Chapter 19 — If This Was a Game, They Would Make Sure to Leave One Out for Us
Since Richard was a friend of theirs, they couldn’t just leave his body lying out in the open, so Yogiri and Tomochika decided to bury him in the forest.
“He is your friend, not mine. Why do I have to help?”
“I’m pretty sure you met him too, Atila,” said Tomochika.
“And it would be a ton of work for us without any tools for digging,” Yogiri added.
Though not without complaint, Atila changed into her dragon form and easily dug up a portion of ground. She put Richard into the hole and covered him in dirt, so Yogiri and Tomochika had nothing to do but watch.
“Now that I think about it...I don’t actually know the funeral customs for this world. Was burying him a good idea?”
“It is far too late to be worrying about that now,” Atila said as she returned to her human form, giving Yogiri a withering look.
Even if this is incorrect, surely it is better than leaving his body lying there.
“I’m curious about what happened here...but it’s not like we’ll be able to figure it out ourselves. I guess we just have to move on.”
They returned to the enormous pyramid. While looking for an entrance, they found a square hole near where they had found Richard’s body. It was just large enough for two people to walk through side by side, but inside it was pitch black. No light seemed to be penetrating, making the interior a mystery.
“Mokomoko, can you see what’s inside?”
I suppose I can take a look. Mokomoko floated towards the pyramid, where she promptly bounced off the wall. Gah! What was that?!
“Wait, you can’t get through the wall?!”
I-Indeed! It appears there is some sort of barrier here.
“Why don’t you try going through the entrance?”
I suppose. I guess I will have to follow the rules for once. Mokomoko entered the square hole, easily slipping inside.
“Uh...is she coming back?!” Tomochika exclaimed. After waiting for a while, there was no sign of the ghost.
“I wonder what happened,” Yogiri said. “Is there something dangerous inside?”
“Like a trap?”
“We could find another entrance, but...that sounds like a pain.” The pyramid was the size of a mountain. Checking the entire perimeter would take them days. “I guess we should just go in for now.”
“Are you sure?!”
“It doesn’t look like our lives are in danger.” If Yogiri’s intuition said so, they could be sure they’d survive stepping inside. But that was no evidence that there were no traps either. “Okay, let’s hold hands again,” Yogiri suggested. It may have only been to make him feel better, but if it was a teleportation trap, there was a chance that would help them stick together. He grabbed Tomochika’s hand in his right and Atila’s in his left while she sat on Dai’s back.
The four of them stepped through the entrance. For a moment, everything went black, but suddenly there was light again.
It appears to only permit movement one way. There was nothing I could do.
Mokomoko was waiting for them on the other side. Yogiri looked back, but there was only a plain stone wall behind them.
“I guess we can’t just send Mokomoko scouting ahead anymore...”
The ceiling had a dull glow to it, illuminating their surroundings. They were in a corridor made of gray stone. About ten meters across and ten meters tall, it continued in a straight line in front of them. There were no windows or ornamentation, giving it a rather stark feeling.
“I guess this is the prison area,” Tomochika observed. “Even Mokomoko can’t leave once inside.”
Indeed. Since I was unable to leave, I took the liberty of looking around. This place appears to be some sort of labyrinth.
“That’s...kind of a pain,” Yogiri said. Judging by the outside of the pyramid, the place was rather large. If the inside was a maze, getting out would be a real challenge.
“Did you find a way up?” Tomochika asked.
Not within the area I searched. I cannot stray too far from your side, so I could not go far.
“Speaking of which, was it okay for you to be separated from her through that barrier?”
To be frank, I was in significant danger. If you had decided to head back to town and treat yourself to a buffet, I would have disappeared.
“Yeah, we’re not that heartless.”
“Walking around aimlessly seems like a bad idea. Is there a map somewhere?”
“Why on earth would a map just be lying around?” Atila replied, disbelief clear in her voice.
“If this was a game, they would make sure to leave one out for us.”
We will have to map out the dungeon ourselves.
Imagining the amount of time it would take to map out a place this large was pretty discouraging. As Yogiri tried to think of a better way, Dai walked off.
“Huh? Does he know where to go?” The dog’s steps were full of confidence, as if inviting them to follow.
“How would he?”
“Maybe he can smell something?”
We were told that one needs a Philosopher’s Stone to pass through this area. Dai possesses one such stone. Perhaps it allows him to know the correct path?
