Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari (LN) - Volume 9 - Chapter 5

Chapter Five: Together, With Conditions

“Let’s head to the castle for now.”
“Let’s lock her up, so we have guards watching her.”
I had a feeling her stats were high enough to break out of a jail cell if she wasn’t watched. In the last world, they would reset your level when you were thrown in jail. From what I could tell, that wasn’t the case in this world.
“We can torture her for information after we get to the castle.”
“You’re really stuck on that, aren’t you? But I guess you’re right.”
“Well, we have a war to win here, don’t we? This girl came after us wielding an invention created by the very enemy we are trying to defeat. This is our best chance to find out what we are up against, isn’t it?”
“I’ll bite my own tongue off before I say anything to you!” Yomogi shouted, and tried to bite through her tongue.
“Zweite Heal.” I immediately touched her face and healed her.
“You’d prevent me from hurting myself? You bastard!”
“Can we gag her for now?”
“But I—maghfm!” I stuffed a ball of cloth into her mouth to keep her from trying to bite her tongue again. Then I realized it had been a dirty dust cloth. The torture was starting early. Oh well.
Yomogi squirmed uncomfortably.
“Good thing we have healing spells,” Kizuna said. She hadn’t noticed that I used a dirty cloth. Raphtalia and Glass noticed though, and they both were just about to mention it . . .
 
“Alright.”
Just then reinforcements from the castle arrived.
“Ms. Kizuna! Ms. Glass! The hero from another world! Master L’Arc has sent us to request your assistance!”
“What happened?”
“Advance enemy troops are attacking the castle and they are surprisingly strong. L’Arc is unable to hold them off on his own!”
They must have been assassins Kyo sent. He was coming after all of us. He planned all these attacks out in advance. He must have been serious about trying to kill us. I looked over at Yomogi—she looked shocked. Ha!
She came charging after us like a wild boar—hadn’t she known that Kyo had other plans in the works? Kyo had been right to keep it from her. She seemed like the sort of person to run her mouth. He was like a yakuza boss, probably treating his assassins as disposable.
“We better hurry!”
“Yeah . . . But something about this bothers me . . .”
Glass nodded along with me, “I know what you mean. We had best proceed with caution. Something tells me that Kyo has other plans we don’t know about.”
Kyo was smart. He would have thought long and hard about a plan to kill us. Think! What sort of attack would he expect to be effective against us?
If I were Kyo I’d try to use the technology available to me in the country that I had taken control over. This is the same man that invented things that took control of the Spirit Tortoise. His ambition was a forced to be reckoned with—no doubt his actual plans would outstrip whatever I came up with. I was just guessing, but I thought he’d try to do something to disrupt us, to keep us distracted and confused.
 
If there was one thing I’d learned since coming to this world, it was that the people here were always coming up with inventions to overcome their limitations.
“We’re going to the castle no matter what, right?”
“Yeah.”
“And we’d normally use Portal Shield, or Kizuna’s return transcript skill, right?”
“Yeah.”
I tried to use Portal Shield to teleport to the castle, only to find that something was interfering with it. The skill failed.
“Something is messing with my Portal Shield skill. Better assume that Kyo has a deeper plan than it seems.”
“How are we going to get there in time !? We need to hurry!” Kizuna said, flustered.
Glass tried to calm her down, “Relax. How can we be sure that this isn’t part of his plan?”
“We can’t. But we can’t dillydally either!”
“Kizuna, Glass. Calm down and think. All the countries that Kyo has allied with had vassal weapons, didn’t they?”
Raphtalia had taken the katana vassal weapon from the country that
 
