It's Time to Catch Jerato
It was time to catch Jerato. It felt like we'd gone pretty deep into the dungeon already.
"Where are we right now?"
"Looks like we've made it down to the fourth floor."
The fourth floor meant it was about time for something real to show up. A mid-boss, or maybe Jerato himself.
"Then it's about time."
We'd slaughtered plenty of the trash mobs. So it was only natural that something proper would come out soon.
"Hmm?"
At some point the number of self-destructing skeleton soldiers had dropped noticeably. Their armor looked shoddy too. It felt like the calm before a storm.
Seria's teddy bears, which could self-repair, had all been fixed already. Clear proof that the skeletons' combat strength had fallen.
Some of them even creaked as they charged before collapsing on the spot.
"Miss Olivia. There's something weird about these things, isn't there?"
Croissant really didn't seem very bright. To think he came from a magic family and still acted like this. Tsk tsk. No wonder his spells took forever to cast.
"There's nothing weird about it. They're just running out of power."
"Do dungeons run out of power too?"
"Artificially made ones do. Just think of them as rechargeable mana stones."
The dungeon itself worked that way.
"Ah, so that's why the monsters are getting weaker as mana runs low."
"And there'll be one last big push at the end."
Jerato always saved one final move. Then he ran.
"Saintess! Demonic energy is pouring out from the stairs at the end of the fourth floor! We can't hold this!"
A final blow that poured out demonic energy so thick it would make the guys who'd spent twenty-four hours learning mana control through Seria gacha shudder in disgust.
Yeah. Exactly like that.
It was probably another cost-effective skeleton series again. Not many things emitted this much demonic energy. Skeleton knight? Skeleton giant? Ancient lich? Plenty of possibilities.
"What the hell, is that a skeleton knight?"
One of the students shouted. Sure enough, a heavily armored skeleton riding a skeletal horse emerged from the demonic energy. Blue flames burned on its skull. It was the kind of thing that would give you chills if you saw it at night, and it was exactly why the kingdom army crumbled so fast during night raids.
It didn't just poison nearby enemies with demonic energy; it slaughtered them with spear and sword in the same breath. Who could possibly hold out against that?
"Even among skeleton knights, that one's on another level. The students are all going to get their throats slit."
A skeleton knight. As expected, it really was right that I came here. Skeleton knights were powerful enemies that even the Rivelt knights struggled to handle. They were classified as high-rank monsters at minimum.
Jerato must have gotten more desperate than I thought. Or maybe this was just a simple rampage. One thing was certain: there wasn't much time left.
A few hypotheses came to mind. First, Jerato had grown anxious watching the Attelina students push forward while holding their ground better than expected, so he'd deployed the skeleton knights. Second, if the dungeon core had gone into an uncontrolled rampage, Jerato's own mana might no longer be enough to control it.
Either way, Jerato was finished.
"Looks like Jerato's reached the end too."
"Yeah."
Honestly, it was impressive he'd made it this far with his mana circuits wrecked. Well, of course he had. Hadn't he just sent hordes of self-destructing skeletons? The old Jerato used a much wider variety of monsters. The current one was just... mediocre. He was only using cost-effective skeletons.
Of course, sending hundreds of them still meant he'd worked hard with that broken body. But so what? In the end he was still a pathetic idiot.
"That idiot Jerato only saw us as the saintess and a mage."
"He let his guard down."
This went way beyond letting his guard down. Clanice had probably planned to use Jerato as a sacrificial pawn from the start. Have him do some moderate sabotage to throw the empire into chaos, then let the Four Heavenly Kings bring disaster from outside.
"This is exactly why he keeps losing to Noah. The moment he thought Noah was gone, he got arrogant, let his desire for recognition take over, and stopped measuring his opponent's strength."
The only thing he was trying to accomplish was dealing even the slightest blow to Attelina. The idea itself wasn't bad. But Noah had already prepared several moves ahead and fortified the imperial capital, and he never expected that I—the remnant of both Noah and Olivia—would be here.
"Saintess! It's the skeleton knights! Mana Bullets aren't working!"
"No! They're charging this way!"
The students screamed in terror at the breath of death the skeleton knights exhaled. There were roughly a dozen of them. Considering skeleton knights were large monsters whose power made even Rivelt's cavalry treat them with caution, it was certainly a dangerous situation.
This was probably exactly what Jerato had been waiting for. The sight of people from the empire writhing in screams and agony.
In other words, the guy was an idiot. After facing Noah multiple times, he should have known better than to let his guard down just because the opponents were Attelina students.
"So then."
I carefully extended my hand toward the direction the skeleton knights were charging from, then clenched it tightly.
CRACK!
The skeleton knights were smashed to pieces and slammed into the ground together with the horses they'd ridden in life. Just like Jerato's dreams and hopes.
"Losing again, huh."
The crushed skeleton knights looked like they might start moving with creaking sounds, so I burned them away.
Whoosh.
"As expected of Attelina's saintess??"
"She crushed them before they could even get close!"
