Chapter 329 - 329: Become a God! / Interlude 10 - Is This Diving?!

This chapter is 2-in-1 (329 and 329.2) so I don't lose track of the numbering

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Thunder, mist, and the power to raise the dead.

The Divine Dragon was a true god.

On that point, every one of the girls now understood perfectly.

That blade of sword-energy split heaven from earth and swept across with unstoppable force. All Ais could do was call up her golden wind and force her own tumbling body to a halt in midair — and at the same time she caught her companions in invisible currents and dragged them clear of the strike by a hair.

"Woooo!"

Tiona watched the sword-energy race away, and it looked for all the world like something meant to cut the world in half, on and on until it vanished at the very edge of sight.

So this was the power of a god?!

Thump! Her heart slammed against her ribs loud enough to shake the sky, and the girl went completely wild.

Her eyes went blood-red. She hefted the enormous "great twin-blade" in her hands, borrowed the push of the wind, and her whole body burst apart into a crimson fog of blood that hurtled straight at the distant Divine Dragon.

The Amazon girl and the blonde girl worked together without needing a word.

Ais's wind became her propellant, howling, driving that sky-filling blood mist forward at terrific speed — and as it flew, the mist shaped itself into the head of some unspeakably horrible beast, jaws yawning wide, and bit down on the Divine Dragon!

A direct hit.

"!!!"

Another violent shock rolled out. The blood mist detonated with a deafening roar, and out of it a small figure came springing backward, riding the breeze, opening distance from the Divine Dragon in an instant.

She had barely dodged the seven-shaku blade that came chopping down at her from above.

The mist rose high once more.

Sky and earth were cleaved apart.

That wall of sword-energy sailed off soundlessly into the distance, and the sight of it set every heart hammering.

That attack didn't do a thing.

That was what Tiona was thinking. All that accumulated blood mist, every bit of force she had piled into a single blow, slammed into the Divine Dragon's body — and the thing had simply healed in the space of a breath.

That was ridiculous!

Just how much vitality did it have?!

Out of the mist, vines thick as pillars came surging into being, lashing at the girls like the tendrils of a Great Dragon.

Now.

Now was the time for everyone to show what they had.

"Burn bright!"

Countless spheres of deep green light fell out of the sky, thick as rainfall, hammering down across the Divine Dragon's colossal body — and then crimson flame climbed toward the heavens.

"Full Flame Release!!"

Fire spread outward from the girl and set everything around her alight.

What mattered most was the blaze wrapped around her weapon. After the "coaching" she had received from Alise and her other friends, Ryuu's understanding of the magic [Astrea Record] had gone considerably deeper. Her proficiency had climbed a level, and with it came more ways to use it.

Alise's [Crimson Flower Stitchwort] was Additional Magic, and it did more than simply wreathe her in fire the way Ais's did — granting "burning" and "high heat," boosting attack power and destructive force.

Its most important property lay elsewhere.

It was the second stage, [Full Flame Release], which could ignite both herself and the weapons in her hands — including any weapon she had already thrown away from herself!

Which meant —

She used the "hidden weapons" of the Far East, the little daggers Kaguya had taught her about, called kunai. As throwing weapons they were superb.

And the kunai now buried in the Divine Dragon's flesh, the moment Ryuu shifted the stage of [Crimson Flower Stitchwort], erupted one after another into pillars of fire that wove together until they swallowed the Great Dragon whole.

And it was exactly at this moment.

That she could use the final form, the "Flame Blossom."

All that fire compressed, converged, condensed into a single "point" — and in the instant before it burst,

Ryuu swung the rapier in her hand, the [Stellar Goddess of Justice], down through it.

"Calamity's Flower of the Other Shore!"

"[Five Lights]!"

Slash magic, used to set off a Flame Blossom that was already on the verge of exploding.

This was a trick Ryuu had learned from Lefiya and Riveria. When different magics collide, magic that is already wild and violent becomes far more unstable.

And the resulting explosion climbs straight off the scale.

While the Divine Dragon's attention was fixed entirely on Ryuu, off to the side, Lefiya had quietly finished her own chant.

The BOSS Isagi had transformed into looked, at a glance, like a giant tree.

So obviously you countered it with fire magic!

And so.

The spells Lefiya chose were, of course, the one she was best at, [Fusillade Firebolt] — and the one she had learned from Riveria, [Advanced · Sword of Victory]!

"Before long, the flames shall be released. The fires of war creep near, and ruin is inevitable. The horn of battle blares high, and tyrannous war engulfs all!"

