Obelisk Assault (2)
Somewhere inside the Obelisk, a room sat in unnatural silence.
Plain black coffins lined the chamber — bare of ornament or carving, almost crude in their simplicity. The stillness was so complete it felt wrong.
A man sat among them, a cigar clenched between his teeth, waiting as if for something inevitable.
"Aaaagh!!"
A thin, piercing scream tore through the quiet as a coffin lid slammed open. The figure that climbed out was, astonishingly, one of the two dolls that had been rampaging through Belpaste, capital of the Behend Kingdom, only moments before.
"…You took your time waking up, Leni."
"Ugh, don't even start! That crazy bitch is completely insane!"
It was Leni — one of the twin Murder Dolls.
"Who the hell leans into an attack like that? Does she have a death wish or what?!"
"The opposite. She found the correct answer because she didn't want to die."
Leni glared at him savagely, then dropped her gaze. Everything he'd said was true. Still, there was one point she needed to correct.
"Didn't want to die? Her?"
She thought of the Hero who had smashed straight through her and her brother's coordinated assault, and a hollow laugh escaped her. In that split second, Leni had seen it clearly.
"She wasn't even thinking about dying at all."
Two razor-edged scythes had been right in front of her, and that Hero hadn't so much as entertained the word death. Instead, Leni and Rei had been the ones cut down — their bodies left in ruins.
But they were dolls, not humans. Unlike people, for whom a single death was the end, the Magic Legion Commander's special magic let them abandon a ruined body and transfer into another, reviving anew.
That was how Leni had returned — climbing out of a spare body stored in one of these coffins.
"So why isn't this idiot brother of mine waking up?"
"…I'm surprised you don't already know."
The man plucked the cigar from his mouth, walked over to Leni, and tapped it once — ash drifting down in front of her.
"Rei's Ether has not returned to a new body for some time now."
"……What?"
Leni looked at the still-sealed coffin beside her own. Ether — for dolls and other magic lifeforms, it was the equivalent of a soul.
If it had not returned, if it had not connected to a new vessel…
"……Brother?"
The man watched the shock settle over Leni's face, then put the cigar back between his lips. He drew in a slow breath of smoke and exhaled.
"When you lost your bodies — what struck you?"
"Th-that bitch swung a sword with no magic at all, and…"
"…So she figured out the nature of the scythes."
He asked the next question carefully.
"Then she cut you down with pure strength and technique alone."
Leni did not deny it.
It was true. The Hero had broken through Rei and Leni's combined assault head-on with nothing but raw power and skill, and torn their bodies apart.
Which made it all the stranger. They had been cut by a pure blade that used nothing extra… and yet Rei's Ether had not merely failed to transfer — it had not come back at all.
"Ether can't be destroyed by physical force. So how the hell did that bitch do anything to my brother's Ether…?!"
"…I see."
The man murmured as if something had clicked into place. Leni caught it instantly and shot to her feet.
"You figured something out?! Then my brother—!"
"Leni. I'm sorry, but your brother is not coming back."
His voice was cold and flat.
"He's dead."
"……Huh?"
"The Hero you faced — a short girl with blonde hair, was she?"
"How do you know that…? Were you watching?! Then why didn't you help us?! We could've won if you had!!"
"Don't misunderstand. I was not watching. A small country without a Hero was something I judged the two of you could handle on your own."
He took one last pull on the cigar and flicked it to the floor.
"I simply heard the report and understood. A sword that can sever Ether without using magic. There is only one human who wields such a blade."
The Holy Sword.
That greatest of holy armaments could destroy the very foundation of a magic lifeform — the Ether itself — even without channeling mana.
"Then my brother is really…"
The man continued.
"He is dead for now. But if you complete this mission successfully and return, His Excellency may yet show mercy."
"…!"
Leni's eyes went round.
"S-so if I work hard enough, that's enough?"
"You understood correctly."
"Great. Put me back in!"
She reached into the coffin she had climbed from and pulled free the scythe stored alongside her spare body — an identical twin to the deep-blue blade Erinn had destroyed.
"What do I need to do?"
"The Hero's party will come to clear this place soon. They almost certainly will. You will intercept them when they arrive. And…"
He kept it simple.
"Buy time. His Excellency has already arranged to send new forces."
He was telling her, outright, that she was a stalling piece. Somehow, Leni did not look particularly offended.
"……That's all I have to do?"
"Yes. A simple task."
"Yeah. It is simple."
Leni rose fully from the coffin.
"Do that, and my brother comes back. Fine — I'll take it!"
"…Go to Sector C7. If the Hero's party reaches it, stop them with everything you have."
He added one more instruction.
"This mission is not a slaughter like the last. You need not overextend. Simply keep them from advancing past that sector. Buying time is enough."
"Just buy time… meaning the method doesn't matter?"
"Of course."
Then, with the weight of a strict warning:
"You will not damage this Obelisk. It is His Excellency's creation."
"Obviously."
Leni settled the scythe across her shoulder.
"I'll buy you all the time you need — just make sure you put in a good word with Him!"
"…I will."
With nothing more to say, Leni spun on her heel and strode out of the room.
She was a little insolent, but the way she left immediately to do her job put her well above most of the others. The man watched her go, then turned the results of the invasion over in his mind once more.
"The dolls are one thing, but losing even Ogdor was unexpected."
His gaze settled on the empty coffin Leni had left behind.
"…I may have to intervene myself."
Magic Legion Commander Arcel's Obelisk.
It was a massive transport vessel and a colossal dungeon all at once. Calling it an Obelisk didn't mean it was just a pillar. The exterior looked the part — but the interior was anything but empty.
