Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 26 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2:

The Trump Card

IT TOOK A FULL DAY for the Fighting God to appear. We had Atofe and the others to thank for that; they’d held him back. But they hadn’t come back. I doubted an immortal demon could die that easily, but Atofe must have taken enough damage to prevent her from pursuing the Fighting God. All the same, thanks to their sacrifice, we were fully prepared. 

The Fighting God came directly. He didn’t try to hide or to rush. He just strolled on in, Geese on his shoulder, as if to declare nothing could stop him.

***

We commenced hostilities near the entrance to the forest. I stood on top of a towering wall, about ten meters high and two kilometers long, that I’d built to protect the forest. From up there, I rained magic down on what lay below—Stone Cannons, specifically. I wanted to at least knock Geese down, so I fired off as many shots as I could. The Eye of Distant Sight didn’t work against Badigadi. Orsted said even he didn’t know why, but it was probably safe to assume Badigadi was a Blessed Child with that power, or else that he’d done something in the past that had given him resistance to Demon Eyes.

He was far away, but you couldn’t miss the gold, and I’d been practicing Stone Cannon ever since I was born into this world. My hits were landing. For every ten shots I fired, one hit. Only, even at this distance, I could tell they weren’t doing much damage. When I got a direct hit, a hole opened in the gold armor, but it repaired itself straight away. I wasn’t piercing it, and I wasn’t slowing him down. The Fighting God walked towards us without even bothering to defend himself. My firepower must have been weakened by the distance. I had no choice but to hit him at point-blank range if I wanted to really get to him. 

Oh, and I got one hit on Geese. It was hard to tell from this far away, but at the moment of impact he’d fallen off Badigadi’s shoulder. Seemed conclusive. Although, right after that he got back up like nothing had happened, so I’d apparently done almost no damage. He did move to stand behind Badigadi rather than get back up on his shoulder, like I’d woken him up, at least. A hit at closer range might have done enough damage to insta-kill him, but given I hadn’t taken him out with the lightning, it seemed safe to assume that Geese had given himself some sort of magical resistance.

In the end, I couldn’t manage anything close to slowing them down. Once the Fighting God got close enough, I used fire magic to burn the outer wall, then retreated into the forest. I wasn’t about to get any closer than I had to. 

As I confirmed that the wall had been destroyed, I said to myself, “All according to plan. We’ve got this. We’ll be okay…”

Yup. I knew this is how things would go. There was no way this’d be enough to stop them.

When the Fighting God entered the trees, I cast a wide-area Deep Mist to cover the entire forest, then I added a Quagmire of the same size. Reconnaissance and guerrilla tactics I’d leave to Ruijerd and the Superd warriors. My Demon Eyes didn’t work, but Ruijerd and the other Superd’s eyes were definitely trained on the Fighting God. 

It worked. A report came that thanks to the Superd’s tactics combined with the Deep Mist, the Fighting God had become lost and spent several hours stumbling around in the fog. Hoping that he’d get so lost he ended up back at the edge of the forest again, I continued to cast Dense Mist and Quagmire over the whole area.

Then, after a few hours, Ruijerd came with a ­report. “The Fighting God has settled on his direction of advance.” He was heading straight for the Ravine of the Earthwyrm. I bet that was Geese. Badigadi alone would’ve been one thing, but Geese seemed like the sort to know how to find his way in a forest under Dense Mist. I questioned whether pure know-how would be enough to actually do it, but it wasn’t hard to imagine he’d used some sort of magical implement or magic item. Although if he’d had a magic implement, they wouldn’t have wandered for hours in the first place. He probably took time and used old-school methods to determine their position and direction. Geese could probably manage that.

So with Deep Mist, Quagmire, and the Superd’s guerilla tactics, we’d managed to slow them down for a measly three hours. Three of our fighters were dead. The Fighting God had taken out the Superd warriors who had gotten too close to him, but their deaths weren’t in vain. They’d stopped him long enough for the sun to set. When that happened, the Fighting God stopped moving. He wasn’t solar-powered or anything, but he ceased ­activity at night even so.

