From the Warlord's Empire

by Gakuto Mikumo

  Even without Yukina spelling it out, there was no way he could let a dangerous monster like this enter city limits.

  However, looking upon the Nalakuvera up close, he didn’t know how he should take on something this ridiculously huge…

  “What will you do, Kojou Akatsuki? How do you intend to slow that monster down?”

  Reluctantly standing right beside Kojou, Sayaka spoke in a scolding tone. Kojou’s eyes widened at her.

  It was thirty meters, at most, between them and the Nalakuvera. Judging from the ancient weapon’s great size, they were in just as great danger there as if they were standing right in front of it.

  “Kirasaka?! What are you coming along for?!”

  “Yukina said she wanted you to buy time, so it’s natural for me to cooperate, you know!”

  “Th-that’s what it is?”

  Though that was unlikely a calm, rational thought, Sayaka’s vigorous assertiveness made Kojou accept it immediately. Sayaka added a nod, her face quite serious.

  “Absolutely. Besides…”

  Before she finished speaking, a beam burst from the Nalakuvera’s head.

  The fire-spitting spear…in modern terms, it was a large-caliber laser cannon. The spear, moving at the speed of light with a temperature surpassing twenty thousand degrees at its focal point, no doubt could turn even a vampire’s flesh to ash in an instant.

  But Sayaka had completed her motion before the beam had been unleashed.

  The Shamanic War Dancer of the Lion King Agency saw and acted a moment into the future through her Spirit Sight. Sayaka’s defense was therefore faster than the Nalakuvera’s speed-of-light attack.

  “…Kirasaka?!”

  “My Lustrous Scale has two abilities… One of them is to neutralize physical attacks. Be grateful, Kojou Akatsuki. Had I not been here you would be cinders right about now!”

  It was not physical matter that Sayaka’s sword had severed, but the space that held it together. No matter how fast an attack, no matter how hot an attack, it could not dish out damage across a rip in space itself. For that single instant, the space that Lustrous Scale had rent was transformed into an absolute, invincible defensive wall.

  Before Kojou’s eyes, the Nalakuvera’s large-caliber laser seemed to slam into an invisible wall obstructing its path, vanishing into nothingness.

  “And so, the wall that can defend against any attack is, in other words, the world’s most resilient blade. There is nothing my sword dance cannot cut, even a weapon of the gods…!”

  With the Nalakuvera having finished firing its laser, Sayaka sprinted toward the now-defenseless ancient weapon’s feet, sword raised.

  It was an entirely too huge sword for a slender girl to be using. Sayaka controlled it as if it was part of her own flesh and blood in a beautiful dance. She struck the Nalakuvera’s leg with the silver blade, slicing it in spite of its thick armor; then she sliced it again. To the eye, it was a sword dance that contrasted magnificence with ferocity.

  All Kojou could do was attentively watch the spectacle. Yukina’s combat ability was inhuman, but Sayaka’s sword art was no less so. In one sense, she, who could face a monster on equal terms, was quite a monster herself.

  Sayaka continued her ferocious attacks. Though she was indeed unable to slice it in two, her ceaseless slicing attacks severed one of the Nalakuvera’s legs.

  Sayaka continued, focusing her attacks upon the two remaining legs of that side. Finally, the Nalakuvera’s damaged legs were unable to sustain its weight; the huge body slowly collapsed. A single girl, with a single sword, had brought the weapon of the gods to its knees. Kojou could only call it nonsensical strength.

  He wondered if, at this rate, the girl would defeat the Nalakuvera all by herself…

  It was a moment after Kojou embraced such fleeting hope that the ancient weapon’s body underwent a sudden change.

  “Eh…?!”

  Sayaka’s sword, having one-sidedly slashed through the Nalakuvera until that point, suddenly bounced off the surface of its armor. Sayaka repeated her slicing attack, but it fended off this as well.

  A mysterious symbol emerged over the Nalakuvera’s armor, enveloping the machine with the faint glow of magical energy. Sayaka exclaimed as she realized the true nature of that glow.

  “A repulsion ward?!”

