by Mamare Touno
In the middle of the rooftop square, which seemed to have been flung out carelessly, an enormous iron tower jutted even higher into the air above those ten stories. This was probably the magical device that made it possible to communicate with the moon: the broadcasting tower.
At its base was a wrinkled, elderly individual with swarthy skin.
The level-86 Raid-rank monster, Taliktan, the Genius of Summoning.
“One enemy visually confirmed! Now, there’s a feast. Go get ’im, Souji!”
Nazuna raised an arm over her head, and countless small footholds materialized beyond her fingertips.
Mystery: Celestial Passage. This was an ability Nazuna had acquired that surpassed the parameters of Elder Tales. It was based on the damage interception spell Purification Barrier, but instead of being cast on companions, it was split up and distributed across empty space to create footholds. Its ability to intercept damage nearly disappeared, but the shining, translucent platforms that appeared in space made it possible to travel through the air.
In Buddhism, “Celestial Passage” was said to be one of the six supernatural powers gained upon attaining enlightenment. It was one of the so-called divine powers. Of course, what Nazuna was using was her own unique ability, acquired by refining skills she’d had in the game, and it had nothing to do with Buddhism. However, the abilities conferred by Celestial Passage—namely, “being able to leap over castle walls and mountains” and “the ability to run freely through the air, keeping pace with the birds”—had seemed to make it the perfect name for this Mystery. The name of Souji’s Mystery, Clairvoyance, had come from the same system.
Using Nazuna’s Mystery as footholds, Soujirou leapt into the air.
Up on the half-eroded concrete platform, Taliktan looked like a heretical priest. Swarthy skin; white hair worn tied back; a loose white-and-purple robe; and a long, twisted staff. When Souji saw Taliktan, the name “the Genius of Summoning” made sense to him. Taliktan had been using that supernatural ability to summon limitless monsters. The rainbow-colored pillar that linked the broadcasting tower to the sky was made of bubbles of MP. The thought that this enemy had put People of the Earth and Adventurers into comas lit a fighting spirit in him, burning blue.
“Floating Boat: Helm Splitter!”
He shifted directly from a martial-arts style of movement that made use of the footholds to an attack from above. It was a head-on cleaving attack that would ordinarily have worked best with a two-handed sword. Since Soujirou was one of the few Samurai twin sword–style builds, which emphasized counterattacking, he’d equipped a katana to each hand. As a result, instead of the usual slashing attack, he had to spin to launch the technique.
The attack bit into the cap of Taliktan’s shoulder.
He felt a good, solid response.
Of course, his opponent was a raid monster: a tough enemy in high-end content that had anywhere from several thousand to several tens of thousands of times the HP of solo monsters. Soujirou’s single attack hadn’t decreased its HP enough for the loss to show on the display. However, the attack hadn’t been deflected by a barrier, and it had gone through without being blocked by armor. In any case, his opponent’s level was 86. There was no way they couldn’t beat that… Assuming that this world was the same as Elder Tales, and there were a full twenty-four members in Soujirou’s group.
“Nazuna, Isami. Cover me.”
“Leave it to me, Boss!”
“Yeah, yeah. On it.”
When dealing with a spellcaster-type monster, using Rania’s Capture was a standard move, but it failed. However, no sooner had it done so than Isami linked it directly to Whirlwind Cutter, and he didn’t see any of the fear she’d felt right after the Catastrophe. Using Nazuna’s cover, Secret Rite of Celestial Tread, she closed the distance between them at high speed, continuing to create vulnerabilities for Soujirou to exploit.
In response, Soujirou shifted from Helm Splitter straight into Fire-Wheel Sword. The sound of the blade splitting the atmosphere seemed to point his heart toward its destination.
Once, Soujirou had spent a long time being afraid.
…About the fact that he’d created the West Wind Brigade.
No one had ever done so, but someday, somebody might ask him, Didn’t you put that guild together as a replacement for the Tea Party?
On the day Shiroe had turned down his invitation to join the West Wind Brigade, that fear had taken root in his heart. He’d felt a hidden uncertainty. Was he forcing crowds of people to live in ways they didn’t want to live, without being aware of it?
His time with the Tea Party had been a whole lot of fun; was it possible he was just trying to reclaim those days? If someone asked him about it, what could he tell them? Soujirou wasn’t good at thinking about things, so he hadn’t managed to come up with anything like a conclusion. However, the questions truthfully triggered a dull pain inside him.
Both when he’d just started playing Elder Tales and had been all excited, and when the Tea Party had disbanded, Soujirou had humbly asked his friends to stay with him, but they’d gone their own ways. He’d thought he hadn’t had any luck with friends.
And so Soujirou had been happy.
The great sword he was swinging came down, carrying delight and satisfaction with it.
Once Shiroe’s command had recovered, it had been just the way it had been during their Tea Party days. Or rather, it was clearer than it had been in the past, and it permeated each member of the raid team. As he bounded through the air and twisted his body, as he ran his gaze over the icons and switched stances, he felt his companions’ breathing. He couldn’t actually see them, but they seemed indescribably close to him. He knew what they were thinking, what they were trying to do, and their self-restraint as if those things were his own.
