by Mamare Touno
Shouryuu launched himself into a run.
He leapt across the red seats of the music hall, attacking Taliktan like a small storm of twin blades, and cut him soundly. Marielle gave a worried shriek, but he yelled, “Stay back, please,” and his desperate attack dealt Taliktan significant damage. However, as a result, he was flung away and ended up getting rescued by Hien.
The battle was changing.
Naotsugu, whose back had taken many recovery spells, pressed forward in fits and starts, stirring up the Genius’s aggro. The Guardians’ Aggro Charge showed its true worth when it was used to protect companions.
The sound of ringing steel and the light of magic intersected in the great hall. In the midst of it, as Shiroe maintained his spell chanting cycle, he kept an eye on his surroundings. Taliktan’s HP bar was down to about 30 percent. As Shiroe lasted through Taliktan’s fierce attacks, issued instructions to his companions, or had them drop back to refuel, he was remembering the hesitation he’d felt up until now.
For a long time, Shiroe had searched for answers, and he’d gotten nowhere.
Even now, he wasn’t sure.
However, it was likely that the time had come to make a decision. Touya’s and Minori’s words had urged him forward. So had Rundelhaus and Isuzu, Captain Nyanta and Serara. Actually, come to think of it, Shiroe had been surrounded by people who supported him.
What he’d hesitated over had always been the question, “Is it all right to choose that?” The world was vast and deep, and both the people around him and the people he didn’t even know were living their lives with a variety of thoughts he couldn’t begin to fathom. Was it okay for him to shape the world? Was it all right to touch it? That had been the worry he’d harbored. He’d been afraid of doing anything. If he acted a certain way, it might change things. Something terribly beautiful and splendid might break. That was why he’d been afraid to touch the world with his clumsy hands.
That had been cowardice.
True, if Shiroe did something, the end results might change, but that would happen even if he did nothing. For everything in the world, there was a season, a time limit, and postponing making a choice would mean he’d chosen to avoid acting at all.
When Taliktan, the Genius of Summoning, had appeared, Shiroe had been forced to understand that, whether he wanted to or not. In this world, there were things that could be broken by hesitation, and it was probable that Shiroe wouldn’t be able to run from failure and regret.
Going in the direction she, Kanami, had indicated, had been fun, and it had made for wonderful memories, but he had to do more than that now. Shiroe had guild members who would support him and walk with him, and Marielle and William had shown him what guild masters should be.
“Rest in peace and wait.”
He couldn’t.
“If you go to sleep, your safety will be guaranteed.”
He couldn’t.
“A return home can be achieved in exchange for six hundred and forty million units. Contractors who agree, accept access, choose to sleep, and wait on standby.”
He couldn’t.
Accepting Taliktan’s words might be the right thing to do. At this point, though, to Shiroe, that would be the same as “postponing a choice.” Just gaining one option wasn’t good enough.
People had an obligation to live.
They probably had an obligation to be greedy as well.
Shiroe had thought of himself as a person who could get by with being mildly satisfied, but he’d been wrong. It was easy to not get involved with other people, to avoid wanting anything. However, the more fun times you spent with your friends, the keener the prayer that began to grow inside you. You couldn’t help wishing that kindness, warmth, smiles, and peace would stay just as they were for a long, long time. Because the most important things were fleeting and easily lost, Shiroe had been afraid of actively wishing for them. He’d been afraid people would think he was greedy.
However, there were things you couldn’t get without wishing for them, and right now, that was Shiroe’s role.
It was probably what his parents had wanted, long ago, and what the guild masters who had gathered on the Round Table Council had wished for.
None of them—not Ains or Isaac or anyone else—had wanted things for themselves. They had all tried to be faithful to the people they wanted to protect, and as a result, they hadn’t been able to reach a consensus.
Like a big sister.
Shiroe remembered a phrase from Roe2’s letter.
The Travelers also prayed for light for others’ futures.
When he realized that, something hot constricted his chest. His hands clenched so tightly around his staff that they ached. It wasn’t unpleasant; it churned inside him.
As if severing something, Shiroe struck at the monster.
“Taliktan. I can’t do that.”
“—A return from this transient world is possible.”
Taliktan’s words were the trigger.
He really couldn’t accept conditions like those.
And apparently, Shiroe’s companions shared his feelings.
“Forget about it.”
“After all, we can’t trust you.”
“Mew’re much too late.”
Other words of refusal were spat out, along with attacks. Right now, whether or not it was true wasn’t the issue.
Touya had said it: They’d go home after they’d settled everything.
In the end, we are greedy. Ordinarily, the thought would have embarrassed Shiroe, but now he was able to look at it honestly. We want to walk this world, to travel through it on our own two feet. We don’t know whether that’s right or a mistake. However, because we don’t know, we want to question ourselves in the midst of unexplored landscapes.
Whether this world was transient was something for Shiroe and the others to decide. We won’t let even the gods get in our way, William had yelled. He thought it was a blush-worthy declaration. However, Shiroe felt the same way.
