A wild last boss appeare.., p.13
A Wild Last Boss Appeared! Volume 5, page 13
If Virgo had a little more experience, this might not have happened. She might have decided to let the level difference speak for itself, not minding being hit with some magic in order to cut through the lamia’s neck with her blade. But that hadn’t come to Virgo’s mind. She still couldn’t help but freeze for a moment when slashing at someone, and that hesitation bred openings. Repeating long-distance slashes over and over again wasn’t a strategy. It was because Virgo was unconsciously avoiding slashing her enemy directly, so she’d chosen to fight from a distance.
“Haagghh!”
“Water Spear!”
La Pucelle unleashed another blade of light, and the lamia shot a spear of water, hitting the slash midair, but they didn’t cancel each other out. The blade of light cut through the spear of water, but the lamia avoided it with movements that were literally serpentine.
The lamia in no way beat Virgo in terms of levels. In fact, her level was only 150. Virgo’s level was twice hers, but it was also a fact that Virgo had a support build, and her stats were not suited to entering direct combat. Still, at twice her opponent’s level, the difference in their power levels was basically absolute. Virgo should have won long ago, but for some reason, she still hadn’t. She was having trouble in a fight which she should have won, as she doubled her opponent’s level, because of the difference in their combat experience and motivation.
Virgo had almost no experience, and she just didn’t have the hostility and desire to annihilate the demihuman that was opposing her. On the other hand, the lamia was on the edge of a precipice. She couldn’t afford to lose no matter what. The difference in their will to fight managed to bridge the impossible gap in levels.
I...have to stop her somehow! I’ll use that ability!
The look in Virgo’s eyes grew sharper, and the lamia was assaulted with a feeling of pressure. It was the heaven-winged’s racial skill, Pressure. Its effect forced those who were half the user’s level or less to submit. It was a skill made for royalty that allowed for bloodless suppression. It allowed anyone with the skill to avoid fights with anyone they didn’t have to and to simply control them instead. Given the levels of Virgo and the lamia, this skill should have been effective against her.
The lamia glared silently. “Don’t you dare underestimate me!” the lamia shrieked, shaking off the Pressure and resuming the fight. Taking advantage of Virgo’s surprise, the lamia launched a water bullet that grazed her opponent and caused her to drop in altitude.
“What?!”
“Not good enough, girlie. I see your level certainly is above mine, though. I bet that would normally have ended the fight in one go, wouldn’t it? But you’re empty inside. You don’t have the desire to make your opponent submit no matter what. You’ve got nothing... As if some superficial Pressure like that would work!”
Virgo was possessed of a shy, kind personality. But was she really just kind? Or did she lack self-confidence and independence, unable to step out front herself? Virgo was simply allowing herself to be swept along by the current around her; her heart wouldn’t allow her to go against it. That was why her Pressure didn’t have much power. Normally, it should have decided the fight all at once, but the fight still wasn’t over. Her lack of willpower had been exposed, and Virgo was shaken.
“I can see it, you know. How you really look behind that illusion magic, that is. I can see those white wings of yours. They’re almost too pretty... I bet you’re royalty, or at least related to them, but don’t think that the Pressure you put out can suppress us. The feelings that drive us to fight are just different!” the lamia howled as she landed a direct hit on Virgo with her magic.
Given their level difference, there was no way a spell of that level would end up as a fatal blow. It only scored a light wound, but even light wounds could add up into something more. The balance of the fight gradually shifted towards the lamia; Virgo was cornered.
Seeing this, Sei once again felt anxiety in his heart. Crap. Virgo!
He wanted to rush to Virgo and help her in her time of need, but he couldn’t. He wouldn’t be allowed to. The enemy he faced was strong enough that turning your back on him would be fatal. The sheer agility of the spiderman Sargess was a true threat to Sei and the others. He not only moved across the ground quickly, but he could also leap agilely from tree to tree. He ambushed anyone the moment they showed an opening, gradually adding up the damage the team was suffering.
In order to combat this, Sei and his party took a circular formation, and while they were barely successful, that didn’t change the fact that they were on the back foot. It could be said that the current situation was despairingly bad for them.
