Chapter 7: The Storm(7)

MISTERLP

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When Halbert and Ruby returned to the ground, the dragons had all

gathered in front of Crystal Castle. They could see Kaede, Liscia, and

Carla standing at the feet of those huge creatures, so Halbert and Ruby

landed next to them.

"Hal, how were things up in the sky?" Kaede asked.

Halbert pointed upward and said, "There was this weird blocky guy up

there. Souma and the others are heading to make contact. More

importantly, though, there're going to be bomb-like things dropping.

We've gotta intercept them."

"You're talking about intercepting them, but with all this rain, flames

are going to be only half as powerful," Carla, who also used fire magic,

pointed out.

The flames that dragons could spew were powerful, but they would

probably be weakened and blown away in all this wind and rain.

Liscia nodded bitterly. "My ice isn't something I can shoot into the sky,

either."

"There is a way, you know," Kaede said, then crouched down and ran

her hand over the ground. "You'll have to forgive a little change in the

topography, though."

With that, the ground began to swell up, and masses of rock and sand

about a meter across rolled around all over the place. Kaede used her

earth-type magic. Even at a glance, there had to be around a hundred of

those masses. It must have taken a considerable amount of magical power.

As might be expected, Kaede stumbled, having overexerted herself, and

Liscia hurried to catch her.

"A-Are you okay?"

"Sorry. I overdid it a little."

With Liscia supporting her, Kaede explained the strategy to everyone.

"I want the dragons to throw these masses of dirt at the falling objects.

With a dragon's strength, you should be able to throw them fairly high. As

for everyone else, I'd like you to use bows enchanted with magic. The

priority is to protect Crystal Castle and the dragon eggs lying dormant

beneath it. Even if you have to ignore the others, please prioritize

intercepting any objects falling toward Crystal Castle."

"Got it... You heard her, everyone!" Liscia helped Kaede to stand, then

shouted to her companions and the dragons. Because she was the princess

of a nation, she naturally ended up giving commands here. "We're going

to support Naden and Souma from here!"

"""Yeahhhh!"""

"""Roaaaaaaaaaaar!"""

Her companions let out a war cry, and the dragons all roared at once.

"Ruby, we're going back to intercept them in the sky," Halbert said.

"Yes. Let's go, Hal."

Halbert and Ruby flew back up with the Little Susumu Mark V Light.

Everyone was trying their hardest to do what they could right now.

While watching that scene unfold, Liscia nocked an arrow.

We're going to do what we can to protect this place.

As she drew back on the bowstring, Liscia thought of Souma and the

others up in the sky.

So, everyone... Make sure you come home all right.

Letting it carry those feelings, Liscia loosed her arrow into the sky

thick with clouds.

◇ ◇ ◇

"Whoa," Aisha said suddenly.

"Are you okay, Aisha?" I asked with concern.

"Y-Yes!"

When we rose, we forgot that Aisha had undone the ropes that had been

keeping her in place. I caught her when she lost her balance, and tied the

rope around me to fix us in position. Even as I was doing that, Naden

continued to evade the falling objects and approach the cube. Outside of

scattering bombs, the cube didn't do anything to intercept us, and we were

easily able to come up alongside it.

Is this cube... ignoring us?

Did that mean its only target, or the only thing that interested it, was

Madam Tiamat? Or did it have an absolute confidence that no one but

Madam Tiamat could destroy it? Whatever the case, we'd gotten close

enough that we could have hopped over to it, so we were able to observe

the cube up close.

It was, as I suspected, a cube with ten meters to a side.

The surface that looked gray from a distance was made from layers of a

glossy stone like cut obsidian, and there were elevated geometrical

patterns on it. It was clearly artificial, but some parts were covered in

moss. Other parts were hard to tell whether they were old or new. There

was no sign of any sort of propeller or jet engine; it was really floating.

Hm... I heard a voice, so I was expecting a creature, or a vehicle of

some type...

No matter how I looked at it, this was just a cube. Not a vehicle, or

anything like that.

Still, there was no way an ordinary cube, with no means of propulsion,

would be floating high up in the sky. Maybe, unlike its simple exterior, the

inside of this thing was really complex.

I don't know if this was proof of that, but the upper front side had

countless holes in it, and they were spewing out those bomb-like objects.

The image of it spitting out bombs at regular intervals was very

systematic, and mechanical.

If that was the case, then maybe this was an example of what Genia

called overtechnology, like the Jewel Voice Broadcast jewels, or the

Lunalith which was said to be in the Orthodox Papal State of Lunaria.

"Looking at the surface... I don't think it's impossible to cut it," Aisha

said. "Do you mind if I try?"

"...Can you aim for a corner? If it breaks and falls, there's no telling

what effect that could have, after all."

"Yes, sir... Hah!"

Aisha swung her greatsword, firing off that sharp blast of wind. The

blast of wind landed a square blow on the corner of the cube... Or it should

have. However, the cube showed no sign of change.

