Volume 1, Chapter 21

Volume 1, Chapter 21

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Translator: Reflet

Editor: Weasalopes

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「Katrina, you…」

「Older Sister…has it truly eaten into you so much that you are no longer human?」

Knowing full well that it was useless to say anything to this unsightly form of Katrina that was hard to even directly look at, Elena and Layotte still spoke to her. All Katrina did was smile without saying anything.

「Big Sister…」

Seeing Katrina’s deteriorated form, Aearis murmured in a truly saddened tone. Perhaps because of her being a vessel for the goddess, she found it difficult to hate other people, so in a sense she was more twisted than Katrina. That was why she found it entirely incomprehensible as to why Katrina had harbored such hatred. Therefore, she was simply saddened at this.

「Elle, I don’t think there’s any point in askin’.」

「I wonder what this means?」

「Can ya return those two to bein’ human?」

They sadly shook their heads at Hiroshi’s question. When living creatures had been infiltrated by miasma to the point where there very form had been altered, there was nothing that could be done to return them back to normal. When you went that far, even being involved in joyful events like reaping plentiful harvests for the year, defeating powerful monsters, or just anything in general that required effort to bear fruit would get these people into a bad mood, and like when Aearis had been born, whenever lots of blessings were uttered all around the room, those afflicted with miasma would take life-threatening damage.

Miasma was normally something that was easily purified just by being in the type of atmosphere that respectable people enjoyed, after all. The festivals in this world happened to have another role of driving away all of the daily accumulated miasma. So for people who could no longer even so much as come into contact with those sorts of things, even if they regained their sanity, they would never be able to live the same way again.

「Haruna, could you do something like step forward and attack while singing?」

「It’s not all that difficult.」

「What about Elemental Dance?」

「Well in that case, I wouldn’t be able to do anything afterwards, so we should probably leave that one alone.」

While Hiroshi and Barold were continuing their glaring contest and Layotte and Elena were trying to talk to Katrina, Makoto and Haruna merely had a brief discussion.

「So has the disagreeable, hypocritical conversation reached an end yet?」

「Hypocritical, you say…」

It wasn’t like they were trying to act self-righteous as they were talking or anything, but they knew full well that no matter how they tried, it was impossible to communicate with these two. Even trying to object to any of their statements was a waste of time, so it would be faster to just get it over with and knock them down.

「One thing I do know is that there’s no way to get through to you. How about we hurry up and settle things?」

「So as soon as you decide you can’t get through to us, you resort to getting rid of us. As I thought, everyone who affiliates themselves with that rotten goddess are savage barbarians.」

「Not even any point commenting on what you say, so I just won’t.」

At the same time as he said that, Tatsuya activated the damage-inflicting binding magic, Gravity Chain. This was the type of magic that was a gamble to get working, so although not entirely unexpected, it nearly broke through their defense but failed, canceling at the last second.

「Julius! You get Barold! Ernest and I will take care of my older sister!」

「Understood!」

Adhering to Layotte’s instructions, Julius immediately rushed to the front lines to close in on his opponent. Combined with that, Haruna’s song rang out. The battle crashed right into the climax.

「Ufufufufufufu…」

Giggling in an unpleasant manner, Katrina crawled slowly over. While wincing at how repulsive that form was, Elena mercilessly hurled several blades at her, as if testing them out. Unlike Aearis, she no longer had any hesitation whatsoever at the idea of attacking Katrina.

Unlike earlier, she showed no sign whatsoever of suffering when she heard Haruna’s song. One might think that it no longer had an effect on her, but in actuality, you could tell that she was beginning to deteriorate further and further. Judging from the overall state of things, Aearis’s purification one-hit KO might not actually end up being that.

「Ufufufufufufu…」

Despite being pierced with blades and having her wrists, serpentine hair, and the tip of her tail cut off, Katrina didn’t show the slightest sign that it was affecting her, simply continuing to giggle as she crawled toward them. Perhaps because of her bodily structure being a whole different beast from a human, she didn’t even care about blades being stabbed right through her heart.

「This is just seriously revolting.」

「Ufufufufufufu…」

「Sure, I didn’t think she was human anymore, but now she can’t even speak properly?」

「Ufufufufufufu…」

Layotte couldn’t even sigh in exasperation anymore at Katrina, who would simply giggle in response every single time. It wasn’t like he had expected much, and it was also true that no matter what sort of things came out of her mouth, it wouldn’t change the fact that the only option was to cut her down, but he at least would have preferred that she be a human when he cut her down so that she could understand the gravity of what she had done.

「Well, whatever.」

Readying the longsword that Hiroshi had given to him, Layotte decided to get it over with. Although it didn’t surpass either of his sisters’ daggers as a weapon, it was still exceptionally strong and the strongest weapon among anything in this room. With this blade, which also happened to have purification capabilities with its mythril silver origins, no matter what regenerative capabilities Katrina had, she would not be able to withstand this.

「Older Sister, I’m afraid you must die.」

As soon as Layotte began to start attacking, Katrina, who had been only giggling up until now finally began to move for an attack. Her snake body gave her the advantage of coiling up in order to leap forward to instantly press in on her opponents. Having regenerated when they least expected it, the right hand talon that should have been cut off by Elena’s flying blades was back, and she aimed not at Layotte or Elena, but rather sought to tear up Aearis, who was all the way in the back.

