by Aneko Yusagi
A week had passed since we defeated the Spirit Tortoise.
The original, dragon-like monster might have died during the Spirit Tortoise’s original rampage, but would the whole corpse have rotted through in a week? If the temperature and all the conditions were right, then it was possible. But that didn’t explain where it would have accrued these other body parts.
It had the head of a lion. Was that part one of the Spirit Tortoise’s familiars too?
“Filo, Raphtalia. If we aren’t careful with the way we approach this, we’re just going to end up with more enemies to fight. But that doesn’t mean we are totally helpless.” I had a hunch that a powerful fire-based attack would be effective against this sort of monster. To put that in modern terms, maybe a bomb or a missile would do the trick.
But I wasn’t in Japan. The closest we could get in this world would be some kind of magic. There was ceremonial magic—powerful spells that had to be cast by groups of people all working together.
If we couldn’t attack it with powerful magic, then we’d have to tear the thing apart and focus on killing each and every monster that emerged. That sounded nearly impossible to me. There was probably some sort of core that we could attack. If we could hit it there, then it might self-destruct.
Yes—that was our best option. We had to go after whatever looked like its weak point.
“Focus your attacks on that moving part there. Where it looks like a lion.”
“Understood,” Raphtalia said and began to focus her magic power into her sword.
“Got it!” Filo shouted, crossing her arms in front of her and preparing to use her special move.
Both of them had mastered a couple of very powerful attacks, and I could really depend on them when push came to shove. As for myself . . . what was I supposed to do?
“Shooting Star Shield!”
I used a skill that formed a protective force field with myself at the center. It was large enough to protect Raphtalia and Filo as well.
That was the first step. I looked around quickly to make sure the townspeople had evacuated the area. They had.
The skies were filling with clouds of furiously flapping Spirit Tortoise familiars (bat types), but we couldn’t do anything about them until we dealt with the enormous monster before us.
That settled it—we had to take down the big guy. But how?
We slowly approached the monster, keeping our eye on all the enemies, and made sure that we got within range of my skills.
“Mr. Naofumi. I’m ready.”
“Me too!”
“Right! Air Strike Shield! Second Shield!”
I used my shield’s skills to produce two magical shields in the air—one at the monster’s torso, one at its feet—to make it hard for the monster to maneuver around the battlefield. I had the ability to make one last shield if I needed to, but I decided to wait and see how the monster reacted.
“Gahhhhhh!” The monster slammed into a shield with its torso and let out a pained cry before it tottered back slowly, thrown off balance.
“Now!”
“Right! Ying-Yang Sword!”
“Spiral Strike!”
Raphtalia and Filo unleashed their attacks on the monster’s restrained lion head. After the strike of Raphtalia’s sword, the beast’s head was nearly torn free of its neck. Filo’s follow-up attack sent the head flying with a spray of blood.
The monster lurched and swayed, its giant body suddenly unstable on its feet.
“Yeah!”
If that had knocked the massive thing down, that would be enough. Tons of bat-type familiars would come pouring out of the corpse, but we’d just cross that bridge when we got to it.
At the exact moment my heart leapt at victory, I heard a woman’s voice behind me. “I truly hate to bear this news, but the monster still stands. See for yourself.”
Whoever was behind me pointed to the object the Spirit Tortoise familiar was dragging.
“That is where it replenishes itself. Watch.”
Just like the voice said, to replenish the missing head, the back portion of the monster twitched, and then a giant eyeball grew out of its body.
Gross.
“That thing in the back is not really the monster’s true form. It is Legion . . . It infects whole groups of monsters and amalgamates them into one beast. If it runs out of something it needs, it simply takes it from somewhere else. To defeat it, you must use a more powerful attack.”
I was still using Shooting Star Shield. It was a powerful defensive spell that would block everything, except my own party members, from passing through it. So there was a problem. How could someone be standing behind me telling me what to do?
Nothing could pass through the force field, so that meant that whoever it was must have materialized inside of it. I quickly turned around to see what was going on.
“You!?”
A mysterious woman was standing behind me. I’d seen her before. Once, just before the Spirit Tortoise started to terrorize the countryside, I’d seen this woman in the castle courtyard when I was standing there alone.
She had shiny red hair tied into a chignon and sharp Chinese-looking eyes. She looked like she could eat another human without batting an eye. Despite having grown accustomed to beautiful women like Raphtalia, this woman’s face was so stunning it was noteworthy.
A strange air of innocence and charm hung unmistakably about her. Anyone would notice it. She wore a heavy robe that completely concealed her body from the neck down—a very mysterious woman, indeed.
She looked like she would instinctively speak in a whisper
Like the queen and Bitch, her skin was healthy and bright, full of hot blood—she looked vivacious, and also like she would have no qualms with using people to get what she wanted. Yes, she gave off the distinct impression of power. And she was standing right behind me.
“Now is not the time for discussion. We must first defeat the foes that stand in our way. I will restrain the monsters, while you finish them off,” she whispered softly. Then she stretched out her hand toward the monster and glared at it.
The beast completely stopped moving.
