Chapter 107: An Awesome Power
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"Waaaahhh!" we heard a frightened cry from behind a property wall. Followed by a guttural roar.
"Adventurers! Where are you going?!" someone yelled.
"Sorry old man! We don't even have weapons, this was supposed to be a demolitions job! Come on, just run for it!"
"Damn it! You cowards! You… you have the right idea! Everybody g- gaaah!"
"Boss!"
"Agh! My leg! I'm done for! Run, you fools!"
I [Jet Bootsu]'ed over the wall to see the back yard of old run-down mansion. Workers were fleeing, but one of them was left behind – his leg bleeding from a cut. Black smoke wafted out of an empty suit of armor that still walked and carried an axe.
"Gwaaaaargghhh…." a moan came out of a mouthless helm.
Unlike the Dullahan from the Old Capital, this one was a much smaller and more human-sized set of plate. And it had a helmet. Almost immediately as I crested the top of the boundary wall, the Living Armor turned its head all the way around to stare at me. Creepy.
Even as it raised its axe to finish off the foreman of the demolition crew.
Shite, can't use [Shining Javelin], it would overpenetrate and kill the civilian.
THOOM.
A bolt of [Lightning] leapt out of my two outstretched fingers and blasted the axe right out of its metal hands. If Fireball Lightning isn't solving your problems, clearly you're not using enough of it!
I landed with a soft thump, and swung my other arm around. Now it was the time to shoot off the [Shining Javelin]!
FSSHRANK.
The lance of hot yellow-gold holy light punched through the Living Armor, dissipating its miasma, and out the back. And then through the clearing into the mansion's outer walls. Then through the inner walls separating rooms. Then out through the structural walls in the other side.
Then it kept going to punch through the perimeter walls of the estate.
And then it exploded.
"What the heck was that?!" someone screamed in the distance. "That almost killed me holy shit!"
Oops. I still had that problem with drastically overcharging native spells. If anything, it seems to be getting worse?
The now truly empty suit of armor fell down in pieces. I made my way over to the wounded man and started to tend to the axe bite on his leg. "So, what happened here?"
"Are... are you an adventurer?"
"Yep. Sure."
A little bit of the fear in the foreman's face faded away, replaced by a somewhat insolent gratefulness. "It was a gosh-dang Living Armor." He pointed to a storage building filled with old rusted weapons and equipment. "The adventurers I hired couldn't do anything – not that I blame 'em, daggers and shortswords ain't much good against armor with no one inside, you know? You really need some Light magic to deal with undead, and that's mighty rare to find outside a temple or already in a good adventuring party."
He sagged and tried to get up, but could only wince in pain. "I thank the gods you were around! You'll be paid for this, don't you worry."
I bent down to apply a hand glowing with healing magic to his split kneecap. "Happy to help, my good man. Strange to find a monster right here in the middle of the city. A form of undead, you say? How's that even possible?" Was I looking at some sort of secret cult activity?
The foreman nodded. "This place… it used to be the home of a kindly viscount. But all his wealth was stolen from him by a certain Count, and he and his entire family committed suicide in despair."
Ah. I see.
Clank. Clank.
I didn't even need to turn around to realize that dark mist was starting to come out of old dented empty suits of armor, pulling in greaves and gauntlets and all the other pieces. The dead viscount had quite a collection of old weapons and armor.
"Their entire family, you say?" I said idly.
"T-the hatred and regret! There can be more than one! If the Living Armor aren't exorcised, the lingering negative feelings could animate any loose armor even after one is destroyed!"
Clank. Clank. Sccrriiitch.
Still I refused to turn around and the foreman's expression staring past my shoulder was steadily rising in panic.
"What if we bring that corrupt Count over here… would it calm them down?"
"I-I'm afraid that's not possible. I heard he was executed just recently… for high treason, of all things, I heard," the foreman quailed as the Living Armors approached armed with old blunted and rusted but still lethal enough weaponry. There were at least eight of them, with more being assembled from spare suits.
"THAT F*CKER," Monika and I growled out at the same time (though she used the milder 'That toad!').
I breathed out "Count Balza."
"GRAAAAAGHH!" the Living Armors roared and charged as one.
Hurriedly I picked up the wounded foreman and legged it, stacked [Amplify] adding power and speed to my limbs.
"Sorry about this."
I jumped up on top of a perimeter wall, and the Living Armors crashed into it. And then through it. Their undeath – or possible this voodoo spirit undead monster magic – giving them power that they lacked in life. I wobbled in place, then began running for it.
With the Living Armors focused entirely on me, the other workers could now flee.
