Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 16 - Chapter 9

Chapter 9: The Army Arrives

Using the same senses as Salvia, I was able to perceive the Dimension Door’s presence. Until now, I’d only had a vague sense of direction to go by, but we were finally close enough for me to grasp how far away it was.

“Please lower our altitude!” I yelled to the dragon I was riding.

We flew lower, and the dragons behind us followed suit. We knew how far away it was, but we couldn’t actually see it yet. Still, the exploration team members had been getting tired of sitting idly on their flight through the skies, so the excitement was palpable now that the goal was in sight.

Lily supported me as I leaned hard to look over the dragon’s back. The scenery beneath us was nothing but forest, yet I could feel its presence.

“Misty Lodge.”

I deployed the one and only magic I was capable of. If Gerd’s last words were correct, this was the only compass and key left in the world to find the Dimension Door. Mist burst outward, trailing behind us like vapor. By thinning the fog, I was able to perceive a wider area. And just as expected, our net caught something.

“Found it!”

My eyes focused on one section of the forest beneath us. It was impossible to see with the naked eye from here, but it was definitely there. It was a door, frame and all. The magic tool Jinguuji had stolen had been left behind in a corner of the forest.

We considered the possibility that he’d left a lookout behind, but it seemed that wasn’t the case. He’d placed the door deep in a forest where no human could enter and had flown through the air to make it impossible to track him. He’d likely judged that a lookout would be unnecessary. This hadn’t been a careless decision. On the contrary, the fact that Jinguuji had gone so far with the door demonstrated his judicious planning.

However, his plan had failed. The departed archbishop’s tenacity and the enmity of the dragons whose home he’d destroyed had come back to haunt him. That said, there wasn’t much point to simply finding the door.

“From here, it’s our job.”

We needed to jam the key in and force it open. This was something only we could do.

“Salvia!”

“Yes. Let’s do it, my dear!”

Salvia embraced me from behind. Our senses overlapped and enhanced each other’s. Acting as my sense of touch, the mist brushed against the door. It slipped through the cracks. I stretched my imaginary fingers deep inside it.

“Got it!”

I felt the Misty Lodge reach the world beyond the Dimension Door. Even at the eleventh hour, I’d been a little worried whether this would work, but it turned out just fine. At the same time, I felt some resistance. It was like my fingers were being pushed back by a wall.

Harrison had informed me of this beforehand, so it was hardly a surprise. This was something like a defense mechanism. Even if we had a Dimensional Cornerstone, it was made so that it wouldn’t open unless the proper procedures were followed. If we wanted to disregard these procedures, we had to force our way in. I didn’t even have the proper key, so we’d predicted some resistance.

“Huh...?”

The unexpected thing here was that I broke through the defenses far more easily than I’d anticipated. It was like punching through a piece of styrofoam. That didn’t mean the defenses were weak. I’d met a similar level of resistance during the battle against Harrison to control the fabricated world. What had changed since then was me.

“How surprising. Your power to interfere with another world is remarkably different from before,” Salvia said.

Her bewilderment made sense. I couldn’t hide my confusion either.

“Why...?”

I definitely had more power, but I had no idea what had caused my rapid ascent. Had anything changed since then? I couldn’t think of anything which could explain my sudden growth, certainly not between now and the fight against Harrison.

At most, I’d formed a connection over the mental path to Katou. For the first time, I’d manifested my ability in its original form, allowing me to connect to a human. That had been a major step forward for me. That said, it was hard to link that to the drastic improvement in my use of the Misty Lodge. The ability to link hearts was mine, whereas the ability to interfere with other worlds came from Salvia. Maybe there was some other reason...

“Whatever. We need to focus on what’s in front of us first.”

Unfortunately, we didn’t really have the time to sit back and think. We did, in fact, have to hurry after Jinguuji, but there was a more direct threat to handle first.

“Takahiro! Here they come!”

The first to detect the anomaly was Shiran. In some ways, her spirits’ ability to detect danger surpassed the Misty Lodge’s. A part of the forest was changing. A semitransparent black sphere swelled in size as if to swallow the woods. The sphere quickly surpassed the height of the trees until it was like a small mountain. It was centered exactly where I’d detected the door. This was no coincidence, of course.

