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Chapter 417: Deceit’s Truth Revealed. [Release Version]
🕑 Added 2023-05-09 03:46:35 +0000 UTC“Manethala sent me a message that my valto is coming. He suspects our collusion. He’s coming over this way, right now, but we haven’t finished the damn installment yet!” Broggart exclaimed with a haggard voice, looking as exhausted as if he had stayed up the entire night, or however long our nap took, working.
“Good, then we can deal with him now,” King Fugnarus stated, swinging his axe over his shoulders.
However, Broggart’s already reddened eyes glared at the man, looking like he was about to choke the king to death. Broggart stomped over, poking King Fugnarus' chest with his index finger. “You bashthuda! Is that all you can think about?! Fighting to show off ya honor that way!? Didn’t I already tell ya valto’s employer has Goddess Chihiro’s workshop as a hostage in this situation? My old man isn’t the only issue here.”
King Fugnarus frowned, grabbing the offending arm and shoving the other dwarf back a bit. Despite the clear lack of respect, he didn’t burst out in anger. “You're the one that stated we had to kill your father and destroy the creation YOU built, but now you’re telling us to hold back? The workshop being in danger is an issue, but do you even know the political consequences this will have? I can already imagine the Event’s aftermath being a headache considering what the dragon princesses experienced, and now you’re telling me to hold back instead of striking down that traitor Maagneil?!”
“I am not telling ya to hold back, I am telling ya to keep that hand of yours in control until we can assure Goddess Chihiro’s legacy is safe. Do I need to spell it out for ya? Isn’t ya aunt’s work important to ya, considering how much you wanted to know from me?”
Fugnarus eyed him with disdain, speaking back sharply at his accusation, “Think of me whatever you will, but I still have a role to play as the Ankoran King. Stopping this insurgence from happening within my land and getting the dragon princesses out of this mess alive are my only goals.”
“You don’t need to treat us as if we are some damsels in distress, dwarf,” Neill snapped at him. “If you need help with the political side, then so be it, I can always speak with the kinkyuru about it. In fact, if we find Midirn, he can probably talk his father out of issuing a complaint to you. I’ve had that bastard Galg and his party try to hunt me down once already, and I know how tenacious he is. Even if you tried to stop him, he would have found a way in the city regardless.”
“Midirn?” I wondered, having heard that name before, but not even my parallel minds could remember who that was.
“The son of the patriarch of the dragoenwt Clan Kargryxmor.” I snapped my head around to see Ellaine coming out of the workshop, looking disheveled and ready to collapse. Tatsuya offered her an iced fulinoe tea to help wake her up, to which she accepted before continuing. “He’s the representative of Loatryx sent with our expedition. Also reason number two why all the wyvern slayers hate us, but that is besides the point.”
“What did he do?” Kyouya asked, piquing my own interest, but before anybody could answer, Grimnir clapped his hands.
“We can have story time and whatever kinda fight later on, but we actually have a problem right now. How about we solve it?” He then pointed at the workshop. “Broggart is correcting the mana transfer efficiency from my elemental runes to make their burst shots less damaging to the core. I need more time, but we can’t do it here. We need to figure out how to handle Maagneil’s presence.”
“And not have the workshop destroyed!” Broggart interjected.
However, I could only raise a brow at how serious he was about it. “Why? This is a fantastic time to get rid of that man once and for all, and so what if the employer activated the dragon killer? We can always destroy it afterwards. It’s just a workshop.”
“Just a workshop?!” the artificer glared at me as if I had just said the most profane statement in the world. “That isn’t just a workshop, it is the crown jewel of all the possible tech progress we Peolyncians could implement! I thought an otherworlder like you might understand, but it seemed that bashthuda Bleidla got into your damn brains, dragon!”
Sheesh, talk about touchy.
“Then how would you suggest we go about doing this?” Saori came to my defense. “I would rather not risk my friend’s life when something like a ‘dragon killer’ is still operational. We will have to rely on the non-dragonkins for the fight if that is the case, and most of the heavy hitters are in the expedition force, no?”
“Kushlek’zar and the saurians, Themrayn, Rudigan, and Azelfa are the non-dragonkin rank As on the expedition force. And, well,” Neill turned to Saori and Vifi’Yok. “Those two.”
“No, I’m a dragonkin, sort of,” Saori answered, reminding me how I had molting training with her when Mom was still around. “I drank Hestia’s blood before I evolved into a rank B. Yorshka and Melloxtressa could pick it up from my scent, can’t you?”
“Ooooooh, so that’s why you smell so much like Hestia. I thought you just had one of her scales on you or something, since she mentioned you being her best friend. Well, glad to meet and know about that, Saori. Got a good amount of questions for you after this is done, concerning my new little sister.”
