She Professed Herself The Pupil Of The Wiseman (LN) - Volume 6 - Chapter 16

Chapter 16

WITH HEAVY CLANKS, the Dark Lord clad in ominous blades and the hulking, steel-gray golem stepped into the small second-stratum chamber. They thumped forward into the center of the room, followed by Mira and the others, who had just crested the last stair. Pale blue flames flickered on the otherwise unadorned walls, a feature unique to this dungeon.

The doorway to this chamber from the stairs was indistinguishable from the entrances to other rooms around the edges of the chamber. Looking in any direction yielded the same view—without care, one could lose their sense of direction immediately.

The second stratum of the Citadel of Scales was composed of a hundred rooms connected by short corridors. In order to reach the third-stratum staircase, one had to take a specific, maze-like path through them. The magic cast on this stratum during the war still lingered, causing those within to wander in circles and return to the entrance if they chose poorly.

“First, go right,” Snake ordered, and directed her golem toward the right corridor. There was another sketched map in her hands. This one displayed a hundred rooms, ten per row and ten per column like a chess board, with a red line outlining the correct route.

RLLRURURLLRU, was it? Ah, nostalgia.

Upon first encounter, the second stratum might seem impossible to clear without a guide. However, thanks to the accomplishments of the most curious players, this dungeon had been cleared long ago, and maps were available for low prices today. Mira peeked at the map in Snake’s hands and remembered the popular chant recited by those who had cleared the Citadel of Scales back in the video game days.

The golem led the party through the maze. Snake guided them right, left, left, right, forward, right, and forward again. Along the way, stronger night ghosts with more varied attacks materialized to block their path, along with an elemental subspecies aptly known as Elementals. 

All these enemies were mowed down by a barrage of ever-adapting black blades and destructive steel fists, along with relentless twin daggers and an axe wreathed in mana.

“Aw, yeah. That’s the good stuff,” Aaron said with deep emotion. He’d hung back from the battle in the first stratum, but on the second, he finally got to swing his favorite battle-axe. He had grasped the rhythm of his allies and their servants just from watching, and worked smoothly alongside them from his first move.

This flexibility was Aaron’s specialty and secret weapon. His fighting style was to watch and learn, then relentlessly use that knowledge to his advantage. Aaron struck the monsters with his axe, testing each hit’s effects on his enemies and noting the sensations in his own body. With Aaron’s strength added to the party, the group handily defeated another mob of monsters and entered the next room.

“Hrmm? Is that…?” Mira muttered, noticing something unexpected within.

“A sword? Did someone forget it?” Scorpion asked and jumped down from the ceiling.

Right in the middle of the room was an unsheathed sword. The blade was red with rust, but the edge of the blade itself was sharp, glinting like a bloodthirsty predator’s fangs. Yet the most striking feature was its hilt. It was a basket-hilt in the shape of a lion’s head, designed to both protect the wielder’s hand and serve as a weapon in itself.

Appearing suddenly amid this endless string of rooms with no distinguishing features whatsoever, this sword was uncanny.

Mira was wholeheartedly devoted to magic, so she couldn’t tell much about the sword at a glance. However, it was clear that it was a high-quality blade. But why had it been left so unceremoniously on the floor—and here, of all places?

Having some idea of what its presence meant, Aaron glanced at the girls and called out joyfully, “Hey, it’s our lucky day!”

“Seems like trouble to me.” Mira gazed dismally at the sword, which was now slowly floating upward.

Scorpion’s ears and tail stood straight up in shock at the naked blade’s sudden movement. But she quickly fell back into a fighting pose, feigning nonchalance.

As for the usually expressionless Snake, she unsheathed her own dagger with a faint grin. The undulating blade was covered in arcane symbols, clearly magical implement.

Black, wraith-like clumps of darkness began to gather in the middle of the room. The sword at their center was no ordinary sword.

The dark mist expanded and inflated like a balloon, becoming denser and denser until it was a smooth obsidian orb. Despite floating in midair, it looked extremely heavy. Black waves pulsed from it like a demon’s heart, each throb like the strike of a hammer, driving its tendrils into the veins of the world.

The orb began to warp and writhe, hovering higher as it stretched and condensed like molten sugar. The four watched as it rose until, with a wet, squishy plop, something fell from the black mass and hit the floor below. All eyes zeroed in on the figure.

“Seems it’s a mage type this time,” Mira surmised from its familiar characteristics.

“Aha! You can tell at a glance, little miss?” Aaron asked, eyes never leaving the uncanny object.

“Warrior types are thicker. They have five fingers, too.”

“…Interesting.”

The black object on the floor lay silent, as if it were stillborn. It resembled a human skeleton, adding another layer of eeriness to the scene unfolding before them. But there was one major difference: it lacked fingers.

