Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 22 - Chapter 7

Chapter 7:

Dueling Atofe’s Ultimate Four

RUDEUS HAD BEEN KIDNAPPED. Eris and Roxy had watched in blank shock as Atofe slung him over her shoulder and shot up into the sky. They were slow to react, both because it all happened so fast, and because it was so…blah. A real anticlimax. Atofe had picked Rudeus up like it was the typical next step in the process and Rudeus had resigned himself to it. Maybe he knew, somehow, that this was all part of the routine from her perspective.

“Rudeus!” Eris yelled. Once she’d processed that Rudeus had been kidnapped, she acted fast. With a mighty yell, she drew her sword and ran after Atofe. Atofe’s personal guard stood in her way, so she attacked them.

“Guh!” grunted a guard who parried her, thrown on his butt by the force of her blow.

“Outta the way!” Eris demanded.

“Stop, listen!”

“Tell your demon king that!”

“Hrm…” The guy trailed off, at a loss for words.

Had Rudeus been there, he might have raised an eyebrow at Eris talking like that. She wasn’t as bad as Atofe, but Eris wasn’t a listener by any means.

“Please listen to me!” the guard insisted.

“I don’t have anything to talk to you about! Give Rudeus back!”

“Fine, okay, here goes…” He cleared his throat. “Steps there are that you must take if you want the princess back! Mwahahahaaa!”

“Are you screwing with me?!”

“Whuh?!” The guard barely managed to deflect Eris’s second blow before retreating a few steps back.

Eris howled, her gaze roving around the sky. Above them, Atofe kept flying in circles. It was like she was antagonizing Eris personally, which only intensified Eris’s frustration. But there was nothing she could do against an opponent who could fly.

Then she saw Atofe alight upon a corner of the fort. Her eyes lit up. She dashed forward again. 

“Eris, stop,” came a calm voice from behind her.

Eris spun around. “How come?!” she demanded. Holding onto the hem of Eris’s shirt, calm and collected, was Roxy. “Did you not see?! She kidnapped Rudeus! We’ve gotta save him!”

“The guards said there are steps we have to take if we want to do that,” Roxy said patiently. “Why don’t we hear what they are first?”

“But, Roxy!”

“Eris, please calm down. Look at me. I’m calm.”

So what if you are? Eris might well have thought, but Roxy’s words struck a chord with her. She recognized that she was, in fact, not thinking clearly, and even began to consider that maybe she should. If you lost your cool in battle, your rage rose to the surface. When that happened, your opponent could read your sword. And once they did, the battle was as good as lost. She knew that from Isolde’s training. That explained how the guards had parried her so easily.

Eris lowered her sword from above her head to a neutral position, then took a deep breath. Her fear over Rudeus was making it impossible for her to stay still. She tried to contain it but couldn’t.

“I’m worried about Rudeus,” she said.

“I know,” Roxy agreed. “But there’s a legend about Immortal Demon King Atoferatofe.”

“A legend?”

“Yes. In the legend, our demon king kidnaps a princess as a prank.”

Eris relaxed. She’d heard that story herself.

It was a common tale about Atofe—actually, about a few different demon kings. The sort of tale where a demon king kidnaps the princess, then the hero has to overcome their challenges to save her. When Eris was little, she’d heard stories like it time and time again and dreamed of one day being in a similar tale.

At the same time, she realized that this princess thing all started because of what Rudeus had said. Her expression changed to indignation.

One thing still didn’t make sense to her.

“What happens to the princess after the kidnapping?” she asked. When she was little, that question had never crossed her mind.

“The demon king summons the hero.”

“Okay, then what?”

“Then they fight, I believe.”

Question marks popped up over Eris’s head. This wasn’t adding up.

Hadn’t they been about to fight Atofe? It looked that way. A fight should’ve been the next logical step.

So why?

“I don’t get it,” Eris said.

“Shall we ask them about it?” Roxy suggested.

Eris hesitated, but then she nodded and said, “Fine.” She didn’t have the firmest grasp on how they had ended up here, but she knew from their everyday life that she could trust Roxy. 

The other woman might be a bit spacey, but she was brimming with know-how and she took good care of everyone. She also listened patiently to Eris’s worries when they came up and explained anything she didn’t understand. 

Once, out on a walk in Sharia, they were surrounded by a band of weirdo adventurers. It was a dicey situation. If Eris had been alone with Leo, she could’ve come out swinging, but Lara chose that day to cling desperately to Leo’s back. Eris couldn’t let things get violent. At the same time, the adventurers didn’t look likely to stand down. How could she fight and keep Lara safe? While Eris stood there trying to work out this dilemma, Roxy took charge. She swiftly placed herself between Eris and the adventurers, then got them both talking and brought everyone onto the same page. The situation was resolved in mere moments. 

