Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 4 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Secret

I peeled my gaze from the scene unfolding in front of the iron gate, only to see a swarm of giant beetles charging right at us. The moment I realized this, I jumped away from the window. The ability to make a judgment and react in an instant was something that naturally came to me after living in the Woodlands. There were just far too many to intercept them in time. Once I determined this, I strengthened my body with mana and jumped back with all my strength.

At the same time, I grabbed Mikihiko’s collar and scooped Kei up in my arm. This was the best I could do. I couldn’t reach anyone else. Lily acted in sync with me and added her own jumping power to mine, still clinging on to me. We were aiming for the wooden door leading to the spiral staircase.

The living winged bullets crashed into the top floor of the observation tower. It all happened in an instant.

“Aaargh?!”

A stab beetle pierced a soldier who had been staring fixedly at the gates. He screamed in agony as the beetle continued charging, smashing into the wall with the soldier still impaled on its horn. The soldier vomited the entire contents of his stomach and promptly died.

The beetles weren’t only coming through the window, either. Crashes resounded all over as fissures ran down the walls, cracking them to pieces as more and more flying bullets slammed into the tower. The sound of buzzing wings zipping right by me sent shivers running down my back. We would’ve been impaled just now if we hadn’t moved. Several of the soldiers weren’t so lucky, though. The stab beetles mowed them down as their screams filled the air.

“Urgh...?!”

In those few seconds where I felt like I was on the precipice of death, I managed to break through the door with my back. I choked from the impact rippling through the shield I had slung over my shoulder, but I managed to maintain consciousness thanks to the mana flowing through me. Unfortunately, this also meant I had to watch their agonizing deaths until the very end.

In the span of just a few seconds, the wall crumbled under the mass of stab beetles. Not only that, the giant insects kept going and crashed incessantly against the opposing wall. It was the exact same scene as the one happening at the front gates. They didn’t pay any heed to their own survival as they kamikazed straight in. The opposing wall cracked, fissures ran down its entire length, and it finally collapsed. The remaining walls weren’t enough to support the ceiling anymore. It creaked, bent, warped, and fell. Pulled down by gravity, man and monster alike were crushed as the observation post at the top of the tower collapsed.

◆ ◆ ◆

I tumbled down the spiral staircase. After toppling over two or three times, I crashed into the curved wall and came to a stop as I grumbled in pain. I fell with a significant amount of force, so my body hurt all over. If Lily hadn’t cradled my head, I would’ve likely suffered a concussion.

“...Are you hurt, Kei?” I asked.

“I-I’m fine.”

I sat up and checked on the girl pressed against my chest. She didn’t appear to be injured. A sense of relief washed over me as I looked up the staircase.

“...They didn’t make it.”

The door at the top was buried in rubble. It was enough to tell me nothing could be done for them anymore.

“How about you, Mikihiko?”

I stood Kei up and checked on the one other person I managed to save.

“Just a bunch of scratches and bruises. It seriously hurts. I wanna cry... But I’m alive and kicking, so that’s wonderful at least.”

Mikihiko held his right shoulder and got to his feet. In contrast to his frivolous tone, his expression was filled with grief as he looked up the staircase.

“Sorry,” I said, casting my gaze to the floor, “I couldn’t save anyone else.”

“It’s fine. It all happened in an instant. I didn’t even know what’s what, but here I am well and alive. That’s all ’cause of you, right? Thanks, man. I can’t die until I win over the commander.”

He didn’t seem to notice that we’d managed to make our emergency escape because of Lily. This was likely because I’d grabbed him by the back of the collar and forced him to move on the spur of the moment.

Mikihiko turned to Lily and smiled at her, doing his best to put on a show of courage. “Glad to see you safe and sound too, Mizushima.”

“Mhm. But what do we do now? We can’t just stay here.” Lily took her wooden spear and shield off her back and lowered her gaze toward me.

“...Let’s get moving for now. The tower could collapse at any moment.”

I also took my shield off my back and drew the wooden sword at my waist. I was really glad we hadn’t disarmed ourselves after entering the fortress. We had no way of knowing what awaited us next. Our weapons were camouflaged to look like normal magical puppet weapons thanks to Rose, but we couldn’t remove these while other people were watching. Having said that, we did have to consider the worst-case scenario.

Seeing us get ready for battle, Mikihiko also hardened his resolve. He drew two of the four swords at his waist and handed one of the spares to Kei, who wasn’t carrying any weapons with her.

“Right. Let’s go,” I said.

