Chapter 18
AFTER THE THREE-DIMENSIONAL LABYRINTH was the great hall they stood in now, which was then followed by the grand staircase to the top. The staircase really was grand—ten meters wide, with some of the steps having rounded edges as if something enormous had once rolled down.
Mira and the others reached the top of the staircase and looked ahead. Before them stretched an open hallway lit by flames that expanded and contracted rhythmically like breathing.
“That’s enough stairs for me, I think.” Aaron sighed and turned around, looking down at the distant hall below. The grand staircase had not disappointed, even after the three-dimensional labyrinth. Even Scorpion and Snake sat back-to-back in exhaustion, silently agreeing.
Mira, however, had grown even more skilled at being lazy. She had her Holy Knight hold its shield horizontally, where she sat cross-legged and even napped through the climb. She wasn’t tired at all.
“Laborer mages sure do have it easy,” Aaron grumbled as he saw Mira pop jauntily off of the Holy Knight.
Snake glared at him and rebutted harshly, “That is not true. Typically, we reserve our mana when monsters aren’t present.”
She was right; after her golem had disappeared naturally due to the passage of time, Snake had not created any more. Meanwhile, Mira was profligate with her mana consumption. She had even compared the relative comfort of Dark Knights and Holy Knights before settling on the Holy Knight as her porter.
“Yeah, I guess that’s true. I hadn’t even noticed her using her summons as a ride… Little Miss Mira, are your mana reserves okay?”
Mira stretched and yawned as if she’d just done hard labor, despite not doing much at all. Aaron furrowed his brow. On top of Mira’s enormous amount of mana, she also recovered it far faster than the average person.
“She’s special.” Envy was obvious in Snake’s eyes as she watched Mira.
“Heh. I guess that’s what it takes to be a Wise Man’s pupil, huh?” Aaron gazed in admiration at the little girl as she sipped an all-season au lait, looking for all the world like an old man on his veranda.
***
“Hrmm?” The exhausted Mira spotted a blue light coming from the hallway up ahead. She leaned forward and squinted, trying to see what it was.
Before she could get a look, a deep boom sounded, as if welling up from the belly of the fortress itself. It was followed shortly by a tremor that rattled the hallway.
“What was that sound?” Aaron stood up, instantly alert. Scorpion and Snake reacted swiftly as well, sharp eyes fixed in the direction of the sound.
“There shouldn’t be any monsters in there,” Snake noted.
This hallway led to the deepest part of the Citadel of Scales. As Snake said, the floor was devoid of monsters. Mira and Aaron remembered that detail, as well…yet the sound had definitely come from the direction of the hallway.
As the four watched, the blue light swelled again, and the sound and rumbling repeated. In the blink of an eye, the blue light washed over them.
“That was a hell of a fireball. Was it magic?” Aaron asked in a low voice.
“It certainly was. Mana remnants confirmed,” Snake said.
“We’ve got company. Did Chimera beat us?!” Scorpion stamped angrily and glowered, ready to pounce at any moment.
They’d sped here as fast as they possibly could, but there had always been a chance that Chimera Clausen would clear the dungeon before they arrived. They’d lost the race before it had even begun. Still, there was something strange about this.
“Maybe so,” Mira said. “But then—what are they fighting?”
The light they’d seen was definitely from battle. But no monsters were meant to appear up ahead. What was going on?
“Let’s go!” Scorpion ran off first, unable to wait a moment longer. Snake followed right after.
Aaron did a quick check of the items he had on hand, sighed deeply, and sprinted to catch up to them. His eyes, fixed on Scorpion and Snake, were full of fighting spirit.
“I hope there’s something to be gained for us in this battle, whatever it might be.” Mira dismissed her Holy Knight and ran atop the air so she made no sound, overtaking Aaron in the blink of an eye.
Scorpion and Snake waited for them next to a door at the end of the hallway, pressed up against the wall and craning their necks to see what was happening beyond. Their faces were masks of confusion. Mira took up position behind them and peeked inside.
The room was flooded, as if it had been subjected to an isolated thunderstorm. Despite the deluge, blue flames danced and crept along the ground. They crackled, as if burning something up within their depths.
What in the world…? Mira’s eyes went wide. She was totally speechless.
“The hell’s going on here…?” Aaron said as he caught up and saw the situation.
In the deepest room of the Citadel of Scales, which had once served as the war room, five figures were locked in battle. Or rather, four figures were battling against a single one.
Standing amidst the sea of blue light was one man. He was tall and lean, clad in a long amaranth robe. In his left hand was a slender blade, and in his right was a crossbow. His ash-gray eyes were narrowed behind silver-rimmed glasses as he looked down at the people lying at his feet.
