by Mamare Touno
Even if Damage Interception was in place, it had been a long time since they began fighting. The twins had patches of dried blood all over, but they built the front line together, now stopping goblin knives that looked like meat cleavers, now exposing themselves to the fangs of the fierce, demonic wolf.
The time the twins bought was used up by a ringing chant.
It was the most powerful of all Rundelhaus’s ranged attack spells. The freezing spell had a long chant, but if it hit, it couldn’t fail to do considerable damage. Isuzu’s special support skill followed after, leaving a high-pitched echo in its wake.
As Rundelhaus shouted “Frigid Window,” his voice was ornamented by Isuzu’s singing voice, exactly one octave higher. The spell, which was now a round, froze all the goblins, turning them into statues.
As Minori retreated from the front line, which was abruptly dominated by cold air, she checked her companions’ statuses. What was the situation? Even as she absent-mindedly chanted a new Damage Interception spell, her color wasn’t good.
Rundelhaus’s powerful attack had taken out the minor goblins at a stroke. However, in order to buy that time, Minori had stepped onto the front line, and during the time they’d lost there, Touya had continued to take damage.
Minori chanted a new Purification Barrier for Touya, but Damage Interception spells wouldn’t recover lost HP. Kannagi used special recovery spells, and that was their fatal weakness—they exerted control such that damage was not inflicted, but they weren’t good with normal recovery spells, the type that recovered the damage itself.
Minori herself had lost many options, including that earlier emergency spell.
The situation wasn’t good.
Still, the fact that the goblins’ numbers were down was great news. The enemy’s advantage had been in the number of members who could make direct attacks. Now that they’d done away with that advantage, a slightly higher level of balance had been achieved on the battlefield. As Minori cast her own inferior recovery spells and damage absorption spells at Touya, she issued orders to Rundelhaus and Isuzu. Following those instructions, the two of them began concentrating their attacks on the Dire Wolf.
“When you’ve encountered multiple tough enemies, there are several possible strategies. If you’re mounting a surprise attack, it’s effective to take out the strongest enemy and damage their morale. If you do it well, the lesser enemies will run from you. But for other situations, in battles that take the best of both sides’ ability, the key to victory lies in cutting down the enemy’s numbers, starting with the weaker ones. You should firm up your damage control by reducing the number of enemies who participate in attacks.”
What Shiroe had taught her came back to her.
Touya was still bleeding. Minori’s precious little brother, the brother she was so proud of, was wounded, his face twisted in pain. However, precisely because that was true, they needed to concentrate on reducing the enemy’s numbers right now.
While Touya supported the front line in exchange for his own blood, Rundelhaus and the rest needed to finish off the Dire Wolf. That was how they’d be able to reward Touya for holding the front line.
Minori was faithfully following Shiroe’s advice, and just then, she had truly “read” the battle.
She grasped her friends’ HP and MP, gave orders, supported, helped to boost each of them up—she saw all there was to see of the terrain of the battle, became the wind over the battlefield itself. Minori was living with everything she had.
However, even Minori’s foresight couldn’t predict everything.
The one thing talent couldn’t make up for was combat experience.
A moment’s accident was enough to bring the balance crashing down.
The second Dire Wolf shook off Serara’s binding spell and joined the attack on Touya.
Two Dire Wolves and a powerful Hobgoblin. Against those three, the barrier Minori had cast shattered in a heartbeat.
In an instant, Minori took in the new information that had flown her way and ran calculations, half on instinct alone.
Nine seconds. —Yes. In nine seconds, Touya would die.
Minori stared frantically at her spell chant icon. Eight seconds left until the recast time for Purification Barrier was up. However, as she’d just seen, a Damage Interception spell in that class wouldn’t be able to stop the attacks of the three enemies in front of them.
“Not yet!!”
Serara’s scream rang out. The spell she cast was Pulse Recovery. This was a special recovery skill unique to Druids. The spell continuously recovered damage, and Touya’s HP should have been gradually climbing, but it wasn’t.
