Arifureta Zero: Volume 1 Page 14

  This was the most bizarre execution Oscar had ever witnessed.

  “I remember now. Reisen... Miledi Reisen. You were the daughter of Count Reisen. You’re from that family of imperial executioners! Wait, your entire family was supposed to have died a few years ago. Why are you still—” Miledi wasn’t interested in entertaining his questions.

  “Don’t waste your breath. Like I said, this is checkmate.” Before he could finish, Miledi buried him under a ton of rock.

  The floor reverberated with the sound of a hundred boulders slamming into the ground. For a second, Oscar was worried Miledi would bring the whole cavern collapsing down on them.

  Miledi protected Oscar and the kids from the shockwaves with a gravity barrier, but he deployed his own Hallowed Ground just in case, then stood protectively over Dylan, Katy, and Corrin.

  Eventually, the noise subsided and the dust cleared away. Miledi walked down a flight of imaginary stairs and stopped next to Oscar.

  “Phew. That’s the end of Miledi-chan’s one-sided slaughter. Did you see me, O-kun? I was amazing, right? I was like, super cool out there, right?” She was back to talking in that same cheerful tone Oscar knew so well.

  He could hardly believe she’d been mercilessly slaughtering people mere seconds ago.

  Oscar smiled at Miledi. It was an awkward smile, but this time it was one hundred percent genuine.

  “You’re... one hell of a woman, you know that?” He said the first thing that came to mind.

  Once the battle was over, Miledi patiently waited for Oscar to heal himself.

  “But you know, that’s a pretty neat trick. You hold up your umbrella and it rains healing light down on you. Is this supposed to be a joke because of how normally umbrellas keep rain off you?”

  “I just figured the stretcher was the best place to enchant with healing magic. The ore’s best suited for the purpose. It’s not really a joke or anything.” The healing light of the high-ranked spell Benison Aura poured down Oscar as he spoke. Though, now that I think about it, it does make for a pretty good joke. I’m holding up an umbrella that’s raining on me.

  His wounds had mostly closed up, and he looked far less pale. Corrin snickered at him as he looked away from Miledi, embarrassed by his unintentional bad pun.

  “Anyway, Miledi. How long were you inside that building? And how’d you get inside in the first place?” He decided now was a good time to change the topic.

  Miledi’s grin faded and she shrugged.

  “While you were fighting, I punched my way up through the sixty-sixth floor and snuck into the building from below. I lowered the kidnapped children down to the floor below. My comrades led them to your staircase from there, O-kun. I imagine they must have led the kids to the surface by now.”

  “By punched your way up... you mean you used that black sphere of yours?”

  “Correeect~”

  “Since you know about my staircase, that means you were following me, right?”

  “Yep. I know you told me to leave, but I wanted to say my goodbyes to the kids first. Though, when I got to the orphanage Moorin-san looked almost hysterical. When she told me what happened, I thought I had to chase after you, so I asked my comrades to guard the orphanage. When I found you, you were just leaving your house. You had an umbrella even though it wasn’t raining, and you jumped way higher than anyone should be able to.”

  So she went to the orphanage right after I did, then caught up in the time I was getting my equipment.

  “Why didn’t you say anything to me?” Even if halfway through Oscar’s invasion she’d decided it was smarter for her to head to the building straight away, she’d had plenty of opportunities to talk to him before that. Considering her personality, he’d expected her to show herself right away, honestly.

  Miledi looked around uncomfortably.

  “Well... I thought you wouldn’t want to see me, O-kun.”

  “......” In other words, you’re telling me that arrogant, straightforward girl got cold feet at the last minute? Wait. I’m the one who rejected her. No matter how outgoing and cheerful she is, that had to have hurt. Oscar thought back to the sad smile she’d given him at the end.

  She’d been afraid of being rejected by him again, yet she’d still plunged into danger to help him. Oscar couldn’t even think of what to say to her. His musings were interrupted by someone tugging on his collar. He looked down to see Corrin staring angrily at him.

  “Onii-chan, did you bully Onee-chan?”

  “Huh? Uh, no I...” Does that count as bullying? I guess it does. Oscar trailed off guiltily, unable to fully deny Corrin’s words. Corrin looked from Oscar to Miledi, who was smiling awkwardly. That settled it.

