Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 25 - Chapter 7

Chapter 7:

Alexander vs. Rudeus

AS I FELL, I kept my vision trained on Alexander with the Eye of Distant Sight. As soon as I started to fall, I saw that Alec had noticed me. He was shocked. The gap between us narrowed rapidly. He was using the King Dragon Blade to control the speed of his descent. First things first: I removed that advantage.

“Arm, absorb!”

Alec’s rate of descent sped up to normal. The law of inertia still held, though. Now that I was in motion, I couldn’t stop in a hurry.

Could I slow my descent with wind magic…? No, I need to use gravity. I can’t wrap myself in a battle aura. Physics, don’t fail me now.

I used a sonic wave to adjust my positioning while accelerating, angling my descent straight at Alec.

“Whooooooa!”

Without changing our relative velocities, I barreled into Alec with my fist.

He used his sword as a shield to take the blow, but that didn’t kill the momentum. He smashed into the cliff face, while I kept spamming the Stone of Absorption. The counterforce sent me toward the cliff face too, but I used Sonic Wave to right myself, then kicked off from the wall and accelerated.

Once again, I went after Alec.

“Graaah!”

Punch!

Using another sonic wave to pick up speed, I threw a punch. I generated relative velocity between us, and threw another punch, and another.

The laws of physics were my weapon.

“Aaaahhh!” Alec yelled. He’d lost all sense of what was going on, getting the crap beaten out of him in midair. Hell, I didn’t know what was going on. I was supposed to be on support. How I’d ended up like this, I had absolutely no clue. I only knew I couldn’t let him get away. I thought if I left this kid to his own devices, waiting for him to grow a conscience or a brain, it was going to go badly for someone. That someone would be on our side of the fight. My allies, or my family, or someone. I had to stop him.

“Aaaaaaaaahhhh!” I screamed back.

It’s not that I wasn’t listening to Sandor and Alec’s conversation. It’s not that I didn’t think that he could grow if he reflected on his actions. I wasn’t weighing up the pros and cons. I just punched him. Accelerate, then punch, accelerate, accelerate, then punch and punch…

Alec and I both slammed into the ravine floor at terrifying speed.

***

I stood up in a cloud of dust. The impact of our fall had sent blue spore-like things flying around us. Visibility was poor.

First things first: I wasn’t hurt. Gotta hand it to the Magic Armor Version One, it was one sturdy piece of tech. There was a little crack in it, but it was still totally functional.

“Phew…”

Alec made it out in one piece as well, but at least he wasn’t totally unscathed. His armor was broken and one of his legs was bent at an unnatural angle.

That was all. I guess his battle aura protected him. He stood up on one leg, looking at me. He showed no sign of being in pain. What a beast.

“…You came after me alone,” he muttered. “You’ve got guts.”

I looked up. I could see the Earth Dragons crawling around in the darkness, but there was no sign of anyone coming down. Surely Atofe at least would be down soon. I mean, she could fly…

“My grandma’s old-fashioned. I fell, and you followed. She won’t let anyone come after us.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“She’s always had a thing for single combat between the demon king and the champion.”

Okay, I knew a bit about that. Atofe was chaotic, but she did have some weird hang-ups. I mean, she didn’t attack her own personal guard when she fought, for one thing.

“This is a stroke of luck for me.”

“…What is?”

“I’m injured. If Eris Greyrat or Ruijerd Superdia…or Dad or Grandma had come after me, I’d have been finished.”

“Because it’s me, you’re not?”

“I don’t see myself losing to you.”

He was confident.

Alec was badly hurt. He’d lost an arm and a leg. I was wearing the Magic Armor. After a long fight, I’d used a lot of magic, but because I’d been focusing on supporting the others, I didn’t have any injuries to speak of. I was in peak condition.

“Don’t you think you’re underestimating me?”

“No, I don’t. You don’t have any battle aura, your reactions are slow, and you’re wide open to attack. You didn’t even notice when I gave sleeping drugs to North Emperor Dohga, let yourself be led by your enemies, and got thrown into the ravine. You don’t have enough resolve or caution. You’re a useless incompetent.”

I didn’t have any comeback for that. I was everything he said. Even with all this magic bursting out of me, I was still useless.

If Atofe hadn’t shown up a few minutes ago, I’d have been screwed.

“So, even if we fight now, I’ll win, and I can get away. If I get away, I’ve as good as won.”

“You know even if you beat me you don’t have any allies, right? The Ogre God ran, and the Sword God’s dead… Pretty sure even with me gone, you’ve got no chance of winning.”