"Come forth, crimson lotus flame, merciless conflagration. Thou art hellfire incarnate. Sweep away a thousand armies, and bring down the curtain on this great war. Burn all to ash, sword of Surtr. My name is Alf!!"

Fire converged from every direction.

As if to throw more fuel onto the Divine Dragon that Ryuu had already set alight.

Those countless crimson beams gathered into one, and became an immense sword of red flame hanging above the Divine Dragon's head.

"Run!!"

At the girl's shout, Ryuu and Tiona both opened distance from the Divine Dragon at once.

Until —

That crimson flame, pure condensed magic, came down out of the sky, blazing in a way that gave nothing up to the "sun" the girl had conjured before.

Or rather, this was a "sun" shaped like a colossal sword!

Light so fierce it blotted out everything, and as the glare spread, every one of the girls felt an indescribable weight of magic rupture through the space around them.

The mountains, the rivers, the mist, the grass and trees — everything there was poured an unimaginable stream of life force into the "god."

The Divine Dragon stood without a scratch.

What had happened instead was that the barren island, never large to begin with, had lost very nearly half of itself.

And more.

Across the black expanse of sea, the chaotic dregs of magic spilled everywhere — gale, blaze, thunder, frost. Magic turned into rioting elements that appeared in a heartbeat and vanished in the next.

Nothing was left in this place at all, except for that still-colossal Great Dragon towering into the sky.

Isagi understood now.

The strongest part of this transformation actually lay in the "Divine Power."

However weak the Divine Dragon might be, It was still a god from the world of the "Land of Reeds," and It possessed something the game could never have expressed: the strength of a deity, powerful past belief.

A power unlike anything he'd had before, and one that could be applied in combat.

So that was it.

It amounted to having an ace kept at the bottom of the box.

Isagi was thoroughly satisfied with his new magic. The only problem now was that one practice session had wrecked most of the island, which meant that from here on, he would probably have to go find a new one...

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Splash!

Crystalline water leapt from the deep blue surface of the sea, catching the sunlight in a burst of dazzling color.

Late summer still burned.

The blue vault of the sky answered the endless blue of the ocean, and hardly a wisp of cloud drifted between them.

Isagi and the girls had decided to spend the afternoon [Diving].

Most of the little island had been wrecked by yesterday's training, and the residual magic that once hung over the water had long since scattered. Standing at the edge of the towering cliff now, all he could see below was a stretch of blue as clear as a mirror — and poking out of it, Tiona's silly little head.

"Isagi! Ryuu! Lefiya, come on, get down here!! Oh, and don't forget to throw Ais in too!!"

"?!"

The blonde girl, who had only wandered over to watch the fun, jumped and turned to bolt.

And was promptly "placed under arrest" by Lefiya.

And then, just like that, the two of them went over the edge toward the water — one giggling, one shrieking.

"…" Haah.

Another splash, and a great plume of spray.

Isagi shook his head. He watched the girls' antics for a moment, then threw himself off after them, hitting the water a heartbeat apart from Ryuu-senpai.

A rush of coolness met his face, followed by that sensation unique to going under — as though something had caught his body and lifted it, slowing him, gathering around him, wrapping him up.

Once you had the [Diving] Development Ability, the strangest thing happened.

Even without any sort of "breathing apparatus," he could stay down for a long, long, long time — exactly how long depended on the level of [Diving] and on his "proficiency" with it.

Veterans like Tiona could stay under for hours at a stretch. Absurd, really.

Still.

There was something very satisfying about [Diving] that required no gear whatsoever.

For Isagi, the world in front of him quickly dimmed into blue.

Sunlight came through the surface and spilled into the depths as a brilliant golden glow, thread after thread of it, shifting like flowing silk — dancing along with the current, most likely.

Fish everywhere, plain to see.

But looking down, there was only blackness, and it was faintly unnerving. This wasn't some shallow beach, after all. It had been part of the island once, until his battle with the girls had "cleared" it away completely; behind him the cliff face still ran on down beneath the water.

Below that, though, was something like an abyss. Unsettling.

Isagi remembered that if you kept descending you would find a truly beautiful coral forest, and in it a limestone cave slanting downward.

Tiona had made a racket about going adventuring inside it once.

She'd barely gotten in before a swarm of Monsters came after her, snapping and biting. Furious, she'd pulverized them one punch at a time — only for the blood and torn flesh to draw in still more Monsters, until she had no choice but to give up and swim back to the surface.

It was underwater, after all.

While he was thinking about it, Isagi caught sight of Lefiya and Ais still splashing about on the surface not far off.

The blonde girl couldn't swim at all. She was a landlubber of the highest order.

