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Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (LN) - Volume 16 - Chapter 9




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Chapter Nine: Fenrir Force 

S’yne, meanwhile . . . was clashing with the maid. 
“How about you concentrate on me?!” Takt raged. 
“Sure, sorry, sorry,” I said. Enough showing off. It was time I got seriously involved in this fight myself. 
“Everyone, cast support magic on me! With all of your power, I can defeat this guy easily!” Takt shouted. So now he was just going to change the rules. After all that bragging about handling me alone! 
“Zweite Burst!” 
“Zweite Magic!” Support magic started to come in from his allies, but it didn’t seem to change much. Comparatively speaking, the specs of All Liberation X were far superior. It increased stats enough to cover almost a triple-level gap. He wasn’t even a hero, and wasn’t using any power-up methods, so I probably shouldn’t have expected any better than this from him. Pearls before swine. If he couldn’t draw out the true power of the weapons, then he was just another grunt. The weapons weren’t lending him their power. Not like with Kyo. 
“Right! I can take you now!” Takt cackled. 
“You really think that’s enough to handle me?” I asked. 
“Don’t get too big for your boots just because you’ve gotten a little stronger!” Takt raged. 
“I certainly don’t want you saying that to me,” I retorted. 
“Laugh it up while you can. Prepare for a taste of my magic enhanced by everyone’s power!” Takt roared. I almost felt like telling him that I wasn’t laughing; I was just at a loss for words. 
As I considered doing so, Takt started incanting his magic. It was . . . Yes, it was a little faster. 
“The source of your power, the one true hero, now orders you. Reconsider the state of all things once more and bring down a storm of flame upon my target! Drifa Firestorm!” Takt completed the spell. 
“Only Drifa!?” I exclaimed. Hold on! He claimed to have mastered magic and only cast Drifa. Fake or not, he was claiming to be a hero. 
Man, this was hilarious. 
When I thought about it for a moment though, Liberation was magic exclusive to real heroes. At a world level, that did make Drifa the strongest. 
“Eat this!” Takt unleashed the magic with a grin on his face. It created a flaming tornado that flew toward me. 
“The source of your power, just a hero, now orders you. Reconsider the state of all things once more and scatter the storm that would burn its target! Anti Drifa Firestorm!” I read the magic Takt had incanted and activated magic to nullify it. With that, the fire tornado scattered into nothing, as though it had never existed. 
Even with that time gap, I still managed to completely cancel it out. 
“I’m not sure what to say. Have you really mastered magic? You should at least cut out the incantation time,” I advised him. That said, all the magic I knew that didn’t have any incantation time was low-powered garbage. He actually might have posed a threat if he was capable of firing off Drifa-class magic in rapid succession. 
 
“Wh—” Takt was shocked, stunned at how easily his trump card magic had been nullified. It looked like it had been wide-range magic. Maybe that was what he’d used to raise his level. 
“The abilities of that staff . . . I will steal them, I swear it!” Takt roared. 
“You’ve got it wrong,” I replied. He still thought it was just the abilities of the staff. It reminded me of how Ren and the others had once been. 
The quick analysis was coming from the staff, sure, but reading the magic was a result of all of my own training. Sadeena could use Drifa-class! 
“You’ve got a Dragon Emperor in your party, right? So you’ve got the Way of the Dragon Vein. That’s magic that specializes in interference! Can’t you even think for yourself?” I told him. I really was at a loss for words. He did incant fast. It hadn’t taken five seconds to cast Drifa. But I could incant faster than that—thanks to Trash’s staff and support magic, of course. I was starting to have suspicions about this guy . . . but that could wait until later. 
Huh? I turned toward the sensation of further magic. Takt’s harem all unleashed magic right at me. I wasn’t going to let them pull a Witch move on me! I maneuvered to get them all along the same line of sight and prepared to wipe them all out together. 
“Zweite Wing Blow!” came the attack. 
“Fenrir Force X!” Focusing my life force, I lined up the trajectory and unleashed the skill to take out Takt and his women all together. The staff flashed—the part with the wolf decoration opening up. Then it fired a beam from the gemstone. A thick laser appeared in front of me and flew straight for Takt. 
 