“That’s the Dimension Door!”

By all rights, if the door were opened properly using a Dimensional Cornerstone, the door itself would vanish and a black wall would appear leading to the other world. This time, however, we were breaking in, so there would be consequences.

Back during the Grand Calamity, a similar phenomenon had been witnessed when elves made contact with a Dimensional Cornerstone. The Holy Church’s opinion was that this was a result of the restraints malfunctioning due to a forceful entry. Still, even if it looked different from intended, its nature remained the same.

If we dived into the sphere, we would find ourselves in another world. Seeing how large it was, it would be entirely possible for us to fly in while riding the dragons. However, we’d decided beforehand to dismount before entering. We expected it to be dangerous, after all.

“There they are...” I muttered as the scenery unfolded exactly as had been described to me.

Something bubbled up from the black sphere’s surface.

“Guardian giants!”

They were inorganic giants with a black luster to them. Their bodies were around three meters taller than the trees around them. They didn’t have anything resembling human heads. A rough simulacrum of an eye was carved into each of them. They looked somewhat similar to the spirits that elves employed. Not that they had any of a spirit’s charms. They looked like crude and dangerous weapons.

That stood to reason; this was the defense mechanism left behind by the first savior, meant to eliminate those who would try to illegally enter the world leading to the Dimensional Cornerstones. It was a little different from what Harrison had told me, but this was definitely what he’d been referring to. They were extremely dangerous. Records stated that back when an elite force of a hundred elves had tried to break into that world, over half of them had died in the battle with the guardian giants. Maybe the giants somewhat resembling spirits was an effect of the elves having rewritten the World View.

Guardian giants surfaced from every point of the black sphere. If we didn’t defeat them, we wouldn’t be able to step into the other world.

“Thank you. You can back away now,” I said to the dragon.

We landed on the ground, crushing trees and shrubbery on the way, then dismounted. Following us, the exploration team members got off their rides too.

“To me!” Nakajima roared.

Everyone rushed to Nakajima’s side within moments.

“Oh, they’re really here. Thanks for the hard work,” Nakajima said to me with a smile.

“Yeah. The rest is up to you,” I replied.

We couldn’t see beyond the trees, but the guardian giants had noticed us too, and were coming our way. These guardians had once defeated elves, but every exploration team member had the power of a savior. When they were all being coordinated by a solid leader, this wasn’t much of a foe for them. Everything up to this point had gone to plan. However, just as that thought came to mind...

“What...?”

We suddenly heard many dragons crying into the sky. It was the dragons of Draconia who’d brought us here. We’d told them to back off, so their voices resounded from far away. It was as if they’d discovered something and were screaming in shock and sorrow. We all looked up on instinct, and through the canopy of trees, we saw the source of their anguished cries.

“No way...” Lobivia muttered.

An enormous dragon, over fifty meters tall, was flying through the sky—a corpse, spurred on by some unseen force. Its sturdy carapace was a shattered mess, the meat beneath rotting. There were places where we could even see its bones. The reason it was capable of flight in such a state was because its body was being stirred into motion not by the warmth of life, but by pure hatred.

There was no way we could mistake its magnificence for anything else. This was the elder of Draconia, the carapace wyrm Malvina—or what was left of her. To Lobivia and all the dragons of Draconia, she was a great mother. The shock this dealt them was unfathomable. The zombie dragon was plunging toward the sphere from the opposite side. Taking a closer look, it appeared that what could only be called an army of monsters was riding on its back.

“It can’t be... My king...?!”

I heard Berta yelling in astonishment. The zombie dragon was too far away for us to spot that slender boy, but there was no doubt that this army was under Kudou’s control.

“Why is Kudou all the way out here...?” I said, before feeling a shiver run down my spine. That was because I remembered Kudou’s wish.

“The world that made me go through this hell is better off destroyed. That’s what I prayed for.”

