I Knew It Would Be Like This
I knew it would turn out like this.
Softly—
The damp, lightless underground corridor was dead silent. The only things that stirred were the torches jammed sparsely into the walls, casting ugly red shadows that licked and wavered and soaked the whole place in a nasty, oppressive chill.
For a shrine of devil worshippers, they had nailed the atmosphere. The problem was that the atmosphere actually worked.
Damn it… this is getting to me…
I swallowed hard and pressed myself flat against the wall, moving so carefully I barely dared to breathe. Behind me, seven women shuffled along in a single-file line like kids playing train, each one clutching the hem of my ragged robe with white-knuckled fingers and trembling from head to toe.
The one mercy was that the Eungibu I had stuck to their chests were working beautifully. The presence radiating from all eight of us was sealed off so completely it almost felt as if we had turned into ghosts. Of course, we weren't actually invisible — which only made the tension twice as thick. We could still be seen. One wrong glance and we were finished.
"Um… S-Saintess…"
The brown-haired woman gripping my robe hem whispered in a voice smaller than a mosquito's.
"Not a Saintess. I'm a shaman. And if you talk, they'll hear you, so shut it."
"I-I don't know which order your god belongs to, but… c-could we maybe go a little slower? My legs keep giving out. I think I'm going to fall. And my footsteps sound so loud…"
"These talismans have a time limit. If you want to live, grit your teeth and walk. Shh — someone's coming!!"
I spun and hissed the warning. The women swallowed startled squeaks and clapped their hands over their mouths in unison. I hadn't meant to scare them half to death, but if they lost their nerve here, we would all be wiped out in minutes.
Sneaking was hard enough for me as it was. To keep your footsteps silent, you have to drop your center of gravity and walk with bent knees — and every single step made the absurdly oversized chest I had customized for this character sway and slap together, throwing off my balance and making soft, mortifying little sounds.
Shit. Next time I make a game character, I'm going full flat. From now on, I'm a flat-chest-only man.
I was mid-useless-regret, rounding a corner, when—
Vmmm—
My spiritual eyes flared, reading the foul energy coiled in the dark ahead. Two signatures, just past the next bend.
I whipped a flat palm toward the women trailing me — freeze. They locked up like well-trained dogs and held their breath. I eased my head past the corner. Two devil cultists stood guard, snickering under a torch as they shot the breeze.
"Tonight they're pulling the bitches from the third basement and putting them on the altar, right?"
"Yeah. The Administrator himself is running the ritual, so once it's over we can go pick through the leftovers. I haven't eaten in days — my lower half is aching something fierce."
"Heh heh heh. You never get tired of it, do you?"
They could dress it up as a "ritual" all they liked; I didn't need a picture to know exactly what filthy thing they meant. Those two blocking the path had to go down quietly.
Can I do this…?
No. I had to.
I slid a Bongeumbu between the fingers of one hand and a Pasabu between the fingers of the other, then dropped into a low crouch. Thanks to the spirit-power and mental-stat bonuses, I was nowhere near as rattled as I expected — enough that I almost wondered when I'd gotten this gutsy.
While they were still lost in their disgusting chatter, I melted into the shadows and closed the distance inch by careful inch.
Don't look this way, don't look this way…!
The second they entered my range—
Three, two, one…! Now!!
I exploded off the floor.
"Huh? What the—? Mmph?!"
His eyes went wide the moment he saw me. I didn't hesitate — I slapped the Bongeumbu straight onto his jaw like I was backhanding him.
"Mmmph!! Mmph!!"
The talisman sealed to his chin; he screamed, but the sound never left the air. The Bongeumbu's power was so complete I almost cheered.
Yes!
Using the rebound, I spun and slapped a second Bongeumbu onto the other one, then in the same motion yanked out Pasabu and pressed them dead-center on both foreheads.
Slap—!
"Gaaahk…!"
Their eyes rolled white. Black smoke began pouring from their mouths. The vengeful spirits that powered their black magic were being purified by the spirit energy packed into the talismans, ascending into the light.
Flash—!
White radiance erupted from the paper and hammered through their skulls. The two hulking cultists crumpled without so much as a twitch of resistance, collapsing to the floor like puppets with cut strings.