“Tch, this is bad... That spider bastard is stupid fast.”
“I can barely follow him with my eyes. Damn.”
Jean and Gantz were keeping a tight watch on Sargess’s movements while complaining. As soon as they managed to catch sight of Sargess, he had already moved. Grasping his whereabouts was proving to be a Herculean task.
Did we make a mistake fighting him with this group? Gantz kept that thought deep in his heart.
Among their entire group, Virgo was the only one capable of high-speed combat. Only she had the ability to fly, which could keep up with Sargess’s three-dimensional movements. But Virgo was currently tied up in a hard battle with the lamia and didn’t seem to have the leeway to help them.
While Gantz was distracted by his thoughts, a metallic sound rang out from behind him, and he heard a cry of anguish from Petto. It seemed like he’d just barely managed to defend against Sargess’s attack, thanks to the excellent kinetic vision granted to him as a beastfolk. But that wouldn’t last them long either.
Just what should we do...? Sei tried to come up with a way to grasp victory with their lacking strength. He thought of the skills he had, as well as the abilities of his allies. Sei took all of that into account, but he still couldn’t think of a way to take down Sargess.
Meanwhile, Sargess’s threads had wrapped themselves around Sei’s sword, further worsening the situation.
Crap! Isn’t there anything we can do? Anything...?! Sei thought, desperate. Finally, he arrived at a single idea when he suddenly saw Virgo flying from the corner of his eye. Right, there’s one way to break out of this.
“Virgo! Can you hear me?! If you can, I want you to shout the exact words I’m going to say to you!”
“What?!”
“You need to shout...” Sei hesitated for a second.
Honestly, I’m not sure about this. There’s a possibility that by saying this, I’ll seriously get killed. But as it is, we’re just waiting to lose. I’ll just have to work hard to undo the misunderstanding later.
He paused a moment, then continued, “‘This person’s a molester. Someone help me!’”
“Huh...?”
“D-Don’t think about it. Just shout! Then you’ll understand why!”
Sei had requested a line that seemed meaningless. Well, it had a meaning. While Virgo had never heard the term “molester” before, she could tell it was a cry for help. But a cry to who? Where?
Virgo’s eyes widened. Sargess, the lamia, and Gantz, who had heard what Sei had asked of her, all made faces that asked, “Is this guy all right?” However, Sei was sure these would be the magic words to bring about their comeback. By saying those words, Virgo would summon “that” to come in their time of need.
“U-Uhhh... Then I guess I’ll say it? Th-This person’s a molester! Someone help me!”
While still unclear as to what Sei was going for, Virgo did as he’d asked and shouted the line.
There...was no change. That was what everyone thought, at least, but it wasn’t true. The one who heard Virgo’s shout was currently making their way there at incredible speeds in order to murder the scoundrel accosting her.
He had an order from his creator. If any villain were to ever lay their hands on Virgo, he was to attack them until they were on the verge of death!
“Y E S, B O S S!”
So he—Suzuki—ran. He fully accelerated, charging into the demihuman village at top speed.
As Suzuki ran, he changed forms. Accompanied by metallic clanking, Suzuki quickly reformed his own body. By rearranging several parts, his door became steel arms, and steel legs extended from his lower end. Suzuki had discarded his vehicle form to become a steel giant. Suzuki had twin eyes which looked a lot like an imitation of a robot’s eyes from some anime. They flashed red ominously as Suzuki ran as a giant with a beautiful form much like a marathon runner. He needed to fulfill his last and most important order given to him by Lufas, and in order to help him do that, Suzuki had been given this “Assault Form”! His right hand was equipped with a mana saber, an inferior copy modeled after Libra’s Left Scale. His right hand was equipped with a mana rifle that fired compressed mana instead of physical bullets.
Later, Suzuki’s creator, the Black-Winged Conqueror, had the following to say about him: “Honestly, We went too far.”
The bee demihumans at the entrance to the village were knocked aside, and trees that were in the way were all snapped in two as Suzuki ran through them. Finally, he found her! He found Virgo, the person he needed to protect.