Wasn’t this situation the perfect opportunity to fulfill that wish? Kudou had learned of the truth behind this world yesterday through Berta. At that point, it hadn’t been much of a problem. The situation was different now because of Jinguuji’s actions. The storage vault for the Dimensional Cornerstones—the very pillars of this world—had been revealed as a result of the Dimension Door being stolen. There was now a clear path to the world’s end. Was that why Kudou was making a move? Now that the door was open, he began his invasion, all to fulfill his life’s desire.

In the next instant, a resentful roar struck my ears and chilled my spine. With the Demon King’s army on her back, the dead dragon roared. The cry of the dragon who’d been driven mad by anger and hatred shook me to the core. There were things that could be conveyed without putting them into words.

“Unforgivable. Unforgivable. I’ll never forgive them. Make up for my children’s deaths. Know of my fury.”

Vengeance cried out, fueled by a maddening bloodlust for the one responsible. Her violent emotions spurred her body to move faster, and the zombie dragon plunged toward the Dimension Door. Countless heat rays shot out to intercept her.

The guardian giants had directed their “eyes” upward, firing intense heat at the zombie dragon. This was the reason we’d chosen not to charge in while riding the dragons. Every ray had the power of grade 3 magic. If we’d moved in recklessly, we would’ve suffered major casualties.

However, the situation had changed since the Dimension Door’s manifestation. Many guardian giants had already moved to intercept us. This meant there were fewer giants to deal with the zombie dragon on the opposite side. What’s more, Malvina’s tremendous body and the broken carapace covering her provided overwhelming defense. Having lost her sense of pain in death, she charged without any hesitation.

“It broke through...!”

Someone shouted just as the giant dragon slammed into the Dimension Door. A fair number of the guardian giants were crushed under the weight of the impact. The zombie dragon kept up its momentum and vanished into the black sphere.

◆ ◆ ◆

The spectacle unfolding before my eyes rendered me speechless. The zombie dragon had broken into the other world, taking an entire army of monsters on its back. The Demon King had succeeded in crossing the Dimension Door.

“He beat us to the punch,” someone muttered, bringing me back to my senses. It was Nakajima, a daring smile on his face. “I don’t know what he’s planning, but I guess the Lord of Darkness is making a move. We can’t go falling behind now.”

He sounded vexed, but there was no bitterness behind his words. On the contrary, he seemed excited.

“We have one more person to stop! Everyone, give it your all!”

He would overcome any obstacle. He would overturn any unreasonable event. If he was on the verge of defeat, he would turn the tide. He marched forward with an indomitable will and unfathomable power. This was the leader of the exploration team, Nakajima Kojirou.

Frozen by the unexpected development, the exploration team members quickly regained their energy. In contrast, I was spurred into action for an entirely different reason. Nakajima Kojirou was the leader of the exploration team, not mine. I had the responsibility to lead my own group. I had something I had to do first.

“Lobivia! We’re going after them!” I yelled, grabbing Lobivia by the shoulders and staring into her eyes.

“T-Takahiro...” she responded in a daze.

“We already knew Malvina had turned into an undead monster,” I said. “We didn’t expect her to become Kudou’s servant, but that doesn’t change what has to be done. We have to grant her a peaceful sleep. Am I wrong?”

It was a shock for her to appear so suddenly. Just imagining what must have gone through the little dragon’s mind when she saw the tragic state of her mother’s corpse made me want to hug her. But I knew how strong Lobivia was. Despite her age, she had the strength of heart to fight for what was dear to her. Also, even though Malvina had died with their relationship still in a rocky state, Lobivia loved her mother. There was no way she was going to remain frozen here. Remembering what her duty was, a powerful will flared within her eyes.

“Kudou’s destination is the same as ours,” I said, letting go of her shoulders. “We’re going after him.”

“Yeah... We’ll definitely catch up,” Lobivia responded with a nod.

I looked around me. There was one more person I had to talk to.

“Majima Takahiro...” Berta looked at me, her tail sadly dangling to the ground.

“There’s no need to feel guilty,” I said. “You aren’t responsible for his deeds.”

“But...”

“Remember what you said? You want Kudou to choose his own path. So, you don’t have time to despair.”

For better or worse, Kudou’s existence was the only thing that roused Berta into action. She was such an honest soul. She remained indecisive for a moment, but ultimately nodded.

