Life Is Cruel (8)
BOOM!
The thunderclap right in front of my face was not as enormous as I had expected.
Or maybe it was so deafening that my eardrums had simply blown out, and that was why it felt that way.
…This is.
My body, which had just been cutting down the lava man, slipped from my control and sank trembling to its knees. My vision flashed white in stuttering bursts and my ears went utterly dead. Beeeeeep. The tinnitus was now dizzying enough to scramble my head.
There was a reason FPS games smeared your vision white and chopped the frame rate when a flashbang went off in your face.
…Damn it, get up!
"Cough."
But I had no time to waste like this. There was still an enemy in front of me.
You bastard — when did you get Leviathan's power…!
I forced my eyes open with the scraps of reason I had left. My eyeballs burned as if cooked, and the blood crawling through my skin felt like lava, but I gritted through it.
The same went for my heart, from which no sound reached me. For a while now I had been feeling the unruly mana gather at my heart of its own accord.
This is… dangerous.
Bang! With a sensation like a hammer smashing into my heart, the scattered fragments of reason snapped back into place. My mind jolted awake.
Can I win?
Thud.
At the same time my arm, forcibly reclaiming control, shoved off the ground and I rolled. The lava man's arm that had been aiming for me slammed into empty space.
Thud!
I followed up by kicking the mob hard with my foot.
The enemy was shoved back, and from the recoil my upper body, which had risen, flopped backward again.
As I fell, my body that had already tilted sideways tipped further until I was face-down. My arm braced against the ground.
"Ugh."
Black blood spilled from my mouth. Whether it was from lack of oxygen or the current that had scoured my body cooking the blood, I couldn't say.
My whole body stung and spun.
[How remarkable. I didn't expect you to withstand that one's lightning.]
Yeah. Honestly I'm surprised too. I'd heard the odds of surviving a lightning strike were higher than people thought, but I never imagined I'd be the one experiencing it.
And damn it all — the demon I thought only controlled lava could use lightning too!
"Haa."
With a dazed head I somehow hauled myself up and exhaled hot breath.
Whether my lungs were cooked or not, a scorching wind came out. Thanks to the Sea Dragon Orb it wasn't actually hot, yet I felt hot. Kind of shitty.
[More importantly, where's the snake?]
Even so, I had to fight. The enemy was still alive. There was still something left to fight.
…Because that was what I had to do.
[Typical of someone using a turtle's shell — slow as hell.]
Screeeech.
A metallic sound rang quietly in a range I could no longer hear.
Tap.
I bent at the waist to dodge a volcanic bomb and seized the two-hander I had somehow dropped.
Strength was returning bit by bit; control over my body was coming back. Though the sensation in my fingertips and toes was still dull.
Slash!
Still, the part of the mob that was cut on a diagonal and then kicked away by my foot collapsed backward.
It would regenerate soon enough given that damp mudflat feel, but it would take at least ten seconds.
[…Ah, right. Thinking of something else while leaving you hanging would be rude, wouldn't it?]
Damn it — toss the sword up and wrap mana around me.
Then for a moment I instinctively tilted my body to one side. With no strength in my toes, it was more like toppling sideways.
Whoosh.
Along with that, the two-hander tossed upward rising into the air looked exceptionally clear. So did the layer of mana wrapping my body.
KRAKOOM!
And the light shining through the mana stabbed my eyes. A flash watched from a distance is never the gentle kind like afternoon sunlight.
A sensation similar to before washed over my whole body.
It didn't even hurt anymore. Every sense receded into the distance.
Ha… you understand this kind of thing perfectly well, yet…
"Cough."
Whether it was because of the two-hander as an intermediate buffer, or because I had wrapped mana to protect my body — or maybe because I had already been hit once and gotten used to it that fast.
I forced strength into my legs, sifting through memories of how many times I had taken hits like this mid-fight.
Of course my eyes stayed shut. The eye-blast earlier had been too severe. Physiological tears streamed down.
Well, maybe that wasn't the only reason.
The contract… fuck, the contract really picked one hell of a person, didn't it?
