Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Vol. 1 (light novel)

by Hiro Ainana

  I don’t know if this is a dream or a game or what, but if I find my way to a human civilization, it looks like I won’t need to worry about money. I hope there’s no bartering system…

  Among my Magic Items were all manner of Holy Swords, Divine Blades, and the like, plus something called a Magic Gun. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind, my middle school self was going nuts. All the swords had stupid names like Excalibur and Durandal, but since it was my dream, I guess I had my own subconscious to thank for that.

  Possibly as some kind of antitheft measure, the Holy Swords unleashed a static-like shock that damaged me when I pulled them out, so I put them away for the time being. I’d been able to use them for only a minute, but the swords emitted a pretty blue light when I did. The light faded after a brief moment, though, so maybe they just glowed in the dark.

  Moving on, I took the Magic Gun out of Storage and fired it experimentally at a nearby rock. There was a little bit of lag between when I pulled the trigger and when the gun fired, but it was still pretty powerful.

  At any rate, now that I’d played around for a bit, it was time to get back to the work of sorting all my items.

  Before I knew it, the rain had stopped.

  I think I must have dozed off while sorting. This was much more sleep than I’d gotten in a while, so I woke up feeling refreshed. That I was able to sleep so soundly on a cliff like this shows just how exhausted I’d been.

  I poured water into a pail I’d found in Storage and used it to wash my face.

  …Huh? Wait, something didn’t look quite right there.

  I looked again. Something was definitely off. Pulling out the flip phone from my pocket, I snapped a selfie.

  “Yeesh! This is what I looked like as a first-year in high school…” Maybe it was just my imagination, but even my voice sounded younger. Well, I guess it wasn’t that unusual to dream about being a student again.

  Having gotten a good night’s rest, I figured it was probably time to move on, since there wasn’t much else to do here. Looking at the map, I found an area called the Soldiers’ Stronghold about sixty miles to the west. It seemed to be devoid of life, and it was on the very edge of my map, so I wasn’t sure what the situation might be beyond it.

  But I didn’t see any other significant man-made landmarks, so I figured I might as well start in that direction.

  Before heading out, I opened up the skill screen to mess around a little. I had ignored it yesterday, but it looked like a lot of new skills had appeared on the list. I counted eleven in total: “One-Handed Sword,” “Throwing,” “Evasion,” “Parry,” “Practical Magic: Other World,” “Summoning Magic: Other World,” “Fear Resistance,” “Pain Resistance,” “Self-Healing,” “Observation,” and “Ancient Scalefolk Language.”

  Maybe I had just learned them by leveling up, but it seemed like there would be more if that was the case. Did I acquire skills through my actions somehow?

  Skill levels ranged from 1 to 10, and you could enhance them by allotting skill points to them. It was a simple conversion rate of one point for each level, and I currently had 3,100 points left, so I just leveled them up as I saw fit.

  I didn’t want a repeat of that lizardman encounter, so I started by maxing out any skills that had to do with resistance or seemed like they’d be useful in combat. It looked like you could also turn them on and off after allotting points.

  I descended from the cliff and ran along the ground.

  I was wearing an item I’d found in my Storage called Wing Shoes. The ambiguous flavor text stated that they make small adjustments for walking a difficult path, but at any rate, they were certainly sturdy. I’d changed my clothes as well, into a robe I found in my spoils made of something called Yuriha fiber.

  Presumably because of my increased stats, I was moving at almost forty miles per hour, yet I didn’t feel tired or out of breath at all. Worrying about it too much threatened to make me trip on my own feet, though, so I tried to just focus on running.

  With the morning sun at my back, I cleared my mind and kept moving forward.

  Hmm? What was that?

  As I bounded toward the Soldiers’ Stronghold, I felt myself breaking through some kind of membrane. I slowed down to have a look. About a mile away from the Stronghold, there seemed to be a thin force field.

