by Sakon Kaidou
“Gran...?”
While speaking truths which sounded like jests, Veldorbell continued playing his words.
“The reason why I joined is simple. Franklin won the previous war, and I’m certain that he’ll become a crucial part of many future battles, as well. Sooner or later, he might become a hero... or get defeated by a hero, instead. I honestly do not care.”
“Hero?” Marie repeated.
“Yes. I wish to see the birth of a true hero... to see a champion rise up before my very eyes.”
Though the voice reaching her ears through the music wasn’t natural, Marie felt immense amounts of passion in it.
“In that case, why didn’t you team up with King of Beasts or Hell General?” she asked.
“I couldn’t relate to either of them.”
Marie was about to say something along the lines of “Yet you could relate to that?” but she simply didn’t.
She wasn’t restraining herself from saying it, she just felt like it wasn’t the time for such talk.
Before she’d realized it, the music had turned silent and the effective range of the vibration field began to shrink.
Is he out of MP...? Wait, no!
Disregarding Marie’s perplexity, Veldorbell spun his baton and stopped. It was a motion signaling the end of a performance.
Seemingly obeying his command, the three mechanical beasts comprising Veldorbell’s Embryo stopped playing. With the end of the heavenly music, the destruction of the surroundings also ceased. Despite that, Marie couldn’t see this as a golden opportunity to attack him.
Her perception skills weren’t flaring up. However, her womanly intuition... or perhaps her instincts as an animal were warning her about some grave danger.
“Percussion’s solo. Strings and Wind, take to tuning,” said Veldorbell, using his own vocal chords for the first time since the battle had begun.
At his words, the kobold went forward and readied its drum. The cat sìth and the centaur stood behind it, pulled cables out of their mechanical bodies and connected to the kobold.
“Ah...!”
The feeling from before did a complete 180. Now, Marie felt an impetus to act and stop whatever they were doing as soon as possible.
But before she could move, Marie started coughing up blood.
“Guagh!”
And that wasn’t the extent of it — she began bleeding from her eyes and ears, as well, and the dizziness accompanying it all left her unable to move her body properly.
Damage...? What’s going o—?
That was when she realized that, despite the performance being over, the dust around her was still vibrating as though caught in a tidal wave of sound.
It’s high-volume sound... in a frequency below the human audible range! Low-frequency soundwaves had a wavelength of less than 20hz — the lower limit of what humans could hear. However, sounds didn’t stop existing just because people couldn’t hear them. Just like audible sounds of great volume could force a person to cover their ears, megavolumes of low-frequency sound could shatter eardrums and damage the nerves despite not being heard.
But what’s causing it... Wait... Up!
Using her Conceal Reveal skill, Marie looked up at the sky.
There, she saw a night sky and a celestial body much like the Earth’s moon, before which there was a silhouette of a harpy with a keyed instrument hanging on it, which it skillfully played with its talons.
“A fourth!” Marie exclaimed as she came to understand Veldorbell’s intentions.
The reason why he’d spent the past few days performing in the central plaza was to give the people the impression that his Legion consisted of just three creatures. That increased the effectiveness of the surprise attack from the hidden fourth and set his enemy up for his more powerful skills.
That was Veldorbell’s score — his orchestra.
Marie looked at the harpy up in the sky.
Oh, I see, she thought, realizing that Veldorbell’s bird-like hat was just another way for him ensure that no one expected the harpy.
Upon realizing what his Embryo’s motif was, most would question the lack of a bird, and the mask was there to prevent that. Veldorbell had been writing the score for the flow of this battle long before it even began.
The harpy landed next to its Master, and connected to the kobold via cable, just like the other two. Seeing the Legion of four all in one place, Marie became all the more certain of what she was looking at.
The centaur was the donkey.
The cat sìth was the cat.
The kobold was the dog.
The harpy was the rooster.
It was a group of four animal musicians. Thus, Veldorbell’s Embryo was...
“Beast Orchestra — Bremen, ‘Percussion.’”
The name came in the form of the ultimate skill. The focused emission of ultra vibration waves that followed engulfed the surroundings, and Marie with them.
◆◆◆
Bremen was the four-in-one Type Legion Embryo belonging to the King of Orchestras, Veldorbell.
Strings was the centaur playing a violin.
Wind was the cat sìth playing a flute.
Percussion was the kobold banging a bass drum.
Clavier was the harpy playing a piano.
Each of the four was set with their role and could even play sounds from other musical instruments of the same type, and the resulting melodies were great enough to surpass large-scale orchestras.
When in battle, they attacked and destroyed the enemies with Strings’s ultrasound scalpel, Wind’s hypnotic music, Percussion’s vibration waves, and Clavier’s low-frequency soundwaves.
Veldorbell, being a man who’d dedicated his life before Infinite Dendrogram to music and was now seeking battle, felt that the abilities of his Embryo were simply tailor-made for him. He wasn’t unique in that regard, for most Masters were more or less pleased with their Embryo powers and could understand why they were as they were.
Many would claim that being unable to dislike a power born from oneself was only obvious. However, there were always exceptions, and Veldorbell was one of them.
