Chapter Nine: Just to Make Sure
“The enemy is advancing at incredible speed. Fighting has already started in the port! A powerful enemy wielding an axe is going on a rampage!” the man reported. The port was where Kizuna’s house was located. They were making good time.
An enemy with an axe too . . . That immediately made me think of Armor.
“I know what I need to do,” Itsuki said quietly, ceasing to play.
“Okay, Itsuki. If Mald is there, we should go and stop him,” Rishia said, clearly planning to join him. They had a connection to the guy, after all. Armor was kind of like Itsuki’s version of Bitch.
“Enhance security around the dragon hourglass. We’re going into battle too!” L’Arc said. Under the king’s orders, we also prepared to march with Kizuna’s forces. Having the holy and vassal weapon heroes taking part in a war was not really a good look, but the enemy was already using such weapons themselves; we had no choice but to respond. If the enemy was just starting out in this direction, we might have had some leeway, but what we needed now was mobility. It was still a shame that the ship vassal weapon had yet to be recovered.
We had the mirror vassal weapon, however. It allowed us to move quickly to anywhere it looked like fighting was going to start, so that was something. We weren’t completely stuck. But I still needed a registered mirror to move to. If the enemy worked that out, they could start smashing mirrors though. There was also a limit on the number of mirrors I could register, so the skill was not without its drawbacks.
“What about in your territory, Demon Dragon?” I asked.
“I can’t tell. They are moving quickly. I sense a presence much like a holy or vassal weapon. I sense the same . . . wavelength, you might say,” the Demon Dragon explained.
“The timing is too perfect. This must be some kind of joint operation,” I said.
“It seems likely. They are idiots, which makes them hard to read. An idiot will always do the unexpected,” the Demon Dragon replied.
“Any issues with your land being invaded, Demon Dragon?” I asked. The Demon Dragon’s lands had been without leadership until recently. They were also the site of a raging struggle for power, leaving little there worthy of capture. This might be the moment to take the land, but I could see little value in doing so—at least from our recent visit.
“Not really. I am wondering why they’re interested in my territory though,” the Demon Dragon mused. I wouldn’t be pleased if we had cast it aside, just for it to actually be important. It was trash for us, but treasure for them.
“Can you tell which hero it is? It’s not the harpoon guy, is it?” I asked.
“Kiddo, do you think the harpoon guy isn’t here? Did you hear the report?” L’Arc said.
“But they also have all sorts of strange techniques and unknown vassal weapons. They might even just use a double. Not to mention the ship vassal weapon is still missing,” I reminded everyone. That fox woman during the Takt trouble was a good example of what I was talking about. Of course, if Raphtalia could use magic, then we could have done the same thing . . . and Raph-chan too.
“That’s true,” Ethnobalt chipped in with confidence. “Nothing can match the ship for getting around.” Whether you were advancing or needed to fall back fast, that ship had the mobility to make it happen. When I thought about it from the other side, if our enemies had the ship, maybe we should have just assumed we would always start on our back foot.
“We don’t know what the enemy wants, so we need to start by confirming that. I can join you instantly using a mirror. So, L’Arc, you take the others and go on ahead. If anything happens, I’ll get S’yne . . .” I was about to tell her to report to L’Arc, but she grabbed my sleeve and tugged on it hard, a stern look of disapproval on her face. She was right—if they had laid a trap, or were interfering with our communications, we might not be able to move around instantly. She herself had been prevented from getting to us on multiple occasions, so I could understand the look on her face.
“I guess we don’t have a choice,” I said. I’d wanted to entrust this to S’yne, as she was the least tied down of all of us, but I also couldn’t ignore the look on her face. Due to the location, we also couldn’t use Rishia’s Portal Skill to keep watch. The magical fields in the Demon Dragon’s castle cut out the use of pretty much all teleportation skills anyway. I could use a mirror, but other than that, our only other option was the dragon hourglass or more specialized means.
“Raph-chan,” I said.
“Raph?” she asked.
“You can sense what is happening to us, at least a little bit, can’t you?” I asked.
“Raph!” she confirmed excitedly, raising one paw as though giving a salute.
“Then we’ll entrust this task to you. If L’Arc and his party get into trouble, let us know,” I told her.
