The Day of the Finals
Satou here. There are a lot of different beliefs concerning omens before natural disasters like earthquakes and such. When birds and small animals start making noise in anime and manga, for example, you know something bad is about to go down.
Tama had been acting strange all morning.
She kept pacing back and forth between rooms, pestering the other girls and rolling around on the floor.
They’d all noticed her unusual behavior.
“What’s going on with you, Tama?”
“Dunnooo? I feel kinda itchyyy.”
“Tama’s being weird today, sir. I don’t like it, sir!”
Hmm? Pochi was unusually temperamental, too.
Tama shoved Mia aside to curl up in a ball on my lap.
What’s going on? Tama was usually so laid-back. It was unlike her to get pushy.
“Mrrr?”
Mia looked bewildered, too.
Petting Tama on the back seemed to calm her down slightly, and soon she fell asleep with a grimace still on her face. Pochi relaxed as well, wrapping herself around Nana’s airship plushie like a hug pillow and rolling about with it.
Nana watched them enviously, perhaps wishing her physique would allow her to do the same.
“Say, master…” Arisa crept up behind me and whispered in my ear. “Didn’t they act like this when we first went into Muno Castle?”
“Did they?”
Thinking back, I remembered they noticed something weird about the floor, but they hadn’t lost their cool like this as far as I recalled.
I suppose they were uneasy in both cases, but…come to think of it, Tama had particularly good intuition in the Seiryuu City labyrinth, too.
Maybe they sensed that something ominous was going to happen today.
“I’ll look into it.”
With that, I opened up my map search.
Gah, these guys again?
Noticing yet another wave of cultists had invaded the old capital, I felt more irritated than worried.
Thanks to the territory map I gave the duke, more than 90 percent of them had been wiped out. How were there still enough to get up to anything?
I scanned the whole territory again to be sure. Evidently these guys were the last of the members remaining in the duchy.
There were only eight of them, and they were pretty low-level, 25 at the highest, so I doubted they could accomplish much. However, I didn’t like that their current location was underground directly beneath the arena.
Because the king was visiting the stadium today, every noble with rank in the old capital was already there.
On top of that, today was both the tournament finals and the exhibition match between Miss Ringrande and the third prince. The arena was full to bursting with spectators.
Now that was a very likely target for some kind of terrorist attack. If they just had a short horn or two, it’d be no big deal, but if any of them had a long horn, it could be a serious problem.
Many of the nobles I’d befriended in the city were attending, too, not to mention Miss Karina and her brother. No way could I just turn a blind eye.
“Something smells fishy here…,” I muttered.
“Seriously?” Arisa exclaimed, and all eyes in the room turned toward us.
“I’m just going to take care of it.”
I slid Tama off my lap onto the sofa and stood up.
“Master, please allow me to come with you.”
“Master, permit me to accompany you, I entreat.”
“I want to help, too, sir!”
Liza, Nana, and Pochi gazed at me with hopeful eyes.
“You have to be a noble to enter, so I’ll need to go alone.” They were probably high enough level that it would be safe to take them along, but they’d be in danger if the Wings of Freedom had long horns or explosive magic items, which was why I made an excuse. “You’ll get to show me the results of your training soon, don’t worry. For now, I’d like you to protect Lulu for me.”
As I tried to reassure the girls, I debated whether to go out as Satou or dress as Nanashi the Hero.
“Mew!”
Tama jumped up suddenly from her slumber, her ears and tail standing on end as her gaze darted around wildly.
And then, a tremor rippled through the old capital.
It wasn’t an earthquake. Just the feeling of a magic wave passing through.
But that amount of power clearly wasn’t normal.
“What was that?”
“Something went bong, sir!”
“A signal?”
“Master, we must prepare for battle, I report.”
About half my party members had obviously experienced the same thing.
Tama must have been acting strangely earlier because she sensed it coming.
Liza started putting on the new equipment I’d given her. Before long, Pochi and Nana were changing clothes, too.
The sight of Nana’s curves drew my eyes as she stripped off her clothes with no reservations whatsoever, but I forced myself not to stare.
Instead, I had Lulu put a partitioning screen in front of them.
“You change, too, please, Tama.”
“’kay.”
Tama pulled herself away from her restless gazing out the window.
Meanwhile, I continued searching the map.
Just as I suspected, the arena was at the center of the disturbance. Searching for demons, I found that several short horns had appeared in the very spot where I’d seen the collection of Wings of Freedom members gathered. Clearly, it was no coincidence that the number of missing cultists was the same as the number of demons that had appeared.
“What happened?”
