Chapter 456: O Dragon, O Dragon! Part 33

Author's Preface

A surprise update just when you thought there wouldn't be one today. Seriously, please let me off the hook tomorrow.

Here, I'd like to explain a bit about magic.

There are many types of magic in Shangri-La Frontier, but among them exists a group of spells that act as a sort of ultimate form.
Unlike exploits like the Rod of Actualization, The Desire, these spells can only be learned by those who have mastered the magic belonging to a specific field... They are called "Gate Magic."
There are several spells with "Gate" in their name, but these are distinctly different; they are activated with surprisingly short chants and the trigger keyword "Open Gate."

Truth be told, even though Josette is a tank, she isn't a wall-type job relying on physical defense like the tank squad from SF-Zoo.
Her true nature is a role that holds the frontline using defensive magic—a Magi-Tank, so to speak.

And as the shield protecting the Saint of Affection Iristella, the defensive magic she continually honed to protect the Saint—sometimes from monsters attacking on their pilgrimage, sometimes from insolent NPCs—finally reached its ultimate form one day, a year after the service launched.

◆

"───My blood burns hot."

Just that. An astonishingly short chant, but the resulting phenomenon was dramatic.

"Whoa."

My voice slipped out without thinking. Like ruts in a road, two lines of fire ran straight from Josette's left and right, connecting the path between her and Siegwurm.
It wasn't just ordinary fire. The flickering heat, unable to keep the same shape for even a single second, took form as it wavered and stood up.
It looked like they were wearing somewhat familiar helmets, it looked like they were holding somewhat familiar round shields. Specifically, I felt like I saw them in the mirror when I got new equipment once upon a time.

"Open Gate (Come and Take Them)."

The Spartan Warriors of heat haze dissolved into the flames, raising swords, spears, and shields. The intensity of the flames reached its climax, and from the corridor of fire erupting like a tsunami, hundreds of weapons made of flame flew out to block the path.
A wall of spears, a swarm of swords, a line of shields. That was, truly... a gate of fiery warriors opened to halt the enemy's advance.

『───"Breath of Bane"!!』

"───【Thermopylae (Gate of Hot Blood)】!!"

The crimson breath and the crimson gate clashed. As the fiery blockade was blown away and shattered, new weapons shot out from the flames to bite into the energy of destruction.

Thrusting her right hand forward and bracing herself with everything she had, I could see sweat running down Josette's cheek. Game or not, this is ShanFro; it seems you don't just cast magic and call it a day.

"Think you can hold out?"

"Of course!"

It wasn't Josette's dignified roleplay voice, but her "true" voice, yet the answer that came back was unwavering.

"Who cares about some Unique Monster... inhale......"

Taking a deep breath, after a brief pause, Josette let out an ear-splitting battle cry and stepped forward!!

"Saint-chan is the best!!"

"Is that really the battle cry you're going with!?"

Apparently, she was fine with it.
The momentum of the flames surpassed Siegwurm's breath. In stark contrast to Siegwurm, whose breath had begun to weaken, the flames—swelling up in a single explosive burst—surged forward with explosive directionality.

"This magic is... counter magic!!"

『Kuha, gwaah!!』

Scorching as if carving away the earth itself, the swirling, dashing flames looked exactly like a shield charge plowing forward with a raised shield. Even in the face of it, the golden giant didn't flee, but took it head-on with a smile. Yet, overpowered by the momentum, Siegwurm was lifted slightly into the air... and for the first time, his utterly unyielding body was blown away.

"Amazing..."

"H-How was that... Ugh, I feel so sluggish..."

Josette slumped down, collapsing limply. But considering what she just pulled off, it couldn't possibly be without risks. Proof of that was her HP gauge, which had been chipped away until only a few millimeters remained.

"S-Sorry... As expected, this is rough... I won't recover from this for a while, so I'm gonna rest..."

A demerit? It's highly likely she's dealing with a demerit similar to the trash-tier sluggish state I fell into a little while ago. But the massive impact of sending Siegwurm flying was more than enough to blow away the players' hesitation.

