Chapter 20
WHILE MIRA and the others waited in the hidden tunnel leading to Chimera Clausen headquarters, they received a message from Aaron through their shikigami. Isuzu had seized the control center and stopped all functions. Now, HQ’s defensive systems would be useless.
However, Flicker added that something seemed unnatural. She had been working to dispel the barrier around the core of the control center, yet the barrier disappeared suddenly before she was even halfway done. There were two possible reasons she could think of: either the person who’d put up the barrier had died, or they’d dispelled it of their own volition. The former would be fine, but if it were the latter, Flicker worried that they might have some ulterior motive. She urged Mira to be careful.
“Got it. We will. Well done on your mission. Leave the rest to us!” Kagura said and hung up. She turned to Mira and Cyril and summarized the report.
Mira stood up from her seat on the ground and yawned. “Hrmm. It seems everything’s ready.”
“We’d best not let their efforts go to waste,” Cyril chimed in.
After mopping up the last dozen Chimera Clausen guards, Cyril dumped them by the HQ entrance and got ready to dive in.
Perhaps due to the attack on the control center, the hidden tunnel had been surprisingly busy. But that didn’t last long; the Chimera members came one after another to where the trio lay in wait, so it was easy to capture all of them. It seemed they’d captured almost all of the remaining guards, as the tunnel was beginning to quiet down.
“Just a little longer, and my raid unit will be here. We can leave these captives to them…” Kagura muttered to herself and threw a talisman at the pile of Chimera members. She then grabbed the knob and flung the door open. “And charge in ourselves!” she declared loudly and plunged into the base without a backward glance.
“Well, it seems it’s finally time.”
“Sure is. Let’s do our best.”
Mira and Cyril nodded to each other and followed close behind.
***
Through the door was Chimera Clausen HQ. A vast underground space stretched into the distance, with giant structures neatly arranged throughout as far as the eye could see. It looked like an entire imperial capital stuffed into a room. Light spirit power seemed to be used here as well, as despite being underground, the place was well-lit from corner to corner. That made the towering wall before them look all the more unnatural.
“I’d assume the center one is the head office,” Mira mused. “But where could all the people be, I wonder?”
“They must know that their defense system is disabled by now,” Cyril replied. “I would assume they’d take cover in a place with strong walls…”
Among the cluster of large buildings, a single, conspicuous road led straight ahead, stabbing through the very center of the structures. It led to a gate in a wall in the center of the place—quite the enticing destination for these intruders.
Was it a ruse to make them think the enemy was defenseless? Or perhaps Chimera awaited the group beyond, fully prepared and confident that they could fight them off? Chimera Clausen was exceedingly cautious. There was no telling what methods their highest elites might use.
Mira and Cyril surveyed the vast space and thought of it as they would their first attempt of a dungeon: How can we clear this?
Meanwhile, Kagura stepped forward without hesitation. “Duh, we bust right in! Just crush them before they can do anything about it!” she declared, and ran off down the center of the road.
“Good grief. She’s as hotheaded as ever,” Mira muttered as she followed. Back when this world was a game, Kagura had always been the kind to plunge right in as soon as she saw an opportunity. Oddly, this would always lead to success for her.
Mira wondered if she had some kind of foresight. Though perhaps this charge was simply because she was so close to laying her hands on her archenemy.
Cyril watched Kagura, the pinnacle of mediums, run ahead, then glanced back at Mira. “Perhaps taking decisive action would be better than overthinking things. They’ve only just shut down the control center, so we should be in the perfect position to take advantage of this. We have a Wise Man on our side, after all. Sometimes, brute force is the best option.”
Despite their charge being made up of just three elites, they had the strength to deal with most tricks with ease. Their small numbers made for greater adaptability, as well. Indeed, it would perhaps be best for these three to be proactive.
“Hrmm, very well. Based on my experience, they aren’t especially difficult to suppress. As long as we stay wary of spirits’ power, they won’t get one over on us.”
Mira looked up at the approaching wall and recalled the Chimera elite, Gregorius, she’d fought back at the Ancient Ring Gate. He’d wielded a spirit bomb, spirit gear, and a black sword. All of them were troublesome to deal with, but she had never considered any of it a real threat. And now that their group was armed with the Alabaster Oni-Slayer weapons, they were ready for anything. They simply needed to be wary of spirit-powered Chimera technology.
Kagura’s actions may have seemed impulsive, but now that Mira thought about it, they may have been close to optimal.
Though I imagine she didn’t give it that much thought herself, Mira sighed and grinned helplessly as Kagura blasted away the giant gate in her way. Ambush could have been an option if not for that.
***
Mira followed Kagura through the destroyed gate. When she went through, she smirked at the unexpectedly ideal state of things.
