Hajime pulled more stones out of his Treasure Trove and sank like a rock. On his way down, he grabbed hold of Kaori. He decided to prioritize her over Yue.
Kaori’s eyes opened wide in surprise, but then she had to shut them a second later as the current beat against her. Hajime held Kaori tight as they were sucked down a hole.
He activated Diamond Skin as they fell, then covered Kaori, protecting her from the stray boulders that hit them on the way down. Finally, the current began to weaken, and Hajime saw a light above them. He floated up to it.
When he surfaced he’d found himself at the coastline to the beach they were now standing on.
“Hey, Hajime-kun. Why... did you save me?”
“Huh?” Hajime had his back turned to Kaori, as he was still in the middle of changing. Where’d that come from?
“Why did you save me and not Yue?”
“I mean, if you fell by yourself you’d probably die. I figured Yue’d be fine on her own. Yue wanted me to save you too. I could tell from her eyes.”
“You really trust her, don’t you?”
“Of course I do. We’re partners.”
“......” Kaori’s expression grew even more glum. She noticed a shadow above her, and looked up. She saw Hajime looking down at her, his face inches from her own. They were practically touching. If he moved just a little closer, they’d be kissing. She stared into Hajime’s eyes. The moment was ruined as he grabbed her cheeks and pulled.
“Owww! What was that for!?” Tears sprung to Kaori’s eyes.
Hajime ignored her protests and continued toying with her soft cheeks. By the time he was done, her cheeks were red and swollen. She looked at him reproachfully, and Hajime snorted
“There’s no time to sit around moping. We’re in the middle of a labyrinth here. How long were you planning on staying in those soaked clothes? Or were you hoping to earn my sympathy by walking around like that?” Kaori blushed at Hajime’s rebuke. It was as if he’d just told her she didn’t belong here.
“Th-That’s not it! I just spaced out for a bit. I-I’ll change right away. Sorry.”
“......”
Kaori hurried to her feet and pulled out a spare change of clothes from the mini Treasure Trove Hajime had given her. He’d made one for everyone at Erisen, though they were far smaller in scope than Oscar’s. Hajime nonchalantly turned around. Normally, Kaori would have tried to flirt with him and say something like “It’s fine if you want to watch,” but right now she didn’t feel in the mood.
“I-I’m done. So, what are we going to do now?”
“Let’s see. Even if we went back we’d have no idea where the others are, so I guess our best bet is to keep searching for the labyrinth’s end. Yue and the others are probably doing the same.”
Hajime stared at the jungle for a few seconds before turning back to Kaori. She smiled and nodded, trying to hide her melancholy. Hajime narrowed his eyes suspiciously, but in the end he didn’t say anything.
Sand crunched underneath their boots as the pair made their way to the jungle. Thick grasses and dense bushes barred their way forward, and Hajime pulled out a machete to hack through them. Kaori followed silently behind him.
After a few minutes, Hajime suddenly came to a halt and turned back to Kaori. He wrapped a hand around the back of her head protectively.
“Huh? U-Umm, Hajime-kun? Th-This is a bit sudden...” She blushed, but when she saw the thing Hajime had pulled off her neck the blood drained from her face.
It was a spider. It was as big as Hajime’s hand, and it had twenty legs. Purple liquid dripped from its fangs. Its feet grew not only from its abdomen, but also from its back. Kaori had never seen anything so disgusting.
“Don’t let your guard down. These labyrinths are way more deadly than the upper floors of the Orcus Labyrinth. If you think the monsters you face will only be as strong as the ones you fought there, you’ll end up dead.”
“O-Okay. I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful.”
“.....”
The spider Hajime had picked up didn’t have a mana crystal. That meant it was just a very ugly spider, and not a monster. Kaori felt even more depressed. Not only had she almost been killed by something that wasn’t even a monster, she’d needed Hajime to save her again.
In Kouki’s party she’d been one of the best mages they’d had. But here, she was just dead weight. That fact continued to nag at her. She kept an even more vigilant eye on her surroundings as they advanced, not even breaking her concentration to talk to Hajime. The two of them continued silently through the jungle.
