The Hero Is Overpowered but Overly Cautious, Vol. 3 Read online

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  The werewolf appears to have been hit by one of Adenela’s attacks as well. Drips of black blood flow from a cut on his cheek. Nevertheless, it’s painfully clear that Adenela was hurt worse. Unable to watch any longer, I wildly shake Cerceus.

  “C-Cerceus! Valkyrie! Go get Valkyrie!”

  “O-okay!”

  Cerceus starts to take off, but…

  “Th-that won’t be necessary,” Adenela softly mutters. “U-unlike the reaper, ph-physical attacks work on him. S-so there’s n-no need to worry.”

  Adenela then raises her voice while clumsily stuttering:

  “O-o-order!”

  Crack! Creak! Adenela’s right arm lets out a pop as it twists and turns, transforming.

  “Whoa?! H-her arm…! What is that?! It’s gross! And creepy! It’s greepy!”

  Cerceus swiftly hides behind me. While I glare at him in disgust, Adenela’s arm transforms into something else. Her forearm illuminates as it becomes a shining silver blade. Her lips curl so wide that they almost touch her ears.

  “Heh-heh-heh-heh-heh! D-Divine Sword: Soaring Falcon!”

  I swallow my breath.

  “Sh-she changed her arm…into a sword?”

  Leaning forward, she hangs her sword-arm by her side as it gently sways. She defenselessly approaches the werewolf. Then…she mutters:

  “U-Unlimited Eternal Sword…!”

  In the blink of an eye, a storm of blades soars toward the werewolf, despite Adenela seemingly not moving a muscle.

  “Mn…!”

  The enemy’s confident grin twists.

  The standard Eternal Sword attack alternates among chopping, countering, horizontally slicing, and thrusting at an incredible speed. The exponentially quicker Ultimate Eternal Sword is no less impressive. However, Unlimited Eternal Sword is an attack that specializes solely in thrusting. In addition, her right arm, which turned into a Divine Sword after she used Soaring Falcon, slowly becomes finer as it reaches the tip, like a rapier, making it perfect for consecutive thrusting attacks.

  Without a shield, it would be impossible for the werewolf to completely avoid the flurry of strikes, despite being able to outdo Ultimate Eternal Sword. The sword pierces his body each time he is unable to dodge. The werewolf leaps to the side to get away, but the Soaring Falcon curves like a whip as if Adenela was waiting for this moment. The instant the sword curls around his right arm, it gets sliced clean off.

  “Gwooooooh!”

  Fresh black blood pours out of the werewolf’s wound as he screams.

  “S-Soaring Falcon has enough p-power to do more than j-just thrusting attacks.”

  Wow! So this is Adenela at full power!

  The tables have turned. After losing an arm, the werewolf slowly steps away from Adenela.

  “Tch!”

  After clicking his tongue, the werewolf turns on his heel and begins heading toward the gate from which he emerged. Cerceus yells:

  “He’s getting away!”

  The werewolf then turns and grins smugly.

  “This is fine. I’ve already left my mark.”

  His mark? What does that mean?

  “I—I won’t let you escape…”

  Adenela charges the werewolf, closing the distance in the blink of an eye as her left arm transforms into a Japanese sword even longer than Soaring Falcon while making an ear-wrenching sound.

  “D-Divine Sword: Homing Swallow…!”

  Out of nowhere, Adenela begins cackling like a witch.

  “Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee! D-Dual Unlimited Eternal Blade…!”

  With both arms transformed into swords, Adenela leaps at the werewolf as he tries to make his getaway. The werewolf’s face hardens at the sight of the encroaching Goddess of War.

  “D-d-d-die…!”

  “A-Adenela, wait! We need him alive so we can get inform—”

  But my words don’t reach her. Her left sword-arm tears into the enemy’s back as her right sword-arm immediately begins thrusting at lightning speed.

  “Hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!”

  Copious amounts of black blood splatter across the Summoning Chamber as the werewolf is skewered and sliced to bits!

  Dual Unlimited Eternal Blade…! Adenela’s inimitable ultimate attack where she turns both arms into swords using Order!

