by Aneko Yusagi
Using brute force, I overpowered the thread that was binding me down and placed my hand on my shield.
Due to interference, the shield may not be changed.
A message appeared in my field of vision. Huh?
“I won’t let you.”
Thread after thread wrapped around my shield. You couldn’t even tell whether it was a shield or just a big jumble of thread anymore.
“Change Seal Wire”
“Damn it . . . What the hell . . .”
I knew that our opponent was supposed to be crazy strong, but even so, something about this just wasn’t right! I couldn’t imagine attacks like this coming from anyone other than a hero!
“Fire Paralysis Wire”
The thread in the area surrounding me burst into flames and started reaching out for me. Damn it! The heat didn’t bother me, but the enemy was clearly trying to eliminate me, the leader of our team!
“Mr. Na—Mr. Rock!”
“Hurry up and put your katana away! Use your other weapon!”
“Un . . . understood!”
I needed to put some distance between us quick, while I could still move! That said . . . How could I do that? That’s it! I’d repel them with Shooting Star Shield!
“Shooting Star—”
“Skill Seal”
The thread wrapped around my throat. It wasn’t the least bit uncomfortable. But . . .
“Wh . . . what?!”
I was trying to cast the skill, but for whatever reason I couldn’t say the name of the skill!
“What the hell is going on?!”
This made no sense! This Murder Pierrot freak was blocking my skills! Not even magic could explain that! The fact that she was using status effects on me, despite my resistance to them, must have meant . . . there was a good possibility that they were trap-type attacks. It depended on the game, but sometimes traps could apply status effects regardless of resistances. I couldn’t deny that such a thing might exist, and in all actuality, I must have been experiencing it right now.
“Take thiiiis!”
Filo ducked under the thread and rushed at Murder Pierrot to attack barehanded. I don’t know if it was underestimating Filo because she was barehanded, or just being focused on me and Raphtalia, but Murder Pierrot threw up a web of thread, in what appeared to be a really half-assed attempt to guard against Filo’s attack.
“How about thiiis!!”
Filo transformed into her filolial form with a loud boom and leapt high up and over the thread, kicking it as hard as she could. Murder Pierrot seemed surprised, turning to Filo and scattering several threads in her direction instantly.
“I’m not done!”
Murder Pierrot must have gotten careless after seeing how bulky Filo was in her filolial form, because the thread she’d scattered wasn’t dense at all. Regardless of the magic interference, Filo changed to her human form, went into the accelerated state that she had learned from Fitoria, and squeezed between the threads. The instant of the attack, she switched back to her filolial form and delivered a swift kick.
“Ugh!”
Murder Pierrot took the full brunt of Filo’s attack and was sent flying. But as if to dampen the force of the impact, the thread spread out and wrapped around Murder Pierrot. It formed a cocoon for an instant and then unraveled before Murder Pierrot landed on the ground, unscathed. The unraveled thread wrapped up into something like a cocoon and rolled off to the side of the arena.
“We’re not finished!”
Raphtalia brandished her katana and prepared to deliver a follow-up attack.
“Spirit Blade! Soul Slice!”
“Useless . . .”
“Oh really?”
Raphtalia’s katana passed right through the thread and cut into Murder Pierrot.
“—!?”
Murder Pierrot seemed to be saying something, but all I could hear was static. Why? What was that noise? Regardless, we had to keep going. Raphtalia had a katana that could be used to attack nonphysical entities, immaterial opponents like ghosts.
“Okay then . . . Next is . . .” continued Raphtalia.
“Mind Line”
Thread shot out rapidly, as if to protect against Raphtalia’s next attack. The new thread wrapped around the katana that had passed through the previous thread.
“I’m still here, toooo!”
Filo followed up and tried to deliver another kick, but thread shot out across the whole area . . . Wait! Those puppets that I thought were near me had now suddenly appeared in front of Filo. Damn! I could barely even move!
“Next——y turn. Needle Shot!”
Now there were needles coming out of the ball of thread?! The needles had thread attached to them. All of these attacks made me feel like I was watching an instructional video about sewing!
“Little Rock! You okay?!”
Sadeena came over to where I was to check on me. If we had no weapons and couldn’t use magic, we would have no way to fight . . . Was that it?
But wait, what happened to assistance being bought and weapons being thrown in to participants when the fight is too one-sided?! As the thought crossed my mind, I looked up and noticed that the thread had carefully intercepted all of the weapons that had been thrown in. The arena had turned into a mess of spider web and the weapons couldn’t make it down to us.
As for magical support, I couldn’t say definitively what was going on from here, but it was safe to assume that the organizers were blocking any attempts at that.
Damn it . . . If things kept going like this, Raphtalia and Filo could end up in trouble. I was being pulled by the thread, too. It was stuck to my limbs and was trying to force me to walk. Judging from the direction, it seemed like Murder Pierrot was trying to use me as a shield against Raphtalia’s attacks.
I’d thought that Sadeena was about as formidable as they came, but I guess there’s always going to be someone stronger. Then again, that’s just how it felt to me now, and this might not have been a problem for us if we could use magic and didn’t have the debuffs or curse effects.
