Chapter Two: Sharing Power-Ups
Checking behind for a moment, I saw that the reinforcements from the town, Itsuki, and Rishia were putting up a good fight against the Orochi copy. It wouldn’t be easy to play for time instead of just finishing it off, after all. That task would have been easier if I stayed behind, but if the real Orochi did turn out to be more powerful, they would definitely need me.
Even as I considered the situation, I looked over the half-destroyed burial mound. There was definitely an evil presence emanating from the place, a flow of some kind of magic. Was this something someone who had learned the Way of the Dragon Vein could feel?
“It looks pretty ominous in there,” I said. What was this Heavenly Emperor fool thinking, taking pity on a creature like this?
“Rafu.”
“Geh! You’re right, the air is foul!” Raph-chan and Raphtalia were both spluttering, indicating just how bad the situation was. We needed to finish this quickly.
“Still, our only choice is to go inside,” I maintained.
“We’re right here with you.” Nodding at Raphtalia’s reassurance, I took the lead and we started into the burial mound. The interior looked ready to collapse but appeared to have been some kind of stone burial chamber.
“Is the main body in here?” I asked.
“The flow of power indicates so,” father Gaelion said. Indeed, even I could feel a strange flow of power periodically flowing through the space. So was this the Dragon Vein corruption I’d heard about?
“It’s gradually eating into the barrier protecting the nation. If we don’t finish it off quickly, the other seals may break too.” This too from Gaelion. Desperate or not, was there no limit to the idiocy of these idiots? They were going to destroy everything their people had protected for generations. If all the sealed monsters revived, the country would wipe itself out.
It might be better if we just made a run for it.
“It started before I left, but I can’t believe how corrupt this place had become,” Sadeena was saying.
“Tell me, what kind of history does Q’ten Lo have? The Heavenly Emperor has, what, been treated as a national treasure down the generations?” I asked.
“I don’t know all the details, but it’s been around for at least as long as Melromarc and Siltvelt,” Sadeena replied. Wow. I was amazed they made it so long.
“Huh? What’s that?” There was some text written on the wall of the stone chamber. Even better, I could read it! It looked like the magic text I saw on the Cal Mira islands.
“Is there another hero inscription here?” I traced over the letters with my fingers while reading them. “Shield Holy Weapon . . . power-up method!?” Why was this here?
The letters suddenly started to shine, and the gemstone on my shield started to shine too. It definitely seemed worth reading some more. It wasn’t all that long, anyway.
“What is it?” Sadeena asked.
“I’m not sure why, but it says something about ‘Shield Holy Weapon power-up method’ and then some more text here on the wall. Can’t you read it?” Everyone there with me gathered around and took a look at the writing.
“Nope. I can’t read it.” That counted Raphtalia out.
“Me either. Is that the language of your home country, Naofumi?” Sadeena had no luck either.
“I sense magic.” That was all Gaelion was good for.
“I don’t know much about magic, so I can’t read it either.” Fohl had much the same reaction.
“Hmmm?”
“Filo, I’m not expecting anything from you. Don’t worry. Anyway, I’m going to read it out.” I cleared my throat. “Holy Shield power-up methods. Number one: share the power-up methods from other holy weapons and vassal weapons.” Gah! That’s what we were already doing! In fact, Kizuna had also said something very much along those lines to Raphtalia. The rest of the text was just further details on the same topic, and kindly enough the same text even proceeded to appear under Help.
But what was the point? Showing information we already knew was pointless at this juncture!
“It’s meaningless if this is just information we already know,” I said.
“Maybe it’s just here to make sure you haven’t missed out on it?” Raphtalia offered. In any case, it might prove useful if Ren and Itsuki could read this language. I’d have Itsuki take a look at it later.
At that moment, we discovered a vertical hole glowing with a purple light. Perhaps triggered by our arrival, the stone chamber started to shudder and shake.
“It’s below here?” I asked.
“Looks like it. Hmmm, this place has a pretty interesting structure.” Gaelion, as analytical as ever.
“What’s so interesting about it?”
“It was created to siphon away the power of the one sealed here, no doubt about that. At the same time, however, it also works to maintain the barrier while not letting them loose but also not killing them. It even has repair functions, allowing it to operate, theoretically, forever. This is some pretty incredible technology right here.”
“A timeless seal?”
“That would be an apt description. Free from idiotic outside intervention, this seal would have lasted for an eternity.”
The purple glow allowed us to see down quite a long way. There was something down there, shining. It also looked like there was water seeping out from the hole.
