This is the second of the two chapters today.
Chapter 10: The Wave of Calamity, Part 2
Ryute was in chaos.
No one expected that the Wave of Calamity would open right above the village. Naturally, the sudden assault meant that they hadn't prepared anything to fight back. And even if they had, half of the village population was women and children; they just didn't have the capability to fight back against such a massive army of monsters.
There were some adventurers currently staying in the village. They, together with some knights stationed at a base nearby were fighting back as well as they could, but it appeared to be futile… Their defense line was faltering and looked like it would break very soon.
The defense force had been pushed to the last road entering the village. If they fell here, it would be the end of Ryute Village.
A giant zombie wearing extravagant armor and wielding a huge battleax sluggishly walked toward the defending warriors. It swung the axe in a horizontal arc, tossing six or seven soldiers standing on its way to the sky. The adventurers panicked; some of them abandoned their positions and ran away in fear. Many monsters took that chance to rush into the village.
"Do not run away, damn it!" A muscular man with a thick beard yelled, while swinging his sword to decapitate a monster attacking him. "If we fail here, everyone in the village will be killed! We can't back down now!"
The giant battleax-wielding zombie had reached his place. It raised the terrifying weapon high above its head, and the adventurer's eyes widened; he's going to be killed here, for sure. There's nothing he could do to stop it…
The weapon came down on his head…
"Air Strike Shield!"
The weapon met a shield made of energy in midair, and bounced back harmlessly before it could split the adventurer in half. Startled, the man glanced around confusedly, bewildered at the sudden assistance coming from nowhere. A shadow wielding a shield rushed past him and leaped toward the huge monster's face; his shield was glowing in a blue light. And he realized in relief…
"Shield Hero!"
"Shield Bash!" Naofumi yelled, slamming the glowing shield at the face of the zombie. The monster staggered backward, stunned by the effect of the skill. He yelled.
"Raphtalia, Tersia, now!"
The two girls leaped forward from behind him. With two fierce battlecries, the swords they were holding delivered two powerful slashes on the monster's body, splitting it into three pieces.
Naofumi turned back to the defending warriors, who were still bewildered from the sudden appearance of the Cardinal Hero. "Listen up! We're going to draw the monsters off here, so use this opportunity to go evacuating everyone in the village! Farrie, go lead the evacuation! Heal the people if they are injured, and lead them to the mine behind the village; it would be easier to defend there!"
"O… okay!"
The adventurers and soldiers turned and ran back into the village, with the healer of Team EMIYA leading them. Naofumi turned back to the swarm of monsters flooding into the village in front of him.
"You two, I'm going to attract their attention! We can't let them overrun the village before the evacuation is finished!"
The two swordswomen nodded. "Okay, sir!"
Naofumi gritted his teeth. "Now let's see how effective this skill is. Hate Reaction!"
Hate Reaction was a skill granted to him by the Barbarian's Armor. When activated, it would attract the attention of all enemies around him in a diameter of forty meters. Upon the skill declaration, the monsters stopped their advancing all at once and started rushing toward the Shield Hero.
"Come on," he snarled. "Come here and show me what you got!"
Only now did Naofumi feel a little bit less grumpy about being forced to buy the Barbarian's Armor.
The armor definitely deserved the money he had to spend on it. Not only did it have two incredibly valuable skills for a tank like him, which were Hate Reaction, the ability to draw the attention of enemies around him, and Alert, a passive skill which let him know about dangers coming from directions around him, even if he couldn't see them, it also provided a very high defensive rating. It was so high that even though the monsters had surrounded him from every direction, they didn't have any way to deal a single point of damage to him. With that much protection, Raphtalia and Tersia only had to slash the enemies apart and gain EXP from them.
But there were too many of them. Even though the enemies were just cannon fodders that would be taken down in one hit, Tersia and Raphtalia's stamina was not infinite. Even though Tersia had trained so hard under EMIYA during the last month, the gigantic sword she insisted on wielding would still burn through her stamina much faster than it should have been if she had used another weapon. Raphtalia wasn't doing much better; she got better mobility and her weapon was not as heavy, but she had started as a weak, sick girl and had just recovered from malnutrition not so long ago, so naturally, there's no way to expect that she could last very long under the conditions of a battle against a horde of thousands of enemies. Hell, even Naofumi himself was starting to feel worn out under the pressure of the army of monsters.