Roxy was reliable—especially at times like this, when Eris didn’t know what was going on.

“Okay, you take this one,” Eris said. She returned her sword to its scabbard, then folded her arms. Everyone had their time to shine and if now was the time for a discussion, it wasn’t hers.

“Very well,” Roxy said, stepping forwards to address the guards, “I have some questions if that’s all right. What are these ‘steps’?”

Her tone was cool and collected, but on the inside, Roxy was terrified. Atofe’s personal guard was legendary on the Demon Continent. They were a top-level militant group with the gear and skills to match. Handpicked by Atofe, they had the lofty reputation as the toughest gang in the whole Demon Continent. Should they decide to attack while she was surrounded, Roxy doubted she’d get out with her life intact. Even Eris standing beside her did little to allay those fears.

But this was the hand she’d been dealt. She was facing this with Rudeus. He always told her, I’m counting on you. 

She was confident that she was not the hero for this crisis, but she wanted to live up to his expectations. Then there was what he’d said to her before they left for the Demon Continent.

Rudeus told her that if something happened and he was separated from them, her job was to rein Eris in. Roxy hadn’t expected that they would be separated through such bizarre circumstances, but she had to keep it together, nonetheless. Otherwise, there was no point in her coming along in the first place. 

The man Eris had attacked before grunted, then backed away. Another guard advanced. This one wore the same armor as the last. There was no way to tell them apart. 

Calmer now, Roxy noted that the guards weren’t agitated, either. Their shining black-plate armor and great swords were intimidating, but she didn’t sense any murderous intent in them—unlike Eris. Taking this into account, Roxy decided that here there was a chance for rational conversation. It was a nice change after their brain-melting “chat” with Atofe.

The guards’ representative cleared his throat, then proclaimed, “Heroes! You have done well to reach the heart of Fort Necross!”

“You must be strong indeed to have fought your way through the personal guard of Demon King Atofe!”

“We commend you! None can deny your valor!”

“Yet we are Atofe’s personal guard! We must defend our honor and our pride!”

“If you wish to try your might against the Immortal Demon King Atofe and take back the beautiful princess…”

“First you must defeat the pinnacle of Atofe’s personal guards: the Ultimate Four!”

Four figures stepped forward out of the ranks of the guards. They drew their swords, beat the pommels of their blades against their armor with a loud clang, then raised them high. Roxy didn’t recall fighting her way through them at any point, but based on what they were saying…

“So, if I’ve got this clear,” she said, “all we have to do is beat you, then we get Rudeus back?”

“Eh heh heh, I don’t know about that!” snickered the guard. “The princess’s wishes might work miracles, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up if I were you.”

“Look,” Roxy said, “I know he called himself a princess, but out of all of us, Rudeus is the real champion. Or at least, he’s the strongest fighter… Is that not a problem for Lady Atofe?”

“Huh? Oh, um…” With a small sigh, the guard speaking for the rest knelt before Roxy, then leaned in close and whispered, “You know how in the tale of Demon King Keserapasera and the heroic Steel-Cutting Atmos, the princess stumbles across the Eternal Flame and burns through the harder-than-iron fur of the demon king with it, leading the hero to victory?”

“Um?” This sudden change of subject threw Roxy for a loop.

The spokesman sighed again, then whispered, “Look, I’m not supposed to say this, but the point is, the line about the princess working miracles means that Lady Atofe will let the princess join in the fight against her. So yes, it’s fine for the princess to fight the demon king too.”

“Oh, I see,” Roxy replied. “I’m sorry, I don’t know those sorts of stories very well.”

“Yeah, that’s normal. Especially these days! For a few hundred years now, we haven’t had any champions at all. Hardly anyone knows the stories.”

“Goodness, really?”

“Yeah. This is my first time doing the champion confrontation, actually.”

Immortal Demon King Atoferatofe was notorious. For the past few hundred years her notoriety held firm even though she hadn’t lifted a finger to warrant it. Laplace’s War ended, then North God Kalman bested her, and she hadn’t left the Demon Continent to incite any wars since. She’d barely fought anyone at all. At most, she’d gone around pestering other demons of her rank. 

As a result, her current personal guard had never dealt with challengers before. There were plenty of random knights errant who dropped by the castle, however, so they knew how to treat visitors. 

“Are we meant to fight them?” Roxy asked. “There are only two of us, so two-on-four?”

“Oh, no. They come out one at a time. So you’ll do two-on-one four times.”

