I Saved Too Many Girls and Caused the Apocalypse: Volume 3 Page 14

  To the claymen, this had to have come out of nowhere. But the transformation magic was permanent unless Kokomo broke it, and they were now convinced that Lea and I were messengers of their god. In other words, they probably had no choice but to believe me.

  “The real enemy lies elsewhere!” I kept going. “Behold! The demon in front of you is your true foe! He lurked among you, building up your hatred for those of a different color, and drove you to fight! Now that the power of god has driven that hate from your hearts, the demon has no choice but to manifest himself! Now ready your weapons against the real enemy! Join me and defeat the demon!”

  I had no idea how I’d been able to come up with that lie. But part of the plan was to give them a concrete enemy to fight instead of taking things out on each other.

  “We joined with messengers of god to defeat the demon called discrimination.” If I could make them believe that, surely it would end their discrimination for good.

  The claymen let out a rallying cry as their archers let fly a barrage of arrows at Zolphiakd. The soldiers without bows started throwing stones.

  “Wh-What’s going on?!”

  Zolphiakd was surprised at this sudden turn of events. He brushed away the arrows in annoyance.

  “Now, Lea!”

  Lea roared as we rushed Zolphiakd once more.

  “Hmph. I’m not falling for that again.”

  Zolphiakd soared over her head to evade her. His intent was probably to dodge with the minimum amount of effort necessary, and then strike at her exposed torso as she passed under him. But I’d already planned for that!

  I ran up Lea’s long torso to get closer to him. With my speed enhanced by the Infinity Reviver, I closed the distance to Zolphiakd in only a few seconds.

  “!”

  Since we’d only fought in the air so far, Zolphiakd had no idea how fast I could run. His surprise slowed his reaction time just enough. I summoned all the red aura into my clenched fist that I could, and slammed it right into the face of the so-called “Demon Who Eats Darkness.”

  “Gwaah!”

  Listening to his ugly scream, I thought about his body shattering as I channeled more of the Infinity Reviver’s power. The red light expanded and burst.

  “GYAAAAAH!”

  His screams grew louder.

  The red light traveled through Zolphiakd’s body and erupted from within him, cracking his stony skin from the inside.

  Now!

  I leaped on top of Zolphiakd’s badly damaged body and grabbed his bat-like wings to keep him from flying away.

  “Graah! Let go of me!”

  “Ever gone bungee jumping with no bungee?” I asked him.

  I’d done something similar once.

  As we fell, I could see the claymen scattering below where it looked like we would hit the ground. Next thing I knew, there was a loud sound and a massive impact that rattled me in my armor.

  “Owww...”

  Without the Infinity Reviver, I would’ve died instantly.

  “You little insect...!”

  A few meters away, Zolphiakd was climbing to his feet. He’d hit the ground just as hard as I had. His armored skin was cracked here and there, and his bat wings were broken in several places.

  I could still see him gathering darkness energy, but it was visibly less than before. The war of hatred and prejudice was over, and now all the claymen were fighting for one goal—to defeat the demon. Zolphiakd was probably drawing strength from their aggression, but even that was a lot less pure than the energy there’d been just a few moments ago.

  They were fighting for hope now, not despair.

  “Lea, I’ll handle the rest myself! Get back!” I yelled towards the sky.

  She gave me a quick telepathic response and flew off. She’d gone to prepare for the final step.

  “You think you’ve won...?”

  Zolphiakd seemed to interpret my sending Lea away as humiliation.

  “What if I do?”

  Zolphiakd fell silent.

  Even if his ability to absorb darkness energy was infinite, there was a limit to how much darkness energy there was around him. Energy was spread throughout the entire universe. He couldn’t absorb all of it at once.

  If he had that capability, he would have used it to destroy Kult’s world instantly. But if they were able to seal him away, they must’ve gotten the upper hand while he was taking the time to collect more energy from farther away.

  In a long, drawn-out battle, Zolphiakd was probably invincible. But in this instant, I was far more powerful than he was.

