Arifureta Shokugyou de Sekai Saikyou (LN) - Volume 12 - Chapter 4

Chapter IV: The White Dragon and the Silver Apostle

Dark clouds covered the sky, constant flashes of lightning illuminated the stormy sea, and a torrent of rain poured from the clouds.

“Blegh, this is the worst zone for sure,” Shea said in an annoyed voice as she advanced through the storm on her Skyboard.

Tio had erected a wind barrier to keep the rain off everyone, but that hadn’t changed how dreary the place felt. Honestly, Tio and Hajime weren’t very fond of it either.

“This is the fourth zone we have passed through. Is Ehit toying with us?” Tio asked with a frown.

“He might be. This is his domain, after all. He probably gets to choose where we get transported.”

After passing through the portal atop the clock tower, Hajime and the others had passed through three other zones. The first had been a dimension where the ground and the sky were flipped, and gravity was inconsistent. The objects inside that dimension had seemed to fall in all different directions. The second zone had been a museum of sorts. It had been an underground labyrinth with busts and statues at every corner. The statues were of humans, demons, beastmen, dwarves, and giants, as well as monsters and creatures Hajime had never seen before. The third zone had been a library. There was no sky or ground to speak of, just an endless expanse of white filled with bookshelves. The books were seemingly written in every language under the sun and bound in all sorts of unique ways.

“Is that why all the enemies we ran into were super annoying? Because he’s messing with us?” Shea asked, clapping her hands together in realization.

In the upside-down world, they’d been assailed by a flock of pyramid-shaped inorganic automatons that had been made of some unknown material. They’d been able to control gravity and had moved in a tight formation like fighter planes. Though in the end, Hajime had blown them all to bits with his Agni Orkans. In the museum world, they’d been attacked by the statues, as everyone had been expecting. Hajime had blown them all to bits too with his Agni Orkans. In the library, the books had cast magic at the party and summoned monsters. And so, Hajime had carried out the biggest book burning in history with his Agni Orkans.

“They did not manage to annoy us very much, though,” Tio mused.

“The Agnis are just too good. Still, I wish we could do something to be useful...”

“I’d rather use up bullets than waste your strength on these small fry, especially since I think I might have made too much ammo,” Hajime answered with a shrug of his shoulders, checking their bearing with his compass all the while.

The reason the party wasn’t flying above the clouds was because there was another group of enemies waiting for them up there. They didn’t seem to want to go into the storm, so it was easier to travel through it while using a barrier to keep the rain and lightning away. However, there were exceptions to everything.

After a few moments, Shea’s bunny ears perked up, and a second later, Tio and Hajime looked up at the clouds. There was a shrill screech that sounded like nails on a chalkboard, and a massive pterosaur burst through the clouds. It folded its wings and dived toward the party.

Hajime pulled out his Agni Orkan to shoot it down, but before he could, Shea jumped into action.

“Not so fast!” she shouted, taking a handful of steel balls out of her Treasure Trove. She then twisted as far back as she could and hit them with a full swing from Villedrucken.

Compression synthesis had made those balls much, much denser than they appeared, and they flew up to the pterosaur at blistering speeds. Shea had basically launched a series of mini-cannonballs at the pterosaur using just the force of her hammer strike, and they all slammed into the poor reptile’s stomach.

There was a sickening crunch, and the pterosaur let out a pained screech. The thing was forty meters long, and its wingspan two hundred and fifty meters wide, but those tiny marble-sized metal balls had still done a number on it. It swayed back and forth for a few seconds, then fell to the stormy sea below.

“Heh, I was faster this time!”

“Wait, that ‘not so fast’ was directed at me?”

“Look, I was getting tired of sitting back and watching you slaughter everything. I’m itching for a fight.”

“What are you, a berserker?”

“Those CheatMates just made my blood boil so much that—”

“They definitely don’t have that kind of side effect.”

While Hajime and Shea bantered with each other, Tio looked down and fired a breath attack toward where the pterosaur had fallen. When it had hit the ocean, a bunch of sea monsters had swarmed around it to feed on its corpse, and one of them seemed to have decided to attack the party.

A giant, thirty-meter-long shark surged upward on a water tornado, but Tio’s small, arm-sized breath beam pierced right through it, slicing the monster neatly in two. The two halves of the shark then fell back to the sea, its water tornado dispersing into mist.

As the remaining monsters fought over the corpse, Tio casually turned back to Hajime and said, “It does seem like a good idea to warm up before the big fight, wouldn’t you say?”

It did make sense for Shea and Tio to test out the new skills they’d managed to develop thanks to the stat-doubling the evolution magic necklaces and the CheatMates gave them.

“Though I do understand why you might wish to advance as quickly as possible,” Tio added.

“I’m not getting impatient or anything,” Hajime replied.

“Really? We’ve been getting funneled from dimension to dimension for quite some time. Surely you’ve considered the possibility that we may just be going in circles, Master.”

