Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest Vol. 1 (Premium)

by Ryo Shirakome

  After about two hundred meters of walking, they found themselves staring at the opposite wall. Set within it was a massive set of doors. The ten-meter-tall pair of double doors also had something engraved into them. There was a heptagon carved into each, with a peculiar pattern adorning each vertex of the shape.

  “Well, that’s quite the impressive entrance. Do you think this is...”

  “...Where the maverick lives?” Yue responded.

  It really looked like the kind of room that’d have a last boss in it. Though none of his perception skills were picking up on anything, Hajime’s instincts were screaming at him nonetheless. “It’s dangerous to go any further,” they told him. Yue felt it as well, and cold sweat beaded on her forehead.

  “Well, if it is, that’s just perfect. That means we’ve finally made it to our goal.” Hajime pushed down his instincts and put on his usual fearless smile. No matter what was ahead, they had no choice but to move forward.

  “...Yeah!” Yue glared resolutely at the double doors.

  They stepped forward simultaneously, walking past the last pair of pillars. The moment they cleared them... a massive, thirty meter large magic circle appeared in the air between them and the door. It pulsed malignantly as it shot out gouts of dark red light.

  This kind of magic circle was very familiar to Hajime. He could never forget the magic circle that was responsible for trapping his class on the bridge and ultimately sending Hajime hurtling down into the abyss. However, this one was three times the size of the one that had summoned the behemoth, and the inscriptions on it were far more complex and precise.

  “Crap, that size is no joke. We’re seriously up against this place’s last boss?”

  “Don’t worry... we won’t lose.”

  Hajime’s smile understandably faltered a little, but Yue’s determined expression remained unshaken, and she tightly squeezed Hajime’s arm. He nodded in response, and smiled wryly as he watched the magic circle finish its summoning.

  Finally, it let out one last incandescent burst of light. Yue and Hajime both covered their eyes to preserve their sight. Once the illumination dimmed, they got their first glimpse of their foe. What stood before them was a monster thirty meters in length. It had six heads attached to very long necks, each of which had a different-colored pattern engraved into its head and a pair of dark red eyes. It resembled the mythical Hydra.

  “Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” It let out a peculiar howl and focused all six pairs of eyes on Hajime and Yue. Determined to pass judgment on the foolish intruders, the Hydra unleashed a wave of bloodlust so powerful it would have stopped a normal person’s heart on the spot.

  At the same time, the red-patterned head opened its jaw and unleashed a torrent of flames. A veritable wall of fire raced toward them.

  Hajime and Yue both dove in different directions, and instantly began firing off counterattacks. Hajime pulled Donner’s trigger, and a small spark ignited the blastrock inside the bullet, which passed through an electrically charged barrel and accelerated toward the red-patterned head. The bullet slammed into the Hydra, blowing the red head clean off.

  As he struck a triumphant pose, the white head let out a long screech, and white light began enveloping the destroyed red head. Then, like a tape rewinding, the red head flew back through the air and reattached itself to the Hydra’s neck. So the white head’s the healer.

  Seconds later, Yue’s ice spears sheared the green head off, but the white head restored that one too.

  Hajime clicked his tongue and contacted Yue with Telepathy.

  “Yue, aim for the white one! This’ll never end if it keeps healing!”

  “Got it!” The blue head opened its mouth next, firing a spray of ice pebbles at both of them. They nimbly dodged the barrage and took aim at the white head.

  Bang! “Crimson Javelin!” A burning spear and speeding bullet raced toward the white head.

  But just before they hit their target, the yellow head put itself in the line of fire and reared like a cobra. It took both Hajime’s bullet and Yue’s Crimson Javelin head on. It survived both the impact of a bullet and the heat of the explosion completely unscathed, and gazed coldly down at the two creatures below it.

