From the Warlord's Empire

by Gakuto Mikumo

  Right before Yukina’s eyes, empty space formed what seemed like a ripple, with a small woman gently walking out of it—a woman with an elegant dress and a black-frilled parasol.

  “Thanks to your swinging that spear around, the barrier around this ship was torn, so I was finally able to teleport in. I must thank you for shielding my students, Yukina Himeragi.”

  “Ms. Minamiya?!”

  Yukina was struck with surprise as she looked up at the void from which Natsuki had emerged without a sound.

  Spatial teleportation was a type of magic of the utmost difficulty. Even within the Lion King Agency, only a few people could use it on an individual level. She’d never even heard of a user who could employ it with the same ease as entering a neighboring room.

  Her appearance might have been cherubic, but she was apparently more of a monster than Yukina had imagined.

  Perhaps it was to be expected of the Fourth Primogenitor’s homeroom teacher. Her constant haughty attitude toward him wasn’t for nothing.

  “I’ll take them to a safe place. What will you do, transfer student? Coming with us?” Natsuki inquired as she embraced the sleeping Asagi and Nagisa.

  Yukina shook her head as she rose up.

  “I will rendezvous with Akatsuki-senpai. I’m his watcher, after all.”

  “Hmph. Quite the workaholic. Do as you like,” said Natsuki as space bent nearby. She roughly tossed the still-asleep Asagi and Nagisa into it. Then, with a slight hint of mischief, she smiled with a small chuckle. “But your help may not even be needed.”

  “Huh?”

  Leaving that significant-sounding comment behind, Natsuki vanished into thin air. Still confused, she searched for Kojou, who was surely in combat with the Nalakuvera.

  Above the sub-float, Kojou’s Beast Vassal was dominating the damaged ancient weapon: a bicorn with an incandescent mane; a Beast Vassal unknown to Yukina.

  There was only one thing that could mean. Somewhere Yukina couldn’t see, Kojou had sucked on someone’s blood.

  For some reason, thinking of that fact made Yukina distinctly uncomfortable; she was a little perplexed at how irritated she felt.

  But from a rational perspective, of course Yukina was angry at his sucking on another person’s blood off on his own, without even a word to his watcher. Yes, that’s all it is, Yukina told herself.

  It was then that Yukina heard the ringtone for an incoming call beside her. The ringtone was from Asagi’s smartphone.

  Looking at the name displayed on the screen, Yukina answered the call.

  “Hey, young lady. The job’s finished.”

  The voice she heard through the digital link was the artificial voice of Asagi’s partner.

  With Itogami Island’s citywide functions in its grasp, making a call to a cell phone was no great feat.

  “Err…Mogwai, was it?”

  Yukina very timidly called out its name. Mogwai seemed to immediately identify the speaker through analysis of her voice.

  “Oh my. You’re the transfer student, the young lady’s rival, yes?”

  “Eh? Rival?”

  “And Asagi is?”

  “Right now she’s being evacuated to a safe place. She should be asleep.”

  Mogwai made a “hmm” at Yukina’s words, looking like he was contemplating something. For an artificial intelligence, it was quite a refined trick. No doubt his over-the-top appearance mixed with actual subtlety was a reflection of his master’s personality.

  “I see. What will I do? She told me to send it to her cell phone without the terrorists noticing but…”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Yukina raised her voice louder. Asagi had been covertly working on something right under Gardos’s nose. She thought it had to be very important.

  “Well, y’see.”

  Mogwai reluctantly opened his mouth, as if cowed by Yukina’s threatening manner.

  “It’s a command code for the ancient weapon thingy…the fifty-fifth.”

  6

  Kojou and Sayaka were standing together on top of a road on a gently sloped hill.

  It was the first time in a while they could see the bright sun above their heads. The summer sea breeze felt good over their cold, wet bodies.

  Behind Kojou and Sayaka, there was a crater one could mistake for a dried-up lake about three hundred meters in diameter.

  In a concentric circle, the steel plates that covered the sub-float’s surface had caved in; and in the center of that sunken crater, an incandescent bicorn raised an ear-splitting roar.

  “…You’re really something else.”