Hajime had said it himself; this was Ehit’s domain. If he could choose where each portal took the party, it stood to reason that he could keep them from ever reaching Yue. Moreover, Hajime had spent the time leading up to the invasion within the Hour Crystal. While in reality only three days had passed, Hajime had spent an entire month away from Yue. And, of course, he was the one who wanted her back more than anyone.

It wouldn’t have been surprising if he was starting to get a little frustrated that they were being led around in circles. However, it seemed Tio needn’t have worried.

“I’m glad that you’re worried about me, but I know we’re not going in circles.”

“You do?”

“Ehit isn’t interested in making rational or efficient decisions. All he cares about is having his fun,” Hajime stated. His voice was calm, without a hint of impatience. “If he didn’t want his enemies to reach him, he could very well keep them trapped wandering these dimensions forever, but he won’t do that.”

“Because that wouldn’t be interesting?”

“Yep. If he really wanted to stop us, he wouldn’t have left portals for us in the first place.”

“Yeah, I guess he could just leave us trapped in one of these places if he really wanted to,” Shea said in a disgusted voice.

“I see. You bring up a good point,” Tio replied with a faint smile.

Ehit’s thought process was quite easy to understand. The fact that she hadn’t been able to work that out made Tio realize that she was the one who’d been getting impatient. And so, she took a deep breath to clear her head.

“So, Master, the reason you’re destroying his creations with such overwhelming force is to show him that you have no intention of playing his game? He he, I see you’re holding quite the grudge.”

“That’s...actually kind of a cruel mental image. It’s like Ehit keeps coming over with a board game going, ‘Come on, let’s play,’ and Hajime-san just kicks it out of his hands each time.”

Regardless of what kind of arena Ehit prepared for them, Hajime just blasted through all of the enemies and used his compass to find the shortest route to the next portal.

It didn’t make for a very entertaining game. In fact, if Ehit was watching over their journey, he was probably getting pretty annoyed.

Had Hajime and the others played along, Ehit still would have gotten bored and shown up eventually, but this method was much faster. Besides, it wasn’t in Hajime’s nature to use passive strategies. He was a firm believer in offense being the best defense.

“That bastard wants to see me struggle as hard as I can before I lose hope and die. There’s no way he won’t come out to fight me personally. And if he can’t enjoy watching my journey, then...”

“He’ll come much sooner,” Tio said, finishing his sentence.

“Makes sense. Yue-san, we’re almost there...” Shea muttered, her gaze fixed forward, searching for light amid the dark, stormy sky. She was just as worried about Yue as Hajime was.

“Sheesh, first she was trapped in the abyss, then she got trapped by her past, and now she got trapped by some stupid god. Even though she’s the strongest vampire mage ever, she sure ends up playing the damsel in distress a lot! Pathetic! Once we get her back, I’m gonna have to beat some grit into her!” Shea roared. Though she was worried, she chose to express her distress as anger instead.

“Heh, indeed. At the very least, I need to give her one good lecture,” Tio replied.

“No, I think seeing you act serious for once will scar her for life, so please don’t, Tio-san.”

“How mean!”

Until now, Hajime had kept his expression serious, but upon hearing Shea and Tio joke around, he finally cracked a smile.

“Don’t worry; this is Yue we’re talking about. She’s probably already come up with a few ways to get her body back and is just waiting for us before starting the party. So yeah, don’t be too hard on her.”

“Why are you only ever lenient with her? It pisses me off,” Shea said, pouting.

“Everything seems to be ticking you off right now.”

“That’s because I’m raring to go!”

“Master, are you absolutely certain you didn’t add anything strange to Shea’s CheatMates?”

Hajime looked away from Shea—who was currently spinning Villedrucken in circles—and stared at his compass. He seemed to be purposely ignoring Tio’s question, which only served to make Tio more worried. Before she could wring an answer out of Hajime, though, he raised his fist in the air, signaling for everyone to halt.

“We’re being misled.”

“How?” Tio asked. “Is the compass no longer functioning?”

“No, it’s not that. I think...” Hajime trailed off and looked up at the sky, his expression grim. “I think this whole storm is a barrier. The kind that loops you back to the start when you reach the end.”

The party had been getting steadily closer to the next portal, but now they were just as far away as they had been upon entering this dimension. That also explained why the monsters here—which were at least as strong as the monsters in the abyss, if not stronger—avoided the storm. They knew it wasn’t normal.

“So what now?” Shea asked.

“If it’s a barrier, then it has a core somewhere. We just have to find it.”

Hajime looked back down at the compass, changing his desire from finding Yue to finding the source of this storm.

“Found it,” Hajime said as he looked coldly down at the ocean below. “There’s a big monster down there. It’s the source of the storm.”

“So a monster’s making this...?” Shea muttered.

“It must be quite the powerful monster if it can create a space-altering storm of this magnitude.”

