110 - Chapter 36: The Correct Way to Use a Berserk Saint and the Magic Infusion Rod
Now, Marianne had struck a pose like a true hero before the undead that were surging forward like an avalanche.
"This is bad! This is really bad! I'm running dry! My magic is running dry! Ah, the cuticles of my hair are disappearing at an accelerating rate!? Wait, Mishandra! Hold back! Hold back a little──── ow! Bone! The bones hurt!!"
She was in a situation that would put a comedian to shame, her face instantly turning pale as she nearly gave up. Even in a critical state, she remained as noisy as ever.
For the time being, she hadn't been swallowed by the undead, but she was surrounded and being beaten to a pulp.
Perhaps thanks to the results of her morning practice, she was able to parry with close-quarters combat, but that was all. The close-combat hammer she usually used was unusable since its premise was weight reduction via magic, and she couldn't even manage physical reinforcement. She was surviving solely through responses with raw martial arts and emergency evasions via body movement. That said, with her hobby-level skill, she couldn't intercept or dodge everything, and she would occasionally scream in pain when a Dragonbone Soldier struck her from behind.
The reason was simple, it was a magic cost overrun.
Even if it was a sub-unit, the summoning of the god Mishandra, the exercise of that authority, and furthermore, maintaining Lumilia's reinforcement made the fuel efficiency abysmal. It even exceeded her own recovery rate, so she could visibly see her remaining magic amount decreasing.
The only reason she was still enduring it was.
'I'm putting all the power into that child, so that's why. Want some back?'
"N-no, that's not allowed! Lumilia-sama is a girl who can't fight, so if I cut the buffs now, it'll be a straight line to a bad end! Rather, can't you save more on your end!?"
'Impossible. This is the minimum.'
It was because Mishandra had thoughtfully set her manifestation output to the minimum. However, even with such consideration.
"Most of the consumption is being taken by your manifestation, but can't you just lend me the power!?"
'No. Not enough live feeling.'
Apparently, that was a line she wouldn't cross.
"This summon won't listen to me!?"
'Let's travel and collect badges.'
"What's with putting yourself in the Po-mon slot!? Also, are you pulling unnecessary information from my knowledge!?"
'Subculture, the best. Now main culture. Marianne is a cheap sub-scrip who is satisfied with the contract.'
"Who are you calling a cheap woman!? And don't just enjoy yourself at a time like this────!!"
She screamed, consuming stamina, and almost collapsed from slight anemia, leaning her back against the castle wall and realizing. Before she knew it, she had been cornered and had nowhere to run.
Ah, this is bad, she thought, pulling a face. Then, with a thought that seemed exasperated, Mishandra spoke.
'It's okay. Coming.──── Here.'
Immediately after, the Saint's Iron Club, Rasayana, fell from the sky, and the impact blasted the Dragonbone Soldiers in front of Marianne into pieces.
●
The impact spread across the plaza with directionality, blowing away the undead that had approached Marianne. Beyond the rising dust, the one who stood up slowly was the blue-haired girl──── Lilitia.
She recognized Marianne's figure and, showing a smile like a large blooming flower, started running to seek a warm embrace────.
"Big Sister…………! ────!?"
She stopped her movement abruptly.
What entered Lilitia's sight was indeed her beloved Big Sister, Marianne, but not in the state she knew. She looked quite tragic.
The clothes enveloping her were tattered.──── It was just because they were stage costumes and had no significant defensive power. There were small wounds on her royal body.──── She had been surrounded and beaten to a pulp, but it had ended with only minor scratches. Her beautiful silver hair had faded in color.──── It was simply an early symptom of magic deficiency. And above all, she had a frightened expression, perhaps because she had been surrounded by undead.──── It was just that the feeling of fatigue was showing on her face because her magic was scraping the bottom.
Who, Lilitia glared at the surroundings. Who had put her through this. At the end of her gaze, she recognized the undead, and the undead recognized by her trembled in fear at that pressure and held their breath. Even though they were dead.
Are those the enemies, Lilitia decided her target, unconsciously clenched her fist, and reached for the Rasayana that was stuck in the cobblestones.
"L-Lilitia…………?"
"────Big Sister. Should I just defeat these things?"
Marianne instinctively called out to Lilitia, whose expression had become devoid of strength and vitality like a Noh mask, but she didn't respond and instead posed a question.
