The World of Otome Games is Tough For Mobs - Volume 13 - Chapter 15

Chapter 15:

A Worthy Opponent

THE SITUATION OUTSIDE Arcadia’s fortress continued to develop. The royal army had rallied and was pushing the imperials back, due in large part to the emperor’s own orders. After Leon and his men breached the fortress, the emperor had recalled his Demonic Knights—the imperial army’s strongest forces—to combat them. The ensuing panic affected all their troops.

Gilbert watched it all play out from the bridge of his ship. “Don’t let this opportunity go to waste!” he ordered. “Keep pushing them back!”

Both armies were fighting with all their might, exhausting an enormous amount of resources and manpower in the process. If this had been an ordinary war, future generations would have looked back on it as a moment when both sides made the foolish mistake of refusing to retreat when they should have.

“Lord Gilbert, you should fall back,” said the captain. Gilbert had ridden to the front line to command their forces and, thus far, refused to leave. “You’re the Redgrave heir. We have no idea whether His Grace is still alive. If anything happened to you, it could have grave consequences!”

Gilbert’s expression betrayed no emotion. “If I turned my back on our men now, I would bring shame on both myself and future generations of my house. Do you honestly expect me to do that?”

“Sometimes you must shoulder shame for the greater good! Besides, our allies are handling things just fine at the front. I don’t see any reason for shame in falling back to safety.”

“Shame is just an excuse on my part,” Gilbert admitted. “The real reason I can’t withdraw is because my pride won’t allow it.”

“Lord Gilbert…” Any further argument died on the captain’s lips. He resigned himself, realizing he couldn’t convince Gilbert even if he tried.

At that same moment, two white Armors whizzed past their ship, expertly cleaving through nearby monsters as they went. They were no doubt capable of that partly because the Armors were so powerful, but it was obvious the pilots were equally talented.

Unfortunately, the conversation leaking into the air was less impressive or graceful.

“There, kiddo! See? I’ve beaten more enemies than you!”

“You’ve got some nerve claiming that after you stole my prey, you old man!”

When the AIs upgraded the royal army’s ships, they’d equipped the Redgraves’ vessel with a monitor, which now displayed the two strangely masked pilots. Gilbert didn’t need to see their faces anyway—not when he recognized both their voices.

Pressing a hand to his forehead, he sank to his knees.

The captain panicked and raced over to him. “Lord Gilbert! Please hold firm!” He probably realized the cause of Gilbert’s sudden exasperation.

“It’s…it’s fine,” Gilbert stammered. “Actually, I have a request to make of you, Captain. Could you fire at those two?”

“Pardon?”

Gilbert’s expression had turned cold and emotionless as he stared at the monitor. “Just one missile,” he reasoned. “Surely people would believe that was a misfire, right?”

“No. No, of course we can’t do that. They’re our allies!”

Gilbert grimaced. “I know that. I get it, I do! But still…!” What are they thinking, taking the battlefield?! 

The pilots’ voices were still leaking through the monitor into the ship.

“Who are you really, brat? As soon as this is over, and we get back to the capital, I’ll have you arrested! You’d better be ready to face the dungeons!”

“Oh yeah? I’ll make you regret defying me, Grandpa! You’re the one who’ll end up in the dungeon. Then you’ll have no choice but to face the consequences of your actions!”

The saddest part was that the two masked knights had no idea who each other were.

***

Back in Arcadia’s reactor room, Finn and I were locked in battle. Both of us had resorted to drugs to try to gain the advantage, and we’d both managed to access our respective suits’ full potential because of it. Strictly speaking, though, Brave was still probably more powerful than Arroganz.

“Arroganz hasn’t fought anyone this tough since that Black Knight,” I said.

Merely from mentioning it, I started thinking back to that time. The Black Knight had been the hero of the former Principality of Fanoss. I’d let my guard down, and he pushed us to our limits. If not for that experience, I probably couldn’t have held out against Finn this long. I was tougher now, steeled for the intense battle that was playing out.

“I won’t let you destroy the reactor!” Finn shouted as his longsword sliced through the air toward me. 

I parried the attack, but it wasn’t enough. The blow’s force slammed me into the wall behind me, denting it.

Two horns jutted from Brave’s shoulders, generating electricity between them and then unleashing it. Brave had already used a substantial amount of mana, but with the reactor beside them, he could replenish himself by absorbing as much demonic essence as he wanted. This battlefield was entirely to Finn’s advantage.

