by Okina Baba
Okay. I guess we’re just gonna pretend you weren’t being all “I’m gonna die for my duty!” just a second ago.
Pretty anticlimactic, but is that really such a bad thing?
It’d be a waste for this guy to die here.
I gotta make sure it lives a good long life.
Grunt or not, it’s got guts.
Guess I better put in a little effort myself so that Hyuvan the wind dragon lives to see another day.
The UFO produces more aircraft, but we ignore that and keep moving forward.
Phase two of our air battle has just begun.
THE VAMPIRE MISTRESS AND HER SERVANT DISCUSS MA ENERGY
“Did the machines in your world run on MA energy, too, young miss?”
“Of course not. Most machines in my old world used electricity. You know, like lightning? The energy from that, basically.”
“You were able to manipulate the power of lightning?”
“Mm, not exactly. The energy that forms the basis of lightning, I guess? I’m sorry—I can’t explain it very well myself.”
“Oh, no, it’s fine. Whatever you know will be more than enough, young miss.”
“All right. But explaining it to someone else makes me realize I actually didn’t know much about how these things worked, even though I used them all the time in my old world. I really didn’t study enough.”
“I’m certain you had far more to learn in your old world, so much that you couldn’t possibly remember all of it. The more you tell me, young miss, the more painfully aware I am of my own ignorance. If you say you did not study enough, then residents of this world like myself have not studied at all.”
“Thank you for comforting me. But I don’t think being truly wise is based on the amount of knowledge you have.”
“How do you mean?”
“I think it’s all about whether you can make the right decisions or not. That shows how wise you are. Of course, there’s certainly no harm in having more knowledge on which to base your decisions. But if you ask me, wisdom is about what you come up with on your own, not how much you’ve learned.”
“To have pride and confidence in what you feel is right…”
“Hmm? That’s a nice phrase.”
“Indeed. A certain someone once said it to me while admonishing me.”
“I see. If you have pride and confidence in your beliefs, maybe that does make you wise.”
“I certainly hope so.”
“I wonder what in the world those people were thinking when they decided to harness MA energy all those years ago.”
“Nothing at all, most likely. They probably just set out to take whatever the world would give them, never thinking any further than that. Otherwise, I doubt they could have gotten their hands on MA energy in the first place.”
“I don’t think you need to be that hard on them. They didn’t know what MA energy really is, after all.”
“Perhaps, but they must have at least felt that something was strange about it. Yet, they ignored that intuition, fell prey to the allure of MA energy, and went on using it.”
“True. I mean, it’s a boundless source of energy that never runs out no matter how much you use it. I understand why they would want to keep using such a dreamlike source of energy.”
“Even though limitless energy is the stuff of dreams alone.”
“Well, that’s why they were woken up from the dream eventually. And when they did wake up, reality was waiting with the truth of the energy they’d been using.”
“That must be when they found out. That MA energy is the life force of the planet, and the more you use it, the closer the planet comes to destruction.”
THE ENEMY IS EVERYWHERE!
The second phase of our air battle against the fighters is proceeding so smoothly that the first phase feels like a distant nightmare.
There are several reasons for this, but the biggest is that we opened with a preemptive attack.
Along with the dragons, the Demon Lord and I helped unleash an enormous Wind Magic attack on them.
Before, the wyrms and aircraft were so mixed together that this would’ve been impossible, but once the Demon Lord eradicated a whole bunch of fighters, it became a lot easier to separate friend from foe.
And we’d have to be morons not to jump at that chance.
So we smashed a giant mass of air right into the swarm of fighters that were flying toward us.
A “mass of air” might not sound all that impressive, but trust me, it was crazy.
Picture the big hurricanes you sometimes see on the news and stuff.
If you’ve seen trees getting uprooted and whole houses blown away, you’ll understand just how destructive wind can be.
We controlled that wild force with magic and even compressed it to make it stronger and stronger before hitting the planes with it.
Wind Magic might make you picture sharp, cutting whirlwind attacks or whatever, but in reality, it’s a lot bigger and blunter than that.
I mean, we were hoping it might even damage the UFO while we were at it, that’s how big it was. Those stupid little fighters didn’t stand a chance.
As a result, more than half of the second swarm of aircraft was brought down by that one blast.
Wary of being rounded up again, the aircraft started spreading out quite a bit after that, so we didn’t get to use the same move again.
Kind of frustrating, since we probably could’ve really wiped all of them out in one go if they stayed close together.
Still, it was extremely effective.
With the momentum of that preemptive attack behind them, the wyrms have been taking down the remaining aircraft one by one.
Although unfortunately, even that giant spell didn’t damage the UFO one bit.
The barrier protecting the UFO is so damn strong that even though the magic definitely hit it, it didn’t budge an inch.
Will the bazooka Potimas gave me really be able to bust through that thing?
I’m definitely worried.
