Arifureta Zero: Volume 1

by Ryo Shirakome

  He’d paid a steep price for his reckless antics. Rivulets of blood poured out of the gaping wound on his chest.

  “Don’t worry, I’m fine.” He grit his teeth and cast a fire spell on his umbrella. Once the metal cloth was red-hot, he pushed it against his chest, cauterizing the wound. He screamed in pain as his flesh burned.

  “O-kun, are you okay!?” Miledi looked like she was about to cry. Oscar didn’t have time to reassure her.

  “What about her!? Did we get her!?”

  “Huh? Well... Wait? I think my spell is winning?” Last time Hearst had been able to overpower Miledi and break free. This time though, Miledi’s mana was winning out against Hearst’s.

  “Haaah, haaah, think you’ll be able to kill her with this?”

  “No way! This just means she’ll be trapped for longer.”

  “Figures,” Oscar said with a grim smile.

  “But still, we managed to restrain her for a little bit. That means we can move on to stage two. Naiz.”

  “I’m here. What do you want me to do?”

  He didn’t ask for details because he had absolute trust in Oscar.

  “Teleport me to the mouth of the volcano.”

  “Understood.”

  Naiz put a hand on Oscar’s shoulder.

  “Miledi, I’ll be right back! Just hold her until I return!”

  “You got it! I’ll show her what I’m made of!”

  The next second Naiz and Oscar were standing on the terrace overlooking the volcano’s magma chamber.

  “Naiz, recover as much mana as you can. You’re going to need to cast two more long-distance teleports.” Naiz nodded and began gulping down as many mana potions as he could.

  Oscar pushed away the blackness gathering at the edge of the vision and brought out his Metamorph Chains.

  “It’s time we try a new vector of attack.” He dropped all five of his chains into the magma.

  Every second, a little more of Miledi’s mana drained away. That mana was her lifeline. Once it ran out, the reaper would be coming for her.

  But she wasn’t worried.

  Hearst stared at Miledi through her black prison.

  Miledi smiled fearlessly at that emotionless face.

  “Looks like you’ve gotten a lot weaker. Did O-kun’s hug get you so flustered you couldn’t fight back?” Her mana may be running out, but she still had an unlimited supply of snark.

  Miledi knew it was Oscar’s ferrule that had weakened Hearst and not the hug, but she still wanted to say it.

  Her Nether Burst creaked ominously. It wouldn’t be long before her prison failed.

  “O-kun, Nacchan...” She whispered the name of her two comrades.

  Just then, a bright light appeared directly above her.

  “Is that a star? It looks too bright to be one...” Miledi looked up and saw what seemed to be a star. Though she hadn’t recalled any star existing in that spot before. It was also far brigther than the others. Before she could question it any further, she noticed it was growing larger.

  “Wait? Is it just me or—” Cold sweat poured down her back. Her lips twitched.

  Unable to believe her own eyes, Miledi continued staring at the burgeoning light.

  “Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait! No way! A star’s falling down!” This wasn’t just a meteor shower. A giant burning hunk of rock was hurtling toward the earth. By Miledi’s calculations, it would land in another 20 seconds. She’d seen a lot in her life, but this was far beyond anything she’d experienced.

  A voice broke her out of her stupor.

  “Miledi!” Oscar and Naiz had returned. Oscar looked whiter than a sheet, and Naiz was so exhausted he couldn’t even speak.

  “Guys, a star’s falling from the sky!”

  “We know! Control its descent so it lands directly on her!”

  Oscar started transmuting the ground as fast as he could. He dug a hole big enough for the three of them and surrounded it with as many layers of metal as he could.

  You’ve gotta be kidding me! Still, Miledi flew over to Oscar and started working her magic.

  There was a sharp crack, and her Nether Burst shattered.

  “Unbelievable...” Hearst looked up at the massive blazing boulder of lava bearing down on her. Even a God’s Apostle was stunned by the sight of it.

  She beat her wings, trying to fly out of the way.