It was being lost faster than it was being recovered. Even Serara’s Pulse Recovery did no more than prolong the time until his death.
Recalculate.
Recalculate.
Recalculate.
As she desperately twined feeble recovery spells together, Minori calculated. Even when she combined all the recovery spells she had and all the recovery spells Serara had, she couldn’t push back the time when Touya would fall by more than thirty-five seconds.
Both her emergency recovery spells and her large recovery spells were exhausted. Recast time rendered more than half of the recovery spells available Minori and Serara unusable.
If this keeps up…
A nasty taste filled her mouth, and a nauseating shiver raced down her spine.
Touya was the cornerstone of the vanguard. If Touya fell, the odds of their being annihilated would skyrocket.
That wasn’t all.
An instinctive revulsion—Minori sensed the smell of death.
It was hard to breathe.
It was as though the air had become a liquid, and she couldn’t get it into her lungs. Time grew heavy, viscous, and all that filled Minori was a drawn-out sense of helpless, desperate impatience.
She wouldn’t make it in time.
She wouldn’t make it in time.
Minori stood, locked in cold air in midsummer, the blood pounding in her ears. All she could do was stare at Touya’s HP as it fell every tenth of a second.
As though something had burst, time sped up again.
Rundelhaus, who had dashed past Minori, rammed into the Dire Wolf and thrust both arms into its mouth.
“Rudy?!”
“Leave this to me, Mademoiselle Isuzu!! I am… I am an Adventurer! As if I’d allow a petty mongrel like this to defeat me!!”
The wolf was enormous, the size of an ox. Its jaws were lined with fangs that looked as though they could bite off his entire upper body, and Rundelhaus had shoved his arms in up to the shoulder. But the Dire Wolf planted its feet, which might as well have been made of steel. It swung its head around, destroying the wall of a building and taking Rundelhaus along with it.
“Rudy!!”
Isuzu’s shout was almost a scream. With the heavyweight spear she gripped in her hands, she struck out at the Dire Wolf, but its body was covered in bristles that deflected the blow.
“Calm down, Mademoiselle Isuzu. A gentleman…must always act noble…”
Rundelhaus had been dragged down onto the road, and over him, demonic flames blazed in the Dire Wolf’s eyes. The air it exhaled as it tried to spit Rundelhaus out stank like wild beasts, but, even crumpled and smeared with sweat and mud as he was, Rundelhaus clung to the Dire Wolf’s fangs, staying right in front of its face.
Every time the fangs gnashed, spraying the dull smell of blood around the area, Isuzu struck it with her spear, over and over, but Rundelhaus stopped her.
“If I run, this…thing will go af…ter Touya…again. Even Touya can’t…handle three…”
He was right.
Because Rundelhaus was sacrificing himself, Touya would be able to escape death. The pressure of the attack damage had eased, and the situation seemed to be taking a turn for the better.
“But Rudy, you’ll–!”
“Isuzu! We are attackers!!”
Rundelhaus shov
ed his arms even deeper into the wolf’s mouth, as though saying he’d give them to it. Wolves were canines, after all: Because of their sharp teeth, when something was pushed deep into their mouths, it was difficult for them to attack another target until they spit it out.
“But–”
“Defeat the enemy!!” Rundelhaus yelled, and then, as if he felt more words would be a waste, he began to chant. His arms were already shredded, no more than lumps of meat attached to his shoulders. Even so, as he forced them into the Dire Wolf’s mouth, he concentrated his flame energy. The magma spell Rundelhaus was shouting at the top of his lungs began to burn the Dire Wolf’s insides before he fired it.
He didn’t even need to fire it.
Rundelhaus’s spell was being generated inside the Dire Wolf’s mouth.
Unable to take the agony, the Dire Wolf tried to tear Rundelhaus off, but he clung like a man possessed, refusing to let the wolf go.
