Chapter 4 — This Is When the “Good Grief”-Type Protagonist Should Be Stepping Forward!
Having decided on a plan, at least for now, they left the stone structure behind.
“Nothing is going to suddenly appear in front of us and try and take us by surprise now, is it?” Tomochika asked as she looked around, having grown rather suspicious. Aside from the fallen spaceships, there was nothing particularly out of the ordinary.
“Okay then. Warp Shield!” Vivian hurled the shield in her hands. It stopped in the air, opening into a large elliptical mirror.
“You really can do anything with those shields, can’t you?” Yogiri commented.
“This looks a lot easier than trying to fly with them, right?” Rather than showing their reflections, the mirror was showing a rundown village. It appeared to be connected to the village where Vivian had lived before. “But it looks like I can only go to places I’ve already been. So sorry, I guess I can’t take you out on the east side of the forest.”
“I’m sure we’ll find a way. All we have to do is fly, apparently.”
“With those shields, rebuilding your kingdom should be no issue at all,” Mokomoko remarked, impressed.
Yogiri felt the same. Judging by what they had seen so far, she could do more or less anything with them.
“Yeah, I’ll have to think about it a bit more. A lot of things happened between us, but in the end Yoshifumi is dead, so it’s all fine. Feel free to come and visit once the kingdom has been rebuilt! I’ll have some tea waiting for you!”
“We’re looking for more Sages, so I doubt we’ll end up coming back here.” Yogiri didn’t expect they’d ever return to this distant island.
“Takatou...you’re supposed to promise we’ll meet again, even if you have to lie,” Tomochika admonished him.
“Oh, really? Well, I guess it’s not impossible that we’ll meet again. So if by some chance we happen to end up back here, maybe we’ll come see you.”
“Yogiri Takatou, you really are going to act like that up until the end, aren’t you?!”
“Stay safe, Vivian.”
“See you later!” Vivian touched the surface of the mirror. The image rippled, and she slipped into it without issue. After Vivian had entirely passed through, the shield shrank and disappeared.
“If she can only travel to locations she previously visited, would it not have been best for her to accompany us to the capital?” Hanakawa asked. “Since she can return home at any time from anywhere.”
“Why didn’t you say something earlier?” Tomochika demanded.
“I’m sure she’ll be fine as long as she has those shields,” Yogiri said. If Vivian could use them to fly, she wouldn’t have any problem getting to East Ent. “Okay then, next is our turn. Luu, can you take us all into the sky?”
Luu looked around at the group. Yogiri, Tomochika, Enju possessed by Mokomoko, and Hanakawa. Along with Luu herself, that made five.
“Yeah, I think I can handle this many people.”
“Thank goodness! I was a tiny bit concerned you would say I was too heavy and that you would have to leave me behind, so I am much relieved!”
They had no intention of leaving him, but Hanakawa had been worried.
“Could you fly us far enough to get back to the mainland?”
“I don’t think we can go that far.”
They had gotten the lay of the land from Vivian. To the east of the island was a large continent, and it was their closest option.
“I guess we’ll have to see how far we can make it. Let’s go,” said Yogiri.
“Everyone, stand near me!” They all gathered around Luu. “Here we go!” As she spoke, they began to float into the air. Slowly ascending, they could see the forest disappearing into the horizon.
“Hmm. I thought we would be rather disadvantaged after losing Furemaru, but it appears Luu will be a sufficient replacement!” Mokomoko commented.
The girl’s power must have been something like telekinesis. It was a simple ability but easy to use and apply to a wide variety of situations.
“Looks like the Lost Woods is still functional up here. You’ll have to keep taking us up,” Yogiri instructed Luu. The spaceships had arrived from outside the forest, and Haruto Ootori had come and gone by flying, so they should have been able to make their way out as long as they got high enough.
“By the way, would it not have been smarter to have Vivian go and check if we could actually leave by flying out?” Hanakawa asked again.
“Oh, I guess you’re right. You’re surprisingly sharp today.”
If they couldn’t get out this way, they could have had Vivian take them out the western side. They could then fly to the eastern side of the island without going through the forest at all.
“Sir Takatou...you really have survived in this world entirely by bulldozing through every situation with your instant death power, haven’t you?”
“I guess we can’t argue with that!” Tomochika said.
There were six enormous trees positioned in a sort of hexagon in the middle of the forest. As they rose above them, Yogiri felt something in the air change.
“Did we make it out?” asked Tomochika.
“Seems that way.”
They stopped ascending. Now that they were out of the Lost Woods, they could see the entire forest in one look. Though it was certainly large, it didn’t seem to extend forever like it had before. As they looked around to try and figure out which direction was east, they saw a large city in the distance. Being so high up in the air, it was hard to gauge just how far away it was, but it was a considerable distance from the forest. It was surrounded by walls and had countless buildings, so there was little doubt it was the capital.
It also seemed close to being destroyed.
“That city is totally under attack!” Tomochika cried.
The thing attacking the city was obviously large, but it was hard to tell what it was at a glance. It was swinging around a number of enormous objects, using them to smash apart the buildings. The creature was obviously intent on the city’s destruction, given the way it was tearing down the walls and sweeping away the structures within.
“Perhaps that is a hydra? A large monster with many heads. Like Yamata no Orochi, the eight-headed serpent of Japanese myth.”
Once Hanakawa suggested that, Yogiri saw it in the same way. The city was being struck by the thing’s heads. Numerous long necks sprouted from a central body, and at the end of them were what appeared to be heads. But it wasn’t just heads growing from a body—it also had tails, wings, hands, and tentacles protruding. Altogether, it was hard to put a name on the enormous creature.