“And I would be happy to answer them.”
Please, don’t embarrass me, Saori. Don’t tell her about the time I ate rocks …
This small moment of bonding ceased immediately, though, when Neill returned to the subject at hand. “Although, that doesn’t explain it. You’re actually a dragonkin? Can you molt? How is that possible? Drinking the blood of dragons doesn’t just turn you into a dragonkin or something like in some of those crazy stories, even if it’s the blood of Kramps.”
As evident when nothing happened to Rajah when he tried drinking my blood. Saori’s transformation was a huge outlier to everything. I had always wondered what was the cause of it, but then I remembered we had somebody who could answer it for us, right now.
[“The explanation to that lies with my evolution choices when I ascended to a rank S. It is the same reason why the boy Tatsuya has the ability to transform into bestial forms through [Druidification]. Saori can explain everything to you later; the current situation demands your focus,”] Belzac explained to me, also telling me this message only went to me as he wanted to keep his presence a secret to everybody who didn’t have to hear him.
As such, Saori told Neill it was a secret for now, and that she would elaborate on everything later on. Instead, our focus returned to how we should handle Maagneil, especially since we had Broggart who was adamant about not wanting to attack him now.
Now, I was alright with some subterfuge to make things easier, but this felt and sounded like such a wasted moment, as King Fugnarus mentioned. Chihiro’s workshop might be filled with stuff I wanted to know, yes, but it felt like we might be risking our heads a bit just to preserve it. Then again, I did understand why someone would value something to the point they would not hold back to protect it.
This showed when we all tried to persuade Broggart, only for him to coldly wave it all aside. He urged us to follow his idea and just go back to the smithy at the moment. There was supposedly a hidden room he had dug out for himself there which we could use to hide in. As a sign of trust, he relied on Ellaine to finish the last step of the implementation process for the blasthammer.
Once he got the hammer and the component from the workshop, Broggart handed them to Grimnir and Ellaine respectively. “Okay, don’t forget to keep them safe, alright? If I can’t come back ‘cause valto took me away, then finish the thing while I’m away and make ya way down the tunnel in the opposite direction. There should be the set of stairs Manethala made in secret. Oh, and if ya want those unique Jobs, any of ya entering the last floor will do it for ya entire party.”
With that, he shoved us to the minecart trains and sent us off. In his hurry, he hadn’t gotten the chance to inspect the [Room] runes Girmnir made, nor did I have the time to close them. As such, everything that happened was witnessed by Haruka, Daichi, and Asaka.
“… Was that man really Broggart?” Daichi asked through the portal, to which Ellaine nodded.
“He is the real deal, yes,” she said with a slight gulp. Her mouth formed into a smile as her mind wandered a bit, before she realized what was going on and apologized. “It is almost as if the very person who wrote the notes I’ve read all this time was right in front of me! … Although, he seemed quite eccentric.”
“Nonsense, lass, that’s the ingenuity of my cousin speaking,” Grimnir let out a boastful crackle, almost as if he was showing how proud he was of his relative. “It’s as if he hadn't changed once since I lost him. Well, he seemed less stressed compared to before, but maybe it’s cuz I got his earnest opinion of me through the video recorder. It felt like … Nah, I’m being too sentimental here. Haha! I’m just glad he’s not actually dead.”
“… Hmm?”
Haruka? Looking at our math wiz, I raised a brow as she sat there, having a pensive look. When I called her out, she fumbled with her hands a bit, looking nervous through the portal’s opening.
“I-it’s nothing. Probably just my imagination.” She tried to wave it off.
However, Saori wasn’t persuaded. As her former teacher, she knew her well. “Haruka-chan, you do that sometimes due to your social anxiety. Why not speak your mind? We have nothing better to do while riding here, and we might as well get your opinion on things.”
“O-oh, well, if you want, Sensei. I was just thinking … when did Broggart fake his death?”
“A year before we found Grimnir in Cedaraille, all depressed and indulging in his alcoholism,” I answered, still remembering the day I met Grimnir and how he joined our party clearly.
“Oi, lass!” The man himself wasn’t too thrilled about my description, but it was all true.
Haruka, too, ignored him and continued, “I see … that should make it two years by now, right? … I have a question, Mister Grimnir, wasn’t the whole reason why you told us your uncle went mad due to your cousin’s death? No, wait, it wasn’t just you, it was also Mister Jadhund, too, no? Hesti-chan, we listened to him explain everything to us after you rescued me, remember?”
