CHAPTER 3
META-FANTASY
THE HEROES ATTACK!
The preparation room was on the first floor of the Devil’s Tower.
What had once been an empty room with nothing more than a magic circle in it was…
“Mweh-heh-heh… I have brought the things you asked for, O Heroes.”
“Great! Well done! You can leave them there, you can!!”
“…I wonder…,” said Genau Ih. “This feels like it is against the rules…”
The suited skeleton helped Schira Ha unload the wagon full of things the heroes had ordered.
Til, with her Great Hammer resting on her shoulder, surveyed the room.
But surveying wasn’t all she did…
“Ah, this place looks so dry and boring, it does. Go get us some decorations!!”
“Mweh-heh… Very well. I shall prepare them at once…”
In the center of the room was a large tent that housed a comfy-looking bed—and even an oven, a table, all the basic cooking utensils, and a bathroom with a simple bath and toilet. It was enough to turn the preparation room into a quite livable space—but there remained changes to be made.
With the bare essentials now available, there was still much to be desired in terms of QOL that Til had asked their Demonia hosts for, but this seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back—
Snap.
“What do you heroes think you’re doing?! You aren’t even trying to climb my Tower—”
The Devil finally shared his annoyance at the heroes, who seemed more concerned with setting up their new life in his Tower than with trying to clear it.
Using Schira Ha as his catalyst to appear, the furball made his complaint, but…
“……Now I’m really confused. What are you doing?”
“Can’t you tell…?! I’m workin’…out…! Ooof?!”
What he saw when he manifested was Shiro nonchalantly reading a book—no, not that.
It was what was under Shiro that had the Devil so confused—she was sitting on her brother, who was struggling to do a push-up.
“…I probably shouldn’t be the one to say this, but I don’t think an Immanity doing push-ups will aid you in your quest to defeat me.”
Here was the hero training to defeat the Devil, and the Devil felt bad for dissuading him.
“That’s it, King Sora! You finished all thirty-five sets, you did! It’s time for a cooldown, it is!!”
Til was leaning against her Great Hammer while Sora was flat on the ground.
“…Heh…heh-heh. You’re as silly as you look, my little devilish friend…”
His arms were shaking, and his breath was ragged. A pitiful sight.
But, nevertheless, Sora showed a bold grin and shouted his response!
“Yeah, I’m working out, but not to build muscle. It’s to build knowledge!!”
“Schira Ha… Do you have any idea what this boy is on about?”
You don’t get it? Heh—I guess that’s only natural.
With an even bigger grin, Sora took it upon himself to enlighten the Devil!
“What is knowledge? The product of a healthy mind. Then what is a healthy mind? The product of good mental health. Then what makes good mental health?! A healthy body, that’s what does!!”
“King Sora! Your cooldown is over, it is! Up next: thirty-five sets of squats!!”
Til alerted Sora to the next task in his workout routine.
With Shiro still on his back, Sora began doing squats as he continued explaining his logic!
“More specifically!! It’s the adrenaline, dopamine, and testosterone, along with a whole laundry list of other fun hormones, that a healthy body produces naturally that turns into a healthy mind, and in turn, allows you to gain more knowledge!! Basically, by working out my body, I’m working out my mind—and therefore enhancing my knowledge!! Why else would anyone do something as strenuous as this?! Do you read me?!?”
“Schira Ha, make him make sense!!”
Sora’s logic was lost on the furball, who scratched his head in frustration while looking around for help.
“And you three!! You’re a Flügel, and you’re an Ex Machina!! Never mind this canine—why must you stuff your faces incessantly in silence?! You don’t even need to eat!!”
The Devil then turned to something even more nonsensical than the exercise routine.
“Munch, munch? Gulp… Yes…we Flügel do not require food to live, but… Munch, munch.”
“Report: This unit can ingest food as well as break it down for nutrition. Taste sensors also present. Report: Yummy.”
“……Mmm—wait—mmm, nom, nom—please…I’ll play with you when—om, nom, nom—I finish eating, please…”
The three answered him, gobbling down the laughably large quantity of food that Steph hurriedly prepared for them at a similarly laughably quick rate.
…It shouldn’t need to be said, but this was the Devil’s Tower.
Which meant that everything in the room and all the space in it were a part of the Devil.
What are these fools doing inside me??
Tears began welling up in the furball’s eyes when no one would give him answers—
“Huff…huff… What’s the problem…my little devilish friend?”
“That’s it, Sir! You’re finished with today’s workout!! You’re glistening with sweat, you are!!”
“That was…a good pump, Brother… Here’s some…water…”
Sora accepted a towel and some water from Til and Shiro, along with some words of encouragement, while he caught his breath.
He wiped himself down—
“Let’s check something real quick, okay?”
—and while he did so, he addressed the Devil in a matter-of-fact fashion.
“First… This room, the preparation room, is a safe zone where Demonias won’t attack us, right?”
This rule was a major premise for what Sora was about to discuss. He continued.
“And there are no rules about a time limit in this game, which means there’s nothing preventing us from staying here for an extended period, maybe even setting up a camp or two, right?”
“ I, uh…?”
The furball didn’t know what to say, but Sora didn’t give him time to reply anyway!
“So while there is a rule that prevents us heroes from leaving the Tower, there’s no rule that prevents the Demonia Schira Ha, who is in our possession, from going in and out to fetch things like food and water now, is there?!”
“ I, er…uh…”
The furball continued to stutter in a stupor, and Sora finished by loudly exclaiming!
“Yup! Us heroes can’t leave your Tower! Those are your rules, so I don’t want to hear any complaining if we decide to spend the rest of our days here! Capiche?!”
…………,
……………………,
“…Sch-Schira Haaa!!! These fools are attempting to make themselves at home inside my Tower!! Inside me!! They’re not even trying to come and defeat me!!”
“Mweh-heh… You’re so cute, Your Evilness, but it is as the heroes say: There is nothing in the rules that prevents them from doing this. In fact, I, too, wish to reside inside you, if I so may.”
“You too, Schira Ha?! This must be an oversight with the rules!! What kind of Devil would I be if I became a home for the heroes?!”
The furball cried more as he clung to Schira Ha. Satisfied, Sora headed to the pop-up shower, where he rinsed off his sweat.
Obviously, we’re not gonna spend our entire lives here. We’re only here to recoup our hope, that’s all.
It happened the day before, when Sora figured out what hope meant…
Or, more specifically, where hope came from……
Yes, it went back to the night before…
“Heh…heh-heh… I see… Much like that heap of scrap metal, I, too, am utterly disposable… Oh, Master…how I’ve failed you… Your inept servant deserves punishment… Specifically, the kind that utilizes my body for your carnal relief…”
“…Jibril’s despair is totally within character. She actually seems kind of all right…?”
“…Good thing…she knows Evac… That spell’s…super useful…”
With Jibril’s impromptu casting of Evac, the party left the twenty-sixth floor and returned to the preparation room on the first floor.
There, Sora and Shiro stared at the now depressed Jibril.
Sora, meanwhile, was mainly relieved that the spell worked.
Jibril’s Evac used the entirety of her MP, as anticipated.
And sure enough, with her MP pool dried up, the spell drew from her HP pool to fill in the gap—Jibril was missing nearly half of her HP as well.
Either way, Evac was a success, even if it was a close call.
The party made it out by the skin of their teeth, and Sora was relieved—but.
“This…is your big plan B? You just brought us back to the beginning…?”
“……………………”
The rest of the party joined Steph in looking to Sora for an answer.
“We may not even be able to get back to the twenty-sixth floor, let alone the hundredth, like this…”
While Steph still had both her HP and her MP reservoirs relatively full, she certainly looked like she was on the edge of despair.
“The thing is, this is exactly how we’ll make it there,” Sora responded with an intrepid grin. “According to the rules, this is a safe zone. It’s our save point. We can rest all we want here.”
“…So it’s the…kind of save point…where we don’t get HP or MP back…”
Shiro stared at her dark blue MP bar as she eked out this sentence—but.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.” Sora waved his pointer finger—intrepidly.
“Here’s the other thing: I figured out how to replenish our hope.”
?!
The entire party stared wide-eyed at their leader, whose intrepidness deepened as he continued.
“I want all eyes on my MP bar!! Notice anything interesting?”
They shifted their gazes up, and after a few seconds—
“…………! Your…MP…hasn’t, gone down…?”
“Comparison: …Master’s MP…is the same as before arrival at the spawn point…?”
Shiro and Emir-Eins were the first to notice, and what they shared shocked the rest of the group.
The trap the party had set off earlier sent them into a horde of mobs, which they fought their way out of.
Not only that, but Sora even used a mysterious ability toward the end to help get them out—and yet his MP was unscathed!
In other words, the combat earned him enough MP to match what he lost in the battle!
The six other members stared at his MP in awe while they waited for him to tell them the long-awaited reason why.
“Yeah… We gotta play this game using our hope as our only weapon—if our HP, MP, and weapons are all visualizations of some vague concept of hope, then let me ask this question one more time.”
It was the heart of the game and something that didn’t make much sense from the very start, and that was:
“What even is hope?”
“…Repetition: …Part of the ‘heart’ and ‘soul’… A general idea.”
In this world, there was a concrete definition for hope—
It was Sora’s third time asking the question, and the third time he received the same answer. It seemed to be common sense in this world.
But with a smirk, Sora declared:
“Nope. If that’s this world’s concept of it, then this world is wrong.”
What was considered common sense in this world was utter nonsense, Sora suggested with a big smile.
His claim left the party speechless. Sora began walking back and forth, proselytizing to them in a professor-like fashion—
“What is hope? This is something that remains unknown even in my own world. The same goes for the soul, which we have yet to measure in any tangible way—but the mechanism behind hope and its principles are something we understand.”
He stopped pacing and turned to the party.
“In other words, hope is a highly physical and measurable substance!!”
Sora said this with utmost confidence—could it be…?
That hope, a feeling, an idea…
Existed without the soul, and as a measurable substance? Not only that, but Sora even had proof of this?
This was hard to swallow, even for a scientifically advanced being such as Emir-Eins, who stared wide-eyed at Sora as he explained wisdom from another world.
What Sora was getting at clicked for one other member first:
“…Oh…”
Shiro seemed to pick up on things. Sora welcomed her realization with an enthusiastic nod.
So what is hope?
I have the answer for ya right here!!
“Hope is nothing more than chemicals in your brain!!”
BZAAAP !!
Shiro imagined lightning flashing behind her brother as he said this.
But.
………?
The other five members—well, four, because Izuna had fallen asleep already—stood together utterly dumbfounded by what Sora was getting at. But he didn’t leave them in a daze for long as he enthusiastically continued!!
“Lemme put it this way!! It’s not just hope, but your mental fortitude, and all your feelings that derive from the exact same thing!! It’s all an illusion caused by chemical physiology in your brain!!”
“…That’s…it…! Is that…really all there is…?!”
Shiro seemed to be convinced as she, too, joined in on his fiery passion.
The other four, however, were even more confused now.
Sora needed to continue his explanation before the difference in temperature between their cold stares and the flames in his and his sister’s eyes started a hurricane.
“That’s right! Serotonin is a good example! Or dopamine, endorphins, adrenaline, oxytocin—take your pick! Any of these pleasure-inducing science-based hormones can induce excitement or tranquility within a person—they are what make happiness tick! What make people wanna get up and go! In other words—these are what we call hope!!”
Shiro, his only comrade in the eye of the burgeoning storm, added her two cents!
“…Conversely…an excess or lack of…or the addition of a substance with the opposite effect…makes us depressed and anxious…throwing us into despair…!”
Were this the case, the mechanics behind the game would indeed make more sense!
Sora could sense what his sister was thinking and nodded with excitement as he continued!!
For instance!!
“Our red HP bar is a passive value—our capacity to handle stress! It reflects the amount and or combination of chemicals in our brain that keep it healthy! Our blue MP bars are our active values—or our aggression!! It reflects the chemicals that make us proactively work to remove any sources of stress from our lives!”
“…That’s why…when we defeat an enemy…the sense of, accomplishment…makes our brains…produce chemicals, that make us happy…and heal us a bit…! You did it…Brother…!”
“Ha-ha-ha!! Right? Right?! I only wish I could’ve figured it out sooner!”
Shiro’s eyes showed a full understanding and a deepened sense of respect for her brother—but meanwhile…
“I-if I may, Master… Perhaps such logic pertains only to your original world…”
Jibril cautiously tried to argue against Sora, but he met her retort with a nod.
Yeah, this is all based on our own world’s science. It’s not even fully understood yet, particularly the significant difference between individuals and how the substances interact with each other at different quantities…
My world isn’t close to quantifying the human mind. We probably can’t apply everything I’m talking about to this world, where each being has a concrete soul. Not perfectly, at least…
Yet after a year’s worth of experience in this world, Sora could speak with confidence. For his discovery was not without evidence in this world, either—
“B-but that would mean…that the Spirit Theory is true after all, it would!!”