  “It’s over now!” Oscar’s chains had been waiting right outside Nether Burst’s sphere of influence. The moment it shattered he sent them flying up to Hearst. Hearst expected she would be able to shake them off easily, but the chains began to glow golden and wouldn’t budge. Oscar had enchanted them with one of Naiz’s spells, —Spatial Anchoring.

  Ten seconds until impact. Great gouts of golden mana pulsed out of Oscar’s chains. Hearst used all of her strength to try and shake them off. The chains began to creak.

  Five seconds until impact. “You’re not getting away!” Naiz burned the last of his remaining mana to cast as many Void Fissures as he could. The chain of impacts left Hearst rooted to the spot.

  Oscar cast Hallowed Ground around their makeshift bunker. Miledi gave him the last dregs of her mana to help him bolster the barrier as much as possible.

  Two seconds until impact. Miledi— “Don’t you ever underestimate humans!”

  Naiz— “Looks like we win.”

  Oscar— “Rot at the bottom of the earth, you puppet of the gods.” Their voices were far too quiet to be heard through the din of battle. Still, at the last second, Hearst turned to the three of them and— Impact. The world went white.

  The force of the meteor’s landing knocked Miledi and the others out, even through all of their barriers.

  The first thing Naiz felt when we woke up was pain. His whole body hurt.

  He grimaced as he felt the buzzing in his ears and pushed himself to his knees.

  “Ngh. Did it work...” He looked around. He spotted Miledi and Oscar right away. They were half-buried in the sand, and neither of them were moving.

  “Oscar! Miledi!” He was so drained of mana that he couldn’t even walk. He crawled over to where the two of them were. Oscar’s umbrella was still in his hand. It was so battered it hardly resembled an umbrella anymore.

  He somehow managed to get them both out of the sand and lie them down. Fortunately, they were still breathing. They were alive. Barely, but they were.

  “Ugh. Where am I...”

  “Nhaaah.”

  He slapped their cheeks a few times, and they woke up. Miledi groaned in pain as she opened her eyes.

  “Are you two alright?”

  “In what world do we look, ‘alright’ Nacchan?”

  “Heh. I suppose so. You look especially bad, Oscar...”

  “Fortunately, I’m pretty tough. Owwwwww...”

  Oscar took Naiz’s hand and rose himself into a sitting position.

  “How long were we out for?”

  “I’m not sure. A few minutes at most. Your blood’s still wet.”

  The three of them somehow managed to stand while leaning on each other’s shoulders. There was a huge crater in the earth a good distance away. White smoke still rose from it.

  They nodded to each other and began walking toward it. They reached the lip of the crater and looked down. There was still a huge pool of lava at the bottom, bubbling and smoldering.

  After staring at it for a few minutes, Miledi raised her hands. Oscar and Naiz silently followed suit. The three of them exchanged high-fives.

  “So what exactly did you do?” Miledi asked.

  “While you were keeping her trapped we went back to the volcano. I turned a bunch of magma into a kind of magma boulder. Then I had Naiz teleport that into the sky above her.”

  “Not only did I have to teleport it a hundred kilometers away, I needed to put it a few kilometers in the air as well. Then I had to teleport the two of us back too. I thought I’d pass out doing it.”

  That had been Oscar’s plan.
His last-ditch plan had been to turn a giant sphere of lava into a mini-meteor. He’d taken the idea from the huge Nether Burst Miledi had used to obliterate part of the Greenway.

  “Th-That’s pretty extreme. Oh yeah, what did you do that weakened the Apostle anyway?”

  “Oh. I stuffed the tip of my umbrella with liquified stillstone.”

  “Ah, that was what Nacchan was making last time!”

  He’d liquified and compressed as much stillstone as he could into that tiny umbrella’s tip. Honestly, he’d wanted to use it on a monster and see what happened when that monster tried to use magic.

  “Even with the stillstone and the lava meteor I wasn’t sure we’d be able to pull it off properly... I’m glad it worked.” Despite all of the barriers they’d put up at the end, it was still a miracle that they’d survived. Oscar breathed a sigh of relief, and Miledi and Naiz smiled at him. Just as they were about to say something, the three of them heard a rumbling noise from inside the crater.

