Magika No Kenshi To Shoukan Maou:Volume 8 Chapter 3

Status: Incomplete

1/4 parts completed

   

Chapter 3 – War Front’s Continual Change

Provision for soldier was necessary.

Karin’s body made a single rotation with a twirl and she returned from her Magic Dress to her uniform appearance.

She was not just in her usual uniform appearance, she was shouldering a large rucksack.

Putting it down, she took out a large multi-tiered bento box, water canteen, and a leisure sheet.

“You made even the bento together into the Magic Dress!?”

Miyabi-senpai’s eyes turned round from shock. The surprised face of a beautiful woman was lovely.

Sometimes magic power magnificently ignored the law of mass conservation.

“Both senpai are senior though, I heard that this is a trick that everyone used.”

“Both of us always went on a quest with just the two of us so…we never noticed that kind of idea.”

“This is not a really good thing you know.”

Leme materialized herself beside Kazuki with a slightly bitter face. It seemed that she came to eat bento.

“First there is the definition that [things attached on the body will be disintegrated and converted into Magic Dress], the phenomenon is made occur in parallel with that principle, but the Diva’s side is also confused when you asked [is it fine for our baggage to be included in that?]. Sooner or later you are going to escalate and ask if it’s possible for a bicycle or a car that make us even more uneasy. It’s not a good feeling for the Magic Dress that is fittingly adorning our own contractor to be made from things like bento. We are unwilling but we give in and allowed it if it’s just something to the extent of bento, but don’t you dare make us to convert outrageous luggage and treat us like a storage shed.”

Is this a grey zone trick…?

“That is that so Leme is going to eat the bento too.”

After Kazuki spread out the leisure sheet, Leme was the first one to step on it and sat down with a flop.

The multi-tiered box bento was put right in the middle and everyone surrounded it.

The instant the lid was opened, Shinobu-senpai’s expression was colored with shock.

That was because there was a slight surprise prepared inside the box.

There was a brown wild land of meat as far as the eyes could see inside the first box. Hamburger, meatball, teriyaki chicken, octopus-shaped wiener, meat roll filled with asparagus or pot herb, minced meat sandwiched with fried lotus root….

Shinobu-senpai was looking at Kazuki with an expression that seemed to be saying [By any chance this is…], however she immediately averted her eyes restlessly as if saying [No, perhaps it’s just a mere coincidence].

“Shinobu-senpai, I have heard your favorite foods from Miyabi-senpai. Do you dislike it?”

Even after Kazuki disclosed the secret, Shinobu-senpai continued to be restless.

“I don’t dislike it. But, somehow I cannot calm down…I don’t understand what kind of face should I make.”

“It’s fine to be happy.”

Beside her Miyabi-senpai smiled in amusement.

Of course the boxes under the first one were filled by side dishes other than meat. The second box was filled with vegetables and seafood, while the third box was filled with rice ball.

“Kazuki, this one is going to do [aaan]. This is the duty as a wife…it is not, but as a bosom friend.”

“That’s stupid.”

Even while saying that Kazuki still obediently opened his mouth and swallowed the hamburger presented to him.

He had cut up the food into a mouthful size beforehand in preparation of something like this happening. He was getting used already to this kind of development.

“Hurm, servicing the companion but also ruling the companion…this is the activity between man and woman, it is not, but the activity between bosom friends.”

“Fufufu, well then I’ll do it too. IS it fine like this?”

Miyabi-senpai chuckled coolly and then she presented a lotus root sandwich at him.

“Hayashizaki Kazuki, it’s okay for you to do [aa―n] to me too! Teamwork!!”

In contrast Karin opened her mouth largely with ‘waha―’ while her eyes shined in sparkles.

“What do you want to eat?”

“Fufun, of course the tako-san!!”

Kazuki reverently presented the tako-san wiener to Karin.

“How tasty―. Kazuki’s handmade meal is always tasty―. If I become a wife then I can eat this everyday I wonder―”

Karin happily chewed *mogu mogu* her food.

“…What is called friend is someone that does this kind of thing then.”

Shinobu-senpai was looking at that kind of happening from a place that was a step removed from them.

“Kazuki…I don’t understand the environment here so if you don’t lead me I’m going to get troubled.”

Shinobu-senpai sent Kazuki a demanding gaze.

“Is, is that so, which one senpai want?”

“All of it is my favorite food.”

That was that. Kazuki picked a teriyaki chicken with his chopstick and say “aa―n” where Shinobu-senpai opened her graceful lips wide like a child. Kazuki fed her with a careful manner of hand.

Shinobu-senpai’s face turned bright while chewing, a small heart mark flew.