Eventually, they found something.
“Is this a... ship graveyard?”
“Amazing. I never realized ships were so huge...”
Once they’d made it out of the jungle they found themselves in a rocky plain. A number of massive sailing ships nestled among the boulders, their masts rotting and their sails tattered. Every one of them must have been at least a hundred meters long. Some of the larger ones Hajime saw were more than three hundred.
The two of them stopped in their tracks to admire the surreal sight, but they couldn’t gawk forever, and eventually they shook off their awe and started walking forward again.
They marched their way around the boulders, climbing those they couldn’t circumvent. At times they walked across the ships’ decks as well. Though all of the ships were rotting, they hadn’t decayed to the point where they were completely falling apart yet.
“You know... these all look like warships.”
“Yeah. That really big one in the back looks like a passenger ship, though. It’s all decorated and stuff...”
The warships here didn’t have gunports like the ones Hajime was used to seeing back on earth. His reason for believing they were warships was all the battle scars they had. From the looks of it, they’d all been bombarded with magic. Some of their masts had been cut clean through, while others had burn scars all over their wooden decks. Some of them even had their sails and ropes petrified.
Since there were no gunports, Hajime imagined long distance battles between warships had been done via magic in the past.
It turned out that he was right. When they were about halfway through the graveyard, they were attacked.
“Uwooooooooooooh!” “Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
“Wh-What the!?”
“Hajime-kun, around us!” Hajime heard the screams of countless men and his surroundings began to warp.
Hajime and Kaori stopped in their tracks. Everything blurred, and a second later they were standing on the deck of a ship.
They were no longer in the graveyard of ships. Instead, they were in the middle of the sea. Hundreds of ships lined up against each other, and men yelled as they brandished their weapons.
“Wh-What on...”
“H-H-Hajime-kun? Am I dreaming? Are you seeing this too? You are, right?”
The two of them were so shocked all they could do was blankly examine their surroundings.
A flare rose up in the sky, and the mass of ships on Hajime’s side began advancing forward. Another flare rose up from the other side, and those ships advanced as well.
Once the two sides were close enough, they began exchanging volleys of spells. Neither side slowed down, though, and it looked like they were planning to ram into each other.
“Whoa!?”
“Kyaaa!”
Fireballs raked the deck, burning holes through the wood. A raging tornado attempted to splinter the mast. Chunks of the ocean froze over, stymieing both sides’ advance. Grey spheres flew through the air, petrifying any sails unlucky enough to be struck.
The deck Hajime and Kaori were standing on had caught fire. Sailors hurried to cast water magic to put it out.
This was a war. That was how large the scale of the battle was. A chilly breeze rolled past the combatants. Then, a fireball came hurtling toward where Hajime was standing. If he didn’t do anything, it would hit him head-on, but he was still dumbfounded.
How on earth did we wind up in the middle of a naval battle? The question whirled around inside his head as Hajime pulled out Donner and fired at the fireball.
A streak of red light struck it, but contrary to expectations, the fireball didn’t disappear. In fact, Hajime’s bullet passed right through it and vanished into the sky.
“What!?” He let out yet another yell of surprise. He made to grab Kaori and dive out of the way.
“Wait, I’ll stop it! Light Wall!” She deployed a beginner-level light barrier.
Hajime had figured it’d be best to dodge, since even shooting through its core hadn’t dispersed the spell, but he didn’t want Kaori to feel useless. So he stood there, activating Diamond Skin just in case.
However, Hajime needn’t have worried. Kaori’s barrier stopped the fireball.
Did I miss? Hajime thought dubiously to himself. He tried again, aiming for yet another fireball. He watched with his Demon Eye, making sure he shot precisely through the core of the spell. But once again, his bullet passed cleanly through the fireball, vanishing in the distance.
