Chapter 8 — Obviously, the System Lacks Any Serious Testing
The boy’s sword, with its single blade and distinctive curve, looked like a Japanese weapon.
“You know all about swords, right, Mokomoko?” Tomochika asked. “Do you know that one’s name? Like something-maru or something-masamune?”
“While I am quite accustomed to utilizing swords, I am not so well-versed in their inscriptions. Hm. There is no doubt that it is of Japanese origin, though!”
“And here I thought your knowledge of the Heian era would finally be useful! What kind of ancestor are you?!”
“Our school is one of archery! We have no fascination with katanas! As long as it can cut, it’s useful, no? All it is is a knife for killing people!”
“Speaking of which, what about Vivian’s shields?”
“They are round shields, I suppose? But like I said, we are a school of archery!”
As it was the middle of the day, there were few customers in the pub. They didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the boy, but if fighting was to break out, they would inevitably draw attention to themselves.
“Uh, I have a suggestion,” Tomochika offered. “Why don’t you guys fight somewhere there are no other people?”
“Why should I care?” the boy spat, standing from his seat. He didn’t seem to mind being watched by others, so there wasn’t much hope of him listening.
“I guess there’s no choice. We’ll have to evacuate the other customers. Dannoura, could you scream?”
“Me? I guess. Oh no! A dangerous guy swinging a sword around has appeared! Everyone, run away!” Tomochika shouted, obviously acting.
Everyone inside immediately turned to look. The pub served normal citizens, not adventurers, so it was only natural that upon seeing the boy with his blade drawn, they began to flee the scene.
“Oh? And here I thought you were a villain responsible for a huge massacre,” the boy said.
“You shouldn’t believe what people tell you so easily.”
Tomochika snorted. “You’re really going to pretend you didn’t do anything, huh?”
“What is with you?!” Vivian protested, standing up with her twin shields in hand. “What point is there to apostles like us fighting amongst ourselves?!”
“The point? If you kill another apostle, you get their powers. So why not kill each other?”
“No way! I’ve never heard of such a thing! What? It was added on request? And you figured you’d tell me eventually?!” Vivian shouted at the sky.
It looked like she had received another message from her god. At any rate, it was a problem for the two of them to solve on their own, so Yogiri, Tomochika, and Mokomoko stood up and gave them some space.
“But, like, if they’re giving powers to these apostles so that they can kill me, why let them steal each other’s powers by killing each other? Now they’re just going to fight without paying any attention to me.”
“Based on what we heard from Vivian, this god seems pretty irresponsible...”
Vivian faced off against the boy. He seemed totally relaxed. She hesitated at first, but remembering how invincible she was, her attitude quickly changed, a daring smile rising to her face.
“Shall we see what you’ve got, then?” she challenged him.
“What do you think about this fight, Mokomoko?” Yogiri asked.
“Hm. They are both obvious amateurs. They don’t even have a solid sense of balance. The boy doesn’t look like he knows how to use a sword, and Vivian’s style of using shields is totally haphazard.”
“The guy with the sword will probably strike first, right? Vivian said she only wants to focus on defense.”
“But she killed those adventurers rather proactively, did she not?”
“That’s just because they found out she was a member of the royal family from that quest.”
“At any rate, if Vivian is confident in her defense, she need only wait and watch. However, that being the correct choice or not is dependent on the abilities of the swordsman. If he is also an apostle, he must have some sort of unique ability.”
“You two really switch into spectator mode easily, don’t you?!” Tomochika interjected.
As Yogiri had predicted, the boy was the first to make a move. He stepped forward, casually holding his sword low.
“Spike Shield!” As Vivian shouted, an enormous spike sprang from the center of her shield towards her opponent.
“She can do basically anything, can’t she?!”
The boy swung his sword in turn. Cutting through the spike, it went flying off into the center of the pub. Evacuating the other customers had been the right choice.
“Having a spike in the center of your shield is common enough, though,” Mokomoko commented. “More importantly, how did he cut it so easily? Was she not supposed to be able to reflect any attack?”
“Maybe that doesn’t extend to the spike part,” Yogiri suggested.
“I’m a little surprised, but so what?” the boy taunted Vivian. “I’m not even sure if there’s a point in taking a power like that.” The boy stopped, evaluating Vivian’s powers.
“Ha! Who cares about the ability to make a sword that can cut well? My invincible shield can stop any attack!”
“Oh? Interesting. My sword can cut anything. Why don’t we try testing it out?” the boy said, resting his weapon on his shoulder.
“Bring it on! I will gladly counter your attack!”
The boy leaped forward. In an instant, he closed the gap between them, slashing diagonally down towards her. As if she had predicted the attack, Vivian raised her shield to block it.
Yogiri swallowed, earnestly watching for the result. A clunking sound filled the room as the now split halves of Vivian’s shield struck the floor.
“What?” she blurted before her body slid apart as well. The blade had sliced through her shield and cut her in half, from the left shoulder diagonally down to her flank. Her upper body fell to the floor, spilling blood and guts everywhere.
“I guess that’s what happens when you put a paradox to the test,” Yogiri said.
“If two powers contradict each other, the winner would be decided at the discretion of the god who gave those powers, I suppose.”
“Is this really the time to be talking about that?! This is a disaster!” Tomochika shouted at them.
