Editing Apocalypse Witch:Volume4 Chapter1 (section)

===Part 4===

After returning from wherever she had gone, Mama Letnahe Kurent beat Karuta up even more for a post-lunch workout. ''His arms and legs could not keep up'', but he did manage to follow her punches and kicks with his eyes. However, the difficulty of predicting her actions shot up when she added grappling to the mix. His instincts told him to protect his face and gut…but that manifested itself as his reflexes curling him up in a ball out of fear. It was also strange how the hem and collar of his short-sleeved dress shirt or the belt of his slacks counted as weak points now. Since he had to engage his brain to remember why it was dangerous to let her reach those parts, his reactions were unavoidably slower.

How much harder would it be to respond when one-shot-kill weapons and magic came into play?

If he froze up because he had never seen something before, he would lose his life immediately.

“We’re running out of time. Have you learned anything at all from this?”

“Ugh, this has at least gotten me accustomed to pain before the real fight,” replied Karuta, standing up on unsteady legs.

Yes. He now had it in him to get up under his own power instead of lying sprawled out on the floor.

“Also, ''those two ideas'' show some promise.”

“Glad to hear it. This would have been awkward if it only served to let me blow off some steam.”

But he could not just relax this afternoon. This was not like a soccer or basketball game with a set starting time. Just now, the fifth match came to an end and the crowd erupted into an earth-rattling cheer.

After going through some fairly kinky training where he was unilaterally beaten by a lovely mother of two, Karuta chose to meet up with Marika and Kyouka in the student council room. Due to the ''unexplained security breach'' with their electronics, they were reluctant to exchange detailed information over their phones.

“Karuta.”

Just as he passed by a manga club girl carrying several booklets at her chest, someone called out to him and he turned back to find Marika approaching. Aine was waiting by her side.

Marika did not look directly at them, but she glanced over at the reflection of a newspaper club member in the window.

“We can talk in the student council room. That way you only have to explain it once and this open space isn’t great for a private conversation anyway.”

“Sacri-sama, why are you in such a good mood?”

“I feel like I made some real progress. I-I assure you it isn’t that I like getting beat up by women.”

The three of them walked along the side deck together.

Marika placed a hand on the side of her head to hold her hair down against the sea breeze while she glanced past the side deck railing.

“Looks like they’ve added some more new ships. I hear their composite armor makes them surprisingly light for their size. These two are a drone carrier and an electric warship, right?”

“The Radioquartz and the Chrisbart.”

“Oh, do you know a lot about that stuff, Karuta? You really are a boy, huh?”

“Hey, don’t assume the world’s strongest don’t have to take their final exams. Those are both names you’ll find in our history textbook.”

Modern warships tended to be named after historical scientists. And due to the modern age, the names of a magician and a crystal magic researcher could be found right alongside Galileo and Einstein.

“Who knows, we might eventually see a Karuta aircraft carrier or a Marika-class submarine.”

“Please no!” protested Marika. “I can’t imagine having a warship named after me. It has to be even more embarrassing than a statue of yourself in the schoolyard.”

The ordinary visitors could not spend the night on Second Grimnoah. Because there were too many of them. So separate cruise ships had been brought along for lodging. Add in the escort ships (which had been heavily reinforced after what happened near the Port of Kobe), and there had to be at least a hundred thousand people here. It was like an entire city’s population traveling across the sea.

“I just hope Second Grimnoah doesn’t tip over from all the weight,” said Karuta.

“But it’s a 600m triple hull ship. Eh? You’re not serious are you? Surely a bunch of people isn’t enough to sink it.”

He could not let his guard down even while holding this silly conversation with Marika.

Sure, he still had the 6th match to go, but that could always end in a one-hit KO immediately after the bell, so he could not predict how much time he actually had. So he needed to complete his preparations for the 7th match.

Those three met up with Kyouka in the student council room. The Four Living Gods were all together.

Training himself as much as he could was not enough.

He wanted information on the opponent he would be facing.

But the ordinary people could not be allowed to see the world’s strongest working so hard to avoid defeat. Asking for help on social media would only make him a laughing stock for all the anonymous people out there.

The redheaded buns secretary was standing guard in front of the student council room. She reluctantly moved out of the way when she saw Karuta and the others. Then she moved to stop the newspaper club member who tried to sneak in after them.

“I need results!” shouted Karuta as soon as he was inside their other hangout.

“Your opponent in the 7th match is Hetepheres Men-Nefer. Age: 15. Sex: Female. As you can probably guess from her name, she uses Egyptian mythology magic. She is supposedly a descendent of a sinful tomb keeper family that, fearing European invaders would discover it, stole the mummy of Pharaoh Khufu from the world’s largest pyramid and hid it where no one would ever find it.”

Omotesandou Kyouka listed out the basic data. It meant a lot to have the help of the student council president who could view all of the documents submitted to Second Grimnoah.

“Egypt…”

He didn’t know all that much about it, but that mythology kept turning up around him. Or maybe the Blast Sisters and Anubis had just left a strong impression on him.

Kyouka continued in front of her large desk.

“Egyptian mythology is polytheistic, just like Japanese mythology. You can assume that everything in the world, from the flowing of water to the growing of crops in the field, has a god assigned to it. But you can largely divide the gods into two groups, one led by Ra, god of the sun, and the other led by Osiris, god of death and resurrection. Keep that in mind first and foremost.”

Marika threw herself into the leather sofa and Aine took up her usual motionless position standing in the corner. Those two had approached Hetepheres herself and observed her directly.