“Did they have a falling out?” Scorpion wondered.
The five were all dressed in different styles of clothing, with no shared features. If one were pressed to name a commonality among the group, it would be that four of them had crossbow bolts lodged in their ribs and now smoldered facedown in the fire.
Had Chimera Clausen’s people turned on each other at the very moment of their success? Before Mira’s group could ponder it, one of the lightly armored men on the ground stood up, stumbled over, and attacked the robed man from behind.
Even wounded, his moves were so sharp it was like watching a movie frame by frame. The armored man clutched a familiar-looking black dagger that swung straight for the central figure.
Yet just as the onlookers thought he’d successfully stabbed the robed man from his blind spot, the robed man disappeared, leaving an illusion behind. There was a dull crack, and the lightly armored man was launched into the air, his body bent at an unnatural angle.
He could not stand against the robed man. The slender sword stabbed directly into his chest, sending blood flying. Even those red drops of blood were burned away, disappearing with the man’s last breath in the sea of blue flames.
The tang of metal and ash reached the party’s noses, yet the robed man paid the spray of blood no mind as he withdrew his sword and cast his gaze elsewhere. His face was as dark as the new moon and as cold as ice.
The other man’s corpse fell to the ground, and his black dagger rolled away. Seeing that, the robed man’s eyes were filled with rage. His coolness from before suddenly shattered, and he violently stomped on the black dagger until it shattered as well.
But his rage quickly subsided, and soon the man’s face froze into an emotionless look once again. He circled around to the corpses, stabbing each one to ensure they were well and truly dead.
“That symbol… Skyfolk?” Snake spoke up. She’d spotted the unique design on the back of his robe as soon as he’d turned away from the doorway.
“Skyfolk?! Why is a guy like that—” Aaron was familiar with the Skyfolk. After a moment of thought, he realized the answer was simple: this man had come with a similar goal to their party’s. The only differing point was whether he would let the enemy live or die.
Aaron looked at the corpses in the room in panic. The robed man turned…and locked eyes with him.
“Are you with them?” he demanded coolly, with the slightest hint of simmering rage in his voice. He swung his crossbow around and pointed it at Mira’s party.
“No! Please wait. We’re not your enemy.” Aaron stepped out to let the robed man see him and slowly put his weapon away. Following him, Scorpion and Snake showed themselves as well.
Skyfolk… What were those, again? I feel like I’ve heard of them before.
Mira remembered the word, but she couldn’t remember what it meant. It must have something to do with this man’s background. Aaron and the Hidden seemed to think they were on the same side, so after a moment, Mira followed their lead and stepped out from the doorway as well.
Now that the whole party had come through the door, the man glared at them with cold, searching eyes, apparently trying to get a read on them.
“You’re not normal adventurers. Who are you?” Relaxing his guard somewhat, the robed man eased his crossbow up so it pointed at the ceiling. It was clear he was still wary.
Aaron took another step forward, surveyed the room a little, and jerked his thumb at the dead man lying next to the man with the robe. “Those are Chimera’s goons, aren’t they?”
The robed man lowered his eyes just slightly to the man sprawled in a pool of his own blood at his feet. “…Yeah. They are…were,” he spat, his eyes filled with a complex mixture of ire, hatred, and other unfathomable emotions.
“I thought so.” Though he didn’t let it show on his face, Aaron was dispirited to hear that. With Chimera Clausen’s soldiers dead, the party’s objective was impossible. He sighed in irritation. At least let one live, damn it!
“You wanna know who we are, right?” continued Aaron. “Well, we came to capture those guys right there. Do you know who we are now?”
Any mission carried the risk of encountering something totally unexpected. Given the look on his face and his status as Skyfolk, one could surmise this man’s reason for being here. But this mission was one of the most critical, if not the most critical, in all of Isuzu’s history. Aaron’s frustration was understandable.
But the robed man didn’t care about his anger. He thought for a moment. “Isuzu, then?” he finally muttered and sheathed his slender sword, no longer wary. After all, the robed man saw the Isuzu Alliance as a group with the same objectives but different methods.
Feeling the atmosphere ease, Aaron stepped more fully into the room. Scorpion and Snake followed close behind.
What a dreadful sight… Mira shuddered.
Mira only took one glance at the Chimera Clausen troops—bloody, hideously burned corpses with agony plain on what was left of their faces—before she grimaced and turned away. From the moment she decided to fight Chimera Clausen, she knew she might witness death…but she hadn’t expected such horror to be the first thing she saw.
“Well, there you have it. Mission failed,” Aaron sighed.
He swiftly checked each of the ruined corpses for any possible hint of useful information. After that fruitless endeavor, he sighed heavily and glared at the robed man again.
