Chapter Ten: Strangers
“Hya!” Raphtalia shouted, slicing a monster that leapt at her in half.
“They just keep on coming! There weren’t so many of them outside, so I guess I got careless.”
We were working our way through the tunnels to get to the temple ruins, but we were running into so many familiars that our progress was slowing down. The cave system must have been a nest for the familiars. That was the only way to explain it.
Even worse, the map was proving mostly useless. My patience was starting to wear thin.
It was fun to explore dungeons in an RPG, but we didn’t have the time to waste on exploration. We only had the time we did because Fitoria was still locked in battle with the Spirit Tortoise. And it even had more heads than it had when I’d fought it. She was out there fighting for us, in a hailstorm of exploding missiles. It was no time to go exploring.
We had to rely on intuition and luck as we trudged through the tunnels on our way to the temple. And then we came to a fork in the road.
I turned to the queen and asked, “Which way do we go?”
“The tunnels themselves may have changed, but I believe we are still moving in the right direction.”
“I believe it may lie . . . over there,” Ost said. She pointed in the opposite direction of where we thought the town ruins were.
“That’s the opposite direction. Are you sure?”
“Somehow . . . I feel like I can see the way through, very faint, there . . . sorry.”
Do we trust Ost’s intuition, or do we trust in the direction we knew the town to be in?
It was a tough choice, but Ost was actually one of the Spirit Tortoise familiars. She had to be connected to it some way. If so, then it made sense to put our faith in her. Besides, she’d proven herself trustworthy by now. If she betrayed us now, I’d personally see to it that her punishment was severe.
“Alright. Let’s follow Ost for now.”
“Very well. Let us go,” Ost said, and we followed her down the path she chose.
It didn’t take very long to realize that I’d made the right decision. Within a couple of minutes, the tunnel turned sharply and we were once again walking in the direction of the ruined city. Had we taken the other tunnel, it probably would have turned sharply too, but that would have dropped us out on the other side of the mountain.
So I was feeling confident about the choice I’d made, but then we came to another intersection . . . and it was filled with skulking familiars.
“Hey!”
“Icicle Frozen!”
Before the monsters could even notice us, Raphtalia was on them with her sword, and the queen cast a spell. Ost used her magic to slow the monster’s movements, and Rishia plunged her sword into a stunned monster.
“Let’s see . . . . where is this tunnel going to take us.”
Ost finished one of the monsters off, and I looked over at her to see a flock of flapping bat-type familiars come rushing around a corner, followed by a group of people.
“Are those adventurers?”
What would adventurers be doing in a place like this? There were three of them.
One of them was a man, and he was a little taller than me. He held a spear in one hand and was wearing heavy armor. All in all, he carried himself gracefully.
The next person was a very white girl with pigtails. She didn’t look childish exactly, but she had a very sharp, alert air about her. She wore light armor, and she didn’t seem very comfortable in it. I got the impression that she hadn’t been doing this for very long. She was shorter than me, but . . . something about her just felt off.
The last person was a woman, and she wore her hair in a short bob. She looked very sophisticated, like she came from a good family or something. She looked like a wizard with a royal bearing. Her hair was . . . red?
All in all, it was a pretty odd-looking group of people.
A lot of adventurers had been drafted to join the coalition army. But the battalion that had been assigned to join us on our mission had been carefully chosen by the crown. I couldn’t imagine anyone from that battalion breaking orders to follow us down these tunnels.
“You might be after fame and fortune, but I strongly suggest you get out of here as quickly as possible.”
“Oh, um . . . Understood.”
“Mr. Iwatani, a minute please. Something about this doesn’t seem right, does it? What are adventurers doing in a place like this? Did they sneak in here last week and become trapped when the Spirit Tortoise reawakened?”
Her idea was worth considering. They could have been exploring the Spirit Tortoise after we first defeated it. When the tortoise reawakened, they might have run into the tunnels to escape from the swarms of familiars. I could imagine something like that happening.
“ . . . ?” Raphtalia seemed to be bothered by something. She stepped forward.
“What is it?”
“It’s just . . . these people appear to be using magic to hide something.”
