“Have we met somewhere before? I don’t recognize you.”
“Do you remember the red-haired demon woman you killed?” Shea didn’t understand why he was suddenly bringing up a woman.
The man ground his teeth, thinking Shea didn’t remember her at all. He screamed at Shea, his voice dripping with venom.
“The one you killed in the Great Orcus Labyrinth!”
“Oh! You mean her!”
“You biiiiiitch!” Seeing that Shea had totally forgotten about her until now, the man roared and sent a barrage of wind blades at her.
Shea dodged them all without even looking.
“Hey, what was so important about her, anyway? I don’t get why you’re so mad.”
“Her name was Cattleya... and she was my fiancée!”
“Ah! I see now... Well, that explains it.” Shea nodded in understanding. It seemed this man was Mikhail, the guy who the demon they’d killed had talked about.
Shea didn’t know how he’d found out Hajime was the one who’d killed her, but it looked like he had come for revenge. That was why he wanted to kill Yue and Shea, and then drag their corpses in front of Hajime.
“What gave you the right to kill Cattleya!? She was kind, and wise, and loyal!” Shea dropped the playful act and gave Mikhail a look that chilled him to the bone.
“Why should I care?”
“Y-You!”
“If she didn’t want to die, she shouldn’t have fought us in the first place. I mean, she was the one who attacked us. Hajime-san even warned her. He gave her a chance to run. I can understand why you’d want revenge for your dead lover, but there’s no point in telling me about her. It’s not like it has anything to do with me. If you’d killed someone I cared about, would you want to hear about what kind of person they were? No, right?”
“Sh-Shut up! I’ll make you pay for what you did to Cattleya! You won’t die an easy death!” Mikhail created another tornado and sent it flying at Shea.
Seeing as it didn’t need to surround the eagle, Shea guessed that it was his own magic that did that and not the black eagle’s. With another chant, Mikhail summoned numerous blades of wind to cut off Shea’s path of retreat.
Shea blew the wind blades away with a swing from Drucken, then made herself lighter and jumped out of the eagle’s path.
However, in the time that they’d been talking, many other demons had appeared through the portal as well. Shea was now outnumbered. Judging from the fact that they were all riding black eagles, she guessed that these demons were Mikhail’s personal squad.
The demons simultaneously fired a barrage of stone needles at Shea. They fell upon her like a hailstorm. However, she simply diverted them all with an explosive slug from Drucken. Then, she jumped into the opening she’d created and closed in on one of the eagle-riding demons.
Without mercy, she slammed Drucken into him. His bones and organs were crushed instantly, and he was sent flying off into the darkness. Shea then extended Drucken’s handle and pulverized another demon-eagle pair a little further away.
“Grr, don’t let her get close! We control the skies! Keep your distance and bury her in a barrage of magic and stone needles!” Mikhail instantly grasped the scope of Shea’s close-combat strength and ordered his men to stay back. The demons surrounded Shea and once again rained spells on her, but she lithely dodged every attack, dancing through the sky with the help of her Aerodynamic-enchanted boots.
Every time she tried to close in on an enemy though, they instantly flew back, maintaining their distance. Shea was starting to get annoyed by their hit and run tactics.
“Sheesh. Quit darting around like that! Fine, I’ll just have to beat you all to a pulp!” Her bunny ears standing on end, Shea pulled something out of her Treasure Trove.
It was a red sphere, made entirely of metal. And it was a good two meters in diameter. There were chains hanging off one section of the sphere. Shea attached the top of Drucken to those chains.
Gravity took its hold on the sphere, and it began falling to the ground. Shea kicked it back into the air and hit it as hard as she could with her hammer.
There was a loud metallic clang, and the ball was sent flying at an insane speed.
The demon it was headed toward tried to dodge out of the way, but the sphere fired a shockwave out of its side and adjusted its trajectory. Unable to escape, the eagle and its demon rider were crushed by a ten-ton ball. Their shattered remains fell to the earth below.
