Chapter I: God’s Domain
If someone asked Eri Nakamura what her most vivid, unforgettable memory was, she would answer: “The moment my dad died.”
She had been six when her father had passed away. She was in the way of an oncoming car when her father had jumped in to protect her, and he had died in her place. It was the kind of boring accident you heard about on the news all the time. But to Eri, it had been far from a boring event. Especially because of how her mother’s attitude had changed afterward.
Eri’s mother had been from a well-off family, and she’d married Eri’s father against their wishes. Those who knew the family would say Eri’s mother’s obsession with her husband bordered on complete dependence.
Unsurprisingly, Eri’s mother had been unable to bear the shock of losing him. However, the manner in which she broke was what made this story so tragic. For in her despair, she’d channeled her rage at her own daughter, Eri.
At first it was just a snide remark here or there, but before long, it evolved into physical and verbal abuse. Eri did her best to bear the pain...because even at the tender age of six, she understood where her mother was coming from when she said it was all Eri’s fault. Indeed, Eri even believed it herself. After all, if not for her, her father would still be alive. It was only natural that her mom hated her. It was only natural that her mother wanted to hurt her.
At the same time, however, Eri also believed that if she weathered the pain, then eventually her mother would return to being the gentle woman she’d known.
Eri’s mother was discreet about how she hurt her, and Eri herself never said a word to her teachers or the adults around her, so no one ever learned the twisted nature of the pair’s relationship.
It was inevitable that Eri eventually stopped smiling. In time she became a dark, gloomy girl who simply took whatever abuse her mother dished out and bore it.
Most of the kids her age thought her creepy and avoided her. And naturally, she was unable to make friends. The isolation only served to deepen her self-loathing and gouge even deeper wounds into her already scarred heart.
She was nearing her limit when she was hit with yet another devastating blow. When she was eleven, in fifth grade, she discovered her mom had brought home another man. Eri watched in shock as her mother gushed over her thuggish new boyfriend. She couldn’t believe it. Eri had thought her mother had hurt her because she’d loved her father so deeply. And in a way, that had, of course, been true, but Eri’s mother had been even weaker than Eri had thought. She simply couldn’t survive without depending on others.
From that day on, this new man began to live in the Nakamura house. He was utter scum. Not satisfied with Eri’s mother, he even set his lascivious sights on Eri herself. Eri had to make herself as small and unnoticeable as possible in order to survive, but it wasn’t enough, so in an effort to protect herself from the man, she’d cut her hair—which she’d grown out to emulate her beloved mother—short and started acting more like a boy. Unfortunately, that caused her peers at school to distance themselves even more. While she hadn’t had any real friends, her classmates had at least talked to her from time to time before. But after her change, they avoided her like the plague. The increased isolation drove deeper cracks into Eri’s wounded heart.
The sole thing keeping Eri from crumbling completely was the hope and belief that her mother would eventually return to her kind, old self. That lone ray of hope drove her forward. Of course, a part of Eri knew she was just deluding herself and that that day would never come. But in the deluge of despair she was drowning in, false hope was all she had to cling to.
No false hope could last forever, though. Three months after her mother had brought her new boyfriend home, he finally tried to make a move on Eri while her mother was out working.
In truth, Eri saw this as an opportunity. She had known this day would come eventually, and she hoped that if she screamed loud enough, the neighbors would catch the man in the act and the police would arrest him. With that, her hellish life with him would finally be over. Then her mom would finally remember the man she’d truly loved, and she’d go back to being herself.
However, after the nightmare was over and her mother came back and saw what had happened, Eri realized she’d been a fool to believe. Instead of worrying about her daughter or apologizing for bringing home such an awful man, she instead showered Eri with hate.
To this day, Eri still remembered the first words her mother said to her back then: “How could you seduce him, you bitch?!” Instead of realizing her boyfriend was an awful person, Eri’s mother thought she had once again stolen her man away from her.
At last, Eri saw the truth for what it was. The mother who’d betrayed her father, the mother who kept hurting her after her father had died, the mother who cared more about losing her new boyfriend than the fact that she’d been raped, did not love her one bit.
In truth, Eri had known this for a while, but she’d been unwilling to face the truth. She hadn’t wanted to accept that her old, kind mother would never return. That this spiteful, jealous woman was her mother’s true nature.
Everything Eri had believed in was a lie. There had been no meaning to enduring this pain for so long...and the future held absolutely no hope at all.
At that moment, Eri’s heart shattered completely, and she lost consciousness. When she woke up the next morning, she snuck out of the house, intending to kill herself. She couldn’t stay by her mother’s side any longer.
In a fugue state, she stumbled over to a nearby bridge that crossed the river. And as she looked down at the flowing water below, she decided this would be where she’d end it. She hoped the current would carry her away somewhere where there wouldn’t be any people.
However, as she climbed onto the railing and prepared to leap off it, a voice interrupted her, saying, “What are you doing?”
Turning back, Eri caught sight of a boy around her age. He was wearing a sweatshirt and was clearly in the middle of a morning jog. Eri knew him quite well, since he was the school’s most popular boy, Kouki Amanogawa.
Seeing the despair in Eri’s eyes, Kouki guessed that she was liable to hurt herself and quickly dragged her down from the railing. In a patient voice, he asked her what had happened.
At first Eri ignored him, but Kouki was so persistent that, eventually, she gave in. She gave him a brief summary of her mess of a life, and Kouki, in standard Kouki fashion, interpreted events in his own way. He thought that Eri had been harshly disciplined by her father and that she had turned to her mother for salvation, but her mother had scolded her as well. Since Eri had no friends she could rely on to help her through this depressing time, she’d decided to kill herself.
On a basic level, Kouki’s interpretation wasn’t completely off the mark. Young as he was, and still naively believing that all humans were fundamentally good, Kouki simply wasn’t able to comprehend that people like Eri’s mother or her pedophile boyfriend might exist. And so, he’d reinterpreted events in his mind in a way that fit his worldview.
Believing completely in his own brand of justice, Kouki had flashed Eri his perfect smile and said, “Don’t worry; you’re not alone anymore. I’ll protect you, Eri.”
Eri’s life until that point had consisted of being told over and over that she was worthless, so hearing someone say that he’d protect her was a novelty. Indeed, she was so starved for any kind of affection that Kouki’s declaration had a huge impact on her. It helped that Kouki looked like a handsome prince, and he’d appeared at the dramatic moment right as Eri had been about to kill herself.
In the end, Kouki managed to convince Eri not to kill herself, and when she was forced to go to school by her mom, she discovered that all the girls in the class were suddenly talking to her. Afterward, she found out that this, too, had been Kouki’s doing. Unsurprisingly, she fell madly in love with him as a result.
In the same way that bad things had kept on piling up one after another thus far, good things started piling up instead. A few days later, child protective services finally showed up to investigate her mother’s abuse. It seemed her attempted suicide had brought attention to the fact that something might be wrong at home.
However, instead of ratting her mother out, Eri did her best to put on the good daughter act, even though it had made her want to puke. She knew that if she was separated from her mom, she wouldn’t be able to keep going to the same school.
Eri distinctly remembered her mother’s reaction when she’d pretended to love her. At first, her mother’s expression had been one of pure shock, but then it slowly morphed into one of fear.
It was then that Eri realized how simple it was to turn someone’s world upside down and make them dance in the palm of her hand. Just by smiling at her mother instead of glowering darkly, she could force her to avert her eyes and fall silent. Once, Eri went up to her mother and whispered, “What should I steal from you next?” At that, her mother went deathly pale and ran screaming out of the house.
For her part, Eri was convinced this was all thanks to Kouki, the shining prince who’d sworn to protect her. It was because Kouki had rescued her that her world had changed. She believed that she was special and that she’d been chosen by this handsome prince. So long as she was with him, she was certain her life would be full of light and happiness.
Eri continued threatening her mother until she went off to live somewhere else and simply provided Eri with a monthly allowance. And once that happened, she began preparing to welcome Kouki to her side. However, what Eri didn’t realize was that she’d misunderstood the kind of person Kouki was.
To Kouki, Eri was just another girl that a hero such as himself was supposed to save. And in his eyes, his job was done the moment he’d talked to his classmates and asked them to get along with Eri.