What kind of magic was that?
“Whoa . . . Um . . . Hurry! Now’s our chance!”
“Understood!”
“Filo! Use a magic spell—the strongest one you know!”
“Okay!”
Filo began to chant the spell’s incantation, and Raphtalia prepared to use Ying-Yang Sword again. They approached the newly immobile monster and unleashed their attacks with remarkable speed.
The monster was slashed to shreds. The shreds fell to the ground and wriggled like snakes, but unlike last time, they didn’t turn into other familiars, and they didn’t reattach themselves to the main body. The mysterious woman must have been preventing it somehow.
“I’m gonna use that powerful spell that Mel-chan taught me!” Filo shouted, sounding impressed with herself. She had been spending a lot of time with Melty lately. She said they were studying.
“Filo, the source of all power commands you. Hear the truth I speak, and destroy them with the angry sky’s fierce tornado!”
“Drifa Tornado!”
So she could use the Drifa class of spells now. Impressive.
I’d figured that Raphtalia would learn to use those spells first, but I guess Filo had managed to beat her to it. Although, come to think of it, Filo had learned to use the Zweite class without having to consult a magic book. I guess she was pretty talented in that area.
The sky filled with roiling clouds, and they spiraled together to form a massive tornado directly over the monster. The howling funnel of wind slowly touched down, sending all the houses in the area soaring through the air.
The debris caught up in the swirling wind ripped and tore at the monster’s flesh. Soon, violent spurts of blood filled the tornado and were carried up into the sky, a red pillar of blood in the wind.
But when the wind subsided, the monster still
stood, and the bulk of its mass was still holding together.
“Whew! This is one tough monster, master!”
“Damn. I guess I don’t have a choice then.”
I looked back to see if the woman understood what I was saying, then I slowly stepped forward. I only had one option for a powerful attack that worked over an area. It was my last resort, a special shield that I tried to avoid using as much as possible.
“Raphtalia, Filo, you should get back.”
“You’re not going to . . . Are you sure?”
“It’s too dangerous to let this thing be—I have to take care of it. If we had a group with us that could use ceremonial magic, I might have avoided this, but . . .”
“Please be careful.”
“I know. I won’t let the rage control me.”
We were talking about the Shield of Wrath, a dangerous weapon that ate away at my very heart as I used it. The last time I used the shield’s most powerful skill, I was so badly hurt that I nearly died, and when I was finally able to get out of bed, I discovered that all of my stats had fallen by two thirds due to a curse the shield had put on me. I had only recently recovered from the last time I used it, so you can see how I would want to avoid it as much as possible.
And yet faced with an enemy too powerful for Raphtalia and Filo to defeat on their own, I didn’t see any way around it. I tightened my grip on the shield and transformed it into the Shield of Wrath.
When I did, my field of vision dimmed considerably and I felt a long-slumbering rage and anger begin to stir in the depths of my heart. At the same time, I remembered Raphtalia telling me she believed in me. I remembered her saying that she knew I didn’t commit any of the crimes I was accused of. I felt a tender warmth at that recollection, and I used it to contain the howling rage that was beginning to surface.
The warmth was winning . . . for now.
I saw Filo out of the corner of my eye. Her legs and claws were engulfed in black flames. She shared a connection with the Shield of Wrath, and when the rage grew powerful, it affected her as well.
But thanks to Raphtalia and Filo, I’d learned to control my anger. They’d taught me to stay in control.
I took another step toward the monster. Then another. With each step, my feet felt like they were burning. Soon, I was very close to the beast. I turned to shoot an accusatory glare at the woman. She nodded and slowly lowered her hands.
As she did, the power she’d been using to stop the monster’s movement faded, and it lunged at me, swiping with its scythe arms. I raised an arm and easily blocked its attack with my shield. The moment the scythe connected with my shield, the shield erupted in tongues of black flame.
You see, the Shield of Wrath had a special counter-attack called Dark Curse Burning S—and the monster had just activated it by attacking me. The flames used my own internal rage for fuel, and they leapt from the shield to burn the whole area.
“ARRRRRGGGGHHHH!”
“Guruuugahhhhhhhhh!”
The dark flames from the Dark Curse Burning S enveloped and burned the monster.
Then I saw the monster’s skin buckle and bend, and a flapping flock of bat-type monsters came pouring forth out of the beast. They tumbled into each other in their desperate attempt to escape, but the dark flames found them. When they fell from the sky, they were clouds of ash.
Huff . . . Huff . . .
I waited until I was sure the enemy had fallen before changing my shield back to its original form.
“Oooooh! It kind of stings!” Filo shouted, shaking her hands and feet. Her eyes brimmed with tears.
“Oh you’ll be fine. I’ll heal you later.”
“Okay.”
First things first—we had to see what we were dealing with. What had happened to the Spirit Tortoise familiar (parasite amalgamation type)?
Part of the corpse was clearly nothing more than ash. Raphtalia hesitantly poked it with the point of her sword.
“It certainly looks dead.”
“I hope you’re right.”
