Club Electric DJ Ringring
A dagger drove straight into the spot where Ho-yeong’s spear had wounded her earlier.
“Aaaagh!”
Lucy tumbled down onto the lower floor, writhing in agony. The elves hurried to support her, and Shrakhim, too, rolled end over end before snatching up his shield.
“Quickly, release Axle as well!”
It was a desperate moment: the apostle was reaching for Curtis with her right hand. He sent his thanks inwardly, but what mattered now was saying the important thing first.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
When Lucy saw Shrakhim charging for the exit, she started to aim at him—then hesitated.
Huh? Why’d she stop? Could it be…?
Still shaken with fear, Shrakhim nodded as if he’d figured it out.
“Now that I think about it, all you’ve done is keep blasting me around. I don’t believe you’ve used any grand magic at all. Ah, I see. So you’re only good for lifting people up and putting them down again?”
As he’d said, the apostle was a mage specialized in teleportation spells.
“Ugh….”
She had used teleportation only moments ago on Vailin, so the cooldown hadn’t expired yet.
“What a fool. If you’d just told that elf to walk over here earlier, you could’ve saved yourself the trouble. But no, you had to waste your magic for nothing, and now you can’t use it when it matters.”
The taunt struck exactly where it hurt.
“You little piece of trash!”
What Shrakhim had failed to consider was that teleportation magic wasn’t limited to one method.
If there were teleportation spells for people, then—
- Crackle.
—there were also teleportation spells for objects.
“Kyik?!“
Seeing the stalactites come raining down, Shrakhim lifted his dandanium shield over his head and barely managed to block them.
“Hah, ahahaha. Is that all? Come on, you pointy-eared bastards, throw whatever you want! This Shrakhim will block every last one of them!”
“That pig of a man dares—!”
The staffs of the elves who had been aiming at Curtis all swung toward Shrakhim instead.
“Everyone, stay calm.”
But the apostle regained his composure and smiled coldly. The stalactites had only been meant to pin Shrakhim down; the real attack was something else entirely.
“Gah-ha-ha… huhh—what?!“
As Shrakhim slowly lowered his shield, he turned pale. What was falling from above wasn’t a stalactite at all, but a massive pillar so huge it should have been called a giant stone spear.
He moved desperately. No matter how hard and dense the dandanium shield was, it couldn’t possibly withstand a stone slab of that weight.
“H-hngh!”
But the stalactites jammed into the ground all around him made it hard to move.
“What good will it do, no matter how many times that pig tries to run? That place is the pigsty you were born for.”
Just as he’d said, Shrakhim’s body now looked as though it had been nailed in place like a fence post. That, too, had been part of the apostle’s scheme.
Shrakhim closed his eyes and thought back on twenty years’ worth of memories.
- Crash.
“…Huh?”
He opened his eyes halfway. He hadn’t even been flattened yet, so why had there been such a tremendous sound?
“You idiots!”
The apostle’s sneering face twisted with rage. The giant stalactite had shattered in midair.
“Didn’t I tell you to stay calm?”
It was thanks to Shrakhim’s earlier taunt.
Hah, ahahaha. Is that all? Come on, you pointy-eared bastards, throw whatever you want! This Shrakhim will block every last one of them!
Falling for it completely, the elves had unleashed magical projectiles at Shrakhim all at once, and in doing so they had smashed the giant stalactite that had been descending on him.
“I-I’m sorry, Archapostle. Please forgive us—”
“Shut up!”
The apostle roared in a fury.
“If you’ve got time to bow your worthless heads, then find the pig! Mage priests, search for the other two! Warrior priests, block the exit!”
The cave had turned as misty as if it were filled with fog. The broken stalactites—made of limestone—had scattered powdery dust everywhere, and the collision between the magical projectiles and the stones had caused a mana explosion, sending fragments through the air and severely hampering the elves’ spellcasting.
“Hngh!”
Having survived by the skin of his teeth, Shrakhim hacked his way through the surrounding stalactites with his dandanium shield and fled as fast as he could. The cloud of white dust billowing after him was an added bonus.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“Axle, hang in there!”
While Shrakhim bought them plenty of time, Curtis had managed to rescue Axle and escape with him. A dagger had been hidden in Axle’s boot as well, which let them cut free the vines.