owned it, which had robbed that country of its power. But, the country with the mirror vassal weapon had fallen under Kyo’s control. Was he after the technology in those countries? If so . . .
“What if they are after the dragon hourglasses?”
“Huh?”
“Kizuna, I know you remember what we saw. That guy that was after Raphtalia—hadn’t he invented some way to replicate the dragon hourglass’s teleport ability? What if they are using that to attack us?”
I don’t know how it worked, but they had found some way to replicate the Return Dragon Vein teleport ability. They might have been using it to attack the castle.
The hourglasses were placed in important spots in the national capitals. If they could use this new technology to send as many soldiers as they wanted straight into the heart of a city, then the possibility for destruction was immense. They wouldn’t have to defend themselves on the journey here, so they could dedicate all of their resources to the attack itself.
Granted, I didn’t know much about how wars worked when the soldiers had levels and status magic. But if they could teleport as many soldiers as they wanted past our defenses, then they’d eventually overpower us, no matter how high-leveled we were—the battle might already be over for all I knew.
This was all hypothetical at this point, but I couldn’t deny the possibility that Kyo already had access to the technology that would make it all possible.
“Kizuna, what do you need to use Return Dragon Vein?”
 
“You need to have visited and registered the hourglass you want to warp to, and you need to be at an hourglass to use it.”
“To replicate it you’d need special materials, and you’d need a certain amount of power to make it work.”
“We thought of that. The security has been strengthened on that account.”
Of course, Glass had thought of that. She wasn’t stupid.
The hourglasses in other countries were all closed to the public. Guards would only allow holy heroes or vassal weapon holders to approach.
“If they’ve broken through the defenses and managed to register the hourglass, we’re in serious trouble . . . it might have already happened!”
“Jewel people have set up a special system to prevent any non-specified persons from teleporting in using the dragon hourglass.”
So that’s how they prevented us from using Return Transcript.
“Whatever the case, I’m guessing the attack on the castle is a diversion. Their real goal must be the hourglass. If L’Arc is busy fighting them off at the castle, the hourglass might not be watched as closely as it should be.”
“Let’s use Return Transcript to warp to the hourglass and check it out,” Kizuna suggested.
“Good idea,” I agreed. “What about her?”
I looked over at Yomogi, who was sitting quietly with an overjoyed look on her face.

“Are you coming with us? If you get lucky, you might even find a chance to escape!”
 
She didn’t enjoy being toyed with. She leaned forward and struggled against her ropes.
“We don’t want her biting through her tongue before we can get information out of her.”
“True. But, in order to include her in the teleport, I have to invite her into our party. What a pain. Why don’t we just leave her with the soldiers here?”
“I guess so.”
But, I sent her a party invitation anyway, just for the heck of it.
Huh? She accepted?
Well, I certainly wasn’t going to bring her with us, so I immediately kicked her out of the party. Then she whined through her gag and started kicking and squirming.
“What’s going on over there?”
“Nothing? I sent her an invite and she accepted, so I went ahead and kicked her out of the party.”
“If you want to keep her around, we could just bring her with us.”
“Are you serious? She just tried to kill us. You saw that right? Why would we bring her with us?”
“I know that, but . . .”
“Mugh! Mugguh!”
“I wonder what she’s trying to say. What should we do?”

I guess it was worth hearing her out. She couldn’t speak through that dirty old rag.
 
If she tried to bite through her tongue, or to cast a spell, I could always just jam it back in.
I pulled out the rag, and immediately, she stuck her tongue out at me and glared with spite.
“What? If you’ve got something to say then you better spit it out now.”
“What’s going on ?! ”
“Who knows? It sure sounds like you’re not the only assassin that Kyo sent out tonight.”
“That can’t be! I was the only one involved with this!”
“I guess he doesn’t trust you to get the job done. Either that, or he used you as a distraction.”
That sword she’d had would have exploded and taken her out with it. That might have been his plan from the beginning.
“Let me find out what’s going on!”
“Ha! Do you understand the situation you’re in?”
She tried to kill us in the middle of the night, and now she thought I’d just take her with us so she could satisfy her curiosity?
And yet, she seemed to say everything on her mind, which was a sort of honesty. She was serious too.
“Kyo wouldn’t do that! I know he sometimes has contradictory ideas, but he saves a lot of people! He’s a good person!”
“We must not be talking about the same guy.”
She really glorified Kyo in her head—kind of like what Raphtalia did when she thought about me. I wanted to be the sort of parent that she thought I was.
 
