Shirakome Arifureta Zero: Volume 5

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-7183-1808-3
Verlag: J-Novel Club
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, Band 5, 250 Seiten

Reihe: Arifureta Zero

The Liberators have continued steadily growing in strength. But after discovering the true nature of her ancient magic, Miledi has transformed into a totally different person. Oscar and the others are shocked by the sudden change, nevertheless, they track down Laus and send a rescue party to save him. But the church is hot on his trail and his battles have left him exhausted. Will the Liberators find him first...or will Ehit's pawns?

Autoren/Hrsg.

Shirakome, Ryo

Weitere Mitwirkende

Takayaki

Ningen

Leseproben

Chapter I: There’s No Way My Little Miledi Can Be This Cute!

A little over a month had passed since the war between the Haltina Republic and the Elbard Theocracy ended.

Peace and calm slowly returned to the Pale Forest. The victory celebrations were over, and people were now mourning those who had fallen as they labored to repair the damage the war had done to the forest.

But while the beastmen had started to calm down at long last, in a part of the forest a short distance from the capital, things were still quite heated.

“Uwoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!”

A bloodcurdling scream resounded through the otherwise silent forest. The densely packed trees absorbed a lot of sound, but the scream was loud enough that it resonated despite that fact.

A powerful shock wave followed the scream, shaking all the nearby trees.

“Fighting spirit alone won’t get you anywhere.”

There were two people fighting. One of them was Oscar Orcus, a bespectacled young man wearing all black. The other was Vandre Schnee, a youth who had his hair on one side in a braid and a muffler wrapped around his neck.

Oscar swung his black umbrella in a wide horizontal arc, his expression grim. In response, Vandre narrowed his eyes and brought one leg up while also dropping his elbow, trapping Oscar’s umbrella with ease.

Thanks to Oscar’s transmutation abilities, the umbrella was a full twenty kilograms of super-compressed, dense metal. On top of that, Oscar was using body strengthening magic and the powers of the numerous artifacts he had on hand to enhance his abilities. Despite all that, however, Vandre had been able to stop his full-powered swing without batting an eyelid.

“I can read you like a book,” Vandre sneered.

“Or so you think.”

As wind whipped around the two of them, Oscar stomped his foot against the ground. A number of his Metamorph Chains shot out and headed straight for Vandre. They surrounded him, leaving him nowhere to run. Their ends had been sharpened into spearheads as well.

Oscar was going all out. If anyone who didn’t know these two had been watching, they would have thought they were actually trying to kill each other. Though, oddly enough, it was only Oscar who was going for lethal attacks. For his part, Vandre simply watched calmly as the chains went for him. There was no bloodlust in his eyes.

Still, he did look pissed off. The man in front of him had no appreciation for art and continued to mass-produce disgusting failures one after another.

His muffler flapped in the wind as he gracefully dodged his way through the chains. In one fluid motion, he got behind Oscar, using him as a meat shield against his own creations. He also crafted a dagger of ice to parry the few chains that he couldn’t dodge before going for a back attack against Oscar.

“Gah!” Oscar yelped as he just barely managed to redirect his chains from hitting him, but that left him open for a split second.

Vandre’s job was an artist, which meant he had a natural talent for martial as well. Or so he claimed, but considering he really was a skilled martial artist, no one could argue against him.

“Die, fucking four-eyes,” Vandre said that and stepped forward, pushing off the ground so hard that the earth shook, then launched a punch with all the skill and force of his martial talent behind it.

Oscar was too off-balance to dodge, so all he could do was use the sleeves of his Ebony Coat to block for him.

Vandre’s Tiger Fist slammed into the coat with unparalleled destructive force.

“Gah!”

There was a loud boom and Oscar was sent flying, the shock wave damaging his internal organs. He bounced around like a pinball before finally slamming into the trunk of a tree so hard that his breath was forced from his lungs.

“Gah... Shit!”

He tried to struggle to his feet, but he couldn’t push himself up off his knees. He retched violently, puke spilling from his open mouth. Once he was done, he looked up to see a shoe coming down on a branch in front of him.

“That’s our hundredth match. I’ve won eighty, while you’ve won twenty. Hmph! I thought you showed promise for a shitty four-eyes, but I guess not.”