Click.
Instead I drew the sword at my waist.
The leather-wrapped hilt, scorched dry and still holding embers, seared my leather glove again.
Damn it… this is bad. At this rate…
But the blade I drew crumbled into pieces and fell. Even checking carefully through my reddened, hazy vision, it was the same.
Fuck.
Probably shattered from the lightning strike. The situation was getting more insane by the second, and nothing was actually helping. A hollow laugh escaped.
Clink!
Still, I could use it for throwing.
I dunked it straight into the magma — the mob's body was magma material, after all?
It was already broken. After thinking it through, having it on me would make me nothing more and nothing less than a walking lightning rod.
Same for the daggers filling the inside of my clothes. There was no Inquisitor here to make a ceiling like during the Moby Dick raid.
I stuffed the iron products roughly into my inventory. Good thing there was spare space left.
Bang!
A volcanic bomb, redirected by my leg, team-killed the mob and splashed magma.
[Alright. Let's keep going.]
It was then that one of the six hands of the demon holding the offerings lifted a handful of pearls.
The lava carpeting the ground boiled all at once, sprouting spines wildly, and the clouds began to roar again.
[I'm really curious whether that one's ability was weak, or whether you're strong.]
…Damn it! Dodge!
KRAKOOM!
And when the ground-lightning struck soon after, one of the pearls the demon held vanished. The remaining pearls were now roughly a hundred. Or more.
Whooosh.
The sound of water began to come from somewhere.
BOOM!
When the third lightning struck, the Castle Lord came to his senses. His body shuddered of its own accord in a realm of instinct beyond rational explanation.
"Hero."
But this was no time for that. With no support-request flare fired, the place he needed to concern himself with was not over there — it was right here.
"We possess weapons capable of attacking that beast. However, their numbers are few, and activation takes time, so we may need your help, Hero."
"…Ah, yes. Yes."
The Hero's somewhat dazed eyes regained their light. Her working mouth seemed to want to say something, but she never quite spilled her thoughts.
"Furthermore… we have no certainty whether it will show clear effect or not. So… assuming that thing is hostile, if by any chance it shows no efficacy…"
Still, that was fine. The Castle Lord was someone more interested in saving his city and his soldiers than in the Hero's circumstances.
Not because he was a selfish man, but because that was the greatest duty he bore.
"Uh, uhhh!"
Then a soldier positioned above made a strange sound. Naturally those who heard it, and those who had the leeway to focus on it, waited for that soldier's next reaction.
Clack-clack. Light signaled something. People from other cities would not recognize it, but the Castle Lord knew the signal well.
For a more detailed check, he urgently used an observation item. The one returned by the Meister brightened his vision.
"…Ha, so even if it's not a demon, it's still an enemy!"
He saw the giant beast-turtle lift its body and slam it down. Clearly an act to raise a wave, and an act hostile to their city.
"The floodgates…"
The Castle Lord ground his teeth and thought of countermeasures. Unfortunately he knew only one method.
"My lord?"
"We need to open the floodgates…"
In times like this, you open the floodgates. There was no other way. The water here had to drain so the wave about to hit would be even a little lower.
But…
He looked behind him.
West and south, where the fire giant was not rampaging. There, glowing dots undulated like waves. All of them the torches of people leaving the city under the evacuation order.
Open floodgates one through four in that situation? The number of mermen had dropped a lot, but things would definitely mix in.
If they could post guards as usual and hunt the mermen that slipped in, fine — but as things stood, people would be in danger.
"We will not open the floodgates! Everyone hold out! We are those with the strength to fight, but if we open the floodgates, those without even the strength to fight will face the mermen! For the citizens, gladly meet death!!"
"Yes!!!"
He clenched his teeth and made the decision.
Then he looked at the Hero. He had hoped the Hero would speak first if possible, but now there was no time. That wave had to be stopped.
"Hero!"
"…Yes!"
At the intense call, the Hero who had completely shaken off her distraction answered. Instantly a golden barrier shoved the demons back once more and cleared the sea.