Aisha lowered her greatsword and groaned. "Hrm... This surface is

much harder than steel."

Did that mean she could have cut through steel?

Aisha pulled out a knife from her pocket and threw it at the cube. The

knife flew straight at it, then there was a strange high-pitched noise, and it

fell.

"Look. There isn't even a tiny scratch on the surface."

"Does that mean it's super hard?"

"No, it didn't sound like it made contact. It looked like it was deflected

just before it touched the surface, too."

"Hmm... Does it have a force field of some sort up?"

"Forsfild? What's that?" Aisha asked, looking confused.

"It's a scientific sort of barrier. Even in my old world, they only existed

in fiction."

It was a sci-fi sort of ability, but I felt like it might be possible with

overscience, which went beyond the realm of human understanding.

I had an idea for something we could try.

"Naden, could you hit it with an electric shock?" I asked.

"Okay, but... are you sure you want me to go at full power?"

"Yeah. Give it everything you've got."

"Okay, then... Hah!"

Zap, crackle!

Naden's mane stood on end as she unleashed an electric shock into the

cube.

Purple lightning tore through the air, and just as it was about to impact

the cube, another indescribable sound, much louder than the one before,

echoed through the area. It was like someone magnified the sound of nails

on a chalkboard, then ran it through a filter. It was a noise that grated on

the ears like that.

However, even though the noise was loud enough to be pain-inducing,

there was no change in the cube. How tough was that thing...?

I scratched my head. "Physical attacks, magic, and electricity, all

ineffective, huh? It says it wants to be destroyed, but the thing's way too

tough."

"Isn't that why it wants Lady Tiamat to break it?" asked Naden.

"Yeah, that's probably it..."

While wracking my brain over what to do, I heard that voice again.

"I will destroy. So that you will destroy me."

I heard it clearly. The voice was too high to be male, which made it

seem to be female, but there was something off about it. Now that I heard

it clearly, something caught my attention about it.

This voice...

I'd heard it somewhere before. For some reason, that was the sense I

got. But where?

I tried searching my memories, but the cube wasn't going to give me

time.

Tiamat... if this is not enough to make you destroy me...

There was a sound from the bottom of the cube.

"Naden, head down!" I called.

"You got it!"

We moved down, and the bottom face opened up like a box. Something

shaped like a telephoto camera lens grew straight out of the bottom.

This telephoto-lens-like thing... I had a real bad feeling about it.

"I really will destroy everything of yours."

The lens sticking out of the bottom began to emit light. It was a pale

light at first, but it gradually grew brighter.

This scene... I'd seen something like it in an old-ish sci-fi movie. The

bottom of the massive saucer from space opened up, it gradually filled

with more and more light... and then the light flooded out and blew away

the buildings and cities beneath it.

Wait, Liscia and the others were under this thing!

"Aisha, Naden, attack that part on the bottom!" I cried.

"O-Okay!"

"Roger that! Hahhhhh!"

Aisha launched a blast of wind from her sword, and Naden fired off an

electrical attack. However, despite the loud noises, the telephoto-lens-like

thing was unaffected, and it continued to gather light.

At this point, I could only imagine a future where that light was fired

down at the ground.

"Stooooop!" I screamed, despite myself, as loud as I possibly could.

"S-Sire?" said Aisha.

"Souma?" faltered Naden.

I kept shouting at the cube. "If you want to get busted, then go fall

somewhere, or sink into the ocean, and break on your own! Don't get other

people... don't get my family caught up in your self-destructive urges, you

dummy!"

"Com... lang... detected... abling functions."

With that, the light suddenly stopped gathering, and the telephoto-lenslike thing sticking out of the bottom gradually lost its shine. Eventually it

vanished completely, and the cube tucked that lens back inside itself. Had

it... stopped?

Looking at it carefully, the cube stopped dropping those objects, too.

"Do you suppose it's stopped?" Aisha asked.

"Did what Souma say stop it?"

Aisha and Naden were both perplexed. Like Naden was saying, the

timing with which it happened suggested it listened to my shouting. Maybe

my words got through to it? Come to think of it...

"Sup... lang... detected... abling functions."

That was definitely what the cube said. There had been noise

interrupting it, so I couldn't pick up everything it said, but was "disabling

functions" what it said?

If so, the first half, "Sup, lang, detected," interested me. "Detected"

seemed pretty straightforward, but "sup, lang" meant... Huh?!

This cube stopped because I shouted. If this cube detected my words,

and disabled its functions as a result, then this "sup, lang" was in reference

to what I said.

In other words...

"Supported language..."

"Supported language detected. Disabling functions."

Had that been what the cube said?

A supported language... the language I was speaking... Japanese?!

Had this cube shut down because I used Japanese?

Was Japanese the key...? No, it was saying "supported language," so it

might support languages other than Japanese, too. Thinking more broadly,

had the cube shut down because I used one of the languages of Earth, or

because I used a language from a different world?

When I reached that conclusion, the shards of various memories inside

me started to connect.