Sei saw Suzuki and couldn’t help but stiffen for a moment, but who could blame him? He wasn’t the only one either. Everyone was struck silent by Suzuki’s sudden appearance, but Sei’s surprise was the most pronounced among them in the end.
Hey... Why is it a giant robot...?
Sei’s look grew distant as he tried to escape reality, but he managed to hurriedly bring himself back by shaking his head and reminding himself of his goal. Then Sei shouted, “You there! The one you’re looking for is me. Come on!” towards Suzuki.
That line seemed incredibly pathetic and uncool, even to Sei. If his father had heard him, he’d surely have cried.
After riling up Suzuki, Sei firmly gripped his sword. Currently, Sei’s sword was entangled in Sargess’s threads, so they were effectively bound together. By following the string, Sei could get an accurate grasp on where Sargess was, and their current relative positions meant that Sargess was caught between Suzuki and Sei.
As soon as Suzuki recognized the scoundrel he had to defeat, he locked on to his target and carried out a tackle with ferocious speed. That action snapped the tree that Sargess was on top of in two, slamming the spiderman into the ground. At the same time, Sei quickly dashed off, evading Suzuki’s tackle and pinning Sargess’s arms while he was knocked down.
“Wh-What...?!”
“Sorry, but I’ll be taking you down with me.”
The iron giant barreled towards them accompanied by a tremendous sound.
I’ll be fine. I’ll totally be fine, Sei told himself repeatedly. I mean, Lufas definitely ordered the car to “tackle them just enough so they don’t die,” so I definitely won’t be killed at least.
Actually, wait. Is that really a tackle? Given the size, it’s more of a full-on kick like you’d see in soccer, right?
“G O T O H E L L!”
“W-Woooaarrrgghhh?!”
Sargess, who was caught in the middle, screamed pitifully as Suzuki kicked him flying along with Sei.
See, I knew it’d be a kick and not a tackle! Sei might have been the meticulous type, since he was internally retorting a detail like that while he was flying.
The attack from the golem made by the Black-Winged Conqueror had shattered Sargess’s exoskeleton, dealing enormous damage. By the time they crashed to the ground, he could no longer even stand up.
On the other hand, Sei had managed to avoid a serious wound thanks to the shield that Virgo had erected for him at the last second. On top of that, Virgo hurriedly flew in front of Suzuki to stop his charge, somehow managing to save Sei’s life.
Wait, was that thing seriously aiming its rifle at me? His finger was on the trigger, right? Man, that was a dangerous bridge I crossed. Too dangerous. Then Sei realized that his plan had worked, and his last thought before losing consciousness was, I contributed something, at least...
16
“You pushed yourself way too hard there. Geez,” Castor said, looking at the unconscious Sei.
However, he was smiling broadly. He honestly felt that, while Sei was still immature, he was a boy with a lot of potential. Not only did Sei know full well he lacked strength, but it hadn’t caused him to give up. Instead, he looked for a way to get through the situation with what he had. That wasn’t something just anyone could do. He completely lacked both strength and experience, but his mettle was top-notch.
Castor looked forward to seeing how Sei would grow, though now wasn’t the time for that. Sei had sacrificed himself to give them a chance, so it was up to the rest of them to turn said chance into victory.
“Storm Pressure!”
The two waves of mana Castor emitted turned into wind directly above the lamia and the dryad. Then, they pushed down on their targets with incredible force, forcing the two ever closer to being knocked out of the fight.
The rest of the bug person forces had already been scattered by Castor, and the spiderman had been taken care of by Sei. This meant that the fight was over once the lamia and the dryad were taken care of.
“Wh-What the hell is this?! I can’t...move...”
“Grk... Dammit... This...”
The dryad and lamia desperately tried to escape, but unfortunately, their levels were too low.
Castor went on to wag his finger, making invisible bonds of wind to restrain the two of them with, completely neutralizing them. “Well, that’s that.”
“Amazing! You aren’t one of the Twelve Stars for nothing, huh?” Jean praised Castor, who had just neutralized the last of their enemies like it had been nothing.