“…Next.”

“O, ou.”

Being demanded without any reserve, Kazuki presented the next food.

“Next, rice.”

“Got it.”

Kazuki held a rice ball reverently with both hands and presented it to the mouth of Shinobu-senpai.

“Shinobu, it’s fine even if you eat by yourself you know…?”

Miyabi-senpai retorted with a wry smile. She gave a tsukkomi. Kazuki thought he was saved.

“Nee-sama too, here.”

But Shinobu-senpai pinched a meatball with her chopstick and held it out to Miyabi-senpai.

“Ara…. Fufu, thank you.”

“Kazuki, continue your ‘aa―n’ to me. Come on.”

Shinobu-senpai also disregarded Miyabi-senpai’s pointing out and then she directed an opened mouth at Kazuki.

Kazuki presented a meat again to Shinobu-senpai. He was happy that there was a real feeling of his distance with her shrinking down.

But, like this I don’t get to eat then….

“Then Kazuki will be fed on by this one! Here, aaan.”

Kohaku once again directed her chopstick at Kazuki in the critical timing.

Looking at what was happening, an expression of confusion appeared on Karin’s face.

“Eh…I’m feeding Kohaku then…am I…? Somehow I don’t feel really happy huh, doing that.”

While being bewildered Karin went ‘aa―n’ to Kohaku.

“Wait, like this I cannot eat then!”

“Ah, then I’ll do it. But it’s a little hard to fed you like this so how about changing our seating position?”

Miyabi-senpai whose position was a little far from Karin proposed such and raised her body.

The people surrounding the bento box was Miyabi-senpai→Karin→Kohaku→Kazuki→Shinobu-senpai→Miyabi-senpai…the lined up in a circle with that kind of flow.

There was not a single person among the group that fed themselves and they continued to do [aa―n] at each other like a rotary press.

“Karin, you start to lag behind. Gulp down your food faster.”

“You are the one that is too fast―! Feel my groove more and get in the rhythm!”

Kohaku and Karin began to argue with each other.

“If we are going to match our rhythm, I wonder if it’s better to raise a matching yell?”

When Miyabi-senpai proposed so, Kohaku went “That’s it” while clapping her hands.

Having her proposal accepted, Miyabi-senpai made a happy grin widely.

“Soiya! “Aa―n!” “Soiya! “Aa―n!”, all of them raised a voice like the people that was pounding mocha or shouldering the portable shrine in festival in the end. …He already didn’t understand what in the world was the purpose of this.

“This is teamwork…”

Shinobu-senpai murmured to herself.

“Something like this is the first time for me…to feel this kind of uncommon intimate group feeling…”

Miyabi-senpai whispered happily.

“No, senpai is magnificently misunderstanding something here.”

Kazuki pointed out while being half amazed.

“By the way, about this gate.”

After finishing eating really in that way until the very end, Kazuki began to talk.

If they passed through this gate, they would plunge into Level 2 area.

In their original arrangement first they were going to liberate the whole Level 1 area before continuing to Level 2.

But now that they had discovered the gate, was it okay to just leave it alone. Such doubt was welling up inside Kazuki’s chest.

“As long as we are resolved for the danger, it might be better for even only us to go first into Level 2.”

If there was something there, he would protect his companions without fail. By using Zekorbeni skillfully….

“Why?”

Miyabi-senpai asked. Kohaku and Karin too leaned their body forward in wonder.

“If Yamato and other enemy countries can break through the first gate and infiltrate, then they might also be able to do the same with the second and the third gate and break through here. If the enemies appear right from the from through Level 1 then we might be able to discover and deal with them, but…”

“…While we are slowly wandering around the Level 1 for who knows how long, we might not be able to notice that the other side has already infiltrate Level 2 or 3 ahead of us.”

Miyabi-senpai understood the roundabout talk and Kazuki nodded briskly to that.

“Today, it’s only after we start the operation for real that I first noticed this but…I cannot sense everyone’s magic power while fighting except for just a faint presence. Right now, even if there is a battle happening inside Level 2 or 3, I don’t think we will be able to make any distinction of that magic power with the magic power emitted from the fight of our comrades. In such case the most frightening things are invaders that slipped among our magic power into Level 2 or 3 and plunder that area ahead of us…”

All presents kept their silence. Courage was necessary to reject Kazuki’s theory as impossible.

The second gate was installed with a Stigmata confirmation device.

If their own Stigmata was confirmed by the device then they would be able to pass through without any problem.

The Stigmata confirmation device was connected with the Knight Order’s headquarter using a circuit and originally it had the structure to send the data of the confirmed Stigmata to the headquarter, but this terminal was a stand-alone type.

