by Aneko Yusagi
“That . . . that’s the Hengen Muso evasive form Shimmer!” Rishia cried out.
Umm, yeah. Rishia had the fantasy world geek thing down pat, too.
“Rishia, stop playing the narrator character. ‘What?! It was?!’ Is that what I’m supposed to say? Because you know I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Well . . . You’re right about that much. But seeing Rishia and Eclair fight makes me think we need to do some training, too,” Raphtalia said.
Raphtalia was absolutely right. I was starting to feel like I was lagging behind those two, from a technique perspective. And it seemed like it was only recently that they had just suddenly pulled ahead, too.
“Yeah . . . I have a feeling we need to get serious about learning this stuff.”
If it meant being able to move like that, it probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to prioritize learning the style. The heroes’ weapons made mastering it more difficult, apparently. But it couldn’t hurt to learn how anyway. Maybe we should go hole up deep in the mountains for a while. For the sake of being able to survive what was coming.
“I’m not finished! Chain Bind!”
“Hmph!”
The chains that Ren had called forth went flying toward Eclair, but she swung her sword and they shattered into pieces.
“What?!”
“Just as I thought. Even strong chains or tough defenses shatter easily if you take advantage of their weak point.”
“I’m not finished! Try my finishing move on for size! Hide Sword!”
Ren began to waver and then disappeared. That idiot. He just kept using the same attacks. What happened to Hundred Swords? Or Thunder Sword? It didn’t matter how many attacks he had. If he wasn’t going to put some thought into how he was using them, he wouldn’t be able to beat Eclair.
“Parlor tricks. When Raphtalia disappears in front of me I can’t detect her life force.”
Eclair swiped her sword to the side. That’s all it took for Ren’s concealment skill to be canceled out, revealing him once again. Nice one. That was pretty impressive.
“Is she telling the truth?” I asked Raphtalia.
“What do you expect? I specialize in that kind of magic.”
I guess that would be depressing if Ren had outdone her specialty magic. I’m sure I would have been annoyed if he’d outdone my defense.
“Now then, how about you try another one of mine.”
Eclair crouched down low before springing toward Ren, thrusting her sword at him. Ren didn’t feel it necessary to defend. No, he suddenly jumped backward away from Eclair.
“That won’t work.”
Eclair moved even faster than Ren could retreat and leapt right up against him.
“Four Cross!”
Her short sword flashed brightly as its path traced the form of a cross. It was one of those magic sword techniques. Those were in a category separate from both skills and magic. Eclair had used that on our enemies earlier, too.
“Ugh . . .”
Eclair’s attack was a direct hit. I could see some kind of light cut through Ren’s body. But in the same instant he took damage, the wound began to close. Ren stood there grinning like nothing had happened.
“To think that one of your attacks could actually touch me. Not too shabby. I guess you’re worthy of seeing what it looks like when I start to get serious.”
What the hell was he saying? That bastard had been having the struggle of his life, and now he was saying that it had all just been an act? Get a grip! If we’d been serious, I’m pretty sure defeating him would have been easy as pie.
And anyway, what happened to the aftereffects of the curse series skills? Was he not feeling the effects of the curse? He seemed to be moving around normally. I wanted to make a witty remark about it, but I kept my mouth shut. I figured he’d just say something like “no curse can touch me!” or “curses can only make me stronger!”
“Hogwash! Nothing is more insulting than holding back against an opponent in actual warfare! Stop pretending like you’re not struggling, you fool!”
Oh man, he went and made Eclair mad again. These two were as incompatible as it got. Even so, Eclair had seen right through Ren’s act. He was fast, but that’s all he was. Eclair could read his every move. If that was the case, being fast was pointless.
That said, Eclair’s attacks lacked power, too. Even if she’d mastered the old lady’s defense rating attacks, they wouldn’t be very useful unless the opponent had an extremely high defense, like I did. I’m sure her swordsmanship was superb, but being pitted against a hero consumed by a curse put the odds against her.
Those defense rating attacks didn’t really make sense in the first place. It was almost as if they were made to be used against the Shield Hero. I didn’t know where the Hengen Muso style had originated, but if it was Melromarc, then it was possible that hostility toward certain countries drove them to develop the technique for exactly that purpose.
“My attacks will devour all. Yes, that includes your experience points!”
“It doesn’t matter how strong your attacks are—if they can’t hit me, they’re pointless!”
The fight had reached a stalemate. Ren couldn’t land any attacks, and Eclair’s attacks were ineffective. A long, drawn-out battle would put Eclair at more of a disadvantage. Ren’s attacks weren’t landing, but that didn’t mean they weren’t powerful. Judging by the way things were now, there was a high probability Ren would win this fight.
“What do you want to do, Eclair? If this continues, things are just going to slowly go downhill until you lose, don’t you think?”
“Mr. Iwatani, give me a little more time! I’ve almost reached through to the Sword Hero’s heart.”
Heart, huh? Maybe she was dealing with something I couldn’t understand, since I could only use a shield. I mulled over it as Eclair asked Ren a question.
“Tell me, Sword Hero. What is your objective? Mr. Iwatani says he intends to return to his own world.”