And it wasn’t merely striking the city with physical force. It had heads that looked like lions breathing fire and others that looked like goats breathing lightning. Something that looked like a tail covered in spikes was launching those spikes as projectile weapons.
The city wasn’t totally defenseless. Some sort of magic was flying back at the monster. But given the creature’s size, the attacks didn’t seem to matter. It was hard to believe they were enough to even hurt it. The creature seemed to be unaware of the defensive measures. It relentlessly kept up its attack. They didn’t know if its goal was to destroy the city or the people in it, but it didn’t seem like it was just passing through. At this rate, the city was more or less doomed.
“They aren’t just snakes, though; the heads are of all sorts of animals,” Mokomoko said. “I guess it’s more like a chimera, then. By the way, just because the Yamata no Orochi has eight forking tails, do not think that means it has nine heads. Do not think of it as eight divisions, but as being divided into eight points. The question then of course arises, why eight? In legend, it was said to have eight heads and eight tails, but long ago, the number eight was used metaphorically to represent ‘many.’ So it is not necessarily the case that it had exactly eight heads.”
“Is now really the time to be talking about this?!” cried Tomochika.
“A-At any rate!” Hanakawa interjected. “With Sir Takatou here, the wielder of the Eternal Force Blizzard, no opponent can threaten us in the least! We shall overcome no matter what terrifying foe confronts us! Now! Unleash upon that creature your merciless power!”
“It’s not attacking us, so why would I kill it?”
“What?! I mean, aren’t a lot of people dying right now?! A city of that size must have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of residents, and at this rate every single one of them will be slain!”
“That’s a problem for the people of this world. We’re not from this world, and we’re not even anywhere close to the city, so I don’t think it’s my place to intervene.”
“I guess that’s kind of true.” Tomochika was surprised by the creature’s presence but seemed to agree that they didn’t need to do anything about it. They couldn’t be sure that this wasn’t all fallout from Yogiri’s previous actions, but even if it was, they wouldn’t accomplish anything by worrying about it.
“No, no, no! Why are you accepting this, Tomochika?! Are you going to let that monster rampage unchecked?!”
“Don’t you think it might have a good reason for attacking them?”
“Miss Enju, please! That city is our objective, is it not?!”
“The capital was our intended destination, but only to collect information. A city in that state will be of no use to us. There should be any number of other places where we can find information about the Sages,” Mokomoko responded calmly.
“Why have I suddenly been forced to take the role of the group’s common sense guide?! That should be Tomochika’s role as the heroine!”
“If you want to do something about it, we can let you off at the capital,” Yogiri offered. “Could you do that, Luu?”
“Yeah. You just want me to throw him over there, right?” Although Luu was currently holding them in the air as a group, she’d have no issue throwing a single person at the same time.
“You realize I would only die, right?!”
“Then stop trying to make us do it.”
“Are you saying you are just going to ignore such an immense attack?!”
“It’s pretty presumptuous to get involved in everything that happens in front of us, don’t you think?”
“Oh come on! This is when the ‘good grief’-type protagonist should be stepping forward!”
“‘Good grief’ is supposed to mean I’m fed up with it, right? So why would I say that while solving the problem?”
“Huh? Uhh, well now that you mention it, I’m not sure. Perhaps it is similar to the tsundere archetype?”
“Luu, do you think you could get us to the mainland from here?”
Beyond the capital to the east, they could see the sea. There should have been another continent on the other side of the water, but they couldn’t see it from where they were. It was supposed to be relatively close by, but it was probably still a good distance away.
“I don’t think I could do it without any breaks. If there were islands along the way where we could rest, it would probably be all right.”
“So I guess just flying off without a plan is a bad idea. Okay, then let’s find a port town. That looks like one, right?” On the other side of the capital was another city on the water. It wasn’t as impressive as the capital, but it didn’t seem to be under attack either.
“So what should we do? Go straight there?” If they headed in a straight line, they would pass right over the capital. Luu didn’t seem to be sure that it was a good idea.
“Well, we are pretty high up. I don’t think the monster will notice us.”
“I do not know if I agree,” Hanakawa said. “If we are hoping to avoid danger, it would be best to take the long way around. If we are flying anyway, taking a more circuitous path should not impact our travel time significantly.”
“I guess that’s true. Okay then, Luu. Take us to the port city without going over the capital.”
“Okay!”
They began to move again, flying forward diagonally. As they did, Yogiri noticed the sky was unreasonably bright. Looking up, he saw the clouds had parted, and something was coming down through them, shining brilliantly. It was an army of humanoid figures, clad in armor and bearing weapons.
“Oh, I remember these guys...” They were a response from the aerial defense network set up by the Sages. Yogiri had encountered them once on his way to the island. The Sages didn’t permit anyone to use the sky.
“Angels again?! Didn’t they learn anything the first time?!” Tomochika shouted.
But Yogiri had had no difficulty dealing with them before, and it wouldn’t be any harder to do it again. If they were going to harass them all the way to the continent, he’d just have to keep killing them. He had already killed a number of Sages, so he was clearly their enemy by now. There was no point in trying to hide from them.
Even so, it wasn’t his style to act preemptively, so he waited to see what the angels would do. He didn’t feel any killing intent coming from them, and it didn’t seem like they were concerned about their group in the least.
The angels descended from the sky and headed straight for the capital. They hurled the spears in their hands at the enormous monster. They had shown up to protect the city.
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