With another swing from Drucken, the sphere reversed directions and headed back to Shea’s side.
In the time it took to return, Shea kept the demons busy with her explosive slugs. Those that couldn’t defend in time were killed. Once the sphere returned to her, Shea sent it hurtling off to a new target.
This was the newest addition to Drucken that Hajime had fashioned. It was basically a massive kendama. Shea could freely control its weight and its direction by using her magic and the recoil from the explosives Hajime had packed inside it.
“Oraoraoraoraoraoraora!” Shea sent her massive kendama whizzing across the battlefield. It went out, killed someone, returned to her, then went out again. The dazzling red meteor lit up the skies of the capital, spelling death for anyone in its vicinity. Before long, it was drenched in the blood of demons.
“Curse you and your strange techniques! Everyone, retreat! Attack her from the very edge of your range!” Mikhail bit his lip and barked out orders. He circled Shea, firing off restraining spells one after another in order to slow her down.
However, Shea leaped higher into the air, dodging every one of them. It was as if gravity had no hold over her... But then another torrent of spells came down from above.
“Hmph. Pathetic!” Shea raised Drucken over her head and twirled it rapidly. The kendama attached to it began to spin as well.
The rotating ball became her shield, deflecting the barrage of powerful spells that had been fired at her.
“I have you now!” Thinking she had her hands full defending against his subordinates, Mikhail rushed at Shea.
His eagle launched a deadly barrage of stone needles, which Mikhail accelerated with the wind spell Gale Sovereign. The storm of needles rushed toward Shea.
Shea increased her weight tremendously and allowed gravity to pull her to safety.
Mikhail smirked. This was still within his expectations. He began chanting another spell, planning on burying Shea in a storm of wind blades. And that was exactly when things stopped going as planned. Shea pulled a fist-size metal ball seemingly out of thin air and let it fall.
“Here goes!” She kicked it with all her strength toward Mikhail.
Before he could finish his spell, the ball slammed into his eagle with a meaty thunk.
“Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw!”
“You little...” The black eagle hurtled toward the ground, with Mikhail still on it. In one last act of desperation, he fired another burst of wind-powered stone needles as he fell out of sight.
Shea just barely managed to deflect them with Drucken. Still, a few them punched through, piercing her arm and shoulder.
“He did it! He got her with the Cotriss’ needles!”
“It’s over now!”
The needles weren’t large enough to cause any serious damage, but the demons all grinned as if they’d already won.
Shea cocked her head in confusion. A second later, she realized why they were so happy. The parts of her body that had been stabbed started to petrify. It appeared this Cotriss monster’s special magic was to fire needles that petrified anything they touched. That was quite a troublesome ability.
Normally something as deadly as petrification could only be cured through light magic or strong healing items. And so, as Shea was fighting on her own, they thought she was definitely done for. There were no healers in sight, and even if she did have some medicine on hand, they definitely weren’t going to give her enough time to drink it. Before long, she’d be fully petrified.
A s
econd later, though, their triumphant grins turned into looks of dumbfounded despair; for Shea had proven herself beyond the realm of common sense.
“Grr, I let my guard down. Still, this isn’t enough to stop me!” She pulled the needles out of her arm and closed her eyes. The petrification stopped spreading, and like the receding tide, began to shrink. Within seconds the petrification had vanished, and the holes in Shea’s arm had closed up.
“Wh-What the!?”
“How did she do that!?”
She had neither downed any potions, nor had they seen her chant any spells. She’d just concentrated a little and the petrification, along with her wounds, had just vanished. The demons trembled in fear. Their voices shook. They were facing something they couldn’t understand.
Of course, Shea hadn’t actually done anything special. She’d just used restoration magic.
As with the other ancient magics, her aptitude for it was strikingly low. The most she could use it for was healing minor wounds and removing status effects. Unlike Yue’s automatic restoration, she couldn’t regenerate lost body parts, or instantly heal fatal wounds either. And she definitely couldn’t return objects to their former state. Still, with a little concentration, she could heal minor wounds and fractures and recover from most slow-progressing status effects in a few seconds. Given enough time, she could heal more serious injuries as well.
