Chapter 13 — Horizontally Challenged
The creature facing them was like an incarnation of murderous intent. The blades that covered its body served no purpose other than to wreak mass carnage. Hanakawa couldn’t take his eyes off its sinister yet somehow beautiful form. Clearly, staring at it like an idiot was little help, but he was absolutely sure that the moment he looked away, it would take his head.
“Now matter how you look at it, this is nothing but a murder machine! How are we supposed to fight something like this?! But wait...I have a Sage with me! Such an opponent should be no...wait, where did you go, Miss Aoi?!” As he continued to stare at the enemy, Hanakawa realized that Aoi was no longer standing beside him.
“I wonder why it attacked the dragon? If it’s simply killing anything it can find, why didn’t it attack me or the pig?” the Sage wondered aloud.
“Hey, why are you behind me?! And how can you so callously refer to me that way?!”
“You seemed like the appropriate size for a good hiding spot.”
“That’s your attempt at a euphemism for calling me fat, isn’t it? Like saying I’m horizontally challenged or something!”
Aoi was hiding behind Hanakawa, but there was no way he’d be that useful as a shield. The Aggressor could cut through him like he was nothing but paper.
“It looks like it has eyes on its face, doesn’t it? If I can get out of its line of sight, that might help a bit.”
“I’m not sure about that! They look more like sensors that can take in its entire surroundings!”
While it was definitely a strange-looking being, its figure seemed to be roughly based on that of a human. Two red lights were blinking like eyes on its face. They may have been nothing more than decoration, but the creature also had what looked like ears and a nose. And while there was no obvious mouth, there seemed to be a thin line on its face where one should be, so it wouldn’t have been surprising if something resembling lips suddenly opened up.
“Even if that’s true, it doesn’t look like it’s interested in killing us. If it wanted to, we’d probably be dead already,” Aoi observed.
Looking at its feet, they could see deep gouge marks in the dirt. It was just a guess, but the marks had likely been made when it landed, meaning it must have leaped from another cliff to get there and killed the dragon as it touched down. Such movements were generally much faster than the eye could follow, so it wasn’t surprising that neither Aoi nor Hanakawa had seen it happen.
“Isn’t there anything you can do?! Shouldn’t your power be able to help us out here? Like with the dragon, just say, ‘There’s no way a robot like this could exist’!”
“Unfortunately, I can’t help but feel that it does seem possible.”
“Is your power good for anything at all?!”
“Yeah, sorry, there are definitely limitations.”
“W-Well, if we just stand here doing nothing, that should be okay, right?” It was possible that any movement would draw unwanted attention. Trying to maintain the current situation was best, or at least that’s what Hanakawa told himself.
“Seems that way. It kind of looks like it’s confused or something.”
“You think so? Well, now that you mention it, I see what you mean...” The creature was leaning forward slightly, standing perfectly still, drenched in the dragon’s blood. It seemed to be lost in thought, as if trying to figure out why it had actually killed the dragon in the first place. “How long should we stay here like this?”
“Until it leaves, I guess?”
She was right. There was really nothing they could do but stand still and see what happened. As Hanakawa resolved himself to a lengthy wait, the creature finally moved.
Its movements were terrifyingly quiet and entirely lacking in any sort of hesitation. Even after it had taken a few steps, Hanakawa couldn’t tell when it had even moved, despite the fact that he had been watching it the whole time.
It looked like its only target had been the dragon after all. Standing over the disembodied head, it sank a hand into the reptilian skull, the blade-like limb pushing deep as if the bone beneath offered no resistance.
“What is it doing?” Hanakawa whispered.
“Well, the dragon is obviously dead, so it can’t be trying to finish it off. It looks like it’s perhaps trying to extract information from its brain?”
“But if that’s the case, there are two more brains right here!”
In reality, they had no idea what meaning, if any, there was to the robot’s actions. But when it pulled its arm free and turned its red eyes on them, Hanakawa was sure that he was going to die.
“Boobs! If I’m going to die anyway, please let me touch them! I’m not that interested in tomboys, but at this rate I’ll take anything!”
“You must be joking.”
“Uh, then...I’ll try begging! Everyone understands that, right?!”
In a panic, he dropped to his knees and put his forehead to the ground. But he could only bear to look away from the source of his fear for so long. He soon lifted his head back up to look at the monster once more, only to find that it was gone.
“Huh?”
“It left.”
“Why would it do that? Wait, do you think this is one of those moments where you think you’re safe and it suddenly attacks you from behind?!” He looked around desperately, then checked the sky, and then glanced down the edge of the nearby cliff. There was no sign of the nightmare machine anywhere. “Are we...safe?”
“For now. Considering the Fate level of this area, I don’t think it’s likely that either of us will die here.”
“You were awfully scared of that thing too, though, weren’t you?!”
Whether she was avoiding the question or had genuinely not been concerned, Aoi ignored him and pointed upwards and ahead. “For just an instant, I saw a huge tower over there.”
