Kyou kara Ma no Tsuku Jiyuugyou! Vol 6 Chapter 11

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      “Shibuya, no!”

      An unbearable scream passes my throat.

      “What’s wrong!?  Captain, what’s wrong!?”

      “Shibuya, calm down, calm down.  You're in pain because you’re trying to use magic.  You have to control yourself.  You can do it, right?  Slowly calm your anger; put away your sword of justice.  See?  You can breathe normally.  You can hear properly and you aren’t burned anywhere.”

      “You can’t use magic here.  There isn’t anything that obeys the demons here under normal circumstances, but now those monks lined up over there are casting a shield over this place.”

      “Kind of like the baseball domes you like… why are you laughing and crying at the same time?”

      “Well don’t you like dispensing justice, Shibuya?”

      “What are you talking about?  We were in the same class in second and third year in middle school weren’t we?”

      “… Shit, it hurts… hey, that thing Cropped Pony is holding…”

      I glare at the blurry image of Maxine.  However, he’s not going to deal with a trivial thing who was writhing around on the ground from using a tiny bit of magic.

      The blood was still rushing up to my brain and I lifted my chin and gulped for air like a dying koi fish.  Breathe.  You need to breathe.

      Josak peers at me from behind.  I want to give him a proper answer, but I don’t have the ability.

      “Wait, by Conrad do you mean Lord Conrart Weller?  That’s Dunheely Weller’s son right?  Why is that person’s arm here!?  That key should have been put under Big Shimaron’s control by their archers with the Wincott poison,” Flynn asks.

      “No… There’s no point if his arm was cut off… I can’t believe it…” Flynn murmurs to herself.

      “Stop!  That’s not the key to that box!” Flynn yelled.

      “'A certain man’s left arm’ is the key to The End of the Wind!  I’ve heard that the key to The End of the Land is the left eyeball of a certain bloodline.  If you open the box with a different key, no one will be able to stop its rampage!”

      Murata yells out and starts running.

      “Hmph, are you the aide of that demon with his magic sealed?  I only follow Lord Saralegi’s orders.  No one knows what will happen… In any case…”

      Maxine lays the ‘key’ in the ‘box’ and carefully positions the soldier.  Since Conrad’s burned arm is still inside he hasn’t strictly ‘opened’ the box with the key but perhaps inserted it somewhere inside?

      At the sound of a metallic clank like a lock falling, Flynn collapsed to her knees.

      “There’s no time to sit around!”

      “Hurry!  We need to get somewhere where the ground is even a little bit solider!  It might be too late though.”

      That was the beginning of the nightmare.

      Running directly from the south to the north, fissures and projections appeared in the ground randomly.  The barrier that the exorcists erected is useless.  The fissures immediately appeared inside the fences.  It took all we had to run around and avoid falling into the fissures with the level 5 tremors under our feet.

      I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.  I didn’t even have time to figure out what was going on.

      “Murata!”  I grab the collar of my friend who jumped over and shook him even harder than the tremors.  “I don’t have time to ask who you really are, but we need to stop this earthquake!  We have to save as many as we can!  You know what needs to be done, don’t you!?  You know how to stop this, right!?”

      No way.

      “But there must be a way.”

      “So then we just watch this happen!?”

      “Do we just sit on our hands until everyone is gone!?”

      Small cracks formed under our feet.  We withdraw to a less damaged area.  Everyone is trying to escape to the safe area so the space quickly fills up.

      On my left, Flynn sucks in a breath and runs out into the dangerous area.  There are four or five children left behind in a shaky spot that looks like it will crumble any second.  I try and follow after her, but Josak grabs my shoulder.

      “Why?!  Are you going to go on about how I’m the king again!?  Do you think that Flynn can save them by herself!?  No one else is going to help her!”

      Murata and I are left behind with the others as he jumps over several fissures with his long legs and moves towards her and the children.  He carries one at each side and turns his back on the last one.  Flynn takes the hands of the two older children and tries to ease them forward while calming their tears.