But Kyo wasn’t like that. I remembered how angry he got when Rishia lectured him. I was pretty sure that he wasn’t the sort of person that Yomogi seemed to think he was.
“What should we do, Mr. Naofumi?”
“Hm . . .”
“If she’ll listen to us, then we might be able to give her a little freedom, no?”
“I guess. And if she tries anything, we’ll just kill her.”
“Ahh . . . Even though I lost the battle, I cannot believe I must suffer through this. I suppose I will have to endure this punishment.”
Seriously, who did this girl think she was?
We didn’t have to do anything at all for her. Didn’t she understand that?
“She thinks that we’re wrong about Kyo, and that he’ll come rescue her before she’s executed.”
“You can read my mind ?! I didn’t realize you had such powers!”
My god she was simple. Even if I had that ability, I wouldn’t have use it to read hers.
“Then let’s make a deal. We’ll take you with us, so you can find out what’s going on. Then when you find out that things aren’t as you wished, you tell us what you know. Deal?”
“Very well. I am a warrior, and I keep my promises.”
She certainly was forthcoming. She didn’t understand the predicament she was in at all, but she couldn’t resist making promises and swearing to keep them.
 
“Kizuna, Glass, if she tries anything, don’t hesitate to kill her. I’m not feeling merciful.”
“I know.”
“Your name’s Yomogi, right? When you discover the truth, don’t you dare try to escape from it. And don’t think that you’ll get away. If you do, we’ll torture you for information.”
“I wouldn’t!”
She probably wouldn’t. She was obsessed with honor—she lived in a fairytale.
If she decided to turn on us it could be trouble. If only I could have used the slave sealing magic from the last world!
“Mr. Naofumi! Please don’t look at Rishia that way,” Raphtalia scolded me.
How couldn’t I? She was the only one I could still use the slave spell on.
“I bet you were thinking what a help the slave spell would be in this situation.”
She read me like a book. But it really would have been helpful.
“Oh yeah, you said something about that before. So . . .” Kizuna said, running to grab a ofuda from the partially destroyed storeroom, “You can use this control ofuda. I never thought I’d use it, but here we are.”
“Kizuna, would you really . . . ? ”
“Don’t we need it to ensure that Yomogi keeps her end of the bargain?”
Yomogi looked at the ofuda in Kizuna’s hand and nodded.
 
“I understand. If that will help you to trust our agreement, I will submit to it.”
Huh? That was convenient.
It must have been like the ofuda that had been stuck on Filo back where we found her.
“What is that thing?”
“It’s an ofuda that uses magic to control people. They have a bad reputation. You’ve probably seen them before in . . . Chinese zombie movies?”
Ah . . . those zombies with the ofuda hanging down off of their face or hat. Right.
“The ofuda lends you control over their subconscious. If you’re good, you can even make it so that they can only move when commanded to.”
“Sounds pretty dangerous. What if someone used them to take control of us?”
“It’s possible to resist the ofuda’s power, and luckily, they don’t work on holy heroes or holders of the vassal weapons. But, they can be very dangerous in the hands of a powerful user though.”
These ofuda things might be better than the slave spell I was used to.
“What happens when someone tries to resist it?”
“They have to use all their energy to try and get it off. And while they are occupied, you have a chance to kill them.”
Heh . . . that sounded like the perfect system.
So Yomogi would be under my control, just like a slave, but she could remove the ofuda if she really tried. But it would take time to do so, and I could always finish her off while she struggled with it.
 
