Slayers: Volume 13 (eBook)

Hajime Kanzaka (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022
250 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
978-1-7183-7488-1 (ISBN)

Infos

Swarms of demons showing up for seemingly no reason? Check. Mounting military aggression between states? Check. Omens of ill tidings to come? You betcha! According to my old pal Milgazia, things are getting hairy on a world-ending scale, which means it's time to... head back to Gyria?! C'mon, we just finished there! I was pretty sure we didn't leave any loose ends, but I guess there's no arguing with hordes of demidemons and a castle gate that's shut tight around the clock... You know what? Fine! But there'd better be a king-sized payoff to all this!

Textauszug

“You will call me Memphys, not Mephy! I don’t approve of mere humans addressing me by my nickname! Though I suppose providing a bit more information would make our interactions more harmonious...”

“Right? Heeheehee...”

“Did you know that even on moonless nights, elves can see in the dark?”

“Stop it now, Mephy.”

“But Uncle—” Memphys started unhappily.

Milgazia ignored her and let out a soft sigh. “I’ve known her family for quite some time. The elves have also realized something is amiss and are currently looking into it, so I brought her along of my own accord.” His offhand explanation of her presence here caused the shadow of fear over my heart to grow darker.

“In other words... the elves agree that recent events suggest another Incarnation War?” I asked.

After a period of silence, Milgazia nodded firmly. He then began to describe to me what he’d seen a thousand years ago.

An air of instability hung over the world. Several states began to bolster their militaries in what felt like preparations for action, and skirmishes along borders were frequent. Not much provocation was needed for those small conflicts to turn into full-blown war—war that dragged multiple nations into it.

Nobody realized it for a while—not even the elves, who at that time still coexisted with humans to a certain degree—but amid all the fighting and chaos, demonic activity began to find its way into the mix... and little by little, it picked up. By the time those involved took notice of what was happening, it was too late. The nations were exhausted, and most of their would-be heroes had already fallen in battle at the hands of other humans.

Demidemons thus ran rampant in the wild, terrorizing anyone fortunate enough to have survived the war. Countless lives were lost. Countless nations fell into ruin. Dragons, who had chosen to remain neutral in conflict amongst humans, at last realized that there was a conscious force guiding these events. It occurred to them that even the initial surge in militarism may have been incited by demons who’d infiltrated the various nations’ brain trusts.

Thus dragons, elves, dwarves, and humans... All living things worked together to purge the wilderness overrun with demidemons. But as it turned out, their mass spawnings were only a diversion. While all eyes were focused on the wilds, the Dark Lord’s five lieutenants assembled in the Kataart Mountains, which were then still part of Aqualord Ragradia’s sacred territory. The lieutenants destroyed the temple and slew the priests of Aqualord while avoiding direct conflict with the great god, gradually turning Kataart into a lifeless realm.

Aqualord was their target. When the people realized this, the united army the dragons had mustered headed for the Kataart Mountains to aid Aqualord... And then the Dark Lord appeared.

“Huh?” I found myself dumbly interrupting Milgazia’s story. “The Dark Lord showed up? Where’d he come from?”

“We don’t know.”

Come on... I was pretty shocked by his flippant answer.

“Nobody knows what happened. No one who was there to witness his arrival lived to tell the tale. Was he simply hiding his presence until that moment, or was the seal broken somehow? Whatever the case, Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu appeared abruptly in the Kataart Mountains, and with that, any chance we had of victory vanished. The Priest of Hellmaster Fibrizo had already been destroyed, but my people were decimated by Xellos, Priest of the Beast, and our elite corps of elves, dwarves, and humans were divided, unable to work in tandem. We were managing to stay in the fight, but Shabranigdu’s revival extinguished our last hope. The rest... is just as the legends say. Chaos Dragon Gaav fell, then Hellmaster’s General... and then Aqualord, who died while sealing the resurrected Shabranigdu in ice. As for exactly how those battles unfolded, no one present survived to recount them. It’s between the gods and the demons.”

For a while, none of us said anything. Everyone aside from me and Gourry hadn’t even touched their food as they listened in silence.

“I’ve heard that the Kingdom of Dils is now strengthening its army. There have also been mass demidemon spawnings of late. With Hellmaster Fibrizo gone and the demons’ forces depleted, there’s only one reason they’d behave in such a fashion—to take revenge by reenacting the Incarnation War. We and the elves are in agreement on that front.”

“What about the dwarves?” Mileena interjected. It was a natural question. Milgazia had just told us they were our allies in the original Incarnation War, after all.

