Temporary Companions and the Fated Development 5

Every time the tip of Manash's spear flashed, Naga warriors were cleaved clean in half, thudding to the floor in pieces. Watching them get mowed down without a shred of resistance — like grass under a scythe — felt downright refreshing.

Once the freshly spawned Naga warriors had been cut down, it was the production facility's turn: the massive egg sacs. The rest of the party, deciding they couldn't just stand around forever, scrambled into the fray and pitched in.

Grace shot down the sacs hanging from the ceiling. Katie carved through the ones growing along the walls. For the awkwardly high ones, Han Se-ah — her mana recovered — used Earth Control to drop them to the floor, where they burst with wet, squelching pops.

"This doesn't seem to be the end. That passage over there looks like it leads further down, and the stench is rising from that direction."

"Their... origin... must be... nearby... yesss?"

With the defensive Naga forces swept clean and reduced to Mana Stones, there was no one left to resist even as the production facility was smashed to pieces.

We burst the root-vegetable-like hunks of flesh and scooped the Mana Stones rolling across the floor into our inventories. After casually clearing out a cavern that had held dozens of Nagas, a pitch-black passage came into view. Looking at the way it ran straight ahead without a single fork, it seemed we'd be repeating this whole routine a few more times.

"Let's head down."

"Hold on a second — just let me grab these."

Even in the middle of all that, Han Se-ah was ghosting around with uncanny precision, stuffing chunks of flesh and pieces of tree root into glass bottles. Around the fortieth floor, submitting specimens to the Magic Tower had apparently become second nature.

Collecting specimens, flashing the updated quest window at her viewers, and chatting away all at once — a streamer's multitasking never ceased to amaze.

"It'd be great if we could uproot everything in one go, but if we can't, we'll have to commission the Magic Tower."

"It's certainly possible this isn't their main base. Just hypothetically — if there are several more burrows like this one…"

Irene reacted immediately to Han Se-ah's muttered words, spoken loud enough for both her viewers and the party to hear. Fair enough — given the absurd numbers they'd fielded even on the thirty-fifth floor, this floor's theme was probably another mass-wave assault.

Whether it was designed to let NPC factions join the fight naturally or not, bosses in this game dragged out far more minions than any computer RPG ever would.

The horned-wolf wave that came with the Full Moon Wolf had been handled by the Adventurer's Guild. The orc horde that flooded out of the Orc Altar had been dealt with by Magic Tower mages. And the giant tentacle-tree on the thirty-fifth floor — which I'd smashed myself, admittedly — had been set up for the Temple forces to take care of.

"For now, let's wreck this whole place. Researching the source of the corruption can wait for the Magic Tower's help."

"We wandered for three straight days just to find one of these. If there are more, reporting it to the Magic Tower is the right call."

"Then... I shall... take the vanguard... once more..."

Still, we'd come this far — might as well smash it. With that thought, I stepped up to the mouth of the dark passage… and stopped. Wait. Why can't I see ahead?

It had felt so natural I hadn't noticed, but the burrow had been surprisingly bright — my field of vision wide open. Even without Han Se-ah's brilliant Light magic, we'd been able to see the black Nagas being mass-produced perfectly clearly, hadn't we?

So what was the difference between the well-lit cavern and this pitch-dark passage leading into a tunnel with no light source at all? The moment that thought hit me and my feet stopped, a chill ran down my spine like ice water dumped over my back.

"What's wrong, Roland?"

"Hmmmm?"

Passage. Underground. Deep-sea fish luring prey with light. Cavern. Brightness. A Venus flytrap snapping shut when a bug brushes it. Self-destruct. A pitcher plant you can't escape once the scent of digestive fluid draws you in. Plant-type monsters.

The world seemed to slow. Everything around me stretched into slow motion. While my scrambled brain spat out fragmentary words, Roland's body — tempered over ten years — naturally closed around the mace.

I didn't have the Enhancement holy magic that burned through a mansion's worth of value, but the speed at which Holy Power gathered into my strengthened body was easily twice what it had been before Han Se-ah appeared.

"Wh-what is it?!"

"Shaaa!"

Just like when I'd blown away the tree on the thirty-fifth floor, I gripped the mace with both hands. This time, though, I wasn't aiming ahead — I was aiming at the ceiling above. Recalling the miserable effort of yanking a stake out of frozen ground, I slammed mana into the mace and condensed Holy Power through my body.

Manash, a warrior who had reached the Upper-grade realm, must have sensed the danger too. He seized his dangling trident in both hands and raised it vertically, tip pointed straight at the ceiling.

At the same instant, tree roots split with a sharp crack. Clods of earth poured down from the ceiling — and through the dust, a pure white Protective holy magic unfurled. Beyond it, for the first time in a while, I also caught the blue glow of Han Se-ah's Shield.

