Kotone borrowed those shoes from Lunaère. It was normally a dangerous item that selected its users, but Kotone’s Aries’s Hand allowed her to use any equipment to its fullest…not just weapons.
Kotone took the chaos dragon by surprise and soared over it, then drew a short sword and slashed at the creature’s giant head. There was a flash of bright light, and a huge gash appeared in the dragon’s skull.
The short sword was also borrowed from Lunaère and had its own backstory.
IDEA, THE SWORD OF TRUTH
VALUE CLASS: GODLY
ATTACK: +2800
This short sword appeared randomly from the gap between dimensions. Nobody knows where it originated.
This sword ignores all physical defenses, curses, and preconceptions in order to strike directly at the target’s essence. The wounds it inflicts cannot be healed, and it will continue to gnaw away at the wounded’s flesh for eternity.
Just holding it causes the world’s truths to flood into the wielder, driving anyone even somewhat unstable to madness.
As the chaos dragon writhed in the sky, Kotone slashed at its belly.
“Pick on someone your own size!”
“Gyaaah!”
With that slice, the dragon let out its dying shriek. Kotone landed as the hideous creature crashed to the ground behind her, spewing bodily fluids.
“Double…Attack Mode!”
She looked up to see Mitsuru was launching himself off a roof toward another chaos dragon. He swung his large blade at the beast’s chest, splitting flesh and bone alike as he swooped past. He soared defenselessly through the sky until Lovis gathered him up and used Short Gate to return to the ground.
The second chaos dragon slammed into the pavement.
“Looks like we might be able to manage,” said Rosemonde as she tossed an empty vial to the ground.
“…For now, but we don’t know how long that’ll last,” said Kotone, just as another gigantic magic circle appeared, centered on the castle. As it did, even more chaos dragons emerged from the circle and flew toward every corner of the capital. Among them was one twice the size of all the chaos dragons they’d seen so far.
“At this rate, I think the capital’s going to be swallowed up first,” said Kotone.
“Looks like they’re gonna have to turn this off at the source. Well…we just gotta do what we can until then,” said Rosemonde, raising her cross-shaped staff.
-10-
KOTONE
“GROOOAAAR!”
“Grooooaaaaar!”
Two chaos dragons crawled across the ground, tearing up the pavement as they chased after Rosemonde.
“Earth Magic Level 9: Earth Machine Gun!”
Around Rosemonde, pockets of earth bulged upward, then fired toward the two chaos dragons in a hail of earthen bullets. The projectiles sunk into the dragons’
bodies and exploded, blasting away chunks of scales and flesh. But, while that might have temporarily slowed them down, the creatures quickly opened their eyes again and sped up.
“Gah!”
Her next spell wouldn’t make it. She decided to take the gamble and instead lowered herself into a fighting stance, her cross staff raised to fight.
“Double…Attack Mode!”
Just then, Mitsuru leapt from a nearby building and dropped onto one of the chaos dragons, his sword plunging deep into its head.
“Atlas Axe!”
Kotone swung an absolutely massive axe—close to fifty feet tall—and lopped off the head of the other chaos dragon. The bodies of the two monsters collapsed to the ground, their spinal cords severed.
“…I’m running out of steam, but they just keep coming,” said Kotone, standing on top of the axe she’d just swung. She was covered in injuries and completely out of breath.
“Thanks, Kotone, and Mitsuru…or whatever your name is. And, uh, Lovis…?” said Rosemonde.
“He’s over there, off in his own little world.” Kotone pointed to the sky.
Lovis was far above them, fighting the larger chaos dragon. He was flung down several times, but each time he would use his teleportation magic to hang in the fight. If you listened really closely, you could faintly hear him laughing.
“…Is he nuts or just an idiot? Whatever. Helps us if he keeps the boss dragon preoccupied,” said Rosemonde. “Not that we can actually coordinate if he’s in his own little world.”
“And…he doesn’t look like he’s going to hold out much longer,” said Kotone with a sigh as she checked the level of the dragon up in the sky. Lv: 3177. It was probably the highest-level chaos dragon in the capital.
Lovis was suddenly hit by the dragon’s tail as it lashed it rapidly. A sonic boom crashed through the air and Lovis went flying, but then he was enveloped by a magic circle and landed neatly on the ground.
He was covered in blood, his eyes gleaming, as he glared up at the dragon above.
“Ha ha ha! Fierce indeed! No reaction even though I cut it a thousand times. It’ll fall in time, though!” he said.
“How are you still alive…?” asked Kotone, somewhat disturbed.
The four of them had already defeated more than ten of the chaos dragons. Lovis’s level had jumped up a decent amount, but the level of the giant chaos dragon above was still nearly three times his. It was such a big difference you would expect Lovis’s body to be in tatters even if he was just grazed by the creature’s tail.
