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Chapter 286: The Adventuring Group’s Mystery. [Release Version]
🕑 Added 2022-02-26 06:32:43 +0000 UTC<Multiple proficiency requirements fulfilled. [Okl’Luthier’s Powers Lv. 4] [Terra Magic Lv. 3] [Storm Magic Lv. 2] [Sword Technique Lv. 8] [Whip Technique Lv. 7] [Crushing Technique Lv. 3] [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 10] gained>
<Skill requirement fulfilled. [Enhanced Enemy Sense Lv. 10] evolved into [Detection Sensor Lv. 1]>
<Ability gained: [Ribcage]>
<Magic gained: [Rumbling Might] [Sylphid’s Cloak]>
Eshreen Village.
That was the name of our destination. It took us a two days ride with a normal carriage to the east to reach it. Looking out of the carriage, I noticed that, while the village was located close to a large forest, unfortunately Estralia’s famous river, Gleislane, didn’t flow through or close to it. Even our carriage driver informed me how isolated it was, located at the end of this road.
If I were to guess, the village probably was some kind of a lumberjack village. There were some fields for cattle and pigs to graze, but without easy access to a large source of water or a talented water mage, they wouldn’t be able to maintain large farmlands. That would cripple their income, so they probably dealt with wood and furniture.
Well, this was just the opinion of a magnoble aristocrat, so it wasn’t worth that much.
[“You are underselling yourself, Ellaine.”] Klea shook her telepathic head in exasperation.
[“I am not. Any Greenveil noble, whether a young lord or lady, must learn how to manage their fief even if they aren’t the primary heir. Once you are married off, your partner will expect you to know fief management well. I still remember my lessons, but I’ve become too rusty at this point.”]
Traveling with Aurora demanded time investment in becoming stronger, and since I also worked with Saori and Haruka as our company’s treasurers and merchants, I haven’t been able to keep up with my studies concerning land management. I could give an educated guess, but anybody who was learned could have given you a similar answer.
“Wakey, wakey, you three, it’s time to work.” As I was gazing at the landscape, Yorshka woke up Tatsuya, Kyouya, and Asaka. I had considered taking a nap as well, since Yorshka offered to keep watch, but I felt too nervous to do so.
After all, Yorshka told me I would be leading this party, not her. She was simply our guard today and I had to lead this Quest to success. Nerve-wracking, honestly.
I thought Asaka would have wanted the role as she was Tatsuya’s and Kyouya’s party leader, but I guess not. Well, the latter two and I have been working together for a while now, so we should be able to do this.
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Party Leader
Name: Ellaine Fiero Helvas Level: 67 Job: Terra Arcanist
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Name: Tatsuya Nagata Level: 55 Job: Dragoon
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Name: Kyouya Ishiigami Level: 55 Job: Bulwark Knight
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Name: Asaka Hanazawa Level: 50 Job: Sacred Healer
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Name: Yorshka Nordor Level: 132 Job: White-Winged Dragoon
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Our party strength, excluding Yorshka, was middle to low C rank according to our average level. With Klea’s assimilation and Tatsuya’s [Druidification], we probably were a bit stronger, so this Quest should be easy enough to do. Still, arrogance bred complacency, and the tallest equerochs fell the hardest.
After we arrived at the village, we walked up to one of the villagers and asked him about the Quest we accepted, noting we were a hunter company.
“Quest? I don’t know what you are talking about, but if you adventurers want to talk about it, go to the chief. She probably knows, or something.” The foxian man then gave us directions to the village chief’s house.
Weird, I thought. Considering how our clients usually made such a fuss about the Quest and how it was tormenting their village, I thought the villagers would be more appreciative when we arrived. Or, at the very least, feel disappointed since the Quest had failed multiple times already. However, we were met with confusion here.
I looked at the others and they shrugged, so we decided to meet up with the chief. On our way, we looked around the village, noting how everything seemed normal. The adults were working while the children either helped them or were taking a break, frolicking around with others of their age or with the animals. Strangely, the kids helping the adults didn’t look related.
