Fairy Tale Chronicles

「……How far…how far will you go to make a fool out of me!!」

Tearing himself out of the wall that he had been implanted into, Barold glared hatefully at Hiroshi, body riddled with wounds. He no longer had the energy to escape, nor did he have any way of damaging his opponent without putting his own life at risk. Actually, it was a miracle in and of itself that he hadn’t died yet. So at the very least, he sought to find a way to take these adventurers who had made a fool of him down with him. Preparing to do so, he compressed the miasma (considerably reduced) to the max.

「I will no longer be able to offer this country to my god, no matter what I do……」

It had taken 20 years to win the favor of everyone who entered and exited Wulls Castle. It had taken 10 years to began interacting with the selected attendants for the royal family. Afterward, blessed with all sorts of fortune, he had placed himself in the position to where he could select any attendants he wanted for the newly born Katrina. He had eventually succeeded at winning over those dissatisfied with the laws of the royal family and the country by ensuring that everything was going well.

That was how, over the span of 50 years, he had slowly encroached the center of the country, only to have the good opportunity that had finally come to him smashed by just two adventurers, and every attempt he had made at struggling to get some decent result had come to naught. It would have at least felt better if they had simply been talented enough to see through every plot of his, but other than the time when they had incited the timing to send the assassin in, every other time their last-minute actions had out of pure coincidence continuously crushed every attempt of his.

He was aware that in the end, he was a small fry. He also understood that it wasn’t like he could create that amazing of a scheme, and that all he could do was fan the flames. But still, even so, there was just no way he could accept the way things went. If this was the goddesses’ predetermined harmony, then they could have at least given him people who were more heroic in their actions.

But the fact that their plans had been ruined by those half-hearted people meant that in the end, their way of doing things had been unskillful. If he had to pay the price for that with his life, then he thought he should at least make up for his loss by dragging them down with him.

「All right then, Toudou Haruna, Azuma Hiroshi! I’ve got to at least take your lives before I go, fools!」

Supplementing the insufficient power with his own life force, he prepared for his last vain resistance (planned in the event that his other attacks were thwarted), slamming in his largest class attack now that he was in the right form.

Come to think of it, he should have just done it from the beginning without trying to act all high and mighty. Just as that enemy mage had asserted, they should have used all of their trump cards while they still could have. However, this technique would still put them at risk even if they were at their peak. The only time to use it would be when their plan had been completely laid to ruin. By that point, there at least should have been some prospect of turning the tables.

While he continued to tediously repeat that excuse in his head, Barold charged the miasma and mana that he had refined and compressed, intending to release it as an Ultimate spell. This great attack already had enough power to turn 30% of Wulls into a ruin if it were spread and released, but he had gone out of his way to compress it to where it would be enough to blow away the temple. There was no way that they could resist and cancel this.

Barold watched in satisfaction at Hiroshi becoming rigid at the terrifying refined energy, making to attempt to hide his terrified expression. He proceeded with the finishing touch.

「Tsk, like hell you’re doing that! Judgement Ray!」

His face changing color at the might of the magic that was about to be unleashed, Tatsuya had finally finished the recitation of the obstruction magic, just in time to be able to launch a pierce-type attack spell that was a combination of light and holy elements. It was right up there with Nandikesvara Eight Polar Cannons in terms of cleansing power, making it difficult to maintain defense against such a spell, but it was thwarted by the miasma that Barold had purposely let leak out of his defense, cleansing it only to lose its attack power and vanish.

「Kuh!」

「More to come!」

Seeing that Tatsuya’s attempt at interference had failed, Rayna and Julius began to charge in. However, this was once again curbed by the highly thick wall-like miasma, ricocheting away with the swipe of an arm.

「Please, let me go!」

「Go ahead!」

「I won’t let you! Buster Shot!」

Aearis and Elena threw all the blades that they had, and Mio shot out an attack with high firepower and knockback. However, all of them were unable to pierce the barrier of miasma, unable to interfere.