“Thank you. And sorry,” Berta said.

The latter half was directed at Lobivia, but the little dragon flapped her wings and huffed as if to tell her not to worry about it. It looked like these two were fine now. Once I confirmed this, I noticed that Nakajima was smiling at me.

“Looks like you’re fine now,” he said.

“Yes. Thanks for waiting. Let’s go.”

“Right. Leave your safety on the way there up to me. Until we break into the other world, we’ll go with me and Majima at the front just as planned. Everyone else protect the sides and rear. Kouzu, can I leave supporting the rear to you guys?”

“Understood,” Kouzu answered.

His group was considered separate from the exploration team. This was a joint operation between the exploration team, the group of visitors affiliated with the church, and my group. It was important for all of us to play our roles to prevent the end of the world.

“Let’s go!” Nakajima roared.

The exploration team charged forward with terrifying speed. They were probably holding back so that they could keep it up for a long-distance run, but they were still nearly as fast as I could go at full speed. If I tried to keep up on my own, I’d run out of breath quickly. I’d closed the gap between us considerably compared to when I first came to this world, but I still couldn’t hold a candle to any of them in terms of individual strength.

That didn’t really matter here, of course. It wasn’t my job to fight this time. I straddled Berta’s back alongside Lobivia and Ayame. Seeing how we were working with the exploration team, Berta kept her true form hidden, so she wasn’t exhibiting her full strength. The idea was to have Lobivia and Ayame make up for that.

What’s more, Lily and Shiran, who were both contestants for being my strongest servant, reinforced our flanks. Even if several members of the exploration team attacked us, we wouldn’t go down easily.

Having formed up perfectly, we charged through the forest toward the Dimension Door. Dozens of guardian giants blocked our path. These were no normal monsters. Every single one of them possessed the strength of a rare monster, or maybe even more. The greatest threat was those heat rays used in unison. We were capable of close-quarters combat, so the idea had come up to drag things into a melee to prevent them from using their heat rays out of concern for friendly fire, but it turned out they couldn’t damage each other like that, so a melee would actually be more dangerous for us.

It was a boon to have received such information from the Holy Church beforehand, but dealing with that many giants at the same time was still a difficult proposition. In a head-on fight, even the cheaters of the exploration team would end up being stalled, but nobody slowed their charge. There was no need to.

“Majima finished his job splendidly. Now it’s time to do ours!” Nakajima smiled ferociously and raised his hand. A terrifying amount of mana gushed out of his palm, turning into a glowing sword in the blink of an eye. “Take one shortsword. Go to hell.”

Nakajima Kojirou’s Sword of Light was the ability to quite literally create swords made of light. However, these swords didn’t all possess the same power. Their strength was equivalent to the amount of time he’d used to charge them with mana. Given no preparation, a dagger. One day’s worth, a shortsword. Ten days, a greatsword. Naturally, the swords got stronger and stronger with size. They had plenty of destructive potential when wielded like blades, but their full potential could be unleashed all at once.

“Haaaah!”

Nakajima yelled with spirit and undid the bonds of his shortsword, transforming it into a blinding torrent of light. This was the strike of a savior. By the time the light vanished, a path of ground rubble and wood chips was now open, leading to the Dimension Door.

“That many with one strike...”

I’d been informed of this beforehand, but witnessing it for myself was a shock.

“I’ve gotta show my good side,” Nakajima said, turning an affable smile my way. “Well, with this, I’ve used one up, though.”

He didn’t have unlimited use of the Sword of Light. Wielding them like normal swords expended them little by little, and unleashing one like he had expended it entirely. According to how it’d been explained to me, it was possible to stockpile swords. At most, he could store thirty shortswords or five greatswords. In other words, he had thirty shots maximum. What’s more, he was refraining from attacking with the more powerful greatswords, which he had far fewer of.

I already knew this and didn’t give it much thought normally, but I was just a little jealous. If I had that much power, I’d be able to protect the others no matter what happened. I shook off such thoughts as a momentary lapse of judgment and focused on the black sphere ahead of me.

Our three groups charged into the other world.