Chapter 10
THE MORNING AFTER her first night in the Stairway to the Sky, Mira woke up just after 8 a.m. and greeted Gilbert, who had already awoken and sleepily prepared for the day before getting breakfast. Their breakfast was the same meat from last night, but it went down without any issue.
Meat for breakfast. How luxurious.
Mira looked down and patted her belly, thinking back on her eating habits over the last few weeks. Being a Celestial Being had benefits other than not aging, it seemed.
Not long after, Heinrich woke up like a bear coming out of hibernation and slowly began eating his meal.
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day,” he muttered. By the time he’d finished, he was fully awake and back to his usual self.
After taking a few minutes to clean up their campsite, the three stood before the staircase leading to the sixth floor.
“Now, our objective today is to get to the ruins before sunset,” Gilbert announced. “From here on out, it’s B-Rank territory. Let’s move with caution.”
“My blade hungers,” Heinrich added.
Cold air crept down from the upper floors. The wind whistled eerily down the staircase, but the three ignored it as they began their trek.
***
About an hour later, they had cleared the monsters in the sixth chamber and climbed the stairs yet again. From the sixth to ninth floors, the monsters became more diverse and began to cooperate with one another in their attacks.
Still, none could stand up to the Dark Knight’s sword. Every time Heinrich swung his katana, heads flew. Every time Gilbert loosed an arrow, another voice was silenced.
A calm hunter cutting away at their numbers, a samurai with a honed blade, and a Wise Man standing at the pinnacle of her magic. B-Rank fighting power would not stop the three of them together; it couldn’t even stop Mira by herself.
About six hours had passed when they arrived at the tenth floor of the Stairway to the Sky. There were no monsters in sight as they stepped into the narrow space.
The cold light of this floor flickered like a half-dead fluorescent bulb, occasionally illuminating isolated pieces of the room. It was a puzzle that one couldn’t see the entirety of.
Even in areas where these erratic lights were placed in regular intervals along the walls, the light they cast failed to reach the center of the floor. It only ever drew a vague silhouette of something out in the dimness.
“The time has come,” Gilbert announced, sitting at the edge of the staircase. “Let’s strategize. By the way, Mira, do you know this boss?”
“Indeed, I do.” Mira hopped off her Dark Knight’s shoulder and sat as well. She didn’t just know this boss; she had conquered it countless times.
“That makes this easier. Nothing affects this boss until it starts moving. Once it does, it flies around and throws lightning at you. We’ll need to keep moving and stay on the defensive. When it glides in to attack, we smack it down. Got it?”
“I rather dislike this strategy, but I won’t object,” Heinrich sighed.
Gilbert’s outlined plan was the ideal strategy for fighting the boss of the Stairway to the Sky. The lightning it shot was fast, but if you kept on moving, you could evade it. Once it missed with a set number of lightning bolts, it would come in for a gliding attack. That was one’s best chance to counter. But this time, they had the perfect person to shake things up.
“I think I can speed things along. I’ll go up to it and smack it down myself. You two stay prepared down below,” Mira said with perfect calm as she sipped one of her new sweet berry au laits. The wonderfully sweet-tart taste brought a smile to her face.
Gilbert recalled Mira’s Pegasus and Garuda summons. She had already shown her abilities well enough that he could easily believe that she had a way of fighting the boss in midair.
“Right,” he agreed. “That works for me. Good luck.”
“Indeed. Leave it to me.”
With their meeting complete and after a short rest, Heinrich led the three to the center of the floor.
One, two, three steps. As they stepped closer, the flickering lights seemed to become brighter and steadier.
Though the ominous silhouette was intermittent before, it gradually took form in the stronger light. The thing standing in the darkness was not white, nor black—it was a dim gray.
As they crept closer, its size became apparent. It was easily three times as tall as Mira.
Stepping steadily forward, they approached until the constant flashing of the light was abruptly extinguished, leaving only a flickering afterimage behind their eyelids.