An extra skill would be needed in order to pierce that, or at least so they thought, but when they turned to Layotte, he would merely shake his head. As one would expect from an extra skill, it seemed that it would take a bit more cooldown time in order to activate Dimensional Slash again. He wasn’t like Hiroshi, and there was no way that one person would have that many extra skills all at once, so any other move in comparison to Dimensional Slash for intercepting Barold would fall short three pegs in terms of power.

Normally, it would be impossible even with Barold’s normal power level to erect this many barriers. However, by cutting off one’s life force and limiting it only to preparation time, even a small fry could erect this kind of barrier.

「Old man! Can you stop that thing!?」

「Even I think that would be a bit difficult!」

Besides, even if they did stop it, the temple would not end up in one piece, and as long as that was the case, there was no assurance that everyone here wouldn’t be buried alive.

While everyone else was lining up their cards to see if anything could be done in order to preserve their lives, Haruna maintained a rather calm demeanor. She calmly activated several support magic sequences by herself, stacking them all on Hiroshi. Although Barold noticed Haruna, he confirmed victory for himself based on everyone around her, finishing his final preparation.

「You’re too late! Now come and die with me!」

Laughing scornfully at everyone here, including himself, he unleashed his life-risking trump card.

「Let us fall together! Hell Inferno!」

Along with a strangely refreshing smile, Barold threw a fireball that had been pressed together with the flames of hell at them. Even with his life force taken away to death’s door and a feeling of fierce fatigue attacking him at every moment, he continued to stand on his own two feet as a sign of his final defiance. His tough flesh gained from discarding his humanity continued to restore his life force, even in a state like this. The fear and despair from the group before him even became a little bit of miasma, spurring on his recovery. Barold gazed contentedly at that sight.

（Why the heck…）

The gigantic fireball advanced on him in a strangely slow motion. As he stared blankly at this phenomenon, various hectic thoughts raced around in Hiroshi’s head. He wanted to run. But to where? Surely someone would block it. But how? Why was all this happening? Wasn’t it because he decided to stick his head into someone else’s affairs?

As useless thoughts revolved around and around in his head, this extreme situation and the fear brought on from unfathomable despair caused him to recall a certain memory. It was the time when his life was in danger at the school of his hometown on Valentine’s Day. The police became involved, and the incident was reported on a nationwide scale. It was an event that planted a lot of mistrust between the region and the school, slashing the school’s internal structure to shreds.

He recalled the unfair words and actions that the girls in his class exhibited after he had somehow managed to preserve his life. Not only had it permanently affected him; it also carved a gap of hopeless proportions between all of the boys and girls in the school, and even when new students came into the school, the boys would still not trust the girls in the slightest. It was that significant of an event, and yet the culprit had still yet to be found, shaking even the peoples’ confidence in the police.

Remembering all that, he glared at the fireball before him. That’s right. Compared to that, this level of danger is nothing. In the first place, he was the closest worksman to the gods, and he did not think that said gods were kind enough to allow him to die from something as trivial as this.

Compared to an event like that where half of the entire school became his enemy and half of the world began to know true fear, calling this even a crisis was presumptuous. Although it was embarrassing to be swallowed up by Barold’s vigor and flashy destructive power, thinking about it closely, even if he were to fail at resistance and directly take the attack, it wasn’t like he would die, right?

Reaching that realization and spurred on by his instincts, he heavily rammed into the fireball. At this point in time, gears were moving inside Hiroshi, rapidly taking shape.

「This is nothing…!」

He advanced toward the fireball, unthinkingly activating the Fortress skill he had learned secretively. This was child’s play for Douga, but there was already a huge gap in the foundational defense. Although he was a bit inferior to Ernest Douga at his best in terms of physical defense, his magical defense was several steps ahead of him.

「Compared to chocolates…!」

Right before it struck him, he activated Around Guard. Despite the overwhelming attack range, Hiroshi practically suppressed it all by himself.