No: The fibers of the robe Rundelhaus wore were already tangled in the sawlike rows of fangs, and pieces of the elbow-length magic gauntlets were caught firmly in the teeth. It would have been hard for him to pull himself free.
“Do not underestimate me. I am—!!”
His hoarse voice echoed over the street, where the sunset was beginning to fade.
“I am Rundelhaus Code!! I am an Adventurer!!”
9
A scorched smell filled the area.
Rundelhaus had set the magic of the Magician’s Gauntlets on a rampage. As he’d planned, it had burned away the Dire Wolf’s insides, and then turned the right half of the Hobgoblin’s body to cinders on momentum.
The battle had ended in victory for Isuzu and the others.
However, Rundelhaus, who had been the key figure in that victory and who should have been laughing a conceited, empty-headed laugh, was lying in front of Isuzu, covered in mud.
“Nature Revive!!”
Serara’s resurrection spell had no effect.
Of course it didn’t. As he lay there, his face was already pale, and it was practically smothered in blood. His eyelids—which, even dirty, looked like a prince’s—were smooth, and he seemed just like a child of the nobility who’d fallen asleep, but…
…he was a Person of the Earth.
“…I’m sorry.”
Something hot was dripping into the palm of Isuzu’s hand.
“Why can’t you bring him back? Hey, Minori, do it again!” Touya yelled. He didn’t understand the situation.
Minori nodded and chanted Soul-Calling Prayer, but as expected, Rundelhaus didn’t regain consciousness.
That was only natural.
“I’m sorry… Touya. Rudy is a…Person of…the…Earth…”
Isuzu spoke slowly.
It felt as though, if she admitted it, she’d be letting him go, and the words tangled up in her throat, refusing to come out. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Minori clench her fists tightly, and she heard Serara murmur, “No…,” but Isuzu couldn’t care about any of it.
“—Rudy is a Person of the Earth. …He formed a party with us, adventured with us, ate with us, but… Rudy is a Person of the Earth, so…if he…dies…”
—If he had to…
Isuzu’s chest hurt so much it felt as if the pain would crush it.
It wasn’t as though she’d never imagined something like this.
It was why she hadn’t wanted him to fight, and why she’d thought that, if she couldn’t object completely, she’d protect Rundelhaus; she wouldn’t let him do anything reckless.
…But she hadn’t been able to stop him.
If she’d stopped him that first time…
If she’d flatly refused, back at Forest Ragranda, when she’d caught on. No, even if she hadn’t done that, if she’d only been open and told everyone, things might not have turned out this way, but…
In order to make Rundelhaus’s dream come true, Isuzu had cooperated with his lie.
When Rundelhaus had said, “I’m going to be an Adventurer,” his face had been so much like a little kid’s.
Adventurers and People of the Earth were different.
They were completely different beings.
He couldn’t possibly “become” one, and yet…
Of course. Hadn’t Rundelhaus been worried and hurt by it? He’d complained that no matter how much they fought, his experience points only rose at a snail’s pace. He wasn’t able to grow even half of half as much as Isuzu and the others, and he was irritated by the fact that his level wasn’t rising. That was why he’d trained as hard and as furiously as he had.
Isuzu had never seen Rundelhaus lazing around in the tent. Whenever he’d had even a little spare time, he’d been out training hard or meditating. Rudy himself said it was “a noble’s natural obligation,” or “a man’s long-cherished ambition,” but there had to have been impatience and irritation there as well, and even so…
Isuzu had known, and she’d let it slide.
I’m sorry. Rudy…I’m so sorry…
The way Rundelhaus had wanted it had been so childlike and innocent that Isuzu had seen his dream, too. The dream that a Person of the Earth could become an Adventurer.
“Rudy…is a Person of the Earth…?”
Isuzu nodded, responding to Touya. When she nodded, the tears that were rolling down her cheeks fell from her chin in large drops, but she didn’t care. This was Isuzu’s punishment.
Rundelhaus had been so kind.
She was just a skinny country bumpkin, but Rundelhaus had treated her like a girl.