“Very well.” With the administrative details taken care of, Roxy turned back to Eris. “We’ve reached an understanding.”

“Okay, so what’s happening?”

“He says if we beat them, we’ll get Rudeus back, and then we can fight Atofe.”

“Huh, that’s pretty simple.”

“If we lose though, we might—”

“We won’t lose.”

“You’re right,” Roxy agreed. Eris, she could see, had regained her clear focus. She tightened her grip on her staff.

***

“I am Calina! King-tier North God knight and one of Lady Atofe’s Ultimate Four: Calina of the Wind!”

The first guard to step forward was a woman. She immediately pulled off her helmet and chucked it off the platform. The other guards scrambled to catch it—their gear was expensive and they’d be in trouble if they lost any of it. 

“Champions! I have been waiting for you!” The face of the woman beneath the helmet was reptilian. She had yellow scales, hair like a mass of needles, and a pointed nose; her whole face was covered in scars that told of her long history as a warrior. 

“I train in the special training hall here at Fort Necross! I have many students! Lady Atofe’s grandchild is one such student! I train them hard! Have you got any students?! You oughta get some! Students will respect you!

“You may wonder why I’m training in a place like this! It’s all so that one day, I can challenge Lady Atofe! For every hero and champion I defeat, I earn the right to challenge Lady Atofe!

“Now, champions, let us fight! Lose quickly so that I can use you to become stronger still!”

Calina rambled on and on without any regard for who was listening. Meanwhile, Eris drew her sword without a word. She didn’t care one damn what Calina had to say. The person before her was her opponent. Opponents who talked that much pre-fight were North God Style and Water God Style users. Eris, a practitioner of the Sword God Style, didn’t speak. She’d never been great at speeches anyway. She raised her sword high.

“Oops, sorry. I’m talking too much, aren’t I?” Calina said, catching herself. “Fighting time! Here I go! Just—”

Eris moved as Calina said, “Here I go.” She was smooth and efficient. Her sword was held high above her head and she swung it down. It was a movement she’d practiced over a hundred times every day since her time at the Sword Sanctuary. She must have done it tens of thousands of times.

She slashed down on the diagonal. Even as her blade began to move, it was already too fast for the human eye to perceive: this was the Sword of Light. It made no sound. Before anyone knew what was happening, it was over. Her blade came to a halt on Calina’s other side, after which Eris slowly raised the sword back above her head.

Okay, it was not—strictly speaking—accurate to say that no one knew what was happening. Calina knew. She had a special ability, a sixth sense that let her see danger coming. As she said, “Here I go,” she’d seen her death flash before her eyes. 

This ability of hers was a little different from Rudeus’s Demon Eye of Foresight. She’d had it since she was little. Whenever she faced imminent death, she sensed it and she’d know that, unless she acted then in that moment, she was going to die. She didn’t know if her danger-sense was accurate because she had never ignored it to find out. All she knew was that the ability kept her alive. It got her out of close brushes with death time and time again, and that was why she’d gone knocking on the North God’s gates. So when she said, “Here I go,” and her death flashed before her eyes, she dived out of its way.

She didn’t avoid the strike altogether. She managed to move her upper half about ten centimeters out of the way. Ten centimeters was enough to save her life. She felt with perfect clarity the sensation of the blade cutting through her body. She saw it slice down from the upper left, entering around her left shoulder and exiting where her left leg met her torso. She saw both arm and leg detach from her body—a perfect cross-sectional diagram of a suit of armor. She’d never seen such a clean slice. Her left leg was severed and, unable to stay upright, she toppled to the ground with a clang. Her arm hit the ground at the same time, leaving only her severed leg, braced by her armor, still standing.

“That was too fast…” someone muttered. Maybe Calina, maybe another one of the guards. It didn’t matter. Everyone could tell who’d won. Eris looked down at Calina as she had earlier, now smirking. 

The arena was silent. Would Eris end it? No one moved to stop her. Atofe’s personal guard fought to the death. It might even be considered crass for someone who’d risen to the level of the Ultimate Four to beg for mercy. Or maybe everything was happening too fast and no one was keeping up.

For a long moment, Eris stood there silently with her sword raised. But then her expression returned to normal, and she asked dubiously, “Is it over already?” 

Calina felt a chill run down her spine. Eris was saying that the fight wasn’t over yet. She actually believed that her opponent, down an arm and a leg, hadn’t given up; that the fight was still going. And Calina understood that were Eris in her place, it would be. Even if Eris lost a limb, if she were in the same state as Calina, she wouldn’t yield. The students of the North God trained in how to fight even after losing a limb, although few of them were ready to sacrifice so much. 

