by Aneko Yusagi
The surface of the shield was round, polished, and difficult to get a grip on. As expected, the scythe monster’s grip on it loosened.
“Raphtalia!”
“I’m on it!”
The fake Glass monstrosity was ready. It fired the powerful heat beam straight through the fake L’Arc monster and straight at us.
“Air Strike Shield! Second Shield! Dritte Shield!”
Three shields appeared in the air, stacked one in front of the other.
Just before the shields blocked my view, I saw the heat beam vaporize the fake L’Arc in a flash. Because it looked like someone I sort of knew, it made me more upset than I would have expected.
Then I couldn’t see. I could hear the heat beam beating against the floating shields. It seemed to go on forever. I couldn’t believe the monster could maintain an attack like that for so long. The Air Strike Shield had already run out of time. Soon Second Shield and Dritte Shield would disappear, too. Granted, the Air Strike Shield’s effective time wasn’t particularly long. I ran up to peek out between the shields, and it didn’t look good.
The disgusting beast that used to look like Glass was still firing its heat beam, and it didn’t show signs of stopping anytime soon.
If this were a game, the amount of time it could use a heat beam would be limited. Even science fiction games that had heat beam weapons had a time limit on the attack. But this wasn’t a game, and it looked like this monster could maintain a dense, powerful heat beam for as long as it wanted.
I turned to see how things were looking behind me.
Raphtalia, the queen, Ost, and Rishia . . . Which one of them had a skill that stood a chance of killing the monster? Raphtalia? She’d have to get up close. As for magic users, the queen or Ost might stand a chance. The queen could attack directly with her magic, which made her the clear favorite. Ost’s magic was interesting but weird, and as for Rishia . . . Sorry, but she wouldn’t stand a chance.
“Mr. Naofumi! What should we do?”
“It won’t kill us. The problem is how do we kill that thing before it brings the ceiling down on us? And if we can’t kill it, how do we escape?”
I could hold the shield for a while. Thanks to the water attribute, the heat beam didn’t affect it too much. Raphtalia stood by me and extended the tip of her sword outside of the protective range of the shield. There was a loud sizzling sound, and the blade started to smoke.
“Think you can make it?”
Raphtalia was using the Usauni Sword, the one that the old guy from the weapon shop had worked on. If she messed up somehow and broke the sword, it would significantly affect her ability to fight from this point on.
“I think . . . yes. I think it will be okay.”
“Good.”
“Should I try to attack with a spell?”
“Do all you can.”
“Very well,” the queen said and started to chant a spell.
Damn. I was sure I could hold out, but the heat beam started to intensify. I saw cracks form in the ceiling. It would only be a matter of time before it collapsed.
“Icicle Sword!” the queen shouted. She placed her hand on the backside of my shield, and a blade of ice grew out of the front and shot forward like a bullet.
It didn’t make it far before evaporating in a puff of steam.
“That didn’t work. What about you, Ost?”
It didn’t matter if she used gravity to slow the enemy down. She could probably use normal earth magic too—but if she threw a boulder at the thing, it would just end up vaporized like the Icicle Sword.
“Feh . . .”
“It’s fine. I don’t expect anything from you.”
“Fehhhh . . .”
Ugh. I was trying to tell her that I didn’t expect her to have some special spell to get us out of there. Calm down already, jeez.
“There’s only one option left. The Air Strike Shield has already disappeared, so we just need to get up there, next to the monster. When we get there, Raphtalia, it’s up to you. Kill it with one hit.”
“Understood.”
We should have just gone with this plan from the beginning.
“Air Strike Shield!” I shouted. The shield appeared right in front of the monster. That would render its attack mostly useless while the shield remained in place. I angled it slightly downward. That sent the beam down toward the ground—I’d hoped that would protect the integrity of the ceiling.
We ran forward. I couldn’t help but imagine the beam deflecting and vaporizing my feet. That was a situation I would rather avoid.
“Shooting Star Shield! Let’s go!”
I made sure that we were inside the barrier—I didn’t want to lose my legs—and we made our way up to the monster. When we got there, Raphtalia flipped her sword, readied the attack, and brought it down hard on the monster’s head.
“. . . ?!”
The writhing mass that had once looked like Glass split in two. But that wasn’t the end of it. The two pieces started twitching and it looked like they were about to regenerate their lost halves.
“I, the source of all strength, command you! Read and comprehend all that is under the sun, and shoot them through with diamond spikes!”
“Drifa Diamond Missile!”
A huge ball of burning flames shot from the queen’s hands, and a large diamond spike shot from Ost’s. The two attacks slammed into the two halves of the monster where it writhed on the ground.
“. . . ?!”
The attacks hit before the pieces could regenerate. One went up in flames, and the other was stuck to the ground with diamond spikes. They stopped moving.
“Whew. I think that does it. Is everyone okay?”
“I’m alright.”
“I do not appear to be harmed.”
“I’m . . . fine.”