  “There’s no way, right?” No one responded to Oscar’s muttered comment.

  They watched as something began to rise up out of the lava.

  The burning hot lava fell away to reveal Hearst, surrounded by a nimbus of silver light.

  She’d lost an arm, her armor had completely melted away, and her clothes were burnt to cinders. Her entire body was covered in burns. But her mana burned as brightly as before.

  She lifted what remained of the boulder with one hand and tossed it into the air.

  As it fell back down, she jabbed up with her hand and broke it to pieces.

  Despite her wounds, she was still raring to go.

  Miledi, Oscar, and Naiz exchanged despairing looks. Grudgingly, they readied themselves for a fight. They had no mana and no weapons. Their chances of winning were less than zero.

  But that was no reason to give up.

  However, it looked like fate was on their side for once.

  “Ah. But Noint, these irregulars must... Yes, ma’am. Understood. I shall return immediately.”

  Hearst took to the sky. She glanced one last time down at Miledi and the others.

  “Rejoice. I have been summoned to my lord’s game board.” She flew off to the northwest, a silver meteor shooting through the sky.

  “What... just happened?”

  “I don’t know, but it looks like we were spared.”

  “I thought we were dead for sure.”

  All three of them sighed in relief and fell backwards.

  They lay there on the sand, looking up at the starry night sky.

  After a while, Miledi mumbled, “We need to get stronger.” “Yeah,” Oscar and Naiz said in unison.

  “Hey, Nacchan.”

  “Yes?”

  “Come travel with us.”

  Miledi had exhausted all of her well-formed, eloquent arguments. Her final attempt at solicitation boiled down to a single sentence.

  Naiz closed his eyes. He thought back to the village he’d destroyed. The pain of his sins weighed down on him even now. But would he really be able to protect people without going berserk? Now that Oscar and Miledi meant so much to him, he was worried he might accidentally...

  “Don’t worry. If it looks like you’re going to lose it, we’ll stop you.” Oscar’s voice was quiet, but filled with conviction.

  Of course. If I’m with these two, then there’s nothing to worry about...

  Oscar followed up, jokingly, with “Besides, this tomboy’s too much for me to handle on my own. I need someone to help me with her.”

  “Heeey! What’s that supposed mean, O-kun!?”

  The two started trading insults again. Naiz found the noisy atmosphere pleasant.

  He smiled, his eyes still closed.

  “I want to be worthy of calling myself a Gruen again one day.”

  “......”

  “And I get the feeling that if I keep traveling with you, that day will definitely come. So—

  “I’d be glad to join you.” Naiz raised a fist into the air.

  Miledi and Oscar followed suit. Three tiny fists joined together under the vast starry sky.

  Epilogue

  Ten days had passed since the Liberators’ fierce duel in the desert.

  Miledi and the others had fully recovered, and were planning on departing today.

  Now that their business in the desert was concluded, their next destination was the western ocean.

  Susha and Yunfa showed up to see the party off. They were accompanied by a few members of the Liberators. Miledi had seen to it that Susha and Yunfa be guided to their secret base.

  The two sisters accosted Naiz while Oscar was busy thanking the Liberators for bringing him a heap of ore he could use to transmute new Artifacts.

  “Naiz-sama. No matter how far apart we are, my feelings for you won’t waver.”

  “I-I see.”

  “We’re going to train hard so we can travel with you too someday!”

  “O-Okay.”

  “I promise I’ll be come the kind of woman you like, Naiz-sama!”

  “U-Umm...”

  “We’re the only girls you can marry!”

  “I think there might be a bit of an... age problem—”

  “Farewell for now, Naiz-sama! Please don’t forget about us!”

  “We love you, Naiz-sama!”

  Before Naiz could even say anything the two hopped onto their irak and rode off. The other Liberators noticed the girls leaving and hurriedly chased after them. “Wait, why are they going on ahead? They don’t even know where the village is, do they!?” They yelled as they rode off.