      No one was able to remain standing and we all crouched on the ground.

      Josak withstood the tremor more or less, but Flynn fell while holding onto the two children.  A fissure was running along the ground behind her.  Trying to get to her, I leap twice over small fissures.  As I’m about to put my all into one more leap, I meet her gaze as she remains unable to stand.

      What do you mean, stop?

      “Flynn!”

      “Shibuya, strong magic in human lands is impossible and there are even a bunch of exorcists around.”

      “It’s too dangerous.  People have died trying to do that.  I can’t allow you to-”

      His hand stops moving right on the center of my back.

      “… What are you going to do?”

      I heard a long, resigned sigh.  This wasn’t like his cheerful self.  But, his voice quickly gains some resolve and he grabs my shoulders.

      “No.”

      Flynn and the children are only half above ground now and are only a tiny tremor away from disappearing beneath the earth.  There are several other people also about to fall.  Several hundred are falling to the very bottom. (1)

      I have to hurry.  As it is now, many of the people left behind on the rocks and hanging from the edges of the fissures will all fall straight into hell with this tremor.

      Think.  Who do I want to save me?

      It’s not like I want to borrow someone’s power.  I should be able to control it myself.

      Deep within my ears, I hear the sound of what I called forth.  It’s coming from below the surface with great speed.  The water that smashes rock and splits the earth and fills every little gap has come closer.

      Believe and make an effort.

----

      The clear blue water wells up at an unbelievable speed and catches the people about to fall into the fissures.

      Many humans fall into the flow and end up slowly drifting in the new river.  The one saving grace was that the flow was gentle.  If they have enough strength to stay afloat, they’ll eventually get to a shore somewhere.

      Three seconds earlier it was only a centimeter wide crack, but in the next moment the two sides push together and rise up and turn into a sort of ravine with gigantic cliffs.

      Before the thought of ‘I’m falling!?’ even enters my mind, my arms instinctively reach out to grab hold of the edge of the cliff. My friend who was rubbing my back next to me isn’t there anymore.

      The aftershocks show no sign of dying down and the irregular and intense tremors are jeopardizing the humans who are trying to jump over fissures.  They can swim across the fissures that are filled with water, but they have to either jump over or walk along the newly formed ones.  The people hanging off of ledges are struggling to climb up, but the tremors are preventing them from doing so as if on purpose.

      “Your Majesty!  Young Master!”  Josak’s voice comes from the other side of the cliff.  With the fingers on both of my hands tingly and numb, I turn my head to see Josak pulling up Murata from the edge of the cliff on the fairly distant other side.  That’s a relief.  At least he avoided crashing down into the abyss.

      “Your Majesty!  I’m gonna get over there as soon as possible so hold on until then.”

      “It’s okay.  I’m alright.  Hey, I have a favor to ask you.”

      His orange hair is disheveled and he’s struggling to cross over to my side.  It’s impossible.  It’s too far even with a running jump and there’s no footholds in between to cross with multiple jumps.

      Murata is an amateur who knows nothing about this world and still thinks that this is on Earth and the only one who can protect him is me… is how it was supposed to be.  The circumstances have changed a bit, but as the one who brought him here on a Star Tours it’s my responsibility to get him home unharmed.

      “Please, Josak.  I’m begging you!  There’s no one else I can ask.”

      I don’t even have enough strength left to talk much less ask what’s important about him.  With the next small tremor, I’ll definitely fall.  I have no feeling left in my fingers at all and after losing focus for a split second, my left hand slips off.  My one arm holding on becomes three fingers, two fingers, and lastly my middle finger…

      Pale fingers and a sleeve in a familiar color were solidly grasping my right wrist.

      “… Wolf… why are you here..?”