Thud—
The whole fight had lasted a handful of seconds.
H-holy crap! I actually did it!
I was better at this than I thought. That, ladies and gentlemen, is the power of a fully discharged reservist.
I had taken them down clean, without a single sound. The talismans might as well have been assassination tools. Being a shaman helped too — against black mages, who were usually considered a pain to fight, a shaman was basically a hard counter.
I kicked the frothing bodies into a dark corner, then jerked my chin at the women still shaking behind me.
"Hurry up and follow. We're short on time. What are you waiting for?"
They kept looking from the massive cultists stuffed into the corner to my slender frame, eyes wide with open astonishment. Something blind and fervent began to settle in their gazes. I knew that look. It was the exact same vacant stare the rich housewives used to give me whenever I spat out a particularly sharp fortune at the shop.
"Th-that was incredible…! You took those monsters down without a sound…!"
"The way you moved just now — like you were dancing — you looked like an angel!"
Being cast as a combat Saintess by accident left me feeling deeply strange, but there was no time to correct them. If it helped me keep control of the group, I could live with it.
We pressed deeper into the maze of underground corridors. Perfect presence-sealing from the Eungibu, advance warning from my spiritual eyes, and a shaman's brand of vengeful-spirit assassination — ramming Pasabu and Bongeumbu into every face that crossed our path. The three elements locked together like gears, and we punched through the prison wing without allowing so much as a single scream.
Better still, every cultist I dropped filled my Merit, so I never ran short of talismans.
Ding—!
You have granted salvation to a wronged spirit. Merit has increased.
You have purified unclean energy. Merit has increased.
At last we reached the end of that long, wretched corridor — the foot of a massive spiral staircase leading up to the first basement level.
We're almost there. Climb these stairs, open the iron door to the surface, and we're free.
Faint, relieved smiles finally touched the women's faces. Freedom from this hell was only a few steps away.
"Hang on just a little longer, everyone. Once we're out, we may have to run."
They all nodded at once. I carefully mounted the spiral stairs and stopped before the huge iron door sealed shut at the top. Beyond that heavy slab of metal lay the passage that connected to the temple's ground-floor chapel — our way out.
I pulled the key ring I'd taken off the jailer from my pocket and started to fit the right key into the lock.
Vmmm—!
The stone under my feet began to vibrate with a sick, wrong energy.
"Eek…!"
"I can't — I can't breathe…!"
The women behind me gagged and sank to their knees. Every hair on my body stood on end. This was nothing like the small fry we had faced down below. This was a completely different order of power — crushing, absolute.
Damn it! This is demonic energy!
Ordinary people exposed to concentrated demonic energy always reacted like that. And anyone carrying this much of it…
Cold sweat slid down my spine. Nothing ever came easy, did it? Or maybe some part of me had known this was coming all along.
Shit. We were so close…!
Creeeak—!
Before I could even turn the key, the massive iron door began to glide open on its own. Beyond it, in the center of a broad ground-level chamber drowned in thick darkness, a man's silhouette stood waiting.
He was wrapped head to toe in a blood-dark robe, a staff crowned with a grotesque goat skull in one hand. His skin was corpse-pale, and a smile that made the skin crawl sat on his lips. He spoke in a leisurely voice, as if he had been watching us climb all the way to this threshold from the very beginning.
"Hmm. Amusing."
His blood-red eyes flashed in the dark and pinned me and the seven women behind me with perfect accuracy. The Eungibu's presence-sealing had never worked on this monster for a second.
"To have run this far… you slaves have some talent, don't you?"
He slammed the staff once against the floor. A massive wave of force rolled out; every torch around us flared up as black fire. It looked exactly like a boss-entrance effect from a game. He licked his lips and took one deliberate step toward us, then another.
"Heh heh heh. Why don't we hear all about that talent of yours in bed? I'm curious what sort of little cries you'll make."
This was the leader of the devil cultists. This was the man who had violated so many women and turned them into slaves.
Lucky bas— no. No. This son of a bitch.
I shoved the trembling women behind me and closed my fist around the last of my Pasabu and my brush.
No choice. We fight.
The tutorial's boss battle was about to begin.