Shea and Tio stared down at the ocean as well, while Hajime took ten metallic spheres out of his Treasure Trove, each one a meter in diameter. He didn’t bother grabbing them, though, and instead let them fall into the ocean.

“Shea, Tio, get a bit closer to me, just in case.”

Shea’s and Tio’s expressions stiffened, and they hurriedly flew over to where Hajime was. He took out a few of his Orestes and had them fly under everyone’s Skyboards. Just as their portals activated, there was a huge explosion in the ocean.

A column of steaming water shot up from the explosion’s origin, swaying a little in the storm’s fierce winds. Thanks to the Orestes’ spatial barriers, Hajime and the others were fine, but it felt like an underwater volcano had just erupted with the force of Mt. Vesuvius.

“Those spheres you dropped were bombs filled with tar from the abyss, weren’t they?” Tio asked.

“They call that a steam-blast eruption, right?” Shea asked hesitantly.

“Yeah. Those bombs are strong enough to vaporize most monsters, but...”

It seemed this one had survived. Shea and Tio turned to Hajime in surprise, and a second later, a whirlpool began to form directly underneath them. The whirlpool was so massive and ferocious that its center dipped nearly to the ocean floor. And an absolutely massive creature was swimming around the outskirts of that whirlpool. It had to be at least a thousand meters long. Its torso was as wide as a battle submarine’s length. Even from this distance, everyone could make out the creature’s metallic black scales and large pointed dorsal fin.

A second later, it let out a long wail.

“Vooooooooooooooooon!”

The ocean exploded once more as it rose to the surface. It was so imposing that it made every living creature in the vicinity instinctively terrified of it. Water cascaded off its back in waterfalls, and the creature reared its head to let out another wail. It had a dragon’s head, with dark-crimson draconic eyes, and a jaw full of wicked-sharp teeth, each the size of a man. Three hundred meters of its massive body were jutting out of the water. Each of its black scales was the size of Hajime’s large shield, and red lines trailed across its body like veins. It looked strikingly similar to the leviathan that showed up in so many Earth myths.

Hajime and the others were still a good distance above it, but had they been sailing on a ship, it would have looked like a massive wall had suddenly appeared in front of them.

“This thing reminds me of the Devourer. Actually, I think it’s even scarier than that thing,” Shea said.

“A mythical beast from a time long past. I suppose since we encountered it in the Sanctuary, ‘divine beast’ would serve as a more apt moniker,” Tio mused.

This monster was far stronger than any of the ones the party had faced so far. Perhaps the reason the monsters above avoided the area below the clouds was because they knew it was this monster’s territory.

The divine beast fixed its crimson eyes on Hajime and the others.

“Hey, is it just me, or does it look kinda angry?” Shea asked.

“That’s quite the understatement. Here it comes!” Tio shouted.

The divine beast opened its maw wide, compressing an unbelievable amount of seawater inside of its mouth.

“Doesn’t matter what it is; I’m still not playing along.”

Before the divine beast could finish readying its attack, Hajime pulled out another new weapon. Shea and Tio turned to see him cradling it under his right armpit, his left hand gripping the massive thing’s handle, with dark crimson sparks running down its length.

This new weapon of Hajime’s was so massive that it looked more like a portable cannon than a rifle or bazooka. Though it was shaped like Schlagen, his anti-materiel rifle, it was over twice its size. Moreover, four arms were sticking out of the back of the cannon with crimson mana platforms at their ends to brace it.

This was Hajime’s railgun-enhanced sniper cannon—Schlagen Acht Acht. It fired 88-millimeter armor-piercing rounds and was accurate up to a distance of ten kilometers. This powerful railgun cannon was one of Hajime’s favorite weapons.

A second after Hajime pulled his weapon out, the divine beast unleashed a hyper-compressed jet of water at the party. In response, Hajime pulled the trigger, and Schlagen Acht Acht fired with such force that the recoil made Shea and Tio stagger on their Skyboards.

Crimson and blue collided in midair, and in less than a second, the crimson streak cut right through the blue jet, dispersing it. Though the jet was powerful enough to pierce steel, it couldn’t even divert the trajectory of Hajime’s bullet, let alone slow it down. The bullet slammed into the divine beast’s mouth, punched right through the back of its throat, and pulverized the scales on the back of its head as it exited from the other side.

The divine beast let out a howl of pain, any intimidating presence it might have had before completely gone now. It thrashed about in the ocean, a veritable river of blood spilling from its wound.

Shea and Tio stared warily at the Schlagen Acht Acht, which was still spitting crimson sparks. The cannon’s power was far greater than anything they’d expected.

Hajime pulled the bolt back and the spent 88-millimeter cartridge popped out. He then pulled a new one out of his Treasure Trove and slotted it in. After that, he slid the bolt back into place, and significantly more sparks started running down the cannon’s length as he charged the next shot.

