Chapter 83
Chapter 83
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 83
Chapter Title: Pluto's Descendant
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My mind was filled with nothing but bewilderment.
I should have stuck to self-isolation properly. I went outside for no good reason and got dragged into this nightmare.
Clank, clunk, clank.
Anyone could tell at a glance that the man in black armor walking beside me was a cultist. Yet he mistook me for one of his comrades.
What the hell was the reason?
The most obvious one that came to mind was that there was a Samaritan among his comrades who looked just like me. Maybe someone who resembled me quite a bit?
Or perhaps, like the paranoid nymph in the underground prison had mistaken, it was because of the ominous magic or whatever in my necklace.
I'd been wearing this expensive, fancy necklace because it looked cool, but people really should stick to things that suit their station. This damn thing was going to get me killed! I should have listened when everyone said it felt sinister!
"Uh, I have some important business, so I need to go..."
At my words, the hulking black-armored man shuddered with a loud clank. Soon, a resolute opinion emerged from his helm, as if a butcher's cleaver had sliced through flesh.
"Nothing is more important than our great undertaking."
"I'm just an ordinary citizen..."
"Are you planning to back out now that you've come this far? If so—"
Whooooosh.
An eerie pressure emanated from the man's body. Though he cut off mid-sentence, it was obvious what he meant to say.
My torso would be bisected by that massive, broad iron slab.
Fuck this shit. He'd been like this from the start, ignoring everything I said, so I couldn't even claim I needed to get back to Luna.
"I left something behind—"
"There's no time."
No matter what excuse I tried, it bounced right off like hitting a wall.
Trying to run would just mean that giant sword coming at my back.
No, did he really believe I was one of his comrades without a doubt? That paranoid nymph, these cultists—they all seemed to have a few screws loose in their heads.
And so, I was stuck following this bizarre brute to who-knows-where. The place was the western slums of Sodoma, the dingiest, most rundown corner.
It was like a garbage dump, littered with rats and vagrants sprawled on the ground.
Groans from sick patients filled the air everywhere, mingled with women's shrill screams and the crashes of things breaking and shattering.
"Comrade, what do you see with your eyes?"
That's when the man, who had been silently keeping his mouth shut unless spoken to, addressed me first.
"R-Rats."
"Indeed. I hear the rats' squeaks. The moans of the afflicted everywhere. The stench of death permeates every corner. We're almost there."
His words that we were almost there made me tense up. Soon, he turned a corner to a crumbling shack and knocked twice on the door of what looked like a normal slum home.
Holey walls everywhere, a collapsed roof. Trash strewn about.
Was this where the cultists gathered?
"Who is it?"
The door creaked open, revealing a face peeking out. He looked utterly exhausted, his face covered in scars and his eyes sharp like a thief's.
"There's nothing worth stealing in my house. What the hell are you wearing all that armor for? Looks like you're off to slay a dragon. And what's with that jar?"
"I'm coming in."
"Wh-What? Who said you could!?"
The flustered homeowner. But no way he could stop this black-armored guy.
Clunk, clank.
The cultist bulldozed in like a tank claiming territory and entered the home. Then he crouched on the floor and started tapping around with his hands.
Tap, tap. Tap. Tap.
"Fuck, what the hell are you doing!?"
The pissed-off homeowner demanded. Hell, I wanted to know the same damn thing. But the cultist said nothing, just kept tapping the floor.
Tap. Tap-tap. Thunk.
Then came a strange sound from the worn-out floorboards.
"This is it."
The cultist clenched his iron fist tight and smashed the floor.
A huge hole instantly appeared in the decrepit boards that looked ready to collapse any second. Below was a bizarre staircase.
"F-Fuck, what is this? Why the hell is something like this in my house!? Who the fuck are you people!"
The enraged homeowner drew a dagger from his belt, and I panicked hard. Shit, I was gonna get stabbed.
But the cultist ignored him completely and just said to me,
"We're going down."
* * *
When I was very young, I once dove deep into the sea. To gather crabs, clams, and seaweed living on the seafloor and squeeze out their juices.
Anyway, the sensation at the bottom of that deep sea had been overwhelming for my younger self. The water pressure crushing down on my whole body, limbs feeling restricted, ears muffling up.
It was a feeling I'd forgotten for a long time, but now I was experiencing it again.
"Hoo..."
"You're not used to the barrier yet. It'll get better soon."
I followed the man down the stairs into a creepy corridor. Walls of cold bricks enclosed everything on all sides, with only sporadic candles on the walls providing dim light.
It was a space that perfectly fit the name "ancient passageway." The weird part was how hard it was to walk through it.
It felt suffocating and restrictive, like trudging through the deep ocean.
From what the man said, it was because of the barrier.
Fuck, a barrier? Did shit like that even exist?
More than that, it felt like we were heading somewhere I absolutely shouldn't go. I had no idea how to survive this. I missed Luna.
She must be worried since I hadn't come back. What if she went looking for me outside and got dragged into trouble too?
Fuck, I was seriously worried.
