by Aneko Yusagi
“Okay.”
Nice Guy took Keel and ran while the rest of us approached the fat man as he chanted at the sealing stone.
“You’ve finally come, Shield Demon!”
He was screaming like an insane person now.
“I don’t know what’s sealed inside that thing, but you better stop that right now.”
Raphtalia and Filo readied themselves for battle.
Now that we were outside, it would be easier to fight than it had been in that small room.
“You’re too late. If only you hadn’t shown up, this town would still be peaceful!”
“Peaceful, ha! If you hadn’t stolen Melty and dragged her here, none of this would be happening!”
“It’s all your fault, Shield Demon!”
“I don’t have time to listen to the complaints of a coward who gets his kicks from torturing children.”
I didn’t know what was sealed away in there, but I had to find some way to stop him.
The longer we waited, the worse things were going to get.
The other heroes would probably look on with relish. They would want to fight a monster to get its rare items and experience. But I say it’s better to let sleeping dogs lie.
“I am not a coward! I am purging the world of its lower life forms! I am a righteous man!”
Dammit… there was no reasoning with him.
I knew how it felt to find joy in the misery of people you hated, so I’d thought that maybe we could come to an understanding. But I was wrong. I never truly wished for the death of anyone, ever.
Even if it was about a specific person, maybe that was understandable, but to hate an entire class of people made no sense at all!
Anyway, who knew what this guy was up to?
Looking at the sealing stone made me very nervous. We had to stop him.
I stepped forward and began to prepare a skill that would restrain the nobleman.
But before I could use it, the stone cracked and fell to pieces.
“It is finished. If I can kill the Shield Demon, my place in God’s heaven will be secure! Ah, ha, ha!”
The nobleman let out a laugh like a broken toy. The ground began to shake. Cracks appeared in the earth.
“What’s happening?”
“Yes! Destroy it all! The sealed monster will destroy the Shield Demon!”
The sky over the mansion was filled with purple light.
I looked up to see cracks appearing in the sky, like a tortoise shell. It was at that very moment that the sealed monster appeared.
“Master!”
All of Filo’s feathers stood on end. She was staring at the sky.
“What is it?!”
Large reptilian feet, tipped with large, sharp claws, slowly stepped through the crack. They were followed by a large, muscular body, then an enormous eyeball, and finally a massive jaw appeared, rimmed with teeth so large and sharp they could shred metal. I saw what the monster was.
It was a 20-meter tall, carnivorous… dinosaur.
Chapter Three: Tyrant Dragon Rex
“Oh… Oh…”
A huge dinosaur appeared in the sky. I didn’t call it a dragon on purpose. It looked exactly like a dinosaur.
To be more specific, it looked like an overgrown Tyrannosaurus Rex, but meaner and scarier.
It wasn’t like a normal monster in the field. It was a dinosaur. A rift opened in the sky above us, and the massive beast came crashing down into the mansion.
“Ha, ha, ha! For the glory of God!”
The mansion collapsed under the weight of the dinosaur. Then, with insanity still in his eyes, the nobleman was instantly crushed under the foot of the advancing beast.
He was crazy all the way until the end. And he did crazy things until the end. How were we supposed to defeat such a huge monster?
“We’re all escaping together! Filo, you understand?!”
“Yeah!”
Filo ran back to the courtyard entrance, and picked up Nice Guy and Keel before running away.
Raphtalia, Melty, and I all took off running in unison. We made for the property exit.
“GYAOOOOOOOOOO!”
The dinosaur roared and started to destroy what remained of the mansion.
“I come to a new world and have to deal with DINOSAURS?!”
I didn’t think there were monsters like that here.
But, thinking a little more, there WERE dragons here. So I guess dinosaurs weren’t such a stretch.
Dragons and dinosaurs were in pretty similar categories, after all.
“Why would he summon something like that just to kill Naofumi?!”
“The fool. He didn’t think through this at all.”
He would see his whole town destroyed just to kill one person?
So he would rather see me die than survive himself? What was wrong with him? Just how much did he hate me?
“Hurry! If you don’t hurry, he’ll chase after us!”
Raphtalia was right.
“Filo.”
“What?”
“Can you make yourself big enough for all of us to ride you?”
“Naofumi! Don’t ask for impossible things!”
“I’m not. I think Filo can do it.”
“Really? Can you do that, Filo?”
“Yeah… Filo might be able to do it.”
Filo, with Nice Guy and Keel on her back, ran up to us.
“Um… I don’t think I can… I can’t get much bigger than this.
“Damn.”
I guess I should have expected that.
“What if you were bigger?”
“I wonder.”
Wasn’t she still growing?
“See, it’s not impossible.”
“Don’t you think she could?”
“GYAOOOOOOOO!”
Melty turned to see the beast then turned back to me. She nodded.
I’d heard that dinosaurs like moving targets… We ran, but that only attracted it. Now it was chasing after us.
We didn’t have time to sit and chat. We were about to end up as dinosaur food.
