“Oh, no, I’m good. Plus, there’s something I want to look into.”
“Jeez, I wish you would rely on me a little more.” She pouted, then said, “Fine, I’ll monitor our surroundings.”
I chuckled at how cute she was being before touching the worshipper to take a look at his status.
Schuzel
Occupation: Hades Worshipper
Loyalty to God: 100
Strength: 15
Magic Power: 60
Intelligence: 60
Skills:
Summoning Magic Lv 2
Unique Skills:
Blind Devotion to God Lv 3: Gains a status bonus when fighting in the name of God.
Received a revelation from Hades, prompting him to act as his hands. His hobby is crow baseball.
It made sense that he had decent stats, considering he was an enemy character in the middle chunk of the game. I needed to toughen up my soldiers if they were going to contend not just with the stampede but with guys like this further down the line.
What was the best way of going about that? It’d be perfect if I could get an experienced military leader to help teach them how to fight…
“Kew, kew!”
“Hm? What’s up?”
The Divine Beast was pulling at the cuff of my sleeve. Before I could ask what exactly it wanted, I felt like someone was watching me. When I turned around, I found the bound worshipper staring at me, even though he should’ve been unconscious. To make matters worse, his eyes were deep red and projecting a malevolent light.
“Huh?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking, “How are you conscious? What’s going on?”
He tore away the shadow chains wrapped around him with no regard for how he damaged his own body in the process, splattering blood all over the place as he tried to reach out to grab my neck. I backed off just in time for his hands to grab at empty air.
He glared straight at me.
“What’s going on?” I repeated.
When the worshipper opened his mouth, I heard a voice from the heavens—something inhuman, steeped in loathing for this world.
“What are you?” he asked, viciously enough that my heart trembled. “Don’t tell me you are a messenger of the otherworld god! Curse them…”
I remembered this event. This was the one where the hero lost no matter what. In the game, it happened after defeating one of the Twelve Apostles of Hades. The hero and his party were beaten half to death, and that was when his master stepped in to buy time and ended up perishing in battle. This super depressing event, called “Hades Descends,” took place in the opening act of the game.
“That means you’re Hades!” I exclaimed. It had to be him—the last boss of the game and the reason the empire fell into darkness.
“You know who I am?” He seemed a bit confused. “What god do you serve? Zeus? No, you feel different.”
The main character was the one blessed by Zeus, not Weiss, but the way he said it made it sound like I had also been blessed by some deity.
Whatever! Now wasn’t the time to think about that. I needed to come up with a strategy to get us out of this mess while he was still getting his bearings.
I glanced at the Divine Spring. Gods were weak against the blessings of other gods. In the game, the main party was able to damage Hades by using the saint’s power to borrow the strength of Zeus and wield it as magic. They also did damage by forging a pact with a Divine Beast and attacking after being blessed by Zeus. Unfortunately, no one around me had a pact with any Divine Beasts. In that case, if I could somehow manage to acquire the power of the Divine Spring, which held the power of a different god…
“Of course I do,” I declared. “And I know you’re weak to the blessings of other gods! I’ve got nothing to be afraid of as long as I have that Divine Spring!”
“Oh, you’re rather knowledgeable, aren’t you?” he cackled. “Unfortunately, you will be getting nowhere near the spring. I do not know whose kin you are, but I will not allow you to get in the way of my plan. It’s time to die!”
A single swing of his arm produced red blades that came slashing at me.
“Gah!”
The only reason I was able to dodge them in time was because of my familiarity with his move set from the game. Hades’s special technique was basically condensed death, so to speak. The effects were simple: If it touched you, you died. Laughable, right? That was the final boss for you. Lucky for me, it helped that he moved exactly the way he did in the cutscene.
Just as Hades was about to swing his arm again, his body was impaled by an ice arrow that began to freeze him.
“Lord Weiss, are you all right?!”
“You’re a lifesaver, Rosalia!” I thanked her before grabbing my sword and sprinting toward Hades. I needed to deliver the killing blow while he was still weakened.
“Did you really think your magic could stop me?” He cackled, until he realized something was wrong. “Wait, why can’t I move?”
“Why do you think I went out of my way to yell about your weakness?!”
“No, it can’t be! This is frozen water from the spring?!” He struggled within his restraints. “Dammit all! I can’t move… How did she figure out what to do with so little information?!”
“Simple! I’ve got one hell of a maid!” I said, raising my sword. “Eat this!”
I pierced Hades’s throat with my sword.
He glared straight at me even as his face distorted from the pain. The heavy pressure I could feel from him had weakened significantly, but the ice trapping him was still melting. This was but a temporary moment of weakness, and I started to feel that pressure of his once more.
Dammit! Are you telling me I can’t do any real damage without a saint or a Divine Beast’s blessing?!
Then, the ice shattered and Hades was free. This was bad. The only reason we had managed to get any hits in was because we’d taken him by surprise. We weren’t going to get another chance like that.
At this rate, all of us were in danger. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Rosalia hoist her weapon and sprint toward me. She was probably planning to sacrifice herself in order to save me.
It was just like the moment in the game, only in that timeline, it was the hero’s master. The two events overlapped in my mind…
Not on my watch! I thought fiercely before shouting a swift incantation: “Tyrant of shadows, lend your arm to me!”
“High-rank magic?! Grah!”
My shadow took the form of a giant beast, more specifically Cerberus, the gatekeeper of Hell. It then used one of its hands to grip my sword with me, and together we thrust it into Hades’s body.
Please let this work…