Okay, I hadn’t confirmed that the Sword God was dead. I mean, he had to be. This was Eris we were talking about.

“No, a hero can win. Heroes are made that way. Just now, you couldn’t finish me off while we fell. I couldn’t move and could only take your attacks, and even then, you couldn’t finish me off.”

He said this like it answered everything. He was so confident. Of course, he was standing here on the ground on his own leg.

“I will win. I’ll win against you, and Dad, and Grandma, and Orsted. I’ll defeat you all and put my name down in history as the greatest swordsman who ever lived. Then North God Kalman will come to mean none other than Alexander III. Then everyone will think of me as the strongest in all of history.”

He was battered and bruised all over, but he was no longer in a state where he had to just take my attacks. This was his chance to win. He could sense it.

His exact probability of success was unclear, but he thought he could pull this off. Here, in this critical battle, he believed he could beat me.

Was it because he wanted to be a hero? No, that wasn’t it. It was because he’d made it this far overcoming danger like this. He knew he’d been backed into a corner. For sure, he was underestimating me a bit, but he wasn’t going to hold back any longer. He planned on crushing me with all his power, then escaping.

My opponent was the Third North God Kalman. One of the Seven Great Powers, with sword-fighting skills and a magic sword that both classed among the world’s strongest. He wasn’t a rat in a corner. He was a wounded tiger.

Meanwhile, I didn’t have much I could bring to this critical battle.

Either I used careful planning and crushed him, or I lost because I couldn’t overcome the difference in our power. Those were the only options. He’d guessed that. After all of his fighting experience, he could tell that I wasn’t the type who could swing things my way.

Either that, or he’d heard it from Geese, or the Man-God…

“…I have one last question. Are you a disciple of the Man-God?”

“No, I’m not. The Sword God and I got information from Geese, that’s all. I admit to helping him, though.”

“Right.”

Who was the last one, then? No, never mind. I could think about that later. Here and now, I had to take this guy down.

Huh? Hold the phone. If it looks like a lost cause, I can just run, can’t I?

I had allies. I didn’t have to go all out here. If there was someone else other than Alexander remaining, wasn’t I better off keeping my power in reserve?

The Sword God was down, and we hadn’t taken any casualties. In which case, wasn’t the smart option to back down and create an environment where we could reliably win?

“…No.”

Never mind. That wasn’t going to work. Orsted lay beyond me. If I let anyone pass, we’d lose. Letting one or two people past wouldn’t cause any earth-shattering disasters at first. All that would happen was that Orsted would use up more of his precious magic, the magic that he had just enough of to maybe last him eighty years.

I’d let myself relax too much. Since just after the battle began, I’d relaxed. The Sword God was defeated, and the Ogre God had withdrawn. The North God stood before me battered and bruised all over and ready to collapse. Even if I let the North God escape now, my allies were still ready to fight. Even if he got through them, Orsted had power to spare. He’d be used to taking out North God Kalman III. He’d be able to fight and protect the Superd at the same time.

In the face of that situation, I’d relaxed. I’d started thinking it was okay if I lost, that I had fallback options.

This was it. This was why Alec said he wouldn’t lose to me.

Thinking back, I’d always been like this. I’d get to this point, then take a step back to leave a safety margin, only to fall a step short at the crucial moment. Alec could smell that on me.

Surge, momentum, luck, flow. Those I had. Admittedly, I didn’t really believe in that sort of abstract stuff…but I couldn’t deny that when it was there, it was there. If I retreated here or lost, Alec would gain something, and I would lose something. Something I couldn’t put into words, something beyond my expectations.

So I couldn’t lose. I had to win, here and now, and I had to stand my ground. In this scene, I had to shoulder the risk and go for the win.

This was it. This was a crossroads. This was where I saw if I could muster all my power and get serious.

“…I am Rudeus ‘Quagmire’ Greyrat, follower of the Dragon God,” I said.

Alec’s eyes widened, and then he said, “I am Alexander Kalman Rybak, the North God!”

I’d made up my mind.

“Aaaaaggghhh!” I yelled, drawing my voice from the pit of my stomach.

“Gwaaaarghhh!” Alec’s voice joined mine as he raised his sword.

His right hand aloft, a sword hilt clenched in his fingers. His left… Well, he didn’t have a left hand, so let’s just leave it at that.

He stepped forward with his right foot, planting his broken left leg firmly on the ground.