Sudden darkness. A voiceless sound moaned through the gloom, followed by the slight grinding of metal. There was something there—perhaps dead or dormant—but no doubt there nonetheless.
It is human instinct to fear darkness. Had dozens of seconds passed? Several minutes? Or merely two or three breaths? Just as the room sank completely into blackness, the floor suddenly swelled with a brilliant, pale light.
It assaulted their dilated pupils, causing immediate pain. Heinrich narrowed his eyes and looked straight ahead. Gilbert shaded his eyes with a hand at his brow and reached for his quiver. Mira slowly opened her closed eyes and beheld the gatekeeper to the Celestial Ruins.
It looked like a haggard goat mixed with a decrepit old woman, ugly with age. The creature held a stone spear and shield in its hands, with bird-like wings on its back. A silent stone statue.
“Brace yourselves!” Gilbert commanded, backing up a few paces.
A sound like a house creaking in the night rose from the statue. The entire statue shivered, shook, and shuddered until fine cracks ran across its surface and shards went flying.
One after another, countless pieces flew off, soon creating a hail of stone. A shard the size of a plank fell from the creature’s face and smashed into the ground. In the next instant, it opened its blue eyes wide and shrieked. Its voice rattled even veteran adventurers’ nerves.
As the stone armor covering the other half of its body slid and shattered, the Gargoyle Keeper, guardian of the Stairway to the Sky, took flight.
“All yours, Mira.”
“Indeed. Be prepared, fellows.”
Gilbert tracked the Gargoyle Keeper with his eyes as he held an arrow and watched its angle of flight. Heinrich gripped the hilt of his katana with both hands, always keeping the sharp tip pointed toward the enemy.
The boss flapped its wings and glided through the air. As soon as it moved the hand that held its lightning-clad spear, Mira leapt upward.
“Wha?!” Shocked, Gilbert’s eyes widened. Mira hadn’t sent Pegasus or Garuda up to spring at the Gargoyle Keeper; she had done it herself. Even Heinrich couldn’t stop his mouth from falling agape.
Mira did not notice their shock as she ran through the air, eyes fixed on the monster. Each step brought her higher and closer. The monster turned its focus to the incoming aggressor, pointing its spear at her.
There was a flash like that of a camera, accompanied by a roar that made the whole floor rumble.
Heinrich braced himself, ears ringing from the sound of the lightning strike. Gilbert frowned and searched for Mira. A lightning bolt like that would not bode well, even for her. He regretted not asking for more details about her strategy.
However, he was mistaken.
A great white shield floated before Mira. Gilbert blinked. It seemed like a hallucination, but lightning was clearly being deflected from its center. Now he understood: the shield had protected Mira. The dull reverberation of the lightning strikes hitting the shield spread throughout the room, the compounding echoes extending the moment on and on—as if they had fallen out of time itself.
Gilbert, Heinrich, and even the Gargoyle Keeper were frozen, processing the aftermath of the lightning. Only one person was making their next move.
Mira vaulted up, spreading her legs without a care for her fluttering skirt, and clung to the top edge of the shield. She didn’t have long until her partial summon of the Holy Knight’s shield would wear off.
Then she disappeared, as if reality had dropped frames.
It was [Immortal Arts Movement: Shrinking Earth]. To use it, she needed a foothold—the shield—and she was now in striking range of the Gargoyle Keeper. Without hesitation, she pushed out her palm to strike and unleashed the raging winds of [Immortal Arts Earth: Enveloping Gale].
Its stone spear out of position, the Gargoyle Keeper couldn’t unleash its lightning fast enough. It could only thrust its shield forward in a haphazard defense.
The surface of the Gargoyle’s shield began to disintegrate under the onslaught of Mira’s blades of wind, as if ground down by an electric planer. Sacrificing its stone shield, the Gargoyle Keeper beat its wings frantically and narrowly succeeded in escaping upward.