People would probably say that liking combat for reasons like that meant he was a little crazy, but he could tell his lips had curved into a smile. It wasn’t that he wanted to kill enemies. In the midst of the sensation that he was diffusing, then forming connections, he began to understand things he normally didn’t know. It wasn’t that he couldn’t feel those things during ordinary battles, but with Shiroe in command, they came home to him with incomparable intensity.
In short, Soujirou had been worried for nothing.
Isami, Nazuna, Olive, and Kurinon.
They all genuinely considered Soujirou their friend. Of course, all sorts of things were probably mixed into that emotion, and they didn’t all feel quite the same way, but the bonds he’d forged between himself and his companions weren’t a one-way thing.
Soujirou laughed at himself, thinking that, if it took a raid to make him understand something that simple, he really was dumb.
He also felt an odd sort of destiny in the fact that Shiroe—someone he thought had left him—had helped him to see it.
“And so, Taliktan.”
Sword guard clinking, Soujirou turned Sacred Blade Kogarasumaru on the raid boss in front of him. A translucent divine messenger in a fox mask stood behind him, spreading its arms like something from a Noh play. The fantasy-class blade exuded a pressure that made the air shiver, its spiritual power building.
“Dance with me for a while. I can’t let you go down there.”
3
“Mr. Shiro, we started without you.”
“We’ve got it all warmed up, Shiroe!”
A ruined midair garden spread out before them, jutting into space several dozen meters above the ground. The concrete was cracked, and thin, spindly weeds poked through the gaps. A single ruin seemed to float, isolated, in the darkening crimson sky.
The strong wind that buffeted his cheeks felt as if it was blowing from all four directions. In Theldesia, which had almost no tall buildings, the view from Fortress of the Call was overwhelming. They were able to see so far that, in the old world, it seemed as though the view might have encompassed all of Tokyo.
The building’s square roof had no fence, raised edges,
or other safety measures, so its edges were sheer. The sense of vastness was so overpowering that someone who was afraid of heights would probably have been unable to move.
By the time Shiroe and the others tumbled out onto it, Soujirou and the rest of the second party were in the middle of a protracted battle with Taliktan, as everyone had expected.
“Thank you! Reinforcements clear. Report!”
As he shouted, Shiroe signaled to the reinforcements with one hand.
In response to that hand sign, the remaining eighteen members of the raid team headed for Taliktan in a long, serpentine line and started forming ranks, with Naotsugu in the lead.
The second party had been designed for mobile defense. Compared with the first—which was built to completely engage with the enemy leader, keep it locked down for long periods of time, and fight with the goal of annihilating it—the second had better all-around performance, but its defense, recovery, and long-term combat abilities were lower. Whether defending or attacking, the Samurai class had excellent instantaneous abilities. Soujirou had kept the battle going this long through his player skills. That was just like him, but even so, they should probably avoid putting any more of a strain on him.
Naotsugu, the main tank, dashed forward, and Marielle sent support at him. It was Reactive Heal. Its level was low, but in combination with Minori’s Purification Barrier, it would probably last through the first attack.
“His level’s not that high. His ordinary attacks are within the expected range. His attribute is physical: that staff. There are two trouble spots. He has these group attacks that make no sense.”
“What’s the range configuration?”
As Nazuna answered Shiroe, she cast a Purification Barrier on Soujirou. She’d practiced it so often that she could add it without paying attention. But because the wind was strong, no matter what they did, they found themselves yelling as they talked.
“We don’t know. Purple electrical attacks that looked guided rampaged around. I’m the only one who didn’t get hit, but I was standing in practically the same place as Souji!”
So distance isn’t relevant? It’s a random attack?
Using Force Step to adjust the ranks, Shiroe kept thinking.
“The damage is huge. Souji played his trump card, and even then he almost went down.”
This was bad news.
The basic performance of the Samurai class was lower than the Guardian class. They weren’t able to equip shields, and their attribute defense tended to be lower as well. However, in exchange, their instantaneous coping abilities were far greater. Instant Desertion was a powerful special technique that let the user completely avoid all attacks for a short period of time, and Sword of Gathering Clouds was able to cancel the attack itself and halve the damage. Shiroe knew how Soujirou fought from their time in the Tea Party, and just hearing that he’d almost gone down while Parry was active told him how fierce the enemy’s attacks were.
If they took the same attack, there was a good possibility the front line would collapse.
No wonder the rearguard fighters’ HP is so far down.
Tetora, who’d opted not to compete with Marielle and was on standby in the rear instead, had begun to heal players, focusing on the ones who were the most severely injured. Reactive Heal was high performance, but as the name suggested, it was a spell system that automatically reacted to enemy attacks and recovered HP (although, naturally, not completely). The rearguard players had already taken damage and lost a lot of HP, and the only way to deal with it was to provide care using regular recovery spells. Tetora was recovering the injured members by combining spells such as Heal and Healing Light.
That was probably the correct decision.
“Sleep, all of you.”
“Why are you doing this?! What is this ‘sleep’ anyway?!”
The voice sounded like a growl.
Even so, Shiroe answered the words that fell from the monster’s lips with the response he’d planned on, loading it with his wish. This had been one of his covert goals. It was the reason he’d needed to come here.