We began descending the staircase. Lily casually ran half a step ahead of me and gave me a glance from the side.

“What do we do after this? We can’t just run around aimlessly.”

“You’ve got a point there...”

Just as I was about to answer, a sudden gust of wind brushed against my face and I came to a stop. I squinted and took a closer look. One of the stab beetles from earlier had apparently gone astray and crashed into the wall of the spiral staircase, opening a hole and letting in air from the outside.

We looked down at the fortress through the hole and all gasped in unison. The first defensive line, which was meant to hold monsters at bay from the ramparts, was in complete chaos. A firefang spat fire, setting several soldiers ablaze and sending them tumbling off the wall. A rough rabbit rammed into a soldier’s armor, breaking all the bones in his body with its powerful arm. Bull wrigglers trampled over the dead and injured without pause. Slimes grabbed their poor victims with their feelers and suffocated them to death. There were even monsters I’d never seen before swooping down on the soldiers as they desperately tried to resist.

Other monsters had apparently charged into the fortress after the bull wrigglers tore down the gate. This was when we first learned that the bull wrigglers were nothing more than the vanguard of this invasion.

Larger monsters like treants didn’t enter the fortress, instead loitering outside the walls, but the large majority of monsters were already inside. Monsters were pouring out of the door to the top of the ramparts one after the other. The beasts exceeded what any soldier was capable of both in terms of speed and strength. The soldiers were trying to surround the monsters and fight them off, but there were far too many enemies to accomplish that. Spread out as they were, the oncoming herd crushed them one by one. Those who tried to take up formation and attack in unison were merely killed in groups.

Fort Tilia was built in the shape of two polygons, one within the other. The inner walls were even taller than the outer ones, so even with the monsters on top of the outer walls, soldiers could still launch attacks from above. However, the majority of the fortress’s soldiers were on the outer walls to repel the attackers, so the few soldiers on the inner ones suffered an effective counterattack from stab beetles and other flying monsters.

Their inability to cope with the situation wasn’t because of a lack of training. There were just far too many enemies, and the invasion was progressing far too quickly. Not even in their wildest dreams could they have prepared for this.

“N-No way. Aren’t those...monsters from the Depths...?” Kei said. She covered her mouth with her trembling hands and turned so pale it seemed like she would faint. “A-Also, this many monsters attacking at once...?”

“Do you have any idea how this could happen?” I asked.

“I-I don’t,” Kei answered, vigorously shaking her head. “This many monsters attacking at once is like...is like...the saviors’ campaigns into the Abyss...?”

Now that she mentioned it, the scene before me did resemble one of the legends Shiran had told me about. One of the saviors led a vast army into the Abyss, but they were routed by a massive number of monsters.

“No way... Did the guys who went on that rescue mission into the Depths screw up big time...?” Mikihiko muttered gravely as he narrowed his gaze beneath his glasses.

The exploration team’s Skanda, Iino Yuna, had taken a unit of Imperial Knights into the Depths to search for survivors near the Colony. We couldn’t outright deny the connection.

“...I wonder about that.”

Something felt off. This seemed inconsistent with Mikihiko’s conjecture. I still couldn’t tell exactly how, though. In the end, I could only shake my head.

“We won’t figure it out by thinking about it here. Our first priority right now is to find somewhere safe.”

Even as I said that, I felt my chest constrict. I was aware I was being dragged along by the situation. Acting without knowing what was really going on made me anxious. Was it really okay like this...? I had far too little time.

“We don’t know enough about the fortress to know where any safe spots are. Mikihiko, where do you think we should go?”

Mikihiko shut one eye in thought and groaned. “...The area around our quarters should work? It’s in the deepest part of the fortress and all. Right, Kei?”

“Y-Yes sir. The defenses around the saviors’ quarters are the thickest throughout the entire fortress. Even with the outer walls breached, they shouldn’t be able to invade past that point easily.” Kei had managed to regain some composure, or perhaps she was spurred on by her professional duty to protect the saviors before her. “Above all else, the two members from the exploration team are there.”

“Oh, right. Those guys are there, huh? They disgust me, but they’re pretty much head and shoulders above everyone else in a fight. That’s definitely the safest place.”

Mikihiko shot me a look. I nodded back to him and turned to Kei.

“Okay, can you take the lead, Kei? You know the fortress better than any of us.”

“Y-Yes! Please leave it to me!”