These kids weren't even worth talking to. Didn't they usually see that as magic? Can't kids these days even use telekinesis? Or at least recognize it? Adran knew about it. I thought only the kingdom was clueless, but shouldn't a huge country like the empire know something this basic?
"Seria, it looks like the kids these days don't even know telekinesis."
"Ah. Yes."
"But why do you ask?"
"It's nothing. I need to repair the teddy bears."
That left only Jerato waiting on the fifth floor.
Watching the undead army get miserably pulverized through the crystal ball, Jerato's face twisted in rage.
"What the hell. What the hell is this!"
What was happening? How had things turned out like this? Was he really being pushed back by a bunch of Attelina brats who still had milk behind their ears?
The skeletons he'd sent weren't ordinary. They were properly reinforced with mana. Anyone who went below the third floor should have been poisoned by the demonic energy and died. So how were they—?
No matter how many times he thought about it, he couldn't understand.
No, this wasn't the time to be questioning things. That saintess in particular was dangerous. The saintess who had even blocked the self-destructing skeleton soldiers' attacks with a barrier.
!!
Then a good idea suddenly came to him.
"What if I corrupt that bitch into a demon instead?"
There were records of a Demon King who had corrupted an outstanding saintess using a mana stone and led her to victory in the war against humanity.
What if he captured her using the skeleton knights? Yes. This was the final move.
He had long known the empire's Goddess Church was rotten. It seemed they'd chosen a girl with strong holy power from Attelina as saintess and taught her that barrier, but she was originally the villainess of Ashtar. The succubus story must have been fabricated too. If he used her emotions well, he could corrupt her and make her swear loyalty to her new master.
If such holy power became corrupted and turned into a witch that emitted demonic energy, the tide of battle could be reversed.
With the single-minded goal of capturing the saintess, Jerato sent out the skeleton knights. In an instant, the Attelina students' formation collapsed. At this rate he could break through quickly and seize only the saintess. That's what he had thought at first.
Crunch!
Until the skeleton knights approaching the saintess were all pulverized at once.
"Huh?"
Jerato furrowed his brow at what had just happened. He knew exactly what that was. It was clearly the telekinesis Noah used. Noah had always called abilities that didn't fall into the category of magic... magic.
No. That was impossible. To be clear, Noah was already dead. If Noah, who had killed the Demon King, were still alive, the kingdom's Berta Fortress wouldn't have collapsed so miserably. Noah would have saved it.
High-ranking mages often cast spells on their own corpses to prevent them from being misused after death, turning their bodies to dust and making them disappear. Noah had probably died together with the Demon King and vanished as dust.
'No. Noah is dead. He can't be alive.'
Thump. Thump. Thump.
But Jerato's heart was pounding harder than ever before. How many times had Noah interfered with him? How many times had he been beaten? Even when Noah could have killed him at any moment, he had toyed with him instead. So Jerato knew. Instinctively.
That damn saintess wasn't a saintess. She was Noah. Not the villainess of Ashtar, but Noah.
Gulp.
Instinctive fear took over. Even if her appearance was Ashtar's, her inside was Noah. Instinct screamed: Do not fight that thing. You will definitely not end well.
They had already passed the fourth floor and were descending to the fifth. It was dangerous. There were black mages under his command here, but could they possibly handle it?
Gulp.
"Ha. Hahaha. Haha."
Yes. It wasn't over yet. He couldn't die like this. If it was coming, let it come. He'd slam a mana stone packed full of demonic energy into its chest.
Whether it was Noah or Ashtar didn't matter. There was no need to be afraid. He'd lost his composure for a moment, but dozens of black mages were stationed here. Elite ones at that. It was charging down confidently, but could it really handle black mages? Some Mana Bullet-spamming fools?
Looking at it now, that saintess wasn't Noah. If it were Noah, he would have sent the students away. No matter how strong he was, Noah hated being burdened with luggage.
That saintess was instead bringing down people whose mana had already run out. He'd gotten scared for nothing. Still, that saintess had dared to toy with him. She needed to be punished for that.
The black mages around him had originally been citizens of the empire. If she really was a saintess, she probably couldn't bring herself to kill them easily.
"Heh heh heh. Keke. Yes. This will work."
While the saintess was rampaging, he could kill them all with black magic and flee. After that, whether the saintess became corrupted or self-destructed here didn't matter.
Jerato spoke to the black mages standing like marionettes.
"Understood."
"She'll reach the fifth floor soon. The others should already be out of mana. Focus on the saintess and the mage next to her."
"Yes, sir."
Jerato pulled a single mana stone from the dungeon core. It was a Demon King's Fragment given to him by his master, Clanice. It had been used in place of his insufficient power to supply the demonic energy needed for summoning monsters until now. It was an incredibly precious item, but using it on the saintess wouldn't be a bad choice.
This was something his master had transformed with the power obtained from the Demon King whenever the opportunity arose. If the saintess fell and became a demon, he would be able to manipulate her however he wanted.