"Good job! Guess I'll lose face if I don't go out there and show my stuff, huh?"

"Do your best〜"

"Hey, don't be so half-assed... Well, whatever. Saina! Find Emul and bring her here. It's all-out war from here on out... Let's use every last drop of blood we have to give Siegwurm a run for his money!"

"Roger (Hell yeah): Commencing operation."

Yashirobird's probably reaching the limit of his patience too. Let's show 'em the ultimate Dragon Slaying epic!!

◇

"Ugh..."

Immobilized by the side effects of 【Thermopylae】, Josette let out a small groan as she watched Sunraku sprint off and Noirlind take flight.

"Well, I guess the net profit is positive..."

The pure, unadulterated words of gratitude from a player named Akitsu Akane—a girl who, at least according to Josette's keen observation, was undeniably and genuinely a girl—were worth taking on an unerasable demerit that lasted dozens of minutes.

"Gate" magic wasn't something you could just casually sling around. In the case of 【Thermopylae】, the caster's heat is stolen as the price for activation. In system terms, the stats consumed as the activation cost do not recover in proportion to the activation time, and what's more, she wouldn't be able to level up until she zeroed out the "EXP" deficit she offered as a tribute for the cast.

"I'm gonna have to find time to grind somehow..."

That was when it happened.

"Thank you for your hard work, Josette."

"Eh, did I ascend to heaven?"

Softly. The resting Josette's face was placed on top of something soft. No way, she thought, timidly looking up... only to find Iristella's face unbelievably close.

"I cannot deny your resolve... I cannot erase the price of opening the gate of hot, burning blood, but at the very least, I can do this much, right?"

"Ohho............ I'm so in the black right now......"

While fully aware that whatever marriage prospects she had in real life were slipping further away, Josette spent a blissful moment thinking, This is exactly why non-existent beautiful girls are the absolute best───

"Yo Siegwurm, you feeling the groove?"

『Oh... Wolf-scarred... No, that imposing aura. I see, so you are "serious"?』

"Don't be stupid, I'm always serious. If I had to put a word to it, I'm going all out.
I never half-ass taking it easy, and when I splurge, I love spending until my bank account hits the single digits. Even with that one strike earlier, I poured in all my Component Crystals hoping to split your face right down the middle... Even though it whiffed!!"

"Sorry it took so long to reset the fight. I'll blow you away with everything I've got right now."

『Oh... With that Divine Age weapon, you say?』

"Centipede Type Tausend (8-0.5)... You've got an idea who made this, don't you?"

Sigmonia Frontline Valley—a trash stage that literally replicated a perpetual battlefield. Inside that mortar-shaped, doughnut-like depression, the Trainol Centipede was one half of the two super-massive monsters locked in an endless turf war.
Maybe because I made it fight the other Fortress Spider over and over, I was lucky enough to be present when the bosses of both sides clashed.

And this weapon, bearing the excessively distinct name Centipede Type Tausend (8-0.5), used materials from the ultra-super-massive centipede Trainol Centipede Dora—a female specimen several times larger than the train-sized male specimen, Gustav!!

"They might not be so unrefined as to interfere directly, but they gave me a push... So, as their proxy, I won't be able to show my face if I don't finish the job!!"

『Then what will you do?』

"A light tap is all it takes for me to die. But as long as the flames (motivation) remain in my heart, I'll stand back up as many times as it takes. I'll be immortal until I defeat you, y'know? Siegwurm the Heavenly Sovereign... Come at me with the intent to kill; I've been planning to do the same from the start!"

『Hahaha, kuhahahahahahahaha!! You do well to spout that "name"! Then I shall incinerate this immortality of yours with my entire heart and soul!! Behold, my "Dragon x Driver (Dragon King Engine)" that rules the Hegemonic Heavens!!!』

Set his heart on fire too. Holding back is for idiots... Let's beat the shit out of each other until we're High (turned to Ash)!!

Author's Afterword
By the way, Bilac, who stared directly at that Re-Legacy Weapon whose name was confusing as hell—is it a hundred, a thousand, or 7.5?—was bedridden for a while.

In pure ecstasy.