In the same way that the heroines the protagonist rescued rarely ever showed up in future arcs, to Kouki, Eri’s arc was already done, so he no longer needed to interact with her.
Eri didn’t realize that, though, and she found it strange that Kouki treated her the same as he did anyone else. Moreover, she’d failed to realize the other girls he’d saved weren’t “special” to him either. She began to burn with jealousy, wondering why they were by his side and not her. The suffering from her childhood had already shattered her heart to pieces, and all Kouki had done was tape the outside back together to make it look like she was okay. However, such a shoddy repair job couldn’t hold, so Eri’s broken heart shattered once more, this time sending her down a spiral of madness from which there was no escape.
“Didn’t you say I wasn’t alone anymore? Didn’t you promise to protect me? So then, why are you saying the same thing to everyone else? Why aren’t you looking only at me? Why won’t you help me even though I’m suffering so much right now? Why are you smiling like that at other girls? Why do you look at me like I’m just another girl? Why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why...”
A new kind of darkness began to envelop Eri’s heart. She could feel herself sinking into a pit of jealousy, slowly drowning until nothing—
“E...ri... Eri... Eri!”
Eri was suddenly snapped out of her reminiscing. Feeling as though a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders, she savored the choking cries, the faint smell of sweat and blood, and the raw sensation of flesh on her palms.
“Whoops.”
Realizing what was happening, Eri loosened her muscles. Then she watched as Kouki coughed painfully underneath her. It seemed she’d unconsciously started choking him.
Ugh... I can’t believe I had such an unpleasant dream. Why’d I dream about the past now, of all times? Am I just nervous about the end of the world?
Still straddling Kouki, Eri watched impassively as he gasped for air.
For all her purported love for Kouki, she seemed quite dispassionate when she looked at him. It was almost as if she’d turned into an apostle in both body and soul.
“E-Eri? Are you okay?”
A normal person would have yelled at Eri for trying to choke them, but Kouki was genuinely worried for her well-being. There was no fear, anger, or even dissatisfaction in his voice. Eri couldn’t tell if he was like that because of his own innate kindness or because she was manipulating his thoughts with Spirit Binding. Either way, she was satisfied with his response.
She gave him a beaming smile. But on her, even that perfect smile looked like a disparaging sneer.
“I’m fine, Kouki-kun. Sorry I choked you. That must have hurt.”
“I’ll be okay. You were having a nightmare, weren’t you? I could hear you moaning in your sleep.”
“Yeah, I was. I had a dream where they took you away from me and killed me.”
Lying came as naturally as breathing to Eri, so she said that as she snuggled up to Kouki. Neither of them were wearing any clothes. Both of them were resting on a shoddy bed in a dilapidated room. The windows were broken, part of the ceiling had caved in, and cracks were running across the floor. Size-wise, the room was as big as a luxury hotel suite, but it was far too run-down for anyone to live comfortably in.
The sight of Eri, with her dirty gray hair, cuddling up to Kouki, who still acted like his kind self, yet had cloudy, unfocused eyes, in the middle of that decaying room felt at once fetishistic, lonely, and desperate.
“Don’t worry, Eri,” Kouki said, raising himself into a sitting position and curling his fingers into a fist. “I won’t let Nagumo have his way any longer. I’m going to break Shizuku and the others free of his brainwashing, then save all of our classmates. I’ll do whatever it takes to beat Nagumo, even if I have to get my hands dirty. He’s committed far too many evil deeds to be allowed to roam free.”
Kouki spat venom, venting all the dark feelings festering in his heart. He was fully convinced that he was right and that Hajime Nagumo was the root of all evil. He truly believed that killing Hajime would solve everything. In fact, he was certain that killing Hajime would make all his classmates trust him again, make all of his friends love him again, and bring everything back to the way it was before. There was absolutely no basis for that belief, but he fully believed it would bring him back into the light and turn him into everyone’s hero once more.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. We have to make him pay and all that,” Eri said as she got up and covered Kouki’s fist with her hands. But despite her gentle mannerisms, her gray eyes were glowing with a fierce light. “If that fiend shows up, you’ll protect me, right? You promised, remember?”
“Yeah, I will.”
“You’ll prioritize me over your classmates, your friends, and even your own feelings, right?”
“Well...”
“You promised we’d be together forever, didn’t you?”
“Y-Yeah...”
“Don’t worry. I’m on your side, Kouki-kun. In fact, I’m the only one on your side. I’m not like the others, who betrayed you. I’ll stand by you forever. I’ll help you whenever you need it,” Eri whispered sweetly into Kouki’s ear, her eyes glowing with a manic light.
Distinctly aware of the softness in his arms, Kouki’s resolve to do whatever it took to “rescue” his classmates faded and he felt himself get sucked into Eri’s gray eyes.
Of course, he still wanted to save his friends, but he also wanted to punish them for so easily being led astray by Hajime and betraying him. Conflicting feelings warred inside him, and he was no longer certain what course of action was “right.” However, his own desire to have clear-cut answers to everything in life and Eri’s Spirit Binding both subtly pushed him to conflate Eri’s own desires with justice.
Kouki already tended to accept only the parts of reality that confirmed his viewpoint, making it easy for Eri’s Spirit Binding to completely dominate him. He had been charmed by Eri’s wiles and had willingly let himself get trapped in her web.
“Eri... Thanks. You’re the only one who...”
“Yes? Go on.”
She’d obviously guided him into saying this, but she still wanted to hear the words slip from his lips.
Unaware that he was being manipulated, Kouki said in an innocent voice, “You’re...the only one who’s special to me. No matter what happens, I won’t leave your side. I’ll protect you, Eri.”
“He he he he he he he he he...”
“Eri? Mmmpf...” Kouki shot Eri a concerned glance, but before he could say anything, she pressed her lips against his. However, even that act made her look like a spider devouring her prey.
After a few minutes, she broke off the kiss, a glimmering line of saliva connecting their lips. Smiling faintly, Kouki closed his eyes and went to sleep.
The demi-apostleification had raised Kouki’s stats, but his body had been resistant to the change. While he didn’t possess the strength full apostleification would have granted him, he was still a lot stronger than before. As a result, though, his body needed to rest frequently until it adjusted to his newfound power.
Eri wrapped a sheet around herself and left the bed. The sheet trailed along the floor behind her as she walked barefoot over to the broken window. Shards of glass crunched under her feet, but her apostleified body was far too tough to be damaged by mere glass.
Once she reached the window, she looked outside. The sky was rust-red and the city a ravaged ruin. A dry wind blew through the streets. This was the remains of one of the civilizations Ehit had toyed with, destroyed, and then transported to the realm of the gods to be preserved for all eternity.
The countdown toward the end of the world was almost over. Soon, all of Tortus, and then Earth, would end up like this ruined city.
“You’d better actually die this time around,” Eri grumbled. Even under the effects of her Spirit Binding, Kouki was still unable to let go of his lingering desire to crush Hajime and rescue his friends. However, Eri had absolutely no interest in fighting Hajime. In fact, the last time she’d seen him, he had a gaping hole in his stomach and had been hit by Ehit so hard he was covered in wounds from head to toe. She’d thought for sure the monster of the abyss would die there, but she’d learned afterward from an apostle that he’d somehow made it out of that situation alive. And not only that, but he’d killed Alva in the process. It was unbelievable.
Hajime Nagumo was beyond Eri’s comprehension. Common sense didn’t seem to apply to him. There was no way she was going to risk a confrontation with him. Nothing good would come from getting mixed up with that cursed boy. The best possible move was to simply ignore him.
Eri doubted he’d be able to break through the gate leading to the Sanctuary, so he’d probably die with the rest of humanity when the wave of apostles rushed into their world.
He’d better die.
Eri had already made a deal with Ehit. Once Ehit had conquered Earth, as a reward for her efforts, he would gift her this city and no one, especially not Hajime and his friends, would ever bother her. Thankfully, she’d already done enough, so he didn’t even want her to be part of the army that attacked Tortus.