“Raph!” she responded, climbing quickly onto L’Arc’s shoulder and waving at me.
“Naofumi, are you going to the Demon Dragon’s castle?” Kizuna asked.
“Just to make sure everything is fine. I’ll need to take the Demon Dragon, Raphtalia, Filo, and S’yne with me. Anyone else want to come?” I asked.
“We’ll tag along!” Sadeena said.
“Yep, count us in,” Shildina confirmed.
“I wish to protect this place where I have so many memories with everyone, so I will accompany L’Arc,” Ethnobalt declared, standing next to them with his book in hand. Kizuna’s house was in the port. None of them would want that to be destroyed. It had already taken some damage during the attack from the guy who stole L’Arc’s scythe.
“You’re just going to make sure everything is alright, right? Then the battle here is more important,” Tsugumi said, Yomogi nodding. So they were staying here too—meaning that most of our forces would be heading directly to the port. The old Hengen Muso lady would be sortieing with the old man.
“That leaves just you pair, Kizuna and Glass,” I said. They both remained silent. Kizuna didn’t seem sure which she should choose. She looked at Glass and then at me.
“I’m more concerned about the Demon Dragon’s side, seeing as we don’t know what’s happening there,” she finally said.
“Just to make sure, like I said,” I told her. It didn’t look like I had a registered mirror right where any of the fighting was happening, but we could still get back here pretty quickly.
“If you are just going to quickly check things out, we’ll go with you. All I can do in open warfare is support the rear anyway,” Kizuna concluded.
“I concur,” Glass said. “We don’t know what’s happening in the Demon Dragon’s territory, but it won’t take too long if we are just going to stop by.” It sounded like they had chosen the mysterious movements of our enemies over protecting their cherished memories—maybe thanks to nothing more than a hero’s hunch.
“Time to move out,” I said. I activated my movement skill toward the mirror, opening a direct passage to the port.
“Okay! Time to settle this!” L’Arc shouted.
“I’ll use this accessory to make them change sides!” Therese said, and then their entire party set off for the port town. After they had gone, I used the mirror again to connect to a mirror in the Demon Dragon’s territory.
“Time for us to move too!” I said.
“Okay! Let’s get this over with and catch up with the others,” Kizuna replied. We headed into the mirror.
We emerged from a mirror hanging in the throne room of the Demon Dragon’s castle and started looking around.
“So? We should be close. Anything?” I asked the Demon Dragon.
“Yes. They are near. They’ve made it right up to the gates. If we run, we can encounter them in the courtyard. However, I’m still not sure exactly what I’m feeling . . .” the Demon Dragon trailed off.
“Then we just have to go and take a look,” I replied. The Demon Dragon did just that, starting to incant some magic as she flew off ahead of us. We hurried after her and quickly made it out into the garden. The castle was basically a ruin, after all. There was little impeding the view.
That was where we finally discovered the one who had invaded the Demon Dragon’s territory. The one we had come here to find was there.
“Well, well, well.”
That voice already gave the game away.
“?!” S’yne gripped her scissors tight, waves of murderous rage rolling off her. I understood why. I was feeling pretty vicious myself as I raised my mirror and prepared for battle. S’yne’s sister was bad enough, but—
“You really are such a pain in my ass!” That was the moment that Bitch gradually descended down on a flying ship toward the ground. She had a sharp-eyed guy holding a harpoon and a bunch of other goons with her.
“Well, well, well. It seems we didn’t divide them up as well as you hoped. Just like I said. These are the lands that the dragon and Iwatani rule. You’ll never get the jump on them here, and it was foolish to try,” S’yne’s sister said.
“Shut up! This is hardly the time for such comments!” Bitch turned to the guy with the harpoon and purred like a cat. “Right? I am your ally, now and always!” As I suspected, she had him under her thumb.
“That’s right, that’s right! Well said, Lady Malty! There’s no reason for you to pay attention to that cold old trout!” This came from another random girl—a new cheerleader for Bitch, seemingly. I had to wonder where she found these women. It was like she had an infinite supply somewhere. Woman B II.
