Chapter Eleven: The Mirror Vassal Weapon
“What’s this? What’s happening?!” Surprised by this unexpected turn of events, Miyaji looked over at the moron woman. She was still wrestling with S’yne but stopped and shook her head to show she didn’t know what was going on either. The two balls of light whirled around in the space between Itsuki and me, slowing down the progress of the guillotine blades. For a moment, I thought it was support magic from someone . . . but that wasn’t it. There were faint shapes within the light—a mirror and a book.
The mirror was the one who had sent us on this lovely vacation in the first place. The book though . . . What was it playing at?
The balls of light containing the mirror and book rammed into me, as though they were competing with each other, and then one of them flew away. Light dazzled my eyes, but when I blinked, the light was gone.
However, there was also a strange feeling in my shield hand. Very similar to how it had been acting until now, but also slightly different. Text appeared in my field of vision.
Confirming connection of mirror vassal weapon to the shield holy weapon—performing conversion.
Then a familiar-looking but also slightly different status item popped up.
Unlocked compatible weapon!
Weapon book items slid in at high speed and formed into a single shape.
I entrust my intent to protect this world to you.
You liberated me, and I have come to repay that debt.
Please save the trapped holy weapons, brave Shield Hero.
The item locked in place along with this message.
Amid exclamations from those around me, I looked at my hand. There was a mirror-like shield there. I immediately stopped the guillotine blade and then blew it away. In my field of vision, I saw a mirror that was shaped like a shield, called the Spirit Tortoise Carapace Mirror. This looked like an exception weapon that might work much like the staff had. I opened the weapon book to check. Countless mirrors—which looked basically like shields—all hovered in my field of vision. I could only use them in this world, from the look of it. I’d only been able to use the Fenrir Rod when I had the staff equipped, so this didn’t look like an exception weapon after all. It was more like the vassal weapon had chosen me.
I looked over at Itsuki to see the ball of light with the book swirling around him. Then the book within the light snapped shut and backed off. It looked like the vassal weapon wasn’t able to choose its owner. Then the ball of light with the book vassal weapon seemed to just give up. It then proceeded to pass through the wall and vanish.
“Well, well, well!” said the moron woman.
“Wait! Catch it!” Witch shouted orders, trying to get after the book vassal weapon.
“We’re not finished here yet!” I flourished my new mirror and stood in front of Witch and the other foes. I also quickly checked my status. It was a mirror, after all, not a shield. I prayed I would be able to attack.
All I saw were numbers that looked like a weakened shield state. “Dammit,” I cursed, even as I placed myself in the line of fire. I still couldn’t attack! The previous owner . . . Albert, wasn’t it? That guy had been able to attack all he liked . . . when Kyo controlled him, admittedly. So was this a different situation?
“Naofumi, the mirror vassal weapon chose you?” Glass said.
“Mr. Naofumi!” Raphtalia and the others suddenly looked a lot more cheerful.
“You’ve obtained a vassal weapon?! There’s no way this kind of last-minute save happens to someone so evil! Enough with your theatrics!” Armor swung his axe again, and he was now firmly fixated upon me as his target.
“Air Strike Shield!” I shouted, almost on instinct, but nothing happened. It looked like the skill system was different too. Then the skill item popped up. I didn’t normally spend much time looking in there . . . but I spotted a skill I could use. Perhaps the two weapons were still sorting out the sharing of information between them, as many skills were grayed out. But there was one that I could definitely use.
“Formation One: Glass Shield!” I willed it into existence, and a semitransparent glass shield appeared in the air.
“Hah! This won’t stop me!” Armor swung his axe at the glass shield I had created. With a high-pitched shattering sound, the glass shield shattered into fragments. Armor laughed.
“See, Shield Demon King? This is all the strength an imposter can manage!” he crowed. It certainly looked weaker than Air Strike Shield. Armor was using the axe seven star weapon, after all, not to mention a curse series. When I gave consideration to its potential attack power, smashing that shield seemed expected. I tried mixing in some life force, just in case, but it hadn’t seemed to do any good.
Even as I considered this apparent failure, the fragments of glass swirled through the air . . . and flew toward Armor. One after the other, glass shards stabbed him. Blood started to gush from all over his body.
“What! What the hell! Damn you!” he roared. Bleeding profusely pushed him to further heights of rage.
“You cowardly otherworldly scum! Relying on the power of the legendary weapons like this! Don’t think this is over yet!” Miyaji shouted.
