Love, Witches, & Other Delusions

by Natsume Akatsuki

  As if we’d ever get off this easily.

  Normally, this was the point where someone would say some careless, event-flag-tripping thing like, “We did it!” Maybe for once we could avoid that—tighten our perimeter, stay sharp…

  “We did it! Mobile Fortress Destroyer, my foot! Talk about overhyped! Let’s head home and hit the bar, everyone! How much do you think a nation-annihilating superfortress is worth?”

  “Idiot! Why would you say that?! Stop it before—”

  The careless line came from Aqua, and though I tried to stop her…

  …it was already too late.

  “…? Wh-what’s this rumbling…?”

  Wiz, who had been trailing Aqua, looked up at the fortress uneasily. It was clearly the epicenter of the tremors shaking the ground. Other adventurers joined her in looking up at the thing.

  And then we heard it.

  “This vehicle has ceased moving. This vehicle has ceased moving. Heat venting and dispersal of kinetic energy are no longer possible. All hands, leave the vehicle immediately and evacuate to a safe location. This vehicle…”

  A mechanical voice from inside the fortress looped the message over and over.

  “See that?! You just aren’t happy unless every time you take a step forward, you take two more back, are you?!”

  “Wait—Hey, wait! This isn’t my fault! I haven’t done anything yet this time!”

  7

  As the evacuation order continued to sound from inside Destroyer, I gathered some nearby adventurers.

  “Hey,” one of them said, “what’s with that voice? I don’t think we ought to stick around here…”

  I agreed with him. But then, I figured pretty much everyone did.

  “My guess is that thing’s about to go boom,” I said. The others frowned.

  We could only imagine how much damage would be done if something that size exploded.

  We didn’t even know how Destroyer moved—there didn’t seem to be much more we could do. The most we could manage, maybe, was to run…

  But could I get our hardheaded Crusader to dump the town and come with us?

  Hang on. We weren’t sure it would explode or that any explosion would damage the town.

  Maybe I could use that to convince her to…

  “M-my store! If anything happens to Axel, my store will be gone…!”

  That was Wiz, on the verge of tears. She was thinking of her magic shop.

  But…

  “This vehicle has ceased moving. This vehicle has ceased moving. Heat venting and dispersal of kinetic energy are no longer possible. All hands, leave the vehicle immediately and evacuate to a safe location. This vehicle…”

  The announcement looped on. But over it, I could hear somebody mutter:

  “I’ll do it.”

  I wonder who said that?

  “…Me too. Now I remember why I stayed in this starter town, even though I’m past Level 30 already.”

  W-we have a Level 30+ guy around…?

  I got what he was saying, though.

  “This town’s given me an awful lot. Well, it’s time for me to give back—or it’s all over!”

  There was a long silence.

  Well, silent except for…

  “This vehicle has ceased moving. This vehicle…”

  I raised the megaphone and shouted into it.

  “Everyone who wants to be part of boarding Mobile Fortress Destroyer, raise your hand!”

  Every hand around shot into the air without a moment’s hesitation. The Archers readied their hook-tipped arrows and let loose.

  Archers had a skill called Deadeye.

  It dramatically increased the distance an arrow could fly, as well as its accuracy.

  The enhanced distance from this skill allowed the arrows to easily reach Destroyer’s plating, despite the heavy tips and ropes attached to them.

  The hooks caught on bumps and protrusions along the fortress’s exoskeleton, and a tug on the ropes set them deep.

  Then it was just a matter of climbing on up, one adventurer after another.

  I guess by this point there was no need to explain that they somehow managed to climb in full armor, or faster than a person had any right to, or with incredible strength.

  At length, the first adventurer on the rope scrambled up onto the carapace.

  Person after person followed them, with morale so high it seemed they’d been training for this day all their lives.

  “Get up there!” people shouted. They sounded like pirates raiding a defenseless village as they piled on to the massive fortress.

  Aqua, intimidated rather than inspired by the unusually eager adventurers, tugged on my sleeve.