“Uwah!” I thought it would hit for a moment, but the kickback knocked it just slightly off course. Takt was closest, and he avoided it. So he had some reflexes after all. It could only have been around three seconds between my lifting the staff and activating the magic. It missed, so I canceled it, but the SP consumption was rapid. 
“Bah! Missed!” I shouted. I’d been hoping that wouldn’t happen. 
“Naofumi,” said S’yne, speaking through her familiar and casting dispersions in my direction. 
“Oh, crap. Sorry.” I’d missed my intended target, perhaps, but I had hit something—the human dressed like a maid whom S’yne had been fighting. There wasn’t anything left of her. 
I wondered if that was murder. I didn’t feel bad about it, not at all. She’d been picking a fight with S’yne, and if getting hit by an attack that wasn’t even intended for her was enough to take her out, that was fine with me. 
“Ah!” Takt was staring vacantly into the air at a scarf that was dancing there, probably all that was left of the woman whom I’d eradicated. 
“I won’t miss next time.” The cooldown time was pretty long for the attack. I gripped the staff and started charging again. 
Takt, meanwhile, unleashed a worthless cry of rage and came right at me, swinging all of his weapons left and right. He reminded me of Trash from back when I first met him. 
Claws, whip, ax, hammer, projectile, I dodged them all. 
 
“You shit! You killed Ellie! I’ll never forgive you for this! I’m going to rip you limb from limb!” Takt raged. As his harem realized that had happened, they started to scream and rage in confusion too. However, his anger only served to make Takt more predictable. In anime, getting angry often made someone stronger, but in reality, it looked more like this. It made me remember the scene of cursed Ren fighting Eclair. It had probably felt much like this, dodging those angry attacks. 
A bit of a contradiction, perhaps, but one really needed to keep one’s head when getting angry. Like I was right now, getting angry while thinking in intricate detail about how to kill your opponent. 
 
 
“You don’t even understand what you’ve done, do you? Ellie was with me since I was a kid, a childhood friend! She was the first girl I was ever with and someone who accepted me completely. You didn’t have the right to kill her!” Takt thundered. 
“Like I care about any of that! Once you set foot on the battlefield you could die at any moment! What about all the people you’ve killed yourself?” I retorted. His logic was about as flawed as it could be. So he could kill whomever he liked, without anyone being allowed to kill his allies, he thought. Ridiculous. If he didn’t want anyone to die, he needed to be ready to protect them with his life. 
That was what Atla had told us. They may even die in a place other than the battlefield. If you truly wanted to keep them safe, you had to stay somewhere you could protect them at all times. When I swung my staff, Takt wasn’t there. He hadn’t moved to protect her, far from it. His precious childhood friend had been reduced to ash because he dodged my attack. If she was so important to him, he should have protected her with his own body, his life, without even thinking, if he considered the attack a threat. 
“I killed her, so let me say this. It’s your fault for dodging that attack. You need a better awareness of your surroundings. Moron!” I shouted. There was no debate to be held here. This battlefield was a place where people were going to die. If you wanted to prevent as few people from dying as possible, you needed to put your own life on the line. There were all sorts of ways to do it. This guy lacked the conviction to risk being taken out by such attacks alongside his friends. 
 
Gah, this was all such a pain. 
“Air Strike Front Mirror, Second Front Mirror,” I incanted, using the staff version of the Front Shield skill and deploying them to rotate around Takt. 
“Gah! Stop it! Stop running away!” Takt complained. 
“I’m not running from anything. I’m avoiding. Why should I let your attacks hit me? I’m not fighting with a shield now,” I replied. It wasn’t that I didn’t have decent reflexes; I just chose not to avoid things. The guy with the shield wasn’t doing his job if he was dodging things—his job was to hold the enemy in place. “I’m going to fire off some magic. How about you just let it hit you?” I quipped. 
“As if I’d allow that!” Takt retorted. In reply, I unleashed some magic with short incantations. 
“Zweite Fire! Zweite Water!” These were the only two elemental magic attacks I had learned. I couldn’t use them myself. Borrowing the staff had given me access to them, but there was no need to learn more. 
“You won’t hit me like that—” Takt easily avoided the magic, which just traveled in a straight line—but hitting him head on hadn’t been the idea. 
Each magic attack struck the mirrors behind Takt. 
“What? W-what are you doing?!” he shouted. 
“I’m sure you can work it out,” I replied. The ability of Front Mirror was to reflect skills and magic at a stipulated angle. “Or should I give you a demonstration? Air Strike Blast!” I gripped the staff I had been charging and unleashed a skill. The magic was fired off like a beam. Takt tried to avoid it again, but I reflected the blast from the mirrors, over which I had complete control, and sent it flying around Takt. 
 
