Chapter One: The Sealed Orochi
“What was that? The townsfolk finally taking things too far?”
“An odd sound for that, I think.”
“I’m sensing a strange flow of life force.”
Expediently enough, Filo was already in her filolial form, so I climbed onto her back and looked in the direction of the noise. It looked like a cloud of dust was rising from the mountains just outside the town. We passed through there after arriving in Q’ten Lo, if I recalled correctly.
The place with a burial mound.
“W-what was that noise just now?”
“Sounds like someone’s having fun.” It was Rishia and Itsuki, back from their search and wondering what was going on.
“It can’t be. It simply—!” Raluva was at a loss for words, staring toward the burial mound.
“Hey, kid!” Now the old guy from the weapon shop and his master came running up.
“Man, our enemies aren’t holding back. Looks like they want to maintain their status here at any cost.” The old guy’s master shaded his eyes with his hand, also staring off, semi-exasperated, toward the mound.
“You know what’s going on?” I asked.
“Nothing I’m sharing! A bigshot who won’t even make a harem? Anything I know would be wasted on you!” Gah, this guy! Talk about a pain in the ass!
“Master, can you please give him a break?” The old guy grabbed Motoyasu II’s head with one hand.
“Owwww! Erhard, quit it!” I definitely wasn’t letting Raphtalia anywhere near this guy.
“Mr. Naofumi? Could you please stop stroking my head quite so hard? I’m not Raph-chan!” Raphtalia said.
“Rafu!”
As I clicked my tongue and showed him me stroking Raphtalia’s head— mainly out of spite, I admit—Sadeena realized what was going on and picked up the slack.
“Maybe, then, you big handsome blacksmith you, you’d like to tell me what you know?”
“Of course, most lovely lady. I’ll tell you everything!” Seriously! Motoyasu II indeed, he was a complete and thorough upgrade! “A monster that caused serious damage to our country long ago is now sealed in those ruins. Of course, sealed by the Heavenly Emperor of that time.”
“Yeah, when we passed by, Sadeena mentioned something like that. So the monster wasn’t defeated?”
“Maybe I remembered it wrong. I thought that was just a cenotaph?” Sadeena said.
“This place being what it is, only a few people know the truth,” he went on. Hmmm. So was it a monster that actually existed to protect the world? Like the Spirit Tortoise?
“The reason they sealed it, keeping it here in this place, was to enhance the barrier that separates Q’ten Lo from the outside world—one of the gods defending this land, if you want to think of it like that.”
“And that’s really what it is? A divine protector?”
“Those corrupt officials thought so, at least.” A case of passionate believers, was it? But Raphtalia’s family line apparently took the top spot, even over some divine protector. They really were willing to do anything, anyway—including breaking the seal on a monster. “That’s not the only problem mixed up in all this though.”
“Go on, then. Try me,” I said.
Rising to the challenge, Motoyasu II scratched hard at his head, pointed toward the ruins, and muttered.
“Just a little while ago, our current Heavenly Emperor—that little shit with his ridiculous love of monsters—went around to every sealed site and placed sakura stones of destiny and blessings at each one. Making things easier for the gods protecting us, that was the official line.”
“Is he soft in the head?” I exclaimed. The guys we fought yesterday had been quite tough enough, thank you very much! And he’d placed the same blessings on monsters that once caused damage to this nation? What was this moron thinking? It didn’t take a genius to predict the disasters that might be caused if even just one of those monsters was revived.
Well then. Now I saw why the Water Dragon was opposed to the Heavenly Emperor and lent us aid on our approach to this country. There was no way having this crazy crackpot in power was good for the nation as a whole. This whole thing was starting to feel as unpleasant as the business with the Tyrant Dragon Rex. There was desperation in the air, like they didn’t care if everyone went down together so long as they were in charge when it happened.
They also clearly considerably underestimated the threat that we had posed. Then we actually showed up and quickly got them on the ropes. That was likely to make anyone a bit loopy.
That said, my abilities were diminished because of the curse, and we were also facing enemies with the power to weaken my shield, meaning I couldn’t fight at full capacity. I was starting to get a bit sick of the situation suddenly turning against us.
But hold on. Maybe we could use this. Use the fact they had freed a sealed monster against them. What if, for example, one of Raphtalia’s first deeds as the new Heavenly Emperor was to defeat a dangerous monster set loose by her political opponents? How would that look to the people? The gap between the current administration, with their contemptuous neglect of the people, and the revolutionary forces who fought for the sake of those same people would only be highlighted further.