Raphtalia was naturally inclined to use light, dark, and illusion magic. If someone used that sort of magic to hide something, she was more sensitive to it than other people would be.
The queen was concerned. “That’s very strange, isn’t it, Ms. Raphtalia? Is there anything you can do about it?” I would have asked the same thing if the queen hadn’t said it first.
“I can try,” Raphtalia said before she addressed the strangers. “Forgive me, but I suspect you are hiding something from us. Please give it up.” She quickly began to cast a spell.
But the strangers immediately jumped back to get distance from her.
“Damn!”
They must have had something to hide. But it was too late!
“I am the source of all power. Hear the truth I speak. Show me their true forms!”
“Anti-Mirage!”
Light poured from her outstretched hands and illuminated the tunnel. The magic light expanded to fall on the adventurers, and when it did the spell they had been using broke.
I was speechless when I saw their true faces.
“Y . . . You!”
Three adventurers? Ha! I should have known there wouldn’t be three adventurers just walking around here.
A man stood at the front. He seemed nice and dependable. It was hard to ignore the massive scythe he carried. A woman stood behind him. Her skin was white like a ghost, and long black hair fell over her shoulders. She carried a set of folding fans. Another woman stood behind them both. Her hair was as blue as the sea, and a gemstone shone from where it sat at the center of her forehead. She wore bangles on her arms—bangles that I had given her.
I’d never forget their faces. They were our enemies, and we had to defeat them.
“Damn! Guess there’s no use hiding if they can see us. I didn’t want to run into kiddo here.”
“L’Arc, you knew it.”
“After all the precautions we took . . .”
That’s right. The strangers in the tunnel were none other than L’Arc, Therese, and Glass. But what were they doing here?
Glass appeared from rifts in the air during the waves of destruction. But L’Arc and Therese had been here before the wave came, so they must have been able to come and go as they pleased.
L’Arc and Therese were dressed the same way they had been when we last met. But not Glass—she looked so different that it was hard to recognize her at first.
Her hair was pulled into pigtails, and she was wearing a European-style set of light armor.
Each time we’d met she had been dressed in a Japanese-style kimono, so you can understand how strange it felt to see her dressed like this. She might have changed her hair and her clothes, but she still carried herself the same way.
Not missing a beat, I jumped forward and readied my shield. “Great timing. I’ve got questions for you. What are you doing here? How are you connected to the waves? Better start talking!”
They answered by readying their weapons.
“Glass, this isn’t the place—” But before L’Arc could finish his sentence, a hole opened in the wall beside us and a Spirit Tortoise familiar (installation type) appeared. Then it kept happening. In a flash, the wall was covered in holes, and they quickly filled with squirming familiars. The eyes blinked and then started to shoot heat beams at us. To make matters worse, they seemed to be ignoring Glass and her cohorts. They only focused their attacks on us!
“Shooting Star Shield!” I shouted, creating a barrier to protect us from the volleys of heat beams. The timing of the attacks almost made it seem like they were protecting Glass and the others. They seemed to be attacking us on purpose, as if directed by an unseen hand.
“So that’s how it is.”
There was only one explanation for everything. Glass and the others were behind the Spirit Tortoise’s reawakening.
“Damn! They don’t let up!” L’Arc snapped, glaring at the attacking familiars.
What was he trying to say?
“Hya!” Raphtalia shot forward, swinging her sword to deflect the familiar’s attacks, and then charged at L’Arc and his friends.
“I suppose there is no stopping it,” Glass said, slapping open her fans and meeting Raphtalia’s charge.
Dashing forward, I covered Raphtalia with the Shooting Star Shield barrier. The tunnel was very narrow, which made it difficult to maneuver through. The barrier blocked her movement and separated Glass from her friends.
“Glass!”
“Madam!”
L’Arc and Therese shouted to Glass.
What’s the matter? Were they afraid of splitting up?
And yet Glass’s attacks were weaker than before. I had been expecting her to shatter my barrier with a tap from her fan, but it didn’t happen. Something was strange. She had been so powerful when we fought on the islands.