“Demons again.”
“Aw, man! C’mon…”
I had to agree with Arisa. I was getting pretty tired of it myself.
Nearly twenty people at the arena were over level 40, including Miss Ringrande, the prince and his accompanying knights, and some of the duke’s military officers. They would probably be fine without my help, but given the strange magic ripple that had just occurred, it was better to be prepared.
To be safe, I had Lulu, Arisa, and Mia change into the new equipment I’d recently fashioned for them as well. I also gave everyone fireproof cloaks made from hydra wings.
Just as everyone was almost ready, a warning bell resounded throughout the old capital.
Almost immediately, one of the maids rushed into the room.
“Sir Knight! That’s the emergency alert bell! Please, follow me to the shelter nearby.”
She quickly explained that there were underground bunkers beneath all the nobles’ homes in the old capital for evacuation in case of attacks by demons, large monsters, or other disasters.
As we followed the maid, three more waves of magic power washed over us.
Something was definitely going on.
“Seems like there’s still some trouble. Everyone, please evacuate to the shelter ahead of me. I’m going to scout things out.”
I opened up a second map search.
According to it, another foe had appeared in the center of the arena. And he was a level-71 greater hell demon, at that. He didn’t have any Unique Skills like the demon lord did, but he had “Summoning Magic,” “Psychic Magic,” “Blaze Magic,” and other troublesome skills. I’d better take care of him fast, before he summons anything.
“Arisa.”
“Yes?”
“If things get really dicey, I’ll contact you with the Telephone spell. And if that happens, I want you to teleport everyone underground to the labyrinth ruins immediately, all right?”
“Okeydoke!”
I had a quiet conversation with Arisa as we continued toward the shelter.
“Tell the maid I went to the arena to check on Lady Karina, all right?”
“You got it.”
Entrusting the rest to Arisa, I left the estate alone.
Once I confirmed on the radar that there were no witnesses around, I transformed into Nanashi the Hero and set out toward the arena.
As I traveled, I used my new Clairvoyance and Clairaudience spells to see what was happening at my destination. A window opened in the corner of my vision with an AR display that showed me the chaos.
“Demon! No—demon lord! Prepare to meet your doom!!”
Striking a dramatic pose like an actor, the prince shouted at the yellow-skinned greater hell demon.
The yellow demon had two heads and horns coming out of his shoulders that reminded me of a water buffalo’s. I bet he used the extra head for chants, like the other greater hell demons I’d seen.
Clairvoyance and Clairaudience were sure handy for keeping an eye on a far-off situation.
“THAT SWORD IS CLAIDHEAMH SOLUIS, IS IT NOT? THEN YOU MUST BE A DESCENDANT OF YAMATO.”
With that, the demon summoned monsters to sic on Miss Ringrande and the prince and company.
The summoning spell seemed to be continuous, too; monster after monster flooded into the spectators’ seats.
The former ranged from levels 30 to 40, but the latter were weaker, level 20 at the most.
There were plenty of eliminated tournament contestants in the audience, so they should be able to handle the weaker monsters, but in all the mayhem, they weren’t coordinating properly.
“Brave warriors! You must protect your neighbors! Now is the time to prove your worth in battle!”
The clear, ringing call was probably Miss Ringrande’s.
Realizing the foolhardiness of their behavior, the warriors began to work together to defeat the monsters. They were even protecting the citizens and helping them escape.
Next, I turned my Clairvoyance toward the nobles’ seats.
“The duke has brought His Majesty back to the castle! We must protect the nobles!”
The duke seemed to have used the power of the City Core to teleport himself and the stand-in king to the audience room of the castle.
His heir and other upper-class nobles still remained, though. There must be limits to how many people could be teleported.
Miss Karina and Orion appeared frightened but otherwise unharmed. With Raka, Miss Karina probably didn’t need me worrying about her.
“The barrier! Put up a defense barrier! Can’t we evacuate?!”
“A lesser demon self-destructed and destroyed the passage. We’ll have to secure another escape route!”
High-level knights, priests, and sorcerers protected the nobles, so I figured they were safe, too, as long as the greater hell demon didn’t attack them directly.
Currently, he was half-heartedly fighting Ringrande and the prince while scanning the arena as if in search of something.
The passage for the general seating seemed to be intact. Audience members were pushing one another as they fled.
Trying to shake off the images of red stains and motionless bodies in the stands, I used “Warp” to hurry toward the arena.
I minimized the Clairvoyance window so that it wouldn’t obstruct my view.
As I approached the stadium, the streets became increasingly crowded with fleeing people and carriages.