The demons’ despair was understandable.
The combination of her overwhelming strength and near-instant regeneration had left them bereft of options. There was no way for them to beat someone who could fly through the sky, heal on command, and possessed the firepower of a tank. Generals back on earth would have been terrified by her overwhelming strength.
The demons had the same look of terror in their eyes that Hajime’s past opponents had when they’d seen his might.
This bunny girl’s a monster!
“Now then, let’s get back to it.” Shea shouldered Drucken and launched herself at the stunned demons. Her fluffy bunny ears fluttered in the breeze.
Each swing of her hammer brought certain death to a demon.
The fear finally broke them. The demons charged at Shea, all thoughts of strategy and formation gone.
Shea calmly dealt with their rush, crushing them with her kendama or obliterating them with her explosive slugs.
As the last member of Mikhail’s squad fell victim to Shea’s hammer, a dark shadow covered the moon.
She looked up and saw dark clouds forming above her. Mikhail fell through them, heading straight for Shea. It seemed his eagle was too injured to do anything other than dive straight down.
“You may be good, but I bet even you can’t dodge a thousand lightning bolts at once!” At his words, countless bolts of lightning poured down, with no discernible pattern or logic. Electricity filled the sky.
Normally, the skill Thunder Hammer fired a single massive bolt of lightning from the heavens. However, Mikhail had fractured the spell and spread its power over a much wider area. He truly was a master of magic.
The lightning bolts quickly overtook Mikhail.
It seemed his plan was to take Shea down with him while she was distracted by the barrage of lightning. Even if the spell’s power had been diluted, and even if Shea was a godlike monstrosity, the thunder would at least halt her movements for a bit.
Moreover, the lightning was traveling at 100 mph. No one could follow it with their naked eye, much less dodge it.
Mikhail had grit his teeth and watched his comrades die one after another while he’d chanted this spell. No matter what, he would make sure it didn’t end up being in vain.
What happened next, however, exceeded Mikhail’s estimations once more.
Shea was actually dodging the lightning bolts. No, perhaps it was more accurate to say she was standing where she knew they wouldn’t hit.
Mikhail had underestimated her. He hadn’t realized Shea also possessed a skill that let her dodge things too fast to see.
In the past few weeks, Shea had unlocked another one of Future Sight’s derivative skills: Prophetic Vision. It allowed her to see two seconds into the future whenever she wished. It wasn’t nearly as powerful as Branching Paths, but it also required far less mana to activate. Furthermore, she could activate it in quick succession. This was the result of her constant training.
“Just what in the hell are you!?”
“Just your average bunny girl.” Shea joked with Mikhail as she continued dodging the storm of lightning bolts. Naturally, Mikhail, too, passed right by her. As he did so, Shea rounded on him with her kendama.
He was too close for the ball itself to hit him, but the chains wrapped around him, trapping him in place.
“Nnnnnngh! Let me go!”
“As you wish~” Shea swung Drucken around, and sent Mikhail hurtling toward the ground. The centrifugal force built up with Shea’s swing was tremendous, and Mikhail slammed into the ground with the force of a meteor. The barrier of wind he put up at the last minute managed to keep him alive, but only just. Most of his bones were shattered, and he was coughing up blood.
Shea alighted on the ground near him. Then, she shouldered Drucken and walked up to the broken demon.
Mikhail looked at her with empty eyes. Just staying conscious was an ordeal by that point. The corners of his lips twitched up into a self-deprecating smile. Even he didn’t know if it was because he’d failed to get the revenge he so badly craved, or because he’d just watched his entire squad get wiped out by one girl. After what he’d seen though, all he could do was smile.
Eyes locked on Shea, Mikhail uttered his final words. In his mind, he apologized to Cattleya for not being able to avenge her.
“Gah... you... cough... monster!”
“Fufu, thanks for the compliment!” Sadly, his insult only served to make Shea happy.