「Ufufufufufufu…」

Continuing her giggle as she brandished her right arm in a wide arc, Layotte cut it off, and the body that had been lunging at its target was blocked by Douga and his shield, blown away by his brute force. Despite quite the resistance, the cut-off arm was completely purified and disintegrated, and the main body itself didn’t currently show any signs of regrowing the arm.

「Big Sister, did you really detest me that much…?」

「Aearis. Even if you are connected by blood, there is no need nor any meaning in sympathizing with a fool who destroyed themselves in unjustified resentment.」

「Ufufufufufufu…」

Aearis seemed sad from the bottom of her heart to see Katrina continue to giggle despite what was being said about her or done to her, whereas Elena threw her a gaze that was reminiscent of looking at a worthless rock by the roadside. As of right now, the only person who had so much of a shred of pity for Katrina was probably just Aearis.

By this point, it was evident that Katrina could never go back to normal, in more ways than one. There was of course the fact that she had changed form, but above all else she had been cut by Layotte and purified, and her body was writhing in pain, and yet she still had the same giggle as before. This made it fairly obvious what state she was in. Her heart was already trapped in its own world, and her body was merely mechanically adhering to the deep-rooted delusion that she had harbored before all of this.

By the time her form had changed, the person known as Princess Katrina had died.

「Big Sister…」

「Aearis. If you’re thinking of our older sister, then it would be best that we put her to rest as soon as possible. She always had pride, and I doubt she would enjoy seeing herself in this state.」

She nodded at what Layotte said, beginning preparations for purification. The chances were extremely slim, but maybe, just maybe, she could return to her original form.

「Aearis. I will strike down our older sister. Purify her after that.」

「…I understand.」

While looking close to tears, Aearis courageously made the decision to deal with her own sister. The preparations to purify her had already been made.

「Aearis! If you feel ready, launch the blade over!」

Aearis, who had been focusing on Layotte’s movements, heard Elena give the order. When she looked, she saw the tattered Barold swiveling around in midair at tremendous speed. Judging from the imprints he left as he rotated around, he seemed to be drawing a magic circle.

「He’s probably doing that because he doesn’t think he can get past our wall in the front line. Seems to be using the type that amplifies physical attacks. With all the little modifications he’s making in the air, I suppose he’s planning a sudden, quick charge?」

Apparently he had seen through the tank, Hiroshi’s, weakness. Hiroshi didn’t have much equipment on him, nor even a shield for that matter, so if a large mass were to quickly crash into him, it would tend to throw him off-balance. Assumably Douga would try and do something about it, but it was all too easy for any person standing between Hiroshi and Douga to become a casualty.

Hearing that, Aearis understood and followed Elena’s example, sketching as many loci that she could think of in order to hinder his movement and continuously shooting out blades. However, unfortunate as it was, Elena and Aearis were both amateurs. Neither of them had the slightest sense for how to precisely shoot down a target moving at rapid speed in the air. Not only that, but whatever he was doing to make these magic circles, it was resistant enough to not disappear even when they tried cutting the lines with the blades.

「Ernest! In case anything happens, get in front of Haruna and Tatsuya!」

「But Milord…」

「Older Sister…I mean, Katrina is no longer able to battle! Besides, everything is almost over!」

「Understood.」

Obeying Layotte’s command, Julius slipped past the writhing Katrina and stood in front of Haruna. After seeing him do that, Layotte got ready to lay the finishing blow, activating the secret royal family move. He had determined from the sensation that not only cut off the four limbs, but to take down the entire body in one hit, he had no choice but to use the secret royal family technique. As one would expect from this situation, there was no time to just keep cutting her until she died.

「I pay a tribute to you by burying you with the royal family’s technique! Take this, Dimensional Slash!」

This was, just as the name suggested, an extra skill that borrowed the power of the space-time goddess Alfemina, able to cut through the dimensions themselves. Though it was previously said that it was a secret technique passed down in the royal family, in actuality anyone could use it, even if they were not from the Farlane royal family bloodline. Essentially, as long as you had direct aid from Alfemina and a certain degree of swordsmanship, anyone could do it.

「Aearis!」

「Okay!」

With the core cut off via Dimensional Slash, Katrina was practically a wreckage, whereas Aearis’s light of purification fell down upon her, as if ceremonially beheading her. With every last bit of her miasma purified, the remains of Katrina briefly spasmed violently. That form grew smaller and smaller until it returned Katrina to her original, beautiful figure.

However, she was only back in her attractive form for an instant. Katrina, with her eyes closed with a slightly peaceful expression on her face showed no signs of opening her eyes, turning promptly to ash and crumbling away, leaving no trace in that area of there ever being a person named Princess Katrina.

「Big Sister…」

In the end, she was never able to come to a mutual understanding with her half-sister. Unable to endure seeing her last moments, Aearis was ready to spill out tears…

「Aearis, don’t slip up!」

Layotte gave his sister a shout of warning. When she lifted her head to her brother’s tense voice, she noticed Barold, shouldering a magic circle drawn in the air and poised for a quick descent.

「Older Sister, Aearis! Do you have any protection magic that can splinter that power!?」

「Unfortunately, I don’t seem to have any on hand!」

「I’m sorry, we probably wouldn’t make it in time right now…」

Hearing their answers, Layotte made alternate preparations for a powerful move that he had saved for a situation like this for dropping an opponent’s speed. Douga crouched in order to raise his defense to the max so as to be prepared. As time went by like slow motion, their eyes focused on Hiroshi, who took something out of his bag and thrust it against Barold’s face as he charged in.