Even with the Elf girl holding onto her, she was thrashing every which way, and by the look of it she'd swallowed a fair amount of seawater.

Hopeless. Absolutely hopeless.

By comparison, Ryuu and Lefiya were entirely in their element.

Both Elf girls had long since acquired the [Diving] Development Ability, of course.

And just now, in the faintly dazzling gold of the sunlight, the slender lines of a girl's figure showed through the water almost completely.

The swimsuits weren't exactly designed for beauty — Elves tended toward the traditional — and they looked closer to school-issue uniforms than anything else. Somehow, though, that only made them more striking.

Or so Isagi thought.

Lefiya went without saying. Her figure was famously generous, and even across that distance the swimsuit did nothing to disguise it.

Ryuu-senpai, by contrast, looked far more "natural."

Just the proportions a girl ought to have — hardly slight; the better word might be "upright."

Hmm.

Isagi even had the odd feeling that a close-fitting swimsuit changed the shape of things from how they looked otherwise.

While he was still musing, Ryuu-senpai had already swum over to him.

The Elf girl really did move like a slender fish. In the space of a blink she was at his side, blinking up at him, apparently wanting to pull him off somewhere.

This was "free time," naturally.

Noisy Tiona had vanished from sight long ago, and there was no telling where she'd gotten to — hunting fish, maybe, or off "exploring" something.

Come to think of it, before they'd come down to the shore she'd thumped her flat little chest and sworn up and down that dinner was her responsibility!

As for Isagi, his own plan had been to unwind a bit, then climb out onto the shore, find a decently large rock and take a nap on it.

But from the look of things, Ryuu had other ideas.

The Elf girl wanted to "sleep" too, in a manner of speaking — Isagi understood exactly what she meant the moment she started towing him down into the depths.

As Lefiya and Ais fell further and further behind them, Ryuu-senpai's slim, soft body gradually wound itself around him.

Isagi could feel it very clearly.

He was wearing nothing but a loose pair of swim trunks, so underwater the fabric of her swimsuit came through strangely — hard to describe, something like cool "fish skin," tough and taut, though press a little harder and what lay beneath was soft indeed.

Probably the "material" of swimsuits in this world was simply a bit unusual.

Isagi remembered Tiona mentioning it: adventurers did have equipment made specifically for "underwater combat," in a sense.

Not the diving suits he and Haruhime had tried out back in the Academic District.

Rather, garments woven from the scales or fish skin that sea Monsters dropped. Which, honestly, weren't far off from swimsuits.

And while he was thinking, they arrived.

Just as he'd guessed, Ryuu-senpai had drawn him down to the coral bed beneath the island.

Pale grey sand emerged out of the dimness of the water.

Across it lay coral formations of every size and shape, dotted with shells and conches and drifting fronds of soft-looking seagrass.

There were shoals of brightly colored fish as well.

They didn't seem the least bit startled by him and Ryuu-senpai, and simply went on drifting about their business.

Because Elf girls were naturally in tune with nature, perhaps?

Isagi remembered that when Ryuu-senpai and Lefiya went after rabbits and the like, they had some kind of "special bonus" too. No great burst of speed required — easy as anything, they'd simply reach out and have one in hand.

Haah—

Speech was impossible underwater, of course.

Not that it was needed.

Because both he and Ryuu-senpai knew this particular road well.

Isagi let himself relax.

He let her have her way — a contented, happy look had come over her face, so she clearly liked things as they were.

For the moment they were entirely out of anyone else's sight.

And out of sight, Ryuu-senpai became a great deal more forward. Probably because she kept herself so tightly reined in the rest of the time; the moment nobody was watching, this was what she turned into.

Isagi was happy enough to let her.

And so, before long, he found himself lying slowly back on that pale grey sand.

It wasn't especially uncomfortable.

Just a gritty rasp, a faint prickling — mostly because the Elf girl pressing down on him was putting rather more force into it than necessary.

Ryuu-senpai was likely too worked up.

Isagi could tell distinctly that she had all but crashed into his arms.

She'd probably misjudged the "technique"; what was meant to be a graceful lunge had come out like that instead.

And then, clumsily, like some small young animal, she squirmed against him, rubbing that soft face of hers this way and that, following instinct until she found her way up to his.

And after that came the kiss, practiced and perfectly natural.

To be fair, kissing underwater took a certain knack.

Do it badly and you both ended up choking on seawater — and this deep down, surfacing quickly simply wasn't an option.

Nothing genuinely dangerous would happen, but it would certainly be unpleasant for a while.

Fortunately!

As already said, Isagi and Ryuu were old hands at this by now!!

Hardly their first time doing it underwater.

