A Story Only I Don't Know 4
The 35th floor, cut off from all contact with the Safe Zone, looked no different from the 34th.
"Don't these vines seem like they're getting thicker?"
"They really do. The closer we get to the Safe Zone, the denser they become… It's disgusting. And unsettling."
"Hmm. Roland? Hanna? Mind if I take a swing at one of these?"
Aside from the steadily increasing number of ash-gray trees and the unidentifiable vines, that was about it.
With every step, the open vista that had once stretched before them narrowed until it resembled the dense swamp of old. Ash-gray trees had sunk their roots even into the poison pools and mud bogs, growing thick and close, and every trunk was wound tight with those vines.
Katie, unable to contain her curiosity any longer, drew her sword from her hip. Still, the fact that she asked permission before cutting was endearing.
Well, seeking the party leader's approval before acting is only natural for an adventurer. But maybe the chat had burned the "kid" image into my mind too deeply. Watching her behave like a proper adventurer, growing into the role, somehow made the ordinary feel precious instead of expected.
"Taking a look ahead of time isn't a bad idea. Cut one down — we can take a sample while we're at it."
"Right, we'll need to submit specimens to the Magic Tower and the Guild. Hanna? You packed sample vials in your inventory, didn't you?"
Katie strode toward the tentacle-like vines with her razor-edged blade in hand. At her question, Han Se-ah nodded and pulled a large glass bottle from her inventory. Just looking at the thing gave off such an ominous vibe that I half-expected something to happen the moment the vine was cut.
Grace and Irene seemed to share the thought — Grace nocked an arrow, Irene clasped her hands ready to cast a holy art, both watching Katie with worried eyes.
"Hup—!"
She clearly had no intention of just poking at it. The sword flashed upward, then carved through the air in a fierce downward strike. Even to my untrained eye, the cut looked textbook-clean — the kind of form you only get from proper knight-order training.
"…Huh?"
"What the— it just sliced right through."
The sharp blade severed the vine with a limp shhk. It parted more easily than well-done meat on a grill, and the party stared in bewilderment. They'd been wound tight with tension at how suspicious the whole thing looked, and now all that tension drained away at once.
No toxic fluid gushed out. Nothing lunged like a living snake. The vine simply dropped to the ground the moment it was cut — and instantly withered dry, just like the ash-gray trees.
"Is there even a point to collecting a sample like this…?"
"If we send it to the Magic Tower, the mages will figure out something to do with it."
While clinging to the tree, the thing had been translucent, sticky, and damp — like a piece of tendon fished out of a stew. The second it was cut, it dried into something resembling jerky or dried pollack. Ridiculous.
Han Se-ah pulled a pair of gloves that looked like alchemist's gear from her inventory, slipped them on, and dropped the desiccated vine fragment into the glass bottle. The party gave the trees a few experimental taps, then started walking again. And of course — unlike every horror-movie cliché — nothing moved behind our backs.
We walked through the silent plague zone for a long time.
"Isn't it too quiet?"
"For some reason, there's not a single monster in sight."
"I can't see the holy-power pillars of our brothers and sisters either, nor any of those foul undead. Could it have something to do with these awful vines?"
After walking that long with nothing to show for it, the party started sensing something was off — and the viewers started getting bored. This wasn't a scenic forest. Who wanted to watch a plague swamp stuffed full of disgusting gray-white tentacles?
On top of that, we seemed to be heading the right direction, yet the Safe Zone still refused to appear. Han Se-ah, mulling it over, finally spoke up.
"…Want me to make some noise? Get survivors or monsters or something to show up?"
"What?"
As a safety-first adventurer, Han Se-ah's suggestion was beyond absurd — it was straight-up stupid. As a streamer running a game broadcast, it was perfectly reasonable. No matter how immersive a VR game was, who wanted to watch someone trudge along for two or three hours straight?
In that split second, I wrestled with whether Roland the ten-year veteran Upper-grade adventurer should scold adventurer Hanna for talking nonsense — or whether Roland the gamer-turned-possessed-character should help streamer Han Se-ah out.
"…I think that's a good idea. There might be brothers and sisters in danger somewhere nearby."
"There might…?"