Yet it didn’t get far before it was forced to hit the brakes to avoid slamming into the ceiling. That mere instant it took to catch itself would prove fatal. Gleaming black in the pale light, six greatswords surrounded the Gargoyle Keeper and fell upon it like lightning.
The creature raised its arms to block the lethal blades and there were six shrill clangs, as if metal had struck metal. The weapons dug into black hide, bearing down on the fiend with tremendous force, as if gravity had suddenly doubled.
Somehow, the Gargoyle Keeper managed to survive the swords’ assault in exchange for the use of an arm.
The monster glared odiously at Mira with blue eyes, its now-useless arm hanging limp by its side. It wasn’t just trying to intimidate her; those eyes held its trump card, heavenly lightning, within. The Gargoyle Keeper turned its full focus on Mira.
But in the next instant, it lurched over and fell to the ground like an exhausted bird. Another black sword had cut off one of the Gargoyle Keeper’s wings.
“Here it comes!” Gilbert spotted the boss falling and ran over.
“Our time to strike!” Heinrich stretched his neck and made a mad dash after him.
The black beast smashed into the ground with a thud. The impact must have been damaging, yet it immediately turned to look up. Its eyes wandered above in search of the blasted intruder who had grounded it.
It didn’t care for the two men. All it saw was the one who had punched it with a wind-wrapped fist and sliced it with heavy black swords—one little girl, with silver hair and proud, piercing eyes.
Mira’s presence had drawn the Gargoyle Keeper’s full attention. Taking advantage of its distraction, Gilbert and Heinrich easily unleashed their most powerful attacks. Gilbert took three arrows in hand, breathed for a moment, and then fired them. They flew straight like rays of light, stabbing into both legs and the arm that held the shield.
The sudden impact from an unexpected angle brought the Gargoyle Keeper to its knees. Then came Heinrich, holding his katana aloft like an executioner. He brought down the blade.
His perfect arc stopped just as the tip of the blade grazed the floor. He felt the powerful resistance of slicing through a living monster—its torso was cut clean in half.
Cracks ran through the corpse, and it turned a pale white and finally collapsed into a pile of dust. Its eyes, still gleaming, tumbled out. They focused now on nothing, having witnessed the beast’s own demise.
Thus, the battle of the Stairway to the Sky came to an end.
***
“Where’s Miss Mira?” Relaxing his guard, Heinrich looked up in search of the star of today’s fight and found her descending from the ceiling.
Mira landed gently without a sound, accompanied by the scent of sweet berry au lait. “It seems you’ve finished it off,” she said. “Well done.”
Gilbert smirked to himself as he watched Heinrich staring at her in stunned silence. “You made things a whole lot easier for us. Anyway, the way you ran through the air. Was that an Immortal Art?”
“Mhm, that’s right.”
“And what about the shield that appeared out of thin air?”
“That was a summon.”
“Wow. You really are Danblf’s pupil.” This was indeed what it meant to be trained under the continent’s greatest summoner.
Gilbert lifted the stone spear and a blue stone from the pile of white dust.
“Here’s your cut, Mira.” He lobbed the blue stone over to Mira, which landed right in her hand. Static electricity could be seen crackling inside. The Gargoyle Keeper’s eyes were jewels aptly called pearls of lightning. They were often used for crafting, so it would be quite useful for Mira.
“Are you certain?” she asked.
“It’s the least we could give you, considering the work you put in. The spear is enough for us,” Gilbert said, nudging Heinrich with the butt of the Gargoyle Keeper’s weapon to bring him back to reality. Heinrich nodded and looked away to cover his blushing face.
With that, the three looked solemnly up at the closed door. “We’re finally here,” Gilbert said.
The door stretched up to the ceiling, details stained from years of decay. An observer could tell little more than that the design vaguely resembled a person.
Still, it was imposing enough to be worthy of protecting the ancient city now known as the Celestial Ruins. Next to it was a rather out-of-place hunk of metal. Gilbert stood before it and pushed the stone lance into a hole in the middle of it.