  As I gazed at the invisible wall for a moment, an AR display popped up with the label Valley of Dragons: Barrier. A barrier… Just one more fantasy cliché, I guess.

  There was a little bit of resistance, but it seemed like I could go in and out pretty easily. It seemed to halt air movement—when I kicked up a cloud of dust, it stopped at the invisible wall. Even the vegetation seemed to be different on either side—the reddish-brown wasteland turned light brown, with a few weeds sprouting here and there.

  Well, I guess it was a wasteland either way, but still.

  I removed the piece of cloth I’d wrapped around my mouth and took a deep breath at last. Ahh…the air tasted great. It was dry, but that was pretty normal for what seemed to be a winter climate.

  Not long after passing through the barrier, I arrived at my current goal, the Soldiers’ Stronghold. It was a compact stone fortress, with a mortar plaza that seemed to be some kind of arena. The outer walls were crumbling; it was even more abandoned than I’d expected. I had known from the map that there was nobody there, but the place seemed like it had been empty for a very long time, as it was overrun with dust and spiderwebs.

  I searched around the inside and outside of the stronghold, but aside from some gravestones in the shadow of the arena, I didn’t find much of anything.

  Since this seemed to be the edge of the Valley of Dragons, the scope of my radar was reduced to only a few dozen feet. Looking at the map, I saw that the name in the upper-left corner had changed from Valley of Dragons to Shiga Kingdom: Seiryuu County. Hmm. So this is some kind of monarchy, huh?

  If this were a legend or myth, I’d probably meet a beautiful princess and fall in love or something—but given my personality, I was way more likely to be a supporting character who cheers on the hero from the sidelines.

  I didn’t know how long this dream was going to go on, but it could have at least thrown in a lovable busty maid.

  I decided to use the Search Entire Map function to investigate Seiryuu County, but first, I did a few experiments. It seemed like the AR screen had only basic menu functionality, while the spell offered more detailed information.

  Still experimenting, I opened the map and inspected the nearest populated area. This worked similarly to the one in WW, and once I’d used Search Entire Map, I could freely refine it to show human or animal life, not just the terrain.

  Apparently, the closest civilized area was a place called Seiryuu City, about twelve miles away. There was another city, too, but that one was hidden away in some mountains roughly thirty miles out, so I nixed it. I saw plenty of villages, too, but Seiryuu City was still closest, so it didn’t make sense to traipse all the way out there.

  Seiryuu County stretched about forty miles in all directions. Bigger than Tokyo but smaller than Chiba, maybe? This was stuff I’d learned making models in middle school, so I didn’t have a lot of confidence in my estimate.

  On the way to Seiryuu City, maybe three miles from here, there was an army of about one hundred people. The average level of the soldiers was 7, with the highest being 31.

  That seems surprisingly low…, I thought, as I looked closer at the map. There were less than ten people in the entire area above level 40 and none at all above level 50. It was probably safe to assume 310 was a pretty high level, then.

  Still, I don’t like trouble, so I decided to take a roundabout path so as to avoid encountering the army. Maybe I was being a little overly cautious despite being in a dream, but I didn’t want to make any more frightening memories.

  As I went on my way to Seiryuu City, a red dot suddenly appeared on my radar, racing straight toward me. I was traveling through a rocky ar
ea with lots of ups and downs, so even if I looked in the direction of the dot, I couldn’t see anything.

  Examining my map, I discovered it was a level 30 wyvern. I wanted to check it out, so I hopped onto a nearby rock formation.

  “Ngh?!”

  As I leaped up, I crashed headfirst into the wyvern, and the collision sent me tumbling to the ground.

  Ohh, my head…

  I’d rolled down along no less than thirty feet of rocky ground before smashing into a rock face. Good thing I had that “Pain Resistance” skill…and a high VIT stat, I guess. Despite all that bumping around, I didn’t have a single wound. I’ve gotten pretty sturdy, haven’t I?

