The Principle of a Philosopher by Eternal Fool “Asley”

Asley and Pochi kept screaming, the former holding his ears and the latter holding her eyes… and all the while, the monsters were still too scared to move.

A few moments later, once Asley and Pochi had recovered, the monsters then returned to their usual hostility.

Individual monsters’ rage turned into that of a whole army, and slowly but surely, they advanced, from weak steps to an earth-shaking march… And meanwhile, Pochi threw her Master off her back and swung her right front leg at him.

“Paw Stamp!”

“Gah-?!”

The fierce Heavenly Beast’s strike sent Asley flying high into the air, in which he spun around more than ten times before he landed.

“AHHHHHH?! That frickin’ hurt! The hell are you doing, you damned furball?!”

“You couldn’t tell?! It’s my stamp of happiness, sir! Well?! Did you feel that?!”

“I’m so happy about something else right now, I don’t really care about that!”

“So you think your paws are so damn precious, huh?! They’re only as good as your belly pillow, and that’s being generous!”

“Y-you like them that much?!”

Pochi held her cheek with her left front leg and stared at her right paw, in awe of her perceived value of it.

[Damn it, I shouldn’t have brought up the belly pillow! Now she’s thinking even more highly of her paws! W-wait, this isn’t the time to be thinking about that!]

Asley proceeded to say, 

“Just get to work! The enemy is attacking again!”

“No, they’re not!”

“ARE YOU BLIND OR WHAT?!”

Asley’s face distorted in annoyance at Pochi’s ridiculousness.

“All right, fine! Just tell me what to do, sir!”

Pochi crouched down and waited for Asley to get on her back.

“I’ll do all the attacking! Just rush through the enemy army!”

“So I’m just a vehicle now?! Is that how you treat your friends, Master?!”

“What the hell, I’ll even give you a new nickname for it! Ultimate Weapon Pochi! Cool, right?!”

“Ohh! Ultimate Weapon Pochi! Very cool!”

Pochi actually was impressed, her eyes sparkling and her tail wagging, Asley heaved a deep sigh.

“So, where are we going, sir?!”

“First we go to where Giorno is, then push through to Lylia, and then to the back of the army!”

“T-that’s a bit too impossible, don’t you think?!”

“Ultimate! Weapon!”

“POCHI!! BLAST OFF!! AWOOOOOOOOO!!”

Pochi rushed into the ranks of the Devil King’s army without a second thought.

Meanwhile, Asley stared up at the sky and racked his brain over all sorts of calculations, mumbling things to himself,

[Let’s see… do that to this and put it here, modify the formula, then overcharge it like so… right, this might suppress the wild arcane energy and prevent it from blowing up. This will let me do a lot more alterations and fine-tuning than before, so I can boost the Pochi Pad Breath’s power and add… wait, no, increase the repulsion force instead, and there’s no need to consider the collateral damage, so… there!]

“Rise, A-rise, A-rise! Pochi Pad Breath!!”

Instantly, a shock of tremendous power shot out from Asley’s hand, swallowing a chunk of the advancing enemy army.

It did more damage to the Devil King’s army than the Holy World spell had done earlier, prompting the remaining monsters to stop in their tracks once again.

The blast’s recoil was so powerful, in fact, that Asley felt his shoulders would on the verge of dislocating.

But he was more surprised by the Pochi Pad Breath’s destructive power than the pain in his shoulders.

The surprise was the same for Pochi, but with the addition of some doubt. She asked,

“How’d you invoke a water spell straight from a Circle, sir?! Shouldn’t you need Swift Magic for that?!”

“Y-yeah. It’s because I released some of the out-of-control arcane energy! Owowow… gah!”

Asley gave a brief explanation while forcing his almost-dislocated shoulders back into position, but Pochi did not seem to understand.

“I don’t get it, sir!”

“I’ll explain better later!”

Asley tried cutting the conversation short, knowing that the explanation would take a while. For a moment, Pochi looked as if she would not wait, but in the end relented and agreed to save it for later.

“You better not forget that, sir!”

“Well, I’m counting on you, doggo!”

Asley tried flashing a Giorno-like carefree smile, but as Pochi was already facing forward and running, she did not notice it.

They proceeded to plow through the enemy hordes with Asley’s high-powered magic spells, going past Giorno’s section. As they plunged diagonally through to Lylia’s location, the enemy commander in the far end of the army stared right at Asley, its eyes glowing red.

The Devil’s silhouette was human-like. It wore a white hooded robe, and had its face obscured. If it were to walk with his face down, ordinary people would think it was human.

It released a torrent of darkish arcane energy, and its robe faded away as if dissolved by acid. Once Giorno saw the stark naked figure of the male-human-like creature, he closed one eye and muttered,

“Called it♪”

But of course, Asley did not hear his voice. He was too busy being chased by the majority of the Devil King’s army.

