Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 26 - Chapter 3.1

Chapter 3:

The Fifth Turning Point

WHEN I GOT BACK, Eris and the others were holding up just fine. They’d lost me and the Superd warriors, and Cliff and Elinalise were still not there, but things had stabilized. Ghislaine dashed about the battlefield, practically on all fours. The sweet spot of the Fighting God’s fist was high—he was a tall guy—so she kept low to the ground to avoid the range of the blast of wind it generated, slashing at him from the front, side, and back to assist the others. Ghislaine didn’t have enough offensive power, but from the way the Fighting God was waving his arms around, she was giving him a hard time. 

Sylphie’s presence was similarly massive. The situation called for faster recovery, so her unvoiced healing magic was a perfect fit. When the Fighting God sent Zanoba or Cliff flying, she’d be at their side and have them back on their feet in an instant. Sylphie had been off active duty for a long time now, so I thought she’d struggle to keep up with the physical demand, but she was single-handedly doing as much healing as Cliff and I had combined. 

I suppose I should give special mention to Isolde. She was out in front of the rest, deflecting all the Fighting God’s attacks against her and striking back with her own. She moved with grace and precision. Her technique made the Fighting God’s violent blows—any one of which could’ve been lethal—look like a child’s tantrum. 

Obviously, she wasn’t going to defeat him like that. No matter how many flowing strikes she hit back at the Fighting God with or how many times she sliced into his arms or his legs, she didn’t do any damage. In a one-on-one battle, she might have given him a good fight, but she’d never have won. At some point, she’d get tired, and then it’d be over.

When it came to buying time until I made it back, though, her presence was worth its weight in gold. 

“Sorry for taking so long!” I called out to Sylphie.

“Rudy…! All of you, fall back!” At her signal, they all put distance between themselves and the Fighting God.

“Well, well.” Badigadi didn’t try to follow them, didn’t even spare them a glance. His eyes were on me. 

We were about the same size. The Fighting God Armor was about two and a half meters tall. The Magic Armor was about three meters tall. Those few dozen centimeters meant I was only a little taller, and because I’d stopped to stand about ten meters away from him, it wasn’t enough to look down on him.

“That must be the Magic Armor that my dear sister bestowed upon the Dragon God in recognition of his worth!”

“Um…” I said hesitantly. “You saw the Version Once back at the port town, right?”

“Did I now?”

“Yup, only then you smashed it to pieces in a single blow.”

I thought back on that single blow. I’d taken the full impact because I’d overestimated my defenses, but still, it was amazing that Eris and Ruijerd were still alive after taking hits like that. It had to be the difference having a battle aura made to your defensive strength…though in that case, I had to worry about Cliff. He hadn’t taken a direct punch, but it wasn’t like he could cloak himself in the protection of a battle aura in the event that he did.

“You said ‘Version One’. I take that to mean that this armor is different?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” I said, looking around me. The others were standing around watching me from afar. Though there was a solid distance between us, they could still get caught in the crossfire. 

Oh, right. Sylphie was going around the remaining wounded.

I’d trust her with Cliff for now.

“Shall we get this show on the road?”

The battle commenced.

***

My Stone Cannon stood in for a starting bell to kick off the fight. I backed away, shooting Stone Cannons, with Badigadi hot on my heels. I was following the same pattern as my fight with Orsted: retreat and fire off Stone Cannons indiscriminately. Honestly, I’d thought it’d be a struggle to pull off that much, but the lumbering bulk of the Version Zero moved like a dream when I fed mana into the King Dragon Blade. This was what gravity manipulation felt like, huh? I felt like I could do anything with the sword in my hand—only, seeing as I hadn’t trained with it, I’d settle right now for making myself lighter.

“Fwahahahaha! I’ve had worse mosquito bites!” The Fighting God came after me, splintering trees and gouging holes in the earth. It was plain to see that my attacks weren’t doing much. Even at this close range, the Fighting God didn’t bother to dodge or deflect the Stone Cannons. They plunged straight into him then fell out of his back. He hadn’t taken any damage, or at least, that was how it looked. Orsted had said Stone Cannon might work, but it was doing nothing.