Castor tried to smile in response, but the next moment, his expression froze. There was no need to explain why. After all, Sagittarius had suddenly appeared. No, it wasn’t just him. Libra, Scorpius, Aigokeros, and Karkinos were all there, and they all bore fairly heavy wounds.
“Wh-What happened?!”
“E-Everyone...?! Just what...?”
Gantz was shocked at their sudden appearance, and Virgo likewise showed her surprise. Part of their surprise was because their appearance had been so sudden, but more than that, they were in disbelief over how hurt the Twelve Stars were.
The Twelve Stars were basically walking disasters. They were a group of monsters, and every single one of them had the power of an entire country’s military, so it was unbelievable that so many of them had been cornered at once.
Libra took in her surroundings, and after quickly processing the situation, she stood up. “This is...” she paused, processing. “The demihuman’s village, I see. It seems you’ve saved us, Sagittarius.”
Up until a moment ago, they’d been fighting Leon in Tyrving. The reason Libra and the others were here now was because of Sagittarius. By using his skill Al Nassr, which instantly teleported an arrow wherever he aimed, Sagittarius had saved all of them right before they would have been finished off by Leon. And that meant that he wasn’t obeying Leon out of his own will.
“Thanks, Sagittarius! We were all about to be annihilated!”
Sagittarius looked away when Karkinos thanked him, quietly saying, “I haven’t done anything that warrants thanks.”
He might have been feeling guilty in his own way for betraying Lufas and the rest of the Twelve Stars, but even if Sagittarius had only been acting in the spur of the moment, it showed that he was on their side. And he had to stay there now. It was clear that Leon would take this as nothing other than a hostile action, at least.
“Chief Sagittarius!”
“It’s you, Derby. And it looks like the ones on the ground there are Sargess and the others... What happened here?”
After Derby called out to him, Sagittarius looked around the village, mystified. There were clear signs of battle, as well as captured demihumans. On top of that, he could even see the spiderman Sargess who could be said to be one of the top leaders in the demihuman alliance. It was obvious at a glance that something had happened here.
“That’s our line,” said Castor. “You all should have been heading for Tyrving, so why’re you all here? And Sagittarius is with you... Won’t you tell us what’s going on?”
Castor and the others also couldn’t figure out what had happened. The people who should have gone to Tyrving had suddenly shown up.
“Hmm,” Libra muttered as she sunk into thought, signaling that she needed time to process the situation. “Yes... Then first, let us exchange information.”
＊ ＊
Aries leaned against a broken wall and slid down until he was curled up against it. He honestly wanted to chase after Leon right away, but Aries knew he wouldn’t be able to win, and his legs wouldn’t let him. This was an issue of his bravery and will, but it was also more than that. Aries’s fear was instinctual, a feeling that couldn’t be shaken, something he felt every time he faced an apex predator like Leon.
Their statuses had been different since birth. Aries was a weak being who anyone could win against; he had been born to be prey. Aries challenging Leon defied the natural order of things. That was why this fight would normally be impossible. One was prey and the other was a predator. One was weak and one was strong. Even though they were both monsters, there was a big difference between them. A gap that had existed since birth was difficult to fill.
Aries was different from the other Twelve Stars. The Twelve Stars was a group of monsters, and each one was crowned the strongest of their kind. They had all ruled their own large territories before becoming Lufas’s followers. There was the Demon King of Hel, Aigokeros; the Empress of Poison, Scorpius; the strongest golem, Libra; the toughest monster, Karkinos; Parthenos, the keeper of the Goddess’s Sanctuary; the Fairy Princess, Pollux; Pollux’s other half and the strongest fairy, Castor; the world’s top sniper, Sagittarius; Pisces, the Goddess’s son; Taurus, the royalty of the labyrinth; the Empress of the Seas, Aquarius; and the Lion King, Leon.
Compared to them, what am I? Seriously. All the other Twelve Stars were strong from the start. They are people who took their seats because they were theirs. Lufas added them to the Stars because of what they already had, whether that was their strength or something else.