  Blood spurts from the enemy’s body like a fountain, even getting a drop on Cerceus’s cheek despite his being halfway across the room.

  “Ahhhhhh! I can’t take it anymore! I just want to go back to my room and drink a warm cup of chamomile tea!”

  Cerceus screams pathetically, but it’s hard to blame him. We are basically being forced to watch a one-sided slaughter. A few seconds go by until the werewolf is nothing more than a pile of flesh.

  “Hee-hee-hee…hee-hee-hee-hee-hee!”

  After bathing in the blood of her prey, Adenela looks back at Cerceus’s and my frightened expressions as if she has awoken from a trance.

  “…Oops.”

  Humanity suddenly returns to her eyes, and she looks down at the sad puddle of viscera that was once a monster.

  “L-looks like I did it again…”

  She awkwardly mutters as her arms suddenly change back to normal. After that, she points down toward my knees.

  “Um… I-is… Is Seiya…o-okay?”

  “Y-yes… He doesn’t look like he was cut…”

  The werewolf’s claws didn’t seem to touch his body. But then why…?

  “I’ve already left my mark.”

  Why did he say something like that…?

  Wait—!

  Alarmed, I shake Seiya’s body.

  “Seiya! Seiya, wake up!”

  But I end up worrying for nothing.

  “Mn…”

  Though moaning, Seiya sits up with a hand on his head.

  “Thank goodness! Are you okay?!”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just feeling a bit light-headed.”

  “Y-you are?! You should rest! Here, lie down!”

  “I’m fine. More importantly, what happened to that werewolf?”

  “Oh… Um… Adenela kind of…k-killed him…”

  “…What?”

  Seiya turns his gaze to the lifeless lump of meat on the ground, then knits his brow. Meanwhile, there isn’t even a hint of Adenela’s fit of passion left as she miserably lowers her head like a little girl who just broke a vase. Adenela understands how Seiya is. She’s clearly prepared to be scolded by the cautious Hero, since she slaughtered the enemy without getting any information from him first.

  “I-I’m sorry…”

  Seiya approaches the apologetic goddess before speaking to her in a surprisingly gentle voice.

  “Don’t be sorry. You did the right thing. If you hadn’t killed him, he would have killed me. I owe you one.”

  “S-Seiya…! I—I love you! I love you so much!”

  The bags under Adenela’s eyes suddenly vanish, and her eyes sparkle like a little schoolgirl’s.

  I raise my voice, sensing that Adenela’s young, innocent girl act is about to go south.

  “A-anyway, we need to report what happened to Great Goddess Ishtar! I mean, this is serious! The first enemy to attack the unified spirit world was a user of Chain Destruction!”

  Cerceus repeatedly nods in silence. Seiya glances at him, then says:

  “Could I ask you to go in my place? There’s still something I need to do here.”

  Oh… He’s going to use Hellfire on the werewolf until there’s nothing left, isn’t he?

  I thought the usual cleanup ritual was about to start. But instead, Seiya grabs me by the arm and jerks me over.

  Huh?! Wh-what the…?! Is he mad at me?! He must be! If I hadn’t created that gate, then the werewolf would have never gotten in here! O-oh no! Everything was going so well between us until I messed things up!

  But I’ve gotten worked up over nothing again. Seiya isn’t mad at me. He simply tugs at my arm and rushes me.

  “Come on. We don�
��t have any time to waste. We’re going to Ixphoria.”

  “What?! What about burning the body?! And weren’t you still in the middle of training?!”

  “I’ve trained enough.”

  “H-hold on! Seiya?!”

  Seiya drags me over toward the gate to Ixphoria. Both Cerceus and Adenela stare at Seiya with their eyes wide, taken aback by his unexpected behavior.

  S-Seiya is overly cautious, so if he says he’s ready to go, then he must be… Plus, he’s already over level fifty, so we’ll be fine…right?

  Seiya places a hand on the gate, then says:

  “Let’s go, Goddess.”

  “‘G-Goddess’?! Are you referring to me?!”

  “We must hurry to save the world. Innocent lives are being lost as we speak.”

