“Hold it!” I yelled, but my voice was erased by the roar of the crowd.
He raised the ax high. I yelled again, but no one could hear me. Damn it! Screw this!
Harissa, fight! Why are you just sitting there?! I knew she was a crybaby, but she wasn’t crying. There was no expression on her face at all.
It was the face of someone who’d given up on everything. She closed her eyes, as if in anticipation of her coming death. That idiot!
“I said, don’t give up!”
Clang!
Gah! It’s heavy! That ax is really heavy! I was lucky I managed to block it without my sword snapping. That’s just what I’d want from a Hero’s Sword.
But the masked executioner showed no sign of hesitation. He raised the ax again. That’s when Iris jumped in.
“What do you think you’re doing to my Rekka?!”
She gave him a vicious jump kick! She may have been a girl, but she had several times the strength of any Earthling. Her kick sent the executioner flying clean off the platform.
“Hero?” Harissa looked up at me, as if she couldn’t believe her eyes.
I wanted to say hello, but first, I had to deal with all the soldiers that were surrounding me. They were my first priority. I looked up at the king and the other ministers on the balcony.
“Hey, king, you know what sword this is, right?!”
I raised the Hero’s Sword that I’d just used to block that giant ax, and the men on the balcony, and the crowd too, started to whisper to one another. Evidently, the Hero’s Sword was just like the legend of the hero, and everyone knew it.
That made this easier. My first plan had been to persuade the king that I was the hero, but it would be better to just stir up the people.
“I am the hero, chosen by the Hero’s Sword! I was summoned here by the great wizard Harissa Hope, and I have just come from the Demon Overlord’s castle, where I fought to save the people of this world!”
The crowd got louder. The hero had appeared, gone to the Overlord’s castle, and returned... I could see the hope in their eyes.
“Do not be fooled, my people!” One of the ministers on the balcony shouted.
It was the old guy who’d doubted that I was the hero the first time I came here. He had a mustache and beard, so it was easy to recognize him.
“That child was only summoned here this morning! Even if he was the hero, he couldn’t make it there and back in such a short time!”
Normally, he’d have a point.
“Shut up, Mustache! I’m the hero! I can do whatever I want!” But I just yelled right back at him.
If I had more time, I could’ve told him about the technology I’d used, but just like before, time was running out. That’s why I needed proof, and I needed it now.
“Iris, bring it out.”
“Leave it to me!” She opened her bag and pointed it in a direction where no one was standing.
There was a huge thud, and the whole plaza shook. Out of the bag’s wormhole appeared the roasted head of the dragon. It was bigger than a grown man, and an impressive sight. Even if you’d never actually seen the Demon Overlord, you would surely believe that this was his head.
The people in the plaza forgot even to panic. They all looked at the Demon Overlord’s head in shock. The man who brought them this was the man who pulled the sword out of the stone. Nobody pointed out that there was no proof that this was the Overlord’s head.
I thought that the mustached man might try complaining again, but I’d cut open the barrier around the Demon Overlord’s castle when I was testing the sword. Without the barrier, anyone could go inside the castle, where they’d find the rest of the burnt body. Then nobody would be able to call Harissa a liar.
I raised the sword high, and the sun glinted off the blade. “I have defeated the Demon Overlord! There is no more need to fear his demons!”
It was a few seconds later when the cheers began.
▽
We got out of the plaza before we could be surrounded by the cheering people. Harissa was having trouble walking, so I carried her in my arms. First, we moved someplace empty, and then we met up with the old cook.
“Harissa! I’m so glad...”
“Ma’am...”
Harissa grabbed the crying old cook, and they both rejoiced in her safety.
I sighed in relief. I’d managed to get her out okay.
“I’m sorry for doubting you, Hero.” The old cook apologized as she cried.
“Nah, it’s fine. I’m just glad Harissa’s safe.”
“T-T-Thank you, Hero!” Harissa thanked me with tears coming down her face. Dark stains were forming on her flimsy prisoner’s robe.
“Hey, don’t cry,” I teased her.
“When I’m in front of you, I always sweat and cry!” She smiled, just a little, and wiped her tears away with her sleeve. “You saved me again, Hero.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“But... but... I said that I’d save you this time!”
“Harissa... if you really want to pay me back, would you come with me to Earth?”
“Earth?”
“The world I’m from. It’s in great danger right now, and I need your help to save it.” I felt a little like I was taking advantage of her, but I really did need her help.
“You really need me?”
“Yeah, I do!”
“Okay!” She rubbed her eyes with her sleeve, and smiled with a red face.
“I’ll do anything to help you! Please, let me help save your Earth!”
“Thanks! First, let’s get your clothes and your staff.”
Now I had the cards I needed. It was time for the biggest game of my life.
Chapter 6: A Long Way From a Hero
By the time Harissa used her sending magic to get us back to my world, and Iris’s warp got us back to Earth, it was past 11:00. We just barely made it in time for the meteor.
I’d already had Satsuki find out how King Satamonia was going to drop it. His plan, she said, was to use some kind of meteor cannon loaded aboard a spaceship to launch it at a high speed, and then use teleportation to make it appear right in Earth’s skies.
