by Hiro Ainana
I used Short Stun to smash through the mantis’s wings, knocking the pair into the fire.
Sorry, but I don’t have time to mess around with small-fry.
I crossed two miles of the battlefield at a speed of two hundred miles per hour, setting my sights on the demon that was fused with the rock shooter.
The creature was still about half a mile away, but my Magic Arrow spell should still reach at this distance.
A full-powered salvo of one hundred twenty enchanted bolts pummeled into the demon rock shooter.
The monster filled with holes even faster than the hydra I’d killed at the fortress had.
But though it was now falling apart, the thing still wasn’t dead.
This must be the effect of its “Lesser Magic Resistance” skill.
Well, in that case…
I took a steel short spear out of Storage and flung it.
The spear bored a huge hole right through the thing’s flank, but it still wouldn’t die.
Right… Zena had said in Seiryuu City that only magic or magic weapons could hurt demons.
Thinking back, when we beat the demon magistrate before, we hadn’t been using ordinary weapons.
Rushing up to the demon rock shooter, I cut it down with the Holy Sword Excalibur.
Despite how stubborn it’d been before, a single touch from Excalibur was enough for it to crumble to black dust in no time flat. Leave it to a Holy Sword.
Seeing that I’d defeated the demon, the nearby goblins began to flee into the woods.
All the unharmed goblins from the left flank saw this and started running away, too.
At the same time, the undead monsters under the demon knight’s command emerged from the forest right where the fleeing goblins had been.
The demon knight swung his sword, and immediately the horde of undead began rushing this way.
Personally, I refused to accept zombies that can run, but it wasn’t surprising given how quickly they’d marched here.
Before they got any closer, I decided to reduce with magic the number of the bolting monsters.
Just as I opened my magic menu, I felt a series of vibrations from inside the large forest.
I could see the foliage shaking. Closing the magic menu for a moment, I opened my map, and…
…knocking the trees about like twigs, an enormous human figure emerged onto the battlefield.
“TALLY-HO!”
…Huh?
The ground shook as the forest giant jumped into the fray, cutting swathes in the horde of goblins with his giant battle-ax.
A group of demi-goblin knights mounted on soldier mantises boldly rushed toward him, but a single swing of his battle-ax lopped off the head of one of the mounts and sliced its rider in two.
The one charging into battle with an enormous, Spellblade-lit ax was none other than Braidbeard the forest giant.
He must have run here all the way from the Mountain-Tree Village to back us up.
“THANK YOU FOR COMING, LORD BRAIDBEARD.”
“IF ONE IS TO BE THANKED, IT IS SATOU THE HUMAN.”
Three more forest giants lined up next to Braidbeard and began exterminating the imps.
“I’LL LEAVE THE GOBLINS TO YOU, THEN. I’M GOING TO TAKE ON THE UNDEAD MONSTERS.”
Without waiting for Braidbeard’s reply, I began roasting the undead with Fire Shots.
Armed with a lance, the demon knight charged straight at me. He had somehow taken over the horse as well as the knight he was possessing.
I attacked the demon with Magic Arrow. I’d expected the assault to tear him apart, but that didn’t happen.
The demon knight had blocked my attack with his shield. According to the AR display, the buckler was called a Screaming Shield; a relief of a human face was embossed into the surface.
I tried coming at it with Fire Shot instead, but the shield deflected that, too.
Well, if magic wouldn’t work, I’d have to get physical.
I triggered Spellblade on a bronze nail from Storage and hurled it at the demon knight as he charged toward me.
The demon knight raised his shield to block my attack.
With a sharp clang, the Spellblade nail penetrated the shield and knocked both knight and horse to the ground, but the demon still wasn’t defeated. This shield could hold its own even against physical attacks.
I charged at the demon knight with the Holy Sword Excalibur in hand.
I tried activating Spellblade on Excalibur, but I stopped when I felt a strange resistance.
Maybe it doesn’t work well with Holy Swords?
Taking advantage of my momentary pause, the demon knight let loose a triple attack with his lance, which pulsed as though alive.
I intercepted the attack at once with the Holy Sword. Each time it touched my blade, the lance sparked red and took another dent.
As I’d hoped, Holy Swords were effective against both demons and their weapons.
I kicked the Screaming Shield out of the demon knight’s hands, and he stumbled.
Then, while the demon was vulnerable, I lopped off the tentacle-like head with the Holy Sword to defeat him.
From afar, the roar of a giant monster echoed across the battlefield.
Clearly, the real demon host was coming this way.
Three hydras appeared on the battlefield, tangled together as if they were fighting one another.
…No, wait, they really were feuding.
The tentacle-headed demon hydra was battling the two normal hydras in midair. The monsters snapped at one another’s heads, and the tangled mass looked ready to crash at any moment.
Well, that works for me. Might as well finish them off now.
I took a Holy Arrow out of Storage.