“Cowardly . . . is not a word you have any right to use! And you’re from another world here yourself!” I shot back. Getting himself summoned here and then acting like this, seriously. Almost everything he said was a contradiction of something he said earlier. I didn’t think we were going to be able to reach him with words anymore.
Not that I’d ever really thought that.
“Die!” The still-raging Armor swung his axe at me again. I mixed my power with life force and concentrated on a skill name that I often used. Okay, that felt like I was getting the hang of it.
“Stardust Mirror!” An enhanced Shooting Star Shield was instantly deployed, stopping Armor and his axe in their tracks.
“Impossible! This can’t be allowed! We are justice! This means the vassal weapons of this world are evil, if they are willing to side with a demon king!” Armor raged. I was pretty impressed myself—even without any enhancement, the mirror had decent capabilities. Recalling the mirror that had shattered, however, I realized it was true that it offered lower defense overall compared to the shield.
In either case, we now had a new means to fight back.
I was also pretty amazed by Armor and his incredible logic that everything that opposed him had to be evil.
“Ha! No need to get all excited just because you picked up a vassal weapon,” Miyaji said, still so full of himself. And he then started to play again. In the next instant, however, magic spheres hit both Miyaji and Armor.
Both of them gasped and shouted at the attack.
“You should not get distracted,” Itsuki told him. At some point, he had started his own performance again. The magic spheres created by Itsuki proceeded to turn into the shape of rocks and fly toward Miyaji’s allies and Witch.
“Element Harmony? You can activate such high-level magic using a blade of grass?!” Glass was suitably shocked as she saw the magic swirling in the vicinity. I didn’t really understand it myself, but from Glass’s reaction, this was quite something.
“Is that difficult to do?” I asked.
“It’s attack performance magic that requires a solid performance before it will activate. I think even Filo would have trouble activating it by just singing,” Glass explained. Filo, who loved singing, had even become something of an idol singer.
“Well, well, well, that’s pretty smart of you. If you can’t use magic from your world, use magic from this one,” the moron woman said. She sounded pretty impressed, even as she continued her engagement with S’yne.
“Hah! I’m the specialist at musical instrument magic! Now you’ll see the true terror of the Musical Instrument Hero!” Miyaji clicked his fingers and the room filled up with more of his allies, including more soldiers. So he planned to just overwhelm us with numbers now?
“Listen to me, you’re trash! This is the ultimate support magic! Tremble before the might of my enhanced allies!” Miyaji crowed. He placed his bow on the strings of his violin-like musical instrument and started to play. Itsuki immediately started to resist him.
“. . . I’ve captured the flow of the piece. Now I’ll put into action something Filo and the others taught me,” he said. He blew on the leaf again. All of a sudden, the music Miyaji was playing turned into a horrible cacophony. The barrier of thickened air that had been surrounding his allies scattered, and the magic spheres that had been hovering around Miyaji were also all dispelled.
“Hey, scumbag! Stop interrupting my playing!” he shouted at Itsuki.
“This is the art of dissonance. Can you perform your magic under these conditions?” Itsuki asked. So it wasn’t incantation interference, but more performance interference? I didn’t know much about dissonance, just that it involved making a sound at odds with the others being produced.
Just like in cooking, the right additions could be used to bring out a pleasant flavor, but persistently adding the opposite could ruin the taste. The same was true here, which clearly prevented magic from being used in this world. Miyaji was glaring in anger and disgust at Itsuki.
“I’ll keep trying to block his performance magic. Naofumi, please try to turn this situation around,” he told me.
“I’m on it!” I quickly responded. Even without his weapon, Itsuki was still more than pulling his weight, and without making use of his Accuracy ability.
“Raphtalia, Glass, are you both okay?” I shouted.
“This is . . . not going too well,” Raphtalia managed, clutching her chest with one hand. She was still on the receiving end of an enemy curse skill. The same was true for Glass, but she was up and fighting Miyaji’s women; she was also clearly at a disadvantage.
“Oh, baby S’yne! Aren’t you a clever little baby!” the moron woman taunted. S’yne broke free of her hold and fought back, but she didn’t have the time to worry about us.
“We’ll aid you!” someone cackled. Miyaji’s women rushed to help the moron woman. This was bad! The rest of us had our hands full dealing with Armor and Miyaji already!
“I do so appreciate the offer, but you deal with Hidemasa’s enemies. I am enjoying myself too much to let anyone else interfere,” the moron said. Then she plunged her chain into the ground, creating a cage of chains and shutting out those trying to help her.