And the number of enemies just continued to rise higher and higher, without a sign of slowing down. The Shield Hero cursed. What are the other Heroes doing?
The monsters had started to push the three fighters further and further into the village. Naofumi glanced around; he could still see some people under the direction of Farrie and some soldiers running out of the village to the mine. Naofumi gritted his teeth; they need to keep the enemies as far away from them as possible, or they would be caught up in the battle and make everything even more difficult than it was at the moment.
"Sir Shield Hero!"
Naofumi glanced back at the voice. Farrie had returned, together with some of the adventurers who had just left a few minutes ago, as well as some men from the village, armed with farming and mining tools. "What are you doing here? Have you finished the evacuation?"
"Most people in the village are already evacuated, sir! This is our village, and we can't just leave it!" one of the villagers raised his pitchfork and yelled.
Naofumi let out a sigh in relief. In truth, he's desperately in need of assistance. "Then get into a proper formation so that I can protect you, and let's get them!" he roared, and the group let out a loud cheer. They formed a wedge formation behind Naofumi and started to stab and hack down any monsters within their reaches.
Two more of the giant zombies they had taken down before appeared and started dragging their feet toward the group. Naofumi cursed; the villagers could help against normal monsters, but there's no way they're equipped well enough to deal with something like this.
"Raphtalia, with me! We're going to take this one down!" he yelled. "Tersia, Farrie, can I trust you two with the other one?"
The two girls turned back and nodded. "Of course, sir!"
Relieved, he turned back to the villagers and adventurers. "You all, move as a group and retreat to the back, killing as many monsters as you can on the way! We'll hold these off! You're just going to get in the way against these two!"
Some of the adventurers who had already experienced how terrifying this kind of zombie was before gulped and nodded. They immediately urged everyone else to move back while swinging their weapons to destroy some of the monsters on the way.
Naofumi looked at Raphtalia. "All right, let's do what we do all the time."
Raphtalia didn't need to answer. She just looked at him and smiled, then held her sword in front of her, ready for battle. They had defeated one of these things before; there's no reason why they couldn't do it another time!
The zombie roared and swung its enormous axe down on Naofumi's head. But the Shield Hero had planned for this; he raised his shield, now switched to the strongest one he had available, and took the attack head-on. And while the monster's weapon was still locked in place, Raphtalia dashed in and slashed the left leg of the monster at the knee. Suddenly losing balance, the zombie collapsed on the ground face first, and the raccoon girl only waited for that moment. With a quick swing of her sword, the monster was decapitated.
On the other side, Farrie and Tersia's teamwork was perfect just like a pair of well-oiled gear. They might not have that much experience in battle, but a whole month of training with the Sword Hero had honed their instinct enough to deal with something like this. The swings of the zombie were powerful, but they were very slow, and with the heavy sword in her hand, the girl could match each strike of the zombie with a blow of her own easily. The giant zombie, even though it was bigger and had an advantage in physical strength, could not even get past the little girl with the big sword, and therefore couldn't do anything to stop the healer behind her from charging the most powerful spell against undead she had in her arsenal.
"Dritte Heal!"
Healing magic is usually useful only to keep your compatriots alive in battle. However, in a battle against undead enemies, it becomes an incredibly deadly weapon. The wave of holy energy shot out from the tip of her staff and easily obliterated the upper half of the monster. The lower half staggered back and collapsed on the ground with a loud "THUD", crushing a few monsters under its weight before disappearing into a cloud of dust.
"All right!" The two girls shared a cheerful high-five in victory. From afar, at a safe distance, the villagers and adventurers were also cheering loudly. Naofumi sighed in relief; now the most dangerous foes were already taken down, they could cooperate with the villagers again to drive the other weaker monsters out of the village…
Then suddenly a bad feeling rose in his gut. Not even stopping to think, he grabbed Raphtalia and the other two girls' hands and pulled them over, throwing the cape of the Barbarian's Armor around them.