Countless monsters could live inside it, and it even housed its own monster production system. Given how most monsters multiplied through their species' naturally rapid breeding, that system was an extraordinary feature.
The production system Arcel had installed could not manufacture monsters above a certain power threshold — but anything below that line, it could churn out without limit.
Its efficiency far outstripped ordinary breeding. Monsters poured out of it the way Zerglings used to spill from a swarm of Hatcheries.
The scale of the production system, however, scaled with the Obelisk itself. The one that had appeared in the Behend Kingdom was not particularly large, so its production capacity was modest.
Replenishing the monsters that had stormed the capital yesterday would take roughly ten days.
Which meant we had about nine days from today to clear the Obelisk. Plenty of time.
"…So let's not rush this."
"Puhaha! Allen, you're the one who looks the most impatient right now!"
Shut up. Of course I do.
"Relax, relax!"
Having said that, Ser-Aria proceeded to drink with genuine, unbothered ease.
You're the one who's too relaxed, you idiot.
…It never looked like much when I saw it in the game.
Seeing it in person, the pressure was crushing. The Lizardman dungeon I'd commanded before didn't even compare — the interior of this place was locked down tight.
The moment we stepped inside, a pack of Flame Trolls had been waiting to greet us.
They belched fire and swung clubs the size of tree trunks. One solid hit and there wouldn't have been bones left to bury, so I'd spent the whole fight scrambling out of the way until I was completely drained.
Their flames weren't magic and didn't use mana, which meant there was nothing I could do about them. I hadn't felt this useless in a while. It was a sharp reminder of how powerless I still was.
Erinn and the others had cut them down in moments, but realizing I was dead weight left me a little deflated.
That was when Freya came over.
"Allen, are you all right?"
"Uh…"
"Wouldn't it have been better to bring Caesius after all?"
"Then who'd watch Ophelia?"
I'd left Caesius under standing orders to guard Ophelia. We couldn't afford anything happening to her while we were clearing the Obelisk.
"We've got money to protect."
"Sometimes it feels like Allen cares about money an awful lot."
"Because it is important."
A Saintess probably wouldn't get it. Then again, this was someone who donated every last coin of her own activity funds. Of course she had no greed for money.
"More importantly, Allen — what do we do next?"
I looked ahead at Freya's question. The path didn't run straight; it forked into two corridors.
The Obelisk's interior was divided into a left sector and a right sector, and fortunately the types of monsters that appeared in each were fairly consistent.
For the Obelisk that had appeared in the Behend Kingdom, most parties chose the left sector — the somewhat easier route. Almost everyone did.
We, however, had to go right.
"We take the right path."
The hidden piece was in the right sector, and more importantly, the monsters I could actually use my power against were far more numerous on the right than the left.
To put it precisely: the left sector was dense with physical-type monsters, while the right was dense with magic-type monsters. That held true for every Obelisk.
Creatures like the Flame Trolls we'd just fought were common on the left, which left me with almost nothing to contribute. So the entire assault plan had been built around the right sector from the start.
The only real worry is…
Whether anything had changed from the Extreme difficulty I knew.
Still, the party members were so absurdly skilled that they could handle unexpected situations even if my command calls were clumsy.
"Why the right?"
I answered Ser-Aria's question.
"Inside every Obelisk, physical-type monsters are always on the left and magic-types on the right. Erinn should already know that."
Erinn smirked.
"Yep, I know~."
"That's weird. Why's it set up like that?"
"Beats me."
Maybe the guy who designed them had OCD.
"Then why are we deliberately going after the magic-types~?"
"…I already roughly explained how we handled that armored monster that came after us."
"So we're trusting your ability~? Leaving our lives in a scrub's hands still feels pretty risky♡"
Then why did you put me in command, you brat.
"…Allen's ability is real. It's the reason I survived."
Clara backed me up. Moments like this made naming her and trying to get closer feel genuinely worth it.
"Hmm, is that so~?"
Erinn looked at me.
"Then show us that usefulness again, scrub~♡"
"I was planning to anyway."
"Pfft, look at all that confidence~?"
She spun on her heel and headed down the right-hand path I'd indicated. Once the party leader moved, the others followed without argument.
…This isn't the Extreme-difficulty world. The left and right sectors shouldn't be swapped or anything.
Hoping that was true, I started walking.
Fortunately, what waited for us wasn't the worst-case scenario I'd been dreading. The left and right sectors hadn't been swapped, and magic-type monsters appeared exactly as expected.
As far as I knew, the first zone of the right-hand path should have spawned Ice Wizards — humanoid monsters specializing in ice magic. I would disrupt their mana, Letisia's spirits would finish them off, and that would be the end of the zone.
That prediction went out the window immediately. What appeared in front of us was nothing like an Ice Wizard.
"Kuhuhu, look at the cute little thing that wandered in."
"Right~? Why don't we set the girls aside and play with that one?"
"Uhuuhu, not a bad idea."
Dark Witches — a higher species of the Wizard-class monsters. They were in an entirely different league from Ice Wizards.
Their outfits left me with nowhere safe to look, and the mana inscriptions carved across their bodies made it clear these were strong even among Dark Witches.
And there are three of them…
I was just starting to wonder whether I could dismantle all three of their spells at once when—
"…Scrub~♡"
"…Allen?"
"Huh?"
Erinn and the rest of the party turned on me with distinctly murderous looks.
"Can we just kill them already and move on~?"
"Indeed. What thoroughly insolent… no, thoroughly wicked monsters."
"…Ready to kill."
…Why does everyone look so angry?