CHAPTER 11
WHERE THE WILL TO KILL LEADS
The battle cries of monsters echo like thunder.
Ignoring the sweat dripping down my body, I respond to the threatening chorus with a cool-headed swirl of attacks.
We are on a sprawling battlefield in the deep levels.
After making our way through the maze for a while, we’ve taken up positions at the top of a staircase.
The decision was based on one of Lyu’s conditions for battle:
Always use the terrain.
Like the mazes in the Water Capital, those between the Ring Walls on the thirty-seventh floor are multilevel. The ceilings of the rooms are terrifically high, and to move forward you have to go up and down endless staircases. Right now, we’re fighting monsters from the top of one of those staircases.
It goes without saying that the monsters have a hard time attacking us from below and an equally hard time fending off our attacks from above. We have the geographical advantage—that is, we’re using the height differential to our benefit.
“Yaaa!”
“GAAA?!”
I swing a white stone cudgel down on a loup-garou that’s left itself momentarily exposed. To the wolf-headed monster on the step below me, it’s like the nature weapon—which I stole from the beast itself—is being swung down from high above my head. Even though it tries to shield with its arms, the cudgel smashes its head and body, reaching its magic stone.
Without even waiting to see its body crumble into ash, I toss away the cracked nature weapon and immediately draw the sword of the dead adventurer. I thrust it accurately into the magic stone of the skull sheep that was on me in an instant, almost as if I predicted its attack.
Watch your enemies well.
Lyu had told me to watch and gauge the monsters.
That would allow me to act tactically, but more importantly, to make up for injuries and other physical handicaps with my wits.
“OOO, OOO!”
“UUUU…!”
When I watch them carefully, I can see that the monsters below us are at a loss for how to attack.
The passageway and the stairway we’re standing on are unusually narrow for the thirty-seventh floor, which allows us to limit the number of enemies we’re fighting at one time to two. The corpses are piling up to the tune of their enraged howls.
All we have to do is give the monsters that approach carelessly a good kick.
That’s what I do to a lizardman elite that charges up with an irritated howl. A sound kick to its jaw sends it flying backward, knocking down the other monsters on the staircase as it tumbles down and ultimately breaks its neck.
My right arm tends to float up…
That’s something else Lyu told me.
I watch the wave of monsters ascending the staircase and very intentionally—without fear, panic, or strain—wait for my opportunity, then—strike!
“GUGAA?!”
My thrust lands in the center of the monster’s abdomen. The loup-garou screams and transforms into a mist of ash.
You can do it. You can see. You can attack. You can fly.
If I put Lyu’s advice into action, I can fight.
Compared to battles on flat land, the monsters’ movements are far more limited here.
I make a mental leap.
Their limited range of movement means I can lead them in whatever direction serves me best.
And being able to lead them means my predictions can get pretty close to premonition.
I look over the monsters clamoring to approach me, take aim, and act.
“—Haaa!!”
I cut downward at a slant from the neck of the lizardman leading the charge, sending him flying. Instantly two loup-garous dodge the corpse and come at me. I reverse my swing and plunge the blade into the chest of the wolf-monster on my right. As the one on my left swipes its sharp claws toward me, I easily repel it with the Goliath Scarf wrapped around my left arm.
A jolt of pain shoots from my arm up to my skull. Ignoring it, I swing the sword around in a tight arc. Even if I’m not able to kill my enemy with one stroke, I’m trying to keep my movements as minimal as possible. The loup-garou is coming at me from the side now, and my sword slices off its leg, knocking it off balance. Immediately I hit it with the pommel.
Blood flies from its nose as my powerful blow lands on its face in midair. It ends up skewered by something that was meant for me.
It’s a bone lance, one of the long-distance projectiles from a skull sheep that snuck up from behind. The sheep freezes for a second as its attack misfires into the loup-garou, and I take that opportunity to throw my sword at it. I glimpse the weapon piercing its skull and magic stone even as I’m taking up Hakugen with my now-empty hand.
