Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Vol. 6 Page 14

  It was more than just writing the spells out on special paper with special ink, too. There were a number of other necessary steps.

  As a result, even standard scrolls took two to four days to make, and custom orders took several days more than that.

  After the tour of the workshop, we returned to the parlor to find a small mountain of scrolls waiting.

  There were a lot of interesting spells in the warehouse besides the Return spell I mentioned before.

  I acquired three intermediate attack magic spells, Ice Storm, Thunder Storm, and Implosion; five or so lesser attack spells, including Toss Stone and Air Cannon; four defense magic spells, Flexible Shield, Canopy, Air Cushion, and Mana Section; two more magic interference spells, Mana Transfer and Mana Drain; three operation spells, Magic Hand, Magic String, and Float Walk; two healing spells, Water Heal and Aqua Heal; the anti-espionage spell Secret Field; and four support spells, Enchant: Magic Protection, Enchant: Physical Protection, Enchant: Sparking Blade, and Enchant: Shield.

  If I could master all these spells, the rest of my journey should be a lot easier.

  The custom spells I ordered were as follows.

  From the existing spell books, I chose three Everyday Magic spells, Soft Wash, Dry, and Bandage; two healing spells, Remove Poison and Cure Disease; and two smelting spells, Sampling Metal and Melt Metal.

  As for original spells, I ordered the interpersonal combat spells Light Stun and Remote Stun; three spells for making magic items, Liquid Control, Air Control, and Electronic Control; two spells just for fun, the Fire Magic spell Fireworks and the Light Magic spell Fireworks Illusion; and three experimental spells, Shooter, Standard Out, and Graphic View.

  Standard Out was simply designed to display the text Hello World in my menu log, while Graphic View should open a rectangular window with the same text on my menu screen.

  Both spells would only have meaning for me, but if they worked, I was planning to start developing spells like Sound Recorder and Photo.

  Meanwhile, Shooter was a spell that combined Explosion Magic and Practical Magic, designed to shoot bullets ranging from the size of a small pebble to a baseball.

  It could theoretically be used as a gun, but it was both less efficient and less powerful than lesser attack magic.

  My main objective with this was to be able to fire sacred arrows already stocked with magic power in case I had to fight anything like another demon lord.

  In my previous battle, I had realized I needed both hands to use a bow, so switching between that and a sword ended up being a pain.

  I had considered using a crossbow, too, but because I was concerned that the bolts would fall out if I was moving around at full speed, I decided to try developing a new spell for it.

  Once we finished the contract, with Mr. Djang overseeing, I requested some help with testing out my original spells in the courtyard. During the tests, I found some careless mistakes, so I had them revised on the spot.

  “Wowie, mister! This is amazing!”

  “It’s beautiful. Reminds me of the big fireworks festival in Tokyo Bay.”

  Natalina jumped around in excitement at the sight of my Fireworks spells, and Arisa was a big fan, too. Once the scrolls were completed, we could all get dressed up and have a fireworks festival of our own.

  “Mister Knight! You gotta sell this magic to me! Please!”

  “Natalina! Don’t accost our guest without permission.”

  Mr. Djang’s scolding wasn’t enough to calm Natalina’s excitement, it seemed; she insisted that we could continue the conversation when Mr. Hosarris returned.

  Since I’d made the spell in my spare time, I would’ve had no reservations about giving it away for free, but Arisa cleverly suggested that we would consider it if they would allocate more workers to my scroll order.

  The price of my order ended up being quite high, but I had no problem paying it on the spot.

  Then, I stored the premade scrolls I’d purchased in my Garage Bag and went to pick up Nana from Tolma’s house.

  Tearing her away from baby Mayuna was no easy feat.

  “Whew, I thought my dinner was going to come back up for a second there.”

  “Maybe if you didn’t eat so much…”

  “But it was sooo good!”

  After dinner, I brought Arisa along to the labyrinth ruins under the old capital for my magic experiments.

  I was planning on coming alone, but she insisted on going with me.

  “Why did you want to come to the labyrinth with me, anyway? There aren’t any monsters here for you to level grind.”

  “Nah, that’s not why.” Arisa shook her head.

  “I thought you wanted to raise your level so you could learn Space Magic?”

  “But of course! That’s the whole point!”

  Now she was striking a bizarre pose. What’s going on?

  I thought she said last night that she didn’t have enough skill points to raise Space Magic to the necessary level.

  “Could you explain it in a way I can understand?”

  In response, Arisa climbed on top of some nearby rubble and regarded me smugly. “Bwa-ha-ha! If you think skill points are set in stone, you’re making a big mistake!”

  Her grin widened as she took an imperious pose.

  “What do you mean? You can’t reassign skill points that have already been allocated to something, can you?”

  “Sure you can. Didn’t I tell you?”

  No, this is the first I’ve heard of it.

  I had a huge amount of skill points left, but until I came anywhere near leveling up, I might need to reassign some eventually.

  “How do you do it?”

  “You just have to pick ‘Reset’ from the skill list. It’ll return the points from all your skills, aside from Unique Skills, gifts, and things like that.”