“I guess we might as well follow him.”
With no idea where to go, there wasn’t much to lose from following the dog’s intuition. Dai gave a happy bark.
◇ ◇ ◇
Even if a person was merely a stranger met in passing, there was a chance they would someday be a guest at her hotel. That line of thinking led Celestina to treat anyone she met with kindness. There was an extremely high chance that she would never be able to return to the surface, so worrying about the hotel wouldn’t accomplish much for her, but it was still something that she took pride in.
That said, she knew enough not to stick her head into situations that were too much for her. Although she wouldn’t hesitate to put her life on the line to save her guests, Lynel was a random man she had met by chance. If she weighed her choices, the scale would definitely tip towards her mission over him.
She knew Richard, the third prince of the Kingdom of Manii, but as someone who had cut herself off from the royal family, she had no reason to prioritize him either. Her priority right now was to deal with Yogiri Takatou and let the world reset, not protect the prince.
Yogiri had been a guest at her hotel, but after killing over sixty million people, including plenty of her other guests, friends, and acquaintances, she couldn’t see him as anything but an enemy. She was sure that many people felt the same way and were even now pursuing him. It might have been okay to leave things to them, but she felt that if her participation even slightly increased their odds of success, it was worth it.
“As expected, no exit.”
The entrance she had just walked through became a solid wall. Thinking it could be an illusion, she tried to touch it, but it was as solid as it looked. Her thread was still connected to a tree outside, but nothing from the outside was being communicated through it anymore.
She had similarly failed to find out anything about the interior from the outside using her thread, meaning there was likely some sort of trick set up to divide the inside and outside.
At any rate, now that she was inside, she could use her thread, so she sent the extremely thin string out into her surroundings. The corridor was about ten meters in width and height. It proceeded in a straight line for a while before splitting off in multiple directions. Those corridors divided further, giving the impression of a labyrinth. The ceiling had a dull glow to it, providing enough light for her to see her surroundings. That said, the corridor was just bare stone, so there wasn’t much to gain from lighting it. The thread she was using had a limited range of five kilometers, but there was nothing in that range that stood out to her.
Her investigation of the pyramid had revealed those square entrances about once every kilometer, but she had no idea where she was inside. So with no clues, she picked a direction and started walking.
She proceeded carefully, using her thread to investigate her surroundings, but she couldn’t get a good grasp on the full layout of the place. It was huge, with countless branching paths. Making it through the maze would take a tremendous amount of time. But with no other option, she continued moving forward. She used her thread to rip apart the monsters she occasionally encountered and to create landmarks for herself, drawing a map in her notebook as she went.
Just as she was starting to lose sense of how long she had been in the labyrinth, she noticed other people. Not just one or two—it seemed that, all at once, a huge crowd of people had arrived, regularly appearing from the walls. A number of them even noticed her probing strings, meaning they were likely quite powerful.
The newcomers had no hesitation in their steps. It seemed they knew where they were going. Celestina used her thread to investigate what looked like their destination. People were starting to disappear once they reached a certain point. Since something was likely there, Celestina headed towards that spot.
At the place where they disappeared, she found a square opening. It was the same as the ones on the outside of the pyramid, wide enough for two people to walk through at once. She attempted to send her thread through to investigate, but it was blocked. Though she hadn’t been able to determine anything from outside the pyramid, the entrances there had at least let her thread enter. It seemed the rules were different here. When she reached a hand into it, she found that the darkness repelled her. It felt like a smooth, slippery wall.
“Is there some trick here?”
She focused her threads together to investigate the area in detail but found nothing of note. Aside from what appeared to be an entrance, all she saw were stone walls and the floor.
“Hey, girl. What’s wrong?”
Celestina slowly turned around. Her threads had warned her of the approaching group, a young boy and three girls, so she wasn’t surprised to see them.
“I am attempting to see if I can get through this doorway.”
“Oh, really? Lemme see.”
Celestina moved out of the way to let the boy approach.
“One of these, huh? So...maybe this’ll work?” He stretched a hand towards the blackness, and it easily passed through. “So, yeah. You need a Philosopher’s Stone to get through.”
“A Philosopher’s Stone?”
“Yep. Here, you can have one.” The boy held out a round, transparent stone to her.