I looked at the ceiling after being reminded by Haruka. “Now that you say it, Jadhund was adamant about defending Maagneil, right? How the entire bad blood between Grimnir and Maagneil wasn’t just because his favorite son was exiled, but also because Grimnir sent his body back. Maagneil supposedly went ‘mad’ after Broggart got exiled. That fits what Broggart, said, no?”
“No, no, exactly! You’re thinking in the wrong way, Hestia-chan,” Tatsuya blurted out. “Didn’t he and the hold king of Gazahan-Orn perform political suicide by trying to arrest all of you? Think about it, it doesn’t make sense. Hey, Haruka-san, Daichi; that’s what happened, right?”
Daichi nodded. “After I burned the younger son’s beard off, the guards arrested me when Jadhund was around. However, after Nishio and the others went to complain to the Hold King, all the soldiers tried to arrest them since they loved the Luedbrumdar clan. You guys found out the King was in with Maagneil’s shady business, right? Something about improving his own situation?”
“Thanks! So, here is the issue we’ve been questioning all this time. Why did they do such a heavy-handed move? Just arrest Daichi, have the others complain, and continue the damn competition with Grimnir. Why try to sabotage Grimnir, when they knew he had you behind, supporting him. It made no sense, and then we had to deal with the guards when we entered the city to rescue Haruka-san!”
“… So, you’re saying the issue here is that we have logic failures?” Kyouya tried to understand Tatsuya’s rambling. I was also having trouble understanding his point.
“No, that’s not what he meant.” Surprisingly, though, King Fugnarus seemed to have understood everything. “If Maagneil only had bad blood with Grimnir, he would have just arrested his apprentice and had him be judged fairly. The boy almost ruined his master’s chance to win the smithing competition, and an embarrassment like that would have been far more precious to the man’s ego … but he went radical. You might not trust me, but my wife told me Maagneil was known to be a cunning business man. He isn’t foolish enough to invite the scorn and wrath of a foreign princess, especially not one related to a high ranking dragon clan.”
“The dragonewts could cause him more problems,” Neill added. “Any dragon offspring would be treated like a prince or princess by their respective dragonewt clan; it’s just that we are proper royalty. If they mess with you, even dwarves won’t be too safe from those fanatics.”
“… Wait, is that so? Hold on, Hestia-san, you really are a young mistress straight out of a cultivation novel,” Tatsuya stated, prompting me to snap at him for comparing me to something like that!
“Oi, am not!” But this joke could rest until we unraveled it. Pondering on King Fugnarus’s and Tatsuya’s words, it was really starting to seem weird. “… Meaning, Maagneil was acting too irrational, despite him knowing Broggart was alive all this time? Wait, YOU’RE RIGHT! Why did he doom his clan to its current existence? Why did he throw away everything he had just to get back at Grimnir, when he didn’t even care about his youngest son? I mean, the fact he pummeled him to the point of his face deforming was brutal. No loving or sane father would do that!”
Bingo.
“… Haruka-chan, you really catch on to those small details,” Kyouya praised her.
She was also the one who noted how to clean the room where the video recorder was. If it was old, it would have been dusty, but she guessed somebody must have cleaned it and that person was Broggart … But at the same time, if Broggart was alive all this time, just put away to work on this dragon killer, then why did Maagneil even try such a stupid plan. He could have just gotten revenge on Grimnir in another way and just left “sleeping dragons to sleep.”
Logically, it just wouldn’t make any sense. If he destroyed his clan when his son was still alive all this time, then how was the latter supposed to inherit everything his father built up? Wasn’t that one of the main reasons why Maagneil loved Broggart? That he was a genius who would inherit his legacy as the clan lead?
“… I don’t want to hear any more.” Despite the loud rocking of the minecarts riding along the tracks, Grimnir’s gulp was still very audible to me. I turned around as he looked pale into the depths of this tunnel. “This … has to be a joke, right? D-didn’t Saori and her mother not just tell us he can’t be an onnikai. He-he has to be alive. He acted—Demonkin!”
Grimnir stopping his pleading and snapped his head over to Vifi’Yok. “You should be able to answer this, right? Amongst the princes, is there an Original Sin technique that allows you to brainwash somebody?”
“MASTER?!” Ellaine flinched, looking at our smith with widened eyes as if he had gone crazy.
Brainwashing?
“RIGHT! Lass, that has to be the answer!” Grimnir shouted, grabbing Ellaine’s shoulder, acting far more energetic than usual. No, this was completely out of character for him! “There has to be, right?! You got the damn envy bastard mimicking the persona of Aurena’s pop. He has to be able to brainwash, right?!”
“… Uh?” The demonkin looked confused, before letting a sigh out and reaching a hand over to me. She gestured for me to come closer, but I already understood what she really wanted and gave her a donut. “No.”
