Chapter 375: The Beginning of a Battle
"Shizuka, Eve is incredible, isn't she?" I say to Shizuka as Eve pushes forward with our army. Thousands of puppets charge at the angels and detonate themselves, clearing a path while the demon army marches slowly, keeping some distance to avoid collateral damage.
Of course, the demons aren't even fighting yet. They're just waiting for the puppet numbers to drop low enough before they actually advance and engage.
"Yes, she's incredible. How does she find the courage for that? She's out there, leaping between enemies while everything around her explodes... explodes... you're not going to explode me, right?" Shizuka asks, looking a little spooked.
"No, I only explode the standard model puppets. Plus, after they're blown up, I sacrifice their pieces to you and Eve, so you're both getting a little stronger with every standard model puppet death," I tell her as we fly on top of Calyo.
I repaired this dragon puppet after everything that happened. It took a while because of the damage Nerina caused, but fortunately it was still fixable.
"You know, Evelyn, I never imagined flying on top of a dragon..." she says, touching Calyo's hard carapace.
"I imagine not. After all, you came from a world where things like this didn't exist — though your world did have ghosts." When I say that, she shudders.
"Don't even remind me. This world is so much better. It's great not having ghosts watching everything I do." She brings up a real positive point. I wonder what happened to Shizuka's world after my time there.
A lot of people had seen me, and some had even been hunting me. Are they still hunting me, thinking I'm still around? I really didn't want to have caused anyone trouble.
'I wonder why that world had ghosts... I never understood it, and I didn't spend enough time researching ghosts to find out... well, it doesn't matter anymore...'
"You also probably never imagined you'd get to see a view like this, right?" I say to her as I gaze at the blue sky. If you ignore the sounds of explosions and the smell of burning and just look at the sky, the view is beautiful.
"Yeah... magnificent. I've never seen a sky this clear." She speaks while looking at the sky. It seems a little silly to comment on the sky during a war, but both of us are doing it to calm our nerves. We're not ignoring the war — we're trying not to let it consume everything around us.
"It's only like this here. On this continent, the sky is clear almost all the time. On the demon continent, we have six different seasons a year... unfortunately, we're going to destroy this view."
I make Calyo fly swiftly over the armies, climbing higher and higher as we invade the kingdom's territory. Beside me, Shizuka watches some angels chasing us.
"What are you going to do?" she asks as I pull one of my most recent creations from my storage ring — a very interesting relic.
"Just watch..." I drop it from up here as Esther Marionette's right arm manifests and punches the relic, sending it plummeting at extreme speed.
"You know... whenever you do that, it's kind of creepy, that arm appearing out of nowhere..."
"It's just a puppet..." I look down as Shizuka does the same. When the relic touches the ground, an immense ice explosion occurs. A huge area is frozen, hundreds of houses turning to ice, and then the bomb releases an enormous wave of Hikishin that completely shatters the ice.
It flattens a gigantic area while killing everyone inside it. It's a relic I created with the idea of making a clean zone for our army to set up camp. Calyo turns around, heading back toward my army.
"What a terrifying bomb..." Shizuka murmurs, staring at the massive area visible from up here in the sky.
"It could've been bigger if I'd had more time to make it. And can you believe that all of this started with me trying to make rings with basic effects, like generating water or light?"
"I've evolved a lot with this." I'm grateful to Kjori. I've never forgotten what he did for me. Thanks to him, I created the weapons Eve uses and some very interesting relics.
"Shizuka, how about showing me your power? Kill those angels chasing us." So far, Shizuka has practically only used her power to contaminate others.
"Alright! You'll see, it's pretty interesting." Shizuka uses her power, [God's Toy], and I know it because I feel the Hikishin around us shifting.
"What did you get?"
"I'll show you." Shizuka lies down on the dragon's back and aims her finger at the angels, taking aim. Then she fires a green arrow. The arrow isn't very fast as it heads toward the angels.
But the color starts turning a darker green as it grows in size, and in just a few seconds, it's the size of a building, hitting the angels as it continues for a few hundred more meters before exploding in a violent burst of air.
