Chapter 121
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 121
Chapter Title: 12th Floor - Lv. 1350 Demi-Lich Sharkma (3)
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Damage to the phylactery was a catastrophic event for any lich.
Even for a demi-lich who had ascended a step higher after eons of time, it was the same.
The phylactery was everything to a lich—the vessel containing their soul, their very essence.
The moment Sharkma returned to his chamber, he realized that holy lightning had grazed it.
Phylacteries were never sturdy. It wasn't a direct hit, but the impact was enough to strain his body severely.
He thrust his bony hand into his chest and pulled out the phylactery.
His skeletal arm trembled violently. The magic constituting his body was under duress. A sacred disgust permeated every corner of his form.
Holy power had tiers and unique properties.
The lightning from the relic carried a different flavor of sanctity than that of the spring.
It was the difference between purification layered atop healing and purification intended from the start.
A crack had formed in one corner of the phylactery.
Faint sparks still flickered there.
Pure white lightning.
The lich desperately seized the lightning.
Mana-clad fingers pinched and extracted it bit by bit.
His current state was no different from a venomous needle lodged in his heart.
Lungs he didn't possess came to mind. Sharkma was gasping for breath. There was no actual airflow, but that's how it felt.
Cold sweat dripped.
Memories of his flesh-and-blood days overlaid his current body like an illusion.
Phylacteries took myriad forms depending on the lich, but Sharkma's was a pristine red glass orb.
The holiness began seeping through the crack, intensifying the tremors. The hallucinations worsened.
Right now, Sharkma was bleeding profusely. Enough to kill him soon.
Why did visions of his human days keep resurfacing?
He clung to his fraying focus with all his might.
Finally, he excised all the holiness. A direct, deeper strike might have inflicted a mortal wound requiring ages to repair.
The poison-like holiness that had burrowed slightly deeper couldn't be fully removed. An uncomfortable sensation lingered sharply, but he'd passed the crisis.
Sharkma staggered to his bed, unused for countless ages, and collapsed onto it.
There was no dust. Powerful preservation magic ensured it would remain unchanged for hundreds or thousands of years.
The undead had their conveniences: even with immediate threats to their being, they recovered swiftly once the danger passed.
Sharkma soon rose with a clear mind.
It had felt like an eternity, but in truth, scarcely any time had passed.
Sharkma breathed a sigh of relief. The fairies were mere contractors.
To deranged fairies, favors meant nothing. Only profit mattered.
Had he vanished for too long here, the fairies would have noticed soon enough.
In that case, they might not have bothered fighting at all.
Capturing more exiles was a net gain for Sharkma.
The fairies hadn't abandoned their simplicity. They were content with their current earnings, enough to live comfortably.
Their bond wasn't tied by affection or loyalty.
Sharkma let out a sigh. Lacking lungs to exhale with, his mental exhale stirred his mana in resonance.
Pale, pollen-like mana puffed from between the skull's teeth.
Sharkma stepped outside, grabbed the radio, and issued the order to assemble all fairies.
No matter how mad the fairies had become, it only meant they'd shed their inherent goodness.
Their purity remained intact.
It simply meant they could turn ruthlessly emotionless when necessary.
The fairy mage felt a pang of bitterness watching the diligently gathered fairies.
He hadn't particularly liked fairies. Not during his faded exile days, nor after becoming a resident.
He'd chosen the fairy card for its advantages and settled down swiftly.
He'd never truly become a fairy. His body might be, but his mind remained human.
Yet time offered no mercy.
He'd hidden his ears, pretended to be human, and contributed diligently to human society. But after the God of Order dominated humanity, everything flowed strangely.
His exile experience rarely aligned with reality.
He knew the cause. It was mostly thanks to that one legendary exile party the Federation spoke of.
He'd never even imagined the world could be twisted this way.
Now, only the fallen fairies—living far harder than he'd envisioned—and himself among them remained.
Humans couldn't tolerate fairies whose hearts remained human.
Jealousy intensified with proximity. Fairies had been a mysterious race from legends.
But bound under the banner of alliance, constant friction eroded all mystique.
What lingered was jealousy, escalating to hatred.
The bizarre perceptions accumulated over generations were alien to long-lived fairies.
Most fairies, overwhelmed just keeping up with changing society, naturally went extinct.
The lives of these fallen kin—and his own, unable to fully join them—were utterly wretched.
This wasn't why he'd settled.
So the fairy mage devised a plan.
Looking at the assembled fairies, the lich spoke. A bluish glow burned in the empty sockets of his gaping skull. An icy light.