There was a second boom as he pulled the trigger again, and his second shot slammed into the divine beast’s torso. He would have gone for the head, but it was hard to get a good aim with the beast thrashing around so much.

Hajime’s second shot pierced through the divine beast just like the first, proving that his bullets could tear through its scales from both outside and within. The beast meekly let out another howl and sank beneath the waves.

“I didn’t get a chance to do anything again...” Shea said, hanging her head.

“Don’t be so quick to decide that, Shea. The battle isn’t over,” Tio responded.

“Wow, that didn’t kill it?”

Indeed, the divine beast was still moving around. In fact, it was sucking up a bunch of seawater to plug up the wounds in its mouth and torso.

“Can it keep healing itself as long as there’s water?” Shea asked.

“In that case, destroying its mana crystal would be the fastest way to kill it, but...were you able to find one, Master?”

Hajime gave the divine beast an appraising look, then shook his head and replied, “No, I don’t see a mana crystal anywhere. It’s like the Devourer, I think. Its whole body is one big mana crystal.”

“I suspected as much. It seems these ancient beasts were a completely different manner of creature than modern monsters. In which case, the next best plan would be to shoot its head, but...”

“It’s thrashing around too much. How about Tio-san and I stop its movements so you can snipe it, Hajime-san?!” Shea asked excitedly. She was, of course, raring to go, but she let Hajime make the final call. However, Hajime wasn’t even looking at her as he took something else out of his Treasure Trove and threw it into the ocean.

“Hajime-san? What did you just throw?”

“I was just thinking...I couldn’t eat the Devourer, but this might make for a nice meal.”

Shea and Tio stared at Hajime in surprise, but he simply licked his lips as he loaded a third round into Schlagen Acht Acht.

Oh, I get it now... Shea and Tio thought simultaneously.

The reason why Hajime had been appraising the divine beast with such intensity was because he was planning on eating it and absorbing its powers. Eating most normal monsters didn’t give Hajime power-ups anymore. Extremely powerful ones like that pterosaur from earlier might power him up a little, but even they wouldn’t give him enough of a boost for it to be worth his time. However, this divine beast was different. It could control the weather, manipulate space, and even regenerate itself.

“He looks pretty tasty, don’t you think?” Hajime said, and this time it wasn’t just Shea and Tio who were a little creeped out by Hajime’s enthusiasm.

The divine beast had finished regenerating about seventy percent of its injuries and resurfaced, ready to vent its wrath on Hajime, but when it locked eyes with him, it shrank back. Never once in its very, very long life had anyone looked at it like it was a snack. While it didn’t fully understand the subtleties of Hajime’s gaze, it was still a little scared. And in its fear, it showed a brief opening, prompting Hajime to fire once again with Schlagen Acht Acht. The bullet hit not the divine beast’s head, but a specific part of its torso which it had protectively coiled its tail around.

Like before, the bullet smashed through its scales, but the divine beast had gotten accustomed to the pain and didn’t scream or writhe around. In fact, it glared at Hajime and opened its maw to fire another water jet. Unfortunately, in its anger, it failed to notice the thing Hajime had thrown earlier had landed right in its open mouth.

It fired its water jet, but Hajime just redirected it back to the divine beast with his Orestes’s portal. However, it seemed the divine beast’s defense was stronger than its offense, and its own jet glanced off its scales without causing much damage.

During the exchange, the divine beast finished fully healing its injuries, and the water that had been swirling around it fell back into the ocean.

A second later, however, another part of the divine beast’s torso exploded.

“Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”

It let out another roar, but this time flames shot out of its open mouth. This wasn’t a new attack or some special magic it hadn’t shown yet, though.

“Master, what did you do?”

“With huge sea monsters like this, the standard strategy is always to take them down from the inside, right? And so, I had my Arachnae burrow into its body through its open wounds.”

Once they’d made it inside, he’d had them release massive quantities of burning tar from the Treasure Troves they each possessed. Those three-thousand-degree flames mixed with seawater inside the divine beast’s body, causing a steam explosion that left it writhing in pain again.

“Does it have any way of making sure absolutely no water gets into its body when it dives? If not, it can’t go underwater anymore or I’ll hit it with another steam explosion,” Hajime explained.

“It won’t be able to regenerate itself either. Not only that, but every new wound will be another opening for seawater to enter its body and harm it further,” Tio added, watching as her prediction came true.

The explosions caused a chain reaction, with each new explosion creating another hole for more seawater to flood through.

Of course, while the divine beast was writhing in pain, Hajime continued firing away with his Schlagen Acht Acht to finish it off. It had somehow managed to avoid taking any headshots so far, but its body was still riddled with holes. And as it was trying to stay as far out of the water as possible, everyone could see gouts of flame pouring out of them.

“Man, that must be torture,” Shea said, her ears twitching sympathetically.

