With the jizō’s barrier broken, I pulled up the smartphone map and searched for masked soldiers. Good — search works. And then I target-locked every masked soldier in the manor.
“H-hey — what is that…!?”
Yamagata and the others stared up at the swarm of small [Multiple] magic circles filling the night sky. Leen turned to me.
“Doing it again?”
“Better to wipe out the obstacles. Don’t want to be surrounded when we transfer over.”
I held my hand toward the sky, gathered my magic, and triggered every [Multiple] circle at once.
“Light, pierce — radiant holy spear — Shining Javelin.”
A rain of light came down. Beautiful against the dark night, like a meteor shower. But standing in the place where they were falling, I hadn’t realized the shock-noise and ground-shake would be this intense. Light-spears struck every part of the manor — outdoors, indoors, it didn’t matter, they punched through roofs and kept falling. Crap — I hadn’t thought of that.
When the rain ended, soldiers’ shouts rang out — “Enemy attack! Enemy attack!” — but I locked onto hostile Takeda soldiers and dropped [Paralyze] the same way; everything went quiet.
“All right — let’s move.”
“Oi… that was all you?”
Baba turned his head slowly, blinking. The other two had their jaws hanging open, but eventually managed words.
“This is… well, something else…”
“Hey, hey — between this and the rest, isn’t Kansuke probably done already?”
The “hostile Takeda soldiers” search did include Kansuke, so it’s possible. But I was confident he was still standing. Just like a charm can negate [Paralyze], anyone with strong magic power has reduced effect.
“Kansuke’s probably fine. Right — let’s go settle this.”
I opened a [Gate] to Kansuke in the middle enclosure. Stepping through the light-door, we came out before a wide garden in front of a large residence — and there stood the dark-skinned, one-eyed man. Takeda soldiers lay strewn motionless around him.
The area was lit by braziers; in their flickering light, the eyepatched, one-eyed man fixed us with a level gaze as we appeared.
“I see — and I wondered who. The Four Heavenly Kings themselves. My, my — that is a surprise. However did you manage it?”
“Not telling you a damn thing. Hurry up and die!”
Yamagata raised his greatsword and slashed at Kansuke without hesitation. Whoa — quick on the trigger, that one! Looks the part, acts the part.
Yamagata Masakage, the Takeda’s lead spearpoint, looked set to send Kansuke’s head flying. But an armored warrior cut in from the side and intercepted the blow with a katana.
“What——!?”
The warrior in red armor — a shock of pure white horsehair streaming from the lion’s-mask helmet — turned aside Yamagata’s greatsword with brute force.
A red oni-mask covering the face. Nearly two meters tall, muscles swollen to the bursting point. This… no — could this be——
“Lord Shingen…”
Baba spoke in a strangled voice, and I turned my eyes back to the red warrior. So it is.
That was Takeda Shingen. The former Takeda lord. And now — Kansuke’s puppet, then.
“Kansuke, you bastard! Using His Lordship as a shield!?”
“A shield, hardly. His Lordship has merely come to protect me. Still — troubling His Lordship’s hand on my behalf is regrettable. Let me summon a replacement.”
Magic gathered around Kansuke, and a large magic circle appeared at the center of the garden. This is — dark-element magic. Summoning.
“Dark, come — what I seek is the bone-warrior — Skeleton Warrior.”
From the circle, a skeleton crawled out — curved sword in the right hand, round shield in the left. Going all-in on the undead, this guy!
“Blade Mode.”
The Brünhild gun-sword I’d drawn transformed in a single motion into a longsword. I sliced the lunging skeleton clean in half with a horizontal cut. But the skeleton — supposedly cut down — slowly began to move, body regenerating. The severed spine reconnected; it rose and came at me again. Whoa!?
“Light, come — radiant volley — Light Arrow.”
Leen’s incantation came from somewhere, and arrows of light slammed into the skeleton in front of me. The instant they hit, the skeleton clattered into pieces and stayed down — no regeneration.
“Undead are weak to light element, you know that, don’t you? Slicing blindly is a waste of time.”
Right. I shifted Brünhild back to gun mode and reloaded — light-magic-enchanted rounds, naturally.
I aimed at the skulls of the approaching skeletons and pulled the trigger. With the gunshot came a flash of light; the skull blew into fragments, and the skeleton lost function.
Glancing over, I saw Tsubaki-san, Baba, and Naitō also mowing down skeletons one after another — but the regenerating opponents made the work fruitless.
“Tedious. I’ll end this in one go.”
Leen released her magic, and a circle bloomed at her feet. It spread and spread until it encompassed the entire garden.
“Light, come — banishing radiance — Vanish.”