Bitch gave a giggle, anyway. She seemed to be in a good mood. I guessed the previous Woman B had been sent into a battle that killed her after failing to win favor with Bitch.
That didn’t matter now anyway. What I really couldn’t tell was why the harpoon guy seemed to be angry with us.
“Whatever. We just have to wipe these guys out, no matter what, don’t we? As quickly as we can!” the harpoon guy said.
“You’re going to have a nasty surprise if you think this will be that easy,” I retorted. There was something off about the guy, like he was a feral animal in a corner. He had a face like Takt when his main girl was killed—or Motoyasu when he first found out Raphtalia was a slave. He certainly looked ready to fight.
I almost didn’t want to ask. It wasn’t going to be a thrilling backstory, not from what we had experienced so far. The best course of action was to trigger another exposition dump from S’yne’s loudmouthed sister. I stared at her intently, silently giving her the signal, and she eventually sighed and started to talk.
“The reason why I rushed over here is because one of the allies of the Harpoon Hero is about to expire, even as we speak, thanks to the Demon Dragon,” S’yne’s sister explained.
“You claim this is my fault?” the Demon Dragon responded, puzzled at her name coming up. I wondered if the dragon really knew what was going on. A few moments later, an evil smile spread across her face (so she did know what was going on) and she started to talk.
“I see. Long ago, I scattered a selection of carefully crafted cursed items across the world. Now you want to wipe us out in order to stop one of those curses,” the Demon Dragon said. I presumed these would be like the cursed items or traps you found in dungeons in a video game. It made sense that in a real setting some kind of “demon king” creature would be needed to make stuff like that.
“You really do have some awful hobbies,” I told her.
“Curiosity killed . . . well, pretty much everybody. I don’t care about any human dumb enough to die by one of my trinkets,” the Demon Dragon replied. She really did have a philosophy for life that was never going to see eye to eye with mine. It was almost refreshing how little chance we had to get along. I could definitely understand why Kizuna and the others still held a grudge. “You can’t even break a curse of that level though? I thought you had some real power behind you,” the Demon Dragon bemoaned.
“That’s not what this is!” the harpoon vassal weapon holder shouted. It seemed that wasn’t the issue after all. But thankfully he continued without any more guessing games. “Kuflika is about to die, all thanks to you! All thanks to you!” The harpoon vassal weapon holder pointed at the Demon Dragon and then threw his harpoon with all his might, seizing the initiative with a preemptive attack.
“Formation One: Glass Shield!” I shouted, placing a glass shield to stop the harpoon. The glass shattered on impact. The harpoon quickly returned to the user’s hand, while S’yne’s sister knocked down the attacking fragments of flying glass.
“Kuflika?” I asked. Who the hell was that? Even though I was terrible with names, I was pretty sure I had heard this one recently.
“I’ve found Kuflika’s magic! It’s in her! Over there!” one of the women in the harpoon guy’s retinue shouted.
“What?!” The harpoon guy turned his deadly intent toward Filo.
“Huh? Filo?” I said. She didn’t seem to have any idea why she was being targeted either.
“Kuflika is the name of the monster who was kicked out of the Four Heavenly Kings by the Demon Dragon yesterday,” Raphtalia reminded me, seeing the puzzled look on my own face.
“Oh, of course,” I said. “Kuflika of the Wind.” The one that was removed as a heavenly king for not answering the Demon Dragon’s call.
“Well, I can’t say I expected this,” the Demon Dragon said, finally putting it together. “You’ve come all this way for the sake of the former heavenly king of the wind, Kuflika? Good for you,” she mocked, flapping her wings and floating idly in the air.
“So now you know,” S’yne’s sister said. “Kuflika just collapsed yesterday. As we searched for the cause, it turns out the very magic required for her continued existence has been cut off. The only possible explanation is a loss of her power as one of the Four Heavenly Kings.” We understood why they were here now, but it didn’t change the fact this Kuflika was just a dumb idiot. She had to have some idea of what the Demon Dragon would do if she ignored the summons. So why did she ignore it?
“I’ve come to take back everything for Kuflika!” the harpoon guy shouted. Now fully in possession of the facts, the Demon Dragon gave a deep sigh . . . almost sounding mournful.