  “You...”

  ...lose, I started to say, but then the battle shifted to a new phase.

  “Grrraaooo!”

  A white beast fell from the sky and landed between us. Well, it wasn’t entirely white—it had nine golden tails.

  “Grrrrrrrr!”

  It had probably fallen here while it was fighting Iris and Harissa in their invisible spaceship. The nine-tailed fox looked at me and Zolphiakd with bloodshot eyes, trying to figure out what to do.

  “Hahahaha... HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

  I could hear the demon laughing on the other side of the great fox.

  “At the very last moment, luck is on my side!”

  Zolphiakd leaped up onto the huge beast in a flash and plunged his fingers into its hide.

  “Gugyihh!”

  There was a spurt of blood as the animal screamed. And then a black aura poured out of its body and into Zolphiakd. It was the poisonous ki—a dangerous type of ki responsible for plagues and disasters—that had driven the nine-tailed fox mad. In other words, the fox was filled with high-density darkness energy. And Zolphiakd was absorbing all of it.

  Just like Lea had eaten Tsumiki’s dark matter to restore her wounds, Zolphiakd was consuming the poison ki to instantly heal himself.

  “Grruh...”

  Now drained, the great fox flailed its tails about weakly and slumped to the ground.

  “Delicious,” Zolphiakd said.

  “!”

  The dark spear he flung impaled my shoulder.

  “Gaaah!”

  My aura was supposed to protect me up to my shoulders. Had he pierced through it...? The energy he’d just absorbed from the nine-tailed fox seemed to make him more powerful than ever.

  “So this is the climax, huh?”

  My defeat here would mean the end of all the stories. I couldn’t lose. And to win, I needed more power!

  The Infinity Reviver had powered up twice so far. That wasn’t a coincidence. There had to be a clear reason why. I remembered both times it had happened—when I grabbed Hibiki as she fell, and when I’d fought Zolphiakd above monster mountain.

  “...”

  ...Damn it! What was the trick?!

  “All right. This is your last chance to entertain me. And once you’ve done that... Die.”

  Zolphiakd’s next spear made a beeline for my chest.

  “Tch!”

  It was fast. And powerful. The tip pierced my defenses and dug into my skin.

  “Hahaha!”

  Zolphiakd snapped his fingers, and the earth underneath me exploded like a landmine. I was blown into the air like a rocket before crashing back into the ground and rolling a ways.

  I groaned in pain and quickly stood up. He was faster and stronger than I was. I needed to think. My one hope of victory was to keep thinking.

  I tried coming at things from another perspective. For example, why had Kult’s crystal chosen Hibiki, not me, to wear the Infinity Reviver? The Namidare and Banjo bloodlines were the same. The only difference was the sex they affected. The Infinity Reviver had the ability to turn someone’s Fate Ratio into pure power. A Fate Ratio was supposed to be “the weight of a person’s fate,” so why Hibiki and not me? Thinking about that, and the last two times the armor powered up...

  What was the difference between me and Hibiki? What decided the weight of someone’s fate?

  “I suppose it’s time to end thi
s.”

  Zolphiakd poured more energy into his dark spears. Newer, sharper blades shot out from the hilt like branches from a tree. And with a crackle, jaws of black lightning sprang from around him and came at me from all directions.

  If all of those things hit me, I was gonna end up like a pincushion... wasn’t I? It was a stupid thing to think about at a time like this, but I laughed a little.

  “Die!”

  Zolphiakd cackled madly as he hurled his spears. The spears all moved at once, and together with the black lightning they flew at me like a snake ready to devour its prey.

  There was no way I could block them all with just my arms. But...

  “Rekka! Everyone’s in position!” Lea called to me telepathically.

  “Roger,” I answered—and plowed into Zolphiakd head-on.

  The burning red aura collided with the black lightning and exploded. The flames and lightning were canceling each other out. Then the spears came to pierce me through the chest.

  “Graah!”