Beyond the gate was something like a castle entrance. It wasn’t luxurious, but it would be a lie to say it wasn’t impressive. There, Kagura stood facing three conspicuous figures.
As Mira and Cyril stepped up next to Kagura, one of the three spoke up. “Well, well, it seems two more have come. I was about to see what the commotion was, but it seems we have intruders. This won’t do.” He was so heavily armored that he looked like a bear wearing multiple layers of clothing. Despite having such bulky armor, he could still move freely and wielded a heavy halberd. Of course, both of these items were spirit gear.
A rather young man with short, reddish-brown hair spoke after him. “Our defense systems are down. Guessing that was your doing?” He had a sword and buckler hanging from his hip. In contrast to the first man, he wore light armor and a cloak. This one glared at the group with his arms crossed haughtily before his chest.
Finally, the third to speak was a man who wore a jet-black robe and wielded a black staff. “No, they can’t possibly be that fast. More likely another unit took out the control area.” He seemed to be a mage. Oddly, he frowned when he caught sight of Mira.
All three were armed to the teeth with spirit gear. There was no doubt these were three top elites. They’d encountered three of the five elites so soon. If this was the result of Kagura’s sudden charge, then one could call it a success.
“So you’re Chimera’s top guys, huh?” Kagura demanded.
“Quite right!”
“Then get ready to get wrecked,” she said coolly, already prepared to do battle. Chimera Clausen was her enemy, the evildoers who harmed humanity’s greatest ally. In Kagura’s voice, one could hear the sorrow of someone who’d had their own family stolen from them.
“Well, well, well. This looks like it’s going to be a pain.” In certain emotional states—like Kagura was in right now—people could occasionally wield more power than normal. That was what worried the heavily armored man.
But the red-haired one looked the trio up and down and said, “Pssh, don’t be stupid. It’s one scrawny man and two little girls. They must be pretty strong if they made it this far, but they don’t even have special weapons. We’re fully geared up. How the hell can we lose?”
He was right in some ways; the spirit gear wielded by the three elites held spiritual power that outstripped any of the spirit gear Mira’s group had encountered so far. How many spirits had been sacrificed to fabricate even one of those items? The man’s boastful words made Kagura even more furious.
“We’d better be careful,” the robed man cut in, glaring sharply at Mira. “That silver-haired girl is the one who robbed us of the Spirit King’s power.” He was in fact the very man Mira had fought at the Ancient Ring Gate.
“Really? That little girl, of all people?”
“Wooow. Here I thought you were making excuses when you said you didn’t expect her to be that strong, but there you go. Hey, I’d let my guard down, too.”
All three pairs of eyes gathered on Mira. Their gazes contained some antipathy thanks to her thwarting their mission, but more than that, they were clearly cautious of her due to the robed man’s testimony.
“I thought I recognized that voice,” she said. “So it is you. Your name was…Gregorius, no?” He had been in full armor when they first met, so Mira didn’t know what his face looked like at all. But his voice had lingered vaguely in her memories. She had totally forgotten his name, but now that she could examine his face, everything clicked into place. He was indeed Gregorius, son of the blacksmith Gregor.
“I left that name behind long ago. Now, I’m just a nameless head. No more, no less,” Gregorius declared. After shooting a glance at Mira, he turned his eyes to Cyril. “And that other one there, the redhead. He’s Cyril, the leader of Écarlate Carillon. Be wary of him and the silver-haired girl.”
Écarlate Carillon had been formed in order to save people who were in trouble. Their contributions were so great that they were known far and wide across the continent. It seemed their leader was quite famous.
“The volunteer guild? I see, I see.”
“And coming here is more volunteer work, huh? Sucks to be you.”
After Gregorius’s warning, the other two elites nodded in agreement and grinned slightly. The more famous one was, the more their abilities would be known. It was clear these men thought Cyril would be easier to fight than Mira, who they had little experience with.
“So you’re famous,” Mira said to Cyril.
“Well, I don’t exactly enjoy having fans such as these,” he replied with a wry grin. “It happens sometimes, when you have to fight over ideology.”
“I understand your feelings, but settle down, you two.” Gregorius urged his companions to be cautious. “A guild leader and that ill-omened girl… Together, they’ll be dangerous.” Even if one knew an enemy’s techniques, it didn’t mean that one could let their guard down. He watched Mira and Cyril carefully.
“One slip-up was all it took to scare ya, huh?”
“Indeed. That isn’t like you.”
Gregorius must have been strong enough to be worthy of their respect. The other two elites became tense and watched the trio with a new wariness.
