Midway through being flabbergasted, Asagi gasped and regained her senses.
“That speaking style…wait, you’re Tanker?!”
The red-haired girl made a deep, polite bow from within the cockpit.
“Indeed. It is a pleasure to meet you in real life, empress.”
Like Asagi, Tanker was a freelance programmer hired by the Gigafloat Management Corporation. She was considered an Interceptor—a specialist in repelling intruders. No one had seen her in the flesh—or so it was said; Asagi was shocked to find she was a girl even younger than herself.
“I am named Lydianne Didier. Mogwai asked me to come and get you. And my, I must say that is a wonderful outfit for you. That’s the empress for you!”
“W-wait, it’s not really an outfit, it’s just a yukata…,” Asagi murmured, looking like she had the stuffing knocked out of her; maybe she was just tired of deep thinking.
Kojou watched her from the side and slowly exhaled. “…Your friends are pretty weird, too, y’know.”
“Sh-she’s not my friend, and I don’t wanna hear that coming from you!” Asagi retorted in a low voice that sounded like a sulk.
“And what’d you come here for, anyway? If you’re doing part-time for the corporation, can’t you manage on your own?”
The girl named Lydianne had a strangely serious look as she shook her head. “Unfortunately, that is no longer the case.”
Asagi’s expression turned grave. “You don’t mean the damage from the magic erasure phenomenon’s getting bigger?”
“It is, indeed. Apparently, a similar phenomenon was recorded once before, ten years ago.”
“Ten years ago…?” Kojou asked.
It was ten years ago to the night that one of the escaped sorcerous criminals had been locked away. A similar incident ten years prior…it was too much to be a coincidence.”
“You don’t mean this is all related to that Aya Tokoyogi witch?!” Kojou exclaimed.
Lydianne replied to him with a tone that had an audible hint of admiration. “Are you aware of the so-called ‘Black Bible Incident,’ Mr. Boyfriend?”
Kojou considered amending with, I’m not her boyfriend, but time was precious.
“Go on ahead, Asagi.”
Asagi blinked, bewildered, as she noticed the atypically serious look on Kojou’s face.
“Kojou?”
“You take care of the island. We’ll take care of Sana.”
Asagi nodded quietly and handed Sana, who she’d been embracing, over to Kojou.
“Got it. Works for me.”
Kojou was worried the backup would start saying and doing completely inappropriate things again, but even she behaved this time.
If the info from Lydianne and Asagi was on target, Itogami Island was in imminent danger of collapse. People needed Asagi’s strength to see them through the crisis.
A manipulator arm from Lydianne’s small tank reached out and hoisted Asagi up. The machine was still carrying Asagi like that when she turned toward Kojou and yelled, “But promise me this: When this is all over, you’re gonna go out with me for a bit while the festival’s still running!”
Asagi’s cheeks were red, her meager courage stretched to the breaking point. But Kojou looked up at her and nodded confidently. “Yeah, we’ll go have a ball with everyone.”
Hearing Kojou’s carefree response, Asagi’s face stiffened.
“—Idiot!!”
Asagi yelled indignantly as the tank whisked her away. Kojou stood dumbfounded, unable to comprehend why she was unhappy.
Yukina lowered her eyes and let out a small sigh, as if she completely sympathized with Asagi.
As they stood there like that, the sound of explosions continued to echo behind them without pause.
Combat with the convicts continued. Their battles were not yet over…
3
On the flame-engulfed deck, the two men faced off.
One was an escaped prisoner encased in black armor. The other was a vampire aristocrat wearing a white coat.
They were both covered in blood, but their expressions were polar opposites. The escapee’s was twisted in anguish while the vampire smiled in mad delight as their dance of death continued.
“What’s wrong, Georgius?” Vattler mocked. “The immortal body you’re so proud of is all bloody, isn’t it?”
A two-headed dragon surrounded by incandescent flames floated behind him. All the scales covering its body had the dull glimmer of steel. It was a fused Beast Vassal—a fire serpent and a steel serpent that had been mixed together.