Now that Mira had drawn attention to it, Aaron checked the figure’s hands and realized she was right. Meanwhile, the black skeleton was slowly rising from the floor. Its motions as it attempted to stand were unnatural; it looked like a puppet pulled up from the ground by unseen strings—lacking realism. Yet when the skull turned toward them with a rattle, its enmity was real enough, eye sockets burning with a cold, baleful malice.

The black skeleton, standing with an inhuman posture, raised its fingerless right hand. The floating black orb compressed itself into fine threads that traveled down its right arm and wrapped around its body, transforming into tattered black clothes.

This was a monster called the Legion Wraith, the result of countless ghosts possessing a single powerful object all at once. This was one of the strongest, if not the strongest, enemy in the Citadel of Scales. Defeating the creatures yielded special weapons and equipment, but their appearance rate was quite low. Aaron had called it good luck because the force they currently had could make short work of such a monster. The concept of defeat did not even cross his mind.

The Legion Wraith screamed with a bitter rasp, though its mad cries were so quiet, they were almost impossible to hear. Taking that as a signal, Snake slipped behind the golem and beckoned for Scorpion, whose tail was puffed up in alarm, to get ready.

“Here it comes!” Feeling the air around him shift, Aaron tightened his fist around his axe handle and slipped behind the Dark Lord. He fished a vial containing a clear liquid from his pouch, never taking his eyes off of the skeleton.

After ensuring her allies were well equipped to withstand this attack, Mira focused her attention on the enemy’s movements.

The Legion Wraith’s eyes gleamed, and it silently roared its resentment as it raised a fingerless hand. Crimson flames billowed forth from its palm, rolling themselves into a ball of fire. This was how the fight with a Legion Wrath began: a wide-area finisher move that was known for instantly killing ill-informed players.

The orb lit the whole room red, expanding faster and faster. Once it was as large as its caster, it suddenly shrank. There came a flash like a camera accompanied by a room-shaking boom as flames spread instantly throughout the chamber. It whipped up wind within the small space, the fiery tempest raging until it had sucked all the moisture from the air.

“Well it’s certainly flashy.” The tall white tower shield disappeared, and Mira emerged in its place.

“I’ve heard stories about that move. What a sight to see it firsthand, though.” Aaron backed away from the Dark Lord’s side and looked around the charred room. The vial in his hand was now empty.

“Phew, I’m safe! Hang on… You three all knew what was coming? Was I the only one who didn’t?!” Scorpion timidly peeked out from behind the golem. Her unscathed companions nodded in confirmation, eliciting a relieved yet exasperated sigh.

“Forewarned is forearmed.” Snake’s expression was unruffled as she reconstructed her crumbling golem.

Recalling the enemy’s movement patterns from past experience, Mira had timed a partial summon of her Holy Knight’s shield to block the fire. Aaron had heard of the danger from his adventurer buddies, so he used a vial that created a watery protective film to raise his fire resistance while using the Dark Lord as a bulwark. Snake had researched the Citadel of Scales extensively and used the fire-resistant golem as a shield. Scorpion just followed Snake.

Once the destructive storm passed, the four again faced the Legion Wraith as if nothing had happened. Before the room even began to cool down from its heated assault, both sides launched into the battle proper.

The Legion Wraith’s arms fired bullets of flame like machine guns. Aaron jumped to the side and watched coolly, gripping his battle-axe as the Legion Wraith continued its relentless barrage. Scorpion leapt all about, weaving through the rain of fire and throwing disk-like blades toward her enemy. When the golem charged head-on, its surface was blasted with flames, peeling and falling away with every boom—yet it wasn’t destroyed. Snake followed right behind it, cursed dagger in hand.

Gatling wasn’t used until the end of the fight before, but I suppose its moves are different from the game. Mira watched the fight from a distance for a few moments, sizing up the Legion Wraith’s new moves before ordering her Dark Lord to attack.

The Legion Wraith fired madly, but a blade flying in at a cunning angle pierced its shoulder, interrupting its casting and bringing the attack to a halt. None of its four opponents would miss this opportunity.

Aaron charged forward, keeping low to the ground. His movements were perfect, the product of years of front-line experience. The Legion Wraith’s chilling gaze clung to him, but it didn’t move—it couldn’t. A vicious black blade was approaching it head-on.

There was a sound like glass cracking as the Dark Lord’s sword collided with the Legion Wraith’s full-power barrier. The skeletal creature had blocked the attack it deemed the most threatening and turned to mow down the second attacker with its special move. But the crack in its barrier spread like ripples in water. It had blocked the attack, but the incarnation of slaughter would not be denied. The Legion Wraith’s attention was diverted for a mere instant—and that’s when Aaron went in.

He came from the side and unleashed a full-power, full-momentum blow. The fighting spirit driving the attack was honed sharp for the sole purpose of slicing. When it touched the Legion Wraith’s thigh, all the energy converged on that point, severing its leg clean.

