Chapter 25 - Ghost Ship Wave

Chapter 25 – Ghost Ship Wave

Author's Note: This has been a hard chapter to write. So far, I've written 51 chapters in total, all the way to Glass' World, which I'll release periodically.

0:00

The wave timer hit zero as an echoing sound vibrated around us. The next moment, we found ourselves near a village, standing on a grassy area. The sky was cracked up as usual, with purple spirals whirling above, and the village was starting to become overrun with monsters.

We had all chugged stat boosting potions before the fight, something that we had not done during the last wave. That would hopefully address the likely level gap between ourselves and the wave boss, something that we had painfully learned in the fight against the 8 eye 16 leg monster in that mountainous cave.

Next to me, I saw the three other heroes and their parties. Naofumi even brought some other people with him.

"Everybody listen up!" I bellowed, loud enough that everybody turned around and looked in my direction. Naofumi, Raphtalia, Rishia, the knights and I will defend the villagers and attend to the evacuation, while the rest of you will deal with the monsters, mainly outside the village!"

"Yes!" They all replied in unison.

Indigo seemed quite surprised that Naofumi also possessed a filolial king, or should I say queen. I was utterly shocked as well, not encountering a single other filolial royal during my entire time here.

"Uh, Naofumi…" Indigo questioned, still remaining in his human form. "Why do you have a filolial queen?"

"I don't really know." Naofumi replied.

"Cut the chit chat." I butted in. "We got a wave to beat and people to save. We can discuss this later."

"Alright then." Indigo pouted as he followed Motoyasu's party towards the wave boss.

Naofumi, the knights, Rishia and I rode on two separate carts towards the village. When we approached, I moved to the front of the cart and started providing cover fire for the defenders.

As we arrived, though, an old lady was completely annihilating the monsters that were troubling the village. It was as if she didn't need our help.

Turning to Naofumi, she greeted him while karate kicking another goblin.

"Hi, Holy Saint! You were a big help!"

From what I could tell, Naofumi probably helped her at some point. Though, why would such a tough grandma need any help? Certainly not with crossing the road.

I used my Sky Blue Bow, which was an excellent tool for crowd control, to absolutely mow down the weak monsters that were terrorizing the villagers. Rishia was doing a good job getting them to safety, while Naofumi and the lot were fending off the attackers.

Instead of perching myself above the rooftops like last time, I used an unconventional strategy and charged headfirst towards the enemy, using the speed of my reloading to compensate for the short range. I slaughtered monsters left and right, saving countless villagers who were cowering in fear.

Rishia and Raphtalia were slashing at the enemy with their swords, while Naofumi was protecting a child with his shield. Meanwhile, Granny was obliterating monsters left and right.

After shooting an arrow through an interdimensional lizard-man's head, causing him to fall over and die, Granny complimented us for our effectiveness.

"Good job on wiping out the monsters here. However, there is another village nearby which also needs your help. You should head over there now and assist them."

"Right on it!" I replied compliantly, fully respecting her combat abilities that she had somehow retained despite her advanced age.

I hopped on the carriage that was attached to Filo, Naofumi's filolial, and we all headed towards the next village over. I was shooting at monsters all along the way like I was in some sort of arcade shooting gallery.

The village that we had just arrived to was on fire, and the villagers were screaming in terror. Welp, it's time to help, I guess.

Two hours had passed, and still no signal from the other heroes. We had taken care of all the monsters in the neighboring villages, but the other heroes and the rest of my party still haven't returned yet. I was getting worried.

"Naofumi." I spoke worriedly. "We should go check on Indigo and the others. Something isn't quite right."

"Agreed." He replied, not so calmly.

We took the carts and headed off towards the direction of the wave boss. What we encountered shocked the daylights out of me, although this world was so unpredictable, I shouldn't be surprised at this point.

A giant, floating pirate ship, the size of multiple normal ships, was cruising along.

How the hell did that thing even fly! Was this a crossover with the Familiar of Zero?

Suddenly, the cannon shot an iron ball at us. Almost instinctively, I shot an arrow at it to decrease its speed while Naofumi used Air Strike Shield to deflect it.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Indigo landing a flurry of blows on what appeared to be a pirate. It didn't seem like he was going to good.

"Naofumi!" I yelled. "We need to get up there! "

"Alright!" he replied. "Hop onto Filo!"

Without a second thought, Rishia and I hopped on top of Filo, which struggled to launch herself that high with all the additional weight. Then, she returned to the ground and carried Naofumi and Raphtalia to the ship as well.

Motoyasu was fighting a giant tentacle with his party, while Ren and Indigo were tag teaming the pirate.

"Eat this!" Indigo shouted.

"Shooting Star Sword!" Ren added.

Their attacks launched the skeleton pirate to the ground. Soon after, his scattered bones got back together, and he rose again.

"Satoshi!" Ren exclaimed. "The real boss on this ship is the soul eater, but we have to kill the kraken a few times until he will show up!"

"God, will it really take that long?" I groaned.

Suddenly, I thought of a bright idea.

"Raphtalia!" I ordered. "Use the brightest attack you have to draw out the soul eater! It's got to work!"

"Do it!" Naofumi agreed.

"Light spring forth!" Raphtalia chanted.

A ball of life hovered over our heads and exploded like a flash grenade. I made sure to cover my eyes as the bright light surrounded the entire ship, revealing a strange shadow coming from the skeleton captain.

As soon as I saw that I could confidently guess that it was the soul eater. That was a shadow like nothing I'd see before.

"Shooting Star Bow!"

The other shadows that appeared at the same time as the captain's shadow started converting into soul eaters.

All the soul eaters from around the ship merged to become one humongous soul eater. The soul eater, furious that Raphtalia had cast the light spell, targeted her and charged in her direction. Luckily, Naofumi blocked it using his Air Strike Shield.

"Everybody! Use your shooting star skills on it!"

"Shooting Star Sword!"

"Shooting Star Spear!"

"Shooting Star Bow!"

Things were getting desperate. The monster appeared to be charging up a powerful attack.

"Everybody! Move back!"

I had a powerful attack, which I had gained from the fight against the 8 eyed 16 legged abomination, but it did more harm than good. Basically, it would exchange every stat I had that was similar to MP and SP, using my level as a factor, and shoot one extremely powerful arrow blast at the enemy. However, upon use, it would render me useless for an entire day.

"I must unleash this upon the enemy. There is no other way."

"What are you about to do?" Rishia asked, her teeth clattering in fear.

"Hypercharged Shot!"

I released my bowstring and the recoil almost sent me flying over the edge. A flurry of different colors of light released from my bow, and it instantly impaled the creature, causing its black magic ball to explode and vanquish the creature immediately.

"D-Did we win?"

As those words left my mouth, my consciousness faded as a beautiful, Japanese looking girl descended from above, fan in her hand.

Chapter 26 out soon!