Besides, even on the off chance that Hajime and his friends did make their way into the Sanctuary, she still wouldn’t have to face them. This ancient ruin was the farthest away from the Sanctuary’s gate, and it was astronomically unlikely that Hajime would run into her on his way to Ehit. Plus, she doubted he had any reason to seek her out. She knew Hajime Nagumo had zero interest in her or Kouki. He was a rational guy, and if his goal was to get his vampire princess back, he wouldn’t waste time searching for her. And then, when he faced God, Ehit would simply strike him down. After all, for all Hajime’s strength, he didn’t stand a chance against Ehit.
Almost everything was working in Eri’s favor here. Come what may, her victory was all but assured. And yet...
“Spread out in a one-kilometer radius. Keep an eye out for any intruders,” she said to a gray-winged man standing outside her window.
The man showed no signs of life, and his body was a cobbled-together mess. He simply nodded silently, then started circling the ruins of the city. Other gray-winged figures leaped out of nearby skyscrapers to join him, and they spread out to set a perimeter around the ruins.
Eri couldn’t afford to get complacent. Only after she’d killed everyone she didn’t need, captured everyone she did, bound their very souls, and crushed their will to resist her would she be able to feel even a modicum of peace. She’d lost her trust in anyone or anything years ago.
“I’m putting my faith in you, God,” she said with a sardonic grin. Though she looked like an apostle, she had about as much faith in Ehit as she did anyone else.
Turning on her heel, she returned to the bed and stared at Kouki’s sleeping face. Then, after a few seconds, she lowered herself to his side and hugged him.
“We’re going to be together forever and eeeeeever,” she squealed as she wrapped all four of her limbs around him. “It’ll be just us two alone in this world, with no one to interrupt us.”
Eri smiled. She didn’t realize it, but she looked just like her own mother, the woman she used to hate, which was precisely why she hadn’t been able to believe in her only true friend, who she’d decried as a hypocrite. It was also why she couldn’t fathom that Suzu might still come looking for her.
Eri had failed to notice the strength of her friend, who she’d cut off and humiliated. And so, of course, she never imagined that same friend was desperately fighting her way to Eri at that very moment in hope of conveying her feelings once more.
A vibrant burst of color was the first thing Hajime and the others saw when they first stepped foot into the Sanctuary.
It felt like they’d wandered into a soap bubble. Colors warped and blended together, and even the objects were fuzzy, having no clear outlines.
“Ugh, I think I’m gonna throw up,” Suzu muttered, covering her mouth with one hand.
“Don’t focus too hard on any one thing...” Shizuku cautioned.
“Hey, Nagumo, is this really the Sanctuary?” Ryutarou asked, frowning. The group’s Skyboards were pretty beat-up from the turbulence they’d had to go through to get through the gate, but they were otherwise in good shape.
Hajime had needed to use both his inferior copy of the Crystal Key and the deprecated version of the Arrow of Boundaries that Miledi Reisen had given him to force his way into the Sanctuary. It had been a pretty rough entry, so Ryutarou was wondering if maybe they’d ended up somewhere else.
Hajime himself wasn’t certain enough to readily dismiss Ryutarou’s question, so he whipped out the Compass of Eternal Paths to check.
“No, this is definitely the Sanctuary.”
Tio, who’d been keeping a wary eye on their surroundings, added, “With how many apostles were pouring out of the gates, I assumed we would have to face an army of them the moment we entered.”
They had made it into the Sanctuary, but it seemed they’d ended up in a different area than where the apostles and monsters were waiting. It was a stroke of good fortune, but Hajime felt that there had to be a catch.
“It’s quiet. There isn’t even a single apostle in sight. Hell, the only thing here is...” Shea muttered, looking off into the distance. “That.”
“Guess it’s as good a place to land as any.”
Far below the group, a single structure could be seen. It was a massive wall that was entirely white, but it was the only thing in this vibrant, colorful world that looked concrete. The top of the wall was wide enough to accommodate ten people standing next to each other. From there, a single path that seemed to stretch on for eternity led farther into this strange region.
Hajime nodded to his companions, and they all alighted on the wall. Everyone stored their Skyboards in their respective Treasure Troves, and then they all took out healing potions to help them recover from the minor wounds they’d received on their way in. While they were waiting for the potions to do their work, Shea suddenly pulled an iron ball out of her Treasure Trove, walked over to the edge of the path, and dropped it.
“Whoa, I thought I could find out how far down this thing goes, but...”
“What happened?” Hajime asked.
“It didn’t get very far, Hajime-san. Feels like it got swallowed up.”
“Swallowed up by what?”
“No clue, but that’s the only way I can describe it.”
Indeed, the ball had been quickly swallowed up as if it had fallen into a swamp. Shizuku and Suzu had watched it happen as well. They shook their heads, making it clear that they agreed with Shea’s assessment, despite how strange it seemed.
“All I know is that nothing good is waiting for you if you fall,” Shizuku muttered.
“Let’s get outta here, Nagumo. I don’t like this place one bit,” Ryutarou added, shivering. He and the rest of the group naturally huddled in the center of the corridor.
“Sounds good to me. But keep your guard up, guys.”
With everyone’s wounds healed, the party began trekking down the seemingly endless corridor. Hajime took the lead, while Tio served as the rearguard.
For a while, the party advanced in silence. The only sound they heard was their own footsteps echoing against the white marble. The corridor was completely uniform, making it hard to judge distances. Hajime and the others felt like they were advancing. Their feet were taking them forward, at least. And yet, the unchanging scenery made them question if they really were making progress.
“H-Hey...we’re moving forward, right?” Suzu asked, slightly out of breath. She was the one with the lowest physical stats of the party, so she didn’t have much stamina.
“Yeah, we are. It’s slow going, but I can tell we’re getting closer to Yue.”
“Oh, I see...”
Suzu and Ryutarou both gave him exasperated looks, as if to say, “Are you really bragging about how strong your love for her is, even now?!”
“You know that because you’re checking the compass, right?” Shizuku asked.
“Knowing Hajime-san, he might really be able to sense how far away Yue-san is at any time,” Shea replied.
“I remember Yue once said, ‘I always know more or less where Hajime is and what he’s doing.’ I must say, even I was a little put off by that,” Tio murmured.
“It’s still not as creepy as your fetishes. Well, I won’t deny that she makes for a good guidepost. Nice going, Yue. Even in this situation, you’re able to guide me.”
“I knew it. You just wanted to brag about her again,” Suzu and Ryutarou said in tandem. They, of course, kept their guard up while they talked, but a little light banter helped keep them sane in this unchanging realm.
Knowing that they were indeed making progress helped Suzu and the others relax. After another ten minutes, Suzu shouted, “Look! I can see the end of the corridor!”
She couldn’t actually see what was there, just that there was an actual end to the corridor...and that was because it seemed to end at a wall of pulsing color. However, they drew closer and closer to it, meaning it had to actually be the end.
Knowing that the journey was almost over brought Suzu and the others a measure of relief, and the moment they relaxed their guard, Shea’s ears stood on end.
“We’re about to get attacked from all sides!” she shouted, causing everyone to snap to attention once more.
Beams of shimmering silver light appeared out of nowhere, converging on the party from all directions.
It was a perfect surprise attack, which came at them right before the party reached their goal from a zone where it was hard to tell where or what anything was. Shea’s Future Sight had saved them there, but the fact that it had activated unconsciously proved that without it they would all have likely died.
“Gather around me!” Hajime shouted to Suzu and Ryutarou, prompting the two to scurry over. Experience and instinct had both conditioned them to believe Hajime’s side was the safest place to be. On the other hand, Tio, Shizuku, and Shea didn’t even need to be told; they gathered around Hajime immediately.
Hajime’s Treasure Trove glowed...and a second later, a coffin-shaped shield appeared in front of him. He grabbed it out of midair, and it began to glow a deep crimson as metal plates spread out from either side of it, creating a dome-shaped metallic barrier mere moments before the barrage of silver light struck the group.
“This is...” Shizuku muttered, trailing off as she watched the glowing crimson shield envelop her.
This was Hajime’s shape-shifting shield artifact, Aideon. The metallic plates inside the coffin could be rearranged into any shape to defend against attacks from any and all directions. The glow of mana from the shield made the inside of the barrier surprisingly bright. Shizuku could tell that Tio and the others looked as surprised as she did.