Indeed, he was pleased with its abilities, but when his Embryo had hatched, he couldn’t help but be disgusted by its motif.
Each and every Embryo was based on Earth’s myths, legends, fairytales, champions, or natural phenomena, which set their name and appearance.
Velborbell’s Bremen was based on “The Town Musicians of Bremen” — a children’s tale that most people in civilized countries were familiar with. And that motif was exactly what Veldorbell disliked.
”The Town Musicians of Bremen” is about a group of animals that set out on a journey with the vision of becoming a musical band, he thought. However, on the way, they get a warm house and food from a bunch of robbers and are so satisfied with it that they start living there... compromising on their vision.
Being someone who had a dream and strove make it come alive, Veldorbell simply couldn’t tolerate what they were.
Feeling as though they represented his foolishness from the time when he’d thought of compromising and presenting his vision in a half-baked form, Veldorbell continued hating the appearance of his Embryo.
But at the same time, he...
◇◆◇
The vibration waves faded away at the speed of sound, bringing about an uncomfortable silence.
The trajectory of the attack was covered in pulverized solid objects... the dust it had left behind. Nothing else was there — not even a trace of Marie.
All alone, Veldorbell was standing in the ruined ninth district.
Bremen’s ultimate skill, “Beast Orchestra — Bremen,” was the type that focused the entire Legion’s power into just one of the four and allowed it to release a musical skill that greatly surpassed its usual output.
Due to that, it could have a total of four different effects. The one he’d used now, Percussion, released expanded vibration waves that went on for a few
kilometels as they tore the pavement as far as Gideon’s outer walls.
That abnormal power was due to the ultimate skill still being counted as “musical,” making it benefit from the King of Orchestras’ “Orchestral King’s Conducting” passive skill, which made all musical skill effects several times greater.
Naturally, it was incomparable to the vibration barrier from before.
There had been no bystanders in its way because they’d been afraid of getting caught in the battle’s crossfire, but if there had been, they would’ve surely been reduced to dust. And that was exactly what seemed to have happened to Marie.
“Sound Search,” said Veldorbell, causing everyone in his Legion besides Percussion to investigate the surroundings.
They started making sound and examining the area like a sonar. Even if something was hidden, he could find it as long as it had physical presence.
“No one’s there,” he said at last. There were no creatures in the area surrounding him. That could mean that Marie had gotten the death penalty and vanished or that she’d somehow escaped and gone to face Franklin. In either case, Veldorbell was the one who’d won.
“Heart Beat Palpitation, cancel,” he said, canceling the skill responsible for the vibration field.
It had been active even after he’d stopped swinging the baton before using his ultimate skill and even after he’d used it. The only moment it hadn’t been was when he’d used Beast Orchestra — Bremen.
If Marie had concluded that Veldorbell had ended the performance before using the ultimate skill and decided to close in on him, she’d have died without him having to use it.
“...Well, that certainly cost me a lot,” he muttered to himself.
The passive skills available to King of Orchestras not only increased the power of Bremen’s musical skills, but significantly reduced their MP and SP cost, as well. Even so, a skill as great as Heart Beat Palpitation wasn’t cheap. Keeping it up for a minute had cost Veldorbell, who had a Superior Job, about 4% of his total MP and SP. There was also the cost of the ultimate skill to consider, so he turned off the vibration area to use the relevant restoration items.
A second later, he felt a blade run through his back and split his spine in half.
“?!”
The fatal damage it had caused was negated by the Lifesaving Brooch he had equipped. However, the attack was followed by many more. Before Veldorbell or his Bremen could even do anything, his neck and back was cut several tens of times.
“Heart Beat Palpitation!”
And so, just as Wind created the familiar air vibration field, the attacker backed away at supersonic speed.
“You... You’re...?!” he voiced his confusion, speaking through music yet again. The reason he did this was that his natural voice would always be drowned out by the vibration field. As confused as he sounded, however, he didn’t even need to ask to know the identity of the attacker.
“That’s sixteen with the right and twenty with the left,” said the culprit. “I believe that should take care of the defensive items.”
In her right hand, there was an Epic special reward, the paralyzing dagger known as “Palsy Stingblade, Belspan,” while in her left, there was the attack trajectory-concealing blade, Night Pain. The one wielding them was none other than the Death Shadow, Marie Adler.
I was too careless, thought Veldorbell. Though his enemy had been nowhere in sight and hadn’t appeared on his sonar, he shouldn’t have canceled the vibration field. After all, it had been the only thing preventing Marie from attacking him. Without the field protecting him, Veldorbell was a sitting duck, just waiting to be killed.
Indeed, he was the King of Orchestras — a Superior Job. However, that was a job from a non-battle-oriented grouping. Though combining its abilities with those of his Bremen gave him battle potential rivaling that of battle-oriented jobs, he had little in the ways of defensive stats such as END.
Like Marie, with her AGI-focused battle-oriented Superior Job, had just demonstrated, those who got close to him could kill him ten times before he could even do anything.