With unbelievable focus, all four of them immediately knew what it was that Hiroshi had thrown and almost wanted to immediately blurt out their surprise. Just a moment before they were about to, however, an incredible explosive sound rang out through the temple. The temple shook from the impact of the explosion simultaneously. After somehow making it through that vibration, Layotte had an odd expression on his face as he muttered.

「……No way, did he just……」

「……W-Well, at least we managed to escape the danger, Big Brother……」

「Although thanks to that, any sense of anxiety has been blown away……」

The serious atmosphere that had been here until now had vanished without a trace thanks to Hiroshi’s string of actions. Even Aearis, who had almost cried upon seeing Katrina in her final moments, had gone completely blank.

「……So in this situation, who’s more pitiful? Katrina, or Barold……」

Both of them were certainly small fries, but to end things like this? Elena couldn’t help but feel sympathy for them from the bottom of her heart for the first time, just because of how screwed up this all was.

「Sacred Strike!」

First, as if testing the waters, Julius threw in a Holy-type attack befitting of his position as a paladin before jumping back. After he had done that, a Dark-type magic blasted at Hiroshi, cancelled and destroyed.

「I am truly being underestimated if you think that amount of Holy power can actually work!」

Barold didn’t seem to have felt any pain, instead launching out a large amount of transparent black tentacles from the shadows. However, before they could reach anyone, they encountered Hiroshi and vanished.

「What, this is magic too!?」

While totally let down by how Barold’s unpleasant attack had literally no effect, Taiyou decided to throw a Smash uppercut. Stunned by how his attack was canceled by a non-magic attack, Barold took the hit and flew into the air.

「Break Spiral!」

「Shine Saber!」

When Hiroshi sent Barold flying in the air, Rayna and Julius let out a volley of powerful techniques so as to prevent him from regaining his balance. The slash that spread through his body in a spiral and the slash from the big, holy blades of light did not give him any grave wounds, but dealt enough damage to threaten him, and Barold’s posture crumbled.

「Haruna!」

Taking advantage of the timing, Makoto gave Haruna the signal. She nodded while singing an improvised song for Over-Accelerate, while Mio, silent, lay resistance enchantments on the weapon. As soon as the spell was activated, Makoto accelerated to a speed faster than the naked eye could detect, firing out a myriad of devastating attacks at Barold, still frozen in midair, before jumping back precisely at 50 seconds of real-world time before cancelling the spell and gulping down a stamina potion.

The dozen or so miasma bullets that Barold had unleashed out of frustration, as expected, did not put even a single scratch on Makoto, with 70% going to Hiroshi and the remaining 30% blocked by Douga, everything smashed without harming anyone.

「Mako, how’s your body?」

「No problem with 50 seconds!」

Mio called out to Makoto to confirm her status, and Makoto responded not without any sort of bluff; just plain conviction. In actuality, having practiced numerous times with Hiroshi and the others, she had eventually become able to use the skill multiple times in 50 second intervals without being hurt enough to have to use a potion. Level 600 hit points and stamina were not just for show. While her resistance and defense were inferior to Hiroshi’s, her being five times his level allowed her to have far more hit points than even a shut-in craftsman. She wouldn’t win in terms of overall survivability, but she wouldn’t die from every little thing.

「How vexing this goddess is!」

Barold hatefuly spat while becoming more and more tattered. As expected, the damage dealt by rushing at him a hundred times faster was fairly decent. Hiroshi was one thing, but Makoto’s power was a sight to behold. In addition, this time around, she didn’t merely ram a bunch of regular attacks into him, but was throwing out skills that didn’t run into delays and taking care to attack him to the point where they didn’t break. The skills she used were in fact all beginner skills, but the overall damage she did to him was to the point where he should absolutely be done for. All the advantage that he had obtained via his transformation had been snatched away, and he was fully aware of how helpless of a predicament he was in.

「But if that was your stupid trump card, I doubt you can use that more than once!」

With that being said, Barold wouldn’t be defeated that easily either. He was able to see the nature of the magic as well as see through its weaknesses in an instant. In actuality, just as Barold had pointed out, Haruna’s mana would have to regenerate in order to use it another time, and even without the mana issue, the only people who could use it in battle were Hiroshi, Makoto, and Mio. Julius and the other two could probably endure the magical acceleration, but they didn’t have a grasp on their limitations. Also, accelerating Makoto after she had already done so had too much risk and was out of the question, plus the very thought of carelessly making the tank, Hiroshi, fatigued was too scary. Besides, in terms of firepower for Hiroshi and Mio, even acceleration wouldn’t give them that much of a power-up.

Maybe if the caster, Haruna, had more power then things would be different, but as of right now she could only use it once with extreme difficulty; hardly a reliable trump card.

「I’ve seen through your weakness, fools! Your lives end here!」

Barold flew high up with his batlike, wyvernlike wings to where he was almost touching the ceiling of the temple’s reception hall. Storing up powerful miasma in his body, he began to rotate in order to draw a magic circle. Seeing this, Hiroshi realised that he could not fully defend against this attack by any fair means.

