Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 12 - Chapter 18

Chapter 18: The Battle to Get Her Back

“It’s been a while since you rode on my back like this,” Berta remarked as she ran through the forest, just a little before we would reach the main body of the Maclaurin Provincial Army. I didn’t have any of my other companions with me. It was just me and Berta.

“True. The last time was when we rescued Lily from Takaya Jun, huh?” I answered, recalling my last ride. “Sorry for relying on you over and over.”

“It’s fine. If you die, my king will grieve,” she replied, cold as ever, but then her demeanor changed a little. “No, maybe not.”

“Berta?”

“There’s no point fooling myself anymore. This is my will. It has nothing to do with my king. I wish to help all of you.” She still sounded somewhat cynical, but also a little relieved. “What’s with that face, Majima Takahiro?”

“Well, you know. I didn’t think you’d say something like that.”

“Neither did I,” Berta said with a chuckle. Her smile seemed a little girlish somehow. “I’m the one and only failure among my king’s subordinates. He desires nothing more than mindless pawns, yet I’ve changed so much by being with you lot. I wonder if that’s why I think of such things.”

She spoke earnestly, and her behavior felt like it matched the exact change she was talking about.

“That puppet sort of resembles me,” she continued. “She is a shield meant to protect her master, and I am a pawn meant to die for mine. The way we see ourselves is similar, and so is our standing as servants.”

“Your standing?”

“I’m the second servant to be given a name.”

“Aah, that’s what you mean...”

Kudou had many servants, but he didn’t even have ten to whom he’d given names. The majority of them had been selected through the kodoku poison jar method. As far as I knew, he had servants named Dora and Caesar too. However, back when I first met him, Kudou had already had Berta and Anton at his command.

I’d never thought of what order they’d met him in. Maybe this meant Berta had been the second. In that sense, she was the same as Rose. Perhaps that was why Berta felt a certain connection to her.

“In short, I feel arbitrary sympathy,” Berta said. “Or maybe, if I weren’t me, if I hadn’t been given the name Berta...” She spoke as if she were looking at a dream, but that, of course, wasn’t what Berta wished for. “I obviously have no intention of denying my service to my king. That’s not what I mean. That’s impossible, and that’s how it should be. I don’t wish for happiness.”

The way she said that hurt my heart.

“But how do I put it?” Berta added, turning around to look at me. “Because happiness doesn’t exist for me, maybe I couldn’t stand to see such a thing be lost.”

That was the reason she acted like this. Her long black hair fluttered in the wind as her eyes reflected my figure.

“That’s why I decided to reveal this form.”

Her two wolf heads remained staring forward, her powerful legs dashing through the gaps between the trees, but her human eyes were turned my way, her gaze fixed on me from close proximity.

I recalled the time I rode on Berta’s back with Iino during the battle against Takaya Jun. The girl before me now had a slender body much like the one back then, but this girl wasn’t riding the wolf. Her upper body sprouted from its back.

She was apparently a scylla. This was Berta’s true form, one she’d hidden until now. It’d surprised everyone, but the one most shocked by this had been Lily. No, to be specific, it’d been the one inside Lily—Mizushima. This wasn’t just because of Berta’s transformation either.

“Todoroki?”

She’d uttered that after coming to the surface for an instant. Todoroki Miya was Iino’s best friend and the visitor known as the Beast of Darkness. Berta’s true form resembled her so much that Mizushima had unintentionally called her name.

Now that I thought of it, Takaya Jun had used Todoroki Miya’s name in an attempt to throw Kudou off. I didn’t know the reason for it back then, but if Kudou’s servant resembled her that much, it was only natural to suspect that it was relevant in some way. But what did it mean?

It would have been normal to ask such questions, but none of us had. Berta had revealed her true form under the condition that we ask nothing. She’d revealed her secret for our sake, so we couldn’t betray her trust.

Although, just the fact that she’d been keeping a secret indicated that something had happened. In all likelihood, it had something to do with Berta’s beginnings. In other words, her revealing this form meant she’d seen something in Rose that had made her decide to use her full strength.

