“Where did the Staff and Projectile Heroes come from?! I don’t understand this!” I raged. I checked their faces. It wasn’t Trash and Rishia. Of course not. The one with the staff was wearing a robe. Her face couldn’t be seen, but from the body, I was guessing it was a woman. The one with the projectile was a guy in his twenties with short hair and robber-style clothing. These two had to be the Staff and Projectile Heroes from this time period.
“You’re the ones who popped up out of nowhere!” the fox demi-human said, weapon still locked with Raphtalia.
“You’re innocent in this. We watched your fight. We wanted to support you . . . but that’s why we have to fight now,” the Staff Hero said.
“The only way to protect our own holy weapon hero is for you to die!” the Projectile Hero said.
“Hold on! Both of you! Let’s discuss this!” I shouted.
“We can’t betray what we believe in. Fight us! Fight us or die!” the Staff Hero screamed in desperation and then unleashed more magic toward me. “All Release Flare X!” Blazing flames gathered around me and then exploded. I gritted my teeth and poured life force into my accessory, enhancing the magic-reflect function. If I used it too many times, it would break, but anything was better than being hit by the incoming attack. I felt the accessory crack, but a barrier that reflected magic was also thrown up around me and the explosive magic was automatically reflected away.
“What? Reflection?!” The Staff Hero gave a shout of surprise as the concentrated ball of fire descended on her.
“Watch out!” The Projectile Hero leapt at the Staff Hero and got turned into a fireball instead of her. I had protected Raphtalia and the others while also protecting the opponents they were immediately engaged with. The Projectile Hero was not so lucky. He screamed in pain as his back was burned to a crisp.
“Hold on! I’ll heal you!” the Staff Hero said. “All Release Heal X!”
“Phew . . . thanks,” the Projectile Hero said, recovering. “That Shield Hero can reflect release-class magic? Now I can see why they’re so strong. We could learn something from this.”
“They did defeat one who assumes the name of god. Impressive,” the Staff Hero agreed. It sounded like they were praising us, but their hostility toward us only grew.
“It sounds like we could work this out if we only discuss it,” I said.
“We aren’t allowed. That’s all we can say. We have to fight you at full strength!” the Staff Hero replied.
“If we don’t take your heads . . . you don’t know what’ll happen to our world!” the Projectile Hero added. Even though they “weren’t allowed” to say too much, they almost didn’t seem to want to stop talking about it. I was getting some idea of what was going on. As soon as the mysterious new weapons that inflicted wounds that couldn’t be healed appeared in Piensa, it was easy to imagine who might be behind all this.
“Those scum have taken the holy weapon hero and the people of your world hostage and told you to kill us, correct?” I extrapolated. Their silence told me the rest of what I needed to know. Any resistance, any betrayal, would not be forgiven. They had said too much already. I’d worked the whole thing out.
We were talking about the kind of scum who operated a bizarre game of death from a position of complete safety. They were going to come as hard as possible at anything that could possibly threaten them. At the same time, they also didn’t want to risk their own lives, which led to the use of tactics like this. Working in the shadows, they provided Piensa with these powerful new weapons and sent heroes from other worlds to kill us. They would clearly just keep coming until we were wiped out. Maybe they were calling our bluff. If the God Hunters were here, they wouldn’t be trying something like this. It reeked of desperation. Piensa should be ashamed for having any involvement in it all. I glared at the fox demi-human, who seemed to be the leader and had done most of the talking so far.
“What? Our illustrious heroes have some kind of issue?” the fox asked, seemingly clueless.
“You don’t know?” I replied.
“We’re elite soldiers, but we don’t get that information,” the fox explained. The fox seemed like a commander but was still taking orders. The entire nation was structured for warfare. “I admit that I’m impressed by your handling of our trump card.” The fox offered an honest opinion on my blocking of every attack from the two swords. “One little scratch and we’d get the upper hand at once.”
“These are the famous weapons that inflict incurable wounds,” I confirmed.
“That’s right.” The fox nodded. “Aren’t you scared?”
“Of this? Please,” I said.
“Impressive! Time to get serious!” the fox barked.
“You asked for it!” I replied. Then I performed weapon fusion with the Spirit Tortoise Carapace Shield and another shield—the Iron Shield Pistol! Then I activated Magic Bullet! I incanted magic again and activated it. This was the only way to respond to the X-class support magic that our opponents were using.
“First . . . All Liberation Aura!” A ball of support magic was released from the gemstone section of the Spirit Tortoise Carapace Shield. “Raphtalia, you’re up! Everyone else! Just repel their attacks a little longer!” I shouted.
“Okay! Ruft, help me!” Raphtalia replied.
“I’m here!” Ruft said.
“Raph!” said Raph-chan, also taking part. The three of them synced up and deployed a magical circle.
“Five Practices Destiny Field Expansion,” Raphtalia intoned. “Sakura Stone of Destiny! In the name of the pacifier, I ask for strength!” Raphtalia changed her weapon to the sakura stone of destiny katana, and Ruft’s axe sparkled with a cherry-pink light as well.
“My strength is draining away!” the puma complained.
“I guessed these were also pacifiers . . . but this timing is too much!” the fox complained. Now the fighting changed in the favor of our side with Raphtalia and the others pushing their opponents back and then moving to smash the flying swords out of the air.
“You’ve been keeping these crazy swords under control all this time?” Ruft said in surprise.
“Uwah! There’s no healing a single cut from these! Stay away from me!” Keel said.
“Take this chance to stop them!” Raphtalia shouted.
“I’ve got thiz!” Shadow replied.
“Shadow! Don’t go too far forward!” Raphtalia called, but it was too late; one of the swords slashed into Shadow as he broke ranks. But Shadow faded and turned into darkness. The sword remained where he had been. Then the actual Shadow and Raph Shadow knocked the sword away.
“Another application of Hide Behind,” Shadow explained.
“Behind . . . Wire,” S’yne said, binding up the swords of death in a bundle of threads. The sword quickly cut through the threads on the blade but was having trouble with the threads on the handle.