I had no plans to hit him. I was basically playing around. I’d created a cage using Blast. 
Ah, it created a combo. It could even do that. The mirrors were just moving around on their own. This was all pretty convenient. I didn’t know if Trash could control this. I bet he probably could. I could imagine that being pretty dangerous. Each weapon really did have different suitability depending on the user. I bet the recovered Trash could really pull off some crazy stuff with this technique. He’d told me he could use the advanced version of it. Unlike my mirrors, his could create objects with multiple surfaces, allowing skills and magic that hit them to be reflected in multiple directions to cover a wide area. It could even allow enemies hiding behind things to be hit, which sounded very convenient. It had sounded like it might also hit allies, but he’d said that could be covered with careful calculations. I wasn’t going to be pulling moves like that off anytime soon. The best I could do was just move the mirrors around a bit, which came from my experience with Front Shield. 
Thinking of mirrors reminded me of that vassal weapon from Kizuna’s world. 
“Blast Prison!” In the same moment I shouted it, the prison created from Blast exploded apart. With a roar of pain and anger, Takt was sent flying by the blast. His retinue of women all screamed too. Some of them managed to recover from their confusion and raise their rifles at me. 
 
“Not yet! This doesn’t hurt . . . doesn’t even tickle. Nothing but a scratch,” Takt blustered. 
“Yeah, whatever you say,” I retorted. Such hollow pride . . . and even as I thought that, his women started to cast healing magic on him. I wondered if his pride would allow that. I guess he was too angry to worry about it. 
“You really don’t want your women to die? Then if I aim for them, all you’ll be able to do is defend,” I suggested. Takt paled and turned to look at the women around him. The women in turn looked at me and started trembling. 
I really felt like a bad guy in that moment. It felt really good. I’d never known before how great revenge could feel. 
As my weapon had been the shield up until now, I hadn’t been able to cause pain in my enemies directly. Who was it, I wondered, who said revenge didn’t achieve anything? 
My current feelings would suggest that, if the target of the revenge didn’t show any regret or intent to reform, it would be better to kill them. That was a dangerous path to tread, however. If I got too carried away, I was likely to get cursed again, so I decided to hold back. 
“I don’t mind doing that kind of evil,” I continued, “but I don’t want to be a killjoy either, so I won’t take any hostages today. You can thank me for that.” It might make me feel a bit better, but that was for later. 
That thought still painted me as quite the bad guy. 

In the next moment, some of his retinue—women who obviously couldn’t read the room—went and did something really stupid. 
 
“Don’t move! Twitch another muscle and this woman is dead!” I looked in the direction of the voice to see some of the women, clearly out of their minds . . . bring in a weakened “Raphtalia,” barely able to move, hands in cuffs. They had clearly brought her along because they thought she might be useful as a hostage. Now they thrust a gun at her and threatened to kill her if I moved. 
“Raphtalia” was gagged, making muffled noises but unable to speak. She was resisting, pinned down by some of the other women. 
“Seriously, I just said I didn’t want to be a killjoy and you go and pull this. Just how low can you get?” I despaired, unable to find any other way to put it. I looked at the women keeping “Raphtalia” hostage with disgust in my eyes, and Takt gave a smile as though he’d just taken the head of a demon. 
“Well done, women!” he crowed. I gave a sigh. 
“What do you mean ‘well done’? I literally just said I wasn’t going to be a killjoy and take hostages, and then you go and do it! What does that make you?” I said. Then I raised my hands, pretending to obey what they said, and gave a signal for everyone else to stop attacking and focus on just parrying. 
“Shut it! I don’t have to play by your rules! The one with the better strategy is the winner!” Takt retorted. 
“I’m not sure I’d call this a ‘strategy.’ I say it’s a cowardly act, ignoring all propriety. Hardly the act of a hero,” I replied. I believed that from the bottom of my heart. I knew that those in the right didn’t take hostages and then still try to stand above others. 

“She’s cute, so I had planned on taking some time to make her see my appeal, but I’ve changed my mind!” Takt exclaimed. He really seemed to believe he could have allured Raphtalia. If that kind of thing was going to work on her, I would have lost her during our troubles with Motoyasu. 

“I owe you for Ellie! Now you’ll feel the same pain!” he raged. He was clearly going to kill the hostage even if I did stop moving. What a total coward. 
“I’ve already felt it, you scum! That’s why I’m here taking revenge!” I replied. This was the guy who killed Atla! His woman died, did she? I was going to feel the same pain? “We’re already even for dead women, you hero of the trash heap! You need to take some responsibility for your crimes!” Sure, I’d just killed someone myself, but Takt was the one behind the death of Atla. I thought maybe we’d be able to understand each other, both being murderers . . . but that wasn’t going to happen now. If we could come to an understanding and he took a step back though, I would at least listen to what he had to say. Perhaps reduce the punishment levied upon him after this was all over. 
“Ten times this woman of yours wouldn’t be worth a single Ellie! You can’t call us equal!” Takt imbued power into his claws and unleashed a skill. “Wahnsinn Claw!” His target was the “Raphtalia” that the other women had all trussed up. And yet I just quietly watched the slow progress of the skill. 
“Raphtalia” continued her muffled protests, even as Takt’s flicker of light flew toward and passed right through her, sending her flying away. 