“Kiddo! This isn’t the place to—”
L’Arc was trying to yell something, but it was lost in the nonstop barrage of familiar attacks.
“Would it be safe to assume that these strangers are responsible for the changes in the Spirit Tortoise?” the queen asked in between casting spells.
It certainly seemed likely. The familiars were only attacking us, after all —what else was I supposed to make of that?
“Shield Hero!” Ost shouted. She had been doing all that she could to halt the motion of the ever-increasing hordes of familiars.
“What?”
“I cannot affect the motion or the energy fields of these monsters! They are being directly controlled by someone!”
“Makes sense to me!”
Glass and the others must have been using the familiars to attack us for them.
“But we don’t have time for this!”
L’Arc and Therese flashed their weapons and looked like they were concentrating. They were about to use attack skills on us!
I couldn’t let that happen! I immediately used Shooting Star Shield and Air Strike Shield to protect us. When the shield appeared in the air before us, it nearly filled the whole tunnel. It was hard to see around it, but at least that meant I had less area to worry about defending. I just hoped they weren’t about to use magic on us.
But my fears were unfounded. L’Arc, Glass, and Therese’s skills went off without a hitch and hit their targets, filling the tunnel with streams of sparks. They must have intended to hit the familiars too, because I could hear the monsters screaming and dying.
My Shooting Star Shield barrier shattered, and their attacks slammed into the Air Strike Shield. It was holding, but it wouldn’t last long. Before it could break though, I saw a familiar appear on the ceiling above us. It opened its eye and prepared to shoot a heat beam straight at us!
But then, before it could attack, the ceiling around it cracked open.
“Hey, kiddo! Watch out!”
“Is that what . . . ?”
I couldn’t hear the rest of what they said. The ceiling gave out completely, and the tunnel caved in over us. I was able to use Second Shield before the boulders fell on us though, and it protected us from the falling rocks. The dust was so thick that I couldn’t breathe. We had to back down the tunnel to get out of the dust.
Cough!
“Damn them.”
The tunnel was too narrow to have a real battle.
We could barely manage fighting off small familiar monsters like bat types and installation types, much less hold out own against Glass and the others. There wasn’t even enough room for the queen and Rishia to support us with magic. As for Ost, she’d tried—and failed—to stop the monsters’ movement.
But there was one thing I’d learned for sure from the battle: Glass and the others were involved in the whole Spirit Tortoise mess. I even thought there was a good chance that they were behind the whole thing.
“What should we do?”
“The tunnel caved in. Do you think we can get it cleared?”
From what I could tell, they’d caused the tunnel to collapse so that they could escape.
“It won’t be easy.”
“That’s what I thought.” I didn’t know if we could get it cleared. Even if we did, there was no guarantee that it wouldn’t just collapse again. The ceiling was solid rock, but it had broken so easily.
I wondered if the queen could use her ice magic to stop further collapse, but that would require very precise magic use, and I wasn’t sure if that was possible in such a narrow space.
“I guess we either need to take a detour or turn back.”
“If we head back a little way, we might find a path that will lead us back to the other side of the cave in,” Ost suggested.
Should I trust her intuition again? She did share a connection with the Spirit Tortoise, after all.
The dust in the tunnel slowly cleared while we debated our options, and when it was finally clear, I was shocked to see Glass and L’Arc still standing there!
“. . .”
They were smiling silently. Their eyes were shining red, and they held creepy weapons that seemed to be formed from tortoise shell. When they saw us, they came running in our direction.
“Ugh.”
I used my free hand to block Glass’s fan and L’Arc’s scythe and stared at them in disbelief. They had terrifying, distracted smiles plastered on their faces when they met my gaze.
What was going on? They were different from before, and they were moving strangely too.
Suddenly, monster names appeared in my field of view.
Spirit Tortoise familiar (mimic type)
Mimic?! So it wasn’t actually Glass and the others?
If these monsters looked like them, could they fight with the same strength too?
“Mr. Naofumi!”
Raphtalia swiped at them with her sword while Ost and the queen began to chant incantations. One step behind them, Rishia was in the middle of casting a support spell on me.
“. . .”