（This sucks! It’ll pierce right through!）

Most likely, the next attack to come would be a full-on assault, accelerated to the max with magic. A purely physical attack might be different, but charging in like that with plenty of speed would make Hiroshi’s trump card difficult to maintain in terms of weight. Hiroshi himself wouldn’t take all that much damage, and Douga would also probably get next to no wounds. Makoto, Julius, and Rayna wouldn’t become incapacitated even if they were launched flying because of their overwhelming amount of hit points. Not even Mio would really be an issue.

However, Haruna and Tatsuya were much closer to the line. Even Layotte didn’t seem to have as much life force as the others, so if he were to make one wrong move, there would be no guarantee on his life. Elena and Aearis were out of the question. Now, it wasn’t like there wasn’t an optimistic outcome where the seasoned tank, Douga, used his finesse in order to protect the three royals.

（Is…Is there nothing we can do!?）

While flustered internally, Hiroshi instinctively activated Outface. Seeing him out of the corner of their eyes, the other members let out a volley of projectiles so as to keep their opponent in check. Elena and Aearis, who had actually succeeded in taking Katrina off guard, assisted them with backup fire. However…

「Don’t think that you can stop me with those petty tricks!」

With the speed of his revolution and irregularity of his movements, it was difficult to say that they were putting up much of a resistance in terms of hindering him. Some of Mio’s shots were barely hitting him, but weren’t affecting him enough to be very damaging. Aearis had already been busy with purifying Katrina, so her power was ebbing. Seeing that these interferences were decreasing one by one, he took it as an opportunity to increase his speed further, still carrying the magic circle that had been written with miasma.

（Oh yeah! What if I do that!!）

In order to further realize the idea that had flashed in his head as the other guy began to quickly descend, Hiroshi panicked as he took it out from his bag. Barold aimed for that spot, plunging forward.

「Take that!!」

Able to take it out of the bag in the nick of time, Hiroshi held out a huge pome that was about double the size of an average watermelon and threw it mercilessly at Barold’s face. Everyone gawked at this scene, especially because this was such a dire situation. Regardless, the speed of the pomegranate increased to a hazardous degree as it burst into his face, causing a large-scale explosion enough to shake the entire temple. Completely losing his balance from the incredible explosion, Barold was slammed into the opposing wall.

「Hell yeeeah! I thought so!!」

「Wha-!?」

Suppressing the shock wave with Around Guard, Hiroshi made a fist bump as Haruna exclaimed in surprise. The situation was so unexpected that the song itself was completely interrupted.

「He-Hey, Hiroshi!」

「Whazzup?」

「Pomes don’t usually…make such ridiculous explosions, right!?」

「Well yeah, if you mean regular pomes.」

Hiroshi readily agreed to Makoto’s objection. In actuality, the explosive power of pomes could at most only reach bone fractures if things went south. No matter how you slice it, they simply did not have the sort of extreme explosive power to send a five meter-long organism charging with all their might flying off ten meters into a wall and smashing through it.

「You do something again, Hiro?」

「Was thinkin’ that the taste or nutritional value would do the trick. Back over where we were, I secretly mixed in some hot spring water ‘n a special plant fertilizer blend ‘n had it propagate a bit.」

No one could stop their faces from gaping at just how mad Hiroshi’s reasoning was. Incidentally, in terms of the pome’s ecology, not only could you attach the calyx to the hot spring, but you could even put the torso itself into the hot spring and it would grow leaves all the same. In other words, if you were to separate the calyx and torso and put them in the hot spring, what would have originally grown into only one pome would be two instead. It would take time and effort, but using this unique capability, it was possible to artificially hasten its growth.

「By the way, seems like the taste ’n nutritional balance of a pome tends to be proportionate to its explosive potential, so I bet that there pome right now was purty darn succulent ’n rich in nutrients.」

「Don’t even think about cooking with that scary thing!!」

Haruna’s objection reverberated throughout the temple. The tense atmosphere had vanished in an instant, leaving them with a somewhat indefinable one instead.

「……How far…how far will you go to make a fool out of me!!」

Tearing himself out of the wall that he had been implanted into, Barold glared hatefully at Hiroshi, body riddled with wounds. He no longer had the energy to escape, nor did he have any way of damaging his opponent without putting his own life at risk. Actually, it was a miracle in and of itself that he hadn’t died yet. So at the very least, he sought to find a way to take these adventurers who had made a fool of him down with him. Preparing to do so, he compressed the miasma (considerably reduced) to the max.

「I will no longer be able to offer this country to my god, no matter what I do……」

It had taken 20 years to win the favor of everyone who entered and exited Wulls Castle. It had taken 10 years to began interacting with the selected attendants for the royal family. Afterward, blessed with all sorts of fortune, he had placed himself in the position to where he could select any attendants he wanted for the newly born Katrina. He had eventually succeeded at winning over those dissatisfied with the laws of the royal family and the country by ensuring that everything was going well.

That was how, over the span of 50 years, he had slowly encroached the center of the country, only to have the good opportunity that had finally come to him smashed by just two adventurers, and every attempt he had made at struggling to get some decent result had come to naught. It would have at least felt better if they had simply been talented enough to see through every plot of his, but other than the time when they had incited the timing to send the assassin in, every other time their last-minute actions had out of pure coincidence continuously crushed every attempt of his.