“This is absurd… Why am…?”
The knight kept his sword raised as he let out ragged breaths.
Even though the fusion had spectacularly increased the Beast Vassal’s might, it still possessed the dragon attribute. Surely it could not defeat a dragon slayer.
Yet his attacks had failed. The flames enveloping the monster repelled his sword; the steel encasing the Beast Vassal had penetrated the flesh of his immortal Georgius body. The combat power of Vattler’s attack snake had exceeded his own power—
Despite Vattler actively controlling his Beast Vassal fusion, he rather casually put to his adversary, “The heroes that slay dragons mostly arrive at tragic ends. Some are shot from behind as a result of conspiracy; others are captured by statesmen and have their heads lopped off. Others still fall to the curses cast by their foes; others still are bathed in poison when their beloved wives betray them—do you understand why?”
The armored man did not reply to the question. He had no spare strength with which to do so.
“It is because heroes, in the course of obtaining power beyond that of human beings, lose something precious—that is, the knowledge of fear, deception, fraud, betrayal, and cunning toward enemies stronger than oneself.”
The Old Guard vampire’s words rattled the knight.
He remembered the rule of those who had gained immortal bodies—a very simple rule that he had forgotten: Just as the Georgius slew dragons, dragons slew the Georgius. Those who hunted need to be prepared to be hunted themselves.
“You overestimate your own strength, underestimate your enemy’s power, and recklessly challenge your foe to a frontal engagement. You wallow in your own power. You are no longer worthy of the Georgius name.”
The steel lance unleashed by Vattler’s Beast Vassal ran completely through the black armor—and the man’s body.
The knight coughed up blood as he fell to his knees. He unleashed a slash with the last of his strength that fended off the dragon’s all-encompassing fire.
“I thank you for having entertained me to this extent,” Vattler stated, as he gazed coolly upon his fallen enemy. “Now, then, it is time for you to return to your proper place.”
The knight tried to stand using the great sword to support his weight, but the sword, long having exceeded its limits, shattered like fragile glass.
The man’s manacle glowed; chains shot out. The prison barrier system activated…and dragged him back inside.
His entire body now bound by chains, he whispered, “I see now, Vattler… You seek foes to fight…so that you may fight a more powerful foe who is yet to appear.”
Those were his final words. The Georgius escapee was dragged into thin air and vanished.
Vattler watched until the very end before releasing the fused Beast Vassal from his summons.
The harbor was on fire in various places as a result of their battle. However, the damage was smaller than he had expected. Even the fire on the Oceanus Grave II had been largely extinguished.
“Tobias, damage to the ship?”
Vattler called the young vampire to his side to answer his question. Tobias Jagan replied immediately, like the excellent private secretary he was.
“There is damage to the deck and one part of the residences, but she is still completely seaworthy.”
Vattler smiled charmingly. “That is good. It is all thanks to you having been here, Tobias.”
“More importantly, the other escaped prisoner is still in combat with the Lion King Agency Shamanic War Dancer. What is your command?”
Vattler licked his parched lips. “Ahh, is that so?” he muttered to himself. “It is a pity to grant her prey I have awaited for so long…”
The look he had was filled with raw fighting spirit—a complete contrast with the image he normally projected.
“But I shall exercise restraint… I do not like the whiff in the air.”
A dubious look came over Jagan at his lord’s unexpected decision. “…Lord Vattler?”
The vampire lord seemed to be musing as his gaze shifted to the southern district of Itogami Island.
“Launch the ship. It would seem prudent to gain some distance from the island.”
Jagan spared a stiff glance toward Kojou and the others on the docks below the ship. “Yes, immediately. However, are you fine leaving the Fourth Primogenitor behind like this?”
Vattler brushed back his blood-drenched forelocks as he gave off a casual laugh. “Yes, we can leave the rest to Kojou… I think it will prove a far more amusing spectacle that way.”
4
The invisible blade, whirling around like a giant tornado, split the air as it descended.
It was a long silver sword that blocked it head-on.