He responded with a frown. “I haven’t contacted them. Their numbers have dwindled since the Incarnation War. I don’t want to drag them into this battle, and if I’m honest, I don’t think they could help much even if we did enlist their aid. Besides, just because we dragons and elves agree about the cause doesn’t mean we’re correct. It’s entirely possible the demons simply want us to think this way. That’s why several groups of elves and dragons, including us, have currently been dispatched to investigate. We were looking into a great demonic presence we detected in Dils.”

“And that’s when you ran into us?”

Milgazia nodded slightly in response. Then, as if recalling something, he said, “That reminds me. Two years ago, I felt a similar powerful demonic presence...”

Memphys also nodded. “Yes, a very high-ranking one. We felt it too. It had us in something of an uproar, but before we could take action—in less than a day, really—the presence simply vanished. I wonder what that was...” She shook her head slightly and brought her cup of water to her lips.

“Say, Lina,” Gourry called, looking my way as the conversation reached a lull. Knowing him, I figured he was gonna ask something stupid and wholly unrelated, but... “Two years ago, huh? You think they’re talking about the time we beat that Dark Lord Shabby guy?”

Blurgh! The casual way Gourry dropped that bomb elicited a communal spit take from Milgazia, Memphys, Luke, and Mileena.

“H-Hey! You can’t just spring that on people!” I screeched.

Milgazia continued to choke on his water, and all Memphys could do was stammer “wait, wait, wait” over and over again.

“H-Hang on here... You talkin’ about Ruby-Eye Shabranigdu? There’s no freakin’ way!” Luke declared with a disbelieving stare.

Meanwhile, Mileena put on a brave front, despite a little sweat dripping down her forehead. “I don’t think he’s the type to lie though...”

“Y-Yeah, true... Doubt he’s got the brains for it. So, how the heck’d you beat ’im?”

“Um, well...” With a little glance over at Milgazia and Memphys, who were both staring at me now too, I hesitantly scratched my head. “I maybe sorta kinda cast a teeny-tiny itty-bitty incomplete Lord of Nightmares spell onto the Sword of Light, which turned out to be Dark Star’s weapon Gorun Nova, teehee!”

Hearing this, Memphys and Milgazia totally froze up. Guess they know a thing or two about Dark Star and the Lord of Nightmares, huh? Luke and Mileena looked none the wiser, however. They just frowned a bit.

“I dunno what that all means, but... I’m guessin’ it’s a big deal, yeah?” he grumbled.

“It’s bigger than a big deal!” Memphys cried in response. “What were you people thinking?! Do you even realize that you could have destroyed the entire world?!” Her way of speaking had completely changed, perhaps due to her hysteria.

“Well... I didn’t at the time, no...”

“You can’t just use spells when you don’t understand their consequences! I swear, you humans...”

“Hey, c’mon. That’s all in the past!” I insisted, unwilling to look back.

“You don’t even seem sorry!” Memphys shrieked, even more agitated now. Milgazia, meanwhile, remained frozen beside her.

Hmm... guess I shouldn’t tell ’em about the time I let the Lord of Nightmares take over my body to kill Hellmaster! Teehee!

“This has nothing to do with the problem at hand,” Mileena put in dryly to stem Memphys’s rage. “What we need to focus on is what happens from here, right?”

“I-Indeed... Anyway, Mephy, we can chastise her another time. For now...” Milgazia said, finally recovering, though his voice was still shaky.

“U-Understood, Uncle Milgazia.” Memphys nodded reluctantly in response.

Milgazia looked around the group once more. “You mentioned that you defeated General Sherra as well. But if the demons’ goal really is to restart the Incarnation War, that likely hasn’t thwarted their plans. If you’d be willing... I’d like to ask you humans for your help.”

The sound of the rain was the only disturbance to the otherwise silent night. We were staying at the village’s solitary inn. Either the first-floor bar didn’t do much business or the downpour had dampened spirits, because the last of the chatter died down early in the evening. There’d been barely anyone around when we’d gotten dinner too...

Whew... I hung up my cape and sighed deeply before throwing myself onto the bed. Can’t help but feel like I’ve stepped in it big this time... I...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 6.4.2022
• Reihe/Serie: Slayers
• Reihe/Serie: Slayers
• Illustrationen: Hajime Kanzaka
• Übersetzer: Hajime Kanzaka
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Schlagworte: Anime • cute girls • Fantasy • female protagonist • Light Novel • Magic • Slapstick
• ISBN-10: 1-7183-7488-7 / 1718374887
• ISBN-13: 978-1-7183-7488-1 / 9781718374881