  Hearing those uncharacteristic words come out of his mouth makes me extremely uncomfortable. Overcome with a strange feeling, I gaze at the Hero’s profile as he walks through the gate.

  “S-Seiya, are you sure you’re ready to go?! Are you perfectly prepared?!”

  “Of course…”

  The Hero doesn’t even glance at me. He gazes into the distance and says:

  “Everything’s gonna be okay.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Reckless

  Upon exiting the gate, we find ourselves in a dim room. The floors and walls are nothing more than wooden boards stuck together, and the window has no glass. The room seems capable of accommodating four to five people, but there are holes here and there on the floor, and the tables, chairs, and other furniture are all old and degraded. It appears to be an abandoned shack. Usually, I would want to investigate the place a little more, but something is really bothering me. I turn to the Hero still wearing jeans and a T-shirt.

  “Seiya! You just called me ‘Goddess’ back there, didn’t you? And you didn’t say that you were perfectly prepared. Instead, you said, ‘Everything’s gonna be okay.’”

  He used to say his catchphrase all the time, which is why the worries in my heart are beginning to swirl around and grow.

  “I know this may sound crazy, but…you remember who I am, right?”

  “You’re the goddess assigned to guide me, and I’m the Hero summoned to save Ixphoria…right?”

  “Y-yeah, but…what’s my name? Can you remember my name?”

  “It was something like…Miso Tart, wasn’t it?”

  “…?! It’s Ristarte! How does that even sound close to ‘Miso Tart’?! What about Gaeabrande?! Do you remember what happened there?!”

  “‘Gaeabrande’? Never even heard of it.”

  H-he hasn’t forgotten his objective! He even recognizes that I’m a goddess! But…this is…!

  I decide to use Scan to check his status, since interrogating him won’t get me anywhere.

  SEIYA RYUUGUUIN

  LV: 51

  HP: 90,854/145,683…

  He lost a lot of HP! It looks like that werewolf’s attack did hit him!

  But what makes my eyes bulge is the unfamiliar condition under his attributes.

 

  A-a-amnesia?! Ohhh! So that’s why he can’t remember anything and doesn’t seem all there!

  What convinces me, though, is what it says after “Personality” on his status screen. Instead of the usual “Overly Cautious,” it now reads…

  Personality: Reckless

  I feel light-headed. Of course, what first comes to mind is what the werewolf said before he died. “I’ve already left my mark.” It looks like this is what he meant. He gave the Hero a status ailment, thus reducing our fighting strength. More importantly…this is the first time I’ve ever seen this status ailment! I don’t know if I’d be able to treat it even if I could use my healing ability! Ahhh! What am I going to do now?! It’s not fair! Ishtar let Seiya keep his memories, and we were so in love! After all that…!

  Suddenly curious about Seiya’s feelings for me, I used my Love Appraise ability on Seiya.

  RISTA’S LOVE APPRAISAL

  -Your love rating with Seiya:

  40 points

  -Seiya thinks you’re:

  just there.

  -A tidbit of advice:

  Hmm… He’s barely even aware of your existence. But if he gets his memories back, maybe…

  “…?! His affection level is less than half of what it was?! ‘Just there’?!”

  Seiya shoots me a dubious glare as I scream.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I-it’s nothing… Don’t worry about it…”

  Y-yeah, everything’s gonna be fine! Once his amnesia is cured, he’ll be back to normal! It’s nothing to worry about! Anyway, now that we’ve figured out the problem, we should head back to the spirit world and ask Ishtar how to cure him!

  “Seiya, we’re heading back to the unified spirit world for now!”

  “Why? We just got here.”

  “Just trust me!”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  The roles reverse once again, and this time, I grab Seiya by the wrist and drag him behind me. Then I reopen the gate to the spirit world and take a step inside when…

  Bam!

  I take a powerful blow to the forehead.

  “Owww! Ow, ow, ow!”

  Holding my head, I see a concrete-like white wall in front of me.

  “Wh-what is this?! Why is there a wall inside the gate?!”

  Thinking it’s some sort of mistake, I get rid of the gate and create another…only to discover that there’s still a wall inside.

  “How are we gonna get back home now?! This is ridiculous! How come we could use the gate to get here but not to leave?!”