“So that’s how it is.” Hajime had figured out why his attacks hadn’t worked, and attempted a different tactic. He stopped Kaori, who was about to put up another barrier, and wreathed his revolver in a Gale Claw. Then, he leaped out of the way and sliced through the fireball. This time the attack connected and dispersed the flames.
“Umm, Hajime-kun?”
“It looks like this isn’t just a hallucination. Though it’s not exactly reality either. Physical objects can’t interact with the vision, but mana can. Though I still have no clue what the hell is going on.”
Hajime sighed and shook his head. Just then, he heard a man scream behind him. He turned to see a youth double over, holding a cutlass in one hand and his stomach in the other. There was a pool of blood at his feet, a bloody icicle dropped on the ground next to him. He had been hit in that earlier barrage.
“Are you alright!?” Kaori rushed over and began casting healing magic on him. Lavender light enveloped the youth. A priest of Kaori’s skill should have been able to heal a wound like that instantly, yet that wasn’t what happened. The moment Kaori’s healing magic touched him, he faded away.
“Huh? What? Wh-Why did he...” Hajime lapsed into thought. After a moment, he explained his hypothesis.
“I think as long as mana touches any part of this illusion it’ll fade. It doesn’t matter what kind of spell you use.”
“Then that means I-I... killed him...”
“Kaori, none of this is real. It’s an illusion that we can interact with, that’s all. I mean, you can hardly call something that literally disappears from being healed human.”
“Hajime-kun... Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry. That surprised me a little, but I’m fine now.”
Hajime wasn’t blaming Kaori this time, but she still drooped her shoulders and apologized. However, she quickly recovered and smiled at him. Hajime thought back to how she’d been earlier too, and muttered something.
“Always an apology, huh?”
“Huh? Did you say something?”
“It’s nothing.”
Hajime turned away from Kaori. Not because the conversation was over, but because he’d sensed something coming.
He looked around and noticed quite a few of the sailors were staring darkly at Hajime and Kaori.
Kaori noticed the change in Hajime’s attitude and looked around as well. With a resounding battle cry, the sailors attacked.
“My life for Ehit!”
“Glory to Ehit!”
“You damned heretics! Die in the name of our lord!”
The men had gone completely mad. Their eyes were bloodshot and spittle sprayed from their mouths. It was obvious they weren’t thinking rationally.
Hajime had already guessed this was some dispute between two neighboring countries, but now he understood the reason for it too. It was a holy war. He could hear similar cries coming from the other side as well. The only difference was the name of their god.
Kaori was stunned into silence.
Hajime pulled Kaori close and started firing Donner over his shoulder. Instead of firing physical bullets, he was shooting off rounds of pure mana.
Mana Manipulation’s derivative skills, Mana Emission and Mana Compression let him do such a thing. Since the mana wasn’t structured behind a spell of any kind, normal enemies wouldn’t have taken any physical damage. They would have just had their mana shaved off.
However, both humans and monsters became unable to move once their mana dried up, so it was a great way to immobilize targets without harming them. Until now, Hajime’s enemies had all been too dangerous to simply immobilize, so he hadn’t used it much.
In this situation, though, it was perfect. Streaks of red light shot through the foreheads of battle-crazed sailors. Each of Hajime’s mana bullets pierced through multiple sailors, who dissipated when shot.
“Kaori, I’m gonna jump! Make sure you don’t bite your tongue!”
“What? Kyaaaaaaaaa!”
Hajime didn’t want to deal with being surrounded on the narrow deck, so he grabbed hold of Kaori and leaped into the sky. She hadn’t expected him to shoot up with such force though, so she screamed in surprise.
Hajime shot down the sailors on the crow’s nest and appropriated it for himself.
The sailors down below glared at him with bloodshot eyes.
They’d been so busy fighting each other until just recently, but now for some reason some of the sailors had focused on the two of them. Though they’d been enemies seconds before, they were united in their hatred of Hajime and Kaori. The madness spread like a disease. At first only a small knot of sailors had targeted the pair, but before long the entire ship was after them.