  “Onii-chan, when you do something bad, what are you supposed to say?”

  “Huh?”

  “Onii-chan!”

  “Oh, uh, s-sorry?”

  “Not to me, to Onee-chan!”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  Eighteen-year-old Oscar had just been scolded by a seven year old.

  Miledi burst into laughter. It seemed she’d been trying to hold it in this whole time. She laughed so hard that she had to hold her stomach and pause for breath.

  “Haaah... Haaah... Oh man, my stomach hurts! O-kun, you just got lectured by a little girl! Ahahahahah!”

  “Sh-Shut up! Besides, you’re the—”

  “Onii-chan!”

  “Guh.” Oscar groaned. Tears leaked out of the corner of Miledi’s eyes.

  Oscar adjusted his glasses and got to his feet. He had fully recovered. He snapped his umbrella shut, then turned to Miledi, who was still laughing.

  “Miledi.”

  “Ahahahaha. C-Corrin-chan, you’re the best! You guessed it! O-Oh man, it hurts to breathe.”

  “Miledi.”

  She stopped snickering when she heard the seriousness in Oscar’s voice. With tears still in her eyes, she looked up at him.

  “Miledi, I don’t think the decision I made back then was wrong. You asked me a serious question, and I wanted to give you a serious answer.”

  “O-kun.”

  “That’s why I won’t apologize. Still, something I need to say.”

  Miledi tilted her head in confusion.

  “Thank you.” Her eyes opened wide.

  “Thank you for saving us. Thank you for lending me your strength. I owe you a debt. Truly, thank you.”

  “O-Oh... Y-You’re welcome?”

  Miledi hadn’t been expecting that. She blushed a little, unused to such straightforward gratitude. The tips of her ears were red.

  Corrin glanced between the two of them, her eyes brimming with the kind of curiosity only a young child could possess.

  Oscar and Miledi stared awkwardly at each other for a few seconds.

  “Ahem, anyway. I’ve recovered now, so we should head back to the surface. You said that artifact was called Ehit’s Eyes, right? I need to start analyzing it to figure out how to turn Dylan and Katy back.”

  “Y-Yeah. Let’s do that.”

  They looked away, both painfully aware of Corrin’s gaze. Just then, they heard something.

  “Gyaaah... Gaaah...” It sounded like a pained groan.

  Oscar and Miledi exchanged disbelieving glances. Miledi cleared a few of the boulders with a wave of her hand, and they found Forneus lying underneath them. By some miracle, he was still alive.

  “Y-Y-Y-You bastards... Face E-Ehit’s wrath!” He coughed up blood with every word.

  Oscar couldn’t believe he was still alive.

  “How... How on earth did you survive that?” He muttered. Miledi just stared in slack-jawed disbelief, while Corrin let out a small scream.

  His body from the neck down had been crushed, and his head hadn’t come out unscathed, either. Plus, his skull had caved in, and his eyes were nearly falling out of their sockets. Yet, despite all of that, he still drew breath. He glared at Oscar with a look of pure hatred.

  “Our lives belongs to Ehit... We live for
him... and we die for him! That is the only meaning to our existence! How can you not realize that!” Faint tendrils of mana began swirling around him.

  Was it his fanatical faith that kept him alive? Regardless of how he’d survived, the fact was that he looked terrifying.

  “Die, die, die! Heretics, enemies of Ehit... You don’t deserve life!” He was no longer sane. Though he was on the verge of death, his expression was ecstatic.

  Is he even human anymore?

  “Oh Lord Ehiiiiiiiiiiiit, my exalted god! Watch my final moments! Know that until the last, I, Forneus Abyssion, was your loyal servant!”

  “This isn’t good. Miledi!”

  “Die already!”

  Oscar had a really bad feeling about the whole situation. Trusting in his instincts, Oscar raised his umbrella and fired a needle at Forneus. At the same time, Miledi cast a gravity spell.

  The needle pierced Forneus’ head with a wet thud. Miledi drove the point in even further with her magic, to ensure the blow was fatal.