“Impressive. To think you managed to create a physical material that’s strong enough to block the apostles’ disintegration attacks...”
Those silver streaks of light were of course the apostles’ strongest attacks, their disintegration beams. Any object should have been turned into Swiss cheese by that barrage of beams, no matter how sturdy. However, Hajime’s creations were on a different level.
“Hmph, I’d like to see you try breaking through this shield!” he shouted, smiling fearlessly. He had utter confidence in his artifact. And indeed, Aideon was holding fast against that destructive barrage.
The world outside the shield was just a mass of shimmering silver light. There was no sound accompanying the disintegration attacks, and they did indeed seem to be wearing away at the surface of Hajime’s shield. And yet, they couldn’t break through it.
There were three reasons for that.
“Oh, I see! You enchanted the shield with restoration magic!” Shea exclaimed.
Yes, Hajime had created a new material that was innately enchanted with restoration magic, regenstone. He’d combined it with sealstone, which repelled magic, and azantium ore, the hardest metal in existence, to create a unique alloy. And he’d christened this alloy “repellite.” Not only was it extremely sturdy, but it also deflected magic and mana, and even if something did break through one layer of it, it regenerated fast enough to never be destroyed. Those three ores were the three reasons the apostles couldn’t break his shield. And as added insurance, Hajime had enchanted the whole thing with Diamond Skin.
After his near brush with death at the Demon Lord’s castle where he’d unlocked the Transcendence skill, Hajime had grown strong enough to transmute even sealstone with ease.
“When they realize their bombardment isn’t working, they’ll come in to attack up close,” Shizuku muttered calmly, gripping the hilt of her black katana.
“Everything happened so fast that I was unable to get a good look, but judging by the number of beams, it seems we’re dealing with around twenty or so apostles,” Tio added, coating herself in black scale armor. With her astute perception, she’d been able to roughly estimate the number of enemies despite having only a second of clear vision.
Ryutarou and Suzu stiffened upon hearing that number, squeezing their respective weapons tight. At the Demon Lord’s castle, the two of them hadn’t been able to even scratch an apostle, and in their earlier charge to the gate, they’d only been able to hold the apostles at bay thanks to the significant amount of ground support they received from the army below.
Can we handle apostles as we are now? No, we have to or we won’t be able to accomplish our goals... Suzu thought, steeling her nerves.
“Hah. Twenty can’t even slow us down!” Shea shouted, not at all daunted by the prospect of fighting twenty apostles at once.
“Let me handle these guys,” Hajime said, his reassuring voice easing Suzu’s and Ryutarou’s nerves. “You guys protected me on the way to the gate, so now it’s time I return the favor. Save your strength for the fights to come.”
“H-Hajime?” Shizuku asked hesitantly. “You don’t have to do this alone, really. We can work together to—”
“I don’t want to have to keep fighting these small skirmishes along the way. I need to make them realize that sending apostles in small groups like this is a complete waste of time.”
Upon seeing the feral gleam in Hajime’s eyes, Shizuku gave up on trying to convince him to let them help. Suzu shivered a little, even knowing that Hajime was on her side.
“Don’t worry. This’ll only take a second.”
“A-A second?”
Hajime’s voice sounded extremely calm, but that only made him sound more terrifying to Suzu and Ryutarou. Even Shea and Tio looked a little overwhelmed, but before anyone could say anything more, the beams stopped. The apostles had finally realized their concentrated barrage wasn’t doing anything.
Hajime stored Aideon in his Treasure Trove and saw the twenty apostles surrounding him from all sides.
Even though their strongest attack, granted to them by Ehit himself, had failed to scratch Hajime’s shield, they remained expressionless. However, plumes of silver mana erupted from all of them like a volcano, showing that they’d all activated their Limit Breaks. While their expressions remained unchanged, the silver sparks shooting off them seemed to be filled with rage due to the humiliation.
“The Irregular!”
“Kinda late to notice that now.”
The apostles brandished their claymores and flapped their wings in preparation to charge him, but before they could, Hajime swung his arms to both sides so fast that they couldn’t even be seen as a blur. A second later, there was a series of twelve sharp cracks, indicating that Hajime had emptied Donner’s and Schlag’s chambers.
“Wha—?”
Twelve streaks of light had each found their mark, shooting through the apostles’ chests and destroying their cores. By the time they realized what had happened, the apostles were already tumbling down into the multicolored chasm below. The surviving eight were too shocked to move, which simply added to Hajime’s advantages.
“Get down, you guys,” Hajime said as he smoothly reloaded his revolvers.
“What did you do, Irregular?!” one of the apostles shouted in shock. They knew that Hajime’s railgun-accelerated bullets were a threat already. Back during the confrontation at the edge of the Schnee Snow Fields, Hajime had blown a hole through both of an apostle’s claymores with one shot. Donner and Schlag were certainly strong enough to damage even an apostle’s absurdly sturdy body. However, an apostle’s core, and the flesh surrounding it, was much tougher than the rest of their body. Hajime shouldn’t have been able to destroy it without resorting to one of his bigger weapons like his pile bunker.
“Oh, I just made some armor-piercing bullets to deal with you guys,” Hajime replied casually.
Traditional armor-piercing bullets were made by putting a hard metal core at the center of the bullet to increase its penetrating capacity. Hajime had used ultra-compressed, ultra-dense azantium for his bullets’ cores. He’d also enchanted the softer outer layer with a spatial barrier.
Against most living creatures, the bullets’ penetrative power was actually so high that they didn’t cause much damage on their way through something, but they were perfect for destroying an apostle’s core.
“But why were we unable to dodge them...?”
The apostles had actually managed to react to the shots. Though they hadn’t been able to move much, they’d still twisted away to protect their cores from getting hit, which was why the remaining apostles couldn’t fathom how they’d been hit in the cores anyway.
“Like I’m gonna tell you that,” Hajime said, and the apostle’s eyes widened as she tried to analyze Hajime’s new weapon with her own abilities. Silver light flared around her and the other apostles, sending ripples through the multicolored space. A second later, more apostles popped up out of nowhere.
“Wait, now there’s a hundred of them! Nagumo-kun, are you sure you’re gonna be okay?!” Suzu exclaimed.
“W-Want some help?!” Ryutarou asked, pale-faced.
“Don’t get cold feet now. I’ll finish this up in thirty seconds.”
Ryutarou’s surprise was drowned out by the sound of several consecutive gunshots.
The battle that followed was more of a one-sided slaughter than anything. Hajime emptied both revolvers’ chambers again, dropping another twelve apostles.
“Ah!”
The apostles didn’t even have time to grit their teeth in frustration. Hajime reloaded and fired, then reloaded and fired again in the blink of an eye. Every single one of his bullets found its mark, dropping another twenty four apostles. Streaks of red light stretched out in every direction as Hajime picked apostles off from every side of the encirclement.
As the apostles could telepathically share their thoughts, they came up with a strategy quite quickly. They sheathed themselves in disintegration magic and rushed toward Hajime all at once, hoping to overwhelm him with numbers. Their coordination was perfect, like a flock of birds in flight.
No matter how fast Hajime could reload, it didn’t change the fact that he could only fire twelve bullets at a time. There was at least a fraction of a second he’d have to spend reloading. The apostles had a good chance of reaching him before he shot them all down. But of course, Hajime had already taken that one weakness into account.
He activated his perception-enhancing skill, Riftwalk. As his thought processing sped up dramatically, the world around him lost all its color. He could see each individual beat of each apostle’s wings.
With everything else moving in slow motion, Hajime aimed with Donner and Schlag so that their bullets would collide right as they reached their target, then fired.
“Ngh?! This is spatial magic!”
Indeed, as the two bullets collided, they created a spatial shockwave that rapidly spread out. These were one of the specialty bullets that Hajime had devised, Area Burst Bullets. When he’d seen the apostles charging as one, he’d swapped out his regular bullets with them.
Even apostles would have trouble breaking through a spatial barrier immediately. Most of them were blown back as the barrier expanded, and their advance was halted for a few seconds.
Of course, a few seconds was all Hajime needed. He reloaded his revolvers and took out another twelve apostles. And by the time they’d recovered their formation, he’d finished reloading again.