  “Tch! It has a tank too? Quite the balanced party it’s got there.” Hajime pulled an incendiary grenade out of his pack and threw it at the heads. He then fired a barrage of full power rounds at the white head. Yue fired a salvo of Crimson Javelins to match him. If she uses her Azure Blaze, she can probably take the yellow and white heads out at once, but it’ll be risky since she’ll be exhausted afterward. She’ll recover right away if she sucks my blood, but I doubt the other heads will give us that much time. There was also the possibility they were tough enough to withstand Yue’s strongest spell. Therefore, Hajime decided it would be too dangerous for Yue to use her strongest spells until at least half the heads were dealt with.

  The yellow head managed to perfectly block their barrage of attacks. However, even it couldn’t come out of such a bombardment unscathed, and it was clearly wounded in places.

  “Graaaaaaaah!” But the white head began healing the yellow one almost instantly. It was disgustingly proficient at healing magic.

  However, right as it finished healing the yellow head, the grenade exploded directly above it. A deluge of burning tar fell upon the Hydra’s heads. Some of it landed on the white head too, which made it screech in pain.

  Hajime activated his telepathy to inform Yue not to let this chance slip by. But before he could say anything, a bloodcurdling scream reached his ears.

  Yue’s scream.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaah!!!”

  “Yue!?”

  Hajime tried to rush over to Yue, but the red and green heads unleashed a torrent of flame and wind to block his path. Yue’s screams continued, and Hajime gritted his teeth in worry as he tried to piece together what was happening. It was then that he remembered the black head had yet to make a move.

  No wait, maybe it already has made its move! Hajime frantically dodged with Aerodynamic and Supersonic Step while he fired Donner at the black head. A hyper-accelerated bullet slammed into the black head, knocking its gaze off of Yue. At the same time, Yue slumped to the ground. He could tell she was pale even from his distant position.

  The blue head opened its jaw wide, and rushed toward Yue, intending to eat her.

  “Don’t you dareeeeeeeeeeeee!” Heedless of the damage it might do to his own body, he used Supersonic Step to dash right through the storm of fire and wind.

  He used Donner and Gale Claw to deflect any fatal blows while ignoring the rest, and just barely made it to Yue before the blue head did. He had no time to mount a counterattack, so he used Diamond Skin to make himself a human shield. When Diamond Skin was active, Hajime couldn’t move. That was why he hadn’t used it earlier.

  A layer of diamond-hard mana enveloped him seconds before the blue head’s jaws sunk into him.

  “Grrrrr!”

  “Guh!”

  With a low growl, the blue head tried to swallow Hajime whole. However, he held his ground and used his back and feet to keep it from closing its jaws on him. He quickly pushed Donner up against its upper jaw and fired.

  With a bang, the top part of its head popped off like a jack-in-the-box. The strength vanished from its jaws and Hajime kicked the remnants of its head away with his Steel Legs. He then pulled out a flash grenade and sound grenade and kicked them over to the Hydra.

  The sound grenade was a new addition he had picked up from a monster on the 80th floor that used ultrasonic waves to fight. He had harvested the organ the monster used to produce those sounds and incorporated it into his arsenal. It hadn’t provided him with any new magic, but the organ had been apparently classified as an ore, so he was able to transmute it into a sound grenade.

  The combination of light and sound disoriented the Hydra. With the few seconds he’d managed to buy them, Hajime scooped up Yue and hid behind one of the pillars.

  “H
ey! Yue! Say something!”

  “......”

  She didn’t respond to Hajime’s voice at all and simply sat in his arm, pale and trembling.

  “How dare that black bastard do this!” Hajime cursed and started lightly slapping Yue’s cheeks. He tried calling out to her with Telepathy too, and even gave her a vial of Ambrosia. After a while, Yue’s eyes finally began to regain their former glimmer.

  “Yue!”

  “...Hajime?”

  “Yep, it’s me. How are you feeling? Just what happened back there?”

  After blinking confusedly for a few more seconds, Yue gently stroked Hajime’s cheek, as if making sure he was really there. Once she was sure he really was, she breathed a small, relieved sigh. There were tears welling up in her eyes.

  “I’m so glad... I thought I’d been... abandoned again. Alone in the darkness...”

  “Huh? What on earth are you talking about?”

