I didn’t think Witch was capable of that, but the background to all this also concerned me. She could move between worlds now. There was something—or someone—behind her, for sure.

“Seriously . . . you could have just let that excitable womanizer kill you. You made things so inconvenient for me. You are so persistent, so annoyingly persistent! Just seeing you makes me want to throw up,” Witch said.

“Right back at you . . . In fact, due to my hatred of your very existence, I can comfortably claim to dislike you more than you dislike me. We have to stop meeting like this—and I intend to make this the last time. So be ready to die,” I told her. Her very existence disgusted me to the extent I could be sure my hatred for her face exceeded any malice she bore toward me. I was going to eradicate her from this world as painfully and horribly as possible . . . No, I was going to shred her very soul.

That was the only way to avenge the queen.

“Do you know these two?” Glass asked.

“Yeah. This woman is the one who caused the friendly relationships between the four heroes in my world to completely break down, and the armored guy is one of Itsuki’s former allies and a traitor,” I replied. They were both former allies of the four holy heroes, that much was true. “To be honest, they are both so horrible there is no defending anything they have done,” I explained. “They’re just like the companions of the one who stole L’Arc’s scythe. The same as them,” I told Glass. Understanding the situation, her face hardened further.

“I see. So there’s no need to hold back,” she replied.

“You’ve lost your precious weapons, and yet you still think you can win? You’re going to be pathetically defeated again, just like last time,” Witch crowed. She really knew how to piss me off, I’d give her that much. Whatever it took, I swore to finish her off!

I took a moment to think about who we had here and the moves we had available.

Our allies here were Raphtalia, Glass, and S’yne. Then there was Itsuki and me, now without our weapons. We also couldn’t use any magic or skills. The C’mon Raph that called Raph-chan was also a skill, so we couldn’t use that either. I should have called her sooner!

Based on what Miyaji had said, it was the weapons belonging to the members of the four heroes from another world—Itsuki and me—that had been eliminated. I had been hoping to remove his weapon from him, but instead we were faced with not having our own weapons!