This unique bolt was made of wood from the Mountain-Tree, with an obsidian arrowhead that would easily facilitate magic, and I’d carved the blue magic circuit for a Holy Sword into both parts.
It wasn’t very durable, but since I needed it to hit only once, that shouldn’t be a problem.
I took out the Magic Bow I’d gotten from the giants, nocking the Holy Arrow. I’d made only three prototypes, so I’d have to aim carefully.
I poured as much magical power into the projectile as it would hold and it glowed blue.
Noticing the light, the demon hydra chewed off his own captured head to get away from the others.
After they were shaken off, the two hydras crashed into the ground near me.
The demon hydra was frantically racing away, but no matter how quickly he moved, he wouldn’t reach a speed of two hundred miles per hour.
During my test fire, this bow and arrow had a range of two miles. When I let go, the arrow would be faster than the speed of sound.
Eat this!
I fired the arrow with all my might.
Flying from the Magic Bow, the Holy Arrow soared through the sky in a streak of blue.
It broke through the sound barrier and caught up to the demon hydra from behind in the blink of an eye, turning him into an explosion of black dust.
The black dust formed several black rings in the air, perhaps due to the blue glow, then scattered on the wind.
After instantaneously destroying the demon, the arrow zipped onward through the clouds and vanished into the blue sky.
Surprised by the unexpected power of my Holy Arrow, I checked the log.
The line hydra demon defeated had appeared there.
Great, looks like I finished it— Wait, no, not quite. The red dot that indicated the demon was still on my radar.
The double-headed hydra that had crashed near me now had tentacles for heads.
He had used his own devoured head to take over another body.
The other hydra, a three-headed one, had been killed in the crash.
“I never expect a real hero to appear…”
Whoa, it’s talking.
While the thing spoke, I scanned the map for any remaining doppelgängers or possessed creatures.
<
br /> “But it seem you be too late.”
No, this guy was the only demon left. He didn’t have any other hosts, either.
“I have plunge this land into despair, and the malice and resentment of the people be collected in my chaos jar and transformed to miasma.”
Oh, so that’s what he’s doing?
I examined the hydra corpse, but there were no signs the demon had invaded its body.
“What now, hero? Do you not wish to know where the chaos jar be?”
Now that he mentioned it, I tried searching for this chaos jar on the map.
It was in the luggage of one of the high-ranking government officials who’d fled earlier.
“You never catch up with it now! The chaos jar on its way to sacred shrine in the very hands of you humans.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. Actually, though, would you mind explaining the shrine you mentioned?”
The demon hydra seemed pleased that I had responded and cackled uproariously from both heads.
“I tell you no more. Go ahead and struggle, hero. The golden sovereign will resurrected, and then you will regret your foolishness.”
Okay, so the chaos jar is necessary for the resurrection of some “golden sovereign” guy or whatever, then?
It was probably used for a kind of ritual to revive a demon lord, then.
But, as they say, too much scheming will be the schemer’s downfall.
“Nah, I don’t think I’ll be regretting anything. The chaos jar isn’t going to reach its destination.”
I blandly shrugged at the demon hydra.
After all, the officials carrying the chaos jar were currently under attack from a group of thieves near the territory border.
His plan was going to be ruined by robbers who were around only because of the unrest he himself had spread throughout the barony; it seemed like excellent karmic retribution to me.
“How you be so sure?”
“…I will tell you no more.”
I repeated the demon’s words back at him, ending the conversation.
One of the heads howled with anger, firing the Psychic Magic spell Mind Blow at me from point-blank range.
My “Psychic Resistance” skill let me withstand the spell with only slight discomfort, and I poured some magic into the Holy Sword Excalibur to strengthen it.
Unlike the Holy Arrow, the sword didn’t have a limit on how much magic it could hold.
Since its capacity was apparently endless, I stopped at about one thousand points of magic and swung the blade toward the demon hydra as he started to leap into the air.
Just then, the supposedly dead three-headed hydra got in the way.
Behind it was a wraith the demon had created. The specter had probably used one of its race-specific abilities to make the three-headed creature into an undead monster.
I cut through the zombie hydra standing before me to turn it back into a corpse, then popped the body into Storage so that it couldn’t be used again.
After that, I selected Fire Shot from my magic menu and reduced the wraith to ashes.
Finally, I took aim at the demon hydra as he spread his wings to take off into the sky and fired a hundred and twenty Magic Arrows.
Just like the four-headed hydra I’d encountered at the border, the demon’s heads were quickly pulverized into chunks of meat by the magic.
The demon began breaking away from the corpse as it crashed to the earth, so I cut through him with the Holy Sword, turning him to black dust.
…It’s not over yet.
“Come out. It’s no use playing dead against me.”
“I impressed that you notice.”
Tearing through the belly of the grounded carcass, the demon appeared before me.
The AR display said his level was 36—in other words, this time really would be the last.
Ready to defeat him in one blow, I leaped into the air and swung the Holy Sword Excalibur in one motion.
Blue light arced through the sky.