Still, things seem to be going in our favor for now.
The amount of fighters is finally getting sparse. Either the UFO figured that we’ll just blow them away again if it sends out the rest of the aircraft all at once or it’s finally running out of spares.
Since they’ve got the advantage in numbers now, the wyrms are dealing with the aircraft no problem.
The aircraft seem especially cautious of the Demon Lord, who was wreaking havoc on them not too long ago.
Wherever she goes, they’re giving her a wide berth.
They know if they get too close, she’ll jump on them and destroy them.
So for now, the Demon Lord is staying on top of her dragon, firing off little spells from time to time.
Although each time she does so, another aircraft goes down, so I guess they’re not really “little.”
Still, it’s not nearly as flashy as the way she was jumping from plane to plane before, so we’ll stick with “little” for now.
“Heh-heh! Outta my way! Wind dragon Hyuvan coming through!”
And then, of course, there’s a certain someone who’s getting super carried away.
I don’t need to tell you who, I’m sure. Especially since it just said its name itself.
Cut it out, will ya, Hyuvan?
If you keep doing stupid stuff, it’ll make me look stupid, too, since I’m riding on your back.
I can see how it’d want to get carried away, though.
Not long ago, things were going so badly that it was fully prepared to die, but now the tide has thoroughly turned in our favor.
Yep. It probably has to get this amped up if it wants to forget all the corny lines it was saying before.
I get it. I really do, bud!
Sometimes you say something that seems appropriate in the moment, but when you look back later when you’re in your right mind, it seems really embarrassing in retrospect!
That happens to me all the time!
I mean, like, all the time!
That’s why you always gotta keep yourself in check, or you’ll say something in the moment that you might regret!
But then something hits me.
Aren’t things going a little too well?
I mean, there are plenty of factors as to why it’s going this well.
There’s a good reason that we’re pushing forward like this.
But if I step back and look calmly at this forward-moving situation, I can’t help but feel like something’s wrong.
Things were going so poorly for us before, so how did the tables turn so fast in our favor?
It’s almost like we’re being guided this way on purpose.
For just a second, I get goose bumps.
I check the wyrms’ current state with Detection again.
The fighters and the UFO, too.
Those guys exist outside of the system, so skills like Analyze don’t work on them.
That means I can’t find out their exact strength and abilities, but there’s an even worse effect: My Future Sight doesn’t work on them.
I don’t know what they’re going to do next.
In this case, however, I think I can take a good guess.
The UFO is preparing something big.
“Take evasive action—now!”
I send a warning to all the wyrms via Telepathy.
If I tried to shout, it would only come out as a garbled shriek.
That’s why I used Telepathy, although I’m not sure if it helped at all.
Since my panicked warning startled a good amount of the wyrms into obeying, I’d like to think it did some good.
But there were still significant losses.
For just a moment, the sky is completely filled with light.
The UFO just fired a huge laser beam.
It swallows up anything it touches, aircraft and wyrms alike.
When it dissipates, there’s nothing left in its path.
It’s all been evaporated into nothing.
Dammit!
We’ve been had!
The reason there were fewer fighters was so that they wouldn’t get caught in the sights of the UFO’s main gun!
It was trying to catch the wyrms off guard, too.
So that it could wipe them all out!
We were aiming to take down the fighters in one big blow, so it’s only natural that our opponent would try to do the same thing.
Why didn’t I notice?!
The fighters are just one of the UFO’s weapons.
No matter how many of them we take down, it doesn’t really solve anything.
I should’ve realized that. Our real enemy is the UFO, not those stupid planes.
The UFO, the one that withstood that giant wind spell without a scratch, is our opponent, and the aircraft are just extras.
But I forgot about that and assumed things were going well just because we had the fighters under control.
And this is the price we pay for that: half of the wyrms’ numbers.
We even lost a few dragons, too.
Looks like they got even for the hit we landed before.
The UFO is a giant superweapon, so of course it would have powerful equipment.
Especially since it’s also carrying a bomb powerful enough to blow up an entire continent.
“Ahhh, dammit! They got us good. We really screwed the pooch!”
The wind dragon Hyuvan howls with rage.
“Gotta thank you, though. Any later, and we would’ve been up in smoke, too.”
I make a gesture at it not to worry about it.
Since I’m riding on its back, I don’t know whether it can see me or whether it’d understand even if it could, but whatever.
It’s the one who responded promptly to my warning and took evasive action.
Thanks to it, we didn’t get blown away.
If Hyuvan had gotten hit, then obviously I would’ve eaten it, too, since I’m on its back. It doesn’t need to thank me for saving both our lives.
Although I do have the Immortality skill, so I probably would’ve survived even if we did get blown to smithereens.
But I’ve got bigger fish to fry than thanking each other right now.
We have to get the wyrms back in line, or the UFO will come after us.