  Looking back at the crater, Sayaka made a sigh of lament, looking utterly beside herself.

  But her words were tinged with a tone that seemed somehow amused.

  “Certainly that got us back to the surface, but you didn’t have to make that ridiculously huge crater, too. If I hadn’t protected us from the debris with Lustrous Scale’s barrier, we’d both have been buried alive.”

  “If you’ve got a problem with it, tell it to him. I was gonna be happy if it just did somethin’ about the debris blocking the corridor.” Kojou retorted in a voice that oozed mental fatigue.

  Yes, the power of the newly obtained Beast Vassal had blown away the debris in the corridor.

  That’s all Kojou wanted. However, what actually happened was that the Beast Vassal, figuring, If the ceiling’s too high to escape, just lower it, engaged in wholesale destruction. Thanks to the vibration and shock waves, the sub-float’s internal pillars and walls were pulverized, making the ceiling cave in on them.

  Regulus Aurum was a huge heap of trouble, but this wild, twin-horned horse was every bit as much so, perhaps even worse…or perhaps that exceedingly horrid sense was just a figment of his imagination. But right now, he was relying on that ferocity.

  “Yukina really is in danger from being close to someone like you.”

  Sayaka looked up at Kojou as she spoke. There was none of the old sharpness in her voice. She nestled against him as they stood, a smile coming over her face.

  “That’s why, this one time, I’ll take very good care of you. Let’s settle this quickly.”

  Sayaka’s gaze was turned toward the sight of the ancient weapon landing once more. This was the wounded Nalakuvera that Kojou and Sayaka had initially fought against.

  Its form hadn’t changed since the last time they’d seen it. However, its movements were clearly different. They were intelligent movements reflecting the will of a pilot. It used the caved-in terrain as a shield as it launched a crimson beam from its sub-arm.

  On his own, Kojou probably could have never dodged such an unorthodox attack.

  But Sayaka’s sword stopped the speed-of-light attack cold. Taking good care of him as she’d promised, she was acting as Kojou’s shield.

  “Get over here, Beast Vassal Number Nine: ‘Al-Nasl Minium’…!”

  The flesh of the seemingly shimmering Beast Vassal was like an incredible oscillation given form.

  The two horns that thrust out of its head resonated like a tuning fork, spreading about a fiendish, high-frequency vibration. This vibration could reduce boulders to dust, rip through metal. In terms of annoyance to the neighbors, it was without question the most awful of Beast Vassals.

  And the roar of the bicorn became a barrage of shock waves that assailed the Nalakuvera.

  The titanic magical energy possessed by the primogenitor’s Beast Vassal transformed the “oscillation” into a mass of physical energy and pounded it home. It wrecked the weapon of the gods to its core. The armor was shattered, the endoskeleton broken, and the radical change in the air pressure heated the surrounding air thousands of degrees Celsius, scorching the machine.

  Blown several hundred meters away, the Nalakuvera came to a halt.

  “Oh, crap…is the pilot inside…dead?”

  It was Kojou who was beside himself at the bicorn’s merciless attack.

  There had to be a Black Death E
mperor Front terrorist inside the Nalakuvera. He didn’t think anyone could survive being blown away that spectacularly, but…

  “A beast man’s life force is too strong to die from just this. I don’t think he’ll be moving for a while, though.” Sayaka shouted right into the unnerved Kojou’s ears. “More importantly, the five units over there! Smash them before pilots can get in!”

  “R-right!”

  Sayaka was pointing at the Nalakuvera that’d been brought out of the Oceanus Grave. Lacking pilots, the units were inert, even now. Like that, it should have been possible to smash them without any difficulty.

  However, when the incandescent bicorn moved to attack the swarm of ancient weapons, its giant body was struck in the side by an equally giant explosion.

  “…The heck?!”

  What halted the advance of the bicorn was a flying disk spewing out flames. It greatly resembled the chakrams used by a certain god of battle from western China. And the chakram that violently crashed into the bicorn exploded, becoming enveloped by a giant whirlwind of fire.

  Apparently the chakram was really like a missile with a warhead packed with explosives.