Soldiers who could breathe again screamed and threw spears, and thrown items burst or froze the sea surface.
"The giant beast has raised a wave. Is there any way to stop it?"
"…Yes, it should be possible!"
The Castle Lord asked with his expectations somewhat tempered. But luckily for him, the Inquisitor had a prior record of blocking an oncoming blue wave.
"Then if I could ask you to—"
"That is my mission, my lord! So there is no need to ask!"
At the word that a wave was coming, the Inquisitor fixed her gaze on the sea and blinked her surging eyes.
"Giving this body to save people is my mission, so have I not conserved my strength until now in preparation for precisely this situation! So it's fine. No matter how arduous a demand you put forward, so long as it has a righteous cause, I will never back down!"
The turmoil was not from wanting to avoid knowing this would be hard, or from regret that that thing had ultimately proven an enemy.
Ah, maybe a little of the latter? Still, that emotion was not enough to occupy her mind this much. That was not the cause.
"So please don't worry and commit to the fight."
Even so, the reason she kept spacing out was…
The place she could not help but keep fretting over since earlier…
"We need to end this battle as quickly as possible."
Deathbringer put a hand on her shoulder. "Bookworm." The Inquisitor did not answer that call. Her widely dilated eyes breathed hard like someone driven to a cliff.
"Make room!"
Then someone shouted with a cracked throat. A voice that even when raised would not go above a certain pitch. It was the Meister.
"Get out of the way!"
He and the craftsmen brought a massive device. Two thick iron rods ran side by side in an 11 shape on the front, and the surface was densely carved with some kind of formulas.
It was so large that just lifting it onto the wall seemed like a job in itself.
"Shall we move it?"
"I'll help too."
"That should work…"
But here there was someone who could lift even the fully armored Inquisitor with ease. There was also a young man with quietly good strength by ordinary standards.
Ber… no, the Weapon Master and Deathbringer briefly stopped spearing mermen and lent their strength to moving the device.
Of course they — especially the Weapon Master — found the weight hard to lift and carry, so they dragged it using a cart.
"It's quite heavy."
"Says the one who moved it without taking a single breath."
Thud! The machine set on the wall was installed so the rod portion stuck out beyond the battlements.
The Meister who answered cynically immediately prepared to secure the device firmly.
"Meister!"
"Yes."
"Fire! Kill it!"
"Ah… so it is an enemy after all. Shield! I clearly told you to put up a shield first!"
The Meister, who did not even show disappointment at the Castle Lord's request, accepted right away, then immediately exploded in anger.
At that the person next to him hastily made a barrier with a startled face. Seemed he had brought a mage along too.
Others besides the one who made the barrier — they also looked like mages — also laid hands on the device.
Judging by the flow of energy, they seemed to be pouring mana inside.
He only learned now that it was a device that needed three whole mages attached pouring mana into it.
The formulas carved on the device glowed blue and gathered light into the two rods.
"What is this, exactly?"
"A failure. A money-eating hippo. A single-use item."
"…Excuse me?"
"More importantly, Hero, I get that you're conserving strength for that turtle, but shouldn't you conserve based on the situation? Don't you see the wave and the mermen pouring in?"
In time with that, the mermen began swarming this way all at once. It was similar to how when magic starts, dozens jump out alone trying to absorb the magic's power.
They somehow knew something big was coming and rushed over to interfere.
Behind them the sea surface that had temporarily lowered was surging in with a massive wave.
"Waaah, it's coming!"
"Hmm. Being underwater is really annoying."
"Mermen are coming! Respond!"
"Everyone put some effort into it. The moment this breaks, three million gal of investment money melts away as is."
"Three million… hup."
The Meister, who had been fastening chains to the battlements, tossed out a line by way of encouragement. He seemed to be trying to fire people up…
Separate from the Inquisitor's eyes going round at an amount she could not even imagine, the Castle Lord gathering soldiers suddenly felt his stomach burn.
Though people said one hundred million gal, if you totaled the entire investment cost for the anti-colossus weapons it easily surpassed one billion gal.
And the money spent developing just that unit was about three million gal.