“I was worried its first attack might have knocked the Arachnae off my bullet, but from the looks of it, they all made it inside safely.”

“So you plan on boiling the creature alive? What a wonderful—I mean, frightening tactic,” Tio said.

“It’s too late to correct yourself. Does your depravity know no bounds? I can’t believe you can even enjoy something like that,” Hajime said as he shivered, a little scared of how excited Tio was about being burned from the inside out.

Just then, Shea let out a small gasp as she watched the divine beast raise its torso out of the water and bite deeply into it. It then shook its head a little, ripped a huge chunk of flesh off, and spit it out with a water jet.

“That bastard’s eating itself to spit my Arachnae out.”

Of course, the tar remaining inside the divine beast was still regularly causing explosions...and it had taken enough damage to be nearly dead. Still, Hajime knew it wouldn’t go down that easily. After all, he remembered how persistent the Devourer had been.

“Tch, fine. Guess we’ll do it your way. Stop its movements, you two. We need to kill it while those explosions are still going! I’ll snipe it in the meantime.”

“Oh, so you were listening to my plan.”

“I’ll do whatever it takes to eat it.”

Of course, they needed to kill it either way or they’d never be able to escape this storm. And if they had to kill it anyway, Hajime figured he may as well absorb its strength. He stared voraciously down at the divine beast, expecting it to be furious at how badly he’d humiliated it. But instead, it let out an almost cute squeal. Hajime, Shea, and Tio all stared in shock. It then swam backward, seemingly afraid of meeting Hajime’s gaze. It was acting like a human when they tried to slowly back away from a wild bear.

“Hey,” Hajime called out, and the divine beast twitched. For a moment, Hajime thought he must have imagined what he’d seen, but no, the divine beast really had twitched.

The divine beast seemed just as surprised by its actions as Hajime, and it timidly looked up to meet his gaze. It was then that it finally understood that the reason it was so afraid of that tiny creature was because he wasn’t staring at it with hate or hostility. No, that creature was looking at it like it was food. That small human wasn’t just an enemy; no, it was this divine beast’s predator. The divine beast was absolutely certain that if it kept fighting, it’d be eaten. After all, it had already suffered grievous injuries without even managing to scratch its quarry.

For the first time in its life, the divine beast felt terror. It had stood at the top of the food chain for eons, and the realization that it was now prey broke it. It lost the will to fight upon coming to that startling conclusion.

With surprising alacrity, it turned tail and dived into the ocean in an attempt to flee.

Ignoring the pain of its various injuries, it focused solely on running away. There was nothing on its mind except survival now. Even Hajime was a little surprised by how quickly the divine beast was able to move when it put its heart into it.

“Hey, get back here, you stupid fish! I still need to grill you! Where’s your pride as a divine beast?!”

The divine beast turned back to look at Hajime. But when it saw his expression, it started trembling and resumed its flight. Any pride it might have had was eclipsed by its desire to live.

In truth, this divine beast was the very same one that a certain genius gravity mage had nearly killed centuries ago. Ehit had taken pity on it and brought it here to the Sanctuary to serve as the guard to one of his portals.

Twice now, the divine beast had been beaten by a creature much smaller than it, and this time it was even about to be eaten.

“Piiiiiiiiiiiiiii!”

With a pathetic screech, the divine beast dived into the depths of the sea, determined never to leave its home again. It even dispelled its storm so that Hajime wouldn’t chase after it.

“Goddammit, how can a monster that big move so fast?!” Hajime shouted. “That was the perfect chance to get another power-up!”

He stomped on his Skyboard, and Shea and Tio shook their heads in exasperation.

“Well, it was kind enough to dispel the storm for us at least,” Tio said.

“Yeah, we were able to get through the barrier quickly, which is nice. Look, the portal’s probably on that island over there, isn’t it?” Shea asked as she pointed at a large island that was about seven to eight kilometers away.

Hajime used vision-enhancing magic in conjunction with his Demon Eye to scout out the island, and as far as he could tell, it was perfectly flat and covered by a forest. Sighing, he shouldered his Schlagen Acht Acht and took out his compass with his free hand.

“Yep, the portal’s at the center of the island.”

“Hmm, it’s hard to say for sure because it’s so far away, but aren’t those huge monsters moving in the woods?” Shea muttered.

“They look like...monkeys? I see snakes and dragons and spiders as well. I believe there are twenty of them in total,” Tio added.

From the looks of it, Ehit had put his collection of giant monsters in this dimension. All of them were large enough to tower over the forest’s trees. Even at this distance, Hajime and the others could tell they were all close to the divine beast in strength. And with the storm gone, all the pterosaurs flying above were able to attack the party as well.

“Shea, Tio. You guys wanted a warm-up, right? Protect me from those birds for a minute; I need to get something ready.”

“Ah, Hajime-san, don’t tell me you’re going to...”

“That does seem wiser than fighting them in close quarters, I suppose.”