  I grabbed two of them. But they were made from his energy, and he could change their form however he wanted. The other spears closed in on me to impale me... But the red flames burst from my shoulders to cover my whole body. The spears shattered before they could even touch me.

  “What?!”

  “—!”

  Assured of his victory, Zolphiakd had let down his guard, and I was able to able to instantly close the distance now. I was right on top of him in a split second. Zolphiakd quickly moved to regain his balance.

  “Nwaaaaahh!”

  “Aaaaah!”

  Our fists crossed paths as both of us hit each other in the face.

  “Nwah!”

  “Gah!”

  Zolphiakd staggered, and the visor on the Infinity Reviver shattered. But instead of flinching, I threw my next punch.

  “Damn you!”

  Zolphiakd grabbed my fist and hit me back. This time, I grabbed his fist. We were locked in a grappling match now as we pushed against one another.

  “How? How can a mere human draw out such power?!”

  “Because I realized... I realized how to use this armor’s potential! What determines the weight of your fate... is the burden that you carry.”

  Both Hibiki and I had been running from our bloodlines, but she’d known about hers since she was little. She’d spent years training to deal with it. The crystal ball had sensed her resolve.

  That meant that I needed resolve too. I would carry the burden of lineage. I would carry my own burdens. But that wasn’t enough.

  I wasn’t alone. I would carry the weight of the stories of everyone I’d met in all my sixteen years, and everyone I would meet in the future. That would be my life as long as I was Rekka Namidare.

  “I may not be as good as a real hero who fights the Demon King for the sake of everyone, though!”

  I was born an average kid. Normal. But I had my own fate to carry. It was easy to curse a fate that felt too heavy to bear. But it was wrong to curse the fact that you were born.

  Once you’re born into this world, it’s all you can do to live as best you can. And if you’re going to live for all you’re worth, then celebrate the fate that brought you into this world! That’s the trick to living a happy, normal life.

  “I was born to be me, no matter what that means! And that’s how I’m going to live! And to do that, I’ll fight whoever I have to!”

  “Hah! But what can you do? We’re evenly matched right now, but I am still slowly absorbing darkness energy. Eventually, I will win.”

  “Idiot. You’re still only looking at me?”

  A white ray of light sliced across the ground. One, then two, then three... Six lights in total gathered, forming a pattern around us. And when that pattern was complete, Zolphiakd began to sink into the ground like he was being pushed down by an invisible giant.

  “Ngaah! Wh-What is this?”

  “You probably wouldn’t know, huh? I hear it’s called sealing magic.”

  Sealing magic was a way of getting rid of poisonous ki. If it would work on the nine-tailed fox after absorbing too much of the stuff, of course it would work just as well on Zolphiakd after he did!

  When Lea had said “in position,” this is what she’d been talking about. Satsuki, Iris, Harissa, Tsumiki, Tetra, Lea... Each heroine stood at a point of the star, forming a giant hexagram on the ground. It was a huge, inescapable trap.

  To seal the star, I gathered the fragments of Meifa’s sealing pendant that Zolphiakd had destroyed. It had turned a misty black, but I’d gotten Kokomo to use his magic to purify it. Then I gave one piece to each heroine.

  “How...?! If you had this magic, why didn’t you use it before?”

  That was a good question. The answer was that if I’d used it when he’d landed, he wouldn’t have absorbed the darkness energy from the nine-tailed fox first.

  “Maybe my goal was to get you to draw out the poison ki from that nine-tailed fox.”

  When the fox interrupted us, it was my plan was to lure Zolphiakd towards it. But the demon was confused. He had no idea why I’d want to do something like that.

  “What does that mean?!”

  “I told you. I’m not fighting alone.”

  That’s right! There was also someone fighting to save his mother, who’d been driven mad by the poisonous ki.

  “Kokomo! Hibiki! Now!”

  “Don’t tell the enemy, you idiot!” Hibiki, who’d been approaching Zolphiakd from behind, yelled at me as she leaped off the ground.