The fake Glass jumped back to avoid Raphtalia’s sword, while the fake L’Arc ignored me and ran to swing his scythe at Raphtalia.
“What do you want!?” Raphtalia shouted at the L’Arc copy.
“That’s not the real L’Arc. They must have run away and been replaced while we couldn’t see!”
“Mr. Iwatani! Ms. Raphtalia! Duck! Icicle Sword!”
A swirling cloud of ice crystals shot from the queen’s hands, then coalesced to form an enormous blade that flew at L’Arc. Raphtalia and I saw it just in time to duck under the flying blade.
The fake Glass and L’Arc held their hands out in unison and stopped the twirling blade with their palms. They must have been pretty damn powerful to pull that off.
How were we supposed to fight such powerful enemies in such a small space?
“. . .”
The fake Glass spun her fans and was quickly enveloped in a swirling cloud of tremendous heat. I’d seen her do that before, and I was pretty sure it was the start of her special attack, Circle Dance Zero Formation, Reverse Snow Moon Flower.
I think the attack was aligned with a particular element, though I didn’t know what it was. Furthermore, I had no way of knowing if attacks from the Glass copy would be the same.
How could she use an attack like that in this narrow tunnel?! The ceiling looked like it was on the verge of further collapse. If I didn’t do something, the tunnel would cave in again. If I let it cave in, it might kill these monsters for us, but then again it might kill us along with them.
“. . . !”
The copy of L’Arc prepared to use an attack.
I knew what sort of attacks L’Arc used too, and I’d seen that pose before. It looked like Flying Circle, which turned his scythe into a rapidly spinning disc of energy.
Just as I’d expected, the fake L’Arc started to spin his scythe horizontally over his head. But it never turned into a circle of energy. Instead, he simply threw the spinning tortoise shell scythe at us.
Both fake Glass and fake L’Arc’s attacks slammed into my shield—a direct hit.
But they weren’t very powerful and certainly nothing I couldn’t handle. Luckily, these mimicked versions of our enemies didn’t seem to be as powerful as the real thing.
I blocked their attacks easily enough, but they still did a lot of damage to the tunnel.
The fake L’Arc held his hand out the wall, and the rocks there instantly transformed into a fresh scythe in his hand.
That could be a problem.
“I, Ost Horai, the source of all strength, command you! Read and comprehend all that is under the sun, and show your power to me!”
“Gravity Field! Extreme Gravity!”
Ost finished the incantation, and a large semi-transparent black sphere shot through the air and slammed into the enemies.
“. . . ?!”
L’Arc and Glass’s mimicked versions suddenly discovered that they couldn’t move well. They stumbled and fell. It looked as though they were being sucked toward the ground.
Raphtalia was in the gravity field too, but she was completely unaffected by it.
I could only use restorative and supportive magic, so that might be why I thought of things in these terms, but was it supposed to be an interference spell? It would be really terrible if someone cast that spell on me.
In the games that I’d played, the spells that lowered enemy’s stats or afflicted them with ailments were always a little . . . disappointing. Of course, it depended on the game. There were plenty of games where even support spells seemed mostly useless. But in a serious battle, where a split second could be the difference between life and death, these status ailment spells were never much use at all. They didn’t do any real damage on their own.
“Hyaaa!” Raphtalia rushed at the fake Glass and plunged the glowing blade of her magic sword deep into her chest.
“Ying-Yang Sword!”
A gushing sound ran through the tunnel as Raphtalia plunged her other sword deep into the heart of the mimicked Glass, who . . . who lost the ability to maintain her shape.
It was disgusting to see. The human form warped and melted. Eyeballs opened where the stomach should have been, and the legs grew to an absurd size. They were so large they were filling the tunnel!
Raphtalia realized that she hadn’t killed it. She pulled her sword out and ran back to where I stood.
“There’s no room to fight.”
“I know.”
My mind raced to find a way out of the ever-worsening situation. The eyeballs in the stomach of what used to be the fake Glass opened. They were filled with glowing red light. It looked like they were about to start shooting heat beams at us in that narrow tunnel!