“Turning tail and running away, are you?” Badigadi called after me.

I had some other things in mind. Once I’d led him where I wanted him, I aimed the shotgun at his feet, leaving a giant crater in the ground under his next step.

Badigadi stumbled. For a split second, he lost his balance. That’s when I closed.

“Guh?!”

I emptied the Gatling gun, then struck with the sword mounted on the back of my right hand. It sliced through the armor like a hot knife through butter, exposing black flesh.

“Shotgun Trigger!” I bellowed, then fired. The blast sent Badigadi’s arm flying clean off. 

“Fwahahaha! Payback time!”

I’d taken four hits myself. The Magic Armor shook all over from each impact, and I slid around ten meters back.

But I was okay. I’d managed to withstand a direct hit.

“Oof!” Straight away, I wheeled around and went to retrieve Badigadi’s arm. It pulsated inside the golden gauntlet. I tossed it away.

“Fwahahaha! Futile, all futile!” Badigadi’s arm regrew, popping right out of his shoulder…like a certain race of green aliens. “Hmph.”

Oh, but it hadn’t been futile. His new arm was bare—it wasn’t covered by the armor.

“Oho! That’s how we’re doing this, are we? You’ve thought this through, boy!”

Now, on the ground where I’d thrown the arm, there was a magic circle ready to go. The arm and the armor lay there and didn’t start regenerating. Maybe it was my imagination, but Badigadi looked like he’d shrunk. 

I hadn’t thought this through. I’d just guessed.

The power of the Fighting God Armor made Badigadi faster and stronger, but he wasn’t that much faster than the master sword fighters I’d met. Orsted could outpace him, and maybe Alec, too. He was way faster than me usually, but I was wearing the Magic Armor; he wasn’t so fast that I couldn’t handle him. I was making good use of the experience I’d built up training with Orsted and Eris.

It was his extremely strong defense and durability that were frustrating me. The Fighting God Armor was hard. It might have been tougher than the Magic Armor—it was at least tough enough that Eris and the others might scratch it if they attacked with all their strength, but they had no chance of cutting off his head or limbs. The armor restored itself instantly and went on fighting like nothing had happened. Under normal circumstances, the person inside the armor would go on taking damage…but Immortal Demon King Badigadi couldn’t die.

The damage from Eris’s sword and Ruijerd’s spear should have penetrated the armor, but they did nothing against Badigadi. Whether they slashed, stabbed, or struck him, Badigadi healed instantly. Before long, the attackers would grow tired and then, they’d be easy pickings for the destructive power of those six arms. 

How were we going to beat him? Atofe had given me a hint. The figure of Immortal Demon King Atofe, rising again to stand against her foes no matter how many times she was struck down, stood for all the demon kings of the Demon Continent as a symbol of fear. There were two ways to beat her. The first was to cut all her limbs off and seal them so that they didn’t regenerate. This was the most conventional method. She’d been brought down twice this way in the past. It would take some heavy-duty barrier magic if you wanted to keep her sealed away for centuries, but simply fencing her in with advanced-level magic barriers would prevent her from coming back. 

The second way was to make her admit defeat. Immortal Demon King Atofe had her own rules that she usually fought by, and when she saw she’d lost by those rules, she’d surrender. Unfortunately, I didn’t see Badigadi giving up so easily. I decided we’d go with the first method.

I had Cliff set up barrier magic circles throughout the forest in advance. They’d activate when I threw one of Badigadi’s limbs into them. I’d been worried that they wouldn’t work on the Fighting God Armor, but it hadn’t been a problem. My plan was to use this defense-negating sword to cut through the armor, tear his arms off, then seal them away. When I’d taken care of all six arms, I’d make Badigadi admit defeat. What I really wanted was to seal his whole body…but without Cliff, I couldn’t use that Magic Circle. 