Til suddenly blurted out this comment.
And a smiling Sora urged her to explain herself with a prodding look.
“Um…it was a theory that an Elf came up with a long, long time ago, it was. Basically, feelings and mind power are the results of converting spirits absorbed into the body into two categories: positive spirits—a group of spirits that make you feel good—and negative spirits—a group of spirits that make you feel bad. Both of which impact your soul, they do… Thinking of these as the passive and active values you mentioned before matches up perfectly with the theory, it does!!”
I knew it.
The logic of this world matching up with his own caused Sora to show a wry grin.
Jibril, however, didn’t seem so convinced, and she responded with a scoff.
“…How idiotic. The Elf you’re talking about from four thousand years ago was a meat-headed fool who thought muscles solved everything. This Elf spent their life honing their body, leaving behind a legacy that consisted solely of silly ramblings.”
…An Elf like that actually existed…
Maybe the Elves are more diverse than we thought…
Sora was impressed. This certainly explained why Elf had a few-thousand-years-long grip on this world.
“Y-yes, that’s right… This Elf called the physical body a vessel for the soul, which is now the established theory, it is. The part about positive and negative spirits, though, was laughed off by contemporaries because the spirits that make these up only account for less than a percent of your entire spirit-body, they do.”
Til admitted the theory was not without its flaws—however.
“But! If what King Sora says is true, it falls in line with the theory, it does!!”
For example!!
“You are a magical being, Jibril. And Emir-Eins is a machine, she is. You both live by slowly consuming spirits as energy, you do!! Then why, in the Tower—where we can only use hope to fight—do you think you were losing HP and MP without doing anything?!”
““ !””
The pair was dumbfounded by this realization, and Sora grinned.
The answer is simple… Hope is a type of spirit—and they’re called positive spirits!
“That’s not all! It would also explain why your magic output inside the Tower is reduced to less than one percent—because the only spirits you have access to are the positive energy spirits! It all adds up, it does!!”
In this game, hope was the only weapon they could use.
But for some strange reason, they could also wield magic.
The reason wasn’t so strange when hope was the same spirit energy that they used to cast magic in the first place!!
……,
………,
“Indeed…this doesn’t leave much room for retort—nor should it, as it is Master who proclaims this to be true. If the entire world has been incorrect about hope up until now, then so be it. I apologize for my stubbornness.”
Jibril, kneeling before Sora to ask for his forgiveness, appeared satisfied with the new definition.
Emir-Eins wasn’t convinced yet, though. She muttered a statement that suggested she’d been thrown even deeper into despair…
“…Confliction/Anguish: …The ‘heart’ the Preier shared with Ex Machina…was merely a spiritual reaction? Mere physiology? Confusion/Disappointment: …This unit…doesn’t know what to think…”
Her despair, however, was a bigger mystery for Sora than the initial question of hope.
She was a machine with a “heart.”
That in itself was proof enough that any “heart” was merely a physical compound.
Whatever the principle behind it may be—even if the “heart” of both Ex Machina and all other Ixseeds was simply ecological programming.
Being so did not preclude said “heart,” and the hope it felt from being legitimate.
“…Um, honestly, none of what any of you are saying makes any sense—but…”
Steph was unabashed about her lack of comprehension on the subject at hand, but she did understand one thing, which she dubiously confirmed with a question of her own:
“So the reason for Sora’s and Shiro’s lack of HP is because they have the mental fortitude of a wet paper bag…?”
“Heh…sounds like you know exactly what we’re talking about for once, Steph… And you’re exactly right!!”
“…We wouldn’t be…recluses if…our mental health was better…”
“And yet the both of you are bursting at the seams with MP. It’s quite fishy, I must say…”
“Don’t treat us like we’re the weird ones with those three fat HP bars of yours.”
“…Steph…have you ever…even felt depressed…?”
“I’m stuck with you two, who can dish out mental stressors but can’t take them—I suppose the fact that I can put up with that makes me just as weird as you! We’re two sides of the same coin!!”
Steph conceded that both types were uniquely strange, and Til asked a question.
“B-but, King Sora—how did you realize all this?”
Til knew it most likely happened back in the cave when Sora fell into deep thought, got ambushed, and then started laughing just in the nick of time.
Something happened in that brief exchange that led Sora to this conclusion.
He looked into his fellow party members’ eyes—Til’s included—and with a bold grin, he named sacred things that brought about his divine revelation. And those were!!
“No point in hiding it, eh?! It happened when I was sandwiched between your belly and Steph’s jugs!! In that moment, I saw my MP rocket back up to full!!”
Figuring it out from there was super easy!
And the reason for that was!!
“Basically, my horny thoughts—and the endorphin rush in my brain—turned into MP!!”
This means we need to spend time rebuilding our MP reserves here in the safe zone by doing things that make us feel good!!
We can recoup our hope reservoirs and run this dungeon as much as we need to—!!
“…You—you really are the most despicable person!!”
“ Huh? What’d I do?!”
Sora, who’d been basking in the glorious moment ever since it happened, watched Steph cover her breasts and blush as she disparaged him for it.
“Is that really all your sex-addled brain thinks about?!”
“I thought we went over this the other day—but it really is!! In fact, I’d wager that just about any man on the face of the planet would cheer up if you let him cop a feel!”
“Maybe it would for you, Sora!! But not for all men…right?! Say it isn’t so!!”
Steph looked to the other members for opinions, but Sora cast that aside for the time being.
“ Anyway, it looks like my instincts were right.”
“…………Oh? What do you mean, Sir?”
Sora met Til’s orichalcum eyes and smiled.
Why did Sora bring Til instead of the Dwarf race’s strongest member—Veig—let alone Steph, who should’ve never even been considered?
Though he had no justification when asked this before, he knew that defeat in this game was related to despair.
So it only made sense that the two party members who were the farthest from that state would be the key to winning the game… That was what Sora’s gamer senses told him.
With those vague senses of his being validated by reality, Sora felt proud of himself.
Though maybe not as much as Veig, I guess I can be a pretty sensible guy, too, eh…?
“It’s not just Steph, Til. I knew you would be a key to winning this, too.”
“ Huh?”
“Well, for starters, you sure knew a lot about Spirit Theory for it being written off as some Elf weirdo’s ramblings lost in history, yeah?”
“ Oh. Oh, no! It’s not like that, it’s not!!”
Sora grinned roguishly at the Dwarf girl, who scrambled to defend herself.
Just like Steph, Til was another person who lived in a state that was the polar opposite of despair—
“I knew that all of us, even Jibril and Emir-Eins, could rely on you to teach us how to tap into the positive spirits around us effectively. Actually, you’re probably the only one in the world who can do it.”
“……What makes you say that, Sir…?”
“What? I mean, that should be obvious. It’s your eyes.”
Til’s orichalcum eyes were timid and yet always aflame with red-hot passion.
She was trying to overcome her uncle Veig, a once-in-ten-lifetimes genius.
All while understanding her own ineptitude. Her arms were called garbage. But she stood on top of that pile of garbage.
Alone. With her hammer, she forged and would continue to forge for as long as she needed to. It could all be seen in her eyes.
She used every conceivable tool available to her—even studying obscure Elf magic theory on spirit-based mental care—to eventually achieve her dream.
In other words, a Dwarf girl who should’ve spent her life in utter despair—
—went more than fifty long years trudging through the despair without ever succumbing to it.
“You know better than anyone else in the world how to deal with despair, Til.”
“ ”
The extent of Sora’s trust and the depth of his respect could be heard in his tone as he said this.
Til’s pale-blue eyes widened. She looked down and thought:
So… All that failure…all the disappointment…is about to amount to something…?
You gotta be kiddin’ me… Please, say it ain’t so.
’Cause this—this isn’t something you ever wanna get used to, it isn’t—!!
“Heh heh-heh-heh!! You’re right about that, you are!!”
Til lifted her gaze, and puffed out her small chest as much as she could…
“All this talk about losing and recovering hope never made any sense to me, it didn’t—but if getting back up when you feel down in the dumps is the name of the game, I’ve been playing it for fifty years, I have! And I’m not gonna lose to anyone, I’m not! I’m a pro!”
Til exclaimed, loud and proud, almost as if she was copying Sora—
“I’m a pretty strict teacher, I am. Don’t go thinking I’ll go easy on you just ’cause you’re my li’l bro!!”
Til grinned with fierce tenacity as she said this.
“Um…you know, you always ignore us when we point this out, but what is with the whole brother-sister thing—?”
“So you better eat up and get a good night’s sleep!! And we’ll need booze, we will!! But wait—we only brought the bare essentials, didn’t we?! What are we gonna do about beds?!”
As per usual, Til brushed aside Sora’s remark and continued her spiel.
She remembered that the party had ventured into the Tower with the plan to speed-run it, and they’d brought as little as they could afford with them.
Til’s confidence evaporated and her eyes filled with tears upon this sudden realization. Sora responded with a sigh.
“Oh, yeah… You don’t gotta worry about that— Hellooo, Schira Haaa?!” he shouted, and once more, a few seconds passed before the elegant voice spoke over the intercom.
“Mweh-heh…? Is there something you need…?”
“Yup. I want you to get everything Til asks for, and bring it here, chop-chop. Thanks. ”
“Mweh-heh…? My apologies, but I am not one of the selected heroes, so I am unable to—”
Schira Ha, a literal possession of the hero’s party, didn’t have the option to say no; but since she herself wasn’t a hero, she was forbidden by the rules from entering the dungeon—or was she?
“O RLY? Would that mean you broke the rules when you showed up to the preparation room after we Aschente’d and all that? I guess since you broke the rules, that means this game is over—”
“I’ve just now registered Schira Ha the Wise as a temporary member of our staff!!”
“I will be right there!! What is it that you would like me to bring?!”
Forgetting their evil laughs, the skeleton and Schira Ha rushed to get everything in order.
With that, Til began her stringent lessons in recovering hope
As Til stated, she was a strict teacher in every sense of the word.
“The secret to getting back up when you’re down is very simple, but impossibly difficult to actually do, it is!! And that includes: sleeping well, exercising well, eating well, and laughing a whole lot! That’s all there is to it, there is!!”
It truly was a simple concept.
Til had spent half a century realizing that true technique lay in mastering the basics.
First, in order to sleep well, she had Schira Ha and the Demonia staff prepare them a nice tent and set of beds.
This included a bathroom with a shower and a hot bath, as well as a toilet.
Within a few hours, the barren preparation room turned into a nice place to sleep, which was what they did the first night.
Next on the agenda was exercise—
“King Sora, Queen Shiro—you two are wildly out of shape, you are!!”
The following morning—Til, waving her Great Hammer around like a baton, announced this to the duo.
“You can’t produce positive spirits without putting your body through enough physical stress, you can’t! You also need to keep yourselves limber!! Forget spirits—you can’t get air or nutrition properly distributed throughout a tense body, you can’t! So you guys need to move!!”
She handed Sora a strength-training regimen that would push him about a half-step past his limits.
Shiro, who didn’t have muscles to build in the first place, would be working on her flexibility.
With Emir-Eins’s help to scan their bodies, Til was able to create perfectly tailored workout plans for both gamer siblings.
Up next was eating well—
“…D-do you really want me to cook this much food…?” Steph asked.
“That’s right! By the way, this is a full day’s worth of ingredients, it is!!”
Schira Ha and the gentlemanly skeleton brought a large quantity of cooking utensils to the Tower, but even more impressive were the several wagonloads of ingredients they delivered via multiple trips. Speaking on behalf of the group as they gazed upon the mountain of food in awe was…
“…I-I’m goddamn starving, but…I don’t think I can eat that much, please…”
Sure, eating well may have been important, but all the food had Izuna worried about overeating.
“Oh, yeah. Most of this food is for Jibril and Emir-Eins, it is!”
“…Pardon? You do realize that I am a Flügel, yes?”
“Report: Ex Machinas do not require ingestion of food to produce energy. Demand: Reveal your intentions.”
But Til, in an unusual move for her, hit them with a sharp look.
“The two of you are constantly consuming hope—positive spirits—just to stay alive, you are!”
Though they did create positive spirits on their own, hope was consumed more quickly than they made it.
Which meant that any effort they put into creating more spirits would be outpaced by their consumption.
That was why:
“Positive spirits are produced in all living beings—which means you can absorb them directly by eating, you can!! You two are going to stuff your faces with food to absorb their positive spirits, you are!! We don’t know how much food it’s gonna take, so you’re gonna keep eating until your HP and MP start regenerating! I want you to eat, eat, eat! All day long!!”
“ ”
The group was at a loss for words after hearing about the severe regimen, except Til wasn’t finished yet!
