Chapter Thirteen: Insensitive Individuals
“Hey! What about us?!” the former harpoon guy said.
“Is it just abandoning us completely?” the former ofuda guy cried, both of their faces twisted with anger. The holder of the ship vassal weapon was already far beyond the horizon, however. Then they immediately looked over at S’yne’s sister, the only one remaining who looked likely to put up a fight. They were quick to change their tune, just because they no longer had a chance to win!
“Hah. I knew you were all worthless from the start. This is the very time to use your intellect and determine a way to come back from the brink . . . but instead you simply turn to those you see stronger than yourselves,” the Demon Dragon spat, abandoning the corpse of the metal magic dragon and chewing out the former harpoon vassal weapon holder and former ofuda holy weapon holder. “Based on your own rules of survival of the fittest, I shall punish you. You should have won!” the Demon Dragon taunted.
“Hah! If you think you can do it, then bring it on! You won’t take us down so easily!” the former harpoon vassal weapon holder squawked, his face pale. He knew exactly how much trouble he was in, that much was clear. “Hey, give me that chain! I can use it better than you anyway!”
“Oh . . . I really doubt that,” I quipped. There was no way he could handle that thing better than S’yne’s sister—or at least, he’d better not be able to. I wondered where that idea came from, that he could do better with it. He had been drubbed soundly by Sadeena when using the harpoon himself. If he thought he could just pick up a random weapon and win, he was underestimating real combat.
“Well, well, well.” S’yne’s sister gave a sigh. She was clearly pretty pissed off, because even her annoying catchphrase didn’t have its normal spark of energy. “I warned you plenty of times; putting together an operation that underestimated your opponents would lead to your downfall. Rather than try and get Kuflika’s power back, you should have transferred power to her from somewhere else and at least kept her alive,” S’yne’s sister said.
“Don’t tell me what I should have done! At least Malty lent me her power! Why are you cold and mean? The fact we are about to lose here is all your fault anyway!” the former harpoon guy said.
“That’s right! The responsibility for this lies completely with you!” the former ofuda guy said. Now they were completely shifting the blame. S’yne’s sister had clearly been against this plan but had tagged along to help out anyway. She’d helped to pin down S’yne, fighting her the whole time to keep her occupied. She was a much more dangerous enemy than these others who did nothing but try to take away our weapons and make us weaker.
They had come for the Demon Dragon but found her both strengthened by my influence and skilled at magic. Their means of nullifying enhancement magic had been taken away and Sadeena had proven to be technically superior with the harpoon. Then our spy, Lyno, had dealt with their accessories, which were meant to prevent the weapons being stolen. The collaborator who actually had their backs, Bitch, had been tricked by Lyno too. Bitch had been attacked by surprise and killed, escaping as just a soul. The string of unexpected events had continued with the ofuda holy weapon choosing a new owner, and then the harpoon too. Blaming all of that on S’yne’s sister? That was a bit of a stretch.
Fight on then, if you must, I thought. We would take them down one at a time.
“Well, well, well . . . have you considered the possibility I might leave you here too?” S’yne’s sister said.
“What? Do you have any idea what will happen if we don’t return?!” the former harpoon guy said.
“You are joking! You will only purchase the wrath of one far greater than yourself!” the former ofuda guy said. He certainly had the hots for someone.
“I’ll purchase nothing, I assure you. You must understand. You seem to feel some obligation, but to our great leader you are nothing but an insignificant little bonus. You are not truly a part of the Third Army,” S’yne’s sister said.
“No! That’s not possible!” The former harpoon guy clearly didn’t want to believe it, but there was also something on his face suggesting that he did.
I had some like that among my forces too, I was sure. Some of Motoyasu’s filolials, for example, had perished during the battle with the Phoenixes. But I’d hardly had any contact with them and had only felt a shallow kind of sadness. I had needed to grieve for them, and wanted to avenge them, but I’d been so full of thoughts of Atla at the time.
It was true. Many who hadn’t needed to die had died during that battle. It was so arrogant to feel this now, but my sadness for them, and my rage at Takt, welled up again. The floating mirror responsible for the Shield of Compassion grew in strength a little. It was dependent on my mental state. That much was becoming clear.
Whatever these guys felt about the one they followed, anyway, was of little consequence. They were so removed that their leader would feel nothing when they perished. Their deaths might not even be reported.
“Don’t get all full of yourselves just because the technical department gave you a holy weapon. I doubt our leader will even be told of your deaths,” S’yne’s sister said.
“You lie! You can’t trick us like that!” the former harpoon guy shouted. Bossing around someone that held the power of life and death over you—he really was an idiot.
“Maybe I can help you to resolve this disagreement,” the Demon Dragon said, stepping in on the side of S’yne’s sister. “These hangers-on are going to be getting in the way of our continued battle, clearly.”