“For this gate to has the device of Stigmata confirmation, this wall and gate seems to be quite new.”

Kazuki opened the gate while making such deduction.

The wall was also sturdily built with adamantite. The Knight Order didn’t just leave this wall unregulated and in order to not let the Haunted Ground expanded more than this it was made to be able to be maintained for a long period of time.

With Kazuki in the lead, the ancient heavy gate of adamantite was opening while creaking *giiiiiiiii*.

―Akane-senpai said before that [Thanks to the wall the expansion of the Haunted Ground can be held in check, however only in that part alone the magic power are accumulating in inward direction and so the moment you pass through the wall it has been confirmed that the magic power’s density will spring up drastically]. Her words was resurrected inside his head.

“…Certainly it’s so thick here.”

The instant they passed the wall, they felt a thickness of magic power that seemed to pierce their skin. The scenery was also changing. The denseness and thickness of the trees in the surrounding increased, their colors surpassed a mere poisonous tint and blackened like an ink. The sky was blocked by black leafs and even though it was afternoon currently, passed the wall was completely dark like an inside of a room with its electricity turned off. The ground under their feet was changing into a gently sloping hill road.

Kazuki felt his consciousness becoming distant. In panic he retained his consciousness using Trance. The Haunted Ground’s dense magic power was coming to reap the consciousness of the invader.

Coming until this far, it should be called as a miasma rather than a magic power.

The member that wasn’t really good in Trance―Kohaku groaned “Unuu-“.

“…O naiyoukou polished and burning from the core of navel, drive away the ominous and incite the cool and clear rainbow into the soul! Spirit Weight Long RainbowKikan Choukou!”

Suddenly Karin casted some kind of magic.

Thereupon an intense heat was born inside Kazuki’s stomach at once and rushed about through his whole body like a blood stream. That heat immediately penetrated his mind and cleared away the miasma.

It seemed the magic just now was casted altogether at all members. Kohaku who was weakening was also feeling refreshed from the heat.

“Just now is…?”

“A mind stimulating magic that drive away maliciousness...that’s what Tamamo no Mae said.”

Indeed, it was a magic that could recover the mind altogether from a light mind attack type.

Perhaps Karin would be an indispensable member for them to search the Level 2 even deeper.

“This place is not only thick in magic power.”

Miyabi-senpai murmured.

“…Some kind of magic is overwriting the space itself…”

Kazuki’s complexion changed hearing those words.

When he sharpened his senses, Kazuki was able to sense the same thing.

A magic that affected the space―someone had already came here!?

From the path ahead, a rustling sound of someone pushing their way through the trees approaching near them could be heard.

“Oi…that’s not a Demon Beast.”

Kohaku that directed her sight at the path ahead leaked out a groaning voice.

What appeared from the dark path was a small boy.

The boy was naked without wearing a single clothes and his skin was blue as if no blood was flowing inside.

There were no eyeballs in his head and in its place were only black cavities.

Just from looking at that appearance they were immediately reminded of something. A death person.

The deceased boy grinned widely the moment he saw Kazuki.

“…Mother said, to not play with you or Mio or Kaya.”

“…!”

Kazuki gulped.

“They are the kid of the institution Mother said. You mustn’t get close to those children who are not raised in decency she said.”

The inside of his heart became discomposed all at once.

Those were words that he had some memories to hear somewhere in his remote past by someone.

The boy kicked the ground after saying just those sentences and leaped forward with a force as if he was flying.

…Fast! It was as if the magic power of the Haunted Ground had seeped into the flesh that had lost its life and acted like Enchant Aura!

The boy came in a head-butt toward Kazuki who was bending forward. Kazuki drew out his sword in an Iai and met the attack.

The katana blocked the head-butt. He could feel a heavy and severe feedback in his hand. Kazuki didn’t block right from the front but parried it to the side diagonally. Having his charge parried, the boy staggered.

“Crush to death, <Taroudachi>! Battou Kaikon―Ashura Ryoudan!!”

From the side Kohaku enlarged her beloved Sacred Treasures and flattened down the boy with one attack. The boy crumpled down and he was buried into the ground with his four limbs twisted around like a frog.

Even so the pitch black eye socket didn’t see Kohaku but kept staring at Kazuki.

“…You got carried away just because you are strong in a fight…”

The boy spitted out cursing word that was dripping with unresolved regret at Kazuki.

“Not you, but Mio and Kaya, they are the one that is going to be made crying then…there is going to be no more place to belong or anywhere to escape for you…”

Those were also words he had a memory hearing before in the past.