Shea and Tio shrugged their shoulders as the pterosaurs started to descend.

It was true that it might take time to fight all those monsters normally, since Hajime and the others didn’t know what their powers were. In which case, blasting them all away with a long-ranged attack was a lot more efficient.

Hajime took aim with his Schlagen Acht Acht while Shea and Tio got ready to repel the army of descending pterosaurs. As he poured his mana into the cannon, two more support struts shot out of the bottom of the halfway point of the barrel in a reverse V-shape. Like the other support legs, they created platforms midair to brace themselves against.

He then looked through the scope, using evolution magic and his Demon Eye to analyze the exact distance to each monster and where their mana crystals were.

“I sure hope you guys can’t deal with sniping attacks from miles away,” Hajime muttered to himself, then took a deep breath.

Sparks ran down the barrel as he pulled the trigger, and there was a deafening boom as a crimson streak shot out and decapitated a dragon in the distance. Hajime had fired from an angle above the dragon, so as the bullet passed through it, it hit the ground hard enough to make a small crater and crush the nearby trees.

A second later, there was a dull clunk, and Hajime started loading the next round. The first shot caused quite a commotion among the remaining monsters, but before they could do anything, the second shot took another one of them out.

Hajime continued firing methodically, eliminating all of the monsters guarding the teleportation gate from seven kilometers away with shots that traveled too fast to see. Even if the monsters had been able to pinpoint where Hajime was firing from by following the trajectory of the shots, he started using his Orestes to change up his firing angles to keep the monsters guessing.

In seconds, the forest was covered in blood and flesh.

“Mmm, I imagine Ehit isn’t very happy right now,” Tio said, turning to Shea.

“I bet he wanted people to taste despair when they found out there was a whole island of giant monsters after taking care of a single one. He’d probably enjoy watching someone struggle to get past them all to the portal,” Shea replied.

Both of them were casually slaughtering pterosaurs by the dozen while they talked. At this rate, they were certain that something very different would be waiting for them beyond the next portal.

Exactly one minute later, Hajime butchered the final giant monster. The party made their way over to the island without meeting any other resistance, and they found a big white obelisk at its center.

“Ready?” Hajime asked, also sensing what Shea and Tio had. Something was different about this portal.

The three of them nodded, then stepped into the portal. The dimension on the other side was strange and needlessly grandiose, just like the previous ones. This one was dotted with numerous floating islands of various sizes. The smallest of the islands were barely a few dozen meters across, while the largest spanned hundreds of kilometers. Some had rivers that spilled over the island’s edges into big waterfalls. Though the water dispersed into fine mist after a few thousand meters, those waterfalls were still impressive.

All of the islands seemed to be filled with greenery, though some were verdant plains while others were lush forests. There wasn’t a single island that was just barren rock or desert, though.

A sea of clouds spread out below the islands, making it impossible to see where the ground was. And because of how fluffy the clouds were, and how much they wafted around in the wind, it looked as though the world was made of cotton candy.

Sunbeams poured through small gaps in the clouds, but Hajime couldn’t see an actual sun anywhere in the sky.

It certainly was a fantastical setting, with floating islands, sunbeams without a sun, and a sea of clouds serving as the world’s floor. Had he not known better, Hajime would have almost thought this was heaven. Though, of course, he had no time to appreciate the sights at the moment.

“Over there, on the biggest island,” he said in a stony voice.

Shea and Tio, who’d been significantly more impressed than Hajime, smiled sheepishly at each other, then hurried to catch up to Hajime, who’d flown on ahead. As they got closer to their destination, they realized there was someone there. Someone quite powerful, in fact.

As expected, the fifth dimension they’d been sent to was different from the others. When they reached the island, they saw that it had several small streams, a heavily wooded mountain, and a lot of grassy plains. Moreover, the flora on this island was far more beautiful than the plant life on the others. However, there was a single, fifty-meter tall white obelisk in the center of the island that ruined the picturesque natural atmosphere. There was a huge magic circle at the obelisk’s zenith, and sitting cross-legged atop that magic circle was a figure clad in white.

It was this figure that was radiating all the power that Hajime and the others had sensed. He had long white hair and pure-white wings growing out of his back. His skin had a white tinge to it too, and even his eyes seemed to glow white.

“I knew you’d come, Hajime Nagumo.”

“You again?”

For all that this man looked like a god, Hajime knew he wasn’t. After all, he recognized that face. It belonged to Freid Bagwa, the Garland Empire’s grand general and an ancient magic user. He had been granted an extraordinary amount of power, to the point where he seemed more intimidating than even the apostles. Chances were he’d been fully apostleified as well. But judging by the aura he was radiating, he’d gained far more power from the transformation than Eri had.

Hajime stared dismissively at him, as one might a pebble on the side of the road, while Freid watched him expectantly. After a few seconds of silence, the two moved at the same time.

