by Aneko Yusagi
“Who might this be?” asked Motoyasu.
For some reason, he was over by Ren and Eclair just standing there looking confused. He obviously had no idea what was going on.
“Judging from the power of his attacks and that flurry of skills, he must be a weakling, unlike the Shield Hero.”
“It wouldn’t make sense to pass up an opportunity like this. We might as well finish him off real quick.”
“I won’t allow that!”
Eclair pointed her short sword at the pair and readied herself to protect Ren. I couldn’t just let Ren and Motoyasu be killed, either. That would only make things a lot harder on me, after all.
“Die, holy heroes!”
The small man began to cast a spell and the large man started spinning his kusarigama around and running toward us.
“Not on my watch!”
“Not happening!”
“Please make it in time!”
Raphtalia and I swiftly broke into a sprint, and Rishia threw her knife and was trying to obstruct the men by getting them caught in the rope. Should I use Attack Support and fire off a skill? I was almost close enough for Ren to be in range of Air Strike Shield. The large man was headed toward the collapsed Ren and it wouldn’t be long until he reached him. Neither Eclair nor Motoyasu had an attack strong enough to deliver a decisive blow.
“Blast it! I didn’t want to use that technique before I had mastered it, but it appears I have no choice!”
Eclair crouched down low and readied herself to perform some kind of technique. What was she going to do?
“Mr. Iwatani! I won’t be able to fight after using this technique, but it will buy you some time. I leave it to you to protect the Sword Hero!”
“Got it!”
I guess she still had an ace up her sleeve. Eclair was going to buy us some time so that I could protect Ren.
“I’ll help, too! Muso—”
Rishia was focusing in preparation to use some kind of technique, too. I wanted to jab her about not waiting until the last second to play her trump card, but I guess this wasn’t the time for that.
“Are these your enemies, Father? They shan’t defeat me!”
Motoyasu sprung forward and stood next to Eclair.
“Stay back, Motoyasu! You’re no match for them!”
His efforts were commendable, but frankly, him jumping into the fray would just make things messier. What the hell was I going to do if Ren and Motoyasu both died on me here?!
“Outer Hengen Muso Secret Technique—”
“Looks like we win this one!”
The large man grinned and swung his kusarigama at Motoyasu and Ren, while the meteorite summoned by the small man appeared in the sky above them. I just had to hope that Eclair’s and Rishia’s attacks would make it in time. I was concentrating while running to prepare to cast my support magic on Raphtalia and the rest of us.
Finally! Ren and Motoyasu were finally in range of my defensive skills!
“Air Strike Shield! Second Shield!”
That should buy us a little time.
“Eat this, I say!”
Motoyasu thrust his spear at the large man out from behind the shield that had appeared in front of him. The enemy had some mysterious rippling defensive barrier. Motoyasu’s attack wouldn’t be able to touch him! Even if he did have a cursed weapon, just like Ren, his attacks wouldn’t be powerful enough to—
Pop!
A sound like a balloon popping echoed out. I’m pretty sure it was louder than when Filo and Rishia had just barely managed to break through the barrier.
“Gah!”
Motoyasu’s spear had pierced through the barrier effortlessly and straight into the large man’s chest. The spear went clean through the large man, and Motoyasu started swinging the spear around like it was a toy, with the large man still skewered on the end.
“Wh . . . what?”
Both the large man and the small man were flabbergasted.
“Ugh . . . gah . . . stop . . . damn it!”
The large man was struggling to free himself from the spear while being flung around.
“There’s a meteorite coming this way. You needn’t lift a finger, Father.”
Motoyasu was looking up at the sky and staring at the meteorite rushing straight toward him.
“How long do you intend to be stuck to my spear? It’s unsightly!”
Despite being the one that had skewered him, Motoyasu reprimanded the large man while looking at him like he was a piece of trash.
“G . . . go to hell! Urgah . . .”