Calina was not one of those few, as much as she’d wished to be. That mindset, that willingness to sacrifice, such qualities only came to the surface when you were pushed to the brink and even there refused to yield. She’d never assumed that any of the opponents she’d defeated in the past shared that quality.

Calina, seeing that Eris was ready to go further than she was, said, “Yes, it’s over. You have bested me, champion. I am utterly defeated.” Thus, she accepted her defeat.

Eris slowly lowered her sword, first from a high guard to a middle guard, and then finally returned it to its scabbard. She didn’t remove her hand from the hilt. She surveyed her surroundings, never once relaxing as the waiting guards scooped up Calina and carried her from the arena. Only when she was satisfied that there was enough distance between her and the remaining three of the Ultimate Four did she take her hand from her sword.

“They’re not much, these Ultimate Four,” she said, as though nothing much of interest had happened.

She wasn’t deliberately insulting Calina. She wasn’t even dismissing the other woman as weak. She only thought that, if that was the best Calina could do, she was nowhere near as good as Auber, who also fought North God Style. Even Nina and Isolde, both of whom had trained with Eris, could have dodged her blow.

“Brave words, little girl. But Calina was the stupidest of Lady Atofe’s Ultimate Four. I won’t have you judge us all by her performance.”

“Yeah, we’re not morons like that. We’re clever.”

“Eh heh heh. That’s right, we’ll cut you to pieces with our sharpness!”

Rudeus might have commented on how cliché their bumbling bad-guy squad schtick was if he were present. Instead, Eris considered this and decided that if the others were stronger than the first woman, she should prepare herself accordingly. Eris wasn’t vain. She knew the limits of her strength.

And so, she called out for someone. “Roxy.”

“Yes?”

“Stay behind me… I swear I won’t let you get hurt,” she said.

Roxy felt a small shiver run through her. Roxy knew Eris well. She knew that Eris was a hard worker and the most natural talent in the household at doing violence.

Roxy also knew that, while not on the same level as Rudeus, Eris thought of herself as the family’s protector. When it came to stabbing things, anyway.

To Eris, family was something she protected with her sword. Roxy counted as family. There was a single exception to her rule: Rudeus. She relied on him alone in these situations. He was the only one who could keep up with her in a fight. 

At that thought, Roxy felt ever so slightly ashamed. 

***

“I am Benebene, Saint-tier North God swordsman and one of Lady Atofe’s Ultimate Four: Benebene of the Water!”

The second of the Ultimate Four looked the definition of average. He didn’t remove or fling away his helmet like Calina, and he wasn’t any bigger than the other two. Possibly he was from a particularly hairy race because white hair stuck out of the gaps in his helmet.

“A North Saint? You’re a lower tier than the last one?”

“Heh, it’s true, I can’t match Calina with a blade,” he agreed. “But skill with a blade isn’t the only thing that decides a fight.”

“True,” Eris said simply, then brought her sword up to a high guard, identical to before. There wasn’t even a millimeter’s difference in her stance. She smirked. There wasn’t a hint of murder in her eyes now. But did that mean that she’d strike in the same way as before as well, with her ultimate attack? The one you couldn’t dodge even if you knew it was coming? Would she use the Sword of Light?

“Shall we begin?” said the man. “Come at me from whatever angle you prefer.” 

The screech of metal on metal rang out as he spoke his final syllable. Eris had already struck. Her blade followed the exact same trajectory as before and came to rest in exactly the same place. She was so fast no one even had time to blink. 

Just like with Calina, Benebene’s left arm and left leg hung down, and his body began to sway—except his body didn’t sway. His left arm and leg didn’t even fall off, though Eris was sure she’d cut through them. 

Alarmed, she took a step back right as the man’s sword whooshed through where she was standing. Without warning, Benebene’s sword was in his hands, a black great sword like the rest of Atofe’s personal guard.

“You dodged, huh? But don’t think you—” This time Eris acted before he got to the end of his sentence. She stepped in to cancel out her previous step, then swung upward at Benebene’s right arm. A cool metallic cling resounded as Eris instantly brought her sword back up to a high guard.

She let out a breath, suspicious now. She’d cut him. She’d felt it, for sure. But even though she was sure she’d cut it clean off, Benebene’s hand remained attached to his wrist.

“You should let me finish,” Benebene said. He stabbed his sword into the floor, then grabbed his own wrist with his left hand. His right hand—or rather, the guard—popped off without resistance, and not merely in a single piece. The hand within had been split perfectly in two to produce a cross-section as clean as Calina’s body earlier.