He was aware that in the end, he was a small fry. He also understood that it wasn’t like he could create that amazing of a scheme, and that all he could do was fan the flames. But still, even so, there was just no way he could accept the way things went. If this was the goddesses’ predetermined harmony, then they could have at least given him people who were more heroic in their actions.

But the fact that their plans had been ruined by those half-hearted people meant that in the end, their way of doing things had been unskillful. If he had to pay the price for that with his life, then he thought he should at least make up for his loss by dragging them down with him.

「All right then, Toudou Haruna, Azuma Hiroshi! I’ve got to at least take your lives before I go, fools!」

Supplementing the insufficient power with his own life force, he prepared for his last vain resistance (planned in the event that his other attacks were thwarted), slamming in his largest class attack now that he was in the right form.

Come to think of it, he should have just done it from the beginning without trying to act all high and mighty. Just as that enemy mage had asserted, they should have used all of their trump cards while they still could have. However, this technique would still put them at risk even if they were at their peak. The only time to use it would be when their plan had been completely laid to ruin. By that point, there at least should have been some prospect of turning the tables.

While he continued to tediously repeat that excuse in his head, Barold charged the miasma and mana that he had refined and compressed, intending to release it as an Ultimate spell. This great attack already had enough power to turn 30% of Wulls into a ruin if it were spread and released, but he had gone out of his way to compress it to where it would be enough to blow away the temple. There was no way that they could resist and cancel this.

Barold watched in satisfaction at Hiroshi becoming rigid at the terrifying refined energy, making to attempt to hide his terrified expression. He proceeded with the finishing touch.

「Tsk, like hell you’re doing that! Judgement Ray!」

His face changing color at the might of the magic that was about to be unleashed, Tatsuya had finally finished the recitation of the obstruction magic, just in time to be able to launch a pierce-type attack spell that was a combination of light and holy elements. It was right up there with Nandikesvara Eight Polar Cannons in terms of cleansing power, making it difficult to maintain defense against such a spell, but it was thwarted by the miasma that Barold had purposely let leak out of his defense, cleansing it only to lose its attack power and vanish.

「Kuh!」

「More to come!」

Seeing that Tatsuya’s attempt at interference had failed, Rayna and Julius began to charge in. However, this was once again curbed by the highly thick wall-like miasma, ricocheting away with the swipe of an arm.

「Please, let me go!」

「Go ahead!」

「I won’t let you! Buster Shot!」

Aearis and Elena threw all the blades that they had, and Mio shot out an attack with high firepower and knockback. However, all of them were unable to pierce the barrier of miasma, unable to interfere.

An extra skill would be needed in order to pierce that, or at least so they thought, but when they turned to Layotte, he would merely shake his head. As one would expect from an extra skill, it seemed that it would take a bit more cooldown time in order to activate Dimensional Slash again. He wasn’t like Hiroshi, and there was no way that one person would have that many extra skills all at once, so any other move in comparison to Dimensional Slash for intercepting Barold would fall short three pegs in terms of power.

Normally, it would be impossible even with Barold’s normal power level to erect this many barriers. However, by cutting off one’s life force and limiting it only to preparation time, even a small fry could erect this kind of barrier.

「Old man! Can you stop that thing!?」

「Even I think that would be a bit difficult!」

Besides, even if they did stop it, the temple would not end up in one piece, and as long as that was the case, there was no assurance that everyone here wouldn’t be buried alive.

While everyone else was lining up their cards to see if anything could be done in order to preserve their lives, Haruna maintained a rather calm demeanor. She calmly activated several support magic sequences by herself, stacking them all on Hiroshi. Although Barold noticed Haruna, he confirmed victory for himself based on everyone around her, finishing his final preparation.

「You’re too late! Now come and die with me!」

Laughing scornfully at everyone here, including himself, he unleashed his life-risking trump card.

「Let us fall together! Hell Inferno!」

Along with a strangely refreshing smile, Barold threw a fireball that had been pressed together with the flames of hell at them. Even with his life force taken away to death’s door and a feeling of fierce fatigue attacking him at every moment, he continued to stand on his own two feet as a sign of his final defiance. His tough flesh gained from discarding his humanity continued to restore his life force, even in a state like this. The fear and despair from the group before him even became a little bit of miasma, spurring on his recovery. Barold gazed contentedly at that sight.

（Why the heck…）

The gigantic fireball advanced on him in a strangely slow motion. As he stared blankly at this phenomenon, various hectic thoughts raced around in Hiroshi’s head. He wanted to run. But to where? Surely someone would block it. But how? Why was all this happening? Wasn’t it because he decided to stick his head into someone else’s affairs?

As useless thoughts revolved around and around in his head, this extreme situation and the fear brought on from unfathomable despair caused him to recall a certain memory. It was the time when his life was in danger at the school of his hometown on Valentine’s Day. The police became involved, and the incident was reported on a nationwide scale. It was an event that planted a lot of mistrust between the region and the school, slashing the school’s internal structure to shreds.

He recalled the unfair words and actions that the girls in his class exhibited after he had somehow managed to preserve his life. Not only had it permanently affected him; it also carved a gap of hopeless proportions between all of the boys and girls in the school, and even when new students came into the school, the boys would still not trust the girls in the slightest. It was that significant of an event, and yet the culprit had still yet to be found, shaking even the peoples’ confidence in the police.