Not me, though. I didn’t let up with Dense Mist or Quagmire, and the Superd never paused their campaign. I carried out long-range attacks with Blast Cannon. I wasn’t hoping to do any damage. The point was not to let them sleep, not to let them rest. It might not have much effect on Badigadi, but it would affect Geese.

The first day ended.

***

On the second day, we carried on like we had on the first afternoon. We made the most of the full day to lure the Fighting God toward the Ravine of the Earthwyrm.

The third day dawned. I stood atop the barricading wall I’d built at the edge of the cliff on the other side of the ravine, keeping a close watch on the shadowy forest. Right beside me stood Ruijerd, also staring hard at the forest. The Ravine of the Earthwyrm was extremely well-suited to defense—it was almost a kilometer deep and, though I hadn’t realized the first time I’d crossed it, the cliff on the side of the Superd Village was slightly elevated. As a rule, the side with the high ground had an advantage in a fight. Height gave better visibility, and climbing took more energy than descending. Thanks, gravity. With that in mind, I’d used earth magic to build a barricade wall at the edge of the cliff on the Superd Village side. It was almost twenty meters tall, shorter than the one at the edge of the forest. Seeing as this was the only point that the ravine narrowed, that wasn’t a problem. I had made a hole in that defense when I’d made a bridge as a way in, but that hole had been filled when I brought the bridge down with me. With this, we wouldn’t have to deal with another episode like with the Ogre God, where we suddenly found ourselves fighting at close quarters after he cleared the gap with a running jump.

Probably.

Not to underestimate the Fighting God’s powers, but this wall was the tallest and strongest I could make it in the short time I had. If he could still jump over it, we might as well just give up. Assuming he couldn’t, if he clung onto the cliff face, I could blast him with Stone Cannons from above. In this battle, I’d learned that even if he could neutralize magic, that didn’t extend to neutralizing changes in the landscape. The first battle had shown me that Stone Cannon was plenty effective. And Geese, well, he didn’t have any strength. If I hit him with a Stone Cannon while he clung to the cliff face, he’d fall to the bottom of the ravine. Even if knocking him off that way failed, I might be able to make him slip off by dropping a massive volume of water on him. Geese was a tricky guy, but he was useless in a head-on brawl. 

Badi seemed like he’d have some tricks up his sleeve, though, and Geese was cunning. They were a perfect match. Risky as it was to lead them to the narrow point in the ravine, it was still better than having them cross without our noticing and then blindsiding us. I stood with Cliff, Ruijerd, and the Superd warriors above the ravine. The other Superd were positioned at regular intervals along the stretches not covered by the wall so that we’d be alerted right away if Badigadi crossed there. Eris stood by, directly behind the wall. Once Geese and Badigadi broke through, it’d be all-out war. We’d bought ourselves some time. What should have been a day’s journey, traveling in a straight line, had taken three. We’d earned an extra two days… But I still hadn’t heard anything from Roxy, so that extra time might have been for nothing. Still, I wouldn’t change my approach. I knew from the battle in the port town I couldn’t win a head-on fight. I wanted my trump card.

Night fell. I had no idea when they might come. The Superd were watching the forest with me, but wherever our enemy was camped was outside of their detection range.

Keep on your toes, I thought. Just then, I heard Ruijerd shout.

“They’re here!”

I strained my eyes as hard as I could to look into the shadows of the forest. There they were. They were no bigger than a grain of rice, but there was someone standing in the trees. No golden sheen, though. This person wore a white robe. I’d seen a white robe like that before.

It was Geese. Well, it was possible it was someone else, but it looked like Geese.

“Who is it?”