"…It cost three million gal and it's a single-use item?"
"Yeah."
Even so, even that was nothing more than a failure that broke after one shot.
The point of the device was that the dense mana in the two rods repelled each other and the aftereffect launched the bullet in the middle — as fast as light — but the material that could withstand that repulsion did not yet exist in the world.
More precisely, it could be made, but it cost a truly, really, enormously large amount of money.
Enough that when he heard the price he had no choice but to say, Let's give up on the launcher and just make the bullet that way…
The Castle Lord's complexion went dark just from recalling that time. "Shake them off!" Even in that moment, goading the soldiers was closer to an instinct born of duty.
Bang, bang-bang-bang!
The swarming soldiers moved their spears as if they would die. On the additional barrier the Inquisitor hastily put up, mermen were slamming with all their might.
"It's coming!"
"Everyone duck so you don't get swep—"
Whoooosh!
But the Inquisitor's still-fresh barrier never broke.
Even the giant wave was perfectly blocked by the golden barrier and sent entirely back. Those who had been clinging to the wall to avoid being swept by the wave lifted their heads awkwardly.
"O God, grant me the strength to protect everyone!!"
The golden barrier toppled like dominoes and shoved the water that had hit the entire wall back out. Mermen were swept away by the blue wave and the battlefield temporarily quieted.
At the wondrous miracle everyone blankly focused on the Inquisitor.
"Hero…"
More than blessing the wall, more than healing dozens of people at once, more even than pushing off some of the mermen clinging to the wall — this was a far more certain imprint.
"What are you doing! Secure it!"
Griip.
But the Meister, with a gods-can-eat-shit mindset, was different. He paid not a grain of attention to the Inquisitor's miracle and focused only on the device.
His hands, pressing the device that had begun to shake with the tools he had brought, wrapping it in multiple layers of chain, even covering it with iron netting to root it in place, were endlessly delicate.
"Th-this is shaking?"
"It won't explode yet so secure it!"
Rattle-rattle.
No matter how you looked at it this vibration was not normal. Deathbringer lent a hand with a sickened face. He was binding it so tightly that if this had been a person it would have been fixed so hard they would have suffocated and died.
"They're coming again!!"
"Dress the ranks and attack!"
In the meantime the enemies the Inquisitor had pushed back returned.
Whether to block the device or not, the sight of them swarming this area in particular was now enough to say there were more mermen than water.
"Kill them all!"
Thwang, thwang, thwang, thwang.
The machine launching giant arrows kept turning, and the Weapon Master, borrowing a soldier's spear, picked out only the captains and smashed their heads.
"Magic incoming!"
KRAKOOM!
"Yes!"
On top of that, magic support that had arrived in time knowing the situation fried dozens of demons through the interference of leaping mermen.
The soldiers got a moment to catch their breath.
"Done!"
Thud.
And around when the device that had been rattling through that process began to emit light bright enough to hurt the eyes, the turtle entered within a few hundred meters. Rumble. Whether it stepped on the embankment the city had built or not, there was a sound of ground collapsing.
"Hero, can you make barriers to the left, right, above, and behind centered on the device?!"
"It's possible."
"Then the moment I give the signal, drop the full barrier and make them. You lot fall back!"
It was not a big problem. Whether the turtle approached or not, the Meister got the Inquisitor's confirmation and pulled people back.
The mages who had been injecting mana dropped first, and the soldiers who had been dealing with mermen retreated at the Castle Lord's shout with expressions half fear and half relief.
"Now! Make them!"
"Yes!"
And following his instruction the Inquisitor's barrier covered the device in a cube shape excluding only the front and bottom.
GROOOOAR!
The approaching turtle cried long at exactly that moment. It stretched its face out long, then opened its mouth wide and bellowed.
But it was already too late to cancel the attack out of caution for that. The moment it cried, a sound louder than thunder rang out.
BOOOOOOM!
The device exploded as is, creating an explosion inside the golden barrier the Inquisitor had made.
The explosion launched the pointed bullet as if bouncing it straight out.