The truth did exist. He’d met Naotsugu and Akatsuki, had journeyed, flown through the sky, gotten in touch with Captain Nyanta, and started his guild. He’d brought in the twins, and his number of companions had increased. He’d spoken with People of the Earth. He’d become good friends with people of very different ages. He’d stayed up late, being noisy and fooling around, and he’d tucked blankets up over sleeping faces. There was no way those things hadn’t been true. Maybe they’d begun as something transient, but nothing said they had to stay that way.
That was why he couldn’t respond to Taliktan’s inorganic temptation.
“Sleep, all of you. Sleep, all of you.”
Taliktan kept groaning in a broken-sounding way, over and over, as if he’d forgotten to keep up appearances. His body began to swell up like a misshapen water balloon. The figure, which had formerly been a brown-skinned old man, grew enormous, wrapped its white hair around Naotsugu like melted vinyl, and sent him flying.
“Fifteen percent HP remaining. It’s the last phase!”
Behind him, he heard Riezé’s shout. This was a characteristic called “insanity,” and it was often seen in raid bosses. When their HP fell below a certain percentage, their forms and attack patterns changed. In most cases, they also grew much stronger. However, the attack team didn’t shrink back. On the contrary, they launched even fiercer attacks.
A freezing wind blew from behind him. Someone had used the effect of a fantasy-class item. Nazuna and Minori were dancing Kagura Dance, and the shining madder-red effect came from the barrier spells they were casting on the frontline warriors, one after another.
Even though they hadn’t discussed it beforehand, everyone understood: It wouldn’t be possible to sustain a long fight with Taliktan now that his attack power had grown. They’d just have to force him down.
Shiroe shouted as if to expel the tightness in his chest, then wove together spells and released them in rapid succession. He fired Electric Fuzz as a decoy, then killed i
ts firing range with Brain Vise. He layered Mind Bolt over Nightmare Sphere and slammed them into him.
He had become a guild master, and now he was leading this capture unit. He couldn’t not choose something. Choosing was the only way he could repay them.
It was his duty to wish for a lot. For the sake of the companions who walked alongside him and for the future companions he’d meet someday.
Akatsuki had flipped high into the air, and their eyes met.
Shiroe nodded, then belatedly realized why he’d done it. The calm part of himself whispered that it had been an illusion created by the high-density combat teamwork. However, just now, he was sure he’d touched Akatsuki’s soul. It had been like anger, but clearer, a fierce determination without a target, and the emotion had matched Shiroe’s to a startling degree.
“I don’t want that to have been temporary!” “That shore we walked along together.”
Shiroe’s Sewn-Bind Hostage struck Taliktan’s white, expanding body, and purple briars manifested. Akatsuki leapt, again and again, over the howling blizzard, the lightning, and the raid team’s front line as they pushed back. She flickered and blinked, and then many overlapping Akatsukis swung the short swords they held with backhanded grips.
Akatsuki’s Mystery divided her shape, and her slashing attacks burst the secret-level Sewn-Bind Hostage like a rain shower. Smoothly, Shiroe released the spell he’d had ready. He slipped another Sewn-Bind Hostage in, landing it in the less than half a second that Akatsuki spent out of sight.
“We’re extravagant, so…” “This place isn’t like that!”
Akatsuki didn’t stop.
She wasn’t expecting to fail.
This was true for Shiroe as well, so he moved on to the next stage of the cycle without waiting to see the results.
Sewn-Bind Hostage had bound their opponent with almost no time lag. Then came Akatsuki’s series of five attacks. A total of ten briars, and slashes from ten copies. The black-haired girl had pulled off that team play as if it were only natural, and she blurred, running up through empty space.
“Assassinate!!”
With the roar of an especially loud lightning strike and the sound of something scorching, Taliktan turned into dark bubbles as if he was being absorbed into himself, then immediately disappeared.
That was how the Shibuya Eternal Moth Fortress Raid that had rocked Yamato came to an end.
INTERLUDE
1
Shiroe was gazing absently into space.
Until a minute ago, he’d been sending telechats all over the place, dealing with the aftermath. This room, which was hemmed in by composite stone and magical machinery, was still Fortress of the Call. Once they’d put down Taliktan, the Genius of Summoning, the monsters he’d summoned and their eggs had turned into rainbow-colored bubbles and vanished, but they needed to make sure they were really all gone. They were currently taking in additional personnel who’d been sent from Akiba and exploring the dungeon.
Out of consideration for their fatigue, Shiroe and the rest of the raid team had been exempted from the investigation and from guarding the perimeter, but the members who had enough energy seemed to be doing things voluntarily. That said, that group consisted mainly of Tetora, who was giving a guerilla concert in the music hall, and Shouryuu and Hien, who had made preparations for a party and were cheering Tetora on. The members who were tired were resting in this studio at the base of the broadcasting tower.
Forcibly shaking his head, which felt saturated, Shiroe took a drink of water from his canteen.
He’d gotten pretty worked up during that last battle. He was a little embarrassed, but the thought that it had been the right way to go was strong as well. After all, he’d chosen to be greedy.
He wanted to save the people he could save, and he wanted to protect his companions, too.