  The blade of Lustrous Scale sliced through connecting space. However, this also meant the blade could only sever space it was in contact with. The repulsion field enveloping the surface of the Nalakuvera’s armor had evolved to repel Sayaka’s sword before the blade even touched it.

  Her attacks would no longer work against the Nalakuvera…

  “This…is what the weapon of the gods is capable of…?!”

  A learning, self-evolving weapon. Sayaka shuddered at the thought. That became a momentary opening.

  The Nalakuvera’s feelers were watching Sayaka from above her head.

  By the time Sayaka realized this, it was already too late. The tips of the feelers shot out crimson beams. The late-reacting Sayaka could not fend them off.

  The incandescent spears could sear through thick steel in an instant.

  No doubt, should Sayaka’s body be bathed in them, not a trace of her would remain.

  But what assaulted Sayaka was not an incandescent beam, but a simple physical impact.

  Someone had thrust Sayaka away with a clumsy tackle.

  “…Are you all right, Sayaka?!”

  It was Kojou who had plunged headfirst into Sayaka, but as he yelled, she tumbled on top of the hard ground.

  Sayaka’s well-trained body broke the fall without thinking, immediately bringing her to her feet. All serious damage had been averted. However, her mental unrest was profound.

  “Kojou Akatsuki?! That wound?!”

  Kojou, rising to his feet, had white smoke rising from his gouged-out left thigh. It had been bathed in the Nalakuvera’s laser when Kojou had shielded Sayaka.

  “I’m all right. A wound this small’s gonna close up in no time.”

  Kojou smiled even as his face grimaced in pain.

  A vampire progenitor was unaging and undying. However, the pain they felt when injured was no different than that of any normal human.

  No doubt Sayaka was well aware of that. Sayaka paled a bit, seemingly unable to find the words she ought to address to him.

  “…Anyway, what’s that guy doing?!”

  Forcing himself to stand on his injured left leg, Kojou turned his eyes to the Nalakuvera. The ancient weapon, damaged by Sayaka’s attacks, had apparently given up on moving.

  Instead, the gently curved armor over its back slowly opened.

  They beheld a series of wings stretching that resembled those of beetles. On the inside of the armor were cylindrical-shaped thruster nozzles.

  “It’s trying to fly?!”

  The data Asagi had on the Nalakuvera suggested flight capability. Kojou ground his teeth as he recalled that fact.

  With a roar, the Nalakuvera’s nozzles scattered, blasting wind all about.

  This was not winged flight as birds and pterosaurs understood it. This was powered flight by brute force.

  But Itogami Island’s city limits were but a few short kilometers away. If it could go up, it could surely land at a moment’s notice. They could not allow the Nalakuvera to escape.

  “…Smack it down, Regulus Aurum!”

  Kojou raised his right arm above his head. Fresh blood spurted from it.

  His fresh blood created a mass of enormous magical power that transformed into a golden beam of magical energy. The condensed beam shaped itself into the form of a giant beast in midair—a great lion shrouded in lightning.

  This was Kojou Akatsuki’s, aka the Fourth Primogenitor’s, Beast Vassal, Regulus Aurum…

  In spite of being nominally tamed, he’d hesitated to call upon its all-too-great might. But this was no longer the time or place for such concerns.

  “Oooooooooooooo…!”

 
The lightning lion responded to Kojou’s fighting spirit, racing across the heavens.

  From a higher altitude than the climbing Nalakuvera, it transformed into a lightning bolt and raced toward the ground. Light scattered in all directions from the golden bolt of lightning, closing rapidly upon the ancient weapon.

  The primogenitor’s Beast Vassal, said to rival a natural disaster, struck.

  The Nalakuvera machine withstood it. Despite the smashing apart of both sets of wings, the severing of its legs, and the loss of about half the armor over its entire body, somehow it managed not to explode.

  However, it was impossible to negate the entire ferocious impact.

  The lightning lion continued its vigorous descent, smashing the Nalakuvera into the ground.

  It was might that the sub-float’s hollow construction could not withstand. The thick steel covering the front’s surface turned inside out, smashing the steel framework stretched within.