"Eh? Yes………… it would be a help if you did that…………"
"What is that fairy monster in the back?"
Asked while pointing at Albe, Marianne thought, hmmm.
The person inside Alberstein, the sealed evil fairy, the cause of Lumilia's fall as royalty, the source of this current commotion, in other words, that guy was.
"Um………… the culprit of various things?"
"───────Mercy is unnecessary. Then, I shall execute them."
The Noh mask expression became a Hannya, and she pulled out the stuck Rasayana with raw arm strength, letting it hang loosely as she walked forward.
The Rasayana made an ominous sound, scraping the cobblestones with a grit-grit-grit, and for some reason, the undead felt it as a prelude to the hell about to begin, and instinctively took one or two steps back.
"────Hey."
It wasn't a loud voice. A small call. And yet, that voice, which sounded like it was crawling up from the bottom of hell, echoed well through the plaza.
"Hey, I say."
Standing slowly, she glared at the undead.
Yes.
"You lot, how dare you hurt my Big Sister."
To those who had committed an unforgivable great sin────.
"────Die."
Immediately after, Lilitia, who had readied the Rasayana, leaped toward the undead as if snapped. However, whether it was the physical Dragonbone Soldiers or the Hito-ban (Flying Head Barbarians), their essence was spiritual, so pure physical attacks should have been ineffective──── or so it should have been.
"Shatter the wandering souls and lead them to the path of holy return────! [Astral Break]!!"
As Lilitia layered her chant, the Rasayana in her hand released its authority. It emitted a white radiance and grew huge, and she swung it, crushing the undead.
Yes, they were literally crushed. The undead, against whom physical attacks are usually ineffective. Along with their souls.
At this, the undead couldn't hide their confusion, thinking, 'Eh? Why was I crushed?'
The Rasayana was shaped like a battle mace and looked very much like a barbarian style, but it was a divine artifact. It was harder, sharper, and heavier than anything modern technology could reproduce. However, if that were all, it would have been treated as a low-rank artifact.
Its true value is displayed when held by a Saint──── or more accurately, when facing the opponents a member of the clergy should fight. Against the arch-enemies of the clergy──── namely, the undead. Against the living, only physical attacks pass through, but against the dead, the attack is reflected in the spirit as well, and regardless of what kind of dead they are, it brings the result of crushing.
And for the undead, whose existence belongs almost entirely to the astral, a direct attack on the spirit is a fatal weakness──── to put it simply, if you are hit by this, whether you are human or dead, you won't just be fine.
"Dieeeeeee!!"
Lilitia swung the enlarged Rasayana around with a fierce expression, and the undead panicked. Some courageous Hito-ban bravely charged at Lilitia and succeeded in biting her shoulder. The undead cheered at this achievement, but.
"────Hmph, nu!!"
Lilitia headbutted the biting Hito-ban to push it away. Naturally, the bitten part remained as it was, so the flesh on her shoulder was torn, and her white monastic robe was dyed bright red, but────.
"────O Great Light God, grant merciful light to those who do not flee. [Extra Heal]."
She immediately regenerated her body with a recovery spell. With a returning mace, she crushed the biting Hito-ban from the top of its head and purified it. At that, how should I put it, a way of being far too bloody to be called a Saint, a feeling of 'Eh…………' confusion and bewilderment arose even from the undead.
It was natural, in a way. She didn't care what kind of attack she received. Receive, heal, and crush. A Saint is, in other words, a creature that carries out a zombie attack while swinging an anti-undead weapon on the front lines. For the undead, it was too absurd.
At the appearance of such a dreadnought, the undead also felt the precariousness of their own situation and tried to leave the place, but.
"Cage of the Tiger's Mouth!"
An invisible barrier appeared as if to block their escape route.
"Latia, Kazuha."
When Lilitia turned her gaze toward the voice, Latia with her magic gun and Kazuha with her talismans were there. They declared their participation while waving their hands toward her.
"Lilitia, you seem really in the mood to kill! I'll keep up, so go wild as you like!!"
"I've sealed the escape routes! The rest is as Lilitia-sama pleases!"
Receiving this, Lilitia shouldered the Rasayana again.
"────I'm counting on you."
