Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 6 - Chapter 4

Chapter 4: One Attack after Another

Takaya’s mantle fluttered in the wind over his tattered blazer. He held a sword in his right hand—the one he had stabbed into Lily’s skull—and Lily in his left, her body bound in chains. He wore an innocent smile. He was the deceased Mizushima Miho’s childhood friend, the cheater who had left her and Katou behind in a hut so he could head east and contact the first expeditionary force. This was my first time seeing him in person.

“Come on. Let’s go, Miho.”

Takaya, already standing on the other side of the river, turned to leave. His expression was warm. It was utterly out of place given the current situation, making it far more unnerving than it should’ve been.

Lily was unconscious now because of Takaya’s attack. At this rate, he was going to abduct her. The moment that thought crossed my mind, I charged forward.

“Wait!” I shouted.

“Don’t get in my way,” Takaya coldly declared as he turned around. His eyes were filled with malice.

A chill ran down my spine. The survival instincts I had developed in this world rang warning bells in my head.

“I’m taking Miho back,” Takaya said.

The bejeweled sword in his hand started shining. No glyph took shape, but I could feel the exceedingly powerful mana coming from it on my skin. I reflexively stopped my charge just as the earth at Takaya’s feet swelled up.

“A magic weapon?!”

A surge of soil rushed across the river toward us. It carried a fair amount of water in the process, giving it a significant amount of mass. I couldn’t get away from it.

“Master!”

The moment before the tide of earth engulfed me, ashen hair spread out before my eyes.

“Rose?!”

Rose had forced her injured body to move and jumped in front of me. She held her shield out before her, taking the raging mass of earth head-on.

“Ugh!”

The equilibrium broke in an instant. An explosion quickly drowned out her shriek, and Rose’s body flew away. In the next moment, dirt buried the entire riverside we had been occupying.

“Gah!”

Rose’s intervention had managed to weaken the rushing wave’s momentum. Having said that, the sheer mass of earth was a threat all on its own. My vision flipped upside down. I couldn’t tell left from right. I held my breath and clenched my teeth hard to avoid losing consciousness.

“Whoa?!”

Suddenly, a tremendous force pulled on my left hand. I thought my joints would dislocate, but this got me out of harm’s way. My vision still tumbled about, but I could see Asarina stretching out of my left hand, winding herself around a nearby tree. She had been the one to pull me to safety.

“Urk!”

I rolled across the ground pathetically, unable to right myself. I ignored the pain torturing my entire body and got back to my feet the moment I could. I spat out the gravel in my mouth and held my sword at the ready. Yet the follow-up attack I feared would finish me never came. Actually, I couldn’t even see Takaya anymore.

“He couldn’t have...!”

I quickly ran back to the riverbed. The earth had been overturned, changing the scenery altogether. Takaya wasn’t there either, and I couldn’t see Lily anywhere.

“Fuck! He got me!”

His magic assault hadn’t really had much force behind it. A small amount of earth had spread over a relatively wide area, so it hadn’t been enough to finish us. Yet Takaya hadn’t attacked while we were thrown off by it.

It had been nothing more than a smoke screen. As far as I could tell, he didn’t care if it killed us, but that wasn’t his objective. In truth, if Takaya had felt like it, he could’ve killed us all. He hadn’t done so simply because he was prioritizing his goal—Lily’s abduction.

Blood drained from my face. I felt hot, yet cold. My emotions welled and became unstable.

“Majima-senpai,” Katou said, bringing me back to my senses.

I turned around and spotted Katou sitting in Iino’s arms. It seemed she had also managed to avoid the surging wave. She stood up, her legs still trembling. She didn’t appear injured.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Y-Yeah. I’m fine. Looks like you got by too.”

“Yeah. Iino protected me.”

“She did?”

Iino didn’t react even as I glanced her way. She was still in a daze from Takaya’s sudden arrival and attack. He hadn’t cared in the least that Iino was in range. To her, though, he was a fellow exploration team member. She could never have imagined him launching an attack on her.

It was pretty impressive that she had managed to protect Katou with her mind in such disarray. Takaya’s magic had been aimed at me, so Iino hadn’t been in the direct line of fire. With the power of the Skanda, an injured leg wasn’t enough to stop her from protecting a single noncombatant.

