The Power of a Girl and a Machine
“Stones of ice, pierce!”
The King of Souls mutters spell-like words, and then pieces of ice with sharpened tips fill our view. I count up to ten of them before giving up.
“We’re going in!”
“Welcome.”
No worries—I’ll block all those little things.
The ice impacts against the Force Field’s blue wall, but none has gotten through yet.
[Points decreased by 1. Points decreased by 1. Points decreased by 1—]
I’m losing points by the second, thanks to this icy onslaught. The endless notifications wash over my mind like a waterfall.
But I still have a lot of points left, so this level of point draining isn’t a problem at all. I’m still kicking.
“Hmph. Such a troublesome Blessing. Does it belong to the girl there—? No, this is something coming from the soul residing in the magic item behind you. Fire, in that case… No, you ran through it. Then what about raging, howling winds?”
First a rain of ice, now a windstorm? A few more steps, and we would have reached him, too.
The wind crashes down on us from the front, digging a hole in the ground outside the Force Field and blowing gravestones back behind us.
I mean, I’m blocking the wind, but since the Force Field is increasing our surface area, we’re taking the brunt of its effects now.
“Fu-ha-ha-ha-ha. It may be an impenetrable barrier, but there are plenty of ways around it. I’ll blow you and that Force Field away— Hmm?”
The King of Souls, in the middle of a victory celebration, opens his mouth and stares at us.
Within the gales strong enough to tear the very ground asunder, Lammis continues forward, little by little. The wind pressure is incredible, but Lammis presses on, digging her feet in and leaning forward.
“What is the meaning of this? Why have you not been blown away? Are you using magic to interfere with my gales?”
No, it’s simple brute force. She’s physically resisting them.
“I won’t lose to some wind, some hail— Attack, smash, smash!” As Lammis muscles her way forward, she mutters some disturbing things.
“If ice, wind, and fire have little effect…how about this? Lands beneath, cry out in lament!”
Does he really need to say that line for his incantation? I think it’s cool, but it makes me cringe every time I hear it. Yeah, I feel like that extreme escapism that afflicts every boy in their second year of middle school is starting to relapse.
But now’s not the time to be thinking about stupid stuff. As I feel shaking from underfoot, a fissure begins to run through the ground. Then, with a thundering roar, the land splits in two, and an abyss opens its mouth wide.
“W-wait a minute!”
Lammis begins to fall upside down. I can’t leave her to her fate. I form change into a cardboard vending machine. That makes me lose several hundred kilos, which should lighten her load.
“Th-this is nothing!”
Lammis kicks off the side of the depths and leaps diagonally upward, then kicks off the opposite side. Seeing her repeat the process, kicking off the wall to advance up, is like a ninja action video game.
“You were a somewhat formidable opponent. Close, O jaws.”
The fissured earth begins to close steadily, but before it shuts all the way, Lammis kicks one more time and leaps high into the air.
“What?!”
He watches Lammis in shock as she flies up out of the abyss. We’re about thirty feet over his head now. She gave that one everything she had. With the King of Souls right below us, we’re in a perfect position.
“Um, in any case, kiiiick!”
After reaching the peak of her jump, she begins a rapid descent, falling with a kick. Still, Lammis has only so much power with her body weight. No matter how strong her Might is, she has to plant herself in place or else her power goes down.
Adding to her attack power now means increasing her weight. It’s simple. It means I—
“You think that miserable kick will work?! I’ll shoot you down. Assemble, assemble, assemble, from the abyss you come, O evil from the den of iniquity—”
Not going to happen. I change into the giant vending machine that’s over ten feet tall, which I’ve turned into before. It adds only a little bit to our speed of descent, but it throws off the King of Souls’s timing. Plus, he’s startled by how I changed shape in midair. He stops his incantation, and we connect with his face.
“Urgh!”
Her soles dig in, and even I feel something breaking on the other end.
“Oh, whoa! Hup!”
Lammis kicks off the King of Souls’s face and drops to the ground. Her body shudders when she lands, but she manages to pull herself back up before clenching a fist and burying it in the core of our enemy’s body.
In contrast with her cute cry, an explosion rather than a mere punching noise rattles the air. The King of Souls lurches forward brilliantly and gets blown away. Whoa, I can see an afterimage.
As he flies parallel to the ground, his body splits into an upper and lower half. His upper half corkscrews into the air, growing smaller until it flies out of sight. The lower half crashes into the ground, sending up a cloud of dust before continuing to roll, but it stops dead with its feet aimed at the sky.
He may be weak to physical blows, but this is what happens when Lammis really punches something, huh? She certainly is powerful. If she can learn to control her destructive potential, she’ll get even stronger.
“Whoa, did you two just end this by yourselves?”