  How convenient…

  And frustrating.

  I couldn’t choose skills from a list, which made this information useless to me.

  “But it’s not like it’s a totally unlimited reset, of course.”

  If it was unlimited, you could change your skills around for every battle. Come to think of it, there was an anime sort of like that, wasn’t there? Sano the ESPer or something.

  Oblivious to my distraction, Arisa continued her explanation.

  “Each time you use it, you lose five to ten percent of your skill points. And there’s no way to get those back.”

  So even if I could use it, I’d lose anywhere from 155 to 620 skill points… That was definitely not worth it. Now I understood why Arisa had never used it before.

  “There’s another reason I don’t wanna use it, too…”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, it really hurts.”

  So she wanted to come here so that the others wouldn’t hear her cries of pain and worry about her. In that case, I could’ve just used my new spell Secret Field.

  “All right, here goes nothing.”

  “Wait, at least drink something for the pain first.”

  That should make it a little better.

  “Thanks, but I’ve heard that using medicine can increase the amount of points lost.”

  Grimly, Arisa pressed the medicine back into my hand.

  Evidently, it was Hayato, the hero of the Saga Empire, who taught her about Reset back in her hometown. Which must mean Hayato knew Arisa was a reincarnation…

  “A girl’s gotta have guts! Reeeeeset!”

  Arisa plunked down on my lap and bellowed a war cry.

  …Ow.

  I’d agreed to hold her through the process at her request, but her shrieks coupled with her nails clawing into my back was actually really painful. I discreetly turned on “Pain Resistance.”

  For a minute, I was worried her lilac hair would fade to white, but that seemed to be a needless concern.

  As soon as the Reset was finished, she fainted away, so I let her rest her head in my lap, but…

  “Arisa, if th
is is just a ploy to harass me, you’re going on the ground.”

  She was tough—I had to give her that. Despite all the pain she’d just endured, she still pretended to roll over in her sleep to put herself in a creepy position.

  “So, did it work?”

  “More or less! I didn’t quite have enough points, but I managed to get Space Magic to level six at the cost of some Psychic Magic.”

  She looked proud of herself, but I had to nip something in the bud right away.

  “Arisa, this is an order. I forbid you from intruding on baths or watching anyone change clothes except in case of emergencies.”

  “What?! C-come on! You could at least wait until you catch me in the act. Don’t deprive a pure maiden of her tiny little rewaaaard!”

  So she really was planning on it, then… I knew it.

  Because Arisa wanted to go somewhere where she could use magic to her heart’s content, we ventured down toward the middle level of the labyrinth.

  “Hmm, so this is where you fought the demon lord?”

  “No, that was deeper.”

  “I wanna see!”

  I tried telling her there was nothing there, but she still insisted, and I took her to the bottom level.

  “I…I thought I was gonna die…”

  She was really exaggerating. I’d made sure to slow down before I made sharp turns and everything.

  Wobbling a little as I set her on her feet, Arisa stumbled over to the altar where the ceremony had taken place and surveyed the cave.

  “Say, master, did you get the True Hero title for defeating the demon lord?”

  Nodding, I changed my title to True Hero to prove it.

  “Wow, you really did…”

  Arisa entwined her hands behind her back, turning away from me.

  “Then…does that mean…?”

  Arisa trailed off.

  Somehow, she didn’t quite seem like her usual self.

  “Does that mean, y’know…you’re going back to Japan?”

  Arisa steadied herself and gazed back at me.

  Huh?

  “What do you mean? We still have to take Mia home, and then we’re training in Labyrinth City, remember? Plus, once everyone gets stronger, I want to travel the world together and go on more adventures. Even if I do go back to Japan, it won’t be for a long time.”

  When I spotted tears in Arisa’s eyes, I answered as lightly as I could.

  Of course, I didn’t even know if I could get back to Japan.

  “Where’s this coming from, anyway?” I gently asked her after I wiped away her tears and waited for her to calm down.

  “’Cause…’cause…! Hayato told me that when heroes defeat demon lords and become true heroes, they get an offer from the gods to send them back home.”

  So that was why she was worried.

  As she explained, if you said yes, you’d be sent back to your original world, leaving your Holy Sword behind.

  The tricky part was that the question would be asked only once, and if you didn’t answer right away, it’d be taken as a “no.”

  Come on, you could at least let people choose when they go back.

  Besides, even if I did get an offer like that, I wouldn’t feel right leaving until everyone was strong enough to at least defeat demons. And since I didn’t come here like a normal summoned hero, that might not be an option for me in the first place.

  If I did get an offer to go home before I was ready, maybe I could get them to send my family a letter instead.

  My parents were a lot more happy-go-lucky than I was, so as long as I wrote “I’m safe and satisfied” or something, they’d probably accept it.

  “Anyway, master, is your hero outfit really just that blond wig and silver mask from before? If you wear your usual robes, you’re gonna get found out sooner or later, don’t you think?”

  Putting on a brave face, Arisa changed the subject.

  “No, my silver mask broke, so now it’s a purple wig and a white mask. And I wear these high-class priest robes with it.”

