Death March to the Parallel World Rhapsody, Vol. 6 Read online

  The older knight with the large shield had been severely wounded while defending the prince not long ago, and he was being carted off.

  “Wee! You gotta do something about that two-horned beetle!”

  “Yeah, we can’t fight the centipedes like this.”

  “Impossible. It’s moving much too fast for my arrows to hit.”

  The three beastfolk members of the hero’s party were struggling with the beetle monster buzzing around above them.

  Is it really that hard?

  The whine of its wings was annoying, and I pulled a Magic Bow out of Storage and shot at the base of the appendages.

  See? Direct hit.

  I was only using ordinary arrows, but after a few more shots at the same spot, I was able to tear off its wings and send it plummeting to the ground.

  I’d feel bad stealing all the prey from the hero’s party, though. I decided to leave the rest of the monsters to them.

  With that, I was out of things to do, so I consulted the map of the area and confirmed that everyone had evacuated into the nearest shelter or the duke’s castle.

  This way, even if the yellow demon used area-effect magic, no one should die.

  With nothing else to worry about now, I decided to observe the hero’s party’s battle. Maybe I’d learn a thing or two.

  Now that the meddling prince was down for the time being, the rearguard seemed to be able to use their attack magic properly. The battle was going much more smoothly than before.

  Judging by the conversation I overheard between him and the hero, this yellow demon seemed to be a friend of the “Indeed” and “Yes” demons I’d fought before the demon lord.

  Still, those three balls floating above its head were pretty impressive. No matter how much damage the hero and friends did, they healed the demon almost instantly.

  According to the AR, they were actually demons called Cure Balls, not just a product of some spell. He must have used summoning magic.

  Whenever one of the hero’s rearguard destroyed a Cure Ball, he’d immediately summon another one. Pretty tricky.

  Because I didn’t want to insult them by butting in, I forced myself to stand by and watch for now.

  …Huh? My “Sense Danger” skill is going off overhead.

  When I looked up at the sky, I saw a summoning circle.

  Whatever the yellow demon was trying to summon, I would defeat it as soon as it popped out. It’d be the perfect opportunity to test my intermediate attack magic.

  But what appeared was…

  A whale?

  It was airborne and almost a thousand feet long.

  But it was definitely a whale.

  It was about ten times the size of the full-size blue whale model I’d seen in an aquarium in Japan, but that wasn’t important right now.

  What was important was this:

  Whales were delicious.

  On the ground, the hero and company forgot their battle and gaped up in shock.

  Well, I couldn’t blame them.

  If the hero was Japanese, too, he must be familiar with the taste of whale. Once I secured the meat, I’d have to share some with him.

  According to the AR display, it was a monster called Tovkezerra, so I doubted any activists would get mad at me for killing it.

  This was pest control, and securing a valuable source of protein at that.

  Ah, it’s been so long since I’ve had whale…

  As I stared at it, I almost started drooling. I couldn’t even imagine how many servings I’d get out of something so enormous.

  What should I make? Would simmering it with soy sauce be too obvious?

  As I looked up at the giant monster fish and contemplated the best way to cook it, it somehow ended up staring back at me. Maybe it sensed that its life was in danger.

  The last thing I wanted was for it to run away on me. I needed to finish it off in one blow.

  Well, I’ll be damned, Mr. Yellow Demon. Maybe you’re good for something after all!

  I was about to break into a little dance, but then things got even better.

  Believe it or not, six more whales came out of the summoning circle.

  This was the best battle ever. Who would have thought that such gourmet ingredients would deliver themselves to me just like that?

  I waited a little longer, but that seemed to be the last of them. Just in case, I decided not to destroy the summoning circle so that they could call for reinforcements if they wanted.

  Now, I didn’t want to spoil any of the meat in the process. After I beheaded them with the light magic spell Laser, I put the corpses in Storage straightaway.

  Ideally, I would’ve liked to show off Excalibur’s sharpness, but the whales were just too big for that.

