by Aneko Yusagi
“The rift is linked with the boss!”
Linked. That was gamer-talk. Itsuki wasn’t taking this as seriously as he should, but whatever.
“But you understand that my job is really important too, right?”
“What?”
Ren didn’t seem to understand. But hey, this world was basically the exact same as some game that he knew, right? He should understand everything about it.
“And hey, where are the knights?!”
The three heroes all shut their eyes when I shouted.
“They’ll come later.”
Maybe it was to help them find us, but there was a magic beacon of some sort glowing over us in the sky. They’d probably set their sights on that.
“We’re a day and a half from Castle Town. They’ll never make it in time, you idiots!”
“Then what do you want us to do about it?!”
“You’re asking ME? I thought you knew everything!”
I pointed to the soldiers that had come with me who were now running for the village.
“Speaking of which, how did you get those soldiers to teleport here with you?”
“Are you really asking me that? Don’t you know about battle formation functions?”
“You mean party members? How did you trick all of them into joining you?”
“That’s not it. You can appoint someone as a leader, and then make your party with that person subject to your leadership. If you do, they all get transported with you.”
Could it be? Were there things they didn’t know about the waves?
The soldiers had said that none of their superiors had sent out orders to join any of the heroes’ parties, but could it be because the heroes just didn’t know about the ability to do so? I was stunned into silence. That would explain why there were no knights here.
“Well, let’s check up front. Who here looked into their help menus to learn about how to fight in the wave?”
Nobody raised their hand.
“I guess if you already know everything there is to know about this place then there’s no need for you to read the help menus or tutorials, is that it?”
“Yeah, we already know everything.”
“Exactly. Can we please focus on battling the wave now?”
“Fine then. So what do other games call these battles against the waves?”
“Huh?”
“What are you asking?”
“Shut up already, we need to go!”
Itsuki ignored my question, turned, and started to run.
“Motoyasu, you can see what I’m getting at. Can’t you?”
“Uh… sure… an instant dungeon?”
“That’s not it, it was a Time Attack Wave.”
Ren... That’s not it either. I said, “Other games,” didn’t I?
The game that he knew all about was called Brave Star Online, wasn’t it?
“Guild wars, team battles, either that or large-scale battles!”
In the game that I used to play, there were major events every week or so when the players fought against each other. If you were to use the support troop system, then the game would make sure there were more enemies appearing than you could manage on your own. So during the last wave, had the knights not made it in time I’m not sure we would have been able to keep the damage down to the level we did.
“Look, even if you all have experience with the game system, you don’t have any experience managing a large guild, do you?”
In large-scale battles, you had to prioritize cooperation.
Though, of course, the ace-players, the heroes, would lead the charge. But in order to keep the destruction to a minimum, we were going to need the cooperation of the locals.
If they couldn’t understand something that simple, then they were idiots.
“I’ve managed a team before.”
Motoyasu spoke up, but kept his eyes on Filo in her bird form. He probably didn’t want to get kicked.
“Then why don’t you understand this?”
“There’s no need to.”
“What?!”
“It’ll work itself out.”
Jeez… and I thought this guy couldn’t get any more obnoxious—any more irresponsible.
Bitch, that’s your job. That stupid rotten princess—as if she was intelligent enough to deal with responsibility like that.
“I never had any interest in that kind of stuff.”
Ren, the jerk. But I knew his type well enough. There were always one or two of them before a guild war, and I never enjoyed trying to talk to them.
If someone like that was supposed to have been a guild master, I actually can’t think of any way that would be possible. How would the guild even function?
“Anyway, we can only work with what we’ve got this time. But next time make sure that you link up with the knights!”
I brushed them away with my hands, motioning for them to scurry off toward the wave. Ren and Motoyasu made no effort to hide their annoyance with me when they ran off.
“All right guys, let’s head for the village. Raphtalia, Filo—you’re with us!”
“Okaaaay!”
“Understood!”
We jumped in the cart and headed for the village as fast as we could. The soldiers with us had their own cart, and they managed to keep up with us.
By the time we made it to the village, it was already overrun with monsters from the wave.
There were black condor-like monsters, black wolves, goblins, and lizard-men.
But the lizard-man didn’t look like a demi-human, not quite. It looked more… sinister.
When I got closer I was able to see their names: Dark Condor, Black Shadow Wolf, Goblin Assault Shadow, Lizard-Man Shadow. Next to all their names, unmistakably, were the words: inter-dimensional.
Like demi-humans, these shadow monsters disappeared like ghosts when you defeated them.
They were a creepy lot of thugs. And the monsters were completely different than they were in the last wave. Weren’t there rules governing this sort of thing?
Whatever, just leave it up to the heroes. They’ll take care of everything.
And yet? There!
“Hiyaaa!”
The battle cry that had been splitting through the scene was coming from the old lady I’d given medicine too back when I was traveling through here.