“It’s him,” Ruijerd said with conviction. The distance between us and them was within the range of his third eye. It was unlikely Ruijerd was wrong. Geese appeared to be watching us, not from up close to the edge of the ravine, but from back in the forest, among the undergrowth. It was still too dark to see clearly, but it really did look like him. And I couldn’t spot the faintest sparkle of gold anywhere nearby. Geese was alone.

“Huh?”

Alone? Was he scouting by himself? Geese, who knew the magic I could use, who knew I had the Eye of Distant Sight, who knew there were Superd here, was alone? Was he that confident? Or was Badigadi lying in wait nearby? The ravine was a hundred meters across at most; if Badigadi were close enough to come to Geese’s defense, Ruijerd would be able to see him. 

An attack from me would take him down, wouldn’t it?

At this realization, my heart started racing. Stone Cannon would reach him. Geese was looking our way, but I had the feeling he couldn’t see me. I’d hit him. It was a hundred meters. Even considering height and ­position, the arc of a Stone Cannon, the shot couldn’t be more than two hundred. If I aimed carefully, that was a distance I could reliably hit from.

I paused. Should I do it? What if it was someone else? Like, an adventurer in a white robe. Who’d just happened to get lost in the forest. In the middle of a battle.

Yeah. No way.

After the Dense Mist and Quagmire of the previous day, the forest was a mess. No adventurer would have made it this far. Even if they’d already been close to the ravine when it began, the Superd’s radar would have picked them up.

I could take out Geese right now. What should I do? It was one hundred percent a trap. What sort of trap? Right now, I could attack. What could he do? Was there some advantage he got by making me attack? Let’s say that whoever was over there looked like Geese but was actually someone else. Could they be one of my friends or family? No way. That was impossible. Up until yesterday, it had only been the two of them. They couldn’t have brought someone along out of nowhere.

In which case, was this an opening? Up until now, I’d been focused on buying time and hadn’t been actively ­attacking. They’d made rapid progress from the port town to here.

After a leisurely journey with Badigadi, maybe he was cocky about an easy victory. Couldn’t it be that he’d let his guard down and revealed himself to us? It’d be the easiest thing to attack, and the risk was low. No reason not to, right? It was also possible he’d somehow placed someone there who I didn’t want to see die. Strategically, what would the point of that be? What was the point of my not attacking now?

I was getting muddled. It felt like a trap, but even so, I couldn’t think of any downsides to attacking.

All right, let’s fire at him. Maybe it’s a trap, but there’s no downside to just shooting him.

If he responded, he responded. 

“I’m going to attack,” I said.

“Understood.”

I concentrated magic in my right hand. I was more interested in accuracy than speed and power. I still couldn’t see Geese with the Eye of Distant Sight, but I used it to project the landscape while flicking the mana for the Eye of Foresight, predicting where my shot would land. In case it went wide, I decided to use Blast Cannon. 

I hesitated before I fired, just for a moment. That moment passed and a Stone Cannon burst from my fingers, hurtling towards the other side of the ravine on a dead straight trajectory. 

There was no sound. As it impacted, the figure on the other side collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, then was still.

The shot had hit, and it had gotten results. Time passed. It was surreal, like nothing had happened. The fallen figure didn’t move. In the light of the morning, all I could hear was the quiet rustling of the forest. Ten minutes passed. Then twenty. I wasn’t keeping track of the exact time, but it kept on slipping away. 

A feeling took root within me. I wanted to know. Whatever was lying on the ground over there after I’d hit it, I wanted to know what it was. Was it Geese, or something else? Was it alive or dead? I could hop on down there and be back again in a jiffy. Surely that would be fine.

But as that idea came to me, I realized what was ­going on. This was the trap. Geese’s plan wasn’t to make me ­attack but to make me feel what I felt now. 

Maybe whoever lay down there really was Geese, on the verge of death, and all I had to do to win was strike the final blow. Maybe it was Sylphie—they’d captured her at some point, then come up with some way to deceive Ruijerd’s eye, and if I didn’t go to her aid right now she’d die. Even if either of those were true, if I went to look, the Fighting God would appear, and I’d die. I couldn’t go.