“Demon Dragon! I’m not going to allow you to pull anything like yesterday!” Kizuna warned. She was clearly talking about the whole fresh-zombies thing. The Demon Dragon made a noise, as she was pondering something for a moment.
“Very well. I’m in a good mood today. As you wish, Hunting Hero, I shall restrain myself,” the Demon Dragon said. Kizuna and Glass looked relieved for a moment, and then—
Faster than either of the girls could move, the Demon Dragon rushed down the former harpoon guy, his party, and the former ofuda guy and chomped into them, crunching them into bloody pieces amid screams and protests that were abruptly cut short. She was eating them while there was fire in her mouth to make sure that none of them would survive. The Demon Dragon was buffed not only by enhancement magic but also transformed into the Wrath Dragon by my rage. Now these guys had lost their holy weapon and vassal weapon and only had middling levels. They were just chaff before the Demon Dragon’s flail.
“I didn’t just eat their souls, but their bodies too. That suits you better, correct?” the Demon Dragon said.
“That’s not what I meant!” Kizuna said.
“I can’t believe this! Naofumi!” Glass protested.
“This is my fault?! We’re going to get into the same kind of pass-the-buck bickering our enemies were just mired into!” I said. I wanted to prove we were different, not make the same mistakes.
“Very well,” Glass said, but she clearly wasn’t pleased. “Once this is over, we will circle back around to the topic of how to handle the Demon Dragon.”
“I agree with that,” I told them. She had already hacked my shield and mirror. I did have a tendency to think the ends generally justified the means, but that wasn’t everything.
“Well, well, well. Hasn’t today just been full of surprises,” S’yne’s sister said, sighing heavily . . . and then she swept her chain through the air, wiping out all of S’yne stuffed dolls with a single attack. S’yne had clearly thought she was doing better this time and was stunned at suddenly losing all of her familiars. “In that case, Iwatani, heroes of this world, it looks like I have to fight you alone. Give me your best shot.”
“You seem pretty confident,” I said.
“I admit, I might get in a little hot water if I don’t at least take some information back with me. I don’t expect you to hold back. Come at me however you like,” S’yne’s sister said. I wondered for a moment if she seriously thought she could turn the tide of this battle—but of course she did. Even if we proved ourselves stronger—and I still wasn’t sure of that—she had the means to get away from us. We had no ideas at all for stopping her from getting away. How was it that we could be in total control of the battlefield and yet not prevent her escape?
I cursed under my breath, needing some way to strike a decisive blow. We were staring down the barrel of her all-range attack again. It would send us all flying away just like it did last time. We were a little stronger now, and had enhancement magic on us, but we didn’t know what other tricks she was hiding either.
“Shield Hero,” Lyno said and then tossed me an accessory that she had stolen from Bitch while also indicating she had held one back for herself. “If you have that accessory, you can use as much magic as you like, even with the magic from your world sealed.”
“Great!” I said. Gripping the accessory, I focused on incanting magic. It did look like it would work, but something about it felt different. “Okay . . . it will work, but I can’t hit anything like Liberation class,” I said, sensing that it only allowed use up to Drifa class magic. Trying to use anything stronger than that would destroy it completely.
It was still highly useful, of course. The applications of even lower-class magic were practically infinite. If we could learn the new weapon’s power-up methods before S’yne’s sister attacked, that would help to form a strategy too.
“Sadeena, Shildina! Tell me your weapons’ power-up methods! Look at help, right away! And fall back a bit too. We don’t want those weapons getting stolen again,” I said.
“Oh my!” Sadeena said.
“Oh dear,” Shildina added. Both of them followed my orders and started to move away from S’yne’s sister while checking their status and power-up methods.
“Let’s see . . .” As Sadeena and Shildina puzzled over their menus, light extended from Kizuna’s hunting tool and my mirror and hit the gemstone part of the new holy weapon. “Ah, found it.” It didn’t sound like the power-up methods were concealed, like they had been with the claws or staff. But someone might have done that to prevent the enemy from learning of the power-up methods.
“I’ll go first. Using skills and magic repeatedly makes them stronger,” Sadeena reported. So there was some kind of mastery level system for skills and magic. That was a lot like the weapon mastery system from Kizuna’s hunting tool—making frequently used skills easier to use and stronger. I guessed it would make sense that some of these power-up methods would start to overlap. The more important one here was Shildina, anyway. She had a holy weapon. That meant it had three times the power-up methods of a vassal weapon.
“Okay . . . I see spending points on magic to enhance it. Then there’s . . . raising the rarity of weapons?” As soon as I heard her explanation, I wanted to hold my head for a moment while also clenching my fist. Good news! So enhancing the level of magic came from the ofuda! That did seem suited to the weapon, that was true. The power-up method from the staff seven star weapon was magic enhancement too.
Then there was increasing the rarity of a weapon, one of the sword holy weapon power-up methods that Ren had told us about. I hurriedly started to increase rarity of my mirror. Everyone around me had unfocused eyes too. My weapon started to shine and sparkle.