She worried about her freckles, and she wasn’t the least bit sophisticated, but Rundelhaus had always called her “Mademoiselle.”
…And yet, to the very end, she hadn’t stopped him properly, had done nothing but get in his way, and she’d said he was dumb and doggish and had treated him just as she pleased.
She’d liked it when he talked to her.
She’d liked it when he complimented her.
She’d liked the way he treated her like a lady.
Isuzu couldn’t make the words flood out; it was as if they’d gone mad. They lodged in her throat, pushing up tears and a tiny, moaning voice.
Every single warm, gentle, awkward memory was her punishment for driving Rundelhaus into the jaws of death.
“Oh…” Serara murmured softly.
She cast Instant Heal, then put her ear to his chest. Her expression clouded, and she performed another recovery.
“Huh? Don’t tell me…”
Catching sight of an impossible hope, Isuzu pressed Serara for answers.
“I don’t know. His pulse is almost gone, but when I heal him, it feels as if there’s a very slight response… But I’m sorry. If resurrection won’t work, then…”
Isuzu felt the hope she’d only just managed to reclaim crumble to bits. However, there was one girl who’d firmly latched on to those words.
“Not yet.”
“Huh?”
“…Please help us. Please. We need your strength, Shiroe.”
1
“…Please help us. We need your strength, Shiroe.”
At that voice, which was forcing down pain to the point that it was heart-wrenchingly transparent, Shiroe’s intuition told him there’d been a disaster.
Minori wasn’t the sort of girl who would use a voice like that as a joke. She was serious and kind, stubborn and strong willed. She strove to emulate him.
Precisely because Minori tried to remember everything Shiroe did on the battlefield, right down to his casual habits and the way he walked, Shiroe wanted to teach her everything he knew.
And Minori always returned everything he taught her with effort that was worth more than full marks.
Shiroe didn’t know what sort of life Minori had lived back on Earth. He’d never asked. He had no way to measure the feelings of a middle schooler who’d been dropped into a strange land with no one but her little brother.
However, even in this strange land, Minori’s s
traightforwardness didn’t seem to have decreased in the slightest.
That was a virtue Shiroe didn’t possess. He’d been running away—running from making himself a place to belong.
An earnest girl who wasn’t afraid of dealing with strangers…
Minori seemed to idolize him, but Shiroe thought he was the one who was constantly saved by her certainty.
He couldn’t remember Minori ever actively asking him for a favor. She’d relied on him, she probably trusted him, and she tried to learn from him; but he didn’t think she’d ever openly asked him for help.
It was probably her way of showing pride. Even that was included in Shiroe’s respect for Minori.
The fact that she had contacted him by telechat in a voice that seemed to be desperately holding back tears that threatened to spill over at any moment, and the fact that she was relying on him over anyone else, shook Shiroe badly.
The view he saw through the tent flap was that of evening, already shading into purple.
“We’ve had a casualty. It’s Rundelhaus. He’s…”
In the telechat, behind Minori’s voice, he could hear ragged breathing and shouting.
The telechat function was a bit like a low-quality cell phone. When you were on the receiving end, the audio was replayed near your eardrums and there was no worry that the sound would leak to those around you, but when you were sending, you had to talk aloud, and the surrounding sounds were picked up as well.
Apparently Minori was either still on the battlefield or close to it. Her surroundings seemed turbulent, and he could hear women’s voices.
“He’s—”
“Rudy is…a Person of the Earth.”
Abruptly, another voice cut in.
Shiroe guessed that the voice belonged to Isuzu, the young female Bard Minori had told him about. In order for her to get her voice across this clearly on someone else’s telechat, she had to be speaking with her lips practically touching Minori’s.
At those few words, Shiroe understood everything.
He stood with enough force to kick the desk away, shouldered one of the magic bags that had been sitting nearby, and dashed out of the tent. He blew the pipe twice, then headed for the open space in the center of the Equestrian Garden without bothering to wait for the griffin’s arrival.