“Luxion!” I bellowed.

“Deploying a shield over the surface of Arroganz’s armor,” he announced.

A thin magical barrier shimmered over Arroganz. We’d purged the thickest plating earlier, so if we did nothing to mitigate Brave’s attack, it could potentially be deadly. Fortunately, Arroganz was unscathed by that attack, but the same couldn’t be said of our surroundings.

The floor and wall melted as the electricity touching them produced a small explosion. I darted through the air to escape it. Brave swung his longsword down, cleaving straight through the wall with frightening power and narrowly missing me in the process.

“I can’t—no, we can’t let ourselves be defeated! Not here!” said Finn.

My nostrils flared. “Same goes for me, you know!”

As Brave recklessly lunged at us and swung again, my left hand reached toward them and fired a shock wave. He sidestepped it at the last second, avoiding any damage, but it at least allowed me to put more distance between us.

It was my turn to go on the offensive. I swiped my greatsword horizontally, but Finn deflected it and planted his foot right in my chest.

“Not very honorable of you!” I told Finn.

“I don’t want a lecture from you about honor!”

As the force of his kick spun me back through the air, I launched more laser beams at Brave, singeing his skin. He ignored the damage and raced toward me. He and Finn were both drunk on the adrenaline from the fight. It was as if my attacks didn’t even hurt them.

“I can’t keep wasting time on this,” I grumbled. I slammed my foot down on the pedal. Schwert’s propelling nozzle closed to restrict airflow, boosting me and shooting out blue flames in the process.

Brave accelerated toward me, his large, batlike wings beating the air furiously. I aimed my lasers at them. The blasts burned and punctured his wings, but they rejuvenated themselves too quickly for the lasers to have any lasting impact. In return, Brave fired electricity at me in the form of crackling balls that spun toward us.

“Those contain homing magic! There are…eighty-one in total!” announced Luxion.

“Shoot them down!” I said.

Schwert’s lasers managed to take care of most of them, but there were so many that it couldn’t handle every single one. Luxion was trying to conserve Schwert’s power, but this battle was draining its reserves quickly.

“How can you move like that?” Finn demanded. “However powerful you and Arroganz are, I don’t remember you being able to do all this!”

They’d obviously noticed the discrepancy in power between the period before I took my performance enhancer and now. Finn already knew I’d used the drug, of course. He had too, but it apparently struck him as odd that they hadn’t yet overpowered me despite having the clear advantage.

Brave figured out the answer before Finn could. “So that’s what you’ve done,” he said.

“What’ve they done, Kurosuke?”

“Luxion went and did the worst thing possible, Partner! He’s going to kill his master!”

“You can’t be serious!” Finn cried in disbelief.

“Don’t let them get to you,” I told Luxion. “Everything you did was on my orders.”

“You know nothing,” Luxion hissed at Brave with surprising emotion in his robotic voice. His whole tiny body trembled with fury.

“You’re sacrificing your own master to beat us, huh?!” Brave said accusingly. “The performance enhancer you used wasn’t any normal one on the market. You’re using the type that drains the user’s life force to grant them power! Just the kind of dirty trick I’d expect you filthy machines to resort to!”

Luxion instantly lost his cool. “If not for you and your kind, Master would have never resorted to such means to win,” he shot back. “If new humanity never existed to begin with, things would not have come to this!”

With all the emotion on both sides, the battle heated up.

“Leon! How can you throw your own life away so casually?!” Finn demanded as we fought. “I thought you valued your life more. Why would you choose death without hesitation?!”

What? He’s saying it isn’t like me to put my life on the line for others this way? I didn’t need him to point that out; I knew it better than anyone. But these two hands of mine could only protect so many people.

“If you want to protect everything, you have to be willing to make some sacrifices!” I said.

I’d been so greedy in wanting to save so many. Before I knew it, I’d shouldered a bigger burden than I could manage. Although I recognized that I couldn’t carry more, there were still so many other people I wanted to protect. What other choice had I had? I could only take on so much by myself.

“So you’re sacrificing yourself?!” Finn said admonishingly.

“Yeah, and that means I’ll save a lot of people!”

If we eked out a victory, my life would be a small price to pay for all the others we’d protect in the process. Losing would cost us too much. I wouldn’t let myself lose, not to anyone—even Finn.