If this were Carine village, the people would have greeted and welcomed me as their young lady. I wondered if this fief belonged to anybody, or if it was sold to a yeoman. Then again, this wasn’t Artorias. Estralia was a republic, not a feudal kingdom. The latter situation probably was more likely than the former.
On our way, I began to notice that all the villagers we saw up until now were beastmen. I couldn’t see a single human, elf, or dwarf in sight. It was such an oddity for me, as it was rare to see a community devoid of any humans in Artorias.
Carine village only had humans since we bordered the Lecartiglio duchy, and any beastman who wanted to immigrate into the Greenveil duchy would usually choose a place further away from the border. It also didn’t help that we had some trouble with beastmen hunters and mercenaries in the fief once, so the villages weren’t appreciative of beastmen outside of Hestia and Saori.
The villages and towns we visited on our way to Gleisvale weren’t so racially homogenous either. There were plenty of humans and beastmen there. It made me wonder if the owner of this village was a beastmen, too. Creating a community for your own people might be the reason for this village’s creation.
“Jeez, why are they all staring at us like this…” Tatsuya mumbled under his breath, but all four of us could hear him.
He was right. All the adults were glaring at us, making us feel unwelcomed here. It was uncomfortable and I felt a desire to leave here, but I endured and pressed on.
Eventually, we made it to the house in question. And, going by the guards placed in front of it, there was no doubt that we were at the correct place.
“Hmm?” Asaka suddenly stopped moving for a second, drawing my attention. When I asked about it, Asaka simply stroked her hair. “I dunno. Those guards and their armor look a bit similar to the ones I saw at that potion shop. You know which one.”
The only store she could be talking about was the one Saori and Tasianna were investigating, the one we presumed was related to the criminal syndicate named “The Resurrection.” If Asaka’s intuition was correct, then why were those people here?
“Welcome, Lady Priestess! Please, come in with your companions.”
Regardless of what Asaka said, we still went and met up with the chief of the village. And, as expected, the person was a beastmen — a female foxian to be exact. When we explained to her who we were and why we were here, the chief tilted her head and looked at us in confusion.
“I am sorry, but I am not sure of what you are talking about. We never requested aid from the hunter’s guild for anything concerning a ghost, nor did we send an envoy to ask for more support. Who sent you here?”
It was a great shock to everybody.
“Uhm.” I pulled out the commission paper and handed it over to her. “Two older women. They called themselves Vivian and Phinea.”
“We don’t have anybody with those names,” she stated without even looking at us, concentrating fully on the piece of parchment. “Were those two people beastmen?”
“They had hoods on when they came to us, but from what I saw and could smell, I don’t think they were, no,” Tatsuya answered for me.
“Then, you were lied to. Our village only allows beastmen to live here. Humans are not allowed here outside for either trading or business; so, from the looks of it, I must ask you to leave, right now.” And just like that, the chief handed us the paper back and immediately wanted us to leave.
“W-Wait, hold on, please!” Kyouya protested. “We were sure this Quest was legitimate. They even paid the reward money in advance for us, so this cannot be false. Please, we are only here to help.”
“As I said, you were tricked. There is nothing going on inside our forest outside of our lumberjacks and gatherers working for our monthly payment to our landowner.”
“May I ask who they are?” Asaka interjected.
“Of course!” Without any warning, the chief’s personality shifted around completely, changing from mildly hostile to friendly and bright. With a wide smile like a zealot’s, she began glorifying her fief owner. “Lady Reajaen Resclave! Oh, our wonderful benefactor has been our guardian angel! No, she is the hero of us beastmen! Yes, she will soon rise up in the senate and become its president! And for that, we must work harder! To repay her kindness, Eshreen village must dedicate our bodies and minds to her!”
W-Woah?! Resclave? Wasn’t that the senator Hestia talked about and who invited her to their mansion?