“Let’s set it up so that she can’t get more than a certain distance away from us,” Kizuna said, slapping the ofuda onto Yomogi’s forehead.
I could see that a great deal of magical power was contained in it. It snapped and crackled with electricity, and slowly peeled off of her forehead. Then a magical pattern flickered and glowed on the ground around Yomogi’s feet.
Glass and Kizuna were chanting an incantation, and the mandala-like pattern on the ground appeared to react to it. Finally, Kizuna wrote some characters on the ofuda with blood. Yomogi squirmed with discomfort.
“Now we just need to set the rules and . . . all done. It does draw attention to itself though, so we should try to avoid using it in public.”
“Imagine if people used these things to control their armies.”
“They are pretty tough, but they are weak against fire and water. They’re not as all-powerful as you might hope.”
“If this will convince you to take me with you, then I will not try to remove it. Now then, let’s get going!”
I wasn’t sure if I could trust the ofuda to operate as effectively as the spell I was used to. But then again, we were just using it as insurance against Yomogi’s treachery.
“Let’s go.”

“Yeah, let’s go,” Kizuna said. She started to chant the return transcript incantation.
 
A moment later and we were all standing before the dragon hourglass.
There were a lot of guards milling about, but I didn’t see any sign of a recent or impending attack. The guards around the hourglass had been instructed to remain cautious, so despite everything happening at the castle, they hadn’t left their posts. They could be counted on for that much.
Back where I was from, you couldn’t really count on guards to stand their ground. If a guard didn’t actually guard anything, then what were they good for?
“Everything looks fine, right?”
“The enemy might be nearby, watching the guards for a chance to strike.”
“Aren’t you a little paranoid?”
“It’s what I would do if I were in his situation. Someone should stay here to keep watch.”
“I’m telling you, Kyo wouldn’t do that! He’s not a coward!” Yomogi shouted.
Glass and Kizuna crossed their arms and knit their brows in thought.
“You’re right. We should leave someone here we can trust. Raphtalia, can you stay behind?” I asked Raphtalia.
“But I . . .”
She was strong enough to handle trouble if it showed up. I didn’t want to leave her behind, but we could count on her.”
“. . . I will stay behind and keep an eye on things.”
“Glass ?! ”
 
Glass raised her hand to volunteer for the job, and Kizuna yelped with surprise.
We could trust Glass with the job and she was experienced enough to deal with whatever came up. Besides, she was from this world. It made more sense to leave it her hands.
“I believe Naofumi is correct. Kyo has made a fuss at the castle, but if he is truly in possession of technology of the sort you describe, then he may well come after the hourglass. We must ensure its safety.”
“But . . .” Kizuna tried to protest.
Then I added, “If you discover that you need my assistance, tell the guards to fire three flares into the air.”
Kizuna looked at the smoking castle in the distance and nodded, “Okay. Glass, we’re leaving this to you.”
“Chris, protect her while I’m gone.”
“Pen!”
I found it hard to believe that the penguin was going to be much use, but he bowed deeply in response to Glass’s charge and tottered over to stand by Kizuna.
“Alright, Naofumi. We’re leaving Glass behind, so you better step up,” Kizuna said.
“I know, and I will. Let’s go!”
“Alright!” everyone shouted in unison.

With Raph-chan and Filo on my shoulders, I took off running. Everyone followed me.
 
I was worried that Rishia would trip and fall, but she managed to keep up.
We ran toward the smoking castle. The town we ran through on the way didn’t seem damaged. But it did look like some looters, who had tried to take advantage of the chaos, had been caught and tied up though.
What was going on?
We ran through the castle gates to find L’Arc, Therese, and a number of soldiers fighting. But, what were they fighting? They were monsters, but they looked like humans, too. The battle was intense.
The castle grounds were filled with smoke, and there seemed to be battle
happening everywhere at once. “Hyaa!” Therese cast support magic on L’Arc, and he shot a skill at the enemy. But the monsters were quick on their feet, and they dodged his attack.
Were these monsters faster than L’Arc? He had a vassal weapon! One of them appeared behind him, trying to take advantage of an
opening in his defenses. I quickly used a skill. “Air Strike Shield!” The shield materialized just in time to protect L’Arc from the monster’s
claws. The monster was caught off guard, which left it open for attack—a
chance that L’Arc wasn’t going to miss. He swung his scythe. . . . But the monster dodged again! “Kiddo! Kizuna!” “We’re so glad you’re here!”
 