A wave of unease spread through the apostles; they couldn’t tell how Hajime was able to so accurately shoot them down. Even if he did possess a foresight skill, it shouldn’t have been enough for him to accurately hit the apostles’ cores when they were working so hard to dodge.
If we cannot evade his bullets, then we must cut through them... one of the apostles thought, and the others brandished their claymores in response. They slashed down at the next barrage Hajime sent their way with perfect reaction time. With their swords wrapped in a layer of disintegration magic, they should have been able to cut through any bullet, no matter how tough. However, all of their slashes missed.
Huh?! It slipped past—
Just before the apostle died, she finally realized how Hajime was hitting them every time. The bullet had changed direction slightly in midair to slip past the apostles’ slashes. It had only changed its trajectory by a few millimeters to make it by the blade, then resumed its previous course.
These were another of Hajime’s new bullets, Living Bullets. They were a product of both creation magic and metamorphosis magic. True to their name, the bullets were actually alive. They were a similar kind of being to the golems Hajime had given Myu. While they didn’t possess full sentience, they could be ordered to recognize and evade any obstacles in their path, which was why the apostles couldn’t avoid them or strike them down. The bullets weren’t acrobatic enough to do complete U-turns in midair, but considering how fast they traveled, being able to make minor adjustments was more than enough. And as a result, even the lightning reflexes of the apostles weren’t enough to save them.
When combined with their armor-piercing properties, Hajime’s Living Bullets were the perfect counter to the apostles; especially since he already had impeccable aiming skills on his own, so the bullets only needed to course-correct a little bit.
“Tch, don’t stop moving! Gain some distance and take him down with feather barrages!” one of the apostles shouted, though she didn’t actually need to, since her thoughts were automatically shared with her comrades at all times. She was feeling something she had never felt before, and she tried to shake off this new sensation as she flew backward so quickly that she left afterimages in her wake.
I can’t shake him... she realized as she watched Hajime track her movements. Even though she was moving so fast that no human should’ve been able to perceive her, even though other apostles were flying around in all directions, Hajime kept his gaze focused on her, Sext, apostle number six.
Does he know I’m their commander? Sext thought. And a second later, she saw Hajime grin.
“Ah...” Sext gasped without even realizing it herself.
A streak of crimson light shot past the numerous apostles in front of her, avoided the barrage of arrows that was raining down on Hajime, and accurately pierced her chest. Time seemed to come to a halt for Sext, and not because of her Limit Break-enhanced senses.
So this is what mortals feel at the moment of their death...
Sext’s life flashed before her eyes. She recalled all the secret maneuvering she’d done centuries past to remove unneeded pawns and kill those who’d displeased her master.
For a moment, she imagined all of their specters grinning triumphantly at her, relishing in her demise.
Unacceptable! I am the greatest—
Uncharacteristically bitter about her defeat, Sext disintegrated into light as her core was shattered.
“Prepare a stronger barrage! The rest of you, follow me!” another one of the apostles, Elft, shouted, immediately taking up command.
To the apostles, a commander wasn’t much more than a glorified figurehead. They all possessed the ability to share their thoughts, so the death of a commander didn’t affect them in the slightest. They were able to swap tactics without any directed leadership.
Of the remaining apostles, fifteen split up into five groups of three. Scattering in different directions, they all pointed their swords at Hajime. Light started to coalesce at their claymores’ points, which began to glow like mini-suns.
While these fifteen charged their attacks, the remaining apostles guarded them, using their wings and swords as shields and creating barriers of magic.
They used every tool at their disposal to focus on defense. However, Hajime didn’t seem the least bit daunted.
“So that’s your trump card? Go ahead. I’ll let you shoot it at me,” he said, firing a series of shots all at one apostle. His pinpoint accuracy allowed him to aim the bullets such that they all struck one spot at the same time, amplifying their penetrative power exponentially.
It took three shots to kill an apostle focusing fully on defense, so he could kill four with each reload cycle. Despite their outstanding defensive capabilities, Hajime didn’t even need to rely on heavy weaponry to take the apostles down; his gunmanship alone was enough. However, due to their focus on defense, the apostles managed to buy enough time.
“Underestimate us at your peril, Irregular. That shield of yours won’t be enough to protect you from this,” Elft said in a cold voice.
A second later, the apostles swung their swords down at Hajime. Having charged their power to the limit, each group of three fired a single laser that was ten meters wide from their crossed swords. This blinding attack was so powerful that even the air in its path was annihilated upon contact.
Shizuku, Suzu, and Ryutarou stiffened in fear, while Shea and Tio merely shrugged their shoulders.
“Don’t worry. I wasn’t planning on using it anyway,” Hajime replied as he took ten elliptical discs out of his Treasure Trove. They had holes in their center and five of them flew up to intercept the five beams. When they reached their destinations, they separated into three segments and split up, widening the hole in their center. Those three segments were still connected by wires, and they expanded until the holes were wide enough to swallow the lasers, then started glowing.
Only then did the apostles realize what was happening.
“That move—”
The apostles’ ultimate move was strong enough to destroy even spatial magic barriers, but the lasers were nevertheless swallowed into the five rings, then spit out by the other five. These were Hajime’s ultimate shapeshifting chakram, Orestes. He’d modified his original chakram—which had mostly been used to redirect bullets—to redirect enemy attacks as well. The way Hajime saw it, the ultimate defense was simply not getting hit in the first place.
Frowning slightly, the apostles recalled a time in the distant past when someone had used the exact same tactic against them. Though they swiftly moved out of the way of their own lasers, they weren’t able to dodge the bullets Hajime fired shortly after.
“It’s not over yet,” one of them said, and another group of apostles appeared from the other side of the multicolored space. But it didn’t matter how many came; they couldn’t do a thing.
“You said before that you’d analyzed me completely, didn’t you?” Hajime said as he redirected the feather storms and beam attacks the apostles shot his way. “Well, this time I’m the one who’s analyzed you.”
Whenever they tried to close in, Hajime pushed them back with his Area Burst Bullets.
“Twice you failed to kill me, and now you’re paying the price.”
And whenever they left themselves open for even a second, Hajime shot them down.
“Your weapons, your tactics, and your magic never change.”
Donner and Schlag were fired nonstop, with Hajime opening their chambers and reloading them with a quick spin anytime they ran out of bullets. He himself also spun around in circles, firing at apostles in all directions. His hands moved seemingly independent of each other as he aimed at angles that seemed impossible from the direction he was facing at the moment.
His movements were simple and precise, his fighting style maximizing efficiency. Each red streak meant another apostle dead, and they dropped like flies. A single apostle should’ve been strong enough to ravage all of Tortus, but they weren’t even a threat to Hajime any longer.
It was an awe-inspiring sight. Silver streaks fell to the ground like a meteor shower, and Shea, Tio, Shizuku, Suzu, and Ryutarou were captivated by the display.
“But I used my imagination. I changed my weapons, polished my skills, adapted my tactics, and created as many trump cards as I could. What did you guys do?”
Eventually, reinforcements stopped pouring in. For the briefest of moments, the apostles stared at Hajime in awe, but then they returned to their emotionless state.
“Silence, Irregular. We are perfect creatures. Do not put us on the same level as you lowly humans who—”
Realizing that conversing with these puppets was pointless, Hajime shot the apostle down before she could finish speaking.
“You don’t evolve. You don’t know what it’s like to fight desperately to survive, to fight to fulfill your dreams, or to fight for those you care about. I said it before, and I’ll say it again...” Hajime trailed off, staring at the lone apostle left in the air. It was the tenth apostle, Twent. He pointed Donner’s muzzle at her, a fearless smile on his face, and continued, “You’re nothing more than empty puppets.”
He pulled the trigger, and Twent didn’t even bother to try to resist. But as she died, she muttered, “You monster...”
“Why thank you,” Hajime replied as he watched the final apostle plummet to the ground. He’d heard the insult so many times already that he saw it as a compliment.
Hajime spun his revolvers’ empty chambers one last time, reloaded them, then holstered them in one smooth motion. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Suzu and Ryutarou still crouching low while staring at him in awe. Shizuku gave him an exasperated smile, while Shea and Tio both gazed at him in admiration.