“You’re in the way. Die.”

“Cosmic Rift!”

Hajime drew Donner at the speed of light, while Freid opened up a portal without any incantation.

“Mmmmmmrgh!”

“Gak!”

A second later, Shea grunted in exertion, and Tio squawked like a chicken being strangled.

“Shea, you okay?” Hajime asked, keeping his pistol trained on Freid.

Thankfully, Shea replied immediately, saying, “Yep! That just surprised me.”

“Cough, cough... I’m grateful for the help, Shea, but couldn’t you have just pulled me by the arm instead of choking me?” Tio asked in a tearful voice as she rubbed the welt on her neck.

Freid had opened up a portal just as Hajime had fired, redirecting his shot at Tio. He’d done the same thing Yue had done back at the kingdom’s capital, when she’d turned his own attack against his countrymen. Fortunately, Shea had seen the attack coming thanks to her special magic, Future Sight, and she’d pulled Tio to safety by clotheslining her.

The fact that Freid could open portals as fast as Yue meant Hajime couldn’t rely on ranged attacks to take him down.

In a pleased voice, Freid said, “Don’t think I’m the same man I was before.”

“Yeah, your hair’s gone all white. Was it from stress?” Hajime asked, and Shea and Tio burst out laughing.

Freid didn’t rise to the taunt, however. Glaring intently at Hajime, he said, “When Alvaheit-sama failed to return, I was certain. My lord mentioned that you might be able to make it into the Sanctuary, but I knew. I knew for sure you would find a way into the Sanctuary. Your tenacity knows no bounds.”

“What, are you trying to claim you understand me or something?”

“Of course. How many times do you think I’ve suffered defeat at your hands now?”

Though it had mostly just been luck, Freid was one of the only people who’d fought Hajime multiple times and lived to tell the tale, which was why he’d been able to predict that Hajime would shoot him just then and had reacted in time.

“And? What’s your point?”

If he says that’s why I have no chance, then he really doesn’t understand me at all.

Hajime didn’t have time to waste on pointless conversation. And so, he glared coldly at Freid, who grinned a little.

“Oh, I just wanted to tell you something before your final moments.”

“Then spit it out already.”

“Well, you see, as much as I’d like to murder you myself, my master has ordered me not to lay a hand on you.”

Hajime raised an eyebrow at him, and Freid turned to Shea and Tio.

“Leave those two behind and go on ahead to face him. Then despair as he smites you with the body of the girl you love.”

In other words, Freid would allow Hajime to go on without a fight, but not Shea and Tio.

“Hmph... I’m not interested in playing along with your shitty script. We’ll slaughter you and move forward together.”

Hajime grinned fearlessly, and his Treasure Trove began to glow. Like before, he was going to completely mess up Ehit’s plans before advancing forward. Readying themselves for battle, Shea and Tio flanked Freid from either side.

Even if Freid could redirect attacks with his portals, he wouldn’t be able to handle a barrage of attacks from all directions at once.

Freid rose to his feet and spread his wings. With a single flap, he flew up into the air, pure-white feathers fluttering around him.

“You will die like a dog, unable to protect the women around you, the same way you couldn’t protect your beloved. That is your fate.”

“I haven’t failed to protect her yet. Don’t worry, both you and your shitty god are going down in round two,” Hajime retorted.

“Let’s see if your abilities match your confidence!”

The obelisk emitted a blinding flash of light. The light covered everything, making it impossible for Hajime and the others to see more than a few inches in front of them. But of course, they still knew exactly where Freid was. A mere flash-bang wasn’t even enough to slow them down.

Hajime prepared to charge, intent on taking Freid down before he could throw out an attack, but then Shea shouted, “There’s a Void Fissure coming!”

“Void Fissure,” Freid said a second later, and Hajime reflexively fired two shots with Donner and Schlag. Both pistols were loaded with Area Burst Bullets.

The two bullets crossed paths in the space between his allies and Freid, creating a spatial vibration to dampen his Void Fissure.

Of course, that wasn’t enough to eliminate the attack entirely, but the weakened Void Fissure wasn’t strong enough to break through Hajime’s and the others’ natural defenses either.

However, it did hurt enough to slow them down for an instant. And in that second, the light from the obelisk faded, and Hajime saw that they were surrounded by an army of two thousand monsters. He recognized most of them, but like Freid, they’d all been significantly powered up. The four-eyed wolves he’d seen before now had two extra heads, and their fur had turned white. The tentacled black cats had also turned white and grown to the size of leopards. The Ahatods and Absods that had given Kaori and the others so much trouble in the Great Orcus Labyrinth were also proportionally bigger, and the Absods had extra heads growing out of their tails.

From the looks of it, each of these monsters was as strong as the most dangerous of the abyss’s creatures, and they could all fly now. The gray dragons that Hajime and the others had faced off against in the Snow Fields were now each as strong as Uranos. Their scales were much more lustrous and, like most everything else, had turned a bit more white. They were more like off-white dragons now rather than gray ones.