I glance up at the loup-garou that’s jumping silently over my head as if to say, I see you, ignore the surprise in its eyes at being led into my trap—and slice it in half with Hakugen.
I’ve just turned four or five monsters to ash as if I had planned it all out in advance.
“UOOOOO!”
Here comes number six.
I’m not going to be able to stop this loup-garou alone.
So…
“GUGEI?!”
I leave it to her.
Lyu throws a dagger from her position in the passageway behind my back. Her timing is impeccable: she throws exactly when I step out of the path of the blade. As the monster writhes, its eye pierced by the dagger from my incredible party-member in the rear guard, I plunge my knife into its chest.
I flew—I used it.
Leading the enemy.
It’s something Aiz taught me.
They’re always most off guard right before their final blow.
The instant before they attack is your best opportunity.
So you guide them into attempting a lethal blow.
At the time, we were talking about one-on-one encounters. But thanks to Lyu’s instruction, I’ve broadened it to encompass all enemies. I’m calculating backward from my final blow as I watch and gauge all of their movements. Then, by using the terrain, I purposely draw them to me and limit their options.
I’m reading the entire battlefield and manipulating it.
My training with Aiz has linked up with Lyu’s advice.
The teachings of the Sword Princess and Gale Wind have intertwined.
The second I realized that, the world expanded before me.
This momentary feeling of omnipotence seems to have given me power.
Unfortunately, I don’t have time to relish the experience.
But now I know I can grow even stronger.
That conviction glows in my chest, and before I know it, my throat is vibrating.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!”
“…Excellent.”
As Bell’s monster-rivaling war cry rang in her ears, Lyu whispered a word of admiration for the boy’s current fighting style.
This is growth…no, it’s a major leap. But can he grow still more?
It wasn’t just that he was absorbing things quickly.
Lyu could see that he tended to conscientiously and earnestly put her advice into action. While he excelled at fixing his weak points, however, he didn’t seem able to do more than she told him.
What to make of that?
Right now, he was listening to her advice and applying it.
He didn’t leave basic knowledge alone, either; he thought about how to develop it on his own. Although Lyu didn’t know it, it was very similar to what he had done to develop Argo Vesta from his own skills. In that case, he’d thought and experimented on his own. That was essential in an adventurer.
There had been signs this was coming. The dramatic events leading up to his advance to Level 4, including meeting the Xenos and encountering his worthy opponent Asterios, had changed him. Now, the extreme conditions of the deep levels were forcing him to take another leap.
If he didn’t become stronger, only death awaited.
Thrust into this hell, the cruel jaws of death were forcing him to grow.
Lyu squinted as if she were looking at a blindingly bright light.
“—!!”
“!”
She was watching him slaughter a monster when she heard it—the howl of monsters from far down the passageway behind her.
It was a swarm of lizardman elites.
“Ms. Lyu?!”
He turned toward her, shouting in surprise.
The passage they were in now had no tunnels branching off it. They were trapped in a pincer attack. Afraid for Lyu, who was still kneeling and unable to move freely, he started toward her, but she stopped him with a sharp command.
“Mr. Cranell, focus on your own enemies!”
“But…!”
“I can’t support you anymore. I won’t have time to keep an eye on you.”
These were the deep levels. She simply could not keep leaving the battles to Bell while she played backup.
She had known all along that in a two-man cell, a time would come when the rear guard had to step up and fight. Now that time had come.
Her face was calm despite the beads of sweat caused by the pain in her leg.
“I can’t drag you down. I have to fight, too.”
Lyu turned her back on Bell and took up a battle stance.
With monsters pressing up toward him, Bell didn’t have time to hesitate. All he could do was continue fighting atop the stairs and trust in Lyu below.
“UOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
She placed her hands on the blade at her waist as the lizardmen approached.
It was the steel sword she had taken from the deceased adventurers. It was beautiful, most likely forged by a smith drawn to the weapons of the Far East. Made from materials gathered in the Dungeon, its blade was as sharp as ever.