She was swinging a hoe with one hand and fighting with all her strength. The soldiers were all stunned.
“Ah! Holy Saint! You were a big help! Hiyyaa!”
She yelled a phrase of thanks to me just as a group of monsters surged from the wave. She swung her hoe at them.
She was pretty strong actually, and her surroundings were littered with monster bodies.
“Hey, you thank him too!”
The lady’s son quickly bowed to me, like he had to do it all the time.
“More and more monsters are coming out of the waves, you had better evacuate.”
The soldiers with me were helping to evacuate the villagers. Amongst the chaos, we were fighting and killing monsters, but they kept on coming. It was going to be a hard fight, and we were going to have to focus on killing monsters.
“Hiyaa!"
The old lady was taking out enemies left and right. It was hard to believe that, only a month ago, she was sick in bed, on the verge of death.
“I’ve got my old strength back, thanks to you, Holy Saint! Hiyaa!”
I looked for her son and spotted him across the street, fighting monsters with all his might—but he wasn’t as strong as his mother. Some solders joined him, and together they were able to hold off the enemy. He wasn’t anywhere near as strong as his mother.
“I might look old, but back in the day I was pretty famous as an adventurer. My level and my age are almost the same! Hiyaaa!”
“Don’t overdo it lady!”
I wouldn’t go so far as to call her an unmatched warrior or anything, but she was definitely one of the strongest fighters I’d seen.<
br />
I held off the enemy’s attacks while Filo reeled back to kick them. They went down fast.
It looked like I could count on the lady in battle, but I was afraid she’d keel over once the battle was done.
“What medicine did I give you, anyway?”
“Who knows?”
Raphtalia was staring at the old lady, her mouth agape. We’d have to get the full story from her son later.
Regardless, we needed to focus on getting treatment to the wounded.
“Get all the injured people over by the cart! Keep them safe and away from the line!”
I would call out commands and treat people whenever I had a spare second.
“Hiyaa! Holy Saint! There are some weird ones showing up!”
I looked in the direction she was pointing. There was a huge crowd of inter-dimensional Lizard-Man Shadows, but I could just make out something else among them—something large. It looked to be at least double the size of anyone else.
“I’m going!”
The leader of my soldier supporters ran in the direction of the large monster.
“You idiot! Hold back!”
The giant inter-dimensional Lizard-Man Shadow turned to the running soldier and tried to crush him with his giant sword.
He dodged and tried to fix the defensive line, but there was no time!
But then, without warning, the soldier’s necklace started glowing, activating some sort of instant effect before shattering. Then the inter-dimensional Lizard-Man Shadow’s sword rattled back, in shock from the strike.
“What?”
“What are you doing? Retreat!”
“O… Okay!”
Damn. The burden on the volunteer troops was too much. One attack shattered his defense necklace. The giant must have had an enormous attack rating. I would have to use my shield to stop its sword and rely on support to take the monster out.
“Raphtalia, Filo. Come with me—we’re taking that thing down.”
“Okay!”
“Okaaaaay!”
The three of us ran toward the giant monster.
The inter-dimensional Lizard-Man Shadow swung its large, black sword at us.
I ran ahead of the girls and readied my shield. There was a loud clang, and sparks rained down around me.
Poison Snake Fang (medium) activated and poisoned the enemy. But it wasn’t very effective.
I suppose it only made sense that poison would be weak against these reptile-like monsters. But it was never my plan to poison the thing.
“Hiyyyyaaaaahhh!”
Raphtalia thrust her sword into the belly of the inter-dimensional Lizard-Man Shadow and stopped him in his tracks.
“AAAAHHHRRRH!”
Filo’s clawed foot flew in a tight arc, connecting with the inter-dimensional Lizard-Man Shadow’s face. A portion of his head went spinning through the air.
The giant fell forward and hit the ground with a deafening crash.
“Whoa…”
The soldiers whispered in amazement.
“Thank you! If you hadn’t given us those items, Shield Hero, we would already be dead!”
“Well, you made it out alive.”
If I’d managed to save a life, then all that time I spent learning to craft items hadn’t been a waste.
I felt enlivened.
“All right! You all run to the next town and do whatever you can to protect it.”
We should be able to protect the village we were in now with six soldiers, that old lady, and the adventurers that had happened to be in town when the wave hit.
But there was another village close by. If we didn’t hurry over there, who knew what would happen to it?
“I’m leaving some medicine with you all. This won’t be a smooth ride, but let’s get to the next village over!”
The soldiers climbed into the cart I was pointing at.
“Go!”
“Hiya!”
Filo got a grip on the ropes and ran off at full speed.
By the time we made it to the next village, the soldiers wobbled out of the cart, having gotten motion sick on the way. I didn’t have time to comfort them.