“Oh, so you did have hope for me, then?” Oscar tried to keep his tone light, but he said those words through gritted teeth.

Vandre wasn’t in the mood for joking either and he said coldly, “You’re the one who wanted our sparring matches to be as close to real fights as possible. So tell me, what the fuck is this pathetic display? Remind me again, four-eyes, how many of our matches have you won in the past ten days?”

“...”

“If you won’t say it, I will. Zero.”

After the battle at the Demon Lord’s castle, when they’d been hiding in the forest between the snowfields and the empire, Oscar and Vandre had begun sparring as part of their training. For the first fifty bouts or so, Oscar hadn’t been able to win a single time. But Oscar kept improving and eventually he started taking wins off of Vandre. Though he would never say it to Oscar’s face, Vandre had grown to respect Oscar’s sheer tenacity, as well as the ingenuity he used to make up for his lack of close combat skills.

Once the war between the republic and the theocracy had ended, they’d resumed their sparring matches, and Oscar’s newfound ferocity had earned him a string of unbroken victories. But that had only been at the start.

A week passed, then two. By the third week, Oscar had regressed to a shadow of his former self. It was like he’d forgotten everything he’d learned and was just rushing recklessly into the fray over and over.

In the beginning, he’d analyzed his opponents carefully, seeing through all of their trump cards and using his vast array of artifacts to counter each one of them. His crafty, versatile tactics and ability to think on the fly had made him a formidable opponent.

But now, you couldn’t see any of that genius in his fighting style. Oscar’s methodical approach had instead been replaced by impatience, unease, and desperation. It was easy to see he was frustrated by his own powerlessness.

The fact that he was in a slump was obvious to everyone, and the reason for that slump was just as obvious.

“If you’re like this, Miledi’s just gonna laugh at you when she wakes up.”

“Ah...”

The problem was that Miledi had yet to open her eyes.

At the end of the war, she’d dueled one of the apostles who had come to destroy the sacred tree Uralt.

She knew that if she wanted to change the world, she needed to defeat the biggest symbol of Ehit’s might. She needed to show people that the church’s power wasn’t absolute. That the desire for freedom was stronger than any tool in Ehit’s arsenal. As the leader of the Liberators, it was her duty to lead the charge. And in the end, Miledi had won that duel.

The fight had pushed her to her limits, and something had awoken inside her during it. But whatever she’d grasped, it had come with a cost.

Her abnormal power had been so strong that not even an apostle could stand against it. It had seemed like the very planet they lived on had been granting Miledi its strength.

Naturally, wielding such an enormous power had put a huge burden on her. Meiru’s restoration magic had been able to heal her physical wounds, but despite that fact, she’d been in a coma for the past month.

Everyone believed that she was just recovering from the exhaustion using such powerful magic had caused her. They were certain she’d wake up again. After all, there was no way Miledi Reisen’s story was ending here.

The Liberators firmly believed she’d open her eyes eventually. But that didn’t stop them from worrying. And the longer she slept, the greater that worry grew.

After a while, Oscar couldn’t help but think that if he’d just done more to damage the apostle before Miledi had gone off to fight her, maybe she wouldn’t be in this state. He was filled with regret, disgusted by his own powerlessness.

Of course, Vandre understood how Oscar felt all too well. But even so, he glared coldly down at the synergist and said, “Everyone’s doing what they can to prepare for the coming battles.”

“I know.”

“Even without Miledi, the Liberators won’t falter.”

“...”

“No, we can’t afford to falter because our leader expects us to stay strong.”

Oscar grit his teeth and rose to his feet. His expression was a mixture of affirmation and rebellion. He knew Vandre was right, but he still didn’t like hearing that from him.

“Miledi showed her strength to the world. Now it’s our turn. The world needs to know that we’re with her. Most importantly, she needs to know that we’re with her. That’s why you need to take this training more seri—”

“I know, goddammit!” Oscar roared and rushed forward, starting their 101st sparring match.

Vandre clicked his tongue, disappointed by the desperation he saw in Oscar.

“If you really knew, then you wouldn’t be putting up such a pathetic fight!”

Vandre crafted a spear out of ice and met Oscar head-on.

The sounds of battle echoed through the forest like a...