One thing I could say about all this corruption: it gave us no shortage of material to use in our attack.
“Kwaa, kwaa, kwaa!” Gaelion grew large and I climbed onto his back. With his ability to fly, he seemed the fastest choice.
“Enough talk. Let’s get over there! Speed takes priority, so you follow behind as fast as you can, Filo. If you can beat Gaelion then I’ll ride you next time!”
“Whaaaaaat! I’ll do my very best!”
“Ah, wait for us!”
“Let’s get moving.”
“Come on. I don’t know if you’ll be much help, but we’re going too, brother.”
“Count me in!” Raphtalia, Sadeena, Atla, and Fohl all followed along too. Of course, Raph-chan was right where she belonged, in my arms.
“Itsuki, you guys take Filo and come along too.”
“Of course.”
“Feeeehh! Very well! We can hardly claim to be justice if we give up now!” Rishia joined in.
“And we’ll be running away, then,” said Motoyasu II. “Dear ladies, if you do get in trouble, I recommend using the corpse of this idiot to shield your escape.”
I swore to make him pay for his comments. Later, though.
“Let’s move.” The lethargic Itsuki joined Rishia on Filo’s back.
“What? I have to carry the bow guy as well?”
“Kwaaaa!” Ignoring Filo’s dumbfounded cries, Gaelion gave a roar of victory and took to the skies.
“I’m not losing to a dragon!” That’s the way, Filo. She started out, running across the rooftops. This would be a good race! If things went her way, Filo might even win.
“Kwaaaaa!” Gaelion started flapping his wings in earnest, and the race was on. Oh yeah. Pitting the two of them against each other was definitely going to be faster.
“Here we go!”
The ground cracked, and the monster sealed inside revealed itself. Its red eyes started searching around for prey. Its mouths were full of sharp fangs, with tongues periodically flickering out like licks of flame. It also had an organ called a “pit,” which it used to detect temperature and locate its victims.
“It’s a hydra. Yes, this won’t be an easy battle.” This analysis from the father Gaelion. I guess that was one name for it, but personally—as a dragon with eight heads, no less—to me it looked more like the Yamata no Orochi from Japanese mythology. In either case, this was the creature that climbed free from the burial mound and turned its gaze toward us. On its back it had a carefully tied sacred festoon and something that shone with a soft pink light.
As we faced it down from the air, the Yamata no Orochi–like monster— the “Sealed Orochi”—started to intimidate us, throwing out a multiheaded hiss.
“From the looks of it, it’s been fitted with both a sakura stone of destiny and sacred festoon of blessings, providing a pretty big power-up,” I said. Along with that threatening hiss, it also spat some poison in our direction. With a grunt, Gaelion flapped and avoided the missiles. Still, the creature was in the center of a sakura stone of destiny barrier, which weakened the four holy powers, and then had blessings on top of that. Which meant what? We had to approach it across terrain in which the power of the heroes was weakened and somehow finish it off?
That wasn’t going to be easy.
“If we don’t keep it busy the port will suffer damage,” I declared. Backing off, and perhaps giving up on attacking us, Orochi now started toward the town. It may prioritize attacking us if we got in close and bothered it, but for now it seemed happy to target the general population. That was very dangerous.
“You know what? A bit of damage will make the nation all the angrier.”
“Mr. Naofumi!” Raphtalia scolded.
“Okay, okay. We can at least put up a fight with the sakura stone of destiny weapons. We don’t have a choice.”
“Oh my,” Sadeena exclaimed.
“This will be quite a tough one.” Still. Time to take this thing down. “Come on! We can do this!” I shouted.
However, in the moment before Orochi reached the town and we faced the thing down, it was stopped by some kind of wall.
“W-what now?” I wondered.
“Little Naofumi, there.” Looking in the direction that Sadeena was pointing, I saw a sakura lumina glowing brightly, creating something like a wall.
Sakura lumina were plants native to Q’ten Lo, very much like sakura cherry trees, but convenient for being able to do a variety of things. Perhaps, then, they had defensive abilities against larger monsters?
“Hold on. I sense the power of a dragon. Maybe the Water Dragon is helping us out?” father Gaelion told me.
“That sounds promising,” I said.
“It looks like just a matter of time before it breaks through though.” Indeed, the resistance of the barrier was visibly weakening. I guess we had to use this time to get ready.