L’Arc and Therese smiled. They looked relieved.
“Shooting Star Shield!”
The barrier appeared and covered us all, protecting us from the monsters. When the barrier appeared, the enemy stopped attacking and stared straight at me.
“Hero from another world! How wonderful to see you!”
Huh? What? The enemy turned and stared at us with hate-filled eyes.
Were we their target?
I looked closer. It was pretty dark, so I hadn’t gotten a very good look at the monsters yet. But they weren’t exactly humans that were turned into monsters . . .
What ?! Their faces were strange—half beast, half human. Their bodies also seemed to be split down the center in human and beast halves.
It looked like they’d been made of two different things stuck together. They were really ugly, to be honest.
The leader of the group looked like it was half white tiger. The other half was a woman with a ponytail. Her human eye was sharp and angular, and the other eye was a cat eye. She wore light armor, and it was torn in places, probably a result of the battle.
The human half of her face was actually pretty attractive.
The other enemy troops were similar, but some of them had feathers and bird-like features, others had tortoise shells on their backs. All of them appeared to be some kind of human-animal hybrid, their hands were like claws.
 
They were clearly not like the demi-humans back in the world I’d been summoned to. Something about them seemed . . . unnatural. The demi¬humans I knew weren’t like that.
Their human parts . . . their faces . . . I felt like I’d seen them before— but where?
“Hey . . .”
“Raphtalia, Rishia, and Kizuna were pointing at the enemy troops, speechless.”
“What happened to you ?! ” Kizuna screamed. But damn it! I still couldn’t figure out who they were.
“Raphtalia,” I said, motioning for her to come over. I whispered in her ear, “Who are these people?”
“You mean you don’t remember ?! ”
“You don’t remember us ?! How dare you!”
The enemy reacted to Raphtalia’s comment and shouted in rage.
They rushed at me, their weapons brandished. One thrusted a naginata at me.
“Uh-oh!”
The barrier shattered, and the pieces floated in the air around us.
I blocked the naginata thrust with my shield and grabbed the handle. The other enemy troops howled with rage and came charging at me.
“Die! Everyone! Massacre them all!”

“That’s right. They’re the ones that came after me and accused me of stealing the katana of the vassal weapons,” Raphtalia explained.
 
I finally remembered those faces. It was the gaggle of women that had been with Trash #2. They were so loud and raucous that I never did figure out what his name was.
The shards of the shattered barrier flew at Trash #2’s friends.
The charging people weren’t able to avoid the shards. Some of them blocked the shards and kept running. Others had shields like tortoise shells to block them.
L’Arc and Therese didn’t miss their chance. He swung his scythe and she shot magical spells. Raphtalia drew her sword and shot across the battlefield.
It wasn’t clear if Kizuna would be able to damage these half-human enemies, so she was staying back with Yomogi. I tried to keep Filo and Rishia from getting caught up in the fight.
“Go Chris!”
Kizuna picked up Chris and threw him!
Chris spun in circles and shot through the battle, just like Filo’s Spiral Strike attack.
Chris blew right past the monsters, but a lot of their armor and clothing was torn in the process, and blood seeped through the cuts.
Heh . . . So that’s how Kizuna was able to attack.
“Rafu?”
I looked at Raph-chan. Her eyes sparkled with understanding.
She wanted to try the same thing, but she wasn’t strong enough yet.
She’d have to stay on my shoulder for the time being.
 