Goosebumps ran up my arms. The attack would be powerful. I could feel it in the air. I could probably block it, but I was afraid to think of what it would do to the tunnel. The air around the monster began to glow red, too. It was like the caves themselves were lending their power to it.
“Shield Hero! Watch out!” Ost shouted.
“I know! It sure looks like it’s charging up for its strongest attack!”
Dodging it wasn’t going to help. It was going to fire a heat beam straight down the tunnel, so there would be no way to run from it. Things might have been different if there were a sharp turn in the tunnel, but unfortunately, it was mostly straight. Maybe we could dodge it, but I could tell the beam would be very thick and wide.
The morphing creature that used to look like Glass was growing large enough to fill the tunnel itself, and it was covered in glowing eyes.
“. . . !”
The fake L’Arc spun his scythe and threw it at me.
I stopped it with my shield, which I thought would be good enough. But I was wrong. The scythe suddenly sprouted hands that grabbed a hold of the shield.
These attacks were getting annoying.
Then the scythe shot roots into the ground and anchored itself to the floor. It could only mean one thing. The scythe was trying to hold me in place so that the heat beam could finish me.
I quickly switched to a different shield.
I’d been using the Soul Eater Shield since the battle with the Spirit Tortoise, but its attributes clearly weren’t giving us any advantage over the mimicked forms of L’Arc and Glass. So I decided to switch to the Whale Magic Core Shield, which had slightly better stats than the Soul Eater Shield, as well as water-aligned attributes.
Whale Magic Core Shield (awakened) +6 45/45 SR abilities unlocked; equip bonus; skill “bubble shield,” naval combat special effect: water attribute: heat beam shield (medium), magic assistance, magic recovery (small), underwater time extensions mastery level: 70 item enchantment level 6: fire resistance up 15% karma penguin familiar spirit: water attribute: equipment ability up status enchantment magic defense +25
The surface of the shield was round, polished, and difficult to get a grip on. As expected, the scythe monster’s grip on it loosened.
“Raphtalia!”
“I’m on it!”
The fake Glass monstrosity was ready. It fired the powerful heat beam straight through the fake L’Arc monster and straight at us.
“Air Strike Shield! Second Shield! Dritte Shield!”
Three shields appeared in the air, stacked one in front of the other.
Just before the shields blocked my view, I saw the heat beam vaporize the fake L’Arc in a flash. Because it looked like someone I sort of knew, it made me more upset than I would have expected.
Then I couldn’t see. I could hear the heat beam beating against the floating shields. It seemed to go on forever. I couldn’t believe the monster could maintain an attack like that for so long. The Air Strike Shield had already run out of time. Soon Second Shield and Dritte Shield would disappear, too. Granted, the Air Strike Shield’s effective time wasn’t particularly long. I ran up to peek out between the shields, and it didn’t look good.
The disgusting beast that used to look like Glass was still firing its heat beam, and it didn’t show signs of stopping anytime soon.
If this were a game, the amount of time it could use a heat beam would be limited. Even science fiction games that had heat beam weapons had a time limit on the attack. But this wasn’t a game, and it looked like this monster could maintain a dense, powerful heat beam for as long as it wanted.
I turned to see how things were looking behind me.
Raphtalia, the queen, Ost, and Rishia . . . Which one of them had a skill that stood a chance of killing the monster? Raphtalia? She’d have to get up close. As for magic users, the queen or Ost might stand a chance. The queen could attack directly with her magic, which made her the clear favorite. Ost’s magic was interesting but weird, and as for Rishia . . . Sorry, but she wouldn’t stand a chance.
“Mr. Naofumi! What should we do?”
“It won’t kill us. The problem is how do we kill that thing before it brings the ceiling down on us? And if we can’t kill it, how do we escape?”
I could hold the shield for a while. Thanks to the water attribute, the heat beam didn’t affect it too much. Raphtalia stood by me and extended the tip of her sword outside of the protective range of the shield. There was a loud sizzling sound, and the blade started to smoke.
“Think you can make it?”
Raphtalia was using the Usauni Sword, the one that the old guy from the weapon shop had worked on. If she messed up somehow and broke the sword, it would significantly affect her ability to fight from this point on.
