I Was a Sword When I Reincarnated (Web Novel)

「「「「「――Water Arrow」」」」」

『It used water magic now…!』

Unlike Fire Arrow, which was accompanied by an explosion, this one had an inferior range of attack. But instead, it had excellent penetrating power, so the physical power of the water arrow was superior.

Moreover, the number of water arrows it created greatly exceeded the number of fire arrows it created earlier.

There seemed to be over 2,000 of them.

This was probably also a matter of affinity. Thanks to Rhyn’s power within it, it was only natural that Water Magic would be a better suit for the Great Magic Beast since it had high affinities for Time and Water Attributes.

But if that was the case, I wondered why it used Fire Arrows on its first attack… I’m not sure if it simply used that without thought, or if it was prioritizing control over numbers.

If it was the latter, this was gonna be quite annoying. It would mean that it had the intelligence to use different attributes depending on the situation.

I knew this magic beast wasn’t stupid, but maybe it could be capable of thinking several levels higher than I had anticipated.

(Master, what should we do?)

『We’ll need to get together with Sierra and Zelos Reed and turn to attack it at once』

(Nn)

While evading the water magic with Dimension Shifts and Short Jumps, we discussed our plans for our next move.

Now that the opponent was aggressively attacking us, we couldn’t afford to use the wait-and-see approach. The longer we waited, the more of a disadvantage we would be in.

As I thought, this magic beast seemed to really have high intelligence.

It shot out water arrows at regular intervals and it seemed to have calculated each shot so that they wouldn’t collide with each other. That was an impossible feat for a magic beast that acted on instinct alone.

The barrage of water arrows coming at us still hadn’t stopped yet.

It was as if the barrage of the countless arrows that were being shot at us would never come to an end.

A wide area of the surface of the lake then raged violently because of the stray arrows, and high waves kept forming up.

The Great Magic Beast kept launching its tentacles and magic bullets at us, leaving no safe place within a radius of 500 meters of the magic beast.

『And its current size is just still the size of its arm!?』

It was also being weakened by the Sacrament of the Evil God, right!?

『What about Sierra and Zelos Reed…!? They seem to be safe』

I checked on the safety of Sierra and Zelos Reed after the barrage had stopped.

They were far farther behind us. They must have managed to retreat to the outside of the barrage range in time.

But they did not come out unscathed.

Zelos Reed, in particular, was in a really bad state. The lower half of his body had been completely obliterated. There was also a large hole in his head, he would have died if he were not an Evil Person. And it seemed that his regeneration had begun to restore his body.

Sierra was also hurt quite badly, but it was a minor injury compared to Zelos Reed’s.

「Oji-san! You don’t have to cover for me…!」

「Kuh…Do-n’t mind… it…」

「But!」

Zelos Reed seemed to have protected Sierra. Even though he had grown up, it seemed that Romio’s affection towards Zelos Reed hadn’t changed much.

Well, it was not like I didn’t know how he felt. After all, If the grown-up Fran from the future was here in Romio’s position, I’d probably do the same too.

『Let’s get some distance! We’ll fall back until we’re close to Sierra and Zelos Reed!』

(Nn!)

Fran understood the danger of staying here. She immediately moved at my suggestion.

We immediately teleported out of the attack range of the Great Magic Beast.

「Sierra, you okay?」

「Yeah, how about you? You seem pretty worn out」

「I’m fine」

「I see… I think you already know this, but it seems that I can’t continue shaving away its power any longer」

「Nn」

「But while we still have the power to unleash our full power attack, we’ll attack it with our all-out attack」

It seemed Sierra and Zelos Reed had made the same decision as us to make one last attack on the Great Magic Beast.

「I’ll serve as a decoy while you prepare yourself」

Zelos Reed, who had the highest recovery power, volunteered himself to become a decoy for us. This would reduce the amount of power he could allocate to his attacks, but he could leave that part to Sierra and Fran.

「And while I was at it――」

Just before Zelos Reed finished his words, something happened and he turned around with a startled expression on his face. And at the same time, Fran and Sierra also stared in the same direction as him.

《Magical power reaction inside the Great Magic Beast detected. It’s rising rapidly. Recommending evasive actions》

『What!?』

I quickly teleported after I heard Announcer-san’s advice. Immediately afterward, an extremely thick ray of light passed by us as if to snatch us at the place where we had been before we teleported.

Even though we didn’t get a direct hit, the aftermath alone was enough to scrape off part of our barrier.

And it was that Great Magic Beast that released that ray of magic power at us.

『So, it hasn’t given up to attack us even after we’re out of its magic range, huh!?』

As I followed the line of fire of the light ray, I saw that it had landed on the surface of the lake far from here. With a tremendous boom, a huge column of water that seemed to be over 50 meters high was created.

『Oi oi… It even reached that far away…』

Fortunately, there were no ships in the vicinity. Well, they’re most likely already evacuated after all. However, I felt that ray of light seemed to be able to reach even farther. It might even be able to reach the land tens of kilometers away from the center of the lake.

Depending on the angle from which the ray was emitted, there might even be significant collateral damage because of it.

《Second shot incoming》

『Tsk!』

「I’ll―」

「Uoooh!」

Before Fran could make a move, Zelos Reed rushed at the Great Magic Beast. He held up a huge shield made of evil spirits and jumped into the line of fire of the rays himself.

The rays that the Great Magic Beast released and Zelos Reed’s evil shield collided, creating an impact that was so strong that it was accompanied by a violent wind.

「Gghuaaah!」

Even though the evil shield prevented a direct hit, a tremendous amount of its heat was burning Zelos Reed’s entire body. The surface of his body even turned red like a charcoal from the heat, and he was still regenerating only to get burned again.

Zelos Reed continued to block the rays of light while smoke billowed from his burned body.

「I’ll take care of its attack! You guys! Just launch your attack on it!」

Zelos Reed turned only his head toward us and roared loudly. The look in his eyes was so sincere that it was hard to believe he was an Evil Person.

TLN: I’ve gotten better, so we (the team that TL/ED this series) decided to shorten the update rate from “a chapter per 3-4” days to “a chapter per 2 days”.