“O-Oh, I apologize…” She settled down, clearing her throat in embarrassment for her outburst. “That is all. I would like to ask you to leave since our community doesn’t feel very comfortable around humans, so please don’t take this too personally. Even if you were lied to, you still made your way to us to help, so at the very least, we could offer you some supplies for the way home.”
“Oh no, don’t worry about that. You don’t have obligations.” Asaka waved her hand. “Uhm, before we leave, do you have anybody who needs healing? I’ll do it for free if you can’t pay back.”
“Oh, thank you for your offer, Lady Priestess, but I am sure none of our villagers are in need of a white grace. The alchemist manning the potion store next to my house provides us with enough potions. Recently, we also received a large supply of high-quality potions from our benefactor, so we are all healthy.”
Hmm? Potions? Didn’t we just sell a box full of Belzac herbs to the Resclaves? Did she just spend that much davi just to keep her villagers healthy? I-Impressive.
Belzac herbs weren’t cheap since they were the best medicinal herbs you could acquire from the western part of Altrust. Even if you diluted the finished product into a minor potion, it still would go for a good price amongst the nobility just because of its effectiveness.
Nobles would usually treat their serfs in case they were hurt or became ill, since the peasantry technically “belonged” to the fief they were born in. They were our workers and turned our land into income, while we nobles were honor-bound to protect them from anything short of a war. After all, we nobles had a duty to protect our land and peasants.
However, even Father and Mother, who were altruistic unlike other nobles, wouldn’t think of spending Belzac herb potions on our people. It was overkill and a waste of money. It was more efficient to purchase more common Health potions or commission a bishop in case of an emergency like a plague.
Still, to see this in the country ruled through merchants, this Reajaen Resclave must be quite the person. A merchant would never invest this much if she didn’t care about the community she created.
After the discussion with the chief, we left the village pretty quickly to avoid the villagers’ constant glares. I really didn’t know what we humans did to make the whole village hate us so much, but it wasn’t as if I could imagine it clearly. Would this happen all the time in the Lecartiglio duchy?
“So, what are we doing now?” Kyouya asked after we had moved far away from the village and stopped at a nearby boulder to rest.
“Not like we can do anything.” Asaka shrugged. “Jeez, I can’t believe we just got kicked out like that, and after coming all the way to help. What the fuck is wrong with those people who tricked us to come all the way over here?”
I had to agree, sighing at the prospect of explaining this to the others. Two days were wasted because somebody thought it would be funny to prank us like this. I was pretty sure the two women weren’t even called Vivian and Phinea! We wouldn’t be able to track them down at this point anymore either.
“Should we just leave through the portal?” Tatsuya suggested, a grimace on his face. “We wasted two days of travel since we couldn’t use the nexus to teleport here, nor do we have good ways to fly over here. I was really itching for a cool ghost mission, but noooooo…”
“I guess that’s— Dame Yorshka?”
As I was about to agree with Tatsuya’s suggestion, I noticed Yorshka looking back at the village. She hadn’t done a single thing since we arrived here, so I didn’t give her presence much thought, but now I found her behavior a bit weird.
When I asked her what she was doing, she hummed for a second before answering it with a “What do you think” expression. “The village certainly is interesting, right? Not the beastmen thing, but the fact they didn’t have a sawmill or anything.”
““““Huh?”””” All four of us blurted out.
“No sawmill?” Kyouya looked at us with a brow raised. “Wait, she’s right. I didn’t see a sawmill around at all, nor are there large amounts of felled trees inside the village.”
“Didn’t she say they were a lumberjack village? Then shouldn’t they be storing their logs somewhere close to a water source? I heard people stored their unworked lumber in water to prevent insects or fungus damaging them,” Asaka noted.
“I’ve been to an actual lumber village before,” I mentioned. “They usually smell a mix of charcoal and old wood. These villages not only produce wood for their lords, but also charcoal to be used during winter. Large amounts of lumber have to be stored, since it was hard to make good charcoal or burn wood during the winter since they were usually moist.”
“I didn’t smell that much charcoal or old wood, no more than most villages have,” Tatsuya added, using his impressive smell by human standards to good use. “If what you’re saying is correct, then is it possible that their lumberyard is just deeper into the forest? That doesn’t make it that strange, no?”