Sailors locked in combat with each other froze and turned to face Hajime and Kaori instead. Then, with the same fanatical battle cries, they pointed their cutlasses at them. The insane spectacle had left Kaori pale-faced.
“Now then, how are we supposed to get out of this crazy vision?”
“Is there an exit somewhere... maybe?”
“We’re in the middle of the ocean, remember?”
“Maybe one of the ships has a portal out? You know, like the Anywhere Door?”
Hajime raised an eyebrow as Kaori brought up a certain blue cat robot’s very convenient tool.
“There’s around 600 ships here... I don’t think we can check every one of them. The battle’d end before we do.”
“Hmmm... It looks like some of the ships are already sinking, too. Maybe we’re supposed to end this war?”
“End it... I see, I get it now. You’re saying we’ve gotta kill everyone, right? You’re pretty sadistic, you know that?”
“Huh? No, wait that’s not what I—”
“Yeah, that’s gotta be it. I can’t really think of anything else, and this suits my style anyway.” Hajime casually shot down a few sailors who were trying to Tarzan their way to the crow’s nest using the mast’s ropes. I should have made some mana bullets for a situation like this. He used the derivative skill Remote Manipulation to shoot down a barrage of incoming fireballs as well.
“Kaori, I know you’re not really skilled at offensive magic, but here even healing magic’ll kill these guys. I’m still not 100% sure killing them’s how we get out, but since they’re coming at us we’ve got no choice but to take them down.”
“O-Okay!” Kaori berated herself for hesitating and began chanting. The insanity in these ghost soldiers’ eyes had shaken her, but she didn’t want to break down in front of Hajime, so she held her ground and fought.
Hajime surveyed his surroundings, protecting Kaori from any attackers.
Looking down, he noticed there were still pockets of sailors fighting each other in places. Unlike when Hajime killed them, the illusions bled when cut by other illusions.
Gutted entrails and hacked-off body parts littered the ship’s deck. It made for quite a grotesque sigh
t. The men happily killed each other in the name of their gods.
The wind picked up, and a bloody mist rolled across the deck. Despite their losses, the sailors targeting Hajime and Kaori didn’t let up.
Whenever anyone got too close, Hajime mercilessly shot them down. He’d also set up a pseudo-barrier of bullets circling around him to destroy any illusion he missed, and to block any magical attacks sent his way.
This didn’t deter them though, and the sailors continued rushing to their deaths.
A few dozen soldiers used air magic to fly over the crow’s nest and attack Hajime from above. More came from either side, using the mast’s netting to close in. With his Demon Eye, Hajime could see a number of casters on other ships targeting his. They were all casting high level spells.
Just as Hajime was thinking about shooting them down before they took down this ship, Kaori finished casting her strongest spell.
“Divine Mother, smiling down from heaven, encompass all in thy heavenly embrace— Aetherflow!” Ripples of light spread out across the battlefield. They extended a full kilometer out from where Kaori was standing. Every person it touched was wrapped in a faint halo of light.
This was one of the highest-rank healing spells, Aetherflow. It healed everyone in a massive radius.
The actual range of the spell depended on how skilled the caster was and how much mana they put into the spell, but it had a minimum reach of 500 meters. Furthermore, if the caster marked certain targets beforehand, they could control the spell to affect only them. Normally, this spell required the combined mana of a few dozen people, a ridiculously long chant, and a huge mana circle. It was a testament to how overpowered Kaori was that she’d been able to cast it in two minutes all by herself.
The light of Kaori’s Aetherflow covered the battlefield, destroying every illusion it touched.
Kaori stumbled once her spell ended, her mana spent. Hajime caught her before she fell.
“Wow, it’s like we’re floating in a sea of ghost ships now. Nice one, Kaori. I knew you had it in you.”
“Ah, um, i-it was nothing, really. You guys are way more amazing than me, anyway...” Kaori blushed at Hajime’s sincere praise. Still, she was certain Yue would have been able to do a faster and better job. She smiled bitterly to herself and looked away.
Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest Vol. 5 Page 17
