Volume 2 Chapter 9.4 (1/2)
Chapter 9.4
Translator: Reflet
Editor: Weasalopes
「H-Hiroshi-san……？」
「Artiem, you alright？」
「I am. I am, but……」
「Then don’t worry yer little head about it. This is ma job.」
Hiroshi consoled Artiem, whose voice was shaking. After Haruna healed him, his rejuvenated body turned back toward the evil ent. As she looked up at the back of the man who had protected her numerous times, she stood back up, pressing down on her heart to quell its increase in tempo.
「Haruna-san, ready fer Over Accelerate？」
「Sure, but will you be okay？」
「I healed just now.」
Haruna was worried about the damage he had received, but Hiroshi answered calmly. It was as if the loser persona had hidden itself, much like when he was working on making things. Haruna felt her heart skip a beat, but she was still concerned.
Then again, the battlefield is always a place of shifting circumstances. Just when you would think that the scales had tipped in their favor now that Haruna’s group had showed up, the evil ent decided to begin its last futile attempt at defeating them by summoning a large horde of hunter trees.
「More followers!? Y’know, I don’t think we should dawdle any further! 」
「I’ll use Flame Buster! Hiro, suppress the shockwaves for me!」
「Gotcha！」
Leaving Haruna hanging on whether she should use Over Accelerate or not, Tatsuya got ready to unleash an attack to end the fight.
（What am I…doing here……？）
Artiem asked herself as she noticed everyone rushing to the scene to fulfill their various roles. The amount of hunter trees had increased, but that was probably the most that would come out of the ent’s final struggle. She no longer had anything she could do. In fact, trying anything in this situation would make her a hindrance.
She knew from the beginning that she would be a nuisance. So although she occasionally commented on Hiroshi’s actions, she never displayed opposition, generally following instructions in a meek manner. A mere amateur like Artiem wasn’t able to make accurate decisions.
Still, just as with exploration, she was not a complete amateur in combat. Maybe not in the earlier half of the boss fight, but in the later half of the boss fight, she could have done so much more. And yet, all she had done was play by the book and attack the hunter trees without truly paying attention to the overall situation. If she had actually focused, there surely must have been a way to prevent Hiroshi from being defenseless on the receiving end of his opponent’s special move.
The same could be said for attacking. Even if she were ill-suited for fighting this opponent, she should have at least done something to hinder their attacks. Not even considering her options and simply attacking her opponent was something any child in the village could do. At this rate, she would just end up being like a child with ridiculous proportions.
（There…there has to be something I can do！）
Hiroshi was lethally bad with women, and yet he had been kind to Artiem and had protected her with his life. At this rate she would be constantly relying on him. Artiem wanted to help him, and in a way that only she could.
As she was searching frantically through her head to see what she could do, Tatsuya’s magic was completed. Even when he burned the new hunter trees to the ground, three seconds later, the same amount would emerge from the ground. Haruna’s magic was still incomplete. Artiem heard someone’s voice. A large quantity of roots and branches pierced through Hiroshi. She heard another voice. The evil ent sucked up Hiroshi’s blood, regenerating. Someone called out.
（……oh……）
Cooling her head by listening to the voice, she understood her role. Until now, Artiem had only been a mere elf in title, despite Aranwen naming her a priestess and her dedication day and night to the cleansing process. It was only at this time that she truly became Aranwen’s priestess.
「Everyone, please stand back a bit！」
Archem shouted out. Everyone stopped moving momentarily as they heard that sudden command. Unconcerned with this, she began speaking in a language unknown to any human, directed at the ancestral spirits who were letting out voices of anger and sadness from being woken up from their sleep.
（I’m begging you！）
Artiem continued to emit the foreign sounds from her mouth, clearly stimulated by something as she put her everything into one wish. With Artiem’s wish successfully delivered, the ancestral spirits made all the newly added hunter trees wither and die, intervening with the roots of the evil ent that had infiltrated the earth and preventing it from summoning any more monster trees. The evil ent’s branches thrashed out in a roar, its roots writhing at the surface. However, each and every one of the ent’s movements were blocked by the ancestral spirits, who had taken Artiem’s mana in exchange for granting her wish. Although there were no lyrics and there was no rhythm to it, the sounds coming out of Artiem’s mouth were part of a song.
Extra Skill: Totem Call. This was the ultimate skill that priestesses tended to have. Normally, this skill was the most important one to acquire in order to call oneself a priestess. Without a certain kind of disposition, this kind of power was impossible to attain for humans. This was the same skill that Aearis had possessed from the minute she was born and used unconsciously. Artiem, meanwhile, had only just recently mastered it.
「Haruna-san！」
「I got it！ Over Accelerate！」
Hiroshi and the others had momentarily stood there dumbfounded, but once the spirits scolded them, they hurriedly snapped to. Encouraged by Hiroshi and the spirits, Haruna activated her trump card: the spell she had been chanting. Still, humans couldn’t normally hear the voice of a priestess, even with all the power in the world. If the five Japanese were able to hear that, then could they possibly be the guests from the Unknown Continent?
「Just give it up already mate！！」
With a high pitched battle cry that only he understood, Hiroshi thrust the pole axe at the evil ent with reckless abandon. From his viewpoint, he unleashed 70 attacks in 100 seconds, but to everyone else it was like a second. A rift spread across that side of the room, and at last the dungeon’s boss had fallen.
「Return to normal～」