!”

  Ka-boom!

  A bolt of lightning struck Wence. With a great tremor, he fell to the ground, his eyes wide.

  “L-Lightning? Her magic can control nature!”

  Even an elder dragon wouldn’t understand the concept of electricity, so lightning magic was likely beyond them.

  “Feel like surrendering yet? Oh, by the by, this magic can strike from above, so there’s no use hiding behind one another. If you don’t surrender now, then that one back ther
e will be n…”

  “Roooooooooooooaaaawwwrrr!!”

  Berdetice let out a great roar in Mile’s direction. He absolutely couldn’t allow an attack to come Shelala’s way! The human could block any of their magical attacks, and they couldn’t block hers. And if the magic came from above, he couldn’t act as Shelala’s shield.

  What could he do? The answer was simple.

  If magic was no use, then he had to best her with a physical attack. There was nothing else to do. He charged her.

  There wasn’t a creature alive who could stand up to an elder dragon in physical combat. He began to pick up momentum now, so that, even if he should be bested by the enemy’s attack magic, his body would still fall upon her and crush her.

  This is it! Berdetice thought, but he was puzzled and a bit unsettled that the human showed no signs of moving.

  Well, I’m sure she’s stunned senseless by the awe of an elder dragon coming her way! There couldn’t be any other reason.

  Mile didn’t move, not even at the end. And just like that, Berdetice stomped upon her.

  “Gaaaaaaaah!!!”

  Berdetice suddenly found his right foot, which should have flattened Mile into the dirt, impaled by a silver sword.

  Mile, after all, was skilled not only at magical combat but in close-range combat as well.

  Berdetice lifted his foot in a panic, revealing Mile beneath it, standing unharmed. All the injuries she had taken were now completely healed. Her hair was back in order, as well. Unfortunately, however, her armor and clothing were still full of holes.

  “Wh-why?! Why aren’t you smashed to pieces?!”

  “Only a peon or a fool would blab the secrets of their techniques to the enemy, yes? Are you such a fool?”

  “Wh-what…?”

  Until the current battle, Mile had been convinced that her own body possessed half of an elder dragon’s sturdiness. However, owing to her previously shattered bones, she now knew that wasn’t the case.

  If she thought about it, this made sense. Her bones, muscles, and tendons were nowhere near the size of an elder dragon’s, so she couldn’t possibly have half their strength or power. Not unless she had an orichalcum skeleton or woven-carbon nanotube muscles.

  Even for a (so-called) God, it was probably impossible to make something human-sized, out of the normal human materials, that was stronger than a human. At the very least, impossible to do while still calling such a creation “human.”

  So how had Mile prevailed?

  It was her body-strengthening magic.

  Compared to Mavis, Mile’s body and basic abilities were in a league of their own. She could withstand a fair bit of strengthening magic. Plus, Mile had gathered a number of nanomachines within her body. With this, she could administer healing magic to herself and petition the nanomachines directly.

  In other words, even without drinking the microsoup, she could conjure the same effect. Times several hundreds, or thousands.

  Naturally, this was still not enough for her to be able to flip an elder dragon or anything, but as long as she could withstand the weight, then with the barrier applied to her own skin and her sturdy strengthening magic, she could manage something.

  Or rather, she had.

  “Since you don’t appear interested in surrendering, I’ll just have to strike that one back there with my special magic. The magic that can lop off the head of any creature in an instant. My ‘headhunting magic’…”

  “St-stoooooooooooop!! St-stop it, pleeeeeease!!!”

  Thud!

  As Berdetice pled desperately, there was a great rumbling. Everyone turned to see the elder dragon known as Shelala—who could be assumed to be a girl, from the way the conversation had been going—behind Berdetice, faceup on the ground, her arms and legs splayed.

  Until now, Dr. Clairia had been standing in steadfast concentration, ready to raise a shielding spell for Reina and the others, should the need arise. Now though, she relaxed her shoulders and said, “That’s an elder dragon’s pose of ultimate surrender.”

  Wence was incapacitated, Shelala had surrendered, and Berdetice couldn’t continue to fight. Shelala’s safety mattered above all else. Even Berdetice himself had lost the will to fight. He hadn’t been fighting because he wanted to, after all. If they could resolve this by talking, there was no reason to go beyond that.

  And now Shelala, who he was sworn to protect, had already surrendered. Berdetice had no choice but to lower his head, to signal, “Please, let us talk this over.” He couldn’t allow himself to be overwhelmed by anger at these unbelievable circumstances or his pride as an elder dragon.