Remembering all that, he glared at the fireball before him. That’s right. Compared to that, this level of danger is nothing. In the first place, he was the closest worksman to the gods, and he did not think that said gods were kind enough to allow him to die from something as trivial as this.

Compared to an event like that where half of the entire school became his enemy and half of the world began to know true fear, calling this even a crisis was presumptuous. Although it was embarrassing to be swallowed up by Barold’s vigor and flashy destructive power, thinking about it closely, even if he were to fail at resistance and directly take the attack, it wasn’t like he would die, right?

Reaching that realization and spurred on by his instincts, he heavily rammed into the fireball. At this point in time, gears were moving inside Hiroshi, rapidly taking shape.

「This is nothing…!」

He advanced toward the fireball, unthinkingly activating the Fortress skill he had learned secretively. This was child’s play for Douga, but there was already a huge gap in the foundational defense. Although he was a bit inferior to Ernest Douga at his best in terms of physical defense, his magical defense was several steps ahead of him.

「Compared to chocolates…!」

Right before it struck him, he activated Around Guard. Despite the overwhelming attack range, Hiroshi practically suppressed it all by himself.

「How d’ya like THIIIS!!」

At the same time as the impact, he pumped himself up and resisted the magic. Encountering the strong body of interference, the fireball of energy began to rapidly subside. In the midst of the advancing power and resisting power practically in equilibrium, as if rushing upstream in a rapid current, the fireball gradually approached Hiroshi, advancing directly toward him to fulfill its role of exploding. In the end, unable to exhibit most of its destructive power, it became a harmless flow of magic as it expanded and was reduced to a third of its original size, touching Hiroshi and then exploding.

「…What in the world!?」

The shockwaves subsided, and after the smoke disappeared, a hardly injured Hiroshi plunged forward at him. Of course he wasn’t entirely uninjured. Suffering burns here and there, he had quite a few lacerations from the shockwave. However, receiving an attack that had enough compressed magic to turn a third of Wulls into scorched earth, it was marvellous that he had even managed to end it there.

In the even that Haruna hadn’t cast any support magic on him, he probably would have taken more visible damage. If he didn’t have Fortress or Around Guard, it was practically guaranteed that Haruna and the others would have suffered more than just small wounds. More importantly, if he had faltered in the first stage, he wouldn’t have been able to manifest enough resistance power to hold back this might.

With all of his might, Hiroshi had just barely fulfilled his role as the tank.

「Hurry up ’n…get outta this world!!」

Ignoring the pain of his wounds, he brandished a pole axe with all his might, howling in a loud voice to put energy into a strike as he flung it down. The incredible energy and destructive power brought on with the axe pulverized Barold’s body, striking him into the ground, opening up a gigantic crater spreading across to the entrance, pulverizing the wall of the temple’s front entrance, and finally scratching a crevice well into the middle of the inner courtyard before subsiding.

Extra Skill: Titanic Roar. It was a technique for long-handled axes or blunt weapons that boasted the largest destructive power and attack range for physical weapons. Being that it was a killer technique from an unpopular weapon, this skill hadn’t even been discovered yet, let alone have any acquisition prerequisites. Letting his anger lead him, Hiroshi activated this feat of strength.

「W-What happened just now…?」

「Who even knows?」

Unable to keep up with the sudden turn of events, Tatsuya mumbled in an exasperated tone. Haruna casually answered him as if this were an everyday occurrence. For whatever reason, she wasn’t particularly surprised.

「Haru, you seem to be taking this pretty easily…」

「Well, I already confirmed that it would help seal Hell Inferno, hence why I cast a round of support magic.」

Haruna casually explained her reasoning to Mio when she made a remark. Sure, the attack just now was a surprise, she added, but it honestly didn’t hold any more weight than it did earlier.

「Speaking of which, you aren’t very surprised either, are you Aearis?」

「Uhh, as embarrassing as it is, I am not exactly sure just how amazing the attack was just now.」

The younger sister answered her older brother’s question honestly. Due to having little battle experience, she didn’t have the slightest clue as to how powerful Hell Inferno just now was, nor what level that last move was. To a regular person like Aearis, every move unleashed in this battle had enough power to kill someone ten times upon impact. Of course she wouldn’t understand the magnitude.

「Besides, it isn’t over yet.」

Aearis, whose eyes had suddenly turned golden, proclaimed that. Proving her words to be true, the end of the temple that had been in an isolated dimension began to return to the normal world, and at the same time, something was summoned into the inner courtyard.

「W-What is it?」

「It would be inconvenient to have such a big thing summoned her, so I had it moved to the inner courtyard for now. The space was restored, but that didn’t mean that the casualties from this battle had been repaired yet. Once we’ve retrieved everything that we can, we had best make haste and get away from here in order to deal with the rest of the matter.」

「Is it actually the goddess this time around?」

Without answering Haruna’s question, Aearis let out a meaningful smile. The next moment, the color of her eyes returned to the normal blue.

「Big Brother! Something terribly huge is coming our way!」

「……Alright! Let’s quickly get to our counterplan!」

Hearing Layotte’s words, they all picked up and gathered everything they could, rushing out of the temple. The only things they left in there were several cerberus remains and the untouched Oria, who had been utterly forgotten after she had passed out on the outset.

「This is…」

「I daresay he’s called in quite the difficult predicament…」

Not even allowed to say his last words, Barold had been pulverized with overwhelming power. Upon looking at the organism that he had called over, Julius and Douga groaned.