  “Hey, Nacchan.” Miledi had that devilish smile on her face that Naiz had come to dread.

  “Hey, how do you feel right now? You just got proposed to by two preteen girls. You gotta tell me, does that make you happy? Did Sue-chan’s knockout body make your heart skip a beat? Even though you’re in your twenties? Come on, don’t be shy now—” Naiz grabbed Miledi’s head in a death grip. Her skull creaked from the pressure.

  “Oscar. Looks like it’s going to be just you and me.”

  “Perfect. We’ll be able to move faster that way.”

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I won’t do it again! Please forgive me! My head’s—”

  “Sorry.”

  He let Miledi go.

  She fell limply to the ground.

  “Our next target is the ‘Saint of the Western Ocean’ right? What do you think of the rumors Susha and Yunfa heard at the bar?”

  “No clue. But the Fairy of the Desert rumors turned out to be real. So I think it’s at least worth checking out. From the start, our journey’s had little chance of success. It’s like chasing after mirages in the desert.”

  “So you go into each new lead expecting to come away disappointed?”

  “Let’s just have fun and get stronger on the way. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never been to the ocean before. I want to try the seafood they have there too.”

  “Likewise.”

  Oscar and Naiz chuckled.

  “Umm, did you guys forget about me again?”

  Miledi was still lying on the floor like a discarded piece of trash.

  Oscar and Naiz looked at each other. Then they walked off without a backwards glance.

  “Heeeey wait for me! Stop ignoring me! People can die from loneliness you know that!?” Miledi hurriedly chased after them.

  Despite what she was saying, there was a smile on her face.

  Because Oscar and Naiz had left enough space between them for her to join in.

  The three off them walked off into the desert, toward their next journey.

  The Holy Church’s great cathedral sat eight thousand meters above the ground, atop the Spirit Mountain.

  A single woman kneeled before the cathedral’s altar. It was raised atop a massive limestone pillar.

  She was missing and arm and had burns all over her body—Hearst.

  “Are you certain, my lord?” Her voice ech
oed through the large cathedral.

  “As you wish, my lord.” Though she appeared to be talking to herself, she was actually conversing with someone.

  The pillar was radiating a divine energy.

  “I am not worthy of such praise. Yes... Their powers clearly marked them as Atavists. At present, however, they are not much stronger than regular men.”

  Hearst, who had kept her eyes closed and her head bowed low until now, looked up in surprise.

  A second later, her arm was restored, and her burns vanished. Even her clothes were restored to their former glory.

  “My humblest thanks, lord. As always, I live to serve.” Hearst bowed low. When she finally rose to her feet, the divine presence was no more.

  She turned on her heel, and walked out of the cathedral. The cathedral opened up to the elements. A steep staircase cut directly into the mountain descended into the distance. Only a few were allowed to climb this hallowed staircase.

  Though this place was normally devoid of people, there were quite a few here today.

  Though perhaps it was wrong to call them “people.”

  Each and every one of them looked identical to Hearst.

  They said no words. But the light in their eyes spoke volumes. That was all they needed to converse.

  Hearst stretched out a hand. She pointed to a boulder in the distance.

  Silver light gathered in her fingertips. Once she’d gathered enough, she fired a silver burst at the boulder. It vanished without a sound. There was no impact. It was as if the boulder had never existed. Tiny particles of dust flew off in the wind.

  Satisfied, Hearst turned back to her doppelgangers. Without a word, all of them flew off in separate directions.

  Afterword

  Thank you so much to everyone who picked up this book.

  Hey everyone, Ryo Shirakome here.

  How did you like this Arifureta side story? It’s a completely original prequel, one that’s never been uploaded as a web novel. To be honest, I never thought a day like this would come, not even in my wildest dreams.

  Still, it has, and now I’m finally able to tell the story of how the Liberators came to be.

  I tried to make this as chuuni as possible too, and my only hope is that it entertained you enough to be worth the purchase. As long as you enjoyed it, that’s all I could have asked for.