She took a bite of the pastry, before turning her head away. She ignored the fact Grimnir’s face paled again, agitating him as he nearly jumped from his minecart into hers.
“EXPLAIN IT, EDJURALONG! There has to be!” But his begging went into one ear and out oft the.
Vifi’Yok turned back around, replying with a full mouth, “Princes of Sins can only possess two Original Sin abilities. These abilities come from our demon heritage and are more a culmination of their main techniques. Here I thought your lust contractor would know better. Couldn’t you have asked her?”
Ellaine winced. King Fugnarus raised an eyebrow.
“Whoever you contracted with really didn’t explain anything to you. There are only two Original Sin abilities per demonic sin—wrath, for example, possesses Satanael and Satan. Lust has Asmodeus and Lilith. Envy only has Demiurge and Yaldabaoth,” she emphasized. “You’ve seen what Demiurge did—transform you into another person perfectly after touching them. That’s what the Prince of Envy did with the Pope of the Church of Aurena. Yaldabaoth was what was done on Hestia, and it was using the envy of your memories to corrupt you to either eat your soul and control you. That’s the brainwashing you probably wanted to know.”
“Then—” Grimnir saw a glimmer of hope, but Vifi’Yok immediately stomped down on it.
“As I told those three and the cat, the demonkins had no plans on doing anything to the dwarves. None at all. The moment we try to cause aggression, it would invite the elves, at the very least. In fact, trying to corrupt a dwarf is harder than just doing something with a human; the whole zuekluk culture makes it hard to find dwarves willing to fall into the deep end,” Vifi’Yok scoffed, shaking her a head a bit in amusement. “No offense to your cousin and uncle, but they aren’t ‘special.’ If we wanted a ‘dragon killer,’ or whatever, we could have gotten any of the other master dwarves.”
“Or a human,” King Fugnarus stated. “I am not that prideful to disregard human ingenuity. With how many possess dwarven masters, our crafts have spread to the Empire. Many elves use dwarven techniques, too, after all.”
Vifi’Yok shrugged. “Something like that. Look, I haven’t been a Warbringer for more than a year now. I’ve been an apprentice of one, but I wasn’t privy to the inner circle until I became one, so I can’t assure you this information is fully correct. However, a prince of sin replacement like me can only use one of the Original Sin abilities, so if you have Demiurge, you cannot use Yaldabaoth. Only the Prince of Envy could have done anything … but why risk getting caught and ruining our grandest scheme in centuries to destroy the Empire?”
“… It makes sense,” Neill agreed. I had to agree, and that meant Grimnir had to start facing the truth of the matter. “So, who do you think is behind all this?”
The demonkin shook her head. “Goes too far. I gave you the basic knowledge I possess, but I don’t know who could be behind this. Just not Lord Envy, so make your guesses. I don’t want to reveal any more for this donut.”
There were six princes of sins, but we couldn’t narrow it down any further. This entire discussion also sorta exposed Ellaine, making Vifi’Yok question her disguise as a Lust contractor. We might not have told Grimnir to hide it, but he was smart and resourceful enough to know better. I knew his emotional outburst was warranted since this was his cousin we were speaking about, but this was really not like Grimnir!
[“Don’t confront it yet,”] Saori told me, her eyes trained at Grimnir and how much he was gesturing. He looked emotionally unstable.
Still, I listened to my best friend, trusting her judgement. I should return to the subject on hand, first.
Alright, if Tatsuya was implying that Broggart was dead all this time and that was the reason why Maagneil went so crazy, then how was all of this possible? The wolves didn’t smell the scent of death on him, nor did Belzac mention anything. However, unless Broggart was dead and resurrected in some way, how could we explain Maagneil’s behavior?
“There is somebody we could ask,” Saori stated, telling us to wait until that person came.
As our minecart stopped at the smithy, we quickly managed to find Broggart’ hidden space and pushed ourselves into it to hide. There weren’t any silence runes or something to hide our presence, so we had to just rely on our skills to do so. As we waited, Saori told me her shadow pack hadn’t returned and that I should close the portal for now.
With my patience starting to wear out after however long we’ve been waiting here, Grimnir suddenly suggested adding the mechanism he got from Broggart to his blasthammer. The preliminary tests were done while I was asleep to make sure it would work, now it only needed Ellaine to add it on.
“Broggart perfected the function of the mana blast my original blasthammer had—that single massive shot, remember? The one that overloaded the mana battery, making its application hard since I had to replace the battery after every usage?” Grimnir showed me the mana battery Broggart gave him. “A far more powerful one; one he learned to make with the dragon kill core in mind.”