It was the words from the opponent he had beaten after a brawl…. The boy’s whole body liquefied muddily into a pitch black liquid and seeped into the ground of the Haunted Ground.

“What in the world is that boy just now…”

Kohaku murmured while looking down on the melting boy.

“Gorilla girl.”

A whispering voice could be heard suddenly, Kazuki and the others raised their face.

From the gap between the pitch dark trees, the faces of several girls came out one after another even further.

The girl that stood in the lead focused at Kohaku directly and talked.

“That child, I heard that she want to become a swordsman and trained her body, not to be a magician.”

The other girls laughed in snickers.

“Let’s call her gorilla.”

“Gorilla.” “Gorilla.” “Come on stop it, the gorilla will get violent and come swinging at us you know.”

“Actually the person herself hate something worthless like a sword isn’t she?” “But it’s because she has to succeed the sword art that has continued for generations she said.”

“It’s a gorilla lineage after all so it cannot be helped.” “Uhho uhho! See me swinging my sword uhho!”

Kohaku’s face blushed bright red in a flash, she gripped her enlarged katana tightly.

“Wait Kohaku, if you rush carelessly you are going to get surrounded!”

Kazuki just barely took hold of Kohaku’s shoulder.

“How dare you in front of Kazuki…calling me gorilla or whatever…”

Kohaku’s voice was trembling in fury and sadness.

It was the voice and expression of a human whose old wound was gouged open.

For Kazuki too, he couldn’t think of those slanders as other people’s problem. The experience of receiving slander without any cause that looked down on swordsman as useless, even Kazuki had felt it before.

“You must not get bothered by that kind of unreasonable words.”

Kazuki said that to Kohaku who was seemed to be made to have a flashback of her past around the middle school.

“Besides instead of a gorilla, Kohaku is completely a beauty.”

“…Ka, Kazuki.”

Kohaku made an expression as if returning to the reality and turned back to look at Kazuki.

“Are you perhaps, saying that because you are properly looking at this one as a woman…”

“That’s just obvious right?”

“Ha? Isn’t the gorilla just getting carried away from getting pampered by a man thooouuugh?”

―The girls’ expression had turned into exactly like the face of [ogress of hell] toward Kohaku who was facing Kazuki with blushing cheeks. And then as one they kicked the ground and charged at Kohaku’s direction.

“U, UWAAAAAA!”

Karin raised a scream. Karin was looking at a different direction.

When Kazuki turned his sight…right there the figure of Hayashi Shizuka’s death body was standing.

“You dregs…you dregs you dregs you dregs, you dregs of a puppet!”

Shizuka’s face distorted into a look of fury.

“How dare you kicked and stepped on this me…!”

Karin faltered back for a moment, but she soon glared back resolutely.

“I screamed unconsciously just now but…I’m not scared of you anymore! You are just a fake-!”

Shizuka and Karin faced each other and they kicked the ground simultaneously.

Fist and fist, leg and leg, their respective techniques blended with each other just like once before.

Fake….

“Kazuki…”

A voice came at Kazuki’s direction. Led by the voice, Kazuki directed his sight at the voice’s direction.

The sounds of the others’ fight were vanishing toward the far off distance.

Kazuki had his eyes stolen by that dead body.

The dead body of an adult female was standing between the black trees.

It was a female he had a recollection of seeing before.

The appearances of that female…exist in the memory of his remote past, in the time where he was still a baby that wasn’t aware of anything around him.

The scene where Kazuki was abandoned in front of the gate of the orphanage when he was still a baby.

This person was…the woman from that time.

This person, abandoned me!!

Kazuki’s heart shook fiercely. The woman in his memory was hazy, but the death body in front of his eyes clearly represented the appearance of that person. ‘Was she making this kind of face’, Kazuki’s heart was covered with deep emotion.

“Kazuki, you have become big. You are trying really hard, and you have become strong.”

Slowly that woman was walking nearing Kazuki.

“…It’s fine to not keep persevering yourself anymore. Don’t force yourself anymore, its fine for you to sleep. I will protect you after all. Because I’m far stronger than even you.”

A smooth and soft voice like a silk. He felt like it resembled Kaguya-senpai’s voice in some respect.

That woman reached out her hands to embrace Kazuki.

Kazuki breathed in deeply. He concentrated magic power silently inside his head. He cooled down his consciousness as far as he could. And then from the depth of his stomach, he pushed out his voice.

“Be quiet, you imposter…! Of all things to do…!”

Filling his katana with all the might of his magic power, Kazuki drew out the Iai slash that he had tempered thoroughly in Hayashizaki household.

The female’s head was blown away as if a strong wind was blowing from above.