The Legion Wraith teetered off balance and reflexively deployed its fire magic. But Aaron was already out of reach, having hurried to put distance between himself and the monster as a—wise, it turned out—precaution. The wraith glowered at him odiously from where it crouched on one knee. When it looked up, its glowing sockets beheld an inorganic giant, stomping on and shattering the skeleton’s lost leg. Even in the weak light, the golem’s enormous figure was ferocious.

The golem slammed into the Legion Wraith, its whole body serving as a powerful blunt weapon. The crack of bones shattering echoed throughout the room.

“Brute force continues to be ideal for skeletons, I see…” Mira chuckled and watched the skeleton and the golem tussle, sending bits of bone and pebbles flying with every clash.

The momentum from the golem’s charge bowled the Legion Wraith into the wall. At the same time, a tremor shook the room. The Legion Wraith’s body had been torn apart by the golem, yet it continued to move.

A handless arm thrust into the golem’s torso. The golem easily brushed it away with its own fractured arm, and the bullet of fire it released flew off course and burst on the ceiling like a wayward firework. The scattered embers slowly burned out and rained down like the lowering of a curtain, heralding the finale of this fight.

The golem moved first. It pinned the Legion Wraith down, its inorganic arms shattering more by the second.

“I’ll finish this,” Snake declared.

She leapt forth with her magical dagger in hand, her speed in no way inferior to Scorpion’s. She muttered a string of words, and mana gathered in the golem’s right arm. When it reached critical mass, the blast blew part of the Legion Wraith away completely.

The skeleton’s jaw gaped wide, and thick voices of resentment oozed out from the black mouth like sonic sludge. The sound was almost unbearable, but nobody paid the voices any mind. Mira was simply used to it by now, and the other three were long beyond the point where they’d fear the broken monster.

Snake struck the final blow, a perfectly aimed uppercut that crashed through the wraith’s skull from jaw to cranium. The fire burning in its eyes finally went dim, and the corpse began to melt away into the air like ashes, leaving only a weak trail of light behind.

The ear-splitting noise ended abruptly, bringing the battle to a silent conclusion.

Snake had remained expressionless throughout the fight, but when she saw the trail of light pouring into her dagger, she had to grin just a little.

The wraith emitted a pale glow when it died. Is that the effect of her weapon?

Mira had seen many Legion Wraith deaths by now. Normally, the thing would turn into sand and flow away in a quiet, ephemeral display. But this time was different—each particle that had made up the black skeleton had emitted a small light that was drawn into the dagger.

An unfamiliar phenomenon, an unfamiliar weapon. Mira gazed at Snake’s dagger with keen interest. Was this something that had been developed in the past thirty years?

“Something wrong?” Aaron asked her.

“I’ve never seen a dagger quite like that before.”

Aaron followed her eyes to the dagger and said knowingly, “Ah, that? That’s some kind of special dagger, I think. Necromancers do something with it…I think…” he grumbled with a frown, unable to remember much more than that. After a few moments, he gave up. “Hey, Miss Snake. What is that dagger?”

Snake gazed with satisfaction at her dagger and, still grinning, gladly explained.

“This is an occult dagger. It’s a tool for extracting and binding mournful spirits. It’s essential for expanding magic.” Snake held up the dagger so they could see the blade before sliding it back into its sheath.

In this battle, Snake had claimed the Legion Wraith’s “colony” trait, one that could power up her own magic. Elated at this unexpected harvest, Snake became much more talkative than usual, eager to share information about her magic.

Mystic daggers were first developed by the Linked Silver Towers. They were necessary for the new magic that had spread in recent years. According to Snake, they were only effective against special souls like that of the Legion Wraith.

“Hrmm. I wasn’t aware such things existed,” Mira mused, impressed. This admission put Snake in an even better mood, prompting her to proudly create a fresh golem on the spot. This new stone golem was even bigger than the last, with arms as thick as tree trunks.

“This is a stone golem I’ve given the ‘strong arms’ trait to. There are others, too, like ‘keen legs,’” Snake added, then downed a vial of green fluid and frowned slightly. Mana potions were typically bitter.

“Necromancers are evolving, too, I see,” Mira said thoughtfully, placing a hand on the cool surface of the strong-armed golem.

I wonder if summoning has something along these lines. As she looked up at the golem, she fantasized about the future of summoning.

“Ah, right.” Aaron seemed to suddenly remember something and picked up the sword at the golem’s feet. If the Legion Wraith had colonized it, this object must contain special power. He held the rust-colored blade toward the ceiling and smirked. “Fiend King’s Red Tusk, huh? This’ll make a fine souvenir.”

After defeating the strongest enemy in the Citadel of Scales and receiving ample reward for rather little effort, the four-person party did not tarry. With the new destructive power of Snake’s golems, they cleared the second stratum without issue.