142 Finding Evidence of the Ultimate Despair

Earth land, Ishgar, Kingdom of Fiore, Galuna Island.

July, x784.

As Alfonzo annihilated the centipedes around the temple, the sound of the King Centipede's screech echoed over all of Galuna Island shortly afterward. Realizing that there would be an influx of enraged centipedes making their way to his location, he wasted no time entering the cave he and Elicia observed earlier in the day.

*Click!* *Clack!* *Click!* *Clack!*

However, before he could take more than ten steps inside the cave, Alfonzo heard the sound of insect legs scurrying across the walls, ceiling, and floor of the cave. And as luck would have it they were getting closer.

"Just my luck…" Alfonzo muttered. "There really were more of them in the cave."

Dashing forward, Alfonzo created a clump of mithril that spread into thin tendrils and snaked across the surfaces of the cave. Then, once the tendrils reached the approaching centipedes, he grabbed their origin point and flared his magic power.

"[Electromagnetism Magic: Electrified Wire]." Alfonzo chanted as a current of electricity was sent into the mithril.

*Screech!*

A moment later, a symphony of pain filled screeches echoed through the cave as the scent of burning centipede flesh wafted through the air.

"Ugh! I need to come up with a better way to kill these things." Alfonzo muttered as he dashed past the incapacitated centipedes.

Realizing that most of the centipedes were dead, Alfonzo took it upon himself to end the suffering of hose unlucky few to survive by creating and throwing kunai through their heads.

Meanwhile, back at the village, Elicia, Ultear, and Erza regrouped with the defenders of the village as they watched the remaining centipedes rush back toward the temple.

"This could be bad, right?" Elicia asked as she listened to the centipede's footsteps grow more distant. "I mean, there were still a couple thousand of them left. What if they show up while Fonzie is fighting the boss?"

"Well, there's an easy solution to that problem." Ultear said with a smile.

"Easy?" Elicia asked curiously.

"We just follow them and thin the numbers." Ultear replied. "Easy, right?"

"I guess you're right." Elicia said with a smile. Then, her expression became serious as she continued. "But we can't leave the village unprotected."

"One of us should stay here, then." Erza said. "The question is, how do we decide?"

After Erza asked her question, before she or Ultear could react, Elicia shot her threads toward the tree line. Then, once they were wrapped firmly around a branch, she retracted them, pulling herself toward the tree at high-speed.

"You two can decide!" Elicia shouted as she flew through the air. "I'll go and start slowing down the centipedes."

Looking at Elicia's figure soaring off into the distance, Ultear and Erza looked on in surprise. Then, Erza wore a stern expression as she rebuked Elicia.

"We should be discussing this together, Elicia!" Erza shouted. Then, she looked in Ultear's direction for support.

However, before Erza could open her mouth to speak again, she felt a gust of cold air. On top of that, Ultear was nowhere to be seen.

Looking back toward the forest, Erza saw a path of ice leading from the top of the wall toward the tree line. In the middle of the path, sliding toward the trees, was Ultear with her cape billowing behind her.

"I'll make sure Elicia doesn't get into trouble." Ultear shouted without turning around. "You stay here and make sure the village stays safe!"

Watching Ultear disappear among the trees, Erza felt her annoyance rising. Her plan was to play Rock-Paper-Scissors to decide who would stay behind. With her dynamic vision and strong hand-eye coordination, Erza was certain that she would be one of the two who went to support Alfonzo.

Unfortunately, Elicia and Ultear had gotten to know her too well over the past eight years or so. So, they moved preemptively to gain their spots in the upcoming fight.

"Those girls…" Erza muttered in annoyance as she stomped her foot.

"*Boom!*

Unfortunately, Erza had never been too good at regulating her strength in the best of times. So, in her agitated state, her stomp cracked the wall from where she stood to its base.

"Ahh! What have you done?" Moka shouted after seeing the state of the wall. "Not only have you been useless in destroying the moon since you got here, but you've also even destroyed the wall! I'll complain to the Magic Council for this!"

Hearing that a complaint would be lodged to the Magic Council, Erza sobered up from her anger rather quickly. Then, she [Requipped] into construction attire consisting of a baggy grey jumpsuit whose top was tied around her waist, a white tank top that emphasized her large breasts, a pair of brown work boots, grey work gloves, and a yellow hard hat.

"You don't have to do that." Erza said with a flattering smile. "I'll get right to fixing the crack in the wall."

Then, without waiting for a response, Erza jumped off the wall and approached the rocks and trees that had been damaged by the battle from before to gather the materials needed to fix the wall. All the while, she kept her [Magic Power Detection] active just in case more centipedes showed up.