      “You’re a flirt and a cheat so I secretly stuck a transmitter on you so I can chase after you anywhere in the world.  Hey, it’s no good with just one hand.  Grab on with both of them.”

      “If that happens…”

      “I’ll fall with you.”

      “Trust me.”

      “Wolf, you’re bleeding… I’m sorry.”

      Didn’t I endure it until now?

      Even when night came, when I was alone, when I met Josak, didn’t I endure it until now?  Then why can’t I bear it anymore?  It’s only been a few dozen seconds since we met again.

      “I know.”

      “It’s okay if you cry.  I was a little distraught as well.”

      But he’s not here or anywhere.  Lord Weller isn’t coming back.

      “… Damn it!”

      “Look at this, you can see the flesh… It’s bleeding so much… And then this is where you grabbed me and pulled me up.  It’s all swollen and hot.  I might have sprained my wrist.  Worst case, it might even be broken.  What do I do?  Damn… it hurts… it really hurts.  It’s so ridiculously painful there are tears in my eyes… How stupid am I?”

      Why are you only saying things like that to me?  Things that just make me hurt even more.

      “But even if you know it’s foolish, there are times you have to do it anyway.  Even you’re like that, right?  You’ve always done things like that.”

      A man that looked like a companion of Wolfram’s comes running forward while stumbling.  I recognize that closely shaven head.  It’s Günter’s subordinate Dacascos.

      “How far is the damage?”

      “… It’s really horrible.  They’re saying that there are fissures cutting across the continent… and that the epicenter was near the southern tip of Caloria so it seems that the port town of Gilbit is completely destroyed.”

      Dacascos nodded with pity.

      The port town of Gilbit in the autonomous territory of Caloria is where the elderly haul cargo during the day and at night they wait for the return of their children and grandchildren who were stolen for the military.  The people of Caloria truly despise war so they bear discontent and anxiety in their heart regarding their suzerain state and are hoping that the feudal lord Norman Gilbit will make the proper decisions.  They believe that he will guide them to their hopes.

      I will strength into my knees and stand next to Wolfram.

      “No.  The only ones who can be a king are those who have the talent for it.”

      “That’s something that you possess.”

      I’m the only one left who can wear the mask of Norman Gilbit.

OMG!  I MADE IT!  I feel like this one took FOREVER.  Actually, no.  I know it took forever XD  ANYWAY, if you're looking for novel 7, the first three chapters (and the last three chapters, as well) are on this site.  I'm going to fill in the middle chapters here semi-asap.  Oh, and the links to the translations have it listed as novel 8 because it's translated from the Chinese version and the Chinese series considers the first gaiden as the fifth novel so the numbering is different.  The German version does that too.  I forgot to mention that...

Anyway, the reason that I said semi-asap is because I'm going to translate Apollo 00 first.  It's an original short story by Takabayashi-sensei that I've been told is KKM related but since I've only read the first few pages and it's written in a vague sort of way I can't tell.  No one has names yet and all I know is that it's on Earth (somewhere) in a museum.  There are six chapters, but I'm going to put them out all at once because it's just that short ^-^

Speaking of things that aren't short...  While I'm working on novel 7 I'll also be working on the first gaiden, KakkaMa.  I was originally going to trade off chapters, one 7 and then one gaiden, but then I opened KakkaMa and remembered that gaidens don't have chapters and KakkaMa is basically just three long side stories.  There's the bearbee story and Conrad on Earth with Jose which are both 63 pages long and then the Romero and Argento story where Anissina tried to get out of meeting a guy her brother set her up with by doing that whole Romeo and Juliet thing.  It's basically that episode in the third season.  Anyway, I'll just be working on that bit by bit while I do the main story because it's going to take a while (it's the same length as a normal novel).  It also comes with the added challenge of having to guess where the illustrations go because I bought the re-released omnibus version that also has MusukoMa... and the omnibuses don't have the illustrations ^-^;;;  On the upside, it has an extra story at the end.

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