The other members seem to have finished taking down the skeletons. They all gather around us. I go back to my usual vending machine form.
Mikenne manages to grab the King of Souls’s skull, which barely remained after he flew far away, and brings it to us. Short drags over the upside-down lower half.
Over half of him is annihilated, but now we have the rest of the only slightly destroyed parts of the King of Souls in one place.
“This thing’s still just barely alive, eh?”
Captain Kerioyl puts a foot on the skull and looks down at it. He must be implying that he’ll crush it the instant he detects any strange movement.
“To…step on…a great one…such as I…warrants death… A thousand deaths…”
“You talk pretty big for someone about to kick the bucket. I’ll just crush you, take the coin, and be on my way.”
“The coin… Fu-ha-ha-ha… You all… Do you think I’m a mere…stratum lo—?”
“Get away, everyone!”
Suddenly, the captain shouts, his face changing drastically, as he kicks away the nearby Fools and jumps back.
The Band of Gluttons raise their first “Vaaaaahhhh!” in a while and flee in every direction.
I don’t get it, but it’s time to activate Force Field!
The moment the blue light envelops Lammis, our vision is covered in black.
[Points decreased by 500.]
Wh-what?! It’s totally black all around us!
If my points went down, does that mean we’re under attack?! What’s going on? Did the King of Souls muster the last of his strength to self-destruct?!
“Boxxo, what’s happening? A-are we okay?!”
That’s what I’d like to know, Lammis. After hearing her confused voice, I regain a little clarity. Panicking will get us nowhere. I have to calmly judge the situation.
[Points decreased by 500.]
The decrease isn’t stopping. Is this blackness one of his spells or something? Based on how the Force Field feels, it seems to be coming down from above.
After withstanding it for a while, the black torrent fades, and we can finally see light again. The darkness raining from above seems to have stopped. My points have stopped going down, too.
“No… E-everyone’s…”
When the darkness fades, we see an enormous crater in the ground. We’re in the center of that crater, and the only ground left is under our feet. The land is warped in an incomprehensible way that you’d never normally be able to imagine.
Our party… They’re facedown in the dirt, scattered about the outside edge of the crater. They’re not dead—at least, I hope not.
They’ve probably just passed out, since most aren’t moving. The captain and Mishuel, though, are struggling to somehow get to their feet. Those two are alive, at least. No doubt about that.
“Oh? To think there were some who could withstand my dark magic,” says a voice from above.
I look up and see a skeleton about two sizes bigger than the King of Souls floating in the air. The silver skeleton is clad in a hooded robe, but the robe’s embroidery is more intricate than the King of Souls’s was, and despite being worn by a skeleton, it exudes a sense of nobility.
He has four arms, and behind him I catch glimpses of something else—a tail made of bones?
“Talentless disciple. I will have returned to me the dead one’s arm that clings to the light.”
The floating skeleton points his palm downward, and the ground in the crater rises up. The buried King of Souls’s staff rises into his hand.
“Superior magic items should belong to superior beings… Do you not think so, visitor from another world?”
That glittery silver skeleton has figured out my identity? When he looks at me with those dark eyes, I feel a chill, as though he’s seeing through to my very vending machine core.
I don’t know who he is, but he must be a higher-ranked being than the King of Souls we defeated.
“Wh-who are you?!”
“Hmm. My name has been lost to time, but I suppose most call me the Netherlord. I am also the one who rules over the filth you call the King of Souls.”
I thought as much—he’s an upgraded version. In this situation, one wrong move will be our last. Among our comrades, we don’t know if the Band of Gluttons or the red-and-white twins are alive. Captain Kerioyl and Mishuel are the only ones managing to hold on to consciousness. What should I do to save them? What can I do?
If I just want to save Lammis, all I need to do is hold out with Force Field. I still have a point surplus. Quite a few points flowed into me after defeating the King of Souls, so I’m confident I can defend against anything.
But I couldn’t save the others. Should I forsake them…?
“So this is the so-called coin of a stratum lord. Hmph. A worthless trinket.”
With a simple finger gesture, the coin floats in front of the Netherlord. But then the coin falls, as if he’s lost interest in it, brought down by gravity.
“Wh-why did you do this?!”
“Why? Is there a problem with my hunt? You assaulted the King of Souls to fulfill your own ambitions as well, did you not? I had thought surprise attacks were the specialty of you lowly hunters.”
“Y-you’re right, but—”
“As I recall, there is an expression in the world of man that goes: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Even children know it.”
“B-but that’s—”
“That’s what? Are you saying this is any different? I would very much like to ruminate if you would tell me what about it is different. Well, human?”
This bastard is teasing Lammis. He’s playing around. This is the kind of superfluity someone with absolute power shows to the weak. Normally, this would be our chance to strike back to some extent, but I can’t see any possible outcome where we win this.