"Change Shield! Shield Prison!"
The shield cage made of Light Metal Shields appeared from thin air and surrounded all four of them right before fire rained down from the sky. The rain of fire burned down all the remaining monsters in the village, but also set ablaze every building in its range. The villagers screamed in despair, but they couldn't do anything but watching helplessly their homes being burned down right in front of them, unable to do anything.
"What the…?" Farrie exclaimed in horror. "Who in the world could even think of doing something like that?"
"Are they trying to kill us or something?" Tersia also gritted her teeth in anger.
Finally, after a few minutes, the rain of fire stopped, and the shield cage Naofumi raised to protect them also faded away. And the Shield Hero realized who had just cast the deadly attack on them.
It was a group of royal knights who had arrived through the break in the formation of the monsters. The magic users among them were the ones who had thrown the Fire Rain spell in their direction.
"Tch, so the Shield Hero is that tough, huh," the man who Naofumi assumed to be the commander of the squad, a haughty knight with a big moustache, spat at their direction.
Raphtalia's sword flew out of her sheath. She charged the commander in a fit of fury; her sword drew an arc in the air, aiming for his neck. But the strike was stopped dead on its way by the sword of another knight, who had a calm and stern look on his face.
"What the hell are you planning to do to Naofumi-sama?!" she yelled in rage.
The knight commander sneered in disdain. "A mere demi-human dares to raise its sword against the kingdom's knights?"
"You should feel ashamed of yourself!" Tersia also yelled. She had also drawn her own sword. "He's supposed to be your compatriot, and yet you treat him like that? If that's how the knights in this kingdom are, then you should all drop dead!"
"Know your place, wench!" the knight commander sneered at her. "You're lucky I haven't cut you all down right there for treason!"
The other knights formed a circle around the team. They drew their swords and pointed them at the four, seemingly ready to kill if they did anything recklessly.
Naofumi was the only person who was still calm among them. He raised his voice, but he didn't even look at the commander. Rather, his eyes swept across the knights who were surrounding them.
"At this moment, I am not your enemy. The enemies are the ones coming from those cracks in the sky. Do not get confused about who you're fighting!"
Hearing those words, some of the knights lowered their weapons in surprise.
"Hmph! Pretty words for a criminal!"
The commander snorted haughtily, but there was already an uneasy tone in his voice. He unconsciously took a few steps back when Naofumi started walking toward him.
"Wh… what are you doing?!"
"Air Strike Shield!"
The knight commander snapped his eyes shut when the energy shield burst into existence, but nothing happened. Then he heard a loud "CLANG" coming from behind him. The shield had appeared, but not to harm him, but rather to stop the strike of a monster sneaking up behind him with its saber raising high. And before he could do anything, Raphtalia had dashed past him, swinging her sword and decapitating the monster in a single blow.
"Wha…?!"
"You want to die in an honorable battle? Then go ahead, I'm not gonna stop you," the Shield Hero said in a deathly cold voice. "But before you do that, you should use your worthless life to do something for the people here." He waved his hand toward the villagers, who were weeping on the ground or shooting the knights glares of anger and disbelief. "The citizens here are waiting for the royal knights to help them, not to throw their lives away after burning their homes down without even a reason."
"Tch…"
The knight commander gritted his teeth. Throwing Naofumi and his compatriots a glare full of hatred, he snarled at his subordinates. "Let's go! We're moving to where the other Heroes are!"
A few of the knights followed their commander and walked away. But some of them, including the stern knight who had stopped Raphtalia's strike, didn't. The man closed his eyes, seemingly under deep thought. Then his eyes snapped open, and he pointed his sword at the sky.
"Support the Shield Hero and his companions! Phalanx formation!"
The other knights who didn't follow the commander raised their weapons and cheered. They immediately took a phalanx formation with their shields and spears in front of them, pointing forward, ready to charge at the monsters which had managed to recover and were now advancing toward them.