Using ritual energy to create a virtual cut in the fabric of space, Sayaka used her sword to shoot down the invisible slice that Schtola D was so proud of, severing the entire physical impact.
Acutely angered by this fact, the young man in dreadlocks ferociously repeated his attack.
“What’s with that sword? It fakes a cut into space?! Well, ain’t that a neat trick, bitch!”
“Who are you calling a bitch, fuzzhead?!”
The ongoing combat was extremely high-level, but the conversation between them was lowbrow indeed.
Sayaka hated men in the first place; Schtola D, whose violent words and conduct were reminiscent of an elementary grade schoolboy with superpowers, instilled nothing but disgust in her.
“This is why I hate men! They’re stinky, barbaric, crude, ill-mannered—did I mention they stink?!”
“I do not stink—!”
Schtola D violently waved his arms. It looked like he was simply flailing randomly, but all of his motion transformed into giant blades that rent the very air.
The area-effect attack had a range of dozens of meters and yet still boasted enough force to pulverize concrete into dust.
Even for Sayaka, this was no easy opponent to defeat. He was much stronger than his bratty looks suggested.
“Don’t tell me…you’re a Hyper-Adapter?” she asked.
Schtola D’s attack was in a completely different category from any attack spell known to Sayaka. It was a special ability that even demons couldn’t see. That said, it didn’t seem that he was using a special weapon like Lustrous Scale…
The only other possibility she could think of was that he was a Hyper-Adapter—a natural psychic who did not depend on magic. But—
Schtola D refuted her idea with extreme prejudice.
“Ahh? Don’t associate me with imitation crap like that, moron!”
His reaction threw Sayaka off a bit. Imitation…?
“Reverberate!”
As she blocked the invisible slashes, Sayaka scattered metal ritual scrolls about herself. The scrolls momentarily flared with light and changed shape into birds of prey that assaulted Schtola D from four directions.
Sayaka was a specialist in curses and assassination. Properly speaking, she was better suited to surprise attacks than face-to-face combat. However, she found it reasonable to assume that the sorcerer could not evade a shikigami assault right after finishing his own attack. And yet…
“Bitch! You’re just pissin’ me off now—!”
Suddenly, new arms burst out from Schtola D’s back. These weren’t physical parts of his body, but rather, illusionary arms created using psionic energy. However, the illusionary arm also launched invisible slashes, cutting down the assaulting shikigami birds in midair.
Seeing that Schtola D now had six arms, Sayaka finally identified his true nature.
“That power, don’t tell me…you’re a Deva?!”
Devas were descendants of Hindu demigods that were purportedly extinct. They were remnants of an ancient race of supermen said to have had a thriving civilization prior to the dawn of recorded history. They had left behind numerous ruins and legends, but even Sayaka had never met one in the flesh until that day.
“Finally got it right, stupid bitch!”
With six arms to work with, Schtola D’s ferocious attacks put Sayaka completely on the defensive.
However, now she knew the true nature of his attacks. The invisible slices were psychic blades created through the use of his natural Deva abilities. To him, able to control such a vast level of psychic energy, Hyper-Adapters really were pale imitations. No doubt the reason Yukina’s spear couldn’t completely nullify his cutting attacks was because they weren’t magical to begin with.
On the other hand, Sayaka felt a vague, formless despair that this dim-witted, foul-mouthed man-child was from a so-called ancient race of supermen. It was, frankly, an enormous letdown.
Sayaka’s disappointment was unknown to Schtola D as he opened his mouth wide in a hearty fit of laughter.
“Now that you know, I’ll squish you flat, you dirty Amazon! I hate women taller than me!”
“It’s not that I’m tall, it’s that you’re so short!!” Sayaka shouted back, extremely annoyed.
Certainly, Sayaka was a fair bit taller than Schtola D, but it wasn’t that Sayaka was that tall—he was, however, quite unusually short.
Apparently, the sorcerer took the matter quite personally: Even his shoulders shook.
“How dare you…! A giant bitch poking at the thing that bugs a guy the most! You wound me…you’ve wounded me, you human mountain range!”