Kei clenched her fists and hyped herself up, running off in the lead. I took one last glance out the hole in the wall. I sighed as I watched the monsters loitering outside the walls. If possible, I wanted to get out of the fortress and rendezvous with Rose and Gerbera...but that seemed difficult with the fortress under siege. It was unfortunate, but I had no other choice. I shook off my regrets and ran after Kei.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Eeek! Th-This way is no good!”

“Fuck! Another detour?!”

How much time had passed since we began running? We’d had to change our course for the umpteenth time now. When we turned the corner, we were confronted with a battlefield rife with a mix of angry roars and screams.

Soldiers were in formation, spears at the ready, as a bull wriggler charged toward them. The spears plunged into the monster, and some even managed to pierce its green carapace. However, the huge insect wasn’t affected and forced its way into their formation, sending soldiers flying around and crushing them.

The bull wriggler gradually lost its momentum. The remaining soldiers surrounded it and stabbed it repeatedly to avenge their fallen comrades. The insect twisted and writhed from the damage, and even more soldiers were sent crashing into the ground and walls. Despite their struggles, new enemies were quickly showing up in the distance.

“This way!”

We left the battle behind and ran down a hallway with Kei as our guide. The army of monsters was basically trampling the humans on the ramparts, but here in the fortress, the soldiers were able to somewhat weaken their momentum. The monsters were spread out thanks to the overly complicated layout of the fortress’s corridors, allowing soldiers to group up and protect the key points, just barely managing to fight the way they wanted to. Having said that, the situation was still dire. The defensive lines were broken here and there, and the monsters had breached quite far into the fortress. Our escape route was often blocked off by fighting, making it quite difficult for us to reach our goal.

What’s more, the soldiers were still confronting the bull wrigglers who had broken through the gate. They were nothing more than monsters from the Fringes, though. Several monsters on top of the ramparts came from the Depths and were far more powerful. If those were to begin invading the fortress in force, the casualties would skyrocket. It would be the end of the line if the invasion overtook us before we reached our destination. If Gerbera were here, we could push through and take them all at once, but as we were, we had no choice but to continue running.

No... Is it really okay like this? Anxiety suddenly assaulted my heart. Could this invasion actually be dealt with? Were we just running blindly into a cul-de-sac? That ominous premonition bubbled up within me.

“Hey, Takahiro,” Mikihiko said from my side.

“What?”

I took a look back at him. His face was slightly stiff.

“We got all the way here by refusing to give up, but isn’t it about time for us to pay the piper?”

“...Don’t say that.”

“I mean, you can tell, can’t you? This air around us is the same as the day the Colony fell.”

I couldn’t say anything. I shared his bad premonition, after all. This corridor connected to a future where only ruin awaited us. I couldn’t help but feel that way. I had also walked this path back in the Colony. Both Mikihiko and I had gone through it ourselves. We could remember the feeling in the air. Perhaps that was why we naturally felt the same thing here.

“It might just happen,” Mikihiko said between heavy breaths. “If worse comes to worst, I’ll go first. Then you, Takahiro. We need to protect the girls.”

“...In that case, I’ll go first.”

“No way, man. You have Mizushima. You go second.”

His strong tone was one I’d rarely heard throughout our long friendship. I must have looked somewhat daunted by this, because Mikihiko suddenly softened his voice.

“You know, Takahiro, back in our world, you admired Mizushima, right? You might not have noticed it yourself.”

I blinked.

“Well, I say that, but I was the same... Oh, keep that a secret from the commander, okay? Right now, she’s the only one for me. Besides, that was just some vague admiration. You were the same in that regard, though.”

“...”

“You finally got the girl you liked as your girlfriend, so you gotta treat her dearly, you hear me?”

Mikihiko grinned. It was the same smile of the outspoken boy back in the classroom.

“I-It’s no good. Here too...?!”

Just then, Kei, who was running in the front, suddenly screamed. We turned the corner and found a 2-meter-tall mantis called a tetrasickle cutting down a formation of spear-wielding soldiers. It came from the Depths. It was known for its two-bladed, sickle-shaped limbs that were so thin they were transparent. The grim reaper’s scythes sliced through the air, sending soldiers collapsing to the floor like some kind of bad joke. The surviving soldiers thrust their spears with a do-or-die spirit, but they couldn’t reach it. A swooping limb sliced the face of a soldier frozen in despair in two diagonally. Arms flew in the air and intestines scattered about.

“Shit! It’s just a little further! We can’t get through this way! Let’s go back!” Mikihiko yelled, turning back around the corner. He came to an immediate stop, however. There was a wounded beast down that way too. “A firefang...”

