I used to be a Hero, yet I am now but an old fool—an old fool holding his palm out to a princess, and holding a katana in the other hand.
“Go! I will hold things down here!”
Princess Samantha nods to my yell and takes off on Aureos, her trusty dragon knight, who spreads his wings before falling off the edge—and soaring up and away.
Dragons are amazing. Why does Japan not have them? I would like to entice some of them to emigrate, someday.
Enough of that. For now, I head down to the lower decks where I can sense demons forming from the sheer amount of mana being thrown around by the dragons’ and the fortress’s attacks.
They are very easy to cut, and so I try to enjoy my walk. I encounter some of them on my way to the mess hall—I am famished and require a snack.
Arriving at the mess hall, I chance upon my retinue. They are bewildered upon seeing me.
“Please, Your Majesty! You are only 42 years old, and must escape!”
“Nonsense!” I cut apart a flaming demon, coating my sword in flames. Whoh, this looks amazing. “Look, Jin-dono! I have a flaming sword! It looks amazing, does it not! Anyway, I must acquire snacks.”
Each time I wave around my sword like a child showing his new toy, another demon is cut down. Truly, it’s such a relaxing day today.
Meanwhile, my retinue are far from being bested by mere demons. One of my favorite cooks, Kirukiru-sensei, is turning one of them into sashimi. He taste-tests it, and blue lights swell out of his eyes and mouth. He shouts and hunts down more demons, cleavers in both hands.
I wonder if that is okay. I will find a doctor for him soon after this battle.
The lights turn off, and then turn on again, accompanied by booms of thunder. This sensation of fighting in momentary non-gravity and flickering lights is … amazing! At some point, after a great rumble, gravity even became 45 degrees to the floor! The tables and furniture of the mess hall are sliding and tumbling, which I dodge, all the while cutting up demons which have started to launch themselves off from the moving furniture and straight at me.
Luckily, I dabbled in Ninjutsu, and I still remember the Wall Walker technique. Fighting on a 45-degree smooth slope like this should serve as good training for the technique!
Truly, I would never have had the creativity to come up with the idea of training in such an insane environment!
Thick green beams, that could swallow a man, cut through one side of the room and out the other. I am unsure if I want to cut them. Cutting beam attacks is always tricky.
Thanks to the beam attacks, I can see the lightning attacks causing Kaminari-dono’s lights to flicker. Although I very much like this new training environment, I wonder if Kaminari-dono is doing fine? The beam attacks are very potent, after all.
{Ahaha, you ’kaay, Embruhh?}
Hmm… Alright! He sounds okay!
How curious, however, that Kaminari-dono is getting drunk off of lightning. Rather, is that not amazing in itself? The fact that Kaminari-dono can get drunk is a discovery! And off of lightning?
Yet, however, what a bitter fruit. If only I did not have poison immunity preventing me from getting drunk, I could drink with him. Oh! My fantasy of pouring him a cup of lightning and playing with ancient board games in a garden is dashed all too quickly!
I am stricken by grief. I suppose it is time to vent. Mhmm, a breath of fresh air is in order. I better hurry—
“Your Majesty! Please wait for us!”
Tsk. I suppose I will proceed at a gentle walking pace, or else they would start crying like children looking for their parents again. I wish I had subordinates like the Princess—oh-so-carefree and unafraid to speak ill in one’s face!
Seriously, it is terrifying to be constantly praised. Also, I must always second guess my decisions. Seriously, I nearly never know if they are agreeing out of their own competency or out of blind faith! Agh, somebody take my job from me already!
The floor begins righting itself, and gravity’s direction is restored to its usual direction. I can hear a belabored voice roaring “It wasn’t my fault, I swear! See? I’m helping!”
I had better go above-deck. This place is too claustrophobic, and Kirukiru-sensei is too jacked up on demon sashimi to make me any snacks. How disappointing.
I welcome the fresh air and far-echoing chaos of destruction above-deck. As expected, it is quite refreshing out here. However, there appears to be a child mounting one of Kaminari-dono’s thunder cannons. I thought we, Japan, were the only ones who gave children basic cannoneering instruction? How quaint.
None of the fortress's attacks are reaching us now. Meteors streak past and under us, turning the desert below into glass dunes. Perhaps I should make a wish? More live combat training, please.
A black egg crashes and cracks upon the deck, and from which many dozens of starfish demons emerge.
That was perhaps the fastest grant of a wish I have ever experienced. Oh well.
I take the battle stance of my forefathers. “Come! All of you, training fodder!”
I cut and I cut, but they do not relent—which is good! I wonder, however, if my retinue will catch up before I dispatch all of these. I also remember that their bodies must be burned so that they do not leave behind seeds for the future. How sad that I never invested in fire magic. All I can do now is cut them down to the cellular level.