  Laser was relatively weak for an intermediate spell, but I could fire several at once like Magic Arrow. I figured I could use the light magic spell Condense to make several lasers into one big one and power it up that way.

  Switching my map into 3-D, I was able to simulate the best possible trajectory for the lasers.

  According to my calculations, the exposure time wouldn’t be quite long enough, so I decided to imitate a pulse laser by continuously switching it on and off. That way, I could take out all seven with one attack.

  I could’ve just done it one at a time, of course, but I didn’t want to let any of them escape through the summoning circle.

  My strategy decided, it was time to go into action!

  There was a powerful flash of light coupled with a strong ozone smell.

  With the help of my “Light Intensity Adjustment” skill, I aimed at the whales through the flash, guiding the trajectory of my fake pulse laser.

  The light beam beheaded the first one easily, shooting past them into the clouds beyond.

  The other whales were looking down at me, same as the first, and conveniently formed a circle that made it easy to slice through all of them at once.

  Even if they tried to flee now, it would be too late.

  Without slowing down, my laser kept moving and sliced through the heads of each of the six remaining whales in rapid succession.

  Perfect, got ’em all in one shot!

  It’d be a disaster if I let those huge bodies crash to the ground, for various reasons, so I immediately got closer with “Skyrunning” and “Warp,” used Magic Hand to reach them, and slipped all the whales into Storage.

  The air was a little hot near the whale meat. Maybe they got slightly toasted in the process?

  Even though I used lasers, there was a lot of fluid in the air. Liquid or not, it was a considerable mass, and it might injure the people below if I let it fall.

  Making a snap decision, I used Magic Hand again to grab all the liquid in sight and put it away in Storage.

  Because there were a few parasite-like creatures left in the air when I stored the liquid, I used the laser to destroy them (starting with the ones that were falling toward the arena) and stored those, too.

  I wasn’t able to hit all of them due to the angle I was firing from, but they landed near the prince. He could probably take care of those.

  Once I finished that up, I noticed that the once-chaotic battlefield had gone totally silent.

  …Erm, well.

  If you ask me, it’s the whales’ fault for being so delicious!

  > Title Acquired: Organizer

  > Title Acquired: Unseen Supporter

  > Title Acquired: Ruler of the Battlefield

  > Title Acquired: Giant Monster Fish Slayer

  > Title Acquired: Light Master

  > Title Acquired: Sky Chef

  …Whoops.

  I might’ve gone a little too far in my determination to get that whale meat.

  It felt like everyone was staring at me. Fortunately, the evaporated whale blood formed a mist that should hopefully keep anyone from seeing me clearly.

  Besides, it didn’t seem like anyone was using Clairvoyance like me.

  It was too late t
o hide now, but I was dressed as Nanashi the Hero. I doubted there would be much trouble if people did see me. However, if anyone figured out that Nanashi was actually Satou, that would be a problem.

  Clearly, the time had come for the “Nanashi Version III” persona Arisa and I had come up with during our midnight magic training.

  I “Quick Changed” into a new set of clothes and used my “Change Voice” skill to create the kind of voice a female actress would use to play a young male character.

  Now, it was time to act as rude, overly familiar, and un-Satou-like as possible.

  Thus far, I’d been holding off from doing anything to the yellow demon, but Version III would never be polite enough for that. I should go with something more proactive.

  I zoomed down free-fall-style toward the ground, using Remote Arrow to destroy the last few monsters and the demon’s Cure Balls.

  The extra arrows steered toward the yellow demon, but he intercepted them with Blaze Magic.

  “Who are you?!”

  “AND WHO MIGHT YOU BE?”

  The hero and the yellow demon both shouted in unison.

  They were keeping their distance from each other, but both were acting wary of me as well. I lowered my altitude some more, hovering about thirty feet aboveground.

  “Hey, I’m Nanashi. Nice to meetcha.”

  I was careful to adopt a tone that disguised my age and gender.

  —DANGER.