  “Y-yikes… Kazuma, I’m kinda…kinda scared to go up there. There’s plenty of them now, right? I’m sure they can handle it. Let’s go home. Have a nice rest—tomorrow’s another day, you know?”

  But we couldn’t do that.

  My companions, my friends, were fighting up there.

  “We’re not going home, dumbass. Are you blind? Look at those heroes! Your work’s only just starting. We’ll need a goddess to heal them. Unless you’re just pretending.”

  Then I followed the others toward the fortress.

  Even the Archers were already on board.

  I shouted:

  “Darkness, you stay where you are; your armor’s too heavy to climb up here, anyway! And Megumin, you rest! Wiz can do whatever she wants. Aqua, you’re behind all this, so come with me!”

  “I told you, I didn’t do anything this time!”

  Aqua, nearly in tears, followed me as I grabbed a rope.

  And Wiz followed her.

  When we got aboard, we found…

  “Surround them golems! Bring ’em down with your ropes, then smash ’em with your hammers!”

  You could barely tell who were the hunters and who the hunted. Various golems, small-type and battle-type, lay in pieces on the floor, victims of this town supposedly full of novice adventurers.

  “Hey, you! I know you’re in there! Open up! Hey, somebody take a hammer to this door!”

  “Come on out! You’re responsible for attacking our town—and you’re gonna pay!”

  I looked over. Several adventurers were trying to pry open the door of the area that presumably housed the guy behind all this, the one who was rumored to still be aboard Destroyer.

  We really looked like the aggressors here.

  Whoops…

  “One of the big ones got away!”

  I looked toward the voice and saw a single Battle Golem.

  It looked like some old-timey robot: boxy and bulky and clumsy.

  And it was coming our way. Other adventurers rushed to help us.

  But I had a special anti-golem ace up my sleeve.

  “Hey, Aqua. Wanna see a neat trick? I’m gonna show you how to really use a skill.”

  I flexed my hand, then thrust it out toward the advancing machine.

  I was up against a golem.

  That meant that if I could steal the right part, it would stop moving.

  I’d done the same thing against some machine-type enemies in an RPG once while I was still in Japan.

  This was simple. Use a theft skill on a machine, instant kill!

  Let’s face it: Even I was getting better every day.

  “Steal!”

  “Wha…?! Kazuma, wai—”

  Aqua seemed to guess what I had in mind, and she called out to stop me…

  …but I already had the golem’s massive head in my outstretched hand.

  The headless golem, of course, stopped dead.

  Perfect!

  The giant stolen head sat in my hand. It was giant and heavy…heavy… My hand was dragged to the floor.

  “Arrgh! My arm! My arrrrm!”

  My self-satisfied expression gave way to weeping, and the nearby adventurers hurried to roll the golem head off my hand.

  “Gosh! Are you all right, Mr. Kazuma?! It’s best not to
use Steal against opponents with exceptionally large pieces!”

  As Wiz fretted about me, Aqua inspected my hand.

  “It’s broken, Aqua, I’m sure it is!”

  “Not a crack. I’ll go ahead and cast Heal on it, but don’t do anything stupid like that again, okay?”

  H-how humiliating…

  “We got it!”

  Some adventurers had broken open the door to the towerlike structure with their hammers. Adventurers began to pour into it.

  I guess nothing scared them at that point.

  They didn’t even seem to mind the warning still blaring over the speakers as they rushed in with no regard for party balance or anything.

  Aqua and I followed after our bold compatriots.

  There were several golems inside, but they were efficiently dispatched.

  Adventurers didn’t usually work together easily, but when they did, it was a sight to behold.

  As we worked our way into the structure, we found a throng of fighters outside a particular room. Everyone wore subdued expressions; it was as if the adrenaline had simply vanished.

  Taylor emerged from inside and said, “Oh, Kazuma. Good timing. Have a look at this.”

  He seemed oddly downcast, too.

  I looked. He was pointing to a bleached human skeleton.

  The creator was on board the fortress. Sitting alone, in a chair in the middle of the room, surrounded by golems.

  I called Aqua and motioned her into the room.