There was a mechanical noise from within, and the entire box rumbled. A tremor spread through the floor.
When activated via the stone spear, light from within the box spread like a peacock tail on the wall, creeping in all directions. Then, just as it seemed to disappear behind the door, the image of a person faded and was replaced by that of a wolf looking up to the moon. Then the moon began to shine as if it were real. A ray of light cut through it vertically. The door split in two and opened.
The cold light pouring in through the doorway shone upon the floor. Mira narrowed her eyes in the uncomfortable brightness.
“Well, let’s get going,” Gilbert said, and walked through the opening door. Heinrich grunted in agreement and followed. Lastly, Mira walked from the dim dungeon into the outside world overflowing with light.
The exit of the Stairway to the Sky was situated on a plateau with a long, wide stone staircase leading below. Mira turned back, noting that the gate looked to be gouged from the cliff face. With a grinding noise, it closed.
From their position atop the staircase, Gilbert and Heinrich gasped in wonder at the scenery before them. Up ahead was a city that looked like a cluster of fossilized mushrooms. There were no signs of people, or even of life at all. It was a strange place—a long time had passed without human intervention, yet it never returned to nature.
“Still daytime, eh?” Gilbert mused. “We made it faster than planned.”
“That would be thanks to Miss Mira helping us finish that battle quickly,” Heinrich added.
“Yeah. I’m definitely thankful for that.” Gilbert squinted, noting the angle of the setting sun and orienting himself with the help of his map.
This place is just the same as last time.
Mira gazed at the familiar abandoned buildings and looked off into the distance toward their destination: the Crystal Shrine.
“Still, best not to start the real research until the morning,” Gilbert said. “Let’s set up a base first, and then we can do a preliminary check of the location.”
“Hrmm, very well.”
Gilbert used the map to pinpoint places that would work well as base camp. He abruptly turned to Mira.
“By the way, Mira, what will you do next? We’re here at the Celestial Ruins. Are you leaving for your destination?”
“Hrmm, good question.” Mira thought for a moment.
She had come here to find the shavings of the Elder Tree’s roots ostensibly left by Soul Howl at the Crystal Shrine—much easier work than the trek up the Stairway to the Sky. If she went by Pegasus, she could have had her work done in thirty minutes. A rather anticlimactic conclusion, given the journey to get here.
As for Gilbert and Heinrich, their work was only just beginning. They were to investigate the disappearing forests. This wasn’t an in-game event. It was real, and it mattered. Mira hadn’t been in this world for long, but her interest had been piqued by such new realities.
However, that wasn’t all that interested her. The line between normal and abnormal was vague in a fantasy world. But having giant swaths of land scooped out of the ground was certainly the latter. The abnormality of it made Mira uncomfortable. When there were unnatural phenomena afoot, demons were often behind them.
Sometimes demons attacked directly, but there were some that were more subtle.
And the subtle ones were the most annoying.
They worked from afar, taking actions seemingly unrelated to the issue at hand while angling toward their evil goals. If you could see demons behind the curtain and there wasn’t a catastrophe yet, that was simply because they were still in the middle of their plan. Only a demon who had run out of other options worked out in the open. The first rule of demon prevention was looking into anything that seemed even a little bit fishy.
Gilbert hadn’t said anything, but this Earth Eater phenomenon could very likely be a demon’s doing.
“We came all this way, and I’m interested in seeing this phenomenon you’re investigating,” Mira said. “Do you mind if I join in?”
“Yeah, of course you can. Are you curious about the Earth Eater too? If so…how about I tell you everything I know about it?!”
Heinrich interrupted, “We still need to find a camp before sundown.”
“That’s fair. Mira, we’ll chat more later.”
“I’d rather avoid such technical conversations…”
Wind in their faces, they trudged down the stone staircase and entered the city of the Celestial Ruins.
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