Tatsuya gave a good point, cooling down our theory crafting, but apparently it didn’t change Yorshka’s expression at all. Was that not the correct answer?
When I questioned her about it, she simply shrugged. “You’re the leader of this party, Ellaine. You should be the one to make the decision. We don’t need to do anything here, if you think it’s better to go back. We don’t have any obligations to stay here anymore, since the people we wanted to help don’t need it.”
She definitely knows something we missed. Or, had a feeling about it.
I turned around to Tatsuya and Kyouya. Both of them seemed to share my thoughts, so we then looked over to Asaka. We asked her if she could send her onnikai to scout for us, and she obliged with a deep sigh, complaining how she wanted to take a dip into our hot spring already.
After a few clouds passed us, the onnikais came back and informed Asaka of what happened. But, to her surprise, what they told her made her grimace.
“Great…” She spat that out. “The four detected some death auras deeper into the forest. They presumed they were onnikais and came back.”
“… Change of plans.”
We decided we would investigate this situation further, just to quench our own curiosity. Did those two women send us here for a reason or was it all just a joke? After all, they did pay in advance.
However, as we didn’t want the villagers to find us out, as they were already quite hostile with us, we decided to go exploring during the night. We returned to the [Room] nexus by using my runes, where I was planning on updating Hestia and the others about the situation. However, the only people inside it were only Josine and Svena.
“Lady Hestia went sightseeing with the empress and the wyverns while Miss Saori went to the port,” Svena answered. “Our hunter group is currently out working and Miss Tamae mentioned taking the chefs and waiters out to buy produce. I believe we are the only ones around now, Lady Ellaine.”
“I see… then please inform Hestia and the others as soon as possible. Josine, could you fetch us something to eat and prepare the hotspring?”
“Without a question, My Lady.”
We took a long break inside the nexus as we hid the runes in a safe spot, but, despite staying there until the afternoon, none of the others had returned. Without Hestia around, we couldn’t teleport back to Gleisvale, so this was a predicament we couldn’t solve.
Therefore, we decided to leave the rest to Josine and Svena. We returned back to the outskirts of the village and scouted around until it was pitch-black. Since neither Hestia nor Saori came to talk to us, it meant they still weren’t home yet. As such, it was time for us to leave.
“Everybody, here.” I handed everybody a black robe for them to wear. We shouldn’t get caught tonight, so staying inconspicuous was for the best.
Asaka changed from her white robes and Kyouya had to take off some of his plate armor to not let the metal rattle too much. Yorshka was the only one who took off her armor completely, since it was made of silver scales. To further avoid detection, she also went back to her complete human state with [Humanize]. I then cast [Air Shield] around us and moved towards the opening the onnikais found for us.
With the night sky so dark and without a source of light, Yorshka led us forward with her [Night Vision]. It was peaceful, to say the least. I couldn’t detect anything larger than a rabbit or fox with my [Detection Sensor]. Maybe the forest was empty and there were only lingering onnikai auras around?
But, after a long trek, Yorshka halted us and told us to sense what was in front of us. I sneaked up closer, as I couldn’t sense anything, until Tatsuya and I stopped together. We opened our eyes wide.
“Multiple large signals. All placed together.” I pointed at the three large groups.
Tatsuya nodded. “Yeah, some of the signals were moving around the different groups, while others were standing still completely. Sleeping, maybe?”
Kyouya and Asaka nodded in confirmation. While moving from one tree to the other, using the darkness as our veil, the sight of fire eventually became clear to us. The more we approached the location, the more it became obvious this was a small village.
There were guards holding torches moving from the three houses in the area, revealing how tall they were in size. Around three floors with a large enough area for a medium-sized store. Curiosity began to fill my chest as the mystery of this place proved harder to resist.
[“Ellaine, go and take a look. I’m pretty curious with what’s going on there!”] Klea suggested to me in an excited tone of voice. Since Klea was an extreme hedonist, when her interest was piqued, she wouldn’t stop annoying me until I did what she wanted.
