Akatsuki Translations

The 【White King Formation】, preserved until just before activation, utilizing Uuga’s vast magical energy storage.

Its effect was truly simple. Resistance magic targeting the entire tower.

“Puhaa!?” Jain gasped, startled by the water he was about to be engulfed in. Water was enveloping the entire tower. For a moment, he almost mistook it for a new monster or dragon attack.

But it wasn’t. This wasn’t a dragon’s attack. It was the visual effect of the resistance magic. This water itself had no physical form. One could even breathe in it. Though he should have understood this from Echelle’s explanation, he realized he was more confused and dazed than he had thought.

But now, his consciousness was clear.

The powerful, long-lasting resistance magic had brought recovery to Jain and the others. Thus, he shouted:

“You guys!! Wake up!! Hurry!!”

“Mm… good morning… Jain,” Rabin mumbled.

“Snap out of it, you failure of a rabbit!!! You’ll die, dumbass!!!” Jain yelled.

At his shouting, Rabin’s eyes snapped open and she sat up. She grasped her weapon, looked around, and understood the situation.

“…I’m surprised I’m not dead,” Rabin said.

“Be grateful, you fool, and hurry up ‘n get ready!!!” Jain shouted.

The White King Formation’s resistance magic, effective over an extremely wide area. The reason they hadn’t activated it from the start, the reason they had to preserve it until the last moment.

“The monsters are falling!!”

This powerful resistance magic made no distinction between friend and foe.

It also destroyed all of their barriers.

『KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!??』

The monsters that had been blocked by the barrier began to fall. Jain braced himself against this rain of monsters, knocking away those that attacked. However,

“Most of them seem to be falling on their own!?” Rabin exclaimed.

The majority of the monsters that had been blocked by the barrier weren’t falling onto the rooftop where Jain and the others were, but were plummeting outside the tower. At first, it seemed they might have another target, but they simply fell to the ground and were crushed. It was like mass monster suicide.

“The resistance magic is still in effect. Those who were relying on magic to fly rather than their own power suddenly had their wings torn off!!” Jain explained.

“Whoa! That’s amazing!! We’ve caught them all in one fell swoop! If we had done this from the start—”

“Our mages, the priest unit, and anyone using magical devices would be useless too, you know!”

“I take it back, what a pain!!!”

Rabin sprang into action. In that direction were the priests who had become incapacitated. He rushed to help them as they were being attacked by monsters capable of flying on their own.

Jain headed in the opposite direction, towards the Envy Knight Order. Many of them primarily used magic guns powered by magical devices. Naturally, many of them had also become incapacitated.

“Hey, Knight Order!! You guys ain’t dead, are ya?!” Jain shouted.

“…Well, somehow we’re managing,” Eckstein replied, swinging his sword to help cut down the surrounding monsters. But his complexion was a bit off. Looking closer, blood was spurting from various parts of his body.

“Were you sleeping soundly?” Jain asked.

“These are honorable wounds from protecting my subordinates who were doing just that,” Eckstein said with a smile.

As he laughed, his subordinates around him lowered their heads apologetically. It seemed he had been fending off the monster attacks while fighting drowsiness alone.

Of course, the same was true for Jain. Various parts of his body ached. He wanted to recover quickly, but healing wasn’t possible in this place. However, they couldn’t stop this resistance magic either.

『  Z………………………』

After all, the underling dragon was still alive. Its enormous eyeball was fixed on them.

“…We’re going to crush that thing. At the very least, we need to neutralize its magical eye or we’ll be wiped out,” Jain said.

“To think we’d end up involved in dragon slaying… As expected of Ur,” Eckstein remarked.

“You’re saying it’s Ur’s fault?”

“He has a genius for getting caught up in trouble beyond his means.”

“More like a disaster…”

Jain thought that if they survived this, he’d definitely give Ur an earful.

                  ◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆

Command Room

“That was close, so close…!!!” Echelle cried out, shivering.

It had been a close call. No joke, they had been on the verge of total annihilation.

“How about that? Amazing, right?” Lynne boasted.

“Amazing, Lynne, you’re amazing,” Echelle agreed.

“That’s right, I am amazing——————it was dangerous…!” Lynne admitted.

While boasting about the White King Formation as usual, fear was evident on her face. She seemed to understand how close they had come to disaster. She sighed deeply.

“We need to increase the number of people who can at least activate the formation besides me… This is bad,” Lynne said.

“Yeah… but what do we do now?” Echelle asked.

Reflection was important, but they were in an even worse situation now. The crisis hadn’t passed at all. Because they were continuously activating the resistance magic, the command tower was now dysfunctional as they couldn’t use magic. They couldn’t hear from Ur and the others, nor could they control Uuga from here.

Echelle couldn’t feel the link with Uuga in her current state either. To give proper instructions to Uuga, they’d have to stop the resistance magic again. But if they did that, they’d be exposed to that dragon’s sleep attack, and it would be over.

In other words,

“We have no choice but to stop the dragon,” Lynne concluded.

“…Just us?” Echelle asked.

“That’s how it looks.”

“Without using magic?”

“It’s a question of when we release this resistance magic. We can’t use it forever, you know. The magic consumption is intense.”

The currently activated 【Flood of Sins】, the overall resistance magic, was originally meant to be a one-time use, ending once activated. The fact that it was still ongoing was only because they were forcibly maintaining it by diverting the enormous magical power that Uuga could store.

But no matter how vast, it wasn’t infinite. Just because the storage capacity was large didn’t mean the accumulation speed increased. If they used it all up, there would be no magic left to assist Ur and the others in this battle. Thinking about it that way, they didn’t have much time to spare.

“B-but, can we really do something like that…?” Echelle’s voice came out pathetically.

Their options had been drastically reduced. Echelle couldn’t possibly imagine how they could defeat a dragon in this situation.

Of course, the possibility of being attacked by a dragon had been pointed out beforehand. They had also considered what situation they’d be in after activating the resistance magic and had prepared countermeasures. Still, when actually faced with the worst-case scenario they had imagined, the sense of despair far exceeded their mental preparation.

This fear was different from what she had experienced as a child from her family.

It was a more pure fear, stemming from a threat to her life. It was unbearably terrifying.

Just when life had started to become a bit enjoyable, to lose it all—

“Echelle,” Lynne said firmly, grasping both of Echelle’s shoulders, pulling her out of her maze of thoughts. Despite being shorter than Echelle, the hobbit Lynne somehow looked very big at that moment.

“It’s not a question of whether we can do it or not. We’re going to do it, Echelle. We’re going to do it.”

“We’re going to…”

“We’re going to face it, fight it, and win. That’s why we came this far, isn’t it?”

Indeed, that was true.

This battle had the grand cause of fighting for the world’s survival. But Echelle and the others didn’t necessarily have to participate in this battle. They came here out of the will of those who wished for the continuation of Uuga as a place.

They had come hoping to improve their fate even a little. How could they lower their fists before even fighting?

“…I understand. I’ll do it… I’ll try my best…!”

“That’s the spirit, Echelle. Now then, first…”

Saying that, Lynne glanced out the window. The horrifying, rotting underling dragon was still seated in the air. It was continuously casting the 【Slumber】 magic, directing its terrifying magical eye this way, seemingly unaffected by the resistance magic.

“Shall we knock that dragon out of the sky?”

Lynne gripped her staff tightly and struck the White King Formation again.