Where did it go?
“Very scary. What a hero you be.”
The demon was now standing where I’d defeated the demon knight before.
His upper body was sprouting from the lower half of a gjallarhorn. Most likely, it had only seemed dead in the stomach of the demon hydra.
His disappearance a moment ago must have been the gjallarhorn’s inherent skill “Short-Range Teleportation.”
First, I’d better take down that annoying gjallarhorn body. I opened the magic column of the menu and fired Magic Arrow.
However, the Screaming Shield from before got in the way.
He must have teleported in order to recover the shield.
The demon used two more “Short-Range Teleportations” to put some distance between us, then took to the sky toward Muno Castle.
Quickly, I grabbed a Holy Arrow and nocked it on my Magic Bow.
However, just as I infused it with magic, the demon used another “Short-Range Teleportation” and escaped into Muno City.
I put the fully charged arrow into Storage for now and raced back to Muno City at top speed.
My enemy was out of the range of my radar now, so I gave chase with the map open.
I couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t make more doppelgängers while he was out of sight, too, so I made sure to search the map repeatedly as I ran.
When I had Muno Castle in sight again, the demon was at the top of the tower housing the defunct Magic Cannon.
But the supposedly broken weapon was moving on its own.
According to my AR display, it was now a poltergeist.
He can even turn objects into undead monsters? Seriously?!
“Now watch as I burning Muno City to the ground.”
My “Keen Hearing” skill picked up on the faraway demon’s voice.
The demon had flung off the body of the gjallarhorn and merged with the Magic Cannon poltergeist.
Shit. I’m not in a good position.
The Screaming Shield could ward off my precise Magic Arrows, and the Holy Arrow I’d used earlier would be way too powerful.
If I used it from here, it might blow away the nearby castle.
“Recall the power of Magic Cannon, which once douse the cities of Muno in flame.”
As the demon cackled loudly, the Magic Cannon began transforming into a futuristic long barrel.
The fear that my kids might be harmed clouded my mind with panic, making it difficult to devise another solution.
What do I do?
Would I have to risk the people in the castle to destroy it, for the safety of my kids…?
Running through an alley, I tried to calm my frantic mind as it jumped from conclusion to conclusion.
Nine more seconds until he’s in range of my Holy Sword.
“With the magic power of the source, there be no limit to Magic Cannon’s ammunition.”
The glowing particles in the barrel of his weapon began whirling about.
So on top of being crazy powerful, it has unlimited ammo?
I jumped over the first of the walls.
“Now, let me hearing your screams as the beauty of flames arise! They shall be the beacon that herald the resurrection of our king!”
Looking down at me, the demon aimed the cannon toward the main gate, right where my kids were engaged in battle.
I can’t stop him.
I landed on the tower of the second wall, whipping out the Magic Bow.
“You too late!”
But then, suddenly, the light in the barrel of the cannon disappeared.
“What? My connection to the source be broken?”
On my open map, I saw the baron’s dot of light at the location of the City Core.
Deep in my heart, I applauded the brave baron for overcoming his fear of the curse.
Then, in that moment of reflection, I realized something.
If I only need to destroy the Magic Cannon, can’t I just use an ordinary weapon?
I
took out a short spear from Storage and hurled it.
In the blink of an eye, the poltergeist floated out of the wreckage of the fearsome weapon.
At that moment, a loud noise shook the air, and a barrier of white light surrounded the main building of the castle.
“I-impossible!”
The barrier repelled the demon and launched him into the air, and the poltergeist, unable to withstand the force, was destroyed.
“They say the barrier made by a City Core can even defend against attacks from intermediate and greater hell demons.”
I recalled what Arisa had said to me some time ago.
The demon tried to escape, and I drew the string of the Magic Bow without an arrow.
Quickly, the demon raised the Screaming Shield toward me.
Well, no need to worry about damaging the castle, then.
I took the Holy Arrow brimming with power out of Storage and once again nocked it to the Magic Bow.
Checkmate.
A streak of blue light soared through the sky over Muno City, and the demon that had staged his evil schemes in this city was annihilated once and for all.
A New Family Name
Satou here. In modern Japan, it’s standard for normal families to have a family name, but ordinary people often don’t have one in games and such, thanks to game planners like Mr. Tubs who think it’s annoying to come up with them.
With the demon disposed of, I lowered the hood of my red coat, exposing my long blond wig and silver mask to the public as I soared through the central street toward the main gate.
The wig and mask were designed to stay in place even when I was running, so it wasn’t a problem.
There were still hundreds of goblins at the main gate fighting to invade the city.
However, now they were trying to escape the rampaging forest giants outside the town.
“… Balloon Kyuubouchou!”
Mia’s Water Magic hurled the goblins back over the gate.
Arisa and Nana were at Mia’s side, and the beastfolk girls and Miss Karina were near the gate. Hauto was in the tower on top of the gate with many of the civilian soldiers, while Lulu was assigning duties in the inn.