"Your luck is absurd," I say to Shizuka, realizing we're opposites in that regard. I have bad luck, while she, on her very first "spin" of the roulette, got this super-powerful attack.
"Yeah... I don't know if I'd call it luck. There are infinite abilities — anything can come up."
"True, but bad things can come up too. There are infinite possibilities, any ability can appear, nothing guarantees it'll be something good, and you got something good on your very first try." She grows thoughtful.
"You're right... something bad could come. I hadn't thought about that... that's a problem. I need to learn how to discard an ability so I can spin again. I'm going to keep trying. Could you not call me for a while?"
"Okay..." I fall silent while she lies down on Calyo's back, quiet.
'Eve, how are things down there?' I ask Eve as I fly over both armies.
'[Everything is fine, Evelyn-sama. The angels aren't handling all the explosions well and have started retreating backward. We're advancing aggressively, since they don't have the courage to push forward and get blown up by the puppets.]' Eve says something I already expected.
When the angels realized that all the standard puppets blow themselves up when they get too close, they'd naturally start pulling away and falling back.
"...!!?" Shizuka grabs me and leaps upward. I look toward the angel queen's castle and see a golden glow. Calyo dives down fast as a golden beam passes right through where we just were.
Another attack is aimed at us, but we have no way to dodge because Shizuka doesn't have wings and I obviously don't either. I quickly manifest Esther Marionette completely.
"Attack!!" I give her a simple, vague order. Esther Marionette uses blood magic to create wings and then grabs me and Shizuka. She then points in the direction of the second attack.
"[Ice Magic: Crystal Bridge]" As soon as the angel queen's attack reaches us, it's stopped by a wall of ice. The entire attack begins to freeze, forming a solid ice bridge all the way to her castle.
'Oh, Esther Marionette can speak... and what a terrifying power... she literally froze the entire attack.' I'd like to know the reasoning behind that choice. I gave her a command that was too simple, and I want to understand better.
"Shizuka, it seems someone is getting impatient... I think we should go. If we don't attack, she'll start attacking from a distance even more intensely, and that will hinder us." Shizuka looks at the ice bridge.
"You're right. It's no longer safe to stall. That attack clearly wanted to eliminate us, and it was very strong." We climb onto the ice bridge as Calyo goes to attack the angels trying to get close, keeping them at bay.
'Eve, we're advancing. Be ready to be teleported by me at any moment if necessary. Tell Marie and Laplace to be ready to take control of the troops.' I warn Eve as Esther Marionette hides back inside my soul.
'[Alright, Evelyn-sama. Be careful, and please don't be reckless. You need to focus one hundred percent on this.]' You can feel the concern in Eve's voice, but we don't have time for that. I use my powers to create a large white tiger.
'Don't worry, Eve. I'll be careful. I'll take good care of Shizuka too.'
"Get on, Shizuka." I climb onto the tiger, which I used my powers on to focus one hundred percent on agility and speed. Shizuka quickly jumps on, and the tiger starts running across the ice bridge.
'The cost has dropped so much since I got more experienced...' Creating puppets without material was impossible for me in the past. Now, the only material I need is my own Hikishin, and it used to cost a lot back then — now it costs almost nothing if it's a weak puppet.
"Evelyn... I'm scared... do you think I'm going to die?" Shizuka speaks with a shaky voice. In the end, she's still a former human and has only been in this world for a short time. I even remember when I was in her position, afraid of fighting an enemy who could kill me, when I first started in the war.
"It's okay to be scared, but I won't let you die. I'll step in before it reaches that extreme if you start to lose the fight. Just take it slow and be patient. And you don't need to worry — I've never broken a promise to you, have I?"
"...Okay. I'll do my best. But please don't let me die! That would be super unfair. I'm doing my best for you and Eve."
"Yes, yes. Take it easy. Don't be afraid. I'm serious about protecting you just as much as I'd protect Eve in this situation. You'll win. Have confidence." I encourage her, even though I don't fully believe in her victory myself.