And, of course, Freid Bagwa’s favorite familiar, Uranos, had also gotten a power boost. In fact, it felt like a completely different creature from before now. It had tripled in size to be twenty meters long, had four wings, and its scales were the purest white. The biggest change, however, was that its body was constantly emitting white sparks. It looked like the white dragon god of legend that Tio had once told Hajime about. Not even the divine beast Leviathan was this strong.

Uranos flew over to Freid’s side, moving with surprising dexterity considering its bulk.

Freid spread his arms out and said in a theatrical voice, “Go on, Hajime Nagumo. Leave your women to face this desperate situation alone!”

What an idiot... Shea and Tio thought simultaneously. There was no reason to do as Freid said. After all, working together was the safest way of taking Freid down.

However, to their surprise, Hajime neither retorted nor counterattacked.

“Hajime-san?!” Shea shouted.

“Curses! How could I have failed to notice what those pillars of light in a sunless world meant?!” Tio exclaimed.

Hajime had become trapped within a pillar of light that looked identical to the sunbeams the party had seen in the distance while coming here. In other words, all of those pillars were made by Ehit.

Remembering what had happened when Yue had been trapped in one, Shea and Tio looked at Hajime with worry in their eyes. It looked like they wanted to run over to him, but he gave them a small shake of his head. He’d already come up with countermeasures for this spell. His new prosthetic arm had a miniature pile bunker tucked away in the elbow.

Hajime drew his arm back, crimson sparks shooting out of the shoulder section. Lines of red mana coursed through the metallic arm like veins.

However, just before he shattered the pillar, Freid said, “That light is a simple teleporter. It’ll take you to your beloved vampire princess.”

Hajime hesitated. It was true that he didn’t sense anything dangerous from the light, and that it seemed to be connecting him to yet another dimension.

“I see. Well, too bad. Ehit can wait a bit longer,” Hajime said with an arrogant smirk.

Freid’s expression stiffened, but Hajime didn’t care. He reared his arm back again, but this time Shea and Tio stopped him.

“Hajime-san, you should go on ahead.”

“Yes. We can handle this. You may as well take advantage of Ehit’s invitation.”

Hajime raised an eyebrow in surprise, but before he could say anything, Shea added, “We’ll hold them back! You go on without us! Man, I always wanted to say that line at least once.”

“How does the continuation go?” Tio asked with a smile. “Oh yes, ‘Don’t worry; we’ll be right behind you.’ He he he he...”

Shea gave Hajime a reassuring wink, and he just shook his head in exasperation.

She’s raising all those death flags on purpose, isn’t she?

But of course, even if Shea’s and Tio’s tones were joking, Hajime could tell from the looks in their eyes that they were serious. There was no telling what Ehit might do if Hajime refused this invitation, and on the flip side, this was the perfect opportunity to reach Yue right away. Shea and Tio didn’t want to let this chance slip past them, and they were confident that they could easily take care of Freid, and that Hajime would be able to get Yue back even if he was alone.

After thinking about all that, Hajime decided to accept their resolve. His body started to turn transparent as the pillar’s glow brightened.

“Shea, Tio.”

“Yeah?” Shea asked.

“Mmm?” Tio mumbled.

It was clear from the look in his eyes that he had absolute faith in the two of them.

“Don’t hold anything back. Crush this idiot with all your strength. I’m gonna do the same to Ehit.”

“Aye aye, sir!”

“He he, you can count on us!”

They smiled fearlessly back at him. And a second later, the pillar shot up to the heavens, taking Hajime’s body with it.

Shea and Tio watched him leave, then put away their Skyboards. Shea activated Aerodynamic to stay in the sky, while Tio unfurled her dragon wings. Shea then tapped Villedrucken against her shoulder, her bunny ears standing straight up.

“You said some crap about slaughtering us, but you’re the one who’s going down.”

Tio cracked her neck, smiling sadistically, and added, “You foolish man. We’ve thoroughly trounced you every single time we fought, and this shall be no different.”

They were surrounded by two thousand of the strongest monsters to have ever been created, but they still had absolute confidence in their victory.

Freid narrowed his eyes at them and replied, “Struggle long and hard for me. It’d be a shame if you died before Hajime Nagumo, after all. I want him to hear your screams for as long as possible. That’s the only thing you worthless insects can do to entertain my master.”

“Yeah, right. Hey, I’m feeling nice, so I’ll let you choose how you die. Do you wanna be squashed, choked, beaten to a pulp, or just blown up?”

“You should not boast about what you cannot do. It’s time you learned your place.”

Shea and Tio glared at Freid, who stared coldly back at them.

After a tense pause—

“Die!”

“Go to hell!”

“You’re mine!”

All three of them leaped into action, ready for the most intense battle of their lives.