Lunaère and I looked at Veranta together. He touched his mask, looking uncomfortable, then shook his head slightly. “…I will assign myself to evacuating the citizens using my gold gate. The four Lunaère trained, you are assigned to defeating those wicked dragons. Kanata and the rest of you…can I ask you to retrieve Zero and defeat the person responsible for this?”
“We have no other choice,” I said.
Naiarotop’s target was me, it had been this entire time. If I made an appearance, the person who attacked should come out to fight. Once we defeated them, we should be able to find some way of stopping Zero now that he’d been turned into a dragon production device.
“Pff, I go out of my way to get myself involved in this, and I still end up just a supporting act,” said Mitsuru as he drew his sword and glared up at the dragons above.
“If it bothers you, go ahead and attack the castle alongside Lady Lunaère,” said Lovis. “Just howling isn’t enough, even a dog can do that. Considering your strength though—you’ll die like a dog too. Courage is taking a good look at exactly how strong you are…or aren’t…and having the will to move forward regardless. It’s not mere recklessness.”
Lovis let out a snort of laughter, but Lunaère gave him a cold stare.
“I haven’t exactly forgiven you for the embarrassment you caused me in front of Kanata.”
“I-I have of course not forgotten,” said Lovis, immediately dropping to his knees.
Just then, I saw a chaos dragon looking down at us from the sky.
“Roooaaar!”
I pointed my sword up and formed a magic circle. “Fire Magic Level 20: Apocalypse!”
A dragon of deep crimson flames emerged from the magic circle. Like raging hellfire, it surged straight toward the chaos dragon, erupting into a massive explosion of fire in the sky.
“Gyeee!”
After the dragon of fire crashed into its head, the chaos dragon fled through the air, its body engulfed in flame. It flew for a little while longer, trying to regenerate its body as parts of it burned away, but its strength seemed spent at last. It crumbled in midair.
“…They’re pretty tough,” I said. I had been confident one shot of Apocalypse would immediately wipe out one of these, if their level was in the two thousands. It looked like they might be able to survive a poorly aimed shot. These were the kind of monsters that were both tougher than average for their level and skilled at regeneration.
“We don’t have time to enjoy this little show,” said Veranta. “Kanata and the others, head straight for the castle. Now.”
“But can the rest of the team really handle these chaos dragons…?” I asked.
“It doesn’t matter. We have no future if we don’t strike the source of this at once! Go! We will do something about the dragons!”
I gave Veranta a slight nod, then ran toward the castle. Pomera, Philia, Lunaère, and Noble followed me.
I could see panicked soldiers and nobles fleeing from the castle ahead. There were even some royal knights standing frozen and confused, just staring up at the sky.
I could also see a man on top of the highest roof of the castle. He wore a large hat and showy robes. He was still far away, but he appeared in his late twenties. He looked down at the capital as the chaos dragons ravaged it, but then our eyes met.
Like Reniement, like Lucifer…I had this instinctive feeling that this was the third. He was Naiarotop’s last assassin.
-9-
KOTONE
KOTONE, traveler from another world, watched as Kanata and his group ran toward the castle, and then she turned to look up at the sky.
“Roooaaar!”
“Rooooaaaaaar!”
More chaos dragons were coming toward them. Unfortunately, it wasn’t just one this time, but two.
By now, there were chaos dragons flying all across the capital. As far as Kotone was able to confirm using Status Check, each one of them was over level 2000. She had undergone Lunaère’s training, but she was still only around level 1300.
“Veranta, there are two chaos dragons on their way. I only had a quick look at the ones in this area, but I think it’s safe to assume none of them are below level 2000,” said Kotone, sharing what she’d learned with the masked alchemist.
At the moment they had Kotone, Rosemonde, Mitsuru, and Lovis, who were all around level 1000, as well as Veranta, who was around 3000. Not only did Veranta have the highest level, he was also used to handling situations and was the brains of the operation. In the fight against the higher beings, Kotone decided the first step was to follow his orders.
“Hmph, I’m leaving your group to wipe out the chaos dragons,” he said. “I’m not combat-oriented, after all. I will lead the evacuation of the citizens, as originally planned.”
“…Y-you might not be battle-oriented, but you’re still level 3000. I figure you can fight way better than me!”
“We’ll find ourselves in trouble if you expect me to be able to fight as well as my level implies. On the other hand, you and Mitsuru have gift skills that allow you to achieve far greater combat potential than the literal number of your level. That is not the case with my gift skill.”