With such a large monster chasing us, it felt like we were in the middle of an earthquake. The ground shook with every step.
I was starting to understand why people always fell over in movie chase scenes like this.
Running was hard enough. I felt like I’d lose my footing. And if we fell, that would be the end.
The debris from the destroyed mansion was cluttering the path, which slowed the dinosaur’s progress. But once we cleared the debris entirely, Filo was the only one who stood a chance of outrunning the beast.
“What should we do? Fight?”
“Here!? In the middle of town? Think of all the damage we’d cause!”
“That’s true, but…”
I wasn’t sure that we could win. But I did know that we didn’t stand a chance running.
“All right then, we run, and lure the beast after us. Once we get to somewhere we can fight without endangering others, we do it.”
We left the mansion grounds to find the streets filled with panicking pedestrians.
I could see the headlines now: “Shield Demon destroys town, causes uproar.”
Damn! This was all the proof I needed to see that Ren and Itsuki weren’t nearby.
The dinosaur was sniffing around to see where its prey had vanished too.
This didn’t feel right. There, I caught sight of its name: Tyrant Dragon Rex.
Something on the dinosaur’s chest began to glow. At the same time, Filo’s stomach started glowing too.
“Um… Filo?”
“What?”
“The dinosaur is looking straight at us, and I think it might have something to do with your glowing stomach.”
“Hm…. Well, you know what? I think that big gecko wants to eat me!”
“Okay, Filo, you run! Lure the monster out of town!”
“What? Naofumi? Are you going to abandon Filo?”
“No, I want her to lure
the monster somewhere away from people and then come back!”
“But he’s after Filo, so I don’t think he’ll just let her go!”
“…You’re right.”
I’d thought that Filo was fast enough to make it, but I shouldn’t use her as bait.
“No! I want to stay with you, Master!”
“Mr. Naofumi, you shouldn’t ask that of her.”
“I know, but…”
“It must be hard to be the Shield Hero.”
Nice Guy chimed in like nothing was going on.
“Still, the monster is drawn to Filo. We need to lure him out of town, then fight and defeat him.”
If we fought in the center of town, the damage would be tremendous.
The nearest exit was… Actually it wasn’t very far at all. And Filo could jump over walls.
“Okay, so we are going to lure the monster out of town to keep the civilians safe. What are you going to do? We should probably split up.”
I was asking Nice Guy and Melty.
Keel was unconscious, so there was no asking what he wanted. I don’t think we could take him with us though.
“I’m going to run away with this kid… But first I’d like to help evacuate the town.”
“Can you do that?”
“The demi-humans from my town are here, so I think we can do it together.”
Nice Guy climbed down from Filo.
“I feel like we are abandoning you here. I wish we didn’t have to.”
“It’s not like that. All this happened because I reached out to you, Shield Hero. Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay then, I won’t. Melty, what will you do?”
“I’m going with you, obviously.”
Back at Nice Guy’s place, she’d thought that she could sneak off back to her father and fix things, but after having her life put in danger by that crazy nobleman, it really only made sense for her to stay with us. Entrusting herself to an authoritative nobleman put her in just as much danger as she was in with us. So nothing changed.
“Looks like we’re all set.”
“Ugh…”
Keel moaned, and his eyes blinked open. Maybe he still wasn’t totally unconscious. His eyes seemed to have trouble focusing.
He held his hand out to Raphtalia.
“Keel. Really terrible things are happening right now. But we’re going to take care of it—so you have to go on living.”
“Raphtalia… No… Don’t go…”
“Keel, it will be okay. I have to go do what I can. I’ll get our flag back, Keel. Wait for me!”
She slipped off the bangle that I’d made for her and put it on Keel’s arm.
“Let’s go, Mr. Naofumi. We have to stop this before anyone else gets hurt.”
“Yeah… But are you sure you want to give him that bangle?”
“I should have asked you first. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s yours. Do whatever you want with it.”
She must have meant to signify that she was making him a promise. If so, I wasn’t going to step in and ruin it.
“Keel! Good-bye!”
“But... but, Raphtalia!”
“GYAOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
The Tyrant Dragon Rex’s roar was so powerful it made my head ring.
“Let’s go!”
“Okay!”
“Roger!”
We all immediately set about our duties.
As if to break the silence, the dinosaur came crashing after us.
I couldn’t see where Nice Guy had gone.
We climbed onto Filo’s back and took off running. We slipped through town and jumped over the wall to escape.
“GYAOOOOOOOO!”
The Tyrant Dragon Rex was right behind us. It crashed through the town wall.
We ran through a field bathed in moonlight. The town behind us was smoking.
This wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t to blame for it.
“Good thing he keeps chasing Filo.”
“Yeah.”
“Naofumi! If we don’t hurry, he’ll catch us!”
“I know! Filo, can’t you go any faster!”
We had to get as far from town as we could.
Even if we fought well enough to defeat it, if it ran off through another town then the casualties would only get worse.
So we ran, the dinosaur on our tail.
“Think we’ve gone far enough?”