“Sorry, I ended up needing sixty seconds instead of thirty.”
Hajime scratched his head, sounding as if he thought that was the reason why everyone was staring at him.
“Nagumo-kun, I don’t think anyone minds that you took a little longer.”
“Yeah, you scared us out of our wits, dude.”
In total, Hajime had slain close to two hundred apostles, and he’d done so without taking even a single scratch. On top of that, he’d done the job in a minute. It had been a truly overwhelming display of might. Suzu and Ryutarou hadn’t realized Hajime was this strong when he matched his unparalleled gun skills with artifacts that took advantage of them.
“If anything, you should probably have amended that earlier statement to ‘You failed to kill me twice, and you gave me quite a bit of information in the meantime,’” Shizuku said in a joking tone.
“Indeed, not finishing Master off has dire consequences,” Tio replied.
“The more time you give Hajime-san, the less chance you have of ever beating him,” Shea added.
They hadn’t spent much time in the Sanctuary, and Hajime had already unveiled a few of his new weapons. If you included the Gravity Meteors and Pulse Hyperions, he’d shown off quite a collection. Everyone thought of synergist as a commonplace job that wasn’t suited for combat, but Hajime had proven them all wrong. Sure, what he’d accomplished was only possible thanks to his monstrous stats, which had nothing to do with his job, but Hajime’s true weapon was his imagination, and his ability to turn his ideas into concrete tools. After all, humanity’s greatest threat had always been, and always would be, the new things they themselves created.
In a way, Hajime possessed the most deadly talent of all: innovation. Though it seemed obvious in retrospect, Shizuku, Suzu, and Ryutarou only now realized that was what made up the core of Hajime’s strength.
“I used the minimum amount of firepower at my disposal and still trashed them all. I doubt Ehit is going to send any more apostles after us now, but...stay on guard just in case.”
With that, Hajime started walking again. Shea and Tio followed behind, both of them in high spirits.
“Man, I wish Yue-san could have seen how cool Hajime-san was back there,” Shea said with a smile.
“Fu fu, fear not. I thought we might want to show Master’s exploits to Yue later, so I brought along a recording artifact. Once the battle’s over, we can all watch the recording together.”
“Nice thinking, Tio-san! I knew I could count on a pervert like you!”
“Bwa ha ha ha ha, praise me more! It makes me—Wait, that wasn’t praise, was it?”
Shizuku, Suzu, and Ryutarou exchanged glances, then smiled wryly at each other. Realizing that they wouldn’t be able to keep up if they let themselves get overwhelmed by each and every shocking display, they shook off their hesitation and followed after Hajime.
When he reached the end of the corridor, Hajime touched the multicolored wall that seemed to be the end of this space. Ripples spread outward from the spot that he touched, and his hand slid into the colored wall. It looked like that spot did connect to somewhere else. And judging by his compass, their distance to Yue was the same on either side of the barrier.
Hajime doubted that wherever the other side spat them out would actually be spatially contiguous with where they were now, but it didn’t seem to be any closer to Yue either.
“Well, for now...” Hajime mumbled as he took a palm-sized cylinder out of the holster at his waist and activated it with Lightning Field, then threw it through the multicolored wall.
Shizuku cocked her head and asked, “Hajime, what are you doing?”
“Just throwing a grenade over.”
“What for?!”
“Uh, just hoping that if there are any enemies on the other side, the grenade will kill them.”
Unfortunately, the compass wasn’t able to give Hajime a clear picture of what was on the other side. In fact, it almost felt like wherever it was connected to was changing in real time, which was why he’d thrown a space-warping grenade over just in case. It was a new type of grenade that twisted the space around it into a whirlpool and crushed anything caught in it. It was extremely lethal while also being perfectly silent.
Worried about the destruction she might find on the other side, Suzu shouted, “What if Eri and Kouki-kun are through there?!”
Blinking in surprise, Hajime turned to her, then looked at Ryutarou and Shizuku as well. Upon seeing their expressions, he averted his gaze awkwardly.
“Look, it’s just common sense to suppress a new zone with a grenade before charging in...”
“That’s not an answer...” Ryutarou muttered, cradling his head. Shizuku looked up at the sky in exasperation.
Ignoring them, Hajime launched wires from his prosthetic arm, wrapped them around everyone, and said, “We might get teleported to different spots like what happened in Haltina and Schnee’s labyrinths. Let’s try to go in as close to the same time as possible.”
After saying that, he cast his gaze over everyone to make sure they were ready, and they nodded resolutely back at him.
With that, the group jumped through the rippling wall and into the unknown.
The transition between places was dizzying. A kaleidoscope of colors assailed the group from all sides, making them feel drunk. There was also a disgusting sensation of something slippery brushing against their skin. Fortunately, the whole experience lasted only a few seconds.
The party went from feeling like they were floating on clouds to stepping on solid ground, and the colors settled into sensible shades. However, the place they found themselves in was just as strange as the one they’d left.
“Wh-Where are we?” Ryutarou muttered, glancing around in confusion.
Hajime and the others scanned their surroundings with more composure, but on the inside, they felt just like Ryutarou.
“That is rather unique architecture... I’ve never seen such buildings in Tortus,” Tio mused.
“Whoa, these things are huge. They all look to be made of metal and stone, but...” Shea trailed off.
“H-Hey, Hajime, isn’t this...?” Shizuku felt an extreme sense of déjà vu.
“No, this isn’t Earth,” Hajime replied bluntly.
The place they found themselves in certainly did resemble a modern Earth city. They were standing on the roof of one of the buildings, which was around thirty stories tall. It was made of something that looked a lot like concrete. The streets below appeared to be asphalt, and there were other skyscrapers in the distance. However—
“This is an abandoned city, isn’t it? It looks like it was destroyed ages ago and brought here in its dilapidated state. I bet Ehit left it here as a memento of his conquests or something stupid like that.”
As Hajime had said, the city was in ruins. Over half of the buildings the group could see had been destroyed. Some of them also leaned precariously, supported only by other buildings which were themselves leaning over. It looked like a strong breeze might send them tumbling like dominoes.
The asphalt streets were riddled with cracks, and in some places the ground bulged upward, whereas in others the asphalt had caved in. Rubble and broken glass littered the streets, and numerous objects that had likely been this world’s vehicles were resting on their sides.
There was not a single person in sight. Loneliness and desolation were all that remained in this broken city. It truly did look like a ghost town that had been abandoned for millennia.
“Are you absolutely sure this isn’t Earth, Nagumo-kun?” Suzu asked.
“Yeah, how can you know?” Ryutarou asked right after.
Ehit had claimed that invading Earth was his next goal. Indeed, Hajime and the others had all been summoned from Earth, so it wasn’t a stretch to think that Ehit might have summoned an entire city and laid waste to it for fun. Suzu and Ryutarou couldn’t help but imagine the worst.
“These building materials aren’t anything you’d find on Earth, and I don’t recognize those letters as any language from back home.”
Hajime could make out the letters on the faded billboards in the distance thanks to his Farsight skill. From what he could tell, the script wasn’t any Earth language, and while it shared some similarities with the writing in Tortus, it wasn’t quite that either. He had also analyzed the construction materials using his appraisal skills and had realized they were an amalgamation of enchanted ore that could be found in Tortus.
“Plus, there aren’t any streetlights. I can’t imagine any city on Earth not using those.”
“Oh,” Suzu said, wondering how she’d failed to notice something so basic.
I guess I still haven’t fully calmed down... she thought to herself with a sad smile.
“Is your world like this, Hajime-san? He he, I can’t wait to see it.”
“Hmm... Long ago, there used to be civilizations that were this advanced on Tortus, but...”
Shea seemed happy to have caught a glimpse of what Hajime’s world was like, while Tio frowned as she surveyed the ruins.
Hajime shrugged his shoulders, looked down at the compass once more, and said, “Back on Earth, there are relics of ancient civilizations that seemed to have technology that surpasses modern inventions. All of them were destroyed for unknown reasons, but...well, I bet it’s obvious why this civilization ended.”