  I pointed wordlessly to the skeleton, and she just shook her head.

  “He’s already moved on. He’s not becoming an undead—he doesn’t even have a shred of attachment to this life.”

  …………

  Not a shred?

  “You’re kidding. He must have had some attachment. Look at this! He died by himself, alone…”

  Aqua seemed to notice something as I spoke.

  It was a diary, buried beneath a jumble of papers on his desk.

  Aqua picked it up. Everyone else, sensing the mood, fell silent.

  All the adventurers looked on. The only sound was the mechanical voice repeating its warning.

  Aqua began to read the journal aloud—

  “Month Such-and-Such, Day So-and-So. Our nation’s bigwigs are nuts. They want me to build a mobile weapon on this budget? It’s impossible! And I told them so, but it fell on deaf ears. I wept, I begged, I got on my knees, but they wouldn’t listen. I tried to quit, but they wouldn’t accept my resignation. I tried to pretend I’d lost my mind and ran around in nothing but my underwear. But all that happened was one of the female researchers suggested I should hurry up and take off the underwear, too. I fear all may be lost for this country.”

  Everyone seemed to be looking at the skeleton.

  “Month Such-and-Such, Day So-and-So. The blueprints are supposed to be ready today. What am I going to do? I can’t tell them I still have nothing but a blank sheet! I’m desperate, and I can’t give back their advance, because I already drank away everything they paid me. While I was contemplating the empty blueprint earlier, my hated nemesis, the spider, crawled across the sheet. I screamed and smashed it with some object near to hand. Right on my blueprint. Paper of that quality is immensely expensive in this day and age—yet if they demanded reimbursement, how would I pay them? The hell with it. Maybe I’ll just submit the blueprints as they stand.”

  Uh…huh. The mood in the room had grown tense. Aqua kept reading.

  “Month Such-and-Such, Day So-and-So. My blueprints were unexpectedly well received. I suppose I shouldn’t tell them how impressed I am that they can bring themselves to touch a dead spider. Production, in fact, is plowing ahead. Holy moly. All I did was kill a spider—and they made me chief of production! Yahoo!”

  I started to wonder if Aqua was just making this up as she went along, but her face was absolutely serious.

  “Month Such-and-Such, Day So-and-So. Production somehow continues apace despite my failure to actually do anything. This project doesn’t even need me! Ehh, so what? I’ll just live my own life… They’ve been bugging me about a power source, but what of it? I’ve been saying from the start this couldn’t be done. I told them, fine, bring me some Coronatite—a legendary, über-rare gem that can produce power endlessly. I told ’em, good! I’d like to see them try and bring me that stuff.”

  ………

  “Month Such-and-Such, Day So-and-So. They brought it to me. What am I gonna do? The bastards actually brought it to me! We’re setting it up in some sort of reactor. What do I do? I just said Coronatite because I figured there was no way they’d ever get any! And now they have! What will I do if it doesn’t work? What will happen to me? The death penalty? Will I get the death penalty if this thing doesn’t move? Please work, please, I’m begging you!”

  It almost seemed like our collective gaze bothered him…

  “Month Such-and-Such, Day So-and-So. They say the first test of the motor is tomorrow. But I haven’t done anything. I smashed a spider. I guess this is the last day I’ll get to lounge in this chair… Thinking about it makes me angry. Real angry. Fine! Time for a drink. It’s my last meal—I’ll drink all I can stand. Everyone’s home for the day. It’s just me here in this mobile weapon. I’ll drink and I’ll make merry and no one’s gonna complain. Now, let’s start with the expensive stuff!”

  As Aqua stood there reading, the skeleton almost seemed to quaver under our eyes…

  “Month Such-and-Such, Day So-and-So. I woke to a terrible shaking. What could it be? What’s going on? How much did I drink? I don’t know. In fact, I can’t recall anything about yesterday. The last thing I remember is going down to the reactor and lecturing the Coronatite. No, wait. I have an image of myself threatening the gem, telling it I was going to burn it good, and then pressing my cigarette to it…”

  Aqua had totally ceased to look up as she read.