“Leave me out of it!”
Ren was obsessed with being the strongest, so she was just going to make him come after me! Sheesh . . . Oh? Ren didn’t seem to know how to respond. Hmm . . . Maybe this really was the key to getting through to him.
“I . . . I . . .”
“I’m asking what your objective is. What do you hope to accomplish by becoming stronger?!”
Oh, come on. Asking him a question like that was only going to get an asinine response. You could see the crazy in Ren’s eyes. That guy wasn’t thinking straight, or even at all.
“I have to become the strongest or I won’t be able to bear it! I will become the strongest across all worlds, all times, and all dimensions! This is my greed! This is my gluttony that seeks and devours all experience points!”
Ren finished his spiel and the pitch-black aura emanating from his body intensified. I could tell he was about to use some skill.
“You can help make me stronger! Give me my experience points!”
“Let this foolish sinner pay for her transgressions with her being preyed upon in the name of a god! Accept as an offering the earth’s nourishment I have received—unleash its putrefaction upon her and let her be devoured!”
“Strong Decline!”
Ren clenched his fist tightly. His whole body began to glow like a firefly and then the light seeped away into the ground and disappeared. The ground began to shake and then suddenly split open beneath Eclair’s feet. Ah, so this must have been some kind of evolution of that other attack that had caused a fissure earlier. The incantation had been similar to the one I used for Blood Sacrifice. Fangs grew up out of the fractures and were attempting to bite into Eclair.
“Your attack is full of holes! If this were Mr. Iwatani’s attack, I wouldn’t be able to avoid it!”
“Stop comparing him to me! You’re going to make Ren come after me!”
“Mr. Naofumi, just be quiet and watch for a moment,” Raphtalia whispered.
“But .
. .”
“It’s going to be fine. I have a feeling this will work. Have some faith in Eclair.”
Did it really look like it would be fine? I guess it was just one of those things you had to be a martial artist to understand. But if Raphtalia thought it would be fine, then I’d trust her.
Eclair had successfully dodged Ren’s attack, by the way. It looked like it was pretty much the exact same attack as Blood Sacrifice. No, wait, I guess it was different after all. Some gray, foul-smelling substance started spraying up out of the ground like a geyser. The golden idol earlier had been off-putting, but this was just disgusting. Whatever that was, getting hit by it probably would have been bad, even for me.
It had missed Eclair, though. Just like Blood Sacrifice, that meant that the user would have to pay the price of using it without getting anything in return. In my case, that would have been an utter tragedy, considering my current condition. Yeah, if I ever needed to use it again, I’d have to make sure there was no way it would miss. I couldn’t let myself forget that the reason it had worked on the high priest was because the queen had kept him in place.
“F-f-fehhh . . . What is that stuff?!”
“Who knows? Probably best not to let it touch you, though.”
We were keeping our distance, so I figured we weren’t in danger, but the ground near where the attack had taken place started dissolving into a muddy mess. The surrounding area looked like it had been devastated by fire, and an unbelievably rancid odor filled the area as mushrooms and mold began to pop up out of the dirt. The rotten earth had become a putrid sea, and creatures resembling monstrous flies started to form in the muddy waters. That was a cursed skill if I ever saw one. Eclair seemed to be the only target. Before long, the monster flies began to swoop down on Eclair.
“Take aim before attacking! Your attacks lack determination! When Mr. Iwatani unleashed his finishing attack while shouldering Ost’s final wishes, taking painstaking care to ensure it would not be wasted, that was an attack that carried weight. I believe it is that determination that is true strength.”
The cursed onslaught of monster flies cannonballed toward Eclair . . . She swiftly leapt straight over the creatures and landed directly in front of Ren. Having lost their target, the monster flies continued to charge forward miserably before crumbling away and disappearing moments later.
I sighed. I couldn’t help but feel like the whole area had been horribly contaminated. There was seemingly no end to the damage this bastard did to others.
“Now, let me ask you once again. What is it that you desire after you become the strongest?”
“After . . . becoming the strongest? After?!”
“That’s right. You say you’re the strongest now, right? Then what will you do with that power?”
“Grr . . .”
Ren didn’t know how to respond. Ah, so that was it, after all. Now I understood why something about Ren’s greed felt so weak. I’d already noticed that the process and the goal had been swapped. But beyond that process there was nothing more to Ren’s greed.
That might have been why I hadn’t awakened the greed curse series. I greedily wanted to make money. But to me, the money of this world was simply something I needed to survive the waves, and that was the extent of my interest in it. I would be returning to my own world eventually. So when that time came, giving any leftover money to Raphtalia as payment for everything she’d done was about all I could do with it. Of course, I would be lying if I said I never thought about living a little more extravagantly. But if I had money to spare I was going to spend it on equipment or invest it in facilities.
The same went for Ren’s gluttony. It had probably awakened as an extension of his desire to be stronger, but after he’d consumed the experience points of an opponent, there was nothing left. Once he’d become the strongest, he would be satisfied. His gluttony would be satisfied once his stomach was full. It wasn’t the kind of gluttony that came from insatiable hunger, where a person could eat and eat and never be satisfied.