  My “Sense Danger” skill alerted me to a threat from the direction of the women behind the hero.

  Come to think of it, it had been two or three minutes since they started their chant. They must be charging up some kind of greater magic, and from what “Sense Danger” was telling me, it wasn’t the kind you should be using within a city.

  No—I have to stop them.

  This was the first time since the demon lord battle that my instincts had reacted so strongly. Glancing at the log, I didn’t see any kind of Psychic Magic affecting me.

  The ideal route would be to persuade the hero to get them to stop, but I could tell we didn’t have time to argue. I was going to have to resort to a little brute force.

  Firstly, I used Break Magic to shut down their magic chant.

  Of course, with the composition of the spell broken, the magic power they’d built up began to overflow in all directions.

  I knew this was coming thanks to all my midnight experiments, so I used Mana Section to protect the women.

  It wasn’t an incredibly strong defense spell, but it did the trick.

  However, the forced interruption of the spell created some recoil, which left the young women crouching on the ground.

  “What are you doing?!” The hero rushed over to the lovely young women as he shouted at me.

  “Sorry, sorry. That spell was gonna be a little too dangerous. I had to go ahead and stop it, ’kay?”

  I shrugged, keeping my attitude light.

  Really, a hero like him should be more careful about causing damage to his surroundings in the first place. Didn’t he ever watch Captain Tsubasa reruns?

  “WELL, THIS IS MOST AMUSING. SQUABBLING AMONG YOURSELVES, ARE YOU?”

  The yellow demon sneered and began making new Cure Balls.

  “YOU MUST HAVE USED SOME WITCHCRAFT TO SEND THE GIANT MONSTER FISH BACK THROUGH THE GATE, CORRECT? WHAT A WISE LITTLE EGG WE HAVE HERE.”

  Huh? So that’s how you’re going to interpret it? And what was “egg” referring to, exactly? Maybe it was some kind of code word.

  Anyway, I guess the sight of a single laser attack taking out the whales must have been so unbelievable to the yellow demon that he dismissed it as an illusion.

  Then, “Sense Danger” alerted me to another new hazard.

  It was the hero’s silver ship, which appeared to be emerging through a rift in space.

  The bow of the ship seemed uncertain which way to face at first, but before long, the glowing white end of the main battery fixed directly on me. It must have seen me arguing with the hero and decided that I was the enemy.

  You guys are way too hasty.

  I couldn’t help criticizing them in my head, but objectively, maybe I did seem a little suspicious. I guess the mask didn’t necessarily make it obvious that I was a good guy.

  With a rather futuristic sound effect, a beam shot out from the silver ship.

  My light magic spell Condense redirected the ray into the sky.

  Judging by the impact when it bounced off, that attack was probably four to six times more powerful than my Laser.

  The gun firing the rays was getting red hot; it would have to stop attacking soon. Just deflecting it seemed like a waste of energy, too, so I decided to divert its shots to take out the yellow demon’s newly summoned Cure Balls.

  “YOU CAN BEND THE LIGHT OF THE LIGHT BOAT? I THOUGHT YOU WERE AN EGG, BUT PERHAPS YOU HAVE ALREADY BEEN HATCHED.”

  If that was an insult, I didn’t really understand it.

  The “light ship” must be referring to the hero’s silver vessel.

  The hero was shouting something to his friends aboard it, but I didn’t think they could hear him.

  “What a worthless hero you are! , Claidheamh Soluis!”

  …Huh?

  Clearly the prince was still up and about.

  As if the silver ship wasn’t enough, now the prince seemed to think I was an enemy, too. His sword flew into the air and shot toward me. Maybe the rain of whale blood on him had offended him.

  I leaned my head to one side to avoid the Holy Sword, then grabbed its hilt as it flew past.

  At first, it thrashed about in my hand, but that stopped as soon as I had sucked all the magic out of it.

  Really though, Prince. You’ve seen better days, haven’t you?