The figure of a gray wolf, one that I’d seen many times while wandering the Woodlands, walked down the corridor we came from. One of its eyes was crushed and two swords that looked like they belonged to knights stuck out from its belly, but that wasn’t enough to bring down such a ferocious beast. It was dragging the corpse of an Alliance Knight, already torn to shreds by the beast’s fangs.

“...T-Tahaha. You’re shitting me.”

A tetrasickle to the front, and a firefang to the rear. We were sandwiched between powerful monsters from the Depths.

“N-No way...” Kei moaned in despair.

Her reaction was natural. To escape this crisis, we had to defeat at least one of these monsters or somehow slip past one. Our opponents were far too powerful for either action, however. It wasn’t something a simple human could accomplish. Yes... It was impossible for a human. But for someone inhuman, it would be a different story. For example, if a monster were to... Or if the one who led those girls were to...

I stood still, thinking.

There was a means. However, to do so, I had to reveal the secret I’d been hiding. It would exacerbate my situation remarkably, especially considering that the fortress was under a large-scale attack by monsters. Say a human suddenly appeared who had monsters at his beck and call. If I didn’t handle this carefully, I’d be suspected of launching this entire attack.

What was worse was that such a suspicion couldn’t be completely cleared. Kei had just said this was much like the saviors’ campaigns into the Abyss, but the monsters attacking the fortress were far too organized. This was the source of the discomfort I’d felt before we began running away.

The way the bull wrigglers kamikazed against the gate during the initial attack was particularly strange. It was possible such behavior was due to a certain type of excited state, but from what I could see, the large army of insects didn’t show a single hint of that. They were like machines. I couldn’t sense the passion of living beings within them.

Furthermore, the monsters loitering around outside were also acting strangely. Giving it some thought, it looked to me like they were lying in wait for any humans trying to escape the fortress. I had to abandon all hope of meeting up with Gerbera and Rose because of that.

The situation was far too extraordinary. I couldn’t help but feel human malice was behind it. It wasn’t that radical an idea that someone was manipulating the monsters to attack the fortress. There were surely others who came to the same conclusion. So, if it was known I could tame monsters, even more people would think so. Still...

“...This isn’t the time to be hesitating, huh?”

My indecisiveness only lasted a moment. Neither Lily nor I could afford to die here. What’s more, Mikihiko and Kei were with us. If it was just Lily and me, we might’ve been able to get through this while keeping our secret hidden, much like we did when we evaded the stab beetles earlier. However, doing that while protecting the other two was impossible no matter how I looked at it.

Last night, with Lily’s support, I vowed to overcome the trauma I experienced after coming to this world. I also realized I could trust Mikihiko and Kei. I wanted to believe in them. This was the truth within me that Lily had spoken of. That was why I couldn’t let them die. I made my resolve, shot a glance over to Mikihiko—

“...Huh?”

—And met his eyes as he looked back at me.

Mikihiko smiled. It was somehow refreshing, as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

“Kei, sorry, but gimme back my weapon,” he said to the little girl who had frozen up completely. He plucked the shortsword from her hand. “Let’s do it just the way we discussed, Takahiro.” Mikihiko walked down the corridor toward the firefang. I could sense a silent resolve in him. “I’ll get that stupid wolf’s attention, so take Mizushima and Kei and get outta here.”

“Th-That’s absurd! Mikihiko!” Kei suddenly came back to her senses and began screaming at his back. “You’re not even a knight! Taking on a monster from the Depths all on your own is far too reckless! You’ll die!”

“Tahaha. Yeah, I’m a weakling. Plus, I’m no knight, and I’m definitely not some haughty-ass savior,” Mikihiko replied sarcastically. “But lemme act cool just this once.”

“Mikihiko...”

“It’s all right, Kei. I’m not just charging in without a plan...”

He shrugged without turning back to face us and then threw two of his swords into the air toward the ceiling.

“...Huh?”

Both shortswords drew a parabola in the air as they rotated slowly. Once they reached their apex, gravity pulled at them and they began slowly descending. Spinning and spinning. Flipping and flipping... And then, they stopped. The swords pointed themselves at the firefang while still in midair. There was nothing supporting them. They had been freed from the confines of gravity.

“What the?!”

“This is my cheat: Aerial Knight.”

Mikihiko drew the remaining two swords at his waist. And with his four shortswords postured for battle, he looked over his shoulder back at us.

“What’cha think? Pretty cool, huh?”