It was everything the skewered man could do to squeeze out a response while he continued to struggle. Blood spurted out of his mouth. He had almost managed to pull the spear out of his chest.
“It seems that you two are Father’s enemies. Death to enemies, I say!”
Motoyasu gripped his spear tightly.
“Burst Lance!”
The tip of Motoyasu’s spear began to glow a bright red.
“Wha . . . urgaaaahhhhh!”
The skewered large man was screaming while trying to free himself from the spear, but a loud blast echoed out and a massive explosion occurred at the tip of Motoyasu’s spear.
“Gaaahhhhh!”
Still stuck to the end of Motoyasu’s spear, the large man exploded into pieces right before our eyes. Luckily it wasn’t one of those disgusting scenes where chunks of flesh went flying. The explosion had reduced him to atoms.
“Wh . . . wha . . . You’re kidding, right?”
The small man was dumbstruck. But he must have pulled himself together quickly, because he flashed a vulgar grin before making a comment.
“Eeehehehe . . . I never expected he would get killed. Resurrecting him is going to be a pain.”
He was laughing flippantly about his own companion’s death. These creeps really did have a game mindset. They were even worse than Ren.
“Translocating Light . . . doesn’t seem to be usable, I guess. This has turned out to be a real hassle.”
“You’re next, I say!”
“I’d like to see you try!”
The small man pulled out his shamshir and readied himself to engage at any moment. Then he turned to Motoyasu and just as he was about to dash forward . . . Motoyasu was already standing directly in front of the man. When did that happen?! Aside from defense, all my stats were currently reduced by more than half due to a curse, but even so, surely he couldn’t move so fast that I couldn’t see him, right?!
“M . . . Mr. Naofumi?! Do you think the Spear Hero . . .”
“Spear Hero?!”
“Fehhh . . .”
Motoyasu had just blown a man to smithereens and yet he was acting completely unaffected. Something about his expression seemed crazy. Oh, that’s right. Motoyasu was using a cursed weapon, too. I’d forgotten since he had actually been listening to me, but Motoyasu obviously wasn’t in his right mind.
“Rah!”
“Too slow! Death to Father’s enemies, I say!”
Motoyasu swung his spear to the side. It sliced clean through the small man’s shamshir . . . and his neck, too.
“Wha . . .”
Blood spurted out all over Motoyasu. Red had been one of his favorite colors to start with, and now he was covered in blood. He was red from head to toe. Having just seen two seemingly formidable enemies effortlessly killed in a single instant had left us speechless.
“Motoyasu . . . You . . . How did you get so strong?”
“Your words can never be wrong, Father!”
“In other words, you used the power-up methods I told you about?”
Motoyasu nodded without hesitation, as if to imply such a thing was only natural. That meant that the Motoyasu here with us had implemented all of the power-up methods of the four holy heroes. On top of that, he had probably powered up his curse series weapon, too. It was probably at stage IV, like my Shield of Wrath, or perhaps even stage V.
That shield had made a huge differenc
e when fighting the Spirit Tortoise and Kyo. It was ridiculously tough and had some powerful abilities, but what about in Motoyasu’s case? It only made sense that his weapon equivalent would have extraordinarily high attack power. In other words, Motoyasu now possessed a colossal amount of power. It would be a far cry from the mediocre strength that Ren had displayed. That was certainly reassuring.
Crazy. To think that he’d been able to so effortlessly and brutally annihilate enemies that I’d had such a difficult time with.
“That takes care of all of the enemies,” he said.
“Yeah, it does.”
The enemies had appeared unexpectedly, but we’d narrowly managed to protect Ren, thanks to Motoyasu. The completely unanticipated turn of events had thrown me for a loop, but now we needed to focus on Ren.
“Anyway, let’s get Ren out of here.”
“Got it.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I looked at the fallen corpse of the small man as Eclair and I hoisted Ren up off the ground.
“Let’s put him in the carriage and take him to the village,” I said.