  No human should have been able to survive that. Granted, no human should have been able to survive Miledi’s first attack, either. However, Forneus’ intense hatred kept him bound to mortality for a few seconds longer.

  “Glory to Lord Ehit!” There was a needle stuck through his head, and yet he was still able to talk.

  Oscar and Miledi watched as his mana dispersed into mist.

  A second later, a massive explosion rocked the ceiling. Or rather, the roof. From what Oscar could tell, the explosion had come from the floor above. The tunnel shook from the force of the explosion.

  More explosions shook the demolished building. They were smaller than the one above the room’s roof, but they still blew out the building’s walls.

  “Ability ten, Hallowed Ground, activate!” Stones rained down from the ceiling. Oscar immediately deployed a barrier to protect him and Corrin.

  Miledi’s face twisted into a grimace as she saw the cracks growing in the ceiling.

  “O-Oh no, the ceiling’s going to collapse!” Miledi took to the skies. Surrounded by a whirling tornado of blue mana, she attempted to reverse gravity for the floor above.

  “Gaaah... Th-There’s too much to hold!” It seemed the previous explosion had destroyed the foundations of the entire floor.

  Miledi’s mana drained away at a prodigious rate as she held five hundred square meters of floor together.

  “O-kun, I won’t be able to hold it for long! You have to hurry and get Dylan and the others out of here!”

  “But what about Ehit’s Eyes!?”

  “Why do you think I’m trying to hold up the ceiling!? We don’t have time to carry that thing out, so you’ll have to strengthen it enough that it won’t break!”

  Miledi could have easily evacuated everyone before the ceiling collapsed, but she’d tried to hold it up instead to buy enough time for Oscar to get the artifact out safely.

  Considering how large it was though, it would be hard for Oscar to carry it through the passage he’d come in. And it definitely wouldn’t fit in the impromptu staircase he’d made. Plus, there wasn’t any time to transmute a larger passage.

  He knew he wouldn’t be able to use the passage Miledi had made to the sixty-sixth floor either. The floor above collapsing wouldn’t affect just this floor, but likely the one below it as well.

  In other words, the only way for Oscar to protect Ehit’s Eyes was to transmute a box around it that was strong enough to withstand the impact. They’d be able to come back for it later that way.

  “Got it. Just give me twenty seconds!”

  “Nnnnnngh. I’ll try!” Miledi lowered Ehit’s Eyes next to Oscar.

  He put his hands on the ground in front of it and began transmuting.

  He regretted not being able to take it back and save Dylan and Katy right away, but he shook off those thoughts.

  “I’ll make it harder than anything on Tortus.” Oscar’s umbrella was crafted from the most resilient alloy on the planet. He’d mixed azantium with sealstone and a few other essential metals. And now he was going to melt it down to coat the rock tomb he’d raised around Ehit’s Eyes. That, combined with the activation of Hallowed Ground, would definitely be enough to ward off the ceiling’s collapse.

  Damn you for making me do this, Forneus. Oscar really didn’t want to part with his prized umbrella, but he had no choice.

  “Graaaaaaaaah!” Just before he could transmute it though, Oscar heard a peculiar scream.

  “What was that!?” The room shook as something banged against the walls of the building.

  A second later, an entire wall was sent flying.

  A three-headed earth dragon emerged from the rubble. It was only four meters long, but the danger it posed was immense.

  “Wait, what on earth is that monster doing here!?”

  The dragon looked up at Miledi, reacting to her voice. She groaned in a very manly fashion.

  “Graaaaaaaaaaaah!” One of the heads’ eyes glowed bright red and it spewed fire at her. Even Oscar could feel the flames’ heat.

  “W-W-Wait, time out! Spatial Severance!” Miledi’s gravity sphere swallowed up the flames. She had to divert some of her power to do that though, so the cracks in the ceiling deepened.

  “Miledi! Damn dragon, stop that!” Oscar pointed his umbrella at the dragon and cast Spark Plasma. Oscar’s bolts of lightning hit the dragon dead-on. However, it barely made the monster stagger. Spark Plasma was Oscar’s strongest instantaneous spell, and the dragon just shrugged it off like it was nothing.

  “This isn’t good...” The dragon turned to Oscar. He’d succeeded in grabbing its attention, but he hadn’t expected it to do no damage to it.