Gaelion landed, and as I climbed down, Sadeena started to turn into her therianthrope form.
“In either case, we fight, right?” she said.
“Yeah. If we don’t stop that monster somehow, we’ll never be able to take this country.” But still, taking on a monster equipped with anti-hero gear? Why did my battles always place me at such a disadvantage!
“We’ll deploy the Sakura Sphere of Influence right away,” I said. We’d use our new power-up skill, Sakura Sphere of Influence, to enhance our allies while also casting some support magic. The issue was that this was still placing restrictions on our weapon power-up methods.
A little testing had revealed that we were unable to use Sakura Sphere of Influence unless the barrier from the sakura stone of destiny—the sakura destiny sphere—was also active.
“Shooting Star Shield! Air Strike Shield! Itsuki, you’ve already registered your sakura stone of destiny weapon, right?” I blocked some attacks from the Sealed Orochi even as I asked the question.
“Yes. All taken care of.” His voice was lifeless, due to the curse, but he responded without question to commands. If he selected the correct power-up method and used it well, he’d be able to handle this situation. Indeed, his lack of distractions might actually make this version of him more convenient.
“Then fight with that weapon. Any others will definitely be nullified.”
“Understood.” How about if Itsuki fired from outside the barrier? But no, the arrows themselves would still end up inside. Duh.
“If Astral Enchant has been cast on that thing, this isn’t going to go smoothly.” If all of these monsters were being linked together and powered up, this one might be more powerful than even the Spirit Tortoise.
“That wouldn’t be an easy thing to pull off. If they’d managed that, any defensive capabilities the town may have would have surely been wiped out in an instant,” Sadeena said.
“Good point. Anyway, we have the new skill Raphtalia learned to remove that kind of problem.”
“Shall I go in first, then?” Raphtalia promptly offered.
“Yeah, go ahead. Even if we can’t take down this sakura destiny sphere thing, you should still negate the blessings. Can you?” I asked.
“Yes. I think so.”
In any case, we just had to concentrate on the enemy in front of us.
“I’ll do my best too,” Filo promptly offered.
“Kwaaaaa!”
“I’ll do my part,” Sadeena chimed in.
“Me too.” Filo, Atla, Fohl, and the others also displayed their resolve. I hoped they could handle it.
“One more thing, you guys. If you get close and feel your strength flagging, drop back a little.”
“Ah, well, the weapon shop guy gave me this back there,” Filo explained.
“Me too.” Each of them had weapons in their hands and on their legs made with sakura stones of destiny. Apparently, they had the ability to lessen the nullification of the hero’s protection. For a moment, the support of that old guy warmed even my shattered heart. He made these so quickly, after all, thinking ahead to keep us safe for something just like this.
“He told us we’d need them in the times ahead.”
“That we should keep them with us in order to not fall behind.”
“Kwaaa!”
“Hold on. No one told me!” Atla looked confused for a moment and then promptly grabbed Fohl from behind. Clinging to his side, she proceeded to try and pry free the gauntlet fitted on his hand.
“A-Atla? Guwah! S-stop that—what are you playing at?”
“Brother, you have to give that to me.”
“What happened to the one you got?”
“That pervy old goat sickens me. He clasped my hand with his sweaty palms when he gave me the item, and so I tossed it away. I don’t have time to go back and get it.” So Motoyasu II had gone personally to give Atla hers. No wonder she’d thrown it away.
“He came to me too,” Filo chirped up. “But it was so sparkly and pretty I kept it!”
“Brother! Hand it over.”
“A-Atla, quit it—” Just looking at this scene, in complete isolation, and she could appear to just be a little sister begging her big brother to borrow his favorite toy. Fohl actually looked pretty happy about it.
“Oh my,” Sadeena exclaimed.
“You two, seriously,” Raphtalia began.
“We don’t have time for these games!” I shouted. Seriously, none of them were mentally prepared in the face of the enemy. “Atla, if you haven’t brought your weapon with you—” Hmmm, good question. The brother or the sister? The weapon was a gauntlet though. Atla wasn’t going to work well with that. “Taking the capabilities of this opponent into account, Atla, you can stay in the back. No complaining. Don’t take anything out on Fohl, either.”
“Gah! How humiliating. All thanks to that letch,” she said. I understood how she felt, I did, but in this case, she was clearly in the wrong. That said, she generally fought barehanded, so there was a high probability she wouldn’t have brought it with her anyway.