According to her, that spaceship was already parked several million kilometers away from Earth. It would only be four or five minutes until it hit. Normally, it was impossible to predict the path a meteor like this might take, and by the time you noticed it, it would have already hit you. But this terrifying weapon took time to prepare. It was a sign of how nasty a guy King Satamonia was.
The meteor his spaceship was readying was around fifteen kilometers long. It was almost the same size as the one that had caused the dinosaurs to go extinct.
We headed right under the impact point to stop it. Satsuki, Harissa, and I went down to the surface, and Iris stayed in space aboard her spaceship. I had another job for her.
“Whew...” I looked around. It had been a while since I’d seen Earth.
Geography wasn’t my thing, so I didn’t know where I was, but it was a big open field dotted with cherry trees. It must have been in a different time zone than Japan, because the moon was only starting to rise.
This was where I was going to stop King Satamonia’s meteor, and finish things with Messiah. The three of us finished our preparations for the last battle. Satsuki and I sat down under a big cherry tree, and Harissa became invisible and hid.
All we had to do now was wait for Messiah to answer Satsuki’s magical summons.
I was so nervous about the battle that my throat was choking up. So was Satsuki, it seemed. Neither of us spoke.
“Why not say something to make her feel better?” R whispered to me.
I turned toward my childhood friend. She sat there, unmoving and staring at a single point on the ground, as she whispered something in a soft voice. That was her habit when she was really nervous. Yeah... if neither of us said anything, we’d go crazy before the fight started, and then we’d have no hope of winning at all.
Satsuki jumped a little at my voice, and then looked up from the ground toward the tree above her. “You can find them all over the warm parts of the northern hemisphere. I guess this is the same kind of tree we’ve got in Japan, huh?”
“Oh, hey. The cherry blossom trees at the high school were in full bloom. You didn’t come to school today, so you didn’t get to see them, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s go see them tomorrow.”
“Yeah.” She smiled just a little.
The heavy weight on our shoulders got just a little bit lighter.
“At this point, we’ve just gotta see this through.” I balled my hands into fists and took a deep breath. “I’ll protect you, Satsuki.”
“Thanks, Rekka.”
And the climax of the stories silently came. Ten minutes before midnight, a man came down from the sky and landed on the ground before us: Messiah Kyandistrapps, the strongest mage of the modern era. I hadn’t seen him for eleven hours or so, but he still had that stupid smirk on his face.
He seemed a little surprised to see me. “You’re that boy, huh? I thought you ran away.”
“Haha...”
Well, from his perspective, that’s probably what it looked like at the abandoned factory. I had ended up running and leaving Satsuki behind, after all.
“Why would I run from a pussy like you?” But I laughed, instead. I could see Messiah’s eyebrows twitch.
“A pussy, you say?”
“Yup. Why would I run from some idiot wannabe who thinks he’s the strongest mage in the world?”
“Oh? Then who might you be, then?”
“I’m the strongest mage in the world, obviously.”
“What?”
My words were an obvious provocation. I was the one who’d used Satsuki’s magic to summon him here. Normally, that would make you suspect a trap, but I figured he’d fall for my provocations.
He was confident that he was the strongest mage. That he wouldn’t lose, no matter who he fought, or what kind of trap they set. That’s why he’d come.
“So what do you want to do with me?” Messiah chuckled.
I twisted my lips into the most evil-looking grin I could muster. “I want you to make a contract and duel me. The loser swears to never bother Satsuki again. That, and to release her parents.”
Satsuki had told me that contracts between mages were based on demonic contracts, and that even the strongest mage couldn’t break one. If I could beat Messiah under such a contract, he’d have no choice but to leave her alone.
“Very well, boy. But—” Messiah raised a finger. “Why don’t we add a condition that the Daughter of Omniscience must always obey the winner of the duel?”
“What?! You...” Of course, I tried to tell him where he could stuff his condition, but Satsuki interrupted me.
“It’s fine. I believe in you. So I don’t mind at all.” She looked at me and smiled kindly.
It would be really lame if I couldn’t say something here. “Leave it to me.” I couldn’t lose this fight.
“Now, agree to the duel contract.” Satsuki stood between me and Messiah, and performed the ritual.
“I assent,” I said.
“Of course, I assent,” Messiah said.
Both of us nodded, and Satsuki changed the spell to complete the contract. Translucent black chains rose out of the ground and wrapped themselves around us, binding something within our bodies. Supposedly, if we broke the contract, the chains would rip our souls apart.
The stage was set for the duel. I had Satsuki step back so that she wouldn’t get caught up in it.
“Rekka, don’t die, okay?” She said to me, with tears in her eyes.
I laughed. “Hey, I’m going to win, right? So there’s no need to worry.”
“You’re right. Good luck, Rekka.”
“Sure thing.” She moved back fifty meters or so, and prepared to watch the duel.
Messiah and I squared off, the cherry blossom tree standing between us in the background.
“I can tell at a glance that you’ve no talent for magic. I don’t know what it is you’re planning, but you’re about to learn that the tricks of the incompetent are of no use against me.”
