Trampling Down II

The glow of the Transfer finally subsided. Gradually, the landscape around them was coming to the view.

「… What the hell is this?」

Such words leaked out of Tanaka’s mouth.

There was a crowd of people surrounding them. They were all dressed the same, wearing matching armor. It immediately dawned on Tanaka that these people were from the military. Tanaka suddenly shrank his body back. One reason was that the army suddenly appeared right in front of him, but above all, it was the fact that all these soldiers were all gazing at Tanaka and co.

「They’re all staring at us! Being stared at by so many people… so many people… Oh, crap! I’m getting so nervous that my stomach is….」

Tanaka shrank back further and expressed his discomfort. His lower body was shivering and trembling.

「What are you doing? Geez, get a grip already.」

Kaku-san was exasperated at such a Tanaka. Suke-san was looking at their surroundings with his scythe at the ready. He seemed to be curious about the army, which he had never seen before.

「This is bad…I can’t stand this much pressure…. Please! Kaku-san. Do something to defuse the situation.」

Surrounded by such a large number of armed soldiers, Tanaka was already on the verge of losing his mind. Tanaka desperately tried to rely on his comrades, the same as always.

「Good grief, what a hopeless person you are. Alright! It’s time for my signature pose, the side chests, to show…」

Just as Kaku-san was about to take a pose to defuse the situation, the soldiers surrounding them had begun to make a move first. All of them had their swords unsheathed, and were gradually closing in on them. Seeing that, Tanaka began to panic.

「This is bad … This is very bad. Since very suspicious people suddenly appeared out of nowhere, isn’t this the pattern where they’re going ‘for the time being, should we kill them first?’? As expected….」

Tanaka whined about the looming soldiers. Suke-san positioned himself in front of such a Tanaka. Then, while gazing at the soldiers surrounding them, he spoke to Tanaka over his shoulder. 「… Tanaka-dono, have you forgotten what our fundamental principle is-degozaru? Right now, there are those who stand in our path… So there’s only one thing to do-degozaru.」

As if to protect Tanaka, and as if waiting for Tanaka’s words, Suke-san stood unmoving with his weapon at the ready. Kaku-san also said nothing, as he simply crossed his arms while scanning at their surroundings.

「… Fuh, you’re right.」

Tanaka’s switch was flipped on. Was it a defensive instinct to protect himself? Was it just out of embarrassment? His weak heart gave in to his chuunibyou mode.

「My bad, I’ve shown you such unsightly behavior. I was about to get swallowed up by the phantom demon puppet annihilation wave released by the gods. But it’s all right now.」

He assumed an imposing stance and drew the sword on his waist. The one stood there was the self-proclaimed ruler of magic. The man who was vying for the supreme throne.「Be it an army or anything, if they stand in our path, we shall simply kill and trample them down! Let’s go wild to our heart content, Suke-san! Accel!」

Suke-san’s body was surrounded by light.

「I hereby head out!」

Suke-san then dashed out as it was. The light around his body immediately vanished, but the effect of the acceleration magic remained intact. The explosively accelerated Suke-san charge straight at the soldiers.

「Kaku-san! Check for the direction with the weakest section of the encirclement from above!」

「Yoi!」

Kaku-san reverted back into light and wobbled up into the sky. ◇ ◇ ◇

It happened all of a sudden. The dragons, the Republician army’s secret weapon, were trampling down the Alliance armies. Seeing this, everyone was elated.

And then it happened. Suddenly, the ground began to glow. If you looked closely, a shining magic pattern-like circle appeared there.

The soldiers thought it was some sort of an attack from the Alliance armies, and immediately braced themselves. The soldiers quickly retreated, creating an empty space with the magic circle as the center.

The soldiers were bewildered, unable to understand what was going on. Eventually the glow subsided, and a presence appeared in the previously empty space, as if a darkness had been born.

Grotesque – it was a presence worthy of being called as such. However, for better or worse, they were still proper Republican soldiers. They couldn’t retreat simply because they were up against a grotesque monster. They swiftly pulled out their swords, and tightened up the encirclement in synchronized breathing.

The grotesque being, encircled in the midst of all this, began to move. It was like a darkness which spread about death. As the darkness suddenly blurred before their eyes, the soldiers began to fall one after another.

They were unable to react and fell to the dancing blade of the darkness. The mighty swords they relied on were shattered and the magnificent armor they donned was torn to pieces.

The still-breathing soldiers began to make their retreat, in order to defeat this grotesque being. In exchange, one by one, the other soldiers stepped forward. However, with their movement, they were unable to capture the darkness. And so they simply kept adding to the number of casualties. ◇ ◇ ◇

Kaku-san landed on Tanaka’s head with a plop. He trembled as he conveyed the information he had obtained to Tanaka.