There were houses on fire, and injured villagers. This village looked worse off than the last one.
“Hurry and help those villagers!”
“Y… Yes, Sir!”
We slaughtered monsters left and right, and waited for the wave to end.
“Too late!”
Three hours had passed.
In that time we had managed to secure the safety of most of the villagers, and we were now focusing our energies on cutting through the hoards of monsters that continued to descend on the village.
Most of the villagers had been evacuated, and we kept casualties relatively low. But I didn’t know how long we could keep their shelter safe from the hoards. We kept fighting.
But everything was taking too long. What were those stupid heroes up to?
“Hero, why not leave this village to us. You should find the other Heroes and assist them.”
It was the young soldier who had originally approached me.
“I don’t think I can do much to help them.”
It was their job to fight the wave directly, and I’m sure they would just complain if I showed up.
“But, Sir…”
He wasn’t looking so good. His face was pale.
He’d been fighting monsters for three solid hours. His stamina was going to give out soon.
I was exhausted too. I could tell that Raphtalia and Filo were worn out too.
“Hiya! Take that!”
Filo kicked an inter-dimensional Goblin Assault Shadow, and it crumpled to the ground. She still had enough energy to keep going.
Yeah, Filo would be fine. The girl was like a giant ball of stamina.
“Can you handle it?”
“Leave it to me!”
I guess they had enough energy to keep going.
“All right. Then I’m going to see what’s going on. I leave the village to you.”
“Yes, Sir!”
“Raphtalia, Filo, let’s go!”
“Understood.”
“Okaaaay!”
We left the village to the soldiers and adventurers, climbed onto Filo’s back and ran toward the wave itself.
Chapter Eleven: Grow Up
“This… This should be it.”
“I think so too.”
“Yup.”
The wave was made up of giant rifts in the sky, and they extended to the ground. The ground was splitting open too.
“Huh? Wh… what?!”
There, among the cracks in the sky hung a giant… ship. Ghost-like, it floated in the air. Monsters were pouring from it.
The ragged masts were hung with tattered sails. Veins of lighting lit the sky around it. The ship seemed to be made of wood, and was littered with holes.
I had no idea how the thing managed to stay afloat in the air, but this was another world, and I figured that anything could happen during the wave. If I wondered about every odd occurrence I’d get nothing done.
There was mist everywhere, and to be honest, I didn’t really want to go out of my way to get on board that thing.
I guess the monsters from this wave were pirates?
“They’ve been fighting this thing?”
The other three heroes and their parties were fighting against the ghost ship.
I could tell that Ren and Motoyasu were onboard because I could see their skills flashing through the mist. Itsuki was firing volleys at the ship from a distance. The fight looked a little reckless to me.
Just then, a cannon appeared on the side of the ship, and it shot a giant ball.
It was heavy, and flying straight at us.
“Air Strike Shield!”
“Hiya!”
I was able to deflect the cannonball with my skill, and Filo jumped up to kick the ball away.
“How long are you guys planning on hanging out here?”
&n
bsp; I yelled at Itsuki, who was sluggishly firing arrows.
“N… Naofumi?! What are you doing here? I thought you said you weren’t going to fight?”
“You all are taking your sweet time over here! We finished evacuating the villagers a long time ago, so I came to see what was taking you so long, and this is what I find? I thought you knew everything about this from your games?!”
“We have to destroy the ship, but for some reason Ren and Motoyasu insisted on boarding it.”
They split up under conditions like this?
Putting that aside for a second, why would they all have different ideas on how to take down the boss?
“Damn…”
The ghost ship thing looked pretty ragged. What was going on with these waves?
I thought it over awhile as I watched Itsuki and his party fight.
It looked like they had based their tactics around Itsuki’s skills. The rest of his party was fighting with different weapons.
“Even if you are attacking the ship directly, shouldn’t you be cooperating with the other heroes?!”
“I don’t have time to go over all this with you!”
His answer annoyed me. The stupid General Commander!
“Well it looks like this fight could go on forever. You can keep throwing your skills at it, but it doesn’t look like it’s going to collapse any time soon. Try something else!”
What was Itsuki thinking? Were his attacks even effective? If it were a game he’d be dead already.
“Besides, the other two set boarding the ship as their highest priority, didn’t they?”
I suppose it could have been a giant monster that just happened to look like a ghost ship. Wouldn’t that be something?
There were monsters that looked like houses, after all. They would start spinning and thumping when you got close to them.
“Maybe the ship has a weak spot on its interior? There might be a way to kill it that you couldn’t do in your game!”
“There’s nothing like that in the Dimension Wave I know!”
“Get a handle on yourself, Itsuki! This isn’t a game!”
Did he have any idea just how much damage these waves were doing?
Seriously, monsters were coming from the rifts this whole time, so the longer they took to defeat the wave, the more monsters appeared, and the worse the damage got.