  The Nalakuvera’s huge body became a cannonball, breaching the surface and tumbling deep underneath.

  And quite naturally, Kojou and Sayaka were caught in the shock wave that resulted.

  “Uoooh?!”

  The ground Kojou and Sayaka were standing on caved in without any warning.

  A great hole opened at their feet that seemed like it continued all the way to the underworld. Kojou knew that he was falling when an unpleasant feeling of weightlessness assailed him.

  Sayaka was right beside him. Amid the echoes of turbulent blast winds and the roar of falling debris…

  “You idiot…!!”

  …somehow, the sound of her shout was the only thing that registered to Kojou’s ears as strangely distinct.

  2

  Sub-float No. 13, constructed as a giant trash bin, was fundamentally built just like an oil tanker. The only differences were that it was meant to store compacted garbage, not oil, and it was an order of magnitude greater in size.

  Though divided by numerous bulkheads, it was, in essence, an empty box enveloped by a hardy, steel shell.

  From the surface to the deepest section, it was about thirty meters…

  As that was equal to a ten-story building, it was actually taller than the apartment building Kojou and Nagisa lived in. Naturally, it wasn’t a height one could climb without gear. Having fallen from such a height, it was near miraculous they were alive at all.

  “Somehow we’re all right…huh?”

  Standing upon a mountain of debris, Kojou made a very deep sigh.

  It wasn’t that they’d dropped thirty meters straight down; their descent had been relatively lenient, like riding the flow of a landslide. They’d smacked into several bulkheads on the way down, with that slowing their falling speed even further.

  Kojou and Sayaka’s being all right was the product of coincidences piled one over another.

  They had been fortunate the under-construction sub-float was empty.

  Had it been full like other trash bins, they’d probably be buried alive under tens of thousands of tons of garbage by now. He figured that even an undying primogenitor was unlikely to recover from such a situation.

  And as Kojou breathed a sigh of relief, Sayaka raised a “Kii!” in a high-pitched voice.

  “We are not all right! What were you thinking?! Don’t you have any concept of restraint?! You didn’t have to make it punch through the whole float!!”

  “Couldn’t help it, I was all worried ’bout that monster crab getting away…and that was trying to hold back…” Kojou replied in a small, halting voice. He really had meant to limit damage to the surrounding area, even though there was little point since they had a barrier. But…

  “Good grief,” said Sayaka, seeming taken aback as she shook her head. “Certainly I can accept that’s power worthy of the World’s Mightiest Vampire, but that Beast Vassal’s nothing but trouble. One wrong step and you, its master, would be caught up in it and killed, too.”

  “I’ll admit it’s trouble…but it shot that monster crab down, so things worked out.”

  Kojou tossed his reply out while brushing down his dusty parka.

  Seeing Kojou look not the least bit sorry, Sayaka glared in a bit of anger.

  “And the Nalakuvera?”

  “Who knows? You’d think it’s buried down there, though.”

  Kojou pointed to the pile of fallen debris as he spoke. The spot where the ancient weapon had apparently crash-landed had a pile of debris some ten meters high piled on top of it.

  With such a large amount of rebar and steel plates piled in the way, there was no sign of the Nalakuvera. However, neither did Kojou sense anything wriggling around beneath it.

  “Did you destroy it?”

  “Probably. That or so much damage it can’t move without an overhaul.”

  “I see. That’s fine, but…well, what should we do now?”

  Kojou scratched his head in response to Sayaka’s question.

  The sub-float, built solely for storing an enormous amount of garbage, had a suitably immense interior. On top of that, since the facility was still under construction, there’d be very few diagrams and little lighting available; only the bare minimum required in the event of an evacuation. They hadn’t really expected anyone to just wander in there, after all.

  “If we look around, we should be able to find an inspection ladder at least.”

  As he spoke, Kojou looked around the area as he walked to a suitable place.

  “H-hold on, you’re not thinking of leaving me?”

  Sayaka, who seemed about to be left behind, hurried after Kojou.

  “Ah!”