An hour passed. I was on edge. Had I made some irreversible mistake? Should I not have shot the figure after all? Was their aim in making me shoot it to keep me locked down here?

What if, even now, they were crossing the ravine at another point? Okay, no, I did have the Superd warriors guarding the ravine at least. I had to trust them.

Two hours passed. Should I have gone to check after all? Might going down to check give me a clue as to Geese’s next move? Was I just avoiding finding out the truth for some reason?

Three hours passed. Nothing moved. All sorts of patterns floated in and out of my mind. This wondering was starting to wear me out. If Geese’s plan was to make me exhausted, he was succeeding. 

After four hours, I was certain. That was a corpse. It hadn’t moved for four hours, so it had to be a body. But whose? Was it really plausible that Geese was dead, and Badigadi hadn’t done anything? If Roxy were here, she might have had something constructive to say. When I asked Cliff, he just frowned and shook his head.

Six hours passed. I ate a quick lunch, then returned to watching the corpse. It didn’t move.

Eight hours passed. The afternoon was wearing on, and the sun was growing steadily lower in the sky. Maybe because I’d been on constant alert, I was only getting more tired. If the sun set below the horizon and still nothing happened, I’d go have a look.

When the tenth hour passed, Ruijerd said abruptly, “Rudeus. He’s here.” 

With a start, I looked to the forest, just in time to see the shining golden armor step out from the trees. When the armor drew near, the corpse slowly got up. It put its face up to the armor for a while, as though it was saying something, then turned to look our way. I saw the shrug. That was Geese’s shrug, no doubt about it. Without any further fanfare, the two of them retreated into the depths of the forest. Silence fell once more.

“Whew…”

It had been a trap. The figure was Geese, but he had used himself as bait to try and lure me out. I’d been close to falling for it.

Night was about to fall. I’d leave the Superd warriors on guard and catch a bit of sleep. My mind was fried. They might come back as the sun set, but I’d settle for just a nap.

“I’m taking a break,” I said. I curled up in a blanket.

The third day ended.

***

It was the third night. It seemed that after seeing our wall, Geese and Badigadi were struggling to work out an effective attack strategy. Badigadi couldn’t simply jump over the wall, and if he couldn’t do that, he couldn’t protect Geese. I’d been right on that count. Then there were the missiles that came hurtling at us from the other side of the valley. First came a massive boulder that hit the wall at hair-raising speed, knocking out a chunk of the wall. More boulders and tree trunks followed, coming one after another at terrifying speeds. I woke to the cacophony and intercepted them all, so they didn’t do any significant damage. Badigadi and Geese must have decided that unless they did something about the wall, they couldn’t get through. That would explain this attack. Based on what I’d seen of the Fighting God’s battle style, he could have smashed his way through if he were alone. It had to be Geese holding him back. If he left Geese behind and leaped over, he could get through…only then, if a pursuit came from the rear, Geese would be dead meat. Not that there weren’t any reinforcements coming from outside the forest… Well, except maybe Atofe, if she regenerated then came after us. Maybe they were afraid of something like that. A single Superd warrior on the forest side should be enough, to be fair…but it was possible the two of them had wisened up to the danger of leaving Geese behind after yesterday.

A guard could finish Geese off if he was by himself. I didn’t have to be there. It didn’t have to be me.

It was getting to the point where the Fighting God might well run out of patience and jump over alone.

My trump card still hadn’t come.

***

On the fourth day, the sun came up, and the Fighting God along with it. He was alone, as I’d predicted. He came over at a running jump, like the Ogre God, then stuck fast to a point a little below the wall. As I’d expected. Everything was as I’d planned. The moment I saw that Geese wasn’t on the Fighting God’s back, I released a spell at the other side of the ravine, casting Flashover over a wide area. The forest was swallowed by flames in an instant. I couldn’t tell if it got to him. I didn’t have time to scan the burning forest for a body. I kept the blaze of the burning trees in the corner of my eye, but I had an enemy in front of me who required my full attention. Using his six arms to climb like a spider, the Fighting God scaled the wall at a shocking pace. Cliff and I fired Stone Cannons and giant water bombs at him to try and knock him off, but it was like trying to hold back the tide. The Fighting God flew up the wall at blistering speed.