She didn’t need to tell me to do something I wanted to do myself.
Inside the [Air Shield], we talked it over and decided that Tatsuya and I would go and check if this really was a village or not. Meanwhile, Yorshka would use her own [Air Shield] to keep Kyouya and Asaka safe. The latter also wanted to send her onnikais out to scout ahead, as they mentioned that death aura from before was close by.
Tatsuya and I separated from each other to inspect different houses. Since his armor was less clunky, he would make fewer noises than mine. With the sound of my footsteps and armor dulled by the wind barrier, I managed to avoid the sights of the guards and remained undetected until I was right underneath an opened window on the second floor.
Musclemass.
I surrounded my arms in black fleshy tendrils. Without assimilating with Klea, I couldn’t cover my whole body in it like armor. Still, it was enough for what I wanted to do.
Using the claws on my gauntlets, I slowly climbed up the wooden building, hoping the guards didn’t suddenly turn around the corner. Once I was at the window, I slowly peeked my eyes through it. There, I saw multiple beastmen in patchwork clothing sleeping in three extremely large, multi-men beds.
Children, adolescents, men, and women all shared the room together. Not only were there katzunes, wolfkins, aegosas, arvisians, foxians, and so many others here, most of them didn’t look related in the slightest.
Through my [Air Shield], I couldn’t hear anything, but by squinting my eyes and using [Night Vision], I could see into the room; it seems that they were all quite soundly asleep.. However, this glance inside only lasted for only a few more seconds since I noticed the light of a torch slowly appearing.
With my increased strength with [Musclemass], I quickly scaled up to the roof, hiding there from a guard’s eyes. Breathing a sigh in relief, I looked over the other buildings as I turned my head. From up here, I could see an opened window at the building next to me. Seeing as I was safe here for now, I disabled my wind barrier, wanting to hear what was going on around me.
“Uuuuuuurghhhh!”
And that was the first thing I heard — a pained cry — coming from behind that window.
Shuffling around, I angled my eyes where I could look through it. A small candle was lighting up the room, where a beastman in a black metal armor or suit was doing something to another beastmen lying on a bed.
The former was holding something close to the latter’s body, pulling my attention to the bright blue tattoo plastered there. While not always true, usually seeing such a blue runic tattoo could only mean one thing.
A slave.
“Uuurrrrrrrrrghhhh!” The latter beastman groaned and struggled.
Hold on, are they trying to forcefully break a slave mark?! That’s insane! You’ll destroy his mana paths!
Slave tattoos had a cruel failsafe in case as slave attempted to break their bond without destroying the slave contract holding control over it. The destruction of your mana paths and also a surge of pain so intense you wished you would die. This was what I was taught in the Royal Academy, and it was later confirmed when I talked with Gael about it.
And now, I was watching somebody trying to destroy this slave mark despite all of that.
Hmm?
The door inside the room suddenly opened, where I saw a woman enter. A woman I recognize immediately as Eshreen village’s chief!
Hold on, is she involved in this? Wait, is the village itself just a front for all of this?! What?!
As I was panicking at what I just found out, I heard Tatsuya’s voice enter my head through [Telepathy]. I turned my head around until I saw him waving his hand at me inside the forest. I recast [Air Shield] around me and jumped down the building, using [Featherfall] to nullify any fall damage.
Rolling on the ground, I pounced right into the forest and immediately hid behind a tree. When I was safe, I took a moment to look around, making sure I was safe before I moved over to Tatsuya. We then rejoined the others, where we told them what we found.
“In my building, there were a quite a few people with slaves marks on them. They were sleeping with other beastmen in a huge bed, but that was about it,” Tatsuya started.
“Really? Similar to mine then, although I didn’t see anybody with a slave mark,” I added before telling everybody about the last building.
“Hold on, the village chief was here?” Kyouya’s eyes widened, jaw agape. “Then, we were right! The first village really was a front to hide all the slaves here!”