“Oh, but don’t eat so much that it becomes a pain, obviously. That would defeat the purpose, it would!! Enjoying what you eat is the whole point—and it’s what makes your positive spirits, or MP, heal! Lady Steph! I’ll need you to cook a wide variety of meals so things don’t get monotonous, I will!!”
“Ah…I’m starting to understand why I don’t have a training regimen planned out for me—”
“That’s right, Lady Steph!! You’ll probably be so busy cooking all day that it should be a workout for you, it should! It’s two birds with one stone, it is!! Now, you better hop to it! Jibril and Emir-Eins are losing hope by the second, they are!! Let’s go, go, go!!”
Each of the members could accept the various regimens, but when it came to the last one, laughing a whole lot…
After a good workout, some nice stretching, and a delicious meal—the team had finished the bulk of their training regimen.
The sun in the red sky peered through the window at the group, which was ordered to take a break they could spend as they wished, whether by playing games or reading a book.
They looked a little happier than they had the day before as they went to bed that night.
………
The next morning, the party emerged from their tents after a good night’s sleep.
It was hard to remember what they’d been so depressed about only a day or two before…
Til’s training regimen had an effect more tremendous than they could’ve ever imagined.
With that, Sora and the group faced the entrance to the dungeon, ready for their second attempt.
But it was Til, the strict teacher, who stopped them in their tracks.
“No matter how much you rest, you can only recover physically in a single day, you can!! In order to rest our minds, we must ease our tension and stress, we must!!”
The party looked at the status bars on their wrists and above each other’s heads.
It was true; their HP and MP were not yet completely full…
“Hmmm…I guess it’s pretty hard to tell whether you’re tired…”
“…Can we…have these bars…outside of this game, too…?”
Having convinced her party members to stay, Til nodded before continuing.
“First of all, King Sora’s muscles should still be sore from yesterday, they should. We need another day of light exercise and stretching, and after that, we’ll do nothing for the rest of the day, we will!!”
The party wanted a little more info on what exactly that meant, but Til shook her head.
“I can’t be giving you orders ’cause there’s no fun in that, there’s not. I want you guys to think about how you’ll spend your day off, I do. What makes you feel relaxed? What makes you feel fulfilled?”
Their strict teacher spoke in a gentle tone.
It was like a good-cop bad-cop routine, and Sora obliged her with an answer.
“A good handful of Steph’s, Jibril’s, or Emir-Eins’s milkers would prolly fix me right—guh?!”
The euphoria Sora had felt only two days earlier seemed to linger in his mind, but his sister cut him off with an elbow to the stomach.
“…Brother…you wanna…cuddle with Izuna and…play games…and have your ears cleaned…and rest your head…on Jibril’s and Emir-Eins’s thighs…right?”
“Yeah, you got it! I’m just happy if I’m together with my lovely little sister, whoo-hoo! ”
Sorry, Brother… I know you wanted a little sister with a larger chest…!!
Sora had replied at breakneck speed under his sister’s gaze, which was fiendish enough to end a small mammal’s life.
Thus, Shiro also asked for her brother to clean her ears.
And perhaps jealous of her, Jibril and Emir-Eins, too, timidly asked for the same treatment, all three of them laying their heads on his lap while he did the cleaning, one at a time.
Afterward, they ate a delicious meal before snuggling up together and playing video games for the rest of the night.
The party ended up sleeping as a group…with the exception of Steph, who opted to sleep on her own in the corner.
…Another day passed—it was the morning of the fourth day since entering the Tower dungeon.
“Whew…my body hasn’t felt this light in…forever…?”
In fact, this may be the first time in my life I’ve felt so great.
Sora thought this as the sunlight from outside shone in on his face—something that would normally annoy him, but it actually felt good for once.
Ah…another morning, another day I get to wake up in a bed full of diverse nonhuman babes. So warm…so beautiful… If this ain’t heaven, then I don’t wanna go there.
It was a good morning, to say the least. And so the day began—
“Mmm, you guys did a good job these past three days enduring my training, you did!!”
The party was lined up next to Sora—their previous stress was now completely gone from their faces. To top it all off, Til thoroughly checked each of their HP and MP bars before giving them a happy thumbs-up.
With their strict teacher finally giving the go-ahead—
“Okay, it’s been three days. Who wants to beat a dungeon?!”
“““““““We do!!”””””””
—the entire group was raring and ready to go, with all six members joining Sora in raising their fists in the air.
Jibril and Emir-Eins went back into the bag, and with a forceful hup, Izuna shouldered the siblings, and Til picked up Steph.
The two squatted down and prepared to kick off the ground at full power, when—
“Hold up. We’re changing our strategy. I want you two to forget how we ran this the first time.”
—Sora asked the two runners to stop.
They looked up at him in confusion, along with Steph and Shiro, and he shared the new plan.
“We’re still gonna stay mounted on you two and avoid any unnecessary conflicts the best we can—that much is the same, but…this time we’re gonna explore each floor entirely before we progress.”
“Oh…? And why would we do that?”
“Entirely? There were corners of the dungeon where monsters were grouped up, there were?”
“Our MP won’t last long against every damn one of ’em, please?”
Sora was hit with a series of fair questions, but he answered with a smile.
“You don’t gotta worry about that. We can always come back to the starting room if things get sticky. Right, Jibril? I want you to always have Evac…er, shift ready to cast.”
“Yes, Master. As you wish.”
A polite bow could be felt from outside the inventory bag. However—
“But…Brother…can we afford…to do extra fights…if it means going slower…?”
“Yeah, things have changed since we entered. I’m thinking fighting might not be as wasteful as we initially believed.”
Shiro tilted her head in confusion, and Sora held up three fingers.
“First, I want you guys to try and focus on unlocking your skills during fights.”
“…Skills…?”
“Yeah, like the one Steph used to pull hate, or like how I stunned the enemy with an attack.”
This was the other mechanic that Sora figured out along with the definition of hope.
This was a game where the party members had only their hope to fight with.
The game system had their hope take on the shape of weapons that they could use to fight with—
“Watching Steph’s skill unlock after she showed a strong desire to protect us all, I figured that we can unlock our skills by having a strong awareness for how our hope-based weapons are meant to be used. I already proved this concept by doing the same: focusing on what my hope would look like, which unlocked my skill for me.”
Under the status bars on each of their left wrists was a blank space.
Steph’s UI showed the following text: You’ll have to get through me first!
And for Sora: Flashbang Shot
Sora unlocked this skill by being conscious of his own hope, meaning this ability emulated him.
The rest of the party looked at him with asking eyes, but he ignored them.
He still had two remaining fingers’ worth of reasons that needed explanations.
“Number two, you guys should figure out on your own soon enough, and number three—let’s make it a surprise for later. ”
Sora said this with a teasing look, but then his face took on a more lighthearted expression.
“Y’know, I’m thinking the reason we got MP back by defeating monsters is because this is fun.”
It was something the party forgot along the way…
“ This is a game, after all…”
Games were meant to be fun; it was the basic of the basics.
And the party must’ve agreed, because they ran into the dungeon with smiles on their faces—
“That’s all that really matters!! So we should have fun with it!!”
Only twenty minutes passed before the party’s second expedition into the Tower dungeon revealed the answer to Sora’s second reason, though it was sooner than even Sora expected.
“And there it is…I mean, it wouldn’t be much of a dungeon if it didn’t have these… I knew they would be here.”
It was something that caught Sora’s attention during their first trip into the dungeon.
Every now and then, there were mobs that noticed the party but refrained from attacking them.
It was a group of skeletons—they were blocking the path, and it wasn’t one that led to the stairs.
Though the party didn’t have the leisure to investigate during their first run, Sora had an idea of what those mobs were there for.
And it was the biggest reason he wanted to investigate each floor in its entirety.
Well, it was, but…
“Uh…Schira Ha?”
“Mweh-heh… Yes, O Heroes? Is something the matter?”
“I just wanted to double-check that our eyes aren’t lying to us… Is this a treasure chest?”
The roads these enemies were blocking had to lead to something…but what?
The party soon learned after defeating one of the groups of mobs that—assuming the box wasn’t an illusion—were there to protect treasure chests…
“Mweh-heh… Your eyes are quite all right, for that is indeed a treasure chest.”
“Okay…and lemme guess… There’s items, like weapons and armor, in there that will help us…?”
“My apologies, but the only weapon you heroes may use is your own hope. Inside the treasure chest, however, there are other pieces of equipment and tools that you may use. Mweh-heh…”
Mm-hmm… Is that right…?
“Then do you mind answering a question that’s been on my mind for many, many years?”
Sora gave an exaggerated nod, then took a deep breath before shouting his question back at her.
“Who the hell’s leaving these treasure chests here?! And inside the Devil, for cryin’ out loud!! With gear that just screams: Here, use this to deck the literal Devil, tee-hee!! Why don’t you guys keep your shit in an armory like normal people?! Huh?!”
This video game trope always bothered Sora—but:
“Mweh-heh… Inside the chests you find is the lingering hope of heroes who have fallen to the Devil.”
“Lingering hope…?”
“Yes. The heroes who perished before they could reach the Devil entrusted their manifested hope to those who would attempt to defeat him in the future. In other words, these hopes are an inheritance—a donation to other heroes. Such treasures are subject to protection from the Ten Covenants; our staff cannot collect them since that would be considered theft. Mweh-heh…”
Is that right? Huh…
Much to Sora’s surprise, Schira Ha’s answer actually made sense.
It’s true… Treasure chests are always hidden in mazes or paths with only one exit.
So these treasures must be left over from heroes who ran away or hid until they ran out of either their HP or their MP. And yet they still wanted to pass on what little hope they had left to the next heroes—that seems to be the story here.
The staff can’t collect or move the treasure, so they have mobs guard the chests to make things more difficult for the heroes…
That explanation doesn’t work for all RPGs, but it makes sense here!
“…It doesn’t smell like a damn trap, please…”
Just to be sure, the party had Izuna check the treasure chest before opening it.
She gave her okay, and nervously, Sora opened the chest—
“It looks like…some kind of outfit? Maybe it’s armor?”
He looked at the treasure—an amorphous object that glowed faintly—with confusion.
While the shape wasn’t distinct, there was something about the light that made it clear that it was meant to be worn—
“…Hypothesis: Remnants of someone else’s hope. May take shape upon being equipped…?”
Emir-Eins interjected from within the bag, prodding Sora to think for a few moments—
“Hmm… Welp, let’s have Steph try it on.”
“Huh? Why me? Seeing as I have the most HP, wouldn’t it be better for you or Shiro to wear it?”
“Nope. We don’t know if this even gives any defense.”
There was no way of knowing whether Sora and Shiro would die in one hit even with the armor on.
“Since you’re the one who takes the most damage, we need you to test out how effective the armor is before deciding whether me and Shiro can wear it. It’s just safer…”
“Ah, I suppose that’s true.”
With a nod, Steph took the dim light that was thought to be armor from Sora’s hands.
She then wrapped it around herself—and just as Emir-Eins had predicted…
The amorphous faint light began to take on a distinct form, covering Steph’s body.
The party watched, and…
“ Wh-wh-wh-what kind of armor is this?!” Steph screeched.
“I-it looks like the legendary armor used by a powerful female Dwarf warrior, it does!!” Til answered, her eyes lighting up.
Oh, that’s legendary armor, all right…in the sense that you don’t see it much nowadays.
It protected little to nothing and covered only spots that needed to be covered for a different reason…
It was none other than legendary—bikini armor!!
“Legend has it that the armor protects its wearer from all attacks, it does!!”
“Protects what?! My dignity?! It’s not even protecting what little of that I have left!! This isn’t armor; I think my regular clothes offer more benefit!!”
“Don’t worry, Steph!! Protection and coverage have zero correlation when it comes to ladies’ armor—it’s common sense!!”
“Maybe in your world it is!!” Steph screamed back at Sora as she ran away from him; he was trying to take pictures of her with his smartphone.
“…Same goes…for men, too… The strongest characters…are always…practically buck naked…”
Which begged the question of what kind of armor Sora would be wearing.
Shiro’s comment appeared to pique the interest of the party members in the bag. Sora, meanwhile, shook his head.
“Calm down, O sister of mine… That logic only applies to a handful of games, where player skill is not represented by armor. Taking off any more than I’m already wearing won’t make me roll any farther, and I don’t have any invincibility frames to extend.”
“I don’t know what you’re trying to frame, but could we at least stay on topic about whether or not I should wear whatever this is?!”
It was true that the so-called armor only covered…well, almost nothing…
Thus, Steph’s concerns were warranted—however.
“I don’t think you gotta worry about that anymore, ’cause there’s a good chance we’re about to find out,” Sora muttered.
Steph turned to where Sora was looking and saw eight skeletons running down the hallway they’d just passed…
There were four with spears and armor and four with bows. They covered the only way out of the hall.
Steph took up her shield and joined Izuna and Til, both of whom had realized long before that something was coming.