“Heh... I can’t wait to see the look on your face when I kick your ass.” I laughed again and took a quick glance at my watch.
Five minutes to midnight. Everything was on track.
“Here I go!” I broke into a run and started to go clockwise around the cherry tree. As I ran, I drew the laser gun from my belt. Harissa had made it invisible for me, and Iris had adjusted it to tone down its power. I pulled the trigger, and a spear of light flew at Messiah.
“Oh?” But the defensive wards in front of him blocked it. I’d expected this, but still, Messiah’s defenses were incredible. “I thought you had no talent. Was I wrong?”
He seemed a little surprised, but not at the attack. He was surprised at the fact that I’d used, or seemed to have used, magic. He had totally underestimated me.
He raised a hand to shoulder height. “Now it’s my turn.”
I started to run as fast as I could to escape from his fingers.
“It’s useless. Unless, of course, you can run faster than light.” Pale sparks started to appear in the air around him. The sparks grew into small bolts of lightning that wrapped around his arm. “This is the end.”
A blast of lightning headed straight for me. The fastest man on Earth couldn’t escape from a bolt of lightning.
That’s why I had a trick ready.
The lightning turned away from me and crashed into the ground.
“Agghh!” I’d avoided being directly hit, but the shock of the lightning’s impact had kicked up dirt and small stones, and some of them had hit me. I’d quickly moved my arms to protect myself, but my whole body felt like I’d been punched. I didn’t think I could take too many hits like that, but I’d survived this one.
“I missed?”
Messiah seemed confused. He’d intended to end this in a single strike.
“Hah! You suck!” I yelled as loudly as I could, as blood poured from my forehead and biceps.
He sent two or three more spears of lightning my way. My taunts must have been getting to him. All of them bent away to the left or right. None of them hit me.
The trick was a simple one. Satsuki had told me in advance that Messiah’s favorite type of magic was lightning magic. So I’d seeded the ground with powerful space lightning rods that Iris had prepared for me.
Even magic lightning was still lightning. It would be drawn toward a lightning rod before it would go after a human body.
Normally, the rods would be easy to spot, but Harissa’s magic had made them invisible, too. And thanks to my laser gun, Messiah was convinced I could use magic. As long as he was under that suggestion, he would think I was using magic to deflect his lightning.
Of course, if he used anything other than lightning, I was screwed, but the difference in our strengths was obvious. I couldn’t hurt him, and he could keep attacking me as long as he liked. Since there was no chance of him losing, he’d probably put his pride ahead of his victory, and keep using his favorite type of magic.
I couldn’t count on that to last forever. But I didn’t need it to last forever. I just needed it to last for a little while! Only thirty seconds left until midnight!
“Messiah!” I screamed his name, and pointed for him to look up at the heavens.
“What?” Messiah froze and followed my finger.
My plan was a simple one: to tell him that King Satamonia’s meteor was my own magic. The proud Messiah would then destroy “my” meteor for me. All right, time to get your butt to work, mage!
“Can you stop my magic?!” I lowered my index finger down from the sky to make it look like I was doing something. Say, strike him with the falling meteor. Now all tha
t was left was to see if he really was the strongest mage of the modern era. It was weird, but at this point, I had no choice but to believe in him.
But instead, Messiah just stared at me. “So where is your magic?”
“Huh?” I looked up to the sky in panic. All I could see was a full moon and the shining stars. There was no sign of any meteor.
I stopped myself from screaming and turned to R for help, but she just shook her head. Just when I really needed her, too. Come on, give me a hand here!
Messiah laughed at me. “I’ve figured you out. Everything you do is a bluff. It’s all an act, a farce. And as long as you maintain the farce, you’re fine. But as soon it ends, you’re nothing.”
He was right. I clenched my trembling hands into fists.
“Enough of this, boy.” He raised his hand up to the sky.
A swirl of electricity, so powerful it could be seen with the naked eye, began to form. The sparks of lightning began to collide, growing larger and forming into a ball.
Was this the thing he’d tried to use at the factory? But this time, it was several times bigger.
A lightning sun. I didn’t know if those were the right words for it, but I could tell that touching that thing at all would fry me with billions of volts, and there would be nothing left. There was no way those lightning rods could stop that thing. This was the power of the world’s strongest mage.
He looked at me with arrogance in his eyes. “You’ve done well... for one so powerless, that is. You may boast of your bravery in the next world.”
“Powerless, huh?” He was right, and I knew it.
In the end, I was just a fake. A long way from a hero. I wasn’t special. With only the slightest flaw in my plan, I was just a helpless boy.
But still, I didn’t relax my clenched fists. These fists were a bluff, too. I’d never been in a real fight in my life. I’d spent my whole life trying not to stand out, so that was only natural.
But my hands were always ready to become fists. Anyone can make a fist, when they want to protect someone. When you make a fist for someone you want to protect, you can fight anything— a mage, a meteor, or even a demon overlord from another world. Even if I wasn’t a real hero, I could still fight anything.
I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 1 Page 11