“The underground water and Dragon Vein have a deep connection? No, hold on.” Gaelion indicated something inside the hole. It looked like, well, the skull of something? “The body of the Orochi from the time it was sealed has already rotted away. The breaking of that seal has led to a merging with the Dragon Vein via the media of the core.”
“So where’s that core now?”
“Right there,” Gaelion stated, indicating a spot at the bottom of the hole where purple smoke was pooling, like some kind of miasma.
The next moment, cracks spread through the entire hole, widening it considerably, and then water gushed out.
“A cunning plan. It’s using the copies to buy some time while the core creates a new body.”
“Cunning? More like a pain in the ass.” A torrent of water was now pouring out, quickly reaching our waists.
“We can’t hang around here. Sadeena, grab hold of the Shield Hero and his companions. We’re about to get washed out!” Gaelion yelled.
“Oh my!”
“Washed what?”
“Filolial, you watch out too!”
“I can swim!”
Even after Gaelion gave his advice, the water gushing from the hole started to swiftly sweep us away, leaving more than a few of us spluttering as we went. Why was it, I lamented, that coming to this country had seemed to involve so much water?
Even as I had that thought, and even as we struggled against the flow, Raphtalia, Raph-chan, Fohl, and I, all held by Sadeena, were washed back together the way we had just come.
That’s how strong the current was.
All of us, Filo and Gaelion included, were blasted out of the burial mound together and fell through the air. Just before we crashed into the ground, Gaelion spread his wings and caught us.
“Phew. That was a close one,” Gaelion remarked.
“A big waste of time too,” I commented, somewhat bitterly.
“Don’t say that. There, take a look. Here comes the main body.” Gaelion indicated with his head, just as an Orochi that looked perhaps three times the size of the copies emerged by destroying the burial mound completely. “That purple light at the base of that Orochi is the core. This isn’t going to be a pushover like that copy either! It’s still growing, absorbing Dragon Vein power.”
“Which means we need to take it down quickly,” I said.
“That’s right. Although I won’t stop you if you do want to do the noble thing and at least wait until it is fully exposed,” Gaelion replied.
“What good would that do us? So it’s like a Demon Dragon?”
“That was only the surface of the Dragon Vein, but yes, something like that. The issue is the scale. It’s receiving power from the other sealed monsters, and it’s got a troublesome sakura stone of destiny too.”
“So let’s get to work. Swift and minimalistic, such as how little Naofumi likes it,” Sadeena announced.
“That’s right! Even if you’ve left this nation behind, you don’t want this monster tearing it to pieces, do you?”
“No, I don’t think I do. Not to mention, we’re meant to be taking over, so it would be a shame if this nation was wiped out before we got that chance.” This was all for Raphtalia, for my village, and for our future. “You can count me in, then! I’ll do my best!”
Just as I was about to get some support magic going, my shield responded again.
Provide target with power and trigger beast transformation?
Yes / No
Okay. This was an ability housed within the Shield of the Beast King, a piece of gear I obtained in Siltvelt. The conditions to trigger it remained unknown, but it appeared to allow those among my companions capable of transforming into a therianthrope to perform an additional, more powerful transformation. When I previously used it on Fohl, he had turned into a powerful white tiger.
I hadn’t really counted on Fohl for battle stuff up until that point, but this boost had made him really strong, and he’d fought alongside Atla to take care of the monsters we’d faced in Siltvelt.
What would happen, then, if I used it on Sadeena, who was ranked high for strength among my companions?
“Sadeena.”
“What is it, sweetie?”
“It looks like I can command you to transform.”
“Oh my!” She had a massive smile on her face. I didn’t like it, but still, there was seriously no other choice here but to use it.
“I’d rather use it on Raphtalia, if possible.”
“I can’t turn into a therianthrope, and I don’t want you to do it on me anyway.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to turn into something like Raph-chan!”
“Rafu?”
Heh. That was exactly what I wanted to see. Or a more therianthrope¬like Raphtalia, maybe? Like one of those round little raccoon-dog statues? I was sure she’d look so cute.
“You’re thinking something distasteful, aren’t you?” She’d cottoned on, of course.
“Never! Come on then, Sadeena!”
“Yes, yes!” This was a bit like a skill though, so before she was transformed by it, I decided to have her activate the other magic first. “Sakura Sphere of Influence!” With that done, I activated the beast transformation support.
A flurry of cherry blossoms suddenly appeared, centered around my shield, and flew toward Sadeena. Sadeena was enveloped, just like when I used it on Fohl, turning into a sphere of light and rising up into the air. Furthermore, the nearby sakura lumina, which looked broken and withered, also started to give off some kind of light, coming together to provide protection. Then the light surrounding Sadeena scattered, and a massive killer whale appeared, with a sacred festoon and all.