  I used “Quick Change” to demonstrate.

  “Whoa, that was fast! What the heck was that?! It’s like you transformed or something!”

  “Pretty handy, right?”

  Trying to cheer Arisa up, I struck a silly pose of my own.

  “I guess a shota priest could w… I mean, shouldn’t it be more different from your usual outfit?”

  “I suppose. Like a ninja or a samurai, maybe?”

  “Let’s see… Oh, I know! A diviner! That’d be a great concept!”

  I could almost see the light bulb going off over Arisa’s head as she folded her arms in thought.

  “You mean like an onmyoji? With Edo-style clothes and all that?”

  “Exactly! A white base, classy black headgear, a circlet with a veil that hides your mask, and maybe some gold embroidery to give it a little flair…”

  I tried to picture the outfit. “Won’t that still be kind of plain?”

  Using the Light Magic spell Illusion, I conjured up an image of the clothes Arisa was describing.

  “Ooh! That’s lovely. I suppose it is rather plain, though. You should add some flair with magic or a magic item! Like angel wings or a ring of light behind you like a Buddha!”

  I wasn’t sure how well angel wings would go with the whole ancient occultist theme. Instead, I tried adding a circle of light on the back of the image.

  “That’s still kinda boring. You should triple it and add more light radiating from the center. Oh, and since you can basically fly, maybe some rocket flames on your feet!”

  I bopped Arisa lightly as her earnest suggestions got sillier and sillier.

  Rocket feet? What am I, a mecha?

  Somehow, I ended up with flame wheels on my feet that spun to match my speed and left an afterimage as I moved around.

  I was only trying it out for fun, but controlling it ended up being more trouble than it was worth. The illusion moved autonomously as I directed it, but details like the number of turns and the amount of light had to be manually changed.

  At any rate, with my alter ego’s outer appearance decided, we started to discuss his interior.

  “Are you changing your voice or speech patterns at all?”

  “When I spoke to Baron Muno or the head priestess, I used another voice and acted all haughty. With the duke, I tried to sound androgynous and speak as little as possible,” I explained.

  “So you switched it up, huh?”

  “Yeah. I changed my voice for the arrogant persona, but it wasn’t so unlike mine that you couldn’t trace it back to me, so I tried something somewhat different with the duke.”

  Because I said so little, I figured the latter method might be better for misleading people.

  “Then maybe you should be a hero with multiple personalities or pretend there are several of you?”

  “I feel like it’d be hard to keep things straight that way.”

  “Then just make sure your default hero character is different enough from your main self, and the arrogant one and the one who doesn’t talk much can be like sub-characters. Like the main character and supporting characters in a game,” she added.

  Well, she seemed to be the expert; I asked her to elaborate on how to differentiate them from my “main” self.

  “Well, your defining personae are ‘mature shota,’ ‘oblivious harem protagonist,’ and ‘OP cheater,’ which means—”

  “Arisa. Would you mind not bringing your creepy opinions of me into this?”

  Arisa grinned mischievously; I pinched her nose in response. From there, I got her to give an actual list of my defining traits and come up with ways to distance myself from them.

  “So, to be the opposite of yourself, the points you want to hit are ‘childish,’ ‘overly familiar,’ ‘no respect for anyone,’ and ‘can’t take a hint,’ I’d say.”

  Then Professor Arisa spent an hour or so giving me pointers on how to play Nanashi Version III.

>   For some reason, her teaching style involved hiding half her face behind her hair and using an odd speech pattern. I didn’t know what she was basing this on, but I had no doubt she was acting out a scene from some anime or manga.

  “Voilà! You’re like a love interest from an otome game now!”

  Applauding wildly, Arisa finally gave my performance the seal of approval.

  Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to put on this particular act too often.

  “Hey, did you get any rare drops from the demon lord? Like a demon lord core?”

  It sounded probable, but there was no such item in my loot from the battle. Maybe that was the purple sphere that had hit the ground and shattered after I defeated him.

  “I guess I got his sabers and a spear he made from his own bones, stuff like that? But they’re all too big, and most of them are broken anyway.”

  I also got a cornucopia from the Wings of Freedom cult.

  Happily, this included a large amount of goods and materials, including rare substances like ice stones and dark stones. They must have been making a hideout down there or something.

  There were also a few unused long horns like the one the intermediate hell demon had dropped earlier in the day, but I planned to let them rot in Storage so they wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands.

  “There were some spell books and such, too.”

  I showed Arisa the lineup.

  There were all kinds of spell books in my loot from the demon lord battle, including one called Demon Summoning and ingredients to make a magic circle for summoning short horns.

  Among the materials was a boost item for summoning called “hair of Yuriko,” a braided purple plait. I didn’t want to get cursed, so I pretended not to have seen it and sent it away deep into Storage. The last thing I wanted was to pull it out again and find that the hair had grown or something.

  “This Demon Summoning book doesn’t use a cell phone or a laptop or whatever, right?”

  “Of course not.”

  However, the book contained dangerous information like demon lord resurrection ceremonies and methods for summoning different kinds of demons. I planned to keep it stored away like the long horns.