The boy tossed his blood-soaked blade into the air, where it instantly vanished. “Looks like I win. So... Oh, it works.” He created a shield in his empty hand. He had indeed gained Vivian’s powers. “I guess the question is, when do I want to actually kill Yogiri Takatou?”
He was totally full of himself after having defeated Vivian and was now debating using Yogiri as bait to lure in other apostles.
“I mean, I guess he isn’t planning on hurting me directly, but I don’t know if I like the thought of him using me like that...”
It would be a pain if this kept happening. Even if the boy wasn’t planning on directly harming Yogiri, it might have been best to put him down right then and there. But as Yogiri thought that, it became clear that the contest with Vivian wasn’t over yet.
“You thought I was dead?!” Despite having been sliced in half, Vivian stood up. She was now back to normal, and while her clothes being cut apart gave her a somewhat immodest appearance, her skin wasn’t so much as scratched. Even the blood and guts that had spilled all over the floor had disappeared.
“What? Oh, I see. Now that I have your ability, I understand. You come back to life even when you die.”
“Precisely! I thought it was meaningless with my invincible defenses, but on the off chance I am slain, I will return to life! This is the power of Advanced Shield Resurrection!”
Despite having already died once, Vivian didn’t seem to be the least bit discouraged. Materializing her shields once again, she was ready to continue the fight.
“Yep, gotta stick that ‘shield’ word in wherever we can...” Tomochika muttered.
“Hm. This has become a rather bizarre situation. So, they do truly steal the powers of apostles that they kill...” Mokomoko mused.
“Seems like it,” Yogiri answered. “After he killed her, he gained her ability to create shields. But then Vivian came back to life.”
“Is it like a bug in the rules or something? Obviously, the system lacks any serious testing.”
Vivian said her defenses were invincible, but as they just witnessed, there were still some ways to beat her. And if another apostle killed her, they would also gain that power of resurrection. So what would happen if that immortal person continued to participate in the battle? The number of people with immortality would continue to grow. Even if Vivian were to now kill the boy, she would gain his ability to create swords, and then the boy would come back to life. There would be no end to it.
Yogiri was starting to doubt whether the system was really made to kill him anymore.
“Ugh! What a pain!” the boy with the sword cried.
“So? Have you realized that you can’t defeat me, no matter what?”
“Yeah, as annoying as it is. I understand your powers now. Even if my sword can cut through your shield, you’ll just come back to life every time.”
“Then you have no choice but to flee in disgrace!”
“No. All it means is that I have to go back to my initial objective.”
The boy jumped back, opening a gap between him and Vivian. She began to panic, realizing what he intended.
“I just need to kill Yogiri Takatou. If I do that, I’ll be the only immortal one, and I’ll have the power of the strongest sword!” He turned to face Yogiri.
“I figured we’d end up here,” Yogiri sighed.
If the boy left to collect more powers and ended up spreading this immortality ability even further, he would quickly lose control of the situation. As such, he was better off killing Yogiri right away so that he was the only one who would have those powers. If he put aside his greed, that would be the obvious conclusion anyway.
“I guess I can kill you without worrying about it, then.” Yogiri unleashed his power. As the boy made to jump forward, he fell to the ground, motionless. They waited and watched for a while, but he didn’t stand up like Vivian had. He was truly dead.
“So, looks like the people you kill really die for good, huh?” Tomochika said.
“It’s pretty obvious that dead people don’t come back to life. I thought that was common sense.”
Death was irreversible. Coming back to life was impossible in the first place. Anyone that appeared to have come back to life must not have been truly dead in the first place. That’s what death meant to Yogiri. Nothing that contradicted this common sense could occur within his realm of perception. If someone or something was killed by someone else, there was a chance they were still alive, but if they were killed by Yogiri, they were absolutely, undeniably dead. There was no way they could come back to life.
“Huh? What is going on?” Vivian gaped at them. She must have been expecting some sort of brutal contest. In fact, if the boy hadn’t targeted Yogiri, her fight with the boy could have gone on forever.
“Didn’t your god tell you? My ability is to kill anyone just by thinking it.”
“Th-There’s no way you could have such an absurd ability!”
“Yeah, you would think...” Tomochika shrugged.
“Oh, another message from God! The person with the ability to cut anything and to make swords appear from nowhere was defeated by Yogiri Takatou,” Vivian said, staring up into the sky again as she heard a message coming from somewhere. “I see. They are sharing who failed to kill you so that the others might use that information to take precautions in their own fights.”
“I feel like I also beat the shield power, though.”
“Hm. But only the kid with the sword died. Maybe that’s all they were counting.”
“You get it now, right?” Yogiri asked, turning to Vivian. “Your invincibility can’t stand up to my power.”
“E-Even so! That does not change that I have to protect you!”
“Why?” Yogiri asked, exasperated.
“Because if you are killed, I will lose my own power! And we need this power to take back our kingdom!”
Perhaps she was just a good person at her core, but without seeing Yogiri do anything wrong, Vivian didn’t even think of trying to kill him.
“I’d rather you just left us alone. I have no plan to die.”
The apostles could tell where Yogiri was. Fighting them may have been unavoidable, but he certainly had no intention of losing to them.
“But at this rate, staying here might be dangerous to the city itself,” he continued. “We were asked to spend the night, but maybe we should move on.”
“Yeah, I get the feeling we’re going to be seeing a lot of people like that in the near future,” Tomochika agreed.
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