She really was enjoying messing with S’yne. That was one twisted sister.
That also meant we didn’t have to worry about the enemies ganging up on S’yne though, so that was something.
“S’yne, you just focus on your own battle! Make sure you don’t lose to her!” I shouted. S’yne glanced in my direction, gave a nod, and then attacked the moron woman again using her scissors.
Meanwhile, I had to focus on defending Raphtalia, Itsuki, and Glass. I had to fight Witch and Armor too.
“Hah. You have to know that the true value of this musical instrument doesn’t lie simply in performing. Even if you interfere with my playing, I can win if I use cursed songs against you vassal weapon holders,” Miyaji gloated.
He made a good point . . . but just going on the defense seemed unlikely to stop that mysterious curse skill. The attack wasn’t coming right at them— right at their faces—so it wasn’t something that could be stopped by interrupting it. It was a gradual thing, but both Raphtalia and Glass were progressively taking damage. Those straw dolls looked like the medium of the attack . . . There wasn’t much we could do without taking them back. Even as the curse skill continued, Miyaji was still attacking with his notes, preventing us from aiding our allies.
Even as I mulled the situation over, I felt the skill conversion bringing other skills online. One in particular stood out. It didn’t have “shield” in the name, and so the name hadn’t changed. Maybe because it was only activated using SP. Still, we needed all the help we could get. I decided to give it a try.
“C’mon Raph!” I said. Weaving in some life force, I activated the skill to summon Raph-chan. In response to my call . . . a light appeared.
“Raph!” said Raph-chan.
“Pen!” Chris had come along too! They both landed, looked around, then looked at me.
“Thanks for coming, Raph-chan and Chris,” I told them. They both gave cheerful responses, but then their fur raised in response to the threat from these enemies. Then Raph-chan and Chris rushed over to Raphtalia and Glass, respectively.
“Shikigami!” one of Miyaji’s women shouted.
“Adding two more small fries to the mix won’t make a difference!” said another. They moved to attack the cute twosome, but with a puff of smoke, Raph-chan activated her illusion magic. There suddenly seemed to be a countless number of her and Chris in the room.
“What’s this?!” one of the women cried.
“Isn’t their magic sealed away?” said another.
“Bad luck for you. These are shikigami, meaning they don’t use the same magic we do,” I told them. The way in which Raph-chan’s illusion magic worked had actually not really been determined. She could also use the same magic that we did, but considering how she had just used it here, she could clearly also use a similar but different type of magic too. She was a monster after all, and the circumstances of her birth placed her close to a resident of this world. All of which meant it was hard for them to block her.
Then, as the women tried to batter an illusory Chris, a massive Chris—at least two meters—appeared behind her, unleashing a mighty smack with his powerful flipper. The woman screamed as she went flying away.
“Pen!” Chris said triumphantly.
“Is that Chris?!” Glass exclaimed.
“Pen!” Chris affirmed, striking a body-building pose at Glass, as though to show off how strong he had become. Glass was stunned and then glared over at me. Hey, I wanted to say that had nothing to do with me.
Chris immediately returned to his small size and then the two other small ones dashed over to their respective owners and climbed onto their shoulders. That was all it took for Raphtalia and Glass to look like they were in considerably less pain.
“Has the pain in your chest improved?” I asked.
“That’s right,” Glass remembered. “These shikigami have the power to resist curses.”
“What?!” Miyaji was hammering the straw doll over and over again. Each time he did, there was the sound of something hitting Raph-chan and Chris.
“Raph!” Raph-chan batted it away with her tail.
“Pen!” Chris pecked something with his beak. In the same moment, the doll Miyaji was holding split apart.
“They repelled the curse attack?!” Miyaji shouted. With a pained grunt, Miyaji placed his hand on his own chest, glaring intently at Raph-chan while he did so. As the saying went, of course, if you curse someone, you’d better dig two graves. It was a standard trope in manga and anime for a curse like this “voodoo” to bounce back on the user if it failed. Maybe that was also an element of the attack he had used—or maybe Raph-chan and Chris had just bounced it back at him.
Now we could disrupt Miyaji’s curse attack and use support magic against it. That should stabilize the battle a little more.
“Stardust Blade!” Raphtalia unleashed a wide-range skill that consisted of sparkling stars and sent them flying at Miyaji’s women and Witch.
“That’s not going to hit us!” one of them yelled. They all dodged the incoming stars, then moved to strike back. I could completely nullify Witch’s magic though, so that didn’t get her anywhere.