  Hajime asked, bewildered. Apparently Yue had suddenly been assailed by visions of being abandoned by Hajime and sealed once more in the darkness. The absolute terror of something like that happening to her had paralyzed her thoughts and stopped her from moving.

  “Tch! So the black one’s a debuffer? Looks like it inflicts a fear status on people. Shit, this monster really is a perfectly balanced party!”

  “...Hajime.”

  Yue looked worriedly up at Hajime, who was busy insulting the Hydra. It must have been quite the terrifying sight for her, being abandoned by Hajime.

  From Yue’s point of view, Hajime was the man who had risked his life to save her from her three hundred year old prison. On top of that, even after learning she was a vampire, he hadn’t shunned her. In fact, he’d happily let her suck his blood every day. The thought that he had abandoned her had stricken her to her very core.

  Hajime’s side was the only place she had left to return to. She was happy beyond words when he had offered to take her home with him. And the thought of being alone again scared her just as much.

  The seeds of fear the head had planted in her mind had begun to sprout, and they were eating away at her even now. Hajime didn’t have the time to console her though, as the Hydra had recovered from the flashbang. He rose, intending to return to the fray, but was stopped by Yue, who clutched tightly to his shirt.

  “...I...” She was still trembling, and it looked as if she would burst into tears at any moment. Hajime was able to more or less figure out what was going through her mind based on the nightmare she’d just had. And from the way she always acted around him, he could guess what she was feeling too. Regardless, he had promised he’d bring her to Japan with him. He could hardly ignore her plight.

  That being said, there was no time to comfort her. Trying to give her any half-assed words of consolation would just make things worse if the black head attacked her again. It was even possible the head would target Hajime, so he needed Yue in perfect mental condition to follow up in case he got hit.

  But in the end, he knew he was just trying to make excuses for himself. Hajime awkwardly scratched his head and squatted down in front of Yue. She tilted her head, puzzled, as he looked her in the eyes. And...

  “...Ah!?” He kissed her on the lips.

  It was more of a peck than a kiss, and Hajime’s lips barely touched hers, but it took her completely by surprise. Her eyes opened wide as she stared blankly at him. Embarrassed, he broke eye contact and pulled Yue to her feet.

  “We’re gonna kill that bastard. We’re gonna make it out of here alive and go home... Together.” Yue was still staring at Hajime in a daze, but her usually empty expression was gone. In its place was the most radiant smile he’d ever seen.

  “Yeah!” Hajime awkwardly cleared his throat and switched gears back to battle mode as he outlined his plan.

  “Yue, I’m going to bring out Schlagen. It can’t fire consecutive shots, so I’m going to need you to cover me.”

  “Leave it to me!” There was more enthusiasm in Yue’s voice than usual. Normally, she just mumbled listlessly, but her reply this time was filled with emotion. It looked like she’d been freed from all her old fears. And from the looks of it, her inhibitions. When he recalled just how dependent she was on him, he realized he might have been a bit hasty. The future’s going to be pretty rocky, he thought as he smiled wryly.

  Tired of their lovers’ skit, the Hydra roared angrily, reminding the two of its presence with a barrage of wind, fire, and ice. The two of them leaped out from behind the pillar, then began their counterattack.

  “Crimson Javelin! Force Lasher! Glacial Sleet!” Yue unleashed spell after spell. Spears of fire, spiraling whirlwinds created from the force of a vacuum, and needles of ice assailed the Hydra one after another.

  She had aimed for the moment right after the heads had finished their attack, when they were at their most vulnerable. A barrage of magic rained down on the red, blue, and green heads. The yellow tried to cover them, but then noticed Hajime was firing on the white, and roared angrily as it was forced back to protect their healer.

  “Graaaaaaaaaaah!” It slammed into a nearby pillar, transforming the stone into an impromptu shield. It appeared the yellow head had an ability similar to the scorpion’s. Though it was nowhere near as powerful.

  The first of Yue’s spells pulverized the shield, allowing the latter two to rain down on the unprotected Hydra heads.

