Owari no Chronicle:Volume1 Chapter 10

Status: Incomplete

40% completed (estimated)

   

Chapter 10: Development of Will

Is hesitation feigned goodness or is it courage?

Then is determination feigned evil or is it recklessness?

Neither one is a bad thing

The knight swung his shield and deflected the liquid.

When the pale yellow liquid struck the metal shield, smoke rose from it. A hole was eaten into the surface of the shield.

“That is quite a deadly poison!” commented the knight.

“You were really going to pour that into my ear!?” added Ooshiro.

The knight ignored the old man and silently squeezed the trigger of his long rifle.

Bluish-white light emitted from the side of the book loaded into the gun.

That bookshelf rifle drew out the meaning of that collection of words in the form of heat.

It was a more primitive method than adding a new ability with the words, but it was plenty powerful.

He fired.

A ball of light shot from the rifle’s barrel. However, he was not targeting either of those lying on the ground below him.

He targeted the black cat.

In the amount of time known as an instant, the bright yellow bullet grew to 5 meters across and travelled in a shallow arc to the south side of the grassy area.

The reverberation of electrical discharge was drowned out by the sound of destruction when it struck.

It exploded.

“!”

The southern end of the grassy area grew warped, crumbled, and then shrank inwardly, trees and dirt included.

In the next instant, everything within a 20 meter square was blasted up into the sky.

A tremendous roar was heard.

The knight said, “I doubt that was enough.”

He then turned toward the two below him.

“Now! I will handle the two of you. Even if this sullies my name, seeing this through is how I show my pride!”

The boy lying on the ground then muttered something.

“So you have decided what path you will take as well, have you?”

“What?” asked the knight.

However, he quickly lifted his rifle again and focused on the battle.

The book loaded in the rifle was already emitting bluish-white light from all of its pages.

If he squeezed the trigger, he could eliminate the two people clinging to a sheer cliff.

“I am sorry,” said the knight.

Unexpectedly, the boy answered him.

“There is no need to apologize.”

As he spoke, the boy suddenly stood up.

He stood atop the ground which should have been a cliff to him. He placed his feet on the ground and stood while keeping his body low.

“What…!?” The knight drew back. He held back up his shield and shouted, “Damn you! Have you added the same concept as us!?”

Without replying, the boy ran.

The knight’s comrades began to move and prepare to attack, but it was too late.

The boy circled around to the knight’s left which was the north. The knight tried to follow the boy’s motion with his rifle, but he did not make it in time.

With his back turned, the boy jumped lightly up.

He performed a reverse roundhouse kick.

It hit home.

His heel struck the knight’s left shoulder with more weight than expected.

The knight’s bones creaked and his body was lifted up.

“Kh.”

He endured the pain and lowered his hips to land properly. He tried to aim the rifle in his right arm toward the boy, but his body felt numb and he could only aim to the front.

While remaining on guard for another kick, the knight rotated his entire body. He held his shield toward the boy.

He found the boy landing from his kick on all fours.

He then gently lifted his body a bit before running. He circled around to the north once more.

When the knight tried to follow him, one of the giant attendants shouted out from behind him.

“Look!”

The knight turned toward the deep voice and found the old man named Ooshiro moving to the south of the grassy area. His stance was low, but he was definitely running.

“How?” muttered the knight.

South was set as down, so the ground should have been perfectly vertical.

He and his companions were only able to stand due to the effects of the philosopher’s stones they held. Their enemies should not have had any of their own, yet they were still running around on that vertical ground.

“How!?”

To the north of the grassy open area, a line of trees had escaped the destruction of the stone wall.

It now functioned as footing stretching out perpendicular to the ground. On one of the tree trunks, the battle beginning far below was visible. Sf stood there carrying a single café set.

She held a parasol, a portable cooler, a table, and chairs. She skillfully placed them on the tree trunk as she heard the knight’s question from far below: How?

Sf gave a small nod.

She pulled a single bullet from her pocket. On its side, the words “bullet, one more hit” were written.

“You made a mistake in your theory.”

She placed the bullet atop the table which was sitting on the line of trees.

The bullet remained still at first, but it eventually accelerated and began rolling.

“That area may appear to be a wall, but it is actually a slope,” said Sf as if to confirm it. “Setting south as down was a naïve decision but not a surprising one for a resident of a flat world such as 1st-Gear. …After all, the earth is round and Japan is located on the northern hemisphere.”

Sf looked at the grassy area below her. Sayama charged into the center of the enemy ranks and was fighting while focusing on evasion. He was running along a slope of about 40 degrees while repeatedly evading and attacking.

Sayama’s method of attack was simple. He would circle around to the north of his enemy, choose an attack method such as a direct kick or roundhouse kick that would make full use of his body weight, and then directed it toward his enemy down the slope to the south.

Sayama had no choice but to stand on a slope.

He had to keep his stance low, but this made it easier to avoid his enemy’s attacks. When he was cornered, he could jump far to the south, using the slope to gain more distance. Sf nodded as she watched on.

“To forestall an initial attack from his enemy, he pressed down against the slope, pretending it was a wall.”

As she spoke, Sf placed the cooler’s strap over her right shoulder and held the parasol in her hand.

She suddenly looked up to find a winged archer had noticed her.

“Oh, dear,” said Sf as she opened the cooler.

The archer above brought a hand to his bowstring. The center of the string had a single piece of cloth attached. The cloth had words written on it. The archer drew the bowstring and an arrow of light appeared between the cloth and the bow.

Instead of firing right away, the archer twisted the cloth to the right.

The string grew tauter and the bow creaked, but the arrow of light multiplied to three.