“Feh . . .”
I’d done all I could to protect them, but . . . I looked to where the monster had once stood.
The tunnel had completely collapsed around it, and we faced a dead end.
The tunnel itself was quiet. There were no installation-type eyeballs blinking at us from the walls. “Guess we need to find a detour. Who knows when we’re going to run into Glass again?”
“What were they doing here?”
“Who knows? Maybe they’re behind this whole thing.”
Ost looked angry. Her hand curled into a fist. I couldn’t blame her. In a way, it was their fault that she hadn’t been able to carry out her original plan.
“And yet . . . Mr. Naofumi? Don’t you think they were acting a little strange?”
“Yeah, I do.”
It’s not like I wanted to be friends with them or anything. From how things stood, it sure looked like there was a good chance that they were behind all of this misery. But I couldn’t deny that they had been acting strangely.
Oh well. There was no use in speculating. We’d have to find out the truth the next time we saw them.
“Feh . . .”
“Whining again? I swear, Rishia . . .”
She really was useless—that’s what I really wanted to say, but I didn’t. She seemed to know what I meant anyway, because she just stood there sniffling. Maybe, if she realized how powerless she was, it would encourage her to do the work necessary to get stronger. Maybe.
“It’s alright. You’ll prove yourself someday,” Ost said kindly.
“Right . . .” Rishia sniffled. They could sit there and comfort each other all day for all I cared.
“Time to back up and find another way out of here.”
The search was back on.
Chapter Eleven: The Heroes’ Inscription
After wandering through the tunnels for a while longer, we found ourselves at the exit facing the temple. We did not run into Glass or L’Arc on the way.
The town around the temple had been utterly destroyed. Aside from parts of the temple and its surrounding buildings, I couldn’t find any standing structures. Everything else had been destroyed
by the emergence of the towering spikes.
“This is . . .”
The temple before us did not look like the same building we’d found the last time we climbed up on the shell.
“It is another temple. They must have been connected by the Spirit Tortoise cave.”
“I guess so.”
“I suggest we take a look around,” the queen said, walking toward the half-ruined temple grounds. Ost and Rishia went with her.
“From the way things look, the temple we found the last time must have been completely destroyed when the Spirit Tortoise reawakened.”
The sketch had been a rubbing of an inscription on the wall. But there wasn’t anything left standing that resembled it. There were only piles of debris.
“You mean the pillar? Or the writing we found on the wall of the other temple?”
“That writing seemed to be based on the inscription from the stone pillar. The ancient heroes must have referenced the pillar to make it. The pillar itself was famous. The legends speak of others as well, but . . .”
But they had all been reduced to piles of rubble.
I remembered the message we’d found. A hero named Keichi had written it.
“Can I see that?”
“Of course. We will search through all this to see if there isn’t something that you can read, Mr. Iwatani. Everyone, remember, something that might just look like a pattern or a design to you may actually be the writing of the heroes. Keep your wits about you.”
We started to look through the pieces of the stone pillar. Every few minutes, the air filled with the splitting sound of spikes launching into the air. In the distance, I sometimes caught sight of Fitoria jumping to avoid them. It was a surreal sight to behold.
The pieces of stone were covered in elementary drawings that seemed to depict the Spirit Tortoise, along with some writing. But the pieces were mostly too small to contain any useful information.
“Can you read it?”
“How does it look?”
I sat there in the rubble trying to arrange the pieces like a jigsaw puzzle, but the destruction was so complete that it was nearly impossible to assemble a large enough section to make out anything of value.
“I found something!”
Rishia shouted. She was holding a piece of the stone pillar over her head.
Yes! It was large enough that I could make out some of the words on it.
Goal is . . . Waves . . . World . . . Prevent . . . That was the same part that the sketch had contained.
With the real article in my hand, I was able to make out two more words: head and heart.
Think! What did Keichi’s writing say?
Something about the brain . . . about how to kill the monster. It was so degraded I couldn’t make out much more.
But it had said how to kill, not how to imprison.
That had to mean that someone knew how to kill it before they built the temple. The knowledge had existed for hundreds of years. And even though they knew that, they decided to seal it away—to imprison it.
But why?
Even Ost said that she didn’t understand.
I guess it was sort of obvious. If she were part of the Spirit Tortoise, she’d probably be the last person to know about a special way to kill it.
I couldn’t figure it out. Time to move on. There was only so much I could hope to learn from one sentence.
Head, heart . . . those words had only shown up here.
I had one idea, but it was like something you’d find in a game or a manga. I had no idea if it would actually work.
“Heh . . . It can’t be.”
“Mr. Naofumi! Have you figured it out?”
In a flash, everyone crowded around me.
“Not really. It’s so broken I can’t read it. To read it, we’d have to try and reassemble the whole thing. It’s all so old we’re likely to never figure it out. But to guess from the words we have here . . .”
Everyone nodded and listened closely.