“Cliff! It’s no good! Fall back! Ruijerd! Get us out of here!”

“Understood!” Ruijerd grabbed me and Cliff and jumped down from the wall. We didn’t wait for the Fighting God to get over the wall—the moment we hit the ground, I used magic to send the towering wall crashing down into the ravine.

It did us no good. The wall began to crumble away with aching slowness, then exploded all at once as though by dynamite. Great hunks of rock flew through the air, and among them, a golden suit of armor. I used magic to clean up the boulders that came raining down on us, never taking my eyes off the Fighting God. He alighted at a point less than five meters away from me with a grunt. Then, he slowly turned to face me.

“Let’s pick up where we left off,” he said. He folded his upper arms, put his lower hands on his hips, and pointed at me with the middle hand. Badigadi was looking at me. “I am Fighting God Badigadi! Friend to the Man-God, and heir to the name of fighting god! Rudeus Greyrat, I challenge you to a duel!”

“I have a question!” I shouted quickly. I knew he might just tell me not to waste my breath, but I said it anyway. “Your Majesty! Why have you joined forces with the Man-God? What do you mean you’re his friend?! Were you not deceived by him once before?”

“Indeed I was, boy! He tricked me saying it was to save Kishirika from dying at Laplace’s hand! I donned this armor, then I killed Laplace, but did Kishirika a mortal wound in the process!”

“Then why?!”

“The Man-God came to me on his knees to say he was sorry for that! Not only that, but he begged I lend him my strength! I could not say no after that!”

The Man-God apologized? No way. That bastard would never apologize. Or if he did, he’d just smirk and be like, Tee hee, I’m sooo sorrrrry.

“He’s going to deceive you again!”

“I care not! Should it be so, he need only apologize, and I will forgive him! I am immortal, and Kishirika regenerated! If he apologizes, then I have no quarrel with him! What more could I ask for?”

You’re too generous.

He had a pretty good point, in my opinion. I thought you should forgive people for petty dishonesty, too. Only, I didn’t have the luxury of writing off the death of a family member as “petty.” I wasn’t an immortal demon. I saw the world differently. From Badigadi’s perspective, Kishirika was always going to regenerate.

“Don’t suppose you’d betray him and come over to our side?”

“Never! I was never an ally of the Dragon God. However, if you win this battle, I shall consider it!”

He was telling me to fight and take what I wanted. He and Atofe were alike in this area. Come to think of it, the first time I’d met this demon king had been at a dueling arena. Had I won back then or lost? It had ended with me earning Badigadi’s respect, in any case. That’d be why he treated me well. To a demon king, that had to be what it meant to fight.

“All right. I accept your challenge.”

The thing was, Badigadi had forgotten to say “single-combat” this time.

“All of us here will be your opponents.” From the bushes behind me emerged Eris, Elinalise, Zanoba, and Dohga. Joining them came the Superd who had been guarding the rest of the ravine. It was time for all-out war.

***

Frontline tanks: Dohga and Zanoba. Frontline attackers: Eris and Ruijerd. Middle supports: Elinalise and the Superd warriors. Backline attacker: me. Backline healer: Cliff. Standard party formation and standard tactics. 

The basic plan was that Dohga and Zanoba would take attacks while Eris and Ruijerd doled them out. Elinalise and the Superd warriors, who were outclassed in fighting power, would go around behind Badigadi from time to time to throw him off. For everyone except Zanoba and Dohga, a single hit was potentially fatal. Honestly, a direct hit would be potentially fatal even for those two, but they’d cover each other to avoid taking any. They might still break some bones or something along those lines, but Cliff and I would heal all of that. Cliff was our dedicated healer. I did some healing while firing off Stone Cannons here and there to deal damage to the Fighting God and divert his attacks. I couldn’t see Badigadi with the Eye of Foresight, but by cutting off mana to the Eye of Distant Sight, I could use the Eye of Foresight to watch my allies and predict their movements that way. I’d never done anything like this before. I’d never practiced it or drilled it.