The knight commander gritted his teeth in rage. Not only did he fail to do anything to the Shield Devil, but now the demon had even managed to sway his own knights to his side!
Naofumi glanced at the commander and said with a smirk. "Oh, and by the way, I think I need to mention this. The girl who you have just called a wench and opened fire at, she's not my companion. She's a disciple of the Sword Hero, and I don't think he would be very happy to know that you tried to kill not one, but two of his students," he patted Farrie's shoulder, who was standing next to him.
Colors drained from the face of the commander. He hastily signaled his still loyal troops and ran away from the scene as fast as he could.
"Good riddance," Naofumi rolled his eyes. "Now then, let's drive these things out and protect the citizens of the village!"
With a chorusing battle cry, the newly formed coalition charged.
"Zweite Arrow!"
"Chaos Thrust!"
The two Heroes threw skills after skills at the Wave boss, a chimera. But even though the skills all hit the enemy, they didn't seem to do a lot of damage. So far, they had managed to take out a third of the monster's HP, but their MP wouldn't last long enough to kill it at this rate.
Now even Itsuki's companions were standing at the side to cheer. Well, since they're just basically cannon fodders against the boss, it made sense, but…
"What the hell…?" Detaching himself from the monster, Motoyasu groaned. "This is just the first Wave! It isn't supposed to be this difficult!"
The chimera roared, and its viper tail shot forward, the fangs full of deadly venom sunk deeply into Itsuki's left arm. The boy screamed and tried to shrug it away, but the jaw of the tail was just too strong; his struggling only helped the fangs sink deeper into his bicep. His left arm was starting to feel numb, and a sick purple color was spreading upward from his bicep to his shoulder.
Suddenly something flew past him. And before he could realize it, the tail of the monster had been removed from its body at the base. The monster howled in pain and stumbled back; that attack had taken a large chunk of health from it. Without control from the body, the tail loosened its bite and fell to the ground lifelessly. Hastily, Itsuki took out an antidote from his inventory and drank it, and his arm was healed.
Only now did he realize who had just saved him. It was the Sword Hero who had just arrived at the clearing. On his hand was a long and seemingly very sharp katana.
"Finally you're here!" the boy yelled angrily. "What the hell have you been doing?"
"You seemed to have it handled even without me," the red Hero said dryly, to the Bow Hero's ire. He snapped back.
"You could have been here to help!"
EMIYA raised the Legendary Sword, facing the chimera. "Sorry. I guess I got stuck with an army of thousands of monsters. But since you're focusing on this, I guess this is what leads the invasion?"
It was he who made that massive kill before? Motoyasu glanced at the Sword Hero. "Yes, it is the Wave boss," he answered. "If we kill it, the Wave will stop."
"Then let's finish it quickly so that it will stop," EMIYA said simply, and turned the Legendary Sword into the form of his trusty Twin Siderite Swords. "The village of Ryute is under attack; even with Naofumi holding his base there, I don't know how long they would be able to last."
Motoyasu also raised the Legendary Spear. "That could have been left to the soldiers. But that bastard is useless here anyway, so it wouldn't change anything even if he were here."
"Yeah!" Itsuki also added. "The Wave would only stop when this boss is defeated, so some damage is unavoidable!"
These guys… They don't even care how many people could be killed?!
The two Heroes didn't seem interested in listening to him anymore. They raised their weapons and started attacking the monsters again, leaving EMIYA behind.
The Sword Hero didn't rush in recklessly, however.
He had fought chimeras a lot of times before, during his time working with Chaldea. They were powerful monsters, obviously stronger than skeletons or zombies, but not to the point of being impossible to beat. They possessed a variety of dangerous abilities, such as breaths that could inflict paralysis in a wide range in front of them, or loud roars that could deafen anyone standing too close to it. Their most dangerous weapon was possibly the tail with the cobra head, containing deadly venom in each of its fangs. A bite from it was potentially deadly. Luckily, he had been able to neutralize it; if it were still intact, they would have a very difficult fight.