“But Ellaine said they were breaking the slave marks on that one man.” Asaka calmed Kyouya down for a moment. “If this were a slaver’s den, then all those beastmen should have had a runic tattoo or two on them, but most of them didn’t, right? Or, did you not see them through their clothes? Depending on what you two actually saw, then the situation changes dramatically.”
“Don’t forget, guys, this village is supposedly owned by the Resclaves,” Yorshka interjected. “I don’t know exactly what is going on, but something is. The onnikais just came back before you two did. Tatsuya. Ellaine. They pointed out how the death aura was far stronger the deeper you go into this place and that they believed they saw one or two there. Also, check this out.”
Yorshka pointed at a plant below her feet, which I recognized as a macula plant. Yorska then instructed me to plant one of my macula seeds in the ground to check the mana levels. Obeying her, I did so, only to see the plant quickly mature with a full sac of mana water.
Macula plants were the primary way for mages to check on the mana accumulation in the ground and to extract it before it accidentally spawns a strong monster. If the plant matured this fast, it could only mean that the area had enough mana to spawn a C rank monster! In other words, it was dangerous here.
And they still haven’t removed it. This situation is so similar to Shaturein’s. What are they doing here for so much mana to accumulate?
Without Saori or her shadow pack around, intruding into the buildings to find documents was too risky. We needed a dark mage to do this properly. As such, we had to give up on that idea for now and move deeper, towards the place the onnkai wanted us to go to.
“Shit! Catch her!” We suddenly heard as we approached. It was a man’s voice.
“Should we hurry?” Tatsuya asked, unsheathing his spear, but I told him not to.
Our goal was to stay inconspicuous for now, since if the people recognized us, they could inform the Resclavse about it and get Hestia in trouble. If the Resurrection was also involved in all of this, then we needed to stay silent even more! We couldn’t sabotage what Saori and Tasianna had been working on.
How ironic that we came here to investigate ghosts, only to act like those invisible faefolk ourselves. But, it was for the best to find out the truth behind all of this.
Bariiing!
The loud sound of metal bending and breaking echoed through the forest, followed by multiple loud “Gruooooooooohk” roars. Large signals suddenly entered the edge of my [Detection Sensor], all running towards four targets.
Monsters!
“All of you, to the sides,” Yorshka commanded and drew us away from the chased group.
Although it pained me to leave them like that, I still obeyed, having to convince myself to stay unseen and undetected. As we moved away, we noticed three large bears with stone skin running over a guard before throwing him away like a doll. The three remaining ones unsheathed their weapons and charged at the one closest to them, swinging ther blades at it before realizing their weapons couldn’t do any damage.
Avoiding the bears’ counters, the guards quickly went over to the injured one. One guard grabbed him and all three ran away as fast as they could, while the bears were in hot pursuit.
Still confused at what just happened, we shook it off and ignored them, venturing closer to where all those things originated from. But, once we came close to a large metal wall, my [Danger Perception] warned me of an incoming attack.
In the next second, a loud explosion ruptured the metal wall, sending shards flying at us. Yorshka quickly built a barrier made with her silver scales to protect us, but another explosion shook the ground again, creating a large smokescreen around us.
However, this wasn’t all, for nothing was stopping this catastrophic situation.
“Grrruuuuuuuugk!” For there were more bears incoming.
“Dammit! Move!” I heard Yorshka’s voice followed by Tatsuya’s, only for him to crash against me. “Your four! Find a safe space and open up the portal! I think we just hit the jackpot here, so get more support or get the hell out!”
“Dame Yorshka, we can help!” I heard Kyouya protesting while a sword was unsheathed.
“Gruuuuoh! Grruooooooeeeek!”
How many [Stone-Skinned Grizzly]s are around?!
The loud roars of bears erupted around us, only for some of it to get drowned out by the sound of flesh and bone tearing along with the death cries of these monsters. However, we couldn't afford to listen to it as another bomb exploded again.
“Arck! Grab onto somebody!”