Without a shred of hesitation, Irene nodded and stepped forward. A pure-white mass of holy power gathered in her hands. Rather than a proper holy art, it seemed she was simply launching raw energy — the holy-power sphere shot skyward like a firework.
Between how ruthless she became in front of the undead and the fact that contact with the Temple forces at the Safe Zone had been cut off, she was clearly far more anxious than usual.
Han Se-ah had floated the idea, sure — but Irene had blasted holy power into the air without waiting to hear anyone else's opinion. Catching the flicker of surprise in my eyes, she finally ducked her head, cheeks flushing red.
"Ah, um… I'm sorry. I got ahead of myself…"
"No, it's fine. If the Safe Zone should be showing up by now and it isn't, this is the right call."
Even so, no one was about to give Irene a hard time. Grace just scanned the surroundings, nothing registering in her detection range, and Katie — clearly bored of nothing but walking — declared it a great idea and drew her sword from her hip.
As for Han Se-ah, she was busy soothing the viewers who were going wild over "fiery Mamang," while kicking out the sly toxic ones mixed in among them.
And so, with everyone's tacit approval, the holy power that had soared so prettily into the sky burst like a firework — paang — and scattered softly. The response came immediately.
"Roland?! These vines — they're not vines, they're tentacles—!"
Not from people. Not from monsters. From the gray-white vines that had sat so quietly even when sliced by a blade.
Whether you cut them with a sword, poked them with a staff, or kicked them hard, the gray-white vines had simply hung coiled around the trees. The moment Irene's holy power lost its form high above and dispersed into the surroundings, they began to move like living creatures.
As if power had been pumped into machines that had been switched off, the vines lunged like snakes in an instant.
"O Goddess, grant us your protection!"
"You little bastards!"
That said, none of the party actually got caught by the tentacles. Katie, already sword in hand, shredded the vines in a flash, and right behind her Irene unfurled a protective holy art with the holy power she'd gathered in both hands.
A pure-white barrier of holy power settled over the swamp like a mosquito net pitched outdoors. The problem, if anything, was how sensitively these vines reacted to holy power.
"…Ugh, gross."
"Should I try setting them on fire with my arrows? No — Hanna, you can summon sparks with Spark magic, right?"
"I-I'm so sorry!"
It was like pitching a mosquito net outside and then lighting a bug-luring lantern inside it. Every single vine coiled around the dense ash-gray trees had plastered itself against Irene's barrier in a nauseating mass.
An ordinary priest or nun would have been gnawed dry of holy power and buried under the vines. But our party was different. Irene's trait granted immunity to damage below a certain threshold.
As disgusting as they looked, a bunch of vines that had been hanging off trees weren't about to punch through the barrier of a 5★ protection-specialized Candidate Saint.
"No, thanks to you we learned something useful. These vine bastards suck up holy power. The fact that the trees grow denser and the vines get thicker the closer we get to the Safe Zone… means these things drained the Safe Zone's holy power dry."
"Th-that's…!"
Grace patted Irene on the back — Irene had her head bowed, clearly convinced she'd put the party in danger. But the speculation that came out of Grace's mouth only made Irene's face go deathly pale.
Anyone could have made that guess after watching them latch on like leeches reacting to holy power. But saying it outright to Irene, already frantic with worry for her religious brothers and sisters, was a bit…
Irene hiccuped mid-gasp — and Grace finally realized her slip of the tongue. Watching the two of them, Han Se-ah sidled up and tapped my forearm.
"What's up?"
"Roland, there are way too many of these things. Spark magic alone won't cut it…. Can you step outside the barrier and blow them all away with something like a mana discharge?"
Looking at how densely they packed the outside of the holy-power barrier, she was right — Sparks or fire-arrow tips wouldn't do it. We'd need oil drums and explosives by the gallon. Was this a chance to test that nameless god's blessing?
I nodded without hesitation, coated my entire body in mana, and walked out through the holy-power barrier. …Ugh. Feels like being chewed by a worm's maw. It wasn't wet or squishy, but hundreds of tentacle-strands were licking over my armor.
Tentacles don't pair with a male knight.
With that thought, I poured mana into my mace like I was ramming it full. Holy power was scarcer than mana, and they could absorb it — so full-power mana—!!!