“That’s right, we left it back by the bandit hideout, didn’t we?” Eclair replied.
“Yes. We’ll need to find Filo, too,” said Raphtalia.
“Yeah, since she ran off somewhere with Raph-chan.”
“Fehhhhh . . . What have we doooone?!”
Rishia was just now noticing the state of things and making a commotion. Curious, I gave our surroundings a quick once-over. Headless corpse. Putrefied earth. It would have been hard to describe the fierce battle that had occurred here in only a few words.
But wait a minute, the men’s corpses hadn’t turned into light. I wondered why. It would have been nice if they could give us a clue about how to prevent our enemies from resurrecting.
“Alright, Motoyasu, you come with—”
I looked over to where I expected Motoyasu to be standing, but there was no sign of him there. Then I heard a high-pitched sound, so I looked over in that direction. A short distance away, Motoyasu was walking off whistling, for some reason.
“Motoyasu!”
I was about to call out for him to stop, but he turned around and replied.
“The hero should always make his exit upon saving the day! Farewell, Father!”
“There will be no making exits! Stop screwing around!”
He was using a cursed weapon. It would be a problem if he just went and disappeared again at a time like this! I don’t know what the consequences were for using it, but I was sure they wouldn’t be pretty! But before I could tell him that, something came speeding toward Motoyasu from behind. Was that . . . Filo’s carriage?
“Noooo! My carriaaaage!”
Huh? Filo came running up from a short distance away.
“Gweh!”
Filo’s carriage was being pulled by . . . huh? It was three . . . filolials—one red, one blue, and one green.
“Farewell, I say!”
Motoyasu went running away alongside the carriage while holding on to the side as if he were preparing to leap into a speeding vehicle.
“Filo-tan! Father! Should you ever find yourselves in a predicament, know that I will come running!”
“Give me back my carriaaaage!”
Filo went chasing after Motoyasu with her cheeks puffed out and fury in her eyes. I sighed. But I guess I’d be mad, too, if someone just went and used something of mine, like it belonged to them. I could understand how she felt.
“Rafu!”
As Filo ran past us, Raph-chan jumped down off of her and onto my shoulder.
“Welcome back, Raph-chan,” I said.
She’d probably had a rough time, with Filo carrying her off somewhere like that. Filo had gone chasing after Motoyasu, so if everything worked out, maybe we would be able to capture him, too. Although, judging by the way he was now, that wasn’t going to be easy.
“Rafu! Rafu rafu!”
For some reason, Raph-chan jumped up onto my head and pointed at something just like she had done when pointing out Kyo’s soul before. I was suddenly able to see the souls of the pair of men we’d just defeated.
“Oh? It looks like the Shield Hero can see us. Eeehehe.”
“Oh yeah? Whatever, that’s fine. We lost this time, but we’re going to kill you and your friends next time! I’m going to make you pay for doing this to us!”
Hmm? Something about this situation . . . It seemed like we should be able to do something.
“S’yne, I can see those creeps’ souls over there.”
“Yes. The souls will resur———”
Her speech was breaking up like usual and I couldn’t understand what she was saying. But! I knew of an attack that would likely be effective on an opponent like this. Indeed . . . The situation was exactly like when we had defeated Kyo.
“Raphtalia, see those spirits over there? Use Spirit Blade to . . . mince them.”
“U . . . understood!”
“Wh . . . what?!”
The pair’s voices cracked when they cried out. They’d probably thought we wouldn’t be able to do anything to their spirits, but they were wrong. We couldn’t be sympathizing with enemies that were trying to kill the heroes. If we didn’t do anything right now, they would just come back for revenge. We needed to take action now while we had this chance. If we managed to kill them, it’d be like hitting the jackpot. That would mean we had figured out a way to keep enemies from resurrecting.