“Steph! Catch their attacks with your shield! Once we know how powerful the armor is, we’ll strike back!!”
Shiro, Izuna, and Til all responded with an “Okay!” but—
“Argh! I suppose I’m already wearing this thing, so I may as well roll with the punches!!” Steph shouted as she convinced herself to move forward.
She jutted her shield toward the charging enemy, who took the attack as an opportunity to focus fire on her—but…
……,
“ Huh? Th-they’re attacking me, right?”
Steph let slip her surprise at the situation.
While the attacks did hit her shield, the chip damage that went through was nearly nonexistent—
“…Whoa… Does her armor…give a fifty percent damage…reduction…?”
“Between her shield and the armor, she’s taking next to no damage, she is!!”
“St-Stuch, you’re freakin’ invincible, please!!”
The entire party was in utter shock, including Sora.
“Wow… Who woulda thunk it…? Bikini armor…actually works…?”
“You’re the one who said it would!! Why are you acting like it might not have worked?!”
But! In any case!!
“Never mind what this armor looks like! I can use it to defend you all!!”
Never mind what this armor looks like!
Steph said this more for herself than anything else before touching her left wrist!
“ You’ll have to get through me first—!!”
Without waiting for her party members to join the fray, Steph activated her skill and focused all aggro on herself.
She called out to the party, holding her shield as she ran forward with the mobs all focusing on her.
“We can get out of here without wasting MP! I’ll push the enemies out of the way, and once there’s an opening, we can flee!”
It was a good idea, something rare for Steph.
Maybe she wanted to justify the armor she was wearing by making it useful for the party.
The group of skeletons continued to whale away at her shield—until all of a sudden:
Shatter…
“ ? ……??? …………! AAAAAAAAAHHHH?!”
The bikini armor that (barely) covered her body had shattered into pieces and disappeared into thin air.
Steph needed about five seconds to process what the sound was before she screamed at the top of her lungs, triggering Sora, Shiro, Izuna, and Til to go in and kill the skeletons ganging up on her.
And while they came to her rescue—
“…I see…the armor…broke because it was hope…left behind by previous heroes…!”
“It doesn’t reduce the damage, but the lost heroes’ hope instead takes a portion of the damage until whatever hope left over runs out, it does—”
“And when it does run out, it breaks!! Hot damn, what an incredible system!!”
“It’s a terrible system!! Where are my old clothes?!”
—Shiro and Til analyzed the armor, and Sora made an impassioned conclusion.
Steph was more preoccupied with looking for her clothes that had disappeared. She was searching frantically when two voices could be heard from the inventory:
“Report: Previous clothes are assumed to have been swapped with the armor upon being equipped and automatically deposited within inventory.”
“Yes. Little Dora’s outfit appeared inside this bag when she put on the armor.”
“Oh! Perfect!! P-please, lend it here—”
With tears in her eyes upon hearing the news, Steph pleaded for her old clothes—when:
“Jibril! Emir-Eins! Are you sure that was really Steph’s outfit?! I want you to be really, really sure!!”
“ What?”
Sora’s sudden question caught Steph completely off guard. She stared blankly.
A few moments passed.
“ Oh, I understand… What’s this? I can’t seem to find Little Dora’s clothes anymore. ”
“Restriction: Temporarily unable to identify Object X… Wherever did it go?”
“Y-you two Soraaaaaa?!!!”
“Never fear, Steph!! We’ll make sure nothing hits you!!”
“…We got…your back…Steph… Izuna and…Til do…too…!”
“That’s not what I’m worried about!! I don’t think my old clothes offered any protection anyway!! It doesn’t matter—somebody give them to me this instant!! For the sake of my dignity!! Hand them over!!!”
Steph continued to bear the brunt of the attacks like a true tank, all while suffering harassment from the two siblings behind her, who refused to give her back her clothes.
“Steph…those who lose their cool are the first to die on the battlefield. You must calm yourself.”
Sora took on a calmer and more collected tone as he said this.
“Nobody can see you from the front so long as you have your Great Shield. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about, am I wrong?”
“I’m more worried about my behind! I can hear you and your sister snapping photos with your cameras!! What can you see—? No, it doesn’t matter—just stop taking pictures!!”
………
……
Steph’s plea was ignored.
Sora and Shiro skillfully picked off the enemies while also capturing shots of Steph’s bare bottom.
They joined Izuna and Til in clearing out the enemies and eventually securing their way out of the closed-off path.
“Okay… We’re going to search the entire dungeon, just like we planned.”
Atop Izuna’s back, Sora looked behind him to make sure the coast was clear, and he addressed the party.
“The lost heroes’ hope—if there’s armor that absorbs damage, there might also be equipment that amplifies MP to our attacks, maybe even allows us to attack without using MP.”
These items might end up being necessary for the bosses on the higher floors.
The party agreed with Sora, who nodded before continuing.
“Any armor we find, we’ll make sure to give to Steph. I feel bad that she has to stay naked for so long.”
“…If you truly felt bad, you’d give me back my clothes! And I still think that you and Shiro should be the ones who wear the armor!!” Steph shouted, looking utterly resentful.
Til’s back was covering the front of Steph’s body while the Great Shield covered her rear.
They were able to test the armor, which absorbed damage from a few dozen attacks.
While Steph agreed to test it, she insisted that it was the siblings who should rightfully wear it.
But shaking his head heavily, Sora responded…
“Sorry, Steph, but that’s gonna be a no… We don’t know how much durability any given set of armor has, and if it leaves the wearer naked when it breaks, we can’t have Shiro or Izuna wearing it… Though maybe Til might, if she’s okay with it…?”
“Why does she have the right to be okay with it and not me?! And what about you, Sora?!”
“Uh…Steph? Where exactly is the demand to see a naked me?”
Sora brushed off Steph’s assertion like it was nothing, but…
“…? There’s…plenty of demand…for that…”
“Obvious: There is only demand. Warning: Master should equip the armor for his protection. Strongly recommended.”
“Pardon me for saying this, but I would like to call into question how you believe there is no demand for such a sight, Master. Geh-heh-heh. ”
Sora cringed at the idea his sister and their two companions in the bag had in mind—
“Uhhhh… Oh! Right!! We can’t let a guy get naked in front of Shiro and Izuna!!”
“……Fine… Til and I will wear any armor we find…”
Sora used every brain cell available to think up a new excuse, which was accepted by a defeated Steph and met with a loud Tch by the other three……
A little under two hours had passed since entering the Tower dungeon for the second time.
The party was standing before the boss room door, a point that they’d reached in just over ten minutes on their first attempt.
“Welp…I guess this is what happens when you check every corner of every floor?”
Compared to the first day, when the party reached this spot with full HP and MP bars, each member had currently used about 20 percent of their MP on average.
It was a good chunk of MP, but the sacrifice did not go unrewarded.
The party found multiple chests, each with valuable gear along the way.
Just as they had predicted, they found an item that improved their attack power by 20 percent in the form of an armband.
There was also a ring that reduced MP cost by nearly 50 percent.
That said…
“We don’t know when these items will break like the armor from before… I’d rather save them for the higher floors if we can, ideally the last boss, even.”
These items could be particularly effective when paired with Jibril and Emir-Eins’s abilities.
If they could halve the cost of Jibril’s shifting, it could help to get her back on her feet afterward—
Sora mumbled to himself, and Steph interjected with dubious eyes.
“Then why am I the only one forced to wear my armor…?”
“What’s that, Steph? You’d rather fight naked?”
“…It’s time…you admit…you have, a voyeur fetish…Steph…”
“Give!! Me!! Back!! My!! Clothes!! I can’t believe you made me run around the dungeon buck naked until we found the next set of armor!!”
“Oh, how strange! I could have sworn it was right here. ”
It took an hour after finding the first set of armor to find the second.
During which Steph was forced to strut her stuff throughout the dungeon.
When they eventually did find a new set of armor, it still covered barely any of her skin, though not quite as little as the bikini armor.
Sora and the others kept refusing to return her original outfit, so Steph eventually gave up.
“Um, I don’t disagree with saving the equipment, I don’t—but we should probably use it on the boss, shouldn’t we…? If it’s the same boss as last time, we’re probably going to lose around ten percent more of our MP, we are.”
That would leave them with 70 percent…which was when their mental health started to show signs of deterioration.
If that did end up happening, they could just warp back to the beginning like it was planned.
Til knew this but timidly made her suggestion nevertheless, which was met by a grin from Sora.
“Well, if my best guess is right, we might not even have to worry about that—”
“Whatareyou—?!”
“K-King Sora?!”
Sora finished his sentence by leisurely walking into the boss room. The rest of the party scrambled after him, but …
,
“…? Where’s the giant cow guy, please?”
The Minotaur from the first day was absent.
The party stared at the stairs to the next floor, which were left unsealed like when they’d first cleared this floor.
“…Bosses in this game…don’t respawn…?”
“I guess you could consider it a part of the game, in a way. ”
Sora seemed to know that the boss wouldn’t be there, leaving his sister to tilt her head in question.
This was his surprise that he’d talked about before they left the safe zone—
“And that, ladies and girls, is my third reason. We’ll press on with the same strat, searching every corner of every floor along the way!”
Though not without their questions, the party agreed to Sora’s strategy. With Steph on Til’s back, and Sora and Shiro on Izuna’s—
“Our goal for today is to beat the boss on the thirtieth floor. We’ll head home after that.”
“Not having to beat this boss indeed makes this easier…but will we even be able to make it to the twenty-sixth floor at the rate we’re going?”
Steph spoke for the party in questioning the goal Sora had set.
He happily waved her comment away.
“Oh, we’ll make it, all right. Til, Izuna—we’ll be relying on you guys to take us there. ”
With that, the two makeshift mounts made a break for the next floor.
And then, after the third hour had passed…
“ We really made it to floor thirty…”
“Things are going way smoother than our first attempt, they are…?”
“Even though we’re running around like hell, please. Maybe ’cause there’s no damn boss to fight, please?”
The party fully cleared every floor in search of treasure and to unlock new skills.
Despite taking the enemies in combat, the team was able to pass the twenty-sixth floor, where they were forced to give up pretty easily.
And thus, having cleared the twenty-ninth floor—the party stood before the stairs that would lead them to the thirtieth floor, where a boss was assumed to be awaiting their arrival. It wasn’t just Steph, but Til and Izuna, too, were confused by how smoothly things were going.
Sora forced himself to smile as he told them why this was happening.
“It’s ’cause we’re winning this time… We’re recovering MP by beating the enemy.”
“…? But…I thought that happened the first day, too?” said Steph.
“Yeah…it did, but things are different this time around, aren’t they…?”
Unlike their first day in the dungeon, the party knew that they could recover their MP.
They also had a more realistic goal for themselves this time around—defeat the thirtieth-floor boss.
Not only that, but they had in their possession various treasure and skills… Now they knew that defeating enemies wasn’t so pointless.
In other words—they were enjoying the game…
And of course, they were recovering more hope than when they went in blindly.
Though the rate they gained it at was still an overall loss—
“But I don’t think we can beat this next boss like this. Shouldn’t we return to the safe zone for the day?”
Steph looked anxious—it wasn’t just her; the entire party was beginning to show signs of fatigue.
The MP bars above Til’s and Izuna’s heads were at a little over 50 percent each, and Sora’s and Shiro’s were already under 40 percent…
On the way to the thirtieth floor, Shiro unlocked two skills…
And Sora obtained four more.
They both tested their new skills to learn their effects, and doing so naturally consumed MP.
As such, Shiro looked down at her flat chest with empty eyes.
She opened and closed her hands, motioning to grab something that just wasn’t there—and a tear ran down her cheek.
Sora, on the other hand, tried his best to make it seem like nothing was wrong, when he, too, was very clearly distracted by something.
Neither of them were in any shape to fight a boss, let alone a regular monster.
And it could spell the end for them should Izuna and Til end up losing more than half of their MP pools midfight.
We should turn back now, no matter which way you slice it, Steph thought—however.
“No…we can still fight… Til thought of a way to restore our MP. It’s our secret weapon.”
“That’s the first I’ve heard of this… If such a method exists, then why haven’t we used it yet…?” Steph asked.
Sora shook his head heavily, and the rest of the party nodded.
Evidently, Steph was the only one who didn’t know about this so-called secret plan.
“Because it takes time…and we need somewhere safe to do it…”
“That’s right! When we enter the boss floor, there’s always a room where there aren’t any mobs before the boss, there is! We can use that room to recover King Sora’s and Queen Shiro’s MP before we fight the boss, we can!”
Even if that is the case, it still stands that Til and Izuna might lose more than half of their current MP.
Steph wasn’t entirely convinced that this was the right thing to do that day, even after hearing Sora and Til’s idea—but.
“We’ll be fine, we will! Just as long as we have enough MP to use our skills—”
“Mm-hmm! Sora and Shiro can lock down any boss and kick their asses, please!”