  His armor was half-broken, and his exposed skin was covered in what looked like bite marks. I was surprised he hadn’t died of blood loss.

  Those must be marks from the parasites that had landed near him earlier.

  I’d assumed the prince and his Holy Sword could handle them easily enough, but judging by his current disastrous state, it must have been more of a struggle than I thought.

  Beyond him, the boy knight had returned to the battlefield and was cackling madly as he hacked away at monster corpses with his sword.

  While I was distracted by this whole spectacle, the yellow demon set about making a summoning circle at his feet to make his escape.

  Oh, you’re not getting away.

  I quickly destroyed the circle using Break Magic.

  Then I used “Warp” to get closer and cast Mana Drain to steal away the creature’s magic.

  Sadly, it wasn’t possible to take all of it at once. The max was apparently three hundred MP at a time.

  “GRRGH! HOW DARE A MERE CHICK LIKE YOU STEAL AWAY MY MAGIC POWER SO EASILY?!”

  So am I an egg or a chick or what? I really don’t get it. I mean, I like chicken and all, but I’d rather not be treated like one.

  When the yellow demon tried to retreat out of range of my Mana Drain, I chased him around with “Warp,” stealing his MP all the while.

  At level 71, he should’ve had around 710 MP, but even after three Mana Drains, the demon showed no signs of running out. Guess demons must get more than humans.

  Plus, after ten rounds, I couldn’t use it anymore. This stupid yellow jerk must have more MP than me.

  Since I stole more MP than I could hold, I used the excess to charge Claidheamh Soluis, which I happened to still be holding.

  As I poured magic power into it, the blade grew until it was too big to hold with one hand. If Arisa were here, she would no doubt be snickering inappropriately.

  The Holy Sword stopped growing when I’d put about 500 MP into it. Now it was just about the size of the replica at the museum. Evidently, that replica was based on reality after all.

  “GRRR. SO YOU ARE DESCENDED FROM VAMPIRES, ARE YOU, YOUNG CHICK?”

  So now I’m a vampire, too…?

&n
bsp; Because I couldn’t steal any more magic, I destroyed his defensive barriers with Break Magic and struck him instead. The demon kept going on about something or other, but I was ignoring him at this point.

  Once the yellow demon’s barriers were mostly gone and his HP was down to about 10 percent, I flung him to the ground in front of the hero’s party.

  “…GAH!”

  The hero didn’t hesitate to lop the yellow demon in half with his Holy Sword Arondight. The two halves promptly turned into black dust and vanished.

  I guess without a barrier to protect him, a demon could easily be defeated by a Holy Sword.

  Maybe I should try to develop a new spell that could break up multiple spells at once.

  As the yellow demon was destroyed, he shouted something like “I DEMAND A REDO!” but I still wasn’t sure what exactly he wanted a redo of.

  Still holding the Holy Sword Arondight, the hero strode up to me.

  “What are you playing at?”

  “C’mon, you had a grudge against that guy, right?”

  “Hmph. Don’t expect me to thank you.”

  “That’s fine. You could’ve beaten him with that forbidden curse anyway.”

  The yellow demon’s attitude had indicated he had a plan to deal with the curse, but I suspected it would be rude to point that out.

  Still, this persona was a mistake. It was easier to communicate than when I tried to keep quiet Mia-style, but it still made talking difficult.

  “By the way, that idiot prince is about to die over there. Shouldn’t you help him?”

  At the hero’s words, I turned to see the roundworm-like monsters tormenting the bloodied royal.

  …Strange.

  Sure, the hero was splattered with blood and guts, but I thought he’d been holding his own well enough until now. Obviously, he had no intention of helping the prince directly.

  I didn’t feel any particular obligation to assist him, either, but those monsters were also the last in the arena, so I reluctantly decided to lend a hand.

  Although these monsters had been level 20 and under when I first saw them, now some of them were as high as level 50.

  They must have been using the “Life Drain” skill to steal levels and life force from the prince and other creatures.