“Zero Formation: Reverse Snow Moon Flower!” Glass shouted. Next Glass unleashed one of the skills she was most proficient with, sweeping away the women who were closing in to counterattack. Then she and Raphtalia dropped back to my position.
“Thank you for calling in Chris. I might have some comments about what has happened to him later, but for now, you have my gratitude,” she told me.
“Mr. Naofumi! The mirror vassal weapon is lending you its power! How great is that?” Raphtalia said.
“Pretty great,” I replied. “Can you tell me the power-up method to draw out the power of this weapon?” I asked her. There was a power-up method she had learned from Kizuna, but I hadn’t asked for the details. I vaguely remembered it being something like getting stronger if you were using the same weapons. Glass’s method was for her weapon to absorb the magic leaking out from opponents during battle. In any case, if we didn’t have a quick way to power up right now, we would lose purely on the basis of raw stats.
“Do you think I have time for that now?!” Raphtalia exclaimed in response. Miyaji was firing notes at me again. He really knew how to pick his moments!
“Formation Two: Glass Shield!” I shouted. Just before the notes appeared, I made my own glass shield appear right in front of Miyaji’s eyes. It could be used exactly like Air Strike Shield, so I was proficient with it already. It also didn’t require Change Shield, so that made it one beat faster.
“Shit!” Miyaji shouted, even as the glass shattered and flew at him. Even Miyaji didn’t have time to avoid that one, and the glass stabbed into him—but maybe due to the difference in our levels, it didn’t look like he took any damage.
“Why must evil always thrive?! Taste the hammer of justice!” Armor raged.
“Raph!” said Raph-chan, activating magic of some kind.
“I don’t plan on letting you do that again,” Glass followed up, parrying the attack using her fan. His strikes were too powerful to take head-on, so she had adjusted by sweeping them to the side.
“Curse you, Shield Demon King! Only a coward would resort to illusions!” Miyaji bellowed. He had also been hit by Raph-chan’s illusions and looked completely disoriented. This looked like our chance to take him down.
“What the hell are you letting them do to you?!” Witch raged at him. She hadn’t done enough to warrant complaining about anyone else, surely. Her magic spells had just been nullified one after the other.
“What was that?! If you have a problem with how I’m handling things, put some pressure on the shield demon king yourself!” Armor shouted back.
“Hah! You’ve got a seven star weapon and you still can’t handle your business! Why would I help you out?! If that weapon had come to me, I’d be able to make much better use of it than you! But who was the one shooting off his mouth?! I won’t get my own weapon unless we win this battle either!” Witch screamed back—seemingly revealing more of what she was really thinking than perhaps seemed like a good idea. It also sounded like they still had a trump card up their sleeve.
I could probably guess what it was. The chain S’yne’s sister used was one thing, but seeing the axe Armor used . . . it seemed safe to assume that they had possession of the missing seven star weapons.
Which just meant we had to take them back.
“Stop playing around and finish them off!” Witch barked. Armor gave a wordless shout of rage. If this had been a cartoon, there would have been smoke coming out of his ears. As someone accustomed to a bit of rage myself, I decided to offer him some advice.
“You need to review your reality. Getting all enraged like that isn’t going to change the facts in front of you. Push down your murderous rage and think calmly about the most horrible, graphic way to kill your enemy,” I told him.
“Only a demon king would say such a thing!” Raphtalia commented from the sidelines. This all took me back a bit, honestly. It had been a while since things were quite like this. I was finally finding my groove again. Time to ramp things up.
“Can you keep your taunts down to a minimum?” Glass said. I would have told her this was what we were always like, but that wouldn’t have made her think any better of us.
“Everyone. Focus,” Itsuki called out while still playing his support magic on his leaf. He was right, of course. I was feeling lighter on my feet too. My wounds were gradually healing. This performance magic was pretty convenient to have around.
“Raphtalia, the power-up method!” I reminded her.
“Ah, of course!” Raphtalia proceeded to tell me in a whisper. We didn’t need our enemies overhearing it. “Still, the method for the katakana is refinement, correct? You said it added a plus.” So there were overlapping methods? Even if that was the case, when I took the examples from the past into account, there was no way you could just guess your way into using them. You needed an awareness of skills, levels, and weapon power-up methods.
I decided to use materials I had on hand to enhance the mirror. I wasn’t sure if the failure rate was the same or not, but I raised it to +6. I made it in one go, so I guess I was lucky.