“Rose pushed me toward Iino all of a sudden...” Katou said, looking at me with her hands clasped in front of her chest. “Um... Where’s Rose?”

◆ ◆ ◆

We found Rose a short distance away from the riverbed. She was half buried in dirt, so I had to dig her out. Katou wet a small piece of cloth in the river and wiped off Rose’s body. Rose lay down and let Katou do as she pleased. She had no choice. Her skirt was flipped up, showing nothing beneath it. Rose had lost her entire lower body. She really had pushed herself earlier, seeing that she had already been injured from Iino’s attack. Her lower body was probably buried somewhere around here, but we had no idea where it was.

“I must apologize for my shameful display, Master,” Rose said.

“Don’t. You did well,” I told her.

Rose had leapt into action, ignoring the severe damage to her body. That was why I hadn’t suffered any major injuries of my own.

“But if we are to take back my sister...” Rose uttered.

We had to find out where Takaya was, catch up to him, and fight him. Tracking him wouldn’t be much of a problem. I was connected to Lily through the mental path, after all. It lost its effect over great distances, but at the very least, I could tell which direction she was in.

The problem was catching up. Takaya’s actions proved that he didn’t have any intention of facing us in battle. Even though he was carrying Lily, it would still be hard for us to catch up to a cheater actively trying to escape from us.

What’s more, even if we did somehow catch up to him, we would then have to fight him. Be that as it may, our forces were already absolutely exhausted from the continuous battles we had endured. We were separated from Gerbera, Shiran, Ayame, and Kei; Rose was seriously damaged; and Katou couldn’t fight. The only ones who could face him right now were Asarina and me. No matter how I looked at it, there was no way we could take on a warrior like Takaya.

“What do we do...?” I groaned to myself. At this rate, we couldn’t get Lily back. Impatience overwhelmed me. I felt like vomiting. “Why was Takaya here to begin with...?”

“About that, Master,” Rose said. “There was one thing on my mind before this happened.”

“What was it?”

Now that she mentioned it, Rose had been in the middle of saying something right before Lily showed up.

“Iino said, ‘At least take me to the entrance of the mountain. I can use the horse I left there to get back.’”

“Yeah, she did. What about it?”

“We had to move slower because of our group’s size, so it took us nearly two weeks to reach the suburbs of Serrata from the Woodlands. A fast horse could cover that distance in four days, but Iino had managed it in two. Why would she have a horse at the entrance to the mountains?”

I turned around in astonishment. Iino sat there looking up at me. Her expression was stiff. I marched up to her.

“What’s going on?” I asked, grabbing her by the collar and glaring at her.

“I-I rode a horse up to that point.” Now half-standing on her knees, Iino’s face twisted from the pain in her injured leg. “I returned from Fort Ebenus and stopped by Serrata. Louis told me to...”

“And you continued by horse...because Takaya was with you?”

Iino nodded. “By the time I got back to Fort Ebenus to speak with our leader, Takaya had already left the fortress. I caught up to him in Serrata, and then we split up at the entrance to the mountains. It was better to work in numbers when gathering information in the villages, but after getting this far, it was only a matter of giving chase...”

Earlier, when Iino told me the details of her journey, I’d found her speed shocking, but I’d also felt like she had been taking it easy. However, considering Iino’s personality, she would take the shortest and quickest route to her objective. The reason she hadn’t was because she had to match Takaya’s pace.

I stood there dumbfounded by the situation.

“This must be some kind of mistake,” Iino said. “I can’t believe that Takaya would act like some kind of kidnapper.”

“A mistake? You do remember being attacked just now, right?”

“I do... But he’s a good kid. He really gives it his all.” Iino meekly shook her head. “When he first reached Fort Ebenus, his body and mind were in tatters. Frankly, he isn’t particularly strong among the warriors. Going through that vast forest all on his own must’ve been disheartening. He had to be mentally exhausted. And with the frequent monster attacks, he probably hadn’t gotten any real sleep either. Injuries were to be expected, especially because he was in a hurry...”

I listened to her in silence, holding her by the collar all the while.

“But still, Takaya managed to reach the fortress. The very first thing he said was, ‘Please save Miho. I don’t care what happens to me. Please, hurry and save Miho.’ That’s all. He was completely delirious.”