***
My name is Princess Burnheart, flying into battle with my knight. I am sorry, Sir Grey, but for the first time, I heard duty call. I don’t know how I know, but … I must absolutely kill this fortress.
“Quick, princess! We must engage in a deathly, futile battle!”
Why does this dragon like saying such a thing? And this is the second time. “Aureos, if we were not in mid-air, I would make you taste earth.”
Ahead of us is the flying fortress. Behind us is Sir Grey. All around us are Liberty Dragons and the expedition’s wyvern riders.
We … cannot not get close at all. The fortress’s defenses repel even the Liberty Dragons. The wyvern riders, at least, get a quick death. They launch their suicide attacks with smaller versions of Marge’s extreme explosion magic devices, the resonance bombs. Aureos and I could do nothing but stay behind the skirmish line, evaluating the fortress for any weaknesses, and staying out of blast radii and attack lines.
We are amidst a clash of godly powers. Even the wyvern riders, fleeting their lives may be, unleash resonance bombs with fire in their eyes, inspiring even the Liberty Dragons to greater risks.
I cannot be the same.
I must live. At the same time, I must kill.
A burst of lightning zips past all of us. I look back, and Sir Grey is the target. A lightning cannon on the fortress is incessantly targeting him, causing him to stutter and fall slightly each time. It doesn’t look like it is dealing critical damage, but it is surely doing some type of harm. Rather, if this continues, he is sure to crash; the engine shutoff duration is increasing with each hit.
Just when I think that there is no way to penetrate the fortress’s defenses, a barrage of resonance bombs from Sir Grey’s magic cannons push the fortress’s barriers past their saturation point. There are cracks and holes left behind, attempting to seal themselves as fast as they could.
As if I would let it. I cast broadcast magic. “Wyvern riders! Attack the cracks and holes! Widen them!”
Almost all at once, the outermost barrier breaks, followed quickly by the inner barriers. A few breath beam attacks and resonance bombs make it through, and we’d finally inflicted damage on the fortress.
It replies with a more desperate barrage, and more of my men are falling from the skies. The Liberty Dragons are attempting to shield some of them, but some of the fortress’s weapons have intense concussion, and knock them away.
This… I cannot let this continue.
“Aureos. I am activating a Duel spell. Please consent.”
The pressure that I feel from my magic eases, indicating that Aureos is linked. Meanwhile, I snipe my intent at what I believe to be the fortress’s bridge.
For a while, there is no response.
“Aureos, target the bridge. Grab its attention.”
Disappointing he may be, and perhaps weaker than the Liberty Dragons here, his magic is precise, even at artillery ranges.
He fires a laser breath attack, not unlike the Liberty Dragons’. It is much smaller, but that only means it is harder to see from long range—at least, inside this aerial battlespace where dazzlingly-bright beam attacks are the norm.
On explosive impact, there is no apparent damage to the bridge. However, I feel a reply through my magic. Whoever commands the fortress is angered.
In the next moment, we are teleported, now face-to-face with its bridge. Surprisingly, there’s actually a hole where Aureos’s attack hit.
Surprisingly, there are a squirming hundred tentacles emerging from the hole.
This makes it easier, however.
“Princess, shall I?”
“With haste. There is no need to entertain this one.”
In all honesty, I expected this fortress to be one of my father’s superweapons. For it to be a mimic, of all things—perhaps we should consider putting more budget into their pre-emptive extermination so that they do not spontaneously form floating fortresses.
I was so very prepared to parlay with the commander and trade sophisticated insults indirectly directed towards my father. Ugh. Disappointing.
Then again, perhaps this is still something that father had something of a hand in? I will think about it tomorrow. For now, we will swat this monster from the sky.
A magic circle appears over us, firing a bundle of resonance bombs into the horizon, completely missing the bridge. It travels fast, quickly disappearing from sight.
In a flash, we exchange places with it. The inertias of each object are preserved.
Behind us, a massive resonance explosion scoops out the top of the fortress. We make sure not to look at the explosion, not even out of curiosity; we do not have eye doctors to treat retinal radiation burns and the like, and is not the sort of thing that low-tier healing spells can be used for. Of course, Aureos’s self-healing could still handle it, but “pain is pain,” so he says.
Once the explosion is settled, and the foreground finally dims, we start to make our way back to Sir Grey, keeping distance from the burning fortress. Its weapons are still firing, albeit haphazardly, while the Liberty Dragons leisurely carve out chunks of its bulkheads.
I broadcast a general order to withdraw. It is as good as defeated.