Back in the cave, Alfonzo had finally reached the cavern where Deliora would have been placed in the canon. However, he did not enter immediately. Instead, he hid at the entrance and spread his [Magic Power Detection] to investigate the cavern.

'There's only one magic power signature.' Alfonzo muttered. 'But why can I hear someone speaking? Can this Centipede King speak the human tongue?'

Using his control over the EM spectrum, Alfonzo used X-rays to see through the walls of the cave. When he looked in the direction of the magic power source he could feel, he was thoroughly surprised.

On top of seeing a nearly thirty-three foot (10 m) long centipede with large mandibles and spikes dotting its carapace, Alfonzo also noticed a small bear sitting on its head and throwing a tantrum.

'Is that… Monokuma?' Alfonzo thought in confusion. A moment later, however, his expression turned solemn. 'If that evil little teddy bear is here, does that mean she's here, too? Fuck! This world is so fucking weird. It's already dangerous enough with all the dark guilds, demons, dragons, and gods running around. Now I gotta deal with some crazy bitch hell bent on bringing the world despair, too?'

After raging internally for a few seconds, Alfonzo finally calmed down. Then, he started assessing the situation.

'Okay, cant be too rash now that I know the Ultimate Despair is in this world.' Alfonzo thought to himself. 'Before I start fighting that big mother fucker, I gotta get rid of Monokuma without being detected. I'm more than certain that it has all sorts of nasty gadgets in it. On top of that, Junko is probably connected to it in some way, knowing everything that goes on around it.'

A few seconds later, the King Centipede started moving around restlessly. Though Alfonzo did not know why, exactly, he had a pretty good guess. He already knew that the centipedes attacking the village would be coming back to the cave sooner or later. But knowing his fiancées, he also knew there was no way that they would let them all retreat without a problem.

Fortunately, the King Centipede's restlessness gave Alfonzo the perfect opportunity to finish off the bear without being seen.

"Damn it! Would you stop all that blasted whimpering!" The strange little bear, Monokuma shouted as the centipede started twisting its body and whimpering at the loss of its children. "And stop all that moving around It's so annoying! Just sit still like a good piece of living---."

As soon as the King Centipede turned its body so that Monokuma was facing away from the cave leading into the cavern, Alfonzo poked his head and left arm around he corner and took aim. Then, he created a marble sized piece of heat resistant metal while simultaneously running an electric current on his arm.

"Electromagnetism Magic: Railgun]." Alfonzo chanted quietly.

*Boom!*

Then, as soon as the marble came in contact with Alfonzo's finger that was pointed at Monokuma, it was fired at six times the speed of sound, destroying the bear and punching a whole in the cavern that reached the outside before the sonic boom sounded.

*Screech!*

At the same time, the King Centipede screeched in pain. Even though it wasn't hit directly by the projectile, the super-heated air caused by the projectile's speed was enough to melt its carapace and burn the flesh underneath.

A moment later, after confirming that there were only scraps of Monokuma left after he was hit with his [Railgun], Alfonzo finally stepped into the cavern.

"The girls really did me a favor." Alfonzo said with a smile. "if they hadn't been attacking the returning centipedes, this big son of a bitch probably would have smelled me. No, it probably did smell me, but it was so distressed by its dying brethren that it probably didn't pay me any mind."

While Alfonzo thought aloud about why his assassination attempt on Monokuma went off so smoothly, the King Centipede finally regained its bearings. Then, after realizing that the hateful little bear was no longer sitting on top of its head, it raised its head and screeched once again.

"I'm no expert in bug noises, but that sounded like it was… Happy?" Alfonzo mused aloud. "Well, I'd be happy to get rid of such a cancerous tumor, too."

A moment later, after venting its emotions, the King Centipede finally turned its head in Alfonzo's direction. Although this particular centipede must have come from a species that had no eyes, Alfonzo could feel the malice it held for him.

"Come on now, Big Guy. Do you really wanna do this?" Alfonzo asked, not expecting an answer. "I mean, I just got rid of that tumor on your head. Sure, I had to burn off par of your shell to do it, but I would think that would be an acceptable sacrifice, right?"

Ignoring Alfonzo's words, the King Centipede charged towards Alfonzo much faster than any centipede before it. In little more than the blink of an eye, it appeared in front of Alfonzo with its mandibles closing towards Alfonzo's neck.

*Snap!*

Reacting quickly, Alfonzo ducked under the lethal attack. Then, rebounding upward, Alfonzo slammed his fist into the bottom of the Centipede's head with electricity wrapping it.

"[Electromagnetism Magic: Stun Gun]." Alfonzo chanted as his fist struck the King Centipede.