“Just how big do you think I am here?!”
His seemingly casual observation wounded Sayaka every bit as much, but Schtola D paid no heed to that as his attacks increased in force. Lustrous Scale somehow fended them off, but it, too, was close to the brink. The weapon the Shamanic War Dancer of the Lion King Agency wielded was never meant to be used exclusively in short-range combat.
However, she’d already used up her ritual scrolls in her last counterattack. She didn’t have an opening big enough to use a large-scale offensive ritual spell. Maybe a Sword Shaman like Yukina could have leaped into his flank and smacked him down the hard way, but Sayaka’s close combat skill wasn’t on quite that level.
“If I could just use my magic bullets…a guy like this’d be history…!”
Sayaka bitterly clenched her teeth as she thought of the darts hidden under her skirt.
Her trump card as an assassin was not a sword; Lustrous Scale’s true form was that of a bow. If she could only have used her whistling arrows, imbued with great ritual power, she had no doubt she could breach Schtola D’s psychic defenses. But she couldn’t use a magic bullet at this range. If she changed Lustrous Scale to bow form, she wouldn’t have any way to rip space to defend herself; at any rate, there was no way Schtola D would just stand idly by, waiting for her to shoot him.
Exasperated, the sorcerer raised all six arms above his head simultaneously.
“I’ll squish ya’ flat! Go, Thunder Ax—!”
He swung all of them down at once. A giant gale erupted, putting previous ones to shame, and assailed Sayaka from above.
“Ugh…!”
Sayaka kept her sword raised even as she grunted in anguish.
She blocked the attacks coming from the front, but it simply wasn’t possible to completely nullify the impacts from all the blasts erupting around her. Lustrous Scale’s spatial severing was the ultimate physical defense, but it came with the weakness of only being able t
o defend from one direction at a time.
The blast winds toyed with Sayaka’s height, violently smacking her into the ground with a painful bounce. It wasn’t fatal damage, but it stunned her severely. Just sitting up took all of her strength.
Schtola D’s shoulders rose and fell fiercely as he laughed.
“Just look at you now, bitch!”
Apparently, even he was tired out from having launched vicious attacks without pause.
However, he surely had several more similar attacks left to go. Now that Sayaka was immobile, his victory was inevitable. Schtola D, too, had surely noticed that attacks creating blast winds could breach Lustrous Scale’s defense.
Sayaka’s lips shook.
“Blast winds…winds…”
Schtola D raised his arms to resume his attacks once more. The invisible blades made the air shriek as wind howled all around him.
The moment she laid eyes on that, Sayaka’s mouth began to chant without thinking.
“…I, Dancer of the Lion, Archer of the High God, beseech thee.”
She drew a dart from the holster on her thigh. Because she’d used a great many at the prison barrier, this was her very last dart. If she’d been able to deploy it as an arrow, that would have been more than enough.
“Most Brilliant Flaming Horse, Illustrious Kirin, He Who Governs Heavenly Thunder, pierce these evil spirits with thy wrath…!”
Schtola D swung his arms down, releasing the invisible flashes. Sayaka released her dart simultaneously, aiming it at the path the invisible, wind-enveloped blades took.
Sayaka’s magic bullets did not directly attack her foes. Instead, they were catalysts used to activate spells. The sound released by whistling arrows became incantations, producing huge attack spells beyond the chanting ability of human sorcerers.
Lustrous Scale could transform into a bow in order to grant the whistling arrow the wind pressure required for it to whistle. But that very moment, the wind was right there for the taking—
Schtola D gazed, dumbfounded, at the giant magic circle that deployed right before his eyes.
“What the—?!”
He already knew what the spell was. It was a fiendish curse that was, in short, an artillery barrage. It shot out white-hot lightning indiscriminately, with the purpose of destroying an entire area. It was the secret black art this same Shamanic War Dancer had used to set the prison barrier aflame; that was how Schtola D instantly recognized it. He recognized, too, that he, defenseless right after finishing his own attack, was powerless to stop it.
Fiesta for the Observers Page 16