Ehit had destroyed it in one of his games. He’d given the people knowledge to advance their civilization to modern levels, watched them prosper, and then crushed them at the height of their power. To Ehit, it had been no different than building a tower of cards before blowing it all down. He’d done it just for the fun of it, much like how he was trying to destroy Tortus for the fun of it.
“What a despicable creature,” Tio muttered.
“Makes me wanna puke,” Shea added, nodding in agreement.
Who knew how many civilizations Ehit had created and destroyed in this way. Who knew how many innocent people he’d trampled underfoot and erased from existence for his own amusement.
“We have to stop him...” Shizuku said, renewing her resolve. She felt a surge of sympathy for this lost civilization that so heavily resembled her own home. Though, at the same time, a shiver of fear ran down her spine. She realized that if they didn’t stop Ehit, this was what would happen to every city on Earth.
“Oh, I’ll stop him all right,” Hajime said in a quiet but powerful voice. “While I’m getting Yue, I’ll make sure to pay him back tenfold for what he did to me. That’s part of my mission. I won’t let anyone else have that satisfaction.”
He put the compass back in his pocket and turned to Shizuku, Suzu, and Ryutarou. The three of them were startled as they realized Shea and Tio had drawn their weapons.
Hajime’s Treasure Trove glowed, and he said, “You guys just focus on your own mission.”
Before Shizuku could even respond, Hajime had pulled out his rocket launcher, Agni Orkan. Unlike his old rocket launcher, this one was cross-shaped and weighed twice as much. The truly strange thing about its design, however, was the three sets of wings jutting out from it. They were thick and long, like those of a fighter jet.
Hajime then pulled out a second Agni Orkan, and the way he wielded both made it look like he was covered by a metal exoskeleton. It made him appear quite intimidating, especially since the two rocket launchers were pure black with crimson veins running down their length.
“Wait, are you gonna solo them again, Hajime-san?! There are two hundred of them, you know?!” Shea exclaimed.
“More importantly, Master, these are—”
“It’s fine. I don’t want a fight in the city.”
Hajime didn’t want to deal with the hassle of tracking stragglers down, so he’d decided to blow the newcomers away all at once. He pulled the trigger, and both Agni Orkans fired missiles out of their six launch tubes at the rate of an assault rifle. Thirty missiles shot out each second in an overwhelming display of firepower. Not only that, but a much larger missile shot out of the opening on the back of each of the rocket launchers, a trail of fire blazing in their wake. And to top it all off, the wings expanded and started firing countless micro-missiles as well. Each Agni Orkan was spewing out three hundred micro-missiles a second.
Ryutarou’s and Suzu’s jaws dropped open.
“Holy fucking shit!” Ryutarou exclaimed.
“I-I’ll set up a barrier just in case!” Suzu shouted.
Booming explosions echoed in the distance one after another. The sound was deafening, and the shockwaves reached all the way back to the party.
The rockets homed in on their targets and blew them up together with the buildings they were hiding in. And as the collapsing buildings caused the entire city to shake, the micro-missiles went farther out and pinpointed the targets in the distance. These missiles were enchanted to seek out heat signatures, biosignatures, and even soul signatures to make sure they always hit their mark. They were similar to the Living Bullets Hajime had used earlier, but since these rockets and missiles were much slower, they could maneuver through tight spaces like windows and corners as well.
Though Hajime was only firing to either side, the missiles went in all directions, seeking out targets all around them. The series of explosions practically leveled the already ruined city. The few buildings that escaped being blown up were destroyed in the aftermath of the other buildings collapsing.
“Wait, time out! You’ll destroy the building we’re standing on too!” Shizuku shouted, covering her ears with both hands to protect them from the booms. In truth, the building they were standing on was shaking rather precariously.
“I was planning to destroy it anyway. There are some enemies inside.”
“What?!” Shizuku, Suzu, and Ryutarou shouted in unison.
“Just use Aerodynamic to make some platforms to stand on,” Hajime replied casually.
“Wait!” the three of them shouted simultaneously once more.
Hajime fired one last missile from one of his Agni Orkans. It rose high into the air, then made a U-turn and headed straight back down to where Hajime and the others were standing. For a moment, Shizuku thought he must have made some kind of mistake, but then she realized that Hajime, of all people, would never have made such a stupid blunder. Realizing that moving would probably put them in danger, everyone did as Hajime had said and created platforms under their feet with Aerodynamic and remained in place. A second later, the missile plowed straight through the roof and continued heading straight down without exploding.
This was one of Hajime’s specialty missiles, Bunker Buster. It pierced through its target, then exploded underneath them. It also created a localized gravity field to destroy anything underground. The Bunker Buster exploded only after hitting the ground floor, after which the building started to topple. That was a truly terrifying sight for Suzu and the others, who watched the building collapse directly underneath them. They had been on observation decks made of glass before, but in this instance, it was like watching the observation deck itself collapse around you.
“This reminds me of the time I saw footage of a bombing in the news. What’s happening right now is exactly like that,” Suzu muttered.
“Holy crap, he’s a one-man army... By the way, Nagumo, I take it this means they were surrounding us?” Ryutarou asked.
“He blew up the entire city before we so much as saw a single soul, so it’s hard to be sure, but that’s probably what they were doing,” Shizuku said, watching the dust slowly settle. Fires were still burning in the distance, and the historical ruins of this ancient Tortus civilization were now nothing more than rubble. She couldn’t help but lament the fate of this ancient city.
Looking into the distance, Shizuku spotted a few buildings that were still crumbling. They were all buildings that surrounded a rather tall clock tower. Somehow, the clock tower itself was intact, but everything in its vicinity had collapsed. The destruction there had been caused by the larger missiles that had come out of the Agni Orkans’ backs. Those two missiles had circled the area above the clock tower and rained a bunch of black crystals down that had created a number of black spheres to crush the buildings.
That was another one of Hajime’s specialized missiles, Gravity Cluster. It was a specialized warhead that created its own gravity field while dispersing a litany of gravity bombs.
Why’d he target somewhere so far away? Shizuku thought, but she was then distracted when she saw a humanoid figure crawling out of the rubble.
“Whoa, someone survived that?!” Ryutarou shouted.
“That’s...not an apostle. Is it a human-shaped monster?”
“It’s hard to tell, since they’re covered in dust.”
The figure was missing some of its limbs and its skin was covered in heavy burns, yet it continued crawling toward the group, seemingly determined to fight. The sight was more ghastly than anything. What kind of creature was so eager to fight that it would abandon all of its preservation instincts? However, before Shizuku could even figure out what the enemy was, she heard an ominous click. She slowly turned around and saw that Hajime had just finished reloading his Agni Orkans.
“You’re gonna finish it off?!”
“Look, you have to be thorough. The Kojiki says to destroy your enemies so thoroughly that not even scraps of them remain.”
Shizuku wanted to shout, “No it doesn’t!” but unfortunately, she knew her Japanese history well enough to know that it did actually mention massacring your enemies’ entire families multiple times. Unable to argue, she could only watch as Hajime launched another round of missiles from his Agni Orkans.
A rain of death fell on the few creatures who’d been lucky—or rather, unlucky—enough to survive the initial barrage. They were obliterated in a wall of flame, leaving not even scraps behind.
Hajime cackled in satisfaction, but Shea muttered sadly, “There’s nothing for us to do.”
“Let Master have his fun for now. He’s simply venting his frustration at having lost last time. We should watch over him until we’re needed.”
Hajime cackled maniacally as he watched the city burn. He really was more of a Demon Lord than the real Demon Lord. It was honestly no surprise that his classmates and the kings and queens of the various nations had given him that moniker. And really, the fact that Shea and Tio were encouraging his behavior didn’t help.
Shizuku stuck her fingers in her ears to keep the explosions from deafening her and thought to herself, Why did I fall in love with this guy again? with a sigh. She was going through the same thought process Shea once had in the past.
Suddenly, a massive spiral of white light shot up from the clock tower in the center of the city. Shizuku, Suzu, and Ryutarou recognized the hue of that mana immediately.
“K-Kouki?!” Ryutarou shouted. There was no mistaking that light. Only Kouki Amanogawa could produce mana that looked like that.