“I think . . . yes. I think it will be okay.”
“Good.”
“Should I try to attack with a spell?”
“Do all you can.”
“Very well,” the queen said and started to chant a spell.
Damn. I was sure I could hold out, but the heat beam started to intensify. I saw cracks form in the ceiling. It would only be a matter of time before it collapsed.
“Icicle Sword!” the queen shouted. She placed her hand on the backside of my shield, and a blade of ice grew out of the front and shot forward like a bullet.
It didn’t make it far before evaporating in a puff of steam.
“That didn’t work. What about you, Ost?”
It didn’t matter if she used gravity to slow the enemy down. She could probably use normal earth magic too—but if she threw a boulder at the thing, it would just end up vaporized like the Icicle Sword.
“Feh . . .”
“It’s fine. I don’t expect anything from you.”
“Fehhhh . . .”
Ugh. I was trying to tell her that I didn’t expect her to have some special spell to get us out of there. Calm down already, jeez.
“There’s only one option left. The Air Strike Shield has already disappeared, so we just need to get up there, next to the monster. When we get there, Raphtalia, it’s up to you. Kill it with one hit.”
“Understood.”
We should have just gone with this plan from the beginning.
“Air Strike Shield!” I shouted. The shield appeared right in front of the monster. That would render its attack mostly useless while the shield remained in place. I angled it slightly downward. That sent the beam down toward the ground—I’d hoped that would protect the integrity of the ceiling.
We ran forward. I couldn’t help but imagine the beam deflecting and vaporizing my feet. That was a situation I would rather avoid.
“Shooting Star Shield! Let’s go!”
I made sure that we were inside the barrier—I didn’t want to lose my legs—and we made our way up to the monster. When we got there, Raphtalia flipped her sword, readied the attack, and brought it down hard on the monster’s head.
“. . . ?!”
The writhing mass that had once looked like Glass split in two. But that wasn’t the end of it. The two pieces started twitching and it looked like they were about to regenerate their lost halves.
“I, the source of all strength, command you! Read and comprehend all that is under the sun, and shoot them through with diamond spikes!”
“Drifa Diamond Missile!”
A huge ball of burning flames shot from the queen’s hands, and a large diamond spike shot from Ost’s. The two attacks slammed into the two halves of the monster where it writhed on the ground.
“. . . ?!”
The attacks hit before the pieces could regenerate. One went up in flames, and the other was stuck to the ground with diamond spikes. They stopped moving.
“Whew. I think that does it. Is everyone okay?”
“I’m alright.”
“I do not appear to be harmed.”
“I’m . . . fine.”
“Feh . . .”
I’d done all I could to protect them, but . . . I looked to where the monster had once stood.
The tunnel had completely collapsed around it, and we faced a dead end.
The tunnel itself was quiet. There were no installation-type eyeballs blinking at us from the walls. “Guess we need to find a detour. Who knows when we’re going to run into Glass again?”
“What were they doing here?”
“Who knows? Maybe they’re behind this whole thing.”
Ost looked angry. Her hand curled into a fist. I couldn’t blame her. In a way, it was their fault that she hadn’t been able to carry out her original plan.
“And yet . . . Mr. Naofumi? Don’t you think they were acting a little strange?”
“Yeah, I do.”
It’s not like I wanted to be friends with them or anything. From how things stood, it sure looked like there was a good chance that they were behind all of this misery. But I couldn’t deny that they had been acting strangely.
Oh well. There was no use in speculating. We’d have to find out the truth the next time we saw them.
“Feh . . .”
“Whining again? I swear, Rishia . . .”
She really was useless—that’s what I really wanted to say, but I didn’t. She seemed to know what I meant anyway, because she just stood there sniffling. Maybe, if she realized how powerless she was, it would encourage her to do the work necessary to get stronger. Maybe.
“It’s alright. You’ll prove yourself someday,” Ost said kindly.
“Right . . .” Rishia sniffled. They could sit there and comfort each other all day for all I cared.
“Time to back up and find another way out of here.”
The search was back on.
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