「Alright, with this we’ve more or less confirmed our direction. The rest is, we only need to kill our way out toward there, but… we can’t really move anywhere while being mobbed like this, huh.」

Suke-san was vigorously scattering the soldiers around. However, the number of their opponents was too numerous. The soldiers stepped forward one after another. Because of this, they were unable to push back the encirclement. They already had their hands full maintaining the empty area.

At this rate, they couldn’t afford to move from this place. Tanaka wondered if he should also participate in the battle, and forcefully made their way forward. However, should he did so, the soldiers might rush in from the rear. He deemed that was a bad idea. If their enemies got to stick themselves on them, they’d lose their ability to fight, after all.

「Kaku-san. Do you have a way to blow away the enemies and secure us more open area?」

Tanaka decided to rely on Kaku-san’s magic. Kaku-san shook and trembled on top of Tanaka’s head.「Alright, Suke-san! Step back this way for a bit! We’re going to have Kaku-san to push back the encirclement with magic!」

Suke-san reacted immediately to Tanaka’s instructions. Suke-san retreated and positioned himself to leave his back to Tanaka, while staying alert of the enemy’s attack.

When he saw that Suke-san had retreated, Kaku-san shone above Tanaka’s head. He was using a seventh-order magic Windstorm. At that moment, the air trembled. Soon, a wind was born, and it gradually increased in momentum. The soldiers around were buzzing. Before long, the soldiers found it hard to simply stay standing on the ground, before they were dragged up into the sky.

「You did it, Kaku-san! Alright, let’s look for an opening and run away….」 Kaku-san was jumping around on top of Tanaka’s head as if in a panic. Tanaka also stopped moving as he had a somewhat bad feeling about it. The three of them remained in silence as they watched their surroundings with great attention.

Soon, the already powerful winds were turning into a tornado. And before long, it grew into a huge tornado that engulfed the center of the lined up Republican Army. Tanaka and co. were in the eye of the typhoon-like safe zone. There, they were able to witness the tragedy that was taking place right in front of their eyes. Before he knew it, Tanaka’s lower body was shaking.

Inside the tornado, the winds were turning into blades and were raging wildly. It was just like a giant blender of kamaitachi. The soldiers who were blown away were being shredded to pieces one by one. The giant tornado shredded even their armor and swords.

For a while, the tragedy continued. By the time the tornado subsided, only the muddy red earth was left.

「Wha, what the hell was that? … That seriously freaked me out! Don’t arbitrarily show such a thing in front of me! It was scarier than the time we were being surrounded by those soldiers as they were staring at us! I felt like I was about to collapse with anemia there! If I had fallen forward, I’d have lost my head, wouldn’t I?! My neck would go chop chop, wouldn’t it? What were you thinking, Kaku-san?!」

Kaku-san received desperate complaints from Tanaka. Kaku-san turned into a human with a pomf to have a talk. However, Tanaka continued on before he could even utter his pieces.

「I told you to blow away the enemy and secure us more open area, didn’t I?! I’m sure I did say that. But what was that? Let alone blown away, they were all blown into pieces! Let alone creating an open area, you’ve created a bloody area! … Urk.」

Complaining up to that point, Tanaka was attacked by nausea.

「I simply used windstorm magic! It was because you poured too much magical energy into it that it turned into something like that!」

And then Kaku-san protested to the back of Tanaka, who was suffering from something. It was fortunate that the soldiers were all shredded up and blown away to the point where there was not even a shadow of them to be seen. The bloody earth alone wasn’t too gruesome. Tanaka, who had somehow managed to recover himself, responded to Kaku.

「What the hell is this ‘pouring too much magical energy’ thing you’ve been spouting since a while now anyway? Are you trying to slickly gloss over the big event that just happened which I’m currently angry about?!」 Even in his suffering state, Tanaka still managed to shoot back a complaint. Kaku-san decided to explain the situation between them to such a Tanaka.

「I’ve become an apostle who is employed by you! In exchange for being employed as an apostle, I receive magical energy provided by my master which allows me to use powerful magic! Then, since I received such an absurd amount of magical energy from you, the magic turned into something like that!」

「Is… is that so?」

He had no sense of supplying him with any magical energy, so Tanaka couldn’t tell whether that was true or not.

「Yeah, it is. But at this rate, I don’t think I could use magic anymore since it would be too dangerous… Good graciousness, after turning into an apostle, to think there’d come a day where I couldn’t magic because it’s too powerful. I’ve never heard of such a thing.」

「….」

Kaku-san grumbled as he let out a sigh. Tanaka was unable to say anything after receiving such an explanation. When the two of them had finally stopped quarreling and calmed down, Suke-san spoke to them.

「At any rate, it’s a good opportunity to run away, isn’t it-degozaru? For now, I think it’s best to move from this place first-degozaru.」

「… You’re right. We have to get out of here first.」

Tanaka and co. scanned the situation around them. There seemed to be one part which was a noisy battlefield, and another part which was a group of people who were quietly standing in alert. For the time being, they decided to head in the direction with the least number of soldiers. Without realizing that that was the direction of the Republican Army Headquarters….