“Who’s the fool that told me to plunge head-first into danger like this?! WHO?! MASTER?!”

“Yeah, sorry! It was me! KEEP GOING!”

Asley and Pochi were now in the deep end, where the monster army’s most fearsome elites were.

[These things must be S-ranked on average… What the hell, all I’m seeing are S and SS! Well, there are some A’s on the edges, but they’re almost invisible from here!]

Despite Asley’s newfound power boost, these monsters, especially the SS-ranked ones, were potentially still too much for him.

His movements were keen, his strength was immense, and his decision-making was more precise than ever. Up against one or a few, Asley would have no problem at all, but an endless wave of these powerful creatures would be impossible to handle.

Pochi knew that, which was why she was angry. Asley did not regret his decision, however, despite apologizing for it.

As for why he did not regret it, Asley himself did not know. However, Lylia, who was enjoying her rampage in front of him, seemed to be aware of a part of the reason.

[The enemies are suddenly slowing down… It’s because of him, huh?]

That was what she thought to herself, but what she said, on the other hand…

“YOU’RE GETTING TOO DAMN COCKY!! YOU LITTLE SHIT!!”

And then Lylia used Smash-slash with the flat surface of her sword, blowing nearby monsters away.

Asley had planned on disrupting the monster army’s flow, and so far he had been surprisingly successful.

To the Devil King’s army, Asley was the most powerful one around here, and therefore currently their greatest threat.

It was quite natural for the main force to turn their attention to Asley.

That resulted in the lessened workload for Giorno, Lylia, and Seki’teigyu, and in turn, an advantageous shift of flow for the heroes.

“Rise! Teleportation: Count 4 Remote Control!”

Asley, now coming up near Lylia, carried out the same strategy he had once used against the Lord Dragon swarm.

The Teleportation Spell Circle went to different locations: one at his current location, one near Seki’teigyu, one near Giorno, and one on the enemy army’s right side where he and Pochi had originally been.

Using his arcane energy as the foundation, Asley had upgraded his fixed-position spells to the ultimate level, working past their disadvantage of being ‘fixed-position.’ That would prove to be his major asset in this battle.

Deploying it from his former location on the enemy’s right flank would only cause a minor disruption to the monster army. But once the disruption took place, its effectiveness would only go up and up from there.

Once all the Spell Circle reached their target locations, and the light signifying their invocations could be seen, Asley shot another Pochi Pad Breath at the monster horde behind him.

“-! Gah!! I’ve got to divide more of my energy to the controlling!”

…And it numbed his hands, despite him adjusting its spell formula a second time.

While Asley shook his arms, Pochi shouted to him,

“Sir! Your hands just slapped on my tail for a bit there!”

“Good thing my slaps didn’t cut your tail right off, I guess?!”

“Ohh! That’s true, sir!”

For some reason, Pochi took it as a positive.

“Uh, anyway! Hop on!”

On Asley’s signal, she hopped onto the Teleportation Spell Circle, which was then immediately invoked. Both Pochi and Asley disappeared, and reappeared on the Spell Circle near Seki’teigyu.

“Hey there, you still alive?”

“…Hmph! Of course! As if these random monsters can win against my horns!”

“Ooh, nice voice. Way more normal than I expected. Anyway, looks like you’re doing fine… but drink this, just in case!”

Asley took out a vial of Pochi Bitande’d from his pocket, wrapped the liquid content in arcane energy, and threw it right into the Ox’s mouth. The act was almost instantaneous and quite forceful, perhaps because they were right in front of the monster army. The Ox understood that and was unfazed.

Seki’teigyu immediately felt the change in its body. It snorted roughly again, and kicked a monster that was closing in behind it, lopping its head off.

Back at the left flank, the distraction caused by Asley’s disappearance gave Lylia the time to eliminate even more monsters.

Asley and Pochi proceeded to hop from one Teleportation Spell Circle to another, helping out their party members, handing out Pochi Bitande’d, and keeping the Devil King’s army at bay.

Once things started to slow down, they teleported back to their original location – the right flank, aiming to sweep away the remaining monsters. It was then when a powerful blow came at Asley.

Asley quickly blocked it with his Torrent Dragon Staff.

Although he himself took no damage, Pochi got blown away, and the Torrent Dragon Staff was shattered. Before he could pay attention to any of that, he recoiled from the attack that he had just taken.

Then something appeared before him – a humanoid figure, taller than the fully gigantified Pochi despite it standing with a hunched back. Jet black arcane energy erupted from its body.

This muscular naked male-human-like entity had attacked Asley, destroying his Torrent Dragon Staff.

Pochi felt her legs slowly weaken in the face of this unimaginable force.

“…wHat tHE HEll aRE YOU…”

Now was the moment the leading Devil, gigantic and surrounded with a black aura, recognizing Asley as the greatest threat, stepped forward by itself.

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