“You know the one for the fan, Glass?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she confirmed. It involved absorbing the magic, or whatever leaked out from opponents during battle, and using that to make enhancements. That wasn’t the kind of thing I could do right now. “L’Arc can imbue the souls of monsters he has defeated.”
“Spirit Enchant?” I asked. That was the power-up method from the spear, as Motoyasu had taught us.
“It sounds pretty similar,” Glass said. I didn’t like the sound of that—so it might be compatible, and it might not.
Then I noticed that the Spirit Tortoise Carapace Mirror had a fixed Spirit Tortoise soul attached to it. Was that thanks to Ost? It looked like it boosted all status and centered around defense. It could also deflect and nullify a single powerful attack, although that one had a long cooldown—and if the attack was too powerful, it couldn’t handle it all.
That must have been what I used to stop Armor’s attack. That made sense.
Of course, in my case, my attack wasn’t increased. But it also had bonuses to health, magic, and even auto SP regeneration. The Spirit Tortoise was something else! As it was fixed, I could also apply another for myself . . . In light of the effects of the shield, I decided to use the White Tiger Clone materials I had inside my shield on it. It looked like they increased agility. Maybe I could expect some effects from Atla as a result of that.
We were still connected, even if we couldn’t talk. Maybe it was a bit much on my part, but I wanted to believe that Atla and Ost were lending me their strength.
“What about ofuda, like Kizuna said?” I asked.
“I think this would be good for you,” Raphtalia replied, taking one out and giving it to me. I put it inside the mirror and took a look. It appeared to increase defense. Yes, that was perfectly suited to me.
“Ethnobalt’s ship had provided bonuses based on the type of items placed inside it, right?” I confirmed. It was a power-up method that any hardcore item collector would love.
“That seems to cover it. What is the mirror’s power-up method, anyway?” Raphtalia asked. I checked the help . . . and quickly realized it wasn’t something we could do right away.
“Not something we can do in a hurry!” I replied.
“Okay. Understood,” Raphtalia responded.
“Can you please start concentrating on the battle again?!” Glass interjected even as she protected us from Armor’s raging attacks. I was periodically putting out Glass Shield and Stardust Shield so she could hold on a little longer.
“I’m ready. Let’s do this,” I finally said.
“Okay!” Raphtalia agreed.
“Hey, Glass. Do you think I could use that magic that Trash #2 . . . Tsugumi’s guy used?” I asked.
“It will probably be hard to just start using it,” she replied. “Hold on, what did you just call him?” Oh crap. She’d realized that I never learned his name.
“Hardly something we should be discussing right now,” I said. We didn’t have the strength to take out Miyaji, his women, Armor, and Witch too. Ah. Then I remembered a certain skill.
I raised one hand, saw a skill in my mind, and then activated it.
“Formation One: Float Mirror. Formation Two: Float Mirror.” Two mirrors appeared, just like with Float Shield.
“Hah! There’s no way you can fight back!” Miyaji yelled. He appeared to only have one trick up his sleeve, as he proceeded to launch off more notes once again. They had different shapes and colors this time, so they were probably a different type of skill.
“Mr. Naofumi!” Raphtalia shouted.
“I’m fine. Defense is my job. Also, Raphtalia . . .” I started.
“Yes?” she replied. Then the floating mirrors adjusted their angle in the air to catch each note. The notes slipped inside the mirrors before being shot back directly at Miyaji.
“Uwah! Reflection?! You are joking! I’m not allowing such a cowardly attack!” Miyaji raged. So reflection was cowardly now, was it? Still, these mirrors could not only reflect magic—a property of Float Shield—but could also reflect skills. That was pretty convenient.
Time to put the boot in.
“Your magic is nullified and your skills reflected. Looks like we’ve got you on complete lockdown, Miyaji!” I crowed with a mocking look on my face as I taunted him. We were establishing a nice situation for countering Miyaji—a real textbook example of strategy.
“What did you just say?! Are you insinuating that I’m weak?!” he raged back.
“Yes. Itsuki and I could take you alone,” I told him. We would actually prefer to have an attacker help us as well, but if we could nullify everything he was doing, then we could probably subdue and capture him. If we defeated each of the attacks he unleashed, one at a time . . . Then I remembered why we were here. Our purpose was not to defeat the musical instrument vassal weapon holder—it was to rescue Kizuna. If we could just save her, we wouldn’t need to be here fighting in enemy territory. And there would be so much more we could do.
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