As Leen finished the incantation, every skeleton in the garden dissolved into particles of light and vanished. Whoa — incredible. Magic-prowess of the fae-folk, all right.
“Tch — light-purification magic. Impressive. However——”
The red-armored warrior moved to stand between Kansuke and us, blade leveled at Yamagata to hold him in check.
“Lord Shingen! Get out of the way!”
“Hehehe — futile. His Lordship will protect me. You all can’t level a blade at him, given the debts of loyalty you owe. Meaning — for me——”
I cut him off — crack! — Shingen’s mask split. Bit of a hassle, that, so I shot it.
The red warrior went down like cut strings, fell forward, and didn’t move. Right — mask broken, stops working. I spun Brünhild on my trigger finger, the gun that had broken the mask.
“What——!?”
Kansuke’s face twisted in shock, his eyes darting between the fallen Shingen and the gun in my hand.
“Boy, you…”
“I don’t owe him anything, so.”
“That’s true, but… give us a moment with our feelings, would you…”
Baba and Naitō shot me long-suffering looks. Yeah — that one’s on me, but what was I going to do.
“Heh, heh, heh — quite competent, aren’t you. But — I still have this!”
Kansuke pulled off his left eyepatch. Embedded in the socket — a glowing red eye, or jewel. Pulsing with a sinister, malevolent light, throbbing like a heartbeat. That’s the jewel, I take it?
“As long as I have this Imperishable Jewel, I cannot die! Cut off my head and I’ll regenerate in an instant!”
“And the jewel’s power is what’s giving the masked soldiers their undying force, isn’t it?”
“Precisely. The drawback is that it can only handle simple commands at long range, but it’s a magnificent artifact that bestows tremendous magic and undeath upon its bearer!”
Kansuke answered Leen’s question almost boastfully. So that’s the source of it all.
“Oraaaahhh!”
Yamagata’s greatsword came down on Kansuke. The full-force blow cleanly took his right arm — but the severed arm dissolved instantly into black mist, and a new arm regenerated from his right shoulder.
“What——!”
“Useless! Cut me down as many times as you like — I regenerate without limit. As long as this jewel exists!”
“[Apport].”
A round object pulled into my hand. In short — no jewel, no regeneration.
I held up the glowing red orb so Kansuke could see, tossed it once, caught it.
“What——!?”
He flailed, his hand flying to his left eye. Of course — the jewel wasn’t there. Now that I think about it, this thing was embedded there. Suddenly feels gross to be holding…
“You — when!?”
“Light-fingered, aren’t you. That a null-spell too?”
“Yeah — [Apport] — pulls small things toward me. Handy in moments like this.”
Leen peered into my palm, plucked the jewel between two fingers, and narrowed her eyes at it. She frowned and stared harder. That thing’s gross — careful.
“Hmph — this is no good. It’s been cursed to drain negative energy from its surroundings and muddy the holder’s heart. Cursed at some point. That’s what twisted this man. A clouded heart is necessary to operate undead, so — twistedly logical.”
“You can tell that much just looking?”
“Don’t underestimate fae eyes.”
Leen puffed out her flat chest a touch proudly. Reminder that she’s the fae-folk chief, easy to forget sometimes.
“Artifacts are ancient-civilization magic items. Extremely valuable — but this one’s spent so long drinking malice that it’s turned into a calamity-summoning thing. Best destroyed.”
She wound up her right hand, jewel in hand, toward the wall.
“What are you doing!? Stop!!”
“No.”
Leen flashed a thoroughly mean smile at Kansuke’s desperate shout. This one really does love doing what other people hate the most.
She hurled the jewel with full force. It struck the wall and shattered into fragments.
“UGAAAAAAHHH!!”
Kansuke let out a blood-rending scream and crumpled. He writhed in agony for a moment, then went still — and the body began to dry out and shrivel, mummifying.
”…Th— thank… you…”
The voice came, and then he was nothing but dust, scattered into the air on the wind.
“What — what just happened?”
“The body called Yamamoto Kansuke was already dead, in essence. The jewel had drained his magic, vitality, life-force — all of it.”
Leen answered easily as Yamagata stared at the clothes left where Kansuke had stood. So the jewel breaking meant the body couldn’t sustain itself anymore. He’d already turned undead, then.
“Ah — Lord Shingen——!”
At Tsubaki-san’s small voice, I turned — and Shingen and the other masked soldiers’ bodies were also turning to dust, blown into the night sky on the wind. Hope they pass on peacefully.
The Four and Tsubaki-san put their hands together and offered a prayer for the departed. Maybe because I’m Japanese — I joined the gesture without thinking.