“Big sis! Mmhem . . . Mmhem . . .”
Filo returned to her human form and took a few big steps back before clearing her throat several times. Then . . . for whatever reason, she began to sing.
“Why are you singing at a time like this?!”
I yelled at Filo. She looked at me and started signaling something to me with her hands. Umm . . . Judging from the hairdo and the way she posed with the imaginary weapon . . . Kizuna? And she was singing, so . . . Was it the ability she had gained in Kizuna’s world? I knew she could do that when she had been a Humming Fairy, but did that mean she could do it in this world, too?! Now that I thought about it, I was pretty sure she had been saying something or other about lullabies earlier!
There was a pounding sound and the thread surrounding Filo began to shake. Moments later, the thread caught fire and quickly returned to the reel that Murder Pierrot was holding. I knew it! The thread must have been weak to magic-based attacks.
“Fire Sooong!”
I was pretty sure it was just Filo singing, but the song was echoing throughout the area. So it wasn’t magic, then? In that case, they wouldn’t be able to block it. After that, Filo took a deep breath, changed into her filolial form, and then held her wings up to her mouth like a megaphone and screamed.
“Air Block Voice!”
There was a loud boom, and then I saw something like a shock wave shoot out of Filo’s mouth and toward Murder Pierrot. She had some pretty ridiculous secret moves. Why hadn’t she used that on Kyo, for crying out loud?! Then again, I guess just using magic like normal might have been more effective.
“Thank you, Humming!”
Raphtalia was making her other katana appear and disappear as needed, while she slipped through Murder Pierrot’s obstacles, in what appeared to be a graceful dance, and then closed in to attack. We were overwhelming the opponent . . . but how long would that last?
Ugh . . . The
weight of the debuff magic had become noticeably heavier. Raphtalia and Filo were moving more sluggishly now, too.
“Little Rock.”
Sadeena had been bound just like Filo, but she transformed to break free and came over to me. This thread I was wrapped up in had turned into a real flame war, but Sadeena reached out and touched me.
“What’s up?”
“It’s not that I forgot to mention this, but there is a way to use magic in a situation like this, you know?”
“Huh? How is that?”
“Have you not studied magic?”
I thought back to when I had been studying magic while we were peddling. Counter-magic was something that could only be used on an individual opponent, but it was possible for multiple people to cast counter-magic. But what if multiple people were performing a single incantation? Aha, so if it were several people casting cooperative magic, then it might just work. I remembered seeing Filo do it several times before.
Sadeena brought her mouth next to my ear and quietly explained.
“So you and I can work together to cast cooperative magic, little Rock.”
“But they’ll notice us chanting the incantation and just interfere, won’t they?”
“Leave that part up to me, darling. I won’t fail.”
Sadeena winked at me and started focusing on the incantation.
“You focus, too, little Rock. I’ll help you out. We’re going to cast support magic.”
Fine, whatever. I started to focus. I felt a flow of magic power coming from Sadeena . . . Strange. It was like the flow of power that I felt when casting magic with Ost . . . but something was different. I closed my eyes, and in my field of view, something that looked like a square block appeared. Next to it was a sculpture of some random shape? No, that wasn’t it. It was a puzzle piece. What was going on?
“Is this your first time casting cooperative magic? Basically, we form the magic power into predetermined shapes.”
Damn it. What she was asking me to do wasn’t easy.
“Power of two, lend your strength to support them! Re-spin the threads of fate and turn their defeat into a victory!”
I could feel Sadeena rapidly forming the pieces of the puzzle and converting each one into the language of magic.
“Here, let me see that, little Rock. I’ll help you with it.”
She started working on forming the block that I had been trying to shape. Although, it wasn’t going as smoothly as hers, since it was a section that would normally be up to me to complete. Still, what was this feeling? Something about what Sadeena was doing felt really similar to what Ost had done. When I thought about that aura, a blurry image of one of the pieces Ost had shown me came into sight for a split second.
“If you don’t stop getting distracted and finish this soon, little Raphtalia will be in trouble, you know?”
Raphtalia and Filo were still putting up a good fight, but it was probably only a matter of time before that changed. I could see Murder Pierrot reeling in the weapons that had been thrown at us and trying to swing them around with the thread. Right now, I needed to focus on this magic, and after that we’d just have to figure out a way to overcome this opponent, even if by brute force.
“Dragon Vein! Hear our petition and grant it! As the source of your power, we implore you! Let the true way be revealed once more! Give us the power to overcome the obstacles before us!”
Sadeena completed the cooperative magic and raised her left hand into the air. Dark clouds began to form above us, and the sound of thunder echoed throughout the arena.
“Oh? So this is the magic we ended up with, is it?”
“Descent of the Thunder God!”
Without even trying, the name of the spell came out of my mouth at the same time Sadeena shouted it. A target icon appeared in my field of vision.
“Little Rock, I’m sure you know who we should target with the magic, right?”
“Yeah . . .”
Without hesitating, I chose Raphtalia. Sadeena must have agreed, because she pointed her finger at Raphtalia. The thunderclouds moved over to the air above Raphtalia and lightning came crashing down.
“Ahh!”