The female that had lost its head fell into her knees powerlessly and collapsed to the ground, it turned into a pitch black liquid and seeped into the ground. Kazuki breathed out while looking over that situation.

This was one kind of mind attack magic. Kazuki calmed down his heart using the Trance that he had tempered from his special training with Miyabi-senpai and grasped the situation in front of his eyes.

“First there is a magic that produced death bodies…and then it seems a magic is attached to the produced death bodies to stimulate people’s trauma.”

After making such analysis, Kazuki began the chant of [Futsu no Mitama]. The sword of evil severing should be effective to attack the death bodies.

When he looked around his surrounding once more, Kazuki and others were still within several steps away from the gate they had passed.

From left and right, from the front, from the direction of 180° in front of them death bodies were gathering near in cluster.

“Who is a gorilla! Kazuki has given his understanding of this one’s heart that loves the sword-! He even said to this one that this one is a beauty, so this one is now unrivalled!!”

Kohaku was not agitated anymore already from having her sword training that she had poured her soul into getting made fun of, she mowed down the death bodies with that sword art.

Karin was surrounded by even more death bodies. All the death bodies were wearing Hayashi Shizuka’s face.

“Nee-san is multiplying!?”

It was undoubtedly a nightmarish sight.

“Puppet” “Puppet” “Puppet” like that, the countless Shizuka were disparaging Karin.

“…Nee-san right now is the one that has completely become a puppet!”

Karin declared out an irrefutable sentence while knocking down the Shizuka crowd one by one in order.

The girl’s heart that had already rode past Shizuka’s death had no gap that could be taken advantage of already since the start.

“I’m going to level up from defeating a hundred Nee-san here!”

Karin was running off her mouth as if she was playing an action game together with Kazuki and Lotte while fighting the death bodies. …Those two were fine.

“Look there, there is an elf.”

“Uwa, the ears are really pointed, what a monster.”

“That is like how an animal became a Demon Beast don’t you think?”

Miyabi-senpai and Shinobu-senpai were receiving unjustified abuse from the death bodies. They were surrounded by the death bodies of young men that sported a foul expression. This too was a memory from their elementary or middle school it seemed.

Miyabi-senpai was looking down. Tears were gathering in Shinobu-senpai’s eyes and her face was becoming pale.

The death bodies were slowly approaching the two sisters who didn’t move at all.

“Shinobu-senpai, you must not yield against something fake like this! …Futsu no Mitama!”

Kazuki cut into the space between Shinobu-senpai and the death bodies and cut down the youth death body with one attack.

The blade of evil severing cut both the power of deceiving and the magic power that moved the death body.

“…Ka, Kazuki…”

Like a child, Shinobu-senpai grasped tightly the end of the back of the uniform of Kazuki who was standing in the way of the death bodies. It was hard to fight like that. But he accepted it.

“No matter what kind of unreasonable thing that happens, even so from now on I too will fight together with senpai. So it’s okay.”

“Re, really…? You are not going to lie, not going to be gone…?”

Shinobu-senpai questioned Kazuki with a trembling voice. It was a tone like that of a child toward her parent.

A voice that made the person hearing it to think that they absolutely must not betray her hope.

“Really, for forever.”

“…You are going to be my friend forever?”

“To the extent that I want to become more than senpai’s friend.”

Shinobu-senpai hugged Kazuki’s back tightly.

It was hard to fight like this. …But he was happy with this difficulty to fight. A heart mark was also come flying.

“Moon Scraper!”

Suddenly a blade of light came flying from the back while drawing an arc, bisecting all the death bodies into half altogether.

Miyabi-senpai was not looking down from getting scared, she was chanting her spell.

“…It’s okay, Shinobu. Until now you are the one who keep protecting me. From now on, I’ll be the one that protect you.”

While saying so, Miyabi-senpai embraced Shinobu-senpai from behind.

“Nee-sama…”

Shinobu-senpai leaked out her voice toward the sensation of her big sister from behind while hugging at Kazuki. Being wrapped by warmth from behind and front, surely she couldn’t feel anything like loneliness at all anymore.

The posture of Kazuki and Shinobu-senpai and Miyabi-senpai turned into something like a make-believe train.

It made it difficult to ask them to release him.

Kazuki called out to them “Let’s go, senpai!”, and just like that he faced the death bodies and swung his sword while still in the posture of make-believe train.

“Warm…this is teamwork…”

Shinobu-senpai who was clinging at Kazuki’s back murmured.

‘That’s not it’, he thought.

“Kazuki…if it’s hard to walk then perhaps we need to yell ‘one, two, three’ I wonder?”

Miyabi-senpai said.

Don’t need it.

Translator's Notes and References

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