“I did it. I did it!” Takt cackled around his laughter. “I’ve killed your woman! She was a feisty one, I’ll give her that!” 
 
“This wouldn’t have happened if you just did what Master Takt said,” one of his retinue chimed in, laughing as well. 
“That’s right! It’s your fault!” said another. 
“Poor thing, the only one she has to blame is you!” said a third. All of them were standing around laughing and congratulating themselves at what Takt had done, even though we were still in the middle of the battle. 
“Boy. You guys really are nasty,” I said, shaking my head in amazement. Neither Takt nor any of his women had noticed that none of my allies looked the slightest bit panicked. 
“Huh?!” One of the retinue, the fox woman, had been standing there to protect the other women. She finally seemed to notice something. “What?” The fox woman swung her claws at one of the other members of the retinue. 
“Dafu!” came the cry. 
“Impossible! We caught her, I’m sure of it! She can’t possibly have escaped!” With a metallic clang, the targeted woman caught the claws of the fox woman . . . and then that target changed form. 
The person who appeared wasn’t who I’d been expecting. 
“You! It can’t be?!” the fox woman proclaimed. 
“I remembered something, eh. Remembered a foolish little fox who was so focused on tricking others she never considered that she was being tricked herself, eh.” As the now-revealed newcomer spoke, Shildina looked over with a start. This was the woman who had possessed her body, after all. 

The past Heavenly Emperor was standing there, as casually as all the world. 
 
“You continue to involve yourself in these futile power struggles, eh. I’m sad to see that your seal broke without you first repenting your deeds,” the past Heavenly Emperor said to the fox woman. She just burst into laughter. 
“I’ve found you! I’ve finally found you! You stinking raccoon! So this is where you’ve been hiding!” she cackled. For my part, at the point I cast Liberation Aura X on my allies, I had known pretty much where she was. 
“Raph!” said Raph-chan, who had been hidden up until that point. She now dashed toward the past Heavenly Emperor. The past Heavenly Emperor was really Raph-chan II, surely. But I was unsure of whether I had the wrong end of the stick or not. 
“I wouldn’t call what I was doing ‘hiding.’ Bringing an old warrior like me, someone long gone from this world, back to life and pressing me into service again . . . I’m half-amazed, half-disappointed. That said . . .” The past Heavenly Emperor raised her hammer. “Last time I chose to just seal you away, hoping you would learn your lesson, but this time I’m going to be sure and take your life.” 
“Face my rage at sealing me away! You will pay for all you have done! Die!” The fox woman headed straight for the past Heavenly Emperor. 
“Right! Back to the fighting, everyone! Finish off your own targets!” I made a slashing movement across my throat with my thumb. My party all nodded and started fighting again. 
“What?! So that woman I just killed—” Takt, stunned, looked toward the body of the woman he had thought was Raphtalia. The smoke parted to reveal what looked like a young girl, dressed in white, clearly deceased. 
 
It looked like the woman Rat had been competing with in her research. So she had been the unlucky one. 
“Tell me. How does it feel to have killed one of your own women?” I taunted. 
“Your cowardice—” S’yne started. 
“We shall ensure that is the end of your cowardly interference,” her familiar translated for her, and then S’yne pointed her scissors at the retinue of women. 
“This . . . can’t be . . .” Takt was really having a bad day. 
“Come on. Tell me! What does it feel like to have killed one of your own women?” I asked again, really leaning into the role of the bad guy. After all, he’d taken a hostage and then tried to kill her—no, actually killed her— telling those he thought to be her companions just to sit and watch, fully intending to break any promises he made to them. 
“You will pay!” His cry degenerated into a gargle of rage. 
“You killed her. How am I meant to pay for this? I’ll say it again. You killed her.” I shook my head in mock amazement. I wasn’t going to let him push responsibility for this onto me, not after he did the deed. He needed to check his targets more carefully. 
I couldn’t believe he really did not suspect anything when I seemed ready to just let the hostage die. 

“Right then. I’m going to take some hostages and then attack them myself. Just like you did,” I said. Then I activated Gleipnir Rope, a special effect of the Fenrir Rod. Chains appeared from the ground, which I selected to target the women. 