“Oh yes, this is incredible! Such power flowing through me! What is this? Naofumi’s love?”
“Stop saying weird stuff!”
Sadeena had turned into her killer whale form but simply started to swim elegantly in the air as though it were water.
“I think I heard the Water Dragon too. There’s nothing I can’t do right now.” With that proclamation, Sadeena deployed a whole sequence of magic circles and then launched her assault on Orochi.
“Hmmm. How does it go again? Like this?” She had to ask herself? How obtuse could you get! “Thunder God! And Sea God!” Thunderclouds rapidly formed in the air above Orochi, dropping the largest thunder strike yet. This was immediately followed by a vast tidal wave appearing in front of Sadeena and rolling over the monster.
Talk about an all-out attack.
“I also experienced such a transformation. Was it something like that?” Fohl inquired, observing the ragingly one-sided assault launched on the main body by Sadeena.
“Yeah, I guess so. You were like that in Siltvelt, Fohl.”
“Incredible! I’m always messing up. So uncool. But even Atla only had good things to say about that transformation.” Wow. He was more self-aware than I’d given him credit for.
“We shouldn’t just be standing around watching!” Raphtalia shouted this caution and then dashed in to aid Sadeena.
“I’m with you!” Filo got moving too.
“You won’t outmatch me! Graaaah!” Ah, Gaelion had switched personalities again.
“Everyone is so excitable. Let’s join the pile on,” I said.
“S-sure thing!” Fohl shouted.
The Orochi hissed horribly, certainly not backing down. Then each of its eight heads started spitting its own unique breath at us—fire, ice, poison, the works.
“I won’t allow that! Air Strike Shield! Second Shield! Dritte Shield!” As I unleashed skills to create shields, the effects of the Sakura Sphere of Influence caused cherry blossom shields to appear and block the attacks. The petals withered with each attack they blocked, but they provided wide-ranging protection from Orochi’s attacks.
Hold on. The petals weren’t breaking down? They were actually pretty tough! My abilities, severely compromised by the curse, appeared to have substantially recovered—no, suddenly increased!
What was going on here?
The only thing I could think of was the power-up method text from the burial mound. Could it be that the power-up method I’d been using until now hadn’t been sufficient? It felt like the multiplier behind the enhancement had changed.
“Naofumi. Little Naofumi?”
“What?”
“I’ve been observing it closely, and the weak point does seem to be the same. There, where the body is glowing,” she said.
I muttered to Sadeena to take out some magic water and soul-healing water and restore the power expended during the beast transformation support. Weak spot, she said! A pinpoint attack there would mean having to dodge through the attacks from the eight heads, and even then it would be difficult to hit—
“Raphtalia!”
“Ready!” Just as when she fought the copy, Raphtalia took up the Supreme Ultimate Slash of Destiny stance in order to nullify the enemy’s blessings. The Orochi gave a hiss—Raphtalia was clearly its target.
“Not today, pal!” The transformed Sadeena dropped a thick bolt of lightning, floating in the air between Orochi and Raphtalia in order to keep them apart.
Okay, I admit, the image of Raphtalia with her sword raised and Sadeena, wreathed in lightning, protecting her, struck a super geeky chord with me, not to mention that Raphtalia was wearing the miko outfit that I had put her in.
Of course, I also stepped up and blocked the Orochi’s attacks.
“Right! Attack Support! Shooting Star Shield!” I tossed the Attack Support at Orochi, sealing off its movements.
“You guys! Buy us some time!”
“No problem!”
“On it.”
“Atla has been on my back, after all! I’m not going to give any ground to this monster!” With that, Filo and the others swept aside the attacking heads, creating a large opening.
“Now I can make a chance to attack! Supreme Ultimate Slash of Destiny!” Perhaps becoming more familiar with the attack, Raphtalia launched her slice toward Orochi’s barrier faster than before.
With a clash, however, the sword bounced off.
“What!”
“That should’ve been a hit. A clean hit!”
“Mr. Naofumi,” Raphtalia said as she returned to me, “it seems the Orochi has realized that my attack will break the barrier created by the sakura stone of destiny, and it’s creating its own barrier to prevent that.” Now that she mentioned it, the pillar of light from the sakura stone of destiny and the purple light appeared to be mixing together. So another barrier, not present on the copies, was protecting its weak spot.
“Can we destroy it using the Hengen Muso Style?” I asked.
“I don’t know why, but my attack didn’t work. Physically breaking it is going to be difficult,” Raphtalia said.