  And so, limply, Berdetice uttered,

  “We surrender…”

  Chapter 35:

  The Ruins

  After everyone had caught their breath, they stepped away from the beastmen. The 5-on-3 tribune between the three elder dragons and the Crimson Vow Plus One began. They conversed near the great hole in the ground. The elder dragons wouldn’t have fit inside any structure, so they had no choice but to hold it out in the open.

  Berdetice, who sat on the ground facing the humans, was riled up during the fight, but he had calmed down now. This was quite a boon.

  Wence, who, perhaps owing to his youth, was rash and hot-blooded, was quiet now, which was nothing short of astounding.

  Shelala, meanwhile, was very collected. She seemed incredibly bold for someone who had surrendered the moment she thought danger might befall her.

  “First off, I would like to confirm something,” Mile said. “You elder dragons were undoubtedly the ones to give the beastfolk the order to operate at this site, yes? Also, you three aren’t operating independently but in conjunction with your whole clan?”

  “That’s correct,” Berdetice answered Mile’s question plainly. Or, at least truthfully. Perhaps he was a creature of integrity, or the topic was of little importance, or else he simply thought it was a nonissue if any humans knew.

  Truthfully, he was merely praying he wouldn’t later regret not keeping his mouth shut.

  “What exactly is your aim?”

  Whether this was a conversation or an interrogation, Mile served as the Crimson Vow’s representative. There was no one else who would ask the right questions.

  Dr. Clairia had also prepared some questions of her own, should the need arise, but for now she remained a spectator, simply watching Mile work.

  The representative for the elder dragons was Berdetice, who seemed to be the oldest. The other two didn’t seem to have any interest in participating in the conversation.

  “We are conducting an exploratory excavation.” Berdetice answered, but the chances of him not lying and not telling the truth were equally probable. In cases like this, the questioner had to rely on their knowledge, intuition, and strength.

  “What are you searching for?”

  His answer was a bit delayed. In fact, it wasn’t much of an answer at all. “…Ruins.”

  Excavating ruins in search of… more ruins.

  This didn’t seem to be a lie, but it was an evasive answer. And one Mile wasn’t willing to accept and leave it at that.

  “What are you searching for? Treasure? Intelligence? Some sort of tool or a demon king? An evil spirit, a monster, a weapon, some magical item, an ancient machine?”

  Berdetice was silent. Clearly, they had come to a point he didn’t wish to talk about.

  “If you aren’t going to talk about this, then we can’t have much of a conversation. How do you think the humans are going to take those beastmen—moreover, the beastmen who are going to be associated with you elder dragons as a whole—invading human lands to perform some kind of suspicious operation? If this is deemed an act of aggression, a large-scale war is going to break out. A war between humans, elder dragons, and beastpeople is sure to have tremendous casualties on all sides.”

  “We have no such intention!”

  “Whether you do or don’t, that is the situation you are threatening to bring
about. Suppose one day, some humans, elves, and dwarves decide to band together and invade the elder dragons’ territory unannounced. Then they start some suspicious construction work. Elder dragons who go to investigate it are attacked, and then one after another they go missing. If a human were to say to the dragons, ‘Oh, we don’t have bad intentions,’ would the dragons really allow them to continue undisturbed?

  “If that’s the case, then you would see a lot of humans going about under that pretense. They would just assume they could do whatever they want within your territory. Do you want to just go ahead and write up a contract saying that now?”

  “Wh-what foolishness is this?”

  “Are you not doing the exact same thing?”

  Berdetice was silent.

  “Your response may mean the difference between an all-out war and avoiding conflict entirely. Please think carefully before you answer.”

  After what felt like an eternity, Berdetice finally opened his mouth. “…A ‘lost civilization.’”

  “Hm?”

  “It is said that in this world, in the distant past, there was a land that was home to a highly advanced civilization. It is nothing more than a legend… Well, it was thought to be nothing more than a legend, but now…”

  “But now?”

  “We believe we have discovered proof of their existence.”

  “Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?!?!” Dr. Clairia shouted from the sidelines. “D-d-don’t tell me you’ve uncovered proof of the existence of the ‘Antiquated Land’?!”

  “D-did you know about this, Clare?” Mile had reflexively tried to make a joke, but it only made the scholar angry.

  “Don’t start giving me weird nicknames!” Dr. Clairia snapped. She took a breath and cleared her throat.

  “The Antiquated Land,” she explained, “was a legendary kingdom that thrived in the far distant past. While the rest of humanity sat around at home, these people observed the world. It’s said they plunged to the bottom of the sea and flew through the sky. That they even soared beyond the sky itself to touch the stars. They never knew famine nor war. It was the sort of divine land even the gods themselves might deem fit to dwell in.