by Aneko Yusagi
“Shield Hero . . .” Ost said, raising her eyes to meet mine.
The queen stepped in between the army and myself and attempted to mediate. “This is not the time to debate our responsibilities. The Spirit Tortoise was originally a monster that fought on behalf of the world, though not necessarily on behalf of humans. That is no longer the Spirit Tortoise we face. The monster out there is simply out for destruction, for blood. Is there anything left to debate? Isn’t it clear that we must defeat the beast?”
Everyone fell silent as they listened to the queen.
She was right. No matter how the debate proceeded, the answer was going to be the same. We had to defeat the Spirit Tortoise. The option to sacrifice lives to the Spirit Tortoise so that the world might be saved . . . That option didn’t even exist anymore.
“Even if we were not in possession of these new facts, our goals and responsibilities would not change. It is just as Mr. Iwatani has said. There is no problem with Ms. Ost.”
“But what are we supposed to do? We were not able to stand against the Spirit Tortoise during the last battle, and it appears to have become more powerful in the interim.”
“Isn’t there only one thing that we can do? Just like last time, my party and I will lead the charge. We’ll cut the damn thing’s head off and buy ourselves time to find other options.”
“But . . .”
I could understand their hesitation. During the last battle, I had barely managed to protect everyone from the monster’s powerful attacks, and those attacks had grown much more powerful now. What if I wasn’t able to withstand them anymore?
“Ost, you said that you don’t know how to defeat the Spirit Tortoise, right?”
“Correct. My role was simply to pave the way for the Spirit Tortoise’s awakening. I was simply to supply the heroes with hints regarding the method to break the seal on the Spirit Tortoise’s imprisonment.”
She wasn’t going to be much help, but I suppose it was better than not having her on our side at all.
“Isn’t their anything you can tell us? Anything at all?”
“When I was ingratiating myself with the royal family, I did learn about the Spirit Tortoise legends.”
“Great. Go talk with Rishia—she’s the girl wearing the kigurumi back in my carriage. She might be able to figure something out from your stories.”
“Very well,” Ost said, leaving to return to the carriage we’d come in.
Something about the way she moved struck me as odd. She moved lightly, as if she was unaffected by gravity, when she leapt down from the carriage. Something about her seemed . . . inhuman. Was it because she was a Spirit Tortoise familiar (human type)?
I turned to address the queen. “You should probably join in on those talks.”
“Agreed. And I’m quite interested to hear more about the Spirit Tortoise legends. Hopefully we’ll be able to glean a hint from them.”
The queen had apparently made a hobby out of studying various legends of the world. In this case, I hoped that her hobby would lead us to a path forward.
“In the meantime, we have our own things to discuss. What sort of formation should we use in the attack? The monster’s attacks have grown stronger too. How are we to avoid them for long enough to make a counter-attack?”
“Good questions. To begin with, I suggest that, just like last time, we lure the monster to a place that is best suited for battle.”
“How are the evacuations proceeding?”
“The Spirit Tortoise is moving much faster than last time, and the evacuations are a little behind schedule.”
That wasn’t good, but it wasn’t so different from the last time.
“However, compared to the last time, the Spirit Tortoise appears to have taken a greater interest in the movements of the coalition army. I believe we will be able to draw its attention for long enough to allow the evacuations to proceed before the battle begins in earnest.”
“That would be ideal.”
The last time we faced the Spirit Tortoise, it seemed more interested in proceeding on to the next population center than it did with entering a skirmish with the army. If it cared more about the army now, that might give us an advantage.
“The Spirit Tortoise’s attacks have grown very powerful, but there appear to be fewer familiars in the area. The tortoise also stops from time to time, so I believe we are having a fair amount of success in drawing its attention. At the moment, the beast has yet to use the sort of powerful attacks it deployed against the Shield Hero in the last battle. We can only hope . . .”
“True. We’ll be in trouble when the tortoise starts to use those attacks again.”
During the last battle, the Spirit Tortoise familiars had attacked along with the Spirit Tortoise proper. With so many monsters and people in the mix, it had been nearly impossible to distinguish between friend and foe. However, its shooting attack appeared to have a limited range, which was something we could be grateful for.
Huh? Did they say that it stops from time to time?
I turned around to see what they meant, and sure enough, the Spirit Tortoise was standing still, staring off into space.
We stopped the carriage, too.
“When the beast stops moving like this, it tends to stay still for anywhere from thirty minutes up to two hours.”
“Hmm . . .”
That was another thing to be grateful for. If the Spirit Tortoise moved nonstop, then the army would never be able to escape its attacks. Everything had limited stamina—carriages too. Whether horses or filolials pulled them, they had to stop from time to time.
“Make sure you keep your wits about you once we enter close-quarters combat. There’s no telling what that thing might do.”
“We will do as you say, Mr. Iwatani.”
In the end, our only option was to force our way though and try to buy ourselves more time. We spent the rest of the meeting with the coalition army going over the details of the plan. Once we had agreed on a plan, I went back to my own carriage.