But in online games, whenever you resurrected, you would return to some kind of save point. So why were their souls just hovering around over there? And then I remembered what had been going on here just a few moments ago. Now it made sense. Motoyasu and Ren had destabilized the Earth’s magnetic field here. Their souls must have been stuck here for the same reason teleportation skills couldn’t be used.
“Eek! S-s-stop! Stay away!”
“Wait! Listen! If you let us go, we’ll make a special exception just for—”
“Unfortunately for you, I’m not willing to trust anyone that talks like that. Raphtalia, snuff ’em.”
“Understood. Spirit Blade! Soul Slice!”
Raphtalia used the katana that had been unlocked by the soul eater materials and sliced through the air where I was pointing.
“Gaaahhhhh!”
Her soul-slicing skill cut through the pair’s souls, which then dissipated and vanished. It would be a real feat if they somehow still managed to resurrect. I looked back over at their corpses, but they showed no sign of turning into light. I guess they were honest-to-goodness dead now.
“We beat them———we beat them? To think you could———”
S’yne’s voice broke up as she whispered. A look of relief was on her face. I wasn’t sure exactly what she had tried to say, but I’m pretty sure I understood how she felt. We’d finally defeated an enemy that kept coming back to life, no matter how many times they were killed. Of course she would be relieved.
“We ended up having to take their lives. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth,” Raphtalia whispered as she returned her katana to its sheath.
“The creeps were going on about their world being the strongest. It wasn’t like the sense of purpose that Glass and the others had. They were sickening. There’s no need to feel sorry for them,” I told her.
I could tell they weren’t the type that would listen to reason. It felt like we’d been fighting against children in adult bodies. Mortal combat was a game to them. I’m sure the reason they had been talking like it was all a game while we were fighting is because they were confident they would be fine even if they died. It was a setting where we had one life, and they had infinite lives . . . No thanks.
I had the urge to complain about how our problems always suddenly piled up all at once like this, but . . . I guess right now I should just be happy that we had won.
“There might still be some of their companions around. Let’s be cautious as we head back. Don’t let your guard down.”<
br />
“Understood.”
We waited for Filo to return and then headed back to the village.
By the way, Filo had gone chasing after Motoyasu but ran out of steam before she could catch up with him. Sheesh . . . Motoyasu was nothing but trouble. Still, I wanted to think that the fact he’d been acting on our behalf was a sign that he’d changed. If he was that strong, I was sure he wouldn’t end up dying easily, anyway.
Epilogue: Making Peace with the Sword Hero
When all was said and done, we took the unconscious Ren with us back to the village.
“Ugh . . . huh? Where . . . am . . .”
“You’re awake. This is the village I’m overseeing. That area you were causing trouble in is part of the territory the queen gave me.”
“Oh . . . I see . . .”
Upon awaking, Ren was calm. He was looking at me and Eclair with regret in his eyes. Raphtalia was staring at me like she was keeping watch, to make sure I didn’t try anything. Oh, and Fohl had returned to normal as soon as Motoyasu left, by the way.
“Sheesh . . . Becoming a bandit? You know better than that.”
“I messed up . . .”
Ren remained calm and listened to what I had to say without protest. It seemed like Eclair’s chastening had been effective.
“For the time being, why don’t you tell us where Witch is?”
“Sorry, I have no idea.”
“Bullshit. Witch is the one that told you to play bandit, right?”
“No. Ending up as a bandit . . . was my own fault.”
Ren began to tell his story. Apparently, the same day the two of them fled, Witch told Ren she wanted to meet someone and took him to a certain town. It had been near where Ren had teleported them to. There, Witch introduced him to a man. He’d recognized the man’s face but couldn’t recall from where. The man had pulled out a sword and asked Ren to teach him how to use it.
“Sure. I can show you a few things,” Ren told him.
Ren happily obliged and did some light sparring with the man. And then the man began discussing something with Witch off to the side. It was hard to make out what they were saying.
“Honestly, [. . .] than expected. In that case, [. . .]”