“That puppet said she didn’t want to die,” Berta stated, her lips drawn into a thin line. “Because she’s in love. Because she doesn’t want it to end here. She admitted she is no more than her master’s shield, but she said so anyway.”

“I see...”

“But she also said this. That that only makes her want to protect her beloved all the more. That’s when she marched off into battle.”

Since her feelings had been conveyed to me in the world of light, I could easily picture her doing this. Her devotion was so noble, but that same nobility irritated me a little.

“Rose, you idiot...” I muttered, sounding slightly bitter.

“Are you angry with her?”

“Just a little. It’s ’cause she doesn’t get it.”

“Doesn’t get what?”

“She doesn’t understand a man’s heart. Not in the least. I mean, come on. If she feels that way about me, then I obviously feel the same way about her.”

Berta’s eyes widened just a little, and her lips curved into a slight smile. She seemed somewhat happy.

“I see,” she said. “The puppet discovered love, but she still has much to learn about it.”

“Basically, yeah. Above all else, leaving without confessing directly and waiting for a reply is just awful.”

How could I forgive that? I had plenty I wanted to say and convey to her. Therefore, I was definitely going to get her back.

“Found them,” I said quietly.

Using the thin veil of mist I’d deployed, I’d located the Maclaurin Provincial Army. First, though, I had to get the full picture.

“That’s a whole lot of them...” I remarked.

The swarm of soldiers looked like a dark haze. From what Salvia’s mist was telling me, they easily numbered over three thousand men. The violence of such numbers could trample anything before it. Just by what I could sense through magic, the threat they posed was overwhelming.

“What’ll you do?” Berta asked.

My answer was obvious.

“Let’s go.”

I’d lost so much of myself, but no matter what I would gain in exchange, some things I didn’t want to lose. Thus, it didn’t matter who my opponent was.

Following my directions, Berta kicked it up a notch. Now that she was in her true form, her speed was tremendous. She was even fast enough to compare to Gerbera. She charged straight forward without hesitation, right toward the enemy army that looked much like a wall at this point.

The enemy obviously noticed us. They should’ve been preoccupied with Rose’s attack, but they were still cautious of potential reinforcements. Plus, we were still pretty far away. At this distance, they were free to unleash all the arrows and magic they wanted.

The officer in charge decided to target us and was just about to give his orders, but I’d already expected this.

“Misty Lodge.”

Before they could do anything, I blocked their sight with mist. The fog was dense, obscuring both parties from each other entirely. I could tell disarray was spreading among the soldiers. However...

“They rallied awfully quick...” I commented.

The commander had immediately passed out his orders and calmed his soldiers down. They continued readying their attack. Berta was hurrying, but she wouldn’t make it like this. They’d predicted my actions just as I had theirs.

The enemy’s firepower was incredible. Even if they attacked randomly, it would be enough of a threat. If they rained arrows and magic over this entire area, Berta would continuously take hits while her own visibility was blocked by the fog. In that case, it would’ve been better not to use the mist.

Obviously, I’d thought of that beforehand. Nevertheless, I’d dared to play this hand. I’d judged this would be the best way to handle the situation.

“You’re all certainly strong,” I said, accumulating my mana as the enemy before me quickly prepared to attack. “Maintaining such high standards and gathering such numbers, along with being equipped to the teeth—you’re pretty much the embodiment of violence by numbers.”

The amount of mana I was using was the most I’d ever handled. This was the power I’d gained in exchange for my loss.

“Even a savior’s stamina is finite. With enough time and numbers and the will to make sacrifices, you can eventually wear one out. Yeah, that would definitely work.”

This was likely the limit of what I could do while maintaining my humanity. I poured all the mana I gathered into the mist.

“But there’s an exception to everything.”

It became whiter, and whiter, until it dyed the entire world.

“Swallow them whole, Misty Lodge.”

The Maclaurin Provincial Army didn’t know that, as the one who’d made a contract with Salvia, I was capable of this. It wasn’t just a smoke screen; it was also a form of perception magic. However, that was simply a single facet of it.

“Eep...”

As the white mist enshrouded them, one of the soldiers quietly uttered something, unable to suppress his shock. His nocked arrow parted from his bow and plopped to the ground.