“Master! I wanna try that!” Filo shouted.
She wasn’t the best melee fighter these days. I thought she’d make a better support fighter. I was hoping she’d have some bird songs with some good effects.
“Not now!”
“But . . .”
“I want you to work with Raph-chan to support the rest of us with magic.”
“Okay!”
With both of them on my shoulders, I continued to block and avoid the attacks of Trash #2’s cohorts.
“Shield Prison!”
The wall of shields bought me some time. I looked over at Raphtalia who had locked swords with the leader.
“What happened to you? Why do you look like this ?! ”
“Isn’t it amazing? After you killed our leader, we were left without direction, and our lands were taken over by another country. We thought it was the end for us, but then Kyo, the holder of the book of the vassal weapons, saved us.”
“What ?! ”
“He doesn’t want to rule over us, he wants to give us the opportunity to exact our revenge. He gave us this power so that we could kill you!”
“But . . .”

“Up until now we could never have won a battle against a vassal weapon, or against one of the holy heroes. So Kyo gave us this power, this power he took from the copies of the Four Symbols, the four holy beasts!”

“And that’s why you look like this ?! ” Kizuna yelped.
A woman nodded.
“Kyo will return us to our previous forms once we defeat you! When we defeat you, all will be returned to how it should be, to how it was!”
“That’s why you must . . . ” they all shouted in unison, charging up for an inhuman attack, “Die!!!”
The tiger-lady was wrapped in howling winds, which flew into her weapon. She charged us.
The bird-lady’s wings burst into flame. She flapped them hard, sending the flames roaring at us.
The tortoise-lady sent huge boulders to rain down on us from above.
The dragon-lady . . . didn’t seem to be there.
“Air Strike Shield! Second Shield! Dritte Shield!”
I sent out the trio of shields and immediately followed them with Shooting Star Shield, blocking all of their attacks.
Then I focused for a minute and cast Zwiete Aura on everyone, starting with Raphtalia.
“No! Kyo would never do something so inhumane!” Yomogi shouted behind me. She reached out with her good hand and grabbed Kizuna’s shoulder. “Hunting Hero, I have a request. Please allow me to fight with you. These fools that would speak ill of Kyo must be silenced!” She grabbed a sword that had fallen at her feet.
 
“If you try to attack us, you’ll regret it.”
“I will not do such a thing!”
Kizuna nodded, and Yomogi took off running. She jumped into battle, slashing at the woman that Raphtalia was fighting.
“Stay out of this!”
“Ha! You think I can’t dodge your bumbling attacks?” Yomogi said, jumping back to avoid the woman’s attack and then charging forward again with Raphtalia. “How dare you tell such lies about Kyo! He would never do such things!”
“You’d call me a liar ?! ” the beast-woman shouted. She looked confused by the accusation. “We can bring back our leader if we kill you! You sliced him in two! Kyo can bring back master!”
“He can bring back the dead ?! ”
“Since when did Kyo have that kind of power?”
That would be amazing, really. Was there a deeper taboo in all of creation? I guess you saw it in old RPGs from time to time. But if he could do that, why not send Trash #2 as his assassin?
There was something else, some other layer to his plan.
“The Kyo that you speak of is not the Kyo that I know!” Yomogi shouted and continued her assault. Raphtalia looked confused.
“You fool! You have yet to see my true power!” The beast side of the woman started to glow, then slowly expand, growing larger and larger. I didn’t like the look of it.

I was doing all I could to stop the endless string of attacks coming from the other women. There were too many of them, and they were all pretty damn strong.

It was like the battle we had in the chamber of the Spirit Tortoise’s core. The neo-guardians had been about this strong.
“Tsugumi! Take this!” one of the other women said and threw a spear to their leader, who was locked in battle with Yomogi and Raphtalia. One look at the spear and I could hardly believe my eyes.
“Can it be ?!
The spear looked just like the creepy weapon that Yomogi had been carrying when she tried to attack us back at the house, and now, it was in their leader’s hand.