  The beast had flown back up into the sky and was circling around, waiting for the right time to attack. Judging by the size of the head I’d smacked into earlier, I’d say its wingspan was about one hundred feet. Its body looked closer to a pteranodon than a dragon, I thought. And the stinger on the end of its long tail was a typical fantasy add-on for this kind of creature.

  Trying to make a diversion, I chucked a nearby pebble at the circling predator.

  Huh? I’d just wanted to distract it, but the stone pierced right through the wyvern’s wing and disappeared into the sky beyond. If this had been a manga, I got the feeling there would’ve been a twinkle and a little shing! sound effect as the projectile soared away.

  It may have pierced the creature’s wing, but the pebble had still been only a small one, so it wasn’t enough to bring it down. Still, it served the purpose of driving it away. The wyvern flew off toward a distant cliff, tracing an unsteady path through the air.

  Oh dear. It was heading in the direction of that army.

  The knight leading the party was a higher level than the wyvern, so I figured they’d probably be fine, but still… I felt kind of bad for sending it their way in the first place, so I decided to go check things out, just in case.

  I scaled the sixty-foot cliff in only three jumps. I probably could have done it in two, but the branches jutting out from the rock face were in the way.

  As I ascended, I saw the wyvern circling above new prey. Jumping over a few large rocks at the top, I could see the monster’s target—the army down below. They were probably about eight hundred, maybe a thousand feet away.

  I could hear the commander’s voice from here, but no matter how hard I strained, I couldn’t understand what he was saying. Of course, I speak only Japanese and a little bit of broken English, but usually I can at least guess what language I’m hearing. This time, though, it was apparently a language I’d never heard before. And it wasn’t just some gibberish nonsense like you often hear in dreams—it sounded like it had a real structure.

  Come to think of it, the lizardmen’s language was like that, too, wasn’t it? It was getting harder and harder to believe this was really a dream, but…the alternative was too frightening, so I tried to press on with the conviction that this was all in my mind.

  Once I’d properly escaped from thinking about my situation, I checked in on my skill menu, and sure enough, a new skill called “Shigan Language” had appeared. For now, I decided to allot one point to it.

  “Everyone! Line up—quickly!”

  Aha! It wasn’t perfect, but I could understand the gist of the commander’s words. I added on a few more points. Before long, I could tell he’d said, “All hands, form a circle! Quickly, now!” I could comfortably understand the language at around five points, it seemed. Just to try it out, I raised the skill points to the max of ten, but after six or so, it didn’t make much of a difference.

  Aside from the language, I’d also gained seven more skills somewhere along the way: “Hand-to-Hand Combat,” “Sprinting,” “Spatial Mobility,” “Long-Distance Vision,” “Telescopic Sight,” “Keen Hearing,” and “Lip Reading.” In WW and FFL, gaining skills usually involved clearing fairly difficult quests and missions, but the process seemed a lot easier in this dream.

  I’d turned off the log screen display, since it got in the way when I was moving, but I wanted to know how I was acquiring skills, so I set it up so I could see just a few lines at a time in the corner of my vision. For the moment, I divvied out some points to skills that seemed useful for watching the show—er, for keeping an eye on the situation: “Long-Distance Vision,” “Telescopic Sight,” “Keen Hearing,” and “Observation.”

  The army had huddled into a circular formation to fend off the wyvern. When I concentrated on them, my new skills kicked in—I could see them as if looking through binoculars. How was it that my field of vision remained the same, yet whatever I focused on became as clear as if I’d zoomed in? I decided to save that investigation for another time and turned my attention to the matter at hand.

  A row of heavily armored soldiers with large shields manned the outside of the circle, while inside, there were two rows of more lightly equipped soldiers with long spears. The way the points all shifted to match the movements of the circling wyvern made the formation look like some sort of living creature. After the spearmen, a group of archers knelt in standby position, ready to loose.

  “Don’t be afraid, soldiers! Remember your training!”