Just as she’d explained to Ray, a difference in mid-battle speed could create a difference in the amount of actions the combatants could take during a specific amount of time, and it was often a far more important issue than strategy or skill.
Veldorbell had survived Marie’s onslaught thanks to his equipment, but...
They’re all gone now, he thought as he confirmed that not a single one of his defensive accessories remained.
“How did you survive my ultimate skill?” he asked.
“Well, who knows?” she said as she formed an indomitable smile.
Though she didn’t show it, she certainly wasn’t in a good state. The damage she’d received from Clavier was still there, and her SP was nearly depleted. Her SP was what she’d sacrificed in order to survive Veldorbell’s Bremen — that was the cost of the skill she’d used. Specifically, “Art of Vanishing” — the greatest skill available only to the onmitsu grouping’s Superior Job, Death Shadow.
Just as it said in the name, it allowed the user to vanish from the world for a limited amount of time. While it was active, nothing could see them, touch them, hear them, or perceive them in any other way. It was stealth perfected, and the only reason why she’d been able to remain unharmed in the face of an attack so devastating.
This skill was also what had made it possible for her to escape the barrier shrouding the central arena. Unlike the Master Jiangshi’s Zhenhuo Zhendeng Baolongba, it didn’t do any damage whatsoever, but it was still a skill that matched or perhaps even surpassed it.
Naturally, keeping it active came at a cost, and vanishing for a mere minute would completely drain her SP.
This time, she’d kept it up for half a minute, making her lose half of her total SP and leaving it at less than 20%.
However, she believed that it’d been worth it, for she had been able to make her opponent believe she was dead and surprise him with an attack that had deprived him of his accessories.
I should make sure to kill him, no matter what, Marie thought. The moment she’d used Art of Vanishing, she’d already given up on fighting Franklin.
Veldorbell had turned out to be far stronger and more dangerous than she’d expected, and she figured that if she didn’t defeat him here and now, the chances of someone else defeating Franklin would drop, too. Thus, Marie was now determined to defeat Veldorbell with all she had. She took out a single bullet from her left hand — specifically, from the Embryo crest on it.
The cartridge was about three times the size of the bullets she usually put in Arc-en-Ciel. Its sides were red and black and it had the picture of a character on it.
“It can’t end here. I cannot accept not witnessing what happens tonight.” Veldorbell was speaking through his music.
“I have a feeling that history will be made here — that tonight will be legendary.”
Despite being artificial, the voice in his music had more emotion than it would have if he’d spoken using his own chords.
“Thus, I cannot make my exit until I burn that moment into my retina and etch it onto my soul.”
The eyes below his bird-like hat became bloodshot as his music-voice turned louder.
“If I don’t... I’ll never be able to complete my work!”
He was a prime example of a person who truly desired something. Marie... Nagisa Ichimiya saw such a person in the mirror far too many times to count.
“...Oh, I see,” she whispered as a certain realization hit her. “You’re much like me.”
Both he and her had come to this world to gain something they didn’t have and to experience what they needed to continue their works. On that front, Marie and Veldorbell were the same.
And yet, Nagisa Ichimiya AKA Marie didn’t hesitate.
“But I’ll still have to ask you to leave, old man.”
Veldorbell was in the way of her goal, and if she didn’t take care of him, yester
day’s memories with the little girl might become shrouded in sadness. Thus, she had no qualms about destroying this man, even though he was much like herself.
“You can’t force me, you uncouth girl!” he said through his music before stopping it and using his real voice to shout a skill name. “Final Orchestra!”
That was the King of Orchestras’s ultimate job skill. It was a desperate measure that sacrificed 90% of his health in exchange for making musical skills ten times more powerful.
A moment later, the four members of Bremen connected yet again, ready to use the ultimate skill to take care of Marie once and for all.
“‘Uncouth’?” she asked indignantly. “Do excuse me, but superficial politeness is part of my character, you see.” She spun her Embryo, the gun in her hand.
Suddenly, the Embryo’s shape underwent a great change. No longer the six-shooter it had been before, Arc-en-Ciel had become a single-shot, high-caliber handgun. Marie loaded it with the large bullet she’d taken out of her crest and aimed it at Veldorbell.
She wasn’t making use of her supersonic movement abilities. It was difficult to tell whether she was just being careful about the possibility of having it used against her or if she just wanted to give this man — who was much like her — a fair fight.
The two combatants braced themselves. Though the distance between them was great, it didn’t matter at all, for the attacks they’d prepared were fatal regardless. The exchange that would soon follow would decide the victor and the loser.
After a moment of silence, the two made their moves.
“Phantasmal Raingun — Arc-en-Ciel, ‘Daisy Scarlet the Explosion Death’!”
“Beast Orchestra — Bremen, ‘Wind’!”
Two ultimate skills clashed, finally ending the battle.
◇◆
The ultimate skill of Beast Orchestra — Bremen came in four different forms.
Strings’s magic slashes.
Percussion’s wide-scale physical attack.
Clavier’s stealth low-frequency wave attacks.
And Wind’s hypnotic music.