“Our observations didn’t show any taboos related to food or drink and, even if she is a priestess or whatever, she doesn’t seem to be a vegetarian. I was surprised at what I saw, but apparently they ate a lot of bread in ancient Egypt. She wears a loose-fitting white garment with tons of pure gold accessories. Gold is soft, but it has a high relative density, making it heavy. Those things could do some real damage if she swung them around. I don’t know what kind of mythological meaning any of it has, but you could probably use all the frilly parts of her outfit to grab her.”

“To add to that, if she is a priestess with a solid sense of purpose, she would not attempt to borrow the power of a god or monster that goes against her faith. For example, Set is the enemy of both Ra and Osiris, so you can rule him out as a possibility right away.”

It could be confusing, but it was not as simple as Ra, god of heaven, being good and Osiris, god of the underworld, being evil. Even in Asia, Yama, king of the underworld, was the one who judged the dead, so he was not actually evil himself.

In Egyptian mythology, it was generally the righteous gods who ruled heaven and earth. The ones considered to be evil were not allowed in either camp.

After hearing everything they had to say, Karuta slowly inhaled on his feet.

And…

“''That’s all?''”

That was his response.

“Hold on. ''That’s all just general information on Egyptian mythology and their priests! None of it’s specific to Hetepheres at all!'' Elicia of the Problem Solvers used the power of Vishnu from Indian mythology, but that alone isn’t enough to know she attacked using a dinosaur. This leaves so many unknowns I can’t even put together a plan. Didn’t you find any more personal traits or idiosyncrasies!?”

Magic was not the only thing to fear here.

Ancient Egypt was a large and highly developed culture. They would have needed to take up weapons as a group and defend themselves against the surrounding civilizations, so they had to have their own military strategies and martial arts. Karuta honestly couldn’t picture it at all. Greek gods wielded double-edged swords and tridents and Buddhist ogres wielded metal clubs. He had a general idea of what kind of weapons those cultures used, but with the Egyptian gods, he could only think of musical instruments and scales – neither of which were weapons. If he didn’t even know that, he could be defeated by ordinary brute force before she even got to her magic.

He also didn’t know if Hetepheres would insist on using some mysterious ancient Egyptian martial art. It was always possible she could surprise him by suddenly using jujutsu or systema.

Simply put, ''he didn’t know anything solid.

But he couldn’t blame Marika, Kyouka, and Aine for that. They had only had 6 hours. How much could he have accomplished in their position? None of them had expected the magical tournament to be altered in this way.

When they were up against Elicia “Saurus” Luxverg of the Problem Solvers, they had spent days taking turns watching her every move. They had been so nervous they had even investigated her favorite brand of lip balm. He should have known there was only so much data they could gather when adlibbing on such a short time schedule.

The entire 600m ship shook.

Something big must have happened in the current match. He got the feeling that energy blast was not something someone would get back up from. And he himself would be thrown out in that same ring with nothing to defend himself.

His phone received a message before they could check the student council room’s TV.

He took a deep breath to calm his irritation and opened the message app.

“Stardust (for tournament staff only): Afternoon Message 2 – Round 1 Match 6 has ended sooner than expected. We intend to keep the audience busy with the cheerleaders and the commentator, but Match 7 could still begin ahead of schedule. Mr. Utagai, please report to the contestant waiting room so you may begin at any time.”

“…”

There was no escape now.

His chance to prepare had come to an end.

He pulled the modified military flashlight from the belt on the side of his pants. It had the perfect weight and length to work as a club and it contained an IR laser emitter that could dazzle an opponent’s eyes.

“One last thing, Omotesandou-san. I know I can’t use Aine, but what about this thing?”

“That won’t be a problem. If your opponent can’t defeat you with your Threat-fighting equipment, they can’t exactly say they defeated one of the world’s strongest, can they?”

With a dull sound, Aine pulled a crystal katana out of thin air and held it out toward him, but Kyouka shook her head.

“I’m sorry, but that won’t be allowed. It counts as part of you, Aine-chan.”

“But isn’t everything from her sword to her heart part of my crystal magic?”

“Yes, but good luck convincing the other 5.5 billion people out there that’s true when she has to lend it to you.”

He was really wishing he normally armed himself with an assault rifle and grenades while wearing a full-body blast-resistant suit. He got the feeling the entire world was out to get him, but he had never imagined his everyday clothing choices would come back to bite him so badly.

He was horribly underprepared. He was more or less defenseless once Aine, his greatest trump card, was taken from him. Being called the world’s strongest on paper did nothing at all to protect him. The mysterious rule change had dragged him down nearly to the same level as an ordinary person.

“No Aine this time. I have to do it all on my own.”

“Hmph.”

The crystal girl did not like this any more than he did and she puffed out her cheeks from within, but no one was going to listen to her complaints either.

One of the basic crystal magic presets was a protective barrier, but Karuta’s was as flimsy as paper and he doubted it could block a real sword or bullet. Similarly, he couldn’t use the flight preset at all. The only preset he did have was the regeneration, but that only rapidly healed nonlethal wounds. It wouldn’t do a thing to keep him from being killed instantly. If he took a bullet between the eyes, his entire body would become a crystal statue before he could even begin to heal.

And when he barely knew anything about his opponent, that was almost certainly what was going to happen against Egyptian tomb keeper Hetepheres Men-Nefer.

Aine silently tilted her head and whispered in a cold voice from where she stood in the corner like a potted plant.

“What will you do?”

“I’ll make it work. ''No matter what it takes''.”