The Underground Dungeon, Once More (2)
- Thud thud thud thud…
The gate, sealed shut for so long, ground open bit by bit with a groan as heavy as its own weight. The stone door scraped slowly across the floor, leaving a drag-mark behind it, and from the widening gap a howling wind came spilling out.
"Wait—everyone, fall back."
From the rear, Aize suddenly darted forward. The adventurers and knights parted instantly to let her through, and the reason was plain enough. That miasma—the wind was saturated with it, thick and overwhelming. It was so intense that even those with not a single thread of holy power felt their whole bodies crawl with gooseflesh, crushed under a pressure that threatened to flatten them where they stood.
Brilliant light burst forth from the rosary that Aize held delicately cupped in both hands. The radiance flared a fierce gold and swelled into a great dome, wrapping everyone beneath it—adventurers and knights alike.
"Priestess Vigrind."
"Yes, Priestess."
Vigrind stepped forward a half-beat behind Aize, clutching her own rosary just as tightly. But her lips pressed into a hard, bloodless line, and the rosary trembling bit by bit in her grip laid her terror bare for all to see.
"It should be a priestess who stands at the front. If this is the miasma we feel before we've even begun, it is without question a demon. Those without holy power will not be able to endure it for long."
Aize no longer spoke down to Vigrind. The situation demanded it—here and now, she believed, the proper way to treat the girl was not as her pupil but as a fellow priestess. To that, Vigrind managed a barely perceptible nod.
Why had she come this far in the first place?
How her heart had pounded when Bishop Pobi promised that if she cleansed this demon safely, sainthood would surely be hers. The word Saint had become a firm handrail for a heart that had been on the verge of snapping under the weight of the word demon.
"It really is a demon, then?"
"Yes, without a doubt. Miasma of this magnitude leaves no room for question."
Aize answered Ruud's question with her rosary still raised, her gaze fixed straight ahead. Somewhere along the way, Ruud had taken a proper grip on his spear; now he drew a deep breath and stepped out in front of Alec.
"Then from this point, I should be the one leading. Slaying demons is, after all, the work of the Hero and the Saint."
Vigrind nodded and moved to take her place at Ruud's side—then froze, realizing someone was already standing there. She turned, and her face twisted in an outright scowl.
"Wh-what? Why are you dragging me along?"
Yona was there.
"I told you, didn't I? Slaying demons is the work of the Hero and the Saint. The Hero is standing right here—so the Saint should be standing beside me."
"Wh-who's a Saint? I told you, I'm just a Healer! Besides, Saints and whatever else—Healers aren't even priests!"
"If I say you are, then you are. What are you pitching such a fit for? It's adorable."
Ruud smiled blandly, and Yona could only stare at him in disbelief. She rounded on Vigrind, who was wearing an equally sour expression right beside her, and shouted.
"What are you gawking at? Get over here and stand next to him already!"
Yona wrenched her arm free of Ruud's grip with all her strength, then turned back toward Alec behind him.
"I'll be doing my job as a Healer, so you two figure it out between yourselves."
Ruud said nothing more to her. He spared Vigrind hardly a glance either.
Whew… haaah…
Alec's breathing had grown faint but ragged. The steel shield in his grip felt ten times, a hundred times heavier with every step. Each time he moved, the weight seemed to press down further into his arm, and the sensation sat none too well with him—that was why he was panting.
Then someone's hand landed on his head.
"Hey, Baldy. Don't be a scared little shit. I told you I've got your back, didn't I? Just don't die. Focus on staying alive, that's all."
"…I'm not scared, you cursed woman."
The staircase swayed and rippled with torchlight, as if dancing. The long shadows born of that light stretched out behind the adventurers and knights, tangling with the figures descending the steps and weaving a strange, uneasy atmosphere through the air. The walls, caked with black moss and every manner of dried filth, were the kind of thing one hated to even lay a hand on.
How far down did these stairs go? They had already come a long way, and yet the end was still nowhere in sight. The adventurers said nothing. Neither did the knights. The miasma bearing down on them was being offset by the holy barrier Aize held up at the front—but it wasn't the miasma that kept their mouths shut. It was simply the atmosphere of this place.
"It's fine, it's fine. Alec, I'll protect you."
"…And I'll protect you too."
"Heh, look at you, saying all the right things."
Yona stroked Alec's bald head. The little punk—every now and then he really is kind of cute.
"Hold—stop."
At Ruud's words, Aize, walking at the fore, came to a halt. Vigrind, at Ruud's side, stopped with her, and behind them Alec, then Yona, and the rest of the adventurers and knights all froze in their tracks.
"Isn't something odd here?"
"Just say what's odd. Out loud."
Adventurers on the field were prone to impatience, so Yona cut in sharply to hurry Ruud along. If something's wrong, say it fast and start thinking about how to fix it. This is no time to be sitting on it.