  “Month Such-and-Such, Day So-and-So. I understand now. And it’s over. This thing is on a rampage. What do I do? They’re going to blame me for this. I must be on the Most Wanted list by now. A little weeping and a heartfelt apology won’t be enough to get me out of this one. Darn… At this rate, they’ll probably blow the mobile weapon to smithereens, drag me out, and put me to death. Dammit! Curse the bigwigs, curse the king, curse the lady researcher who de-pantsed me and laughed! If this country were to be annihilated, what would be the loss? Forget it. I’m going to have a drink and go to sleep. Thankfully there’s plenty of food and wine on board. Maybe I’ll have some new idea when I wake up.”

  Someone made a fist; you could hear the clench throughout the room.

  “Month Such-and-Such, Day So-and-So. The country has fallen. Destroyed! Kaput! Granted, the citizens and the bigwigs all seem to have fled safely, but still—I annihilated a country. Oh, man! I feel great! I feel satisfied at long last. I’ve made up my mind. I’m never leaving. I’ll live out my life here. Heck, I couldn’t get out even if I wanted to. There’s no off switch. The guy who built this thing must have been a real idiot—Oh, wait! That was me!”

  Was that the end? Aqua, looking somewhat distraught, said:

  “Th-that’s the end.”

  “What the hell was that?!” we all said.

  Only Aqua and Wiz weren’t among the chorus of voices.

  8

  “So this is Coronatite. How are you supposed to get it out of there, anyway?”

  We were in the heart of the mobile fortress.

  Figuring there’d be no point to all of us going in there, the task had been left to Aqua, Wiz, and me.

  In the center of the room was a small stone—the Coronatite—surrounded by a metal grille.

  The precious gem gave off a continual red glow, as if it were on fire.

  But what was the story with this grille? We obviously couldn’t get it out with that around it.

  …Oh. That was the point: one last line of defense in case the fortress was attacked.

  You could easily fit a cigarette
through the grille, but you couldn’t reach in and get the stone.

  “What’re we gonna do?” Aqua said. “…Oh! I’ve got it! Remember that guy with the magic sword? Maybe he could—”

  But I broke in:

  “Forget swords. We don’t have to slice anything when we can just…Steal!”

  “Oh! M-Mr. Kazuma!”

  Even as Wiz cried out, the Coronatite jumped through the grille and into my hands, just as I’d hoped…

  …still glowing red.

  “Yeeeoowww!”

  “Freeze! Freeze!”

  “Heal! Heal! …Geez, Kazuma, what are you, stupid? You usually seem pretty clever, but ever since that thing with the golem earlier, I’m starting to wonder if you’re actually a complete idiot.”

  Man! To get told off by Aqua and not even be able to come back at her…that sucked.

  The Coronatite had burned my right hand and nearly caught my sleeve on fire, but Wiz’s quick work cooled it down in a hurry. It rolled out of my hand and came to a stop by her feet.

  “Now, this is no good. I don’t think we have much time… It looks like it’s going to go off at any moment. Oh, what should we do…?”

  While Wiz fretted, the gem at her feet glowed redder and redder.

  The mechanical warning voice had gone quiet, too.

  Clearly, the stone had powered all the fortress’s functions.

  But handling something like this was way over my head. Frankly, it was beyond all the adventurers in the fortress at that moment. So I did what anyone does when they’ve tried everything else—I asked for some divine intervention.

  “Hey, Aqua, can’t you seal this thing up or something? Isn’t that what goddesses do with evil forces?”

  “Yeah—in video games! Wiz, come on, can’t you do something about this?”

  There was our self-proclaimed whatever—foisting all her dirty work on the Lich, as usual.

  I expected Wiz to say it was impossible. But instead…

  “I can, but…I don’t have enough MP. Ahem…Mr. Kazuma, may I ask—!”

  She drew closer to me, a somber expression on her face.

  “Wh-what is it?”

  Looking at her wits’ end, Wiz placed her palms on my cheeks and touched my lips with her thumb.