And then she leaped, and the undead were cast down into a hell of screams and agony.
●
"Oh, Princess. You're actually working hard, aren't you?"
"It's a bit satisfying, isn't it? She's been doing whatever she wanted this time."
While such a hellish scene unfolded, two idiots who had rushed over called out to Marianne.
"You two idiots over there! Since when have you been watching!?"
"No, we just came down from above. Kazuha suddenly went ahead, so we hurried a bit, you know?"
"That's right. It was hard for us too, digging up and down like moles. I watched until the end to make sure Io-shi didn't trigger any flags, but then Latia found Lilitia and ran, so I followed."
"Don't just stand there nonchalantly and lend a hand with anything────! Especially magic! Magic please!!"
As Marianne screamed, she was interrupted.
'Dieeeeeee!!'
Lilitia's battle cry and the crushing sound of the swung giant mace echoed through the plaza.
"An attack that completely ignores defense, is she a Shimazu or something…………. I mean, they're undead, so they're dead from the start."
"She's crushing them along with their souls before even taking their heads. Scary…………"
"I-I don't care about that, so hurry up and give me magic, magic supply…………! ────Hieee, finally a split end!!"
"Hang in there, Princess. Show a little grit, Princess."
"I am showing it! I'm showing quite a bit of grit this time, you know!?"
"Well, I guess you've worked hard for someone like you."
"Why are you talking down to me!?"
'Reflect on your usual behavior!!'
"Wh-what!?"
Trust is the accumulation of usual behavior. Considering that, how much trust Marianne had, there was no need to even discuss it.
"Geez, can't be helped. Hey, Sensei. Do you have any ideas?"
"Yes, yes. Well, shall we go. Rei, lend me the Rig Veda for a bit."
"Sure thing."
However, neither Geoglyph nor Later were heartless enough to abandon her, so they decided to take measures. Geoglyph received the Rig Veda from Later and changed its shape into two metal bats, keeping one for himself and giving one to Later.
On those bats, it was written 'Magic Infusion Rod That You Must Absolutely Not Laugh At'.
"Wait a minute! W-what is that!"
"What do you mean, a spirit magic infusion rod."
"What kind of thing are you making with the Rig Veda!?"
"The most efficient way for magic supply is mucosal contact──── but you'd hate that, right? Both of you."
Asked by Geoglyph, Marianne and Later looked at each other and nodded.
"Doing erotic things with two guys is out of the question."
"Ah, yeah, impossible. If it were a beast, I wouldn't mind being covered in drool at all."
As the two nodded with suddenly void expressions, Geoglyph followed suit, saying he felt the same. Why on earth should these three have to kiss or have wet scenes.
"The cause this time is that child, right? This pressure is incomparable to the Artificial Evil God, Delgamiride. If anything, isn't it closer to Refill-god?"
"Seems like the magic path is connected to the Princess, so the cause is probably the Princess."
'Mishandra. Nice to meet you.'
And when the two shifted their gaze to the golden spider on Marianne's shoulder, the spider waved its front leg slightly and greeted them via telepathy.
"No, it really is masked. It's a sequence of sounds I can't understand."
"I only heard 'nice to meet you' too. Try giving her a nickname yourself."
However, they couldn't understand the name part, and when Later suggested that, Mishandra made a gesture of thinking for a while, then sent this telepathy.
'…………Misha.'
"Oh, I heard it this time. I see, Misha. Nice to meet you."
"I don't know the circumstances, but you pulled out divinity, right? That's why you did that incomprehensible random teleportation. In that case, you, the master of the cause, need a punishment along with the magic supply, right? Mary?"
As Geoglyph tapped the metal bat, Marianne pulled out memories from her previous life.
"In other words, what are you going to do with that?"
'Butt-bat?'
Mishandra, who read that, tilted her head, and Marianne couldn't help but give a wry smile.
"A-ahaha………… you're joking, right?"
And then she realized. She realized.
Even if it was a wry smile, even if it was a dry laugh, if it was a laugh────.
'Marianne, out?'
"Wait, hold…………!!"
Geoglyph and Later nodded to each other and silently readied the metal bats.
And then.
'One, two!!'
"Ginyaaaaaaa!!"
They transferred their own magic to Marianne via the Rig Veda's metal bats.
────However, the magic came from the butt.