My curse was wrath. I was filled with a borderline overwhelming sense of wrath toward injustice. The object of that wrath was this whole world, starting with Witch. Of course, I had hopes that my wrath might disappear when I returned to my own world, but . . . most likely, I would still become unreasonably angry at times even after returning to my own reality. I would just have to do my best to control it.
So between being constantly consumed by unremitting anger and an unfulfillable desire to be the strongest, which would be more agonizing? Maybe the reason I had been able to withstand my wrath increasingly more lately was because I had been able to take revenge on Witch and Trash to a certain degree. It might have been that the power of the curse series would change depending on the intensity of the hero’s emotions.
“I . . . I will . . . I will become the strongest and . . . s-s-save the world!”
“I don’t want to hear about some mission you’ve been given by someone else! There’s nothing at all convincing about that!”
Eclair discarded his response without hesitation. His eyes and voice had both completely lacked conviction, after all.
“If it’s so hard for you to admit it, then let me spell it out for you directly. I’ll tell you exactly what it is that you want.”
“What?!”
Ren began trembling violently, and Eclair finally delivered her berating verdict.
“You don’t want to become strong. You just want to get back what you’ve lost!”
“Ugh . . .”
“Like a fool, you went charging in thoughtlessly and you lost your companions, numerous others, and the trust of the people. All you really want is to get all of that back and becoming the strongest is simply a tangible goal that you think can make that happen! Nothing more!”
“Sh . . . shut up!”
“But even if you were a god . . . No, as a hero you are a god. But even so, getting all of that back is impossible. Do you really think becoming the strongest is what you should be focusing on right now?!”
“Shut uuuuuuppp!”
Ren swung his sword wildly at Eclair. I wondered if I should step in. I started to take a step forward, but Eclair held her hand out as a sign that I shouldn’t interfere. She then went about reading and narrowly dodging each and every one of Ren’s attacks. Man, she was good.
“The truth is you already know this. You know you don’t have time to be rotting away in a place like this!”
“Shut your moooouth! I don’t want to hear what you think!”
Ren showed no sign of stopping and just kept swinging at Eclair.
“Your companions believed in you until the very end, and for that they are but dust in the wind. It is on their behalf that I now swing my blade!”
Eclair held her sword up in front of her chest and then launched a skill directly at Ren.
“Hengen Muso Sword Technique! Multistrike Demolition!”
Eclair unleashed a string of attacks that poured straight into Ren. I could see a flow of magic . . . or was that life force? I wasn’t really sure. It looked kind of like a special effect, but I guess it was probably life force. Anyway, some kind of light started swelling up inside of Ren. It was as if the technique was destroying him from the inside out. It must have been one of the old lady’s specialty defense rating attacks. It looked similar to one she had used on me before. Taking a string of that many defense rating attacks would be hell. And since I was particularly weak to such attacks, just watching sent shivers down my spine.
“Gah!”
“Sword Hero, you are weak. It is by accepting this that you can become stronger.”
Eclair paused and returned her sword to its scabbard.
“The people that you lost are never coming back. But starting now, you can live with enough purpose and fight with enough vigor for yourself and all of them, too. I will assist you in any way that I can.”
She was making herself look good, but Ren hadn’t actually taken that much damag
e. But then again, he was a hero, even if he was a lame one, and he had unlocked two curse series. For Eclair, that was probably one hell of a close fight. If she had eaten even one of Ren’s attacks, she’d probably be split clean in two right now.
“U . . . urgah . . .”
And then Ren collapsed. Oh man, that kind of defeat was straight out of an anime. I mean, come on, he’d clearly had plenty of stamina left.
“Don’t run from your sins. Every time you try, I will be there standing in your way. For the sake of your deceased companions.”
“Urgh . . .”
Ren was still collapsed on the ground, but he was crying. Was it involuntarily? He was completely still otherwise. His long sword had changed back into a normal sword, and the sinister aura had vanished. When Eclair finally turned around, I called out to her.
“I never knew you were so skilled at psychological attacks.”
Praising her too outright would be out of character for me, so I masked the compliment as sarcasm. Putting it like that was probably a safe bet.
“It sounds so horrible when you put it like that.”
Eclair responded deploringly, but it was true that she hadn’t actually physically defeated him.
“This was supposed to be an emotionally moving scene! It was supposed to be a communion of two hearts, via the sword, guiding a troubled soul to harmony. But you just completely ruined it, Mr. Naofumi.”
Now Raphtalia was giving me the evil eye.
“Did I?”
But seriously, it was basically a psychological attack, right?
“Oh, looks like we have a little scrap going on here. Eeehehe!”
And then with the worst timing possible, the same pair that had fled only minutes earlier faded into view. What the hell were they doing here?! This was not the time for them to show up again! They were supposed to be running away!
“We were going to run away, but then we noticed a cloud of smoke and decided to check it out. Is that one of the other heroes?”
“Shit . . .”
This was bad. Ren and Motoyasu were so weak that they couldn’t even begin to compare to me. Not to mention, Ren had passed out and couldn’t even move.