Raphtalia shouted out in surprise.
“Now . . .”
She had left herself open, and Murder Pierrot’s thread shot out toward her. But the thread bounced off, unable to wrap around her. And that wasn’t all.
“Ugh!”
With a loud crackle, Murder Pierrot received a strong electrical shock and reeled back slightly.
“What . . . is this?”
Raphtalia was standing there with a shocked look on her face. I couldn’t blame her—I felt the same. Raphtalia’s whole body was surging with electricity, after all.
“My stats have all skyrocketed!”
“Little Ra—Shigaraki! That’s our powerful cooperative support magic, darling! Don’t waste it!”
“Un . . . understood!”
“I won’t lose.”
Not to be outdone, Murder Pierrot shot out a barrage of threaded needles, but Raphtalia repelled every one of them and closed in on Murder Pierrot at a speed that made her earlier sluggishness seem like nothing but a bad dream.
“I can withstand any attack!”
Murder Pierrot shot a web out of her ball of thread and tried to put some distance between them.
“We’ll see about that! Brave Blade! Mist!”
Raphtalia was dual wielding now. She faced Murder Pierrot and fired off her skill. Raphtalia’s blades followed a cross-shaped trajectory that cut right through the web of thread and into Murder Pierrot.
“Ahhhh!”
As if to follow up her attack, lightning shot from the blades into Murder Pierrot, who was sent flying. Still not ready to give up, Murder Pierrot broke the fall and sprang back up, ready to fight.
“You can’t beat ussss!”
Filo took a deep breath and fired off another Air Block Voice.
“Ughhhh . . .”
It hadn’t seemed that powerful this time, but apparently it was still more than enough to create a shock wave that did some damage to our opponent.
“Now to finish this! Combo Skill! Blade of the Thunder Emperor!”
Raphtalia swung one of her katanas down hard. When she did, the blade was enveloped in bluish-white lightning that radiated outward brightly, and a rain of thunderbolts fell on Murder Pierrot.
“Gaahhh!”
The violent impact shook the whole arena with a loud boom, leaving a large crater in the floor. It was almost as if the ceremonial magic spell Judgement had rained down from the sky. The only thing left standing inside of the crater was Raphtalia.
We won . . . I think? It sure seemed like we had won, but Murder Pierrot’s thread was still wrapped around me tightly. Raphtalia shook the blood from her blade and went to check to make sure that Murder Pierrot was incapacitated.
“. . . ?”
Raphtalia looked closely at her katana and then used the sheath to roll the fallen Murder Pierrot’s body over.
“This is . . .”
She poked at Murder Pierrot’s torso lightly with her sheath, and it made a hollow sound. It sounded just like . . . wood? And then the ball of thread that Murder Pierrot had been holding started to roll along the floor. That’s right. It went rolling off toward a pile of weapons that had been wound up in thread and tossed aside into a corner of the arena. I had a really bad feeling about this.
“Scape-Doll”
A pair of scissors appeared and cut open the cocoon of thread that had wrapped around the pile of weapons, and something came crawling out.
“I’m guessing that buff is——?”
A second Murder Pierrot was standing there right before us. Raphtalia raised her katana and readied herself.
“That won’t be enough to———me. You’re simply not strong enough.”
“Huh?”
Murder Pierrot spoke so softly that I could hardly hear what was being said!
> “You have to———no one can stand up to you. Otherwise, you’ll be destroyed by other———. You shouldn’t be struggling against someone like me.”
What was this clown going on about?
“I’ve fought enough to earn my pay. Truthfully———fight———th. Eventually——ssshhsssaa . . .”
Was it just me or was I hearing static again? I kept hearing crackling and hissing noises when this clown was talking to us.
“You have to work harder, or you’ll die.”
I heard Murder Pierrot clearly that time. And then, after waving to me, there was a small explosion and Murder Pierrot disappeared, leaving behind a cloud of smoke.
So . . . a ninja? It was pretty much exactly how you would expect a ninja to disappear. At the same time, the thread that had been strewn out all over the arena disappeared, too, along with the puppets that Filo had been fighting.
“What the hell was that?!”
Not only did I have no idea who she had been, but the way she talked made it sound like she had been testing us. And then she just up and disappeared.
“Murder Pierrot has vanished! We have a winner! Rock Valley’s Party and Nadiaaaaaaa!”
What started out as just a few spectators clapping here and there quickly turned into a roar of cheers and applause. I guess they didn’t actually care which side won in the end.
“We did it, little Rock.”
“We won!”
“Filo wiiiins!”
“You mean Humming!”
I scolded Filo and all she had to say was “whoops!” Jeez . . . It was just in one ear and out the other with that bird!
“But . . . what was that? That Murder Pierrot freak . . . When did she even switch places in the first place?”
“When the cocoon was formed, I’m guessing. Something about it just didn’t feel right, you know?”
“But she hid it super-duper good, right! Soooo, it wasn’t magic, then?”
I had a feeling Sadeena and Filo were right. As far as I could tell, continuing the fight shouldn’t have been a problem, but it was as if our opponent had achieved what she came for and just left. And that was after telling us we needed to get stronger . . .
