Obelisk Raid (14)
With his final desperate thrash, Barkan’s blow punched straight through Freya’s barrier—but that was the end of it.
The Master of the Obelisk, Archmage Barkan, has been slain!
The ticking of clock hands that only I could hear finally fell silent.
I, along with the rest of the party, simply stood and watched Barkan crumpled before the barrier. There was no particular reason to keep quiet; the tension had just drained out of everyone at once.
Looking at us like that, the first to speak was our party leader, Erinn.
“Finally down~ I stabbed him in the neck and he still wouldn’t die, so I thought he was some kind of undead~♡”
“…Haa, that last bit was dangerous.”
Hearing her, Letisia let out a long, relieved breath. Then she looked straight at me.
“You reacted pretty well there, Allen?”
“Huh?…Ah, that.”
I glanced at Erinn, then let out a light laugh.
“With her yelling like that, there was no way I could just stand there.”
I tossed out the joke on purpose. Knowing this would be the last time I spent with them, I wanted us to part with at least a few brighter memories.
“…Pfft, well, you’ve gotten somewhat useful at least~♡”
Erinn said that and checked Barkan’s life one more time. With the defeat message already up there was no real need, but she had no way of knowing that.
As she drove the Holy Sword into Barkan’s nape again, Freya spoke up.
“He’s definitely dead, Erinn.”
“Yeah~.”
Erinn withdrew the Holy Sword. Then she walked over to me and reached out a hand.
I flinched, wondering what she was about to do, and Erinn paused the same way I had.
“…I’m not gonna do anything weird, dummy.”
With that she lightly patted my shoulder a couple of times.
“You did good earlier. His movements got so fast for a second I almost lost track… but thanks to you scattering his mana, everyone made it out okay.”
Ah.
Seeing her praise me so honestly made me feel a little ashamed of flinching just now. I’d gone and assumed she was about to pull some nonsense again.
“Compared to what you did, it feels like I barely did anything.”
I meant it, but I also deliberately piled more praise on what she’d accomplished. I still felt bad about the earlier misunderstanding.
“We took this guy down thanks to you doing well.”
When I said that, the others nodded as if they agreed. Erinn looked at me for a moment, then smirked.
“I know I did well.”
“…Ah, is that so?”
Getting cocky just because I threw her a compliment… well, it wasn’t entirely wrong.
Erinn smiled a little arrogantly and went on.
“But I’m saying you did well too. Praise is best heard when it’s given, right?”
Her expression turned faintly complicated. And once I heard what came next, I understood a little better why she’d looked that way.
“Surprisingly, later on even if you pull off something way more amazing, just hearing praise gets hard.”
That landed heavier than anything else. Coming from Erinn—who had already lived two lives—it hit differently.
So I nodded to show I’d heard her and would take it to heart. Even if I didn’t have to, I figured it might give her a little comfort for having brought up something uncomfortable.
“…Yeah, as long as you got it.”
It hadn’t been the wrong choice; Erinn was wearing a lighter smile now.
“With this, another job’s done!”
Ser-Aria was right. We had cleared the Obelisk in the Behend Kingdom—the early final dungeon of Dungeon in Evil—so it really was one solid job finished.
In the original, after the Obelisk clear, roughly a month of in-game time passed with no incidents at all. That stretch existed to give the player prep time.
In-game it was a month; in real time it was marked as about thirty minutes. One day per minute.
During that window the player reorganized the party, ran content, and distributed the piled-up items, skill points, and stat points to raise their characters.
That was the kind of time it was. If the same thing had been implemented here, then for a full month nothing major involving the Demon King’s army would crop up.
So succeeding at this Obelisk clear was no different from resolving a truly big deal. Not just me—everyone was nodding along with Ser-Aria’s words.
Then Erinn turned to me with that same mischievous little smile she always wore when talking to Allen.
“More than that, scrub, didn’t you say there was something to find here too~?”
“Huh…?”
That was true, but was it okay to bring it up right now?
I’d told Erinn because she already knew I wasn’t the real ‘Allen,’ but I still hadn’t said a word to the rest of the party.
After the Obelisk clear, Erinn was supposed to explain it to them herself.
“Something to find?”
“Why, this dummy gulped one down in the Lizard Lord dungeon before too~?”
“There’s more of that?”
Ser-Aria showed the most interest. She’d seen the jewel with her own eyes back then, so it made sense.
Erinn asked me again.
“Anyway, you’re going to go find it, right~?”
“…Yeah, I should.”
“Then hurry up and grab it so we can leave. Since the master of the Obelisk is dead, the Obelisk itself will disappear soon. We have to find it before that—can you do it~?”
“That…”
That was nothing to worry about.
“Of course I can.”
I knew exactly where this hidden piece was, and I was confident I’d find it before the Obelisk vanished.
“Where do we need to go~?”
“You guys coming too?”
“If we’re leaving anyway we should leave together~ Leaving a weak scrub alone, who knows what might happen to him~♡”
She said it that way, but having all five of them move with me for my sake was already more than I deserved. They didn’t seem to be doing it just to snatch scraps; they genuinely wanted to help.