Til and Izuna seemed sure of the party’s ability to win.
The silence from the bag suggested that the two inventory-bound members agreed as well.
With that, the group walked through the door and up the stairs to the thirtieth floor.
“Fine! I’ll just have to believe in us, too, then!!”
Steph, too, nodded firmly before steeling her nerves and running up the stairs—
Something she would soon regret.
“See?! Sometimes I’m right, too!! I’m not happy about it, though!!”
“I didn’t think the battle would start the moment we entered the thirtieth floor! Normally, they’d work just like the tenth and twentieth floors! You know, with a similar format!! What kinda shitty game is this?!”
“…Hic… I hate…boobs… They’re just big…lumps of fat… Brother…tell me you’ll love me…even if I don’t have any…”
“Waaaagh?! My sister!! I’d be lying if I agreed with the first half of what you said, but the second half I can say with extreme confidence! Except now’s really not the time for that; couldja just stand on your own, please?!”
The party didn’t have an opportunity to use Sora and Til’s secret plan, because the first step they took onto the thirtieth floor triggered a shower of rocks thrown by the golem boss awaiting them.
The party was forced to take refuge in the only safe space they had: behind Steph, who was screaming, and her shield. Sora was likewise screaming as Shiro clung to him and wailed from her insufficient MP…
The golem boss launched fistfuls of rocks at the party like a giant shotgun. These rocks fanned out, pelting everything from the floor to the walls, where they smashed into pieces—the violent AoE kept on coming at a rapid clip, left arm after right.
Though Sora and Shiro were safe behind Steph’s shield, it wasn’t an attack a human could dodge…
And on top of this:
“ ?! K-King Sora!! This boss is hard as rock, he is!!”
“Our attacks don’t hurt him, please!! What the hell are we gonna do, please?!”
Just like the party could acquire equipment along the way, it seemed that their Demonia enemies, too, had access to special armor!
This Rock Golem was wearing a big shell, not unlike the armor the skeleton soldiers had worn.
The problem was—this shell seemed to reduce the damage the golem took by nearly 70 percent.
While Til and Izuna just barely managed to dodge the hail of rocks being slung around, any attacks they landed did little to no damage.
And to make things worse—!!
“Gahhh! My armor just broke!! At least let me have my shame, will you?!”
After taking an onslaught of attacks through her shield—Steph’s armor finally broke.
She didn’t have time to lament over an exposed heinie, however—with every fistful of rocks, her HP was depleting noticeably!!
It wasn’t just the number of rocks; every shard packed a punch!!
Should any of the rocks even scrape against Sora or Shiro, they would most definitely perish!
The same went for Til and Izuna… How many hits could both of them take?!
This battle… It’s…
“Sora!! This is impossible! We need to retreat, now!!”
Steph finished Sora’s thought for him—this battle wasn’t one they could win…
Shiro could barely move, and that was the least of their problems. Sora gritted his teeth.
We came into this under the pretense that we could heal before the fight. We should’ve quit as soon as we realized we couldn’t!!
I don’t have the brain power for this right now; we need to—
—use Jibril to escape.
Before Sora could shout this, he heard two voices.
“King Sora! Now! We need to deploy our secret plan now, we do! Here!!”
“I’ll distract ’em, please! Hurry up and heal your damn MP, please!!”
The two party members were yelling over the rocks smashing against the walls. Sora gasped in a daze.
It’s gonna take time. That’s why we need a safe spot to execute our plan…
And she wants me to do it now? In a fight? Against that? But…why…?
I was the one who made our goal today to beat this boss.
But there’s no reason for us to stick to this goal if it puts us at risk…
We should just leave and come back when we have more MP—Sora thought.
“This guy’s got nothing on you two with enough MP, he doesn’t—!”
“You’ll lock the boss down and kick their asses—I know you can, please!!”
The voices he heard calling fiercely for him were from two gamers, having fun.
Run away? Us…? What was I thinking…?
Maybe if there was no way to win, but we still have a fighting chance.
And things are just startin’ to get good!!
Hearing the two call out to them opened Sora’s and Shiro’s eyes, and they each let out a wry chuckle of embarrassment.
Look at us. Who cares if we lost around 60 percent of our MP…?
Getting out of a bind like this is what makes gaming fun—and we almost gave up!!
“Jibril! Emir-Eins! Switch with me, Shiro, and Steph!!”
“What?! Sora, what are you—?!”
Steph shrieked in confusion at Sora’s orders, but was sucked into the bag before she could finish.
And Sora had more orders for the two party members fresh out of the bag—!!
“Make sure you two don’t attack!! I’m pretty sure you guys will lose hope just from moving too much, so focus on unlocking skills for now, and support Izuna and Til!!”
“With pleasure: This unit will analyze enemy attack patterns, give commands, and provide support during Master’s absence. I got this.”
“You needn’t worry about me. Enjoy your time together in the bag. ”
The two bowed—and then they used their OP abilities to elegantly waltz through the barrage of stone, dodging all the projectiles with the minimum movement necessary.
Til nodded briefly before calling out to Steph, who’d been sucked into the bag.
“Lady Steph!! Sora and Shiro are in your hands, they are!!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?!”
Steph, however, didn’t receive an answer to that question……
Which brought them to the inventory bag…
“Does somebody want to fill me in on what all this talk about a secret plan is supposed to be?! Is everyone going to be all right without me, the tank, in this fight?! And are we even allowed to have three substitutes in the bag at once?!”
“A maximum of five members can be active at once. The key word being maximum. There shouldn’t be a problem with us three being in here.”
“Okay?! I’d appreciate it if you answered my other questions, too!! And it sure is cramped in here!! I’m pretty sure this bag isn’t built for three people— Wait, I’m naked!! I’m naked, and we’re sandwiched toge— A-are those…my clothes?! I knew they were in here! I need to get chang it’s too cramped in here to do that!!”
“…Pipe down…Steph…and stop smooshing me…with your oversized boobs…”
The inside of their inventory bag was so cramped, there wasn’t much space to move.
Steph flailed around frantically at the sudden turn of events while Shiro started getting pissed off from being crushed by her breasts. Meanwhile, Sora pondered—
Now that I think about it, this is our first time in the bag.
Jibril and Emir-Eins have been in here the entire time…smooshed together like this…
I’m surprised they didn’t bicker more.
Though he found himself moved by their improving relationship, he had more important things to worry about. He decided to oblige Steph’s two other questions with answers.
“Steph, how do you think that Dwarf party cleared this game?”
“ What?”
It was a mystery Sora had uncovered back on the party’s first day in the dungeon.
According to Til, the entire Dwarf party that beat this game were in a polygamous marriage…
It was an actual harem party—!!
So the question remained: How did they clear this game?
This much should be obvious; Sora shared the long-awaited answer in the most exaggerated way—!!
“Methinks they got into the bag and did you-know-what to fill up their status bars!!”
“ ”
…Steph was absolutely dumbfounded by the truth of the matter—but!!
“…While the enemy…throws his rocks…we need you to…get ours off…”
“Oh, Steph! How bold! How courageous of you! You are a true hero!!”
“That sounds absolutely barbaric!! And watch your language, Shiro! You’re only twelve years old!!”
Shiro and Sora’s approach was relentless, causing Steph to scream at the two of them.
But Sora didn’t have time for it—he continued!!
“I was thinking this would happen after we were in a safe spot, you know, during a break—like before or after a boss—but we don’t have that leisure anymore!! We have to do it here and now!! You follow?!”
“…I wish I didn’t, but—wait, you’re not asking me to…?”
That Dwarf party long ago did that thing boys and girls do and…got back their HP and MP, I guess?
And Sora wants me to do that with him in the middle of a fight? Do it here and now…?
Do it…? Do what exactly?
By it, do you mean…it—?
“Um, wait…! So when Til said you were in my hands, she meant literally—?”
As much as she wanted to hightail it out of the situation, there was nowhere for the rosy-red-cheeked Steph to run inside the bag.
She couldn’t even get dressed. They were so close, the siblings could probably feel her heartbeat through her bare skin.
Steph turned to Sora, who was practically breathing onto her face, and asked:
“This is…all a big joke, right? I mean—”
“This is as serious as a heart attack, Steph—we’ve got no time to lose.”
Steph knew a joking Sora when she saw it, and this wasn’t the case. He looked back at her with utmost intensity.
Her heart was beating like an alarm; she could barely think straight—
I…I…I can’t!! There are stages in a relationship that we need to go through before we get to this point… At…at least give me some time to process all this!! A-and what are we going to do about Shiro?! She’s right there!!
…………,
……Hold on… Didn’t Shiro say she was okay with it…?
I mean, she couldn’t participate even if she wanted to…given her age—
No. Calm yourself, Stephanie Dola!! Using this emergency as an excuse would be dishonest to Shiro!! E-especially considering that she would be watching… I wish it were at least just me and Sora…
Her thoughts were running a mile a minute.
Though confused, she was subconsciously convincing herself to accept this turn of events.
Also likely subconsciously…she was staring at Sora’s lips as his face approached with utmost seriousness.
Steph was quivering, but she could accept her fate. She closed her eyes and waited.
Sora, with the intensity of a thousand burning suns, looked straight at her…and said:
“We need you to hurry and spoil us rotten by patting our heads and complimenting us and stuff!!”
……,
,
Hmmm?
“……Could you repeat that, please…? Surely, that’s not what you just said?”
“Listen to me, Steph! We need you to compliment us!! Pat us on the heads, maybe rub our bellies!!! Do whatever you can to make us feel better and recover MP, while keeping it PG!! Why, what the hell were you thinkin’?!”
Give me back that fleeting feeling of innocence…
Also, I’d rather die than ever admit that this was somewhat of a letdown!!
Her nerves went from boiling hot to freezing cold, but now Steph was calm and ready.
Perhaps due to the intense change in mental temperature, she managed to push past the headache to eke out her next words.
“Absolutely not. Actually—now I’m confused why you’re being so tame in a situation like this!” she screamed, tears forming in her eyes unbeknownst to her.
This time, the answer she wanted came from outside the bag.
It was Til—still fighting the Rock Golem, she cried out:
“I said you two should just do the deed, I did!! But King Sora insisted on keeping it PG!! He knows it will work because of how much MP he got back the first day, he does!! You’re the only one who can do this, Lady Steph!! Both King Sora and I know it, we do!!”
Or would you rather go all the way?
Til didn’t need to say this last part for Steph to understand, which had Steph reeling.
Sora buried himself in her lap, and Shiro in her bosom—
“C’mon! Our friends are fighting for their lives out there! You need to mother it up!!”
“…Steph…hurry… You gotta be…an efficient mommy…”
Steph finally understood what she had to do.
Ohhh? I see what’s going on here.
Now I know why they refused to tell me about the secret plan.
It’s because they knew I would never agree to this!!
“You two sadists are using the situation against me to make me dote on you!! Would forced doting actually have any effect?! Would it really help your mental health?!”
Forcing someone to spoil you rotten… Isn’t a part of being spoiled the fact that someone else does it for you…?
“Steph, what aren’t you getting about this? You’re not going to spoil us—we’re letting you spoil us!!”
“How is that any different?!”
“…It’s completely…different… We’re the ones…with power…here…!”
“We’re making you pat our heads like a good little boy and girl—of our own volition!!”
“…We’re making…the decision…and that’s what counts!”
“I’ll ask this one more time… Is that really going to do anything for your mental health?!”
“You bet it will! All it takes for the body to produce oxytocin is a single touch!! It doesn’t matter what we think about it!! And if you make it sexy—while keeping it PG, of course—that’ll trigger a lot of other hormones in me!! We’ll definitely recover our MP!!”
“…Steph…don’t make us…repeat ourselves… Hurry…”
Urging Steph to get a move on, Shiro shifted her eyes—outside…
At their friends, who were fighting outside the bag.
Steph scratched her head furiously before steeling her nerves—she was ready.
She put her hands on both of the siblings’ heads and began rubbing them, just as she’d been asked to.
“Uh…there, there, you two— I’m, uh, not quite sure in what way, per se, but…you’re both such good children… Just don’t ask for specifics, okay? My good little girl and boy…?”
Steph didn’t really know what she should do to spoil them.
Try as she might, she didn’t have any words of praise for the two.
So she focused more on rubbing their heads.
“…Mommy…how…can I make my boobs…as big as yours?”
“Oooh…Mommy…I’m so tired…”
“Stop calling me Mommy!! I—I won’t do this if you’re going to tease me!!”
Hearing Sora’s and Shiro’s words—Sora’s in particular—gave Steph goose bumps, causing her to yell at the two.
“We’re spoiling ourselves with you the best we can!! You’d better take this seriously, Steph!! Compliment us more, FFS!!”
“…And be…more specific… You need…to pretend to be…our mommy…”
“I can’t do this!!!”