I could vividly imagine the scene Iino was describing. He had been desperate to save Mizushima Miho, the childhood friend he was in love with. Nothing else mattered. Regardless of how tragic the outcome was, his actions had been noble. I couldn’t agree with her statement that this was some sort of mistake, however. On the contrary, this explained Takaya’s attack on us all the more.

“He really isn’t the type to do that kind of thing...” Iino muttered.

“That’s not a good reason to believe it must have been a mistake, not in the least,” I told her bluntly. I was still gripping her collar.

“Huh?” Iino blinked in confusion.

“Do you truly believe every villain in the world steeps their hands in evil because they want to?”

All people are good people. There are simply mutants among us who are evil. How wonderful would it be if that were the case? Reality was nowhere near that simple. Definitive evil was rather rare. It was pretty much a miracle for it to exist. Depending on the circumstances, anyone was liable to act with animosity toward others.

For example, take the cheaters who brought about the Colony’s fall. I never planned on forgiving them, but I didn’t believe they were genuine villains. Aside from their new supernatural powers, they were normal people. Those powers had spurred their violence.

On the other hand, weakness could bring on mistakes—just like with the other monster tamer, Kudou Riku. Doing the right thing in this rigorous world was much too difficult. Takaya was probably the same. Because he cared for Mizushima Miho so dearly, his actions made perfect sense.

“Takaya was just trying to take his childhood friend back,” I said.

More accurately, he was under the impression he had taken her back. That was Lily, though; it wasn’t Mizushima Miho.

This is the worst, I thought to myself.

The stronger his emotions, the greater the rage and despair would be when he realized his failure. What would Takaya do the moment he found out the girl he had taken wasn’t Mizushima Miho? Any outcome seemed ominous. Just thinking about it chilled me to the core.

“If you had at least told us beforehand...” I said menacingly.

Iino shook with a start. She could sense the anger in my voice. She could easily kill me with a slap if she were so inclined, but here she was, trembling in fear like a normal girl. The moment I realized this, a portion of my seething mind managed to cool down.

“Goddammit...”

It would have been easy for me to strike Iino in her defenseless state. It would have probably made me feel better too. Still, there was no meaning in doing that. It wouldn’t bring Lily back to me. It wouldn’t give me a means of taking her back either.

Besides, Iino wasn’t here to help me. She wasn’t my ally. On the contrary, we were enemies. We had just crossed blades. Even if she had hidden this from me on purpose, I didn’t have a reason to blame her for it. Also, knowing of Takaya’s presence didn’t mean I could’ve handled his attack. Venting my anger on her wouldn’t accomplish anything. I had to calm down.

“Let me ask you something,” I said with a big sigh. “That sword and chain he had, they were magic, right?”

I couldn’t even believe this was my own voice. It was so cold from me forcing my emotions down.

“Y-Yeah,” Iino answered timidly, her eyes wide. Perhaps she had been under the impression that I was going to hit her.

“Do you know much about them?”

“Th-The sword is a treasure called the Landslide Blade. It’s a magic weapon that can form pillars of earth, a feat around the same level as grade 3 magic. They offered it to the exploration team when we arrived at Fort Ebenus. It’s considered the ultimate class of equipment within the Empire.”

“The ultimate class?”

I was rather doubtful that something on the level of grade 3 magic could be considered ultimate, but after giving it some thought, I recalled that this world’s people couldn’t use anything beyond grade 3 magic. My standards were a little skewed.

Magic weapons weren’t as flexible as normal magic, but even if this one only created and sent forth a pillar of earth, doing so with the force of grade 3 magic was outstanding. It had many uses depending on its application, much like how Takaya had used it as a smokescreen.

“But isn’t Takaya a cheater? Why does he need it?” I asked.

“Takaya’s strength is close combat. Magic is his weak point.”

So Takaya couldn’t use much magic without relying on tools. Iino had mentioned that Takaya wasn’t all that strong. This information could lead to a valid strategy...as faint as such prospects were.

“The chains were manashackles. Have you heard of them? They’re a type of magic tool used to seal a criminal’s mana.”

“It’s the first time I’ve heard the name. So that’s what they look like...”

The people of this world could destroy a prison cell barehanded if they had mana. I’d heard that there was a means of sealing that power. It required the target to be unconscious to activate, and it wasn’t strong enough to seal the abilities of combat-focused cheaters, but it was more than enough to seal Lily’s mana as she was now.