With the bears roaring out in pain, I told myself “What is all of this?!” before grabbing whoever I could and dragging them away from the smoke with [Musclemass]. Yorshka could defend herself, but with all this noise around, I couldn’t concentrate on creating a defensive wall. I need time to collect my thoughts.
[“Hey, Ellaine, stop!”]
With the adrenaline motivating me to run, I ran and ran without stopping until Klea told me to stop. With heavy breath, I turned around, noticing Kyouya and Tatsuya were the ones I had grabbed onto; however, I couldn’t see Asaka anywhere.
Shit!
I turned to my party bracelet, bringing up the party menu to check on Yorshka and Asaka.
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Name: Asaka Hanazawa Level: 50 Job: Sacred Healer
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Name: Yorshka Nordor Level: 132 Job: White-Winged Dragoon
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Oh, thank goodness!
Both were unharmed, having received no Health damage at all. In other words, Asaka probably stayed behind with Yorshka since neither Tatsuya nor Kyouya grabbed her in time.
“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Tatsuya shouted at me as he recovered his breath. “We told you to stop! Why didn’t you?! Arck, my back!”
Apparently, I had dragged both of them against the ground, and, on the way, Tatsuya crashed against a tree root, hurting his back. Understanding what I did, I quickly apologized to both of them, telling them I was too focused on running away to hear them.
“Argh, dammit, we need to go back,‘ Kyouya told us before taking out his [Room] runes. “Let’s get some support for now and then get Asaka-san and Dame Yorshka before they get hurt. Let’s g—”
“Halt!”
Our bodies froze up by that imposing voice. Despite wanting to turn my head around, I couldn’t. It was as if I had lost complete control over my body.
[“You…”] I could hear Klea’s words right now, sensing the rising excitement and anxiousness in the demon.
“Turn around, young mortals. This trial will start now.”
Without resisting it, our bodies turned, facing a tall, gray-skinned elven woman with a giant hammer. And I wasn’t exaggerating when I called it giant, as not only was the handle as tall as she was, but the hammer head was around half its size again. It was truly humongous.
“Here, wear this now.” The woman threw three necklaces to each of us, and as just like before, our bodies against our consent to grab them. “Each amulet has ten protective charms against my attacks. If all 30 charges are used up, you will fail this trail. On the other hand, to defeat me, you must land at least one hit on me.”
What?! Trial?! 30 hits?! What is going one?!
“If you succeed in defeating me, I shall grant each of you with a certain blessing or prize; however, if you were to fail or if the girl loses control of that damn demon, then I will forever end lust’s endless desires right here, right now!”
WHAT?!
[“Hiehiehie… How sly of you to lead us into this trap. Now I get it, it was you three, huh? The three daughters of the night! You led us here! Right, Kronnaz?!”]
The woman let go of her hammer, shaking the whole ground with a mighty earthquake before assuming a fighting stance with her bare hands. “Let this divine trial begin! I, the Goddess of Vengeance and Grudges, will now test you three mortals! Overcome and earn my favor!”
<Trial of the Goddess of Vengeance and Grudges has begun. Fulfill the requirements to succeed!>
Once that system message appeared, we regained full control of our bodies.
“““… WHAT?!”””
********************************************************
“Urgh…”
I looked around myself. The dust and dirt clouds were nowhere to be seen, but I could still hear the sounds of bears rampaging around in the rain of explosions farther away. I wasn’t inside the cloud anymore, but I did notice that the four fenrir onnikais had erected a barrier around me.
When was I knocked unconscious?
[“You four? Where are the others?”] I asked those spirits.
[“You are awake, Asaka. We protected you.”] One of them spoke but I didn’t answer back, prompting another to reply properly.
[“The others are separated. Three to the east. The strong one is fighting like a monster-possessed against the bears. You missed when you gained a level.”]
I did? Oh, yeah, I just leveled up to 51. Wow, Yorshka can fight all those bears despite all the explosions? Urgh, no, wait, where are they coming from.
