I checked my status. Just as when my shield had been taken before, it had dramatically changed. I had become super weak! Again!

I tried to get my head around the situation.

The strange feeling from a few moments ago had come from the direction of the dragon hourglass. Based on the information received from L’Arc, Sadeena, and the others, this was likely the effect of whatever experiments they were performing with the dragon hourglass.

Was this also why my shield arm had been feeling kind of numb since we arrived here?!

“Well, it would be a shame for you to perish without understanding why. I was able to take your weapons because the holy weapons of this world finally listened to and finally understood what I was telling them. Holy weapons from different worlds are not allowed to interfere with each other. Yet here you are, breaking that rule and rambling on about who should be doing what. You don’t have that right! This is the reason why we are in the right, and you have nothing to do with this situation.” It was like Miyaji’s mouth had suddenly become a machine gun. Takt had been like this. Exactly like this—wanting to explain just how strong he was.

Miyaji had claimed to have gotten the holy weapons to listen to him. Somehow, he had managed to secure the weapons from the dead heroes and now had them doing his bidding.

This was looking like a bit of a crisis. I had no idea of the range on this effect, but I was definitely starting to worry about the party members who weren’t here.

“Mr. Naofumi! Are you okay?!” Raphtalia shouted.

“Not really!” I replied. It wasn’t like our levels had been reset or anything like that, so we could still fight—or at least I wanted to believe we could.

We couldn’t use magic, that much was for sure. I could probably get some life force going and use Muso Activation, but I didn’t have a weapon to use. It looked like getting Raphtalia or Glass to pass me some items and support from the rear was maybe all I could do.

“Eat this!” Miyaji placed his bow against the strings of his violin-like musical instrument and started to play. A sound like an explosion immediately rang out with what looked like musical notes being fired toward us at high speed.

“Watch out!” Glass spread her fan large and stepped in front, protecting us by taking the attack. With a shout, Raphtalia also stepped forward, chopping down the notes with her katana. That was all they did, and they both already had pained expressions on their faces and grunts of pain on their lips.

“There’s plenty more where that came from! You girls, go!” Miyaji ordered.

“As you command, Master Hidemasa!” one of his women said, and the five of them rushed forward. All of a sudden—