“If you don’t like it, maybe you should pay a bit more attention to fighting with a weapon equipped in the future.” Weapons were imbued with various effects. Fighting barehanded provided no such benefits, so having Atla carry a weapon with some kind of effect might be worthwhile.
“If those are your orders, Master, then I’ll equip one in the future!”
“You hang back then, Atla. You can defend Itsuki and Rishia.”
“I’m on it!”
With that, then, we formed up to face off with the Sealed Orochi.
Having so many hotheads in the party wasn’t always a good thing.
Filo ruffled up her filolial feathers, threatening the target. Gaelion said she was a type of dragon, right?
“Enough chatter! Let’s take this thing down! Sakura Sphere of Influence! Attack Support!” A barrier with a cherry blossom pattern appeared, centered around my feet, and the thorns created by Attack Support flew toward the Sealed Orochi. When those thorns passed through the barrier they were transformed into five cherry petals and proceeded to bind themselves around two of the Orochi’s heads. The creature gave an angry hiss.
“Time to strike!” Filo shouted.
“Kwaaa!”
Filo and Gaelion both flew in, still competing to be the first into anything, and slashed into the two bound-up heads with their claws. Both had pretty decent abilities, and with power equal to any special attack, they tore their respective heads right off the creature’s body.
“Doesn’t look like it’s got much in the way of defense,” I commented.
“Vitality, though, it’s still got in spades.” Atla provided this analysis from the rear. Perhaps agreeing with her, Raphtalia also nodded. That was also the moment both of the heads Filo and Gaelion tore off immediately regenerated. Yeah, the father Gaelion had classified this as a hydra.
“Raagh! Huh?”
“Get me in there.” Fohl, now in his therianthrope form, grabbed onto the charging Filo and used her speed to close in. He used the impact of his descent to land on and squish one of the heads and then immediately fell back. He was really getting ferocious. He’d definitely been on a roll recently.
In any case, the heads were regenerating with such speed they definitely didn’t feel like the beast’s weak point. Do all of these Spirit Tortoise–like monsters have regenerating powers?
“Rafu.” Raph-chan was sitting on Raphtalia’s shoulder, her fur standing up. It looked like she was providing some kind of magical support.
“Aim for the body! That seems more likely than the heads!” I yelled.
“Sure thing.” If that didn’t work, we’d have to try something like destroying all the heads at the same time. In the next instant, though, and with a metallic sound, a barrier shaped like a hexagonal prism appeared centered around Orochi. So it was definitely the body.
“Raagh!”
Not to be outdone, Filo launched a flying kick, but she just bounced off the barrier. “It’s super hard!” Hissing again, perhaps enjoying the compliment, Orochi’s many eyes flashed red and then it started to spit fire.
“Second Shield! Dritte Shield!” I already had Float Shield active. By standing at the head of the party, this allowed me to draw all of the enemy attacks to me.
“Hmmm. It’s absorbing some of the Dragon Vein power. It would be foolish to spend too long fighting this thing.” Father Gaelion offered this advice even as he flew up close and nipped at the heads I was keeping occupied, in an attempt to distract them.
“I know, Gaelion. Hey, Sadeena!” I yelled.
“Count me in, sweetie! Finally time for us to have some real fun together!”
“Lose the innuendo! Gaelion, we need your help too.” Getting the support magic Descent of the Thunder God active and pressing our attack seemed like the best move here.
“Arrow Rain! Eagle Piercing Shot!”
“Hengen Muso Throwing Technique! Rolling Spin!” That was Itsuki and Rishia providing some support fire for Filo as she fought bravely against the eight heads of Orochi on the front line.
The hexagonal prism on its back provided protection just like the shell of a turtle. Any attempt to get in close to kill it was also blocked by the barrier. It basically had double walls protecting it.
“I’m going in too.” The skill Raphtalia had learned appeared to nullify the protection of the sakura stone of destiny and was definitely going to prove convenient. I’d also got a useful new skill, which was really going to help out in the coming battles.
“Okay. On my signal, we strike together!”
“We’re with you!”
Rather than talking, though, I should have been concentrating on my magic. Since Gaelion joined us we could now use cooperative magic much more quickly.
“Descent of the Thunder God!” This particular spell was a hero-exclusive skill based on Zweite Aura, which increased all abilities. Combined with lightning magic, a specialty of Sadeena, it at least had an effect more potent than high-ranking Drifa. It definitely got another hiss out of Orochi.