Despite having steeled her nerves only moments earlier, she fell apart quite easily.
Steph motioned to throw in the towel—when…
“Little Dora? Are you dissatisfied even though Master chose you over me—?”
“Proposal: Still possible to switch roles. Certainty: This unit can meet Master’s and Little Sister’s needs.”
“Stuch! I dunno what the hell’s going on in there, but you gotta do it, please!!”
“If you guys really can’t figure this out—then we’ll hafta retreat, we will!!”
It wasn’t just Sora and Shiro who were pleading to her, but those fighting outside.
Steph could hear in their voices that Izuna and Til were also struggling to keep up with the enemy.
“ ”
Inside the cramped inventory bag, Steph looked up and quietly closed her eyes…
We’re in a battle to save the world.
It’s my duty to protect everyone. To defeat the Devil. Winning this game will ultimately save the world…
I need to protect everyone. I can protect them—my friends fighting outside the bag, too, and the world! And all those who wish to live in it !
“…Oh, children… Come here, you two sillies…”
And thus, with the weight of the world on her shoulders, Steph took on her role in the most natural of ways. Her tone was compassionate beyond compare.
She pulled Sora and Shiro in close, and they both looked up at her, wide-eyed in confusion—and then.
Steph let go of her pride and dignity to oblige them in a way that they wished her to—nay, in a way that went far beyond their wildest dreams.
She poured into them all the love she had to offer…
With that, Steph awakened to her new role: the party’s main healer.
No—the siblings bore witness to the sudden emergence of this world’s Mother Teresa……
They were in the bag for all of thirty minutes…
“Report: This unit acquired the skill Analyze. Praise me, Master?”
“Master…I apologize for interrupting you during your time of rest, and having yet to unlock a skill of my own makes it even more difficult for me to say this…but I believe I am approaching my limit in terms of saving enough MP to warp us back…”
“King Sora, Queen Shiro!! This is getting pretty tough, it is!! Do you still need more time…?”
“I-I’m not finished yet, please…!”
The room didn’t even look the same after the many rocks the golem had thrown, but the team managed to dodge the nonstop barrage—no.
Though the four members’ physical abilities far surpassed that of the Immanities’, dodging all the attacks proved to be impossible. This, combined with the use of newly unlocked skills, left the active members with nearing critical levels of HP and MP.
Signs of weakness could be heard in their voices as they called for help.
Their calls, however, didn’t go unanswered.
Though it wasn’t quite the answer they were expecting:
“Everyone except me and Shiro, into the bag.”
Huh?
The members of the party who got sucked into the bag were equally confused.
The moment Sora emerged, he unleashed a Flashbang Shot, whiting out the room.
In the bag itself:
“It’s r-really cramped in here! I thought it was bad with three people, but five is going overboard!!”
“L-Lady Steph…your two giant— They’re killing me, they are… I can’t…breathe…”
“Ow?! Who the hell stepped on my tail, please?!”
The rest of the party was stuck trying to figure out how to fit themselves in the tight space, but their bickering turned to utter shock when the bright light quelled.
Their shock was not at the Rock Golem lying facedown on the ground, but toward their two friends who fought it—or what was above their heads.
“Lady Steph, what did you do to them to get them back that much MP?!”
They had been in the bag for only thirty minutes…
Though it was by no means a short amount of time for the four members fighting the Rock Golem on the outside, it was an unimaginably short amount of time to recover the amount of MP the siblings had.
Til and the rest of the party stared at Steph, who they were pressed up against—but.
“I will never tell you! And I’m never doing it again!!”
Red in the face, Steph shook her head and refused to answer.
But above her embarrassed face were her own HP and MP bars, which had also regenerated.
Not only that, but even her skin condition seemed to improve, for whatever reason…leaving the party with one question.
Whatever they did, it was PG. So what exactly did Sora, Shiro, and Steph do to get this much MP back? Why is she acting like this?
What did they do in this bag…?
It wasn’t just Til; Jibril and Emir-Eins stared questioningly at Steph.
But she shook her head once more.
“Enough about that! Are we really going to let those two fight the boss alone?!”
“ !!”
The party remembered the severity of the situation they were in, albeit belatedly.
They looked outside the bag—Sora’s Flashbang Shot didn’t seem to last as long against the boss.
The two Immanities were far too weak to face off against the Rock Golem, which was already starting to get back up.
The girls in the bag were just about to cry out in horror, when:
“C’mon, guys…we can’t let you have all the fun.”
“…Now…it’s our…turn… ”
Only thirty minutes ago, the siblings were depressed and emaciated. But it was as if none of that had ever happened.
The Rock Golem was several times larger than the two, but it didn’t matter.
They were their usual selves again—savage, fierce grins and all.
Immanity’s most powerful gamers—Blank.
“You said it yourselves: This guy’s got nothing on me and Shiro when we have all our MP.”
“…It’s time…to lock down…the boss…and kick his ass.”
Til and Izuna were right about what they said about us. So now it’s time to put on a show!
With a low bellow—the Rock Golem swung its mighty arms, flinging rocks violently through the air.
Mere humans such as Sora and Shiro couldn’t possibly dodge this attack.
It should’ve thrown the two into despair. But it didn’t.
The siblings calmly reached for their left wrists, each using the buttons on the menus under their status bars.
They held up their hope-based weapons—and Shiro was the first to speak:
“…Ricochet Shot… Hollow-Point Shot…”
Undodgeable rocks? Yeah, okay.
But who says you have to dodge ’em?
The Rock Golem had thrown one of its massive hails of stones toward the siblings with its right arm—but.
Not a single one found its target; neither Sora nor Shiro took even a single step.
Then came the left arm’s attack, which had the same result. The Rock Golem spoke in the Demonia tongue—probably something to the effect of “How can this be?”
Shiro’s two skills…
The first, Ricochet Shot, made her bullets bounce from target to target. The second, Hollow-Point Shot, allowed her to clear this game’s biggest hurdle: It added a knockback effect to her bullets.
The Rock Golem had no way of knowing that these two skills stacked.
Nor did it realize that Shiro didn’t need a skill to land eight bullets from her twin Machine Pistols.
The magical bullets struck the stones in midair, sending them off course and away from the siblings.
Some of the bullets even found their way to the Rock Golem’s left arm, preventing its next attack with the knockback effect…
The Rock Golem definitely didn’t know any of this.
And even if it did, it would neither understand nor accept the power of these incredible bullets.
Sora knew what Shiro was capable of, and he didn’t bat an eye when the Rock Golem tried to continue attacking out of confusion.
He knew that the result would be the same this time, too.
Therefore, without fear, or much emotion at all, he got down low and aimed his gun’s massive barrel—and thought.
About his own weapon, his own hope…and what that should look like:
Yeah… This game turns our hope into weapons.
I thought each of our weapons looked and functioned way differently by nature, but that ain’t the case. The rules are the rules—our weapons are just the shape of our hope.
Firing my weapon will deal a certain amount of damage…
It all depends on how much damage you believe you’ll deal—how much MP you use!
This was why Emir-Eins used up all her MP in one OP attack.
The same probably goes for Jibril—so. If that’s the case…
How much damage will I actually do…?
Sure, my weapon may be weak… It makes sense, ’cause I’m weak!!
I’m not strong like Emir-Eins or Izuna or Til, that’s for sure!!
And I’m not a genius like Shiro, either! I’m just an ordinary, weak dude!!
So why the hell was I given a high-caliber Anti-Matter Rifle?!
The strength of my weapon probably lies in the bullet I use—
—the payload of its bullets is where my damage hides!!!
“ Projectile Shot!!”
Clunk! Feeling the weight of his gun shift as the bullet in his chamber changed—Sora pulled the trigger!
It left his barrel with a beam of light, only to split into multiple pieces before hitting its target.
These pieces were explosives that destroyed the outer shell that protected the Rock Golem.
The skill was a debuff that lowered the target’s defense!!
With this debuff active, Shiro’s bullets began dealing their original damage.
That said, this wasn’t over yet.
In fact, the siblings were just getting started!
With a fierce grin, Sora shouted again before pulling the trigger!!
“There’s more where that came from! Flashbang Shot!! And how about this?! Napalm Shot!! Venom Shot!!”
The same loud flash from before stunned the enemy and threw it off-balance, knocking the golem to the floor.
This was followed by a bullet that left its target engulfed in flames, then one that covered it in toxic venom.
These were DoT—damage-over-time—effects that slowly applied damage.
“And for the finisher!! Detonation Shot! Eat this!!”
Sora’s fifth shot used the most MP yet—except it fired a tube that attached to the Rock Golem, instead of dealing damage.
Thus, the enemy was on the ground, unable to do anything.
Its shell had been ripped off, its defenses were lowered, and it was on fire and covered in poison.
All the poor golem could do was flail around while it tried to regain its bearings, when:
“Heh, ha-ha—HAAA-HA-HA-HA!! That’s right! Have I ever tried to fight a battle head-on?! Why did we think I could use a weapon based on pure brawn?! I’m Sora, the pathetic nineteen-year-old virgin!!”
That’s right—my weapon. The shape of my hope. My true nature!!
Is to be a debuffer! To incapacitate my enemies by getting in their way!!
“First, we stopped you in your tracks! Then, we defanged you!! Now that you can’t move, we’re beating you while you’re down!! And the best way to end these things is to make you end them yourself!!!”
“…Brother…you’re so, cheap…! You’re…the coolest… ”
Sora was shouting at the top of his lungs—it was clear he was enjoying himself.
And just as the siblings said, they continued to pelt the immobilized giant with bullets.
“Not so tough now, eh?! Where’d Mr. Big Scary Rock Guy go?! Go on, get up! We’ll just hit you with another Flashbang Shot and Hollow-Point Shots when you do! Ah-ha-ha-haaa!!”
“…Heh…heh-heh… You’re just…another trash mob… Look at you…on the ground… How’s it…feel…to be a…trash mob…? We love…to see it. ”
Incessant gunfire followed.
The Rock Golem that Til and Izuna could barely damage saw its HP get whittled down to almost nothing—
“Wh-whoa… Sora and Shiro are gonna freakin’ do it, please!!”
“Whew! I knew it, I did! I knew this guy would be a cinch for those two!!”
“Re-recognition: Master is incredible. This unit’s favorability of Master has risen more… Blush.”
“Oh, I knew you could do it, my lord…! That was incredible!”
“…I think Sora and Shiro might be the real devils here…”
From within the bag came four voices of praise and one of utter shock…
When your HP and MP—your hope—run out, despair gets the best of you—it slows you down.
Sora didn’t even need to stun the Rock Golem anymore; it had stopped moving.
Everyone thought this meant victory for Sora and Shiro…until it happened.
As soon as the Rock Golem’s HP fell below 20 percent—
Its MP—which was around 30 percent—shot down to zero.
However:
“Whoo-wee! Another one down… He was tough even without the armor, eh?”
“…I hate bosses…where the gimmick is their HP and defense… It’s just…tedious…”
Either the siblings weren’t worried about it, or they didn’t realize, because they turned away from the Rock Golem—
“M-Master?! The enemy seems to be attempting something—!”
“S-switch with me, Sora!! Use me in the fight!!”
Sora and Shiro heard Jibril and Steph panicking in unison.
It wasn’t clear what the golem was trying to do.
But despite how many attacks it’d made during the battle, it still had 30 percent of its MP left, which it used all at once.
The scale of whatever attack was about to come had the entire party screaming, but:
“Ya hear that, Shiro? They think some big finale, self-destruct kind of attack is about to come. You better tell ’em.”
“…Mm. Let’s just…say…they shouldn’t…doubt Blank… ”
The siblings spoke with smiles plastered across their faces—and boom.
The Rock Golem was engulfed in a bright light—and then self-destructed.
,
,
“…………Did it just…?”
That’s right—it self-destructed…
At least, that was what it looked like to Steph when a small explosion occurred and depleted the remainder of the Rock Golem’s HP in one go.
But that wasn’t how things looked to the higher-ranking races in the bag.
The Rock Golem had tried taking the siblings down with it, but just before that happened…
The tube that Sora had attached to the golem during the fight began to light up.
The party realized that all the MP that had gone into the self-destruction turned into an attack that affected only the Rock Golem itself.
It was Sora’s fifth skill—Detonation Shot…
Detonation Shot turned the target’s MP against it…
The skill itself didn’t deal any damage on impact and took a lot of MP—but.
Depending on how much MP the target used to attack, the damage that Detonation Shot did to its target increased accordingly—a quintessential Sora move.
“And I even told them the enemy would finish himself off for us.”
“…You guys…need to listen to people…more… ”
With only a sliver of HP left, the Rock Golem was enveloped in the light that signified its defeat.
The siblings turned around, stuck out their tongues, and gave each other a high five.
“And with that…we’ve cleared today’s goal of beating the thirtieth-floor boss.”
“…Let’s…go…home…”
The siblings said this—accomplishing the goal they’d set for themselves.