“Hold on! Why are you giving away something so important?!” one of his companions complained.
“What do you mean? She’s stuck, isn’t she?”
“It’s her own fault for coming here without doing any research! How are we going to get through if you give one of our stones away?!”
“We only need one for the party, right?” the boy answered. “And you each have one. If we have four, we can afford to give one up.”
“You have no idea if that’s how it works! What happens if you’re the only one who can’t go in?!”
“Then I’ll just find some random guy and take his stone! I couldn’t do something that mean to a girl, after all.”
“And stop trying to recruit every girl you see!”
“Excuse me...are you sure it is okay for me to take one?” Celestina was hesitant to accept the gift since it seemed like their group wasn’t in agreement.
“It’s fine!” The boy didn’t have any intention of listening to his companions.
“Very well; then I will borrow it for a time.”
She had no idea whether she’d be able to give it back, but if she needed it to proceed, she had no choice but to try. Celestina took the stone. The moment she had it in her hand, she immediately realized that the black square was a gate leading to the next level. Simply possessing the stone helped her to figure out where the gates were. Now that she had a stone, she tried passing a hand through the darkness, and it slipped through without issue. It seemed that possessing the item was the requirement to pass after all.
Celestina stepped inside. Upon passing through the gate, she was presented with a staircase. She attempted to investigate her surroundings with her thread but only found another gate up ahead of her. Behind her was a stone wall, meaning the gates were still one-way.
She climbed the stairs and passed through the next gate. Another stone corridor greeted her. It proceeded straight ahead before branching off into multiple paths, identical in construction to the previous level.
“Hey! Short time no see!”
As she investigated her surroundings, the boy from before appeared beside her.
“Only one person in the party needed a stone after all?” she asked.
“Yep. So don’t worry, you can keep that one.”
“Thank you.”
The boy had come with his three companions, meaning the gates seemed to work on a party-by-party basis. Parties were determined when one initiated a quest, so there was no way for Celestina to join one at this stage. Her only option was to keep one of the Philosopher’s Stones.
“Looks like the next gate is over there,” the boy observed.
“Yes, my intuition tells me the same thing. Shall we travel together?”
“Sure! We’re all headed to the same place anyway.”
Even if one of them went ahead, they’d all end up together in the end. It wouldn’t change much if they tried to travel separately.
“My name’s Irza. These girls are Karin, Claire, and Azra.”
“My name is Celestina.”
The girls made no move to greet her. It appeared they weren’t happy that Irza had taken an interest in her.
With the once-concierge at the lead, the group set out again.
“Are you going to fight that Takatou guy too?” Irza asked her. “That’s our plan, but I’m starting to wonder if there’s a point with so many other people here.”
“Yes, I am sure there are many people here far stronger than me, so I also considered leaving things up to them. However, I felt there might still be some way in which I could help.”
“Oh yeah? It still feels like a waste of time. But this is the biggest thing happening in the world right now, so I kinda wanna take a look. ’Cause if I just ignored it and let everyone else solve it, later I’ll be like, ‘Dammit, I should’ve gone and taken a look!’”
“Do you have some method to deal with Yogiri Takatou?” Celestina asked.
“Not really? I’m sure I’ll figure it out when I get there.”
Irza seemed incredibly optimistic. Celestina couldn’t help but feel skeptical about Yogiri’s powers as well. The thought of someone who could kill with their thoughts or in response to another’s killing intent was a bit hard to believe. Even if that’s how it appeared to work, the natural response for an observer was to think there was some kind of trick behind it. She imagined everyone who was now pursuing Yogiri felt the same. But if the Great Sage’s description of his abilities was accurate, then there was no way to fight him at all, turning the whole endeavor into little more than a mass suicide.
“Mind if I go first here?” Irza asked as they approached the next gate.
“By all means,” Celestina replied. Getting there first didn’t mean anything, so there was no need for them to rush.
With her permission, Irza and his companions stepped through the gate. After a short time, she followed him in. They had already ascended the stairs and made it up through the next gate.
As Celestina did the same, she reflexively took defensive action. She wrapped her thread around her body the instant she was through, taking a wide step. She felt countless reactions from the thread. Tiny, flea-sized insects were swarming her. She shredded them all to pieces.
“I didn’t expect anything like that!”