“H-Hey...”

The soldier next to him saw this and called out to him, but the frightened soldier no longer had the capacity to respond. He hadn’t even realized that someone was talking to him. His eyes opened wider and wider, and his face contorted.

“Aaaaaaaaaah?!”

He screamed desperately. His colleague had no time to try and stop him as he, who was supposed to be a brave soldier, ran away.

“Aaaah! What the hell is this?! Get away from meee!”

His heart and his mind were completely broken. It was as if he’d seen something terrifying. To him, that was probably true. That was what I’d done, after all.

Salvia’s Misty Lodge had a function that I hadn’t used until now—the power of illusions that could trick the mind. Here, I used that same power on the Maclaurin Provincial Army.

All the soldiers whose hearts had been overwhelmed by the mist were witnessing a huge swarm of monsters tearing them apart. They saw their comrades being slaughtered, their formations breaking, and their comrades running away. Not many people could do something as meaningless as stand their ground and fight in such a situation.

That said, I hadn’t cast the illusion on everyone successfully. If Salvia had been using all her mana at full strength, it might’ve been possible, but she depended on me as her mana source. I didn’t have all that much power. The reason I hadn’t even used the Misty Lodge as illusion magic before now was because the number of people it would work on was very limited.

Even on the regular soldiers who didn’t have much resistance to magic, it would only work about twenty percent of the time. Well, as I was now, it was around thirty percent. Those still weren’t good odds, though. That was my limit. Even so, in this one case, thirty percent was a terrifying number.

“Sorry, Louis. I’ll be taking around a thousand of your men.”

The main force of the Maclaurin Provincial Army numbered three thousand strong, and I’d affected thirty percent of them. Specifically, approximately one thousand soldiers were under my illusion. That many human minds had been swallowed by my magic in a single bite. As a result, a maelstrom of screams rang in the air loud enough to shake the earth.

“Waaaaaah?!”

“Eeeeek! Stay back! Stay back! Stay baaaaack!”

“Save me! Someone?! Anyone?! Aaaaaah?!”

Soldiers screamed and ran about. Watching his subordinates in a stupor, one of the officers muttered, “What the hell is going on...?”

His confusion was understandable. As a matter of fact, the Misty Lodge had one facet that put it on a different level—its effective range. Setting aside any destructive potential, even grade 5 magic would be hard pressed to hit every soldier in this large an army.

Nonetheless, the Misty Lodge achieved this with all practicality. Perhaps that efficiency was typical of Salvia’s magic, seeing as how she’d wandered the world for near eternity. By applying a limited illusion over that same range, the Misty Lodge became a weapon that could break an entire army.

The battle lines fell apart as if a giant comb had passed through them. This wasn’t just their front line either, but the army as a whole. It was such a bizarre scene. The unknown was terrifying. Even the soldiers who were unaffected by the illusion at first began panicking. Then, once their mental state had weakened, the illusion took hold, and the white mist swallowed them too. Forty percent of the entire army was affected now, and then fifty. It was more effective than I’d expected.

“I wonder why...? Ohh, I get it,” I murmured to myself, then smiled.

The reason it was working so well was because the provincial army had already been weakened from Rose’s hard-fought battle. At this point, they were extremely fragile. Even some of the soldiers who weren’t under the illusion’s spell started running away. They were no longer in any position to try and intercept us. What was once a perfect wall had cracked open, and Berta charged through.

“Grrrr! Raaaah!”

A broken formation wasn’t going to stop Berta as she was now. Flames and ice flew from her two heads, and the line crumbled. Her tentacles fluttered about nimbly, repelling any weapons that approached us. As extra insurance, she had a pair of arms now too.

“I don’t like the idea of using the slime’s hand-me-downs, though.”

Berta held a black spear in her hands. She wasn’t accustomed to it, so she used it more like a quarterstaff than a spear, but for the soldiers, this was just one more thing to look out for, which was enough of a threat on its own. They couldn’t stop her.

“I’m picking up speed. Hold on tight.”