“Curtis-special. What do we do now?”
“We find another passage somehow and hole up. All we can do is wait until the Border Count gets us out….”
“What about Shrakhim—no, Sir Shrakhim?! What happened to him?!”
“…I don’t know. We can only pray he escaped safely and can tell the Border Count what’s going on here.”
They hid behind a massive stone pillar.
“More importantly, there’s only one bottle left. What should we do? Split it?”
Curtis sighed as he pulled a narrow bottle from the dagger’s handle.
“What potion is that?”
“Gah! Why are you still here instead of running?”
The soldiers jumped in surprise at the sight of Shrakhim, who had appeared out of nowhere.
“We’re not getting out. The pointy-eared bastards are blocking the exit… Damn it. But what potion is that? Doesn’t look like a healing potion.”
Seeing clear liquid instead of red, Shrakhim tilted his head.
“This is—”
Curtis collapsed backward before he could finish.
“Huh? What the…?”
The stone pillar they’d been leaning against was gone.
And behind it, the elves were now visible.
“So this is where the pests laid their filthy eggs.”
The apostle floated in the air, coldly smiling. He had purified the limestone that formed the pillar, erasing it completely.
“R-run, quickly!”
Shrakhim shoved Curtis and Axle away at once, then stepped in front of the apostle.
“Ho-ho… so even the ringleader’s come. Well then, I suppose the game of tag is over.”
He burst out laughing in a daze.
Looks like this really is the end. If so, I need to buy Curtis and Axle enough time to hide.
The apostle drew his sword and looked at Shrakhim as if he were something too insignificant to bother with.
“Leave the pig. Catch the others.”
“I shall obey the Archapostle’s command. Huh?!“
One elf had raised his staff, then suddenly went rigid.
“W-where did they go?”
“They’re gone!”
“Did they hide a spatial transfer scroll?!”
Curtis and Axle had vanished.
“Hurry and track them down….”
“Don’t be reckless!”
The apostle snapped sharply at the panicking elves.
“Look. It’s an invisibility potion.”
He found the potion bottle lying on the floor and lifted it into the air.
An invisibility potion? Good. If they drank that, they could hide anywhere.
Shrakhim, who had been about to charge with his sword, froze.
“Bekirin, join the warrior priests guarding the exit and stop the pests from escaping.”
“But how am I supposed to do that? The mana flow inside the temple is unstable, so I can’t use detection magic—”
“Do I have to explain every little thing to you too?”
The apostle shouted in a sharp voice.
“Y-yes, of course! I’ll obey!”
As the mage elf called Bekirin slipped away, the apostle drew in a rough breath.
“A pack of fools….”
The elves who had gathered around him all looked terrified. They had already made a huge blunder by obstructing the apostle’s attempt to kill Shrakhim, which only stoked his rage further.
“Light the lamps!”
The fugitives were under the effect of invisibility magic. Finding their traces in the dark cave was impossible, even for the elves’ sharp night vision.
- Fwoosh.
Every mana-stone lamp went out at once.
“?!”
The cave was plunged into total darkness.
“…Who was it? Who turned off the lights?”
No one answered.
“Who put the lights out, I said!”
One priest trembled as he replied, “I-I did. I thought you said to purify the light, so I….”
He had said to ignite them, and the fool had purified them instead.
Without mana, the mana stones were no different from ordinary rocks.
“Ha.”
At the sound of the apostle’s sigh, someone quickly conjured a sphere of light and sent it floating up.
“Well done…?!”
But by then, Shrakhim was gone.
“Ha.”
The apostle smashed the priest who had turned off the lights against the wall.
“S-sorry! Please forgive me, Archapostle!”
“Forgive you?”
He ripped two mana lamps free with a flick of sorcery.
The mana-deprived stones shot at the priest’s face.
“Aaaahhhhh!”
The priest’s eyes, too, lost their light.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
When Shrakhim finally slumped down in the darkness and let out a ragged breath—
“That filthy pig stink reaches all the way here.”
a pair of platinum eyes flashed in the black.
“Oh, damn….”
Even in the dark, those eyes blazed with fierce light.