That only made the regret sharper.
If I’d known them a little longer… if I’d had a bit more time to get closer, maybe I wouldn’t have had to leave the party.
I didn’t know how things would have turned out, but at least it might not have felt this sudden.
Just when I thought I could finally give the party some real help of my own, a situation where I had to leave had dropped on us. All I could feel was regret.
I pushed the feeling into a corner and asked them,
“Then shall we move for now. We don’t know when the Obelisk will disappear.”
“Yeah~.”
The party members quietly followed behind me toward wherever I was heading. I’d expected a flood of questions, but surprisingly they didn’t even glance at my face; each of them seemed buried in their own thoughts and worries.
The first to break the silence was Letisia.
“How far are we going?”
“First we need to go to the end of that wall over there.”
“What can you get there that…”
“Looks like there’s a hidden room there~.”
Not entirely wrong, but a little off.
“It doesn’t feel like it was hidden that carefully. Once the master of the Obelisk is subjugated, it’s just an ordinary room anyone can walk into.”
“Barkan’s room?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
The place holding the hidden piece was none other than Archmage Barkan’s room. Strictly speaking the piece itself sat in another space deeper inside, but heading there was correct.
Barkan’s room wasn’t far. After all, the place we’d fought had been the top floor of the Obelisk.
“This is…”
“The Demon King’s army’s office, huh.”
“I wonder what it feels like?”
Honestly I was curious too. Dungeon in Evil never bothered describing the room’s interior in detail.
As a core officer of the Demon King’s army, maybe there’d be skulls and weird magic engravings everywhere… that kind of thought crossed my mind. Or maybe trap devices.
“There might be traps, so open it carefully.”
“…Yeah.”
Half expectation, half worry—when Clara forced the locked door open, an unexpectedly normal scene unfolded. Barkan’s room was exactly the kind of office that came to mind if you pictured a perfectly ordinary one.
“Hmm, surprisingly…”
“Nothing special?”
“…Yeah.”
I felt relieved and a little disappointed at the same time. I’d expected an office that screamed ‘this is the Demon King’s army.’
Of course… that didn’t mean the place was entirely normal. Once I found the spot for the hidden piece and opened it, the party members here would probably all be surprised.
“Allen, what are you trying to find here?”
“Um, just a moment.”
I first asked Clara whether any traps had been set inside the room. Fortunately she told me there were none.
“Thanks, Clara.”
“…It’s nothing.”
The second safety was confirmed I went straight for the room where the hidden piece was stashed. We’d just walked into one room and I was already looking for another?
Clunk!
“Got it.”
Inside Barkan’s office a hidden entrance led to yet another room.
“How did you find this right away?”
To Letisia’s question I answered simply.
“Just like how I solved every one of the Murder Clown’s problems—I already knew.”
“…What?”
There was no longer any reason to hide it.
“Let’s go in. Nothing dangerous.”
I stepped in first; the others followed one by one, and sure enough they all looked stunned.
“Allen, this place…”
“The Magic Legion Commander’s laboratory. Where mana lifeforms are made, tested… a place where the completed ones and the unfinished discards all gather.”
This was a kind of laboratory existing inside the Obelisk. Mana lifeforms created by the Magic Legion Commander’s hands were improved here, and sometimes newly born as well.
“Paradise of Mana Life.”
That wasn’t my naming sense—it was what Dungeon in Evil itself called this place where the hidden piece was hidden.
“Not every Obelisk has facilities like this, but since a core officer like Barkan is in charge, places like this exist.”
I looked over the coffins lined up inside the laboratory. The open-lidded ones were empty, but the closed ones clearly held something.
When I lifted a lid, a somewhat familiar face appeared. Dolls that looked exactly like the Murder Dolls Erinn had cut down twice. But they weren’t moving.
“Maybe because they’re dolls, they could transfer bodies. So the ones you took care of back then, Erinn, showed up again.”
“I don’t feel any mana now~.”
“Yeah. Looks like they can’t revive anymore. Transferring bodies seems to have conditions attached.”
I stood up.
“So where’s the thing you’re looking for?”
“Over there.”
I walked past the scattered coffins and reached toward another spot. Seeing that, Erinn slightly furrowed her brow.
“Don’t tell me what you want is…”
“Besides mana, what else would there be. This is a product that’ll help with that.”
What I picked up was something round like a bead. Of course it wasn’t a simple bead.
It was a divine object formed from the ether of experimental works that had been discarded or destined for the trash heap.
Congratulations! You have acquired the Crystal of Aether!
When used, consumes the Crystal of Aether to permanently increase mana stats.
I picked up the hidden piece and only then smiled in relief. At least I’d managed to get what I needed before we parted. Then I looked around at the others.
“I can take this, right?”
“Isn’t that why we came?”
“…More than that, I’d like an explanation of how this happened first.”
To Freya’s question I lightly scratched my head.
“Um, that…”
“I’ll explain.”
It was Erinn.
“Once we get out of here first. Don’t know when it might collapse.”