“Stop—” Takt started. 
“Hah. As if. I’m not like you,” I said, dropping the act, capturing Takt. He was still suffering from all that earlier damage from the look of it and I captured him easily. 
“I can’t . . . move . . .” he grunted. 
“I should hope not. You won’t get out of these chains easily,” I told him. The length of the effect of Gleipnir Rope was influenced by the magic of the user. Chains that were famous for being wrapped around a god-killing wolf in my world. They weren’t going to break easily. 
“Gah! You’ve forced my hand! See how you like this!” With a pained expression on his face, Takt brought out the shield that he had taken from me. 
Based on the shape of the shield, he was using the Shield of Wrath. I guess he was pretty pissed off with me. 
“I think you’d have better luck with the Sakura Stone of Destiny Shield,” I commented. That shield could nullify a wide variety of skills and attacks from heroes. 
“Bah! I’m not going to follow any advice from you! I can’t even change to it, anyway!” Takt spat a reply. Of course, the sakura stone of destiny was a pacifier’s shield. There was no way he’d be able to change to it without actually having the shield itself. 

“This one is far stronger anyway! I’m not paying any attention to your lies!” Takt retorted. I mean, the Shield of Wrath had been super powered up by the Demon Dragon, so it had pretty monstrous stats. It was true that, from a certain perspective, this was the one I wanted him to change to the least. 

I’d have to watch out for Blood Sacrifice and Iron Maiden. 
I wasn’t sure if the negative effects would be triggered, but if I could goad him into using them, it might give me an advantage. But no, it seemed safer to just stay quiet and keep on attacking. 
“Okay, I’m going to hold back on you. Be sure you block this, or it will go straight into the women behind you,” I cautioned him. Takt glanced at the women behind him, all too scared to be able to move, and then glared at me with eyes burning with resolve to protect them. 
That was it. That was the face I’d been wanting to see. That face, belonging to the one who had taken so many from me—including Atla, the queen, people from my village, from the coalition—now twisted in hatred directed at me. 
“Don’t waste your best glares on me yet. I’ve got plenty more pain coming your way,” I said. Having finished the charge, I unleashed the skill again. 
“Fenrir Force V!” This time I was ready for the kickback, and rather than focusing my life force too intensely, I unleashed just about the amount I thought he could take. A thick beam was unleashed from the tip of my staff directly at the constrained Takt. 
He grunted, but he was using the shield he’d taken from me. It was tough. The women behind Takt hadn’t taken any damage at all. But what about Takt himself, standing in front of them? He was certainly groaning loudly enough. 
 
“Ah, I forgot. This is the legendary Fenrir Rod. It has a special effect called Rebellion Against Heaven. Its effects are . . .” 
It had been the first time I used the staff in sparring with Ren and the others. I’d been holding back, so my attacks hadn’t done much damage to Fohl, but it had been different for Ren and the other heroes. They’d complained about the attacks being more painful than normal. 
That suggested to me that the effect of Rebellion Against Heaven was to increase attack power when a seven star weapon attacked a four holy weapon —although such a thing didn’t really seem possible from the laws of this world. Maybe it was intended as insurance, prior to the arrival of the pacifiers. I hadn’t seen a weapon with the same skill before. Perhaps the staff spirit was lending me power in order to fight effectively against the stolen shield. 
Meaning it might be something special, just for the time being. The Fenrir Rod itself had been called an “exception weapon.” If the point was to just take him out as quickly as possible, a Sakura Stone of Destiny Staff, or something like that, would have been faster. 
“I guess you decided to try a shield due to their high defense, but that one is just going to increase the damage you take,” I warned him. Of course, the shield itself did offer high defense, so for me it would probably have been okay. 
After about five seconds, I stopped the attack. It revealed Takt standing there, his entire body smoking, battered and beaten, breathing ragged, barely standing. The Fenrir Force beam had caused considerable damage to him. He couldn’t even speak, just barely groan. 
 
“Hey, don’t collapse,” I said. “I’m not satisfied yet, and I have to keep toying with you at least until Fohl gets here.” It was almost as though I was picking on him. Bullying him. And yet it also felt as though I could do whatever I wanted to him. 
Since the day we had lost Atla during the Phoenix battle, this was the exact moment I had been looking forward to. 
“P-protect Takt! Everyone!” shouted the commander of his women, snapping back to herself. A serious-looking female knight who could have been a palette swap for Eclair raised her rifle. Then the knight attacked S’yne in order to catch her attention. 
“Go! I’ll pin them down!” she shouted. 
“S’yne, you play with this one. Give her a little of what you taught me,” I ordered. 
“Okay. Bind Wire!” Nodding at my command, S’yne started to bind the female knight up in what looked like thread. The knight gave an annoyed grunt. 
“What’s this thread?! I can’t move! Gah!” That took care of one of them. As for the others . . . I wondered if that was that. 
Then I realized they had started incanting some ritual magic. 
They were giving some thought to their approach. I wouldn’t be able to stop ritual magic alone, no matter how hard I tried. Of course, we had also expected this development. 
 