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/"Really Player, this is probably your fault. You're the monster candy."/
"That sounds legit." Wait, am I Aqua? (1)
/"Are you looking for a high place so we can just blast them with a [Multicast] [Shining Javelin]?"/
"Unfortunately, any other mansion is probably inhabited and we'd be putting the people inside at risk." I looked behind me at the Living Armor still chasing after me even as I ran over the tall boundary walls of the different estates. "Isn't that guy's corpse still hanging by the city gates?"
Seeing it hanging there upside down with preservation magic cast on it had abruptly reminded us that we were in a society that relished bloody executions. The greater the crime, the greater the sin, the worse the pain the criminal must face before being allowed to die. And to a noble, humiliation was often worse than death. Humiliation even after death was the worst of fates.
/"That's all the way across the river to the South Gate,"/ Monika literally pointed out. /"You can't just have them follow you along like Dick Dastardly trying to Catch That Pigeon."/
"Count Balza's dead! It's fine! You've been avenged!" I shouted down at the Living Armors.
"Graaaagh!" An axe was thrown at my face. I turned my head and watched it spin by.
"Could you stop saying that name?!" the foreman yelped. "L-living Armor are separate things to the dead that once produced those feelings in the first place. You can't explain things to the corpse of someone's past!"
Living Armor was a type of undead that usually formed in places of great death and regret. Battlefields and graveyards, for example. The fact that it could manifest here meant that placing a religious blessing to get rid of a curse or ill omens didn't really work that well. Consecration as a preventative measure didn't disperse curses and grudges until they finally manifest.
How fascinating. Strong emotions could remain as a cohesive force, perhaps imprinting itself onto magic. This world's magic DID have an emotional component after all. Well that explained why I was getting away with so much bullshittery, while at the same time more impressive that a civilization so long ago managed to Formalize magic to such an extent that it was largely plug and play across all the world.
I kept running along the walls until I found a particularly tall one hiding an ostentatious mansion on the other side. Slowly and carefully I helped the foreman sit down. He nervously clung onto the edge.
"You- you can't just leave me here!"
I stood straight up, completely unconcerned with the height or falling down as the Living Armor began to ram themselves against the wall hoping to knock us off. That just sent the heavily muscled worker yelping even more like a scared little girl and practically hugged the stone. I cracked my knuckles as I stared down at the armored undead.
"I can't just leave them here to rampage around. They're going to kill somebody, anybody, that happens to come out to check out what's with this racket."
/"[Multicast] [Shining Javelin] time?"/ Monika asked. /"The street is quite deserted. Wait. No. I'm sensing some horses… probably cavalry, heading here. They'll be here in about a minute or less."/
Needed to hurry this up, then.
Hmm. "Undead are weak to Light Magic, right?"
/"Yes? What are you thinking about? Trying to reduce collateral damage?"/
I raised a fist. And to those below I shouted "THIS HAND OF MINE GLOWS WITH AN AWESOME POWER."
/"Oh no."/
"ITS BURNING GRIP IS TELLING ME TO DEFEAT YOUUU!" I yelled I as I dived right into the middle of them. My white leather gloves burned with yellow fire. "[SHINIIIING FIIIIINGEERRR!]" (2)
/"But I'm not wearing an eyepatch!"/ Monika yelled at me from above. /"Nor do I have an uncanny resemblance to Lupin the Third! Find someone else to officiate this Gundam Fighto!"/ (3)
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Crunch.
An empty suit of armor slammed onto a far wall.
Royal Cavalry rounded the corner, and one of them had Yumina riding along. "Sir Zaaaah!" she shouted as she came into sight.
I stopped and waved from the middle of the street. "Oh. Hey."
"Behind you!" she cried out as the last Living Armor raised a broadsword high, ready to cut me in two. But it was an age-blunted sword, it would pulverize bone and sinew more than it would cut.
"Hang on, excuse me a mo'." I turned around and drove my fist into the chestplate of the last undead. Then its insides erupted with Light.
The Living Armor fell apart, the pieces of armor hissing where they lay on the ground.
That's just evaporating metal. Not screaming. Hopefully.
Then I turned back around and tried to wave again with my right arm. Which still had old half plate stuck onto it, my fist having punched clear through the old metal to out the other side.
"Uh. Could someone help me with this please?"
"Help! Could someone help me down?! Please! PLEASE!" the foreman's frightened howl came from above.
Yumina just stared at me and gave me that tight little smile that we were coming to identify as [INTERNAL SCREAMING INTENSIFIES].
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AN:
1) From Konosuba
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXOCzB35kFY
3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlaTueJ2S2k
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