“Guess I should apologize for that,” the man said, clearly not apologetic at all, and began walking past them toward the exit. “Well, this isn’t much of an apology, but I’ll share some information I obtained from this trash.” As he passed through the doorway, he stopped. Without turning, he said, “The mercantile country Sentopoli. That’s where their home base is.”
With that, he disappeared into the darkness without a sound. All that remained was a swish of air like a whisper. Yet in that gentle gust, Mira caught a murmur that sounded like a sorrowful voice.
“Somewhere in Sentopoli? That’s not very useful, but I guess it’s better than nothing.” Aaron shook his head helplessly, took a sheet of paper from his pocket, and dutifully recorded the information.
“We could’ve gotten more details if we caught them alive…” Scorpion said, her voice lower than usual as she squatted next to one of the corpses. “We can’t just go home like this. Let’s see if there’s anything else left around here.”
“Yeah. It’s awful here, but if we search carefully, there’s still a chance we might find something.” Aaron deposited the paper back in his pocket.
“I’ll look farther in.” Presuming that two would be enough to investigate the corpses, Snake strode toward the control room. Given a choice between manhandling dead bodies and searching houses, only the strangest of people would choose the former.
“I-I’ll join you,” Mira decided and hurried after Snake, overtaking her and running into the control room first.
***
In the center of the control room was a large stone pedestal surrounded by the remnants of destroyed chairs. Beyond it was a row of pillars, all studded with many holes—this was the place where the Spirit King had taken control of the army. The pillars seemed to be arranged like the bars of a cage.
Mira gazed at the pillars at the back of the control room and felt something was wrong. Wait. Were there holes there before? I recall little orbs being in those places…
There wasn’t much to do here, so she had only come two or three times in-game. Her recollection was fuzzy, but it was clear that those pillars were part of the device meant to control the Spirit King’s power.
Snake also made straight for the pillars and looked closely at both the mysterious symbols and the holes. Sifting through her memories of previous visits, Mira circled the pillars as well. It was then that she remembered something that had been bothering her earlier.
She stopped, put a finger to her chin, and asked, “By the way, I’ve heard the name, but I can’t remember. What exactly are Skyfolk, again?”
Snake, who had been intently focused on the holes in the pillars, whipped around and hurried over to Mira to explain.
“Skyfolk are the smallest of the tribes known as the Five Anima. These tribes all practice Animism, the worship of spirits. Each is headed by a high-level spirit. The other four are Earthfolk, Seafolk, Firefolk, and Moonfolk.” Snake rattled off everything she could think of even tangentially related to Mira’s question. Her lecture finally refreshed Mira’s vague memories.
“The Five Anima! Right, right, of course. I remember now. So that’s why those Chimera fellows ended up in such a sorry state.”
Back during the game days, there were quests that had players fighting alongside Animists, but only the largest faction had appeared at the time. The Five Anima—and their subgroup names, such as the Skyfolk—had been mentioned here and there, but back then, they had yet to come up in detail.
Once upon a time, Mira had researched all of these little worldbuilding elements. She recalled a certain peculiar friend who had introduced her to the term Skyfolk and couldn’t help but smile a little. But now that she knew the origin of the robed man, Mira understood the horrifying scene from before.
“To them, Chimera Clausen’s actions are the ultimate evil. The death penalty is the only option.” Snake looked down in frustration, angry that they had failed to capture even one live Chimera member.
“It’s an extreme way of thought. All the more dangerous because they’re skilled enough to make it happen.”
Mira frowned, thinking of the state of the room they had just passed through. It wasn’t clear whether the four Chimera Clausen felled by the robed man were significant players in the organization or not, but they were at least capable of reaching the top of the Citadel of Scales. If the robed man could take them all on and win, apparently unscathed, he must wield overwhelming power.
Snake nodded in agreement and, after thinking a moment, spoke again. “But there is one odd thing. That man had the emblem of a priest on his cheek. It is taboo for priests of the Five Anima to kill. The Five Anima have a special unit, called the Sin Quellers, charged with executing those who disturb the natural order. What we just saw is normally their job.”
To the devout, the priest’s actions would be an enormous stain. If what Snake said was true, it would be no exaggeration to say that his crime was just as severe as Chimera’s.
“Hrmm… Maybe he had a goal so important that this was the only option,” Mira wondered aloud.
“Maybe so. Either way, it’s too late now.”
“Right.”
That man’s abhorrence of Chimera had oozed from every pore of his body. When Mira had crossed paths with him, she had caught a glimpse of some emotion beyond mere religious faith.
Mira and Snake both lapsed into thoughtful silence, and the pair split up to search the control room.
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