Up until now, Shiroe had been holding back. He’d set to work quietly, covering only the range he could deal with inside himself and taking care not to get involved with anything outside that. Even when he’d gone beyond that range, he’d made sure to leave himself an escape route. However, those days were over.
Since he’d decided to want, he didn’t intend to do it by halves.
He’d keep the atmosphere in Akiba from becoming any gloomier. He’d prevent violence from breaking out between eastern and western Yamato. He’d talk with the Travelers. He’d return to his old world.
Put into words, that was probably what it would be. He was overreaching himself with those goals, and Shiroe laughed a little in spite of himself. Still, it was all right—he’d decided to take action to make those things happen, and so his feelings were bright and cheerful.
For now, his first move would probably be to contact Plant Hwyaden and the Holy Empire of Westlande. It seemed likely to be troublesome, and he was aware that he’d been putting it off, but now that things had come to this, they couldn’t afford not to exchange information.
Nureha had said they’d discovered a way to return home.
That in itself wasn’t really worth getting startled over. He could think of several situations in which they could say something like that, and he thought there were a few methods by which they might actually have been able to. The problem wasn’t whether they had technology that could get them home, or how to do it, but how to confirm that they really had returned. Even if an Adventurer volunteer disappeared from Theldesia and Minami called it “a successful return,” all it would mean was that they had a missing person on their hands. It was no different from the current situation with Krusty.
The unavoidable hurdle that nearly all people who wanted to go home were ignoring was this “confirmation of return”—in other words, communication between here and Earth. Before returning, they’d have to establish a way to make contact with Earth. That was an absolute prerequisite.
If that couldn’t be done, they would have to trust to luck in a big way when it came to future developments. In short, they’d have to choose their likeliest-looking “human disappearance” idea and just risk it. Even if that method worked, since there would be no way for the people who’d returned to Earth to contact them here, they wouldn’t be able to confirm that it had been a success. If it had actually succeeded, fine, but not being able to confirm failure would be awful. It was conceivable they might all wind up leaping into the same trap, one after another, like a group suicide.
Exchanging information with the Travelers seemed to hold the hope of a breakthrough, but even if they did that, they’d need to discuss things with Plant Hwyaden and solidify their standing.
He did have questions about the difference between rank 2 and rank 3 that they’d mentioned, but the only thing he could say was that Minori had demonstrated it herself. Shiroe had no intention of falling to their rank 2.
On top of that, the objective he seemed most likely to find clues about was preventing conflict in Yamato before it started. The idea of getting in the middle of a military clash between political entities was so reckless he’d never even considered it, but surprisingly, of the issues on the table now, the hurdles for that foolhardy act were comparatively low. It was probably no wonder that that fact provoked a dry smile.
In short, no matter which of the objectives they prioritized, Shiroe and the others would have to discuss things with Plant Hwyaden and exchange information, at the very least.
“What’s the matter, Shiroe? Are you still tired?”
Minori sat down on Shiroe’s left. She’d changed out of her miko outfit, and was wearing a blouse and necktie that looked a bit like a school uniform.
“You’re frowning again, my liege.”
On his right, Akatsuki admonished him, pushing the outer corners of her eyes up with her fingertips. Shiroe smiled wryly; he didn’t think he was making that sort of face.
“Technically, during battle… You know. I said some pretty overambitious stuff.”
“Did you?”
Akatsuki gazed at him steadily, arms folded, h
ead tilted to one side.
During that hectic battle, I felt as if we’d connected, but it was probably an illusion, Shiroe thought. Apparently, his worries and decisions hadn’t gotten through to the petite Assassin.
When he glanced over, just to make sure, Minori was also looking perplexed. It was only to be expected, but they didn’t seem to have gotten through to the group’s youngest girl, either.
Maybe it was interference from the gods: This is what humans are like. Communicate by putting your thoughts into words. Feeling a little disappointed, and also greatly relieved, Shiroe attempted to explain:
“I think I’m going to do my best to make those wishes come true. The goals are so high and far away that I’m not sure I can even reach them. There are tons of things to do, and all of them have ‘nightmare’ difficulty levels. It’s going to mean more work, and I don’t even know where to start. That’s what I was thinking about.”
“Huhn. The usual, then.”
“Huh?”
Akatsuki’s response brusquely cut down Shiroe’s confession.
What? But I learned on that harsh Susukino abyss expedition that it’s important to talk things over with your friends, and that it’s not good to let things build up too far…
Having what he’d said rejected in a perfunctory way with the words the usual was a big shock to him.
“She’s right. It’s the same every month, you know.”
“Huh?!”
Not only that, but Minori sided with her, and he was left without anything to say.
Even so, wasn’t saying it was “the same every month” a little too mean? That made it sound as if he was some miserable clerical worker who stayed shut in his office and was constantly groaning. He wasn’t happy with the assessment that that was all he’d done since coming to Theldesia. He was sure he’d spent his time actively. On the Susukino expedition, for example, and in the Abyssal Shaft.
Unfortunately, he realized that Minori hadn’t been there for either of those.