Yet for some reason, it worked. I felt like I was fighting with one eye closed, but I could still read Badigadi and my allies’ movements. If anything, it seemed like my movements were smoother than usual. Maybe that was because my primary role here was providing support, or maybe it was because Badigadi’s movements were so straightforward. He certainly didn’t have Alexander’s technique; Alexander had fought Eris, Ruijerd, and Sandor three-on-one and barely taken a hit. Not Badigadi, though—beyond just being outnumbered, he was also taking practically every hit. This was good. My opponent’s movements were clearly telegraphed and I caught every last one.

Only, I couldn’t see how to end it.

Badigadi was taking all our attacks, so at a glance, it might look like we were winning. It might look like we were dealing decent damage. But it only looked that way. Every time Eris cut him apart or Ruijerd stabbed him through, the wounds repaired right away. The gold armor writhed like a living thing to cover the holes as soon as they appeared. He was probably recovering inside the armor too. In other words, he’d taken no damage, and he wasn’t tired. We wouldn’t have a situation like with Alexander where he looked like he was winning easily while, in reality, he was getting more and more tired. The battle was only going to turn further against us as it went on. There was no hope of winning, but we could hang on. So long as our formation held and no one went down suddenly, we could hang on. Who knew where that would get us? But it was all we could do.

And that meager amount proved too much. The first to go down were, of course, the Superd warriors. They weren’t weak by any means, but they were a few levels below Ruijerd, and they hadn’t fought in a real battle for the past few hundred years. Some of them might not even have been born at the time of the Laplace War. The warriors who’d only ever hunted Invisible Wolves couldn’t keep up in a battle with the Fighting God. One after another, they dropped out of the battle in rapid succession. Some had clearly died instantly, others were badly wounded but would still fight if healed. Others, I couldn’t tell. There had been ten of them when the fight began, but now they were down to three.

We lost Elinalise next. She certainly wasn’t weak ­either. As far as technique went, she was in the top ranks of adventurers. She was good enough to frontline in an S-Rank labyrinth, and her defensive skill with a shield was unmatched. That ranking was against other adventurers, though. Her specialty was aggro-control, ­skillfully deflecting attacks with her shield, then piling on low-damage attacks. But she had lost her trusty shield. I’d made her a backup with earth magic, but Fighting God Badigadi’s attack easily broke through her deflection technique, throwing her through the air so she went crashing into a large tree. She blacked out. After that, it all fell apart. Cliff was thrown when Elinalise went down, and in that moment of distraction, he was caught by the Fighting God’s charge. He went flying like he’d been hit by a truck and disappeared into the bushes. Whether he was dead or just critically injured I couldn’t tell, but he didn’t come back. At minimum, he’d been knocked out.

With Cliff unconscious, Zanoba and Dohga, who he’d been healing, were unable to hold on any longer. Between my support with Stone Cannon and Elinalise’s cover, we’d made sure they were only taking one of every few attacks. Now, they were taking almost every single one. With my healing magic, they were enduring it, but no more than that. Running over to them every time the Fighting God sent them flying, healing them, and sending them back into the fray was impossible for me on my own. If I’d even had the Magic Armor Version Two, maybe I could have done it, but in my own body? Unable to don a battle aura? No matter how much I sped myself along with wind magic I was still too slow. Always one step behind. Our timing got more and more out of sync until both Zanoba and Dohga were sent flying as a pair. At the same moment, the Fighting God targeted Eris. Ruijerd covered her, but that put him out of the battle. I rushed to heal Dohga, then ran to Zanoba’s side, but I was too slow. Our line was in shambles. Dohga was sent flying, then, as I was healing Zanoba, I saw the fighting God hit Eris straight on with his fist. She collapsed, coughing up blood. She’s fatally wounded! screamed a voice in my head. You have to heal her right now or it’ll be too late! But I was too slow. The Fighting God was closing in on me and Zanoba.

