“Not being able to fight with divinity sucks, though, I’ve gotta admit...”
“I agree, I do... Surely just one slash would be okay...”
“What would you do if that one slash ended up nearly killing the wicked devout, Yae? That would mean that you had pretty much killed them,” Hilde cautioned her.
“I-I do not think they are so weak...”
Neither did I. In fact, we were clueless about their HP, so it was hard to consider holding back with them. It was like that thing you’d see in games a lot where you had to weaken the monster before you could catch it. Some characters could kill the monster you wanted to catch in one shot, so you’d keep them on the backlines. That was essentially the situation we were in now.
“You can worry about things like that because you’ve actually awoken to your divine trait... I still struggle to use divinity. What’s so different between the two of us? It isn’t a difference in Touya’s love for us, is it?”
“Everyone wonders if that’s the difference, but it’s not, okay?! It’s just natural personal differences!”
Yae awakened to her divine trait in the last battle we had with the wicked devout; she’d acquired the ability Dimensional Cleave. They always trained together, so it frustrated Hilde that Yae had awoken to hers so much sooner.
I needed everyone to wake up to their traits quickly, or I couldn’t guarantee there wouldn’t be some domestic strife... The only ones that were left were Sue and Hilde.
“Mom, your divine trait is— Mmmph?!”
Before Frei could finish what she was saying, Yakumo came up from behind and put a hand over her mouth.
“Frei, isn’t Grandmother Tokie always telling us we should be careful how much we say?”
“Oh yeah...”
“Yae, your daughter is too diligent!” Hilde cried, frustrated at Yakumo having prevented Frei from spoiling them about the future. Yakumo looked a little lost at the unreasonable complaint.
“To think Hilde-dono would be the one to call someone else diligent...”
“Um, do we really have the time for this?” Kuon spoke up, bringing everyone back to attention.
Right, we need to stop messing around.
When I looked at Steph and Gold, I noticed that they were both clapping their hands and singing while they waited. They weren’t nervous whatsoever.
I cleared my throat and returned to pointing out the lights on the map; there were two solid red dots, one flashing red dot, and one yellow dot all gathered in one area. “The wicked devout are in this pretty big room right here. The red dots are the wicked devout, the yellow one is the gold crown, and the one that’s flashing is Indigo, our main target.”
The room itself looked about the size of an office room. I wasn’t sure if it was a break room, their tactical command room, or some sort of lab, but whatever the case, it was more than big enough for us to fight in.
“I’ll teleport us all to this area here, a little bit away from where they’re standing. I’d prefer if we were able to get the jump on them, but that would be going against the rules. It’s okay if they detect us. Yakumo, you charge right at Indigo. The rest of us will engage our own targets while providing support.”
“It looks like there are two ways in and out of the room. What will we do if they escape?” Kuon asked, looking at the map.
Good question. Honestly, right now, it was probably fine if the other wicked devout escaped so long as we took down Indigo. The only problem with that was if they got far away from Yakumo, they’d be able to use their own wicked vessels again. We knew that the iron mask lady’s mace manipulated gravity, but the other was a complete unknown. If it turned out they had teleportation similar to Indigo, we’d be done for. All our hard work would’ve been for nothing.
You know what, maybe we shouldn’t let them get away.
“I’ll seal the exits with Earth magic,” I said. “At the very least, I doubt they’ll try to damage the ship. We’re underwater, after all.”
If the Ark did end up flooding, we’d be fine so long as we used [Prison]. We’d be able to breathe, and worse came to worst, I could summon Sango and Kokuyou.
“All right, let’s get this party started. Spatial Translocation!”
We appeared inside the large room instantaneously. It turned out it was something akin to an observation deck, with a glass front and ceiling. Oddly enough, even though we should’ve been on the seabed, it wasn’t pitch-black outside—we could clearly see what was outside. I wasn’t sure if it was some magic artifact, or if the glass itself was actually a monitor displaying what was outside, or what.
There was a console along the wall in front of which Indigo stood, still wearing his diver helmet.
On a sofa a short distance away from him, the woman with the iron mask sat with a glass in hand, and a woman with a gaudy green feathered mask was right next to her. That had to have been the unknown wicked devout. The gold crown of the wicked devout was by the complete opposite wall away from Indigo.
“HUH?!”
The first one who noticed we were suddenly in their midst was the iron mask woman. She dropped her glass, shattering it on the floor, which alerted the others to our presence. We had already started making our move by the time they’d thought to act. Like an arrow fired from a bow, Yakumo shot straight toward Indigo.
“Shit. Deep Blue!”
A blue liquid gurgled under his feet, but the most it did was spread out a small touch.
“What?!”
“It’s useless.”
Yakumo pulled her phrasium katana from its sheath and slashed at the wicked devout. Though he’d been caught off guard, Indigo pulled out his metallic blue hatchet and blocked Yakumo’s strike moments before it slashed skin.
“[Prison].”
The moment she’d made contact, I erected a [Prison] with a five-meter radius with Yakumo as the center, preventing Indigo’s potential escape.
“Come forth, Iron! Barrier of the Dark Metal: [Iron Wall]!”
I immediately followed that up by blocking both exits with walls of iron. Now our enemies were ripe for the picking.
Indigo attempted to break the barrier surrounding him with his hatchet, but with his divinity sealed, it was futile.
“Like I said, it’s useless. Father’s [Prison] is unbreakable.”
“You’re the brat I saw in Orphen!”
“This time, I won’t let you get away.”
When Yakumo slashed her blade down, Indigo deflected it with his hatchet. Put so thoroughly on the defensive, the other wicked devout rushed in to assist, but that was where we stepped in, preventing them from getting anywhere near the [Prison].
“Your opponent is us, miss!”
“Get outta the way, kid!”
The woman unhesitatingly swung her metallic orange mace down toward Frei, but it was more than easily blocked by the shield that the small girl held.
✦ ✦ ✦
✦ ✦ ✦
“I can’t crush it?! What’s going on?!”
“The cause is unknown, but it appears the wicked vessels have been sealed. Not entirely, but... Hm?!”
The gold crown calmly analyzed what was happening as the iron mask woman panicked, but the moment his red camera eye noticed Gold standing behind me, he came to a stop.
“There’s more than one Gould?!” the feather mask woman exclaimed in surprise. With such a reaction, it appeared they hadn’t known about our Gold. The wicked devout’s crown appeared to go by “Gould” instead... Had he simply not told them of the existence of another gold crown, or...?
Gould was staring at Gold, Gold also frozen where he stood.
“Is this the same unit as myself...? No. I can confirm differences,” Gold remarked. Those differences must have been the two small swords and the cape-like part on his back. Gold had those, but the one on the wicked devout’s side didn’t. Gould’s eyes were red, while Gold’s were blue. Besides those differences, the two were practically the same unit.
“A second Seraphic?! What is the meaning of this?!” Gould exclaimed with the exact same voice as Gold.
A Seraphic? Was he referring to Gold? It was in that moment that I realized I was detecting both panic and surprise, two very human emotions, in Gould, something that should’ve been impossible for a Gollem.