“Wait, didn’t he tell us he never saw the core before?” My suspicion radar went into overdrive.
“He did, yes, but you heard him. He understood the theory behind it, predicting there was probably a more optimal combination of arcanuit and euorinium by using a fragment of the earth elemental emperor as an additional conduit for the flow of mana. A fragment! Of course, the original creator—”
“Grimnir!” I shook his shoulders, before looking over at Ellaine. “And you agreed to put this battery into his blasthammer?”
“W-well, I originally thought it would be a good idea … The issue with Master Grimnir’s blasthammer still hasn’t subsided, simply my skills aren’t really at that level yet. I still only have [Artificer Lv. 6], but Master Broggart, he was able to figure out the flaws and pointed out the problems of the design Master Grimnir and him made. In fact, I learned so much, I could probably improve on the guns I made for Kohaku and Kazumi!” she said with a pleasant smile, showing her enthusiasm to learn.
“Exactly! This is a revolution, lass! Trust us!‘ Grimnir almost managed to curl his fingers into a fist, hiding the battery away before I grabbed his hand. “Lass?”
“Grimnir … I will ask you this only once, alright? Did you and Ellaine drink anything weird? Inhaled anything?”
“He did offer us some fruit ale,” Ellaine sheepishly answered. “It was hard work, so we drank it. We didn’t really eat anything. I just lost myself in my work to noticing being peckish, which I am now.”
That was all I had to hear. I turned back to Grimnir. “Grimnir, I need you to give me the batt—”
“NO!” He pushed me back with full force as if he was trying to punch me, but I managed to catch it before it could. “THIS IS MINE! MINE! MY COUSIN’S TREAU—GRRRK!”
Saori immediately acted and grabbed his throat and shoulders, pushing him onto the ground before Kyouya and Tatsuya came over and helped me get the battery. This was the confirmation we needed; there was something going on with Grimnir!
Ellaine’s enthusiasm for her craft was invigorating to listen to, and while it did make me happy to hear her passion for it was as strong as ever, it did worry me at the same time. With how suspicious everything seemed, why was she and Grimnir not questioning the situation? Why were they acting so … off? As if something was messing with their heads.
And here it was.
I couldn’t let them put that battery into the blasthammer without checking on it. Ellaine and Grimnir hadn’t done so, but I could. The secret to this was in this damn thing … and why Ellaine wasn’t acting off, but Grimnir was.
“Mas—”
“EllAINE!” Grimnir shouted before Kyouya rammed him on the ground to stop his frenzied struggling. Eventually, King Fugnarus stepped in and held his axe forward, pointing at Grimnir as a rune activated, causing the ground to mold by his command, entangling him as if he just used the spell [Earthen Shackles]. “LASS, FREE ME! SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH ALL OF THEM! HELP ME!”
“… I don’t need to tell you what is happening, right?” I looked at the fourth member to join Aurora.
As expected, she nodded after hesitating. “I-I didn’t mention this … but the thing in my satchel wiggled around quite a bit while I was working with Master Broggart. I hadn’t taken too much notice of it when I worked but …”
Oh boy, the plot thickens …
I ignored Grimnir and held the battery up—this thing was the size of one of those cylindrical batteries you put into your TV controller. It was far smaller than the one Grimnir used for his blasthammer, and it was supposed to replace it? That one was like the size of a smartphone.
Mana Eyes.
<Manaheart Battery: A mana battery created with the inspiration of the mana heart of major elementals—a crystalized mana organ to allow these elemental to maintain a more corporeal form. Using arcanuit and euorinium as the main components of this manatech, it allows the storage and usage of mana absorbed from the air, however, it maintains the fragility of the original minerals due to a lackluster ratio. A part of an elemental was embedded into this battery, granting it higher resistance against earth elemental attacks>
…
I looked at Ellaine, who seemed flabbergasted at the very least. “… Ratio? W-wrong ratio?!”
“That’s the first thing they teach an artificer before they are allowed to make them,” King Fugnarus explained in Ellaine’s stead, sounding more confident with the subject. “A master artificer wouldn’t make such a rookie mistake. You double check the ore amount between the two to prevent the arcanuit from becoming too fragile, while the euorinium can’t outweigh it by too much, otherwise, the conductivity would suffer greatly.”
“So, the rest of the description is just fluff?” Ellaine stated, looking dismayed.
With my mana eyes still active, I noticed there was something in the middle of the battery that seemed off compared to the rest. Its mana signature was higher than the area that looked like the main mana storage of the battery. It seemed off, so I gave it to Ellaine.