The island had served as their training ground for quite a stretch of time, after all, and coming down to the sea for [Diving] was practically a fixed item on the schedule every visit. Familiarity came naturally.

There was one more thing.

Through a good deal of practice, Isagi had discovered you actually could open your mouth underwater.

It just took a bit of technique!

First, you had to stay calm; then keep an ordinary, level state of mind, resisting the reflex to breathe while holding yourself as still as if you'd been frozen in place.

Mm.

Like now.

Small bubbles rose slowly past their eyes. Looking at the lovely face of the girl a hair's breadth from his own, both of them were entirely absorbed, tongues moving.

Utterly focused.

Maybe it was that very focus, but a sensation that ought to have been thoroughly familiar somehow felt different from every time before.

And because of that faint strangeness it went straight to his head, and he wanted to keep exploring the lovely unknown of it for as long as possible.

What it produced in the end was reluctance — the sense of never, ever wanting to separate.

Which in a certain sense was accurate enough, since a kiss was itself a kind of "breath-holding contest."

So it felt easy instead, as if it didn't matter how long it went on.

Of course, that was Isagi's view of things. Ryuu-senpai clearly saw it differently.

The girl was a little anxious.

She seemed worried that Lefiya and Tiona might come looking for them at any moment, which was more likely than not.

The others weren't fools, after all!

See two people "disappear" for that long and anyone could guess what they were up to.

And then, naturally, they'd come find them!

Which would be a problem!!

At the very least, the "time" she had to herself was going to shrink!!

So she had to [Make Haste] now.

It was something Isagi never gave a moment's thought to, since as far as he was concerned the "time" worked out about the same whether it was one of them or several.

Only.

Familiar as all of this was by now, Ryuu-senpai's actual execution still came off a touch clumsy.

Whether she was too impatient or simply couldn't pull her gaze away, she was left working with hands and feet alone, and the result had a flustered, all-thumbs quality to it.

Most importantly, the mismatch in their heights meant she had to pull him along to meet her partway, so that she could go on with what came next while keeping the kiss unbroken.

Otherwise, if he didn't cooperate and simply lay flat, there was no way on earth she could manage both above and below at once.

"(Mm.)"

There was no sound underwater, naturally.

But from the shift in her expression alone, Isagi could read perfectly well what she had just "said."

Those beautiful eyes of hers had narrowed almost completely, down to two thin lines.

The "good" had come too fast.

And it kept coming in waves, hammering at the girl's delicate nerves.

And though the Elf girl had seemed to be the one taking the lead from the start, from this point on it was entirely Isagi setting the rhythm.

Because Ryuu-senpai's "technique" was on the poor side.

Leaving her to fumble through it herself would waste a fair amount of time — an unkind way to put it, perhaps, but that slow, dragging tempo was rough on him too. Isagi wasn't made of stone; naturally he'd rather be more "direct" about it.

Though she had probably been angling for exactly this.

In fact, Isagi had wondered more than once whether Ryuu-senpai played at being bad at it on purpose, just to make him take over.

After all, in certain other respects her skills were formidable indeed. The way she used her tongue and lips, for instance.

Tiny bubbles burbled up, one after another.

Soundlessly, endlessly, rising past their eyes.

Their bodies drifted too, quietly, a little this way, a little that, like two fish tangled together and in no hurry about anything.

Very, very slowly.

But drifting all the same, out through that coral forest.

Above them, the muted gold of the sun came filtering down, staining the water in dim colors — and then, little by little, the light seemed to be draining away.

Had evening come?

Or perhaps the sun had simply gone behind a cloud.

Everything underwater fell utterly silent, as if it were about to sink into a very long darkness.

By rights that should have been frightening.

Yet neither Isagi nor Ryuu felt anything but a strange sort of ease, as though the whole world had narrowed down to the other person.

Shouldn't that have been a cruel thought?

And yet it felt all right.

No.

It felt good.

So long as he could still feel the other person there, it was good. Very, very good.

That said, Isagi hadn't lost his head entirely, and he wasn't about to let the two of them drift off through the sea to who knew where.

Instead he gathered up the dazed girl in his arms and floated them slowly back up to the surface.

Rain, thin and pattering, struck him across the face the moment he broke through.

Ah—

So it really had started raining.

Or so Isagi thought — and then he spotted Ais and Lefiya, who had retreated to the rocks well ahead of the weather and were resting there. Along with Tiona, back from her fishing.

"…"

"…"

For a long moment, nobody said a thing.

But one look at the way those two girls were staring at him and Isagi knew: even if he made it up to them right now, come nightfall he was almost certainly going to be worked to exhaustion all the same.

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