“Gaaaah!” I bellowed, charging. I no longer cared about dealing damage. I didn’t know how much longer the Version Zero would keep running at full power. Maybe the King Dragon Blade had extended its uptime a little, but it still could power down at any moment. I had to keep this battle short and decisive.

“Come, then, champion!” The Fighting God spread his arms wide as I closed in on him, sending his fist swinging around to meet me. I thrust my sword out in response to the incoming fist, meaning to counter. The agility of those six arms was mind-boggling, but after the last battle, I sort of knew what to expect. Today, I was on form.

I could dodge them.

I cut into his lower left arm, jamming the barrel of the shotgun into the incision as I did so. I fired, and the arm was blasted off. Unfortunately, I couldn’t help leaving myself open for a split second. As the arm tore away, another fist plowed into me, and I went shooting back.

“Ngh!”

A crack split the front of the Magic Armor. In the end, it couldn’t withstand the fists of the Fighting God. Still, I could ignore the unarmored arms.

Four more to go. My armor only had to last until I’d taken them all off.

I started. Something else had caught my eye.

The barrier. In our last exchange of blows, the aftermath of the battle had scraped the magic circle off the ground. It had happened so easily I couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to me. Some magic circles remained, but I didn’t know how many or where they were.

“Damnit!” I choked out, then quickly hurled the arm as far as I could throw it. It sailed off down into the Earthwyrm Ravine. It had taken Atofe a while to recover after she’d been cut into pieces. By putting distance between Badigadi and his severed limbs, he wouldn’t be able to restore them right away. They’d come back eventually… But it had to be worth something to make that feat take longer.

Hm? For some reason, the armor wasn’t regenerating. Did it become nonoperative when separated from the wearer, even if it wasn’t sealed? Had long years of disuse even caused the Fighting Armor to lose some of its performance? Lousy excuse for regeneration, if so.

Or was this all Badigadi’s ruse?

Never mind. Now wasn’t the time for pointless worrying. His failure to regenerate was an opportunity. The only thing to think about was cutting off the rest of those arms.

“Grr…” Badigadi grumbled, but no new arm sprouted from the stump. Instead, the arm he’d regenerated earlier retracted into the armor like a turtle going into its shell.

“Eh?!”

What’s going on? 

In a second, two of the remaining four arms disappeared into the body of the armor, gauntlets and all. Then, the last two arms grew thicker. There was a straining metal noise as they swelled. 

Okay, the last two arms were bigger now. Too difficult to cut? No, I could manage it. This sword hit more effectively against tougher targets. The Fighting God could strengthen his arms and reinforce his defenses all he liked and it wouldn’t matter. 

Making a split-second decision, I kicked off and charged at the Fighting God. An alarm bell was ringing somewhere in my mind, but I ignored it. Whatever Badigadi did now, I’d already laid my trump card on the table. My mana was getting closer to zero with every passing moment. Unless I attacked, I couldn’t win.

“Gaaaah!” 

I yelled. Shouting helped generate power. I squashed my fear and uncertainty and let a little courage show on my face. It was the little bit of courage I needed to plunge in further. It enabled me to charge in, like Eris did, toward victory.

I rammed into the Fighting God. He absorbed the impact, but he stumbled. I swung my right fist. It bit into his left arm and out the other side. Then, I stabbed with my left, pushing the shotgun into the gash.

“Shotgun Trigger!” I shouted, and Badigadi’s Fighting Armor-encased arm went flying. Only, I was knocked back too. Badigadi had punched me with his one remaining arm. The front surface of my armor was smashed to pieces, and the impact had penetrated through it. I felt like my body was going to be crushed flat. I fell backward.

“Hurgh…rghh…” Blood bubbled up from my throat. My heart was screaming, Not yet! But it was no good. He’d outplayed me. I hadn’t seen it coming. He’d merged his arms together to make his attacks stronger. Lose an arm, win the war, so to speak. He’d driven his fist into the crack in the Magic Armor with unerring precision and shattered it. Why hadn’t that occurred to me when I saw his arms get thicker? Was I a moron?