Raphtalia was closing in with the heads, and the beast started breathing poison, fire, the full works at her.
“Raagh!”
“Haaah!” Filo and Fohl took care of the attacking heads while Itsuki and Rishia continued their supporting fire.
“Drifa Chain Lightning!” Finishing her incantation, Sadeena joined in to launch magic against Orochi. Raphtalia gripped the hilt of her scabbarded sword, and then swung the blade toward the head that Filo was already engaging.
“Supreme Ultimate Slash of Destiny!” The attack itself was little more than a simple sword slash. The trick to this technique was the attack also being able to cancel any protections cast on the target. The only difficulty was that Raphtalia needed to be able to see the protections placed on her target. Being able to break the curses placed on me or Raphtalia herself, well, that would be asking too much.
It produced more hissing, anyway. Orochi started spraying flaming counterattacks.
I took the brunt of those attacks and used the counter effect of the sakura stone of destiny shield to activate Blossom Blaze. Being close to me during this effect had been shown to provide additional strength. A little speculation on my part, perhaps, but I also believed it to alleviate interference from other sakura stones of destiny.
“Filo! Hit that shield again, will you?”
“On it!” At Raphtalia’s direction, Filo quickly closed in with the barrier and kicked it again. The barrier gave a powerful shudder, and then a ying-yang symbol appeared on it and surrounded Orochi. As though being crushed by a weight made of magic, that symbol started to press down on Orochi, the creature writhing and hissing in confusion under the pressure.
A few more moments and all eight heights started to scream.
The ying-yang symbol eventually faded. The heads wobbled back up, slower than before but still spitting angrily at us.
Seriously, this was one tough reptile. Reptile-thing.
“That’s temporarily broken the sakura stone of destiny’s protection!” Raphtalia exclaimed.
“Right, everyone, pile on!” I shouted.
“Okay!”
“My time to shine!” Atla rushed recklessly in, launching a preemptive attack on Orochi. Gah! “Raaaaagh! I say raaagh!” She attacked one of the heads, and it immediately stopped moving. Wasn’t she paying attention though? That wasn’t the weak spot!
“Oops! I need to target the body, right? I’m coming!” she said.
“Atla, do as you were ordered and stay back!” Fohl yelled.
“Brother, don’t stop the attack now!” Fohl and Atla moved to strike at the body, bickering as they went.
“I’m coming too!” Filo headed in after them.
“Hmmm?”
“Oh my.”
Not to be left behind—in fact, ahead of all of them—Raphtalia dashed in close to the body and unleashed her own skill. “Stardust Blade!” With a series of meaty thunks, each special attack struck at the body. Orochi convulsed just a little, and then all of the heads dropped to the ground and it fell silent.
What? We’d won? That was pretty easy.
“More a worm than a snake,” Itsuki offered from a little distance away.
“You said it. I was expecting a bit more of a fight,” I announced. Pathetic was what it was. Absolutely pathetic. The start of the fight made me think it was tougher than this.
Even as I had that thought, Atla started to back away from the body, eyebrows furrowed.
“Everyone, I think we should run away now.”
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“It’s giving off a strange reaction. Like . . . the same reaction as those people who blew themselves up.”
“What! Everyone, get out of here! Now!”
“Okay!”
“Waah!”
At my command, everyone fell back from the Orochi corpse. The next moment, that same corpse swelled up and then exploded in a shower of poison. That alone was enough to break the barrier protecting the town and also create a noxious fog in the vicinity. My party and I only just got out of the way in time.
My Shooting Star Shield could hold off the poison for now, but what about after that? It wouldn’t be long before the spreading fog started killing the townsfolk. I wasn’t really one to care about the unwashed masses, but losing any of what little fighting strength we currently had would definitely hurt.
More than anything, though, we were looking at a sealed monster, an explosion, and now poison. This string of events was our chance to mobilize the people of Q’ten Lo, and the new Heavenly Emperor being the one to end this threat would be a great start to her career.
“Filo, can you use some wind magic to blow that poison cloud away?”
“I’ll certainly give it a try!” Filo immediately spread her wings and started an incantation. “Drifa Tornado!” The fog was lifted by Filo’s magic and blown in the opposite direction from the town—but it wasn’t enough to disperse it completely. In fact, while it had thinned out, we might have only succeeded in spreading it over a wider area.