「Maybe it’s just idiotic to think of trying to come slashing at it from the front.」

「Maybe if it were done with the move that Hiroshi pounded into that man, but if we’re just discussing regular attacks, then yeah, I doubt that anyone would call such a person a hero.」

Looking at the size and movement patterns of the big thing, Makoto and Rayna exchanged their fed-up opinions. That wasn’t just confined to them, however. Everyone who saw the gigantic creature in front of them reacted in pretty much one of two ways: groan in despair or make a cynical comment at the absurdity of the situation. However, there was one person who didn’t display such an obvious reaction.

「It’s here it’s here it’s here…! My time has come, hell yeah…!」

Seeing the super giant caterpillar that had appeared in the inner castle courtyard, Hiroshi burst out in joy as his eyes glinted like fire.

Indeed. It was, in fact, an extremely large caterpillar that Barold had summoned, large enough to crash through Wulls castle. It truly was a foolish idea to advance from the front on a creature of this size on the bare ground. Perhaps it would be possible to slip under and slash creatures moving around on two or four legs, but if you were to try something like that on an organism crawling with their stomach to the ground like this, you would simply get sucked into their forward movement, run over, and end up a dead mess.

For better or for worse, the caterpillar itself seemed to be non-active, only wriggling in a relaxed manner to find a good spot to sit and not exhibiting any hostile behavior. However, even if this was just a caterpillar they were dealing with, if they were to end up not killing it all the way in one attack and it registered the damage, it wouldn’t be surprising for it to get angry and throw out some crazy attacks. Thankfully, none of the knights currently had any projectiles, and the mages were wavering about whether they should use attack magic or not, so no one had yet attempted any actual attacks.

Meanwhile, Hiroshi was all smiles when he saw that troublesome creature, eyes glinting. Normally one would question whether he had gone insane or not, but for those who knew about his track record or skills, they would be more likely to get what he was thinking.

「Hey, Hiroshi-kun. Could it be that…」

「Mio! Get me some o’them wood materials for a foothold ’n makin’ barrels! Brother, you ’n the other mages can fixate it in a suitable place with bind magic! Elle, or Goddess! Can ya get some mana to flow up from the earth and feed that to it!?」

Not answering Haruna’s question of realization, Hiroshi suddenly fired out rapid instructions. Unable to react to the sudden words, everyone just stared dumbfounded.

「There shouldn’t be any issue with the earth, Hiroshi-sama.」

Unlike the other people who couldn’t react quickly enough to his orders, Aearis answered joyfully like a dog wagging its tail in her eagerness to be of use to him. As everyone saw that, they returned to themselves and proceeded to carry out Hiroshi’s instructions. No one had any issues with following orders from the likes of a lower-class adventurer. It was more like they had determined that in a situation like this with no clear instructions, they may as well carry out someone’s order to see if it worked.

「If so, then how ’bout ya feed ’im a round of earth magic! Every other mage will still be focusin’ on gittin’ dat caterpillar into a fixed position! But don’t use any magic that’ll damage the thing! Once yer through with that, put a buncha healing or defensive or support magic on it without damaging it so that it eats the mana!」

「Understood!」

Happily following Hiroshi’s orders, Aearis poured more than enough mana from the earth and spirit channels in as the mages were furtively keeping the caterpillar in place.

「Hiroshi-kun, should I also get to pouring in the mana?」

Haruna felt like she could do it as she watched them, hence the proposal. However, Hiroshi shook his head at the idea:

「Based on yer practice, ya’d best help out Mio. Also, I’d like to have the other people gather as much spool as they can! Takes ’bout three days for it to make a cocoon ’n settle down, so during that interval, gather all that ya can!」

「R-Right now?」

「I am fairly certain that the shops in the castle town would be closing around this time……」

「Nah, all ya gotta do is go over to bars or restaurants ’n collect whatever they finished using. There’s also the stuff in the castle.」

Taken aback at Hiroshi’s directions, the knights made haste and scattered downtown to use human-wave tactics. Behind them, the mana-sucking caterpillar began spewing out thread to make a cocoon.

「Now then, this is the fight of a lifetime. Let’s see how far ya fulfill my expectations hereafter.」

As he nodded satisfactorily at the cocoon that was being made, Hiroshi decided to participate in barrel-making for the time being, leaving the area.

It was a rather unusual sight.

「Mio! It’s ’bout time for the one on top to open. You ready!?」

It was the morning of the sixth day since the emergence of the caterpillar and the morning of the third day since the cocoon had been completed. Upon completion, Hiroshi had been continuously weaving the thread at a terrifying speed when he suddenly raised his voice. Incidentally, he had not gotten a wink of sleep, nor had he stopped his hand even for a second since he had begun weaving. He managed to stay hydrated with a mana potion and ate whatever Haruna gave him that wouldn’t dirty his hands. With movements that didn’t refine anything more than necessary, he had finished the weaving process without stopping even once.

「Anytime!」

Mio answered Hiroshi’s call from where she was standing on the newly built scaffolding. She was currently standing in a higher position than the highest rooftop of Wulls Castle. If they hadn’t gone to such lengths, then they wouldn’t have been able to see the top of the cocoon that was high in the sky. Doubtless, one can imagine the sheer magnitude just by hearing that.