It felt like a long time ago then, but after fighting Motoyasu for the first time, I had personally experienced the same thing we were going through right at that moment. Guys like Takt said they would fight fair and square, but as soon as they got into any kind of trouble, they would immediately employ every cowardly attack they could find. 
Which meant we had naturally planned for my own party to provide attacks and support. Takt had just been dumb enough to rise to my taunts; our entire strategy had been conceived around a small number of us fighting a larger number of them. Luckily Fohl and the others were fighting the more threatening among them, making things a lot easier for me. S’yne didn’t even have anything to do! Talk about the right people to have your back in a scrap. 
“Fire!” The women pointed their rifles at me and opened fire, gunshots ringing out. I quickly deployed the defensive strategy we had come up with. Lead shots flew toward me, traveling so fast they could almost be called instantaneous. These were rifle shots from enemies at level 250, after all. They were likely on par with the power of rifles from my own world. That said . . . it wasn’t like I’d seen a real gun back in my world. 
The women would be confident of hitting me—and yet their faces showed only concern, only worry for saving their ally. I had to wonder how they could make such faces themselves and yet not understand the feelings of others, but I also didn’t really care. In fact, I was about to trample their feelings into the ground. 
All of the bullets coming for me . . . hit Takt instead. 
He grunted in further pain, while his women dropped their weapons in shock. 
 
“W-what just happened?” they exclaimed, all stunned. 
“Seriously? You guys need to be nicer to each other,” I mocked, a grin spreading across my face. 
“Why did the bullets hit Takt?!” They didn’t have a clue. In fact, I had used a technique S’yne taught me to adjust the trajectory of the rifle shots and direct them all at Takt. 
“How’s that feel, Takt? How’d you like the taste of the lead fired by your own gaggle of level-250 women?” I really put the boot in. 
“H-how dare you! How dare you make us shoot Takt?!” they screamed. Incensed, the women started to hurl insults in my direction. Their nonsense just made me feel good. 
I really had changed. I found real enjoyment in moments like these. 
The old me, back at home, would have likely been pushed close to tears by this kind of treatment from a horde of women. I’d become stronger— maybe “hardened” was a better word for it—but it was tough to tell if that was a good or bad thing. 
“You’re ones to talk. Beating down your foes with sheer numbers, using every cowardly strategy in the book. You don’t have a leg to stand on!” I shot back. Snapped back to reality by my retort, the women fell silent. They’d likely finally realized that logic wasn’t on their side. 
“I’m kind at heart, so let me use some magic on poor little Takt. Drifa Heal.” I wasn’t going to waste a Liberation on him. Bolstered by my healing, Takt glared at me with increased intensity and he started to chew his lip. “I’m not done with you yet. See if you can withstand this.” Even as I taunted him, lightning crashed down from the sky toward me. It was the ritual magic Judgment. Once the casters hit level 250, they could use it even with numbers for cooperative magic. They had probably focused the power of the Judgment to ensure it wasn’t going to hit Takt. 
 
“Still haven’t learned your lesson,” I chided. With a sigh, I deployed my mirrors into the sky above me. 
“Stop—” Ah. It sounded like at least one person had worked it out. But it was too late. 
“Die! Just die!” The overeager others dropped the Judgment on me with a terrible rumble of thunder. I pushed my life energy into the mirrors and adjusted the angle of reflection. Just as I predicted, the reflection worked perfectly, and I was rewarded with a cry of pain from Takt. 
“Takt!?” the women shouted. 
“What are you doing?! This guy . . . it looks like he’s got the power to make all of our attacks hit Takt,” one of the gaggle explained. The others all looked in stunned amazement at the battered Takt. Some of them were even trying to run to him, being held back by the others. 
“Hmmm. How about that one? The taste of magic unleashed by your allies?” I quizzed him. I’d thought I was fighting Takt, but at some point, that had changed to me fighting his retinue. 
Takt had been using the shield when the attack hit, so he hadn’t taken much damage, but he still looked to be on his last leg. 
“You guys are basically killing him for me. You understand that, right? 
 