“You’ll understand when you fight her,” Gregorius replied, steeling his resolve. “But right now, we need a secure win… It’s time to use the Chimera.”
“Oh? Is it finally time to deploy that strategy?” The old man in heavy armor sounded rather excited.
“Yeah. They look like the perfect adversaries for its first fight.”
“Are we allowed to?”
“I’m sure we will be. Now that they know where we are, we can’t hide any longer.”
With that, Gregorius and the armored man turned and ran. Kagura reflexively threw a talisman, and Mira fired off an [Immortal Arts Heaven: Pulse]. However, the young red-haired elite swiftly stepped in and fended off their magic. He looked at the gashes on his shield and smirked. “Pretty strong, for instant casts. But you won’t advance a step as long as I’m standing. Guys, leave this to me! You two get the Chimera ready!”
“We need eight minutes. You may retreat afterward!” the armored man shouted from beyond the stairs. He was already outside of their range now, but the heroes didn’t move; their attention was focused on the man before them.
The red-haired man glowered back at them and slowly backed away, murmuring, “Not that they’ll get through me, if that’s all they’ve got.” He stomped on and shattered a floorboard. The ground shook, and a giant rock wall suddenly rose up before them.
The rock wall rose all the way to the ceiling, blocking their path forward. In the now much-more-intimidating room, Kagura gazed at the man’s foothold.
“Huh? Is the defense system working?” she asked. “So you can still use it manually?”
“That’s right. The automatic defense system here may be down, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make it work,” he replied smugly. He picked up the debris at his feet and tossed it behind the trio.
There was the sound of shattering. When they turned to look, the entrance behind them was blocked as well. Now they were boxed in from both directions.
“Okay, the stage is set. You’ve got nowhere to run now, and I have my weapons and whole stock of spirit power. Heh, I’m not stupid enough to think I can beat a guild leader and that silver-haired kid, but I can stop you for as long as it takes for them to get ready. Not that I’d mind taking you down,” the man said—he was apparently a bit of a narcissist. He took out a vial of faintly glowing liquid and drank it. At once, he began to overflow with an enormous amount of mana. It seemed this was a buffing potion distilled from spirit power.
The red-haired man savored the feeling of power flowing through him and gleefully whipped out his sword. Then, with a deafening rumble, the man crashed into the rock wall behind him. Suddenly, he found himself in pitiful shape: his spirit armor had been turned into scrap metal, his sword was broken, and his buckler had shattered to pieces.
“You talk too much!” Kagura shouted what everyone was thinking. A member of Chimera Clausen acting all big and heroic, saying things like leave this to me and not that I’d mind taking you down had pushed her to the limit of her patience. She’d reflexively used her magic to strike at him without mercy.
Either as a result of the drug or his spirit gear, the redheaded man managed to survive the assault. But he was no longer in any shape to fight; he lay in a crumpled heap on the ground, eyes unfocused. “Wha… What’s…going on?”
Mira then touched the rock wall, immediately transforming it into rubble and blowing it away. The redheaded man was speechless at the sight.
“Hrmm. Well, I don’t think you’ll be stopping us for eight minutes at this rate,” Mira said. “It seems you don’t quite understand who you’ve made an enemy of.” She looked down at the man with the Demon’s Eye, infiltrating his nervous system.
“A-aagh… Help…”
Like an ominous moon in the night sky, her eyes bewitched and terrified the man. His face warped in fear and his lips trembled. He had no idea that his foes were two of the Nine Wise Men, those at the pinnacle of magic. They were beyond the realm of those who could be defeated by a mere gear advantage. Yet he was to remain ignorant. As paralysis traveled through his body, he was unable to even beg for his life. Darkness eventually shut off his consciousness.
He hovered between life and death, but he wasn’t dead yet.
“I’m quite surprised by your self-control. I’d expected you to kill him outright,” Mira mumbled to herself as she watched Cyril wrap him up in binding cloth.
“Killing people willy-nilly would get the church up in my business,” Kagura replied with a sigh. “We’ll need testimony and stuff from elites like this guy too. Apparently, they can expose related organizations or something? I dunno. Ask Alioth about it.”
They’d decided ahead of time to capture everyone involved instead of seeking immediate and fatal revenge. Kagura explained that devising methods to protect spirits based on enemy testimony, such that spirits were never hurt again, was the true and ultimate goal of the Isuzu Alliance.
There was still a long road ahead, but this was a necessary first step.
“Well done, you two,” Cyril complimented them. “I have my own dream, but it still feels so far from realization.”
As the leader of a guild formed to lend a hand to all who needed it, Cyril found himself envious of both the Nine Wise Men’s power and their perfect composure. It seemed others saw them as truly special, regardless of whether or not they were worthy of it.
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