I ran at him. I had no plan. My instincts told me distance attacks were a bad idea. I faced Alec, lowered my stance, and ran. A split second beforehand, something flashed across my mind. It was a memory of Eris.

Right away, I raised the Gatling gun on my right arm and blasted off a full-power Stone Cannon.

Alec watched me charge forward, took a step toward me, then saw the barrage of Stone Cannons bearing down on him like rain. For a scant half-moment, he drew his right foot back in hesitation. The Stone Cannons disappeared, one after another, dissolving into dust before Alec’s eyes by the power of the Stone of Absorption. I immediately leaned left. I knew I was within reach of Alec’s sword. Still, I went straight in. My right hand was extended, so I pulled it back to shoot from the hip. I leaned forward so far, my chest almost skimmed the ground.

I aimed a kick at Alec’s left side.

“Gr…raaaaah!”

Alec’s shoulder moved. There was a flash of silver—I felt an impact on my right shoulder as part of the Magic Armor popped off. Miraculously, he hadn’t cut through my arm. Once I knew that, I didn’t bother checking anything more about the extent of the damage. I just planted my foot on the ground and raised my fist—

Alec’s legs flex.

He was going to jump, to evade. As I thought it, I concentrated magic in my left hand. I stopped supplying magic to the Stone of Absorption and put it into another spell. I hadn’t decided which one yet. Determined only to stop him from jumping, I concentrated magic in my left hand and went for Alec’s leg—

“Wha?!”

For a second, Alec’s leg floated in midair.

“Aaaahhh!” I yelled, raising my right fist with the Gatling gun attached. I swung through with everything I had. My fist made contact with a thud. Alec hit the cliff.

“Shoot him to pieces!” I put as much magic as I could into the Gatling gun. Stone Cannons pounded the cliff like a power drill, and a crack opened. Even then, I didn’t let up. I drew up even more magic and fired off even stronger projectiles like a machine gun.

I felt a weird sensation in my right hand. Before I could even register what that meant, a crack opened in the Gatling gun, and it fell to pieces.

“Aaaaaaah!” Still, I didn’t stop the flow of magic to my right hand. I generated Stone Cannons—it was the spell I’d used the most and was most familiar with. I fired. I fired, and fired, and fired.

“Ahh…ah…hah…” My yell died away into a sigh that gasped into an exhausted pant. I kept firing.

“Hah…hah…”

Then, I moved away. The right arm of the Magic Armor, now buried deep in the wall, had come off clean from the root. From the root… It must have been that hit I took from Alec before. If it weren’t for the Atofe Hand, my whole right arm might have been chopped off.

Inside the rock face, I saw flesh. Blood trickled from between the wall and the fist of the magic armor. The flesh didn’t move at all. I looked closer and saw the sword on the ground—the sword Alec had just been holding. Kajakut, the King Dragon Sword. I picked it up with my left hand. The greatblade was almost two meters long. Holding it, I returned my gaze to the rock face.

Blood kept flowing, rich and red, from the gap where the fist of the magic armor was buried in the wall. Nothing moved. In the silence, the blood continued to flow. Looking up, I could tell there were a ton of Earth Dragons lurking around, but the air here was unnaturally silent.

I could still feel it in my hand. The sword. That sensation that told me he was dead, for sure.

“I did it.” The words slipped out unconsciously. How had I managed to win? It had been dangerously close. If I’d waited another second to step forward, or if Alec hadn’t hesitated, then his strike would have cut me and the Magic Armor clean in two. Moving like Eris had worked. It was like—I’d gone hard on the attack, but without any pattern, so the timing had been unpredictable. Through the feint with the Stone Cannon, then taking an extra step—a half step, even—further than usual, I’d managed to throw off his timing. That was how Eris attacked.

Eris only used this kind of high-risk move when she knew it’d work. That was why she won. Even with blood pouring out of her neck, she’d still be standing at the end.

I couldn’t move like Eris. I had no way of knowing this would work. I definitely hadn’t fought on her level. If Alec hadn’t lost the use of his arm, or his leg, or if he’d seen me as a real threat, it wouldn’t have ended like this.

Then there was that sensation at the end of making Alec’s leg hover. It didn’t feel like any magic I’d used before. Was it possible that I’d manipulated gravity…? No, Alec had been trying to manipulate gravity with the King Dragon Blade and when I stopped powering the Stone of Absorption, it had probably just activated when he hadn’t expected it. I’d never know for sure now. In the end, it might just have been luck, but somehow…I doubted it.

“I won.” I clenched my fist tight and raised it high.