“Nuh?” Then Gaelion gave a cry of surprise and whispered to me, “I fear we are facing quite a troublesome beast here.” A moment later, and with a foreboding rumble, eight fresh Orochi heads peered out from the burial mound. They even appeared to have more lustrous scales than before.
“What’s going on here? Didn’t we just kill that thing?” I said.
“It was what you might call a clone. A copy. It won’t be that easy to defeat the real monster,” father Gaelion replied. That explained why it had been weaker than I expected. A freaking copy! And a copy that had still blown up and spread a thick poison when defeated? Talk about a pain in the ass. Why the hell did they have to go and set this thing free? If it did manage to defeat us, just how were the Heavenly Emperor’s goons planning on stopping it?
“It’s even been buffed a bit too,” I said. I was seeing more and more reasons why they had no choice in the past but to just seal it away—hah, I was even starting to think the Tyrant Dragon Rex might make a cute pet.
“Is there nothing we can do?” I asked.
“There’s one quick approach, perhaps, which I think you’ll be a fan of,” father Gaelion offered.
“Tell me.”
“That’s still a dragon, give or take. You know a little about the biology of dragons, correct?” I did—ah, of course. He was talking about it having a core somewhere that we had to remove.
“That’s why I called it a copy. If we can obtain that core, it will be reduced to an empty shell. There’s still a chance it might revive a few times, but this seems like the fastest way.”
“Which means the real Orochi is down where that thing is coming out of the burial mound and we’ll have to keep the copy occupied too?”
“Correct.”
“And if we get the core? What next?”
“I’ll have to suppress it.”
“You can do that? Weak little Dragon Emperor.”
“Heh.”
What was that laugh for? His weakness was the very reason I was worried. “It wasn’t so long ago that Ren kicked your tail, remember?”
“If we’re only talking about a core, it should be easy for me to suppress it,” he said. Hmmm. That hardly inspired confidence.
“Okay then. Let’s split up into two parties: one to fight the copy and keep it pinned down and another to go in and fight the main body.” I did a quick headcount. It would be best to keep the copy from heading to the town, or the damage—and body count—would quickly start to climb.
“I feel like I might be best suited to pinning it down?”
“About that. Something has been bugging me since the fighting started.” Sadeena actually put her hand up to speak.
“Yes? What?”
“I thought Orochi was targeting us, to start with, but doesn’t it look more like it’s only targeting either the town or Raphtalia?” A good point. In the instant Raphtalia closed in to attack, all eight heads had immediately focused on her.
“So what? Raphtalia is like the Heavenly Emperor, meaning the beast is turning its grudge on her?”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Raphtalia said.
“We could try and stop the copy then, but if it’s targeting Raphtalia, then we probably can’t do much,” Sadeena said.
“If the copy is targeting Raphtalia,” Rishia offered, “we should probably have her fight it, right?”
“If the main Orochi has the same capabilities as the copies, though, we won’t be able to nullify its protection without Raphtalia,” I said. The handling of the sakura destiny sphere really was a pain.
“It also depends just how tough the real Orochi is going to be.” It was a fair bet it would be tougher than the copies, at least.
As the discussion continued, backup arrived from the town.
“That’s a fair boost to our combat power. Maybe now we just keep it in place with sheer numbers?” Rishia suggested.
“Yeah, I think so. While they’re doing that, we’ll head into the burial mound and fight this real Orochi, then,” I said. I quickly imparted the details of the operation to our reinforcements, which included Raluva and the contingent from Siltvelt.
“Itsuki and I would be better fighting the copy, I think?” Rishia said. I gave her proposal some thought. We didn’t know what the situation would be like inside the mound, and Itsuki and Rishia worked best when providing support from the rear. Not to mention, it made sense to have heroes in both parties.
“Very well. Rishia, you and Itsuki work together to stop the copy. Do your best not to finish it off, but just buy us as much time as you can.”
“Master Naofumi, what should I do?” Atla asked.
“You don’t have a weapon, so you take the copy. Fohl, that also means I’ll be expecting more from you.”
“Hmph! As you say, of course,” she said. Atla didn’t look happy about it, but it was definitely best to keep her back. “Brother! You’d better not let me down!”
“Gah. I know, I know!” They both sounded so much like each other, truly brother and sister.
“What about me?” Filo asked.
“With me.”
“Great! I won’t let Gaelion show me up!”
“So let’s get to work!”
With everything decided, we split into two groups, and I started with mine toward the looming burial mound.
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