Then Shildina took a look at the third power-up method. Luckily for us, it was displayed in help, unlike it had been for my shield.
“It says you can sacrifice levels in order to draw out latent abilities and increase status,” she said.
“Ah! That’s the same as this seven star weapon,” Lyno said, holding up the whip that she had stolen from Bitch. I’d known that weapons from different worlds could have the same power-up methods but hadn’t expected them to overlap here. It also didn’t sound like something that was safe to experiment with in this situation. Magic enhancement was the one we could really use right away.
In any case, an understanding of power-up methods could really boost our current skills and magic.
“Well, well, well, how long do you want to keep me waiting? I’m about to get bored and attack you!” S’yne’s sister said, making a swift swipe with her chain. I cursed, moving a float mirror into the range of her attack and getting her chain tied up with the Mirror of Wrath. The chain made a satisfying clinking sound as it got stuck, but then it started to rotate around where it was caught. What a pain! I grabbed the chain and tried to subdue it, but an incredible force pulled back at me. It looked so light. I was shocked at the strength of it!
“Mr. Naofumi!” Raphtalia shouted.
“Master!” Filo joined her, the two of them rushing to aid me in this new tug of war.
“?!” S’yne wordlessly leapt at her sister, slashing with her scissors. But S’yne’s sister used the reverse side of the chain to hit S’yne in the stomach. That was all it took to send S’yne flying off into a wall. She recovered and started to run back toward the action, but she needed a few seconds to do it.
“Shield Hero,” the Demon Dragon said to me. “There is another specific reason why I crunched the head of that pitiful copy back there. That is where my fragment was buried. Now I have claimed those memories, which include partial information on the holy weapon power-up methods.” Another cause for celebration! “The power-up method for the jewels holy weapon is the same as your shield, Shield Hero: trust. The sharing of power-up methods.”
“Well, well, well. We’re leaking information like a sinking ship. Handling this scandal could be quite the business,” S’yne’s sister said. It almost sounded like none of this had anything to do with her—and her confidence that all of this leaking out didn’t mean anything really pissed me off too.
This also helped explain why S’yne’s sister was so strong though. Thorough implementation of the increase of latent abilities could turn anyone into a monster. Say we were facing an enemy that was level 100, and we were 200. What if that opponent had latent abilities unlocked to the tune of 1000 levels? Even with the same ratio of power-up methods, our stats would be far inferior.
Takt had held the whip, but as one of the resurrected, he had been unable to draw out the true power of the seven star weapon. He hadn’t implemented any power-ups at all. But what if he had, I wondered. That was the source of S’yne’s sister’s confidence and the reason we were currently on the ropes. I wanted to berate S’yne for not more carefully confirming the strength of the people she was picking fights with, but that was for later. She wouldn’t like it, but it had to be done.
“What else do we have . . .” the Demon Dragon continued. “Comparing this with your memories, I think this one is like job levels. It says ‘profession.’ It seems you can choose a profession of some kind.” I immediately started to check and saw an option added to the status column. Yes, profession. All sorts of possibilities popped out, including warrior, wizard, monk, ranger . . . no acrobat, but still plenty to choose from. Enhancing them was like the bow power-up method. It involved providing items. The systems were a little different, but it looked like it could work. In any case, I needed to start raising these things at once! I checked around for a more robust conversion function.
“Well, Shield Hero, that’s all the knowledge I gained, but it has revealed something important,” the Demon Dragon said, even as she sucked in some air to spit fire at S’yne’s sister. “We already know the power-up methods for three holy weapons and eight vassal weapons. But our enemies have been performing attacks that aren’t covered by the methods that we know. So what must one of the power-up methods in the final holy weapon be?” the Demon Dragon said, like some freaking detective or something. Everyone present who was skilled with their own weapons immediately understood what this meant—the remaining weapon, the blunt instrument holy weapon, had a power-up method for skill levels. This new understanding of the power-up methods made me feel that S’yne’s sister had just gotten a little weaker.
“Well, well, well. Very good. You might put up a fight now,” S’yne’s sister said.
“Spend some points on enhancing magic to raise that up too . . .” I muttered, pretty much ignoring her.
“Well, well, well. You think I’ll allow any more of that?” she replied. Probably not, I admitted to myself. She wasn’t going to give us a large enough opening to totally upgrade ourselves, and trying to do so could get us wiped out. We had to stay focused when fighting S’yne’s sister at her full strength.
“Everyone! Watch out!” Kizuna unleashed Double Lure at S’yne’s sister, but she saw it coming with ease and knocked it away with her chain. The range on that thing was insane!
Just like with Attack Support, I had thought that Boosted Mirror Fragments would be a good skill to enhance and tried to put some points into it. But I had been unable to do so. So there were some skills you could enhance and some you couldn’t.
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