“You cannot keep denying it,” Saori stated, before waving my [Room] runes around. “Please open it up and check on it. Do not risk it. Hestia, Asaka should have come back from the toilet by now.”
“ELLAINE!” Grimnir shouted, but we all ignored him, leaving him for King Fugnarus to watch over.
With that said, Saori also checked on her shadow. As it rumbled, Rajah’s head jumped out of it, looking excited at the fact he was working with his mother to scout out. Son and mom; how precious.
He informed us the shadow pack managed to scout the entire tunnel area and found a large, arena like area a bit further from Broggart’s workshop, while behind this smithy was a large entrance, as Broggart instructed. There were also smaller side tunnels with signs of being mined in in the area, all connected to the train tracks.
[“Song found another dwarves exiting the workshop area. Old, twitching, stinky; the same person who tried to hurt Master!”] Rajah growled. It had to be Maagneil. [“He left, but that other dwarf is driving towards here with a minecart. I dashed back as soon as Mom told me so!”]
“Good boy!” I scratched his head before dismissing him.
Eyes in the shadows with the shadow pack, and eyes in the sky with my two wyvern retainers. Speaking of them, I hoped they were doing alright with the expedition. Ellaine didn’t mention Shay and Beth much, but they were still alive and kicking, at least.
In any case, with not much time left, all of us exiting the hiding spot and I opened my portal, where we saw Asaka waiting for us. Saori cut straight to the chase, “Did you notice anything about Broggart? With your connection to Ilsaphone, I mean.”
“Huh? Oh, Grimnir’s cousin you mean?” Asaka was around when Broggart stormed out of the workshop. “Well, I thought the wolves or the old wolf could tell you, so I can’t say I can provide much better. Still … I don’t know if this is my connection with Ilsaphone speaking or not, but it feels he’s … empty.”
“Empty?” I tilted my head.
“Yeah, like, I don’t know, seeing him gave me the same feeling I have while seeing corpses. Empty husks. To be honest, seeing the onnikais also gives me that feeling if they haven’t fully possessed a body, but I am sure that person wasn’t an onnikai,” she elaborated, but it still felt confusing to listen to. “Listen, this is one thing Belzac made sure to punch into my head, ‘Either you become an onnikai, or your soul will be sent to Goddess Death to be reincarnated.’ Ever since her birth, true necromancy we see from movies and so on can’t exist in Peolynca. Despite being her Saintess, I am not a death summoner or something, but I can sense the absence of a soul.”
“…” All of us remained silent at what she said, before we looked at Grimnir who was staring at us with eyes so wide they could pop out of his socket at any moment.
Asaka looked around, sighing as she realized what she was implying. “… It’s just a feeling, alright? I’m still not much of a Saintess, so you better check him out, Hestia. If he really is a walking corpse, then there has to be a reason for that. Some strings, right?”
“With [Mana Eyes], right. Got it, see you later.”
She nodded. “Stay safe. Send people inside the subspace when they need to be healed. This twilight slime is pretty nice for healing.”
Once she was gone, Vifi’Yok let out a loud sigh. “… Sooooo. ‘Mine. Mine. Mine.’ Sounds clear?”
“… Greed. Right, you did mumble it when we had that heart-to-heart moment,” I stated, causing her to sigh and nod. “One of the three desires sins along with gluttony and lust. However, lust is about debauchery and hedonism, while gluttony is about the necessity to survive. Greed isn’t about need, but—”
“—the wish to possess something even if it’s unnecessary,” Neill ended the sentence for me. “But how? Is Broggart a demonkin of greed? I thought Asaka just said he was soulless?”
“Oooh, yeah, since we now know who is behind all of this, I think I know exactly what caused your smith to act like that … and in the case I am right, I might just be in a some biiiig trouble.” She gulped, forcing up a smile. “I know what is causing it, yeah … I also want to know why this girl here showed no reaction to it. Humans aren’t as resistant to demonic corruption like dwarves are, and greed was one of the sins which managed to corrupt the stubborn dwarves. Its just like history repeated itself … but what’s your excuse?”
Ellaine stayed quiet.
“Not a real lust contractor, are you? A blessed? Blesseds are usually resistant against demonic corruption due to the god’s blessing … but how were you able to use a demonkin of lust’s powers? How are you able to resist the creeping greed from corrupting your mind? If this is the Prince of Greed we are talking about, not even I can ignore it.” She walked closer to Ellaine. “Who are you really?”
“…” Ellaine could only stared back at the punkish demonkin.
“Uuuh, everybody?”
We all snapped our heads to the front door. The signal had finally reached us.
“Is everything alright?” Broggart walked over to us, gingerly. He probably already understood how intense the atmosphere was and how sharp our eyes were while staring at him.