Although he had to say that this particular chimera was… weird. The chimera he knew had two heads, one lion and one goat, as well as the usual viper tail, but this one had a drake head to the left of the lion head as well. And instead of the normal brown and black colors, this one was pitch black from head to tail, with no fur on its body, exposing the rotten skin and muscles below, as well as blood-red eyes on every head. If anything, it looked more like a ghoul than a living creature. But it seemed in general, this chimera was no different from what he knew.
The gears in his head started turning. Every possible scenario for the battle appeared in front of his eyes, and soon enough, the way to victory was clear in his mind. Gripping the Twin Siderite Swords firmly, EMIYA took off into the battle.
In the fight, it seemed Motoyasu and Itsuki were determined not to let EMIYA hog all the glory. They were throwing more powerful skills at the monster, despite knowing that it would cost more SP to do that.
The tip of Motoyasu's spear was glowing and humming with the sound of a turbine. He pointed the weapon at the chimera and yelled, "Lightning Spear!" A lightning bolt shot out of the spear and hit the monster with a loud explosion. The chimera roared in pain and staggered back, and at the same time, Itsuki released his own skill. An arrow covered in green energy was fired from the Legendary Bow with the power of a pile driver, hitting the side of the chimera with a loud "BANG".
"How's that?" the youngest Hero smirked.
The chimera staggered back on its feet. Suddenly, its eyes glowed brightly, and all three of the front heads let out a deafening howl at the same time. That howl was seemingly supersonic, because immediately, Itsuki and Motoyasu collapsed on the ground, holding their heads in pain.
"Argh! What the hell…?!"
The maw of the lion head opened wide, and a wave of blue energy shot out and covered the two helpless Heroes on the ground. They screamed in pain; it felt like a thousand volts of electricity were arcing through their bodies. After the attack stopped, the two Heroes were left two paralyzed, twitching messes on the ground.
What the…?! The Undead Chimera isn't supposed to have this kind of skill…!
The monster lowered its body, and pounced at Itsuki, the weaker one between the two, and the one foolish enough to both be a ranged fighter and dare to get close to it without heavy armor. Sprawling helplessly on the ground, the boy couldn't even move away. He could only lay there, waiting for the claws of death to claim his life.
Then suddenly he felt a piercing pain on his ribcage. He felt his body flying in the air and crashed face-first on the ground, but he couldn't even groan in pain. Who…?!
It was EMIYA who had kicked him out of the way. Right now, the man was holding the monster in a deadlock with the Legendary Sword, which had taken the form of the greatsword Itsuki always saw that companion of his carrying with her.
"Erste Bash!" With a loud yell, the Legendary Sword glowed with blue light, and he delivered a quick upward slash. The skill was pretty weak and easy to master, and indeed, the Sword Hero had mastered it in just a single day, but it was more than enough to separate him from the monster. In midair, the sword changed form again into the Vine Sword.
"Binding Sword!" he yelled, stabbing the sword into the ground. Vines burst out from underground and tied the chimera up. Not even stopping, he changed sword again, this time into the Pipe Sword, the counterpart of Naofumi's Pipe Shield.
"Chain Bind!" This time, instead of vines, iron chains appeared from thin air and wrapped themselves around the chimera. Being restrained with two layers of binding, the monster couldn't move an inch. It roared and struggled, trying to break free.
EMIYA didn't waste a single second. He ran to the Hero closer to him, Motoyasu, and popped a vial of paralysis remedy in his mouth. The Spear Hero was healed up almost immediately, and he pushed himself up with a groan.
"Go help Itsuki," the ex-Guardian said, turned back to the monster which had just broken the first layer of restrain on itself. "You also have paralysis remedy, haven't you? Cure him then go around the chimera and attack it from the back. We need to fight it together; charging headfirst at it alone wouldn't be enough. We need to attack it from every direction."
Motoyasu wanted to retort, but then he realized the Sword Hero was not wrong. Swallowing his own words in annoyance, he ran to where Itsuki was lying and gave him a dose of paralysis remedy he got in his inventory.
"Who does that guy think he is?"
Naturally, the first words coming out of Itsuki's mouth after recovering were complaints.