The Orochi hissed, as though in agreement, and then the revived heads all fixed on Raphtalia at once and attacked with multiple breaths.
I stood in front and took the brunt of the attacks.
“Guwah,” Raphtalia spluttered.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes. I’m—okay.”
“Rafu.” Raph-chan stroked Raphtalia’s back as she coughed. Just that seemed enough to naturally relax her breathing.
“It’s not the same as the copies, is it?” Sadeena ventured.
“Looks that way. A real pain.” I took a moment to glance at the copy, which was rampaging close to the town. Even if we defeated it, this main body would just bring it back. But was it worth taking it out again and making this fight easier to win, even if that meant fighting a total of sixteen heads?
“So the problem is that purple barrier? That’s the issue,” I stated.
“Yeah.”
The big problem was that barrier. Raphtalia could deal with the sakura stone of destiny, but the purple barrier clearly had completely different conditions. Honestly, it just made me want to scream! Just how much hassle did these sakura stones of destiny have to be? It was almost as though they’d been created specifically for fighting heroes, although the Q’ten Lo Heavenly Emperor seemed to think of them as nothing more than devices for powering up abilities using a special ceremony.
Such thinking had led to this dangerous situation, clearly.
“However, little Naofumi, there is one thing. Based on my intimate observations—”
“Spit it out.”
“There is a moment when that purple barrier appears to weaken.” As a former hardcore gamer myself, it wasn’t hard to imagine that defeating an opponent like this would require multiple conditions to be fulfilled. They never would have sealed it away in the past if they couldn’t work that much out. Now it sounded like Sadeena had realized it too.
“When I attacked and took out a few of those heads, the density of the barrier appeared to drop a little,” she went on. So the heads regenerated quickly after being destroyed, but that also weakened the barrier. If Hengen Muso Style attacks couldn’t break it, it was natural to think that there had to be some other conditions involved. If we couldn’t just muscle through with raw power, then we had to do this the proper way.
“So killing all the heads at once will bring down the barrier. Sounds like a pain!” I grumbled.
“They revive so quickly the timing is going to be crucial.”
“You said it.” To be honest, I was really starting to feel like it would be best to have Itsuki and the others join us here and all attack the heads together. After killing them all at the same time, Raphtalia could neutralize the sakura stone of destiny on its back and then we could finish it off.
“Sadeena, in your current state, how many heads do you think you can kill at once?”
“Having received your love, my dear, I’m invincible. If you use that, what was it called, Attack Support to bind them, little Naofumi, I should be able to account for no less than four!” Four, then. That wasn’t bad.
Raphtalia needed a little charge time in order to unleash the Supreme Ultimate Slash of Destiny. That wasn’t going to change, even with the Sakura Sphere of Influence. No, okay, it would probably take a bit longer without it, in which case, we needed the remaining heads to be handled roughly by Filo, Gaelion, and Fohl—one a piece. My job was defense and interrupting enemy attacks. One more attacker would be nice, but unfortunately Raph-chan was busy protecting Raphtalia.
“Let me,” Filo offered brightly. “My timing is greaaat!” With that she struck the Haikuikku pose. Ah, great idea. Filo could probably handle two heads with Haikuikku.
“I can move longer than before too.”
“I’m counting on you.”
“No problem!”
“Then Raphtalia will destroy the second barrier and blast that core out of its body.”
“Okay! I’m ready when you are!” Good, then. Everyone was ready. Time for action!
“Attack Support!” I unleashed Attack Support and tied up three heads. Then Sadeena dropped a massive bolt of lightning.
“Here we go! Thunder God!” The Orochi writhed, hissing and spitting into the air as though to resist Sadeena’s attack. That wasn’t enough to stop her, however, not to mention that my Attack Support was doubling the damage.
“I don’t think so! Applied Chain Lightning! Successive Thunder God” Thick bolts of lightning struck the bound heads, and the electric shock even paralyzed the body. Then Sadeena twisted in the air, bending the lightning to send it through another head before it flew off into the sky. Quite the party trick.
Good, then. She took care of exactly four heads, as promised.
“Kwaaaaa!” Gaelion matched the timing of his attack, charging in, breathing fire, and smashing another head.
“I’m doing my part too!” Fohl was going hand-to-hand, dropping an ax kick on another head and taking it out. He was really starting to pack a punch.
“Jingle-jangle! Haikuikku! Take this!” Filo tossed in her morning star and then immediately charged in with a high-speed spiral strike, crushing a head in an instant. She then maintained Haikuikku and kicked the final head with all of her strength. Wow. Filo was one step faster than anyone else in this fight. Then again, she’d always been pretty fleet of foot. She said Fitoria had given her a boost across the board, and she certainly was fast. Just her basic stats placed her as a close match with Raphtalia too.