“Welcome back. Were you able to agree on a battle strategy?” Raphtalia asked.
Eclair and the old lady were already asking the queen the same questions.
Rishia and Ost were deep in conversation. They referenced a stack of papers while they spoke.
“We’ll arrive at the intended battleground shortly. The battle will start when the Spirit Tortoise begins to move again.”
The Spirit Tortoise had stopped walking, but it was still keeping an eye on its surroundings. It appeared to be cautious. If anyone approached it while it was still, it would immediately start moving again and attack. All of that was well and fine, but I was curious about what seemed to be happening to the landscape around the resting Spirit Tortoise.
As if to answer my private question, Ost stood and spoke. “The Spirit Tortoise is absorbing power from the earth. It is preparing to use that powerful attack you saw. You must be very careful.”
“You mean the attack where it shoots those spikes from its shell.”
“Yes.”
Ost was the only one who could sense the beast accumulating power.
“Should we attack while it is resting like this?”
“The earlier you can attack, the better. But if you are not fully prepared, then you should not attack.”
“Why is that?”
“Further down from here, in the direction the Spirit Tortoise is proceeding, the earth has less power. If we wait until it gets there, it will have a harder time replenishing its energy stores.”
“That’s great information. By the way, what is this energy, this power, that you’re talking about?”
“There are two types. One is what you might call experience. The other is a form of magic that is in the atmosphere.”
Ost seemed to know a lot about how the world worked.
“So we should wait?”
“I believe so, yes. And it will give us all more time to prepare for the battle.”
“Alright then.”
Getting prepared wasn’t too difficult. We’d already done it plenty of times before, so we just needed to go through the motions.
“Soon . . . Soon enough, we’ll be fighting the Spirit Tortoise again,” said Raphtalia.
“Yeah. Just like last time, I think we should try to cut off its head. At the very least, that will buy us time to figure out how to defeat it for good.”
We still didn't know how to defeat it permanently. Of course, it would be better if we had the time to search for a permanent solution, but I had to admit that there was a ball of anxiety in my stomach that wasn’t going away.
For the moment, there was nothing we could do but silently watch the Spirit Tortoise’s giant bulk on the horizon and wait for time to pass.
Chapter Six: Versus the Spirit Tortoise, Opening Stages
An hour passed.
“The Spirit Tortoise is moving!” Filo shouted from her post in front of the carriage. I looked out from the back to see the tortoise. It turned its bloodshot eyes on the coalition army and began to chase after it.
“The battle will begin any moment now. Mr. Iwatani, I wish you luck,” the queen said. She had been speaking with Ost and Rishia, but now she climbed out of the carriage.
I’d spent the hour reading through the stack of reports we’d received. It had taken a long time to work through the documents, because they were filled with obnoxiously ornate sentences and quotations that were written in foreign character sets. I couldn’t say how many different languages the reports had contained, but it was amazing that Rishia and the queen had been able to read them without much trouble. I had to ask them to read each of those parts to me, and the hour had flown by. Once I’d made it halfway through the document, I started skipping over anything written in characters I didn’t understand.
As for the stories Ost had heard about the Spirit Tortoise’s imprisonment, I didn’t understand anything about it that hadn’t been included in the report. Besides, I got tired of hearing the constant refrain of “much knowledge has been lost over the years.” Sure, the beast had been imprisoned a long time ago, but how was that an excuse for forgetting everything you’d once known about it? I asked the queen how that could have happened, and she said that many records had been burned and lost throughout centuries of war.
I suppose that if you lost a nation’s legends and records—especially if the nation itself vanished—there wasn’t any way to recover the information. Even the country on the Spirit Tortoise’s shell had changed names and governments after weathering two wars.
But there was also a legend in the documents that said the seven star heroes’ weapons had been lost for a time, until new heroes arrived and found them. There was even a legend that said, even though the dragon hourglasses hadn’t existed, that the seven star heroes had demanded access to them. I suppose that no matter what world you’re in, each country has its own version of history.
“So? Did you find any information we can work with?”
“Feh . . .” Rishia whimpered, somehow scared.
Had I sounded angry enough to scare her? She was terrified of everything. I guessed that her intimidated response meant that she didn’t have any confidence in what she’d learned or she didn’t know what to say.
“Um, well, about the particular methods needed to defeat the Spirit Tortoise . . . They say that it is possible, if you can get inside of the monster’s body.”
“. . .”
Did she think I could just crawl up onto its back to take a look?
In the distance, the Spirit Tortoise shot a round of the spike-like missiles from its back. Explosions and flashes of light soon followed, and my shadow fell over Rishia. That was all that had happened, but for some reason Rishia thought that I was angry with her, and she started to twitch in fear.
“Feh! And they say that there was information left behind by ancient heroes, inscribed in stone . . .”
Inscribed in stone? That must have been the message I’d found from the old heroes. The messages were often written in Japanese, and there was no one else around that could read it.