"Hey, Itsuki," Motoyasu swallowed his saliva. "Even though I hate to admit it, I think we should listen to Shirou-san."
The Bow Hero glared at Motoyasu. "Why should I…"
"Hey, everything we did until now couldn't do anything lasting to that boss, right? So why shouldn't we try listening to him for once?" Motoyasu whispered. "From what I can see, that boss has skills that it isn't supposed to have in the game! If even this fails, then it means we aren't supposed to win in this! We don't have anything to lose anymore, right?"
Itsuki gritted his teeth. He hated this, but…
"Tch. Fine. Whatever. So what should we do?"
With a deafening roar, the chimera broke free of the iron chains restraining it.
EMIYA's eyes narrowed. That didn't last as long as he thought. He gripped the hilt of his sword tightly; if this plan failed…
Then an arrow hit the side of the monster. It roared in annoyance and turned around, glaring with all four pairs of eyes at Itsuki, the person who had just shot the arrow.
"Hey, loser, eat this! Air Strike Javelin!"
A spear made of energy pierced the air and hit the monster, this time at the left side, courtesy of Motoyasu. It roared in pain and confusion, and turned around toward the Spear Hero, but immediately got hit from another direction by EMIYA, who was holding the Legendary Sword in the form of Monohoshizao, and had just dashed in to land a hit on it before retreating again.
That was the weakness of chimeras. As they had more than one brain, but only had one body, if they were attacked from many directions at once, they would be confused and could not decide which target to hit. And that would give them the decisive advantage against the monster; even if they couldn't finish it quickly, they would still be able to chip its health down with normal attacks and until they could launch the decisive blows on it. And without its tail as the way to keep track of its back, soon, the monster would get dizzy from spinning around too much.
And finally, the footsteps of the chimera had gotten sluggish. And EMIYA knew that this was their chance.
"Now, you two! Unleash your most powerful skills on that monster! Shooting Star Swords!" he yelled, and launched the strongest skill in possession at the chimera. At the same time, Motoyasu and Itsuki also fired their skills.
"Meteor Thrust!"
"Eagle Piercing Shot!"
The three skills at the same time finally did the thing that two of them couldn't. The monster fell to the ground, and after twitching once, twice, three times, it stopped moving completely.
"All right! We did it!" Motoyasu pumped his fist to the sky and yelled in triumph.
"You're so awesome, Itsuki-sama! As expected of the Hero of the Bow!" the guy in Itsuki's party who wore a big, heavy set of armor cheered loudly. "The power of justice is truly flowing inside you!"
Said boy let out a "hmph". But on his face, a self-satisfied smile could be seen. "The boss was easy enough. If this is all we're up against, the next Wave should also be a simple matter."
"Tch," Welt muttered in disgust. "They made it as if they were the only ones who fought that boss! You're the one who did most of the work, sensei! Why don't you say anything?"
EMIYA shook his head and glanced at his disciple with a chuckle. "There's no need for that. I don't even want that kind of fame anyway. Besides, isn't the best thing about this actually that?"
He pointed at the sky. The cracks had started to close, and the sky had returned to how it always looked like. It was filled with the bright orange colors of sunset.
Welt smiled and nodded. They did it. A Wave of Calamity had been stopped. After all, isn't that what they trained all the month to do?
He looked at the sky. "So that's how a real man is like, isn't it…?"
And that wraps up the first Wave of Calamity. Guess being stuck at home during lockdown helps.
Yes, I know that the battle against the chimera was pretty anti-climactic. But in my opinion, that's what it is supposed to be, even in canon. Motoyasu and Itsuki at this point didn't show anything impressive except throwing skills around and expecting enemies to die under them, especially Motoyasu; that's the reason why Naofumi was able to hold his own against him during their duel despite having lower level and not having any way to attack.
And a small funny thing I want to note: Remember Air Strike Shield and the similar skills? They are supposed to be Erste Shield and things, as it is First written in German. Among all the Heroes in my story, EMIYA is the only person who knew German even just a bit, so only his skill got a fix and the other Heroes' didn't.
Until next time.