The town looked far in the distance now. Had we put enough distance between us?
“We better start fighting soon. Are you all ready?”
“Yes. I’m ready.”
“If I stick with you guys my life will be a short one!”
“Filo, are you ready?”
“Yeah! I’ll do my best!”
“Right!”
When I shouted, Filo stopped running and spun to face the monster.
The Tyrant Dragon Rex was crashing after us, shaking the earth with each step.
White breath puffed from its mouth, and its teeth dripped with saliva.
If it sunk its teeth into me, there was no way I’d survive.
…Not that I was going to let that happen. We jumped off of Filo’s back and readied ourselves for a fight.
“GYAOOOOOOOOOO!”
The beast didn’t slow down at all. It kept running at us but lowered its head to attack.
“I don’t think so! Air Strike Shield!”
The Tyrant Dragon Rex was running straight for me when the shield materialized in front of it.
Something about this reminded me of the way we’d fought the Zombie Dragon.
We’d done all right for ourselves back then—so things should be fine this time too… right?
With an echoing crack, the beast bit right through my Air Strike Shield. It crumbled and fell.
…But it left itself open for attack.
“Hiya!”
Filo lead the charge.
She reared back and swung a powerful kick into the dinosaur’s jaw.
But she was wearing iron claws now, so her attack was higher than it had been back when we fought the Dragon Zombie.
Still, the kick didn’t seem to affect the dinosaur the way it had hurt the Dragon Zombie. He didn’t seem to hesitate.
“Ugh! It’s so hard!”
“Be careful!”
When Filo fought the dragon, she’d left herself open for a second, and the dragon had swallowed her. Luckily the dragon didn’t have teeth, and its organs had been rotting. What would happen this time?
“Yeah!”
After delivering her kick to the beast’s jaw, she immediately jumped back, gaining distance before rushing forward in a flash and kicking at the monster’s stomach.
She was acting like a skilled fighter now.
“Zweite Aqua Slash!”
Melty sent a magic spell flying at the Tyrant Dragon Rex.
It was a sharp blade of water.
“Take that!”
Raphtalia was with them now, and she thrust the magic sword into the beast.
All of their attacks produced satisfying sounds of connection, but the monster was too big… None of them were able to take the beast down.
“Master! Platform!”
“Got it! Air Strike Shield! Second Shield!”
Two different magic shields appeared before the dinosaur.
My Air Strike Shields would remain deployed for fifteen seconds. Honestly, it wasn’t very long. But Filo was fast…
“Hiya! Hoo! Pop!”
She was flipping and jumping from shield to shield, delivering powerful kicks each time.
“GYAOOOOOOOOO!”
Finally unnerved, the Tyrant Dragon Rex let out an enraged howl and began to violently thrash its head and tail. Filo jumped out of the way before its attacks connected.
Raphtalia was the one in danger.
I ran forward and blocked the thrashing tail before it could hit her.
“Ugh…”
“Mr. Naofumi!”
It was very heavy. I was able to hold it back for now, but if the tail was this strong then I’d never survive a bite from the jaw.
This wasn’t good.
The monster was very large but slow enough that we’d been able to hold our own. Still, none of our attacks were strong enough to bring the dinosaur down.
Filo was getting a lot of good hits in, but if she wasn’t strong enough to bring the monster down, then Raphtalia wasn’t going to be able to do so either.
Melty’s magic wasn’t very powerful either. At the moment she was throwing out spells as a way to assist Filo, but they weren’t strong enough to deal much damage on their own.
Had this been a game of some kind, it would be the kind of battle in which you just needed to run the clock down… too bad this wasn’t a game.
If we figured out its weakness, it would run. Sure, that would be good for us, but then we’d have to worry about where it was running TO. A town full of people, no doubt.
Furthermore—I realized this when I blocked its thrashing tail—the thing had a lot of attack power. I was probably the only one with a defense rating high enough to survive an attack.
I might have to rely on the Shield of Rage. It was strong enough to block the beast’s attacks, plus it had counter-attacks of its own.
The Shield of Rage was the strongest shield I had, but it was very dangerous.
It was formed from the hatred I had for this world. The first time I used it was in the battle with the Dragon Zombie, after it had eaten Filo.
When I use it, the rage takes over my body, and I get violent.
Because of that, I’d accidentally cursed Raphtalia, who’d been trying to help me.
It was the sort of shield that gave me a lot of strength but asked for something in return. It wasn’t the sort of thing I could just whip out on a whim.
But it was also true that there were times when, had I not used it, we would have all ended up dead.
“It’s okay.”
“Then I’m going.”
“Be careful!”
“Okay!”
Raphtalia brandished her sword and ran for the Tyrant Dragon Rex.
But her attack didn’t seem to be very effective.
Filo was fighting well and holding her own, but she wouldn’t be able to keep that up for very long. Her stamina had limits, after all.
I didn’t know how much stamina the Tyrant Dragon Rex had, but it seemed reasonable to assume it was more than we did.