***

Using the Version One to keep the Earth Dragons at bay, I climbed back out of the ravine. When I got to the top, there were people waiting to greet me. It was the guys from the hunting party. With the bridge and their three god-tier fighters gone, they were milling around unsure of what to do. When they saw me, they scattered, running off like baby spiders. They must have thought I was a devil or something.

First off, I caught a few of the commanding officers—guys who looked like Biheiril Kingdom Knights—and told them the Sword God and the North God were dead. Then I told them that if they kept on trying to attack the Superd, I was prepared to strike back. However, I told them that like before, I was prepared to enter into peace negotiations. My conditions for peace were what they’d been last time. I was pissed that they’d attacked, but if Geese were masquerading as the king, or someone close to him, that meant this was the Man-God’s work. I wasn’t about to alter my lenient stance. Still, I took the two of them as prisoners of war to be on the safe side. If Geese had disguised himself as the king, it might not mean much. It wasn’t like all the knights were Geese’s henchmen, and he wouldn’t have everyone with power in this country under his control. When word got around about what had happened and the knights made it home safely, public opinion would be on our side. If all else failed, I’d have to get the Superd to move…that would buy us some time.

With that thought, I turned to go home, and my eyes fell on the stone monument. The monument to the Seven Great Powers. On its edge, the mark right at the bottom had changed to one I recognized.

It was a mark in the shape of three crossed spears—the shape of the Migurd talisman. Did that mean I’d become one of the Seven Great Powers? I was the one who’d finished him off, sure, but I couldn’t make myself believe it. All four of us had fought him, after all. Maybe it wasn’t my mark. Maybe it was Ruijerd, or Eris… Okay, I didn’t think it was Eris.

Honestly, it didn’t feel great. Like, now I was this thing. So what? Did I ask for that? I couldn’t undo it now.

I headed for where Eris and the others were.

***

After that, I crossed the village and met up with Eris and the others.

Sandor spoke first. “What…happened?” When I told him that I’d finished off Alec at the bottom of the ravine, he smiled sadly and said, “I see.”

“You are a champion!” Atofe declared. “When a demon king underestimates a champion, they lose. That’s how it has been since ancient times.” Her expression wasn’t much different from before. Maybe she was a tiny bit sad, though. Sentimental speech wasn’t like her…

Alec was dead. He was only a kid. He’d been talented and thought about nothing but being the best… He’d had a future.

I’d had a few thoughts while Alec and Sandor were talking. Like how I wanted Alec to think things over for a bit longer. How we’d teach him a lesson now, get him to think about his actions. It was naive, I won’t deny it. I didn’t hate him or want him dead. I just killed him because he was my enemy. I killed him because I thought if I let him get away, I’d regret it. I had to do it.

So I wasn’t about to apologize. This was war. The other side was trying to kill us. That was the nature of the game.

“You did it!” Eris, in contrast, looked delighted. When I told her that the mark on the tablet had changed, she folded her arms with a smirk and exhaled roughly through her nose. She might have thrown herself at me if I hadn’t been wearing the Magic Armor. She’d have been so squishy. Oh, what might have been!

Ruijerd didn’t say much, but the exhaustion was plain on his face. Just as I’d thought during the battle, he must have been close to his limit. That was a hard battle to fight after just recovering from illness. Still, we’d won, and without anyone sustaining any injuries worth mentioning.

That said, what about everything else? 

We decided to make haste back to the Superd Village. We passed the charred spot where Eris burned the Sword God’s body, the crater the North God had made when he attacked, and the trees knocked down in the fight with the Ogre God. It was like an animal’s trail through the woods.

Following those tracks, we made our way back to the road we’d originally taken from the village. There, Zanoba lay collapsed. Beside him crouched Dohga, his face slack. Zanoba looked like he was asleep. He was lying on his back, and his face was gray.

Like…a dead person?

“…Zanoba, wake up. It’s over,” I called down from the Magic Armor. He didn’t respond.

“Zanoba…?”

For a few seconds, all sound disappeared from the forest. The wind ceased and all noise stopped.

“Z-Zanoba? You’re kidding, right?”

He didn’t reply.

“Say something…” Still, Zanoba did not reply. He lay there with his face pointed up at the sky, silent as if he were a corpse.

As if he were a corpse.

“…Hmph!” Suddenly, Eris kicked Zanoba in the face.

“Swuh-huhhh?!”

“We’re going home! Get your butt up!”

“Ah…? Oh! How rude of me! I must have dozed off.”

Oh, of course.