  There was no hesitation in her eyes. The fox ears on her head were even poking straight up like they were standing tall in the face of fear.

  “Gwah! Let me go...!”

  “Hell no, idiot. We win.”

  I think I grinned the biggest smile I ever had in my life.

  A white light like a flame gathered in Hibiki’s hand. She touched Zolphiakd with it from behind, and Kokomo recited the sealing incantation in Hibiki’s voice. The hexagram on the ground started to shine.

  Epilogue

  The mysterious continent that appeared in the Pacific was big news for a while, but Kult set up a barrier similar to the one he’d used in his world to make sure that nobody could get in to do a detailed investigation. I asked Lea to keep an eye on the claymen. And at the nine-tailed fox’s orders, the other monsters agreed not to leave the mountain and scare people.

  Several days later when I went back to check on things, Kult was ready to say goodbye.

  “The repairs on the world door are finally complete. I had to make some substantial modifications to get these three worlds back to their original places, though.”

  “But you were able to do it anyway. You’re amazing, Kult.”

  We both laughed as we stood inside the partially rebuilt lab.

  “All right, then can I leave the claymen to you?”

  “Indeed. Just leave them in my care. The monsters say they’ll help too, so I’m sure I’ll be able to come up with some kind of magical science that will keep their children from having different colors.”

  These claymen were only the same color because of Kokomo’s transformation spell. But the claymen that weren’t teleported to Earth, as well as any children they had, would still be colored differently. That’s why I’d asked Kult to take care of things.

  “It feels kind of lame to leave the last steps to someone else, but thanks for helping.”

  “Don’t let it bother you. Thanks to you, they were glad to give us their perpetual motion machine.”

  “Well, that’s thanks to Lea, not me.”

  They were absolutely convinced Lea was a messenger of their god, and would do most anything she said. Besides, they didn’t need their “Eternal Death Before Defeat” weapon anymore. Kult had taken the perpetual motion machine out of it and had already developed it into a machine to save his home world from heat death.

  “I need to hurry and save my world too. I hate to say it, but tonight I’ll be sen
ding each world back to where it belongs, and then we’ll be going back home.”

  He turned to his lover, Meifa.

  “......”

  The now-awakened sleeping beauty smiled gently and bowed. Kult said she couldn’t talk because she’d been asleep for so long that she’d forgotten how. But she would surely remember soon with Kult’s help.

  “Yeah... This time, make sure you make her happy.”

  Then I said farewell to him too.

  ▽

  Unfortunately, I’d only communicated with the claymen through Lea, so I couldn’t say goodbye to them. In fact, if they’d found out I’d raided their food stores, they probably would have hauled me before a military tribunal, so I decided to skip the goodbye altogether. All I could do was wish them a peaceful future without war.

  ▽

  And so my next destination was monster mountain.

  “Rekka!”

  A small fox—No, a young boy of about five or six saw me and came running. It was Kokomo, who could now transform into a human.

  “Hey, Kokomo. How’ve you been?”

  “I’ve been great!”

  “Good to hear. How’s your mom?”

  “She’s still sleeping, but they say she’ll be just fine soon!”

  I could tell from the cheer in his voice that things were probably going to be okay.

  “You know, you really sound different as a human,” I said.

  “Do I?”

  “You sure do.”

  He wasn’t as panicky as before, for one thing.

  “Um... That’s because of you, Rekka.”

  “Huh?”

  “...”

  No, wait a second. Why was he blushing?

  Kokomo was a boy, right? I mean, it’s hard to tell whether a little kid is a boy or a girl sometimes... but he was a boy, right?

  “W-Well, once you get back to your own world, stay healthy. Both you and your mom.”

  “Right!” He nodded with a brilliant smile on his face.

  “...”

  Part of the reason he couldn’t really use his magic, I’d heard, was that he was still very immature. But Kokomo could now transform into a human, which was a more complex spell than just transforming into a copy of something, because he’d grown mentally. If he could use his spells like this now, he’d probably be fine... but I decided to ask anyway.