That wasn’t the only point worth noting. The other was the hair. A huge mass of white hair clung to the inside of Benebene’s armor. 

“I’ve got Sticky Clan and Hea Clan blood! Swords have never worked on me,” Benebene said. Sticky tendrils of hairlike feelers twisted into the shape of a hand, which then gripped his sword. He held it up ready to strike, staring Eris dead in the eye.

Eris’s only reply was to take another swing at Benebene. She cut down, then up, then right, then left, at his neck, his shoulder, his arms, his legs… She rained blows from every angle down on every part of his body. 

Eventually, Benebene swung his sword again. None of her strikes had any effect, so there was no need for him to defend himself. Eris dodged everything he threw at her. As she ducked out of the way so that his sword missed her by millimeters, she drew gasps of admiration from the watching guards. 

As a general rule, Sword God Style swordsmen were bad at dodging and defense.

Sword God Style encouraged its wielders to cut an opponent down with a single blow. Dodging was unnecessary in such a philosophy.

Eris was different. Gall Falion’s training for defeating Orsted had been based on rationality. He assumed Orsted wouldn’t be brought down with a single blow and so, judging that evasion was a technique his students would need, he’d got a North God Style swordsman to teach them and made them spar a Water God Style warrior.

His training had made a strong impression on Eris. Thanks to Auber’s lessons and her stand-offs with Isolde, no sword could touch Eris. While her sword cut through Benebene’s body, he cut only air. It was like a bout between an adult and a child. As the battle wore on, though, panic begin to take root in her heart. 

She inhaled sharply at the sound of dented metal. Her strike hadn’t cut through Benebene’s armor. All she’d managed to do was scratch him. Her Sword of Light had gone astray.

With a cry of frustration, she parried Benebene’s strike near the hilt of her blade. The force pushed her three steps backward. She wasn’t tired, merely at a loss for what to do. No matter where she cut, nothing landed. 

Eris took a deep breath, then forced herself to calm down and think. What would Master Ghislaine do? Or Sword God Gall Falion? Unfortunately, she wasn’t the fastest thinker, and Benebene attacked again before she could remember.

“Mwahahaha! You’re getting tired, champion!” he cried. “It’s over now!”

But then another voice rang out. “O spirits of ice, lend us your strength! Icicle Field!”

A sheet of spray along with a freezing wind crashed straight into the charging Benebene.

“Wha?!”

Benebene’s whole body crackled. He was frozen solid in seconds.

“Eris! Now!”

Eris acted without delay. Benebene was right in front of her. She stepped in, then slid past his frozen form, her sword raking him from the side. 

“Gyaaaah!” he shouted as he was cut in half. His upper half slid from his lower and fell to the ground with a thud. There was a tinkling like breaking glass as his armor shattered, leaving behind two clumps of pure white hair. Both were covered in ice and twitching slightly. 

“Urgh,” he grumbled, “Damnit… Not my personal guard armor… So that was why you spent all that time on meaningless attacks…” With that, he stopped moving.

The other guards promptly ran over and carried him away. 

Eris watched them blankly, then turned to look behind her to where Roxy stood, frozen to the spot with her staff still in her hand.

“I’d heard that the sticky clan were vulnerable to ice…” she mumbled “It really was effective, huh…” Roxy, seeing Eris in trouble, had used magic without knowing whether it would do any good. That it had been even more effective than she’d imagined had come as a shock.

Realizing that Eris was staring at her, she returned to her usual pose, then cleared her throat.

“I’m sorry. Should I have stayed out of it?”

“Of course not! You saved me!” Eris exclaimed. She was surprised herself. If she were honest, she’d been out of ideas. She’d never fought an opponent like Benebene before, where she could cut their armor, but not their body… Well, maybe once or twice, but she hadn’t been prepared for it this time. Had the fight gone on like that, he might have overcome her.

“You back me up, okay?”

“Understood. Roxy, on support!” Roxy answered, sounding a little happier this time. 

The remaining two of the Ultimate Four laughed derisively.

“Eh heh heh, Benebene was weak! He was totally reliant on his inherited abilities.”

“He was truly one of a kind among swordsmen! Clad in the renowned black armor of Lady Atofe’s personal guard, one can see how he might grow too confident in his powers! Indeed, I envy his talents!”

“But to think he failed to pay heed to a magician even as his armor was cut to shreds!”

“He was the greatest fool amongst the Ultimate Four!”

Two of the Ultimate Four remained.

One stepped forwards. “Tremble, worms!” he declared, “For I am your next opponent!”

Thus, their bout with the third champion began.