Chapter 12: Disband
YU KAMIMIYADERA found himself in a dire situation with no escape from the Succubi stronghold. Just when he thought it was over for him, it happened.
A mysterious, cockamamie magical power had fallen upon the world, and Yu was swept up and swallowed by deep darkness along with it.
What the heck is going on? Yu barely had a moment to process his initial confusion before the shock at the next scene to unfold before his eyes blew it away.
When the darkness cleared, the familiar, desolate wilderness of the Dark Continent came into view…
✦ ✦ ✦
“DID we…escape?”
Yu swept his eyes restlessly around his surroundings. In the distance, he could see a ginormous, gnarled forest and the town he had visited on the opposite side. They were standing on the outskirts of Dragontan.
In other words, they were within Mynoghra’s domain.
“Looks like we’re safe… Everyone here and accounted for? Phon’kaven’s people too? …Good.” Takuto looked around and counted the people with them. No one was missing. At the very least, every person and nation Takuto had an alliance with had come.
“But they got us good, mon dieu. Not even I, the genius schemer, expected them to be so thoroughly prepared!” Vittorio trilled.
“Seriously. I didn’t think their forces would be that solidly consolidated already,” Takuto agreed. “I’m glad they were still so cautious of us, though. Otherwise, I would have had to use clown bait to buy time until the ritual activated.”
“How deliciously cruel!” Vittorio spun off into a little dance. He’d disengaged his Disguise and was back to his usual jester-like appearance.
Everyone, aside from Takuto, grew wide-eyed with surprise at the sudden appearance of a strange man, but Takuto decided to explain it later. For now, he exhaled with relief that his ultimate trump card worked as it should.
“Still, what perfect timing to execute the Great Ritual, which is usually so tricky to time. I’m actually surprised at how ideal it was for the situation!”
“It hurts to have fixed borders, after all. We can’t build any more settlements, so it’s not particularly useful for Domestic Affairs either.”
Takuto and Vittorio were talking at length about what had just happened. Yu got annoyed that they were going off into their own bubble, getting all excited and satisfied about something he had been left in the dark about.
“Hey, man! Don’t leave me in the dark over here!” Yu protested. “What the heck just happened? Fill me in, too, dammit!”
“W-We can worry about that later, Master! The Succubus Army is invading the Dark Continent! We won’t make it in time if we don’t leave now!”
“R-Right! Wait, how the heck am I supposed to defeat them?! They’re like a combo raid of overpowered cheaters!”
The Hero duo was in a complete panic. Phon’kaven’s people were in a stupor.
Now that he had calmed down and taken a breather, Takuto decided it was time to explain the mechanism behind what had just transpired. They needed to know the reason why they didn’t need to worry about the Lawful Continent Alliance’s not-so-imminent invasion…
“It’s okay. Don’t panic. I used a powerful ritual spell called the Great Ritual that can only be played once in my game. It’s an exceedingly powerful ability that each nation possesses. We’re using it to buy ourselves some time.”
“How’s that work?” Yu cocked his head to the side, at a loss.
Ai mimicked the gesture.
It seemed Takuto needed to break it down for them better. Since he hadn’t used the ability in a long time himself, he decided to explain it in detail to make sure he remembered everything.
“The Great Ritual. It’s an overpowered ability the nations from my game, Eternal Nations, can use only once a session. Mynoghra’s Great Ritual is called Dark Nation. When it’s activated, Mynoghra and its hostile nations can’t interfere with each other for a set period of time. It’s a nation-spanning barrier that makes it so we can’t do anything to our enemies, and they can’t do anything to us.”
“Oh! So that’s why we came back to Dragontan. It’s not an ability related to escape, but because mutual interference is impossible, people are forced to return to their own countries from hostile ones,” Ai guessed.
“Exactly. Fortunately, we now know exactly what our enemies are after. We can use this opportunity to carefully come up with a countermeasure.”
Ai seemed to catch on faster this time. She nodded several times in understanding, then turned to Yu, who still had a stupefied look on his face, and explained it to him in simpler terms with various analogies.
Takuto took that time to send a telepathic message telling his subordinates to send a guard detail to pick them up. This was to prevent Yu, Ai, and Phon’kaven’s people from finding out about his body double, since in their eyes, they were traveling with the King of Mynoghra himself. When he looked up, he realized Yu had been waiting for him to finish before asking anything now that Ai had helped him understand the situation.
“Okay, I think I get it now. Sounds like some seriously awesome and useful magic. I mean, it affects nations. Nations! That’s an SLG, 4x game for ya… By the way, how long does the spell last? How long does one turn from your game last in reality?”
“Beats me. I’ll have to look into it more. If I had to give a time frame, I’d say we can expect it to last at least a year.”
“Hmm…” Yu muttered noncommittally, straddling between being convinced and unconvinced by that answer.
Takuto had no way to accurately gauge the length of time either. He might be able to find some information if he looked it up in the Eterpedia in his head, but he had seen too many cases in which the game systems had been altered to fit the real world. If the flow of time in Eternal Nations was accurately reproduced, it would take decades, but he had an unfounded certainty that this wasn’t the case.
“A year…huh? I can get a lot done in that time… Haa, I guess I’ll go train. Can’t stay on the losing side forever. Ugh.” Yu sighed loudly and kicked a pebble like a frustrated child.
Not being able to do anything against the Succubus Army seemed to have been quite the mental blow to him. Going off grinding monsters until you are powerful enough to face the next boss is RPG basics, but Takuto didn’t want him disappearing on an aimless journey again. He at least wanted a way to keep in touch.
“Are you disbanding our party then?” Takuto asked.
“Nah. Mind leaving it as-is, with me able to go off on my own? Like a reserve unit. I promise I’ll come back often. I’ll make it so we can stay in touch too. And, uh…I’d be overjoyed if you could fund my expenses as well. Just kidding!”
“Of course, as long as you produce results.”
Takuto was relieved Yu wasn’t leaving for good. The Great Ritual’s effects only extended to Mynoghra and its allied factions. Mynoghra and Phon’kaven were already allies, but they didn’t have the same solid ties to the RPG Hero faction. Disbanding their party might be viewed by the system as the dissolution of their alliance, removing him from the Great Ritual’s protection and leaving him as fodder for the Succubus Army.
But Takuto had worried for nothing. Yu also seemed to see the merits of working with Takuto as his sponsor.
Either way, current circumstances required that they strengthen their forces over the next year, and that applied to everyone here. Even Yu understood that much.
Takuto suddenly wondered what kind of strengthening system the RPG faction brought into this world. Increasing stats with items and other Events from the system? Leveling up by defeating enemies? He wanted to try to incorporate those methods into Mynoghra if possible.
“By the way, can I ask how you train for reference?”
“Uh, it’s pretty vague stuff. I’ll go meet that guy for now.”
“…That guy?”
Who could that be? Takuto wondered. Then he remembered that, unlike him, Yu was able to communicate with the entity that had summoned him into this world.
“The Jokester God. He’s a weirdo who’s constantly pushing us into trouble, but at the end of the day, he’s still the god assigned to me and Ai!” Yu grinned.
Looking at that dazzling, seemingly unsuspecting smile, Takuto couldn’t help but hope that the Jokester God would actually grant his wish and not just mess with him.