“I fended off the worst of the tail strike,” he said. “Even so, I would have been a mess if I’d struck the ground, but I can avoid that impact by putting a Short Gate in the way.”
“…Can I ask you something? How’d you manage to fend it off if it’s flailing about way faster than you can even move?” she asked.
“Instinct. There’s no time to think during split-second attacks and blocks.” Lovis swung his scythe, casting the blood off it.
“Uh-huh…right… Thanks. I learned something totally unhelpful,” said Kotone with a hint of exasperation. She scanned the area.
The horde of chaos dragons had started to target their group as they went around defeating their fellow dragons. Ten were already approaching from nearby. On top of that, the highest-level one up in the sky was descending toward them.
“…Not sure we’re going to hold out through much more of this,” said Kotone.
Other than the battle-addicted Lovis, they were all covered in wounds. Even if they hadn’t been, the enemy had the advantage in levels. They wouldn’t be able to handle them at all if the dragons banded together and came at them at once.
Kotone looked up toward the giant chaos dragon and let go of Atlas’s Axe.
“Dimension Pocket.” She gripped the Sword of Truth. She pointed it toward the dragon and called, “We’re at least going to take you down with us, so bring it on!” She lowered the short sword to the level of her eyes and let out a small sigh. “…And my manga was just starting to take off.”
Kotone had been an apathetic girl. No matter what she did on Earth, she never felt like she had any fun with it. She wasn’t good with people, but she liked reading manga even if she never really wanted to share that with others.
Her only point in living was for that private, unshared hobby. She never thought that was a bad thing, but she was suddenly frightened when she realized that was her everything.
“I’ll make you a hero of Locklore!”
That’s when Naiarotop came along with his inconvenient invitation to travel to another world. Travelers to Locklore were selected from lonely people who had no attachments. They would go to a world they knew nothing about where they could forget their past and do whatever they wanted, as the protagonist of their own story. Kotone couldn’t say that sales pitch wasn’t enticing, but in the end she wasn’t satisfied being typecast as a warrior and hailed as a hero.
The attack on Manaloch happened when she was considering stepping back from her work as an adventurer. Then, while she was in a coma, Garnet butted in and decided on his own to publish the manga Kotone wrote. And while it all started from a misunderstanding, Kotone found a compelling purpose as she began a life as a manga artist in Locklore…something she’d never felt before.
A manga culture was on the verge of spreading throughout Locklore, despite starting from nothing. And Kotone was in the center of that. She had just started to feel a great hope for the future.
“Graaaah!”
The massive chaos dragon roared as it approached, bringing Kotone back to reality.
She steeled her resolve and adjusted her grip on the hilt of the Sword of Truth, and that’s when Lovis wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
“What are you—?”
“Short Gate!”
He repeated a rapid series of teleportations, and in the blink of an eye, Kotone found herself on the roof of a building a little way off. Mitsuru and Rosemonde were there too, probably picked up during the repeated Short Gates.
The massive chaos dragon smashed into the ground right where Kotone and the others had been moments earlier. That impact alone was enough to shake the entire capital. Its wicked head immediately turned and found them gathered all in one place. It grinned evilly.
“Running away temporarily isn’t going—” started Kotone.
“Fire Magic Level 21: Temple of Searing Hellfire!”
A deep, hoarse voice rang out, and a huge magic circle appeared. Out of it spewed dark crimson flames in the form of a temple, swallowing the large chaos dragon, and it let out a shriek as its body began burning to ash.
“You’re one annoying snake.”
The next moment, the dragon’s body split in two, and a huge man, nearly ten feet tall, stepped out from the dark flames. He had a peculiar hairstyle, with the front swept back into a topknot, and he was wearing ornate armor. His face was as evil and wicked as an ogre, and the red glow from the fire only made him appear more beastly.
“Wh-who are you…?” asked Kotone as she fumbled for the words.
The large man let out a snort of laughter and sheathed the sword in his hands. “You four are the lich’s disciples, aren’t you? Heard about you from Veranta. He asked me to come support the defense of the capital. He really loves to abuse my goodwill—telling me I have to defend all these pawns, then out of the blue he orders me to come here.”
Just as Nobunaga finished speaking, golems wearing oval masks appeared throughout the city.
Kotone had seen those golems before. They were the same as the ones Veranta mass-produced in order to push back the monsters overflowing from Cocytus when the higher beings interfered. He had a lot of them sitting in the tower as backup.
It looked like he was making arrangements to get as much of their fighting force to the capital as he could.
“And we thought he abandoned us,” said Kotone with a deep sigh.
“Don’t relax yet. Those dragons get reinforcements at regular intervals, after all,” said Lovis as he raised his scythe.
He sounded like he was having…fun.