Chapter 42 - Defeating the Spirit Tortoise

Chapter 42 – Defeating the Spirit Tortoise

Author's Note: It's Tortoise Time! Also, Arcium and the Arcian Confederation will be used interchangeably even though Arcium is a state of the Confederation. This is purely for simplicity purposes.

"Oh! Bow Hero! Great President of Arcium!"

"You must save the world!"

"Please help us! That thing destroyed my country!"

The military commanders were in complete despair. They didn't know what to do.

I sat down at one of the seats and set an Arcian Flag and a nametag in front of me.

"We must come up with a plan on how to fight the Spirit Tortoise. Does anyone have any ideas?"

"Well, we know the method."

"To seal it?"

"Yes."

"How can we do so?" Mirellia asked. "Can we even use that kind of magic?"

The room fell silent.

"However," A commander butted in. "The coalition army wizards can cast it if they all work together."

"So, we need to weaken the Spirit Tortoise so that the wizards can seal it away?"

"Correct."

Looking at a map on the table, I could see that there was a city right next to the tortoise, where I had been in just a bit earlier.

We had to evacuate it, or not everybody would die.

"Has the city been evacuated yet?"

"Not yet. The evacuations won't be completed before the arrival of the Spirit Tortoise."

"Let's share all we know about the tortoise. Maybe that will lead to something."

Mirellia, the other leaders and I shared all we knew about the Spirit Tortoise. We were all quite astonished afterwards. They were quite shocked to realize that the Spirit Tortoise could stop the waves, but at the cost of two-thirds of the world's lives.

"What is Faubrey doing?" A restless commander asked.

"They only take steps after the problem is already there."

"We must wait here with the Bow and Shield heroes until the seven star heroes are here!"

"But how many cities and forts will we lose while we wait for them?"

"That's easy for you to say. Your country hasn't taken any damage yet! We must defeat the beast as soon as possible!"

Everybody in the tent was slinging insults at each other.

I had to do something to stop this.

"Everybody!" I bellowed. "If I may."

The room quickly quieted up.

"The Arcian Confederation and I shall defend this world to the death, sacrificing life and limb. Once we are committed to a cause, we shall not stop until we have achieved it. We shall not give up in the face of despair, no matter what the circumstances, and we shall protect the peoples of all nations involved like if they were our own. That is what it means to be a good ally, and the meaning of a true hero. It is my duty as the President of the Confederation and the Bow Hero to oblige by those words. Thus, we shall go on to the end."

The commanders clapped at the first part of my speech. Time to pull a page out of Winston Churchill's book.

"We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many long days of struggle and suffering. You ask, what is our strategy? How do we plan to defeat the tortoise? And I will say: It is to wage war with all our might and with all the strength given to us by the powers above. We must wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalog of human crime. And that is our strategy."

"And with that said, lend me your strength, for we cannot win alone. Lend me your strength, for I cannot win on my own. Nobody can. This great coalition of nations, the scale of which has never been witnessed since the Siltvelt war, must unite against the common threat, even for just an instant, and we will strike down the beast! Strike it so hard that there shall be no remains!"

Cheering and clapping, like they were fangirls of a popular boy band, the commanders swarmed me and lifted me up to the air. They were cheering in pure ecstasy. Arcian reporters were gathered outside the tent, jotting down notes of their own. This speech would probably be taught in history books one day, given that we defeated the tortoise.

"Bow Hero! Bow Hero! Bow Hero!"

Then, one person started chanting something else.

"Make him our supreme commander!"

Then the rest of them joined in.

I courteously addressed this proposition.

"I shall humbly accept, if none shall object."

"Very well," Mirellia added in. "I agree to that as well. The President of the Arcian Confederation shall be the supreme commander of the coalition."

The soldiers outside, hearing my loud and awe-inspiring speech, started rushing into the tent, nearly causing the structure to collapse.

It took a very long time for things to calm down.

"Guess I pulled it off, eh?"

"Satoshi! You pulled off the same thing that you did back in Arcium, huh? Good job!"

"Thanks, Indigo. I really appreciate it." I replied as I patted him on the back.

Afterwards, I started to draft up a plan with the commanders, and it was agreed that Naofumi would stall for more time to prevent further casualties, and the wizards would cast the spell. I was to enter the tortoise and defeat it from within.

I was quite annoyed though. I was rapidly modernizing the Arcian military, with incredible weaponry and technologies and new advents that would make us nearly invincible. But most of those things haven't or couldn't be created yet, and the innovations which had been created hadn't been massively deployed yet due to the incomplete state of many of the factories. Thus, the Confederation had to sit this one out for now, with myself and my party, and some pigeons, as its only aid for the war effort.

After gathering ourselves, we headed out to face the tortoise. It was before us, advancing step by step. Earthquakes sounded and rumbled the ground, creating a jarring feeling in my body.