They really did beat the Rock Golem without the help of their tank, and their impressive feat didn’t go unnoticed.
Outside the Tower, the game’s overseers watched the fight come to an end on a big screen.
They were the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Devil’s Army, and they all gulped in unison.
Sure…the party was still only on the thirtieth floor.
That was less than 30 percent of the entire dungeon.
But…the thirtieth-floor boss, the Rock Golem, was supposed to be one of the dungeon’s biggest challenges.
Even the Dwarf party from four hundred and eight years ago couldn’t beat this boss without losing some members…
There were still many Demonias who awaited them…
This, of course, included Demonias far stronger than the Rock Golem they’d just defeated.
And that Rock Golem, the leader of its tribe, could barely even move…
It called into question something vital:
What could anyone in the Tower do to stop these two heroes…?
The Joint Chiefs of Staff knew every one of their personnel, and yet they couldn’t envision any of them winning against the hero’s party.
Even worse…
“…They can’t possibly…defeat the Devil, can they…?”
What if they could defeat the Devil…?
It was a highly disrespectful idea to toy with, but Genau Ih spoke for his staff when he let these words slip—however.
“Gah-ha-ha-ha!! Finally!! Heroes worthy of battle with me!! Excellent!! You deserve praise, Schira Ha!! These are, as you say, the heroes I’ve long awaited!!”
“Indeed!! Mweh-heh…Your Evilness, everything shall go as you wish.”
The Devil—that is, the fragment of him in Schira Ha’s arms—cackled.
It was an arrogant and fearless laugh, but it put the staff at ease. Embarrassed, they realized:
This is the Devil. Our creator. The one who shall destroy everything and yet leave us with an eternal fantasy.
Yes—there is no being capable of defeating Him…!!
“…Yeah… Let’s go home… Might as well just die… So, what, my only talent is ruining all the fun for others with debuffs…? Who gave this hopeless virgin who brings others down permission to live…?”
“…Dying… I could get…behind that… I mean…my boobs aren’t gonna…grow either way… I’ve known it, from the start…”
The siblings had put on a show like Til and Izuna had asked for—and now they had less than 10 percent of their MP left and were wrestling with true despair.
“Oh no!! W-we should switch, we should!! E-everyone, get out of the bag!!”
“Sora! Shiro! I’ll cry my damn eyes out if you guys die, please!!”
“Urgent: Formulating emergency protocol. Designation: Would Master like a good handful of these milkers, as mentioned previously?”
“King Sora!! What were you going to do if your Detonator Shot didn’t finish the boss off all the way?! You don’t have enough MP right now to finish off the last twenty percent now, you don’t!!”
“…I put on a show…despite having a flat chest… Just let me…die…okay…?”
“I’m really sorry, guys. I was born without a plan and still can’t make one. At least let me plan my suicide.”
“J-Jibril!! Please shift us back to the start, this instant!!”
“B-but of course!! Master, please find the will to live for just a moment longer!!”
The party rushed out of the bag upon their slow realization of Sora’s and Shiro’s mental states—
…Uh…maybe our staff can deal with the problem before the heroes reach the Devil?
It might end up solving itself, if we’re lucky…
The Demonia staff had such high expectations for the siblings during that battle, but they watched those expectations plummet with a smile.
“…Schira Ha…are you certain they’ll be able to make it to me?”
The Devil shot Schira Ha a questioning look.
“Mweh-heh…heh-heh-heh……… Y-yes…?”
She averted her eyes and responded with a quavering voice……
It was ten floors a day from there.
Every time the party entered the dungeon, they explored each corner of the next ten floors, defeated its boss, then went home.
They spent two days working on their mental health, then returned on the third day, where they speed-ran the dungeon until the point where they’d previously left off.
Then they were back in for ten more floors and a boss battle before going home.
It was a long process, yet they stayed the course; slowly but surely, the party advanced through the Tower dungeon.
With every tenth floor, the terrain changed—first, they were on a beautiful beach, and then, a glittering desert.
And with each new stage came new mobs and a new boss, all stronger than the previous ones.
Each hero unlocked more skills and obtained more gear from treasure chests.
Some of the armor they found—primarily armor that Steph was forced to wear—they used during the boss fights, only to end up getting destroyed, leaving Steph a naked mess. The other powerful armor, though, they held on to—
Before long, thirteen days had passed since their initial entrance into the Tower dungeon.
On their fifth trip, the party headed to the fiftieth floor—
“Ha-ha-ha! There they are!! I’ve been waiting for this!!”
“Sora?! Wh-what do you think you’re doing?!”
It was a harsh volcano stage full of molten magma.
The cliff that jutted out of the lava flow was connected by a series of suspension bridges, which acted as a maze. At any given moment, they could easily fall into the magma, where they assumed the heat would eat through their HP for an instant game-over…and thus…death—however.
When the volcano stage’s enemies came to attack, Sora screamed with joy.
Steph, who clung to Til for dear life, screamed at him in horror…
“Why did you attack the enemies?! They didn’t even notice us yet!!”
“Why, you ask? Because I’m happy we’ve finally made it to the stage with some mobs I’ve been waiting for—these beautiful Demonia babes!!”
The mobs that Sora aggroed were none other than flying Demonias with two wings instead of arms.
Harpies—and without a stitch on them!
That explained why Sora was so happy when he answered Steph.
Oh yeah… There’s been humanoid Demonias—but they were all monsters.
These babes are demons—a higher-ranking species. I knew we’d come across them at some point, but I thought it would take longer!
This earlier-than-expected encounter meant it was time for Sora to use a new skill!!
The second he saw the harpies on the fifty-first floor, he deployed this skill in rapid succession.
He used…his Projectile Shot.
This skill ripped the armor off skeletons and the Rock Golem from earlier floors—lowering their defenses!
Which meant it should have a similar effect against the clothes of the beautiful harpies!!
As such, the enraged group of harpies came flying toward the party—while skillfully keeping their most private parts hidden—screeching the entire time.
“Jibril! Are they speaking a Demonia language?! Can you tell what they’re saying?!” Sora yelled, and the answer came from within the bag:
“It roughly translates to: You do realize this is flat-out sexual harassment, right?! This might be a game, but that doesn’t mean we won’t sue you!! Or something along those lines. ”
It was what he thought they were saying, although a bit more modern than he’d expected.
“Then tell them to shut up!! ’Cause we’re playing by the same rules that leave you naked when your armor breaks!! If they wanna sue someone, they need to sue their boss who made this game!!”
“The only one who ever ends up naked on our side is me, though!!”
“Sora! Sora! Can we kill these damn birds, please?!”
“It’s getting difficult to dodge them on such uneven ground, it is!!”
Sora instantly answered his fellow heroes with the calculated risk-based decision expected of an IGL—all while ignoring Steph’s question!
“Nope!! They’re too embarrassed to fly straight—we’ll use our speed to outrun ’em! They shouldn’t be a threat as long as they focus on Steph’s shield, so let’s keep searching the floor!! The eye candy should keep my MP pool healthy!! Steph might even lose her armor again!! Emir-Eins, I want you to record everything within sight and send it to my smartphone later!! Can you do that for me?!”
“Report: Recording already in progress. Capturing images with maximum zoom, picture quality, and frame rate.”
“…Brother…I wonder if…I can knock just the…arms they’re using, to cover their chests…with my Hollow-Point Shot…?”
“Your genius never ceases to amaze me, Shiro!! Do it!!”
“Hello, harpies?! I will join you if you sue these two in a court of law!!”
As they navigated a stage where one wrong step could lead to a fiery death…
Sora and Shiro never stopped enjoying themselves, for the most part.
Until…
They made it to the fifty-ninth floor with ease, where they stood before the boss door, which sat at the end of a very long hall.
However, two powerful-looking suits of armor were standing on either side of the door, guarding it.
And although they saw the party members, the Living Armor didn’t charge the party aimlessly.
The party had been stuck in this spot, thinking about their next move, for almost twenty minutes…
“So…what are we going to do? Those two enemies look powerful.”
“Affirmative: As per this unit’s Analyze skill, each monster is ninety-one percent as strong as the Minotaur boss from the tenth floor.”
“Then perhaps we should forgo fighting the boss today? Seeing as a certain someone wasted their MP playing around? What have you been contemplating for twenty minutes anyway…?”
Steph shot Sora and Shiro a doubtful look upon hearing Emir-Eins’s analysis.
It was unclear how powerful this upcoming boss would be, but the party had only about 60 percent of their MP at this point.
It was difficult to imagine they would have the strength necessary to fight the next boss after clearing out these two enemies, each of whom was as strong as the first boss.
Which left the party with two choices:
Beat the two sets of Living Armor today and go home, or—
“…Just so you know, I will not help you recover MP this time, either.”
Steph refused to assist the siblings who’d just been dicking around with naked harpies and nagas.
Which really left the party with only one choice—but Sora and Shiro ignored Steph and kept their eyes on the enemy—
“That’s fine… We’re just waiting for those two to leave.”
“Come again…?”
Evidently, there was a third option, which the party was already taking, unbeknownst to Steph.
“Did you forget how great this country’s work environment is?”
Some monsters that the party didn’t defeat—and sometimes didn’t even engage with—disappeared and reappeared.
Sora looked to his sister, and they both nodded.
“…Almost there… In ten…nine…eight…”
“Awesome. Get ready to go, guys. Ready, aaand—RUN!!”
The two began running straight for the two sets of Living Armor, and the other three members scrambled to follow.
So we are going to fight?!
Steph held up her shield and prepared for battle—but.
“…Two…one…zeeero… ”
As soon as Shiro had finished her countdown, the two mobs suddenly vanished.
Huh?
“All right! Time for the boss, guys! Get ready to fight!!”
“Wait, what?! What just happened?!”
Steph spoke for the rest of the party by sharing her confusion.
“That should be obvious! They’re changing shifts!!”
Sora answered her while he sprinted down the hallway past the spot where the Living Armor was—
“It’s what we heard before we started! This game is being run on four shifts to keep it running twenty-four seven!! This is a shift change!!”
Passing by the spot where the Living Armor left exactly on time for their work schedule, the party arrived at the boss room doors. They watched as the magic seal disappeared from the door, and—
“There are a few seconds of lag when the staff changes—we can skip the boss this way, too!!”
Two new sets of Living Armor respawned, but didn’t start moving yet…
“Wait, so—the reason the bosses we defeated don’t respawn is…”
Til was finally up to speed on the boss situation, and Sora nodded with a grin.
Just as Schira Ha had said before, when the staff’s HP reached zero, they were sent to a facility outside the Tower where they rehabilitated their work-related injuries and were given some time off.
Whenever the Demonia staff were about to run out of HP, they were teleported out of the dungeon…which meant!
“The staff that need treatment are given month-long breaks for their mental health. And there’s no replacements for the unique monsters such as the bosses! This place really does have the best benefits. ”
All the bosses the party had defeated thus far…
The half-cow, half-man Minotaur; the giant plant creature Triffid; the boulder-slinging Rock Golem…and the rest of the monsters…
The party imagined them all being on vacation, taking the time they needed to recover—
“Wow… What an incredible place to work…!”
Steph was moved by the realization she’d finally made as the party leaped through the door, and when they saw the two-headed Cerberus woman who awaited them in the sixtieth-floor boss room—
“Got another babe in my sights!! Preparing my Projectile Shot!! …Crap!! Looks like bosses can’t be stripped in one hit!! Then you’re just gonna hafta eat a lot more of these!! I’ve got this, guys!!”
“…Til…Izzy…! Give, us cover until we…can strip the boss…”
“You want us to save our MP until she has less defense, you do!! Got it!!”
“Correction: Course of action also maximizes time of boss nudity and video length captured by this unit.”
“Oh, that’s the plan?! You sure are a hopeless little brother, you are! Roger that!!”
The party—Steph’s coworkers—engaged in fierce sexual harassment against one of the Devil’s beautiful henchwomen, and Steph thought:
I’d rather work for the Devil’s Army…
She watched as the poor Cerberus woman’s clothes were ripped away. A tear ran down her cheek as she held up her shield…
The party defeated the Cerberus woman without trouble.
They returned home with Evac and got a nice night’s worth of sleep, bringing them to the next morning.
The light of the morning sun shone in on the preparation room—and just like every morning they spent there, the party ate the food that Schira Ha and the skeleton brought into the kitchen for Steph to busily prepare. With Til’s expertise no longer needed, she was allowed to drink some ale while tending to her hammer. Shiro worked on her stretches and Sora, his exercise regimen.
After two weeks, the party had grown accustomed to their daily routine.
And the furball—or Devil—said once more…
“…C’mon, guys. Why do you keep coming back here…?”
He had the same question for the party every time he saw them, and they always gave him the same answer.