“You poor fools. That power is my magic. It’s been passed down across the generations to each of the Four Heavenly Kings and accumulated along the way!” the Demon Dragon raged.
“So what! That power belongs to Kuflika! It isn’t yours!” came the reply.
“Becoming one of my Four Heavenly Kings means being completely loyal to me. I have the right to bestow my own property upon anyone I please, which makes that power mine, not Kuflika’s. You need to get your facts straight,” the Demon Dragon replied to the harpoon guy, sounding thoroughly annoyed that any of this was necessary. It seemed to me this was like punishing a traitor, just to be attacked by the friends of that traitor for having rightfully punished them. “Is it not justice that the two-faced are punished? Are there none among you who command monsters? And if those monsters disobey your orders, do you not punish them? That’s all this is.”
“Silence, fiend! Kuflika is about to die all because of an awful creature like you! I’ll never accept this!” the harpoon guy fired back. He sounded like the protagonist of a very different story from the one I was living in. I’d lost count of the number of times I’d faced opponents shouting this kind of rhetoric. We always ended up being treated like the bad guys by them. It made me sick.
“That’s right! I’m not accepting this either!” Bitch said, finding—as always—the most annoying thing possible to say. Her eyes were laughing. She had no real sympathy for this guy or the plight of his friend. The Demon Dragon just laughed.
“I don’t need you to accept anything. What were you trying to do here, anyway, in my absence?” The Demon Dragon looked over at S’yne’s sister, likely presuming she would provide a better answer.
“Let me break it down for you,” S’yne’s sister started but then threw out an orb much like the one she had used the last time we fought.
“Ooh . . . I’ve been called for . . . gyah-gyah!” From the orb appeared a creature that looked like a big, purple Demon Dragon. It had the same kind of device around its chest as the artificial behemoth we had faced during our last encounter. Its wings also had a bit of a mechanical look to them. The design was like something from a monster-raising game set in a virtual world that I’d played once. If I had to give the thing a name, “metal magic dragon” sounded good.
“I am the true Demon Dragon. Gyah-gyah,” the metal magic dragon said. Another abomination, and this time it could talk. They were further advancing their technology, clearly. We were always getting stronger, so it made sense that our enemies would too, but I kind of wished they would stop it.
“Just another boon from our proprietary artificial monster plan. This one is very different from the prototype you fought last time, of course,” S’yne’s sister said. This was a further development, then—or maybe the final form—of the artificial behemoth that we fought previously. It was a man-made monster with a holy weapon inside it. That would suggest that this one probably had a holy weapon somewhere inside it too. I hated to give our enemies any credit, but they had stumbled onto something potent here. It might even be worth telling Rat about, the woman who researched monsters in my own territory. Although she was unlikely to care about simply replicating the work of others, it would be smart to get her to try and copy it.
“If our ally, this new Demon Dragon, inherits this land, it can return Kuflika’s powers! That’s why you have to die! This will be the final battle!” the harpoon guy shouted. He was clearly all messed up in the head. It also wasn’t the first time I’d heard this “final battle” crap. I wished this would be the final battle.
“The Dragon Emperor fragment that the Harpoon Hero’s friend had . . . is that what you call them? We combined that with the fragments we had collected from other regions and made this,” S’yne’s sister told us.
“I will do whatever it takes to become strong—even take advantage of human technology to obtain spirit power, like this. The coming of a new age is foretold! Gyah-gyah!” The metal magic dragon started to talk again in a tone sounding very much like the Demon Dragon. Then it cast some magic on itself, turning into a mechanical-looking girl with steel wings. She moved over to the harpoon guy and started to purr, taunting the Demon Dragon. I’d seen this same kind of act with Takt’s Dragon Emperor.
“Pathetic. I am ashamed I ever thought your presence feels anything like mine. Using the fragments that I gave Kuflika and her underlings for this kind of travesty? I am about to lose my mind with anger,” the Demon Dragon retorted. It sounded like she had put various ploys in place to revive herself. We probably should have been all over that. It would make sense for the Four Heavenly Kings to have Demon Dragon fragments. We’d even thought that the harpoon vassal weapon holder was doing something with Demon Dragon fragments too!