“──!?”
With all the heads gone, Orochi’s body started to convulse, and the purple barrier around it vanished.
“Raphtalia, now!”
“This is the one!” Raphtalia dashed in and swung her sword at the sakura destiny sphere. “Supreme Ultimate Slash of Destiny!” With that shout, she slashed down at the sakura destiny sphere, then returned her blade to its scabbard.
“Rafu!” Then Raph-chan, still on Raphtalia’s shoulder, tossed out a ying-yang-like sphere that quickly swelled up to enclose the entire Orochi.
“Phew. I managed it, but that wasn’t easy,” Raphtalia exclaimed.
“Now the protection has been removed?” I asked.
“Yes. But that isn’t the finishing blow. We need to press the attack!”
“You’ve got me for that!” Sadeena offered.
“I’ll purify the Dragon Vein at the same time!” Gaelion also focused his power to finish the Orochi off.
“In this closed-off land of the Heavenly Emperor, let the clean flow of ideals wash away the old regimes, with the desire to save the world transformed into power! Dragon Vein! The purifying power of the sea! Wash back this filthy tide!”
“I, Gaelion, order the heavens and order the lands! Diverge now from all physical laws, become one, and spit forth this blighted puss. My power, the protection of the spirits! Purify the land!”
“Great Sea God!”
Sadeena and Gaelion completed their spellcasting, rising up into the air while water swirled around them, and then plunged toward Orochi as though dropping in freefall.
“Uwah!”
“Waah!” Filo and Fohl, surprised by this downward charge, beat a hasty retreat.
“Kagura Dance of the Sakura! First Formation! Blossom!” Just ahead of Sadeena and Gaelion unleashing what was presumably the finishing blow, Raphtalia and Raph-chan got off a second attack of their own. Cherry blossoms danced in the air alongside the sword attack. Then a metallic clash rang out, and at the same time, something was sent flying out into the air.
What was it? The dragon core? Something else?
Then Sadeena and Gaelion’s attack landed, blowing the remaining body away.
“That was close!”
“You said it. I know the timing was important, but I almost got taken out too!”
“Looks like you still managed to get out of the way.” Fohl glared at me for that comment. “I guess you can complain to them later, anyway. At least we’re all alive for you to do so.” Raphtalia’s Descent of the Thunder God had still been in effect too, allowing her to get off that additional attack of her own.
Not to mention the boost my own abilities appeared to be experiencing. At the least, I’d managed to keep up with Raphtalia’s speed.
“We won!” Sadeena, back in her demi-human form, leapt out from the spraying waters and stood, back to the group, shouting at what little remained of the Orochi.
“Kwaaaa!” Gaelion was showing off too, striking a victory pose of his own. We definitely needed to up our teamwork or it was only a matter of time before friendly fire took someone out.
Checking behind us, I was treated to the sight of the Orochi I had left to Itsuki and his team also dispersing into mist. It looked like we’d really pulled off the kill.
“Little Naofumi, it seems we’ve managed to purify the one rooted in the Dragon Vein too.”
“That’s pretty hot stuff. You seem full of energy too, even though you just came back from a beast transformation.” Based on the Fohl example, beast transformation support seemed to cause considerable physical exhaustion. Fohl, at least, had been so worn out afterward that he could hardly stand. Sadeena, on the other hand, looked to be in pretty good shape.
“Oh, I’m completely wiped out, I assure you.”
“You really don’t look it.”
“He’s right. I bet you could go another round or two!” Raphtalia gushed.
“You think so?”
As we chatted, the fighting finished, Atla and the others came dashing over.
“Master Naofumi! We did it!”
“We do seem to have had some measure of success,” I admitted.
“But hold on? I still sense an impure presence.” Then Atla turned to look in the direction of the whatever-it-was that Raphtalia had sent flying right before the final blow. I’d been wondering about that myself.
“Raphtalia. You knocked something out of it, right?”
“Yes? I believe that was the Orochi core, just as we originally planned?” Ah. Right. That had been the plan. All the craziness of Sadeena and Gaelion in action had pushed it out of my mind.
“Kwaaa!” With his own growl, Gaelion flew off in the direction of the presumed core.
“I don’t think we can leave something like that lying around. Mr. Naofumi, let’s go check it out as well.”
“Yeah, good idea.” After checking to make sure Rishia, Itsuki, and the contingent from the town were also with us, we headed in the direction the Sealed Orochi’s core had been sent flying.
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