“Rroooaaaah!” Zanoba howled.

He blocked the Fighting God’s right upper punch, then his left. He took a punch from one of the lower arms in the gut, doubling over. Next, a punch from the middle arms got him in the temple, and he was thrown off to one side. Next, the Fighting God rounded on me. By the time I’d thought, Oh, shit!, it was too late. The punch caught me as I was trying to cast Shock Wave to push myself back. It was one of the middle arms. I immediately tried to block it with my arm, but it was a pointless gesture. The impact was so intense I thought my upper body would be torn apart—and I sailed into the air myself. I’m not sure if it was good luck or bad that I didn’t lose consciousness. I could feel that all my bones from my shoulder down to my ribs were broken, and maybe my spine, too, because I couldn’t feel my legs. I couldn’t move. Possibly the shock had been so great that my brain had cut out all pain signals. I’d simply lost all sensation.

Gasping, I immediately cast healing magic on myself, then stood up. The sight that greeted me was like a scene out of hell. Not a single person was left standing. After I’d gone down, the Fighting God had done away with the remaining Superd warriors. It was sheer carnage. I’d made the wrong call on when to pull out, and now, we couldn’t even retreat. Thinking back, we should have fallen back the moment Elinalise went down. I should have seen that we couldn’t hold out any longer and gone back to the Superd village. Then, I should have left the rest to Orsted. But it was too late for regrets.

The Fighting God stood to confront me, the last one standing.

“Any final words?”

“Honestly, I’d like to beg for my life.”

“You may try, though I would not hold out hope that your pleas will be heard. The Man-God desires your death.”

I want to find a moment to heal Eris, I thought groggily. It didn’t look like I was going to be granted that. Wasn’t there another way?

If I kept Badigadi distracted for five minutes—hell, three would do—just time enough to dash to Eris’s side. I’d settle for Cliff waking up and healing someone. Wasn’t there something, anything, I could do?

“Okay, you can have my life. In exchange…would you please spare my family?”

“Oho? Family, you say?”

“I don’t think your Majesty is aware, but I have children now. All four of them healthy.”

“Children are a fine thing. I’d like some of my own with Kishirika one day.” Badigadi nodded. “Very well. But know that if any of them rises against me, I shall show no mercy.”

“Of course.”

After I was dead, the Man-God would go after my children, but now, he wouldn’t have Badigadi helping him. Getting that promise from him would have to do for now. Even if it might not mean anything in the end…

This was my final job.

“Fwahahaha, haaahahahahahahaha!” Badigadi cackled, raising his fist. “Farewell, then, boy!”

At this, I raised both of my hands. As my final act, I could at least hit him with the strongest Stone Cannon I could—

“Get down!”

I threw myself down on all fours like a dog. Something even lower to the ground than I was passed by in the corner of my vision. It shot between the Fighting God’s legs, then stopped behind him. It had gray skin, animal ears, and a cat-like tail. A black wolf. It had sliced through the Fighting God’s legs around the knees, and for a moment, his balance faltered—but only for a moment. The armor repaired itself straight away, and his fist came down undeterred. 

Just then, a long skirt fluttered above me. I was being straddled.

“Hmph!” As the Fighting God swung his fist down, he disappeared from my view. I felt something large get blasted away into the sky somewhere behind me. A little later there was a rumble as something hit the ground. What had happened? All I could see was the inside of this long skirt, and, above me, a pair of pale blue panties. The owner of said panties seemed familiar, though I couldn’t place them. But the other one, the wolf? I knew that wolf. I’d seen them before. As if I could forget! That way of moving, that sandy hair, that red-brown skin—plus the waving tail and animal ears.