  “Let’s show that thing the spirit of Seiryuu!”

  Voices called out from the within the ring, encouraging the frightened soldiers.

  Well, yeah… It was only natural to be afraid of a monster like that.

  In the very center of the circle stood a robed, staff-wielding figure, presumably a sorcerer. To the figure’s left and right were two female soldiers, lightly armored and holding what looked like conductor’s batons. At first I thought they were guns, but the AR label that popped up informed me they were called short wands. Apparently, the women wielding them were known as magic soldiers. So the two women were magic users, too… Then why weren’t they wearing robes?

  A group of soldiers standing near the trio appeared to be the sorcerers’ escorts. And outside the circle, eight or so knights trotted around on horseback. It looked almost like they were moving behind the four ranks of troops, putting the circle between them and the wyvern. These guys were covered from head to toe in shining, silvery full-plate armor, so why were they using the rest of the army as a shield?

  “Here it comes! Spearmen, don’t let your spear tips wave around in the air! Plant the end in the ground and drive it in with your feet. If it’s loose, the wyvern’s attack will knock it right out of your hands!”

  “Archers, hold—wait until it is frightened by the spears and slows its speed!”

  The commander’s meticulous instructions were probably only frightening these poor soldiers even more, not reassuring them. Possibly that was why each time the monster attacked, they only staved it off with their spears without making much of a counterattack.

  The archers were pretty skilled, seeing as about 90 percent of the arrows hit their mark. But it seemed like most of them just bounced off the wyvern without causing damage. Was the creature’s skin just that tough, or was it because their level wasn’t high enough? I couldn’t tell.

  But, just like a critical hit in a game, one of the girls guarding the sorcerers managed to pierce the wyvern’s hide with an arrow.

  Around this point, I noticed there were more soldiers in the forest some distance from the circle. At a glance, they appeared lightly outfitted—perhaps they were noncombat personnel, like military engineers or transportation officers, taking refuge from the battle.

  …Which meant the army had most likely challenged the wyvern expecting to win. I’d planned to help out by scaring it away with rocks if necessary, but it seemed like I’d worried for nothing.

  I stowed away the rock in Storage and settled in to watch how this army would fight.

  The wyvern repeatedly swooped down to attack, but the encircled troops simply repelled it each time with their spear wall and short bolts they shot from their crossbows.

  Finally, during the fourth attack, something changed. Just as it started to return to the sky after anot
her failed attack, its balance faltered, as if one of its wings had suddenly lost its lift. The beast crashed into the ground unnaturally, like a giant invisible hammer had struck it.

  This must have been some kind of magic at work.

  When the wyvern had lost its balance, I’d heard one of the sorcerers in the center chanting a rhythmic, almost synthetic-sounding song, ending with a shouted word: “Turbulence!”

  The last part must have been a trigger word or something—I heard it almost in stereo. It was like she’d spoken an ancient word and its modern equivalent at the same time; my brain processed the modern word in Japanese (rankiryuu) and the ancient word in English (“turbulence”). It was pretty fascinating.

  Apparently, the spell that had delivered the final blow to bring down the wyvern was called Air Hammer. This was the first time I had heard a magic spell being chanted, but I had to wonder how the incantations in this world were pronounced. I could understand the final trigger words, but the chant itself seemed more like a series of bizarre sounds than actual words. It was almost like if you used music software to generate a series of notes on a PC.

  While pointless details once again distracted me, the battle had progressed.

  The wyvern was making revolting shrieks as it dragged itself along the ground, but its HP bar indicated it hadn’t actually taken all that much damage.

  But the sorcerers seemed to have done their job well.

  The creature spread its wings in an attempt to fly, but the mounted knights pierced them with their lances. Still, its HP was down by only about 20 percent.

  A particularly high-level knight skillfully pinned one of the wings to the ground, trapping the wyvern on its back. The other knights worked together to immobilize the other wing, but a single flap sent them flying back several feet, horses and all.