  Its power was probably equal to or greater than guided missiles for attacking built-up urban areas. It wasn’t enough power to defeat a primogenitor’s Beast Vassal in a single blow, but it certainly was capable of halting the bicorn’s charge.

  The annoyed incandescent Beast Vassal shook off the flames that lingered over its entire body.

  The bicorn glared toward the aft deck of the Oceanus Grave. Something massive ripped apart the beautiful megayacht’s hull and emerged.

  It was covered in the same type of armor as the Nalakuvera, but much, much larger. It had eight legs and three heads. Its torso was swollen like that of a queen ant. Chakrams poked out of gaps in the armor covering the torso, resembling a multiple launch rocket system…

  It launched a massive volley of chakrams toward the menacingly roaring bicorn.

  “Kojou Akatsuki, get down!”

  “Wha…?!”

  Sayaka swung her sword, creating a defensive barrier. The air above the barrier protecting Kojou and Sayaka was filled with exploding flames. The bicorn had released its own oscillation wave to counter the volley of chakrams. The two mighty forces violently clashed overhead, spreading incredible destruction around the entire area.

  As the blast winds buffeted him, Kojou looked up, dumbfounded.

  The damage wasn’t limited to Sub-float No. 13. Having lost their target in the flames of the explosion, several of the chakrams fell on Itogami Island proper.

  One great explosion erupted after another. Black smoke spewed from inside the city.

  “Why…is this happening…?”

  Kojou, weakly falling to one knee, gave into anger and punched the ground hard.

  Nearby residents should have been evacuated by the Island Guard. But that didn’t change the fact damage had occurred. Like a true terrorist group, the Black Death Emperor Front was indiscriminately destroying the lives of completely unrelated people.

  The Queen Nalakuvera, already on the move, gently landed onto the sub-float.

  The remaining five Nalakuvera moved as well.

  Operating in perfect sync, they surrounded Kojou and Sayaka. No doubt they were being commanded by the Queen Nalakuvera.

  So this was the weapons’ true form. Weapons meant to fight as a unit in pursuit of operational objectives.

  “Hmmm…so this is the Nalakuvera’s true might?”

  As Kojou ground his teeth without thinking, his ears detected a man’s voice floating up from somewhere. It was Vattler, casually walking over amid the charcoal-scented smoke.

  “You really pulled a fast one on me, Gardos, keeping a trump card like this under your sleeve. What will you do, Kojou? Perhaps I should take him on in your place?”

  Vattler spoke to Kojou with his white fangs bared as if making a challenge. Even under these circumstances, the snobbish man behaved with a peculiar courtesy.

  Kojou made an unpleasant click of his tongue and glared at him with a hostile look.

  “I told you to butt out of this, Vattler…! I’ve just about had it with everyone just doing whatever they want!”

  As if exceeding its boiling point, Kojou’s body was enveloped in true anger. The flame had been lit, awakening the fighting spirit that lurked within Kojou, making his primogenitor “blood” seethe.

  “I don’t care if it’s against your terrorists or ancient weapons or whatever. From here on, this is my fight!”

  Vattler looked upon the ominous aura that shrouded Kojou with a smile of admiration.

  And, immediately to Kojou’s right, a small silhouette walked forward, as if naturally taking its proper place.

  “…No, senpai. This is our fight.”

  It was a young girl in a school uniform, poising a silver spear. For some reason, there was a pouty look in Yukina Himeragi’s eyes as she looked up at Kojou.

  7

  “H……Himeragi?”

  Kojou called out her name in surprise. Yukina’s eyes remained cold and expressionless as she tilted her head slightly.

  “Yes, what is it?”

  “Er, ah…why are you here?” Kojou inquired, a baseless uneasiness mixed with pangs of guilt.

  She had to have been on the Oceanus Grave with Asagi and Nagisa until just now. Meaning, both of those girls had been evacuated to a safe place, and furthermore, she’d been able to obtain Snowdrift Wolf once more. Good work in such a short time frame.

  “I’m a watcher, after all. Your watcher.”