  However, for reasons Oscar couldn’t fathom, the dragon didn’t fire its breath at him. It simply glared at Oscar with its three heads for a while... before looking away.

  “Huh?” Oscar followed its gaze. It was staring at Ehit’s Eyes.

  Why’s it so focused on that? Either way, Oscar wasn’t about to let this opportunity go. He quickly stooped down, and told Corrin to get on his back. He belted his umbrella and scooped Dylan and Katy into his arms.

  A second later, the dragon roared again.

  “Graaaaaaaaah!” This time it did charge. Oscar could feel his heart thumping loudly in his chest.

  He activated his Onyx Boots and sped away. He was worried about what might happen to Ehit’s Eyes, but there was no time to fortify it now.

  The dragon reached Oscar’s old location a second after he leaped ten meters away.

  “Gaaaaaaaaah!”

  “Ngh... Hallowed Ground, partial activation!” Oscar dropped Dylan and Katy and pulled his umbrella out. He barely got his barrier up in time to deflect the dragon’s breath. However, a second later the breath’s strength doubled.

  “Nnnnnngh!” Oscar was slowly pushed back by the force of the dragon’s breath.

  He wasn’t able to see it through his umbrella, but the dragon’s second head had added its wind breath to the other head’s fire.

  If he was pushed back any further, Dylan and Katy would no longer be inside the barrier.

  Miledi’s strained voice reached Oscar’s panicked ears.

  “You little! Take this— Heavensfall!” A massive wall of gravity pressed down on the dragon.

  The breath attack stopped, and Oscar fell to his knees. Plumes of white smoke rose up from the molten ground around him. The heat was so intense that he broke out into a sweat. Though part of that might have just been because of how panicked he was.

  He looked over at the dragon.

  “So it can even take Miledi’s magic...” She’d succeeded in pushing it down. However, its legs were still planted firmly on the ground, and it glared fiercely at Miledi, even through the pressure of her spell. Heavensfall hadn’t been able to defeat it.

  However, Oscar noticed something.

  “I knew it, it’s protecting the artifact.” Despite the pressure Miledi was placing on it, the dragon
didn’t thrash around. It kept a careful eye on Ehit’s Eyes and kept its distance to ensure Miledi and Oscar’s attacks didn’t accidentally hit it.

  Oscar suddenly remembered an old tale he’d heard as a kid. Supposedly there was a treasure buried deep inside one of the labyrinth-like floors of the Greenway. The adventurer who defeated the dragon guarding said treasure would have their name go down in history.

  Forneus had given his life to create that explosion above them. However, there’d also been an explosion inside the building.

  There was only one theory that made sense to Oscar. This dragon had been the original guardian of Ehit’s Eyes.

  He guessed Forneus and his knights hadn’t been able to kill it, and had therefore settled on sealing it inside that building. With his dying breath, Forneus had undone that seal.

  “O-kun, I’m sorry... I can’t hold it much longer.” Miledi’s strained voice broke Oscar out of his musings.

  He looked up, and saw her grimacing from the effort of holding up the ceiling. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and sweat poured down her forehead. Even he could tell she was using every last ounce of strength to hold it together.

  She had her back against the ceiling and was somehow keeping it afloat while also putting pressure on the dragon.

  She wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long, though.

  Suddenly, she smiled.

  “Run away, O-kun. I’ll keep the dragon and the ceiling at bay until then.”

  Oscar gasped. She was planning on sacrificing herself for him.

  “I’ll protect Ehit’s Eyes somehow, too. Leave it all to the invincible... Miledi-chan! But even if I’m invincible... I can’t hold this any longer, so run!” How would she protect Ehit’s Eyes while avoiding the dragon, all while the room was collapsing around her to boot? Would she give up her life just to protect it with gravity magic? Even though she was almost completely out of mana? In all honesty, it was unlikely she’d be able to do it, but Oscar believed her. He knew she’d fulfill her promises no matter what.

  She sounded as frivolously cheery as always, but Oscar knew she was just trying to act tough for them. Even now, she still hadn’t broken. She would save Oscar and his family, even if it cost her life to do it. Her will was iron.