Holding it by her left hip, Lyu dropped to one knee as she faced the pack of monsters.
“…?”
The lizardmen looked suspiciously at the elf kneeling on the ground.
She was perfectly still, with both hands on her scabbard. To the monsters, it was strange behavior. They paused for a moment before their statue-still prey, then charged all at once.
The lizardman at the fore strode toward her, intent on splitting her in half with its longsword nature weapon.
Even someone unfamiliar with swordsmanship would have been able to tell that she was waiting for it.
As the monster flew recklessly toward her, Lyu unleashed her response.
“—Yaaa!!”
“GUAA?!”
Lyu shook, and there was a flash of silver.
No sooner had the lizardman entered striking range than she swiftly drew the sword and struck her enemy. A huge cloud of ash filled the air. The other lizardmen gaped in confusion at the remains of their companion who had been cleaved clear in half, magic stone and all.
“Kaguya…I borrowed your trick.”
Lyu had used a quick-draw, a skill her departed battle companion from the Far East had prided herself on. With her leg injured, Lyu was nearly immobilized. She’d therefore given up on moving around and instead focused on countering attacks. It was the only fighting strategy left open to her.
As she replaced the sword in its sheath, the confused lizardmen charged toward her, howling. Squinting at them, she drew the sword again and tore into their magic stones before their stone swords could reach her. No matter how many times they attacked, the result was always the same: As soon as one stepped within range, she struck it. Because the passage was so narrow, only two could attack at once. And she was skilled enough to defend herself with a sword in each hand, so that the mountain of ash grew twice as fast.
The flashing silver assaults that she performed with every part of her body except her right leg fell within the territory of slashing attacks.
If Kaguya were here she’d probably say I was putting her to sleep…
She’d learned the skill from her friend, but she was nowhere near as good as the original. Still, she was threat enough for the deep-level monsters. The moment they drew near in an attempt to break through, the flash of her sword did them in. It was almost like magic. The certainty of her blows made the monsters flinch and hesitate in their attacks.
And the more they hesitated the better. The more time she could buy for Bell the more of his own enemies he could do away with. By now he should be capable of taking them down without her support.
Her strategy worked precisely because she was dealing with highly intelligent deep-level monsters.
But just then—she jumped.
“!!”
An ill-omened sound turned her heartbeat into a fire alarm. Even before she saw the deep rift split the wall directly next to her, she’d leaped away. No sooner had she done so than a huge arm popped out of the wall and swung through the air precisely where Lyu had been standing.
“…! A barbarian!”
Lyu grimaced at the large-category monster that had spawned. It had two twisted horns and sharp fangs and claws. The warrior monster was as fierce as a lizardman elite or a loup-garou. The infuriatingly timed surprise attack of the barbarian made Lyu stumble in her quick-draw stance, and now it followed up with another blow.
“HAA!”
“Eee?!”
A long tongue snaked from its mouth.
Unable to move quickly, Lyu could not fully avoid the lick. Her strength slipped.
War cries immediately thundered out.
Headed by the barbarian, the lizardmen were charging toward Lyu. Just as the monsters lit by the phosphorescent glow were about to swallow up the elf—
“UAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
“GYA?!”
Bell raced to block them.
Having finished off the opponents on the other side of the stairs, he executed a flying kick with all his might. Its chest bones cracked from the force of the blow, the barbarian fell backward, crushing the lizardmen behind it.
Still Bell did not stop. Drawing Hakugen, he fell on the collapsed monsters. The shocked Lyu followed suit by picking up the sword she’d dropped and diving onto the monsters like she was one of their own.
“GYAAAA!”
“GA?! GO?! GI?!”
“…, …, …?!”
Spattered with fountains of blood, the monsters screamed ceaselessly.
Ignoring their cries, Bell and Lyu brought their sharp blades down again and again on the torsos of their enemies. They knew they could not let a single one rise again. The vision of the two adventurers furiously stabbing the monsters over and over had not a shred of refinement to it; it was primitive, even bizarre.