Some of them were even branching out into the back alleys where I was running. I decided to take to the skies with “Skyrunning.”
Finally, I got within view of the arena’s outer wall and the yellow demon.
The prince and other warriors probably wanted to handle him themselves to gain prestige, but I had friends in the arena. I wanted to finish things up quickly.
First, I chose the Light Magic spell Laser to defeat the enormous yellow demon.
But just as I was about to put my plan into action, something happened.
A ripple of light appeared in the sky, and a sleek silver spacecraft (or so it appeared) materialized.
Hey, you can’t just switch to sci-fi all of a sudden!
According to the AR, the ship was called the dimensional submarine Jules Verne. Since it was named after a famous author, I had little doubt that someone from my original world was involved somehow.
A section of the ship opened, and a number of things that looked like gun barrels protruded from it.
Moments later, heavy booms filled the air as it fired countless high-speed firebombs to shoot down all the airborne monsters.
They didn’t seem to work on the yellow greater hell demon, but they still packed a considerable punch.
Then a man in blue armor appeared on the stern—revealed by my AR to be Hayato Masaki the Hero.
Clad in armor, sans helmet, his face in profile struck me as stalwart and masculine, his black hair cut short like an athlete’s. He looked young for twenty-five, with the kind of understated handsomeness that some girls would probably secretly go crazy for.
He was level 69, too, so the yellow demon should be easy enough for him to handle.
“Look upon me!”
The hero must have used some sort of taunting skill with those words, as the monsters below all turned toward him.
When I looked back, a face guard hid his features.
“HAYATO THE HERO, IS IT? HAVE YOU COME PREPARED TO DIE THIS TIME, THEN?”
“I’m not the same man I used to be! Today I swear to enact my revenge!”
I could probably still use Laser to defeat the demon in an instant, but I would’ve felt bad doing it after that dramatic backstory.
“Stay out of this, you Saga Empire dog! I shall prove that your empire is not the only one that can produce a hero.”
That must’ve been Prince Sharorik. He should really just leave this to the professionals.
“<Dance>, Claidheamh Soluis!”
The “dance” bit seemed to be a magic word; the Holy Sword flew out of his hands to attack the yellow demon.
So I guess the painting at the museum wasn’t outright fiction, just a bit of an exaggeration.
…Oh. The demon batted it away.
Is that all you’ve got, Claidheamh Soluis?
“Your Holy Sword weeps, Prince. This is one of the generals of a powerful demon lord of old—the Golden Boar Lord. He’s a demon of the highest caliber who’s survived for hundreds of years. If you wish to live, you had best retreat.”
The hero readied his own Holy Sword.
“<Sing>, Arondight!”
As soon as he said the keyword sing, the Holy Sword Arondight emitted a powerful holy light.
Did my Holy Swords have special keywords like that, too? I didn’t remember seeing anything like that in their descriptions.
I quickly checked Durandal’s info, but it was a no-go. Once this whole mess was over, I’d have to take my time and investigate properly.
While my mind wandered a little, the hero’s comrades emerged from the ship.
Out of curiosity, I used “Telescopic Sight” and “Amplification” to take a peek at his party members.
A beautiful woman dressed like a Shinto priest, with big breasts and a gentle air about her, cast strengthening magic on the party. She had a sexy beauty mark under one eye.
A long-eared female warrior, evidently from the long-eared Booch clan, fired an arrow that turned into ten arrows at the monsters coming toward the hero. What a great fantasy weapon.
The monsters that escaped her shots jumped and landed on the ship, but this time, an agile fighter and a dual-wielding swordswoman took them down in an instant.
They were beastfolk, like Tama and Pochi. The tigerfolk woman with curly hair and the wolffolk woman with a short bob both had lovely features, and their armor suggested they had the proportions to match.
The last member to emerge was a woman with a short staff, luxurious blond ringlets, and an enormous bust. They weren’t quite as large as Miss Karina’s, but they could probably give her sister Miss Soluna a run for her money.
The information in the blond woman’s AR display surprised me.
Her name was Meriest Saga, the twenty-first princess of the Saga Empire.
The “princess” part surprised me, but not nearly as much as “twenty-first” did. You must be a busy man, Mr. Emperor.
At any rate, the hero’s entire party consisted of glamorous, gorgeous women, enough to make me wish death on him just a little bit.
The group got into formation to take on the yellow demon. There was hardly any difference in their levels, so I could afford to let them take care of things here.
So I decided to just help out with rescuing people from the arena and eliminating the small fry instead.
There was a time and a place for everything, after all.
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