The Demon Dragon was emitting a black aura, incensed at the attitude of the metal magic dragon. At the same time, the metal magic dragon was glaring down the dragon-form Demon Dragon.
“Siding with these infidels who would profane the holy weapons. There are no depths to your foolishness,” the Demon Dragon spat.
“Can you afford to pick and choose how you get stronger?” the metal magic dragon fired back. “Maybe you can—it would explain why you got yourself killed. The time has come to accept this new age, gyah-gyah.”
“Silence your foul mouth,” the Demon Dragon replied. “For you to speak of me in this way . . . even that other petty Dragon Emperor would see how foolish you are being.” It sounded like she was talking about Gaelion. This whole thing was actually similar to Gaelion’s previous battle, I realized. He had fought Takt’s Dragon Emperor with a significant lack of cores when compared to his opponent. Kizuna and her allies still held most of the Demon Dragon’s cores at the moment. And now this dragon was facing an opponent created from the Demon Dragon fragments obtained from Kuflika.
“You all love to talk so much, don’t you?” Bitch opined. “Can we please see some action already?”
“You are the ones who love to lie so much!” I retorted.
“What was that?! How dare you speak to Lady Malty like that!” Woman B II jumped immediately to Bitch’s defense. I just wanted to slap her and tell her to stay out of this. This was all such a pain. I decided to try and just ignore them.
“We’ll crush your cowardly invasion!” I shouted. I certainly hadn’t expected enemies to show up like this. Expect the unexpected, so they say. But this also didn’t appear to be a planned move on their part. They had just used whatever means they had at hand to rush over here.
“Boo! If we lose, I’m not sure I’ll like what happens to me!” Filo said.
“Tell me about it. You’ll get the short end of the stick for sure,” I confirmed. Filo was taking the power from one of their allies, after all. I wasn’t planning on losing—we weren’t going to lose—but if we did, Filo would end up like Kuflika was now.
This world continued to cause trouble for Filo.
“Oh my. I have no idea what is going to happen next, Shildina,” Sadeena said.
“Me neither.” The killer whale sisters probably weren’t keeping up with what was going on, but they both stood ready to fight. I needed to give Kizuna and Glass a little more of a kick though—really make sure negotiations completely fell apart.
I knew what this guy would be thinking, and there was something I’d wanted to try for a while now.
“Let’s negotiate. If you truly care for this Kuflika, release the harpoon vassal weapon and end your alliance with these other forces. Then we will guarantee the life of Kuflika,” I told him.
“Like I would believe the word of scum like you!” he retorted, sounding very much like Motoyasu once had—and giving exactly the answer I was expecting.
“Scum, you say? And are you having fun playing at hero, Mr. Resurrected?” I jibed. That got a rise from the harpoon guy, confusion and hesitation rushing into his eyes. These guys had no poker face. Hit them with their most vital secrets and they showed you everything. “Looks like I’m right about you. Sorry, but you don’t get to turn this world into your toy box,” I told him.
“Shut up! This will be all settled once we win! If you’re strong, you can do whatever you like!” he raged back. There it was. The classic one-sided survival-of-the-fittest thing. Once we kicked his ass he was still going to complain, you could be sure of that.
I had no more time to give them, anyway. Trying to talk things through with them had never worked before, and it would just be so much easier to kill them here. I knew that was a dangerous thought to have, but that didn’t stop me from having it. There were some conflicts in the world that couldn’t be solved by talking.
“Oh, Kuflika, you poor creature.” The Demon Dragon laughed mockingly. “It seems the one you have sworn your new loyalty to isn’t willing to give up anything to save you at all.”
“Silence! Demon Dragon of evil!” the harpoon guy retorted. But from the look on his face, I guessed that one might have hit a nerve.
“Sweet Naofumi, there’s someone over there holding a strange-looking ofuda,” Shildina reported. We had the harpoon vassal weapon holder, Bitch, and S’yne’s sister . . . and now someone holding what looked like a jet-black ofuda stood in front of the ship vassal weapon. “An ofuda,” I almost exclaimed! Not another holy weapon? They had committed a lot to this battle.
The one holding the ofuda was a handsome-looking young man. Not the kind of person you really saw around me. Maybe like L’Arc, but younger—or Motoyasu when he was in high school.