The battle grew fiercer. Brave lobbed more electricity balls at me. Influenced by his emotions, they grew larger and faster than before. When I stopped to cut one down with my greatsword, Brave finally caught up again.

“Tch!” I slammed my foot into Finn’s chest to knock him away, but he grabbed my left leg. “Shit!” Before I could react, it was already too late. He’d destroyed my leg.

“Purging left leg,” Luxion said.

“You jerk! Now you’ve done it!”

Veins pulsed on the surface of Brave’s skin.

“Did Brave take some of that performance enhancer too?!” I asked, giving Luxion a brief, questioning glance.

“No,” he said. “But a Demonic Suit and its pilot are linked, so the effect bleeds over to him.”

The two really were pushing themselves to give this fight everything they had. Finn in particular was intensely focused on me, which gave me an idea. I glanced at the reactor.

“Well, that explains it, then,” I said, turning back to Finn. “I hate to break this to you, Finn, but you pushed yourself too far.”

He charged after me, blind to everything around him thanks to the drug he’d taken. “Leon, I’m ending this now!” His longsword shone, electricity shimmering along its sharp edges. It grew several times in length; it would be nearly impossible to avoid at this point. Brandishing it, Brave charged toward me.

“Fire whatever you’ve got at him!” I shouted at Luxion.

“Understood!”

As Finn gave chase, I darted through the air, firing lasers at him. We accelerated so quickly that everything around us was a blur of color. We were circling the reactor itself. If not for the performance enhancer, I never could’ve matched Finn’s current speed. Wherever I went, he followed me doggedly.

“Finn, I want you to know you were way stronger than me,” I told him.

Yes, were stronger—past tense. The ending of this was a foregone conclusion. His mistake had been ever turning to a drug to enhance his strength.

When Finn finally trapped me in a corner, I had my back to a particular structure in the room. Finn raised his electrically charged blade and swung without hesitation, intending to take my life with this last attack.

“This is the end for you!” he howled.

“Partner, you can’t!” Brave cried. He’d realized the truth before Finn could, but it was already too late.

Finn tried to stop himself but couldn’t halt his momentum. “No! Damn!” His blade pierced the structure behind me. He immediately tried to pull it free, but he couldn’t. I grabbed his arm and yanked him closer, forcing the sword deeper.

“Finn,” I said, “your mistake was not testing the drug beforehand to take stock of its effects on your body. It made you too shortsighted!”

The drug had strengthened him, to be sure. Still, if he’d tested it before this fight and realized its drawbacks, he’d either have given up on ever using it, or Brave would’ve stopped him. The enhancer had caused him to ignore the thing he was really trying to protect. He’d been so focused on me that he hadn’t spared a second thought for anything else around him. Worse, the effects had bled over to Brave, delaying his ability to realize what was happening.

The structure Finn had pierced was the very pillar housing the reactor, and heat from his sword had transferred into the reactor itself. Cracks appeared on its surface and rippled outward. A strange sound almost like a wail pierced the air.

“Master, we have not finished destroying the reactor,” said Luxion.

Finn was frozen in place, dumbfounded. I shoved him away, hefted my greatsword, and buried it deep in the reactor.

“Now do it!”

“Very well!”

A shock wave traveled from Arroganz’s hands through the sword and into the reactor itself, triggering a small explosion within.

“More!” I demanded.

“Your adamantius sword won’t be able to withstand it. I am not sure Arroganz can either,” he said.

“Do it anyway! If we destroy this blasted thing, I don’t care if it breaks us!”

“As you command!” Luxion answered, despite his obvious reluctance.

His fears weren’t unfounded. After the next shock wave, fire consumed Arroganz’s right arm, and the greatsword shattered to pieces.

But we succeeded.

The pillar’s interior expanded. The whole structure began to fissure, bleeding countless red particles into the atmosphere. The air surged around us, blasting us backward.

Then the reactor started to melt. There was so much crimson in the air that it blotted out our view.

“What’s going on?!” I asked.

“The reactor has been destroyed,” Luxion explained. “Its contents are now melting. It’s too dangerous to remain here!”

“Then we need to hurry up and get out of—ngh!” My hand flew to my mouth. I began coughing and sputtering, and blood gushed past my lips.

“Master! The neutralizer!”

