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Published at 6th of February 2023 11:41:06 AM


Chapter 146

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[The Puppet Master and the Level Idiot]

“Oh?”

“Huh?”

After wrapping up the ‘Let’s Kill Joseph!’ strategy meeting, we headed out fully motivated to carry out the plan only to meet with the target himself immediately after leaving the great library.

This situation is completely out of my expectation.

(What’s this guy doing here? Are those knights under his control? There are more than 50 of them. The crystal ball is still intact, which means Iris is safe—)

Joseph was nearby during the attack on the saintess. Meaning that he must come close when controlling puppets exceeding a certain number to perform combat actions.

The guy in the middle who let out a voice of surprise at the same time as me should be Joseph himself. He’s looking at Ayako. And he seems to be mad. Looks like we can no longer use Ayako to ambush him.

He may escape. That won’t do, that would be the ‘worst case scenario’. I have to kill him here. How? For now, I must prevent him from escaping no matter what.

How do I prevent him from escaping? I can’t physically restrain him—wipe off the thought of escaping from his mind, then.

Okay, let’s infuriate him.

(—And the best way to do so is by aiming for his dear daughter!)

After drawing conclusions at a frightening speed—even if I do say so myself—I steal Ayako’s kiss in order to infuriate Joseph, and then to add salt to the wound, I declare that I’m taking her while sneering at him.

As expected, there’s no way Joseph can keep his cool, within moments he becomes enraged and begins to scream at me, “You’re taking her?! Ayako is my daughter, I’ll never hand her over to anyone! Especially you!! How dare you assault my dear daughter right in front of me, you scum?! And what in the world did you do to my daughter?! You should have no capability to tinker with her?! How can she move by herself?! You ruined my perfect creation?! What is the deal with those magic circuits?! They are too inefficient and wasteful!! Seeing the way they are arranged, they must be the things that let her operate by herself!! How blasphemous!! You must have done all that to toy with my beloved daughter Ayako, to make her serve you!! Ahh, unforgivable, I don’t accept this, never!! You defiled my daughter, you defiled my Ayako!! The fruit of my and her love!! How dare you, how dare you, how dare you!!”

“Good. This much anger should fill him with nothing but intent to kill me. There’s a change of plan, but let’s kill Joseph, shall w—befu?!”

“~~~!! —!! —!”

I tried to launch a preemptive attack while Joseph was raving, but Ayako slapped me for some reason.

She glares at me and points her finger at me as though condemning me. Could she be mad that I kissed her?

Puppets have no concept of chastity. If you don’t like it, just rinse your mouth with muddy water later.

Or rather, why don’t you consider how empty and helpless I felt being forced to kiss a puppet for a second? I’m also a victim here! So just forget about that, and let’s kill your father, okay?

“You can beat Tōru as much as you want later, so look ahead! He’s coming!” Ethel warns us.

“!”

“Righto~. Ayako, protect Ethel.”

“Don’t try to communicate with Ayako without my permission!!” Along with the shout, the puppet knights under Joseph’s control begin to move.

Almost at the same time, Ethel buffs me and Ayako with Sacred Magic: Blessing, her forte.

It boosts physical abilities and bestows holy-element which greatly increases damage dealt to undead and ghosts—but against the puppets, welp, it’s better than nothing.

“That scum, Sakurai, kill him!!”

At first glance, there are more than 50 knights rushing our way; considering that there may be more behind them that I can’t see, there’s probably about 100 of them.

But even if they have started to move all at once, there’s a limit to the number of puppet knights who can engage us in battle at a time. The first ones I have to deal with are the three at the very front.

“““————”””

Without talking to each other, they launch a well-coordinated attack.

A diagonal slash to reduce my room for evasion, a vertical slash to restrict my movement, and a stab to finish me off.

The swordsmanship they’re displaying isn’t that big of a deal.

However, it’s perfectly timed because they are controlled by Joseph alone.

So, even if you can read their attacks, if your skill is only at the average soldier’s level at best, you may get severely wounded, or worse die.

“Whoa there!”

But even if my talent sucks, I’m still the disciple of the ‘Sword Saint’.

Wielding the Yellow Spring Nodachi, I repel the diagonal slash, then I cut down the 1st puppet knight as his sword bounced back. Dodging the incoming vertical slash from the 2ndpuppet knight with a side step, I jump and step on the sword, pressing it into the ground.

Still stepping on the sword, I rotate my body to dodge the stab from the 3rd puppet knight that is supposed to be the killing blow, then taking advantage of the momentum from the rotation, I decapitate the 2nd puppet knight who is unable to move with his sword being stepped on by me.

“Flame Sword, ‘Inabi Kari’!”

Using the body of the decapitated puppet knight as a shield, I swing down with Flame Sword, sending flames flying through the 2ndpuppet knight’s body before landing on the 3rd puppet knight, burning both of them.

The decapitated 2nd puppet knight still tries to grab at me even though his whole body is burning, so I throw a spinning back kick at him, knocking him into the 3rd puppet knight behind him and causing them both to fall over.

I jump onto their bodies that are piled on top of each other, stab my sword through their waists, and then powerfully swing up the sword, separating the upper and lower halves of their bodies.

After I finally get time to catch a breath, the knight whom I cut down first stands up, then rushes towards me alongside other knights.

Seeing that combo attack doesn’t work, this time they instead choose to use the ‘Swordsmanship’ skill to individually unleash powerful slashes in quick succession.

But attack skills have fixed motions, so they’re easier for me to deal with.

Just from seeing the initial movements of their hips, shoulders, arms, and so on, I immediately know what moves they’re going to use, so I move along the openings as I cut down the knights one after another.