"We've already been descending these stairs for quite a long while, and yet they continue still. I wonder—is this itself not some illusion?"
"Hmm."
Aize fell into brief thought. It was not uncommon for a dungeon's deepest floor to be reached by a long, winding staircase. Even in her own adventuring days, she had known dungeons like that. So if you looked at it one way, there was nothing strange about it at all—and looked at another way, there was every reason to find it strange.
"Use the Eyes of Truth."
"…The Eyes of Truth, you say?"
Aize narrowed her eyes and looked at Ruud. Not many people knew of the Eyes of Truth. It was, granted, exactly the right tool for a place like this—a high-priest's divination that swept away falsehood and wicked veils to reveal what was true—but only a handful of the highest-ranking priests could ever wield it. How, then, did this man know of it?
"The Heavenly God told me. To use the Eyes of Truth."
Could he really be the Hero?
Aize decided to stop thinking about it. For now, focusing on what lay before her eyes was the right call.
The Eyes of Truth—a technique even Vigrind had yet to reach—could, among everyone gathered here, be used by Aize alone. And since she was already at the very front anyway, there was no reason to hesitate. She called Vigrind over.
"Have Priestess Vigrind take over the holy barrier."
"Understood."
Golden radiance burst from Vigrind's rosary, and the barrier Aize had been holding began to dim. The barrier that unfurled in its place, seamless as a handoff, was markedly fainter than Aize's—but even so, it would serve well enough to keep the miasma at bay.
Only after confirming that did Aize clasp her rosary and quietly begin to recite a prayer. Behind her back, a white eye rose into being—and then, in moments, it slid smoothly out of sight.
"Wh-whoa…?"
"Wh-what is that?!"
"Hey, that thing—what is that thing?!"
In an instant, shock and panic, dread and terror spread like wildfire. They had been walking down an endless staircase, without question—and yet the place where they stood had, without their noticing, transformed into a vast arena shaped like a colosseum.
And at the very center of that arena stood a colossal coffin. A stone sarcophagus so enormous it made one wonder how anyone had built it at all—and it stood upright, not lying on its side. It was more than twice the height of the goat-headed monsters they had faced before. And scattered around the base of that standing coffin lay shards of chains—thick, extravagantly thick chains, broken to pieces.
"Hey, Yona. What is this?"
Alec turned to look at her. Yona's complexion wasn't much better, but she still forced the corners of her mouth upward in a crooked attempt at a grin.
"Hey, you thick-skulled bastard. Ca-can't you tell just by looking? The stairs were nothing but an illusion, obviously…"
"Sharp as ever, I see."
She'd been talking to Alec, but the answer came from Ruud. Yona shot him a sullen glare.
"The stairs were an illusion. An illusion of nothing but endless descent. If we'd tried to climb back up, we'd have been climbing forever, I'd wager—until we dropped dead crawling up those steps."
"…I-I knew that too, you know."
"So that coffin… is the demon?"
Alec asked Yona again. The truth was, Yona didn't know either. She'd never seen a demon before.
"I'd suppose so. Though the coffin itself isn't the demon…"
And that answer, too, came back from Ruud. The moment he finished speaking, as if it had only been waiting for the cue, the coffin began to shudder with a heavy thud-thud-thud. The chains had long since been broken loose—now the demon, sensing intruders, seemed intent on revealing itself.
"The thing inside it is the demon, I expect."
Ruud looked utterly unconcerned. Everyone else stood deathly pale, staring at the trembling coffin.
"Saintess, come here."
Ruud grabbed Yona by the wrist. She had been staring up at the coffin in a daze, and with a start found herself pulled toward him—but she quickly flared up and wrenched her hand away.
"How many times do I have to say I'm not a Saint? I've got a partner, so you go protect your own partner."
"Hoh. There's nowhere safer than a Hero's side, you know."
Yona looked at Alec. Alec was silently mouthing the words go to the Hero's side, but Yona pretended not to see it.
"What kind of adventurer abandons their partner? This is where I belong, so quit wasting your breath on me."
Meanwhile, the coffin's lid had begun to move. The stone lid did not slide open to the side—
"Wh-whoa… i-it's falling! It's tipping over!"
With a scream, the adventurers and knights scattered in every direction. The stone lid toppled forward and crushed a pair of adventurers who hadn't managed to dodge in time. The two vanished beneath the lid without so much as a squeak. Their figures were gone—nowhere to be seen. From beneath the coffin lid, pitch-black blood came pouring out in a flood.
- Graaaaagh—!!!!
With a howl like a scream torn from the throat of the world itself, the demon revealed its form from within the coffin. It was humanoid—yet no one could have called it human. The knight was clad in armor that looked hard as stone, but he had no head. With the helmet that should have held his own head tucked under his arm, a greatsword hanging at his side—a blade so massive that calling it a greatsword felt like an understatement—the demon slowly emerged into view.
"I-it's a demon…"
Someone's low, bitter groan drifted through the arena.