  That moment, her legs went out from under her. Climbing up a pile of unevenly shaped debris, the seesawing angles made Sayaka lose her balance and tumble.

  “Wh-whoa?!”

  Luckily, Kojou was right there, reflexively catching her back as she fell faceup. He raised his eyebrows as his palms conveyed the presence of something quite ample and flexible.

  “…Hya?!”

  As Kojou ended up generously squeezing Sayaka’s breasts, she let out a very girlie yelp.

  Realizing the true nature of what he was grasping, Kojou quickly pulled both hands away.

  Thanks to the summer sweater, he hadn’t noticed, but Sayaka was apparently the well-endowed type. In spite of being so slender, the volume of her breasts was incredible.

  “Er, sorry.”

  Kojou felt awkward as he apologized. Sayaka pressed her hands over her own breasts while glaring up at Kojou.

  “What are you apologizing for? Did you do it on purpose? So you indeed have foul, evil intentions?”

  “I do not. It’s not that, but…Himeragi told me about it on the phone earlier.”

  Sayaka tilted her head with a puzzled look.

  “Yukina? What did she…?”

  “The reason you hate men.”

  Kojou looked down at his own feet as he spoke, lowering his voice.

  The look on Sayaka’s face stiffened, becoming like that of a doll.

  “Sorry. I didn’t know you’re scared of men touching you.”

  Yukina hadn’t explained the fine details, but Kojou had a pretty good idea of the circumstances.

  As a child born with excellent spiritual ability, she was frequently treated badly by her parents. Sayaka’s one and only father was apparently the type of man who routinely used violence against her. When her father died before Sayaka entered primary school, the Lion King Agency took her in.

  However, the fear she felt toward her father at such a young age still remained in her heart in the form of a general hatred of men. Kojou didn’t want to offer some kind of cheap sympathy, but he didn’t think Sayaka could be faulted for it.

  Even though it was an emergency situation, Kojou reflected on the fact he’d picked her up, pinned her down, and insensitively touched her quite a bit all around.

  For a while, Sayaka gazed at Kojou, an astonished look on her face.

  Then, she suddenly grabbed hold of
Kojou’s lips, roughly twisting upward. Kojou, unable to brush her hand off, objected without offering any resistance.

  “What are you doing?! That hurts!”

  “I wonder why Yukina talked to you about that…”

  Sayaka spoke as if she was posing the question to herself. His lips still being twisted, Kojou shrugged his shoulders.

  “She lectured me not to do anything that’d scare you. She was worried about you.”

  “It’s not that I’m scared of it, it’s more like, it’s disgusting? Gross?”

  “That’s even worse. Normally that’d put me down.”

  Forcefully shaking his head, Kojou finally freed his lips from her grasp. Sayaka watched his red, swollen lips with a smile. It was a gentle, smiling face with no hostility whatsoever.

  “You really are a strange vampire.”

  Sayaka gently touched the back of Kojou’s hand with the fingertips of her freed-up right hand.

  She increased the strength of her grip, as if carefully confirming something.

  Kojou watched her with bewilderment, having no idea whatsoever what she was up to.

  But he somehow understood that for Sayaka, touching a boy of her own volition was very much an act of courage.

  “Is that wound from before all right?”

  Sayaka looked at Kojou’s leg with a worried look. The leg wounded when he’d shielded Sayaka.

  Kojou lightly flexed his knee up and down. Some pain still remained, but he’d regained almost all sensation.

  “It’s healed enough I can walk on it at least?”

  “I see, that’s good… Um…th-thank you for saving me.”

  As if blushing, Sayaka lowered her face as she spoke. Kojou’s heart made a heavy thump and blood rushed through his arteries at her cherubic, white cheeks, the refined bridge of her nose, and her long emphasized eyelashes.

  “Cold?!”

  “Wh-why?! I was finally nice to you and everything…!”

  Sayaka’s cheeks fiercely swelled at Kojou’s completely unexpected reaction.

  Kojou shook his head as he put a hand to his back.

  “No, it’s not you… There’s something cold against my back…”