Their cheeks painted with the blood of their enemies and their eyes opened wide, they moved with frantic desperation. They could not afford to leave any stone unturned in this battle that they had risked their lives on.
When the arms of the last monster had finished convulsing and finally lay still…the passageway was silent aside from the panting of the two adventurers.
The pair of sky-blue eyes and the pair of rubellite ones reflected the bedraggled adventurers.
Lyu slowly parted her lips.
“Let’s rest a little…”
“The Juggernaut?”
Sitting with my back against a wall, I repeat the name.
We are in a small room with a single doorway. The room’s odd shape is as far from a cube as you can get—a rock cave would be a more accurate analogy. After damaging the walls, Lyu and I rest for the second time since arriving on the thirty-seventh floor.
“Yes, I heard that’s what it’s called…after it was all over, of course.”
As we keep an eye out for monsters, our conversation turns to the horrible monster from the twenty-seventh floor—the one with the hideous claws that followed us down here.
“It was after I had lost my friends and gotten revenge…around when Syr took me in. A figure in black appeared before me…probably a mage.”
Her description startles me. A mage in black…that’s got to be Fels. So Fels was in contact with Lyu years ago?
Gale Wind…you must never speak of the Juggernaut you encountered in the Dungeon.
The two had spoken in a back alley on a dark, rainy night. Fels had come to warn her, addressing her by her nickname. At the time, no one knew her true identity.
It must never be summoned again. If you keep your promise…we will let you go free. We will take your achievements in Astrea Familia into account and not prosecute your crimes.
Did “we” mean the upper echelons of the Guild…or even Lord Ouranos?
Was she saying that thanks to Ouranos’s edict, the Guild had only fulfilled its basic duty of blacklisting her, but had not tried to track her down?
According to Lyu, she had nodded silently in response to the warning, and Fels had melted into the darkness.
“If the mage was a private messenger, that means the Guild knew about the existence of the monster. Most likely they were acting under the mandate of the god Ouranos, who prays to the Dungeon…”
Lyu seems to have guessed Fels’s true identity. I glance over at her as she leans against the wall, exhausted. I’m lost in my own thoughts. So even Fels was worried about that monster…that calamity that appeared before Lyu twice.
“The Juggernaut…”
I stroke my mangled left arm as I whisper its name. As I think back on that being so much more terrifying than any other monster I’ve encountered, the question on my mind swells to the point where I can’t hide it anymore.
“…Ms. Lyu. The thing the man named Jura said…”
It’s been bothering me ever since I heard the tamer say it.
To save your precious self!
By sacrificing your friends, you were finally able to drive off the monster!
I’m sure that’s what he said.
What happened on that day when all of Astrea Familia died except Lyu? How did she survive? What happened to the Juggernaut she encountered that time? Did she kill it? Jura said she “drove it off”—did that mean it might still be alive?
These are the questions circling my mind when I ask her what happened. I can’t help asking.
“…”
Lyu does not answer. Her sealed lips return only silence, although her fist begins to tremble from being clenched so tight.
“…Mr. Cranell, enemies.”
Multiple roars echo down the passage from a distance. From behind, I watch Lyu stand. I follow silently, unable to ask my question a second time.
He was wandering.
He exhaled hot breath. Pieces of his shell flaked off his body and fell to the ground.
The claws on his left paw caught the faint phosphorescence on the wall, glittering a weird purplish-blue.
The dark maze was quiet now.
The other monsters held their collective breath in fear of him, making sure not to cross his path. Only the sound of his footsteps shook the air.
The monster that the deities and adventurers called Juggernaut was roaming the thirty-seventh floor.
His wounds were deep.
Within him existed a complete intelligence that one could call thought.
He quietly looked over his body with those intelligent eyes.
The reverse joint on his right leg had been sliced through. He could still jump, but his mobility had plunged compared to when he was in prime shape. The extreme speed that terrified the adventurers was no longer possible.