No, you’re fine. This is okay. You’d have done the same thing even if you’d seen it coming. 

I charged in thoughtlessly and I’d ended up cutting one arm off.

I’d taken some heavy damage…but it wasn’t over yet. There was still one arm left.

Then, to my shock, I realized I wasn’t moving. The Magic Armor felt heavy. And my wounds weren’t healing. Right next to where my body sat in the Magic Armor, there was a part that was essentially its core. Breaking that would cause the armor to lose mobility. It wouldn’t stop moving entirely, mind. It wasn’t so simple a machine. Still, it would be massively limited. Fatal in a battle like this.

Panicking, I sent out mana. Right, I had mana left. I could still move, I wasn’t fully drained. I could fight. So why wasn’t I moving?

“A good plan, and such spirit…” While I lay there, unable to move, Badigadi approached. “And you gave me a good fight. Farewell, Rudeus. Not even Laplace dreamed of such an elaborate scheme.”

He raised his cannon-like fist above his head, then brought it swinging—

“Guh!” Badigadi grunted as something red rammed into him from the side. Whatever-it was slashed at his arm, severing it at the shoulder and sending it flying off through the air.

“Grr!”

There was only one red something in this forest: Eris. Could it be? Had she followed me? Had she been at my side this whole time—here with me?

I didn’t know. No other support arrived. Eris had come charging in alone. A moment later, I noticed something off. It was her sword. Eris’s sword was broken. The famed Phoenix Dragon Sword had snapped off at the hilt. Of course. Up until now, any damage we’d done to the outside of the armor hadn’t been enough to cut Badigadi’s arms off. She’d forced her sword to cut straight through. Any sword would break.

“Gyaaaah!” Her sword broken, Eris refused to stop. She faced down the Fighting God as though she hadn’t even noticed, howling all the way. Looking around, I saw she wasn’t alone. Following her out of the forest, one after another, came Sylphie, Ruijerd, Ghislaine, and Isolde. But they were too slow.

“Only a fool would dare to stand in my way alone!” Badigadi said, advancing on Eris. There was no one to protect her. Without hesitation, I activated the escape circuits and ejected from the Magic Armor. Strapped on its back was a sword. 

The moment I gripped the hilt, a feeling of awesome, unlimited power rushed through my body. The sword contained a staggering volume of mana. It was a sword crafted specifically to make a person into a hero. I poured yet more mana into it, trying to wring out every last drop I had left. 

I doubted I could use it myself. But a member of my family was standing in front of me with a broken sword raised before her, growling with her teeth bared, and all to protect me. 

I threw the blade to her.

“Eris!” The magic sword flew in a lazy curve through the air to where Eris turned and caught it. 

It was the King Dragon Blade Kajukut, renowned for being the most powerful sword in the world, and the greatest of the magic swords forged by the great demon bladesmith Julian Harisco.

Eris raised it high above her head.

“Gyaaaaaah!”

“Hrm? Surely not…!”

She brought the blade down. In the split second before it made contact, the Fighting God’s body floated into the air.

The blade sliced into him with a flash of light that blotted out my vision. The ensuing explosion blew out my eardrums.

We were at the mercy of an overwhelming force.

Destruction blossomed.

There was no blast wave, no shock wave. Only silence. The destruction was all directed inward. All that mana driven into the blade became a sphere that enveloped Badigadi. The sword had released not only Eris’s strength, but all the mana I had put into it.

I looked into the sphere of mana as it destroyed everything within it while it rose slowly into the air. I watched cracks appear in the Fighting God Armor. It fell to pieces. Badigadi was compressed within the mass of energy and then faded into dust without even a murmur.

I think he struggled, but there was nothing he could do. The Fighting God Armor didn’t function, and Badigadi was crushed even as he tried to regenerate.