Finally, the archer fired.

The sound of the light being released sounded similar to a flute.

As that high-pitched trio rained down from the sky, Sf bowed slightly.

“Thank you for such an ordinary attack. As thanks, I shall provide a common attack of my own.”

She pulled what looked like two long metal staffs from the cooler.

The two objects appearing from below the canned drinks was a machine gun and its barrel.

She attached the heavy barrel with one hand and loaded the ammunition belt. The first bullet was instantly brought into the chamber.

“Over 40,000 have been produced. That should be common enough.”

With that comment, Sf aimed into the sky and squeezed the trigger.

Sayama could tell he was being surrounded. His enemies were once more beginning to hold him in check.

The old men wearing square bonnets who looked like priests and the old women wearing hoods who looked like magicians were clearly keeping their distance while the two giant attendants began circling around to his north. They were preventing him from taking his advantageous position.

But Sayama felt that was fine as sweat flew from his brow.

At the very least, he had drawn the enemies away from the woods were Shinjou was and Ooshiro Kazuo had been able to escape.

That meant he need not worry about this battleground. And he had another thought.

…I was right. Shinjou-kun did not fire.

When he had attacked the knight, he had given the signal, but Shinjou had not fired. He had predicted it, but it was still a slight shock.

She really does continue to surprise me, he thought as he walked around.

“Shinjou-kun is serious about everything,” he muttered. “Even when she hesitates.”

It was because she took this so seriously that she had been unable to pull the trigger this time as well.

Sayama suddenly recalled what had happened that morning. He recalled Ooki’s words to him.

…When those who rarely get serious finally do get serious, they can draw out a lot of power. Is that it?

“And thinking that you cannot get serious means you are constantly thinking about getting serious.”

Sayama decided Shinjou had to have reached that stage.

…But what about me?

“Will I ever-…”

Would he ever get serious?

His questioning gaze caught sight of the end of a magician’s staff glowing. Instead of leaving behind an afterimage of the light, it looked more like the word was being burned into the atmosphere. Sayama did not recognize the word, but he could read it.

It meant fire.

He leaped as soon as he read it. He leaped south down the slope.

In the next instant, a pillar of fire shot up in the spot he had just been standing in.

As he heard the air burning, crimson flames shot up in a triple helix. The end of the spiral bloomed outwards and scattered through the air as the pillar of fire energetically came apart and disappeared.

Sayama landed.

At the same moment, Sayama realized the enemy’s formation was complete.

The priests and magicians to his north split to the left and right. The two giants traveled down the center of that group. They were approximately three meters tall. Under their dark green cloaks, those attendants wore light armor and were armed with black knives.

They could not make tight turns, but they used easily-wielded knives to cover for that disadvantage.

They came.

Sayama prepared himself. He could not defeat them head on. He needed to run around them. He lowered his body and sucked in a breath. He suddenly glanced over at his hard-to-move left arm and his left hand.

He saw the scars on his hand and the ring on his finger.

He tried to clench his left fist, but received only stabbing pain.

It was a phantom pain, but it felt real to him. And he could not swing the fist regardless.

An instant later, Sayama looked up from his left hand and ran.

He shrank down, stretched out, and sent his body forward.

At the same moment, he spotted a shadow coming from the sky above.

It was an archer.

Not good, he muttered silently.

His enemies were not planning to have the giant attendants attack him.

They would surround him and he would be shot from the air.

“Kh.”

Sayama took in a breath and twisted his body around.

To avoid the coming attack as much as possible, he rolled along the ground.

But what fell to the ground was not an arrow or even a bow.

It was wings.

“!”

With the sound of flesh being struck, a giant four-winged form fell to the ground where Sayama had been a moment before. It was the archer who had been in the sky. Sayama could see red blood spewing from the base of his upper right wing.

Sayama got up on his knees and heard a certain sound before he could even wonder what was going on.

He heard gunfire.

He looked up. He looked to the north which was up to him.

In the sky there, another set of wings fell.

The four-winged archer fell into the woods to the east while staining his wings with red blood.

Only then did everyone look over.

A white and black figure was jumping down from a distant line of trees to the north.

“Sf-kun…”

She held a machinegun in her left hand, a parasol in her right, and a large cooler under her right arm.

Despite carrying two objects that looked too large for her body size, she was not running down the slope. She leaped through the sky.

She did not seem to care that one of the four-winged archers had fallen among some nearby trees.

She dropped down.

In the next instant, one of the magicians reacted. She wrote several words in the air, turned them into spears of light, and threw them at Sf.

The light flew with a high-pitched dash.

Sf took a single action in response. She held up the parasol in her right arm and opened it. With the sound of the wind being struck, Sf’s body appeared to be lifted up by the parasol as she began to float.

The spears of light passed by below her feet and stabbed into the grass in the distance.

Just as the spears of light could be heard bursting in the distance, Sf let go of the parasol.

After that, she travelled in a straight line.

Guided by gravitational acceleration, Sf’s heels crashed into the giant attendant who was on the left from Sayama’s perspective.

The impact caused a great noise.

“…!”

She sent all of her weight into both legs as they struck the attendant’s side and his body was knocked up into the air. Sayama backed away as the attendant rotated around in midair and slammed into the ground headfirst.

Repeated powerful sounds were heard as his armor and flesh crashed to the ground, but he eventually came to a stop.

The attendant no longer moved.

Instead, the slender woman who had only just now arrived on the scene moved.

She had short white hair and she wore a black dress with a white apron. Her silhouette spread out with the hem of her skirt and she bowed before Sayama.

“I am glad to see you are the same as ever.”

It was Sf.