  “Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” The three heads all screamed in unison. The black head turned to Yue the moment her spells subsided and cast its fear magic on her again.

  She could feel the same fear and unease creeping up on her. But this time, the memory of Hajime’s kiss reassured her. The fear was blown away and replaced by something warm as it tried to take hold of her.

  “That won’t work on me anymore!” Since her current job was to just cover Hajime, she focused more on bombarding the Hydra continually with spells, not worrying too much about their strength. The red, green, and blue heads all recovered and started attacking again, but Yue was able to take all three on at once. She neutralized their barrage with her own magic and often had enough time to slip in an attack too.

  Hajime closed in on the Hydra while the three attacking heads were busy with Yue. He couldn’t afford to let them block his first shot, since that was likely all he was going to get.

  Realizing its fear magic wasn’t working on Yue, the black head turned to Hajime. Fear and unease began to well up in his chest, and visions of his early days in hell floated up in his mind. He recalled the pain and starvation he had suffered when he had first fallen into the abyss. However...

  “So what!” That was a past he had long since overcome. He had suffered enough that such pain meant nothing to him anymore. He nonchalantly blew the black head off with Donner.

  The white head began healing again, but before it could finish restoring the black head, Hajime jumped up to it with a combination of Aerodynamic and Supersonic Step. After that, he pulled Schlagen off his back and nestled it within his armpit.

  The yellow head moved to block Hajime, but he had already predicted that effort.

  “I’ll just get you both, then!” He activated his Lightning Field, and there was brief red spark as the bullet ignited. This specialized bullet was a full metal jacket, made with a taur core and coated with the same material that composed the scorpion’s shell, shtar. Since shtar hardened with magic, the Lightning Field further powered up its destructive force. His rifle bullets had far more blastrock packed into them as well, and there was a mini-explosion as the bullet rocketed forward.

  Boom! There was the sound of a cannon firing, and his special red bullet rocketed through the 1.5-meter-long barrel, picking up speed as it passed. The electrically accelerated bullet was easily four to five times as powerful as a full-power shot from Donner. That tiny bullet packed more force than a battleship round. The creation of such a fearsome weapon was only possible because of his special magic and the super-hard minerals found in this other world.<
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  The only thing that could compare would be a very powerful laser. The bullet scorched the very air as it passed, heading straight for the yellow head.

  The yellow head had its own powered up version of Hajime’s Diamond Skin, but the bullet still blasted through it as if it were nothing more than paper. It pierced through the yellow head, pierced through the white one behind it, and exploded against the wall behind it. The entire dungeon floor shook from the impact.

  Once the dust cleared, all that remained were the remnants of the two melted heads, which had somehow fused together, and a hole drilled so deep into the wall Hajime couldn’t see where it ended.

  The remaining three heads momentarily forgot to keep fighting and stared in slack-jawed amazement at what had happened to their comrades.

  Hajime landed lightly onto the ground and ejected the spent shell from Schlagen. The empty casing fell to the ground with a clink, and the three heads suddenly remembered the predicament they were in. They all glared hatefully at Hajime, but the opponent they had been engaged with until just now was not one they could afford to take their eyes off of.

  “Thunderlord’s Judgment.” Ribbons of gold mana flew wildly around the regal vampire princess. Hajime bore witness to the overpowering strength her family had feared so much that they’d sealed her away. Her magic rained down on them like judgment from God.

  Six spheres of lightning surrounded the remaining three heads. They hung there in the air for a moment before shooting bolts into each other, connecting the six spheres into one huge ring of lightning. A new sphere formed at the ring’s center, larger than all the others.

  It hung there, like a Parthenon made of lightning, shining brighter than the sun. The blazing temple of lightning unleashed its power with the force of a thousand suns.

  Crackle! The middle lightning sphere pulsed, and everything encased within the temple was blasted with millions of volts of lightning. The three remaining heads desperately tried to escape, but the outer ring acted as a prison, trapping them in their lightning hell. A huge flash was followed by a thunderous boom, and it was as if God’s wrath itself had come down on them.