Shit. These undead knockoffs are self-destructing their underground base…

BB Games' love of clichés was more vicious than I'd given them credit for.

The thought barely formed before the dirt I'd smashed to pieces came raining down over my head.

If a villain is hiding in a dark underground base, that base will self-destruct the moment it's threatened — with a 99.95% probability. If even their final stand is foiled by the protagonist's hand, they'll drag you down with them out of pure spite.

The production base on the fortieth floor felt exactly like that. I'd need to push the story further to know for sure, but the real boss was probably somewhere else entirely, and walking into a dummy burrow just made the whole thing collapse on you.

"You okay, Katie?"

"Y-yeah, I'm not hurt. But the… the other sisters…"

"Don't worry. I saw Irene cast her holy magic, and I saw Hanna use Earth Control and Shield at the same time to protect Grace."

And that was how we'd ended up buried in separate groups: me and Katie, Hanna and Grace, Manash and Irene. Though technically, the only ones actually buried were Katie and me.

Reflexively dumping mana into the collapsing ceiling and smashing it open had been the right call. The problem was that afterward, looking after Katie meant I couldn't climb back up. The silver lining was that we'd managed to end up inside a pocket formed by tangled tree roots.

Manash, blasting aura through his trident, had punched through to the surface ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with a single-minded determination to protect the nun, cradling her Protective holy magic like an egg. Han Se-ah, together with Grace inside her Shield, was slowly recovering mana and climbing toward the surface with Earth Control.

…A streamer's camera really was convenient.

"S-so what do we do now?"

"Even buried, we're not that deep. Hanna already opened a path to the surface with Earth Control, so the Temple or the Magic Tower will come looking for us. Relax."

Katie, with no way of knowing any of that, tried hard to hide her anxiety — but she couldn't keep the tremor out of her voice. Even a sword-trained noble lady couldn't cut her way out of being buried alive when an underground cavern collapsed.

Her body, lying on top of me, was shaking so hard I could feel it through the armor. …Knowing the situation through Han Se-ah's stream, and knowing I could always reset if things went south, left me with some rather uncharitable thoughts.

Me in full plate mail, her in light armor. The armor might have been thin and pretty in a way that threw historical accuracy out the window, but armor was still armor. There was no bare skin touching bare skin — yet having a beauty who looked like she'd stepped out of a painting sprawled across me as if I were a rug was enough to set anyone's heart racing.

"Right… we only took a big looping path down, so it shouldn't be that deep…"

"And we didn't scatter all over the place — we're in the same clearing. They won't have any trouble finding us. I smashed the ceiling ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠open, so that should be a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠clear landmark too."

The sensation of her quick, shallow breaths tickling under my chin made me tilt my head up without thinking. The space the tree roots had made for us wasn't particularly wide — I could stretch my legs out, but we were pressed flush against each other.

If I'd been alone, I could have done what Manash did: turn myself into a mass of mana and claw my way up through the earth. Doing that now would leave Katie crushed to death under the dirt with nowhere to go.

I could condense mana into a weapon and reinforce my body, but wrapping that around someone else was a mage's Shield — not a knight's aura.

"Haa… When I set out to climb the Tower by the Goddess's will, I expected to face hardship and adversity. I never thought I'd end up buried alive. And by undead, no less — losing to rotting corpses through a scheme is just humiliating."

"You're not wrong. I got careless, assuming they were just mindlessly imitating life without any real intelligence."

"But Roland — how did you know the ceiling was going to collapse?"

"…The clearing was too bright. Something felt off, so I looked around and just… felt it on instinct."

Whether it was because I'd pulverized the ceiling into fine pieces, or because of these tree roots, there didn't seem to be any risk of suffocation. So for now, all I could do was steal glances at Han Se-ah's stream out of the corner of my eye and keep talking with Katie perched on my chest.

Whatever had been lighting up the clearing had vanished when it collapsed, leaving the pit dark. I could watch Han Se-ah's stream and browse the internet through the hologram window, but Katie had only the darkness.

Even without claustrophobia, it was the kind of situation that could send someone into a panic — so I needed to keep talking ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and keep her calm. If she thrashed around in this tight space and brought more dirt down on us, it'd be a one-way ticket to a reset.

"You're right — even without Hanna's Light magic, the clearing was bright. Maybe it was the tree roots? I heard something from a mercenary company once. There's moss that grows in the south that glows faintly in the dark, so people use it at night instead of torches."

"Yeah. No soot, and the light's too weak to be seen from far away, so you don't have to worry about drawing monsters either."

"You already knew that, Roland? No — more than knew it. You've used it before, haven't you?"

Still, the fact that Han Se-ah's camera had burrowed into the tunnel and appeared right in front of me meant the rescue wouldn't take long. Unlike the kind of camera you send to a location, this one was the type that stuck to an NPC — so of course it found us like a bloodhound.