“Where? I don’t see anything.” All that Hanakawa could make out in the dawning sky were traces of faint, wispy clouds.
“It was just for a moment. But in that split second, I could see the thing heading straight for it. Either way, we’re going to follow.”
“Are you insane?! We’re lucky to be walking away with our lives!”
“I thought we might trigger some sort of flag when that dragon saw us, but the monster went ahead and killed it, so now this is our only clue.”
“Nooooo! Let me go home!”
Aoi reached down to where Hanakawa was crouched on the ground and grabbed the collar of his shirt. He was helpless to stop her from dragging him along with her.
“Someone is messing with us, aren’t they?”
“It’s getting kind of annoying,” Yogiri agreed.
Another dead end. A metal chest was sitting on the floor in front of the two teens. It was just big enough to comfortably carry, with a half-cylinder lid that made it look exactly like a classic treasure chest. As both of them were gamers of a sort, they hadn’t been able to help getting their hopes up. However, the interior held only a single gold coin.
“Is this seriously part of the trial?”
“There was probably supposed to be a key or something inside.”
They were on the fiftieth level of the tower now. The rooftop had been floor one hundred, and they had fought Teresa on floor ninety-nine. They had slept on floor ninety-eight, and from there, the stairs had taken them straight down. They were currently in a battle zone, so there was a risk of being attacked at any moment, but for the time being, they were alone.
“I’m not really on the Swordmaster’s side, and I’m not at all interested in this trial that we’ve been roped into, but don’t you feel a little bad about doing it this way?” asked Tomochika.
It was crazy that they were proceeding so quickly. Along the way there had been plenty of locked rooms, trapped corridors, and trick doors. One would have expected them to search for hidden keys or solve a variety of puzzles to continue at each stage, but Yogiri wasted no time on any of that, simply killing every obstacle in their path.
Luckily, the correct route wasn’t difficult to figure out. As such, they had managed to get quite far by basically walking in a straight line.
“Do you want to stop and explore?”
“Not especially. But if this were a game, we’d be doing it all wrong, wouldn’t we?”
To be more specific, if this were a game, they would have been flat-out cheating. As someone who enjoyed such games, Tomochika couldn’t help but feel a little guilty. Yogiri didn’t seem particularly sympathetic to this viewpoint, however, so she decided to change the subject. “You know, now that I think about it, you can just open any door or chest you want to, right? You’d be a pretty good thief.”
“I’d never do that. I’m only resorting to this right now because we have to get to the bottom quickly,” he replied, his feelings clearly a little hurt.
Tomochika couldn’t help but find the way that he sulked to be kind of cute. She remembered a conversation that they’d had after first getting off the bus, when they were discussing how to access the luggage compartment. “I seem to remember you asking me if I was any good at lockpicking not too long ago.”
“You being able to pick locks is totally different from me using my powers to rob people.”
“I’m not so sure about that...but whatever, it’s fine. Let’s just keep going?” Refocusing on the task ahead, she turned around to leave.
“You guys seem pretty cheerful,” a voice called out from behind them. A man was slowly walking down the narrow hallway to where they stood. At first glance, he looked like a beastkin, but they soon realized that it was actually a human wearing an animal pelt. The beast-like appearance was likely reflected in his fighting style as well, if the enormous claws strapped to his hands were any indication. “I’ve been watching you two for a while. Looks like you’ve got some sort of master key. Hand it over and I’ll let the girl —”
“Die.”
The man immediately collapsed.
“He didn’t look like someone who would make a good Knight anyway, did he?”
“All the people who’ve come at us looking for a fight were pretty bizarre,” Yogiri observed. Although he wasn’t taking any chances, he was also trying to take Tomochika’s request to hold back — if he could — into account. He made a point to wait a few moments to see what someone was going to do before killing them.
“It makes you wonder what the ‘divine’ part of the Divine King’s name really means. There’s nothing about the people here that strikes me as particularly holy,” mused Tomochika, sinking into thought.
All those who had attacked them so far had been little more than oddly-dressed thugs. Maybe as long as a Knight could kill the Dark God’s spawn, his or her personal character didn’t matter much, but even so, the selection process looked like it needed a lot of work.
Yogiri was crouched down by the body, fishing through the man’s pockets. “I heard that a long time ago, people who were a bit off in the head were thought to be holy. Oh, hey, this guy had a map. It’s got an awful lot of blood on it, so he probably took it from someone else.”
“I thought you were against robbery.”
“This is just part of the trial.”
Aside from the bundle of paper, it didn’t seem like the fur-clad man had anything of value on him. Taking the map, Yogiri led Tomochika back down the hallway in the direction they had come from. The narrow corridor eventually branched into a four-way intersection. As expected, the smaller, less important-looking path hadn’t been the correct one. The larger, more open passageways seemed to be the intended routes. The corridor immediately in front of them was the one they had tried first, with a wider hall off to their left.