How stupid can you get?” I said. Then I glanced over at the past Heavenly Emperor. She and Raph-chan were caught up in an illusion battle with the fox woman. They were literally throwing everything they had at each other— unleashing fire, calling up water, twisting the very air around each other. The same things had happened during the fight in Siltvelt. This was a rematch for Raph-chan. 
“Raph!” she called. 
“Hah, clone magic? You think I can’t see through that?” the fox woman said. Raph-chan had turned into an identical copy of the past Heavenly Emperor and was standing at her side. Raphtalia and the past Heavenly Emperor looked a lot alike, meaning it was easy for Raph-chan to copy her. It also sounded like the past Heavenly Emperor had sealed the fox woman away in the past. 
Affinity really was important. 
Anyway, I needed to concentrate on my own battle. 
“Damn! You made all their attacks hit me!” Takt raged. 
“You demon!” his women said, continuing to call me unpleasant names. Demon, huh? It had been a while since I’d been called that one. 
“I’m fine with being called that. I’m the Shield Demon, after all. What’s so bad about making use of enemy attacks, anyway? You’re doing far worse than me, getting involved in what was meant to be a one-on-one battle. I still want to have my fun. I’ll heal him again.” I proceeded to cast healing magic on Takt. Both my magic and SP were getting pretty low. I took out a healing item, a rucolu fruit, and prepared to— 
 
“No you don’t!” One of Takt’s retinue suddenly appeared and made a grab for the fruit. She was dressed a bit like a ninja. I thought it might be a Faubrey Shadow. 
She grabbed it so hard she squished it in her fingers. Those things weren’t cheap. What a waste. 
Some of the juice splashed onto the face of the woman who had grabbed it. She gave a cry. I’d been told this was one of the raw ingredients for other alcoholic drinks. 
“Melrith!” one of the others shouted. 
“Ah, this stinks of alcohol! Ah!” Hah, the woman was already unsteady on her feet. This stuff was basically poison to anyone but me. On the Cal Mira islands, Motoyasu ate one, threw up straight away, and then still just dropped off to sleep. Potent stuff. 
“Don’t interrupt my healing magic,” I warned her, then kicked her in S’yne’s general direction. S’yne was quick to wrap her up in threads. I proceeded to take out another rucolu fruit and finally got to eat it. Takt looked at me with hatred blazing in his eyes, shaking his head. 
“You think I’m committing suicide, eating a rucolu fruit like this, don’t you? Sorry to say that’s not the case,” I told him. 
“So you’ve been given an ability,” he said. 
“What do you mean? Ability from who?” I asked. Had he received an ability from someone? The white-clad child-woman had been into homunculus research, and from what Rat had told me she could make physical modifications too. Maybe Takt thought Rat had performed some kind of modifications on me, then. 
 
The Shield Spirit had warned me that Takt was an assassin sent by the one behind the waves, however. I needed to try and get some details out of him concerning that side of our problems. 
“I was born like this,” I explained, hoping this could be a good opening. “It sounds like someone gave you your ability though. That’s the difference between us.” Now that my magic and SP were recovered, it was time to carry on. 
Huh? Takt’s glare was only getting stronger and stronger. I wanted to know what it was. He’d been given a special ability and so couldn’t forgive me for being born with one. He really did operate entirely on a sense of superiority. 
“We’ve had some unnecessary disturbances, but let’s get back to it,” I said. The charge had finished powering up, and I pointed it at Takt again. He couldn’t withstand another one of these, but he also had to know that if he moved some of his women were going to die. 
Takt desperately focused his power, concentrating intently on the shield. 
Heh, good luck with that. 
“Fenrir Force VI!” As a little bonus, I also prepared a Hengen Muso Technique Point of Focus and weaved it into the thick beam. 
“I-impossible!” Takt gasped around his groans of pain. “This hurts . . . even more than last time! What is this attack?!” I was hearing multiple impacts, as though Takt was being hit many times in succession. The Hengen Muso Technique Point of Focus looked like it worked well against the shield. 
 
With a final cry, Takt, unable to withstand the attack, was sent flying through the air, spinning like a top. That felt like enough of that. I could have wiped out the women behind him, but no need to go that far. 
Takt came down onto the ground with a crunch. His retinue all desperately screamed his name. None of them seemed to understand yet that they had no way out of this situation. With the support of his women, Takt still managed to climb back to his feet. His retinue started providing healing magic again. No one was giving up yet. 
“Come on, ladies. Just healing magic isn’t going to cut it. You need to handle his exhaustion too.” Stamina was important too. He was so beaten up he couldn’t take me right now even if he was awakened. 
“I’m not done yet. I can never forgive you,” Takt managed. 
“That’s my line. I’ve already decided that your death is going to be so horrible you’ll wish you’d never been born in this world. Not just me but all of Melromarc wants this,” I told him. After the death of their queen, the people of Melromarc saw this as their battle to avenge her. Killing the one who had caused her death went far beyond my own personal feelings. That was why I was just taking my time, enjoying putting him through the wringer without actually killing him. 
Atla, the queen, the people from my village. That was the bare minimum of those close to me whom I had lost. Those weren’t the only lives lost in the conflict though. 
Then there was Ren, Itsuki, and Motoyasu. After being defeated by the Spirit Tortoise and taken hostage by Kyo, they had been labeled as worthless. 
 