  For some reason, Yukina placed emphasis on that last part while turning the tip of her spear toward Kojou. Her face remained expressionless as she looked over Kojou, Sayaka, and the incandescent bicorn emerging from the flames of the explosion.

  “So you tamed a new Beast Vassal, senpai.”

  Yukina stated it in a frigid, inflectionless voice. Kojou gulped and nodded, meeting Sayaka’s eyes.

  “Y-yeah. Somehow stuff just happened and it turned out like this.”

  “R-right. It was an unforeseen emergency that arose, a veritable act of God.”

  As Sayaka awkwardly lowered her eyes, her fingertips tugged at the collar of the parka she was wearing.

  Yukina watched her behavior with a somewhat surprised look on her face.

  “I see.”

  They’re both hopeless, she might have said, making a long sigh. She repositioned her silver spear, pointing it toward the Nalakuvera.

  “We will postpone this discussion until later, then. First, we must get closer to them.”

  “R-right.” Let’s do that, let’s do that, nodded Kojou.

  Yukina made another brief sigh, glaring at the giant ancient weapon crawling over the ground as she spoke.

  “Senpai, Kristof Gardos is inside that Queen Nalakuvera.”

  “Queen…so that’s their command unit?”

  Before Kojou even finished his sentence, the queen of the ancient weapons let loose another volley of chakrams. The bicorn’s roar shot them down, filling the air around them with flaming explosions once more.

  The five smaller Nalakuvera followed by scattering crimson beams about.

  Sayaka desperately cut down each incandescent ray as they assailed the area around Kojou and the girls one after another.

  The attacks set the hull of the Oceanus Grave ablaze as an aftereffect; the sub-float Kojou and the others were on made an ominous creak. Little surprise that even the stoutly built outer wall was finally at its limits.

  “Aw, crap, they’re all goin’ nuts…!”

  Kojou groaned as he covered his ears at the incessant sounds of explosions.

  Sayaka was breathing heavily as she yelled out, “Kojou Akatsuki. This is getting worse and worse!”

  “I know that!… Get over here, Regulus Aurum!”

  Kojou raised his right arm up high, summoning his other Beast Vassal.

  The thunderbolts flung about by the ligh
tning lion danced toward the enemy formation, blowing away all five ancient weapons in an instant.

  Then, like a flash, it charged toward the command unit. The Queen Nalakuvera’s giant body plunged into the sea.

  The lion moved to pursue the submerged command unit.

  “Senpai, don’t! If a mass of lightning like that hits the water…!”

  Yukina rushed to restrain Kojou. However, by then, the lightning lion had already completed its dive toward the surface of the sea. Its massive electrical current scattered across the surface of the ocean, with the heat causing a massive explosion of steam.

  “Gwa…!”

  A giant waterspout rose hundreds of meters into the air as the explosion’s tremors shook the sub-float. Kojou faltered from the unexpected impact. Apparently, the nature of Regulus Aurum made it a Beast Vassal impossible to use underwater.

  “Then, I’ll do this…!”

  The chakram attacks having just ceased, the freed-up bicorn howled. Its twin horns resonated, amplifying the oscillation. The spreading impact made the ground shake and caused giant waves to form. And like something out of the Old Testament, the sea parted, with the incandescent Beast Vassal at the center.

  Watching Kojou and the others fighting, Vattler clapped his hands as he made an admiring “ha-ha!’

  “So you parted the sea, Kojou! As expected of a Fourth Primogenitor Beast Vassal. It’s quite a lovely spectacle.”

  “This ain’t some pony show!”

  Tossing an angry shout back at the young nobleman’s innocent act, Kojou continued with more ferocious attacks. The bicorn pounded shock wave bullets toward the giant body of the now-exposed Queen Nalakuvera. They collided with the dry bottom of the sea, burying over half of the large ancient weapon and holding it in place.

  The parted sea returned to its former self, with the violent waves covering up the Queen Nalakuvera.

  “Did we get it…?” Kojou muttered in a languid tone. Controlling two Beast Vassals at once was of course mentally draining. If he let up for one second with these two, they could go berserk at any time.

  But Sayaka sharply scolded the half-relieved Kojou.

  “Not yet, Kojou Akatsuki!”