  This doesn’t make any sense! B-but I learned Appraise exactly for times like this! I stare hard at the white wall until a message appears.

  A wall that blocks off other dimensions. It was created by an evil sorcerer’s spell. Looks like it can only be destroyed by defeating the spellcaster or destroying the magic item making the wall.

  I customized Appraise to speak like me, but what it says sends a chill down my spine.

  “W-we can’t go back to the unified spirit world?! Wait! That means we have to continue our journey in Ixphoria like this?!”

  I freeze in blank amazement as if I’ve just lost my soul, unlike Seiya, who is standing by the window, enthusiastically waving me over.

  “Hey, Goddess. Come over here. Check that out.”

  Still stunned, I drag my feet across the creaking wooden floors and look out the glassless window.

  The first things that catch my eye are the purple sky and demolished buildings. The stagnant air greets my nostrils. Galvano is in such ruin, it’s hard to believe this is the first town of our journey. After that…I gasp. Slightly in the distance are two beastkin stalking the streets! One has the face of a dog while the other looks like a cat! In their hands are chains, which are tied to naked humans walking on all fours!

  “Wh-what is going on?!”

  It’s the complete opposite of any normal world! The beasts are walking humans like pets!

  More importantly, they’re the first monsters we’ve encountered in Ixphoria. I make sure to remain hidden while I use Scan.

  BEASTKIN (DOG TYPE)

  LV: 35

  HP: 56,274

  MP: 0

  ATK: 28,754

  DEF: 27,895…

  BEASTKIN (CAT TYPE)

  LV: 37

  HP: 58,887

  MP: 0

  ATK: 30,008

  DEF: 29,574…

  “What?!”

  Y-you’ve gotta be kidding me! We just got here, and we’re already running into enemies with stats like this?! Oh…wait! They must be high-ranking enemies like the four generals in Gaeabrande! It looks like we’ve already run into two mini bosses!

  But…

  “Yo. I see you’ve got yourself another filthy pet.”

  “Still better than that wretched thing mew keep at home.”

  “Are you tw
o even feeding those things? They’re nothing but skin and bones. At this rate, they’ll be dead in no time.”

  A beastkin with a bird’s face, a beastkin with a boar’s face—beastkin speaking human tongue begin to gather in the streets one by one. There’s even another group of beastkin talking slightly in the distance! To make matters worse, they’re all at an extremely high level! The place is crawling with enemies who have around 50,000 HP and over 30,000 ATK!

  “I was wrong…! Even the small-fry enemies in this world are superstrong!”

  And there are so many of them, to boot! Even though I just took a quick glance so I wouldn’t get caught, I saw a few dozen! There are probably hundreds of them living in this town!

  “Wh-what a terrifying world!”

  My body begins trembling, and I look to the Hero for guidance, but…Seiya isn’t there.

  “…Huh?”

  Seiya already has a hand on the door. Eyes popping wide and startled out of my wits, I scream:

  “What do you think you’re doing?!”

  Seiya calmly replies:

  “I’m gonna go fight them. Do you seriously expect me to watch them chain up humans and treat them like pets? Those monsters are dead.”

  “But you’re unarmed, and you don’t have any armor!”

  “What’s wrong with fighting with my bare hands in jeans and a T-shirt?”

  “Everything! You’re not going to a friend’s sleepover! This is an SS-ranked world! There’s no way you can take on a powerful horde of monsters like that without any equipment!”

  I peel Seiya away from the door, dragging him back to the center of the room.

  “Relax for a bit, will ya?! You’re severely ill! So just sit back and wait until your amnesia has healed!”

  “I’m fine. I don’t have amnesia.”

  “You can’t even remember my name!”

  “Yeah, I can. Rice Tart, right?”

  “Ristarte! You weren’t even close!”

  I get a terrible headache as I raise my voice. With a hand on my temple, I shake my head.

  “Listen, Seiya. The werewolf did a number on you, and you’re not at your best. Not only do you have amnesia, but your 140,000 HP is now barely at 90,000. I want to heal you, but I can’t use any healing spells this time. So come on…just rest for a while, okay?”