Shiroe hadn’t been able to believe everything in Roe2’s letter. But even before that, it was hard to say he’d understood the content sufficiently.
Roe2 had warned them about the Geniuses, but despite that, Shiroe had been hesitant to cut them off without attempting a discussion. Now that things had come to this, it would probably be difficult to avoid fighting, but in that case, he at least wanted information.
“Sleep, all of you.”
“Isn’t there room to talk this out?!”
Every time Taliktan brandished his twisted staff, shock waves rampaged, and the flooring material—which should have been concrete—crumbled with absurd ease.
Shiroe looked into the eyes of the Genius of Summoning.
He had small pupils that shone like stars against a jet-black background.
Physically, he appeared to be an aged Summoner, but his expression was something entirely different. It seemed mechanical rather than alive, and the only responses Shiroe could sense were flat, inhuman ones.
“This guy’s just like Camaysar. A little better, ’cos he’s not a pervert.”
“Mr. Shiro, you can’t get through to him by talking.”
Even as a storm of bullet-like shock waves cut his cheeks, Shiroe gazed straight at the Genius. There had to be some kind of clue here. As he fought, he tried desperately to uncover it.
Taliktan wanted Empathiom, too.
The result had been this sleep.
And from what Shiroe could guess, while Empathiom might be a resource, it wasn’t energy in the strictest sense of the word. That they couldn’t get through to the Geniuses by talking was proof of this, in a way. With that one move, he’d come a little closer to the meaning of that letter.
“Shiroe, that lightning they reported—! It’s preliminary motions—”
Riezé’s scream was brilliant.
She’d picked up on the preliminary motions of a monster attack she was seeing for the first time.
However, there wasn’t enough time to urge the team to take evasive action. At the edge of his field of vision, he saw Naotsugu raise his large shield, but the lightning seemed to have bypassed the Guardian. Increasing all at once, it raced among the members of the vanguard, and Soujirou, Nyanta, Nazuna, and Akatsuki were run through.
“Shiroe, about a hundred and eighty seconds…!”
Even as Nazuna was thrown to the ground by the force of the electrical attack, she finished giving her report.
If an attack as powerful as this one was unleashed several times in a row, they’d never manage to fight an actual battle. With 180 seconds, they could have used a brute force approach as they recovered, but apparently, that strategy wasn’t going to be possible, either.
“Mr. Shiro, don’t let your guard down. He calls in reinforcements. Eternal Moths and Moon Rabbits… He twists that rainbow-colored light—!”
Unlike the healer, Soujirou had a little leeway, and as he cautioned Shiroe, he attempted a bold charge. He’d anticipated that special ability, both when he’d seen the name “Genius of Summoning” and when swarms of Eternal Moths had appeared in Akiba. He’d predicted that the mastermind would be a being that called in reinforcements of some kind. As a matter of fact, most of the monsters that Shiroe and the others had fought their way through in this dungeon, the Party-rank monsters, had probably been summoned by Taliktan.
He’d thought up a way to deal with that.
Now that he’d come this far and had seen the battlefield, he was sure.
The problem was that he didn’t really have the time to explain it.
“Third party, bring your aggro down! Naotsugu, Souji, prepare for a pincer attack. We’re moving.”
“Moving? What are you planning to do, Shiroe?! There’s nowhere else to go!”
Shouryuu’s words sounded like a scream, and they made him feel guilty.
True, this midair concrete garden wa
sn’t the sort of place they could run from. Considered normally, that was true.
“First party, close ranks.”
However, there was no time to explain the details to Shouryuu and the rest.
If the recast time for that purple lightning was 180 seconds, they should probably assume the same was true for summoning reinforcements. At the very least, he didn’t have the leeway to explain slowly.
“We’re moving the battlefield. We have a shot at victory. Please believe in your own strength, the strength of Adventurers!”
His eyes met Akatsuki’s, and he saw her nod emphatically.
For no reason at all, he abruptly felt as if this was going to work.
This, after all that worrying I did earlier. I guess I’m pretty mercenary. Shiroe laughed at himself. Apparently, as long as he knew what he needed do, he didn’t hesitate. Either way, if that tower was a magic device, they had to tear the enemy away from it.
* * *
“Aggro Exchange! Anchor Howl!”
A torrent of light streamed from the sword Naotsugu held high, draining something from Soujirou. Aggro Exchange was a special skill that swapped the user’s aggro with the aggro of a targeted companion. Soujirou, the main force of the second party, had mounted a preemptive strike and supported the front line until just a moment ago, and now Naotsugu had taken over the vast amount of aggro he’d accumulated.
Taliktan’s eyes were like red stars floating in a black, bottomless swamp. They rolled in a grotesque motion that seemed as if it should be audible, shifting to glare at Naotsugu.
“’Scuse me a sec, Miss Mari.”
Naotsugu, who was now the sole target of Taliktan’s aggro, turned around, winked cheerfully, then scooped Marielle up. Getting picked up sideways startled the woman, but the next second, her cheeks flushed as if they’d been boiled. Marielle attempted to protest but didn’t have time.