What’s that? Steel armor? It offers no protection to the necks and joints, and if I’m willing to accumulate energy for a moment, I can use ‘Fake・Sword Saint’s Slash’ to bisect the armor from top to bottom.

Torsos say goodbye to their lower bodies in tears. While I’m at it, I also cut off their limbs, leaving them completely immobilized.

“—!”

A puppet knight attacks me from behind, my blind spot, but gets blocked by Ayako’s trident. Ayako then skewers him and hurls him away.

Ayako goes on to thrust her trident by the side of my face. The tip pushes away the enemy in front of me and creates room for me to regain my stance.

Taking advantage of her help, I kick a nearby knight away and use the recoil to create some distance, then, holding up my nodachi, I stand by Ayako’s side.

“They have great cooperation, but individually they’re nothing much. The problem is there’s too many of them,” I remark.

“——”

“Yeah, right.”

“Can’t you two speak in a way that I can understand as well?!” Ethel screams.

I don’t think it’s a good idea to discuss strategies in front of the enemy, though?

But anyway, even as she holds her trident menacingly, Ayako changes her posture, shifting her center of gravity backward so that she can move back at any time.

Right before I kissed her earlier, I whispered, “There’s too many enemies. We have to change location ASAP,” and as it turned out she did hear it.

I honestly feel relieved. I’ve been a little worried because she hit me right after I let go of her lips.

The great library is surrounded by quite a big piece of flat land and other buildings are quite a distance away from it. Numbers have the advantage here.

Of course, even with numbers, they wouldn’t be able to easily take down me or Ayako, but if we got surrounded, we might not be able to protect Ethel and she might get killed. Not to mention, ours is an impromptu team, so we should be extra careful.

Haa, fighting against humans is not my strong suit, doing that while protecting someone else only doubles the trouble, and the puppets don’t give enough experience points for how troublesome they are… so!

“Flame Sword, ‘Fire Snake’!”

“!”

“Huh, eh, hey?!”

6 ‘fire snakes’ coil around my sword.

I swing out, and the giant snakes made of fire fly off my sword, burning our surroundings.

As the flames act as a smokescreen, Ayako, having moved back and picked up Ethel in her arms, creates a magic circle.

Then chains shoot out from it, wrapping around me and the two of them. The chains then lift us up into the air before hurling us to the other side of Joseph’s army.

“Uwaaa?! Why didn’t you give me a heads-up!!”

“And let the enemy know? Getting out of here takes priority!”

The advantage of Ayako’s chain is that, unlike my thread, it can exert great force.

So it’s better for heavy work like this. I find it a little difficult to adjust my posture in midair at first, but after a couple of tries, I eventually manage to do it.

“Don’t run away! You coward!” Joseph screams at us.

“! –!!”

“Oops, Shishū ‘Nuiage: Shieldcap’.”

Joseph’s puppets shoot arrows at us as we fly over them. They do it in a hurry, so the accuracy isn’t high, but there are a lot of arrows.

If we get hit by even one of them, we’ll lose balance and fall into the middle of the enemy’s army, so I use threads to create a number of barriers to block the incoming arrows.

(There’s roughly 100 puppet knights, huh. The guys I defeated earlier are still wriggling. They’re likely gonna be recycled. In that case, the best place to confront them is…)

Having roughly grasped the number of enemies and the situation, we start running the moment we land.

Ethel is still being carried by Ayako, and I run behind them while continuing to defend the rear with ‘Shishū’ skill.

“Hey, Tōru! Why are we running? Weren’t we supposed to fight him?” Ethel asks.

“Yeah, but first we’ve gotta move to a location that’s more advantageous for us. If we continue to fight here, we won’t be able to protect you,” I reply.

“Are you saying I’m being a burden to you?!”

“We can’t defeat him without your support, duh. Of course, we gotta make sure you stay safe.”

Well, not to say I absolutely have no chance of beating him alone, but the support from Ethel’s sacred magic will make it a whole lot easier.

Ethel has been slightly heated up seeing the knights being controlled, but she calms down a little after being told that ‘we need her’, then she casts ‘Blessing’ on me and Ayako again. Thanks to that, we are able to slowly widen our distance from Joseph’s army.

“??”

“Outside the barrier… no, the cathedral. Let’s face him there.”

Joseph already has so many knights under his control, if we brought him outside the barrier, it would likely only result in the knights outside getting turned into puppets, thus increasing his force.

In which case, we’ll have to make him focus on us and fight him with our current numbers. Besides, it’s easier for me to fight in the current situation where I can do whatever I want without anyone telling me off.

Having made that decision, I tell Ayako to head to the cathedral while taking out a small case from my pocket and crushing the ‘Nexus Crystal Ball’ inside.

If Iris breaks her crystal ball, it means that there’s trouble on her side.

And if I break mine, it means that she can proceed as she sees fit.

That’s the signals we’ve agreed upon. That said, since she probably wouldn’t have the means to enter the barrier, Iris would surely prioritize crushing the puppets around Cordelia-san to ensure her safety.

(All I have left to do is to figure out how to convert Joseph and his puppets into experience points.)

The situation has gone way off the plan, so I have to improvise with our current fighting force, skills, and knowledge of the original game.

If Joseph escapes, he’ll most likely gonna be a huge pain in the ass and be getting in my way every chance he gets, so I must deal with him here and now.

To that end, I start formulating a new plan with the cards I have up my sleeve… Though, thinking of the upcoming life-and-death battle, an unscrupulous smile spread across my face.

It’s been so long since I last had a boss fight, just the thought of the large number of experience points I will get from it sends my heart throbbing.

(All of them are my experience points (prey). I won’t even let a single one of your puppets escape, prepare yourself, Joseph Asanaga!)

I glance at the puppets chasing us from behind.

Delighted at the abundance of prey, I rush into the cathedral with a big grin on my face.




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