Berta ran, knocking over soldiers as she went. Unlike when we were just going through the forest, the shaking was intense. I desperately clung to Berta’s waist so that I didn’t get flung off.

And just like that, we went deeper and deeper into the provincial army’s ranks. We went straight for the point I’d designated beforehand—straight toward Rose—but that was when Berta yelled a warning.

“Dead ahead! Knights!”

Knights of the Holy Order were in our path. I’d already grasped the situation using the Misty Lodge, so I knew that the illusion hadn’t worked on them very well. Some had been confused, but a knock to their heads had brought them back to their senses. Only they maintained a defensive formation, ready to intercept us.

Not even Berta could keep up this speed and scatter such a powerful group. She slowed down, possibly thinking of taking a detour.

“Don’t!” I yelled.

“But...”

“Please keep going! We’re right there!”

“You don’t need to look so desperate,” Berta said, turning toward me with a troubled frown. “Aah, fine! I just have to do something about it, right?”

After an energetic reply, Berta sped up. We were rapidly closing in on the knights. Then the moment before we collided with them, Berta planted her feet into the ground.

“Go ahead of me!”

And then she snatched me and hurled me right over them.

“What the...?! Shoot him down!” one of the knights shouted.

“Like hell you will!” Berta yelled.

The knights tried to react to the sudden development, but fire and ice poured from her mouths and stopped them. After hurriedly confirming that they’d been detained, I swung my left arm out. My firing line was already set.

“Asarina!”

“Ssster!”

Asarina stretched out right toward where a familiar-looking puppet was holding Rose up.

Aah, I can finally see you again.

Joy welled up inside me, but it was quickly overcome by a different emotion. She really had fought to her limit. Rose had lost all her limbs and was only half her normal size. She was being held up by the collar artlessly as if she was a piece of trash. She was wounded, broken, and damaged. I’d been prepared to see this, but witnessing it with my own eyes sent my thoughts flying.

“Give her back...”

Asarina coiled around the giant puppet who was holding Rose, then immediately pulled me in. She didn’t hold back at all, just as I’d instructed, and jarring pain shot through all my joints.

“Aaaaaah!”

Using that momentum, I slammed my sword into the puppet. Its shoulder flew off with a sound like shattering porcelain, dislodging its arm entirely as it fell backward, scattering fragments into the air. The man standing next to it watched in disbelief. Ignoring all that, I stretched out my arm.

“Rose!”

“Mas—?!”

Screaming and falling to the ground was someone irreplaceable to me. I pulled her in and embraced her. I held her in my arms as if I were making sure she existed. I did so gently so as not to harm her broken body, yet firmly as if to never let go.

“Master...”

I wouldn’t let her go ever again, but before that...

“Just wait a sec,” I whispered to Rose as I held her in my right arm, then turned around. The giant puppet was standing right there.

“Do it!” the man—Ottmar, if I recalled correctly—yelled.

That made this an angel puppet. I remembered seeing them before, but this one was much, much bigger. I doubted its size was just for show too.

I didn’t have my sword available: I was too busy holding Rose. A row of knights blocked Berta from reaching me. Regardless, I didn’t panic as the puppet charged in with its spear at the ready.

I held out my left hand. Asarina was already coiled around my arm, functioning as an exoskeleton. I’d already made the necessary preparations to wield the Great White Spider’s tyranny as well. The amount of mana in my body was far greater than before. As I was now, maybe I could get even closer to her true strength. And that wasn’t all.

“Sssster!”

The amplification of my mana meant that Asarina’s soil was even richer. In other words, she’d also advanced to a new stage. Wrapped around my arm, she opened her mouth wide at my palm. Her fang-like thorns stretched out longer, thicker, and tougher than ever before. My left arm was now equipped with strange and powerful claws—an imitation of Lily’s devilish mantis claws. It was nowhere close to the original, of course, but I also had the Great White Spider’s strength backing my arm.

“Wha—?” Ottmar was speechless, but it was too late.

“I don’t know anything about righteousness,” I said. I was at my limit, at about eighty percent of the strength of the legendary Great White Spider of the Depths. “But I’ll be taking her back!”

I swung my arm, and my claws tore the angel puppet apart.