“He’s here?! Does that mean Eri is too...? Wait, those things Hajime killed are her undead beastmen warriors, aren’t they?!” Suzu shouted frantically.
They’d been pulverized so badly by Hajime’s missiles that they’d been unrecognizable, but now it all made sense. The undead beastmen warriors were a creation of Eri Nakamura’s. She had bound the souls of the dead to their owners’ bodies, then modified those bodies by adding in monster DNA.
Upon realizing that her friend might be in the city, Suzu paled and exclaimed, “Nagumo-kun, stop! You promised you’d let us take care of Eri, remember?!”
Ryutarou paled as well, realizing that Kouki and Eri were right where Hajime had launched his gravity clusters. He rounded on Hajime, but before he could start yelling at him, Hajime said, “That’s why I fired on them. They were trying to run. The whole reason I used those gravity clusters instead of missiles was to keep them trapped, not to kill them.”
That helped calm Suzu and Ryutarou down.
“So everything’s fine?”
“I said that at the start, didn’t I?”
Come to think of it, he did.
Tio had been about to say something, which Ryutarou now realized was probably about Kouki and Eri being here, but Hajime had said that it was fine.
“That tower is the next gate. I don’t know why they tried to fly away instead of just running through it, but either way, I’ve got them pinned down for now.”
Hajime fired off one last gravity cluster, then put his Agni Orkans away and pulled a spare Skyboard out. Shea and Tio followed suit, and Suzu and the others hurriedly pulled theirs out as well.
“I just helped you out a bit by thinning her army’s ranks. You don’t have a problem with that, do you?” Hajime asked as he grinned over his shoulder at Suzu and Ryutarou. The two of them smiled at him and shook their heads.
“If you only thinned them out, then does that mean she still has some undead soldiers left?” Shizuku asked as the group flew to the tower.
“This whole city is their base. They were patrolling the streets for enemies, and when we showed up, all the ones nearby came over to attack. But—”
“Some of them were waiting around the clock tower,” Shizuku said, finishing Hajime’s sentence for him. Right then, a blast of light shot out of the clock tower, taking down Hajime’s gravity cluster.
Hajime narrowed his eyes, and Shizuku and the others furrowed their brows in worry. Kouki’s strength was far greater than it had been at the Demon Lord’s castle. He’d clearly been strengthened in some way like Eri had.
Shizuku and the others shivered nervously, and a few seconds later, they got close enough to make out Kouki and Eri. Kouki had his Sacred Sword out and was wearing a suit of holy armor, while Eri had a single claymore and was dressed in an apostle’s battle uniform.
Kouki’s face softened as he looked at Shizuku and the others, but when his gaze shifted to Hajime, his expression turned furious. Eri clung to him, smirking condescendingly at the party, but she couldn’t completely hide her unease. Seeing as they’d tried to flee earlier, Eri clearly wanted to avoid fighting Hajime.
Shizuku, Suzu, and Ryutarou hopped off their Skyboards, landing on a pile of rubble next to the clock tower.
“Shizuku, Ryutarou...” Kouki muttered.
“Heya, Kouki,” Ryutarou said in as casual a voice as he could muster.
“Kouki...” Shizuku whispered softly. Hajime and the others remained airborne, silently watching the showdown between childhood friends.
In a coquettish voice, Eri said, “Awwwwww, why’d you guys have to come here?”
“Eri!” Suzu shouted. The two of them had finally been reunited out in the destroyed ruins of an ancient city in Ehit’s realm.
Kouki, Ryutarou, and Shizuku all opened their mouths to say something, but Eri beat them all to the punch and said, “You’re just here to get your girlfriend back, right? Don’t worry about us. We won’t stop you. You better hurry though, or you’ll be too late.”
There was barely concealed panic in her voice. She was trying her best to appear composed, but she knew she didn’t stand a chance against Hajime. Eri didn’t even spare a glance at Suzu, Shizuku, or Ryutarou. Hell, she didn’t even seem concerned by Shea and Tio’s presence. She looked as desperate as she had back in Heiligh Castle, when she’d struggled as hard as she could to escape Hajime’s wrath after betraying everyone.
The moment Hajime turned to her, she audibly gulped.
“You don’t need to tell me that. I was going to leave anyway.”
As Eri had suspected, Hajime thought absolutely nothing of her. Neither Eri nor Kouki had any value in Hajime’s eyes, which was precisely why Eri couldn’t understand why Hajime had gone out of his way to use a gravity field to trap them in place.
“Every single time you show up, you ruin everything,” Eri spat, glaring at Suzu. It was only now that she realized who the greatest threat to her truly was. It was the girl standing before her who’d taken advantage of anything and everything possible to reach the Sanctuary. Even though Eri had trampled over her heart, even though she was the most cowardly girl Eri knew, she’d somehow been persistent enough to get Hajime, of all people, to help her out.
The look of pure hatred Eri shot at Suzu made it clear she didn’t consider them friends. Indeed, Eri now regretted the fact that she hadn’t killed Suzu when she had the chance. And yet, despite the look Eri was giving her, Suzu just grinned fearlessly.
“You finally looked my way,” she said, making Eri even angrier as her lips twisted into a cruel frown.
“Is this really a bad thing, Eri?” Kouki said, sounding conflicted. “I never thought they would reach the Sanctuary, but if you think about it, this saves us the trouble of searching for them... Prepare yourself, Nagumo. Your reign of terror ends here. Even if I have to dirty my hands, I’ll kill you and make you atone for your sins!”
After saying that, Kouki looked up at Hajime, hatred, jealousy, and rage filling his eyes. He’d once again proclaimed himself as being on the side of justice, making Shea and Tio visibly cringe.
It was clear that Eri’s brainwashing wasn’t solely responsible for Kouki’s transformation. The root cause was his unwillingness to accept a reality that differed from what he desired, which was the result of Kouki’s own fragile heart.
“Hajime... Thanks for bringing us here. You can go now. We’ll handle the rest,” Shizuku said quietly, stepping forward and gripping the hilt of her black katana.
“You sure?” Hajime asked, raising an eyebrow. “Amanogawa’s a whole lot stronger than before. He might be too much for you to handle.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Ryutarou said confidently. “Bringing Kouki back to his senses is our job. You just focus on beating the shit out of that bastard Ehit.”
“Yeah. Thanks for helping us get here. You too, Shea-san, Tio-san. Make sure you rescue Yue-onee-san, okay?” Suzu said, drawing her twin fans. Ryutarou then slammed his gauntlets together and the two of them stepped forward as well.
“Don’t worry. We’ll knock some sense into these two idiots and drag them back home. You’ve helped us out enough already with all the stuff you’ve given us,” Shizuku said, keeping her gaze fixed on Kouki and Eri all the while. The way she carried herself spoke volumes about her resolve.
Hajime, Shea, and Tio smiled, nodding at her. The three of them had complete faith in Shizuku.
Kouki furiously ground his teeth together as he saw the trust between Shizuku and Hajime. Glaring daggers at him, he raised his sword to attack, but Eri stopped him with her Spirit Binding.
Hajime rose higher into the air with his Skyboard and said, “Well, enjoy your chat, guys.”
“Don’t die, okay!” Shea shouted.
“I believe in you three. We’ll meet back up with you once this is all over!” Tio said.
After they’d given their respective words of encouragement, the three of them flew into the clock tower.
“Don’t run away, you coward! Fight me, Nagumooooooooo!” Kouki shouted desperately. However, Hajime didn’t even spare him a glance. He had zero interest in the so-called hero.
Kouki found it both humiliating and infuriating that Hajime considered himself so superior, yet no matter how badly he wanted to chase after him, he couldn’t. Eri wouldn’t let him. After all, she couldn’t let Kouki ruin their only chance of being spared by Hajime.
Even though she was getting in his way, Kouki didn’t seem mad at Eri in the slightest. In fact, he didn’t even seem to care about finding out why exactly he couldn’t move.
Shizuku narrowed her eyes at her childhood friend, her expression grim.
A few seconds after Hajime and the others disappeared from view, there was a brief flash, indicating that the group had gone through the portal.
“Goddammit! Don’t ignore me, Nagumoooooooooooooooooooooooo!” Kouki screamed, his voice echoing futilely through the empty clock tower.
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