Granny and Éclair, popping out of nowhere, started chopping away at the tortoise's familiars. The tortoise had an ability to turn monsters around it into its underlings, which was quite an annoying ability.

Granny created a tornado that blew away many of the familiars, while Éclair unleashed a barrage of skills upon the enemy. Indigo even joined in, using some cool halberd tricks on them.

But for every dead familiar, a dozen more took its place. They were almost never-ending.

I decided to join in the fray as well. I switched over to the machine gun variant of the Light Maintenance Rifle and began blasting away.

The machine gun, firing at nearly quadruple digits of rounds per minute, tore through many monsters like they were paper Mache. Guess a level hundred something hero with a machine gun is pretty effective against the weak frys.

Even better, I didn't have to reload it at all. The bow kept generating 7.62mm rounds onto the machine gun belt, creating a never-ending stream of bullets. I did have to stop now and then to let the barrel cool down, though, but Eda and Rishia could cast water magic to cool it down faster.

"Indigo! I'm gonna have to mount the machine gun on you! We gotta head towards the Tortoise!"

"Gotcha!"

Rishia, Eda, Welst and Rojeel stayed behind, assisting the rest of the coalition army with support spells.

Setting the machine gun directly on Indigo's head, I fired into the crowd of familiars, creating a trail of dead bodies in my wake. The big bird barreled through the seemingly never-ending sea of creatures, biting and gnawing at any who stood in his path. Naofumi followed behind us, him and his party riding on Filo.

"Naofumi! Create a barrier!"

I waved a red flag in a certain pattern, indicating for the queen to begin her attack.

"Shooting Star Shield!"

A flurry of rainclouds filled the sky, raining down lightning bolt after lightning bolt at the unsuspecting familiars.

I waved a yellow flag in a certain pattern. The attack ceased.

"Now! Attack the tortoise!"

Filo and Indigo jump kicked the beast, while I spammed bow shots at the tortoise's feet. Machine guns were only useful against weaker monsters, which the tortoise clearly was not.

"Huh?"

"It's not working?"

Filo and Indigo had successfully punctured the tortoise's neck, but the wound immediately healed.

"Can't let the younglings get all the glory!"

Granny began spinning like a top, dealing decent damage to the turtle.

"I'll help too!"

Éclair infused her sword with magic, thrusting it into the tortoise. That attack was also pretty effective.

"Guys! You're doing well! Keep attacking!"

The tortoise, enraged by our attacks, began mustering electricity in its mouth. The electricity cracked and cracked, sounding like a broken power line.

Soon enough, its mouth was full of electricity, and it sent out a cloud of lighting directly at us.

"Indigo! Get us out of here!"

The roaring attack barely missed us by a hair, but Naofumi took the brunt of the impact.

Kaploey!

The sheer sound of the attack nearly deafened me. Good thing I was wearing ear protection and a gas mask.

"Ugh!"

The short, black haired man collapsed on the field, resembling a fried turkey.

"You alright?"

"U-Ugh… I'll live."

"Zweite Heal!"

Naofumi cast a healing spell on himself, and somehow managed to block the tortoise from stomping him into a bloody pulp. The impact from the stomp vibrated across the entire area, sending chills down my spine.

Crash!

Scanning my eyes around the battlefield, I had noticed that everything around Naofumi had been obliterated, including a mountain.

"Naofumi! Get out of there! You won't survive another stomp!"

Naofumi barrel rolled out of the elevated platform he was now standing on. After another tortoise stomp, a giant dust cloud kicked up, and I couldn't see anything. Neither could the tortoise.

During the entire time, I kept raining machine gun bullets on the tortoise, presumably dealing large DPS to it. My main goal was to whittle its health down before going inside it to finish the job.

Naofumi and his party had rolled up to me, exhausted from their engagement with the colossus. Éclair and Granny were also with him.

"We need to do a combo skill. That'll get him. I'll use Lightning Arrow."

"And I'll use Sword of Heaven!" Raphtalia joined in.

"Indigo. Filo. Get us up there."

As we were soaring through the sky, we reached the level of the tortoise's head.

"Are you ready!"

"Yes!"

"Alright. Lightning Arrow!"

"Spiral Directional Strike! Sword of Heaven!"

Eight black and white balls of light swirled around us.

In a flash, the Spirit Tortoise was dead. Our combined attack power tore through its entire body, with my arrow striking it first and Raphtalia flying through it an instant later.

Was it this easy this entire time? Were we just overreacting?

The army was riled up and cheering behind us. They were all waving their own flags in celebration.

I rested my head on Indigo's soft feathers, rubbing his round head as we descended back down onto the ground.

"Good job, Satoshi!"

"Yeah! Way to go!"

"Good work, Raphtalia!"

I lead Naofumi's party and Indigo back to where the rest of the army was located. It was time to make a victory speech.

Chapter 43 out soon!