I stood up, dusting myself clean before trying to grab something from my satchel, only to remember I had forgotten to ask Hestia to give me a pair of [Room] runes. I facepalmed. The other four had a copy since we were traveling so far away from the others, but I couldn’t believe I procrastinate so long to ask the little princess about getting my own.
Dammit. Laziness isn’t an excuse for this shit…
I shook my head. What happened, happened. It would be better to find Ellaine and the boys and retreat back into the subspace instead of complaining about things right now. I could do that later on in my dairy.
I brought up my party bracelet and activated the party member location function, receiving information where the three were. As I made my way over there, fully trusting Yorshka’s ability to defend herself, I noticed somebody was standing a bit further away from me.
Now sneaking, I went closer to the target, preparing my onnikai to protect me, but, for some reason, they told me to go closer to the stranger instead. That there was threat at all. I couldn’t understand what they were going on about, but from my time with them, I knew they couldn’t allow me to get hurt until Segawa visited her gramps.
Dammit.
I reluctantly trusted them and revealed myself from a bush, only to see a young girl in front of me, having her back turned to me. Wondering what the hell she was doing here, I frowned and moved closer. I had to tell her to get away now otherwise she might get hurt.
“Hey, little girl, you need to go now! Don’t you hear all that action, it’ll get bad, so let’s move!” I tapped on her shoulder, not wanting to scare her too much by grabbing her arm.
“Hmm? Oh, sorry!” The girl sounded excited for no reason, before jolting her body ar—
“Oh shi— Mhmmk!”
Without any warning, I shrieked only to stop myself before going too shrill. I didn’t do it for no reason, though. No, not at all. The girl… When the girl turned around, she showed me her true appearance.
A bitten-off eyeball hanging loosely from her socket, while a section of her jaw was rotten and had worms feasting on it like a decaying piece of meat. White and green mold could be seen covering her other eye. Outside of that, she looked mostly normal, albeit her clothing was in complete tatters, showing some of her red skin.
Improper! What is this crap?! Where are her parents and why didn’t they give her something better to wear!
“Miss?” The girl’s initial smile turned into an agape mouth as she tilted her head. “Are you scared of me like our capturers?”
“C-Capturers?” I managed to eked out, but the girl completely ignored me as her eyes, or whatever remained of them, stared at the four onnikais I had.
“Wow! You must be a faemancer! You are a friend of onnikais! You must be a friend of us and Goddess Ilsaphone then! Are you the one her holiness sent to meet us, Miss?”
“Wha—” Still confused about everything, I couldn’t answer what she was trying to say, but before I could sort out my thoughts, she suddenly pushed me.
“You need to go! The bad people are coming back! Hide! Hide!”
She pushed and pushed, and my body just complied since my mind was on autopilot. As I hid in a bush, she told me she would be “waiting” for me. As she ran back to the spot, two of the guards from before appeared from the trees, complaining how long it took to find her after all the attacks.
“Dammit, you little runt! Did all of you really have to increase the mana level around here to spawn those things?! Some of us died from all of that!” One of them shouted. “Our leader had to waste all those bombs to kill those bears! Honestly, I had enough of you damn zombies!”
Hold on, isn’t that the same armor those Resurrec—
Kaslashed!
“Mhmmk!”
With one quick swipe, the guard used his sword to slash off the small girl’s legs before digging the blade deep into her head. Black slime suddenly oozed out from her legs and the two guards clicked their tongues before dragging the now lifeless body away while still attached to the weapon.
What is wrong with those people! Oh my god, she was still just a kid! How could they! Fucking monsters! Fuck them!
And without listening to the calming words of the onnikai fenrirs, I jumped right onto my feet and imbued my mace with holy powers.
[“Asaka! That girl was an onnikai inhabiting a body like the successor’s garms!”]
You bastard are about to learn what it means to wake up with a cracked skull!
Comments
More like explosions. This arc loves its explosions.
Hotheaded delinquency pow power!
Tarodan
Well this certainly injected some Chaos into things
Diego Rossi
Thumb up to Asaka. I don't care if it isn't the smart thing to do, she is doing the right thing.