But all the heroes came from different worlds, and while those worlds all had a version of Japan in them, they were still different. That meant the grammar and vocabulary could be different too. I wasn’t so sure I was able to fully understand what was written. We’d found another one of these messages in a temple on the Spirit Tortoise’s back, and fortunately I’d understood a lot of it.
“Ost, can you read it?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“Did the documents include reproductions or a sketch of the message?”
“Fehhh . . .”
Well, the stones were probably so old and crumbled that any message on them would be illegible by now. I could understand how someone would have trouble making out what was written. I wished they’d finished their research before the damn Spirit Tortoise started moving again!
Rishia continued whimpering as she fumbled through the pages. But then, a moment later, she produced a sheet of paper that included a sketch. I guess she had done her best to look into it.
Luckily, I could understand some of it. The rest of the sentence was impossible to make out, as the stone it had been written on was too old and crumbled, but . . .
Goal is . . . Waves . . . World . . . Prevent.
World . . . Prevent?
What were they preventing? Destruction? Extinction? Didn’t the tortoise make a magic barrier to protect the world?
“Ost, you said the Spirit Tortoise exists to protect the world with a magic force field, right?”
“Yes, as far as I know.”
But the inscription could have meant something else.
What were the waves? I still had no idea what they actually were. The more we looked into the mystery of the Spirit Tortoise, the more we were confronted with the continuing mystery.
“Couldn’t it be saying that it’s trying to prevent something that results from the waves?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand the language.”
I sighed. Oh well, this wasn’t the time to be figuring this stuff out anyway. I decided to save the rest of our investigation until after the battle was over. At the very least, it seemed likely that the rest of the heros’ message was somewhere up on the tortoise’s back.
“Right, got it. Ok then, we’re just going to have to force the Spirit Tortoise to stop moving long enough for us to get up onto its back and find out how to stop it permanently.”
“Understood.”
“Very well.”
From outside the carriage, I heard Filo shout, “Got it Maaaaster!”
Rishia whimpered, and Eclair adjusted her grip on the hilt of her sword. The old lady gave an energetic shout and struck a battle pose.
“Let’s do this! Filo, take us to the Spirit Tortoise! Don’t stop until we are right up under its eyes—and don’t let it hit you!”
We took off running at full speed, straight for the crazed Spirit Tortoise.
“You all better get inside my force field! Shooting Star Shield!”
A transparent, protective barrier appeared around me. It was very powerful, so I hoped it could stop most of the Spirit Tortoise’s attacks.
When the beast noticed our carriage barreling straight for it, it lowered its head to meet us. During the last battle it had fired energy beams from its mouth, and that had been its most powerful attack. At the moment, it didn’t seem like it was preparing to do anything like that.
A shrieking sound filled the air, and the spikes on the beast’s shell shot into the sky.
“Damn!”
Filo turned her eyes to the sky and deftly dodged left and right to avoid the falling spikes. The scenery in my peripheral vision flew by in a flash. We must have been moving very quickly. The wheels of the carriage clattered angrily over the pebbles and rocks in the path. We were borrowing it from the army, so I didn’t care if it broke.
The sense of the mas
sive Spirit Tortoise was slowly growing to fill more and more of my vision as we approached . . . it was a novel thing. It was something you would never see in Japan. If you were to drive on a straight road directly towards the mountains, it might have felt similar.
The carriage shook violently as we ran. I turned back to see Eclair and Raphtalia desperately struggling to hold on. Ost regarded the scene in silence and then stretched out her hands. She appeared to be concentrating, and then she began to chant a magical incantation.
“I, Ost Horai, command the heavens, command the earth, defy all reason, join, and spit up blood. Oh great strength, I command you—loosen the hold of gravity on them!”
“Gravity Reversal, Float!”
Raphtalia and the others lightly lifted off from the carriage floor and floated in the air. Floating in the air, they were able to compose themselves without being knocked around by the violent shaking.
“Wow . . .”
“I’ve never seen such magic.”
“While there are still monsters that can use it, humans lost the knowledge of this spell long ago. We are about to enter battle, so I have used my power to levitate your comrades.”
“How convenient.”
I wondered if the spell’s use was somehow restricted. Would Filo be able to learn it? She liked to run carriages ragged, much to the dismay of our passengers. A levitation spell would come in handy for sure.
“This spell uses my own power to produce its effects. The effects vary depending on the medium who casts the spell.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yes. I am capable of manipulating the gravity fields around myself, so this spell is simply an extension of that ability.”
So that explained why she had looked so strange when she jumped out of the carriage. She really wasn’t . . . human.
“If we ever have the time to talk at our leisure, I would certainly teach you how to use it, Shield Hero.”
“You think I can use it?”
“We will need luck on our side, but I believe I can teach you.”
That sounded like a good deal to me. I wondered if she would be able to teach me some offensive magic spells as well. As things stood at the moment, I could only use support and restorative magic.