Irza stood beside the entrance, looking perfectly fine, but his three companions had collapsed onto the ground. Their skin had turned gray as the insects swarmed them. It appeared they were attacking somehow, so the girls were likely dead. If they found a defenseless target, they’d have no difficulty getting into the body through the eyes or nose and destroying it from the inside. Those three weren’t the only victims, though. A large number of people had fallen to the ground around them.
“Are you okay, Irza?!” Celestina cried.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I feel bad for those three, though.”
“My apologies. I failed to predict something like this might happen. If I had gone first...”
“Don’t worry about it! I can just bring them back to life.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, once we get these bugs off them. But we should probably deal with the guy who did this first.” Irza looked down the corridor.
“If they died from something like this, they were in no position to be fighting someone who can inflict instant death. They’d just be in the way, so why not clean them up here?” a grotesque looking figure called back to them from down the corridor. At first glance it appeared human, but it had three eyes and wore glasses with three lenses to match.
“Who are you?”
“I am one of Gorbagion’s Four Heavenly Kings, Graze the Enlightened. A pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“I am—”
“Ah, no need to introduce yourself. As the man boasting the most powerful brain among the Four Heavenly Kings, I need only see you to recognize your identity, Celestina of the Absolute Blade.”
Celestina couldn’t help but feel surprised. Despite his title, he didn’t speak like someone particularly intelligent, but he had guessed her name correctly.
Was he watching us on our way here?
She had introduced herself to Irza shortly beforehand, so it was possible that was how he knew her name, but it was still strange for him to know her title.
“You pass. Please, continue on ahead.”
“What are you doing here, Mr. Graze?” she asked plainly, unable to grasp what he was trying to accomplish.
“My objective is the same as yours: to slay Yogiri Takatou. However, I am aligned with the monster faction here in Cavern Quest. There is no artistry in us cooperating with all of you.”
“Hey, hey, what about me?”
“Ah, Irza. You possess...a growth cheat, a magical power cheat, and a predation cheat. We have no need for someone like you,” Graze said, entirely disappointed.
“What? Really? I feel like I’m more useful than you.”
“Not at all. Having powerful magic or being strong yourself only makes you better at doing something that everyone else can already do. No matter how strong that makes you, it leaves you on a level far below us. You need something more.”
“Then why don’t I try something?”
“By all means.”
“Okay, here I go!” Irza disappeared, reappearing behind Graze. Either he had moved blindingly fast or he had teleported instantly. From his new position, Graze was all but defenseless against him. But before he could attack, a giant hand grabbed him.
“What?!”
“Ah, my apologies for the late introduction. This is Breia the Solid, another of Gorbagion’s Four Heavenly Kings. He possesses the greatest raw strength of the four kings.”
At some point, a giant had appeared behind Graze. Almost tall enough to reach the ceiling, he had grabbed Irza and lifted him up with a single hand.
“His ability is pretty simple. It makes him stronger than his opponent. If you can escape, you are welcome to, but...that doesn’t seem likely, does it?”
“Aghghghgh...h-huh?” At first Irza must have felt like he would be able to manage, but he was slowly losing his composure. “Uhh, I’m gonna get serious. Is that okay? I might end up blowing away this whole building.”
“Please, be my guest. Anyone who would be killed by such a thing would be no use to us anyway.”
“Rrrrraaaaaagh!” Irza began to scream in a strange voice.
His body began to glow, and Breia’s hand swelled up in response to his power, but that was it. In short order, the giant’s hand returned to its previous size. Breia had suppressed Irza’s power with a single hand.
“Wha? Seriously?” Irza’s face paled. He must have thought that trick would be enough to free him.
“Are we done yet?” Breia called out to Graze, clearly bored.
“Yes, it does not appear he’s capable of anything more.” Breia squeezed his hand into a fist with a squelch.
Celestina watched the events unfold. She recognized that these two were extremely powerful, but she hadn’t been able to gauge their true strength. Cold as it may have been, she decided there was probably nothing she could have done to help Irza.
“Ah, my apologies. I’ve made you watch such a silly exchange. You pass, Miss Celestina, so please go on ahead.”
If they were going to let her pass, she had no reason to fight them. Leaving the pair to kill anyone who fell below their standards would no doubt reduce their fighting strength up ahead, but anyone who failed to meet their standards was likely not going to make much of a difference in the fight to come anyway.
Celestina went on, leaving the two demons behind.
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