Staring at Lucy with a disgusted expression, Shrakhim muttered, “Those eyes of yours are foul. You look like the yolk of a bloodshot egg.”
“…What did you say?”
“What do you mean? I’m saying your eyeballs look like cracked bird eggs.”
Her bloodshot golden irises widened to the size of eggs.
“I’ll kill you! I’ll rip out your eyes and tongue and throw them into a pigsty!”
Lucy removed the rings from both wrists.
“Kyaaaah!”
She came charging with the enormously extended rings swinging.
“You crazy elf. You think some mage brat like you can fight a knight in close combat? Fine, then let’s see you try.”
Shrakhim also charged, shield raised.
That pointy-eared bitch took the bait perfectly. She’s so worked up she forgot she’s a mage. What’s she planning to do with those iron rings? Beat me to death with them?
But that was a mistake. Lucy was already casting magic.
What she had pulled out was not an ordinary iron ring, but a ring of Jinium enchanted with magic.
“L-lightning?”
When Shrakhim saw the crackle of electricity dancing across the ring’s surface, he nearly jumped out of his skin.
“Prepare yourself, maggot!”
He tried to block with the dandanium shield, but the attack was far too fast to stop completely. Besides, he was already exhausted.
I should’ve swallowed a potion instead of trying to save it.
Even at full strength, victory would have been anything but certain. Lucy Perhela was no warrior, but as a pure-blood elf, her base stats were far superior to those of ordinary elves.
“Ghk?!“
Every time the rings touched him, the discharge jolted through his body and left him numb all over.
“Hahaha. Hahahahaha!”
The dandanium shield, with its resistance to magic, could repel the lightning, but his plate armor was the problem. It had become a conductor, helping the current travel even better.
“Khhhuuugh….”
Before long, Shrakhim’s entire body was wracked by electricity, and he collapsed.
“Serves you right, pig-man. You’ve been roasted whole. Now I’ll finish cooking that huge head of yours!”
Lucy planted a foot on his chest and raised the rings high, focusing her mana—
“Perhela, get down!”
At the apostle’s cry, she flinched and leaped back.
“Huh?!”
Blood sprayed from her neck.
“You’re hard to kill, Ringring.”
The voice from the darkness made Lucy reel in shock.
“Cu-Curtis? Why didn’t you run? Why did you come here?!”
Shrakhim was shocked too.
“A debt has to be repaid, doesn’t it? The debt Sir Shrakhim paid by saving our lives has already been repaid. Now it’s time to repay the debt that bitch owes us.”
Curtis, who had drunk the invisibility potion, had gone in for the assassination.
If the blade had gone even a little deeper, Lucy might already have gone to stand at Salia’s side.
“You sneaky little vermin…!”
“For the crime of laying a hand on innocent children, pay with your life!”
“Khh!”
Invisible daggers hunted for her, and Lucy backed away in fear.
“Kyaaaah!”
She swung the lightning rings wildly as she stumbled backward.
- Whoosh.
Suddenly, the dagger’s outline appeared. But it wasn’t pointed at Lucy.
It was aimed at the apostle floating in the air.
The jewels set into his robe gleamed even in the darkness, making him a perfect target.
“Don’t waste your effort.”
Unfortunately, Curtis’s shot failed. The apostle stopped the dagger as though he had already read its trajectory, then flipped the blade around and hurled it in the opposite direction—toward the point where Curtis had thrown it from.
- Swish, swish.
He flung the dagger through the air with frightening speed using teleportation.
“He got away.”
The apostle’s face darkened at the empty air his slash had cut through.
“Kyaah! Where are you?! Where are you?!”
Lucy was still flailing about, unable to understand what had happened, and that only made his expression twist further.
“Stop making such an ugly spectacle of yourself! He’s already gone. Go find him.”
“Huh! My apologies for showing such shameful behavior. I’ll pursue them.”
Only then did Lucy recover her wits and hurry off, leaving just one elf behind to guard the apostle.
“You stay here. I’ll handle this one.”
By “this one,” the apostle meant—
“The way you keep twitching about, desperately trying to drag your miserable life along, is quite a sight.”
Shrakhim, crawling on all fours as he tried to flee.
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