But they had learned from that defeat and made significant strides toward becoming better people. 

Takt was different. 
He underestimated the waves, killed heroes, and had almost caused the eradication of the coalition army. Then he had started a war to take over the world. If he had shown any kind of remorse, and although I didn’t like the idea, there might have been some room for leniency. But he had to pay for continuing to spread the fires of war. 
“I’m going . . . to kill you!” Takt proclaimed, lifting the shield on his arm. He was probably planning on unleashing a curse skill. It was too late for that though. 
I raised the staff high in one hand and gathered magic and SP . . . life force that had scattered in the vicinity. Then I activated Gleipnir Rope on Takt and bound him in place. 
“A skill that applies both Fenrir Force and Hengen Muso Style,” I said. The name of the skill appeared in my field of vision. Incredible. An amazing new application of Energy Blast. 
Magic started to concentrate into firefly points of light all around me and collect into my staff. It felt like a special attack ripped right from an anime. 
“Now, see if you can handle this!” I shouted the combo skill name from my field of vision. Annoyingly enough, I still had to hold back enough not to kill him. That was why I wasn’t weaving Point of Focus in this time. Sure, I could have literally eradicated him like that, but doing so wouldn’t be enough to satisfy me. 
 
“Blood Sacrifice!” Takt intoned. 
“Ragnarok . . . Blaster!” I shouted. It was a skill allowing for the concentrated deployment of Fenrir Force. It sure had taken a while to charge. That was why I hadn’t moved since Takt stood back up. I had also recovered my magic in order to fire off this very attack. 
Just as I had hoped, a beam so concentrated it couldn’t be compared at all to the normal Fenrir Force tore straight for Takt, instantly blowing away the Blood Sacrifice that was coming toward me. 
The scream he gave when it hit was like nothing in this world. Unable to withstand the attack, Takt was knocked by the Ragnarok Blaster clean up into the air. I’d been careful with the trajectory to make sure he didn’t hit any of the women. I could have let him crash into them, sure, but I wanted to keep the fun going for a while longer yet. 
The Ragnarok Blaster passed through his entire body and then carried on off into the sky, shaking the very air as it went. It even caught up to the Dragon Emperor that Gaelion and Ren were fighting in the sky above. The Dragon Emperor gave a roar of surprise and pain at the sudden attack. Once it passed, the charred Dragon Emperor was still in one piece, however. 
“Now!” Ren shouted. 
“Kwaa!” Gaelion agreed. Using the smaller dragon as a platform to launch himself, Ren leapt forward and slashed into the Dragon Emperor. 

“Phoenix Gale Blade!” Ren’s sword glittered red, creating a storm of flames and a bird of fire formed from pure energy. 
 
“Kwaa!” In the same moment, Gaelion charged in, breathing fire. It was like two separate birds of flame, both piercing through the Dragon Emperor. 
“A puny fragment and the weakling Sword Hero . . . are not enough to end me!” she screamed. I was impressed. That much of a beating still wasn’t a fatal attack. Not a bad performance. 
Thinking that, I turned my attention back to Takt as he plummeted from the sky and collapsed. 
“Hey! You still alive?” I called over. The guy looked like a piece of burnt trash. I hadn’t used a defense rating attack, so he shouldn’t be dead yet. I’d held back. He should at least still be breathing. 
Finally, he made a pathetic noise. 
“Phew,” I said as Takt clambered back to his feet. I even gave him a round of applause, really rubbing the salt in. He really should be considering retreat, having taken such a beating. Not that I was going to allow it. I had Gaelion, Filo, and Raph-chan here with me. Land, sea, or air, there could be no escape for him from us. Not to mention, he’d cast a barrier on himself that meant he couldn’t run away. It was like he was closed up in a cage of his own making. 
Of course, even if he took it down, I’d just put one on him myself. As for the curse skill . . . I’d let Raph-chan and the others handle that. 
“You think you can get away? I’m not done with you yet,” I taunted. I was getting bored of hitting this punching bag. 
 





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