Not even ten minutes had passed since I took the enhancer. I should still have several more minutes to go, but my body had already reached its limit.

“Ha ha,” I chuckled weakly. “I should’ve trained more before now.”

“I request permission to administer the neutralizer!” Luxion said.

I shook my head. “Sorry to break it to you, Luxion…but that’s off the table.” I reached for the controls, dodging just in time to avoid a swipe of Brave’s longsword.

Liquid almost like tears poured from Brave’s eyes. “How dare you?” Finn’s scratchy voice rang out. “How dare you…? How dare you steal Mia’s future?!”

“I’ve won,” I told him plainly, without malice or ill intent.

“Graaah!” Screaming at the top of his lungs, he charged at me. I sped away from him, guiding Arroganz upward.

“Arroganz’s right arm is immobile,” Luxion reported. “Its left is usable, but the device used to produce the shock wave attack was burned too severely to remain functional. We cannot continue fighting, Master. Please give me permission to administer the neutralizer!”

“Not yet!”

Schwert shot forth lasers to carve a hole in the ceiling, which we quickly burst through.

“Are we outside now?!”

“Yes, and Arcadia’s energy output is decreasing. The fortress is beginning to sink!”

Fire exploded through the hole behind us, Brave’s charred form rushing out to follow us.

“Thank you for everything, Schwert,” I said.

Luxion instantly realized what I was planning. He released Schwert from Arroganz, sending it toward Finn. “I have purged Schwert and am controlling it remotely,” he reported.

Schwert accelerated straight toward Brave, puncturing his abdomen. The force propelled Brave through the air with an echoing scream. “Damn yoooou!” Schwert had sunk deep into his chest; there was no way the pilot could’ve survived. Finn must have died instantly upon impact.

Brave collapsed onto Arcadia’s deck, rolling a few times before coming to a stop. He didn’t move after that. I guided Arroganz close to him, although it was difficult to pilot with one leg missing.

“Master, we have already exceeded ten minutes,” Luxion reminded me. “We must administer the neutralizer!”

My hand flew to my mouth. Blood burst past my lips before I could stop it, gushing out in a seemingly endless stream.

“Master!” Luxion cried.

“D-don’t panic. Just hurry up…with the neutralizer…”

***

We approached Brave, but Finn didn’t say anything. Tears poured from Brave’s crimson eyes.

“Are you going to continue fighting?” Luxion asked on my behalf.

“There’s no point. Not without my partner,” Brave said. His body was starting to crumble. “Leon, I’ve got a message for you from my partner. He told me…that he wouldn’t resent you for killing him. Said he’d have done the same.”

“Did he…really?” I rasped, finding it difficult to speak at all. “Sounds…like him.” Luxion had administered the neutralizer already, but none of the pain had subsided.

Brave could no longer sustain his form. Pieces of him began to dissolve into dust.

“It’s a little too soon to act relieved,” he said. “You’ve still got Arcadia’s core left to beat. I hate his guts, to be honest. But that aside…” 

He pointed at his longsword; it protruded from the deck, its blade having sunk into the fortress’s outer plating. As I reached for it and ripped it free, Brave watched me and smiled. 

“Sorry, Partner,” he mumbled. The pitch-black color drained from his body, giving him an ashen hue before his frame disintegrated and was carried away by the wind. Nothing was left behind, not even Finn’s corpse.

“Finn…” My eyes burned with tears as I spoke the name of the very friend I had personally killed.

“Master, it’s not over yet,” Luxion said. “If what Brave said was true, we will have to contend with Arcadia’s core. He should not be able to restore the fortress itself, but we still ought to prioritize dispatching him. We also need to alert our allies to our success.”

He was right. If we got rid of Arcadia’s core, victory would be ours.

I wiped bloody tears from my face and took a deep breath, preparing myself for the fight that remained. “You’re right,” I told Luxion. “Let’s get this over with quickly.”

While I was preoccupied with my own thoughts, the crimson particles that leaked out of the hole behind me seemed to flow off in a particular direction, as if something was attracting them. It wasn’t the wind carrying them away, as I might’ve expected.

Luxion noticed it too. “Something is absorbing all the demonic essence with alarming speed.”

Arroganz’s fingers squeezed tightly around the hilt of the longsword I had taken from Finn.

“Looks like our enemy doesn’t know when to give up,” I said.

The battle wasn’t over yet.