Recoiling from the impact, the King Centipede was unable to screech due to the electricity causing its body to lock up momentarily. Meanwhile, Alfonzo fired the harpoon from his left gauntlet into a wall. Then, once it was pierced into the wall, he retracted the metal rope and pulled himself from in front of the King Centipede.

"Damn, that son of a bitch is fast." Alfonzo grumbled after landing next to the wall. "Still, I'm fast enough to react. But the question is, how do I kill it? I really don't want to fill this cavern with the smell of cooked bug."

With that, Alfonzo created and discarded many battle plans while the centipede regained its bearings. Then, just as the King Centipede shook its head to dispel the last of the electricity running through its body, Alfonzo decided he would just beat it to death.

"It's not like I can use anything overly destructive, anyway." Alfonzo said with a shrug. "If I'm not careful, I could collapse the cavern and bring the whole temple down on top of myself."

With that decision made, Alfonzo created a pair of sharp tipped Eskrima sticks out of a highly conductive metal. Then, he rushed toward the King Centipede.

In response, the King Centipede swung its tail, whose danger was amplified by the many sharp tipped legs that ran along the sides of its body, at Alfonzo. However, Alfonzo was able to dodge the sharp legs and the tail by a paper thin margin. Then, he stabbed the stick in his left hand into the joint of one of he legs that passed by.

After the attack sailed by, Alfonzo continued his charge toward the King Centipede. However, it did something none of the other centipedes had done, once again.

Opening its mandibles wide, the King Centipede fired a foul smelling liquid at Alfonzo. Caught by surprise, Alfonzo did not have enough time to dodge the spray. However, he was able to react in time, nonetheless.

"[Metal Magic: Watershed Shielding]." Alfonzo chanted as a wedge shaped metal shield appeared between him and the incoming attack.

As soon as the liquid made contact with the shield, which was made out of the most corrosion resistant metal Alfonzo had at his disposal, a sizzling sound could be heard. At the same time, because the shield was created in a wedge shape, much of the liquid was diverted to the sides.

"A corrosive poison, why am I not surprised." Alfonzo muttered as he shot one of his harpoons toward the ceiling and pulled himself up.

*Bang!* *Bang!*

Just after Alfonzo was halfway between the floor and the ceiling of the cavern the King Centipede slammed its head into the [Watershed Shield], throwing it backward through Alfonzo's previous position before it smashed into the cavern wall.

Meanwhile, Alfonzo, who was now hanging above the King Centipede's head, let himself fall while elongating the spiked stick in his right hand into a spear.

Intending to increase the speed of his descent with his [Electromagnetism Magic], Alfonzo was forced to change his plans when the King Centipede raised its head and opened its mandibles again.

"Shit!" Alfonzo cursed as he pulled the spear back in a throwing position. "[Electromagnetism Magic: Lightning Enhancement]."

Then, before the King Centipede could spew its poison, Alfonzo enhanced his body with electricity and threw the spear at the opening where the King Centipede released its poison. Then, without waiting to see if his attack landed, Alfonzo fired his harpoon for a third time and pulled himself to safety.

*Screech!*

The King Centipede screeched in pain as it began swinging its head wildly and releasing its poison to dissolve the spear. However, before it could accomplish its goal, Alfonzo reached the wall he pulled himself to. Then, with his [Lightning Enhancement] still active, he arrived feet first and pushed off with all his strength, launching himself at the King Centipede.

Using [Electromagnetism Magic] to subtly adjust his course through the air and avoid the flailing King Centipede, Alfonzo reached the shaft of the spear while only receiving a few cuts on his arms and torso.

"Game over." Alfonzo muttered as he clutched the spear shaft and stared into the King Centipede's face.

Without using a spell, Alfonzo simply generated as much electricity as he could and channeled it into the metal spear.

The effects were immediate as the King Centipede started convulsing as soon as the electric current entered its body. The leg where the first spike was stabbed even exploded when the current reached the spike.

Eventually, the King Centipede could no longer hold itself upright, slamming to the ground. Unfortunately, as Alfonzo was still holding the spear, he was also slammed to the ground with it. But since he could still feel its magic power, through [Magic power Detection], he had no intention of stopping or letting go.

Around thirty seconds later, Alfonzo could no longer feel the king Centipede's magic power. On top of that, it had ceased all movement, save the occasional involuntary twitch due to the electricity flowing through its body.

"Damn it…. I landed on my hip." Alfonzo groaned as he dispelled the spear and slowly stumbled to his feet. "That really fucking hurt."

Rubbing his hip after getting to his feet, Alfonzo looked in the direction of the cave leading to the surface.

"They're probably still fighting the minions." Alfonzo muttered. "I'd better go help them so we can end this quest and go home."