Back when I’d played Braves and Blades, there’d been two ways you could perform an Art: automatically or manually. The automatic version of an Art would be activated when you pressed the button on the gamepad you’d set to trigger that action. If you held the button down, however, you could activate the Art manually by tracing the shape of it in the air with your motion controller.
The fact that you’d been able to use the motion controller like that had actually been one of BB’s biggest selling points—it had made it feel like you were swinging around an actual weapon. The developers had added incentives for using the manual activation method as well, since naturally they’d preferred players choose that option over just hitting a button and watching a move play out automatically. These incentives included an extension of an Art’s range and the infliction of bonus damage upon its target, and were rewarded to a player if they managed to successfully trace an Art’s shape. The automatic method, on the other hand, had no such incentives and existed merely for those who didn’t want to mess with the motion controls.
That being said, most players used the manual activation method the majority of the time. NPCs and monsters, however...
I’ve never seen either group use anything but automatically activated Arts, I realized.
I glanced over my shoulder at the group of kids behind me. Even Radd, the arrogant brat who kept calling me an old geezer, was staring in my direction with his mouth half-open in amazement.
I had to rein in a smirk. It’s probably not very cool of me to act all smug over a power that’s not even mine, but I can’t deny it feels good to show these kids up.
“Oh, that?” I asked casually, doing my best to keep myself from grinning like an idiot. “It’s just another method of using an Art.”
I faced forward once again, leaving the kids gaping as I took the last few steps needed to bring the cavern’s exit into view. Once I saw it though, my elation died a quick death.
“The sky’s...red?” I asked, the words slow and apprehensive.
It’s way too early in the day for it to be evening, I thought, unless we spent way more time in the Cavern of Trials than I realized...
Overcome with worry, I sprinted toward the exit of the cavern as fast as I could. The kids followed behind, close at my heels.
The sight awaiting us outside made all of us freeze, gasping in horror. Far off in the west, the city of Ars was burning.
I stared at the plumes of smoke rising in the distance, struck dumb. God, I’m such an idiot... I thought, a wave of regret surging up inside me. How could I forget that this was going to happen?!
Even if Radd wasn’t the true protagonist of this version of BB, and hadn’t been able to break the seal on the demon held captive in the Cavern of Trials, that didn’t mean that Ars wouldn’t be attacked. From what I remembered, the story event that revolved around the destruction of the city would happen regardless of what character you chose to start playing as. Chances were, the event where the demon was unsealed in the dungeon just happened to coincide with Ars’s destruction, and the two weren’t actually linked.
If I’d even spent five seconds actually thinking about this, I’d have realized that! I thought, grinding my teeth and cursing at my own carelessness.
Just then, a gust of wind blew past, parting the smoke above Ars for a moment even as it assailed us with the scent of charred human flesh. Now that I could see things a little clearer, I saw that the city’s assailants were descending from the sky, bypassing the thick, sturdy walls that typically kept Ars protected from monsters.
“This is awful...” I heard one of the kids mutter.
I can’t agree more, I thought, chest tightening with apprehension.
Countless gargoyles and flying devils hovered in the air above the city, clouds of them extending so far into the distance they practically blotted out the blueness of the sky. As if that wasn’t enough, I saw that some of the gargoyles were carrying flightless monsters in their arms, dropping them into the middle of the city whenever they had the chance.
“Those gargoyles are airdropping the rest of the army in!” I told the kids, my voice tight.
Gargoyles were monsters that appeared toward the middle of the game, meaning that every single one of them should be as strong as a mid-ranked adventurer.
No city could survive an invasion of this scale, I thought sadly, eyes locked onto the harrowing sight of the city’s destruction. I know that from experience, but still...
“Rex, look!” Radd shouted out of the blue, jolting me back to the present. “Look over there! It’s a person!”
“What?!” I turned in Radd’s direction, lowering my gaze from the sky above.
A few yards away, a woman was being attacked by a gargoyle. I’d barely begun to process the scene when the monster drove its sword straight through her chest.
Without warning, my blood began to boil. Goddammit, why is this event happening now?!
I let out a rough “Tch!” and launched forward, rushing toward the gargoyle before any of the kids had a chance to stop me. I heard one of them scream “Rex?!”, but I didn’t look back. I had other, more important things to worry about—it was time to fight.
I pushed all other thoughts aside in favor of focusing on channeling mana into my sword, activating an Art that would increase my movement speed considerably.
“Gale Slash!” I shouted, tracing an infinity symbol in the air with my weapon.
In an instant I accelerated to inhuman speeds, nearly tripping over my own legs as I struggled to keep up with the increased pace.
God, I just can’t catch a break, can I? I thought, almost laughing at the absurdity of it all. I literally died like an hour ago because I tried to save that girl, and here I go trying to save someone else! Seems I just can’t learn my lesson... At least this time the rescue shouldn’t cost me my life.
“Yeah!” I yelled, bolstering myself. “A single gargoyle’s no match for me!”
The monster wasn’t exactly making me work for it either—it was so focused on its prey that it hadn’t bothered to defend itself at all. It had left its rear side wide open.
I pulled my sword back, activating a skill called Divine Thrust with only a thought. Then, once I was finally in range, I plunged the blade into the stone skin covering the gargoyle’s spine with all my might.
The monster let out a shrill, pained screech, then vanished into a cloud of small lights that rushed into the palm of my hand.
Interesting, I thought. Normally, Rex wouldn’t be able to take down a gargoyle in a single hit when at base level. The enemy weak-point system and the damage bonus for attacking with a charge must still apply now, even though I’m inside the game. And that means... Wait, none of this is important right now!
I turned away from the gargoyle, flushing with mortification as I ran over to the girl it had stabbed. I knelt at her side, idly noticing that she had emerald-green hair.
“Are you okay?!” I asked her.
She ignored my question, a relieved smile stretching across her lips once she got a good look at my face. “Oh, thank god...” she gasped. “Rex, you’re okay...”
“H-Huh?” I managed. For a moment I froze up, unsure of how to react.
“There’s...monsters, in the city...” she mumbled weakly, her eyes fluttering. “You...have to run...”
And then, before I could think to say anything in return, she fell unconscious. I stared at her, falling deep into thought.
Oh, I realized after a moment. This girl, she must be Rex’s younger sister.
Now that I thought about it, once you defeated the demon and headed back toward Ars in this storyline, you’d find a girl lying in a field on the outskirts of the city, near-dead. Between the dialogue I remembered getting during the event and the girl’s earlier words, it was most likely Rex’s younger sister, who lived in the city.
What was her name again? I thought, my brow scrunching together. It was...Recilia, wasn’t it?