“But just the four of us aren’t strong enough—”
“Work together. Find weak spots. I know you can efficiently cull the chaos dragons. That’s what I ask of you. We can’t wait to evacuate the people either. If I get the opportunity, I will return to support you, but you need to begin eliminating as many of the chaos dragons as you can in order to limit the damage. It will not be an easy fight, but we’re relying on you.”
With that, Veranta made a magic circle, and the gold gate appeared in front of him. He passed through, and the gate faded into the light as he went off to start the evacuation to the tower.
Kotone stood there dumbfounded for a few seconds, staring at the space he’d disappeared into.
“Guy’s a massive help, forcing us to take on the fighting while he scurries off to do the safe job of evacuation,” muttered Rosemonde.
Kotone had listened to Veranta ever since she was brought to the tower for training. She didn’t think he was the kind of person to flee in fear for his own safety, so she did believe he must have decided this was the most appropriate course of action, but she’d be lying if she said she didn’t have her own thoughts on the matter.
“Hmph, even I might be unable to land a decisive blow against an enemy that big,” said Lovis. “I’ll work to make openings. Mitsuru, when you see the opening, you hit it with an attack boosted by Double.” He stepped forward with his scythe at the ready. He was the only one getting pumped up.
“…Are you insane? Like I can get close to an enemy flying around like that when I’m heavier than usual from using Attack Mode. And then if I do get close enough, I’m a dead man,” said Mitsuru with frustration.
“And if you’re zipping around, you’ll have no strength at all. Fine, whatever. Having a coward holding me back spoils all the fun. I’ll do it myself,” said Lovis.
“The hell—!”
Lovis rushed forward as Mitsuru became agitated.
“Groooaaar!”
A chaos dragon flew straight toward Lovis.
“Short Gate!”
The moment the chaos dragon was about to swallow him, he teleported himself to the dragon’s back. He whirled his scythe rapidly, slashing open the dragon’s hide as he raced across it. The dragon lunged to catch him, but he used Short Gate again to move elsewhere.
“Ha ha ha! How’s this?!” Lovis laughed. “You can’t even handle me because of your excessively long body!”
“Dammit! I mean, they’re basically giant, squirming worms, right? Just gotta hit ’em with one good shot!” Mitsuru raised his sword and followed after Lovis.
“Must be nice to be that dumb. Glad they’ve managed to live this long, being that reckless,” said Rosemonde with a sigh of exasperation.
“…I would’ve been happy to live a normal life,” muttered Kotone.
She would have been perfectly satisfied coming to Locklore and living a peaceful life, but travelers were entertainment for the gods. It was a fate she couldn’t avoid.
She became an adventurer because it was necessary for her to make a living, and then everyone around her started to expect her to be on par with the fighting force of an entire city because she could use any equipment to its fullest with her gift skill, Aries’s Hand.
That ended up sweeping her along until she was an S-Rank Adventurer, and before she realized it, she’d been thrown into the frontlines in the battle against the higher beings.
“Don’t have much of a choice since the world is at stake,” she said. “But once this is over, I swear, I’m going to do whatever I want.”
“I’m looking forward to it. I need you to keep drawing more of those mangas,” said Rosemonde as she lifted her weapon, a huge cross-shaped staff. “Earth Magic Level 10: Ground Missile!”
A large magic circle appeared, and the surface of the ground bulged up in several places, coming together to form three spheres of earth, each over thirty feet tall.
“Come at me!”
Rosemonde thrust her staff into the air, and the earthen spheres launched toward a chaos dragon Lovis and Mitsuru weren’t fighting.
Three explosions tore through the air. The skin of the dragon caught in the blast was ripped from it, leaving it horribly burnt. Its hate-filled eyes turned toward Rosemonde below.
“Groooaar!”
This spell Rosemonde had learned from Lunaère worked by compressing the earth’s surface, increasing its hardness, then pouring magic into the center to turn it into a powerful explosive.
“…Welp, that’s everything I had. Let me top up,” she said as she pulled a vial from her breast pocket. She popped the cork out and gulped the entire contents in one go. It was a potion Lunaère had made, and it immediately recovered all of her mana.
Ground Missile was a violent spell that could damage even higher-ranking enemies, but it used loads of MP. Lunaère made Rosemonde carry lots of potions to account for that.
“Roaaaarg!”
Now angered, the chaos dragon opened its mouth and flew straight for Kotone and Rosemonde.
Kotone crouched, then leapt up into the air. There was the sound of a horse’s whinny, and her shoes began to glow as her body flew higher into the sky.
SHOES OF THE SKY HORSE
VALUE CLASS: LEGENDARY
The horse spirit, Pegasus, resides in these shoes, making the wearer light enough to run through the air.
However, it is said that any not approved by Pegasus will be thrown from great heights.