“It makes me think that we might be able to kill it, if we destroy the head and the heart at the same time. That’s the only idea I have.”
“. . .”
Raphtalia looked more confused than encouraged. The queen snapped open her fan and placed it over her mouth while she considered what I said. “Do you think it will work?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then let us keep it as a backup option, in case the imprisoning doesn’t work.”
Ost hadn’t said anything. She looked concerned.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. But for some reason, I feel like the Shield Hero’s conjecture is correct.”
“But?”
“. . . But I don’t think that he’s solved the entire puzzle.”
“You mean there might be another place we have to destroy?”
If so, we’d never pull it off. It would mean that we’d have to destroy everything we found inside the tortoise’s body in hopes that it was the right thing. All the organs, the magic parts, and maybe even its soul. We wouldn’t know that we had destroyed the right parts until the Spirit Tortoise was dead.
“Let’s do what we can!” Rishia said, attempting to cheer up Ost.
“You’re right. We have to kill my true body as soon as possible!”
She was right. There was no telling how much longer Fitoria could hold out. We decided to head back to the chamber where the coalition army was waiting.
On my way back, I realized that there was a good chance Glass and the others had run into the waiting troops. I hoped that wasn’t the case. They’d said that their goal was to kill the heroes, but if they were controlling the Spirit Tortoise and killing swaths of the population indiscriminately, there’s no telling what they were capable of. So we hurried back to the troops, quickly dispatching any familiars we encountered on the way.
Luckily, we found the troops where we’d left them, safe and sound.
“Mr. Iwatani! Your majesty!”
“Holy saint!”
“Shield Hero!”
Eclair, the old lady, and the troops were thrilled to see us return.
Filo and the shadows still hadn’t returned from their search. If Glass and the others were still in the tunnels, then I would feel better to have everyone back together.
“What did you find?” Eclair asked. She looked very eager.
“The heroes’ inscription was so damaged that I couldn’t read it. But the small portion that I was able to read gave me an idea.”
The troops cheered when they heard that.
I told them about the plan to destroy the head and the heart at the same time. They weren’t as excited when they heard the details. I couldn’t blame them. Who knew if it would actually work? And besides, we didn’t even know where the heart was.
“Also . . . We ran into Glass—the enemy from the waves—on the way to the temple. I think she might be behind all of this.”
“Really?!”
“Yeah. But they were acting a little strange, almost like they were worried. So I’m not sure they are really responsible.” It was a possibility that I couldn’t ignore, but I wasn’t confident it was true. Not yet. They must have been related to all of this somehow, but I didn’t know for sure how. Anyway, if they were behind all of this, we were sure to see them again soon—like right in front of the heart.
They would try to stop us from killing the tortoise. So if they were hiding, they would eventually show themselves. The worst-case scenario would be if they attacked the troops and I wasn’t there to protect them.
There was no point in worrying about it. We just had to be careful. If I stayed there to protect the troops, we’d never find the heart. And yet of course I didn’t want them to show up when I was somewhere else. There was no good option. They really knew what they were doing.
I was used to it. Nothing had been easy for me since the day I found myself in this world. Oh well! You can’t catch a tiger without going to its den, as the
y say.
“So put whoever is strongest in charge of protecting the troops. We’re going to join the search for the heart.”
“Yes, sir!”
Eclair, the old lady, and the troops all snapped to attention.
I turned to the queen. “You should stay and command the troops.”
“Very well. If anything happens, I will send a shadow to inform you, Mr. Iwatani.”
“Good. You too, Rishia. Honestly, I’m a little worried about it, but I’m counting on you.”
“I know! I’ll do my best!”
With the queen, Eclair, the old lady, and Rishia there, I hoped they could hold their own for a while. If Glass and the others showed up, we’d just have to hurry back to meet them.
“I’m baaaack! It was a dead end!”
“We have returned,” said a shadow.
Filo and the shadows came jogging into the chamber. They didn’t bring any good news. They reported on the paths they’d investigated, and we started the search again.
“I guess it’s good that the queen had an old map of the caves, but . . .” I sighed. If everything had changed since they made the map, what good was it? At least we had Ost, whose intuitions had generally been proving themselves accurate. But she wasn’t any help in the search for the heart. She led us to a number of dead ends.
We made notes on the map as we walked through the tunnels, but we weren’t any closer to finding the heart.
“Hm . . .”
We ran into familiars sometimes, but Raphtalia and Filo got rid of them without any trouble. Every time we hit a dead end, we would trek back to the main chamber and check on the troops there. We had to make the trip back to the chamber plenty of times.
According the troops, familiars came to attack them while we were gone, but Rishia took the initiative and killed them. I don’t know how she could do that with such low stats, but I assumed it was because of the Filo kigurumi.
“Dammit.”
We kept wandering back and forth, and I became more and more nervous, thinking that Fitoria couldn’t fight the tortoise forever. Besides, if the tortoise hadn’t been artificially created, shouldn’t the walls have been made of flesh or something?