After walking for a while, a small door appeared at the end of the long corridor.
A thick iron door engraved with narcissus flowers in relief.
I knew it was narcissus because I'd seen that mark a lot when following Elfriede into Pluto's underground labyrinth.
The flower-etched iron door looked just like a dungeon entrance. Hell, it might actually be one.
Whatever it was, one thing was clear: going through there meant stepping onto a path with no return.
Clank, creak.
But the man didn't give a damn about my nerves and shoved the heavy iron door open.
Groooan.
It opened inward with a heavy rumble. What lay beyond was surprisingly modest and shabby.
A round table with five or six chairs and a cramped room. A few burning candles—that was it.
But the guys sitting in those chairs didn't look ordinary at all.
There were three people in this bizarre secret room.
Each wore strange masks, helmets, or deep hoods, hiding their identities, but from the context, they were psycho cultists on the same level as the armored guy.
"Skizo, you're quite late. We nearly started without you."
The first to speak to us was a man in a black robe seated primly at the table. His voice was young and soft, with a gentle tone.
His face was hidden under the deep hood, but from the voice alone, he sounded like a handsome guy. Fuck, what an annoying prick.
He held a long staff that even a mage wouldn't look out of place with—was he a wizard or something? A cultist mage, so definitely not normal.
Then the woman beside him chimed in.
"Skizo's got no sense of direction. He must've wandered around and got delayed. Just the other day, he mixed up the meeting spot and was late, which made the temple raid fail. Idiot, moron. Retard. Tiny-dick bitch."
From under her bizarre mask resembling a totem pole came a sharp, high-pitched voice.
With both legs propped up on the table in a sloppy pose, she seemed pretty carefree.
But wearing just a thin cloth that barely covered her lower privates in that position?
She had a sheer veil draped around her waist, but up close, you could still see plenty.
As I was staring at those slender, toned legs for a good while, the hooded man spoke up again.
"More importantly, who's the guy next to you? Never seen him before. How do you just bring someone in here without permission?"
Even with the deep shadows under his hood, I could feel the hostility aimed at me.
So there was a normal one who didn't think I was a comrade. Of course that was normal, but at this point, it was actually more awkward.
Fuck, I was really fucked now.
The black-armored man called Skizo clanked as he moved to a chair and sat. Then he said casually,
"He's one of us."
"One of us? But he really looks unfamiliar no matter how I look at him. You sure that's okay? Especially on such an important day..."
Creak.
I could see the staff gripped tighter in the man's hand.
The rod, about 1.5 meters long, had a large amber gem at its tip starting to shimmer with eerie light.
Fuck, was I about to get attacked? I'm done for!
"Anxius, you're too damn paranoid, you loser. You saying there's a flaw in my ritual barrier? You think just anyone can waltz in here wanting to?"
"To be honest, yes. Unlike the magic I studied at the Ivory Tower, Somnia, your voodoo relies too much on superstition, doesn't it?"
"Are you dissing Ideophe's Daughter right now, you little shit? Want me to curse you?"
I had no clue what they were on about, but the atmosphere was turning hostile. Cultists having infighting—maybe this was my chance?
My brain was working overtime trying to figure out how to turn this situation around.
"Quiet."
The last person, sitting in the darkest corner and seeming uninterested in me, finally spoke. That alone shut down the heated argument.
I realized instantly.
That guy's the leader of this bunch.
Hidden in the deepest shadows, his looks were hard to make out, but the pressure, presence, aura he exuded was intense. Was this that mana or whatever?
Anyway, the man who silenced the room clamped his mouth shut again. An awkward silence flowed for a bit—
After a few coughs, the masked woman who'd called herself Ideophe's Daughter picked up the conversation.
"Ahem, anyway, my ritual is perfect. Anyone without Lord Pluto's blessing would pass out just stepping into the corridor. Surviving that means he's one of us."
"It's not reliable, but... I do sense Lord Pluto's power strongly on him. Well, better just ask directly. Who are you?"
The black-robed mage—probably Ankshus—questioned me directly. My legs nearly buckled.
"I-I'm... a spy who infiltrated the city."
I racked my brains, piecing together info from my chat with the nymph cultist paranoid. She'd said there was a spy in the city unknown even to the cultists.
All I could do now was play the part.
Nothing to lose, might as well go down swinging—fuck it, win or die.
"Ah, I see. That explains why we didn't know your face. Leader, you knew the spy's identity, right? Is this him?"
The black mage Ankshus turned to the man in the corner. Fuck, so someone knew the spy's face. Of course, I figured there'd be a few.
This was it, total end.
As I was starting to give up on life a bit,
"..."
No sound came from the corner man.
"..."
Was a death sentence about to drop from his mouth? My heart was pounding so fucking hard I thought it'd give me away.
"The leader's not saying anything."
"He's always just posing like a dumbass without doing shit. Anyway, welcome. But what's with that stupid jar?"
The masked woman—Somnia the voodoo priestess, probably—stood up and circled me, peering around.
"Holy fuck! This is a stamina potion! No way! You brought something this rare?!"