I really didn’t want to use the Shield of Wrath. But what choice did I have? I was the Shield Hero—I didn’t have any other way to go on the offense. So I was forced to rely on the only shield that offered me a way to attack. If there were any other way, I wouldn’t have done it.
“Thank you for restraining that thing. So? Who are you?”
“Mr. Naofumi. Might this be the person you mentioned before?”
“Yeah, the mystery woman that showed up before all this Spirit Tortoise stuff really got going.”
“Hm?” Filo chirped. She’d turned back into her human form and was sniffing at the woman.
The last time I’d met her, she appeared behind me speaking nonsense. She’d asked me to defeat her. What was that supposed to mean? She also referred to me in the strangest way, calling me “he who holds the holy weapon.” My shield even reacted to her presence. There were too many mysteries around this woman. When I turned to ask for an explanation, she vanished—like a ghost.
“Excellent job. You have saved many in this area from certain heartache. And yet . . .” She trailed off, her eyes on the western horizon. The last time I saw her, she’d gazed off to the east. There was only one way to make sense of that—she was looking towards the Spirit Tortoise. “You still haven’t defeated me. You who hold the holy weapon, you must defeat me soon. Already, I cannot fulfill my role, so you must defeat me quickly.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about? Who are you? Explain yourself!”
“He’s right. If you wish for Mr. Naofumi’s help, you first need to tell us who you are. How else will we be able to help you?”
The woman nodded silently after listening to Raphtalia and I.
“The last time I saw you, I was in a rush because there was so little time left to resist. But now I have the time necessary to properly explain.”
“Hey, master!”
Before the woman could start to explain herself, Filo came running over.
“Filo, be quiet for a minute.”
“But you know what? This lady—she’s not human. She’s not even a demi-human!”
“What?”
I didn’t know what to make of what Filo was saying, but I realized it soon enough.
“That’s correct. I . . . I am the Spirit Tortoise. To speak more categorically, I am a Spirit Tortoise familiar (human type).”
Chapter Three: The Spirit Tortoise Reawakens
“What?”
I couldn’t wrap my mind around what she was saying, but we weren’t going to get anywhere if I started out disagreeing with her. At the very least, I reasoned, I needed to hear her out.
“Alright, alright. Let me get this straight. You have time to talk, right?”
“Yes. That is the very reason I came here, but we do not have time to dally,” said the woman—the Spirit Tortoise familiar (human type)—as she gazed off to the western sky.
I wanted to open a portal and take her back to the castle with us, but the cool-down time for the Portal Shield skill was long, and it wasn’t ready for use yet.
We’d defeated the giant monster, but it would be a while before the evacuated townspeople came back.
“Let’s talk at the adventurer’s guild in town. It should be empty for a little while.”
When we got there, the guild was unbelievably quiet.
Any brave adventurers in the area had left to drive the remaining Spirit Tortoise familiars out of town, but that didn’t mean that the whole town was deserted. Someone was waiting to check us in to the guild. After making sure that the building was safe, he set himself to reopening the business. I showed him the document the queen had given me, and he quickly showed us to a small meeting room.
The woman familiar followed us in silence.
We entered the room, chose a quiet place where we could speak for a while, and sat down. Then I started talking.
“Alright, how about you tell us what the hell is going on?”
&
nbsp; The woman removed the heavy robe to reveal a Chinese dress beneath it. Her shoulders were wrapped in a delicate shawl. Once again, I got the feeling I was looking at a fairy from Chinese mythology. Her devilish eyes only made that feeling grow stronger. I half expected her to turn into a fox.
“Very well. My original role was to gain the favor of a monarch from the sealed country, in order to bring ruin to the land and end the lives of its inhabitants. I was to collect the souls of those who fell victim to the chaos.”
“Oh, um . . .”
Was I hearing her correctly? Was she confessing to the most nefarious deeds I could imagine? I started to feel strange about our meeting.
“And? Why would you do something like that?”
“To protect the world from the waves of destruction, it is necessary that we build a defensive barrier, and we need a great deal of souls to build that barrier. Of course, it doesn’t matter if they come from humans or monsters.”
“I see.”
The conversation was starting to remind me of something that Fitoria, the queen of the filolials, had said.
“Right . . . Someone who demands sacrifice for the sake of the world . . .”
Fitoria wasn’t the only one who had said something like that. We found a similar message scrawled on the wall of an ancient temple in the city on the back of the Spirit Tortoise. An ancient hero had written it there.
It all pointed to one thing. The Spirit Tortoise existed to kill things so that it could use their souls to create a giant barrier that would protect the world from destruction.
Whatever. To be honest, I didn’t care one bit if the people of this world died. As long as I could protect the people I cared about, it didn’t sound like a terrible option. But I wasn’t going to doom the whole world—especially considering that I’d already battled the Spirit Tortoise to prevent that very thing. Not to mention I’d spent a lot of time looking for the other heroes.
“Okay, I’ve got a question. What does the blue hourglass in my field of vision mean? It says ‘seven’ next to it.”
“It is not one of the dragon hourglasses. It indicates the amount of gathered souls. Seven refers to the power level of the waves.”