“Cuoso!” Grimnir somehow freed himself from the earthen shackles and ran up to Broggart, grabbing him by the scuff. “Y-you’re alive, right? I-it’s as ya said! You’re alive! You faked your death and all that nonsense afterwards was cuz of your damn father! That bastard Maagneil is at fault, right?! Cuoso?”
“…” He didn’t say anything, only closing his eyes. “Grimnir … know this: I apologize for using you. I respect you, cuoso, and I will continue to keep the shame for underestimating you all these years. You, my cuoso. The only one I would ever wish to work with on grander works to impress Goddess Chihiro! To shame Bleidla for losing one of the best blacksmiths in the world!”
“… Cuoso? Broggi?”
Broggart grabbed his arms, tearing his hands off his clothes almost effortlessly.
“But I would be lying if I said those words really came from ‘Broggart.’”
Mana Eyes!
There! Right where his heart should be! The dwarven body before me was entirely true, to the point it even has a Profile to prove it! But there was no heart in this body, no, there was something entirely else inside there. The mana signature was hard to see, but the concentration of it reminded me of something else I had once seen before. I snapped my head to Ellaine’s satchel, noticing something similar, but smaller inside of it.
An aberration! Shit, Grimnir!
“But I am no envy, I can’t continue playing around like one. My creator needs me to work again.”
“Broggi!” Grimnir shouted as something suddenly burst out of Broggart’s chest, revealing itself as a crystal heart. Blood oozed out of it before it formed a flower with petals filled with teeth, before it screeched out a horrendous noise!
“Kriiiiiiieeeeeezzzzzzzzz!”
“Kriiiiiiaaaaah!” Before it popped our ears, I shouted from the top of my lungs, blasting the weaker sonic attack with my [Draconic Roar], blasting both “Broggart” and Grimnir away with it.
Shit! At the same time, I also noticed that a sonic attack had pierced and damaged Grimnir’s power armor’s pauldron, causing a dent in it.
Before I could fly over to catch him, I saw an arm blackened in black armor peer out of Grimnir’s shadow, grabbing his leg before he flew away too far and clad him in [Shadow Armament]. Once it covered his entire body, he was pulled into a shadow and reappeared behind us with Saori.
Nice!
“My creator gave me this power for this very instance!”
“W-woah!”
As I was celebrating our tiny victory, everybody in the room suddenly fell onto their knees, caused by some invisible force. Even if I tried to stand up, the force was so powerful, it felt like my bones were cracking under this intense weight. The more I struggled, the more pain I felt.
Play My Darkest Thoughts. Now!
“Staring out the window while it rains ♫
No one here to talk, silence is all I have ♫
So I delved into my thoughts and wondered, “What if?”♫
<[Music Resonation (Moderate)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]>
If this was a demonic being, then playing [My Darkest Thought] was the best way to counter and weaken them! Just as I suspected, the weight put on my body weakened, helping me stand right up, even if I was still trembling. The “Broggart” before me tilted his head, looking confused as all of us managed to walk.
“… I feel weakened. What is this song, and why is it inhibiting my powers? No matter, my creator—”
I didn’t even let him stop speaking, blasting myself forward and holding my head out to touch that flower of his. I only needed one touch to usurp him!
“—allowed me to use gravity magic on myself, too.”
But before I could do so, all the gravity around me disappeared, helping me speed up but it seemed to have fully focused itself around Broggart as the dwarven was unceremoniously squished into paste onto the ground, just before I could touch him.
As I flew over, I also saw the ground trembling, before it just broke and fell downwards, creating something a hole too deep to see into. As my entire group looked down, we suddenly heard the sound of beeping from the mana battery in Ellaine’s possession—the very same Grimnir almost had put in his blasthammer!
Saori grabbed it and threw it away before touching her shadow with both hands. Her entire body was then immediately covered in her shadow armor [Shadow Armament] before I felt her [True Wolfen Bloodlust] exude from her body. “Territory Release! Yomi!”
<Allied Territory detected! [Yomi] has been activated!>
Black ooze spread from Saori’s shadow as if it was water, covering up the entire area around us as the beeping of the battery intensified, sounding like it would explode any second now. Saori stomped the ground before grabbing it, pulling the shadow as if it was tangible over her body, controlling it like a puppet as a massive tidal wave of black consumed us all.
I haven’t been in the shadow world in a while, but the thought of it sent a chill down my body as I revisited the world of nothingness. The grand abyss of blackness where light was the faintest glimmer of hope we had left. If not even that was available, then death was an assured fate as you drifted in this world with no clue what was up or down, whether you were asleep or awake.