“This is where I stake my claim! For the sake of the debt I owe!” the ofuda guy shouted.
“Yes, that’s right,” S’yne’s sister told him. “You do your best, please.”
“I will! I shall repay my debt to the great one by defeating these foes in battle!” the youth responded. He seemed like a pretty innocent kid . . . Maybe we could get through to him, at least. “We shall take the women alive, of course. They are all high quality . . . What perfect offerings they will make.” Okay, so I spoke too soon. He was looking at Kizuna with an evil leer on his face. Forget this guy too, then. He was clearly lost in blind devotion to someone on the other side. There was nothing more difficult than convincing someone to change their ways when they already knew they were doing evil stuff.
“What about L’Arc and the others?” I asked.
“Well, well, well, I did want to focus on them, but here we are. We sent plenty for them to play with, anyway. After that debacle last time, I ordered those who can’t play well with others to go cause chaos elsewhere,” S’yne’s sister explained. It sounded like she was talking about Armor. Bitch was still here though, which seemed like an oversight to me. “We’ve deployed a monster carrying a holy weapon over there too, along with vassal weapon holders from other worlds,” S’yne’s sister continued. I swore under my breath. They weren’t holding anything back this time. They might have rushed into this, but they were bringing out all their big guns.
“Can Raph-chan make it over?” I wondered out loud. I thought about C’mon Raph, and a cross appeared over the Raph-chan icon. It was like she could come but couldn’t right then. L’Arc and Itsuki were likely facing a tough battle too.
“You seem to be getting quite full of yourselves for beating some street performer last time,” Bitch said. “I’ve got something that will stop you dead today!” She displayed what looked like a whip. She looked like a stuck-up little child showing off her favorite toy. I’d seen that whip before! It was the one Takt had used. They even had the whip seven star weapon! And they’d given it to Bitch? Pearls before swine!
This was likely the reason she had been laughing so much, anyway. I couldn’t escape the feeling that we were about to get steamrolled.
“Seeing as we are fighting enemies who can nullify or even reflect magic, we thought she could use a little more oomph,” S’yne’s sister explained helpfully. But she didn’t look happy about the decision. A seven star weapon was wasted on Bitch, surely. All she did was hang back and snipe from behind the real action, just like before, but now with a whip.
“They aren’t holding anything back this time. We need to finish this quickly, then,” the Demon Dragon said, floating in front of us with her arms crossed, then looking at me.
“Hah. Poor fool. I have a holy weapon in my body, which has been enhanced by almost all of the power-up methods known to this world. Do you really think you can defeat that? Gyah-gyah!” the metal magic dragon ranted, sounding like some insane ruler. That was some nasty new information to be receiving at this juncture too. They had all the power-up methods of the holy weapons and likely enhancements from six vassal weapons too. We didn’t know if Miyaji had told them about the musical instrument’s power-up method, but it was safe to presume they had that one too.
Meanwhile, we had one holy weapon and seven vassal weapons. If we factored in the enhancement rate of the holy weapons as a multiplier of three, they had eighteen and we had ten. The issue would be how to cover that gap of eight points.
It felt like too big of a gap, honestly speaking. I wasn’t really basing my enhancement multiplier on anything other than a hunch there, so the vassal weapons might do better than that . . . but I was also thinking that retreat might be one option. If we considered that all the weapons that S’yne’s sister held had their power-up methods implemented, that only opened the gap further. Unless we could fill that gap with powerful support magic, there seemed to be no way to win this battle.
“Hah. Poor fool! That’s my line. Thinking you can win like this . . . I will show you what a true hunger for power looks like!” Maybe the Demon Dragon had some kind of a plan, because she wasn’t backing down a step. “Listen to the voices of the holy weapon and know the suffering of the vassal weapons. You cannot hear the pain of the spirits? You are unfit to call yourself a dragon. Return to me and become part of a true dragon again.”
“That’s my line, gyah-gyah!” the metal magic dragon retorted.
“For Kuflika! We will defeat you!” the harpoon vassal weapon holder shouted at the Demon Dragon and Filo, with his allies all joining in. Those two were their primary targets here.
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