As Tomochika moved towards the larger hallway, something dropped down from the ceiling in front of her. A man wearing a dark blue outfit lay motionless on the floor.
“And now we seem to have found a ninja. Why are all of these weirdos trying to become Knights?!”
Well, perhaps someone who looks so obviously like a ninja is merely doing it for the fashion statement.
Yogiri glanced over. “I couldn’t see him until he fell, but it seems he was hiding on the ceiling.”
Scattered around the fallen man were a number of sharpened sticks that Tomochika recognized as stick shurikens.
“Ugh. Why did he attack us in the first place? All you have to do is get to the bottom of this stupid tower, right? Why would they bother fighting each other at all?”
If the ninja had merely been hiding, Yogiri wouldn’t even have noticed him up there. The fact that the guy had been planning to ambush them is what had allowed him to be killed.
“Maybe stealing keys from each other is part of the process. And looking at the map, the farther we go, the less room we’ll have to move around. That means fewer treasure chests and more chances of running into others. It was probably made that way on purpose.”
“And what’s going on with the whole points thing?”
“Some of the guys that attacked us were telling us to give them our points, so maybe you can take them from someone else if you kill them.”
“But we’re at, like, five points right now, aren’t we?”
They had come across a magic doll earlier and asked her about their current points. Yogiri had picked up four of those one-point plates, so the numbers did add up, but they clearly weren’t getting anything from the people he had been killing off along the way.
“You probably do get points for killing. I guess that’s why we’re supposed to fight each other. But if they don’t realize that I’m the one who killed our opponents, they’re not going to give me points for it.”
“Ahh, they just see them falling over so they don’t know that you’re responsible.”
“Yeah, from the outside, there’s no way for them to see the cause and effect. I don’t care that much about the points, anyway. We just need to reach the first floor.”
The two of them continued onwards, coming to a large door at the end of the hall. It appeared to be locked, but of course that was no problem for Yogiri. Beyond was a rather large room, on the other side of which was another big door. Judging from their experiences so far, this next door would lead to a staircase that took them down to the next floor.
Tomochika stepped forward to open it. “Looks like we’ve made it halfway. We’ve been moving pretty fast, don’t you think?”
A strange voice suddenly rang out, catching them off guard. “Too fast, I’d say. It’s not right for you to cheat like that.”
“Where the hell did he come from?!”
There was a man standing in the middle of the room. They had seen him on the roof, clad entirely in gold. He wore a golden circlet, a golden robe, and plenty of matching jewelry. Decorated from head to toe, he looked like the spitting image of a fantasy mage.
“I’m the one who created this tower, so I can appear anywhere I want to.”
“Sounds like you’re cheating far more than us, then!” she reflexively snapped back.
“Of course it’s cheating, but I can’t overlook what you two are doing any longer. Can’t you understand how it feels for the person who set up all these puzzles to watch people walk through them without even trying?” the man lamented, gesturing wildly. Although he was inarguably overdoing it, the exaggerated theatrics seemed strangely appropriate, especially combined with his outrageous outfit.
“We have no interest in becoming Knights. We just want to get out of the tower. Is there something wrong with that?”
“Of course there is,” the mage replied with a smile.
“Why?”
If this guy didn’t want them destroying the tower, he should have just teleported them to the outside. Yogiri figured that would solve all of their problems, but the guy didn’t seem to be interested in an easy resolution.
“This tower exists to maintain the barrier. In short, it’s essential for keeping the Dark God sealed away. Of course, it’s not so weak that destroying the tower will utterly destroy the barrier itself, but damage to the tower is still problematic.”
“All right. If you let us leave then I won’t destroy it anymore.”
“Why would I believe you? How do I know you aren’t being manipulated by the foul thing’s spawn?”
“Man, this guy is a pain,” Yogiri muttered, scratching his head. He had no idea how to convince him.
“After waking up for the first time in a thousand years, the first thing I see is you wreaking havoc in my tower. I hope you can understand my frustration. But it is what it is. I’m not like the Great Sage, so I won’t waste your time with complaints.”
“Sounds like you’ve been complaining plenty to me.” Tomochika was starting to share Yogiri’s feeling of irritation.
“My name is Eglacia. I’m known as the High Wizard. I will give you the choice of —”
“Die.”
High Wizard Eglacia immediately collapsed.
“Wait, wait, wait, what are you doing?! Don’t you think that guy might have been kind of important?!”
“Who cares? I got him before he got us.”
Totally uninterested in the man’s personal history or status, Yogiri turned and made his way to the exit.
“What choices was he going to offer, though?! Maybe one of them wouldn’t have involved having to kill each other.”
“No, he was planning to kill us either way.”
While she wasn’t entirely satisfied with that response, Tomochika had said that she was fully prepared to kill anyone they came across. She couldn’t complain much about his abrupt way of handling things.
Leaving her frustrations behind, she quickly ran to catch up with her companion.
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