Chapter 4. And so their story begins. (7)
“Who’s eloping with who here?”
“You and I, of course.”
“…I don’t love you though?”
“The love I possess for you is enough for two people, so it’s fine!”
…Words like these kept flying back and forth between us. What the h.e.l.l’s up with that logic of “enough love for two people” anyway?
-This girl’s pretty scary. Seems like the type to stab you after seeing you with a different girl.
[Stop. That actually seems way too likely.]
When the girl approached me with widened eyes, I moved back and lifted the metal bat in defense.
“If you keep coming this way… I’ll hit you.”
“Urk!”
Cia jumped back several meters right when the silver club entered her vision.
“Why is that accused object here…”
“…Rudh was already beat by this thing.”
“…Is he dead?”
“I decided to have mercy as his former teacher, and decided to just beat him up.”
“…You should’ve taken mercy by ending him cleanly.”
The girl said this even as her eyes focused onto the bat.
“Just leave that useless thing, and come with me!”
-U, useless?! You called me, the greatest weapon in the world known as Arcadia, useless?! Me, who’s extremely cute and beautiful? Me, who can use all kinds of magic, transform to all kinds of different forms, and become a human as well? Me, who can absorb and use magic by myself? Me, who’s a, a..!
[Pervert.]
-Right! Pervert!…Wait, no! What are you making me say?! Is this betrayal? Are you betraying me? Why?! …I, it actually feels good?!
[……]
For a moment right there, I actually thought about throwing this thing away, but the materials that went into making it were too precious… And the cost of it is enough to buy an entire fief…
“I refuse.”
Cia’s face hardened a little when I said this.
-Master… I’m touched!
It’s not because of you… I just feel that going with Cia would make my life really annoying.
“Then… I’ll have to take extreme measures.”
Snap!
With a snap of her finger, multiple shiny objects appeared from behind her. Rather than magic, this is…
“Arrows?”
“Arrows and other weapons, to be more specific. We won’t hit you directly, of course. Just a scratch should be enough to paralyze you completely.”
-…I was right! As I thought, I was right! I knew it! This girl is scary!
I already knew that she was quite scary… But seeing her in action is really frightening.
“You… can’t use magic, because you were cursed by G.o.d.”
“I don’t really recall a moment when I actually got cursed?”
I’m serious. Even though I look like this, I was able to remember everything from my birth. If I really did get cursed, that means that I would have been cursed when I was a fetus… wouldn’t that be too much?
“Well, who cares. Anyway, teacher, you are a swordsman. A one that learned the sword, and only the sword. As long as you have the chance, you can kill any knight before they even use their life sword. But even you have a weakness. And that would be… long distance attacks.”
“…Correct.”
Cia’s right. In the case of melee combat, I can just kill my opponents before they use their energy. Energy is like the life energy of this world, and it takes a bit of time before actually using it. Of course, it would be different for those who are at the extremities of power, but it’s generally difficult to meet people like that in the first place.
But what if attacks were coming from a distance? Is there a way to block that? I can block some arrows with my weapon, but even that has a limit. And if it can paralyze me with just a scratch, there really is no way to block it. At least, I can’t.
“…Can I just surrender?”
“Surrender and run, is it?”
Cia grinned, and lifted her hand. At the same time, sounds of crossbows being loaded could be heard.
“Just sleep a bit. You’ll be in our new home when you wake up.”
[I don’t have a house though?]
-Ha, can’t even afford a house at that age?
[…Do you even know how expensive you are?]
-Kya! You spent all your money just for my body… I, I’m touched…
…Something just felt super wrong there, but let’s just ignore that…
“…Are you actually thinking of trying to deflect all these arrows?”
Cia asked me this when I lifted the metal bat. What, you think I’m crazy? How the h.e.l.l would I do that?
“…I guess you can try.”
Snap!
The arrows began to fly when her fingers snapped. It looks like these arrows are mostly coming for my limbs…
[Let’s go.]