“Ghislaine!” I cried. That meant the one with black hair had to be Isolde! Water Emperor Isolde! Ghislaine and Isolde had been working together!

“Sylphie!”

Sylphie came darting onto the battlefield like a mouse. She went over to the fallen and simply laid her hands on them. It only took that much for their wounds to heal. Before I knew it, she’d healed Dohga and Zanoba. She was using unvoiced casting. Until now, I hadn’t really considered that it had this advantage—I hadn’t had the chance. Now I saw it, it was clear as day. She was crazy fast. Faster than me and Cliff together. As I watched, Eris and Ruijerd emerged from the bushes and returned to the battlefield, and before I knew it, our line of battle was back on its feet. Isolde took the main shield position with Dohga and Zanoba relegated to sub-shields. Eris, Ghislaine, and Ruijerd were our attackers. And now, we had Sylphie and her unvoiced healing magic as our healer. Our battle line was standing.

We’d made it out of hell.

“Rudy!” Sylphie called. “I’ll hold him down here, so you get to the village! Roxy’s waiting for you there!”

“Got it!” With that, I set off running for the Superd village at an all-out sprint. I ran harder than I ever had in my life.

Sylphie had come. Even though I’d brought the bridge over the ravine down, she was here. That meant she must have come from the village, and that meant that the card I’d been keeping in reserve had arrived at last. Jumping over tree roots and plunging on through the trees, I finally made it back to the Superd Village. What I saw there filled me with joy. The moment I entered the village, there it was, in the distance. The thing I’d been holding out for sat on top of the teleportation circle I’d drawn up in preparation in the back of the village. I kept running as fast as I could.

“Big Brother!”

“Grand Master!”

“Oh, Big Bro…”

On the way, I passed Norn, Julie, and Aisha, but I ignored them. I just kept running until I reached it. A girl sat on the ground near the broken teleportation circle. She looked exhausted.

“Roxy!” I cried.

She looked up at me. “Oh, Rudy.” There were dark rings under her eyes, like she was out of mana or hadn’t slept in days. “I’m so sorry. I messed up the procedure. I dug it out, then after I’d gotten it up, I started working on the teleportation circle. If I’d drawn the teleportation circle first, then had you dig it up, I wouldn’t have been so late…”

“That’s fine! It’s all fine! You got here in time!”

Behind her was a giant set of armor.

Three meters tall and dark blue, its right hand was equipped with the Gatling gun and its left with a shotgun. Besides that, there was a magic sword with the power to ignore all defenses clenched in its fist. The armor was as thick and hefty as a sumo wrestler’s body; it was lying face down. It didn’t look that different from the Version One, but this was not the Version One. This armor, gotten ready just in case of an occasion such as this, was my honest-to-god trump card. It was a weapon for short, decisive battles. Increasing its mana consumption several times over gave it massively improved mobility and ­armor. In concept, it was the inverse of the Version Three, and so we’d named it—

“This is the Magic Armor Version Zero,” Roxy said.

This was my ace up my sleeve. My trump card. If I couldn’t win with this… Scratch that. Useless way of thinking about it. The odds were against me regardless.

“I’ll be back soon, Roxy!”

“Good luck in the battle, Rudy!”

I got into the Version Zero. The sensation of so much mana being drawn out of me made me a little dizzy as I stood up. Then, I saw Orsted standing in the center of the village. He was holding a gigantic sword.

“Rudeus! Use it!” he shouted, then tossed the great blade to me like it weighed nothing at all. I caught it. It was just the right size for a three-meter-tall suit of armor. Even I, with my clumsy swordsmanship, could feel the awesome power it contained just by holding it.

This was the King Dragon Blade, Kajakut.

“Sir Orsted! I’ll be back soon!” I called. Orsted didn’t reply, only nodded.

Pushing the Version Zero as hard as it would go, I sped back to the battlefield.