His right arm had been blown off with that enormous flare. Not a trace of it was left. The deadly threat that had spelled the end of his arm had impacted the entire right side of his body, and half of the magic-reflection shell that served as his armor was flaking off. Half of his tail was missing, too.
His whole body was damaged.
His wounds were severe.
Eventually, he would be immobilized.
He didn’t care.
He would disintegrate anyway.
Without anyone telling him, he was aware of that. He understood it.
Juggernauts are short-lived creatures.
Their greatest peculiarity—the thing that set them apart from other monsters—was their lack of a magic stone.
Perhaps their whole self could be thought of as one enormous magic stone. Their unparalleled strength and agility were products of this. Their potential varied according to the zone on which they emerged; the deeper the floor, the stronger the individual. Some were so strong they could wipe out a whole familia like Astrea Familia, or crush a whole party of first-tier adventurers. Even if a Juggernaut lost its head in battle or was pierced through the chest, it would continue to destroy. Only when its entire body was crushed would its life finally come to an end.
The price for this extraordinary strength was natural disintegration after a certain period of time. Like sculptures made of ice, they shattered noisily.
The first Juggernaut may have been male, or it may have been female. Unknown to the human race, this child of calamity retreated to a corner after slaughtering Astrea Familia and turned to ash. Their lives came with an expiration date. They were a fleeting species of monster destined to burn themselves out like shooting stars. And so the schemes of the tamer Jura, who attempted to bring a Juggernaut under his control, too, were destined to go unfulfilled…
The Juggernaut would leave behind neither a magic stone nor any drop items. Not a single trace of its life would remain. Born in service to its mother, it would eradicate the elements threatening her and then vanish from the world and from the memory of its people.
Therefore, massacre was the only thing that gave its existence meaning.
The Juggernaut did not think of his life as empty. Nor did he see himself as pitiable. The emotions to feel these things did not exist within this newborn creature.
But—his body burned with the flames of hell.
That white prey.
That being who always rose again, no matter how many times it was crushed.
That male who lost its own blood and flesh only to turn and begin to destroy him.
Those white flames that had taught him to fear.
He could not forgive this. He could not accept it. Allowing it would be the same as denying the meaning of his own existence. He would lose the very reason for having been born into this world. That alone he understood instinctively.
It was awful, awful, awful.
It was the one thing he could not stand. He might be forgotten by the world, his life might vanish in a flash, but he must fulfill the purpose of his birth.
His hopes were warped, his prayers twisted.
But for the Juggernaut, they were everything.
As if in sympathy with his thoughts, the circlet fastened around his neck pulsed with light.
It fed his destructive impulses, as if it were driving his emotions or making him run wild. The voice of his mother was distant now. He ignored that voice, which repeatedly begged something of him. He put his own will first.
This was the side effect of Jura’s magic item.
Although it should not have been so in a being who served as antibody to the invading virus, his sense of self was fierce. The apostle of murder whose sole purpose was massacre did not realize that self-interest now controlled him. The powerful murderous intent now focused on a single prey was enough to render him independent. The current Juggernaut, who was no slave to his mother’s will, was prepared to die in the line of duty.
He had been set free.
Free from Jura’s dying wish, but more than that, free from the voice of the Dungeon.
The apostle of murder eradicating foreign matter from the Dungeon had been reborn as a monster whose purpose was to pursue a single human to the point of insanity, and kill him.
And so.
He would kill that thing, if nothing else.
He absolutely, without question, would kill him.
With that fervent desire burning at the core of his being, the Juggernaut slowly but surely approached his prey.
At the same time, his intention sparked an irregularity that even the Dungeon had not foreseen, an irregularity so great it went beyond his given abilities to the realm of evolution.
He had no right arm. In this state, he could not kill the white prey.
He needed an arm. He needed claws to murder that thing.
The Juggernaut’s crimson eyes pulsated faintly.
The next instant, he was attacking his own kind.
A chorus of screams was followed by the reverberations of destruction, and then the sound of mastication.
The noises echoed ominously through the writhing darkness of the Dungeon.
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