Ah, if there really is an afterlife, I’ll need to look for Cattleya there. That was the last thought that flashed through his mind before Shea’s hammer ended his life.
Shea looked down at Mikhail’s battered corpse and smiled to herself.
“Looks like I’m finally strong enough to be called a monster too. Fufu, I’m finally getting closer to Hajime-san.”
“Now then, I should see how Yue-san is doing...” Shea looked over to where she sensed Yue’s mana. It looked like she’d been teleported quite far.
If I hurry, I might still be able to get a few good hits off on that fucking bastard. With that, Shea dashed off to rejoin Yue.
Ash Dragons filled the sky in such numbers that they blotted out the moon. There were easily more than a hundred of them. At their center was a massive white dragon with a gaping hole in its chest. Atop the dragon rode Freid Bagwa.
“I hope you don’t consider this cowardly. Dividing your enemy’s strength is one of the basics of strategy.” Freid watched as Shea and Mikhail disappeared through Freid’s Cosmic Rift. Then, he turned back to Yue as Mikhail’s eagle squad flew in after him.
Though she showed no signs of using wind magic, she continued floating in the sky. Freid had expected to see some kind of reaction from Yue after throwing her companion into a portal, but she just silently stared him down.
Like all demons, Freid considered himself superior to the other races. He was proud of his race, had an unwavering belief in his god, and was basically an inflexible guy all around. That was why he would never be charmed by someone of a different race.
Still, he thought it would be a waste to kill this girl, who shone as beautifully as the moon. That was the power of Yue’s looks.
Of course, he knew he needed to kill Yue in order to weaken Hajime, and he still hated her for killing so many of his comrades, but he couldn’t help but chat for a while longer.
“What a waste. Woman, no matter how skilled you may be, even if you can cast spells without chanting, so long as you are a magician you have no hope of victory. What do you say? Why not join my side instead? Someone of your abilities would be treated w
ell here.” Yue didn’t bother even considering his proposal.
“Hmph. Never in a million years, you ugly wretch,” Yue sneered.
Though she’d called him ugly, Freid was more handsome than most men. His good looks, combined with his influential position, meant that demon women were all over him. By no standard could he be considered an ugly wretch.
However, Yue had seen the expression of pure rapture Freid had made when he’d spoken of his god. That blind devotion had disgusted her.
Of course, his expression now was normal, but that just made him all the more laughable to Yue. Even leaving all of that inside, Yue had no intention of being with any man other than Hajime.
Freid’s smile froze in place.
“So you would choose martyrdom over me? Or is your loyalty to this country that strong? I’ll tell you now, they’re not worthy of your loyalty. The people here are fools, deceived into blindly believing falsehoods. They are not worth sacrificing your life for. You would be better served learning the teachings of our god, the great Alv-sama. Once you open your eyes to the truth, you too will— Ah!?” Yue’s answered his religious prattling with a barrage of wind blades. She couldn’t bear to hear any more.
A fountain of blood appeared in the night sky. Yue’s blades had clipped Freid’s shoulder as he tried to dodge out of the way. The fact that he’d been able to react in time at all proved that he was skilled enough to conquer a labyrinth. Had his senses been less finely honed, he would have lost an arm just then.
Yue stared coldly at Freid, who glared angrily back. She held only contempt for this would-be demon conqueror.
“Save your pretty speeches. You hurt Hajime. For that, you will die.” Yue summoned forth a freezing blizzard.
It whipped around her in a tornado of snow and ice, hiding her from view. The white storm that connected heaven and earth lowered the surrounding temperature to near-freezing. The Ash Dragons closest to her were frozen in seconds.
She’d combined the intermediate-level wind spell Tempest Flash with one of the strongest ice spells, Frost Prison.
The frozen Ash Dragons fell to the earth, shattering into a thousand pieces as they hit the ground. It was as if Yue had brought about a localized ice age. The dragons had been frozen all the way through. Even as they shattered, their blood remained frozen.
Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest Vol. 6 Page 7