「How d’ya like THIIIS!!」

At the same time as the impact, he pumped himself up and resisted the magic. Encountering the strong body of interference, the fireball of energy began to rapidly subside. In the midst of the advancing power and resisting power practically in equilibrium, as if rushing upstream in a rapid current, the fireball gradually approached Hiroshi, advancing directly toward him to fulfill its role of exploding. In the end, unable to exhibit most of its destructive power, it became a harmless flow of magic as it expanded and was reduced to a third of its original size, touching Hiroshi and then exploding.

「…What in the world!?」

The shockwaves subsided, and after the smoke disappeared, a hardly injured Hiroshi plunged forward at him. Of course he wasn’t entirely uninjured. Suffering burns here and there, he had quite a few lacerations from the shockwave. However, receiving an attack that had enough compressed magic to turn a third of Wulls into scorched earth, it was marvellous that he had even managed to end it there.

In the even that Haruna hadn’t cast any support magic on him, he probably would have taken more visible damage. If he didn’t have Fortress or Around Guard, it was practically guaranteed that Haruna and the others would have suffered more than just small wounds. More importantly, if he had faltered in the first stage, he wouldn’t have been able to manifest enough resistance power to hold back this might.

With all of his might, Hiroshi had just barely fulfilled his role as the tank.

「Hurry up ’n…get outta this world!!」

Ignoring the pain of his wounds, he brandished a pole axe with all his might, howling in a loud voice to put energy into a strike as he flung it down. The incredible energy and destructive power brought on with the axe pulverized Barold’s body, striking him into the ground, opening up a gigantic crater spreading across to the entrance, pulverizing the wall of the temple’s front entrance, and finally scratching a crevice well into the middle of the inner courtyard before subsiding.

Extra Skill: Titanic Roar. It was a technique for long-handled axes or blunt weapons that boasted the largest destructive power and attack range for physical weapons. Being that it was a killer technique from an unpopular weapon, this skill hadn’t even been discovered yet, let alone have any acquisition prerequisites. Letting his anger lead him, Hiroshi activated this feat of strength.

「W-What happened just now…?」

「Who even knows?」

Unable to keep up with the sudden turn of events, Tatsuya mumbled in an exasperated tone. Haruna casually answered him as if this were an everyday occurrence. For whatever reason, she wasn’t particularly surprised.

「Haru, you seem to be taking this pretty easily…」

「Well, I already confirmed that it would help seal Hell Inferno, hence why I cast a round of support magic.」

Haruna casually explained her reasoning to Mio when she made a remark. Sure, the attack just now was a surprise, she added, but it honestly didn’t hold any more weight than it did earlier.

「Speaking of which, you aren’t very surprised either, are you Aearis?」

「Uhh, as embarrassing as it is, I am not exactly sure just how amazing the attack was just now.」

The younger sister answered her older brother’s question honestly. Due to having little battle experience, she didn’t have the slightest clue as to how powerful Hell Inferno just now was, nor what level that last move was. To a regular person like Aearis, every move unleashed in this battle had enough power to kill someone ten times upon impact. Of course she wouldn’t understand the magnitude.

「Besides, it isn’t over yet.」

Aearis, whose eyes had suddenly turned golden, proclaimed that. Proving her words to be true, the end of the temple that had been in an isolated dimension began to return to the normal world, and at the same time, something was summoned into the inner courtyard.

「W-What is it?」

「It would be inconvenient to have such a big thing summoned her, so I had it moved to the inner courtyard for now. The space was restored, but that didn’t mean that the casualties from this battle had been repaired yet. Once we’ve retrieved everything that we can, we had best make haste and get away from here in order to deal with the rest of the matter.」

「Is it actually the goddess this time around?」

Without answering Haruna’s question, Aearis let out a meaningful smile. The next moment, the color of her eyes returned to the normal blue.

「Big Brother! Something terribly huge is coming our way!」

「……Alright! Let’s quickly get to our counterplan!」

Hearing Layotte’s words, they all picked up and gathered everything they could, rushing out of the temple. The only things they left in there were several cerberus remains and the untouched Oria, who had been utterly forgotten after she had passed out on the outset.