「Hey, Hiroshi.」

Makoto, who had come to retrieve the thread that had accumulated to Hiroshi’s side, called out to him in order to clear up something from the earlier conversation. During that time, a lot more spool was made and laid out, increasing the harvest. From what she saw at a glance, Makoto realized that the center was wrapped quite tightly, and yet it didn’t even take ten seconds to make each spool. Also, even though they were weaving thread at this speed, they had thoroughly laid automatic repair enchantments on everything, so if a regular craftsman were to look at this sight, he would possibly lose his sanity.

「What’s up?」

「What do you mean by the one on top opening?」

「Yeah. The chrysalis inside the cocoon should be visible purty soon.」

「And there’s something inside?」

「Yeah, if ya open the chrysalis, you git soup that you can use for all sorta things.」

Hiroshi answered in a nonchalant, detached voice as he continued to move his hand without stopping. Upon hearing his answer, Makoto simply made a face that screamed “The heck?!”.

「And it…wouldn’t happen to be its bodily fluid, right?」

「Sure would. At the moment it should be about startin’ to completely melt ’n then transform into a new body, so I bet we can take a super large amount.」

This caterpillar, despite its large frame, only took about ten days to grow wings after making cocoons. Therefore, the best time to gather that liquid was confined (ignoring the embryo) to when it was utterly melted around two to three days after the cocoon was complete. The fourth day after the cocoon was completed was when the torso would begin developing, the body would be practically complete on the fifth day, and on the sixth day, it would practically be a mature adult. In that sense, even weaving the thread would normally be done barely around the fourth day of the cocoon’s completion.

「Makoto-san. After ya git that cleared up, help out with gatherin’ barrels.」

「Yes, yes. But just what is this thread?」

「It’s soul thread, which is an ingredient for soul cloth. This thread is the highest level product amongst all threads.」

Makoto nearly dropped the spool of thread that she had collected when she heard Hiroshi’s absurd reply. He made a wry smile when he saw that, but proceeded to continue to use time and effort efficiently by gulping down a mana potion while continuing to work on the spool some more.

「Well, so that’s how it is. Even if we have a mountain o’these suckers, ya best deal with them pretty carefully.」

「R-Roger that…」

Feeling dizzy at the sudden outpouring of the thread that was legendary even in the actual game, Makoto decided to carry the thread she had collected to the provisional storehouse. By the time she turned back, it had already piled up to the size of a calf, but even then, as if to say “I can still make a bunch more, yo!”, the cocoon continued to accumulate thread and make her dizzy.

Furthermore, as to why they went so far as to prepare the provisional storehouse, it was simply because it exceeded the current capacity that Azuma Workshop’s storehouse had. Since they had been continuously gathering large amounts of materials from valuable sources as of late, even the workshop that had been expanded to the max was beginning to show signs of needing alternative storage locations.

「Now then, will the thread ’n barrels do the trick, eh…?」

Gathering up all the spool thread cores that they could in Wulls, they had even advanced to neighboring villages and collected/accumulated everything they could when they didn’t have enough, but this storehouse already only had about 30% free space left. Judging from the looks of things, they might just be able to barely squeeze in all of the thread.

In all honesty, they had no choice but to admit that they were glad that they didn’t have to do something as outrageous as use the spirit trees to manufacture the spool with a bunch of enchantments in order to wind the spirit thread. Of course, since regular cores would simply break during the winding process, there was a need to make a miniature adjustment before winding, but he had confidence that work of that level could be done while he was sleeping.

The real troublesome issue was with the barrels. Since only Hiroshi and Mio were the ones making them, even if Mio had continuously made them until yesterday, they wouldn’t have reached a thousand. He was pretty sure that they wouldn’t have been able to take out the remaining portion from the bottom anyway, although it was a bit risky to think that way.

「Well, we just gotta do what we can.」

He concluded with that feeling as he raised the speed of the thread winding. As for the result, when there were about three spools left, the cocoon all transformed into thread. As for the barrels, as expected, they were lacking in quantity, which prompted Hiroshi to briefly stop his work in order to fertilize them and then spread them all around the castle’s herb garden.

「Alright, we’re all done!!」

It was the late morning of the fifth day of the cocoon that Hiroshi’s yell echoed throughout Wulls Castle. Having finally accomplished the project after four days, after he confirmed once more that they had finished all the work, he at last let his body lie down from max fatigue.

「Good job, Hiroshi-kun.」

「Good job, Hiroshi-sama.」

Haruna and Aearis gave Hiroshi soft words of appreciation as he went fast to sleep with his face showing satisfaction. Haruna figured that it would be unreasonable to leave him sleeping here, thinking to call someone over, but then thought of a sudden prank. After calling Mio over as well, the three girls checked to make sure that Hiroshi showed no signs of waking up from his deep slumber before carrying him secretively into a room.

「I guess that just about does it for this affair?」

「I’ll say. It is probably the end of any work for me, with my lack of jurisdiction, as well as everyone else, who should have been outsiders in the first place.」

「Now all we need is for His Highness and His Lordship to do their part.」

The three girls whispered quietly as they watched over Hiroshi drooling in his sleep.

「Really, what a great job.」

Excited for more than one reason, Haruna softly touched Hiroshi’s hand. This was how the string of events that attacked Farlane had been resolved, in a very inexpressible way.