If I were the UFO, I know I wouldn’t miss a chance like this.
Sure enough, the UFO deploys a whole bunch of fighters.
I guess it still had plenty of them in store after all.
If all those fighters attack our side right now, the wyrms will scatter and get picked off one by one.
I’ve got to get them back into formation to take on the aircraft.
As I look around in a panic, I see an even less welcome sight.
The UFO’s main gun, the one that just fired on the wyrms, is slowly changing its angle.
Now it’s turning toward our troops on the ground.
Damn that UFO. It figured out that the wyrms were too quick a target, so it decided to go after something easier.
Since the dragons are all scattered, it knows it can do more damage by firing on the tightly packed troops below.
Clearly, this UFO is equipped with some top-notch AI.
Seriously, enough already.
Aircraft coming after our guys in the sky, the UFO’s main gun pointing at the ones on the ground.
We’re in danger on all sides.
If we don’t do something fast, we’re seriously screwed.
“White!”
As I try to come up with a plan, someone sends me a telepathic message.
It’s the Demon Lord.
“I’ll take care of the fighters, so you do something about that flying saucer’s main gun!”
Do something?
I mean, I’ll try my best, but is that really the kind of thing I can do anything about?
“White one.”
Another voice enters the telepathic conversation. This one must be Potimas.
“Use the weapon I gave you against the enemy’s main gun. That should be enough to destroy it.”
Oh yeah, now that he mentions it, I do have that thing.
The bazooka, the thing Potimas gave me so we could break into the UFO.
The idea was to use it to bust through the UFO’s exterior so we could get inside, so I guess it can probably destroy the UFO’s main gun, too.
I mean, if it can get through the exterior, why not?
But then I’d be using up the bazooka’s only shot on the gun. How are we supposed to get inside?
“But we won’t be able to break in if she does that.”
The Demon Lord raises the same concerns I had.
“Fear not. It is more than powerful enough to destroy the main gun. It will destroy the outer wall along with the emplacement.”
Ahhh.
So it’s gonna blow away the main gun along with the wall behind it, and then we’ll get in through there?
Hrmmm. Is that really gonna work?
Well, I guess I have no choice but to trust him on that right now.
“’Kay.” I answer shortly.
“’Kay?”
“She means ‘okay, no problem.’”
Potimas doesn’t understand my shortened response, so the Demon Lord explains for me.
Yeah, it’s kinda convenient to have her around at times like these, since she usually gets what I’m thinking.
“Gotcha. So we gotta fly on up to that big ol’ gun, right?”
Hyuvan, who was listening to our conversation, confirms our course of action.
I nod.
“You got it, boss! Hang on tight!”
With that, it speeds toward the main gun.
As if guessing our intentions, a bunch of fighters start swarming us.
“Tch!”
“Ignore them—keep going.”
Hyuvan seems concerned about the planes, so I try to tell it to just focus on moving forward.
As the fighter
s come toward us, I ward them off with Wind Magic.
They’ve got the same barrier as the tank, so my beloved Dark Magic won’t work on them.
Which means I have to use Wind Magic, whether I like it or not.
Seriously, you never know what’s going to come in handy someday.
I figured I might need Fire, Water, and Earth Magic, and I really do use them in everyday life from time to time, but I never imagined I’d need to use any other kinds of magic.
I mean, Dark Magic is more than adequate for attacking.
It’s stronger and faster, since my skill level and experience with it are higher, so it doesn’t make sense to use other kinds of magic that I’m not as used to.
Man, it’s a good thing I still leveled up my other magic skills, though.
This just goes to show that you can never have too many skills.
Even my other totally useless skills might turn out to be my saving grace one day, maybe! At least I hope so.
Seriously, when am I supposed to use Shieldsmanship and junk like that?
Is there even any shield out there that’s stronger than my body?
All right, yeah, I’m getting off topic here. Back to fighting the aircraft.
They must sense something about Hyuvan and me, ’cause they’re coming after us like nobody’s business.
I guess that might be for the best, since it buys the other dragons time to recover, but since I’ve got to destroy the main gun over here, I don’t have time to mess around with these damn planes.
That’s why I told Hyuvan to keep moving forward.
As I knock the pursuing aircraft out of the sky with Wind Magic, we keep heading toward the UFO.
Luckily, the main gun doesn’t seem capable of firing in rapid succession. It appears to still be charging, so there’s no sign that it’s about to fire or anything.
Still, that doesn’t mean we’ve got time to mess around.
If I don’t destroy that main gun before it fires again, our forces on the ground will be wiped out.
That gun was strong enough to blow away a dragon without leaving a trace, so even the strongest part of our ground troops, the queen taratects, would be far from safe.
I can’t afford to miss.
Ugh, if it wasn’t for this UFO’s stupid barrier, I could just teleport right in front of the UFO’s main gun and blow it away with the bazooka, easy as pie.