Still, he could just as easily have been dead. Zanoba and Dohga had been at a disadvantage. If they hadn’t happened to run into us, Zanoba could have ended up as a lifeless corpse.

With that thought, I looked down the path Zanoba and Dohga had come flying from. Scars from the battle visibly split the scenery here and there; there were pulled-up trees, trees snapped in half, sword marks, and a bunch of little craters.

Man, we were lucky to win. Come to think of it, we didn’t even beat the Ogre God. He went home.

“By the way, Lady Atofe, how did you get here?”

“Eh? You want to know?”

“Please, tell me.”

“Well, you see—”

Atofe’s rambling explanation was hard to follow. She used so many sound effects that I think I only got about half of it.

“Let me get this straight…there’s a teleportation circle left over from a past Great War, and you used that.”

“I went and found it so I’d have it when the time came!”

Awkward. The infamous Atofe was using the teleportation circles—the same teleportation circles I was running around everywhere to set up. If people knew, they might start thinking of me as infamous.

Well, maybe that ship had sailed.

Seriously though, was it really over…? I had thought this was a chance for victory, but it had all happened in an instant. I wasn’t sure what the Ogre God was up to, but now few of our enemies remained.

When I thought it was over, I suddenly caught a whiff of something sweet from Eris, who walked beside me. I guess it was the effect of a hard-fought battle. My survival instincts were all worked up, and maybe that had kicked my reproductive instincts into gear.

What about tonight, then? Wasn’t I Rudeus the Free now?

“No, no.”

I was Rudeus the Chaste until I beat Geese. That’s right. I still hadn’t worked out what form Geese was taking. The Ogre God had only fled. Who knew what would happen?

There was one disciple left. This wasn’t over.

Geese still hadn’t revealed himself. Our information network was now a hot mess, so we couldn’t search for him properly. We wouldn’t even know if he’d run.

…What if that was his plan all along? Maybe I was the only one who thought this was the final battle, that we’d decide things here. Did Geese plan on slipping away from the start? Right now, was he making for the border with the other disciple in tow…? All my sources of information, previously spread throughout the country, were now lumped together in the Superd Village for the battle. We had neither teleportation circles nor contact tablets. Even if Geese was discovered at the border, we had no way of going after him.

Yeah, he’d probably run. After the Abyssal King died, the Sword God and the North God went rogue, and he ended up in a disadvantaged position…

Using eighty percent of his forces as a distraction, he secured the guys he knew he could control, lured us in, then used the time to escape. He’d given up for now so he could try again next time…

That’s what I’d do if it were me.

“Phew…”

I still couldn’t relax, even though the immediate fighting was over. I was wrecked. I couldn’t fight any more today. Some other chump could deal with the rest.

I hadn’t been able to finish Geese off, but we’d taken down the Abyssal King, the Sword God, and the North God. Ruijerd and the Superd were on our side. The Biheiril Kingdom and the Ogre God would depend on what Geese did…but we’d have to see how negotiations went.

I supposed that the only real damage we’d taken was the destruction of the office… Thanks to that, the teleportation circles were all kaput. We couldn’t move around for a while, but we’d made progress. This wasn’t a bad outcome, all things considered. I’d expected a lot worse.

As I was thinking this, the Superd Village came into view. I could see the Superd children, who must have sensed our presence, watching from the top of the fence. Then, the warriors protecting the village came out from the entrance. After them came Elinalise, Cliff, Norn, Julie, and Ginger… From their faces, they seemed fine. I got out of the Magic Armor. I’d ended up using a ton of magic, so maybe that was why my limbs felt a bit heavy. Julie and Ginger ran up to Zanoba. Norn went to Ruijerd, and Cliff headed toward Dohga, who was still slumped. Some of them embraced, some of them exchanged words of relief. Watching them, the reality of everything finally hit me.

Orsted emerged then, at long last. He walked up to me.

“You won?”

“Yes.”

As proof of our victory, I held out the sword to him. The King Dragon Sword Kajakut, the symbol of the North God.

“We won.”

Victory was ours. Total victory was still a way off, but we’d made it through a dicey situation. We’d broken out of Geese’s trap, which put us one move ahead.

I had all sorts of things to think about, and no end of things I could have done better.

Still, a win was a win.

Orsted took the sword and said, “Good work.” I bowed my head. Then, I felt someone’s gaze from beside me. It was Eris. She had her arms folded, and she was looking at me.

She spread her arms.

“…We did it!” she cried, then threw herself on me. As I enjoyed the feeling of her breasts, I thought again, I won.