The sphere vanished. The broken remains of the armor fell into the Earthwyrm Ravine. There were some clangs and clatters as they fell away, bouncing off the cliff walls, and the King Dragon Blade, still impaled in the metal, went with them.

All that remained was the armor. All traces of Badigadi’s black flesh had vanished.

For a good while, I stared. I stared both at the now silent ravine, and after the Fighting God Armor that had since vanished from sight. Badigadi’s arm lay nearby. It didn’t move or even twitch. It definitely didn’t look like it was about to start regenerating. Was he dead? Did we win, or was something else coming? Any moment now, was I going to hear a “Fwahaha!” as Badigadi returned?

I stared down into the ravine, wondering. Nothing happened. I saw no sign of anything coming back up. All that was left was silence. 

I heard a thud from behind me and turned. Eris had fallen to her knees, her face pale. I rushed over to her. Was she injured? Had Badigadi got in a counterstrike? I reached out my hand, thinking I had to heal her right away, but then I sank to my knees as well.

“Ohh…” It wasn’t an injury. I recognized this sensation, as well as the look of Eris’s face. This was mana drain. Sucking out all my mana hadn’t been enough to satiate the King Dragon Blade Kajakut. It had used up Eris’s mana as well. Eris probably hadn’t experienced mana drain since childhood. She sank back, blinking.

“Eris.”

“Rudeus…” she said. “Your hair’s gotten whiter.” 

I put a hand to my head, although I couldn’t tell myself. But returning her regard, I saw that one lock of her hair had turned white as well, like she’d put a streak in it.

“Yours too, Eris.”

“Huh… Then I guess we match,” she said, then toppled forward. She hadn’t fainted. She was only weak after using up all her strength. I wanted to fall on top of her, but I held myself firmly back.

“Rudy!” Sylphie was peering at us, worry in her eyes. She wasn’t alone, either. Ruijerd, Ghislaine, Isolde…they were all here.

“Sylphie, where’s Cliff?!”

“Um, well, someone else healed his wounds, then Zanoba and Dohga carried him back to the village. All of us here came straight after you, but then I didn’t want to get in the way, so I hesitated… But Eris ran in alone—huh?” Sylphie had laid a hand on Eris’s prone body, and now she looked puzzled. She’d probably cast a healing spell on sheer reflex. But Eris wasn’t wounded, so she didn’t get up.

“I think it’s mana drain. That sword consumes the mana of whoever wields it.”

“Oh. All right, then.”

“Anyway, Sylphie, those arms over there—get them to an undamaged magic circle. Then get Eris back to the village. I need you to tell Sir Orsted what happened, then bring Cliff here.”

I stood up. The Version Zero was in ruins, and my mana was practically exhausted…but I could still move. I didn’t know how much time it would take Badigadi to restore himself. After being crushed by that much mana, the way he’d disappeared looked like he’d been annihilated. And that was practically an understatement. The arms showed no signs of starting to regenerate, so I wanted to believe we had a while. Maybe that was naive. Wishful thinking. Most importantly, the Version Zero was destroyed, and the Version One was gone, too. I was on the verge of mana drain and Cliff, who could cast barrier magic, wasn’t here. Badigadi had fallen into the ravine, and we had no way of sealing him. If we went down there in this state and found him waiting for us, our chances of victory were close to nonexistent. There’d be nothing for it but to ask Orsted to take to the field. I wanted to get through this without him using any mana, but I might not have a choice. 

I wasn’t strong enough. 

Still, I’d driven Badigadi into a tight spot. I’d done everything I could. Whether Badigadi was up and about down there in the ravine, I didn’t know, but surely I’d brought him as low as it was possible for him to go.

I felt disgust at my own weakness.

“Ruijerd, Ghislaine, and you too, Isolde. Come with me, please.”

“Rudy? Where are you going?”

I thought I’d done everything I could, but there was still something else I had to finish. Even with my mana close to exhausted, I had to do it.

“I’m going after Geese.”