As a mage, he knew that dread well.
That was no foe winnable by common sense. For a pre-kingdom exile, few obstacles could be worse.
Was this place synced to the timeline he'd traversed?
As a resident, he was just a pitiful NPC tossed about in branching timelines.
Of course, that allowed certain actions.
The fairy mage smiled slyly upon hearing the lich's command.
The empty city was a chaotic maze nonetheless. Filled more with control facilities than residences, paths were minimized.
Even devoid of people, it was messier than a typical shantytown slum.
The uniform ashen gray and eternal night amplified the disorientation.
A suffocating gray labyrinth that could swallow someone whole.
The Girl, now walking on her own feet, furrowed her brow.
"Feels like ghosts might pop out."
"Ghosts would be fine, right?"
"Hm, grotesque ones no, but a dapper ghost? Yeah, that'd be okay."
"What're you on about."
"You can punch a dapper ghost."
Absurd as it sounded, he focused on the bats without retort.
Bats scouted every direction. No pursuers? No sign of the lich?
He'd avoided mana detection to prevent exposing their position.
Considerable time had passed with no detection waves from anywhere nearby.
He nodded, and the little mage unleashed her mana. The expanding circle returned swiftly with intel.
"No one's here. Really, no one."
He also mobilized [Clairvoyance]. The little mage leaned more toward support than direct combat.
She'd always been that way.
Against a lich, they risked detection, so they positioned away from the city's center.
"Fairies are gathering in the center. A ton of them. Looks like almost all."
"Sharkma's losing it, desperate to nab us completely. Planning an encirclement, probably."
In other words, an opportunity. Even the stair guards had vanished.
The quickest to spot.
But the lich commanding so many fairies meant...
"Stairs aren't in a nice spot. Dead center. Stuck in his room or some lab."
The Hunter sighed.
"I sense the Labyrinth's malice."
"There's a bit of that. Seems like our party's the only one thriving in the current system. If the Labyrinth has a will, who'd it target? Obvious."
"Does the Labyrinth have a will?"
"Maybe a proxy deity? The Abyss God is especially insidious."
Even game lore hadn't resolved this.
He didn't know either. That indie dev had kept proxy god details secret for future use.
"Means we've gotta force a breakthrough."
He said it while eyeing the Girl.
Suddenly stared at so intently, she widened her eyes like a startled cat.
"W-Why?"
"I figure someone from the future has no choice but to come here. Gotta be you, right?"
"Uncle'd be off hunting Karkrish, so yeah, probably."
"Then if you're conscious, future you couldn't show up here now."
She tilted her head, then got it.
"Forced return, right? But could future me handle that monster?"
"I think you could."
Her cheeks flushed faintly.
"Kids grow on praise, they say. Hit me with more."
"Pretty. Cute. Adorable."
Even recited like a textbook, she heated up bright red and scurried behind the youngest.
"What're you doing?"
"N-No, this packs more punch than expected. It's rough."
He sighed, approached, and chopped the back of her neck. Not the best knockout move, but it looked cool.
She accepted it willingly. Mana infiltrated, briefly severing brain-body link.
The youngest caught her as she crumpled with a thud.
"Just wait a bit. If someone's watching, they'll appear in this gap."
The key to clearing this floor would likely be the Girl from the future.
Then the Hunter brought up something else.
"Leader, I saw the senior earlier."
"Senior?"
Only one he'd call that.
"That fairy mage? He's here?"
"Labyrinth connections work that way. Wherever we go, residents we've tangled with before show up."
True enough. Soloing a server piled all causality onto their party.
"That was the veteran mage. Hasn't died yet. Wonder what he's scheming."
Truth be told, no danger rivaled a settled exile past their century mark.
No matter the resolve, an NPC was an NPC.
You could treat them as people, but could you truly bond from the heart?
Sir Dusburn, being human, had likely died of old age.
Whatever ties there were probably severed after.
Especially with their party wreaking havoc the last 500 years.
Predicting a 600-year exile's thoughts was impossible.
"Alright, I'll make contact. If the chance arises."
They'd wasted a precious ten minutes or so.
In the end, no one from the future appeared. He woke the Girl, and they hustled onward.
No beating the lich—just reach the goal undetected.
If no future visitor came this floor, it might mean it was easier than thought.
They'd exploit the vacuum left by fairies swarming the center.
He had decent experience with urban and guerrilla warfare.
One of the [Main Dungeons] was a massive city, after all.