“Really? We’ve been over this: Is the head of state seriously going to neglect his own nation’s laws? You guys are the ones with an eight-hour workday and four-day workweek here. You do know that eight hours is the max and not the minimum, right? I’ll report you to the Department of Labor if I have to.”
“And what party of heroes goes through the Department of Labor to fight the Devil?! And you fools are only working every third day!! That’s not even four days a week!! Me and my staff have been waiting for you for fourteen days straight, I’ll have you know!!”
Even the rattling skeleton who was nodding to the Devil’s statement appeared to be very tired—
“…We’re just…gonna…chill.”
“You guys should take some more time off. We’re not going anywhere while we rest.”
The siblings responded with a distinct lack of interest in the question in the first place.
“That’s not the issue here!! I don’t know what happened in there, but I do know your party has a method of healing MP inside the bag, right?! You could use that to progress much faster than this!! And I’ve grown tired of even pointing it out, but you really must do something about this blasted pooch!! You’re gonna make me cry!!”
“I’m not lettin’ you go today, please. You smell damn nice, please. You’re sleeping with me tonight, please.”
This was Izuna’s routine—gnawing and nipping at the Devil whenever he came to complain about them.
Tears were welling up in the Devil’s eyes. The entire party looked to Steph.
It remained a mystery to everyone—save for Sora and Shiro—what exactly Steph had done inside the bag to heal MP.
They looked to Steph with pleading eyes, hoping against hope for an answer: Are you ever going to tell us?
“…I will never tell you what I did, and I’m never going to do it again.”
“ There you go. She’s not gonna let us do it that way, so we need to get some R and R.”
Steph flat out rejected the group’s interrogation, leaving them pouting in disappointment.
And then:
“R-right. Very well, then. It doesn’t matter in the long run, for I am immortal and almighty, and your efforts are futile!!”
The furball menaced the party like he always did, but the party had figured it out a long time ago:
This furball’s just bored and wants something to do…
“I suppose if you heroes are given the time, you will eventually reach me. Then so be it: Time I shall give you!!”
The Devil, oblivious to his own boredom, flashed a big smile.
“It doesn’t matter how many years I must wait—use the single life you are allotted to try and defeat the Devil, O Heroes! Gah-ha-ha-ha— Hey, pooch. I’m trying to make an exit!!”
“Hell no…please…! We’re sleeping in the same damn bed tonight, please!! Mnghhh!!”
Izuna fought to keep her toy, who vanished with a poof whenever the skeleton and Schira Ha eventually left.
The preparation room soon filled with Izuna’s wails.
Then Steph gave herself a little pep talk:
“He is right! With enough time, we should be able to win this game!”
The Demonias the party faced were growing stronger and stronger.
It was getting to the point where if they weren’t careful, some of the regular mobs could pose a threat.
For Sora and Shiro, it would take only a single mistake for the game to come crashing to an end—this much hadn’t changed.
But what did change…
Sora and Shiro, who were untouchable by the thirtieth floor, had each gained another skill.
Til unlocked three, Izuna two, and Steph one more skill.
Any equipment they found along the way remained largely untouched. The party always had Emir-Eins’s burst damage and—most important—Jibril’s ability to shift the party back to the first floor, which she could do during a fight…
It was the party’s backup plan, should a boss battle take a wrong turn.
They could run the dungeon as much as they needed, healing HP and MP when they needed…
“It’s true… At this point, nothing about this game can make us lose,” said Steph.
“We just need to get to the hundredth floor and fight the Devil to win this, we do!!”
The rest of the party seemed to agree with Steph’s optimistic take, with the exception of one person. It was Sora, who was heading to the shower along with his sister—he remained silent, not even nodding.
He was thinking about questions that had been on his mind the entire time…
These were questions commonly held by people who played RPGs where the objective was to defeat a nebulous Devil character…
For example: Why does the Devil want to destroy the world?
Or: Why do the player characters recover HP and MP by sleeping in an inn?
Why are there treasure chests in dungeons? Et cetera, et cetera…
Why do the enemies’ bodies disappear?
Why don’t the bosses respawn…?
All questions Sora had gained over a lifetime of gaming…
And this world had reasonable answers for most of them.
But…if that was the case.
Then, just as the Devil had said so plainly only a moment before, with a wicked smile; something he said with hope and desire—and another emotion—in his eyes.
A standard line, and something that always had Sora confused when the enemy said it in games—
It was his biggest question—and if like the others, it had a simple answer…
“Then…this might not be so easy…,” Sora whispered to himself with a grim expression……
In the Republic of Elkia—in the parliament president’s office sat Chlammy, who was diligently coping with her nausea to get through another stack of documents…when suddenly:
She came across a lone sheet of paper—which stated that it had been two weeks since the Commonwealth challenged the Devil.
She then turned to her friend sitting next to her, Fiel, and asked a question out of the blue…
“…Fi. Why do you think the Devil waged war against Elkia alone this time?”
Whenever the Devil revived, he challenged the entire world to war.
During the Great War, after the Covenants were established—and when he revived four hundred and fifteen years ago, this was how it always happened.
But why was it different this time…? Chlammy asked Fiel this, but—
“The Intelligence Department believes Schira Ha the Wise convinced the Devil to do so. They claim that Demonia is on the same side as the Front… Though that doesn’t make much sense to meee…”
Fiel had the same question, to which she received only lackluster answers.
Even more confusing was that Schira Ha had resigned from the Devil’s Army Joint Chiefs of Staff…
Many questions about the game that was being played and the situation behind it went unanswered, leaving Fiel in deep thought.
But once more, out of nowhere.
A new question arose in Chlammy’s mind.
…It was hard to tell whether this came from her own thoughts, or if they were part of Sora’s memories, but she asked it anyway.
“…Fi… What is the Devil?”
“…Hm? It is a Phantasma that is trying to destroy the world, yesss?”
Fiel looked confused by Chlammy’s question.
She had told Chlammy this over and over. It was written in every document they had on the subject matter…
But Chlammy was never satisfied with it.
And although she wasn’t satisfied, she didn’t quite know how to express what exactly she took issue with, so she usually kept her doubts to herself.
This time, however, she tried to work out with Fiel what had her so confused…
“It’s not that… I’m asking why the Devil exists.”
Fiel looked even more confused, and Chlammy tried to pick her words more carefully.
“First…there’s something so unnatural about the Devil’s game, isn’t there?”
The Devil gave you everything of his if you won his game.
He had the power to create and steal life—he had his own race, and their own Race Piece.
He waged all of this against nothing more than the despair of those who challenged him. Not only that, but—
“There isn’t a single agent plenipoitentiary who would ever bet their Race Piece in a game like this.”
When Immanity split into two factions, and the republic came into existence, Sora and Shiro were no longer the Immanity agent plenipotentiary—they were just the Kingdom of Elkia.
Jibril, Emir-Eins, Nýi Tilvilg, Izuna Hatsuse, and Stephanie Dola—all of them were…
“What does the Devil have to gain from winning this game? Why would he wager his own life and creations, the Demonia race—against anyone who was willing to accept his challenge…?”
“ Ah, are you referring to the conspiracy behind this game?”
This was something that Fiel thought when she first learned the rules.
She now understood where Chlammy was coming from. Red light shone in on the office from the setting sun as Fiel gave her friend a thin grin.
Fiel knew there was something more to the game, but—
“No, that’s not what I’m talking about. I think it is something more fundamental…”
“…?”
No, not that. Chlammy shook her head at Fiel.
She thought even more about how to convey this strange feeling she had about the game…
“The Devil did the same during the Great War: Challenged any hero willing to face him—though it wasn’t framed as a game back then. He was supposed to be a nightmare that would bring the world to its end, and yet he went out of his way to have heroes fight him? It’s almost as if—”
,
…As if…
Chlammy stopped herself there. She figured out where this strange feeling came from.
It was clear to her that her doubt stemmed from Sora’s memories…
In Sora’s memories were countless questions posed toward an imaginary Devil…
A being who tried to destroy the world, and always had a convenient way for heroes to defeat him.
He had so many questions—and criticisms—about the idea of an ultimate evil.
But his biggest question was:
“…Why does the Devil act as if he wants someone to defeat him?”
“ Because…”
The Devil said he wanted to destroy the world, and yet always left a path for others to prevent him from doing that—he contradicted his very own existence.
It was as if he was a mere plot device. Something that needed to be there.
To give the illusion of a good story—and if this was the case.
“Who shared the same fantasy of a Devil that brings about world destruction…?”
“……………………”
Though Fiel didn’t have an answer to this question, Sora’s memories led Chlammy to a certain explanation…
In Sora’s world, the concept of a Devil—of a big, bad enemy—existed only in fiction.
It was an obstacle for players to overcome—nothing more, nothing less.
But in Disboard…the Devil actually existed.
He was real, but only as a convenient plot device for heroes to overcome—an ultimate evil.
If the Devil…a Phantasma…was born from the world’s imagination…and if the theory floating around in Sora’s memories was correct…
“Then this is just…too cruel…”
So cruel that the nauseating documents that piled up on her desk seemed almost innocent.
It was a wickedly hideous theory—one Chlammy prayed was incorrect.
This much she hoped with disgust as she looked off into the distance, toward Garad Golm…
It was day nineteen of the heroes’ party’s time in the Tower dungeon.
On their seventh trip up the Tower, they ventured into the seventy-first floor, which—like each ten-floor set prior—took on new terrain.
This stage was something out of a certain toxic valley that stole life in the most brutal fashion. The party waded through the disgusting mire…
…until they reached the boss on the eightieth floor—a very high-ranking Demonia.
The party barely managed to defeat the beautiful arachne—barely…
“Damn… I know we can go back and recover, but you never get used to this despair…”
The party needed to make liberal use of their stronger skills to stand a chance against more powerful enemies—
Doing so required a lot of MP; everyone had around 20 percent left after the boss fight. Sora was mentally and physically exhausted—but Steph responded to his remark with visible skepticism…
“You sure looked happy earlier when you stripped the poor arachne woman naked, and you never even gave her the chance to cover her exposed breasts with any of her eight hands… You deserve what you get.”
“Negative: No inefficiencies in Master’s operation. Every action taken was a well-calculated, strategic decision.”
“Also, Little Dora? Post-battle clarity is a healthy part of Immanity male physiology. ”
Steph still had her doubts about her inventory-bound companions’ evaluations, but she agreed, for the most part, with Sora.
This time, Shiro, Til, and even Steph had used the lion’s share of their MP pools, leaving them visibly exhausted.
While it was true that they could go home and recoup—it didn’t change the fact that they felt this depressed whenever they approached utter despair.
And they knew it would happen again, too.
Though their mental fatigue was plain as day—
“B-but! We only have the ninetieth-floor boss left! Twenty more floors and one more boss until floor one hundred—the Devil! And then we clear the game!! We’re almost finished. ”
Despite her low HP and MP, Steph shook her head and forced a smile as she hit the party with some positivity—however.
“ We’ll see about that…”
“………Oh?”
Crap… I’m letting my lack of MP get the best of me…
Sora had accidentally shot Steph down.
The party looked at him. They wanted to know the meaning behind what he’d said, and he got frustrated with himself for his slip of the tongue.
He then turned to the open door and asked:
“You guys wanna do just one more floor this time…?”
“Huh? But look at everyone, and look at you! There’s no way we can stomach any more today.”
“Yeah, I know. We’ll shift outta here as soon as we get a look. Jibril and Emir-Eins, I want you two out of the bag on standby.”
Sora spoke with no enthusiasm as he began to lug himself up the stairs.
Jibril and Emir-Eins warped out of the bag, and together, the six confused party members followed Sora.
Even if we leave now, we’ll find out what’s up here in a few days after a break. So why not get a peek and take the time to process it while we recover?
Sora wanted to forget about the words he’d just let slip. He turned around and looked at his party members.
Every ten floors, the terrain changed drastically…
Their adventure started in a holy castle befitting a holy king.
Next was a forest paradise. This was followed by a limestone cavern that oozed with nature’s mystique.
After that was a glimmering cove with deep blue water and a desert dotted with treasure-like oases…
Each stage was defined by its stunning beauty.
But this all changed from the fifty-first floor on.
First was a volcano that had them staring death in the face, and then ruins that were tucked into thick fog and darkness.
And finally, a gloomy, toxic, swampy valley with miasma floating through the air…
Which meant it was about time for—
“…I think…the Devil’s true nature is gonna manifest in the last two stages…,” Sora muttered to himself as he dragged his legs through the door.
And just as he suspected…
He and the rest of the party had the same reaction to what awaited them on the eighty-first floor.
“ Wh-what is this…place…?”
The group was at a loss for words, struggling to contain a scream.
This—was the answer that Sora had predicted.
If there was an answer as to why the Devil was an all-too-convenient trope—then it would be this.
Sora finally knew his suspicions were correct, and he proceeded to show a troubled, strained grin before thinking…
FML…I guess I was right……
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