I now knew she couldn’t escape on her own. This wasn’t very welcome news, but it was better for me to know the whole situation.

“I get the gist of it,” I said, letting go of Iino.

I had everything I needed from her. My business here was done.

But Iino wasn’t done with me. “H-Hang on, Majima,” she said in a panic, falling back on her rear. “What are you going to do?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I’m going to chase Takaya and get Lily back.”

“Are you serious?!”

Iino’s complexion changed completely. I shot her a glare. She faltered for an instant, but she didn’t stand down.

“Something was clearly strange about Takaya’s behavior,” she continued. “I’m sure you won’t be able to talk him down. It’ll likely turn into a fight...a fatal one...”

“Probably. I don’t plan on talking it out either.”

“What?!” Iino yelled, her eyebrows standing on end. “Do you really plan to fight to the death over some monster?!”

“Some monster, huh?”

Her words were rather cruel, but strangely enough, they didn’t irritate me. That was because Iino meant no ill will. She probably hadn’t even given it any thought before blurting it out. Her goal here was, at most, to stop two fellow humans from killing each other.

She wasn’t really wrong. No matter the reason, people shouldn’t engage in mortal combat. Killing someone to take back a monster was insanity. That was a perfectly sound argument...to humans viewing us from the outside.

“She might just be a monster to you, but she’s precious to me. It doesn’t matter whether she’s a human or a monster.”

All I wanted was for those dear to me to be safe. That was all. I didn’t care about doing what was right. Iino and I were on two totally different pages.

Iino was at a loss for words, but she still tried to stop me. “I-If you hadn’t fed Mizushima to that monster to begin with, this would never have—”

“Yeah. You’re right. I can’t refute that no matter who criticizes me for it. But that has nothing to do with this.”

She was absolutely right. If I hadn’t fed Mizushima Miho’s body to Lily, Takaya would’ve never committed this act of violence. But Takaya was the one who had lost Mizushima Miho, not me. She was dead because of Takaya’s mistake.

“Above all else... No matter the reason behind it, I’m not going to stand idly by while he steals my girl from me.”

“Let me ask you one last thing,” Iino said, casting her eyes down. She knew the battle was inevitable now. There was no strength left in her voice. “Did you kill Mizushima Miho?”

“No,” I answered immediately. “Not that you’d believe me.”

“I...”

“If you can’t take Senpai’s word for it, shall I vouch for him?” Katou cut in. She was nestled up against Rose and glaring coldly at Iino. “Majima-senpai didn’t kill her. If he did, do you really think I’d be with my friend’s murderer like this?”

“In the same vein...you’re going around with the guy who fed your friend’s body to a monster and stole her appearance.”

“You’ve got a point there.”

Katou scowled and looked at the ground. She clenched her fist over her chest, perhaps a little hurt by Iino’s statement.

“But we’ve been desperate to survive ever since the Colony’s fall,” Katou continued. “There was no way to remain innocent in such a situation.” She looked back up, the strong light in her gaze causing Iino to gulp. “At the very least, anybody who wasn’t there doesn’t have the right to say anything about it. Mizushima-senpai is pretty much the only person who can be angry about it.”

“She’s dead, though...” Iino just barely managed to squeeze out.

For some reason, Katou smiled ever so slightly. “Yes, she is. She died. She can no longer smile or get angry. But I don’t believe she would be angry over this.”

“What? Why?”

“Back when we quarreled with Gerbera...” Katou stopped there, shaking her head. “No. It’s better not to say anything without any proof. More importantly, Majima-senpai, getting Lily back is our obvious priority. It’s useless to go on your own. We need to think of a way to handle this.”

“I know...”

No matter how much I steeled myself, it wouldn’t fill the gulf between Takaya and me. We had managed to get some information out of Iino, but that was nowhere near enough to put me on his level. I wanted to chase after him right away, but that would be foolhardy. I had no choice but to get back to the mountain path for reinforcements. But would we be able to make it in time like that?

“Master,” Rose suddenly said, still lying down without a lower body. “Gerbera’s here.”

“What...?”

Before I could process what she was saying, a shadow fell from the sky. It was hope in the form of a giant white spider.