Regardless, no matter how poetic I could be, Saori wouldn’t let me get too dramatic as she pulled us along her fluid-like shadow, dragging us through the light of a hole. As we all emerged back to the light world, the sound of a massive explosion drowned out our ears as we snapped our head to the left, noticing the rumbling of the tunnel.
Saori was the last to come out, followed by the giant body of Uno, the black flame hellhound. Saori reached her arm out, patting her fenrir as a [Shadow Snake] suddenly slithered back on her arm.
“You really are prepared for everything, huh?!” I expressed with a wide smile, feeling nostalgic at the always prepared Saori.
“Well, after we had that entire discussion on the minecarts, it would be weird if I hadn’t at least put down a way for me to perform a long-range [Shadow Dash], right?” Her smile beamed with pride at her own foresight. Since [Shadow Dash] required line-of-sight to activate, the best way to ensure you could do so was with [Shadow Snake], which allowed the user to look through its eyes to spy on things.
The cunningness and creative moves you could do with dark magic would never stop astounding me.
<Allied Territory [Yomi] deactivated>
I also smiled when I saw that System message. “I see you also managed to perform a Territory release.”
“Thank my Mom and Belzac for teaching me. Fitting that our relatives would teach us how to perform them, right?”
That was my number two!
… But we could celebrate everything else later, as we now had to run from the collapsing tunnel. Grabbing a dazed Grimnir, Saori summoned her shadow pack to allow us to run away from the immediate threat on their backs. Midway through, I also noticed Broggart’s workshop, meaning we were making our way to the arena, the place Broggart warned us to not enter as it would activate the floor’s event.
Sadly, we had no other choice.
Once we arrived there, I could hear the sounds of people cheering for some reason. At the same time, Neill and I caught the whiff of something we had not wanted to meet again this soon.
<The last floor gambit … Good work everybody for making it here. There is no real task here, instead, it is a free-for-all. A last try for everybody to reach the goal. After all, the task is to reach me and perform my task to gain your unique Jobs. Now, one last time, fight and win your gambit! Find the stairs behind this arena and reach me!>
The message appeared as I saw the arena before me, unable to compare its size to any stadiums I’ve seen in my two lives. It felt large enough to be comparable to Central Park in New York. As in, it was huge enough to fit multiple blocks of apartments, sky scrapers, and football stadiums. The last time I checked, Central park was even longer than some cities!
And this humongous area stood before us as we notice a few dots coincidentally waiting in front of our entrance. All of them smelled like trouble … literally.
“The dragons!” Multiple parties of people shouted in unison at us, waving their weapons in the air as they rallied around three people leading them—the dragonslayers.
Galg …
The lance fighter was killed by Neill and the leonid berserker was nearly killed by Neill, but she wasn’t around right now. Still, three of them were still here and that was enough to send a chill down my spine. The archer, the mage, and the rank S dragonslayer.
“…” He did not speak this time. His eyes were aimed at me as he downed a green, red, and purple potion, before pointing his dual blades at me.
“Galg! Galg! Galg!” Around 19 people shouted.
“For the loot! For the loot! For the loot!” Far too many for me to quickly count shouted out, but it looked like there were over 100 adventurers.
“Kill them! KILL THEM!” And another group far too numerous to count cheered out as well.
Suffice to say, we were outnumbered.
Barooooooooooooooom!
… But not for long, for in the distance behind this army of dragonkin slayers and adventurers, another one marched towards us. With the bellowing sound of a horn announcing their arrival, it also signaled the large-scale battle to come. Once it stopped, the slithering movement of a train-length serpent made from ice drew my attention to the person standing on top of its head—the one leading this secondary army.
There she stood with flying ice swords covering her flanks, looking imposing as I noticed her wearing a new set of dazzling gear I had never seen on her before. While not as cute as her usual maid outfit, this crystalline wardress with ice armor covering her created this image of a general leading her soldiers into battle.
She held her catalyst up, causing it turn into a sword for her to wield. She pointed it at our enemy. At Aurora’s enemies!
“Event Expedition alliance has successfully rendezvoused with our missing allies! New allies detected! Princess Hestia, Princess Fargryneill, and King Fugnarus!” she shouted under the silence of everybody below her. “Wyvern slayers and dragonslayers detected! They threaten our allies!”
“Uraaaaaawwwwwgh!”
And her speech invoked the combined roars of the many dragonewts and dragonkins under her command.
This was our number three.
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Comiak
It's cackle, not crackle. Crackle is to make repeated sharp noises like metal hitting metal. Cackle is a shrill laugh, as in cackling hyenas or cackling witch.