-I’m ready!
I swung the bat before the arrows got here. When I did so, a silver wave appeared on the area the bat pa.s.sed through.
“W, what?!”
An afterimage? That’s not it. The bat’s actually beginning to melt down like a liquid. And that liquid soon turned to form a wall right as the arrows were about to strike!
-H, hurts! Something’s beating me…
…Everything’s all good except those moans from the bat over there… in any case, I began to move forward once I confirmed that all the arrows had been blocked.
The metal bat is no normal weapon. It is most definitely not for training purposes. The wooden bat was enough for that. The real purpose of the metal bat was to serve as my ultimate weapon at a time of crisis.
I cannot guarantee that this weapon is stronger than any other, but I can guarantee that it can protect you better than anything else in the world.
With each step I took, the silver liquid wrapped around my body more and more, and hardened.
-Hahn~ me and the master… are becoming one…
…Should I just take it off?
The arrows scare me quite a bit, so I suppose that’s a no for now.
“W, what’s that?”
Cia’s looking surprised… how rare.
“It’s an improved form of a homunculus’ memory form. With this, I am able to withstand attacks from even siege weapons.”
Fire and lightning magic wouldn’t work either. But things like earth magic and explosion magic can give me internal damage.
“…Shoot!”
Cia blinked a few times, then issued a command while biting her lips.
-Run, oppa!
[I’m no oppa, but… let’s go!]
I put pressure into my feet. At the same time, the armor-form bat began shining with a silver light.
-Faster than any other! Different from any other! Haste!
[…They say magic chants are based off of what you find to be the easiest, but… that chant seems to be some kind of a trap?]
-Who cares! Run, oppa!
Crack!
“Huaaaaa!”
I ran as the magic activated. I pa.s.sed by Cia, and as I did so, I gave the girl a light bonk on her head. Of course, this attack was reinforced with the power of the bat.
[We’ll just charge through.]
-Let’s do this like a man!
Some magic spells came my way, but I was able to block most of it with the armor, and those that couldn’t be blocked were blocked with the magic cast by the bat.
The greatest advantage of ego weapons was that they could do things by themselves. Since I was unable to even activate magic tools, I needed to get special tools developed to activate tools. But with the appearance of the ego weapon, the need for that was gone. The dwarves seemed to have taken those activation tools and began to create stuff like refrigerators and other weird stuff out of them with the logo [Activate anything with just a click of a b.u.t.ton!].
Of course, because the magic stones required to keep those tools running are so expensive, only the rich seemed to be using it. Ah, actually, I think I heard something about wizards being able to recharge magic stones, thereby becoming able to use those tools for basically free of charge.
After running full force, I eventually managed to see the door to the outside world. Of course, I gave the two guards guarding the doors a big whack with my fist.
Once I entered the emergency shelter at the end of the path, the armor turned back into a bat.
-Tired…
The thing really did sound pretty tired. Even though it can gather its own mana, it does have an upper limit. No, the only reason it could even store mana in the first place was because I mixed in a bunch of expensive metals to make it.
In other words, this thing is the ultimate result of throwing in a huge amount of cash. I never tested its limit, but it seems like this is it.
-If she follows us again, you’re dead.
It sounded really worried. Even though it looks like this, it teleported, turned into drumsticks, and turned into armor as well. It can transform into just about anything, but doing that costs a lot of mana.
[You worked hard.]
-W, why are you being so nice all of the sudden?
[Because you deserve it.]
-Hnn, don’t throw me into a dusty closet again, then, ok?
[That place is gone now, anyway.]
-Oh yeah.
I made small talk with the bat as I walked to the place where I was supposed to meet Rein…
“Oh good, you did actually come this way.”
Crack!
“Kyeeeaahuaheaahaeaaa”
“Oops…”
I heard the same thing that Cia said a moment before, so I swung my bat out of instinct. But the one who was rolling on the ground turned out to be…
“So it was you, Rein.”
Sorry.